She Came to Stay

‘I think it will be interesting tonight. Labrousse always has his finest inspirations at the last minute.’

Xavière said nothing. She always appeared embarrassed when Françoise spoke of Pierre, although she made a show of admiring him greatly.

‘It won’t bore you to go to this rehearsal?’ said Françoise.

‘I’ll enjoy it very much,’ said Xavière. She hesitated. ‘Obviously I’d prefer to see you under different circumstances.’

‘So would I,’ said Françoise without warmth. She hated these veiled reproaches which Xavière let fall from time to time. Unquestionably she had not given her much of her time, but surely she could not be expected to sacrifice to her the few hours she had for her own work!

They found themselves in front of the theatre. Françoise looked up affectionately at the old building with rococo festoons ornamenting its façade. It had a friendly, demure look that warmed the heart. In a few days, it would assume its gala appearance, it would be ablaze with all its lights: tonight, it was bathed in shadow. Françoise walked towards the stage-door.

‘It’s strange to think that you come here every day, much as you might go to an office,’ said Xavière. ‘The inside of a theatre has always seemed so mysterious to me.’

‘I remember before I knew Labrousse,’ said Françoise, ‘how Elisabeth used to put on the solemn air of an initiate when she led me along the corridors. I felt very proud of myself.’ She smiled; the mystery had faded. But this yard, cluttered with old stage sets, had lost none of its poetry by becoming an everyday sight. The little wooden staircase, the same colour as a garden bench, led up to the green-room. Françoise paused for a moment to listen to the murmur coming from the stage. As always, when she was going to see Pierre, her heart began to beat faster.

‘Don’t make any noise. We’re going to cross the stage-floor,’ she said.

She took Xavière by the hand and they tiptoed along behind the scenery. In a garden of green and purple shrubs, Tedesco was pacing up and down like a soul in torment. Tonight, his voice sounded curiously choked.

‘Sit down here. I’ll be back in a moment,’ said Françoise.

There were a great many people in the theatre. As usual, the actors and the small-part players were grouped together in the back stalls, while Pierre alone was in the front row. Françoise shook hands with Elisabeth, who was sitting beside a little actor from whom she had scarcely been separated for a moment during the last few days.

‘I’ll come and see you in a moment,’ she said. She smiled at Pierre without speaking. He sat all hunched up, his head muffled in a big red scarf. He looked anything but satisfied.

‘Those clumps of shrubbery are a failure!’ thought Françoise. ‘They will have to be changed.’ She looked uneasily at Pierre and he made a gesture of utter helplessness. Tedesco had never been so poor. Was it possible they had been mistaken in him up till now?

Tedesco’s voice broke completely. He put his hand up to his forehead.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ he said. ‘I think I’d better rest a while. I’m sure I’ll be better after a quarter of an hour’s rest.’

There was a deathly silence.

‘All right,’ said Pierre. ‘Meanwhile, well adjust the lighting. And will somebody get Vuillemin and Gerbert? I want someone to rearrange this scenery.’ He lowered his voice. ‘How are you? You don’t look well.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Françoise. ‘You don’t look too good, either. Stop rehearsals at midnight tonight. We are all worn out; you can’t keep up this pace till Friday.’

‘I know,’ said Pierre. He looked around. ‘Did you bring Xavière with you?’

‘Yes, I’ll have to spend a little time with her.’ Françoise hesitated. ‘Do you know what I’ve been thinking? All three of us could go and have a drink together when we leave. Would you mind that?’

Pierre laughed.

‘I haven’t told you yet. This morning when I was coming up the stairs I met her on her way down. She scurried off like a scared rabbit and locked herself in the lavatory.’

‘I know,’ said Françoise. ‘You terrify her. That’s why I’m asking you to see her just for this once. If you are really friendly towards her, it will simplify matters.’

‘I’d be only too glad to,’ said Pierre. ‘I find her rather amusing. Oh, there you are. Where’s Gerbert?’

‘I’ve looked everywhere for him,’ said Vuillemin, coming up almost out of breath. ‘I’ve no idea where he’s gone.’

‘I said goodbye to him at seven-thirty in the props-room. He told me he was going to try to get some sleep,’ said Françoise. She raised her voice: ‘Régis, would you please go and look back-stage and see if you can find Gerbert?’

‘It’s appalling, that barricade you’ve gone and landed me with over there,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times that I do not want any painted scenery. I want a built-up set.’

‘And another thing, the colour won’t do,’ said Françoise. ‘Those bushes could be very pretty, but at present it’s got a dirty rusty look.’

‘That’s easily done,’ said Vuillemin.

Gerbert ran across the stage and jumped down into the auditorium. His suède jacket was open over a check shirt. He was covered with dust.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gerbert. ‘I fell sound asleep.’ He ran his hand through his uncombed hair. His face was livid and there were deep rings under his eyes. While Pierre vas speaking to him, Françoise affectionately scanned his pinched face. He looked like a poor sick monkey.

‘You make him do too much,’ said Françoise, when Vuillemin and Gerbert had gone off.

‘He’s the only one I can rely on,’ said Pierre. ‘Vuillemin will make a mess of things again if he isn’t watched.’

‘I know, but he isn’t as strong as we are,’ said Françoise. She got up. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘We’re going to try out the lighting,’ shouted Pierre. ‘Give me night; only blue back-stage floods.’

Françoise went over and sat down beside Xavière.

‘Still, I’m not quite old enough,’ she thought. There was no denying it, she had a maternal feeling towards Gerbert – maternal, with a faintly incestuous touch. She would have liked to put that weary head against her shoulder.

‘Do you find it interesting?’ she said to Xavière.

‘I don’t understand what’s supposed to be happening,’ said Xavière.

‘It’s night. Brutus has gone down into his garden to meditate. He has received messages asking him to revolt against Caesar. He hates tyranny, but he loves Caesar. He’s perplexed.’

‘Then this fellow in the brown jacket is Brutus?’ said Xavière.

‘When he wears his beautiful white toga and make-up he looks much more like Brutus.’

‘I never imagined him like that,’ said Xavière sadly. Her eyes shone. ‘Oh, how beautiful the lighting is!’

‘Do you think so? That makes me very happy,’ said Françoise. ‘We worked like slaves to get just that impression of early morning.’

‘Early morning? ’ said Xavière. ‘It’s so chill. This light makes me think of …’ she hesitated and then added in one breath, ‘of a light like the beginning of the world, before the sun and the moon and the stars were created.’

‘Good evening, Mademoiselle,’ said a harsh voice. Canzetti was smiling with timid coquetry. Two thick black curls framed her charming gypsy face. Her lips and cheeks were very heavily made up.

‘Does my hair look all right now?’

‘I think it’s very becoming,’ said Françoise.

‘I took your advice,’ said Canzetti gently, pursing her lips.

There was a short blast of a whistle and Pierre’s voice shouted. ‘We’ll take the scene again from the beginning, with the lighting, and we’ll go right through. Is everyone here?’

‘Everyone’s here,’ said Gerbert.

‘Goodbye, Mademoiselle, and thank you,’ said Canzetti.

‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ said Françoise.

‘Yes,’ said Xavière. She added petulantly: ‘I loath that type of face and I think she looks dirty.’

Françoise laughed.

‘Then you don’t think she’s at all nice.’

Xavière scowled and made a wry face.

‘I’d tear my nails out one by one rather than speak the way she spoke to you. A worm couldn’t be as low.’

‘She used to teach at a school near Bourges,’ said Françoise. ‘She gave up everything to try her luck in the theatre. She’s starving to death here in Paris.’ Françoise looked with amusement at Xavière’s inscrutable face. Xavière hated anyone who was at all close to Françoise. Her timidity towards Pierre was mingled with hatred.

A moment before, Tedesco had begun once more to pace the stage. Out of a religious silence, he began to speak. He seemed to have recovered himself.

‘That still isn’t it,’ thought Françoise in distress. Only another three days, and in the auditorium there would be the same gloom, on the stage the same lighting, and the same words would move through space. But instead of this silence they would come into contact with a world of sounds. The seats would creak, restless fingers would rustle programmes, old men would cough persistently. Through layer upon layer of indifference, the subtle phrases would have to blaze a trail to a blasé and intractable audience; all these people, preoccupied with their digestion, their throats, their lovely clothes, their household squabbles; bored critics, malicious friends – it was a challenge to try to interest them in Brutus’s perplexity. They had to be taken by surprise, taken out of themselves. Tedesco’s restrained, lifeless acting was inadequate.

