LILIE LALA
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
"When I saw her for the first time," Louis
d'Arandel said, with the look of a man who
was dreaming and trying to recollect something,
"I thought of some slow and yet passionate
music that I once heard, though I do not
remember who was the composer. It told
of a fair-haired woman whose hair was so
silky, so golden, and so vibrating, that
her lover had it cut off after her death,
and had the strings of the magic bow of a
violin made out of it, which afterward
emitted such superhuman complaints and love
melodies that they made its hearers love
until death.
"In her eyes there lay the mystery of deep
waters; one was lost in them, drowned in
them like in fathomless depths, and at the
corners of her mouth there lurked the
despotic and merciless smile of those women
who do not fear that they may be conquered,
who rule over men like cruel queens, whose
hearts remain as virgin as those of the
strictest Carmelite nuns amid a flood of
lewdness.
"I have seen her angelic head, the bands of
her hair, which looked like plates of gold,
her tall, graceful figure, her white, slender,
childish hands, in stained-glass windows in
churches. She suggested pictures of the
Annunciation, where the Archangel Gabriel
descends with ultramarine-colored wings,
and Mary is sitting at her spinning-wheel
and spinning, while uttering pious prayers,
seemingly a tall sister to the white lilies
that are growing beside her and the roses.
"When she went through the acacia alley, she
appeared on some first night in the stage box
at one of the theaters, nearly always alone,
and apparently feeling life a great burden,
and angry because she could not change the
eternal, dull round of human enjoyment; nobody
would have believed that she went in for a
fast life--that in the annals of gallantry
she was catalogued under the strange name
of 'Lilie Lala', and that no man could rub
against her without being irretrievably caught,
and spending his last half-penny on her.
"But with all that, Lilie had the voice of
a schoolgirl, of some little innocent creature
who still uses a skipping-rope and wears
short dresses, and had that clear, innocent
laugh which reminds people of wedding bells.
Sometimes, for fun, I would kneel down before
her, like before the statue of a saint, and
clasping my hands as if in prayer, I used to
say: 'Sancta Lilie, ora pro nobis!'
"One evening, at Biarritz, when the sky had
the dull glare of intense heat and the sea
was of a sinister, inky black, and was swelling
and rolling in enormous phosphorescent waves
on the beach at Port-Vieux, Lilie, who was
listless and strange, and was making holes
in the sand with the heels of her boots,
suddenly exclaimed in one of those
confidences which women sometimes bestow,
and for which they are sorry as soon as
the story is told:
"'Ah! My dear fellow, I do not deserve to
be canonized, and my life is rather a subject
for a drama than a chapter from the Gospels
or the Golden Legend. As long as I can
remember anything, I can remember being
wrapped in lace, being carried by a woman,
and continually being fussed over, as are
children who have been long waited for, and
who are consequently spoiled more than usual.
"'Those kisses were so nice, that I still
seem to feel their sweetness, and I shrine
the remembrance of them in a little place
in my heart, as one preserves some lucky
talisman in a reliquary. I still seem to
remember an indistinct landscape lost in
the mist, outlines of trees which frightened
me as they creaked and groaned in the wind,
and ponds on which swans were sailing. And
when I look in the glass for a long time,
merely for the sake of seeing myself, it
seems to me as if I recognized the woman
who formerly used to kiss me most frequently,
and speak to me in a more loving voice than
anyone else did. But what happened afterward?
"'Was I carried off, or sold to some strolling
circus owner by a dishonest servant? I do not
know; I have never been able to find out; but
I remember that my whole childhood was spent
in a circus which traveled from fair to fair,
and from place to place, with files of vans,
processions of animals, and noisy music.
"'I was as tiny as an insect, and they taught
me difficult tricks, to dance on the tightrope
and to perform on the slack-rope. I was
beaten as if I had been a bit of plaster,
and more frequently I had a piece of dry
bread to gnaw, than a slice of meat. But I
remember that one day I slipped under one
of the vans, and stole a basin of soup as
my share, which one of the clowns was
carefully making for his three learned dogs.
