The Ball by Irène Némirovsky

MADAME KAMPF WALKED into the study and slammed the door behind her with such force that a gust of air made the crystal beads on the chandelier jingle with the pure, light sound of small bells. But Antoinette didn’t stop reading; she was bent so far forward over her desk that her hair brushed the pages of her book. For a moment, Madame Kampf watched her daughter without saying anything; then she went to stand in front of her, arms crossed over her chest.

“You know, Antoinette, you could stop what you’re doing when you see your mother,” she barked. “Is your bottom glued to that chair? What refined manners you have! Where’s Miss Betty?” From the adjoining room came the sound of a sewing machine, punctuated by snatches of song, crooned in a youthful but rather poor voice: “What shall I do, what shall I do when you’ll be gone away…”

“Miss Betty,” Madame Kampf shouted, “come in here.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kampf,” the young woman replied in English, slipping through the half-open door. She had rosy cheeks and soft, frightened eyes; her hair was gathered in a honey-coloured bun that sat low on her neck, framing her small round head.

“I believe I hired you,” Madame Kampf began harshly, “to look after and educate my daughter, and not so you could make yourself dresses. Does Antoinette not know she is meant to stand up when her mother comes into the room?”

“Oh, Ann-toinette! How can you?” said Miss Betty in a kind of sad twitter.

Antoinette was standing up now, balancing awkwardly on one leg. She was a tall, lacklustre girl of fourteen, with the pale face common to girls of her age—a face so thin and taut that it seems, to adults, like a round, featureless blotch. Dark circles were under her lowered eyelids, and her mouth was small and tight. The fourteen-year-old body… budding breasts that strain against the tight schoolgirl’s uniform, that are painful and embarrassing to her delicate, childlike body; big feet and long arms like sticks of French bread that end in red hands and ink-stained fingers (and which one day, who knows, might turn into the most beautiful arms in the world); a spindly neck; short, dull hair that is dry and fine…

“Don’t you see, Antoinette, that your manners are driving me to despair? Sit down again. I’m going to come back in, and this time you will do me the honour of standing up immediately, understand?

Madame Kampf took a few steps out of the room and once again opened the door. Antoinette stood up so slowly and with such obvious reluctance that her mother clenched her teeth.

“Perhaps you can’t be bothered, is that it, Miss?” she asked sharply, her voice threatening.

“No, Mama,” replied Antoinette quietly.

“Well, then why have you got that look on your face?”

Antoinette attempted a smile, but with so little effort that it merely distorted her features into an unfortunate grimace. Sometimes she hated grown-ups so much that she could have killed them, mutilated them, or at least stamped her foot and shouted, “No! Just leave me alone!” But her parents frightened her. Ever since she was a tiny child, she’d been afraid of her parents.

When Antoinette was small, her mother had often held her on her lap, cuddled her, and kissed her. But Antoinette had forgotten all that. Instead she remembered what it was like to hear the roar of an angry voice above her head: “You’re always under my feet, Antoinette…”; “Don’t tell me you’ve dirtied my dress with your filthy shoes again! Go and stand in the corner, do you hear me? That will teach you, you little idiot!”; and one day on a street corner—the day when, for the first time, she had wanted to die—a shout so loud, during one of their scenes, that passers-by had turned round to stare: “Do you want me to smack you? Do you?” Deep in her heart she remembered how that slap burned her face. Right in the middle of the street! She had been eleven then, but big for her age. The passers-by, the grown-ups, she didn’t care about them … But some boys had been coming out of school, and they’d laughed when they’d seen her: “Oh you poor thing!” Their sniggering had followed her as she walked, head down, along the dark autumn avenue, the street-lamps a blur through her tears. “Haven’t you finished snivelling yet? You’ve got no character! You must know I punish you for your own good! And I’m warning you… You’d better not annoy me again, or else.” People were horrible…And, even now, she was hounded from morning to night, as if deliberately to torment her, torture her, humiliate her: “Look at how you’re holding your fork!” (in front of the servants, for God’s sake); and “Stand up straight. Or at least try not to look like a hunchback.” She was fourteen years old, a young lady—and, in her dreams, a woman who was beautiful, adored… She turned men’s heads. They caressed her the way Andrea Sperelli caressed Elena and Maria in D’Annunzio’s Il Piacere, the way Julien de Suberceaux caressed Maud de Rouvre. Love… She trembled at the thought of it.

“And if you think that I’m paying an English governess so you can have manners like that, you are very much mistaken, young lady!”

Madame Kampf lowered her voice.

“You keep forgetting that we’re rich now, Antoinette,” she said, pushing back a lock of hair that had fallen on to her daughter’s face.

She turned to the Englishwoman.

“I have a lot of errands for you to run this week, Miss Betty. I’m holding a ball on the fifteenth…”

“A ball,” murmured Antoinette, her eyes opening wide.

“Yes,” said Madame Kampf, smiling, “a ball…”

She looked at Antoinette with pride, then frowned, indicating the Englishwoman with a slight twitch of the eyebrow.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been talking, have you?”

“No, Mama, no,” Antoinette quickly replied. She knew all too well her mother’s constant worry. At first— two years ago now, in 1926, when they’d left the Rue Favart after her father had made a killing on the Stock Market (first on the devaluation of the franc and then of the pound) and they’d become rich—Antoinette had been called into her parents’ bedroom every morning. Her mother would be lying in bed polishing her nails; in the adjoining dressing room, her father, a dry little Jew with fiery eyes, would be shaving, washing, and getting dressed, all with the same break-neck speed that characterised his every action and which, in the past, had earned him the nickname “Feuer” amongst the German Jews, his friends at the Stock Market. For years Alfred Kampf had haunted the great steps of the Stock Market without getting anywhere. Antoinette knew that he used to be an employee of the Banque de Paris and, long before that, a doorman at the bank, wearing a blue uniform. Shortly before Antoinette was born, he’d married his mistress, Mademoiselle Rosine, the manager’s secretary. For eleven years they had lived in a small, dingy apartment behind the Opera Comique. Antoinette remembered how the maid would crash about in the kitchen washing the dishes while she sat at the dining-room table doing her homework, Madame Kampf reading novels beside her, leaning forward to catch the light from the large gas-lamp with the round frosted glass shade that hung above them. Now and again Madame Kampf would let out an angry sigh so loud and sudden that it made Antoinette jump. “What is it now?” Kampf would ask. And Rosine would reply, “It makes me feel sick when I think of how some people have such an easy life, how happy they are, while I’m stuck here, in this dirty hole, spending the best years of my life darning your socks …”

Kampf would simply shrug without saying anything. At this point Rosine would usually look at Antoinette and shout bad-temperedly, “And why are you listening? Is it any of your business what grown-ups are talking about?” rounding off the reprimand with, “Yes, that’s it, girl. If you’re waiting for your father to make his fortune like he’s been promising to ever since we got married, you’ll be waiting a very long time, you’ll watch your whole life slip by… You’ll grow up, and you’ll still be here, like your poor mother, waiting…” When she said the word “waiting,” a certain look came over her tense, sullen features, an expression so pathetic, so deeply pained, that Antoinette was often moved, in spite of herself, to lean forward and kiss her mother on the cheek.

“My poor baby,” Rosine would then say, stroking her daughter’s face. But once she had shouted, “Oh, leave me alone, won’t you! You’re annoying me. You can be so irritating! Yes, you as well…” And never again had Antoinette given her mother a kiss, except in the morning and at night—the kind of kiss parents and children give each other automatically, like two strangers shaking hands.

Then, one fine day, they had suddenly become rich. Antoinette had never understood how. They had come to live in a vast white apartment, and her mother had suddenly appeared with her hair dyed blonde. Antoinette had glanced furtively, fearfully, at the flaming gold tresses which she hardly recognised.

“So tell me again, Antoinette,” Madame Kampfwould order from her bed each morning, “what do you answer if someone asks you where we lived last year?”

“You’re an idiot,” Kampfwould say from the dressing room. “Who do you think is going to talk to her? She doesn’t know anyone.”

“I know what I’m talking about,” Madame Kampf replied, raising her voice. “What about the servants?”

“If I catch her saying a single word to the servants, she’ll have me to deal with,” said Kampf, coming into the bedroom. “You understand, Antoinette? She knows she just has to keep her mouth shut and learn her lessons, and that’s the end of it. We ask nothing more of her…” Turning to his wife, Kampf added, “She’s not a fool, you know.”

