The Woman and the Puppet E-Book

Pierre Louys

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 149

Beschreibung

One of the great novels of obsessive love which has inspired 5 films.

Das E-Book The Woman and the Puppet wird angeboten von Dedalus und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

THE AUTHOR

Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925) was influential in symbolist circles, but was subsequently overshadowed by his prestigious friends: Apollinaire, Mallarmé, Gide, Valery, Debussy and Wilde (who dedicated Salomé to him and said of Louÿs: ‘he is too beautiful to be a man and should be careful of the gods’).

An important critic, poet and novelist in his day, his reputation now rests on The Woman and The Puppet, one of the great novels about obsessive love.

THE TRANSLATOR

Jeremy Moore was born in 1968 and after reading History at Reading University travelled widely in Europe, Africa, India and South America before settling in France. He studied French and Spanish Literature at the University of Toulouse and is now a freelance translator and editor.

Siempre me va V. diciendo

Que se muere V. por mí:

Muérase V. y lo veremos

Y después diré que sí.

(You’re always saying

That you’d die for me:

So let’s see you die,

And then I’ll agree.)

Contents

Title

The Author

Chapter One

How One Word Written on an Eggshell Served as Two Successive Notes

Chapter Two

In Which the Reader Learns the Diminutive Forms of the Spanish Christian Name “Concepción

Chapter Three

How, and for what Reasons, André did not go to Concha Pérez’s Rendezvous

Chapter Four

Apparition of a Little Moorish Girl in a Polar Landscape

Chapter Five

In which the Same Person Reappears in a More Familiar Setting

Chapter Six

In which Conchita Makes Herself known, Holds Herself Back, and Disappears

Chapter Seven

Which ends in a Tailpiece of Black Tresses

Chapter Eight

In which the Reader Begins to Understand Just who the Puppet is in this Story

Chapter Nine

In which Concha Pérez Undergoes her third Metamorphosis

Chapter Ten

In which Mateo Finds Himself Present at an Unforeseen Spectacle

Chapter Eleven

How There Seems to be an Explanation for Everything

Chapter Twelve

Scene Behind a Closed Iron Gate

Chapter Thirteen

How Mateo Received a Visit, and what Ensued

Chapter Fourteen

In which Concha Changes her Way of Life, but not her Character

Chapter Fifteen

Which is the Epilogue and Also the Moral of this Story

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

HOW ONE WORD WRITTEN ON AN EGGSHELL SERVED AS TWO SUCCESSIVE NOTES

The Spanish Carnival does not end, as does ours, at 8 o’clock on the morning of Ash Wednesday. The sepulchral odour of the memento quia pulvis es, reminding us that we are but dust, hangs over the marvellous gaiety of Seville for four days only, and on the first Sunday in Lent the entire Carnival comes to life again.

This is the Domingo de Piñatas, Cooking-pot Sunday, the Great Festival. Everyone in the working-class district has changed their costume, and a brightly-coloured horde of screaming kids can be seen running through the streets, their small brown bodies decked out in red, blue, green, yellow or pink tatters of what were once mosquito nets, curtains or ladies’ petticoats, and which float behind them in the sunshine. They group together on all sides in tumultuous battalions that wave a rag about on the end of a stick and conquer the alleys with loud cries, incognito under their velvet masks, which let the delight in their eyes escape through the two holes. “Hey, you there! Who am I then?” they shout, and the crowd of grown-ups makes way for these terrifying masked invaders.

Countless dark heads throng the windows and the enclosed balconies. All the young girls from miles around have come to Seville for the day, and they lean forward in the sunlight, their heads weighed down under an abundance of hair. Confetti falls like snow. The girls’ fans cast a pale blue shadow over their delicate powdered cheeks. Screams, shouts and laughter hum and shrill in the narrow streets. On this Carnival day, several thousand townspeople make more noise than the whole of Paris put together.

Nevertheless, on 23rd February 1896, Piñatas Sunday, André Stévenol viewed the approaching end of the Seville Carnival with a slight feeling of resentment, for this essentially amorous week had not provided him with any new love affair. And yet, after a few stays in Spain, he knew with what suddenness and what candour close ties are still often established or severed in this eternally primitive land, and so he was grieved that neither fortune nor opportunity should have favoured him.

The only exception had been when a young girl with whom he had engaged in a long battle of streamers between the street and the window had run downstairs, after beckoning to him, in order to hand him a small red bouquet, saying, in her Andalusian accent, “Thank you very much, sir”. But she had gone back up again so quickly and, besides, seen close up she had proved such a disappointment, that André had contented himself with putting the bouquet into his buttonhole and the woman out of his mind. And the day just seemed even emptier.

