The Givreuse Enigma Read online

  Two women were passing by in the twilight; he recognized their gait. Having been surprised not to find them in the church, he was even more surprised to see them there. Valentine’s face was turned toward him. She shuddered…

  Mechanically, he began walking alongside Mademoiselle Faubert, drawn by a force that interrupted the train of his thought. His exacerbated sense of smell perceived a subtle perfume of iris and amber. He was no longer thinking about Philippe; it seemed that his past and his future belonged to him, as to other beings. He heard Madeleine’s greeting and replied mechanically.

  After a short time, they found themselves outside the old house. The oblique moonlight surrounded Valentine with a magical glow. Her face shone like a water-lily flower in a twilit pool; her dress fell about her in harmonious waves and her partly-open mouth was as innocent as a child’s.

  Captive love expanded in Pierre then, like spring-time. It was a blossoming of his entire being; he no longer understood—or, rather, no longer perceived—his scruples; the imperious voice of generations overwhelmed the feeble psychic voice…

  That scene had profound echoes in Pierre’s consciousness. It contributed to the increase of his personality. For the first time, he sensed the possibility of being jealous of Philippe. It was still uncertain and intermittent, but, in the final analysis, there were moments when he thought about making the best of the other’s renunciation. Simultaneously, his love for Valentine underwent a metamorphosis; it became more feverish and more suspicious.

  Thus far, he had enjoyed a rather singular security. He gave no thought to external rivals; the issue was a private matter between him and Philippe. Perhaps because he had felt an initial manifestation of jealousy, he began to dread a change of mind on Valentine’s part. The separation, which had previously been an inchoate sadness, became a source of precise and corrosive anxieties. That too tended to create a sharper notion of his new self. From then on, he waited impatiently for the young woman’s visits; he spent longer in conversation and he did not succeed in hiding his agitation.

  Valentine was less timid. Pierre’s metamorphosis reassured her instinct. She found that he resembled Philippe less, and the hope of discovering sensible differences between them made her existence more exciting.

  One Thursday she arrived unexpectedly. It was a day when Philippe had chosen to return to the château, and the young woman knew it. Drawn by an ill-defined need to compare the two men, she wondered anxiously whether Pierre’s transformation might be a mirage created by her imagination.

  She found Madame de Givreuse alone.

  The Comtesse had just returned from her military orphanage; seated on the terrace, in the shade of the large palmate leaves of a fig-tree, she was enjoying a momentary peace. As she had received the gift of quietude, she knew how to forget the bustle of activity during rest; retaining the fine days of the past, she threw the others into the dungeons of unconsciousness. Today, she was particularly content. She did not know why; actually, she loved the double presence of Pierre and Philippe because, deep down, she loved the latter almost as much as the former. “Good day, little bird,” she said. “We have a visitor.” She did not notice the flutter of Valentine’s eyelids. “A visitor you haven’t seen for some time…”

  A chambermaid, with the curly hair in which Soldi8 believed he could read the mysterious cosmogony of the men who had raised the cromlechs and built the first pyramids, came to set the table for tea. There were muffins; Madame de Givreuse loved them.

  Pierre and Philippe appeared around a quincunx of English oaks. At first, their resemblance seemed just as exact to Valentine—but when they came closer, the young woman smiled. Philippe’s complexion was more tanned than Pierre’s, and there was something more resolute in the contours of his features; his eyes seemed clearer and bolder. There was a fever in Pierre’s pupils; his mouth was indecisive and sensitive; his entire being was inclined toward visions and the interior life. Both of them resembled the young man who had answered the call to arms less than they had before, with the result that she did not know which of them was in better accord with her memories. She did not ask herself which she might prefer. Her heart was still full of uncertainty, but she no longer doubted that a preference was possible. Above all, she felt the mystical fear that had caused her so much suffering begin to decrease.