But as soon as he had left, Madame Kampf started in again. “If anyone asks you, Antoinette, you’re to say we lived in the Midi all last year. You don’t need to go into detail as to whether it was in Cannes or Nice, just say the Midi… unless they ask for details, in which case it would be better to say Cannes, it’s more sophisticated… But, of course, your father is right, it’s best to say nothing at all. A little girl should speak as little as possible to grown-ups.”

And she sent her away with a wave of her beautiful bare arm, a slightly thick arm, sparkling with the diamond bracelet her husband had just given her and which she only ever took off in the bath.

Antoinette was remembering all this when she heard her mother ask the Englishwoman, “Does Antoinette at least have nice handwriting?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kampf.”

“Why?” Antoinette asked shyly.

“Because,” explained Madame Kampf, “you can help me write out the envelopes this evening. You see, I’m sending nearly two hundred invitations. I’ll never manage it alone… Miss Betty, I’m giving Antoinette permission to go to bed an hour later than usual tonight. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, turning towards her daughter.

But as Antoinette was once again lost in thought and said nothing, Madame Kampf shrugged her shoulders.

"That girl has always got her head in the clouds,” she remarked quietly. “Doesn’t it make you proud to think your parents are giving a ball?” she asked her daughter. “Well, doesn’t it? I fear you don’t have much feeling, my poor girl,” she concluded with a sigh, as she turned and left the room.

II

ANTOINETTE WAS USUALLY put to bed by the English governess at nine o’clock precisely, but that evening, she stayed in the drawing room with her parents. She was so rarely allowed in there that she stared at the white panelling and gilt furniture as if she were visiting someone else’s house. Her mother pointed to a small pedestal table laid out with ink, pens, and a packet of cards with envelopes.

“Sit down over there. I’ll dictate the addresses to you,” she said, then turned to her husband and asked loudly, “Will you be joining us, my dear?” The servant was clearing away the dishes in the adjoining room, and for several months now, the Kampfs had made a point of addressing each other with great formality in front of him. But as soon as Kampf got close enough, Rosine whispered, “For heaven’s sake, get rid ofthat flunky, will you. He’s so annoying…”

She noticed the look on Antoinette’s face and blushed.

“Will you be much longer, Georges?” she asked imperiously. “You may go as soon as you’ve finished putting those things away.”

The three of them then sat in silence, frozen to their chairs. When the servant had gone, Madame Kampf let out a sigh.

“I can’t stand that Georges, I don’t know why. As soon as I sense him behind me at dinner, I lose my appetite… And just what are you smirking about, Antoinette? Come on, let’s get to work. Do you have the guest list, Alfred?”

“Yes,” replied Kampf, “but first let me take off my jacket. I’m hot.”

“Just make sure that you remember not to leave it lying around in here like the last time,” said his wife. “I could tell from the looks on their faces that Georges and Lucie found it odd that you were in the drawing room in your shirt-sleeves …”

“I don’t give a damn about the opinions of the servants,” Kampf grumbled.

“Well, you’re very wrong, my dear. It’s the servants who make or break reputations, going from one place to another and talking… I would have never known that the baroness on the third floor…”

She lowered her voice and whispered something that Antoinette, despite all her efforts, failed to hear.

“…without Lucie who was with her for three years…”

Kampf reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper covered with names, many ofwhich were crossed out.

“Let’s start with the people I know, all right, Rosine? Antoinette, you write. Monsieur and Madame Banyuls. I don’t know their address, but you have the telephone directory there, so you can look up any addresses we need…”

“They’re extremely rich, aren’t they?” Rosine murmured with respect.

“Extremely.”

“Do you think they’ll want to come? I don’t know Madame Banyuls.”

“Neither do I. But I do business with her husband, so that’s sufficient… I’ve heard his wife is charming, and besides, she doesn’t receive many invitations from his circle since she was mixed up in that business … you know, the famous orgies in the Bois de Boulogne, two years ago…”

“Alfred, not in front of the child!”

“She doesn’t understand. You just write, Antoinette… Nevertheless, she’s a good person to start with…”

“Don’t forget the Ostiers,” Rosine said quickly. “It seems they give wonderful parties…”

“Monsieur and Madame Ostier d’Arrachon, number two… Antoinette… Well, my dear, I don’t know about them. They’re very prim and proper, very … The wife used to be… “

He made a gesture.

“No!”

“Yes. I know someone who used to see her in a brothel in Marseille… Yes, yes, I can assure you… But that was a long time ago, nearly twenty years. Her marriage completely transformed her. Now she receives very classy people, and she’s extremely particular when it comes to her friends. As a general rule, all women with a past get like that after ten years.”

“My God,” sighed Madame Kampf, “it’s so difficult…”

“We must be methodical, my dear. For a first party, invite anyone and everyone—as many of the sods as you can stand. When it comes to the second or third you can start to be selective. This time, we have to invite everyone in sight.”

“But if we could at least be sure that everyone would come… If anyone refused, I think I’d die of shame…”

Kampf grimaced and stifled a laugh.

“If anyone refuses to come, then you’ll invite them again the next time, and again the time after that. What do you want me to say? In the end, if you want to get ahead in society, you simply have to obey the Gospels religiously.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“If someone slaps you, turn the other cheek… Society is the best school in which to learn Christian humility.”

“I do wonder,” said Madame Kampf, somewhat shocked, “where you get all these stupid ideas, my dear.”

Kampf smiled.

“Come on then, let’s get on with it… Here’s a piece of paper with some addresses on it. All you have to do is copy them, Antoinette…”

Madame Kampf leaned over her daughter’s shoulder as she continued writing, her head lowered.

“It’s true she has very nice handwriting, very neat… Tell me, Alfred, Monsieur Julien Nassan… Wasn’t he the one who was in prison for fraud?”

“Nassan? Yes.”

“Oh!” murmured Rosine, rather surprised.

“But why that look?” asked Kampf “He’s recovered his position, he’s a charming young man, and a first-class businessman. What’s more.

“Monsieur Julien Nassan, 23A Avenue Hoche,” Antoinette read out. “Who’s next, Papa?”

“There are only twenty-five more,” Madame Kampf groaned. “We’ll never find two hundred people, Alfred!”

“Of course we will. Come now, don’t start getting all upset. Where’s your own list? All the people you met in Nice, Deau-ville, Chamonix last year…”

Madame Kampf took a notepad from the table.

“Count Moissi, Monsieur and Madame Levy de Brunelleschi, and the Marquis d’Itcharra: he’s Madame Levy’s lover; they’re always invited everywhere together…”

“Is there a husband, at least?” asked Kampf doubtfully.

“I understand that they are very respectable people. There are some more marquises, you know, five of them. The Marquis de Ligues y Hermosa, the Marquis… Tell me, Alfred, are we supposed to use their titles when we speak to them? I think we should, don’t you? Not Monsieur le Marquis like the servants, of course, but my dear Marquis, my dear Countess … If we don’t, the others won’t even notice we’re receiving the aristocracy.”

“Maybe you’d like it ifwe pinned labels to their backs, eh?”

“Oh, you and your idiotic jokes! Come on, Antoinette, hurry up and copy those out, darling…”

Antoinette wrote for a moment, then read out loud: “The Baron and Baroness Levinstein-Levy, the Count and Countess Poirier…”

“That’s Abraham and Rebecca Birnbaum. They bought that title. Don’t you think it’s idiotic to call yourself Poirier, like a tree? If it was up to me, I’d choose …”

She drifted off into a deep dream.

“Just Count and Countess Kampf” she murmured. “That doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“Wait a while,” Kampf suggested. “We’ve got at least ten years before that…”

Rosine was sorting through some visiting cards that had been thrown into a malachite bowl decorated with gilt Chinese dragons.

“Still, I’d really like to know who all these people are,” she mused. “There’s a whole batch of cards here I got at New Year… Loads from all those little gigolos I met in Deauville…”

“We need as many people as possible to fill the gaps. So long as they’re dressed correctly…”

“Oh, my dear, you are joking. At least they’re all counts, marquises, viscounts… But I can’t seem to match their faces to their names… They all look alike. Still, it doesn’t really matter, in the end. You saw how it was done at the Rothwan de Fiesques’ party? You say exactly the same thing to everyone: ‘So pleased to see you…’ and then, if you’re forced to introduce two people, you just mumble. No one can ever hear anything… Come on, Antoinette darling, what you’re doing isn’t hard. The addresses are on the cards…”

“But, Mama,” Antoinette interrupted, “this one’s the upholsterer’s card.

“What are you talking about? Let me see. Good God, she’s right. I’m going out of my mind, Alfred, I really am … How many is that, Antoinette?”

“One hundred and seventy-two, Mama.”

“Well, that’s not so bad!”

The Kampfs sighed with satisfaction and smiled at each other with the same expression of weary triumph as two actors after the third curtain call. “We’re doing well, aren’t we?”

