Mademoiselle Claude, Henry Miller

Mademoiselle Claude

PREVIOUSLY, WHEN I began to write this tale, I set out by saying that Mlle. Claude was a whore. She is a whore, of course, and I’m not trying to deny it, but what I say now is—if Mlle.

Claude is a whore then what name shall I find for the other women I know? Somehow the word whore isn’t big enough. Mlle. Claude is more than a whore. I don’t know what to call her. Maybe just Mlle. Claude. Soit.

There was the aunt who waited up for her every night. Frankly, I couldn’t swallow that story. Aunt hell! More likely it was her maquereau.

But then that was nobody’s business but her own. . . . Nevertheless, it used to gall me—that pimp waiting up for her, getting ready perhaps to clout her if she didn’t come across.

And no matter how loving she was (I mean that Claude really knew how to love) there was always in the back of my head the image of that blood-sucking, low-browed bastard who was getting all the gravy.

No use kidding yourself about a whore—even when they’re most generous and yielding, even if you’ve slipped them a thousand francs (who would, of course?)—there’s always a guy waiting somewhere and what you’ve had is only a taste. He gets the gravy, be sure of that!

But then, all this, as I afterwards discovered, was just so much wasted emotion. There was no maquereau—not in Claude’s case. I’m the first maquereau Claude has ever had. And I don’t call myself a maquereau either. Pimp’s the word. I’m her pimp now. O. K.

I remember distinctly the first time I brought her to my room,—what an ass I made of myself. Where women are concerned I always make an ass of myself. The trouble is I worship them and women don’t want to be worshiped.

They want . . . well, anyway, about that first night, believe it or not, I behaved just as if I had never slept with a woman before. I don’t understand to this day why it should have been so. But that’s how it was.

Before she even attempted to remove her things, I remember, she stood beside the bed looking up at me, waiting for me to do something, I suppose. I was trembling. I had been trembling ever since we left the café. I gave her a peck—on the lips, I think.

I don’t know—maybe I kissed her brow—I’m just the guy to do that sort of thing . . . with a woman I don’t know. Somehow I had the feeling that she was doing me a tremendous favor. Even a whore can make a guy feel that way sometimes. But then, Claude isn’t just a whore, as I said.

Before she had even removed her hat she went to the window, closed it, and drew the curtains to. Then she gave me a sort of sidelong look, smiled, and murmured something about getting undressed. While she fooled around with the bidet I went through the business of stripping down.

As a matter of fact, I was nervous. I thought perhaps she’d be embarrassed if I watched her, so I fiddled around with the papers on my table, made a few meaningless notes, and threw the cover over the typewriter. When I turned she was standing in her chemise, near the sink, wiping her legs.

“Hurry! Get in bed!” she said. “Warm it up!’’ And with this she gave herself a few extra dabs.

Everything was so damned natural that I began to lose my uneasiness, my nervousness. I saw that her stockings were rolled down carefully, and from her waist there dangled some sort of harness which she flung presently over the back of the chair.

The room was chilly all right. We snuggled up and lay silently for a while, a long while, warming each other.

I had one arm around her neck and with the other I held her close. She kept staring into my eyes with that same expectant look that I had observed when we first entered the room. I began to tremble again. My French was fading away.

I don’t remember now whether I told her then and there that I loved her. Probably I did. Anyway, if I did, she probably forgot it immediately.

As she was leaving I handed her a copy of Aphrodite, which she said she’d never read, and a pair of silk stockings that I had bought for some one else. I could see she liked the stockings.

When I saw her again I had changed my hotel. She looked about in her quick, eager way and saw at a glance that things weren’t going so well. She asked very naively if I was getting enough to eat.

“You mustn’t remain here long,” she said. “It’s very sad here.” Maybe she didn’t say sad, but that’s what she meant, I’m sure.

It was sad all right. The furniture was falling apart, the windowpanes were broken, the carpet was torn and dirty, and there was no running water. The light too was dim, a dim, yellow light that gave the bedspread a gray, mildewed look.

That night, for some reason or other, she pretended to be jealous. “There is somebody else whom you love,” she said.

“No, there’s nobody else,” I answered.

“Kiss me, then,” she said, and she clung to me affectionately, her body warm and tingling. I seemed to be swimming in the warmth of her flesh . . . not swimming either, but drowning, drowning in bliss.

Afterwards we talked about Pierre Loti, and about Stamboul. She said she’d like to go to Stamboul some day. I said I’d like to go too.

And then suddenly she said—I think this was it—“you’re a man with a soul.” I didn’t try to deny it—I was too happy, I guess. When a whore tells you you’ve got a soul it means more somehow. Whores don’t usually talk about souls.

Then another strange thing happened. She refused to take any money.

“You mustn’t think about money,” she said. “We are comrades now. And you are very poor. . . .”

She wouldn’t let me get out of bed to see her to the landing. She spilled a few cigarettes out of her bag and laid them on the table beside the bed; she put one in my mouth and lit it for me with the little bronze lighter that some one had given her as a gift. She leaned over to kiss me good-night.

I held her arm. “Claude,” I said, “vous êtes presque un ange.”
“Ah non!” she replied, quickly, and there was almost a look of pain in her eyes, or terror.

That “presque” was really the undoing of Claude, I do believe. I sensed it almost immediately. And then the letter which I handed her soon after—the best letter I ever wrote in my life, though the French was execrable. We read it together, in the café where we usually met.

As I say, the French was atrocious, except for a paragraph or two which I lifted from Paul Valéry. She paused a moment or two when she came to these passages. “Very well expressed!” she exclaimed. “Very well, indeed!” And then she looked at me rather quizzically and passed on. Oh, it wasn’t Valéry that got her. Not at all. I could have done without him. No, it was the angel stuff that got her.

I had pulled it again—and this time I embroidered it, as subtly and suasively as I knew how. By the time we had reached the end, though, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. It was pretty cheap, taking advantage of her like that. I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t sincere, what I wrote, but after that first spontaneous gesture—I don’t know, it was just literature.

And then, too, it seemed shabbier than ever when, a little later, sitting on the bed together, she insisted on reading it over again, this time calling my attention to the grammatical errors. I became a little impatient with her and she was offended. But she was very happy just the same. She said she’d always keep the letter.

About dawn she slipped out. The aunt again. I was getting reconciled to the aunt business. Besides, if it wasn’t an aunt I’d soon know now. Claude wasn’t very good at dissembling—and then that angel stuff . . . that sank in deep.

I lay awake thinking about her. She certainly had been swell to me. The maquereau! I thought about him, too, but not for long, I wasn’t worrying about him any more. Claude—I thought only about her and how I could make her happy. Spain . . . Capri . . . Stamboul. . . .

I could see her moving languidly in the sunshine, throwing crumbs to the pigeons or watching them bathe, or else lying back in a hammock with a book in her hands, a book that I would recommend to her.

Poor kid, she probably had never been further than Versailles in her life. I could see the expression on her face as we boarded the train, and later, standing beside a fountain somewhere. . . . Madrid or Seville. I could feel her marching beside me, close, always close, because she wouldn’t know what to do with herself alone and even if it was dumb I liked the idea.

Better a damned sight than having some god-damned flapper with you, some lightheaded little bastard who’s always figuring out a way of ditching you even when she’s lying with you. No, I could feel sure of Claude. Later it