But, Brulard wondered, why was it so hard, now that she really was alone, to feel that unplanned isolation in all its plenitude and rarity, and to enjoy it in some way, rather than, as she caught herself doing at this very moment, turning her head to avoid the eye of the young Eve Brulard, who now sat on a bench facing the lake, staring at her loafers, wearing an extravagant pink chiffon dress that clearly displayed her pointed, youthful breasts, her little brown shoulders, her narrow, curved pelvis? And rather than, once she’d done that, immediately looking down so as not to glimpse the snow-covered mass of the mountain behind the clouds, now gradually unfurling, mutating into a sort of gauze not unlike the pink fabric of the dress t
Better, with the mountain so hostile and so indiscreet, to fix her gaze on the lake’s tranquil waters, or the bench, now rid of the exhausting presence of the beauteous Eve Brulard, whose eagle eye had not missed those tasseled shoes — and then, on her smooth face, was that the shadow of a surge of pity? Of a reproach, tinged by compassion and alarm? Brulard sat on the bench, her lids heavy. She rested one cheek on her shoulder and wrapped her arms around her knees. She felt the cold numbing her, drawing her toward sleep, toward surrender. She pictured herself in the place of Eve Brulard, possessed of all the self-assurance, the litheness, the punctilious critical sensibility of a twenty-year-old, and tried to see herself through those eyes — leaving the loafers aside, just this once. What did you see when you looked at Brulard? A slight, mild woman with a dark complexion, short black hair, an unsuitable, slightly shiny jacket and trousers, large, timid, obstinate eyes, and on her lips a faint quivering bitterness, increasingly difficult to transmute into joyous surprise? Or some vast, looming personage of ambiguous sex, a fine face, hard and square, a strong jaw hungry for conquest and success? Brulard had no doubt that at times she’d been exactly that, magnified by ambition and self-confidence even more than by her high heels, next to which the modest loafers looked like two runts shrunken into their own virtue, by her thick mane of bleached, champagne-blonde hair, carefully styled to halo her head, by the proud bearing of her shoulders, of her ramrod-straight neck. Which of those two Brulards did you see at this moment? And which was the one who was loved, or preferred? The tall, blonde, almost famous Brulard, or the Brulard of today, slighter, but whose expression, she could see in her every reflection, was that of a grave, discreet ecstasy, of passion without illusions, unbowed even if battered? Was this second one not inevitably the favorite? Of those two possible versions of Eve Brulard between forty and fifty years of age? By the grace of a sincerity that she herself found mysterious (for what her true current face had to do with her she had no idea, and this ignorance left her pensive, perplexed), but which that artificial ambitious blondness and that chin held a little too high professed less convincingly?
Brulard had a secret soft spot in her heart for the blonde, hungry Brulard, even if that one had misjudged the best way to go about succeeding, even though she’d given far too much of herself for very middling results. Brulard even felt a certain disdain for the simple, natural woman she seemed so quickly to have become, the very one who, to punish herself for racing toward a shining new future, now almost in sight, had snatched up the first pair of loafers she laid eyes on. She knew that no such need for self-mortification would ever have entered the mind of the ravishing Brulard of old, and certainly not for a reason like this, for behaving in a way that might bring something remarkable into her life, even if it came at the expense of great sorrow.
But, for the moment, how tired she was.
Day had now fully broken, giving the lake that cobalt blue tint that had intimidated Brulard when she first stepped off the train, a perfectly and literally honest blue that she had immediately seen as the emblem of this entire adventure. May what I’m now making my way toward, she’d said to herself, be just as. .
How tired she was.
Eyes half-closed, she gave a start. A warm, dry snout had brushed against her limply hanging hand. An ugly little dog with a drab coat was clasping a crumpled piece of paper between its teeth. Brulard smiled. It was the homeliest, most pathetic-looking dog she’d ever seen. She reached out to give it a cautious caress. The dog licked her fingers, the paper fell to the ground, and Brulard, having first pretended not to notice, quickly picked it up, faintly stunned. It was just what she thought she’d seen in that dog’s mouth — the word Hassler. She felt herself blushing stupidly. A jogger came into view, and Brulard, assuming he was the dog’s owner, gently pushed the animal his way with the tip of her shoe. The athlete sped past at a panting little trot in his luxurious white and gold outfit, never glancing toward the bench. Puffs of flatulence drifted along in his wake.
Brulard buried her head in her hands. She’d read that word Hassler on the paper — could it be? Was this a portent of good things to come? Or a questionable gift from the mountain that Brulard could no longer pretend not to see, now that the new day was extracting it from the fog, at once behind Brulard’s back and in front of her, almost up to the opposite shore — still snow-covered in its upper reaches, now unable to hide its likeness, in physiognomy and expression, to Brulard’s late mother, or rather old mother Brulard, as she was called in her village, off in the province of Berry, like a failed avatar or a ridiculous disguise? It was her, Brulard’s mother, impossible to catch in the act, watching and mutely disapproving of Brulard for the rest of time. Here a mountain, there a footpath or a hill — everywhere, in fact.
Who cares? Brulard asked herself.
Had she fallen asleep? A large cold sun was flooding her bench. A well-to-do crowd strolled along the promenade, lined leather boots, pastel down coats, a whole childish winter-sport elegance that demoralized Brulard, who, in her black clothes, seemed some sort of evil fairy alighted here to darken the children’s festivities. Had she fallen asleep? It was almost eleven. She’d missed the opening of the bank, and now she’d have to hurry to be there before noon. She stood up, then gingerly sat down again, shaken.
Had she been recognized?
Her head was spinning with impatience and apprehension. Who here knew of her private affinity with the mountain? A smile crossed her lips as she imagined the stunned dismay on these faces, so blessed by sunshine and money, if she told them just who that mountain was (and what vulgarity would they not immediately find in the presence of an “old mother Brulard” deep inside their costly mountain), and yet, thought Brulard, there was one thing she didn’t know: whether, for each of these vacationers, a mother Brulard of their own, named by each in their own secret way, might have adopted that mountain’s form and appearance, spying, judging, thinking herself alone, and every one of them, like Brulard, thinking her alone and unique.
* * *
It was nearing noon when Brulard returned to her hotel. Disappointment had granted her a glorious, go-for-broke daring. She took out her checkbook and, smiling boldly and broadly with all her hard-won technique, regretting as she strode toward the desk that she’d lacked this foolhardy courage a little while before, and hadn’t bought that much-needed coat on leaving the bank, she rested her elbows on the counter directly in front of the clerk. Thrusting forward her cold, shining, pinkened face, she exclaimed: