Climates (15 page)

A little farther on, I come across this brief note:
I have lost more than I possessed
. It very clearly expresses what I felt at the time. When Odile was there, beloved though she was, she had flaws that distanced her from me a little; when Odile was gone, she became the goddess once more. I decked her out with virtues she did not have and, having finally modeled her on the eternal concept of Odile, I could be her Knight. A superficial acquaintance and the distortions of desire had had their effect during our engagement, and now forgetting and distance were having the same effect in turn, and, alas, I loved the unfaithful faraway Odile in a way that I never managed to love Odile nearby and tender.

Toward the end
of the year, I learned that Odile and François were married. It was a painful time, but the certainty that the harm could not now be remedied actually helped me find the strength to live again.

Since my father’s death, I had introduced a lot of changes to the administration of the paper factory. I spent less time on it, which gave me more free time. This meant I was able to renew contact with friends from my youth who had been distanced from me by my marriage, particularly André Halff, now a member of the Council of State. Occasionally I also saw Bertrand, who was a cavalry lieutenant
stationed in Saint-Germain and came to spend Sundays in Paris. I tried to return to books and studies I had abandoned several years earlier. I followed courses at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. In doing this I discovered that I had changed a great deal. I was surprised to find how little importance the problems that once filled my life now had. Can I really have wondered so anxiously whether I was a materialist or an idealist? Any form of metaphysics now felt like a puerile game.

Even more than these male friends, I now also saw a number of young women, as I have told you. I left the office at about five o’clock in the afternoon. I spent more time at social events than in the past and even realized rather mournfully that on these occasions (perhaps in an attempt to rekindle her memory) I tried to find pleasures that Odile had struggled to impose on me in the past. Knowing that I was now alone and fairly free, a lot of women I had met through Aunt Cora sent me invitations. At six o’clock on Saturday evenings I went to Hélène de Thianges, who was at home every Saturday. Maurice de Thianges, Member of Parliament for the Eure region, brought connections of his. Alongside these politicians, there were writers,
friends of Hélène’s, and eminent businessmen because Hélène was the daughter of an industrialist, Monsieur Pascal-Bouchet, who came up from Normandy some Saturdays with his second daughter, Françoise. There was a great deal of intimacy between the regulars at this salon. I liked to sit beside a young woman and discuss the finer points of feelings with her. My wound still caused me suffering, but I could spend whole days without thinking of Odile or François. Occasionally I would hear someone talking about them; because Odile was now Madame Crozant, there were some who did not know she had once been my wife, and, having met her in Toulon where she was now famous as the city’s greatest beauty, they would tell stories about her. Hélène de Thianges tried to stop them or take me to another room, but I was keen to hear.

Most people did not think the marriage was particularly sound. Yvonne Prévost often spent time in Toulon, and I asked her to tell me very frankly what she knew.

“It’s terribly difficult to explain,” she said. “I haven’t seen much of them … It strikes me that when they married, they both already knew they were making a mistake. But she
does
love him … I
apologize for telling you that, Marcenat, but you wanted to know. She certainly loves him a great deal more than he loves her, it’s just she’s proud; she doesn’t want to show it. I had a meal at their house, and there was an awkward atmosphere … Do you know what I mean? She kept saying kind little niceties, some of them rather naïve, the sort of things you so liked, and François rebuffed her … He can be so brutal. I can assure you I felt for her … You could see she was trying to please him, that she longed to talk about subjects he would find interesting … of course she didn’t talk about them very skillfully and François answered irritably and contemptuously: ‘Yes, yes, Odile, all right.’ Roger and I felt sorry for her.”

I spent the whole winter of 1913–14 in trivial intrigues with women, on business trips undertaken rather unnecessarily, and studies that I never pursued in any depth. I did not want to take anything seriously. I broached ideas and people’s lives with caution, always prepared to lose them, so that it would not hurt me if I did. Toward May it was warm enough for Hélène de Thianges to entertain in her garden. She threw cushions on the lawn for the ladies, and the men sat on the grass. On the first
Saturday in June, I found an entertaining group of writers and politicians there, surrounding Father Cénival. Hélène’s little dog was lying at his feet, and Hélène asked very earnestly, “Tell me, Father, do animals have a soul? Because if they don’t, then I really don’t understand. How could it be? My poor dog who’s suffered so much …”

“Well yes, Madame,” said the abbot, “why wouldn’t they have one? … They have a very small soul.”

“That’s not very orthodox,” someone said, “but it’s disturbing.”

I myself was sitting some way away with an American woman called Beatrice Howell; we were listening to the conversation.

“Well,
I’m
quite sure animals have a soul … When it comes down to it, there’s no difference between them and ourselves. I was thinking that earlier. I spent the afternoon at the Zoological Gardens. I adore animals, Marcenat.”

“And so do I,” I said. “Would you like to go there together one day?”

“I’d be delighted … What was I saying? Oh yes! I was watching the sea lions this afternoon. I love them because they gleam like wet rubber. They were
swimming around in circles underwater and popping their heads up every two minutes to breathe, and I felt sorry for them. I kept thinking, ‘Poor creatures, what a monotonous life!’ Then I thought, ‘And what about us? What do we do? We go around in circles underwater all week, and at about six o’clock on a Saturday evening we pop our heads out of the water at Hélène de Thianges’s salon, then on Tuesday at the Duchess of Rohan’s, or Madeleine Lemaire’s, and Madame de Marel’s on Sunday …’ It’s all the same thing. Don’t you think?”

Just then I saw Major Prévost and his wife arrive, and I was struck by their somber expressions. They walked anxiously, as if the gravel in the garden were fragile. Hélène stood up to say hello. I watched her because I liked the gracious, animated way she greeted her guests. I always used to tell her she was like a white butterfly barely coming to rest on people.

