PRANGEY. THE VILLAGE IS poor. As they turn off the road, chickens scatter before them, and then a course of trees appears to indicate the way. They cross a little bridge and drive in, beneath the towers. A dark entry to a white court. On the far side, the huge country house where they will stay, a piece in the stone necklace that is strung across all of France, the piers upon which her history is founded. They have opened their doors to travelers, these châteaux. They have become hotels. The great rooms, eloquent in their calm, may be taken by anyone, rooms that have seen the light and darkness of centuries. People can now walk around them in underclothes, lie in the beds like drunken servants.
The door closes. They are alone. It’s a vast room with many mirrors. Anne-Marie looks in the bath. Enormous too, and beneath its windows a moat filled with frogs. She takes off her shoes. The carpeting is blue. No sound but the countryside. Birds. The hum of spring. On the wide bed they are soon at work, skillfully, silent as thieves. They are deep in a sumptuous dream in which they have discovered one another.
The sky is pale and drained of heat. In this silence like folded flags, Dean’s awareness of things seems extraordinary. He puts his prick into her slowly, guiding it with his hand. It sinks like an iron bar into water. Her eyes close. Her voice is cut adrift.
Minutes. The gravel of the court whispers. Raising up a little, Dean is able to see out the window which is partly open. There are voices. A large family has returned from walking in the gardens and now, amid laughter, begins to arrange itself at the tables while the waiter, in a white coat and black trousers, serves them. The women want Perrier. The men take wine. They are just below—the nearest ones can’t be seen. The talk, only a bit dissevered, rises up as if to include him. He withdraws somewhat to watch, taut, supported by his arms, just the tip of his prick inside her. He looks down along his belly to affirm it.
They fuck in lovers’ sunshine, in the midst of the party. Her flesh gleams like fabric, intermixed with glimpses of women in silk dresses grouped around the table, children, a friendly dog. The noon hours are drifting away. The waiter brings more ice. It seems to last for hours. They are united by a bloodstream which carries the same sensations. He is nourishing her, touching her heart. When he comes, it’s as if a marvelous deception has ended. Afterwards she kisses his prick. His balls. The people have gone. The waiter is alone in the court below, collecting the glasses.
That night they dance in Dijon, in the boîte where we saw her first. It’s her idea. I’m a little surprised by that. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that she would prefer not to encounter the past, but she seems not to mind. It means nothing to her. The sweat shines on their faces as they move. The armpits of her dress are stained. They drive back at midnight with the top down. It’s cool. The roads are empty. The great, worn front of the house is dark, and they park on the expiring gravel. Legs weary, they climb the stairs.
Dean is looking at himself in the mirror while she undresses. He is naked. He stands full on, his hands at his sides. He sees himself as a different person. He is delighted with his thinness, with his hair which is too long, and with the triumphant reflection of himself. He is aware of her moving about behind him, but it is his own nudity he is interested in, a nudity which the glimpses of her presence make thrilling. He discovers himself in her presence, that’s the thing. It is the reflection all others must play against. He is pleased with himself. His prick seems murderously large.
“How do we make love tonight?” she asks.
She waits. She is able to summon up all of the black countryside that surrounds them, silences in which every object, every form is at rest. The invisible leaves—the night is filled with them—brush one another lightly. The grasses are still. If one listens closely: the trickle of water below the windows, down a face of rock and into the green scum. The sound of a frog. In the heart of this, in a tall room with its curtains drawn against morning they lie, the faint acid of sweat dried on them and other wetness as well, clear, caking. They were too tired to rise afterwards. They sleep without moving, the blanket drawn over them against the chill of dawn.