“Mademoiselle Isabelle Cossette… That’s… that’s not my Mademoiselle Isabelle, is it?” Antoinette asked shyly.

“But of course…”

“But why are you inviting her?” exclaimed Antoinette, then blushed violently, expecting a curt “What business is it of yours?” from her mother. But Madame Kampf seemed awkward.

“She’s a fine young woman… We have to be nice to people…”

“She’s absolutely ghastly,” Antoinette protested.

Mademoiselle Isabelle, a cousin of the Kampfs, was music teacher to several families of rich Jewish stock-brokers. She was a boring old maid, as stiff and upright as an umbrella; she taught Antoinette piano and music theory. Extremely short-sighted but refusing to wear glasses because she was proud of her rather pretty eyes and thick eyelashes, she would lean over the piano and glue her big pointed nose, bluish from rice powder, to the music. Whenever Antoinette made a mistake, she would hit her fingers sharply with an ebony ruler that was as hard and flat as she was. She was as malicious and prying as a magpie. The night before her music lessons, Antoinette would whisper a fervent prayer (her father had converted when he got married; Antoinette had been raised a Catholic): “Please God, let Mademoiselle Isabelle die tonight.”

“The child’s right,” Kampf remarked in surprise. “What’s got into you to make you want to invite that old madwoman? You can’t actually like her…”

Madame Kampf shrugged her shoulders angrily.

“Oh, you don’t understand anything! How do you expect my family to hear about it otherwise? Can’t you just picture the look on their faces? Aunt Loridon, who fell out with me because I married a Jew, and Julie Lacombe and Uncle Martial, and everyone in the family who looked down their noses at us because they had more money than us, remember? It’s very simple: ifwe don’t invite Isabelle, I can’t be sure that the next day they’ll all die of envy, and then it’s not worth having the ball at all! Keep writing, Antoinette.”

“Shall we have dancing in both reception rooms?”

“Of course, and in our hall… It’s very beautiful, our hall… I’ll hire great baskets of flowers. Just wait till you see how wonderful it will look filled with beautiful women in their most elegant dresses and best jewellery, the men in evening dress… It looked positively magical at the Levy de Brunelleschis’. During the tangos, they switched off the electricity and left on two large alabaster lamps in the corners of the room that gave off a red light…”

“I don’t care much for that idea. Makes it look like a dance hall…”

“But everyone seems to be doing it now. Women love letting men have a little feel to the music… The supper, naturally, on small tables…”

“How about having a bar to start off with?”

“That’s a good idea… We need to warm them up when they arrive. We could set up the bar in Antoinette’s room. She can sleep in the linen room or in the box room at the end of the corridor just for one night…”

Antoinette went pale and started trembling violently.

“Couldn’t I stay for just a quarter of an hour?” she whispered, her words almost choking her.

A ball… My God, was it possible that there could take place— here, right under her nose—this splendid thing she vaguely imagined as a mixture of wild music, intoxicating perfumes, dazzling evening gowns, words of love whispered in some isolated alcove, as dark and cool as a hidden chamber… and that she could be sent to bed that night, like any other night, at nine o’clock, like a baby? Perhaps the men who knew the Kampfs had a daughter would ask where she was—and her mother would answer with her hateful little laugh, “Oh, but really, she’s been asleep for hours…” And yet what harm would it do to her if Antoinette, yes, Antoinette as well, had a bit of happiness in this life? My God, to be able to dance, just once, wearing a pretty dress, like a real young lady, held tightly in a man’s arms! She closed her eyes and repeated, “Just a quarter of an hour, can’t I, Mama?” with a kind of bold despair, as if she were pointing a loaded revolver at her heart.

“What?” shouted Madame Kampf, stunned. “Don’t you dare ask again…”

“You’ll go to Monsieur Blanc’s ball,” said her father.

Madame Kampf shrugged her shoulders.

“I think this child must be mad…”

Antoinette’s face suddenly contorted.

“Please, Mama, please, I’m begging you!” she shouted. “I’m fourteen, Mama, I’m not a little girl any more. I know girls come out at fifteen, but I look fifteen, and next year…”

Madame Kampf exploded.

“Well, honestly, how wonderful! Honestly!” she shouted, her voice hoarse with anger. “This kid, this snotty-nosed kid, coming to the ball! Can you just picture it? Just you wait, girl, I’ll knock all those fancy ideas right out of you. You think you’re going to ‘come out’ next year, eh? Who’s been putting ideas like that in your head? You listen to me. I’ve only just begun to live, me, you hear, me, and I have no intention of rushing to lumber myself with having to marry off a daughter… I don’t know why I shouldn’t box your ears to teach you a lesson,” she continued in the same tone of voice, while walking towards Antoinette.

Antoinette stepped back and went even whiter. The lost, desperate expression in her eyes caused Kampf to feel a kind of pity. “Come on now, leave her be,” he said, catching Rosine’s raised arm. “The child’s tired and upset, she doesn’t know what she’s saying… Go to bed, Antoinette.”

Antoinette didn’t move; her mother shoved her by the shoulders.

“Go on, out, and not a word. Move it, or I’m warning you…”

Antoinette was shaking from head to foot, but she walked slowly out of the room holding back her tears.

“Charming,” said Madame Kampf after she’d gone. “That girl’s going to be a handful… I was just the same at her age, though. But I’m not like my poor mother who never knew how to say no to me… I’ll keep her in her place, I promise you that…”

“She’ll calm down when she’s had some sleep. She was tired. It’s eleven o’clock already; she’s not used to going to bed so late. That’s why she got upset… Let’s carry on with the list,” said Kampf, “and forget about it.”

III

IN THE MIDDLE of the night, Miss Betty was woken by the sound of sobbing in the next room. She switched on the light and listened for a moment through the wall. It was the first time she had heard the girl cry: usually when Madame Kampf scolded her, Antoinette managed to hold back her tears and say nothing.

“What’s the matter with you, child? Are you ill?” she called through the wall.

The sobbing stopped.

“I suppose your mother scolded you. It’s for your own good, you know, Antoinette… Tomorrow you’ll apologise to her, you’ll give each other a kiss, and it will be all over. It’s late now, you should get some sleep. Would you like some herbal tea? No? You could answer me, you know, my dearest,” she said, as Antoinette remained silent. “Dear, dear, a little girl sulking isn’t a pretty sight. You’re upsetting your guardian angel…”

Antoinette made a face and stretched out her clenched little fists towards the wall. Bloody woman. Bloody selfish hypocrites, the lot of them… They couldn’t care less that she was crying all alone in the dark, so hard she could barely breathe … that she felt as miserable and lonely as a lost dog!

No one loved her, no one in the whole world… But couldn’t they see, blind idiots, that she was a thousand times more intelligent, more precious, more perceptive than all of them put together—these people who dared to bring her up, to teach her? These unsophisticated, crass nouveaux riches? She had been laughing at them all evening, but of course they hadn’t even realised… She could laugh or cry right under their noses and they wouldn’t deign to notice… To them a fourteen-year-old was just a kid—to be pushed around like a dog! What right did they have to send her to bed, to punish her, to insult her? “Oh, I wish they were all dead,” she exclaimed. Through the wall she could hear the Englishwoman breathing softly as she slept. Antoinette started crying again, but more quietly this time, tasting the tears that ran down her cheeks into the corners of her mouth and on to her lips. Suddenly, a strange pleasure flooded through her; for the first time in her life she was crying like a true woman—silently, without scowling or hiccoughing. Later on, she would cry the same tears over love … For a long time she listened to the sobs rising in her chest like the deep, low swell of the sea. Her mouth was moist with tears and tasted salty. She switched on the light and looked in the mirror with curiosity. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks red and mottled. Like a little girl who’s been beaten. She was ugly, ugly … She started sobbing again.

“I want to die! Dear God, please make me die… Dear God, sweet Holy Virgin, why did you make me their child? Punish them, I’m begging you… Punish them just once, and after that, I’ll gladly die.”

She stopped suddenly and said out loud, “Of course it’s all a joke. The good Lord and the Virgin Mary are just a joke, like the good parents you read about in books and all that stuff about the happiest time of your life …”

The happiest time of your life, what a joke! She was biting her hands so hard that she could taste blood in her mouth. “Happiest… happiest… I’d rather be dead and buried…” she kept saying over and over again, furiously.