4 o’clock rang out from twenty bell towers. He left Las Sierpes, passed between la Giralda and the ancient Alcázar and, following the calle Rodrigo, came to las Delicias, a Champs-Elysées of shady trees running alongside the immense Guadalquivir river, that was teeming with vessels.

It was there that the fashionable Carnival took place.

In Seville, the leisured classes are not always rich enough to be able to afford three square meals a day, but they would rather go hungry than deny themselves the external luxury which for them consists uniquely in the possession of a four-wheeled carriage and a pair of flawless horses. This small provincial town can boast fifteen hundred of these privately-owned conveyances, often old-fashioned in design, but rejuvenated by the beauty of the animals; moreover, they are occupied by countenances of such noble extraction that, given the fine picture they present one would never dream of poking fun at the surrounding frame.

André Stévenol managed with great difficulty to push his way through the crowd that lined both sides of the vast, dusty avenue. The cries of children plying their trade rose above everything else: “Eggs! Eggs! Who wants eggs? Tuppence a dozen!” It was the egg-fight.

In yellow wickerwork baskets hundreds of eggs were piled up. They had been emptied, then filled with confetti and sealed up again with a flimsy wrapper. The idea was to fling them with all one’s might, like schoolchildren playing ball, at people’s faces as they happened to go past in their slow-moving carriages. And the caballeros and the señoras, standing on their blue seats, and sheltering as best they could behind their small pleated fans, returned fire on the dense crowd.

Right at the outset André had filled his pockets with these harmless missiles, and he fought with spirit.

It was a genuine combat, for although the eggs never injured anyone, they could still give you a sharp blow before bursting into a cloud of coloured snow, and André found himself flinging his a little more vigorously than was really necessary. On one occasion, he even broke a fragile tortoiseshell fan in two. But then, fancy turning up to a free-for-all of this kind with a ballroom fan! And he carried on as if nothing had happened.

Carriages went by, some full of women, others bearing lovers, families, children or friends. André watched this happy multitude stream past, buzzing with laughter in the early spring sunshine. On several occasions his gaze came to rest on a pair of wonderful eyes, for the young girls of Seville, instead of lowering their eyelids, accept the tribute of such stares, which they hold for a long time.

As the game had already been going on for an hour, André felt that he could withdraw, and he was hesitantly turning his last egg around in his pocket when he suddenly saw the young woman whose fan he had broken reappear.

She was stunning.

Deprived of the screen that had for a while protected her delicate, laughing features, and exposed on all sides to the attacks that came from both the crowd and the neighbouring carriages, she had resigned herself to the inevitable battle and, standing up, with her hair dishevelled, panting and flushed from the heat and from sheer high spirits, she was giving as good as she got!

She looked about twenty-two years old, but she must have been nearer eighteen. As to her being Andalusian, there could be no doubt about that. She possessed those wonderful looks that are born of the mixing of Arabs with Vandals – Semites with Germans – which quite exceptionally brings together, in one small European valley, all the contrasting elements of perfection of both races.

Every inch of her long, supple body was expressive. You felt that even if her face were veiled, you would still be able to guess her thoughts, and that she spoke with her torso just as she smiled with her legs. Only women who do not have to spend long Northern winters huddled around the fire possess this grace and this freedom. Her hair was really a deep reddish brown, but from a distance it shone almost black as it covered her nape with its thick conch-like form. Her cheeks, whose contours were extremely smooth, seemed to have been dusted with that delicate bloom which shades the complexion of Creoles. The thin edges of her eyelids were naturally dark.

André, pushed forward by the crowd right up to the carriage steps, gazed at her attentively for some time. He smiled, feeling quite overcome, and the rapid beating of his heart told him that this was one of those women who would play an important part in his life.

Without losing a moment, for the flow of carriages that had been brought to a temporary standstill might start moving again at any second, he stepped back as best he could. Then he took the last of his eggs out of his pocket, wrote in pencil on the white shell the Spanish for I love you and, picking a moment when the stranger’s eyes had fastened on his, he gently tossed the egg up to her, like a rose.

It landed in the young woman’s hand.

The Spanish word for to love (“querer”) is an amazing verb that says everything, for it also means to wish, to desire and even to seek and to cherish. By turns, and according to the inflection one gives to it, it can express the most imperious passion or the merest passing fancy. It can be either an order or an entreaty, a declaration or plain condescension. Sometimes it is just ironic.

The look with which André accompanied it simply signified: “I would love to love you”.

As if she had somehow guessed that this eggshell bore a message, the young woman slipped it into a small leather bag that was hanging in the front part of her carriage. She was doubtless going to turn round, but the streaming procession swept her swiftly away towards the right and, with the arrival of other carriages, André lost her from view before he had a chance to force his way through the crowd in pursuit of her.

