Fortunately in the summer I could cultivate my interests by working in a local art gallery (I ardently hoped, while I said it, that she had never gone there); only that at the end of the tourist season the gallery closed and the town plummeted again into a cultureless void. And so, me voilà.
I thought that the moment for more precise questions had arrived. In particular I feared that Madame would question me about my ability to type, an ability which I considered indispensable for every secretary. Mine was nonexistent. The rare times when I had to write a letter, down at the gallery, it took me all afternoon (I typed only with my right index finger) and even after much application the results were not very impressive. Instead, Madame didn’t seem in the least disposed to ask me “technical” questions. She seemed to have her mind very much occupied with painting, and it didn’t seem right to discourage her.
At first we talked about Bonnard’s yellows — I don’t remember why, probably because of the autumn light and the golden spot of chestnuts that we could see on the side of the mountain across the lake. Then I grew crafty and went for the fauves, the “big game.” Matisse was out of the question, of course. I took that for granted. But personally I felt Dufy more, the Dufy of the seascapes, the geraniums, the palm trees of Cannes. — With Dufy — I said — the happiness of the Mediterranean sings on the canvas. — On the wall next to the desk in the salon of the “Palette of the Lake,” the owner kept a calendar which had a Dufy reproduction for each month. I was a veteran of thirty consecutive afternoons from five to nine (thirty-one for July and August) for every reproduction. In the summer months the “Palette of the Lake” never closed. Let’s say, to be more precise, that Dufy even came out of my ears. But in the gallery the view varied between the Dufy reproductions and the idiotic faces of the women who admired the daubs hung on the walls, and to whom, according to the owner, I had to direct welcoming smiles into the bargain. It’s logical that I preferred Dufy. I knew him from memory.
I asked Madame what she thought of Bal à Antibes (it was the reproduction for June) with those splashes of blue and white for the sailors in the foreground in the midst of the turmoil of colors. And the light blue enchantment of La mer (July) with those sails (I really said this) like little bursts of laughter. And the harmony of the pastels in Plage de Sainte-Adresse, the 1921 one, I thought, (August) didn’t it make her think of a little symphony? Madame agreed. However, I said preemptorily, I thought Jardins publiques à Hyères (September) was unsurpassable. I found it “definitive.” For me, after that picture, Dufy did not exist any longer. (And this was the absolute truth.)
The calendar had a certain effect, on Madame, who was not sparing of her compliments to me. And then — oh, well — I said with all the ease that the act seemed to merit that in order to study the fauves I had gone “on purpose” to Paris. Naturally, I refrained from saying that I knew Paris well, because all my knowledge resulted from a school field trip with the nuns when Papa was working in the mine at Charleroi. It had been a four-day bus trip, with brief stops for bread and bathroom, then on board again and another round of En passant par la Lorraine under the inflexible joy of Sister Marianne who, fearing long conversations and long silences, both messengers of mischief, resolved the dilemma with the jollity of a healthy song. Of Paris I retained the dreadful memory of the Musée de I’Histoire de France, of the Pantheon, of my feet swollen like hot water bottles, and of my first menstrual period, which had started after a memorable walk the second night of our stay. The last day Sister Marianne had piloted us to the Louvre for a fifteen-minute visit, just long enough to put our noses in front of Corot and Millet, and at the booth at the exit each one of us had had to chip in to buy a reproduction of The Angelus, which during the trip home Sister Marianne had then stuck up on the rear window of the bus. I was thirteen years old, I felt ugly, unhappy, and misunderstood, and for the entire trip I dreamed of a cruel vendetta: One day I would become a great painter with a grand studio in the Latin Quarter. Sister Marianne would come to beg me on bended knee to go and fresco the refectory of the school in Charleroi where the great artist had done her first work. But I would answer haughtily that it was just, not possible, I had to prepare for my triumphal exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris rendered me homage, the whole world claimed my paintings, and even the President of the Republic would be present.
— And Ikebana? — said Madame. — Do you like Ikebana? — I answered that “decidedly” I did not know him. (I felt stuck, and chose to be dry and definitive.)
— A pity, — said Madame, — but it’s not important. I’m sure you will learn to love it. Please put the bottle of gin nearer to me and call to Constance to bring me another tonic water.—
While she waited for the tonic water, Madame asked me absent-mindedly about my hobbies, if by chance I had a passion for oenology. Ah, yes? Splendid. She did not, she preferred cocktails. But the engineer, yes, her husband, had a passion for wines as a good Italian — an adoptive Italian, but Italian nevertheless — oh, for rare wines, of course. She would have liked to learn something more about them, too, but she certainly couldn’t insist that the engineer give her lessons, he was always traveling, always so consumed by his business, poor dear. But, by the way, my French was excellent.
I answered that yes, it was indeed true, my poor papa had taken my education very much to heart, in spite of not ever having a free minute in his life — he was in mining. The governess had required French, obviously, old, dear, austere Francine (I was slightly moved by her memory) who had been practically a mother to me. She was a Walloon. This unequivocal Belgian acccent that once I detested and that today I found delightful I owed to her. Oh, no, no, my mother didn’t leave me an orphan. It was only that Mama was so fragile, so delicate, and then her piano gave her no rest.
Madame pushed the cart with the aperitifs toward my armchair and invited me to help myself.
— And so school does not interest you? It is not your vocation?—
I said that as far as a vocation was concerned, I might even have followed it, but I had been graduated for two years already, and it still fell to me to do substitute teaching. And, dear God, I was almost twenty years old. I explained the concept of substituting, which Madame appeared to totally ignore, and to be concise said that the following week, when the teacher I was substituting for had finished her maternity leave, the principal would tell me that the school was very grateful for my most valuable assistance, good day and goodbye. And while at one time the pregnant ladies to be substituted for had sprouted like mushrooms, nowadays people think twice before having children, what with the cost of living, just imagine. I don’t know if she kept abreast of the statistics relative to births in Italy.
Dusk was falling over the lake, and from our position it really was a painting, anything but Dufy. The terrace overlooked the garden, full of lemon trees and cypresses, furrowed by the geometry of the boxwood hedges which outlined the pebbled avenues. The town, on the spur that jutted into the lake, was already in shadow, and on its roofs lingered vague streaks of pale blue light. The last light of day was for the landing stage opposite the gale and for the towers of the villa, which were warm yellow, toasted by time. The swallows made a marvelous uproar, going crazy low in the sky. Madaine was explaining to me that she was very much afraid of being bored during the winter, used as she was to Paris. She couldn’t say she exactly needed a secretary, let’s say rather a companion. Yes, some letters now and then to certain Swiss galleries from which she bought, and things of that kind. But fundamentally she was looking for a person of good taste with whom to exchange impressions, with whom to talk about intelligent matters. “Naturally,” she did not insist that I decide on the spot, I could give my answer tomorrow. But “naturally,” food and lodging. Would I like to have a look at my eventual bedroom? She called Constance.