Day in, day out, doing the same things at the same times… It was slavery, prison! Getting up, getting dressed… Dull little dresses, heavy ankle-boots, ribbed stockings—all on purpose, on purpose so she’d look like a drudge, so that no one in the street would even glance at her, so that she’d be just some insignificant little girl walking by… “Fools! You’ll never be young like me again, with skin as delicate as a flower, smooth, fresh, and lustrous eyelashes, and beautiful eyes—sometimes frightened, sometimes mischievous—which can entice, reject, desire… Never, never again!” But the desire… and these terrible feelings… Why did she feel this shameful, desperate envy eating away at her heart every time she saw two lovers walking by at dusk, kissing as they passed and teetering slightly, as if they were intoxicated? Why feel the hatred of a spinster at only fourteen? She would have her share eventually, she knew that. But it was so far off, so very far it seemed it would never come … and, in the meantime, this harsh life of humiliation, lessons, strict discipline, shouting from her mother…

“The woman dared to threaten me!” she said out loud. “She shouldn’t have dared…”

Then she remembered her mother’s raised hand.

“If she had touched me, I would have scratched her, bitten her, and then… But it’s always possible to escape … for ever… There’s the window,” she thought feverishly.

She imagined herself lying on the street, covered in blood. No ball on the fifteenth… “Couldn’t the child have chosen another day to kill herself?” they’d say. As her mother had said, “I want to live, I, I.” Perhaps, in the end, that’s what hurt more than all the rest: never before had Antoinette seen in her mother’s eyes that cold look, the look a woman would give to a rival.

“Dirty selfish pigs. I’m the one who wants to live, me! I’m young… They’re cheating me, they’re stealing my share of happiness… Oh, if only, by some miracle, I could go to the ball! To be the most beautiful, the most dazzling woman there, with all the men at my feet!”

She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“Do you know who she is? That’s Mademoiselle Kampf. She’s not pretty in the conventional sense, you know, but she is extraordinarily charming… and so sophisticated. The others all pale by comparison, don’t you agree? As for her mother, well, she looks like a kitchen maid compared to her daughter…”

She laid her head on the tear-soaked pillow and closed her eyes; her weary limbs were overcome by a feeling of soft, gentle sensuality. She tenderly touched her body through her nightdress with light, respectful fingers. A beautiful body, ready for love…

“Fifteen, O Romeo, that’s how old Juliet was…” she murmured.

Once she was fifteen, it would all be different; then she would savour life…

IV

MADAME KAMPF SAID nothing about the previous night’s argument to Antoinette, but all through lunch she let her daughter know she was in a bad mood by barking out the kind of curt reprimands at which she excelled when she was angry.

“What are you day-dreaming about with your mouth hanging open like that? Close it and breathe through your nose. How nice for parents to have a daughter who always has her head in the clouds! Will you pay attention to how you’re eating? I bet you’ve stained the table-cloth… Can’t you eat properly at your age? And don’t look at me like that! You have to learn how to take criticism without making faces. Is it beneath you to answer? Cat got your tongue?

“That’s it, here come the tears,” she continued, standing up and throwing down her napkin. “Well, I’d rather leave the table than look at your stupid little face.”

She went out, slamming the door behind her, and leaving Antoinette and her governess staring at the abandoned place setting opposite them.

“Finish your dessert now,” Miss Betty whispered. “You’ll be late for your German lesson.”

Antoinette, her hands trembling, picked up a section of the orange she had just peeled. She always tried to eat slowly and calmly, so that the servant, standing motionless behind her chair, would think that she despised “that woman” and her constant nit-picking; but, in spite of herself, big, shiny tears fell from her swollen eyes on to her dress.

A little later, Madame Kampf came into the study; she was holding the packet of invitations.

“You’re going to your piano lesson after tea, aren’t you, Antoinette? You can give Isabelle her invitation, and, Miss Betty, you can put the rest in the post.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kampf.”

The post office was very crowded; Miss Betty looked at the clock.

“Oh, it’s late! We don’t have time… I’ll come back during your lesson, dear,” she said looking away, her cheeks redder than usual. “You don’t… you don’t mind, do you, dear?”

“No,” murmured Antoinette.

She said no more; but when Miss Betty left her in front of Mademoiselle Isabelle’s apartment building, urging her to hurry up and go in, Antoinette waited a moment, hidden behind the large doors leading to the courtyard. She saw the Englishwoman hurrying towards a taxi that was waiting at the corner. The car passed very close to Antoinette, who stood on tiptoe and looked inside, simultaneously curious and frightened. But she saw nothing. She stayed where she was for a while, watching the taxi disappear into the distance.

“I’d suspected she had a lover! They’re probably kissing right now, like they do in books. Will he say, ‘I love you’? And what about her? Is she his… mistress?”

Antoinette felt a sense of shame and disgust, mixed with a kind of vague suffering. To be free and alone with a man—how happy she must be! They’d be going to the woods, no doubt…

“How I wish Mother could see them,” she whispered, clenching her fists. “Oh, I do! But no… People in love are always lucky! They’re happy, they’re together, they kiss… The whole world is full of men and women who love each other… Why not me?”

She was swinging her school bag in front of her. She looked at it with hate, then sighed, turned slowly, and crossed the courtyard. She was late. She could already hear Mademoiselle Isabelle: “Haven’t you been taught that being on time is the most important obligation of a student towards her teachers, Antoinette?”

“She’s stupid and old and ugly,” thought Antoinette in exasperation.

To her face, she reeled out, “Hello, Mademoiselle, it’s not my fault I’m late. It was Mother: she asked me to give you this…”

As she held out the envelope, an idea suddenly struck her.

“…and she asked if you could let me leave five minutes earlier than usual.”

That way she might be able to see Miss Betty coming back with her man.

But Mademoiselle Isabelle wasn’t listening. She was reading Madame Kampfs invitation.

Antoinette saw the dry, dark skin of her pendulous cheeks suddenly flush red.

“What’s this? A ball? Your mother is giving a ball?”

Mademoiselle Isabelle turned the invitation over, furtively brushing it against the back of her hand to see whether it was engraved or just printed. There was a difference of at least forty francs… As soon as she touched it, she knew it was engraved. She shrugged her shoulders angrily. Those Kampfs had always been insanely vain and extravagant! In the past, when Rosine had worked at the Banque de Paris (and, good God, it wasn’t so very long ago), she’d spent all her wages on clothes. She wore silk lingerie, a different pair of gloves every week… But then again, she frequented, no doubt, the most disreputable places. It was only that kind of woman who found happiness. The others…

“Your mother has always been lucky,” she muttered bitterly.

“She’s furious,” Antoinette said to herself. “But you’ll definitely be coming, won’t you?” she asked with a malicious little smile.

“I’ll let you know. I’ll do my very best because I’d really like to see your mother,” said Mademoiselle Isabelle. “But, on the other hand, I don’t know if I can… Some friends—the parents of one of my younger students, Monsieur and Madame Aristide Gros, the former cabinet private secretary (I’m sure your father has heard of him)… I’ve known them for years—they’ve invited me to the theatre, and I’ve already accepted… But I’ll see what I can do,” she added, without going into further detail. “In any case, tell your mother that I would be delighted, just delighted to see her…”

“I will, Mademoiselle.”

“Now then, to work. Come along, sit down…”

Antoinette slowly adjusted the velour piano stool. She could have reproduced every stain, every rip in the material from memory. As she began her scales she stared mournfully at a yellow vase on the mantelpiece. It was full of dust inside, never a flower… And those hideous little shell boxes on the shelves. How ugly this dark little apartment was, how shabby and foreboding this place that, for years, she’d been forced to come to…

While Mademoiselle Isabelle arranged the sheet music, she cast a furtive look out the window. (It must be very beautiful in the woods, at dusk, with the bare, delicate trees and the winter sky as white as a pearl…) Three times a week, every week, for six years! Would it go on until she died?

“Antoinette, Antoinette, where are you putting your hands? Start again, please… Will there be many people going to your mother’s ball?”

“I think Mama has invited two hundred people.”

“Goodness! Does she think there will be enough room? Isn’t she worried it will get terribly hot and crowded? Play louder, Antoinette, put some spirit into it. Your left hand is weak, my dear… This scale for next time and exercise eighteen in the third Czerny book…”

Scales, exercises… for months and months: Grieg’s Death of Ase, Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, the “Barcarole” from the Tales of Hoffmann… Beneath her schoolgirl’s fingers they all disintegrated into a harsh din…

Mademoiselle Isabelle banged out the beat with a rolled-up notebook.

“Why are you pressing the keys like that? Staccato, staccato! Do you think I can’t see how you’re holding your ring-finger and your little finger? Two hundred people, you say? Do you know them all?”

“No.”

“Will your mother be wearing that new pink dress from Premet?”

Antoinette didn’t answer.

