On my first visit to her home in the rue de Varennes my sister went with me and we were both scared out of our wits. Elizabeth – who was known in the family circle as Zaza – had an elder sister, a grown-up brother, six brothers and sisters younger than herself, and a whole horde of cousins and friends. They would run and jump about, clamber on the tables, overturn the furniture and shout all the time at the tops of their voices. At the end of the afternoon, Madame Mabille entered the drawing-room, picked up a fallen chair and smilingly wiped perspiring brows; I was astonished at her indifference to bumps and bruises, stained carpets and chair covers and smashed plates; she never got cross. I didn’t care much for those wild games, and often Zaza too grew tired of them. We would take refuge in Monsieur Mabille’s study, and, far away from the tumult, we would talk. This was a novel pleasure for me. My parents used to talk to me, and I used to talk to them, but we never talked together; there was not sufficient distance between my sister and myself to encourage discussion. But with Zaza I had real conversations, like the ones Papa had in the evenings with Mama. We would talk about our school work, our reading, our common friends, our teachers, and about what we knew of the world: we never talked about ourselves. We never exchanged girlish confidences. We did not allow ourselves any kind of familiarity. We addressed each other formally as ‘vous’ (never ‘tu’) and, excepting at the ends of letters, we did not give each other kisses.
Zaza, like myself, liked books and studying; in addition, she was endowed with a host of talents to which I could lay no claim. Sometimes when I called at the rue de Varennes I would find her busy making shortbread or caramels; or she would spike on a knitting-needle quarters of orange, a few dates, and some prunes, and immerse the lot in a saucepan full of a syrupy concoction smelling of warm vinegar: her imitation fruits looked just as delicious as those made by a real confectioner. Then she used to hectograph a dozen or so copies of a Family Chronicle which she edited and produced herself each week for the benefit of grandmothers, uncles, and aunts who lived outside Paris. I admired, as much as the liveliness of her tales, her skill in making an object which resembled very closely a real newspaper. She took a few piano lessons with me, but very soon became much more proficient and moved up into a higher grade. Puny-armed and skinny-legged, she nevertheless was able to perform all sorts of contortions; when the first fine days of spring came along, Madame Mabille would take us out to a grassy, wildflower suburb – I believe it was Nanterre – and Zaza would run into a field and do the cartwheel, the splits, the crab, and all kinds of other tricks; she would climb trees and hang down from branches by her heels. In everything she did, she displayed an easy mastery which always amazed me. At the age of ten she would walk about the streets on her own; at the Cours Désir she showed no signs of my own awkwardness of manner; she would talk to the ladies of the establishment in a polite but nonchalant way, almost as if she were their equal. One year at a music recital she did something while she was playing the piano which was very nearly scandalous. The hall was packed. In the front rows were the pupils in their best frocks, curled and ringleted and beribboned, who were awaiting their turn to show off their talents. Behind them sat the teachers and tutors in stiff black silk bodices, wearing white gloves. At the back of the hall were seated the parents and their guests. Zaza, resplendent in blue taffeta, played a piece which her mother thought was too difficult for her; she always had to scramble through a few of the bars: but this time she played it perfectly, and, casting a triumphant glance at Madame Mabille, put out her tongue at her! All the little girls’ ringlets trembled with apprehension and the teachers’ faces froze into disapproving masks. But when Zaza came down from the platform her mother gave her such a light-hearted kiss that no one dare reprimand her. For me this exploit surrounded her with a halo of glory. Although I was subject to laws, to conventional behaviour, to prejudice, I nevertheless liked anything novel, sincere, and spontaneous. I was completely won over by Zaza’s vivacity and independence of spirit.
