Françoise Sagan - Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile

‘I can’t find him,’ she said.

She looked distraught. Her powder had worn off, leaving her face all shiny, and her features were drawn. She was a pitiful sight. I suddenly felt very angry with my father. He was being incredibly rude.

‘Ah, I know where they are,’ I said, smiling as if what it amounted to was something quite natural that she could easily have envisaged without feeling anxious. ‘I’ll be back.’

Deprived of my support, the South American collapsed into Elsa’s arms and seemed to be better off for it. I reflected sadly that she was more generously endowed than I was and that I couldn’t begrudge her that. It was a large casino. I went all round it twice, in vain. I checked the terraces and finally thought of the car.

It took me a little while to find it in the grounds. They were sitting in it. I arrived from behind and caught sight of them through the rear window. I saw them in profile, very close together and looking very serious, strangely beautiful in the lamplight. They were facing each other and they must have been speaking in low voices because I saw their lips moving. I wanted to make myself scarce, but the thought of Elsa made me open the car door.

My father had his hand on Anne’s arm. They barely looked at me.

‘Are you enjoying yourselves?’ I asked politely.

‘What is it?’ said my father, sounding irritated. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘And what are you doing? Elsa has been looking everywhere for you for the last hour.’

Anne turned to face me, slowly, as if with regret.

‘We’re going home. Tell her I was tired and that your father has taken me back. When you’ve finished enjoying yourselves you can go back in my car.’

I was almost speechless and trembling with indignation.

‘When we’ve finished enjoying ourselves! But you don’t realize! It’s disgusting!’

‘What is disgusting?’ asked my father in astonishment.

‘You take a red-headed girl to the seaside, to sun that she can’t cope with, and when she’s all peeling you abandon her. It’s too easy! And what am I supposed to say to Elsa?’

Anne had turned back towards him wearily. He was smiling at her and wasn’t listening. I could not have been more exasperated.

‘I’m … I’m going to tell her that my father has found another lady to go to bed with and that she should get lost, is that it?’

The exclamation my father gave and the slap I got from Anne were simultaneous. I hastily withdrew my head. She had hurt me.

‘Apologize!’ said my father.

I stood motionless by the car door, my thoughts in a whirl. I always think of dignified responses when it is too late.

‘Come here,’ said Anne.

She did not seem to threaten, so I approached. She put her hand on my cheek and spoke gently and slowly, as if I were rather stupid.

‘Don’t be nasty. I am very sorry on Elsa’s account. But you are tactful enough to sort this out in the best possible way. Tomorrow we’ll explain. Did I hurt you badly?’

‘No, not at all,’ I said politely. This sudden gentleness of hers and my earlier vehemence made me want to burst into tears. I watched them drive off, feeling completely drained. The only thing that consoled me was the notion of my own tactfulness. I walked slowly back to the casino, where I found Elsa with the South American clamped to her arm.

‘Anne wasn’t feeling well,’ I said breezily. ‘Daddy has had to take her back. Shall we have something to drink?’

She looked at me without replying. I tried to find something to say that sounded convincing.

‘She was feeling sick,’ I said. ‘It’s awful, her dress got all stained.’

This detail seemed highly authentic to me but Elsa began to weep, softly and sadly. I watched her, completely at a loss.

‘Cécile,’ she said, ‘oh Cécile, we were so happy!’

Her sobs redoubled. The South American began to weep too, and to repeat: ‘We were so happy, so happy!’ At that moment I detested Anne and my father. I would have done anything to stop poor Elsa from weeping and her mascara from running and the South American from sobbing.

‘Nothing is final yet, Elsa. Come back with me,’ I said.

‘I’ll come back soon for my cases,’ she sobbed. ‘Goodbye, Cécile, we got on really well.’

I had only ever talked to her about the weather or fashion but, even so, it seemed as if I were losing an old friend. I turned away abruptly and ran to the car.

Six

The following morning was dreadful, no doubt on account of the whiskies of the night before. I awoke in darkness to find myself lying crooked across my bed, with a dry mouth and unbearably clammy limbs. A ray of sunlight filtered through the chinks in the shutter, with specks of dust floating up in it in serried ranks. I had no wish either to get up or to stay in bed. I wondered if Elsa would come back and how Anne and my father would be looking that morning. In an attempt to get up I forced myself to think about them but my efforts came to nothing. When I finally managed to, I found myself standing on the cool, tiled floor of the bedroom, aching and not thinking straight. The mirror offered me a sad reflection and I leant against it and contemplated that strange face with its dilated eyes and swollen mouth – my face. Could those lips, those ill-proportioned features, those odious, arbitrary limitations of mine mean that I was weak and characterless? And if I really were limited, how did I know this so clearly, in spite of being what I was? I found amusement in detesting myself and the wolfish face in the mirror, hollow and crumpled from debauchery. Looking into my eyes, I began to repeat the word ‘debauchery’ silently to myself, and all of a sudden I saw myself smile. What debauchery had there in fact been? A few wretched drinks, a slap in the face and some sobbing. I brushed my teeth and went downstairs.

My father and Anne were already on the terrace, sitting next to each other with their breakfast tray in front of them. I muttered a greeting and sat down opposite them. At first I was so embarrassed I did not venture to look at them, but their silence forced me to raise my eyes. Anne’s features were drawn – that was the only evidence of a night of passion. They were both smiling and looking happy. I was impressed by that. Happiness has always seemed to me to be a validation, to represent a successful outcome.

‘Sleep well, did you?’ my father asked.

‘So-so,’ I replied. ‘I drank too much whisky last night.’

I poured myself a cup of coffee, took a sip, then immediately put my cup down. There was a certain quality to their silence, a sense of anticipation that made me uneasy. I was too tired to be able to bear it for long.

‘What’s going on? There’s something mysterious about you.’

My father lit a cigarette, trying to appear nonchalant as he did so. Anne was looking at me, for once clearly embarrassed.

‘I’d like to ask you something,’ she said at last.

I imagined the worst:

‘Not another mission involving Elsa?’

She turned her face away to look at my father.

‘Your father and I would like to get married,’ she said.

I stared first at her, then at my father. For a moment I expected some sign to come from him, a wink of the eye that would have made me indignant but would at the same time have reassured me. He was looking down at his hands. I was saying to myself: ‘This can’t be true,’ but I knew already that it was true.

‘That’s a very good idea,’ I said, playing for time.

I just could not understand: here was my father, so stubbornly opposed to marriage and to being tied down, having made up his mind in the course of one night. Our whole life was being changed by this. We were losing our independence. At that moment I had a glimpse of how life would be with the three of us: it would be a life suddenly brought into balance by Anne’s intelligence and refinement, the kind of life that I envied her for, with intelligent, discreet friends … happy, sedate gatherings … All at once I despised raucous dinner parties, South Americans, the Elsas of this world. I was overcome by a sense of pride and superiority.