We sat in the car without speaking. I could see he was tired, his mind elsewhere. My heart was beating fast but at the same time I felt a terrifying, solemn calm. All I knew was that that evening would decide the course of my life. I sat beside him graciously, my hair beautifully arranged, in my blue-fox fur and white silk dress, scented and deathly serious, the bunch of lilac ribbon right above my heart. It was a grand house we were visiting, with the Swiss guard at the gate and footmen down the hall. Having taken off his coat and handed it to the valet, he glanced at the mirror, saw me there, and smiled.
I was so beautiful that evening that even he noticed.
He threw off his undercoat and adjusted his tie in the mirror with a distracted, slightly nervous movement, as though he were disturbed by the solemn-looking valet’s presence. Men who dress quickly and don’t particularly care about clothes tend to fiddle with their bow ties, because they are forever slipping to one side or another. He gave me a smile in the mirror, a very sweet, courteous smile, as if to say, “Yes, I know you are very beautiful. Maybe the loveliest of all women. The trouble is that that doesn’t help. The problem lies elsewhere.”
But he didn’t say anything. I, for my part, was wondering whether I was more beautiful than that other woman, the one whose ribbon he so carefully looked after. Then we entered the grand hall, where a whole host of guests were already assembled: famous men, politicians, the leading figures of the country as well as well-known beautiful women, all chatting to each other as though they were relatives, as though whoever they were talking to already knew everything, everything that had been hinted at and suspected, all of them fully initiated. Initiated into what? Into the delicate, decadent, exciting, stuffy, superior, hopeless, cold conspiracy that constitutes an entire world, the world of society. It was a vast hall with columns of red marble. Between the guests scuttled servants, their legs clad in britches and white stockings, bearing crystal trays loaded with cocktails and highly colored, bitter-as-poison liqueurs. I merely sipped at one of those bitter drinks, because I can’t take alcohoclass="underline" it immediately makes me feel dizzy. In any case I had no need of intoxicants that evening. I felt an irrational, ridiculous, quite childish sort of tension, as if fate had marked me out for a difficult personal task, as if everyone were watching me, particularly me, all these beautiful, interesting women and those clever, powerful men … I was continually giggling. I was very charming to everyone, behaving as if I were an eighteenth-century princess in a powdered wig. And you know what? People really were talking about me that evening … It’s impossible to resist life radiating from someone in my position. Suddenly I saw myself standing among the red marble columns in the middle of the hall with men and women standing around me, myself as the focal point, people bowing to me, my every remark a triumph. I was radiant with a terrifying confidence that night. Oh yes, I was a real success … But what is success? Success is willpower, or so it seems: an enormous willpower, which burns everything and everyone that comes into contact with it. And all this simply because I had to know whether there was anyone anywhere who had once worn a lilac ribbon on her dress or her hat, someone who might matter more to my husband than I did …
I had never touched cocktails before and I left them alone that night too. Later, at supper, I drank half a glass of acrid French Champagne. I was behaving as though I were a little tipsy … but in a strangely sober fashion; it was a clearheaded kind of intoxication.
We were waiting for supper to be set and had formed groups in the hall, as on a stage. My husband was standing in the doorway to the library talking to a concert pianist. Now and then I felt him glance at me, and I knew these were anxious looks he was casting, not understanding my popularity, the sudden, complete, irrational social success I was enjoying, pleased with it but worried at the same time. He looked puzzled, and I was proud sensing his confusion. I was certain of my task now, and I knew the evening would be mine.
These are the most remarkable moments of life. Suddenly, a world opens up and everyone’s eyes are on you. I would not have been surprised to have people propose to me that night. I should tell you that that world, the other world of high society and the international set, is hopelessly alien to my nature. It was my husband who introduced me to it, and I always felt stagestruck. I tiptoed through it with great care, the way you might in an amusement park, in the haunted house with the moving floors … I was frightened in case I should slip and fall. Whole years went by with me being overpolite and overrestrained in company, or, conversely, overnatural … In other words, I was scared, cold, over-friendly, in fact everything except what I really am. It was as though I were in the grip of some terrible cramp before, but that evening released me. I was no longer cramped. I saw everything through a faint mist — the light, the people’s faces. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find people bursting into applause for me.
Then I felt someone was staring at me. I turned round slowly and looked for the person whose gaze seemed so physical, so electric. It was Lázár. He was standing by a pillar talking to our hostess, but his eyes were on me. We hadn’t seen each other for a year.
The footmen opened the mirror-covered double doors and people started filtering into the dimly lit, candle-illuminated dining hall, everyone moving as though they were part of a theatrical procession.
Lázár came over to me.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, his voice choked back, almost formally.
“Why?” I asked, my voice a little hoarse, still dizzy with success.
“Something is different with you,” he said. “I just wanted to say I am sorry now for the cheap trick we once played on you. Do you still remember it? …”
“I remember,” I said. “Please don’t give it a thought. Geniuses love to play.”
“Are you in love with someone?” he asked, perfectly calm, perfectly serious, looking me straight in the eye.
“Yes,” I replied just as calmly, just as solemnly. “With my husband.”
We were standing in the doorway of the dining hall. He looked me over from head to foot. Very softly and with enormous sympathy, he whispered:
“Poor soul.”
Then he gave me his arm and led me to the table.
He was one of my neighbors at supper. The other was an aged count who had no idea who I was and kept paying me overblown compliments. Next to Lázár, on his left, was seated the wife of a famous diplomat, who spoke only French. The food too was French. Between courses and pieces of French conversation Lázár turned to me and said in a very low voice, naturally, without any prevarication, as though we were simply continuing a discussion begun much earlier:
“And what have you decided to do?”
I was slowly working my way through the poultry and the sauce. I leaned over the plate with knife and fork in hand, smiled at him, and answered as lightly as if it were the merest chitchat.