I did not immediately consider what place this friendship had in my life; I was still not much cleverer than I was as a baby at realizing what was going on inside me. I had been brought up to equate appearances with reality; I had not learned to examine what was concealed behind conventions of speech and action. It went without saying that I had the tenderest affection for all the members of my family, including even my most distant cousins. For my parents and sister I felt love, a word that covered everything. Nuances and fluctuations of feeling had no claim to existence in my world. Zaza was my best friend: and that was all. In a well-regulated human heart friendship occupies an honourable position, but it has neither the mysterious splendour of love, nor the sacred dignity of filial devotion. And I never called this hierarchy of the emotions into question.
*
That year, as in all other years, the month of October brought with it the exciting prospect of the return to school. The new books cracked when I opened them, and smelt just as good; seated in the leather armchair, I gloated over what the future had in store for me.
None of my expectations were realized. In the Luxembourg Gardens there were the bonfire smells and the yellowing leaves of autumn: they failed to move me; the blue of heaven had been dimmed. The classes bored me; I learnt my lessons and did my homework joylessly, and pushed my way sullenly through the front door of the Cours Désir. It was my own past coming to life again, and yet I did not recognize it: it had lost all its radiant colours; my life was dull and monotonous. I had everything, yet my hands were empty. I was walking along the boulevard Raspail with Mama and I suddenly asked myself the agonizing question: ‘What is happening to me? Is this what my life is to be? Nothing more? And will it always be like this, always?’ The idea of living through an infinity of days, weeks, months, and years that were void of hope completely took my breath away: it was as if, without any warning, the whole world had died. But I was unable to give a name to this distress either.
For ten to fifteen days I dragged myself somehow, on legs that seemed as weak as water, from hour to hour, from day to day.
One afternoon I was taking my things off in the cloakroom at school when Zaza came up to me. We began to talk, to relate various things that had happened to us, and to comment on them; my tongue was suddenly loosened, and a thousand bright suns began blazing in my breast; radiant with happiness, I told myself: ‘That’s what was wrong; I needed Zaza!’ So total had been my ignorance of the workings of the heart that I hadn’t thought of telling myself: ‘I miss her.’ I needed her presence to realize how much I needed her. This was a blinding revelation. All at once, conventions, routines, and the careful categorizing of emotions were swept away and I was overwhelmed by a flood of feeling that had no place in any code. I allowed myself to be uplifted by that wave of joy which went on mounting inside me, as violent and fresh as a waterfalling cataract, as naked, beautiful, and bare as a granite cliff. A few days later, arriving at school in good time, I looked in stupefaction at Zaza’s empty seat. ‘What if she were never to sit there again, what if she were to die, then what would happen to me?’ It was rather frightening: she came and went unconcernedly in my life, and all my happiness, my very existence, lay in her hands. I imagined Madame Gontran coming in, her long black skirts sweeping the floor, and saying: ‘Children, let us pray; your little companion, Elizabeth Mabille, was called away to the arms of God last night.’ Well, if that were to happen, I told myself, I should die on the spot. I would slide off my seat and fall lifeless to the ground. This rationalization gave me comfort. I didn’t really believe that God in His divine wisdom would take my life; neither did I really believe that I was afraid of Zaza dying. I had gone as far as to admit the extent of the dependence which my attachment to her placed upon me: I did not dare envisage all its consequences.
I didn’t require Zaza to have any such definite feelings about me: it was enough to be her best friend. The admiration I felt for her did not diminish me in my own eyes. Love is not envy. I could think o
f nothing better in the world than being myself, and loving Zaza.
BOOK TWO
WE had moved house. Our new home, arranged more or less like the old one and with exactly the same furniture, was smaller and less comfortable. There was no bathroom, only a wash-place without running water: every day my father had to empty the heavy slop pail that stood under the wash-stand. There was no central heating; in winter, the apartment was icy cold, with the exception of the study, where Mama used to light a slow-combustion ‘salamander’ stove; I always did my homework there, even in summer time. The room I shared with my sister – Louise slept in the attics – was too tiny to sit about in. Instead of the spacious hall where I used to play my secret games, there was now only a corridor. Outside my bed, there wasn’t a single comer I could call my own; I didn’t even have a desk to put my things in. My mother often received callers in the study, and she and Papa would talk there in the evenings. I learnt to do my homework and study my lessons in a constant hum of voices. But I found it painful never to be on my own. My sister and I were filled with passionate envy of little girls who had a room of their own; ours was only a dormitory.