Pierre’s head was bent: Françoise regretted she had not gone back and sat down beside him. What was he thinking? This was the first time that he had put into effect his aesthetic principles so systematically, and on such a large scale. He himself had trained all these actors. Françoise had adapted the play according to his instructions. Even the stage designer had followed his orders. If he succeeded he would have asserted decisively his conception of art and the theatre. Françoise’s clenched hands became moist.

‘There’s been no stint either in work or money,’ she thought, with a lump in her throat. ‘If we fail, it will be a long, long time before we’re in any position to start over again.’

‘Wait,’ said Pierre suddenly. He went up on to the stage. Tedesco froze.

‘What you’re doing is all very well,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s quite correct. But, don’t you see, you’re acting the words, but you’re not acting the situation enough. I want you to keep the same nuances – but at a different level.’

Pierre leaned against the wall and bowed his head. Françoise relaxed. Pierre just did not know how to talk to actors. It embarrassed him to have to bring himself down to their level. Yet when he demonstrated a part he was remarkable.

… ‘I know no personal cause, to spurn at him, But for the general’…

Françoise watched the miracle with inexhaustible wonder. Physically, Pierre in no way looked the part. He was stocky, his features were irregular, and yet, when he raised his head, it was Brutus himself who turned a tortured face to the heavens.

Gerbert leaned toward Françoise. He had sat down behind her without her having noticed him.

‘The angrier he gets the more amazing he is,’ he said. ‘At this very moment he’s seething.’

‘With good reason,’ said Françoise. ‘Do you think Tedesco will ever make anything of his part?’

‘He’s on to it,’ said Gerbert. ‘He’s only to make a start and the rest will follow.’

‘You see,’ Pierre was saying, ‘that’s the pitch you have to get and then you can be as restrained as you like. I will feel the emotion. If the emotion isn’t there, it’s no damn good.’

Tedesco leaned against the wall, and bowed his head.

‘It must be by his death: and for my part, I know no personal cause, to spurn at him, But for the general.’

Françoise gave Gerbert a triumphant smile. It seemed so simple, and yet she knew that nothing was more difficult than to awaken in an actor this sudden enlightenment. She looked at the back of Pierre’s head. She would never grow tired of watching him work. Of all her lucky breaks, the one she valued the most was that which gave her the opportunity of collaborating with Pierre. The weariness they shared and their efforts united them more surely than an embrace. There was not one moment of all these harassing rehearsals that was not an act of love.

The conspirators’ scene had gone off without a flaw; Françoise got up from her stall.

‘I’m just going to say something to Elisabeth,’ she said to Gerbert. ‘If I’m needed I’ll be in my office. I haven’t the energy to stay any longer. Pierre hasn’t finished with Portia.’ She hesitated. It was not very nice to leave Xavière, but she had not seen Elisabeth for ages; it was verging on rudeness.

‘Gerbert, I’m leaving my friend Xavière in your hands,’ she said. ‘You might take her back-stage while the scenery’s being changed. She doesn’t know what a theatre is like.’

Xavière said nothing: ever since the beginning of the rehearsal there had been a look of resentment in her eyes.

Françoise put her hand on Elisabeth’s shoulder.

‘Come and smoke a cigarette,’ she said.

‘I’d love to. It’s tyrannical not to allow people to smoke. I’ll have to speak to Pierre about it,’ said Elisabeth with mock indignation.

Françoise stopped in the doorway. A few days earlier, the room had been repainted a light yellow which gave it a welcome rustic look. A faint smell of turpentine still hung in the air.

‘I hope we never leave this old theatre,’ said Françoise, as they climbed the stairs.

‘I wonder if there’s anything left to drink,’ she said, pushing open the door of her office. She opened a cupboard half-filled with books and looked at the bottles lined up on the top shelf. ‘There’s a little whisky here. Would you like that?’

‘Splendid,’ said Elisabeth.

Françoise handed her a glass. There was such warmth in her heart that she felt a burst of affection for Elisabeth. She had the same feeling of comradeship and ease as when, in the past, they had come out of a difficult and interesting class and strolled arm in arm in the lycée yard.

Elisabeth lit a cigarette and crossed her legs.

‘What was the matter with Tedesco? Guimiot insists that he is taking drugs. Do you think that’s true?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Françoise, and she blissfully swallowed a long pull of whisky.

