A Woman's Affair E-Book

Liane de Pougy

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Dedalus European Classics
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 411

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

This is the first English translation of Liane de Pougy's 1901 novel A Woman's Affair (Idylle Saphique) which shocked French readers with its lesbian lover story, and is based on Liane de Pougy's affair with Natalie Barney.Despite her beauty and her riches, Annhine de Lys, one of the most notorious courtesans of 1890s Paris, is bored and restless. Into her life bursts Flossie, a young American woman, and everything changes. The love she offers Annhine is dangerous, perverse and hard to resist. Ignoring the warnings of her best friend, Annhine encourages the affair. Yet she cannot commit: she advances, retreats, becomes bewildered, ill. After a tragic incident at a masked ball, Annhine leaves Paris to make a long tour through Europe. But the attempt to put time and distance between them comes to nothing and the fateful relationship must run its course.

Leseprobe

The Translator

Graham Anderson was born in London. After reading French and Italian at Cambridge, he worked on the books pages of City Limits and reviewed fiction for The Independent and The Sunday Telegraph. As a translator, he has developed versions of French plays, both classic and contemporary, for the NT and the Gate Theatre, with performances both here and in the USA. His publications include The Figaro Plays (Beaumarchais) and A Flea in Her Ear (Feydeau). He has translated Sappho by Alphonse Daudet, Chasing the Dream and A Woman’s Affairby Liane de Pougy for Dedalus.

His own short fiction has won or been shortlisted for three literary prizes. He is married and lives in Oxfordshire.

Contents

The Translator

Introduction

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

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Dedalus Celebrating Women’s Literature 2018–2028

Copyright

Introduction

Liane de Pougy was a high-profile courtesan in the Paris of the 1890s. Her picture appeared in the popular papers, on souvenir postcards, on flyers and advertisements for theatrical entertainments. She performed as a dancer, in tableaux and as an occasional actor at a number of theatres, notably the Folies Bergère. She attracted the attention of a series of wealthy lovers and within a few years she had acquired celebrity status among the fashionable women of the demi-monde. When still in her mid-twenties, and possibly in imitation of her friend and mentor, Valtesse de la Bigne, who had written a fictionalised account of a courtesan’s life, Isola, in 1876, Liane de Pougy embarked on her own similar project.

A minor sub-genre of ‘courtesan novels’ had existed throughout the nineteenth century. The high-class prostitute’s life sometimes became a subject for mainstream writers, attended by a degree of public outrage and plentiful sales. They seemed to be either heavy-handed or salacious, and rarely written from first-hand experience, in the view of Liane de Pougy. She had a poor opinion of Zola’s Nana (1880) for instance, and had little good to say about Colette, who, according to Pougy, ‘appeals to her readers’ latent sensuality, she titillates sex… tries to intoxicate, is well aware of the vulnerable spots and flavours her salad accordingly. It works; it works with everyone; not with me.’ (Mes cahiers bleus). An element of professional jealousy is at work here. The two women were of nearly the same age (and each lived to the same age, 81) but it was Liane who made her own career, as celebrity courtesan, ‘actor’ and then writer, whilst Colette, as it appeared, had achieved nothing of her own. The early 1900s saw the publication of Colette’s Claudine novels, under the name of her husband Willy, and also most of Liane de Pougy’s works. Colette’s real fame came with Chéri (1920) and Le blé en herbe (1923), when both women were in their middle age. Colette might have been a good writer, as Liane acknowledged, but she felt that her own work was fresher, more genuine, more vécu, lived.

In 1898, Liane de Pougy published her first novel, L’insaisissable, which she had begun in about 1895 while fulfilling professional engagements in St Petersburg. Its courtesan heroine, Josiane de Valneige, recounts to an old flame her many adventures and misadventures. At one level her stories paint a vivid and glamorous picture of life in the demi-monde, for Josiane is hedonistic, energetic and ambitious. Yet disappointment and regret always lie beneath the surface if one wishes, in such a world, to find fulfilment in true love. In the second half of the novel, a newly chaste and idealistic Josiane pursues the path of love with an unworldly younger man only to have her hopes cruelly dashed. There is nothing out of the ordinary, in L’insaisissable, in terms of theme or plot; what does emerge is the author’s distinctive voice. Her protagonist’s verve, contrariness and optimism reflect the character of a woman who both embraced and stood out from the stereotype of the belle époque courtesan.

Liane de Pougy was born in 1869, not in Paris but in La Flèche, a small town some forty miles from Tours. Her name was Anne-Marie Chassaigne. Her convent education ended at the age of sixteen, when she became pregnant by a naval officer called Armand Pourpe. Their son, Marc, was born in 1887. The family moved to Marseille, following Armand’s posting, but the marriage was not a success. When the naval man reacted with violence to discovering his wife with a lover, Anne-Marie Pourpe ran away to Paris, leaving her son to be looked after by his paternal grandparents. Some hard months followed, financed by small parts on stage and by prostitution, which are briefly referred to in her most significant novel, Idylle saphique. Her bold character and unusual looks soon assured her advancement in life. At a time when female beauties tended to the opulent and statuesque, Liane de Pougy was different.

‘Shall I draw my physical portrait?’ she asks in Mes cahiers bleus. ‘Tall, and looking even more so: 1.68 metres, 56 kilos in my clothes. I run to length – long neck, face a full oval but elongated, pretty well perfect; long arms, long legs. Complexion pale and matt, skin very fine… My nose? They say it’s the marvel of marvels… Hair thick and very fine, incredibly fine, a pretty chestnut brown.’

And of her character: ‘Am I vain? At bottom, yes. Not outwardly. I am aware of my beauty, naturally enough – the nation’s Liane could hardly have remained unaware of it… I have a persistently naïve side which makes my first reaction to anything one of delighted amazement, whether it’s a dress, a painting, a house, a piece of furniture, a book, a poem, a gesture, a face. On second thoughts I return to reality. So I seem very changeable and in fact I am changeable, oh dear yes, tremendously so. I’m always turning coats completely, and doing it with the utmost sincerity.’

Liane de Pougy’s new name came to her in two parts: Liane she adopted for herself on arrival in Paris; de Pougy she borrowed from one of her early aristocratic lovers. She was to have many others. In 1899 she met the American adventuress and writer Natalie Clifford Barney and began an impassioned if short-lived affair (although the two women remained close friends for most of their lives). Liane’s attraction to women was natural: if anything, she preferred them to men. It was just that the money and power lay in men’s hands and her courtesan’s livelihood depended on the one sex while her heart found more fulfilment with the other. Idylle saphique, written in 1899 and 1900, and which was something of a succès de scandale on publication in 1901, is a novel based on real life. Jean Chalon, Natalie Barney’s biographer, writes (in his introduction to the 1987 reprint by des Femmes):

‘My friend (Natalie) made me a present of her copy of Idylle saphique… She enjoyed giving me the keys to the characters. Yes, she was Flossie then, under the same name as the Flossie in the Claudine novels of Colette. Yes, Annhine de Lys was Liane de Pougy. Altesse is that famous Valtesse de la Bigne who was one of the models Zola used for his Nana. Beneath the name Jack Dalsace it is easy enough to recognise Jean Lorrain. As for Annhine de Lys’ official lover, “head of a major bank”, Maurice de Rothschild was the man who, along with the king of Portugal and a few other powerful individuals, enjoyed the privilege of counting among Liane’s protectors.’

Idylle saphique is a more accomplished piece of work than the debut novella L’insaisissable, although its heroine has the same blue eyes and golden curls as in the earlier works, the same impetuosity, love of luxury and yearning for fulfilment. But in this book, both more cynical and more idealistic, women, it is suggested, can be self-sufficient, at least in the emotional and spiritual spheres, while men are at best a necessary evil. Instead of amusing her readers with a parade of unreliable men, as in L’insaisissable, Liane de Pougy broadens the canvas, from the high society of an artists’ ball to the low life of Montmartre, from Sarah Bernhardt at the Comédie Française (in a chapter largely provided by Natalie Barney) to destitute actors starving in garrets and broadsides against the patriarchal system. There are abrupt changes of tone and scene – Liane de Pougy’s ‘changeability’ – comic fantasies, mystical reveries and underlying it all, the sense of a struggle towards some greater good, some fairer world, which may or may not be ‘saisissable’, graspable, but which is the driving force of life.

In 1910, now forty, Liane de Pougy married a minor Romanian aristocrat, Prince Georges Ghika. He was many years younger, and sometimes a difficult man, but the marriage lasted more or less intact until his death in 1945.

In December 1914, Marc Pourpe, Liane’s son and now an aviator, was killed in an air crash in the early phases of the Great War. His death plunged Liane into deeper retrospection about her past life, inclining her to seek atonement, or answers, in religion.

On a car journey in Savoy in 1928, Liane and Georges Ghika stopped by chance at a convent which, when investigated, proved to be the Asylum of Saint Agnes, a home for children with birth defects. Profoundly moved by the children’s plight and the nuns’ devotion, Princess Ghika became a lifelong supporter of the asylum, seeking donations from her wide circle of wealthy friends and making frequent visits in person.

When the Second World War arrived, Liane de Pougy was seventy. She and Georges had escaped the worsening situation two years before by establishing themselves in Lausanne, where she remained for the last decade of her life. Following her husband’s death, she sought admission to the order of Saint Dominic as a tertiary. She died in December 1950 as Sister Anne-Marie de la Pénitence and was buried in the grounds of the Saint Agnes Asylum.

Liane de Pougy’s published works:

L’insaisissable 1898

La mauvaise part: Myrhille 1899

L’enlisement (play) 1900

Idylle saphique 1901

Ecce homo! D’ici et de là (short stories) 1903

Les sensations de Mlle de la Bringue 1904

Yvée Lester 1906

Yvée Jourdan 1908

Mes cahier bleus 1977

Mes cahiers bleus, Liane de Pougy’s diaries, written between 1919 and 1941, were posthumously published in France in 1977, and translated as My Blue Notebooks by Diana Athill in 1979.

L’insaisissable (Chasing the Dream), Liane de Pougy’s first novel, is now available from Dedalus Books, who also publish Jean Lorrain’s best known novel, Monsieur de Phocas.

I

‘Oh, Tesse, I’m so bored… my life is a desert! The programme never changes: the Bois, the races, fittings at the couturier’s. Then, to end an insipid day, dinner, and what an occasion that is…! Imprisoned in a fashionable restaurant so cramped for space you can’t breathe, and the air usually foul with cooking smells and tobacco fug… in the company of various friends. And what friends, too – if you can call them that, the thousand and one acquaintances of greater or lesser interest that chance throws our way…! Then the evening ends with… well, what a way to end it… oh! Now, this evening, I say: bother the lot of them! I’ve had as much as I can take, I want to stay here at home, just with you. They can all go hang…! Ernesta! Don’t put out any clothes for me, give me my old dressing gown, the pink flannel, you know, my monk’s robe with a hood and waist cord. No ribbons or laces! Enough of all these frills, they’re getting on my nerves! Today I want to pare myself down to the essential me. Ah, Tesse, Tesse, I’m so tired of life! I’m so bored! And tonight, you see, it’s just too much. Oh…! Here we are in the middle of Paris with all its distractions, the envy of Europe, and ten thousand times over I’d rather be alone here, with you and my dog, my pretty Princess…! Princess, come here! Isn’t she pretty! Here, quick, a kiss… a kiss for her mummy! Off you go now, my funny little sweet-heart, as Maindron says in Saint-Cendre… have you read it, Tesse…? It’s charming… is everything ready? Good, I’m going to take these things off. Won’t it be lovely, Tesse, dear, to be alone together, woman to woman, able to relax over dinner and gossip, elbows on the table, free of corsets and, especially, of irritating people…! This life of ours is so witless and silly! It brings no satisfaction to the soul or the mind and, most of the time, has nothing to offer but a level of materialism I find both tiresome and disconcerting! I promise you, Tesse, if I didn’t have – fortunately, and to a very high degree, exaggeratedly even – the sensual impulse that marks out real women from the others, I wouldn’t be able to bear it. You see, when I shrink back inside myself, privately and silently, in those rare moments when the whirlwind allows me a little respite, what a void…! What banality, what disgust and sadness at the same time…! Then I consider myself a poor little thing, much to be pitied, for my soul is very good and very upright. You know that, Tesse, you know the sort of person I am. I’m a child, I have a huge need for tenderness, advice, protection, and I find myself surrounded by feelings of every sort except the ones that would be so dear to me! I bitterly regret feeling alive… I’d like to exist as nothing but a doll, a brute being, everything I appear to be and everything that I am not, alas! With nothing good ahead of me, time slips past in the same old ways… every hour brings some disappointment and a sense of fatigue, and I ask myself why…? Why…? Why all this…?’

Carried away by her outburst, the delicate creature threw herself into her friend’s arms and began to heave great sighs.

‘Come now, come now, Annhine, such a pretty thing! I don’t recognise you any more! What’s brought on this sudden attack of misery, there must be a reason, surely? You’re not explaining yourself clearly… has something gone wrong…? Has someone said you can’t have something you wanted?’

‘No… no…’ And the enervated Annhine shook her head. ‘No, Tesse, you don’t understand! This is a special moment for me. I’m giving you a glimpse into a hidden corner of my heart, where everything is bitterness and disgust… I’m speaking frankly… intimately… I’m suffering from this life we lead…’

‘And that’s where you’re wrong, Nhinon-the-beautiful. Because a courtesan must never cry, must never suffer. A courtesan is not allowed to be like other women and feel the way they do! She must stifle sentimentality of any kind and play out her heroic and unrelenting part, in order to devote her life, her youth above all, to laughter, to joyous times, to every possible pleasure! You are wrong, Nhinon, look at me: I have a soul of iron, unbending, I want nothing out of life except beauty and pleasure, I am not minded to tolerate the slightest obstacle in my way… if it is simply a case of exercising one’s will, then I will with all my energy, believe me. So don’t be so sensitive, Nhinette, fight, you’ll turn your pawn into a queen the same as I shall… nothing easily throws me, and the day I’m no longer strong and capable, because everything comes to pass in the end, well, that’s the day I’ll smash myself to smithereens and everything will be over…’

Her agitated friend replied, her voice choking: ‘Oh, my darling Tesse, how I envy you! You are so wise, so masterful in the way you think! You’re so lucky! But me…!’

‘I am lucky because I want to be, because the day I decided to be a courtesan I erased from my life every memory, every attachment, any sense of obligation. I abdicated all claims to having what people call a soul. For me duties no longer exist, nor any responsibility except to myself and my desire! What independence! What intoxicating freedom! Annhine, just think: no more principles, no more morality, no more religion… a courtesan can do anything she likes without hiding it under a veil… without pretence, without hypocrisy, without fearing the least criticism or blame, for nothing touches her…! She is on the outside of society and its many pettinesses… fingers pointed at her? Once upon a time, perhaps, but not these days! The rebel is victorious…! Away with you, Lady of the Camellias, and long live the Aspasias and the Imperias…! You’re made of such tender stuff, my little courtesan. There’s an impish spirit abroad in this house whispering things in your ear and you must drag her back down to earth before she leads you astray! Do you not have gold in your hair? In your coffers…? And gold is our sun, for people like us… an adorable and all-powerful sun that we can put aside or scatter about as we wish! Do you not have a touch of heaven in your eyes? Pearls at your neck and behind your rosy lips…? You are delicious in your monk’s dressing gown… I think your androgyny is the thing that charms me most of all about you… enough of the philosophy of life, let’s play! Pull the hood over your head… you’re exquisite like that, Annhine… a real gem… an eighteenth century friar in miniature, all fresh complexion and curly hair! Annhine! Laugh, then! Raise your eyes to heaven and look like someone inspired while you give me your blessing… no, no, we don’t want stockings or mules, Ernesta, you’ll spoil everything… bare feet on the white carpet, that’s wonderful, your pale little feet with their long toes and transparent nails. Curse it, that’s certainly a clever manicurist you’ve got, you handsome little Franciscan…! Come here, let me hug you…! And next…’ Her voice suddenly turned grave. ‘Father, I wish to make confession…’