“And what about you? You’ll be going to the ball, I imagine? You’re old enough…”

“I don’t know,” whispered Antoinette with a shiver.

“Faster, faster! This is how it should go: one, two, one, two, one, two… Come along, wake up, Antoinette! The next section, my dear…”

The next section… dotted with sharps to stumble over! In the next-door apartment a child was crying. Mademoiselle Isabelle switched on the lamp. Outside, the sky had grown dark… The clock struck four. Another hour had flowed through her fingers like water—lost, never to return. She wanted to be far away, or to die…

“Are you tired, Antoinette? Already? When I was your age, I used to practise for six hours a day. Now, wait a moment. Don’t leave so fast—you’re in such a hurry… What time should I come on the fifteenth?”

“It says on the invitation. Ten o’clock.”

“Good. But I’ll see you before then.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle.”

Outside, the street was empty. Antoinette huddled against the wall and waited. A moment later, she heard Miss Betty’s footsteps, and saw her walking quickly towards her holding the arm of a young man. Antoinette lurched forward and bumped straight into the couple. Miss Betty let out a little cry.

“Miss Betty!” said Antoinette. “I’ve been waiting for you for at least fifteen minutes…”

Miss Betty’s face was right up against hers; in a flash, her features were so changed that Antoinette stopped short, as if not recognising the person she was talking to. But she failed to notice her pitiful little mouth, gaping open, as bruised as a ravaged flower; she was staring at the man.

He was very young. A university student—maybe even still at school. His fresh lips were slightly swollen from shaving; his lovely eyes were mischievous. He was smoking. While Miss Betty stammered excuses, he said calmly and boldly, “Introduce me, cousin.”

“Ann-toinette, this is my cousin,” murmured Miss Betty.

Antoinette held out her hand. The boy gave a laugh, then said nothing; he seemed to think for a moment before suggesting, “Let me walk you home, all right?”

The three of them went down the dark, empty street in silence. The cool wind brushed against Antoinette’s face; it was damp from the rain, as if misty with tears. She slowed down, watching the lovers in front of her, their bodies pressed together, neither of them speaking. How quickly they walked … She stopped. They didn’t even turn round. “If I were hit by a car, would they even know?” she thought with bitterness. A man bumped into her as he passed by; she jumped back in fright. But it was only the lamplighter; she watched how each street-lamp burst into flame as he touched one after the other with his long stick. The lights shimmered and danced like candles in the wind… Suddenly, she felt afraid. She ran ahead as fast as she could.

She caught up with the lovers at the Alexandre III Bridge. They were standing close together, whispering to each other urgently. The boy looked impatient when he saw Antoinette. Miss Betty was flustered for a moment; then, struck by sudden inspiration, she opened her handbag and took out the packet of envelopes.

“Here, dear, take your mother’s invitations. I haven’t posted them yet. Run down to the little tobacconist’s shop, over there, down that little street on the left… Can you see its light? You can put them in the letterbox. We’ll wait for you here.”

She thrust the packet of invitations into Antoinette’s hand; then she quickly walked away. Antoinette saw her stop in the middle of the bridge and lower her head as she waited for the boy. They leaned against the parapet.

Antoinette hadn’t moved. Because of the darkness, she could see only two shapeless shadows and the dark Seine reflecting the shimmering lights. Even when they kissed, she imagined rather than saw them leaning towards each other, their faces almost melting together. She began wringing her hands like a jealous woman. One of the envelopes slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground… She was frightened and quickly picked it up, but then she felt ashamed she’d been afraid. Was she always going to tremble like a little girl? Well, was she? She wasn’t worthy of being a woman. And what about those two who were still kissing? Their lips were still pressed together! A kind of giddiness took hold of her: the wild need to do something outrageous and evil. She clenched her teeth, crumpled up all the invitations, tore them into little pieces and threw them into the Seine. For a long while, her heart pounding, she watched them floating, caught against one of the bridge’s arches. And then the wind finally swept them deep into the water.

V

IT WAS NEARLY six o’clock and Antoinette was coming back from a walk with Miss Betty. As no one answered when they rang the bell, Miss Betty knocked. They could hear the sound of furniture being moved behind the door.

“They must be getting the cloakroom ready,” said the governess. “The ball’s tonight. I keep forgetting… and you, dear?”

She gave Antoinette a tender smile of complicity, but her face was anxious. She hadn’t seen her young lover again in front of the girl, but ever since that encounter in the street, Antoinette had been so aloof that her silences, her looks, worried Miss Betty…

When the servant opened the door they were immediately greeted by a furious Madame Kampf, who was overseeing the electrician in the dining room.

“Couldn’t you use the service entrance?” she shouted angrily. “You can see very well that we’re setting up a cloakroom here. Now we’ll have to start all over again. We’ll never get it done,” she concluded, grabbing hold of a table to help the concierge and Georges, who were setting up the room.

In the dining room and the long adjoining hallway, six waiters in white cotton jackets were preparing the tables for the supper. In the middle was the buffet, decorated with stunning flowers.

Antoinette wanted to go to her room; Madame Kampf again started shouting: “Not that way, not that way… Your room is to be the bar, and yours, Miss Betty, is being used as well. Miss Betty will sleep in the linen room tonight, and you, Antoinette, in the little box room… It’s at the other end of the apartment, so you’ll be able to sleep. You won’t even hear the music… What are you doing?” she said to the electrician, who was working unhurriedly and humming to himself. “Can’t you see that this light bulb isn’t working…”

“Give it time, lady…”

Rosine shrugged her shoulders, annoyed.

“Time!” she muttered to herself. “Time! He’s been at it for an hour…”

She clenched her fists as she spoke, with a gesture so identical to the one Antoinette made when she was angry, that the girl, motionless at the doorway, began to tremble—like someone who unexpectedly finds herself standing in front of a mirror.

Madame Kampf was wearing a silk dressing-gown and slippers on her bare feet; her loose hair hung like writhing snakes around her fiery face. She caught sight of the florist, his arms full of roses, trying to make his way past Antoinette, who was leaning against the wall.

“Excuse me, young lady…”

“Get out of the way for goodness sake!” she screamed, so sharply that Antoinette lurched into the florist and knocked the petals off one of the roses with her elbow.

“You are unbearable,” Madame Kampf continued, shouting so loudly that the glassware on the table started to vibrate. “Why are you here, getting in the way and bothering everyone? Get out, go on, go to your room—no, not to your room, to the linen room; go wherever you please but just get out of my sight! I don’t want to see you or hear you.”

Once Antoinette had gone, Madame Kampf rushed through the dining room and the butler’s pantry—which was piled high with buckets of ice to chill the champagne—to her husband’s office. Kampfwas on the telephone.

“What are you doing?” she cried, the moment he’d hung up. “You haven’t even shaved!”

“At six o’clock? You must be crazy!”

“First of all, it’s six thirty, and secondly, there might be a few last-minute errands to do; so it’s best to be ready.”

“You’re mad,” he repeated impatiently. “We have servants for that…”

“Oh, it’s just great when you start playing the aristocrat and gentleman!” she said with a shrug. ” ‘We have servants for that Save your airs and graces for the guests.’”

“Don’t get yourself in a state,” Kampf replied, gritting his teeth.

“But how do you expect me…” cried Rosine, with tears in her voice, “how do you expect me not to get in a state? It’s all going wrong! The bloody servants will never be ready on time. I have to be everywhere at once, supervising everything, and I haven’t slept in three nights. I’m at the end of my rope. I think I’m going mad!”

She grabbed a small silver ashtray and threw it on the floor; but this outburst seemed to calm her down. She smiled, slightly embarrassed.

“It’s not my fault, Alfred…”

Kampf shook his head and said nothing. As Rosine was leaving, he called her back.

“Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you… Have you still not received any replies to the invitations?”

“No, why?” “I don’t know, it just seems odd to me … As if there’s something going on. I wanted to ask Barthelemy if he’d received his invitation, but I haven’t seen him at the Stock Market for over a week… Should I telephone him?”

“Now? That would be ridiculous.”

“Still, it’s very odd…” said Kampf.

“Well, people just don’t bother replying, that’s all!” interrupted his wife. “You either go or you don’t…And do you know what? It even makes me happy. It means that no one wanted to let us down. Otherwise they would have sent their apologies, don’t you think?”

Since her husband didn’t reply, she asked him again, impatiently, “Well, don’t you agree, Alfred? I’m right, aren’t I? What do you think?”

Kampf spread out his arms.

“I have no idea… What do you want me to say? I don’t know any more than you do… “

They looked at each other for a moment in silence. Rosine sighed and lowered her head.

“Oh, my God! We’re finished, aren’t we?”

