The Age of Reason (35 page)

‘What about a threesome?’

‘Stinker,’ said Boris politely.

At that moment Ivich gave a jump and uttered a piercing scream, which she promptly stifled by putting her hand to her mouth.

‘I’m behaving like a kitchen-maid,’ she said, crimson with confusion. The young workmen were already at a distance.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Boris, with astonishment ‘He touched me,’ said Ivich with disgust. ‘The filthy fellow.’ And she added sharply: ‘Never mind, I oughtn’t to have screamed.’

‘Which was it?’ asked Boris indignantly.

Ivich held him back: ‘Please don’t do anything. There are four of them. And I’ve made myself ridiculous enough already.’

‘It isn’t because he touched you,’ Boris explained. ‘But I can’t bear that sort of thing happening when I’m with you. When you are with Mathieu, no one touches you. What do I look like?’

‘That’s how it is, my dear boy,’ said Ivich sadly. ‘Nor am I any protection for you. We don’t inspire respect.’

It was true, and it often surprised Boris: when he looked in the glass, he thought himself quite impressive.

‘We don’t inspire respect,’ he repeated.

They drew together, feeling like a pair of orphans.

‘What’s that?’ asked Ivich, after a moment or two.

She pointed to a long wall, black through the green of the chestnut-trees.

‘It’s the Santé,’ said Boris. ‘A prison.’

‘It’s grand,’ said Ivich. ‘I’ve never seen anything more sinister. Do people escape from it?’

‘Not often,’ said Boris. ‘I read somewhere that a prisoner jumped off the top of the wall. He got caught on the branch of a chestnut-tree, and was found strangled.’

Ivich reflected, and pointed to one of the trees: ‘It must have been that one,’ she said. ‘Shall we sit on the bench beside it? I’m tired. Perhaps we shall see another prisoner jump down.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Boris, without conviction. ‘They usually do it at night, you know.’

They crossed the street and sat down. The bench was wet and Ivich said with satisfaction: ‘It’s nice and cool.’

But in a moment or two she began to fidget and tug at her hair. Boris had to slap her hand to prevent her pulling out her curls.

‘Feel my hand,’ said Ivich, ‘it’s frozen.’

It was true. Ivich was livid, she looked as though she were in pain, her whole body was shaken by convulsive quivers. She looked so wretched, that Boris tried, out of sympathy, to think of Lola.

Ivich looked up abruptly, and said, with an air of dark resolve: ‘Have you got your dice?’

‘Yes.’

Mathieu had presented Ivich with a set of poker-dice in a little leather case. Ivich had given them to Boris. They often played together.

‘Let’s have a game,’ she said.

Boris took the dice out of the bag. Ivich added: ‘Best out of three. You throw first.’

They drew apart. Boris sat astride the bench and tipped the dice on to it. A full house, kings high.

‘I’ll stand,’ said he.

‘I hate you,’ said Ivich.

She frowned, and before shaking the dice, blew on her fingers and muttered something. It was an incantation. ‘This is serious,’ thought Boris. ‘She’s playing for her success in the exam.’ Ivich threw and lost: three queens.

‘Second game,’ she said, looking at Boris with glittering eyes. This time she threw three aces.

‘I’ll stand,’ she announced in her turn.

Boris flung the dice and was on the point of getting four aces. But before the dice had settled, he put out a hand as though to pick them up, and surreptitiously tipped two of them over with his first and middle fingers. Two kings appeared in place of the ace of hearts and the joker.

‘Two pairs,’ he announced with an air of vexation.

‘Game to me,’ said Ivich, triumphantly. ‘Now for the final.’

Boris wondered if she had seen him cheat: but, after all, it was of no great importance: Ivich only took account of the result. She won the final with two pairs against one, without his having to interfere.

‘Good,’ she said simply.

‘Another game?’

‘No... no,’ she said, ‘that’s enough. I was playing to see if I should pass, you know.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Boris. ‘Well, you have passed.’

Ivich shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t believe in that sort of thing,’ she said.

They fell silent, and remained sitting side by side, staring at the pavement. Boris did not look at Ivich, but he felt her tremble.

‘I’m hot,’ said Ivich, ‘how dreadful! and my hands are damp. I’m so wretched that I’m damp all over.’

And in fact, her right hand, which had been so cold, was now burning. Her left hand, inert and bandaged, lay on her knees.

‘I’m sick of this bandage,’ she said. ‘I look like a war casualty; I’ve a good mind to tear it off.’

Boris did not reply. A clock in the distance struck one stroke. Ivich gave a start: ‘Is... is it half past twelve?’ she asked with a bewildered look.

