Veronica alone would not sit down and, grown taciturn, stood waiting. She had on nothing but her white starched dressing-gown and had kept no other jewel than a little cross of pearls with three diamonds in place of the nails of Christ’s crucifixion. This cross hung from an almost invisible platinum chain which held it resting, as in a nest of silky flesh, exactly in the middle of the soft hollow in the very pronounced bone of her sternum. When Madame Ménard d’Orient entered with Baba leaning on her arm, the latter might easily have compared Veronica’s immaculate figure, framed by the blackness of the vaults of this late seventeenth-century cellar, to a legendary abbess rather than to a contemporary being.

  Veronica now stood leaning against the damp, peeling wall. She had slipped off one shoe and placed her bare foot on the other. Baba looked for a long time at this arched foot, with its matt skin, its blue-tinged dimples, free of the stigma of the slightest redness touching or profaning its toes, of which each articulation of each phalanx seemed to rest on the ground beneath Raphael’s approving glance, and as on the feet painted by him, the big toe was widely separated from the other toes, as by the effect of the strap of an invisible sandal. Baba looked, and one might have said that the weight of his leather helmet kept his large head bowed forward, obliging him thus to gaze down, so completely did his whole spirit seem absorbed in his contemplation. And it was in truth as though suddenly this being accustomed to piercing the clouds, equipped with helmet, gloves, micros, machine guns and carapaces, had discovered at last the beauty he had desperately been seeking in the sky in the simplicity of a bare foot resting on the ground in the depth of a cellar. After his deep plunge, like a diver who rises again to the surface, slowly Baba’s eyes, followed by an upward movement of his helmet, scanned the whole length of Veronica’s chastely covered body, but on reaching her neck his glance again remained fastened and as if crucified by the three diamonds on the little pearl cross. Veronica stirred, then, giving a fresh sparkle to her face, in order to break the fixity of that gaze which she wished at last to possess with her own.

  Time sped fast, and their delight was like the glistening sting of their desire. They questioned the favourably menacing sky. When would be their next mute idyll? For the impassivity of Veronica’s face was as hermetic as that of Baba’s helmet, and her sure love no longer knew any fear or curiosity. She knew now that nothing beneath that helmet could modify the whole and continuous course of her emotions. If she wished to imagine him to herself, she had only to put her own face in place of his, for she – was he. And already her medium-like spirit traced their immediate future: ‘This war will separate us… but at the end of a year he will return; it will be in America, in the winter…. He will have a few scars, but none could mar his eyes. Perhaps he will limp’ – but then she thought of the arched postures of ancient statues in which the weight of the body rests on a single leg.

  After this first descent into the cellar the tacit idyll between Veronica and Baba knew no other outward expression than similar scenes in the course of other alerts, and their frequent encounters on the stairs. As events were taking a rapid turn Betka came back to Paris, but at the prompting of instinct she waited till the last moment. On her arrival it was clear, though impossible to explain wherein the change consisted, that the friendship between Veronica and her had cooled. They continued to live together, but Betka refused to go down into the cellar during the alerts. Neither of them spoke of Baba. More or less surreptitiously Betka frequented Cécile Goudreau’s group of friends, and began little by little to smoke opium again without Veronica’s being too uncompromising about it, and this indifference deeply wounded her.

  The Prince of Orminy, with the proselytism characteristic of drug addicts, had said of her to Goudreau, ‘If we can manage to keep Veronica from taking her to America we’ll have her for the duration of the war. But we’ll have to find a home for her child somewhere. That will at least be easier than to explain him.’ D’Orminy judged that Betka must be easy to corrupt and, vaguely lusting to have her as his mistress, was attentive to her, though through fear of Veronica he did not dare to overwhelm her with presents. It was in this anxious period of waiting (during which even Veronica’s uncompromising character seemed to be weakening and she made no effort to check Betka’s dangerous promiscuities as long as she herself was left undisturbed in her dream) that the German army, having flanked the Maginot line and finding no further effective obstacles in its path, began its lightning and methodical advance, and Americans received their government’s official order to leave France.