“It’ll be all right,” said Kampf.

“I know, but in the meantime… Oh, if you knew how frightened I am! I wish it were over!”

“Don’t get yourself upset,” Kampf said again, rather un-convincingly.

He was absent-mindedly turning his paper knife over and over in his hands.

“Above all, say as little as possible… Just use the old cliches: ‘So happy to see you! Do have something to eat! It’s so warm! It’s so cold…’”

“The introductions will be the worst,” said Rosine anxiously. “Think about it! All these people I’ve only ever met once, whom I will barely recognise… and who don’t know each other, who have nothing in common…”

“Oh for God’s sake, you’ll think of something. After all, everyone’s been in our position. They all had to start somewhere.”

“Do you remember our little apartment on the Rue Favart?” Rosine asked suddenly. “And how we hesitated before replacing the old, battered settee in the dining room? That was only four years ago, and now look…” she added, indicating the heavy gilt furniture all around them.

“Do you mean,” he asked, “that in four years’ time, we’ll be receiving ambassadors and then we’ll remember how we sat here tonight shaking with fear because a hundred or so pimps and old tarts were coming? Eh?”

She laughed and covered his mouth with her hand. “Well, really, do be quiet!”

As she was leaving the room, she bumped into the maitre d’, who was coming to warn her that the pretzels hadn’t arrived with the champagne; and that the barman thought there wouldn’t be enough gin for the cocktails.

Rosine put her hands to her head.

“Wonderful, that’s all I need!” she shouted, starting her tirade all over again. “Couldn’t you have told me before? Well, couldn’t you? Where do you expect me to get gin at this time of night? Everything is closed… and the pretzels…”

“Send the driver, darling,” Kampf suggested.

“The driver’s gone to get his dinner,” said Georges.

“Of course,” screamed Rosine, beside herself, “of course he has! He doesn’t give a damn…” She checked herself. “He doesn’t care in the least whether we need him or not. He’s off having his dinner! And he’s not the only one I’ll be firing tomorrow,” she added, looking at Georges and sounding so furious that the manservant immediately pursed his long smooth lips.

“If Madame means me…” he began.

“No, no, my friend, don’t be ridiculous…” said Rosine with a shrug. “It just slipped out. You can see very well that I’m upset… Take a taxi and buy whatever we need at Nicolas. Give him some money, Alfred…”

She hurried off to her room, straightening the flowers as she went and berating the waiters.

“This tray of petitsfours is in the wrong place… Lift the pheasant’s tail higher! Where are the caviar sandwiches? Don’t put them out too soon: everyone will make a mad dash for them. And what about the foie gras? I bet they’ve forgotten the foie gras! If I don’t do something myself… “

“We’re just unwrapping it now, Madame,” said the maitre d’, looking at her with ill-concealed contempt.

“I must seem ridiculous,” Rosine thought suddenly, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror with her purplish face, frightened eyes, trembling lips. But nevertheless—like an overtired child—she felt unable to stop the hysterics, no matter how hard she tried. She was utterly exhausted and on the verge of tears.

She went into her room.

Her maid was laying out her ball gown on the bed; it was silver lame, decorated with heavy layers of pearls. Her shoes shone like jewels, her stockings were made of chiffon.

“Will Madame be wanting dinner now? We will serve it in here, of course, so as not to disturb the tables…”

“I’m not hungry,” said Rosine angrily.

“As Madame wishes… But could I at least go and have my dinner now?” asked Lucie, gritting her teeth, for Madame Kampf had made her spend four hours re-stitching all the loose pearls on her dress. “May I remind Madame that it is nearly eight o’clock and that we are people, not animals.”

“Go on then, off with you! Am I stopping you?” exclaimed Madame Kampf.

When she was alone, she threw herself down on the bed and closed her eyes. But the room was as cold as a cellar: they had shut off all the radiators in the apartment that morning. She got up and went over to the dressing table.

“I look such a fright…”

Carefully she began to apply her make-up; first a thick layer of face cream that she mixed in her hands, then the liquid rouge on her cheeks, the black mascara, the delicate little line to extend her eyelids towards her temples, the powder… She worked slowly, stopping every now and then to look more closely— passionately, anxiously devouring her face in the mirror, her expression both scornful and cunning. In a fit of pique she took hold of a single grey hair near her temple and pulled it out with exaggerated violence. How ironic life was. Oh, how lovely her face had been at twenty! Her cheeks so rosy! But she’d had darned stockings and patched underwear… And now— jewellery, gowns, but her first wrinkles too… all at the same time. My God, how you had to hurry up and live! Not leave it till too late to be attractive to men, to love… What good were money, elegant clothes, and beautiful cars if you didn’t have a man in your life, a handsome young lover? A lover… how she had yearned for one. When she was still a poor girl she had gone with men who spoke to her of love, believed them just because they were well-dressed, with beautiful manicured hands… Boors, the lot of them! But she was still waiting… And now, this was her last chance, these final years before old age set in, true old age, impossible to fight, inevitable… She closed her eyes, imagined young lips, an eager, tender look, full of desire…

Hastily she threw off her silk robe, as if she were late for some lovers’ tryst, and started dressing: she slipped on her stockings, her shoes, her gown, with the peculiar agility of women who have never in their life had a maid. Then the jewellery… She had a safe full of it. Kampf said it was the surest investment. She put on the double strand of pearls and all her rings; she covered both arms with bracelets made of enormous diamonds; then she pinned on a large brooch of sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. She sparkled and gleamed like a treasure trove. She took a few steps back, looked at herself with a joyous smile. Life was beginning at last, finally! Who knew? Perhaps tonight…

VI

ANTOINETTE AND Miss Betty were finishing their dinner in the linen room; it had been served on an ironing board balanced across two chairs. Through the door they could hear the servants rushing about in the butler’s pantry, and the sound of dishes clanking. Antoinette sat motionless, her hands tight around her knees. At nine o’clock, the governess looked at her watch.

“You have to go to bed right now, dear… You won’t hear the music from your little room, so you should sleep well.”

When Antoinette did not reply, Miss Betty laughed and clapped her hands.

“Come along, Antoinette, wake up, what’s the matter?”

She took her to the dingy little box room where a fold-out bed and two chairs had been hastily set up. Across the courtyard were the brightly lit windows of the reception room and dining room.

“You can watch the people dancing from here,” Miss Betty saidjokingly. “There are no shutters.”

After she left, Antoinette got up and pressed her face against the glass, partly in eagerness, partly in fear; a large section ofwall was lit up by the golden light from the windows. Shadows passed back and forth behind the tulle curtains. The servants. Someone opened the bay-window, and Antoinette could clearly hear the sound of instruments being tuned at the end of the reception room. The musicians had already arrived. My God, it was after nine o’clock…All week long she had vaguely expected some catastrophe to wipe her from the face of the earth before anyone found out; but the evening had passed like any other. In a nearby apartment, the clock struck the half hour. Thirty, forty-five minutes to go, then… Nothing, nothing would happen. Of course it wouldn’t. The moment they had come home from their walk that evening, Madame Kampf had leapt at Miss Betty and demanded, in that furious tone of voice that always made nervous people immediately lose their heads, “You did post the invitations, didn’t you? You’re quite sure you didn’t lose any?” and Miss Betty had said, “Yes, Mrs. Kampf.” Surely she was the one responsible, she alone … And if Miss Betty were dismissed, well, too bad, it would serve her right, it would teach her a lesson.

“I don’t give a damn,” Antoinette stammered. “I don’t give a damn,” biting her hands so hard that her young, sharp teeth made them bleed.

“And as for her, she can do what she likes to me, I’m not afraid, I don’t give a damn!” She looked out at the dark, deep courtyard below the window.

“I’ll kill myself, and before I die, I’ll say it’s all because of her, and that will be the end of it,” she murmured. “I’m not afraid of anything, I’ve already had my revenge…”

She went back to looking out of the window. Her breath was making the glass misty; angrily she wiped it and pressed her face against it once again. Finally, out of frustration, she threw open both sides of the window. The night was fine and cold. Now, with the piercing eyes of a fourteen-year-old, she could clearly see the chairs lined up along the wall, the musicians around the piano. She stood without moving for so long that she could no longer feel her cheeks or bare arms. For a moment, she almost convinced herself that nothing had happened, that the bridge, the dark water of the Seine, the torn-up invitations carried off by the wind had all been a dream, that the guests would miraculously appear and the ball begin. She heard the clock strike three quarters of an hour, then ten o’clock. Ten o’clock… She shuddered and slipped out of the room.

