Return to the Chateau, by Pauline Reage (Story of O Part II)
Return to the Chateau
ONE DAY A girl in love said to the man she loved: “I could also write the kind of stories you like..?” “Do you really think so?” he answered. They met two or three times a week, but never during vacations, and never on weekends. Each of them stole the time they spent together from their families and their work. On afternoons in January and =46ebruary when the days begin to grow longer and the sun, sinking in the west, tints the Seine with red reflections, they used to walk along the on banks of the river, the quai des Grands Augustins, the quai de la to Tournelle, kissing in the shadow of the bridges. Once a clochard shouted at them: “Shall we take up a collection and rent you a room?” Their places of refuge often changed. The old car, which the girl drove, took them to the zoo to see the giraffes, to Bagatelle to see the irises and the clematis in the spring, or the asters in the fall. She noted the names of the asters-blue fog, purple, pale pink-and wondered why, since she was never able to plant them (and yet we shall have further occasion to refer to asters). But Vincennes, or the Bois de Boulogne, is a long way away. In the Bois you run into people who know you. Which, of course, left rented rooms. The same one several times in succession. Or different rooms, as chance would have it. There is a strange sweetness about the meager lighting of rented rooms in hotels near railroad stations: the modest luxury of the double bed, whose linen you leave unmade as you leave the room, has a charm all its own. And the time comes when you can no longer separate the sound of words and signs from the endless drone of the motors and the hiss of the tires climbing the street. For several years, these furtive and tender halts, in the respite that follows love, legs all entwined and arm unclasped, had been soothed by the kind of exchanges and as it were small talk in which books hold the most important place. Books were their only complete freedom, their common country, their true travels. Together they dwelt in the books they loved as others in their family home; in books they had their compatriots and their brothers; poets had written for them, the letters of lovers from times past came down to them through the obscurity of ancient languages, of modes and mores long since come and gone-all of which was read in a toneless voice in an unknown room, the sordid and miraculous dungeon against which the crowd outside, for a few short hours, beat in vain. They did not have a full night together. All of a sudden, at such and such an hour agreed upon ahead of time-the watch a! ways remained on the wrist-they had to leave Each had to regain his street, his house, his room his daily bed, return to those to whom he wa joined by another kind of inexpiable love, those whom fate, youth, or you yourself had given you once and for all, those whom you can neither leave nor hurt when you’re involved in their lives. He, in his room, was not alone. She was alone in hers.
One evening, after that “Do you really think so?” of the first page, and without ever having the faintest idea that she would one day find the name R=E9age in a real estate register and would borrow first name from two famous profligates, Pauline Borghese and Pauline Roland, one day this girl of whom I am speaking, and rightly so, since if I hay nothing of hers she has everything of mine, the voice to begin with, one evening this girl, instead o taking a book to read before she fell asleep, lying on her left side with her feet tucked up under her, soft black pencil in her right hand, began to writ the story she had promised. Spring was almost over. The Japanese cherry trees in the big Paris parks, the Judas trees, the magnolias near the fountains, the elder trees bordering the old embankments of the tram lines that used to encircle the city, had lost their flowers. The days lingered on
Return to the Chateau
ONE DAY A girl in love said to the man she loved: “I could also write the kind of stories you like..?” “Do you really think so?” he answered. They met two or three times a week, but never during vacations, and never on weekends. Each of them stole the time they spent together from their families and their work. On afternoons in January and =46ebruary when the days begin to grow longer and the sun, sinking in the west, tints the Seine with red reflections, they used to walk along the on banks of the river, the quai des Grands Augustins, the quai de la to Tournelle, kissing in the shadow of the bridges. Once a clochard shouted at them: “Shall we take up a collection and rent you a room?” Their places of refuge often changed. The old car, which the girl drove, took them to the zoo to see the giraffes, to Bagatelle to see the irises and the clematis in the spring, or the asters in the fall. She noted the names of the asters-blue fog, purple, pale pink-and wondered why, since she was never able to plant them (and yet we shall have further occasion to refer to asters). But Vincennes, or the Bois de Boulogne, is a long way away. In the Bois you run into people who know you. Which, of course, left rented rooms. The same one several times in succession. Or different rooms, as chance would have it. There is a strange sweetness about the meager lighting of rented rooms in hotels near railroad stations: the modest luxury of the double bed, whose linen you leave unmade as you leave the room, has a charm all its own. And the time comes when you can no longer separate the sound of words and signs from the endless drone of the motors and the hiss of the tires climbing the street. For several years, these furtive and tender halts, in the respite that follows love, legs all entwined and arm unclasped, had been soothed by the kind of exchanges and as it were small talk in which books hold the most important place. Books were their only complete freedom, their common country, their true travels. Together they dwelt in the books they loved as others in their family home; in books they had their compatriots and their brothers; poets had written for them, the letters of lovers from times past came down to them through the obscurity of ancient languages, of modes and mores long since come and gone-all of which was read in a toneless voice in an unknown room, the sordid and miraculous dungeon against which the crowd outside, for a few short hours, beat in vain. They did not have a full night together. All of a sudden, at such and such an hour agreed upon ahead of time-the watch a! ways remained on the wrist-they had to leave Each had to regain his street, his house, his room his daily bed, return to those to whom he wa joined by another kind of inexpiable love, those whom fate, youth, or you yourself had given you once and for all, those whom you can neither leave nor hurt when you’re involved in their lives. He, in his room, was not alone. She was alone in hers.
One evening, after that “Do you really think so?” of the first page, and without ever having the faintest idea that she would one day find the name R=E9age in a real estate register and would borrow first name from two famous profligates, Pauline Borghese and Pauline Roland, one day this girl of whom I am speaking, and rightly so, since if I hay nothing of hers she has everything of mine, the voice to begin with, one evening this girl, instead o taking a book to read before she fell asleep, lying on her left side with her feet tucked up under her, soft black pencil in her right hand, began to writ the story she had promised. Spring was almost over. The Japanese cherry trees in the big Paris parks, the Judas trees, the magnolias near the fountains, the elder trees bordering the old embankments of the tram lines that used to encircle the city, had lost their flowers. The days lingered on
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