I'll Never Be Young Again (27 page)

‘I haven’t said anything awful, have I?’

‘No.’

‘It’s wonderful of you to let me sit here and talk to you. Gosh! I get fed up by myself sometimes. I don’t mean I like talking to you because I’m bored being alone, I mean - I wouldn’t get any kick out of talking to just anyone - I’m rotten at explaining things. D’you see?’

‘Yes - of course. It’s nice of you. I’m like that, too, about not talking to anyone,’ she said.

‘Are you? That’s marvellous, isn’t it?’

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. It was fine to be able to agree with her over things. It made me feel in with her, as if I knew her very well. Somehow I could not be such a fool if I thought the way she did. That’s how it struck me at any rate. It did something to me to be able to talk to her. I wanted to agree with anything she said. I also felt mad, too, as though I were a little drunk, as though life were terrific all of a sudden, as though I wanted to shout. Or else never to say a word, to be struck dumb, to go on sitting there at the Dôme and looking at her. All these feelings mixed up in an incredible fashion. Mostly I was humble, though. I would abase myself, I would grovel with my face in the dust.

We sat for a while without talking much, watching the different people in the café. She was amused at them, she had a funny little smile all the time. I watched her, I did not mind about the people. I wished I knew how to draw. Artists must get a lot of fun out of drawing. I would draw her nose and the curve of her chin. I drew her profile on the table with the end of a match. It looked like nothing on earth. I rubbed it out with my elbow. She was quite unconscious of me. After a while she turned and looked at me, smiling.

‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’ she said. I had not quite realized about her full-face before. It struck me, all of a sudden, that she was beautiful. I could not answer a thing. I just had to go on staring.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

I felt myself going very red, it crept up above my collar, spreading to my forehead, my eyes.

‘Sorry,’ I said; ‘I wasn’t thinking for the moment. Yes, this is a great place. I always love it.’

She glanced down at her wretched watch. ‘We have dinner at the pension at seven-fifteen,’ she said,‘and they like one to change. I must be going. I shall be late in any case.’

I jumped up, too eager, too keen, overwhelmed by my new thing of wanting to please.

‘Could I walk down the Boulevard Raspail with you?’ I asked.

‘It will take you out of your way,’ she said.

‘No - no - I’m in no hurry, I’d just love to, I’d like a walk.’

I paid the bill, and we crossed over the street.We came too soon to the pension. It did not look much of a place.There was a frowsy woman looking out of a top window. She did not see us, though. There were crowds of things I felt sure I should have said, but I could not think of one of them. I was afraid she might be bored if I asked her to come to dinner one evening. What would be the fun of going with me from her point of view? I could not imagine anything much worse. So that all I could say to her outside the pension was: ‘I do hope I shall see you again,’ and she said: ‘Yes, I hope so, too,’ and I said: ‘Tomorrow, perhaps?’ and she said: ‘Yes, perhaps,’ and I had to let it go at that.

She went inside the pension then, and I waited a minute, and then I turned and walked up the Boulevard Raspail once more.

I wondered if I should go back to my room and work, and then I thought that, after all, I had worked most of the day and there was not much point. It was not good to overdo things. So I went and had some dinner, and then I dropped into a cinema and saw a bad picture. Somehow I had never thought of doing this before. It made a change. It would give me a fresh outlook on the book. I wished the girl had been with me all the same.

 

We were sitting at the Rotonde one afternoon. She had just finished her music lesson. I had got the table early, and had sat there waiting for her. I managed to see her nearly every day now at about five o’clock. It was a good time. She would be thirsty after her lesson, and a little tired. She had come one day, and then two days later, and then the next, and then the next, so that it had become a habit. She just arrived, either at the Dôme or the Rotonde, and I was always there. I used to work most of the day and then look forward to five o’clock. It gave some purpose to the day. It was wonderful to look at my watch about four and think there was only one more hour. I never did much work after that. I would knock off about half-past and then make a business of going over and booking a table and settling myself, and waiting for her. I wondered how I had existed before, when every day had been alike. Now I did not know how I could have gone on if it had not been for five o’clock. Something jumped inside me when I saw her walking along towards the café swinging her music-case. She always wore the orange béret. I called her Hesta and she called me Dick. I nearly split myself with talking, and she nodded, agreeing with what I said, or sitting very still, looking away, going off into some dream. I was not quite so humble as I had been. I discovered I had theories about things, I rather laid down the law. There were a good many matters it was fun to discuss. I had a queer feeling that deep down she was much more intelligent than I was, but she was ignorant of this, and it made her seem young. I liked this, I liked her being young. I felt I knew a whole lot. I was very old, I was very wise. I talked about life. When she looked at me, though, solemnly, with eyes that might have been sad, that were very deep, that I did not understand, then I was humble again, then I stammered and was lost, then I was young.