Moving away from the pavement, he was able to get clear, and run into a side-alley. But the multitude that filled the avenue hindered his progress, and by the time he had managed to climb up onto a bench which gave him a commanding view of the battle, the young face he was seeking had disappeared.

Slowly and sorrowfully, he made his way back through the streets. As far as he was concerned, a cloud had suddenly been cast over the entire Carnival, and he was angry with himself about the wretched misfortune that had just cut short his adventure. Had he been more determined, he might perhaps have been able to find a way through between the carriage wheels and the front row of the crowd. But where could he hope to find that woman again now? Did she even live in Seville? If, as ill luck would have it, this was not the case, then where should he look for her – in Cordoba, in Jerez, or in Malaga? It was just impossible.

And, little by little, through some deplorable trick of the imagination, the mental picture he had of her increased in charm. Certain facial details, that in themselves would scarcely have been worthy of note, unless for curiosity’s sake, became in his memory the principal reasons for his feeling of heartrending tenderness. Thus he had noticed that instead of letting the two locks of loose hair above her temples hang down straight, she gave them extra body by forming them into two round loops with curling tongs. It was not a very original style, and plenty of women in Seville went to the same trouble; but no doubt their type of hair was not so well-suited to the perfection of these ball-shaped ringlets, for André could not recall having seen any which, even from a distance, could bear comparison with hers.

Furthermore, the corners of her lips were extremely mobile. Animated by a flame of varying intensity, both their shape and their expression were continually changing – now nearly invisible, now almost curling up; round or thin, pale or dark. Oh, one could find fault with all the rest, and maintain that her nose was not Greek, nor her chin Roman; but not to have blushed with pleasure at the sight of those two little corners of her mouth – why, that would have been quite unthinkable!

His thoughts had run on thus far when a rough cry of “Look out there!” made him take cover in an open doorway. A carriage went past in the narrow street at a jog trot.

And in this carriage there was a young woman who, on seeing André, threw him, ever so gently, as one throws a rose, an egg that she was holding in her hand.

By a stroke of good fortune, it rolled over as it fell and did not break, for André, utterly astounded by this fresh encounter, had made no attempt to catch it in mid-air. The carriage had already turned the street corner by the time he stooped down to pick the egg up.

The words for I love you could still be read on the smooth, round shell, and no others had been added; but a bold flourish, seemingly carved with the point of a brooch, completed the final letter, as if to reply with the same message.

CHAPTER TWO

IN WHICH THE READER LEARNS THE DIMINUTIVE FORMS OF THE SPANISH CHRISTIAN NAME “CONCEPCIÓN”

However, the carriage had turned the street corner, and now one could only faintly distinguish the sound of the horses’ hooves as they rang out on the flagstones near the Giralda.

André chased after it, anxious not to let slip this second, and perhaps final, opportunity. He arrived just as the horses, which had slowed down to a walking pace, were disappearing into the shadow of a pink house that stood on the Plaza del Triunfo.

The large black iron gates opened and then closed again as a woman’s silhouette swiftly passed between them.

It would no doubt have been more sensible to have prepared the ground beforehand, to have made enquiries, to have found out her name, and asked about her family and her social position, and the kind of life she led, before rushing headlong like this into the unknown, into an affair in which, as he knew nothing, he would have no control. Nevertheless, André could not bring himself to leave the square without having made at least an initial effort, and so once he had quickly run his hand over his hair and checked that his tie was properly done up, he resolutely rang the bell.

A young butler appeared behind the gate, which he did not open, and said:

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“Please have my card sent in to the señora.”

“To which señora, sir?” the servant calmly replied, a slight note of suspicion entering his otherwise respectful voice.

“To the one who lives in this house, I should think.”

“But what is her name?”

André, whose patience was already wearing thin, did not reply.

“Would you please be so kind, sir,” continued the servant, “as to inform me into which señora’s presence I am to show you.”

“But your mistress is expecting me, I tell you.”

The butler bowed, raising his hands slightly as he did so, in a gesture intended to convey the impossibility of the request. Then he withdrew, without opening the gates, or even having taken the card.

In his anger André quite forgot his manners, and he rang a second and then a third time, as if he were at a tradesman’s door. “A woman who responds so promptly to such a declaration,” he said to himself, “can hardly be surprised at one’s insistence in trying to gain admittance to her house. She was on her own in las Delicias, she must live alone here, and she’s the only one who can hear the noise that I’m making at the moment.” He was forgetting that the Spanish Carnival allows certain fleeting liberties that cannot possibly be continued into normal, everyday life with any likelihood of receiving the same welcome.

The door remained shut and the house in silence, as if it were empty.

What should he do? For a while he walked up and down the square in front of the windows and the enclosed balconies, at which he was still hoping to see the longed-for face appear, and perhaps even some sort of sign … But it was all in vain, and he resigned himself to having to go back to his hotel.