‘That little Xavière is not at all pretty,’ said Elisabeth. ‘What are you doing about her? Was everything put right with her family?’

‘I know nothing about that,’ said Françoise. ‘Her uncle may show up any one of these days and kick up a row.’

‘Do be careful,’ said Elisabeth, with an air of importance. ‘You may run into trouble.’

‘Careful of what?’ said Françoise.

‘Have you found her any work?’

‘No. She’s got to get used to things first.’

‘What’s her particular bent?’

‘I don’t think she’ll ever be capable of much work.’

Elisabeth thoughtfully exhaled a puff of smoke.

‘What does Pierre say about it?’

‘They haven’t seen much of each other. He rather likes her.’

This cross-examination was beginning to irritate her. It almost seemed as if Elisabeth were arraigning her. She cut her short.

‘Tell me, is there any news about you?’ she said.

Elisabeth gave a short laugh.

‘Guimiot? During the rehearsal last Tuesday, he came over to talk to me. Don’t you think he’s handsome?’

‘Very handsome. That’s just why we took him on. I don’t know him at all. Is he nice?’

‘He certainly knows how to make love,’ said Elisabeth in a detached tone.

‘You didn’t lose much time,’ said Françoise a little taken aback. Whenever Elisabeth took a liking to a man she began to talk about sleeping with him. But actually, she had remained faithful to Claude for the last two years.

‘You know my principles,’ said Elisabeth gaily. ‘I’m not the sort of woman who is taken. I’m a woman who does the taking. That very first evening, I asked him to spend the night with me. He was flabbergasted.’

‘Does Claude know?’ said Françoise.

Elisabeth very deliberately tapped the ash from her cigarette. Whenever she was embarrassed her movements and her voice became hard and resolute.

‘Not yet, I’m waiting for just the right moment.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s all very complicated.’

‘Your relations with Claude? It’s a long time since you’ve spoken to me about him.’

‘Nothing’s changed.’ said Elisabeth. The corners of her mouth drooped. ‘Only I have changed.’

‘Did you get nowhere when you had it out with him a month ago?’

‘He keeps on telling me the same old thing: that it’s me who has the better part of the bargain. I’m fed up with that old story. I almost said to him: “It’s much too good for me, thank you; I would be satisfied with the other.”’

‘You must have been too conciliatory again,’ said Françoise.

‘Yes, I think so,’ Elisabeth gazed fixedly into space; an unpleasant thought was passing through her mind. ‘He thinks he can make me swallow anything,’ she said. ‘He’ll get a big surprise.’

Françoise studied her with some interest. At this moment she was not consciously striking an attitude.

‘Do you want to break off with him?’ said Françoise.

Something relaxed in Elisabeth’s face. She became matter of fact.

‘Claude is far too attractive a person for me ever to let him go out of my life,’ she said. ‘But I would like to be less in love with him.’

She wrinkled the corners of her eyes and smiled at Françoise with a hint of mutual understanding, which passed between them only very rarely.

‘We’ve poked enough fun at women who let themselves be victimized. And say what you like, it’s not in my line to be a victim.’

Françoise returned her smile. She would have liked to advise her, but it was a difficult thing to do. What was necessary, was for Elisabeth not to be in love with Claude.

‘Putting an end to it in your own mind only won’t get you very far,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you shouldn’t compel him outright to make a choice.’

‘This isn’t the moment,’ said Elisabeth sharply. ‘No, I think that when I’ve won back my inner independence, I’ll have made great progress. But to do that, it’s essential for me to succeed in dissociating the man from the lover in Claude.’

‘Will you stop sleeping with him?’

‘I don’t know. But what I do know is that I shall sleep with other men.’ She added with a shade of defiance: ‘Sexual faithfulness is perfectly ridiculous. It leads to pure slavery. I don’t understand how you can tolerate it.’

‘I swear to you that I don’t feel that I’m a slave,’ said Françoise.

Elisabeth could not help confiding in someone; after which she invariably became aggressive.

‘It’s odd,’ said Elisabeth slowly, and as if she had been following a train of thought with surprised sincerity. ’The way you were at twenty, I would never have thought you would be a one-man woman. Especially as Pierre has affaires.’

‘You’ve already told me that, but I am certainly not going to put myself out,’ said Françoise.

