Jezebel by Irène Némirovsky

lips, though now and again wafts of scent filled the air from the roses blossoming in the parks.
    Gladys slowly touched her face; her cheeks burned as if on fire. She could feel her heart beating quickly, anxiously, to the rhythm of the last waltz she had danced. She hummed it absent-mindedly, gently stroked her hair, leaned towards Tess and laughed, but she was sad. It was always the same: her joy suddenly disappeared and left her feeling deeply, bitterly melancholy. She dreamily thought about a handsome gentleman she had found attractive and with whom all the young women had fallen in love that summer. He was a young Polish man whoworked at the Russian Embassy; his name was Count Tarnovsky. She thought of all the beautiful women she had seen and the fortunate young girls whose lives were already mapped out for them, while she had barely any social status, she who was the daughter of divorced parents, the daughter of Sophie Burnera, ‘an unhappy woman, a wicked woman’, as Tess called her. She looked over at her cousin who was sitting beside her and felt sorry for her: she seemed so frail, so tired, so ill; every now and again she would cough painfully. Claude Beauchamp had closed the car window and turned towards the two women. She smiled at him shyly, but he didn’t seem to notice her.
    He had a long, delicate face and thin cheeks, as if he were drawing them into his mouth beneath his cheekbones; his beautiful mouth had fine lips that formed almost a single straight line across his face when they were closed. He was very tall and not very strong looking, and he normally stood hunched over with his head slightly forward. He was polite, cold, reserved and quiet. He was young, but to Gladys he seemed nearly an old man. She admired him but had never set out to be attractive to him.
    The car stopped in front of the Beauchamps’ house. Downstairs, in Claude’s library, some drinks had been set out. It was a cold house; the fires were always lit when Teresa was to get home late. A few logs were still burning, lighting up the very tall old furniture: it was old-fashioned, made of antique dark wood, polished as brightly as ebony.
    Gladys opened the window and sat down in front of it.
    ‘You’ll catch cold, darling,’ Tess said with a sigh.
    ‘No I won’t,’ murmured Gladys.
    ‘At least throw a coat over your shoulders.’
    ‘No, no, my love, I’m not afraid of the cold, I’m not afraid of anything in this world.’
    Both women had the Victorian English habit of addressing each other in affectionate terms. They only ever called each other ‘darling’, ‘my sweetheart’, ‘my love …’. They smiled at each other when saying these words, but their eyes were harsh.
    Gladys took the flowers from her belt and breathed in their scent.
    Tess made an angry gesture. ‘Leave them alone,’ she said, ‘they’ve wilted.’
    ‘That doesn’t matter. Only these little red roses manage to wilt the way they should: they don’t wither away, they burn from within. Look,’ she said, showing her the flowers in her hand, ‘smell them, what a delicious perfume …’
    She held them to Teresa’s nose but she turned her head away. ‘The smell of flowers makes me feel ill,’ she said sadly.
    Gladys smiled; she felt ashamed; she could see she was upsetting Tess. ‘Poor little Teresa,’ she thought. She felt sorry for her, but she also felt a restless cruelty, the desire to know, to calculate the extent of her power as a woman for the first time. Her small face was pale from staying up all night, tense and trembling.
    ‘What am I doing?’ she suddenly thought, ‘and why?’
    They heard the voice of a child waking up from the floor above; it was Olivier, the Beauchamps’ little boy. Teresa immediately stood up. ‘Six o’clock already. Olivier’s getting up …’
    ‘Don’t go to him now; go and get some rest.’
    Teresa picked up her fan from the chair and left the room. Claude and Gladys were alone. Gladys opened the