Louise got engaged to a slater; I came upon her one day in the kitchen sitting awkwardly on the knees of a red-headed man; she had very pale skin and he had very ruddy cheeks. Without knowing why, I felt sad; yet it was felt she had made a good match although he was a manual worker, her husband was ‘steady’. She left us. Catherine, a fresh, gay young country girl with whom I had played at Meyrignac, came to take her place; she was almost like one of my friends; but in the evenings she used to go out with the firemen from the barracks across the road: she was always ‘running after men’. My mother gave her a good talking to, then sent her back home and decided to do without domestic help, for my father’s business was doing badly. The boot and shoe factory was on the rocks. Thanks to the influence of a distant cousin who held a high position, my father went into ‘financial advertising’; at first he worked on the Gaulois, then on various other newspapers; the trade bored him and brought in very little money. To make up for that he now went out in the evenings much more than formerly, to play bridge with friends or in a café; in summer he spent his Sundays at the races. Mama was often left alone. She did not complain, but she hated housework and poverty was hard for her to bear; her nerves were always on edge now. My father gradually lost his even good-temper. They never really quarrelled, but they used to shout very loudly at one another over the merest trifles, and often vented their irritation upon my sister and myself.
*
We stood staunchly by one another whenever it was a question of facing grown-up music; if one of us upset a bottle of ink, we both took the blame and claimed a common responsibility for what had happened. All the same, since I had got to know Zaza, our relationship had changed a little: my new friend’s every word was law. Zaza made fun of everybody; she didn’t spare Poupette, and looked upon her as a ‘baby’; I followed her example. My sister became so unhappy that she tried to break away from my domination. One afternoon, we were alone together in the study; we had just had a row, and she suddenly said to me in a dramatic tone of voice: ‘I have something to confess to you!’ I had opened an English text book on the blotting-pad and had started to read; I barely moved my head to listen to her outburst. ‘Well,’ my sister began, ‘I don’t think I love you as much as I used to! There!’ In a quiet, steady voice she went on to explain the growing indifference in her heart; I listened in silence and the tears rolled down my cheeks. She flung her arms round my neck: ‘It’s not true!’ she cried. ‘It’s not true!’ We kissed and hugged one another and I dried my tears. ‘I didn’t really believe you, you know!’ I told her. And yet there had been some truth in what she had said; she was beginning to revolt against her position as the younger sister, and as I seemed to be drifting away from her she included me in her rebellion. She was in the same class as our cousin Jeanne, whom she quite liked but whose tastes she did not share; yet she was obliged to associate with Jeanne’s friends; they were all silly, pretentious little girls, she hated them and was furious that they should be considered worthy of her friendship; to no avail. At the Cours Désir Poupette continued to be regarded as a mere reflection, necessarily imperfect, of her elder sister: she often felt humiliated, so she was said to be proud, and the ladies of the establishment, in the name of education, humiliated her still further. I was more advanced, and so my father took more interest in my progress: though my sister did not share the devotion I felt for him, she was hurt by this partiality. One summer, at Meyrignac, to prove that she had just as good a memory as I had, she learnt by heart a list of all Napoleon’s marshals, with their names and titles; she rattled it off perfectly, and my parents only smiled. In her exasperation, she began to look upon me with a different eye: she picked on all my faults. It vexed me that she should seek, even half-heartedly, to rival, criticize, and do without me. We had always had rows, because I was brutal and she cried very easily; now she did not cry so much, but our quarrels became more and more serious: it became a question of pride; each wanted to have the last word. Yet in the end we always made it up: we needed one another. We both held the same opinion of our friends, our teachers, and the members of our family; we didn’t hide anything from each other; and we still took as much pleasure in playing together. When our parents went out in the evening, we would have a spread: we would concoct a soufflé omelette which we would eat in the kitchen, then turn the flat upside-down, shouting at the tops of our voices. Now that we had to sleep in the same room, our games and conversations used to go on long after we had gone to bed.