She slid to her knees before the pretty monk who sat down and assumed an attentive pose, severe and contemplative.

‘Begin, my daughter, and hide nothing from me!’

‘Father, my sin… is love.’

‘Ah! Good, or rather bad, for it is bad, very bad, to give way to this harmful inclination… and you have a lover, no doubt, you have…’

‘I have several, Father!’

‘Oh!’

‘Why, yes…! The first is a useful lover, I’ll even say necessary; he is old, rich, generous. I am attached to him through habit, need, a sort of affectionate friendship, a sort of duty… he is, so to speak, my lover number one, or my husband if you prefer, anyway something very nearly legitimate!’

‘Ah, good…! I understand… next…?’

‘Next comes the second: young, kind, vigorous. Oh, above all vigorous…! He gives me what the first can no longer offer. Oh, Father, what amazing pleasures with my Raoul! For nearly five years now our life together has consisted solely of moving from chaise-longue to bed! He is my lover number two, the one who really loves me, this one… my sin, my…’

‘Continue, continue… after him…?’

‘After him come the minor ones, the occasionals: a pleasant occasion, a useful occasion, an occasion I’ve been looking out for, an occasion I hadn’t expected, an occasion flattering to my self-esteem. I have the temperament for excess, you see, Father. I need love, sensual pleasure! I am a woman who burns… oh, but I know what a courtesan owes to herself and I never forget that… I enjoy myself, but only while accumulating riches, for I always make sure the pleasure I give attracts the highest possible fees, although at the supreme moment when I gasp: “I love you”, I am always sincere… or nearly always.’

‘In that case you may go in peace, my child. Great will be the forgiveness if you have greatly loved…’

Nhine sniggered as she held out her hands.

Altesse stood up, in gales of laughter.

‘It’s true, fundamentally, everything I’ve just said. Oh, how I wish you were the sort of person I am! More literal, more lively, more resolute, therefore more happy! Strange little flower that you are, going pale under the sun’s too-hot rays and expiring from the very thing that makes everyone else alive: the earth! Could your soul have its roots, then, on some distant and ethereal planet…? And could you be suffering from that infinitely mysterious ailment called exile, living as you do down here where all is mere time and desires?’

‘You’re being terribly sweet and indulgent, Tesse, my darling, though you exaggerate. Give me something new, is all I ask. Something new! For the love of God, something new…!

I can’t carry on like this! My life needs to be turned upside down, it’s essential! I need a change! Something new! New! New!’

And she beat her tiny feet feverishly on the magnificent tiger skin that covered the floor, repeating in the voice of a supplicant chanting prayers her refrain of satiety and boredom.

A ring at the doorbell interrupted her, a faint sound, only just reaching them. It was as if the stranger at the door had neither the courage nor the strength to activate the little jangling mechanism with any vigour, not daring and not wishing to disturb the courtesan’s dreams of sweetness and joy.

‘Listen, that was someone ringing…! What do you bring me, timid bell? A basket of flowers probably, or an invitation or even something in a jeweller’s box? What a little ring, so discreet… perhaps it’s nothing at all.’

‘Perhaps it’s this “something new” you’ve just been demanding so loudly,’ Tesse prophesied in grave tones.

‘Or more likely some imbecile come to disturb us! That must be it… I can sense it, I bet it is. And just as I’m really enjoying being with you this evening, trusting each other like this and sharing confidences! Ah! No! I won’t have it! Ernesta! Ernesta…!’

Ernesta came back in.

‘Madame, it’s a letter.’

‘I shan’t read it today!’

‘Madame, the person is waiting for a reply.’

‘Too bad. Tell them to come back another time, say I’m busy with something important, say I’m…’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Tesse interrupted. ‘Let me have it then. It’s a pretty paper, delicate pearl grey, a washed-out shade like the colour of your thoughts today; it seems elegant and well-intentioned at the same time. Pass it over…’

‘You want to…? Very well, let’s see…’

And the wilful child ripped open the envelope and began to read aloud: ‘For Annhine de Lys… my heart’s dream.

If you are not tired

By love that’s expired

And the dream’s still in sight,

Receive me tonight!

It’s signed: A woman unknown to you, alas! And who wishes not to remain so.’

She burst out laughing.

‘It’s weird…! What a joke…! Into the fire!’

‘No, Annhine… does it really say that? Show me…!’

‘Here you are. See?’

‘And who brought this thing, Ernesta?’