"'I had neither friends nor relations; I
was employed on the dirtiest jobs, like
the lowest stable help, and I was tattooed
with bruises and scars. Of the whole company,
however, the one who beat me the most, who
was the least sparing of his thumps, and
who continually made me suffer, as if it
gave him pleasure, was the manager and
proprietor, a kind of old, vicious brute,
whom everybody feared like the plague, a
miser who was continually complaining of
the receipts, who hid away the crown pieces
in his mattress, invested his money in the
funds, and cut down the salaries of all,
as far as he could.
"'His name was Rapha Ginestous. Any other
child, but myself, would have succumbed to
such a constant martyrdom, but I grew up,
and the more I grew, the prettier and more
desirable I became, so that when I was
fifteen, men were already beginning to
write love letters to me, and to throw
bouquets to me in the arena. I felt also
that all the men in the company were
watching me, and were coveting me as their
prey; that their lustful looks rested on
my pink tights, and followed the graceful
outlines of my body when I was posing on
the rope that stretched from one end of
the circus to the other, or jumped through
the paper hoops at full gallop.
"'They were no longer the same, and spoke
to me in a totally different tone of voice.
They tried to come into my dressing-room
when I was changing my dress, and Rapha
Ginestous seemed to have lost his head,
and his heart throbbed audibly when he
came near me. Yes, he had the audacity to
propose bargains to me which covered my
cheeks and forehead with blushes, and
which filled me with disgust, and as I
felt a fierce hatred for him, and detested
him with all my soul and all my strength,
as I wished to make him suffer the tortures
which he had inflicted on me, a hundredfold,
I used him as the target at which I was
constantly aiming.
"'Instinctively, I employed every cunning
perfidy, every artful coquetry, every lie,
every artifice that can unset the strongest
and most skeptical, and place them at our
mercy, like submissive animals. He loved
me; he really loved me, that lascivious
goat who had never seen anything in a
woman except a soft couch, and an instrument
of convenience and of forgetfulness. He
loved me like old men do love, with frenzy,
with degrading transports, and with the
prostration of his will and of his strength.
I held him as in a leash, and did whatever
I liked with him.
"'I was much more manageress than he was
manager, and the poor wretch wasted away
in vain hopes and in useless transports;
he had not even touched the tips of my
fingers, and was reduced to bestowing his
caresses on my columbine shoes, my tights,
and my wigs. And I care not that for it,
you understand! Not the slightest familiarity
did I allow, and he began to grow thin
and ill, and became idiotic. And while he
implored me, and promised to marry me, with
his eyes full of tears, I shouted with
laughter; I reminded him of how he had
beaten, abused, and humiliated me, and
had often made me wish for death. And as
soon as he left me, he would swill bottles
of gin and whisky, and constantly got so
abominably drunk that he rolled under the
table, and all to drown his sorrow and
forget his desire.
"'He covered me with jewels, and tried
everything he could to tempt me to become
his wife. In spite of my inexperience in
life, he consulted me with regard to
everything he undertook, and one evening,
after I had stroked his face with my hand,
I persuaded him without any difficulty,
to make his will, by which he left me all
his savings, and the circus and everything
belonging to it.
"'It was in the middle of winter, near
Moscow; it snowed continually, and one
almost burnt oneself at the stoves in
trying to keep warm. Rapha Ginestous had
had supper brought into the largest van,
which was his, after the performance, and
for hours we ate and drank. I was very nice
toward him, and filled his glass every
moment; I even sat on his knee and kissed
him. And all his love, and the fumes of
the alcohol of the wine mounted to his
head, and gradually made him so helplessly
intoxicated, that he fell from his chair,
inert, as if he had been struck by lightning,
without opening his eyes or saying a word.
"'The rest of the troupe were asleep; the
lights were out in all the little windows,
and not a sound was to be heard, while the
snow continued to fall in large flakes. So
having put out the petroleum lamp, I opened
the door, and taking the drunkard by the
feet, as if he had been a bale of goods,
I threw him out into that white shroud.
"'The next morning the stiff and convulsed
body of Rapha Ginestous was picked up, and
as everybody knew his inveterate drinking
habits, no one thought of instituting an
inquiry, or of accusing me of a crime. Thus
was I avenged, and gained a yearly income of
nearly fifteen thousand francs. What, after
all, is the good of being honest, and of
pardoning our enemies, as the Gospel bids us?'
"And now," Louis d'Arandel said in conclusion,
"suppose we go and have a cocktail or two
at the casino, for I do not think that I
have ever talked so much in my life before."
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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