The Age of Reason (42 page)

Daniel ran out into the street. Up above, the door stood wide open, the lamp was still alight, and the razor on the table: the cats were prowling about the dark stairway. There was nothing to prevent him from retracing his steps, and going back. The room was awaiting him, submissive to his will. Nothing had been decided, nothing ever would be decided. He must run, he must get away as far as possible, immerse himself in noise and light, in a throng of people, he must become a man among his fellows, and feel the eyes of other men upon him. He ran all the way to the Roi Olaf, and pushed open the door, gasping for breath.

‘Bring me a whisky,’ he panted.

His heart was shaken by heavy throbs that reached to the tips of his fingers, there was an inky taste in his mouth. He sat down in an alcove at the far end.

‘You look tired,’ said the waiter with a respectful air.

He was a tall Norwegian who spoke French without a trace of accent. He looked genially at Daniel, and Daniel felt himself transformed into a rich, eccentric client who could be relied on for a good tip. He smiled: ‘I’m rather out of sorts,’ he explained, ‘a little feverish.’

The waiter nodded and departed. Daniel relapsed into his solitude. His room awaited him up yonder, all prepared, the door stood wide open, the razor glittered on the table. ‘I shall never be able to go back home.’ He would drink for as long as he felt inclined. On the stroke of four, the waiter, assisted by the barman, would put him into a taxi, as always happened on these occasions.

The waiter returned with a half-filled glass and a bottle of Perrier water.

‘Just as you like it,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

Daniel was alone in this very ordinary, quiet café, all around him a froth of amber light, and amber gleams from the wood of the partitions, which were plastered with thick varnish, sticky to the touch. He poured the Perrier water into his glass, the whisky sparkled for a moment, busy bubbles mounted to the surface, like a throng of eager gossips, and then the little agitation subsided, Daniel eyed the yellow, viscous liquid, still faintly flecked with effervescence: it looked very like flat beer. At the bar, out of his sight, the waiter and the barman were talking in Norwegian.

‘More drink!’

With a sudden stroke he swept the glass off the table, and sent it crashing to the floor. The barman and the waiter promptly stopped their conversation: Daniel leaned down beneath the table: the liquid was oozing slowly over the tiled floor, thrusting out tentacles towards the foot of an adjacent chair.

The waiter hurried up.

‘How clumsy of me!’ lamented Daniel with a smile.

‘Shall I get you another?’ asked the waiter. He had bent down with back outstretched to mop up the liquid, and collect the fragments of the glass.

‘Yes... No,’ said Daniel brusquely. ‘It’s a warning,’ he added in a jocular tone. ‘I mustn’t take any alcohol this evening. Bring me another small Perrier with a slice of lemon.’

The waiter departed. Daniel felt more composed. An impenetrable present had begun to encompass him once more. The smell of ginger, amber light, and wood partitions.

‘Thanks.’

The waiter had opened the bottle and half-filled the glass. Daniel drank and put the glass down. ‘I knew it,’ he thought: ‘I knew I wouldn’t do it.’ While he was striding through the streets and dashing upstairs four steps at a time, he knew he would not actually do the deed: he knew it when he picked up the razor, he had not deceived himself for one second — wretched comedian that he was! All that had happened was that, in the outcome, he had succeeded in frightening himself, and had fled in disorder. He picked up his glass and gripped it: with all his might he longed to loathe himself, he would never find so good an opportunity. ‘Beast! — coward and comedian: beast!’ For an instant he thought he would succeed, but no — these were mere words. He ought to have... Ah, no matter who it was, he would have accepted any person’s judgement, no matter whose, so it were not his own, not that ghastly self-contempt, that utterly futile, weak, moribund self-contempt, which seemed at every moment on the point of self-annihilation, but always survived. If only someone knew, if he could feel upon him the weight of
someone else’s
contempt. But I never shall, I would sooner castrate myself. He looked at his watch, eleven o’clock, eight more hours to kill before morning. Time flowed no longer.

Eleven o’clock! He gave a sudden start. ‘Mathieu is with Marcelle. She’s talking to him. At this very moment, she is talking to him, she puts her arms round his neck, and thinks him deplorably slow in declaring himself... This too; — I did it.’ He began to tremble all over: ‘he will give way, he will end by yielding, I have wrecked his life.’

