Are they not, though, he thought. He sat down on the bed and stroked her breast, the nipple hardening into the palm of his hand. His face expressed concern for her.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Really.”
No one had ever kissed her before. He did it very gently, but still, she seemed surprised. He thought that he had better take his clothes off because in a minute she would start advising it, telling him that was all right too. He touched alien flesh, soft, strange; there was a girl he used to see when he came to Versailles at first, but she was not a good girl, not in any sense, and it had been easier to drift apart, and since then it had been easier not to do anything, celibacy is easy but half-celibacy is very hard, women don’t keep secrets and the papers are avid for gossip … . Eleonore did not seem to expect or want any delay. She pushed her body against his, but it was stiff with the anticipation of pain. She knows the mechanics, he thought, but no one has introduced her to the art. Does she know she might begin to bleed? He felt a sharp, nauseous pang.
“Eleonore, close your eyes,” he whispered to her. “You should try to relax, just a minute until you feel—” Better, he had almost said, as if it were a sickbed. He touched her hair, kissed her again. She didn’t touch him; she hadn’t thought of it. He pushed her legs apart a little. “I don’t want you to be frightened,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she said.
But it wasn’t. He couldn’t force his way into her dry and rigid body without using a brutality he couldn’t call up. After a minute or two he propped himself on his elbow and looked down at her. “Don’t try to rush,” he said. He slipped a hand under her buttocks. Eleonore, he would have liked to say, I’m not practiced at this, and I wouldn’t describe you as a natural. She arched her body against his. Someone’s told her to work hard for what she wants in life, to grit her teeth and never give up … poor Eleonore, poor women. Rather unexpectedly, and at a faintly peculiar angle, he penetrated her. She did not make a sound. He gathered her head against his shoulder so that he did not have to see her face and would not know if it hurt her. He eased himself around—not that there was much ease about it—into a more agreeable position. He thought again, it’s been too long, you do this often or not at all. And so, of course, it was over quickly. He buried in her neck a faint sound of release. He let her go, and her head dropped back against the pillow.
“Did I hurt you?”
“It’s all right.”
He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes. She would be thinking, so that’s it, is it, is that what the fuss is about? Of course she would think that. It was his own disappointment he couldn’t get over, a kind of bitter, strained feeling in his throat. There’s a lesson somewhere, he thought; when pleasures you deny yourself turn out not to be pleasures, you’re doubly destroyed, for not only do you lose an illusion, you also feel futile. It had been much better, of course, with the Versailles girl, but there was no going back to that situation, there was no conquering one’s spiritual distaste for the casual encounter. Should he say to Eleonore, I’m sorry it was so quick, I realize you didn’t enjoy it? But what was the point, since she didn’t have a standard of comparison, and would only say “it was all right” anyway.
“I’ll get up now,” she said.
He put an arm round her. “Stay.” He kissed her breasts.
“All right. If you want.”
He made tentative exploration. There was no blood, at least he didn’t think so. He thought, presumably she will actually know that there is more to it, that it gets better with practice, because she will understand that for some people it is such an important part of their lives.
Now at last she relaxed a little. She smiled. It was a smile of accomplishment. Who can guess what she’s thinking? “This bed’s not very big,” she said.
“No, but—” If it came to that, he would just have to tell her. He would have to say Eleonore, Comelia, much as I appreciate the free and generous offer of your body, I have no intention of spending my nights with you, even if your whole family helps us to move the furniture. He closed his eyes again. He tried to think what excuse he could make to Maurice when he left the house, how he would cope with Madame’s questions, no doubt tears. He thought then of the recrimination that would descend on Eleonore’s muddled and guiltless head, and the feminine spite. And besides, he didn’t want to go, to cold and unfrequented rooms in another district, and meet Maurice Duplay at the Jacobins, and nod to him, and refrain from asking after the family. And he knew, quite certainly, that this would happen again. When Eleonore decided that it was time she’d just trip upstairs and wait for him, and he wouldn’t be able to send her away, any more than he had the first time. He wondered who she’d confide in, because she’d need advice on how often to expect it; and the disastrous possibilities came tumbling in on his head, as he tried to delimit the circle of her female friends. It was fortunate that she hardly knew Mme. Danton.
He must have gone to sleep then, and when he woke up she had gone. It was 9 p.m. Tomorrow, he thought, she will go bouncing along the street, smiling at people and paying calls for no real reason.
In the days afterwards he became sick with guilt. The second time she was easier, less tense, but she never gave any sign of experiencing pleasure. It came to him that if she found herself pregnant they would have to be married very quickly. Perhaps, he thought, when the Convention meets, new people will come to the house, and perhaps someone will like her, and I can be generous and release her from any promise or tie.
But in his heart, he knew that this wouldn’t happen. No one would like her. The family wouldn’t let them like her. The people who’re married, he thought, can get divorced now. But the only thing that will release us is if one of us dies.
At the ministry, Camille sat at his desk, and irrelevant thoughts flitted through his head. He thought of the night he had spent in his cousin de Viefville’s apartment, before he had gone to see Mirabeau. Barnave had called. Barnave had spoken to him as if he were someone worthy of consideration. He had liked Barnave, personally. He was in prison now, accused of conspiring with the Court; of this charge he was, of course, utterly guilty. Camille sighed. He drew little ships at sea in the margin of the encouraging letter he was drafting to the Jacobins of Marseille.
The members of the Convention were gathering now in Paris. Augustin Robespierre: Camille, you haven’t changed a bit. And Antoine Saint-Just … he would have to be patient about Saint-Just, stop that disastrous, illogical animosity flaring up … .
“I have the feeling he harbors loathsome thoughts in his head,” he told Danton.
And Danton, preoccupied with solidarity: “Do try, do try,” he said, in his tired barrister’s voice, “to keep the peace, you know, not be a constant disappointment to Maximilien? You do make work for him, tidying up your indiscretions.”
“Saint-Just will not have indiscretions, I suppose.”