‘Madame, the person is down in the vestibule. It’s a girl, pretty, very blond, fresh, blushing, she looks a bit emotional, she refused to go into the drawing room. She says she’s waiting only for a yes or a no from madame. I think she must be an English girl.’

‘What do you say, Tesse? I think it’s rather funny. We can agree to see her, it’ll make a nice distraction.’

‘Is she well turned out?’

‘Madame, I didn’t examine her too closely, but she seemed quite smartly dressed to me: a long beige fitted coat, a large black hat with feathers and a magnificent boa, sable, I think.’

‘Let’s see her, shall we?’

‘We must! Life isn’t as silly as all that, you see, spoilt child!’

‘Yes, but…’ And Annhine giggled. ‘I have an idea… wait… you stretch out on my chaise longue among the cushions and ermine rugs and pretend to be all languid and weary, and you receive her, yes you, saying you’re Annhine de Lys. Oh, yes! This will make us laugh! And I shall be hidden… there, behind the side panels of the glass doors… I’ll leave one half open and that way I shall hear and see everything. It’ll be so funny! Will you do it…? Come on, then! There, lie down, full length… head tilted back a bit more. Keep still, let me arrange your hair… hold your handkerchief in your hand… that looks right now, that’s it! Mind you play your part well! Cough occasionally and make your voice drag a bit…! Bye, bye, Nhine, Nhinette, Nhinon! Send the young miss in, Ernesta… let the blue double curtains down, light the lamp at the end of the room, that’s right… stage well set, and warn that bold young person that Mme de Lys is a little indisposed! I’ll creep into my hiding place and the show can begin…! Let’s make it a good one…!’

This whole scene was taking place in the coquettish boudoir of Annhine de Lys, a delicious retreat in the form of a rotunda, with a décor of white and blue in which the snowy lacquers, the Louis XV trinkets, the pale silks, the fur rugs, and the Meissen and Sèvres and the gold and crystal and the flowers formed an exquisite setting for the diaphanous fairness of the adorable little mistress of this interior, a creature already famous in the demi-monde and in society at large for her eccentricities and through the very public and fascinated attention given to her slightest act and whim. Annhine was at this time about twenty-three but appeared no more than twenty. Long-boned and delicate, with her great blue eyes, dark and deep, at once innocent and perverse, with her blonde hair framing her fine features in radiantly light and looping curls, she looked like a virgin on a missal, wearing a cherub’s wig, or at times like one of those châtelaines from the Middle Ages, a dream creature, brought to perfection by the glimpse of pearly whiteness behind the elongated oval of the lips, frequently parted by her enchanting laughter.

Where did she spring from…? No one quite knew. She liked to tell a story of being found at the side of a road, in Italy, by some simple souls, on a night white with frost and mortally cold. A love child, no doubt, abandoned by a guilty mother, probably a great lady – her linen had been of the finest, and decorated with lace of rare quality… she had a little gold medallion at her neck… she was wrapped in a rich goat skin from Mongolia, white and silky – a great lady most certainly. For from whom could Annhine have inherited that proud and majestic deportment, that admirable and noble way of carrying her head, those princess-like traits, so refined and spirited, or indeed her ideas on life and the beyond, so mysterious, as if they had been vague reminiscences and distant memories of some kind that came back to her: from whom could she have inherited all this if she had really been the daughter of those country people who watched over her young childhood…?

Around the age of fifteen, Nhinon had come to seek whatever fortune might lie in store in the great city, and after the inevitable trials, setbacks and obscurity of any beginning she now found herself one of the leading lights among that world of hedonists on whom the public eye so avidly gazes.

Never missing a party or celebration, she was acclaimed by all of Paris. Poets sang her beauty, theatres fought each other for her services. Her crowning apotheosis was to catch the fancy of a great aristocrat of fabulous wealth. Queen of every realm, of joy, of beauty, of extravagance, of love, she seemed to pass through life, heedless, joyous, in accordance with her whimsical motto – As I please! – without a thought for anything else. But, alas! Annhine had a soul, which was the source of these painful periods of sudden despair! Unbalanced, said those who knew her. No, this was the seat of her trouble: Annhine had a little soul that sat ill with her body! She thought, she analysed, she had a vivid imagination and a clear mind, remarkably acute in its observations, gifts which were all useless, harmful, emotionally burdensome above all in the turbulent and bejewelled path on which her prettiness and an imperious need for luxury had launched her with such success.

Her name she had chosen from the works of Dumas… and its echoes spread from the moment she made her debut, which resulted in her having scarcely any friends among the women who felt jealous of her good luck and silently held it against her. Just one, however, stood by her: Altesse, a courtesan herself and a woman of noticeably higher intellect. They became very close. Altesse admired Annhine greatly, and, with no ulterior motive, liked the fluidity of her character, the brilliance of her chosen circle as well as her strange way of life. She helped her with her advice and was at times a salutary influence.

Altesse was then at the height of her powers, a woman whose bloom might be about to fade but whose charms, as Balzac so widely celebrates, are never more delightfully appreciated. Her fiery head of hair, its long locks flecked with flame and stippled with gold like a wild animal’s pelt, had been immortalised in a sensational novel: The Red-Headed Beauty. Her eyes were blue… very pale, with an incomparable sparkle… her small mouth, finely arched in ironic wit, brought Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to mind. Her expression was thoughtful and determined, her features had a regular, cold beauty that confirmed the poet’s verse:

I hate all movement that disturbs a line,

And never do I weep, nor ever laugh.