  A short time afterwards, she saw them together again in Augustin de Rougeterre’s house, this time by chance. Perhaps because she had thought about it so often and so passionately in the interval, she found the lack of resemblance further accentuated. All three of them went to the bank of a little pool over which Babylonian willows extended their melancholy drapes. Madame de Givreuse and Rougeterre were walking ahead; the ringing voice of the Comte was making the frogs hop.

  All three of them loved that spot, where they had spent delightful moments at one time.

  “Do you remember,” Valentine suddenly asked, observing the young men closely, “the squirrel that we saw here at the end of autumn?”

  The first three words had put Philippe on his guard. His physiognomy gave nothing away, while Pierre replied: “We haven’t seen him since! He disappeared before the war…”

  She laughed lightly, marking her internal joy. Her eyes met Pierre’s; she read a painful ardor therein, and whispered to herself: “He’s the one who’s suffering more!”

  From that day forward, she thought of Pierre more often. She exaggerated everything within him that was not identical to Philippe; she created a new image, which she superimposed on the images of times past. Philippe, however, retained a mysterious power; at times, when she thought she had rid herself of him, he reappeared like an evocation and a reproach.

  A month passed, which remade hearts and the vegetation. Valentine found herself by the same pool with Pierre and Rougeterre. A domestic arrived, bringing a visiting-card. The young people were left alone.

  Their hearts were as indecisive as their words, but Pierre knew that he was gradually becoming a normal person in the young woman’s eyes. She no longer had the charming embarrassment of timid creatures. At intervals, he turned toward her; never had she seemed so multifaceted. All the gracefulness of living creatures was concentrated in her. The interplay of boughs and clouds, the twitter of woodland birds, the silvery corollas of arrowheads and the gleam of the water were transformed, and became more intoxicating…

  Valentine leaned forward to pick a pink flower that was growing in a shady spot. The friable earth yielded; Pierre scarcely had time to grab it and pull it up. Valentine uttered a little cry of alarm; she remained pressed against Givreuse’s bosom. He had not expected that violent sensation; he went pale, as if he were about to faint; his heart skipped a beat and his face was momentarily buried in her scented hair…

  “Thank you!” she said, in a faint voice, trying to smile.

  What he could see in her beautiful, still-tremulous eyes separated him from everything else. He forgot Philippe completely. He only remembered him again when she had gone. Until nightfall, he examined his conscience. It was ardent and distressed, tormented by a remorse that could not succeed in making him forget the cruel joy of the embrace.

  What have I done, though? he wondered. My gesture was necessary. Am I master of my sensations?

  But he had prolonged those sensations! He resolved to talk to Philippe.

  They met up in the ravine through which a meager river ran down to the ocean. Heavy stones loomed up; a field of gorse had been burned, leaving a black funereal void.

  “Are you unhappy?” Pierre suddenly asked.

  “I don’t know. I live…my life isn’t repulsive. I’m gradually adapting to people…”

  They were moving through sage, yarrow, umbellifers and St. John’s wort. Little batrachians were hopping about intermittently. Pierre found it difficult to make his confession. That difficulty was itself demonstrative of the changes that had taken place; previously, he had talked to Philippe as if he were talking to himself. Finally, he said: “Do
n’t you want to cut your ordeal short?”

  “No, no!” said the other, swiftly. “I’m sure that would be absolutely fatal.”

  “I’m privileged.”

  “That’s inevitable.”

  “But what if Valentine were to choose me?” Pierre went on, confusedly.

  Philippe stared at him, astonished by his tone. “We have no right to dispute Valentine’s choices.”

  “Of course—but think of what the consequences will be of the circumstances we have created.”

  “We ought to desire them, since it’s necessary for us to be two people. For Valentine, most of all, the separation is necessary. It would be intolerable for us to fight over that innocent creature. Whatever happens, I shan’t complain.”

  “What if you’re sacrificed?”

  “Sacrificed? By whom? It wasn’t you or me that decided that I should leave—it was fate.”

  “We could both give her up.”

