Claudine Married by Colette

Author:Colette [Colette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2001-05-31T21:00:00+00:00

Eight

‘My darling little girl, what are you thinking about?’ His darling little girl was squatting, tailor-fashion, on the big bed she had not yet quitted . . . Enveloped in a vast pink nightdress, she was thoughtfully cutting the toe-nails of her right foot with a pretty pair of ivory-handled clippers and not breathing a word.

‘My darling little girl, what are you thinking about?’

I raised my head, adorned with snaky curls, and I stared at Renaud – who, already dressed, was knotting his tie – as if I had never set eyes on him before.

‘Yes, what are you thinking about? Ever since we woke up, you haven’t said a word to me. You let me prove my affection without even noticing it.’

I raised a protesting hand.

‘Obviously, I’m exaggerating. But you were decidedly absent-minded, Claudine . . .’

‘You amaze me!’

‘Not as much as you amaze me! I’m used to your showing more consciousness during these diversions.’

‘They’re not diversions.’

‘Call them nightmares, if you like, but my remark holds good. Where have you been wandering all the morning, my bird?’

‘I’d like to go to the country,’ I said, upon reflection.

‘Oh!’ he exclaimed in consternation. ‘Claudine! Just look!’

He raised the curtain; a deluge was streaming down on the roofs and overflowing gutters.

‘This morning dew whetted your appetite for it? Conjure up dirty water running all over the ground, the bottom of your skirt clinging to your ankles; think of cold drops dripping off the lobes of your ears . . .’

‘I am thinking of it. You’ve never understood the first thing about country rain, about sabots that go “sluck” when they leave their wet imprints. Or about the rough hood with a bead of water stuck on the end of every woolly hair, the pointed hood that makes a little house for your face that you snuggle into and laugh . . . Of course, the cold stings, but you warm your thighs with two pocketfuls of hot chestnuts and you wear thick, knitted gloves.’

‘Don’t go on! My teeth are on edge at the thought of woollen gloves rasping against the ends of my finger-nails! If you want to see your Montigny again, if you’ve really set your heart on it as much as all that, if it’s a “last wish”’ . . . (he sighed) . . . ‘we’ll go.’

No, we won’t go. Talking out loud, I had sincerely found myself thinking the words I was saying. But that morning, I was not tormented by regret for Fresnois; my silence was not due to homesickness. There was something else on my mind.

It was that . . . that hostilities had commenced and that, confronted with Rézi’s amorous treachery, I found myself irresolute, without any plan of defence.

I had gone to see her at five o’clock, because, at the moment, half my life is spent in her company. And this enrages me and fascinates me and I can do nothing about it.

I found her all alone, roasting herself at a fire like the fires of hell.

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