Bonjour Tristesse

A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me, but now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today it envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, and sets me apart from everybody else.

This conception of quick, tempestuous and passing love affairs I found enticing. I was not at the age when fidelity is attractive. And of course, I knew little of love: the meetings, the kisses, the weary aftermath.

“Anne,” I said, “you’re not going to make me do that—make me study in this heat. The rest is doing me so much good!”

She stared at me a moment, then smiled mysteriously and turned her head away.

“I shall have to make you do that, even in this heat, as you say. You’ll hold it against me for a day or two, if I know you, but you’ll pass the exam.”

“There are things one cannot be made to do,” I said grimly.

“You take a red-headed girl to the seashore, expose her to the hot sun which she can’t stand, and when her skin has all peeled, you abandon her. It’s too easy! What on earth shall I say to Elsa?”

The mirror reflected a sad sight. I leaned against it and peered at those dilated eyes and dry lips, the face of a stranger. Was that my face? If I was weak and cowardly, could it be because of those lips, the particular shape of my body, these odious, arbitrary physical limitations? And if I were limited, why had I only now become aware of it? I occupied myself by detesting my reflection, hating that wolf-like face, hollow and worn by debauchery. I repeated the word “debauchery” looking into my eyes in the mirror. And then suddenly I saw myself smile. What a great debauch! A few miserable drinks, a slap in the face, and some tears! I brushed my teeth and went downstairs.

“You should realize that such diversions usually end up in a hospital.”

On the terrace, in the rectangle of light that projected from the dining-room window, I saw Anne’s long nervous hand reach out to find my father’s. I thought of Cyril. I would have liked him to take me in his arms on that terrace, flooded with moonlight and the noise of the crickets. I would have liked to be caressed, consoled, reconciled with myself. My father and Anne were silent. They had a night of love to look forward to; I had Bergson. I tried to cry, to feel sorry for myself, but in vain. I was sorry for Anne, as if I were certain that I would conquer her.

I thought: “She is cold, we are warm-hearted. She is dictatorial, we are easy-going. She is standoffish; other people don’t interest her though we love them. She is reserved; we are gay. Here we are, the two of us, and she will glide between us quietly. She will warm herself at our fire and gradually absorb our carefree warmth. She will have us in her coils, like a beautiful serpent,” I repeated, “just like a beautiful serpent.” Then Anne passed me the bread, and I suddenly came to my senses. “But I’m crazy,” I thought. That’s Anne, your friend who was so kind to you, who is so clever. Her aloofness is a mere habit, there’s nothing calculated about it. Her reserve is just to shield her from countless sordid things in life. It’s a sign of nobility. “A beautiful serpent…” I felt myself turn pale with shame. I looked at her, silently imploring her forgiveness.

I felt proud of myself: I had sized up Elsa, found her weak spot, and carefully aimed my words. For the first time in my life I had known the intense pleasure of analyzing another person, manipulating that person toward my own ends. It was a new experience; in the past I had always been too impulsive, and whenever I had come close to understanding someone, it had been pure accident. Now I had caught a sudden glimpse of the marvelous mechanism of human reflexes, and the power that lies in the spoken word. I felt sorry that I had come to it through lies.

[Raymond] shrugged his shoulders. On the way back I noticed he was preoccupied. Perhaps he was thinking that both Cyril and Elsa were young, and that in marrying a woman of his own age, he would cease to belong to the age group of men who are looked upon as still young. I had a momentary feeling of triumph but when I saw the tiny wrinkles at the corners of Anne’s eyes, and the fine lines around her mouth, I felt ashamed of myself. It was only too easy to follow my impulses and repent afterward.

In three weeks we would be back in Paris, and the main thing was that nothing should happen before then. Elsa would be out of our way, and my father and Anne would get married if by then they had not changed their minds. In Paris I would have Cyril, and just as Anne had been unable to keep us apart here, so she would find it impossible to stop me from seeing him once we were home. In Paris, Cyril had a room away from his mother. I could already imagine the window open to the pink and blue sky, the wonderful sky of Paris, with the pigeons cooing on the window sill, and with Cyril beside me on the narrow bed…

“Do you realize how men like Webb end up?” [Anne] said.

I thought, “And men like my father.”

“In the river,” I answered flippantly.

“A time comes when they are no longer attractive or in good form. They can’t drink any more, and they still hanker after women. Only then they have to pay heavily and lower their standards, to escape from their loneliness. Then they are really laughingstocks. […]”

[…]

I was impressed. So that was the fate in store for my father? Or at least the fate from which Anne was saving him.

“You never thought of that, did you?” said Anne, with a little smile of commiseration. “You don’t think much about the future, do you? But that is the privilege of youth.”

“Please don’t throw my youth at me like that! I use it neither as an excuse, nor as a privilege. I just don’t attach any importance to it.”

I will pass quickly over this period, for I am afraid that if I look at it too closely, I shall revive memories that are too painful. Even now I feel overwhelmed as I think of Anne’s happy laugh, of her kindness to me. My conscience troubles me so much at these moments that I am obliged to resort to some expedient like lighting a cigarette, putting on a record, or telephoning a friend. Then gradually I begin to think of something else. But I do not like having to take refuge in forgetfulness and frivolity instead of facing my memories and fighting them.

“I don’t know, Elsa. That depends on you. You always ask me what you should do. One might almost believe that it was I who induced you…”

“But it was you,” she said. “It’s entirely through you that…”

The admiration in her voice suddenly frightened me.

“Go if you want to, but for heaven’s sake, don’t talk any more about it!”

“But, Cécile, isn’t the whole idea to free him from that woman’s clutches?”

I fled. Let me father do as he wished, and Anne must deal with it as best she could. Anyhow, I was on my way to meet Cyril. It seemed to me that love was the only remedy for the haunting anxiety I felt.

[Anne] straightened up, and I saw that her face was distorted. She was crying. For the first time I realized that I had hurt a living, sensitive creature, not just a personality. She, too, must once have been a rather secretive small girl, later on an adolescent, and after that a woman….Now she was forty, and all alone. She loved a man, and had hoped to spend ten or twenty happy years with him. As for me…that poor miserable face was my doing.

In the house were Anne’s jackets, her flowers, her room, her scent. My father closed the shutters, took a bottle out of the refrigerator and brought two glasses. It was the only remedy at hand. Our letters of excuse still lay on the table. I pushed them off and they floated to the floor. My father, who was coming toward me holding a full, hesitated, then avoided them. I found it symbolical I took my glass and drained it in one gulp. The room was in half-darkness. I saw my father’s shadow on the window. The sea was still beating rhythmically on the shore.

Only when I am in bed, at dawn, listening to the cars passing below in the streets of Paris, my memory betrays me. That summer returns to me with all its memories. Anne, Anne, I repeat over and over again softly in the darkness. Something rises in me that I call to by name, with closed eyes. Bonjour, tristesse!