And further on:

To tame my docile lovers I have these

Pure mirrors that make all more beautiful.

My eyes, wide eyes, their shining eternal.1

Endowed with rare intelligence, as well as great strength of character and will, and extremely attractive, Altesse had attained a prominent position among the high-living set of Paris at a very early age. Surrounded with every imaginable luxury, she coldly lived the true courtesan’s life. Paris followed her affairs closely, her least acts noted, her witticisms quoted. ‘How charming of you to acknowledge your descent,’ she said one day to a great lady of dubious title, princess Koniarowska, who had the bad taste to lean heavily on affectations of noble birth. ‘When personally all I have to offer is my rise.’ Her motto was: Ego, and it summed her up perfectly. She was a highness indeed, aloof and without weakness.

Once, when the census lists were being drawn up, she saw that all the women of the demi-monde had timidly entered themselves, in the space where they declared their professions, as ‘of private means’ or ‘property owner’. Shamelessly, she inscribed the simple description: ‘courtesan’.

Her town house was a veritable museum; she collected the finest paintings in Paris. She had a marvellous garden in the heart of the Monceau district, and the teams of horses that drew her carriages were held to be the best turned-out. In the summer she withdrew to her château in Ville-d’Avray, where she gave splendid receptions. In the winter, she spent the very cold months in a ravishing villa, all marble and whiteness, which she had had built on the sunlit shores of the blue Mediterranean, amongst the sumptuous gardens of Monte Carlo.

Her exceptional situation distinguished her from the others and placed her above the crowd. At once, she took a particularly strong liking to Annhine, and almost every day, at the hour when elegant and worldly women withdraw to prepare themselves for the evening, around half past six, Altesse came over to chat a little with her favourite friend. They exchanged confidences, impressions, sought each other’s advice, and often they would pick up their conversation again when the dinner party or theatre visit was over.

This evening, Altesse was already feeling affected by Annhine’s desolation. So it was with pleasure and with charming grace that she lent herself to her friend’s malicious fantasy, happy that her impish and capricious spirit should now be distracted, however childishly, by whatever this unexpected visit might turn out to be, coming so conveniently to provide a diversion.

She asked, keeping her voice low: ‘All right, I’m all set, Nhinon. Do you think it could work?’

‘Very well… very well… but hush, here she comes…!’

1Baudelaire, La beauté.

II

Indeed the door swung open at that very moment and as Ernesta was announcing in bold tones: ‘Miss Temple-Bradfford,’ our two mischief-makers had the delightful floating vision of a ravishing young girl of twenty coming towards them, with halting steps and lowered eyes. Clasped in her arms was a whole garden of pale chrysanthemums and lilies with long bright gold pistils, among which a few gleaming dark red roses inserted their own graver notes. Such was her emotion that the feathers on her hat trembled and her fingers, taut with nerves, crushed the bouquet held close to her heart.

On reaching the chaise longue, she knelt and seized the white hand of Altesse, covering it with kisses. The flowers scattered in a tumble of colour and scent. Blushing, confused, she spoke in a rapid murmur, keeping her head down: ‘Thank you, Annhine, for being so good to me… it was no mistake, when I first saw you, so beautiful… oh, I don’t want to say boring things but, you see, I’m so dazzled I can’t even muster the hymn of thanksgiving I intended, to thank you with due fervour for receiving me here in your home… thank you!’

‘But tell me, strange child…’ Altesse restrained with difficulty a powerful urge to laugh. ‘Do you actually know who I am?’

‘You are the one woman in all the world who draws me to you.’

‘Where did you see me?’

‘I could say: in my dreams, in the ecstasy of my frustrated desire… ever since I knew you existed!’

‘And how long is that?’

‘For ever! But your presence in real life was revealed to me for the first time the other evening… you were in a box at the Folies-Bergère and I recognised you. I divined you straight away even though I had never seen you before, and your picture on the little cards they sell everywhere gives no idea of your divine beauty, my beautiful white rose. As you appeared to me, you were so lovely, so luminously white in your light muslin dress, pearls at your neck… you seemed so childlike, so pure… you were wearing on your breast a simple diamond cross that completed the angelic illusion perfectly!’

‘And so?’

‘And so I felt an irresistible desire to see you, to speak to you, to be close to you… and I came… without a moment’s hesitation… Annhine! Such joy! You have received me… you are good… thank you…! I know,’ she said, and once more began to kiss and stroke with delicate fingers Altesse’s pale hand and slender wrist, ‘I know it means nothing to you…’

‘No… yes, it does! Tell me who you are.’

‘You know my name. For the rest, you can put me down as crazy, but that’s all to the good… mad people have much more ravishing dreams than sensible people…!’

‘Where do you come from, mysterious passer-by?’

‘From a distant land in America. From the land of gold and liberty: San Francisco!’

‘The land of gold and liberty,’ sighed Tesse. ‘You mean Cythera isn’t the only one? And you were bold enough to leave it behind! Why?’

