said Xavière. A look of hope flashed into her eyes and died immediately. ‘No, I ought to leave at once.’
Françoise felt sorry for her.
‘But you aren’t going to find a room this evening.’
‘Oh, surely not,’ said Xavière. She bent her head and sat prostrated for some time. Françoise and Pierre stood as if spellbound, staring at her golden head.
‘Well, leave all that,’ said Françoise with a sudden return to consciousness. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go and look together.’
‘Leave this?’ said Xavière. ‘But I couldn’t live in this rubbish heap for even an hour.’
‘I’ll help you to tidy it up tonight,’ said Françoise. Xavière gave her a look of plaintive gratitude. ‘Listen to me. You are going to get dressed and wait for us at the Dôme. We’ll dash off to the private view and we’ll be back in an hour and a half.’
Xavière jumped to her feet and clutched her hair.
‘Oh, I would so like to go! I’ll be ready in ten minutes. I just have to tidy myself up a bit.’
‘Aunt has already begun to fume,’ said Françoise.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
‘In any case, we’ve missed the port,’ he said angrily. ‘Now, there’s no longer any point in getting there before five o’clock.’
‘As you wish,’ said Françoise. ‘But the blame will fall on me again.’
‘Well, after all, you don’t give a damn,’ said Pierre.
‘You’ll smile at her winningly,’ said Xavière.
‘All right,’ said Françoise. ‘You’ll have to think of a good excuse for us.’
‘I’ll try,’ grumbled Pierre.
‘Then we’ll wait for you in my room,’ said Françoise.
They went upstairs.
‘It’s an afternoon wasted,’ said Pierre. ‘There won’t be enough time left to go anywhere after we leave the exhibition.’
‘I told you she couldn’t learn how to live,’ said Françoise. She walked over to the looking-glass: with this upswept coiffure it was impossible to keep the back of one’s neck looking neat. ‘If only she doesn’t insist on moving.’
‘You haven’t got to move with her,’ said Pierre. He seemed furious. He had always been so cheerful with Françoise that she had almost reached the point of forgetting that he was not good-tempered, that his fits of anger were legendary at the theatre. If he took this affair as a personal offence, the afternoon was going to be grim.
‘But I will; you know that. She won’t insist, but she’ll sink into black despair.’
Françoise glanced over the room.
‘My nice little hotel. Fortunately, I can rely on her inertia.’
Pierre walked over to the pile of manuscripts stacked on the table.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll hang on to Monsieur le Vent. This fellow interests me, he ought to be encouraged. I’ll ask him to have dinner with us one of these evenings so that you can form some opinion of him.’
‘I also want to look at Hyacinthe,’ said Françoise. ‘I think it’s promising.’
‘Show it to me,’ said Pierre. He began to look through the manuscript and Françoise leaned over his shoulder to read with him. She was not in a good mood: alone with Pierre, she would have got the private view over and done with very quickly, but with Xavière about, everything tended to become burdensome, it made one feel that one was walking through life with clods of clay on the soles of one’s shoes. Pierre should never have decided to wait for her; even he looked as though he had got out of the wrong side of the bed. Nearly half an hour passed before Xavière knocked. Then they hurried downstairs.
‘Where do you want to go?’ said Françoise.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Xavière.
‘Since we’ve only an hour,’ said Pierre, ‘let’s go to the Dôme.’
‘How cold it is,’ said Xavière, tightening her scarf round her face.
‘It’s only a few steps from here,’ said Françoise.
‘We haven’t got the same conception of distance,’ said Xavière whose face was screwed up.
‘Or of time,’ said Pierre dryly.
Françoise was beginning to read Xavière very well. Xavière knew that she was in the wrong. She thought they were angry with her and she was taking the lead; and besides, her attempts at moving had worn her out. Françoise wanted to take her arm: wherever they had gone on Friday night, they had walked arm in arm, and kept in step.
‘No,’ said Xavière, ‘it’s much faster on one’s own.’
Pierre’s face darkened again, Françoise was afraid he was going to lose his temper. They sat down at the back of the café.
‘You know,’ said Françoise, ‘this private view won’t be at all interesting. Aunt’s protégés never have an ounce of talent, she’s never been known to fail in that respect.’
‘I don’t care a hang about that,’ said Xavière. ‘It’s the reception I’m interested in. Pictures always bore me stiff.’
‘That’s because you’ve never seen any,’ said Françoise. ‘If you were to come with me to exhibitions, or even go to the Louvre …’
‘That wouldn’t make any difference,’ said Xavière. She made a wry face. ‘A picture is so arid, it’s completely flat.’
‘If you were to get to know a little about it, I’m sure you would enjoy it,’ said Françoise.
‘You mean I would understand why I ought to enjoy it,’ said Xavière. ‘I’d never be satisfied with that. The day when I no longer feel anything, I’m not going to look for excuses to feel.’
‘What you call feeling is really a way of understanding,’ said Françoise. ‘You like music, well then …!’
Xavière stopped her short.
‘You know, when people speak about good and bad music, it goes right over my head,’ she said with aggressive modesty. ‘I don’t understand the first thing about it. I like the notes for themselves; the sound alone is enough for me.’ She looked Françoise in the eye. ‘The pleasures of the mind are repulsive to me.’
When Xavière was being obstinate it was useless to argue. Françoise looked reproachfully at Pierre; after all, it was he who had wanted to wait for Xavière, he could at least join in the conversation, instead of entrenching himself behind a sardonic