  In Barbara Stevens’ apartment in the Hotel Ritz, Veronica was beating her mother. First she had forcibly snatched the telephone from her hand, then she had struck her a sharp blow on the hand with it, causing the pen to fly from her fingers, and finally she had knocked her down on the couch with her knees. Now the rôles seemed reversed, for Veronica was weeping and trembling with rage, while Barbara, frightened by her daughter’s unprecedented fit of nerves, took her to her bosom to console her and begged her forgiveness. The violent scene that had taken place was but the culmination of endless dissensions which had set mother and daughter against each other during three long days of mutual exasperations. Veronica wanted at all costs to take Betka and the child with them to America. Barbara both wanted and did not want to, changing her mind every fifteen minutes, in a state of hysterical caprice which the gravity of the situation only sharpened. She insisted, in particular, that it would be impossible to legalize Betka’s situation in so short a time. Veronica, with Miss Andrews’ aid, had nevertheless imperturbably pursued the labyrinthine course of all the necessary routine to make Betka’s departure possible; at last the miracle was realized and the visas and documents required to leave France and enter the United States were ready and on Barbara Stevens’ desk.

  It was just at this moment that Barbara, after a long embarrassed silence, came out stubbornly and uncompromisingly with her refusal to take Betka along. ‘The most I’ll do is to write her a cheque for a hundred thousand francs to rid myself of all worry,’ and she picked up the pen and was about to fill out the cheque. Veronica said nothing, but went up to her mother with eyes blazing. As she saw her daughter approach. Barbara burst into a sharp, nervous laugh. Then, shrugging her shoulders and pretending to pay no more attention to her, she calmly began to write her cheque.

  ‘I could never disappoint Betka in this way, and your money doesn’t settle anything,’ said Veronica coldly, and continued even more coldly. ‘You know perfectly well the Germans won’t forget that she used to belong to active anti-German propaganda agencies.’

  Barbara hesitated a moment and answered, ‘You don’t dare to simply tell her my decision. Very well – I’ll tell her myself!’ And Barbara picked up the telephone and placed a call for Betka, who had been waiting downstairs for an hour to learn their decision. At this moment Veronica delicately placed her long fingers on the hand with which her mother held the telephone, and at this contact, pale as that of a caress, the latter trembled with fear. But, taking hold of herself, she pressed the receiver more tightly, trying for a moment to struggle – but in vain. For Veronica, turning into a fury, resorted to force. It was then that Veronica, wielding the telephone like a hammer, drove the iron spike of her will into the shimmying wood of indecision of her mother’s hand. After the balm of Barbara’s and Veronica’s tears they telephoned to Betka, with the very same hammer, that she could come up. It had at last been settled that she was to go with them: they were leaving in three hours. With tears in her eyes Betka kissed the four hands of her two protectors, whose hollowed palms offered themselves to her welcomingly like the hull of a recently constructed ship with which she would at last be able to cross the ocean.

  ‘I’ll run and get the baby,’ Betka cried, wild with joy.

  ‘No, I’m going to fetch it.’

  ‘I’ll go with you!’

  ‘No, you stay here,’ Veronica replied categorically, pointing a finger at the couch. ‘Miss Andrews will come with me.’

  As she had foreseen, Veronica found Betka’s apartment invaded by a group of her friends who, alarmed by the rumours of her possible departure, had come running and were waiting for her return to dissuade her from undertaking the trip and put a stop to the irremediable blunder, the virtual treason that she would be committing, according to them, by going to America. Cécile Goudreau, naturally, was there, and Soler, the Prince of Orminy and a ménage of two musician-pederasts who were in the midst of insulting each other furiously just at the moment when the entrance of Veronica, followed by Miss Andrews instead of Betka, restored a barely courteous icy silence in the room. It was broken only by the tinkling of the large snifters containing a fine Napoleon brandy which she had recently given Betka as a present and which this gathering of crows was now sipping.