‘So that I might come close to you… closer to another civilisation that was more refined, more morbid… to live a little in the burning and febrile atmosphere of Sodom and Gomorrah… closer to the place where the divine couplings of the lascivious fauns of modern times may take place virtually at liberty.’

‘I see… so that’s it…! You’re…’

‘Oh, be merciful. Don’t tarnish with a name the feeling which has always had hold of me ever since I felt myself capable of feeling, which overpowers me here and now, beside you, Annhine! Don’t you know that there can be an aspect of the sublime in anything? And it seems to me that right now… at your feet… in this boudoir where everything, for me, breathes desire, the mystery of enchantment and sensuality… the scent of the flowers, all this airy silk and transparent lace… it seems to me, you see, I’m at the high altar of…’

Carried away by the feverish excitement of her own words, the strange child had little by little levelled her enamelled blue gaze, forgetting the embarrassment of her first entrance. Now she was staring at Altesse in a posture of ecstatic adoration… suddenly her look changed, to one of surprise at first, then of consternation… and finally disappointment. Her head fell back on the cushion of flowers and she murmured, through a sob: ‘Ah! I have been tricked! It isn’t you! It isn’t you! It isn’t you!’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ asked Tesse, amused.

‘No, no! It isn’t you, Annhine! Where am I? Why have I been tricked? Have pity… have pity on me!’

As she begged, great tears rolled from her eyes.

‘There now, little miss, don’t cry. Come along, it’s not as terrible as all that.’ And with a charming gesture, Altesse sat up and drew towards her the girl’s tear-stained face. ‘You mustn’t cry, you are too nice for that.’

‘No, miss, don’t cry. Here I am.’

And Annhine suddenly appeared from her hiding place.

The hat of the young visitor had, in her woe, come adrift… her head of silvery hair had come undone and it was through a veil as fine and floating as gossamer that she looked upon Annhine, the real one, bending over her in confusion and alarm at the unfortunate result of her teasing. As soon as the girl saw her, her face lit up.

‘Oh! Yes! It’s you… you’re the one I wanted to see! Wicked woman…! You’re the one…!’ And with religious devotion she prostrated herself before Annhine, then lifted the hem of her dressing gown to her lips.

‘My poor little miss…! To start with, you must sit down…’ And she tried to guide her towards a small love seat that stood at the end of the chaise longue.

‘No… at your feet… cruel woman…!’ Her body shook with great sighs of emotion. ‘And if you will allow me…’

In a single movement she shrugged off her long woollen coat and stood before them dressed, deliciously, as a Florentine pageboy, grey silk tights exquisitely moulding themselves to her shapely legs, her body admirably set off by a short dalmatic of pale green brocade decorated with foliage worked in precious stones. On the swelling part of the chest was embroidered a lily, in pearls and silver, a large water lily on its moist and greenish stalk: the flower that was Annhine’s emblem. The sleeves and collar of the shirt underneath were in finely pleated white lawn, its puffed elbows and shoulders of a velvet whose sheen reflected the dusty blue of lavender.

‘Isn’t she a pretty sight,’ Altesse said. ‘Look, Nhine, fate’s pampered favourite, look at the handsome page destiny has sent you!’

‘It is Sappho who has sent me… do you want me? Do you accept me, to serve you? Nhine, I adore you: let me feel it is possible to realise my dreams, my hopes. Don’t reject me…!’

And she set herself at Annhine’s feet.

‘Oh! What a wild little creature…!’ The slender fingers of Annhine played among the girl’s blonde curls… ‘But tell me, how did you have the courage to come to my door? Weren’t you afraid? Your family… your reputation… and then, what about me? After all, I could easily have given you a difficult reception, being the sort of woman I am!’

‘Oh, Nhinon!’ Jumping lightly to her feet she took a step towards Annhine and stopped her mouth by gracefully putting her lips to it… ‘Don’t utter such blasphemies! I’d divined everything about you!’

‘And then,’ Annhine said, disengaging herself, ‘think about it… another thing, and the most important… perhaps I don’t share your tastes and your ideas, what about that?’

‘May I point out that you said perhaps!’ observed Altesse maliciously, delighted by this unexpected entertainment.

‘Nhinon, Nhinon! I’ll convert you… and anyway, all I’m asking is for you to let yourself be loved… adored… admired. Nothing else, my Nhinon, only to accept me as your page… your fervent little pageboy of love. Will you? Will you let me employ my time – as much time as my family, for I have one here with me, alas, in Paris, and the demands of society allow (and it will give me pleasure to curtail their claims) – by coming to be with you and by telling you things in words as soft as caresses, things to distract you from the banality of your existence, or try to at any rate… and be intoxicated by your diaphanous and disturbing beauty… tell me, Nhine… will you? Madame…’ She turned towards Altesse. ‘Madame, ask her too. Plead with me, to make up for your cruel trick just now… tell me then… will you?’

‘Agreed, miss… I will… I accept you as my page, slavish servant to my beauty… my beauty, which is itself servile, alas!’

‘Have you thought about this properly, where it might lead you?’ asked Tesse, a vague feeling of worry crossing her mind.

‘Like the holy martyrs, I shall bravely go forward even unto death for the glory of my religion… and my religion is Nhinon! Nhine! Annhine de Lys!’

She stretched her hand in front of her as if to swear a solemn oath… as if she were a mystic, an ecstatic.

