reproach you for—associating with that low-class crowd!”
“Why?”
“Every night in that bar there are scenes: orgies, fistfights, even.”
“I repeat, I know nothing about all that. What’s it to me? The orgies at the Sémiramis bar must be, like all orgies, so banal they would convert the most far-gone to virtue. I’m only interested in the people who dine there. Valentine, it’s about them I’d like to talk to you, since I goodheartedly consent to give you an explanation. True, you find there a majority of young men who are not at all interested in women. At dinnertime there they are, comfortably at home, enjoying a rest. They are recovering their strength for suppertime. They have no need to waggle their hips or cry out shrilly or flutter a handkerchief soaked in ether, or dance together, or call out their order in a loud voice: ‘Sémiramis, another sherry for me, on Monsieur’s bill!’ They are gentle, weary, with their painted eyelids heavy with sleep. There’s one who bestows upon himself the name of a genuine princess; he asks for Vittel mineral water, and a lot of leeks in the soup, because it’s a depurative. Another one has the pathetic face of an anemic little girl, and he goes to the Sémiramis bar for his bouillon and his noodles, and the coarse ruler of the place fills his plate twice, crassly maternal. Then she exclaims, arms akimbo, standing in front of the lean and lanky young fellow with hallucinated blue eyes, who pushes aside his full plate: ‘There you go! You’ve been hitting dope again, eh? What’s your mother thinking about to let you destroy yourself like this? Doesn’t she have a heart?’ And there’s another one who, with his dark blue eyes and his innocent little nose, looks like Suzanne Derval; he barely pecks at his food and says, ‘Oh hell, don’t give me any sauce. I don’t want to ruin my stomach! And, Waiter! Once and for all, take away these pickles and bring me some benzonaphthol tablets.’
“Yes, there they are, not posing, but gentle and indolent and melancholy, like out-of-work prostitutes, but laughing easily and playing with the dog that Sémiramis found one night in the street. But if a stranger manages to get inside the bar for dinner, they become uneasy, with the sulky manners of shopkeepers wakened too early, exchanging from one table to another their shrill cries, forced laughs, obscene and trite remarks, the hanky-panky that attracts . . . Then, when the stranger or the group of thirsty and curious sightseers have emptied their beer steins, sipped their kümmels on ice, and left, as the door shuts upon them there is a whoop of relief, and afterward a settled calm and the murmured gossip, the thin chests bedizened with loud cravats and bright pocket handkerchiefs lean once more against the tables, relaxed and slothful, like circus animals after the exercise.”
Valentine is not very fond of having people talk to her at great length. The animation, the brightness of her face dims after a few minutes of attention and is replaced by a rigidity, a drowsy effort to keep the eyes wide open. I notice this now and fall silent. But decidedly she has not said all she has to say.
“Yes, yes, that’s all very nice. When you want to exonerate something you adorn it with literature and you tell yourself, ‘If I talk very fast and insert some fancy words, Valentine won’t see the fire for the smoke!’ It’s easier than telling me to go to the devil, isn’t it?”
This kind of gentle feminine trickery always disarms me, and Valentine, who often exasperates and sometimes astounds me, as if I suddenly glimpsed through her coils of false hair or through her cloche hats or extravagantly big and gauzy hats the pointed tip of a sly little animal’s ear. I cannot help laughing.
“But I’m not defending myself, you little beast! Defend myself for what and against whom? Against you? Would I condescend to that, megalomaniac that you are?”
She puts on her
“Why?”
“Every night in that bar there are scenes: orgies, fistfights, even.”
“I repeat, I know nothing about all that. What’s it to me? The orgies at the Sémiramis bar must be, like all orgies, so banal they would convert the most far-gone to virtue. I’m only interested in the people who dine there. Valentine, it’s about them I’d like to talk to you, since I goodheartedly consent to give you an explanation. True, you find there a majority of young men who are not at all interested in women. At dinnertime there they are, comfortably at home, enjoying a rest. They are recovering their strength for suppertime. They have no need to waggle their hips or cry out shrilly or flutter a handkerchief soaked in ether, or dance together, or call out their order in a loud voice: ‘Sémiramis, another sherry for me, on Monsieur’s bill!’ They are gentle, weary, with their painted eyelids heavy with sleep. There’s one who bestows upon himself the name of a genuine princess; he asks for Vittel mineral water, and a lot of leeks in the soup, because it’s a depurative. Another one has the pathetic face of an anemic little girl, and he goes to the Sémiramis bar for his bouillon and his noodles, and the coarse ruler of the place fills his plate twice, crassly maternal. Then she exclaims, arms akimbo, standing in front of the lean and lanky young fellow with hallucinated blue eyes, who pushes aside his full plate: ‘There you go! You’ve been hitting dope again, eh? What’s your mother thinking about to let you destroy yourself like this? Doesn’t she have a heart?’ And there’s another one who, with his dark blue eyes and his innocent little nose, looks like Suzanne Derval; he barely pecks at his food and says, ‘Oh hell, don’t give me any sauce. I don’t want to ruin my stomach! And, Waiter! Once and for all, take away these pickles and bring me some benzonaphthol tablets.’
“Yes, there they are, not posing, but gentle and indolent and melancholy, like out-of-work prostitutes, but laughing easily and playing with the dog that Sémiramis found one night in the street. But if a stranger manages to get inside the bar for dinner, they become uneasy, with the sulky manners of shopkeepers wakened too early, exchanging from one table to another their shrill cries, forced laughs, obscene and trite remarks, the hanky-panky that attracts . . . Then, when the stranger or the group of thirsty and curious sightseers have emptied their beer steins, sipped their kümmels on ice, and left, as the door shuts upon them there is a whoop of relief, and afterward a settled calm and the murmured gossip, the thin chests bedizened with loud cravats and bright pocket handkerchiefs lean once more against the tables, relaxed and slothful, like circus animals after the exercise.”
Valentine is not very fond of having people talk to her at great length. The animation, the brightness of her face dims after a few minutes of attention and is replaced by a rigidity, a drowsy effort to keep the eyes wide open. I notice this now and fall silent. But decidedly she has not said all she has to say.
“Yes, yes, that’s all very nice. When you want to exonerate something you adorn it with literature and you tell yourself, ‘If I talk very fast and insert some fancy words, Valentine won’t see the fire for the smoke!’ It’s easier than telling me to go to the devil, isn’t it?”
This kind of gentle feminine trickery always disarms me, and Valentine, who often exasperates and sometimes astounds me, as if I suddenly glimpsed through her coils of false hair or through her cloche hats or extravagantly big and gauzy hats the pointed tip of a sly little animal’s ear. I cannot help laughing.
“But I’m not defending myself, you little beast! Defend myself for what and against whom? Against you? Would I condescend to that, megalomaniac that you are?”
She puts on her
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