Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Modiano
distant rumble of motorboats, the shouts and laughter of bathers. A light airplane passed overhead, pretty high up, towing a streamer on which I read the following mysterious words: COUPE HOULIGANT. Houligant Cup …? After a very long maneuver, we landed — or rather, the
Amiral-Guisard
banged against the wharf. Three or four people came on board, among them a priest dressed in a bright red cassock, and the boat resumed its wheezy cruise. From Saint-Jorioz it went to a village named Voirens. Then there would be Port-Lusatz and, a little farther on, Switzerland. But the boat would turn in time and head for the other side of the lake.
The wind was blowing strands of her hair across her forehead. She asked me would she be a countess if we got married. She spoke in a joking tone, but underneathit I could sense great curiosity. I told her she’d be called “Countess Yvonne Chmara.”
“But is that really Russian, Chmara?”
“Georgian,” I said. “Georgian …”
When the boat stopped at Veyrier-du-Lac, I recognized, in the distance, Madeja’s white-and-pink villa. Yvonne was looking in the same direction. About ten young people took up positions on the deck beside us. Most of them were wearing tennis outfits, and the girls’ fat thighs showed under their pleated white skirts. They all talked with the toothy accent cultivated around Ranelagh and Avenue Bugeaud. And I wondered why those sons and daughters of French polite society had, on the one hand, mild cases of acne, and on the other, a few too many kilos. The cause was surely their diet.
Two members of the group were debating the relative merits of Pancho Gonzales and Spalding tennis rackets. The more voluble of the two wore a goatee and a shirt decorated with a little green crocodile. Technical conversation. Incomprehensible words. A soft, soothing hum in the sunlight. One of the blond girls seemed not insensible to the charms of a dark-haired young man wearing moccasins and a blazer with a crest who was doing his best to shine in front of her. The other blonde declared that “the big party” was “not tomorrow night but the next,” and that her parents “would let them have the villa.” The sound of the water against the hull. The airplane came back over us, and I read the strange streamer again: COUPE HOULIGANT. They were all going (if I understood them correctly) to the tennis club in Menthon-Saint-Bernard. Their parentsmust own lakeside villas. And how about us, where were we going? And our parents, who were they? Did Yvonne come from a “good family,” like our neighbors? And me? In any case, my title of count was quite another thing than a little green crocodile, lost on a white shirt …
“Will Count Victor Chmara please come to the telephone?” Yes, that made a fine sound, like a clash of cymbals.
We got off the boat at Menthon with the others. They walked ahead of us, carrying their rackets. We went along a road lined with villas whose exteriors evoked mountain chalets and where several generations of dreamy bourgeois had been coming to spend their vacations. Sometimes the houses were hidden by clusters of hawthorn or fir trees. Villa Primevère, Villa Edelweiss, Les Chamois, Chalet Marie-Rose … The others turned left on a road that led to the wire netting surrounding a tennis court. The buzz of their talk and their laughter faded away.
The two of us turned right. A sign said GRAND HÔTEL DE MENTHON. A private road mounted a very steep slope to a graveled esplanade. From there you had a view that was just as vast as, but sadder than, the one from the terraces of the Hermitage. On this side, the shores of the lake looked deserted. The hotel was very old. In the lobby, some green plants, some rattan chairs, some big sofas covered with plaid fabric. Families would come here in July and August. The same names would recur on the register, double names, very French: Sergent-Delval, Hattier-Morel, Paquier-Panhard … And when we took a
Amiral-Guisard
banged against the wharf. Three or four people came on board, among them a priest dressed in a bright red cassock, and the boat resumed its wheezy cruise. From Saint-Jorioz it went to a village named Voirens. Then there would be Port-Lusatz and, a little farther on, Switzerland. But the boat would turn in time and head for the other side of the lake.
The wind was blowing strands of her hair across her forehead. She asked me would she be a countess if we got married. She spoke in a joking tone, but underneathit I could sense great curiosity. I told her she’d be called “Countess Yvonne Chmara.”
“But is that really Russian, Chmara?”
“Georgian,” I said. “Georgian …”
When the boat stopped at Veyrier-du-Lac, I recognized, in the distance, Madeja’s white-and-pink villa. Yvonne was looking in the same direction. About ten young people took up positions on the deck beside us. Most of them were wearing tennis outfits, and the girls’ fat thighs showed under their pleated white skirts. They all talked with the toothy accent cultivated around Ranelagh and Avenue Bugeaud. And I wondered why those sons and daughters of French polite society had, on the one hand, mild cases of acne, and on the other, a few too many kilos. The cause was surely their diet.
Two members of the group were debating the relative merits of Pancho Gonzales and Spalding tennis rackets. The more voluble of the two wore a goatee and a shirt decorated with a little green crocodile. Technical conversation. Incomprehensible words. A soft, soothing hum in the sunlight. One of the blond girls seemed not insensible to the charms of a dark-haired young man wearing moccasins and a blazer with a crest who was doing his best to shine in front of her. The other blonde declared that “the big party” was “not tomorrow night but the next,” and that her parents “would let them have the villa.” The sound of the water against the hull. The airplane came back over us, and I read the strange streamer again: COUPE HOULIGANT. They were all going (if I understood them correctly) to the tennis club in Menthon-Saint-Bernard. Their parentsmust own lakeside villas. And how about us, where were we going? And our parents, who were they? Did Yvonne come from a “good family,” like our neighbors? And me? In any case, my title of count was quite another thing than a little green crocodile, lost on a white shirt …
“Will Count Victor Chmara please come to the telephone?” Yes, that made a fine sound, like a clash of cymbals.
We got off the boat at Menthon with the others. They walked ahead of us, carrying their rackets. We went along a road lined with villas whose exteriors evoked mountain chalets and where several generations of dreamy bourgeois had been coming to spend their vacations. Sometimes the houses were hidden by clusters of hawthorn or fir trees. Villa Primevère, Villa Edelweiss, Les Chamois, Chalet Marie-Rose … The others turned left on a road that led to the wire netting surrounding a tennis court. The buzz of their talk and their laughter faded away.
The two of us turned right. A sign said GRAND HÔTEL DE MENTHON. A private road mounted a very steep slope to a graveled esplanade. From there you had a view that was just as vast as, but sadder than, the one from the terraces of the Hermitage. On this side, the shores of the lake looked deserted. The hotel was very old. In the lobby, some green plants, some rattan chairs, some big sofas covered with plaid fabric. Families would come here in July and August. The same names would recur on the register, double names, very French: Sergent-Delval, Hattier-Morel, Paquier-Panhard … And when we took a