Les garçons" (The Boys), by Henri de Montherlant (Paris, 1969)(excerpts)

Henri de Montherlant -- "The Boys"

• From "Les garçons" (The Boys), by Henri de Montherlant (Paris, 1969)

  A novel of a passionate love affair between a 16 year old boy and a 12 year old boy at a French school in the 1910s, based on Montherlant's own experiences as a child. In this scene they are spending the day together in the park:

  
  

  They made their way into the Palmarium, a vast floral hothouse with tropical temperatures. Alone, made completely alone by this enormousness, a white-haired man was seated on an iron bench, wearing dark clothes, an imposing cigar on his lips, a figure evoking exile and nostalgia.

  Serge spotted an empty grotto: "There, we could go kiss."

  In the grotto, Alban: "Take off your overcoat, so that I can smell your body a little bit when I kiss you."

  Serge hung his overcoat on an outcropping of rock.

  Then, their feet even on the stones that encircled a little stream, amongst the murmur of water which trickled and dripped, they brought their mouths deeply together -- and Serge's mouth was deep, complex and humid like the grotto itself. At the end, Alban removed Serge's beret, so that he could smell his hair. He inhaled it slowly, with a slow intensity, just as one breathes in the smell of the prarie at dawn.

  (My translation.)

  Henri de Montherlant -- <a name="garcons">The Boys</a>

  
  

  
  

  • From "Les garçons" (The Boys), by Henri de Montherlant (Paris, 1969)

    A novel of a passionate love affair between a 16 year old boy and a 12 year old boy at a French school in the 1910s, based on Montherlant's own experiences as a child. Alban, the 16 year old, has just started at his new high school, where the older boys admire the younger boys with a mixture of awe, irony and romanticism. (The Souplier mentioned at the end is the boy that Alban will fall in love with, but he doesn't know it yet.) Here they are in the playground, discussing a prospective member of the school choir:

    
    

    "Speaking of the choir," Alban said to Linsbourg, "is there nothing you can do to get the Little General in? I would love to see that."

    Alban called the young Aymery de La Maisonfort "The Little General", because his father was a general. Linsbourg and Giboy belonged to the choir, but Alban did not. And the younger boys were never admitted to the choir except under the patronage of one of the older students.

    "You're interested in La Maisonfort, eh?"

    "Ye-eesss... perhaps...."

    "Hmm... you know, the kid can't sing on key."

    "That's of no importance. You know as well as I do that it's the face, not the voice, that gets you into the choir. And La Maisonfort is charming. He is not called Trémignon, like the castle of Lamennais, but he should be!" [très mignon means "very cute"]

    "His legs are too big."

    "You don't know anything. His legs are sublime. And moreover, he said to me, 'I love the Roman wars. They're delicious! '"

    "Loves the Romans, appropriate for epithets...he seems better suited for the Academy than the choir!"

    Wrongly or rightly, La Maisonfort was renowned for being silly, but he was lively and quick, and that was certainly enough that he could be considered. Giboy announced to the audience of fourteen year olds:

    "Okay, go and find this little idiot, so that we can see, by looking at his calves, if he can sing on key!"

    A moment later, four kids galloped up, holding by the arms a young monkey of a boy, who stopped at the barrier, looking at the older boys with an interrogatory eye. With his blond hair, his "lily-and-roses" complexion, his delicate head opposed to his powerful, mature, bare legs, he resembled a little goose -- but a pretty little goose. So pure, and bathed in the freshness of violet -- purity itself! He had just turned twelve years old.

    Salins pointed to one of La Maisonfort's knees, which was violently daubed with iodine.

    "Is that for real, or did you do it in order to make yourself interesting?"

    A pretty little smile, which confessed to the latter.

    "Would it mean something to you to join the choir?"

    "Me? Oh, yes! But my father wouldn't like it. He says that it would take up too much of my time." (He turned toward Linsbourg.) "You know very well that I've already asked him."

    "What! You've already asked him?"

    "Yes...because of Linsbourg..."

    "So that's it! Linsbourg tried to stop us from getting the Little General into the choir, but he was already trying to get him in!"

    Linsbourg laughed into his coat, pretending to be bewildered.

    "I like whatever it is in him that keeps stumbling over things," he said at last. "These big primary-school clogs, in the son of a general, who arrives at school in an 8-cylinder De Dion-Bouton...And then, what do you want, I have a weakness for big feet."

    "What about Souplier?" asked Salins, looking at Alban maliciously.

    "Souplier doesn't have what it takes to be either an Academician or a choirmember!"

    "Go," said Linsbourg to the fourteen year olds, "go and tell Souplier that the Academicians are talking about him!"

    (My translation. It doesn't begin to do it justice.)