“It is I,” she said to herself, “it is I, in that glass. How strange it is to see oneself. We should never recognise ourselves, if we had no mirrors. Everyone else would know what we looked like, but we should have no idea of it.”
She took the thick plaits of her hair and laid them across her breast, gazing at her own gestures, her poses and movements.
“How pretty I am!” she thought. “Tomorrow I shall be dead, there, lying on my bed.”
She looked at her bed, and imagined that she saw herself lying on it, white as the sheets.
Dead! In a week that face, those eyes, those cheeks, would be nothing but black rottenness, shut up in a box underground.
A frightful spasm of anguish constricted her heart.
The clear sunlight flooded the landscape, and the sweet morning air came in at the window.
She sat down and thought. Dead—it was as though the world was disappearing for her sake; and yet it was not like that, for nothing in the world would change, not even her room. Yes, her room would stay just the same, with the same bed, the same chairs, the same dressing-table, but she would be gone forever, and no one would be sorry, except perhaps her mother.
People would say: “How pretty she was, little Yvette!” and that was all. And when she looked at her hand resting on the arm of her chair, she thought again of the rottenness, the black and evil-smelling corruption that her flesh would become. And again a long shudder of horror ran through her whole body, and she could not understand how she could disappear without the whole world coming to an end, so strong was her feeling that she herself was part of everything, of the country, of the air, of the sun, of life.
A burst of laughter came from the garden, a clamour of voices, shouts, the noisy merriment of a country-house party just beginning, and she recognised the sonorous voice of Monsieur de Belvigne, singing:
“Je suis sous ta fenêtre,
Ah! daigne enfin paraître.”
She rose without thinking and went to look out. Everyone clapped. They were all there, all five of them, with two other gentlemen she did not know.
She drew back swiftly, torn by the thought that these men had come to enjoy themselves in her mother’s house, in the house of a courtesan.
The bell rang for lunch.
“I will show them how to die,” she told herself.
She walked downstairs with a firm step, with something of the resolution of a Christian martyr entering the arena where the lions awaited her.
She shook hands with them, smiling pleasantly but a little haughtily. Servigny asked her:
“Are you less grumpy today, Mam’zelle?”
“Today,” she replied in a strange, grave voice, “I am for the wildest pleasures. I’m in my Paris mood. Take care.” Then, turning to Monsieur de Belvigne: “You shall be my pet today, my little Malvoisie. After lunch I’m taking you all to the fair at Marly.”
Marly fair was indeed in full swing. The two newcomers were presented to her, the Comte Tamine and the Marquis de Boiquetot.
During the meal she hardly spoke, bending every effort of will to her resolve to make merry all that afternoon, so that none might guess, so that there should be all the more surprise; they would say: “Who would have thought it? She seemed so gay, so happy! One can never tell what is going on in their heads!”
She forced herself not to think of the evening, the hour she had chosen, when they would all be on the veranda.
She drank as much wine as she could get down, to sharpen her courage, and took two small glasses of brandy; when she left the table she was flushed and a little giddy; she felt herself warmed in body and spirit, her courage high, ready for adventure.
“Off we go!” she cried.
She took Monsieur de Belvigne’s arm, and arranged the order of the rest.
“Come along, you shall be my regiment. Servigny, I appoint you sergeant; you must march on the right, outside the ranks. You must make the Foreign Legion march in front, our two aliens, the prince and the chevalier, and behind them the two recruits who have joined the colours today. Quick march!”
They went off, Servigny playing an imaginary bugle, and the two new arrivals pretending to play the drum. Monsieur de Belvigne, somewhat embarrassed, said to Yvette:
“Do be a little reasonable, Mademoiselle Yvette. You’ll get yourself talked about.”
“It’s you I’m compromising, Raisiné,” she replied. “As for myself, I don’t care a rap. It will be all the same tomorrow. So much the worse for you; you shouldn’t go about with girls like me.”
They went through Bougival, to the amazement of the people in the streets. Everyone turned round and stared; the local inhabitants came to their doors; the travellers on the little railway which runs from Rueil to Marly yelled at them; the men standing on the platforms shouted:
“To the river! … To the river! …”
Yvette marched with a military step, holding Servigny by the arm, as if she were leading a prisoner. She was far from laughter; she wore an air of pale gravity, a sort of sinister immobility. Servigny interrupted his bugle solo in order to shout orders. The prince and the chevalier were enjoying themselves hugely, judging it all vastly diverting and very witty. The two recruits steadily played the drum.
On their arrival at the fairground they caused quite a sensation. The girls clapped, all the young folk giggled; a fat man arm in arm with his wife said to her enviously:
“They’re enjoying life, they are.”
Yvette caught sight of a merry-go-round, and made De Belvigne mount a wooden horse on her right, while the rest of the squad clambered on to horses behind them. When