  Veronica went for a moment into Betka’s room, and finding nothing else to take than the child, took him in her arms, handing him to Miss Andrews. She looked around for Betka’s cat. But she was not in sight. Veronica decided to leave and crossed the room occupied by Betka’s silent and sulking friends like a dandelion seed floating above the black and stagnant waters of a swamp. She walked down the stairs with her lithe antelope’s steps to Madame Ménard d’Orient’s landing. There she stopped, ordering Miss Andrews to wait for her a moment, and rang the doorbell. From the upper storeys could now be heard the confused sounds of dissension among Betka’s friends, that had broken out all the more vehemently since she had left them. Each one was having his own particular fit of nerves; one could hear one of the pederasts weeping, uttering sighs punctured by reproaches, while the other brayed muffled invectives; a glass broke in a rage, and Cécile Goudreau’s voice imposed silence with a Sophoclean tirade. Someone, probably d’Orminy, discreetly shut the door to keep the scandal from reverberating too loudly in the stairway.

  The door to Madame Ménard’s apartment was opened by a servant, and Veronica entered. The mistress of the house came forward holding out her two hands. Her lace dress bristling with shiny cat-hairs betrayed the fact that she had just been roused from a nap. Forgetting all propriety, Veronica merely said to her. ‘Will you let me be alone for a moment with….’ She dragged out this last word and left it dangling…. Taken by surprise, Madame Ménard d’Orient obediently opened the door adjoining the drawing-room without knocking, and after having assured herself that Baba was not asleep, she introduced Veronica, immediately shutting the door behind her and leaving them to themselves. Baba was sitting in an armchair with his back turned to her, but he saw Veronica advancing in the mirror opposite.

  ‘This is how I shall see him arrive the day he returns,’ said Veronica to herself. Baba got up with difficulty. He was surprised at the unexpected boldness of Veronica’s coming, but he was grateful to her, too, for he had heard that she was leaving and knew that she had introduced herself here to say goodbye to him. Without hesitating, Veronica took Baba’s helmet between her hands, pressed it to her face, and fastened her lips for a moment to the mask’s mouth-slit. Then they remained facing each other, fixed in an absolute immobility – Baba, his head a little lowered, as if ashamed at not being able to respond more eloquently to her passionate effusion; Veronica, taller than he, rigid, tense in all her muscles. After a few moments of this unmaintainable state of expectancy, Veronica brusquely raised her long arms, joining her hands under her chin in the characteristic pose of the praying mantis. Then with her cold fists she clutched the cross of pearls and diamonds that hung on her neck and calmly pulled at the chain, harder and harder, until it broke. She gave it to Baba who barely moved. Then she left.

  On the landing. Miss Andrews and Madame Maurel, the concierge, were growing impatient. ‘If Veronica should miss the train, it might already be too late to leave tomorrow.’ They gave a relieved sigh on seeing her reappear. At this moment an outburst of raucous laughter was heard from the top of the stairs, and one of the pederastic musicians appeared for a moment wearing a small lampshade balanced on his head tied with a silk handkerchief of Betka’s. He immediately disappeared, embarrassed. Veronica barely noticed this fantastic apparition. She was so absorbed, so much under the impression of the brief, poignant scene she had lived through in Baba’s room, that she left without even saying goodbye to the concierge who, having just been handed a five-hundred franc tip by Miss Andrews, watched her go off with stupefaction, exclaiming as she crumpled the bill in her hand,

  ‘Tant pis pour son coeur

  Ce n’est pas son pays!’

  Veronica Stevens turned her face toward America, but unlike Lot’s wife she did not look back, for by her virginal nature she already possessed the same biological incorruptibility as the country, strong and intact, toward which she was travelling and which was her home.

  On the eleventh of June, after several months’ absence and on the morrow of his arrival from London, the Count of Grandsailles was awakened by his valet Grimard in his Hotel Meurice apartment. Grimard announced that the Prince of Orminy was waiting in the drawing-room and wished to see him.

  ‘Have him come in,’ said Grandsailles, raising himself and settling his back against the pillows, and as soon as Grimard had drawn the portières the Count found himself facing the yellow-toothed, somewhat horsy smile of the Prince, impeccably dressed in riding-clothes, with a polo whip in his hand.

