Pierre was fully aware of the attractions of this adaptable and supple companion, who followed him with obedient ease and wore low rubberized heels. Fromentine indulged his weaknesses.
“This is the way I like to visit museums,” she said, “you really do know how to see!”
“And choose,” Pierre replied.
She looked at him with a radiant and firm gaze, trying to give the verb that he had uttered without any ulterior motive a romantic, fateful meaning.
“You have to know a great deal to be able to choose,” she added with schoolgirl admiration. “You probably have to have loved a great deal and suffered a great deal.”
“I’m a good coach.”
“Most of all, you’re a good teacher. And not in the least weird, whatever people say. I pretend to move slowly because that’s how the family moves, but I never get tired. In the mountains, I scatter the hordes. Phew! I’m so hot!”
“Let me take your bag and your silver-fox.”
“I’d never allow a man to carry anything.”
She joked teasingly about gentlemen who offer to take your clothing and who, when you hand it to them, don’t forgive you.
They were now striding through the schools, the countries, the glories, the centuries. It was becoming a race, a splendid competition that left art-lovers astonished and wardens amazed. The partitions of the Louvre were turning into hedges and the polished staircases into rivers.
They were hardly speaking to one another any more, they were aiming purely to outdo each other, they “justified themselves through distance”, to use Fromentine’s words. She admired this tall fellow, who was energetic and efficient, as calm in his activities as he was sitting in an armchair; from time to time she asked him the odd opinion as she would a true friend, and when he gave it to her she would respond simply with pious silence and an earnest, thoughtful demeanour.
She certainly had a hold on him, this man in a hurry. With a sure instinct, she had seen through his weaknesses, and she was entering into his lively, perverse game with the innocent dishonesty of virgins.
“I’m not like Angélique,” she would say, “I don’t enjoy painting at all. All I enjoy is exercise. I seek whatever delights me, whatever uplifts me, what transports me!”
With that complete lack of discernment characteristic of men whose quirks are encouraged, Pierre considered Fromentine to be loyal, honest and natural.
“Do you know that you would make an excellent secretary?” he said.
This frantic canter through the necropolis of art, the sudden absence of her sisters, the irritating cries of “We’re closing, we’re closing”, this “marvellous” proposal that had just been made to her all had a dazzling effect on Fromentine. She, in turn, felt a childish need to provoke and astonish. She leant over to Pierre and told him in all seriousness:
“You are prolific.”
They found themselves in the Salon Carré just at the moment when the wardens were shutting up shop. The closing bell was ringing. The immortal masterpieces, warm, well protected and sure of a good night, would now be able to cohabit without any admirers other than firemen on their rounds.
Angélique, looking pale and weary, and Hedwige, hobbling like Ribera’s Clubfoot, were waiting for their sister, who arrived with five minutes to spare, the sole representative of the family left in the company of the space-gobbler. Pierre was very pleased to have loosened the Boisrosés’ ties. Fromentine looked radiant.
“Monsieur Niox has taken me on as a secretary!” she exclaimed.
“Now all you need is to learn how to spell,” said Angélique.
CHAPTER XIII
MADAME DE BOISROSÉ was shuffling cards as she waited for her daughters.
For some time now, she was occasionally on her own. In this bedroom, where four female existences used to unfold harmoniously, something had changed. Bonne felt it as an almost physical sensation, as though a strong draught from outside had blown away the warmth and the aroma of family virtues. She even gave this draught its proper name; but although she had figured everything out, she apportioned no blame, she said nothing and pretended she had not noticed anything, for, as monarch of this small state, she possessed that essential quality that monarchs have, that of not intervening until the last moment. This did not prevent her from getting dreadfully bored. And so, when the cleaning lady came to announce Madame de La Chaufournerie, she was delighted to welcome her.
Madame de La Chaufournerie was a tiny tinted and painted old lady, who scurried about in a self-effacing way, and who only took centre stage at tragic moments, just as the chorus occupies the proscenium arch while kings and queens are murdering one another in Mycenaean palaces. Bonne suspected her of having the evil eye and only proffered two fingers in the shape of a horn to greet her, but she happily put up with her because she could pour out her feelings freely in her presence, which is the only pleasant form of conversation; this confidante’s deafness and failing memory guaranteed discretion. Bonne treated her with disdainful indulgence; she simultaneously despised her and felt sorry for her for having married off her two daughters to officers who hadn’t a penny, which — though irritating in the circumstances — made them perfectly happy, since it meant being far away from their mother.
Madame de La Chaufournerie, though lifeless to herself, had not finished sacrificing herself for her children, bequeathing them virtually her entire pension, doing without everything for their sake, wearing herself out doing their shopping and considering herself happy if her daily advice — which she lavished on them by letter (even though she lived in the same neighbourhood) and which covered the full range of a woman’s existence, from the shape of her hairstyle to what precautions to take against microbes — was, if not exactly followed, received without impatience. Her life was like a perpetual battle in which, claws splayed and holding her breath, she was ready to pounce on any dangers that might threaten her daughters. She had the heart of a soldier in the heat of battle, paying no attention to hunger, thirst, exhaustion, fear or what was impossible; in the heroic atmosphere in which she immersed herself, the amenities of life — pleasure, comfort, respect, politeness — played no part and even had no meaning; this fragile little old lady was tough as a trooper, she attacked and surmounted whatever obstacle lay in her path and made herself unbearable wherever she went. As a result, she had no friends, which did not matter to her since she had no need of them, and the only person she saw was Bonne de Boisrosé in whom she believed, quite incorrectly, she recognized a motherly love that resembled her own.
Barely had she entered the room than Madame de La Chaufournerie came, as was her wont, straight to the point.
“I no longer see your daughters,” she said, “or rather I no longer see them from my window. Fromentine, in particular. Where are they rushing off to like that?”
“What, Herminie,” Bonne drawled, “What! Didn’t you know that Fromentine has become secretary to a well-known antique dealer?”
Herminie, who, once she had asked her questions, was not bothered about the answers, launched into a long speech that had not the least connection with the Boisrosé girls. She jumbled her sentences together in a uniform vocal register that prevented one from remembering any of them. This monotonous verbiage plunged Madame de Boisrosé into an extremely pleasant sort of hypnotized doze in which she poured out her feelings aloud.