It was at these moments I was not content with just seeing her for an hour or so, at the Dôme or the Rotonde. I wanted her to have dinner with me, to go to a cinema afterwards perhaps, and then a drink and a sandwich, and then to take her back to the pension. An evening with her, from five, say until eleven. There could not be anything better than that.Yet I ought to be content with my hour in the afternoon. I ought to be satisfied; it was hell how one always wanted a little more.

We sat then at the Rotonde and she was drinking an orangeade through a straw.

‘Of course, people make the most absurd fuss about sex,’ I was saying; ‘they go on as if it was the only thing in the world that mattered. And it’s nothing really, it’s just a little phase in life that scarcely counts. Men and women ought to make love like they play a game of tennis; they ought to consider it a healthy, physical necessity, and no more.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it leads to all sorts of complications.’

‘It shouldn’t do,’ I insisted; ‘that’s where the mistake is made, in taking it so damned seriously.’

It was fun having this sort of conversation. It meant we knew each other well, we were modern, and we hadn’t any old-fashioned ideas. I could talk about anything to Hesta.

‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘that children are brought up all wrong. They aren’t taught to have any sense of proportion. The truth is kept from them like a shameful secret. So they get a wrong idea. I think education ought to be entirely changed.’

‘How would you change it?’

I thought for a moment, I was not quite sure. It was easy enough to talk, but difficult to keep up.

‘Why, I’d have kids learn not to expect so much,’ I said; ‘I’d have them know everything before they were grown up, so that they would not be disillusioned afterwards. They ought to be told that it means nothing, just nothing.’

‘Yes - but then everybody would go doing things all over the place,’ said Hesta, ‘and women would have babies all the time.’

I laughed, she was very young.

‘Oh no,’ I said,‘that would be kept well under control. Besides, people only do things, as you call it, because they’ve been told it’s wrong. If they thought no more of it than shaking hands nobody would bother.’

‘You said it was a physical necessity?’

I frowned, I was getting rather mixed.

‘Yes - I mean that, too. At least - it depends on the individual. It’s no use laying down rules. I mean - here, will you have another drink?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I wish you didn’t have to go back to that beastly pension so soon. You will have dinner one evening, won’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Friday?’

‘I might on Friday.’

‘We could have dinner and then go to a film. We could go to the Studio des Ursulines.’

‘That would be nice.’

‘It doesn’t matter, then, you being late occasionally?’

‘No, not occasionally.’

I did not know how I was going to wait until Friday. Even then it might not come off. She might be ill or something.

‘You will come, won’t you?’ I said.

‘Oh yes, I’ll come,’ she said.

I could not believe it was true. I wanted to get up and order people about. I sang out for the waiter, tilting my chair. I told him to bring me a drink.

‘There’s half an hour before you need get back,’ I said.

Then I went on to lay down the law about marriage.

‘I just don’t believe in it,’ I said. ‘The very idea of tying two wretched people down for life - it’s barbaric. It’s insulting to even the average intelligence. Of course, in fifty years’ time nobody will be married at all.’

‘What about children?’ she asked.

‘Oh! that will be arranged by the State,’ I said vaguely; ‘there’ll probably be kind of institutions run for the purpose. I dare say polygamy will come in, for men and women; I mean, both sexes will do as they choose. There won’t be hard-and-fast laws. Of course, nobody will think any the worse of a girl if she has a hundred lovers or only one. But the idea of marriage - gosh! - it makes me sick. Two damn fools sitting down at a breakfast-table day after day, just because some parson has mumbled a few words over them. A settled home, probably very drab, and the man getting home tired and irritable, and the woman always having babies and losing her figure, and going on pretending they like it . . .’

