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face was not particularly malicious, rather it was bleak and barren; as soon as one turned away, it was forgotten. Likewise, Thomas understood his words only with difficulty. Was it because he was distracted? He thought of the crowd that had just disappeared so quickly. One would have thought that the meeting was over. The people who passed in the distance did not cast a single glance in his direction, as if everything that was happening now had lost all importance. What was the meaning of this interrogation? He stood up as straight as he could, and without bothering about what was being said to him, he asked how he was supposed to interpret all these questions. The employee pushed away the papers that were piled up next to him -there was an enormous mass of them - and taking the magnify ing glass from his pocket, he looked by turns at Thomas and at Dom, as if he were examining an indecipherable manuscript. "I do not know your face," he said. Was he going to send them away? Thomas quickly revealed his request regarding the plan of the house. "Ah! The famous plan," said the man, without, however, doing anything to look for it. He did not seem to be in any hurry to carry out the interro gation. Besides, was it an interrogation? His gaze rested distractedly on Thomas, guided, so it seemed, by the hope that he would never have to see him again, but at the same time he kept him close, as if his presence could serve to keep his attention away from more painful thoughts. He said in a confidential manner, in a tone full of admiration but also of regret- a regret at being unable, because of his bad eyesight, to take everything in with one look: "What a beautiful room!" Seeing that Thomas only lowered his head, he thought it necessary to add, so that his praise would not appear to conceal any blame with respect to the other rooms: "The house is beautiful too." Thomas remained quiet. "I am an old employee," said the man. "All requests for information and instruction are addressed to me. If ever you are in need of explanations, come to me. Here we gladly give all the desired clarifications concerning the customs of the house." "You are not easily approachable," remarked Thomas, without commit ting himself. The employee laughed loudly. "You are mistaken," he said. "You need only try me out, if you should judge it to be useful. Whatever you may

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ask me about," he added, gently caressing the papers piled next to him, "I will make sure that you are well informed; all possible cases have been foreseen; we have an answer for everything." Thomas did not want a ready-made answer, and he did not believe that his questions had been foreseen. So, turning toward the rest of the room, which was now three-quarters empty, he said: "There are, as far as I can tell, many people who need information, and there are very few who re ceive any." "Mere appearance," said the man, holding out his hand toward Thomas. But he thought for a moment and added: "Almost everyone believes they have something to ask; they are bursting with questions; they want to clar ify everything. We are here to respond; we even take our courtesy to the point of asking questions in their place. Do you think they take advantage of it? They don't; once they are here," he said, pointing his thumb at the desk, "they no longer want to listen, and they look at us as if we were about to tear their eyes out." "What a waste of time," observed Thomas. He had been staring at the skeletal hand that was stretched toward him. Then he abruptly turned around and examined the room. "This is a gaming room," he said. He was making a statement, but it was a question as well . "That is indeed the name by which it is usually designated," said the em ployee. "That's not its real name then?" said Thomas. "Well, yes, it is," said the employee. "What else do you want to know? Do you also want to learn about our little secrets? When we are among our selves, my colleagues and I, we call it the grand hall, for there is no other room that is so grand to us, or so beautiful. But that is an incomplete opin ion, for all the rooms of the house are remarkable. But this is the one we know best, for we spend our lives in it." "Still, it's a gaming room," said Thomas. "And what else could it be?" said the employee. "The apparatus is not enough for you? It is neither sufficiently new nor sufficiently well main tained? No doubt," he added timidly, "you would like to have other ma chines installed and other gaming tables? This would be a useless wish; reforms are not tolerated." "You are wrong to worry," answered Thomas. "I do not intend to ask for changes. But I am surprised all the same that the project of introducing a 57

few improvements here - and the improvements would not be superflu ous - seems to you such an unpleasant thing to imagine." The employee sadly shook his head. "You are ignorant of a great many things," he said. "You have been in the house no more than a few moments; how could you take part in discussions in which only the most experienced among us really have something to say?" "Then tell me nothing," answered Thomas. "Obviously," said the employee with a sigh, as if he had received such re sponses from time immemorial, "you know only too well that I will speak; and even if I refused to speak, I could not prevent myself from telling you how things stand. Tell me what else I could possibly be thinking about. What could I discuss with the people who come here if not that? Is there any other subject of conversation?" He looked at Thomas with annoyance and anger; one would have thought that Thomas himself had no right to any other preoccupations. "If you will permit me," said Thomas, "I would like to ask you a question; but it is very indiscreet." The employee said nothing. "Well that's what I thought," said Thomas. "I won't ask it then." "That," said the employee, "is how everyone is when they come to this desk. They want nothing other than silence, and then they interpret it as they wish. I authorize you to speak." "How long," said Thomas, "have you been in the service of the house?" "Very well," said the employee, leaning back suddenly as if to gather his strength. "If I answer you, do you promise not to place any importance on my answer in your future relations with me? An easy promise, for you will probably never have the opportunity to see me again." "That's a surprising request," said Thomas. "How could I promise you to forget words that will no doubt have a great impression on me, judging by the apparently justified precautions you wish to take?" "What I can tell you," declared the employee with weariness, "has no im portance for you, but it has a great deal of importance for me. I could not tolerate it if my words were handed over to a stranger who would then take the liberty of making whatever use of them he pleased, especially when it comes to a question of service." "Are you obliged to answer me?" "Yes," said the employee, "but I am not obliged to tolerate your insults. Keep in mind that I am the oldest employee in the house." 58