Annhine rose, full of joy, and went to stand in front of her mirror, near a dressing table in white lacquer on which were scattered the gold trinkets, sweet perfumes, flasks, powders and paints designed to bring her startling beauty to life.

‘Come with me, then, page! Lie on the floor just there, against the tiger’s head, and admire me at your leisure! I want to hear your story. Tell me your name… your given name…’

‘I no longer have any story to tell… at this blessed moment I abdicate personality entirely. I am nothing except your page, the page of Annhine de Lys…’ And drunk with joy, the child crawled across the thick carpets and on to the piled furs. ‘Oh! Your pretty bare foot! Oh, Nhinon… seeing you sets my heart pounding.’ And she pressed her lips to the provocative pink flesh.

‘Isn’t he sweet, Tesse, my page? Isn’t he sweet…!’ Bending down, she cupped her hand under the girl’s chin and lifted her head, then examined her, full of curiosity. ‘Isn’t he sweet! Oh, those pretty eyes, and that mauve eye-shadow underneath… oh, oh, pretty hair… you’d think a moonbeam had landed on it! Tell me, what’s your baptismal name?’

‘My…?’

‘Yes, when you were christened, the name you’re normally called!’

‘Ah! Yes, it’s Emily.’

‘Oh, that’s a terrible name for you. I once had a wicked chambermaid called that, and she betrayed me.’

‘I have a second name: Florence… Flossie for short.’

‘No… I don’t want any of that sort of thing… I shall call you Moon-Beam! Altesse – she is my best friend, my only one, you must love her as well – Tesse sometimes calls me her “sun beam”. You shall be my “moon beam”, Moon-Beam. It’s glorious! And it suits you… show me your teeth: very white, very beautiful, very beautiful, they frighten me, the mouth of a vicious child. Moon-Beam, you have a vicious mouth… it’s plain to see. Here, Tesse, look: her lips are very sensual, slightly thick, her jawline’s very strong, a bit brutal. Oh, Mademoiselle, this is very promising! Your complexion is pale, but you blush easily… your eyes are blue, but not like mine, or Altesse’s… they’re an indefinable sort of blue-grey and the pupils are enormous, dilated, devouring… your nose…’

‘Ah, Nhine, and you, you’re just so beautiful…!’ And the child, drunk with pleasure, swooned under the intoxicating effect of having Annhine leaning so closely over her.

‘Don’t interrupt… your nose is finely sculpted, it turns up a little, a vicious nose as well… all in all, you’re very cute. Not as beautiful as Altesse, or as me, and worse maybe! I forbid you to look at me with those eyes! Be so good as to lower them! What do you think of all this, Altesse, my darling Minerva? Stand up, Moon-Beam. A nice figure… no bosom to speak of, same as me, a trifle boyish. Tesse will love us… your hips are wider than mine… Tesse, speak up, you haven’t said a word! Have I done well to take on a little page looking like this?’

‘Anything you find pleasing is well done,’ Tesse replied seriously, and without the slightest hesitation.

The enchanted Moon-Beam interrupted: ‘Yes, anything you find pleasing is well done, Annhine… and for the first time in my life I give thanks to those who made me for making me like this, to your taste… I give blessings for your indulgence… Nhinon, Altesse, I feel so deeply and deliciously moved, I want to cry… to weep long, hot, sweet tears of joy!’

She picked at the flowers on the floor.

‘Nhine… these flowers were meant for you. I’d chosen all the whitest and most virginal ones I could find, in your likeness. These crimson roses, they are my heart’s blood, which beats only for you… a banal image, but a faithful one, and exact… oh, I’m so happy! I would deliver a whole litany of love if I could, my Nhine, my beauty… and I have to… I have to go away from you…’

In two seconds she had gathered her floating fair hair, put on her hat, her coat and was standing in the doorway… sending her parting look… her parting kiss towards Annhine… her voice was a low murmur, almost breaking in a wave of regret: ‘Don’t move, don’t speak, beloved women. I must fly, until tomorrow. I carry you away with me in my heart and in all my being. I am going to live on this exquisite vision of the two of you. And tomorrow, towards the third hour, may I…? Yes, I shall return…! Until tomorrow then, until tomorrow, I bid you… farewell!’

She stood motionless, in a pose of frozen contemplation, as if unable to tear herself away from the poignant sweetness of her own emotion. Then she made a sweeping gesture, like someone throwing a last kiss to people departing on a long sea voyage… an abrupt swirl of the body that caused her to vanish into the penumbra of the dusky drawing room.

III

The next morning Annhine woke up in a very bad mood. She had spent a disturbed night, almost a sleepless one, following an evening much interrupted by telephone calls and by a slight argument with Tesse, who did not entirely share her enthusiasm for Miss Florence.

‘You mustn’t rush at things like this, my lovely,’ her wise friend had said. ‘Treat it as a little fun. Let her call, but keep your eyes wide open! You’re on public view, you have people all round you, you’re in the business of accumulating wealth: this young girl suddenly turns up at your house without rhyme or reason, basically. Who knows what she might want from you? To observe you, probably, then copy you. Or for the novelty and spice of a flirtation with the beautiful Nhinon. Perhaps she’s part of a pickpocketing gang!’