  “Why? That would be breaking two hearts instead of one…and perhaps a great pain and a bitter memory for her. If she chooses you, I’ll bow down to the inevitable.”

  “You’ll suffer…”

  “Undoubtedly. I’ve learned to cope…I’m learning to cope with that suffering every day.”

  Pierre heard the muted tremor of a soul beneath the words. There was stoicism in Philippe’s attitude. Pierre felt badly about his companion’s distress, but he felt nevertheless that a secret life was now beginning to separate them. Twice he tried to make his confession, but he could not do it. Each time, an equivocal instinct stopped him.

  Philippe divined that confusion confusedly; it troubled him, but he was determined not to attempt to overcome it. “Whatever you do,” he said, with a sudden surge of affection, “I shall have no reproach to make to you. When I left the château, we were exactly the same as one anther. It’s the separation that has created a difference…if not fundamentally, at least superficially. Whatever you have done, I would have done!”

  “Don’t think that I’ve mentioned love to her!” said Pierre, plaintively.

  “Don’t feel constrained to remain silent!”

  They looked at one another; their unity was manifest once more, more powerful than any passion or any affection…but Pierre did not say what he had resolved to say.

  Philippe experienced a tremendous weariness, weighed down by a moral burden, and he had no other consolation than the little girl he had plucked from the unknown wood.

  “I forgot,” said Pierre, insouciantly, “to show you this…I got it this morning.” He took a note out of his wallet and held it out to Philippe.

  Philippe read:

  Dear Friend,

  I shall soon leave on a very long voyage. Perhaps you would come and bid me farewell at “The Gladioli,” where I shall be staying for a few days in order to see my friends.

  Best wishes from,

  Thérèse de Lisanges.

  Philippe found the note intriguing.

  “It’s impossible for me to go, of course,” Pierre remarked.

  “I’ll go, then,” said Philippe.

  Pierre looked at him in amazement. “Under your new name?”

  “Of course…but on your behalf.”

  “She’ll believe…”

  “She’ll believe what I tell her. I suspect that she already knows something—she’s always been able to keep abreast of things.”

  Pierre made a gesture expressing indifference.

  Philippe went to The Gladioli the following day. It was a small manor house entirely surrounded by gardens. A sleepy-eyed servant introduced him into a drawing-room with tall wood paneling and sturdy old Norman furniture. After a pause, a fascinating and complex young woman came in. Beneath a fine layer of powder, a Catalan or Latin-American complexion was discernible. The finest blood nourished ardent lips, scarlet in the center; her eyes were soft but ironic, with a hint of insolence, as black as oil, with glints of topaz. Her charming figure was in continual flux, seemingly changing its shape as she moved.

  She fixed Philippe with a gaze that suddenly seemed affectionate: “Pierre…”

  “No,” he said, smiling a trifle wanly. “I’m not Pierre de Givreuse.”

  Amazement immobilized the young woman’s features. “I was told about that!” she said, putting her hands together. “I didn’t want to believe it!”

  Embers of the past, of a bitter and incendiary love that lit up Givreuse’s life for a year, threw out a violent spark—but something else rose up, which was new, and which would not have been possible in normal circumstances.

  She studied him with avid curiosity. “I’ve never seen anything as fantastic!” she continued. “And the voice too… even more faithful than the face…and the accent…you’re not playing games with me?”

  “I’m Philippe Frémeuse, Madame.”

  “I have to believe you,” she sighed, with a little ambiguous laugh. “But it isn’t you that…” She hesitated.

  “It isn’t me that you were expecting,” said Philippe. “It’s just that Pierre isn’t able to come.”

  Her attitude became cold, hard and stern. “I don’t understand.”

  He had expected that. Although he had thought long and hard, he had found nothing to excuse his visit. There was an insurmountable distance between him and this woman, who had summoned him but did not know him. Anxiety and excitement alternated within him, and a spirit of adventure rose up within him like a flock of migratory birds.

