WILL O’ THE WISP A Novel by PIERRE DRIEU LA ROCHELLE Translated by MARTIN ROBINSON Marion Boyars London « New YorkPublished inthe United States and Great Britain in 1998 in Paperback hy Mation Boars Publishers 237 Fast 9th Steet, New York, N.Y. 10016 24 Lacy Road, London SW15 INL. Distributed in Ausiralia and New Zealand by Peso Py Lic 5X Beaumont Read. Mount Kuring-eai, NSW 2080 First published in hardeover in Great Britain 1966 by Calder and Boyars Limited (© This translation Marion Byars Lid, 1966, 1998 (Originally published in 1991 and re-issued in 1963 «as Le Feu Follet by Libsisie Gallimard. Pass © 1931, 1963, 1998 Librairie Gallimard All gts reserved ‘No part ofthis publication may be reptodiced, stored ina terial system or transmitted in any Form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying. recording or olherwise except brief extracts forthe purposes of review, without prior written permission ofthe publishers, Any paperback eition of this book whether published simultaneously with. or subsequent 0. the casehound edition i sold subjet to the condition that i shall rol by way of trae, he lent, esol, heed out or otherwise disposed of without the publishers" consent, in any form of binding or cover ther tha that in ‘which it 3s published British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Drew la Rochelle, Prevre, 1893-1945 With o the wisp 1. Narcotic addiets — Fietion I Tite 883912IF] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Driew La Rochelle, Pee, 1895-1985 [Feu follet. English] Will’ the wisp : a novel /Pierse Driew La Rochelle translated by Marin Robinson T-Rohinson, Matin, I. Tile PORHTRSFSIS 1998 BAY 912-de21 98-1474 ISBN 0-7145-0613-3 paperback i WLAN f 29031 01319311 9 ‘At that moment, Alain was watching Lydia relentlessly. But he had been gazing at her like that ever since she arrived in Paris three days earlier. What was he waiting for? Sudden enlightenment about her or himself Lydia was looking at him too, her eyes dilated, but without intensity. And soon she turned her head away and, closing her eyes, she became engrossed. In what? In herself? Was it herself, this rumbling, satisfied rage which swelled her breast and belly? It was only a momentary feeling, It was already So he, too, stopped looking at her. For him, the sensation had slipped away, intangible as ever, like a snake between two stones. For a moment he remained still, lying on top of her; but he was not relaxed, he was tense, propped up on his clbows. Then, as his body lost its power, he felt himself useless and rolled over by her side. She lay near the edge of the bed: there was just room to support himself on his side, close to her, over her. Lydia opened her eyes again. She could only see 2 hairy chest, no head. She did not worry about it: she had not experienced anything very violent either, but there had been a sense of release, and this was the only feeling she had ever known, flat but precise. ‘The dim light, shimmering in the bulb on the ceiling, barely 5revealed unknown walls or farniture through the scarf which ‘Alain had wrapped round it. “Poor Alain, how uncomfortable you must be,’ she said after a moment, and without hurrying, she made room for him. ‘Give me a cigarette,’ she said ‘ve been wanting ...” he murmured ina toneless voice. He picked up the packet which he had taken care to put on the bedside table when they had lain down 2 few minutes earlier. It was an unopened packet, but the third of the day. He ripped it open with his nails and it gave them pleasure, as if they had been deprived of it for a long time, to draw out of the tightly-packed sheaf two little white rolls, well filled with aromatic tobacco. Without bothering to turn her head, falling on to her back and twisting her beautiful shoulders, she groped blindly for her handbag on the other bedside table, and took a lighter From it. The ceremony was over, they had to talk ‘Auylow, that did not embarrass them as it used to do; no longer afraid to reveal themselves, they had both reached the point of realising that the resources of the other were short lived, but still enjoyable: they had slept together perhaps a dozen times ‘'m happy to have seen you again, Alain, alone, for a moment.’ "Yous visit will have been rather upset.’ He did not try to apologise for what had happened. nd she did not hold it against him; ever siuce she had approached him she had run the risk of such incidents, Was she not, how- ever, making some subconcions effort to convince herself that out of three days spent in Paris with Alain, she was bound to 6 spend one at the police station, after being picked up with him ina dea of drug addicts? “Of course, you're leaving this morning," he aided in a tone lightly veiled with resentime ‘She was leaving on the Leviathan, the boat on which she had arrived. But to do that, she had had to make telephone calls all the previous evening, for she had not bocked her xeturn_ passage in New York, although she had said at the time that she would only be calling at Faris. Had it been negligence or a secret wish to stay? If the latter, it must have been the incident with the police which had made her decide to return, that night speat on a chair surrounded by smelly detectives who blew smoke in her face, whilst Alain had assomed a crestfallen air which kad surprised her. Despite her Ametican itizenship and prompt intervention, the humiliation had lasted several hours. But she was obstinate. Alain, we must get married.” She told him this, because it was to do so that she kad come con che Leviathar. Six months earlier, a young divorcée, she had become en: gaged to Alain, one evening, in a bathroom in New York. But three days later she had married another man, a stranger, but from whom she had sepirated shoxtly after. “My divorce will soon be through.” “Lwish [ could say the same for mine,’ replied Alain, with rather affected nonchalance. ‘Tm well aware that you are still in lov It was true, but chat did not prevent him from wanting to marry Lydia. “But Dorothy is no longer the woman you need, she hasn't 7 c with Dorothy.”