He had relinquished his glass, he was on his feet, staring into vacancy, he cannot despise himself nor yet forget himself. He wishes he were dead, and he exists, he obstinately maintains his own existence. He wants to be dead, he thinks he wants to be dead, he thinks that he thinks he wants to be dead...
There is a way.

He had spoken aloud, the waiter hurried up.

‘Did you call me?’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel, absent-mindedly. ‘That’s for yourself.’

He threw a hundred francs on to the table. There is a way. A way to settle everything. He stood erect and walked briskly towards the door. ‘An admirable way.’ He laughed shortly: he was always amused when he found occasion to play a little trick upon himself.

M
ATHIEU
closed the door quietly, lifting it slightly on its hinges so that it should make no noise, then he set his foot on the top step of the staircase, bent down and unlaced his shoes. His chest was almost touching his knee. He removed his shoes, held them in his left hand, got up, and laid his right hand on the banisters, looking upwards at the pale pink haze that seemed to hover in the shadows. He passed no more judgements on himself. Slowly he climbed up into the darkness, treading carefully to avoid making the stairs creak.

The door of the room was ajar: he pushed it open. The room smelt oppressive. All the heat of the day had settled into its depths, like the lees in a bottle. On the bed sat a woman eyeing him with a smile: Marcelle. She had put on her elegant white dressing-gown with the gilded cord, she was carefully made-up, and her expression was composed and cheerful. Mathieu shut the door behind him and stood motionless, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, the unbearable delight of mere existence had caught him by the throat. He was
there
, he was finding his fulfilment
there
, in the presence of this smiling lady, immersed in this odour of sickness, sweets, and love. Marcelle had thrown her head back, and was now surveying him maliciously through half-closed eyelids. He returned her smile, and deposited his shoes in the wardrobe. A voice swollen with affection sighed at his back: ‘Darling.’

He turned abruptly round and stood backing on to the wardrobe.

‘Hullo!’ he said in an undertone.

Marcelle raised a hand to the level of her temple, and flickered her fingers.

‘Hullo, hullo!’

She got up, came and put her arms round his neck and kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth. She had darkened her eyelids.

‘You are hot,’ she said, stroking his neck.

She looked him up and down, her head tilted slightly back, darting her tongue out between her teeth, with an air of vivacity and joy: she was beautiful. Mathieu gloomily recalled Ivich’s emaciated plainness.

‘You are very gay,’ said he. ‘Yesterday, on the telephone, you didn’t sound as if things were going at all well.’

‘No. I was being silly. But they are going well enough today, very well indeed, in fact.’

‘Did you have a good night?’

‘I slept like a dormouse.’

She kissed him again, he felt upon his lips the rich velvet of her mouth, and then that smooth, warm, darting nakedness — her tongue. Gently he disengaged himself. Marcelle was naked under her dressing-gown, he could see her shapely breasts, and there was a taste of sugar in her mouth. She took his hand and drew him towards the bed: ‘Come and sit beside me.’

He sat down at her side. She still held his hand in hers, squeezing it with little awkward jerks, and Mathieu felt as though the warmth of those hands was penetrating to his armpits., ‘It’s very hot in here,’ he said.

She did not reply, she devoured him with her eyes, her lips were parted, and there was a humble and appealing look upon her face. He slipped his left hand across his stomach and stealthily felt in his right-hand hip pocket for his tobacco. Marcelle noticed the hand in transit, and uttered a little cry: ‘Oh! But what’s the matter with your hand?’

‘I cut myself.’

Marcelle let go Mathieu’s right hand, and grabbed the other as it passed; she turned it over like a pancake, and eyed the palm.

‘But your bandage is horribly dirty, you’ll get blood-poisoning! And there’s mud on it, how did that get there?’

‘I fell down.’

She laughed a shocked, indulgent laugh: ‘I cut myself, I fell down! Silly boy! What on earth have you been up to? Wait a minute, I’ll put that bandage straight for you: you can’t go about like that.’

She unbound Mathieu’s hand and nodded: ‘It’s a nasty wound, how
did
it happen? Have you been fighting?’

‘Of course not. It was yesterday evening: at the Sumatra.’

‘At the Sumatra?’