‘It’s half past one,’ said Boris, consulting his watch. They eyed each other, and Boris said: ‘Well — it’s time for me to go now.’

Ivich snuggled against him, and put her arms round his shoulders. ‘Don’t go, Boris, my dear old boy, I don’t want to know anything about it, I shall go back to Laon this evening, and I... I don’t want to know anything at all.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Boris gently. ‘Of course you must know how you stand when you see the parents.’

Ivich let her arms drop. ‘All right, go,’ she said. ‘But come back as soon as you can; I’ll be waiting for you here.’

‘Here?’ said Boris with astonishment. ‘Wouldn’t you rather we walked there together? You could wait for me in a café in the Latin Quarter.’

‘No... no,’ said Ivich. ‘I’ll wait for you here.’

‘As you like: suppose it rains?’

‘Boris, please don’t torment me — be quick. I shall stay here, even if it rains, even if there’s an earthquake; I can’t get on my legs again, I haven’t the strength left to raise a finger.’

Boris got up, and strode away. When he had crossed the street, he turned. He now saw Ivich from behind: huddled on the bench, her head sunk between her shoulders, she looked like an old beggar-woman. ‘After all, she may pass,’ he said to himself. He walked on a few steps, and suddenly saw a vision of Lola’s face. The real one. ‘She is unhappy,’ he thought, and his heart began to throb violently.

I
N ONE
moment. In one moment he would resume his futile quest: in one moment, haunted by Marcelle’s rancorous and weary eyes, by Ivich’s sly face, by Lola’s mortuary mask, he would again feel the taste of fever at the back of his mouth, and misery would come and turn his stomach. In one moment. He lay back in his armchair and lit his pipe: he was solitary and calm, and he sat luxuriating in the dim coolness of the bar. Yonder was the varnished cask that served as a table, actresses’ photographs and sailors’ berets hanging on the walls, the invisible wireless installation muttering like a fountain, sundry resplendent, large, rich gentlemen at the far end of the room, smoking cigars and drinking port — the only customers left, business men, all the rest having gone to lunch long ago; it must be about half past one, but one could easily imagine that it was still morning, the day lingered stagnant, like a placid ocean. Mathieu sat awash in that passionless, waveless sea, until what remained of his existence was merged into a barely audible Negro spiritual, a buzz of agreeable voices, an amber light, and the soft gestures of those fine surgical hands, which, wielding their cigars, swayed like caravels loaded with spices. This infinitesimal fragment of comfortable living — he knew it was merely a loan, which he would soon have to return, but he savoured it without any sense of bitterness: the world provides the unlucky wash-out with many trivial little satisfactions, and indeed it is for them that the world reserves its passing favours, on condition that they enjoy them with discretion. Daniel was seated, grave and silent. Mathieu could view at leisure his handsome sheiklike countenance, and the contemplation of it was one of those same trivial satisfactions. Mathieu extended his legs and smiled to himself.

‘I recommend the sherry,’ said Daniel.

‘Good: but you must stand me a glass: I’m broke.’

‘Certainly,’ said Daniel. ‘But look here: can I lend you two hundred francs? I’m ashamed to suggest so little...’

‘Bah!’ said Mathieu, ‘it isn’t even worth the trouble.’ Daniel had turned his large, caressing eyes upon him. ‘Please,’ he urged, ‘I’ve got four hundred francs to finish the week: we’ll go shares.’

He must be careful not to accept, it was not in the rules of the game.

‘No,’ said Mathieu. ‘No, really — though it’s very nice of you.’

Daniel fixed him with a heavy, solicitous gaze: ‘You’re not actually in need of anything?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Mathieu. ‘I’m in need of four thousand francs. But not at this moment. What I need at this moment is a glass of sherry, and your conversation.’

‘I wish my conversation could equal the sherry,’ said Daniel. He had not so much as mentioned the express letter, nor the reasons that had impelled him to get hold of Mathieu. For which Mathieu was rather grateful: that would come quite soon enough. ‘Did you know,’ he said, ‘that I saw Brunet yesterday?’

‘Indeed?’ said Daniel politely.

‘I think all is over between us this time.’

‘Did you have a quarrel?’

‘Not a quarrel. Worse than that.’

Daniel had assumed a pained expression. Mathieu could not help smiling: ‘You don’t give a damn for Brunet, eh?’ he asked.

‘Well... you know I was never as intimate with him as you were,’ said Daniel. ‘I respect him greatly, but if I had my way, I would have him stuffed and exhibited in the Museum of Humanity, Twentieth-Century Department.’

‘And he would look pretty well there,’ said Mathieu.