*
That year, when we moved to the rue de Rennes, I began to have bad dreams. Had I not properly digested the revelations made by Madeleine? Only a thin partition now divided my bed from the one in which my parents slept, and sometimes I would hear my father snoring: did this promiscuity upset me? I had nightmares. A man would jump on my bed and dig his knees into my stomach until I felt I was suffocating; in desperation, I would dream that I was waking up and once again I would be crushed beneath the awful weight of my aggressor. About the same time, getting up became such a painful ordeal that when I thought about it the night before, my throat would tighten and my palms would grow damp with sweat. When I used to hear my mother’s voice in the mornings I longed to fall ill, I had such horror of dragging myself out of the toils of sleep and darkness. During the day, I had dizzy spells; I became anaemic. Mama and the doctor would say: ‘It’s her development.’ I grew to detest that word and the silent upheaval that was going on in my body. I envied ‘big girls’ their freedom; but I was disgusted at the thought of my chest swelling out; I had sometimes heard grown-up women urinating with the noise of a cataract; when I thought of the bladders swollen with water in their bellies, I felt the same terror as Gulliver did when the young giantesses displayed their breasts to him.
Now that the mysterious secret was out, forbidden books frightened me less than they used to; I would often let my gaze wander idly over the bits of old newspaper hanging up in the lavatory. In this way I read a fragment of a novelette in which the hero applied his burning lips to the heroine’s white breasts. This kiss burned right through me; I was both hero and heroine, and watcher too; I both gave and received the kiss, and feasted my eyes upon it also. If I felt such violent excitement it was surely because my body was already ripe for it; but my daydreams were crystallized around that image; I don’t know how many times I lingered over it before I fell asleep. I invented other erotic fantasies: I wonder where I could have got them from. The fact that married couples, scantily dressed, share the same bed, had not been enough to make me realize that they might embrace or caress one another: I suppose that it was my own need that made me imagine them. Because I was a prey to agonizing desires, with parched mouth, I would toss and turn in my bed, calling for a man’s body to be pressed against my own, for a man’s hand to stroke my flesh. Desperately I would reckon: ‘Girls aren’t allowed
to marry until they’re fifteen!’ And even that was exceptional: I should have to wait much longer than that before I was released from my torment. It would all begin so nicely; in the warmth of the sheets, my fantasies made my heart pound deliciously with racing blood; I almost felt they were going to come true; but no, they fled away; no hand, no mouth came to soothe my itching flesh; my madapollam nightdress became a shirt of nettles. Sleep alone could deliver me from my torment. I never associated these deliriums with the idea of sin: their violence was too much for me and I felt I was the victim rather than the guilty one. Nor did I wonder if other little girls endured such sufferings. I was not in the habit of comparing myself with others.
We were staying with friends during the stifling heat of mid-July; I awoke horror-stricken one morning: I had spoiled my nightdress. I washed it, and got dressed: again I soiled my underclothes. I had forgotten Madeleine’s vague prophecies, and I wondered what shameful malady I was suffering from. Worried, and feeling somehow guilty, I had to take my mother into my confidence: she explained to me that I had now become ‘a big girl’, and bundled me up in a very inconvenient manner. I felt a strong sense of relief when I learnt that it had happened through no fault of my own; and as always when something important happened to me, I even felt my heart swell with a sort of pride. I didn’t mind too much when I heard my mother whispering about it to her friends. But that evening when we joined my father in the rue de Rennes, he jokingly made reference to my condition: I was consumed with shame. I had imagined that the monstrous regiment of women kept its blemish a secret from the male fraternity. I thought of myself in relationship to my father as a purely spiritual being: I was horrified at the thought that he suddenly considered me to be a mere organism. I felt as if I could never hold up my head again.