She walked towards the reception room, like an amateur assassin drawn back to the scene of the crime. In the corridor, two waiters, heads thrown back, were drinking champagne straight from the bottle. She went into the dining room. It was empty, waiting—the great table in the centre, with its Venetian-lace cloth and floral decorations, weighed down with game, fish in aspic, oysters on silver platters, and two identical pyramids of fruit. Pedestal tables with four or six place settings were scattered around the room, laid with dazzling crystal, fine porcelain, vermeil and silver. Looking back, Antoinette would never understand how she’d dared walk the entire length ofthat great room with its dazzling lights. At the door of the reception room, she hesitated for a moment, then noticed the large silk-upholstered settee in the adjoining antechamber. She dropped to her knees and crept between the back of the settee and the flowing drapes; there was just enough room for her if she hugged her knees to her chest, and, by leaning forward, she could see the reception room as if it were the stage of a theatre. She was trembling slightly, still frozen from her long vigil at the open window. At that moment, the apartment seemed silent, calm, asleep. The musicians were talking quietly. She could see a black man with brilliant white teeth, a woman in a silk dress, huge cymbals like at a fun fair, an enormous cello standing in the corner. The black man sighed, strumming a kind of guitar that gave off a low hum, like a moan.

“We start and finish later and later these days.”

The pianist said a few words that Antoinette couldn’t hear but that made the others laugh. Then Monsieur and Madame Kampf came in.

When Antoinette saw them, she instinctively flinched, as if trying to disappear into the floor. She crushed herself against the wall, buried her mouth in the fold of her bent arm, but she could hear their footsteps getting closer. They were standing right next to her. Kampf sat down in an armchair opposite Antoinette. Rosine walked around the room for a moment. She switched on the wall lights near the fireplace, then switched them off again. She was sparkling with diamonds.

“Sit down,” Kampf said quietly. “It’s idiotic to get yourself in such a state…”

Antoinette, who had opened her eyes and leaned forward so that her cheek was touching the wooden back of the settee, could see her mother standing in front of her. She was struck by the expression on her imperious face, an expression she had never seen before: a kind of humility—a mixture of eagerness and terror…

“Alfred, do you think everything will be all right?” she asked in a voice as quavering and innocent as a little girl’s.

Alfred had no time to answer, for the sound of the doorbell ringing suddenly echoed throughout the apartment.

Rosine clasped her hands.

“Oh my God, it’s beginning!” she whispered as if she were describing an earthquake.

The two of them rushed towards the open door of the reception room.

A moment later, Antoinette saw them come back, one on either side of Mademoiselle Isabelle, who was talking very loudly. Her voice was different from the one she normally used: it was oddly high-pitched and sharp, and interrupted by occasional peals of laughter that lit up her remarks like little sparks.

“I’d forgotten all about her,” Antoinette thought in horror.

Madame Kampf, radiant now, continued talking. She had reverted to her self-satisfied, arrogant expression; she winked maliciously at her husband, secretly indicating Mademoiselle Isabelle’s dress of yellow tulle and, around her long, dry neck, a feather boa that she flapped with both hands as if she were one of the ridiculous courtesans in a Moliere play. A silver lorgnette hung from an orange velvet band around her wrist.

“Have you ever been in this room, Isabelle?”

“Well, no, it’s very pretty. Who chose the furniture for you? Oh, look at these little vases, they’re just delightful. So you still like the Japanese style, Rosine? I’m always standing up for it. Why, just the other day, I was defending it to the Block-Levys, the Salomons, do you know them? They were criticising it as looking fake and typically ‘nouveau riche,’ to use their expression. ‘Well, say what you like, I think it’s cheerful, lively, and then, the fact that it’s less expensive than the Louis XV style, for example, is hardly a defect, quite the contrary…’”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Isabelle,” Rosine protested crossly. “Chinese and Japanese antiques are fetching ridiculously high prices… This period vase decorated with birds, for example…”

“Rather late in the period…”

“My husband paid ten thousand francs for it at the Drouot Auction House… What am I saying? Twelve thousand, not ten thousand, isn’t that right, Alfred? Oh, I scolded him! But not for long. I myself have a passion for seeking out little ornaments. I just adore it.”

“You’ll have a glass of port, won’t you, ladies?” interrupted Kampf, gesturing to the servant, who had just come in. “Georges, bring us three glasses of Sandeman port and some sandwiches, caviar sandwiches…”

Mademoiselle Isabelle had walked away; with the help of her lorgnette she was examining a golden Buddha embroidered on a velvet cushion.

“Sandwiches!” Madame Kampf whispered quickly. “Are you mad? You’re not going to ruin my beautiful table just for her! Georges, just bring some plain biscuits from the china tray, do you understand, from the china tray.”

“Yes, Madame.”

He came back a moment later with the tray and Baccarat decanter. The three of them drank in silence. Then Madame Kampf and Mademoiselle Isabelle sat down on the settee where Antoinette was hiding. By reaching out her hand, she could have touched her mother’s silver slippers and her teacher’s yellow satin court shoes. Kampf was pacing up and down, glancing furtively at the clock.

“So tell me, who will be coming tonight?” asked Mademoiselle Isabelle.

“Oh,” said Rosine, “some charming people, and some old fogeys too, like the Marquise de San Palacio, whose invitation I’m returning. But she does enjoy coming here so… I saw her yesterday. She was meant to be going away but she said to me, ‘My dear, I have put off my trip to the Midi for a week because of your ball: everyone always has such a good time with you…’”

“Oh, so you’ve already given some balls?” Mademoiselle Isabelle asked, pursing her lips.

“No, no,” Madame Kampf hastened to reply, “just some afternoon tea parties. I didn’t invite you because I know how busy you are during the day…”

“Yes, I am. Actually, I’m considering giving some concerts next year.

“Really? What an excellent idea!”

They fell silent. Mademoiselle Isabelle once again studied the walls of the room.

“It’s charming, absolutely charming, such taste…”

Once again, silence. The two women coughed now and again. Rosine arranged her hair. Mademoiselle Isabelle carefully adjusted the skirt of her dress.

“Haven’t we had beautiful weather these past few days?” Kampf broke in. “Well really, are we going to sit around with our arms folded all night? People do come so late! You did put ten o’clock on the invitations, didn’t you, Rosine?”

“I see I’m very early…”

“Not at all, my dear, what an idea. It’s a terrible habit, arriving so late, it’s deplorable …”

“Why don’t we have a dance,” said Kampf, clapping his hands cheerfully.

“Of course, what a very good idea! You may begin playing,” shouted Madame Kampf to the orchestra. “A Charleston.”

“Do you know how to Charleston, Isabelle?” “Well, yes, a bit, like everyone…”

“Well, you won’t be short of partners. The Marquis d’Itcharra, for example, a nephew of the Spanish ambassador. He wins all the competitions in Deauville, doesn’t he, Rosine? While we’re waiting, let’s open the ball.”

The two of them walked away from the settee, and the orchestra started playing in the empty drawing room. Antoinette saw Madame Kampf get up, rush to the window, and press her face— “Her as well,” thought Antoinette—against the cold glass. The clock struck ten thirty.

“Good Lord, what are they doing?” whispered Madame Kampf impatiently. “I wish that old bag would go to hell,” she added, almost loud enough to be heard, and then immediately gave a round of applause and called out, laughing, “Oh, how charming, just charming! I didn’t know you could dance like that, Isabelle.”

“She dances like Josephine Baker,” Kampf replied from the other end of the drawing room.

When the dance was over, Kampf called out, “Rosine, I’m taking Isabelle over to the bar, don’t be jealous now!”

“What about you, my dear, won’t you join us?”

“In a minute. I just have to have a word with the servants and I’ll be with you…”

“I warn you, Rosine, I’m going to flirt with Isabelle all night.”

Madame Kampf found the strength to laugh and shake her finger at them; but she didn’t say a word, and as soon as she was alone, she once again threw herself against the window. She could hear the sound of cars in the street below. When some of them slowed down in front of the building, Madame Kampf leaned out of the window and strained to look down into the dark winter street. But then the cars drove off, the sound of their engines growing fainter as they disappeared into the night. The later it got, however, the fewer cars there were, and many long minutes went by without a single sound coming from the street. It was as deserted as a country lane; there was only the noise of the nearby tramway, and the muted hooting of car horns, far away.

Rosine’s teeth were chattering, as if she had a fever. Ten forty-five. Ten fifty. In the empty drawing room, a little clock struck the hour with a hurried little chime, like silvery bells; the one in the dining room gave an insistent reply, and from the other side of the street, the bell of a large clock on the front of a church rang slowly and solemnly, growing louder and louder as it marked the time that had passed.