The Prévosts started telling her something and I saw her face darken. She looked around in some embarrassment and, spotting me, averted her eyes. They moved a few paces away.

“Do you know the Prévosts?” I asked Beatrice Howell.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been a guest of theirs in Toulon. They have a beautiful old house … I do so like the seafront in Toulon. Those old French houses set against the sea … it’s a lovely combination.”

Several people had now joined Hélène and the Prévosts. They had formed quite a group and were talking almost loudly; I thought I heard my name.

“What
are
they up to?” I asked Mrs. Howell. “Let’s go and see.”

I helped her up and brushed off a few blades of grass clinging to her dress. Hélène de Thianges saw us and came over to me.

“Do excuse me,” she said to Beatrice, “I’d like a word with Marcenat. Listen,” she said to me, “I’m so sorry to be the first to tell you such a dreadful thing, but I don’t want to run the risk … Well, the Prévosts have just told me that your wife … that Odile took her own life this morning, in Toulon, with a revolver.”

“Odile?” I said. “My God! Why?”

I pictured Odile’s frail body punctured by a bleeding wound, and a single sentence went around and around inside my head: “Under the influence of Mars, fatally condemned …”

“No one knows,” she said. “Leave without saying goodbye to anyone. When I hear anything, I’ll telephone you.”

I started walking aimlessly toward the Bois de Boulogne. What had happened? My poor little child, why had she not called me if she was so unhappy? I would have gone to help her with such wild joy, would have taken her back home, would have consoled her. From the very first time I saw François, I knew he would be Odile’s downfall. I remembered that dinner and had that same acute impression again, the father who had carelessly taken his child somewhere contaminated. At the time, I felt she had to be saved as soon as possible. I had not saved her … Odile dead … Women who passed me on the street peered at me anxiously. Perhaps I was talking out loud … So much beauty, so much charm … I could see myself beside her bed, holding her hand as she recited:

“The weariest river, Dickie,” she used to say in a comically doleful voice.

And I would reply, “Don’t say it like that, darling, you’ll make me cry.”

Odile dead … Ever since I had known her, I had watched her with superstitious concern. Too beautiful … One day when we were in Bagatelle, an old gardener had seen Odile and me, and said, “The most beautiful roses are the first to wilt …” Odile dead … I thought that if I could have seen her once more just for a quarter of an hour and then died with her, I would have agreed at once.

I do not know how I arrived home, how I got to bed. I fell asleep toward dawn and dreamed I was dining with Aunt Cora. André Halff, Hélène de Thianges, Bertrand, and my cousin Renée were all there. I looked everywhere for Odile. At last, after worrying for ages, I found her lying on a sofa. She was pale and seemed very ill, and I thought, “Yes, she’s unwell but she’s not dead. What a terrible dream I had!”

My first thought
was to leave for Toulon the next day, but I was feverish and delirious for a week. Bertrand and André tended to me most devotedly; Hélène came several times to bring me flowers. When I felt a little restored, I asked her anxiously what she had gathered. The accounts she had heard, like those I myself had, were contradictory. The truth seemed to be that François, who was used to being very independent, had quickly tired of the marriage. Odile had disappointed him. Spoiled by me, she proved gently demanding at the point when François already loved her less. He had thought her intelligent; she was not, at least not in the popular
sense of the word. I knew this perfectly well myself, but it had been of no consequence to me. He tried to insist she respect a degree of discipline in her thinking and her behavior. Odile and François, both proud creatures, had clashed violently.

Much later, some six months ago, a woman told me some confidential comments François had made about Odile. “She was very beautiful,” he had told her, “and I really loved her. But her first husband had trained her badly. She was an extraordinary coquette. She’s the only woman who’s managed to hurt me,
me
 … I defended myself … I took her to pieces … I laid her out on the table, open and bare … I saw the workings of all her little lies … I showed her I could see them … She thought she could get me back with a bit of her charm … Then she realized she was beaten … Of course I regret what happened, but I feel no remorse. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Once I knew of this conversation, I was filled with disgust for François. And yet there were times when I admired him. He was stronger than I had been, and perhaps more intelligent; mostly stronger, because like him I had understood Odile, but the difference between us was that I had not had
the courage to tell her. Was François’s cynicism any better than my weakness? After thinking about it at length, I too felt no regret for what I had done. Defeating people and driving them to despair is easy. To this day, after that failure, I still believe it is finer to try to love them, even in spite of themselves.

Besides, none of this clearly explained Odile’s suicide. One thing is certain: François was not in Toulon the day she killed herself. During the war, Bertrand met a boy who had dined with Odile, along with three other young women and three naval officers, on the eve of her suicide. The conversation had been very gay. Odile had sipped champagne and laughed as she said to the man next to her, “Do you know, I’m going to kill myself at noon tomorrow.” She was very calm throughout the evening, and this stranger noticed (because he described this to Bertrand) the luminous white glow of her beauty.

I was unwell for three months. Then I left for Toulon. I spent several days there, covering Odile’s grave with white flowers. One evening an old woman came over to me in the cemetery, told me she had been Madame de Crozant’s chambermaid, and said she recognized me because she had seen my photograph in one of her mistress’s
drawers. She then told me that in the early weeks, although Odile seemed very cheerful in public, she descended into despair the moment she was alone. “Sometimes,” the woman told me, “when I went into Madame’s room, I would find her sitting in a chair with her head in her hands … As if looking death in the face.”

I talked to her for a long time and was delighted to see that she had adored Odile.

There was nothing I could do in Toulon, so in early July I decided to go and live at Gandumas. There I tried to work and read. I took long walks through the heather and managed to sleep by tiring myself out.