‘Nonsense. You’re not going to tell me that it’s never happened to you to feel a desire for a man,’ said Elisabeth. ‘You’re talking like all the people who won’t admit they have prejudices. They pretend they are subject to them as a matter of personal choice. But that’s just so much nonsense.’

‘Pure sensuality does not interest me,’ said Françoise. ‘And besides, does pure sensuality even have a meaning?’

‘Why not? It’s very pleasant,’ said Elisabeth with a sneering little laugh.

Françoise rose.

‘I think we might go down. The sets must have been changed by now.’

‘You know, that young Guimiot is really charming,’ said Elisabeth as she walked out of the room. ‘He deserves more than a small part. He could be a worthwhile recruit for you. I’ll have to speak to Pierre about it.’

‘Do speak to him,’ said Françoise. She gave Elisabeth a quick smile. ‘I’ll see you later.’

The curtain was still down. Someone on the stage was hammering. Heavy footsteps shook the flooring. Françoise walked over to Xavière who was talking to Inès. Inès blushed furiously and got up.

‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ said Françoise.

‘I was just going,’ said Inès. She shook hands with Xavière. ‘When am I going to see you?’

Xavière made a vague gesture.

‘I don’t know. I’ll ring you up.’

‘We might have dinner together tomorrow, between rehearsals.’

Inès remained standing in front of Xavière looking unhappy. Françoise had often wondered how the notion of becoming an actress could have entered that thick Norman skull: she had slaved for four years without making any appreciable progress: out of pity, Pierre had given her one line to speak.

‘Tomorrow …’ said Xavière. ‘I’d rather ring you up.’

‘You’ll come through all right, you know,’ said Françoise encouragingly. ‘When you’re not excited your diction is good.’

Inès smiled faintly and walked away.

‘Will you never ring her up?’ asked Françoise.

‘Never,’ said Xavière irritably. ‘Just because I slept at her place three times, there’s no reason why I should have to see her all my life.’

‘Didn’t Gerbert show you round?’

‘He suggested it,’ said Xavière.

‘It didn’t interest you?’

‘He seemed so embarrassed,’ said Xavière. ‘It was painful.’ She looked at Françoise with unveiled bitterness. ‘I loathe foisting myself on people,’ she said vehemently.

Françoise felt herself in the wrong. She had been tactless in leaving Xavière in Gerbert’s hands, but Xavière’s tone surprised her. Could Gerbert really have been off-hand with Xavière? That certainly wasn’t his way.

‘She takes everything so seriously,’ she thought with annoyance.

She had decided once and for all not to let Xavière’s childish fits of surliness poison her life.

‘How was Portia?’ said Françoise.

‘The big dark girl? Monsieur Labrousse made her repeat the same sentence twenty times. She kept getting it all wrong.’ Xavière’s face glowed with scorn. ‘Is it really possible for anyone as stupid as that to be an actress?’

‘There are all kinds,’ said Françoise.

Xavière was bursting with rage: that was obvious. Without a doubt she felt that Françoise was not giving her sufficient attention. She would get over it. Françoise looked at the curtain impatiently. The change of scenery was taking far too long. At least five minutes would have to be saved.

The curtain went up. Pierre was reclining on Caesar’s couch and Françoise’s heart began to beat faster. She knew Pierre’s every intonation, his every gesture. She anticipated them so exactly that she felt as if they sprang from her own will. And yet, it was outside her, on the stage, that they materialized. It was agonizing. She would feel herself responsible for the slightest failure and she couldn’t raise a finger to prevent it.

‘It’s true that we are really one,’ she thought with a burst of love. Pierre was speaking, his hand was raised, but his gestures, his tones, were as much a part of Françoise’s life as of his. Or rather, there was but one life and at its core but one entity, which could be termed neither he nor I, but we.

Pierre was on the stage, she was in the audience, and yet for both of them it was the same play being performed in the same theatre. Their life was the same. They did not always see it from the same angle, for through their individual desires, moods, or pleasures, each discovered a different aspect. But it was, for all that, the same life. Neither time nor distance could divide them. There were, of course, streets, ideas, faces, that came into existence first for Pierre, and others first for Françoise; but they faithfully pieced together these scattered experiences into a single whole, in which ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ became indistinguishable. Neither one nor the other ever withheld the slightest fragment. That would have been the worst, the only possible betrayal.