Daniel was lying: he had been much attached to Brunet at one time. Mathieu sipped his sherry, and said: ‘It’s excellent.’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel, ‘it’s the best drink they have. But their stocks are running out and can’t be renewed because of the war in Spain.’

He put down his empty glass and took an olive from a saucer.

‘Look here, I have a confession to make.’

It was over: this moment of modest little enjoyment had slipped into the past. Mathieu looked at Daniel out of the corner of an eye: there was a high, intense expression on Daniel’s face.

‘Go ahead,’ said Mathieu.

‘I wonder how it will affect you,’ Daniel continued in a hesitant tone. ‘I should be wretched if you took offence.’

‘Tell me what it is, and you’ll soon know,’ smiled Mathieu.

‘Well... guess whom I saw yesterday evening?’

‘Whom you saw yesterday evening?’ repeated Mathieu, in a disappointed tone. ‘I don’t know — all sorts of people, no doubt.’

‘Marcelle Duffet.’

‘Marcelle? Did you, indeed?’

Mathieu was not very surprised: Daniel and Marcelle had not seen each other often, but Marcelle had seemed rather attracted to Daniel.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘She never goes out. Where did you meet?’

‘At her home,’ said Daniel, with a smile. ‘Where else could it be, since she never goes out?’ And he added, discreetly lowering his eyelids: ‘To tell you the truth, we do see each other now and again.’

A silence followed. Mathieu looked at Daniel’s long black eyelashes, which had begun to quiver. A clock struck twice, and a Negro voice chanted in an undertone:
‘There’s a cradle in Carolina.’
We do see each other now and again. Mathieu averted his eyes, and fixed them on the red pompon on a sailor’s cap.

‘You see each other,’ he repeated, in a puzzled tone. ‘But... where?’

‘At her home... as I’ve just told you,’ said Daniel with a touch of irritation.

‘At her home? You mean you go and see her?’

Daniel did not reply: and Mathieu went on: ‘What was the idea? How did it happen?’

‘Quite simply. I have always had a deep regard for Marcelle Duffet. I greatly admired her courage and her generosity.’ He paused, and Mathieu repeated with surprise: ‘Marcelle’s courage — her generosity?’ These were not the qualities that he most respected in her. Daniel continued: ‘One day when I was feeling bored, I had an impulse to go and call on her, and she received me very kindly. That’s all: and we have gone on seeing each other ever since. We were only wrong in not telling you.’

Mathieu plunged into the loaded perfume, the wadded air of the pink room: Daniel sitting in the easy-chair, looking at Marcelle with great doe-like eyes, and Marcelle smiling awkwardly as though posing for a photograph. Mathieu shook his head: it didn’t make sense, it was absurd, it was unseemly, these two had absolutely nothing in common, they could not have understood each other.

‘You visit her and she didn’t tell me?’ And he added calmly: ‘You can’t be serious.’

Daniel raised his eyes, and looked at Mathieu gloomily: ‘Mathieu,’ he said, in his deepest tones, ‘you must in all fairness admit that I have never permitted myself any sort of light remark about your relations with Marcelle, they are too precious.’

‘I daresay,’ said Mathieu, ‘I daresay. That doesn’t alter the fact that you’re pulling my leg.’

Daniel dropped his eyes with a gesture of discouragement. ‘All right,’ he said sadly, ‘let us leave it at that.’

‘No, no,’ said Mathieu. ‘Go on, you are very amusing: I’m not taking any, that’s all.’

‘You don’t make things any easier for me,’ said Daniel reproachfully. ‘I find it painful enough to have to accuse myself in this way.’ He sighed. ‘I would have preferred you to take my word. But since you insist on proof...’

He had produced a pocket-book stuffed with notes. Mathieu saw the notes and thought: ‘Swine.’ But idly, and for form’s sake: ‘Look,’ said Daniel.

He held out a letter to Mathieu. Mathieu took the letter: it was in Marcelle’s handwriting. He read: You are right, as you always are, my dear Archangel. They were certainly periwinkles. But I don’t understand a word of your letter. Saturday is all right, as you aren’t free tomorrow. Mamma says she will scold you seriously about the sweets. Come soon, dear Archangel: we await your visitation with impatience.

MARCELLE

Mathieu looked at Daniel: ‘Then it’s true?’ he said. Daniel nodded: he was standing very straight, with the funereal decorum of a second in a duel. Mathieu re-read the letter from beginning to end. It was dated April 20th. ‘She wrote that.’ That mannered, sprightly style was so unlike her. He rubbed his nose perplexedly, then he burst out laughing.