“Nine, ten, eleven…” cried Madame Kampf in despair, raising her diamond-covered arms to heaven. “What’s wrong? What’s happened, dear sweet Jesus?”

Alfred came back with Isabelle; the three of them looked at each other without speaking.

Madame Kampf laughed nervously. “This is rather strange, isn’t it? Unless something’s happened…”

“Oh, my poor dear, perhaps there’s been an earthquake,” said Mademoiselle Isabelle, triumphantly. But Madame Kampf was not prepared to give up just yet.

“Oh, it doesn’t mean a thing. Just imagine that the other day, I was at the house of my friend, the Countess Brunelleschi: the first guests didn’t start arriving until nearly midnight. So… “

Madame Kampf fiddled with her pearls. Her voice was full of anguish.

“It’s very annoying for the lady of the house, very upsetting,” Mademoiselle Isabelle murmured softly.

“Oh, it’s… it’s just one of those things you have to get used to, isn’t it?”

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Alfred and Rosine rushed to the doorway.

“Start playing,” Rosine called out to the musicians.

They started playing a lively blues number. No one came in. Rosine could stand it no longer.

“Georges, Georges, someone rang the bell, didn’t you hear it?”

“It was the ice cream being delivered from Rey’s.”

Madame Kampf couldn’t contain herself.

“But I’m telling you, something terrible must have happened, an accident, a misunderstanding, a mistake in the date or the time, I don’t know, something! Ten past eleven, it’s ten past eleven,” she said again in despair.

“Ten past eleven, already?” exclaimed Mademoiselle Isabelle. “So it is, but how right you are, time passes so quickly when you entertain, my compliments … Why, I do believe it’s a quarter past, can you hear the chimes?”

“Well, it won’t be long now before people start arriving!” said Kampf loudly.

They all sat down again; no one said another word. They could hear the servants in fits of laughter in the butler’s pantry.

“Go and tell them to be quiet, Alfred,” Rosine said finally, her voice shaking with fury. “Go on!”

At eleven thirty, the pianist came in.

“Do you want us to wait a while longer, Madame?”

“No, just go away, all of you, just go!” Rosine roared. She seemed on the verge of a breakdown. “We’ll pay you and then just go away! There won’t be any ball, there won’t be anything at all. It’s an insult, a slap in the face, a plot by our enemies to humiliate us, to kill me! If anyone comes now, I won’t see them, do you understand?” she continued, more and more violently. “You are to say that I’m not at home, that someone in the house is very ill, or dead, say whatever you like!”

“There, there, my dear,” Mademoiselle Isabelle hastened to say, “it isn’t completely hopeless. Don’t upset yourself like this, you’ll make yourself ill… Of course, I understand how you must feel, my dear, my poor darling. But people can be so cruel, alas… You should say something to her, Alfred, look after her, console her.

“What a farce!” Kampf hissed through clenched teeth, his face ashen. “Will you just shut up!”

“Now, now, Alfred, don’t shout, you should be cuddling her…”

“Well, if she insists on making herself look ridiculous…”

He turned sharply on his heels and called out to the musicians, “What are you still doing here? How much do we owe you? Now get the hell out of here, for God’s sake…”

Mademoiselle Isabelle slowly picked up her feather boa, her lorgnette, her handbag.

“It would be better if I left, Alfred, unless I can be of some help in any way, my poor dear…”

As he did not reply, she leant forward and kissed Rosine on the forehead, who remained motionless, her eyes dry and unblinking.

“Good-bye, my dear, please believe how sorry I am; I do feel for you,” she whispered, mechanically, as if she were at a funeral. “No, Alfred, no, don’t bother seeing me out; I’m going, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. Cry as much as you like, my poor Rosine, you’ll feel better,” she called out again at the top of her voice from the empty reception room.

As she walked through the dining room, Alfred and Rosine could hear her say to the servants, “Be careful not to make any noise. Madame is very upset, very distressed.”

Then, finally, there was the hum of the lift and the dull thud of the doors in the courtyard opening and closing again.

“Horrible old bitch,” murmured Kampf “If at least…”

He stopped short. Rosine suddenly leapt to her feet, her face wet with tears, and shook her fist at him.

“It’s all because of you,” she shouted. “It’s all your fault, you fool! You and your filthy vanity, wanting to show off… It’s all because of you! The gentleman wishes to give a ball! To play host! What a farce! Do you think people don’t know who you are, where you come from? Nouveau riche! They really screwed you, didn’t they, your friends, your so-called friends. Thieves, crooks, the lot of them!”

“And what about yours? Your counts, your marquises, your pimps!”

They continued to shout at each other, a surge of angry, heated words that poured out like a flood. Then Kampf said more quietly, through clenched teeth, “When I picked you up out of the gutter, you’d already been around… God knows where! You think I was blind, that I didn’t know? But I thought you were pretty and intelligent—that if one day I got rich, you’d make me proud of you…Well, I’ve been lucky, haven’t I! Look where it’s landed me: you’ve got the manners of a fishwife. You’re nothing but an old woman with the manners of a fishwife!”

“Other men were happy with me …”

“I’m sure they were. But don’t give me any details. You’ll regret it tomorrow if you do… “

“Tomorrow? And what makes you think I’d spend another minute with you after the way you’ve spoken to me? You brute!”

“Leave then! Go to hell!”

He walked out, slamming the door.

“Alfred, come back!” Rosine called after him.

She waited, breathless, her face turned towards the reception room, but he was already long gone … He was taking the stairs. She could hear his furious voice in the street shouting, “Taxi, taxi…” then it grew fainter, disappearing around the corner.

The servants had gone upstairs, banging the doors and leaving all the lights on. Rosine, in her dazzling dress and pearls, collapsed into an armchair and sat there, motionless.

Suddenly she made a violent movement that was so abrupt and unexpected that Antoinette jumped and banged her head against the wall. Trembling, she made herself as small as she could; but her mother hadn’t heard anything. She was pulling off her bracelets one by one and throwing them on to the floor. One of the bracelets was heavy and beautiful, decorated with enormous diamonds; it rolled under the settee and landed at Antoinette’s feet. Antoinette, frozen to the spot, just stared.

She saw her mother’s face—the tears streaming down her cheeks, streaking her make-up. It was a wrinkled face, a face so distorted and scarlet, it looked childish, comical, pitiful… But Antoinette felt no pity; she felt nothing but a kind of contempt, a scornful indifference. One day, she would say to some young man, “Oh, I was a horrible little girl, you know. Why once I even…” Suddenly, she felt blessed because her future was full of promise, because she had all the strength of youth, because she was able to think, “How could anyone cry like that, just because of something like this… What about love, what about death? She’s going to die one day. Has she forgotten about that?”

So, grown-ups also suffered over trivial things, did they? And she, Antoinette, had been afraid of them, had trembled because of their shouting, their anger, their vain, absurd threats… Ever so quietly, she slipped out of her hiding place. For a moment longer, still hidden in the shadows, she looked at her mother: she had stopped sobbing but remained huddled over, letting the tears flow down to her mouth without bothering to wipe them away. Then Antoinette stood up.

“Mother.”

Madame Kampf leapt out of her chair.

“What are you doing here?” she shouted nervously. “Get out, get out at once! Leave me the hell alone! I can’t even have a moment’s peace in my own house any more!”

Antoinette, her face pale, stayed where she was, her head lowered. The shrill voice was still ringing in her ears, but it was distant and stripped of all its force, like the sound of false thunder in the theatre. One day, and soon, she would say to some young man, “Mother will make a fuss, but never mind…”

Slowly she stretched out her hand and began gently stroking her mother’s hair with trembling fingers.

“Poor Mama, never mind…”

For a while, Rosine automatically continued to protest, pushing her away and shaking her contorted features. “Go away, I tell you. Leave me alone …”

Then a weak, defeated expression came over her face.

“Oh, my poor darling, my poor little Antoinette… You’re so very lucky—yes, you really are—not to have yet seen how underhanded, how malicious, how unfair people can be… All those people who smiled at me, sent me invitations… They were just laughing at me behind my back! They despised me because I wasn’t one of them. Nasty bitches… But you wouldn’t understand, my poor darling. And your father! Oh, you’re all I have! You’re all I have, my poor darling…”

She threw her arms around her. Since Antoinette’s silent face was pressed against her pearls, she couldn’t see that her daughter was smiling.

“You’re a good girl, Antoinette…” she said.

It was at this moment, this fleeting moment that their paths crossed “on life’s journey.” One of them was about to ascend, and the other to plunge downwards into darkness. But neither of them realised it.

“Poor Mama,” Antoinette said softly. “Poor Mama…”.