  ‘I have just spent the blackest white night of my life,’ said d’Orminy phlegmatically, folding back the comforter and sitting down on the edge of the Count’s bed. ‘You see, from Olga’s apartment on the Rue de Rivoli it’s like a magnificent loge overlooking the Place de la Concorde to view the entry of the troops.’

  ‘Imagine anyone being so reserved – Grimard, charming fellow that he is, didn’t breathe a word about the Germans being here when he woke me up!’ Grandsailles exclaimed, trying to take the whip from d’Orminy’s hands.

  ‘Well, old man, I saw Hitler’s first soldier arrive,’ d’Orminy began. ‘He was of medium height, rather slight of build. It was about four-thirty in the morning; at that time the Place de la Concorde was completely deserted, there wasn’t a cat in sight. Well, suddenly a cat, a grey cat, began to cross it, almost crawling, anxious, now and then looking toward the Rue Royale. Suddenly he broke into a run. Immediately there appeared a motorcyclist whom we had not heard, he made a wide circle in low speed, then stopped near the centre; there he got off, parked his motorcycle, pulled out a pair of signal flags that he carried rolled up in his pocket. He raised his arms, and, as though it were his daily occupation, gesturing like an orchestra leader, gave the entry order and began to direct the traffic.

  ‘Then the advance guards of the Nazi motorized divisions began to arrive, solidly and uninterruptedly, tanks to the right, trucks to the left… my dear fellow, it was like filling a bath-tub, and it’s been running right up to this moment, just as monotonously – you know? It was funny,’ he continued, trying with his whip to hit a single fly that was in the room and that kept coming back insistently to the same spot on the eiderdown quilt, ‘it was funny to see that little chap, an enemy – for he was an enemy, all right – all alone in the middle of the great square in the heart of Paris, within gunshot of any of the surrounding windows… I can’t have been the only one to observe him and to think of this…. Ah, my dear Grandsailles, when you see that,’ said d’Orminy with a long, discouraged sigh. ‘What an ugly colour all those tanks and trucks are: a dirty greenish-grey army – too dark, too chemical. It doesn’t at all go with that pearl-grey, that imponderable shade, the swallow-dung colour of Paris’ – and as he spoke it seemed as if the prickling ammonia which this ‘dung’ exudes, even in evocation, had the virtue of bringing tears to his eyes.

  ‘Those German bastards have no tact,’ said Grandsailles, getting up and slipping on his bath-robe. Then he came back and sat down on his bed, which d’Orminy had left to sprawl on a couch near the window. ‘At heart they worship us; otherwise, would they go to the trouble of coming all this way loaded with cannon and with so much good will? And doesn’t the whole thing make you feel like committing suicide?’ asked Grandsailles.

  ‘Don’t joke about it,’ d’Orminy answered, ‘we’re the ones who always talk about committing suicide and end up by doing it. As a matter of fact you hit it right, believe it or not. This morning I felt like committing suicide, but it wasn’t despair, for in spite of everything I can’t bring myself to be as pessimistic about the situation as all that… it’s just that it’s going to take so long…. This time it was indolence, the indolence of having to run away, of stumbling into a thousand difficulties, in short an insurmountable indolence in the face of everything. When I went up to the mirror to shave, this operation which I stoically undergo every morning struck me as superhumanly boring, and impossible for me to carry through once more; I swear to you I hesitated a moment whether to shave or to cut my throat.’

  ‘Whereupon you decided to let your beard grow,’ said Grandsailles.

  ‘Quite right,’ said d’Orminy, indulgently rubbing his chin which was already rough, ‘it’s the first thing to do if you decide to carry on. You can improvise anything in a passport, but a real beard takes time to grow…. For the moment it’s counterbalanced by my polo outfit, which assures my being able to get around in Paris for today. My horses need me, or else the German army will need them. Tomorrow I’m leaving for Africa. When are you coming? My property near Casablanca is always at your disposal. My yacht is anchored just outside. If you’re afraid of getting mixed up in the opium business all you have to do is set up your headquarters on the boat and you can make yourself at home on the property. Cécile Goudreau is going with me…. Don’t forget that Africa will decide everything!’