Free Her Lover by Albert Cohen Page B

in the back of her head. Meanwhile, he drew back the curtains, leaned out of the window, put two fingers to his lips and whistled. Then he rid himself of the old greatcoat and the fur hat, took off his false beard, removed the black tape which covered his teeth, and retrieved his riding-crop from behind the curtains.
    'Turn round,' he ordered.
    In the tall horseman with the wild, black hair and the sharp, smooth features, a dark, clean-cut diamond, she recognized the man her husband had from a distance whisperingly pointed out to her at the Brazilian reception.
    'That's right, Solal, the height of bad taste,' he grinned toothsomely. 'Boots!', he said, pointing to them, and he thwacked his right leg for joy. 'And I have a horse waiting for me outside. There were two. The second, you poor fool, was for you, and we would have ridden away for ever side by side, young, with all our teeth, I have thirty-two, all perfect, you can check and count them, or you could have ridden pillion and I would have borne you off gloriously towards the happiness which is lacking in your life. But I don't feel like it now, and all of a sudden your nose is too big, and it shines like a lighthouse, and anyway it's just as well. I shall leave now. But first, female of the species, hear me! Female thou art and as a female shalt thou be done by. Vilely shall I seduce you as you deserve and as you want. When we meet again, and it shall be soon, in two hours I shall ravish you in ways that women love and cannot resist, foul and filthy ways, and you, love's great fool, shall be mine, and it is in this wise that I shall avenge the old and the ugly and all the poor innocents who could never fan your flame, and you will come away with me, in doe-eyed ecstasy. Meanwhile, stay here with Deume until it pleases me to whistle for you as I whisde for a dog!'
    'I shall tell my husband everything,' she said. And she felt ashamed, foolish, shabby.
    'Good idea,' he smiled. 'A duel. Pistols. Six paces so that he can't miss. Tell him he has nothing to fear. I'll fire in the air. But I know you. You won't say anything.' 
    'I'll tell him everything and he'll kill you!'
    'I simply love dying,' he said with a smile, and he wiped the blood from the eye she had cut. 'Next time, doe-eyed!' he said with another smile and he climbed out of the window.
    'Bully!' she shouted, and again felt ashamed.
    He landed in the soft earth beneath, then straddled the white thoroughbred which, held by the valet, stood pawing the ground. Spurred on, the horse pricked up its ears, reared up and then broke into a gallop, and its rider laughed, for he knew that she was watching from her window. He gave another laugh, dropped the reins, stood in his stirrups and held both arms out wide, a towering image of youth, laughing and wiping the blood from the eye which she had cut, the blood which fell in streaks like living benedictions across his bare torso, behold the Knight of the Bleeding Countenance, laughing and urging his steed forward and speaking words of love into its ear.
    Quitting the window, she stamped on the remnants of the shattered glass, tore page after page out of the book by Bergson, hurled her little alarm clock against the wall, and then heaved on the neckline of her low-cut gown with both hands so that her right breast fell out of the long tear she had made. That's it, go and see Adrien, tell him everything and tomorrow they'll fight a duel. Tomorrow, see the swine made ghastly pale by her husband's pistol, see him fall mortally wounded. When she was decent again, she went across to the swing-mirror and spent some time examining her nose in her reflection.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 4
    Swinging his heavy walking-stick with the ivory raven's-head handle, all too aware of his cream spats and yellow gloves, replete after the delicious lunch he had eaten at the Perle du Lac, he strode along self-importantly, charmed by the thought of the toxins that had been burned off during his long