  “Pierre asked me to offer his excuses,” he stammered. “He is…he regrets…” He floundered.

  She began to smile again, ironically and indecipherably. She wanted to know where this meeting might lead. There was an inextricable mixture of curiosity, violent memories and nascent impressions. In sum, this young man, so similar to Pierre, took her back to a past that she would have liked to revisit one more time, and mingled with that past was the possibility, if not the promise, of a renewal. “That’s all right!” she said, interrupting him. “If Pierre de Givreuse has reasons for not paying me a visit, those reasons are of no interest to me. As for you, Monsieur, although your presence might be… unusual…I consent to excuse you—but the fact remains that I don’t know you!”

  How easy it would have been if he were able to adopt his true personality! It was annoying—but at the same time, the adventure seemed to him all the more exciting. It involved a recommencement of something whose absence had extinguished all inclination and all passion. The Thérèse sitting in that massive Gothic armchair was no longer the Thérèse from which he had once separated himself, because the mysterious flame had gone out.

  “Let’s try to chat,” she said, in a bantering tone. “This can’t be very comfortable for you. Let’s see—let’s take up a thread at hazard. Have you been in combat?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “You’ve been wounded?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what are you doing now?”

  “I’m employed in aircraft manufacture, under the patronage of Monsieur de Rougeterre.”

  “A worthy patronage—he’s a man who is held in very high esteem. There are so few estimable men…” She made a weary gesture. “I know six or seven, at the most, who are alive. As for the rest…what smoke!” Her disdainful gesture indicated an invisible multitude. Her trenchant and ambiguous laughter resounded again. “What about you? Are you estimable?”

  “I don’t know…I’m trying to find myself…”

  “That’s a start. Those who are trying to find themselves form an élite of sorts. The masses never think of trying to find themselves…one would think that they know in advance that it would be futile…”

  She fell silent, and remained thoughtful for half a minute. Her long gray velvet sleeve, dangled over the hard arm of the chair; she had tilted her head back, revealing a shapely and striking neck. Her exceedingly long hair shone like a starlit pond; every undulation emitted the primitive but very refined sensuality that always emanates from beautiful hair.r />
  He studied her surreptitiously, abandoning himself to a plaintive and intoxicating disturbance; everything in him wanted to forget his bitter life. A scent of freshly-cut grass floated around this woman.

  “We’ve conversed but we’ve said nothing,” she sighed. “The difficulty is obvious. I think you must have fought bravely.”

  “Was it fighting? One no longer knows. Everything comes from the depths of the invisible. Everyone is in an immense torture chamber…and heroism doesn’t reside in fighting, but in suffering patiently.”

  “Yes, that must be so,” she sighed. “Our poor soldiers of France!”

  She had softened her tone, but behind the softness, the woman was on watch, and womanly desire, in every era, war has given them more power! “Have you suffered much?”

  “A few weeks of pain count for nothing,” he said, forcefully. “And I haven’t stopped fighting!”

  “Bravo!” she exclaimed.

  There was a pause. He thought that the visit had lasted long enough, and stood up. Then, timidly—but affecting a timidity greater than he actually felt—he asked: “Will you permit me to come again?”

  “I wouldn’t have permitted it a little while ago! I’m at home almost every day…at 4 p.m.…for the whole month. After that, alas, I have to leave for Chile, where I have important business to transact. My mother is Chilean.” She held out her hand to him. It was a small, very nimble hand, which squeezed the young man’s hand very slightly.

  II.

  He returned to The Gladioli several times. Their conversations were bizarre and fascinating. Both of them were partly reliving and partly remaking the past. Philippe recognized all of Thérèse’s coquetries, reservations and ambiguities; it was not a simple return to previous things but a new idyll. Everything had changed, but the change was not a renewal, as among those with whom we begin life. In sum, Thérèse had a charm that she could never have had again for the Givreuse of yesteryear. She seemed rejuvenated. There was less instinctive cruelty in her, a livelier freshness of sentiment.