‘You don’t make it sound very attractive,’ she said.

‘The whole thing is rot,’ I said firmly.‘Who invented it, anyway? Some old idiot in the Bible. It makes me sick. The sentimentality, the pathos, the incredible muck talked about - I say, are you getting cold?’

‘Just a little.’

‘Oh! Hesta - Lord, what a damn fool I am, keeping you here in this draught; why didn’t you tell me? - here, come inside.’

‘I ought to go.’

‘No, no, you needn’t go yet. You’ve loads of time, you don’t have to go. Listen, I’ve got so much to say. Sit down again, please sit down. Look, here’s a table just by the door. Have another orangeade.Yes, do, one more orangeade.The time goes by so fast, you only seem to arrive and then you go again. We don’t have a moment. Ever played this game with the paper off the straw, Hesta? Everyone does it at the Dôme. Look, I tear the paper in sections, making the figure of a man. Here’s his arms, here’s his legs, there’s his bit of a head. See? Then I blow drops on it from the orangeade in the straw. Look, watch him wave his arms, watch his body writhe. It’s good, isn’t it, it’s good?’

She laughed, leaning her arms on the table, close to me, her hair just touching my cheek. I did not want her ever to move. I felt excited, queer.

‘It’s good, isn’t it, it’s good?’ I said.

 

We had dinner on Friday evening, and afterwards we went along to the Studio des Ursulines and saw a Russian picture. We sat in the very back row up against the wall, and there were students next to us, and boys who had come just for the fun of making a noise, so I made a noise too and stamped my feet on the floor when the lights went up, and whistled and howled when a bad film was put on the screen.

Hesta did not do anything; she laughed quietly, and watched us making fools of ourselves. I was a little above myself altogether. I could not get over the excitement of being there with her. Before dinner we had sat at the Dôme as usual, and when it was a quarter to seven, the time she generally had to go back to the pension, and she did not move, I could not believe it for a moment, and I had to turn away to hide my smile. She would have thought me a fool if she had seen me. I could not even talk much at first, I wanted to be still and undistracted, I wanted to be able to appreciate the fullness of it.

‘You’re very silent,’ she said, and I had to give up looking at her and suggest somewhere for dinner. I wondered why she bothered to go out with me at all. She was probably bored the whole time.

We only seemed to have been at the Dôme a few minutes when I looked at my watch and it was a quarter to eight, and then we went along to the Viking for dinner, and that was gone in a flash too, so that all I had of it was a picture of her laughing in front of me, twisting something on to the end of her fork, and I bending towards her saying: ‘This is fun, isn’t it, Hesta?’ and her nodding, and then a waiter passing, someone talking Hungarian behind us, and it was finished, she straightening her béret, I calling for the
addition
.

It was hopeless the way time did not stand still, not for a fraction of a second, that there was never an occasion when I could grasp the whole intensity of pleasure, examining it, breathing it, holding it softly with my hands and saying: ‘Now I am living, now . . . now . . .’ It was nothing but a series of flashes quivering before my eyes, dancing themselves away, and being in the restaurant, and sitting beside Hesta in the Studio des Ursulines, and strolling along the streets afterwards looking for a stray taxi: these were all reflexions that I had not gathered, but mocked me when they had gone and the minute had passed, so that afterwards, alone again, and she at the pension and I undressing in my room in the Cherche-Midi, I would have to make a thing to myself out of all these flashes, and imagine they had been greater than they were. The memory of her shoulder touching mine, and her hand on my knee, her face upturned, laughing at the film, seemed to me now to give a deeper thrill than I had experienced at the time; thinking of it produced a delight and a pain I had not felt when it was happening. So I wondered how much of all this was reality and how much was imagination, but at least the thought of her had become an obsession that would not leave me, and I gave way weakly, making no effort to withstand it. I was conscious now that scarcely for a moment did I think of anything else.