Broad, pale cheeks, golden hair; tomorrow — tomorrow, I’ll do my hair like that to please you.

‘It was some nonsense of Boris’s,’ he replied. ‘He had bought a dagger, and challenged me to stick it in my hand.’

‘And you, of course, promptly did so. But you’re completely dotty, my poor darling, those rotten friends of yours will make an utter fool of you if you aren’t careful. Look at that poor ravaged paw.’

Mathieu’s hand lay inert between her two burning hands: the wound looked repulsive, with its black and pulpy scab. Marcelle slowly lifted the hand to the level of her face, looked at it fixedly, then suddenly bent down and laid her lips upon the wound in a transport of humility. ‘What can be the matter with her?’ he wondered. He drew her towards him and kissed her on the ear.

‘Are you loving me?’ asked Marcelle.

‘Of course.’

‘You don’t look as if you were.’

Mathieu smiled and did not answer. She rose and went to get her box of dressings from the wardrobe. She had her back to him, she was standing on tip-toe, and lifting her arms to reach the top shelf: her sleeves had slipped down her arms. Mathieu looked at the lovely arms he had so often caressed, and all the old desires awakened within him. Marcelle came towards him with a sort of cumbrous briskness.

‘Give me your paw.’

She had poured some spirit on to a small sponge, and began to clean his hand. He felt against his hip the faint glow of that too familiar body.

‘Now lick that!’

Marcelle held out to him a bit of sticking plaster. He put out his tongue and obediently licked the pink transparency. Marcelle applied the patch of plaster to the skin; she then picked up the old bandage and held it for a moment in her fingertips, eyeing it with amused disgust.

‘What am I to do with this loathsome object? When you have gone, I’ll go and throw it in the rubbish bin.’

She deftly bound up the hand with a length of clean, white webbing.

‘So Boris challenged you, did he? And you made a mess of your hand. You silly old boy! And did he do the same?’

‘Not he!’ said Mathieu.

Marcelle laughed: ‘So he made a pretty sort of fool of you!’

She had stuck a safety pin in her mouth, and was slitting the webbing with both hands. She said, compressing her lips on to the pin: ‘Was Ivich there?’

‘When I cut myself?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. She was dancing with Lola.’

Marcelle stuck the pin into the bandage. There was a smear of vermilion from her lips on the steel shank.

‘There. That’s all right now. Did you have a good time?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Is the Sumatra a nice place? I do wish you would take me there one of these days.’

‘But it would tire you,’ said Mathieu rather irritably.

‘Oh, just for once... we would make an occasion of it, it’s so long since I’ve had an evening out with you anywhere.’

An evening out! Mathieu angrily repeated the too conjugal phrase: Marcelle was not tactful in her choice of words.

‘Will you?’ said Marcelle.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘it couldn’t be before the autumn anyway: you must look after yourself properly just now, and besides the place will soon be closing for the summer break. Lola is going on tour in North Africa.’

‘Well, then, we’ll go in the autumn. Is that a promise?’

‘Yes.’

Marcelle coughed with embarrassment. ‘I can see you’re a bit annoyed with me.’

‘Annoyed?’

‘Yes... I was very tiresome the day before yesterday.’

‘Not at all. Why?’

‘Indeed I was. I was nervy.’

‘Well, that was natural. It’s all my fault, my poor darling.’

‘You’re not in the least to blame,’ she exclaimed cheerfully, ‘you never have been.’

He did not dare to look at her, he could picture only too clearly the expression on her face, he could not endure that inexplicable and unmerited air of confidence. There was a long silence: she certainly expected a word of affection, a word of forgiveness. Mathieu could hold out no longer.

‘Look,’ he said.

He produced his pocket book and laid it open on his knees. Marcelle craned her neck to look, and set her chin on Mathieu’s shoulder.

‘What am I to look at?’

‘This.’

He took the notes out of the pocket book.

‘One, two, three, four,’ said he, crackling them triumphantly. They were still odorous of Lola. Mathieu waited a moment, with the notes on his knees, and as Marcelle did not utter a word, he turned towards her. She had raised her head, she was looking at the notes, and blinking. She did not seem to understand. Then she said slowly: ‘Four thousand francs.’

Mathieu airily dropped the notes on to the table by the bed.

‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘Four thousand francs. I had some trouble in raising the money.’