Free Jezebel by Irène Némirovsky Page A

sighing.
    She looked at the picture of the child in a gold frame that sat on the table. ‘She’ll be a beauty, but she won’t have your figure.’
    ‘She’ll be more beautiful than me,’ said Gladys affectionately.
    She smiled at the adolescent face that seemed to look back at her with slight surprise and that strange and troubling seriousness of youth. It was a picture of Marie-Thérèse when she was thirteen: she had a small, delicate face, softly rounded, long straight blonde hair piled high on to the top of her head and held in place by a black bow.
    The two women shook their heads.
    ‘No, she’ll never have your charm.’
    ‘She’s still a child, it’s an awkward time of life,’ said Gladys.
    She sighed and smiled. Deep down in her heart, she couldn’t admit how old Marie-Thérèse really was, not even to herself. Eighteen. She was already a woman. She preferred to say and let people think: ‘Fifteen … nearly fifteen …’
    All the women she knew did the same. They knocked off one, two or three years from the age of those children they weren’t able to hide away and, little by little, they themselves forgot the child’s real age, thus satisfying their delusions of themselves as both women and mothers. Gladys didn’t notice her daughter was growing up. When she spoke to her or looked at her, her mind re-created the features of a young girl of fifteen, who no longer existed except in her imagination.
    ‘I’ve brought you your rouge for tonight,’ said Carmen, taking some make-up out of an old bag.
    ‘Ah!’ said Gladys and her lovely face grew attentive.
    She went over to the mirror, put some rouge on her cheek and dusted it with powder.
    ‘Yes, that’s better. Don’t you think? The other one was too light. A darker colour is better under the light.’
    She turned round slowly, looking into the mirror with intense seriousness. Then her lips parted in a sweet, triumphant smile. ‘That’s good … Yes, it’s good.’
    Carmen, however, was on her way out. Lily and Gladys – who was finally ready – followed her and slowly walked through the garden. Near the road the air held the scent of sweet roses, petrol and the clean, cool smell of the mountains. The two women got into the car and headed for Nice.

5
    To Gladys, the years had passed with the swiftness of a dream. As she aged, they felt shorter and seemed to fly by more quickly, but the days felt long. Certain moments were heavy and bitter. She didn’t like being alone: as soon as the chatter of women ceased around her, as soon as the sound of words of love faded away, she felt deep anxiety within her heart.
    For some time, now, everything had bored and irritated her. She turned away if she saw certain women in the street. The beautiful little girls selling mimosa who ran barefoot through the dusty streets offended her with their carefree youth. She pushed them away with a harshness that surprised even her and made her feel ashamed. Sometimes she would call them back and give them some money, thinking, ‘It’s too hot here, oppressive, I’m bored …’
    She was haunted by memories of her mother, whom she had detested; sometimes she pictured the curtains closed round the bed where Sophie Burnera slept in a morphine stupor. Then she would feel a kind of strange humiliation that nothing could pacify. She, GladysEysenach, who was beautiful, admired, loved, still sometimes felt the sadness, the loneliness of her adolescence deep within her heart. If Richard were alive, she would have admitted that to him. But Richard was dead.
    She would visit one friend after the other. With them, time would pass more quickly, but eventually she had to go home and still it was daytime. There was nothing left to do but try on dresses and visit the jewellers on the little sloping street near the public gardens, where the sea breeze blew in. Finally, night would come and she would feel as if she had been reborn. She would go home to Sans-Souci, get dressed,