"Now that is something," said Thomas, "that I wasn't supposed to know." "Did I not tell you so?" shouted the employee, suddenly rising. "Did I not tell you so by presenting myself at this desk, while the public session is over, whereas the other employees, however well trained and capable they may be, could not stand the fatigue and do not even have any voice left to make themselves heard, while I stand here before you -you who stare so intently at my face, as if you wished to hide some secret from me? It would truly be the height of audacity to try to make me responsible for your ignorance. No, I am hiding nothing from you." Thomas looked at the employee in silence. "Why are you looking at me?" said the employee. "Do you want to make me regret my indulgence? Have you made up your mind to disdain the ex planations I am disposed to offer you, despite the favor they represent and the excess work it involves for me? The only thing for you to do is to listen." "Fine," said Thomas. "What's the story then?" The employee gave him an irritated look, but he said with resignation: "It is a very simple story. In times past, the room you are in now was not a gaming room; it was reserved entirely for our services; people came only to receive information, to look at the employees assigned to the informa tion services, to'breathe the air -that was enough for most of the petition ers. But one day we received the order to install a machine for games of chance and to transform our writing desks into gaming tables. Who gave the order? There was no way for us to know. Had the order really been given at all? To what concerns did it respond? Of course, each one of us immediately thought of an explanation. At the time when we changed the setup and the purpose of the room, our services had been abandoned for a long time, the room remained empty, only a few people came with their floor mats to take advantage of the warmth and to sleep. The reform thus served to bring as many people into the room as there had been before, and in this regard it was good; but in another sense it was bad, because now no one cared about receiving information or had anydesire to clarify his posi tion with respect to the authorities. Did they commit an error in ordering this transformation? Or were they perhaps in the right? One can discuss these questions endlessly. For it is quite true that the room had lost its re nown and that the path leading to it had been erased. We spent entire days without seeing anyone at all; we remained motionless and silent, numb from the heat and the discouragement; nothing ever happened. Nothing. 59

And ifby chance someone entered here, perhaps with the intention of con sulting us -who knows? such a case may have occurred - we did not have the strength to speak to him; all we could do was to turn slowly toward him, and our looks expressed so much indifference -whereas deep down we were burning with enthusiasm and devotion -that he went away with out revealing the meaning of his visit here and only added his voice to the rumors that depicted us as dead or stricken with some grave illness. Obvi ously, from this point of view, a certain progress cannot be denied. Life has returned; the room attracts even those who know nothing about it, like you; we recovered the habit of speaking and can tolerate seeing others' faces again, although we are far from being capable of the resistance that distinguished us in former times, so that at the end of each meeting even the youngest of our members are almost in a faint. We only came to real ize all this little by little; at first we noticed nothing but the misfortune that had struck us, and even now we do not know whether all these advan tages are not simply the sign of a disaster whose effects are only reaching us by degrees. For in this past that we evoke in order to compare it to the present, if the room had fallen into disuse, to such a point that in the rest of the house no one knew if we still existed, at least it had kept its reason for being; it had remained intact; it was the information room; and we could even say - and this is indeed what we said among ourselves at the time that if no one ever came anymore, then it was because no one ever needed to come, because the room fulfilled its function so well that its mere exis tence was enough for the house still to have its share of light and for the tenants to live in a way that befitted them, instead of groping in darkness and ignorance, as would have happened as a result of their abandonment. All this was represented by this room, the grand hall, and that is what it lost. As for us, is our situation, which is apparently much improved, not in reality a hundred times worse? If we give the impression of being alive, and if we have recovered the privilege of speaking and seeing, is it not be cause at bottom we have sacrificed our true life and have renounced other much more important privileges? When we are overwhelmed by fatigue, is it because of our work or rather, on the contrary, because we have the crushing feeling that the whole day has passed without our having fulfilled our task, because we have failed in our duty and because - even worse we have devoted all our strength to making it impossible to fulfill it. It is this feeling that, after a few hours, reduces the less robust among us to a 60

state of utter weakness; and they are not the ones to be most pitied; be cause of my vigor and my age, I am condemned to turn this affair over on every side, to scrutinize its every detail, always to invent new explanations without finding in this painful malaise a single moment of peace." The employee had been standing, but now he slowly sat down, as if the words had been spoken by someone else, and he had been waiting respect fully for the end of the speech before sitting down. Thomas turned to look at the room; it was empty and filled with darkness, though a thin slice of light still shone on the mirror that reflected the machine. He said: "So after all, it's only a gaming room?" "What do you mean by that?" said the employee, raising his head with an air of caution. "I am very grateful to you for the explanations you have given me," said Thomas. "How could I not appreciate such a mark of favor? However, de spite the interest I have taken in it, I cannot hide the fact that I am disap pointed. My disillusion is complete." ''And why is that?" asked the employee proudly. "Well," said Thomas, "is it not perfectly clear? I came here to be informed on the ways of the house, its regulations, the formalities it binds one to. Could I have chosen a better place? You are admirably competent; you are familiar with aIr the customs, and you take your task to heart. One could not dream of anything better. Unfortunately, it is a dream. For it all be longs to the past. I do not want to insist on the causes ofthe decline that has gradually deprived you of your status and brought you from the glorious position as a member of the bureau of information to the function of an attendant guard in a gaming establishment. You have given a magnificent account and even the dullest mind would have the means to understand it. As for me, you have poured out great streams of light. It is unfortunate that I did not understand how much you suffered from the actual state of things and that I did not understand more clearly how in coming here I had gone astray. I have therefore committed an error. There is nothing for me to do but take my leave." "That is a misinterpretation," said the employee abruptly. "Where is the misinterpretation?" asked Thomas. "I see only a misunder standing, the one that led me here full of hope, thinking I would find a flourishing organization run by a large number of enlightened employ ees, whereas all I see here is a room for public spectacles from which every vestige of the past has vanished." 61