“What regiment?”
“Hussars …”
“In The Hague?”
“In The Hague.”
“An amazingly handsome fellow. I like big, strong men like that …”
“Mrs Uxeley, is everything going as planned?’
“Yes, darling.”
“Are you feeling well?”
“I’m having a few twinges, but it’s all right.”
“Shouldn’t they be dancing the pavane soon?”
“Yes, make sure the girls go and change. The hairdresser has brought the wigs for the young people, hasn’t he?”
“Yes …”
“Gather the youngsters together then and tell them to hurry. They must begin in the next half hour …”
Rudolf Brox came back from the tombola, where he had won a silver matchbox. He thanked Mrs Uxeley, who fluttered, and when he saw Cornélie moving away, he followed her.
“Cornélie …”
“Please, Rudolf, leave me; I have to collect the girls and young people for the pavane. I’m very busy …”
“I’ll help you …”
She beckoned a pair of girls, told a couple of servants to find the young people in the various rooms and tell them to make their way to the dressing-rooms. He could see that she was pale and trembling all over.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m tired.”
“Let’s go and have a drink then.”
She was beside herself with nervousness. The music of the invisible orchestra pounded ferociously in her brain. And the countless candles sometimes spun before her eyes like a dancing firmament. The rooms were crammed full. People bustled, laughed loudly, showed each other their gifts, trod on ladies’ trains. An intoxicating, oppressive atmosphere of flowers and festivities and tepid perfumed femininity hung like a cloud. Cornélie went hither and thither, looking, and had finally collected the girls. The master of ceremonies came to ask her something. A steward came to ask her something. And Brox did not budge from her side.
“Let’s go and have a drink now …” he repeated.
She took his arm mechanically and her hand trembled on his black sleeve. He pushed through the throng with her and they passed Urania and De Breuil. Urania said a few words that Cornélie did not catch. The buffet-room was also crowded, buzzing with high-pitched laughing voices. The steward stood behind the long tables like a minister. He controlled the whole process of serving. There was no pushing and shoving, no fighting for a glass of wine or a roll. People waited until a lackey presented what they had ordered.
“Everything is well organised,” said Brox. “Is it all your work …?”
“No it’s been like this for years …”
She slumped into a chair, looking pale.
“What do you want?”
“A glass of champagne.”
“I’m hungry. It was a poor dinner in my hotel. I want something to eat.”
He ordered the champagne for her. First he had a pie, then another, and then a chateaubriand steak with petits pois. He drank a couple of glasses of red wine, and then a glass of champagne. The lackey brought him everything one at a time on a silver salver. His handsome, virile face had a brick-red hue and an animal strength. The tough hair on his massive round head was cut short all over. His large grey eyes were smiling, with a clear, direct, impudent look. A heavy, well-tended moustache, full and luxuriant, sat above a mouth full of sparkling white teeth. He stood with his feet slightly apart, with a military solidity about his tailcoat, which he wore with simple correctness. He ate slowly and with relish, savouring his good glass of fine wine.
Involuntarily she watched him from her chair. She had drunk a glass of champagne and asked for a second, and this stimulus revived her. Her cheeks regained some of their colour, her eyes sparkled.
“It’s damned nice here,” he said, approaching her with his glass in his hand. He emptied it.
“It’s almost time for the pavane,” she murmured.
And they went through the busy rooms to a long corridor outside, decorated with an avenue of camellia bushes. They were alone for a moment.
“This is where the dancers must assemble …”
“Let’s wait for them here then. It’s nice and cool here.”
They sat down on the bench.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked. “You were acting so oddly in the room.”
“Yes … I’m better …”
“Don’t you think it’s fun meeting your ex-husband again?”
“Rudolf … I don’t understand how you can talk like that, pursue me, tease me … After everything that’s happened …”
“Well that’s over and done with …”
“Do you think it’s a discreet … and tactful way to behave?”
“No. Neither discreet nor tactful. You know that those are simply the kind of charming things I never am; you’ve thrown that in my face often enough in the past. But if it’s not tactful, it’s certainly amusing. Have you lost your sense of humour? There’s a damned funny side to our meeting here … And listen to me a moment. We’re divorced, fine. In the eyes of the law that’s the situation. But a legal divorce is only for the benefit of the law, good form and society. For money matters and such like. The two of us were too much husband and wife not to feel something for each other when we meet later, like here. Oh yes, I know what you’re trying to say. It’s simply not true. You were too much in love with me, and I with you, for everything to be dead. I still remember everything. And you must remember everything too. Do you remember that time when we …” He laughed, slid closer to her and whispered into her ear. She felt his breath trembling over her skin like a warm breeze. She blushed deeply and became nervous. And she felt with her whole body that he had been her husband, that she had him in her blood. His voice rang like molten bronze through the nerves of her ear, deep inside her. Her flesh shivered under the breeze of his breath. She knew him completely. She knew his eyes, his mouth, she knew his chest and his thighs. She knew his hands, broad, well manicured, with the large round nails and the dark signet ring — as they rested on his knees, tensing squarely in the curve of his black trouser leg. And she felt in a sudden wave of despair that she knew and felt him in the whole of her body. However rough he had been with her in the past, however he had abused her, punched her with his clenched fist, slammed her against a wall … she had been his wife. She had become his wife as a virgin, and he had made her a woman. And she felt as if he had left his imprint on her and made her his, she felt it in her very blood and marrow. She admitted to herself that she had never forgotten him. In her first loneliness in Rome she had longed for his kiss, had thought of him, called up his manly image, convinced herself that with tact and patience she might have remained his wife …
Then the great happiness had come, the gentle happiness of complete harmony …
It all flashed through her in a second.
Oh, in her great, gentle happiness she had been able to forget everything, she had not felt the past in her. But now she felt that the past is always there, inexorable, ineradicable. She had been his wife and kept him in her blood. Now she felt it with every breath. She was indignant that he dared to whisper about the past, in her ear, but it had been as he said. Inexorable, ineradicable.
“Rudolf!” she implored him, folding her hands. “Have pity!!”
She almost screamed it, in a cry of fear and despair. But he laughed and with one hand took hold of both her hands folded in supplication.
“If you act like that, if you look at me so imploringly with those beautiful eyes, I won’t even have pity on you here and I’ll kiss you till …”
His words wafted over her like a hot wind. But laughing voices approached, and a pair of young girls, a pair of young people, already dressed as Henri IV and Marguerite de Valois for the pavane, came down the stairs.