The Rendezvous
She had on her hat and coat with a black veil down to her nose and another in her pocket to put over the first as soon as she got into the offensive four-wheeler. She was tapping her boot with the point of her umbrella and remained seated in her room, uncertain whether to keep the appointment.
And yet how many times within the last two years had she got ready to join her lover, the handsome Viscount de Martelet, in his chambers, when she knew that her husband—a society stockbroker—would be at the Exchange!
The clock behind her loudly ticked out the seconds; a half-read book gaped open on the little rosewood writing-table between the windows, and a strong scent of violets from two small bunches floating in a couple of tiny Dresden vases on the mantlepiece, mingled with a faint odour of verbena wafted through the half-open door of the dressing-room.
The sound of the clock striking three made her jump up. She turned to look at the time, then smiled, thinking: “He is waiting for me, he will be getting angry.” Then she left the room, told the footman that she would be back in an hour at the least—a lie—went downstairs, and set out on foot.
It was the end of May, that delightful season when spring, on its way from the country, lays siege to Paris, seeming to carry all before it, bursting through brick walls into the home, making the city blossom forth, shedding gaiety over its buildings, over the asphalt of its pavements and the stones of its streets, drenching it in merriment, and making it drunk with vigour like a forest bursting forth into leaf.
Madame Haggar took a few steps to the right, intending, as usual, to go along the Rue de Provence where she could hail a four-wheeler, but the delightful feeling of summer suddenly took possession of her, and changing her mind, she turned down the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, not knowing why, but vaguely attracted by a wish to see the trees in the square de la Trinité.
“He can just wait ten minutes longer,” she said to herself. The idea of keeping him waiting pleased her and as she walked through the crowd she fancied she saw him getting impatient, looking at the clock, opening the window, listening at the door, sitting down and getting up again, not daring to smoke—as she had forbidden smoking on the days they met—and casting desperate glances at his box of cigarettes.
She walked along slowly, her mind adrift among the many things around her—the people, the shops—and she slackened her pace more and more; so little did she care about reaching the flat that she used every shop window as an excuse for loitering.
At the end of the street, in front of the church, the green of the small square attracted her and she crossed the Place and went into the garden—the children’s playground—and strolled twice round the narrow patch of grass, mingling with the nurses, gorgeous in their bright-coloured cloaks and caps trimmed with ribbons and flowers. Then she took a chair, sat down, and raising her eyes to the clock that looked like a moon in the steeple, she watched the hands move round.
The half-hour struck, and her heart beat with pleasure when she heard the chimes. She had already stolen thirty minutes, it would take another fifteen to reach the Rue Miromesnil, those and a few more minutes in which to loiter about would make an hour! One whole hour stolen from the rendezvous! She would stay barely forty minutes, and again the whole thing would be over.
Goodness! how it bored her to go! Going to the dentist’s was bad enough! She suffered from the intolerable memory of these appointments—on an average, one a week for the last two years—and the thought that there would be another one presently filled her with anguish. Not that it was as painful as a visit to the dentist’s, but it was such a bore, so complicated, so long, so unpleasant, that anything, anything, even an operation, seemed preferable. Nevertheless she went on very slowly, stopping, sitting down, hanging about, but she went all the same. Oh! how she would have liked to miss the appointment, but she had played that trick on the poor Viscount twice running last month, and she dared not do it again so soon. Why did she go back? Ah! why? Because it had become a habit and she had no good reason to give poor Martelet when he wanted to know the why! Why had she started the affair? Why? She no longer knew! Had she been in love with him? Possibly! Not very much, just a little, ever so long ago! He was very nice, fastidious, distinguished, gallant, and you could see at the very first glance that he was the perfect lover for a woman of the world.
The courtship had lasted three months—the normal period which includes an honourable struggle and just sufficient resistance—then she had consented, but with what flutterings, what timidity, what awful yet exquisite shrinkings at that first meeting, followed by all the others, in the little bachelor flat in the Rue Miromesnil. Her heart? What did she feel when, tempted, vanquished, conquered, she entered the door of that house of nightmares for the first time? She really did not know! She had forgotten! An act, a date, a thing, may be remembered, but it is rare to remember a fleeting emotion two years afterwards, it is too fragile for memory. Oh! for instance, she had not forgotten the others, the rosary of meetings, the stations of the cross of love, those stations that were so fatiguing, so monotonous, so alike, that she was filled with nausea at the thought of what was going to happen presently.
Goodness! think of all the four-wheelers that had been hired to go there, they were not like ordinary four-wheelers. Certainly, the drivers guessed the truth. She felt that by the way they looked at her, and the eyes of the Parisian cabman are terrible eyes! When you remember that in court they always recognise criminals whom they have only driven once in the dead of night, from some street to the station, years before, and that they have about as many fares as there are hours in a day, that their memory is so good that they say at once: “This is the man I picked up in the Rue des Martyrs and put down at the Lyons station at 12:45 a.m. on July 10th last year!” it is enough to make you shiver with apprehension when you are risking all a woman risks in going to a rendezvous, placing her reputation in the keeping of the first cabman she meets! The last two years she had engaged at least a hundred or a hundred and twenty for the journey to the Rue Miromesnil, counting one a week. These were all witnesses who might appear against her at a critical moment.
As soon as she was in the cab she drew the other veil—as thick and as black as a mask—from her pocket and fastened it over her eyes. It hid her face, true enough, but what about the rest, her dress, hat, parasol, would they not be noticed, had they not been seen already! Oh! what torture she endured in the Rue Miromesnil! She thought she recognised all the passersby, all the servants, everybody. Almost before the cab stopped she jumped out and ran past the porter who was always standing outside his lodge. He was a man who must know everything, everything—her address, her name, her husband’s profession, everything, for janitors are the most artful of all the police. For two years she had wanted to bribe him, to throw him a hundred-franc note as she passed. She had never dared to throw the piece of paper at him! She was afraid. Of what?—she did not know! Of being called back if he did not understand? Of a scandal? Perhaps of being arrested? The Viscount’s flat was only halfway up the first flight of stairs but it seemed as high up as the top of the Tower of St. Jacques to her. As soon as she reached the entrance of the building she felt she was caught in a trap and the slightest noise in front or behind made her feel faint. She could not go back again with the janitor and the road blocking her retreat, and if anyone was coming downstairs she dared not ring Martelet’s bell but passed the door as if she were going somewhere else. She went up, up, up! She would have climbed up forty stories! Then when all seemed quiet she would run down terrified lest she should make a mistake in the flat!
He was there, waiting, dressed in a velvet suit lined with silk, very smart but rather ridiculous, and for two years he had never varied the way he received her, never made the slightest change, not in a single gesture!
As soon as he had shut the door he would say: “Allow me to kiss your hands, my dear, dear friend!” Then he followed her into the room where the shutters were closed and lights lit both winter and summer because this was the fashion, and knelt down gazing at her from head to foot with an air of adoration. The first time it had been very nice, very successful! Now she felt that she was looking at M. Delaunay playing the fifth act of a popular piece for the hundred-and-twentieth time. He really ought to make some change.
And then after, oh! God! after! that was the worst to bear! No, he never made any change, poor chap! A good chap, but so ordinary! …
How difficult it was to undress without a maid! For once it did not matter much, but repeated every week it became a nuisance! No, indeed, a man should not exact such a task from a woman! But if it was difficult to undress, to dress again was almost an impossibility, your nerves made you want to shriek, and you felt so exasperated that you could have boxed the young man’s ears when he said, walking awkwardly around: “Shall I help you?”—Help her! Yes, indeed, how? What could he do? You only had to see him hold a pin to know he was no use.
That was probably the moment she had begun to take a dislike to him. When he said: “Shall I help you?” she could have killed him. Besides, a woman must end by hating a man who for two years has forced her to put on her clothes a hundred and twenty times without a maid.
It is true that not many men were as awkward as he was, so clumsy, so monotonous.
Baron de Grimbal would never have said in such a silly way: “Shall I help you?” He would have helped, he was so lively, so amusing, so witty. Well! He was a diplomatist; he had travelled in every country, wandered about all over, he had certainly dressed and undressed women clad according to every fashion in the world, he must have done so! …
The church clock chimed the three-quarters. She drew herself up, looked at the time and began to laugh, saying to herself: “How excited he must be!” Then she left the Square, walking briskly, but had only just reached the Place outside when she met a man who bowed and raised his hat.
“Dear me, you, Baron?” she said, surprised, for she had just been thinking about him.
“Yes, Madame.”
He asked how she was, then after a few vague remarks, said:
“Do you know you are the only one—you will allow me to say, of my lady friends, won’t you?—who has not yet been to see my Japanese collection?”
“But, my dear Baron, a woman cannot visit a bachelor?”
“What! What! That’s quite wrong when it is a question of going to see a collection of rare curios!”
“At all events, she cannot go alone.”
“And why not? I have had any number of lady visitors alone, just to see my collection. They come every day. Shall I tell you their names?—no, I won’t do that. One must be discreet even when quite innocent. In principle there is nothing wrong in going to see a man who is a gentleman, well known, and of good birth, unless one goes for some doubtful reason.
“On the whole, you are right.”
“Then you will come to see my collection.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Impossible, I am in a hurry.”
“Nonsense. You have been sitting in the Square this last half-hour.”
“You were watching me?”
“I was looking at you.”
“Really, I am in a hurry.”
“I am sure you’re not. Admit that you’re not.”
Madame Haggar began to laugh, saying: “No … no … not in a great …”
A cab passed close by which the Baron stopped and opening the door, said: “Get in, Madame.”
“But, Baron, it’s impossible, I can’t come today.”
“You are very imprudent, Madame. Do get in! People are beginning to stare at us, soon there will be a crowd: they will think I am running away with you and we shall both be arrested: do get in, I beg you!”
She got in, scared and dazed. Then he sat beside her and said to the cabman: “Rue de Provence.”
Suddenly she exclaimed: “Oh! dear, dear. I have forgotten an urgent telegram, will you take me to the nearest post office first?”
The cab stopped a little further on in the Rue de Châteaudun, and she said to the Baron: “Do get me a fifty-centimes telegraph-card.34 I promised my husband I would invite Martelet to dinner tomorrow, and had quite forgotten about it.”
When the Baron came back with the blue card, she wrote in pencil:
“Dear Friend,
“I am not well. A bad attack of neuralgia is keeping me in bed. Impossible to go out. Come and dine tomorrow evening so that I may be forgiven.
She moistened the gum, closed the telegram-card carefully and addressed it: “Viscount de Martelet 240, Rue Miromesnil,” then returning the card to the Baron, said:
“Now, will you be good enough to drop this in the special box for telegrams?”