Books: Heartbeats in Miniature

LA CHAMADE by Francoise Sagan. 156 pages. Button. $3.95.

Franchise Sagan is a Gallic Maugham who knows instinctively how deep to probe, what not to say, and when to quit. Her swift vignettes, like Maugham’s, are the product of a far more complex and searching intelligence than cold type exposes, and her novels are like fragile sand dollars—elegant, delicate designs.

The title refers to the roll of drums by which the inhabitants of a city under siege announce surrender; since it also denotes a feverish heartbeat, it is a handy metaphor for a romantic novel. The heart that beats retreat belongs to lovely, lazy Lucile, who at 30 has been drifting gracefully through an affair with a wealthy, fiftyish fellow named Charles. She meets Antoine, a young, intense and impecunious publisher’s reader, who supplements his income by living with Clare, a middle-aged Parisian hostess.

It could only happen in Sagan’s Paris. When la chamade begins to pulse through Lucile and Antoine, Clare taps out her surrender and Charles shrewdly retreats. Lucile leaves Charles for her new lover and makes an earnest effort to mend her indolent ways, but holding a job and living in one room are too boring a price to pay for love. When she gets pregnant, it is Charles who supplies the abortion fee; and when she quits her struggle for an independent life, it is Charles who gives her back her old bed.

Sagan knows how to play with the nuances of worldly boredom and the despairing thrusts of passion. Of her seven novels, La Chamade is one of the best and as perceptive as Bonjour, Tristesse. She has added another documentation to her reputation as a precise miniaturist who lucidly fosters a fond romantic delusion—that the French are so tough and realistic that they can be rational even about love.