The Age of Reason (5 page)

‘You make me laugh,’ said Lola in a dry voice. ‘It’s a habit of yours to put Delarue above everybody else, as a matter of principle. Because you know, between ourselves, which is the freer, he or I: he has a home of his own, a fixed salary, and a definite pension: he lives like a petty official. And then, into the bargain, there’s that affair of his you told me about, that female who never goes out — what more does he want? No one could be freer than that. As for me, I’ve just a few old frocks, I’m alone, I live in an hotel, and I don’t even know whether I shall have a job for the summer.’

‘That’s different,’ repeated Boris.

He was annoyed. Lola didn’t bother about freedom. She was getting excited about it that evening because she wanted to defeat Mathieu on his own ground.

‘I could skin you, you little beast, when you’re like that. What’s different, eh?’

‘Well, you’re free without wanting to be,’ he explained, ‘it just happens so, that’s all. But Mathieu’s freedom is based on reason.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Lola, shaking her head.

‘Well, he doesn’t care a curse about his apartment: he lives there just as he would live anywhere else, and I’ve got the feeling that he doesn’t care much about his girl. He stays with her because he must sleep with someone. His freedom isn’t visible, it’s inside him.’

Lola had an absent air, he felt he must hurt her a bit just to jostle her around, and he went on: ‘Look here, you’re too fond of me: he would never let himself get caught like that’

‘Oho!’ cried Lola indignantly. ‘I’m too fond of you, am I? — you little toad. And don’t you think he’s a bit too fond of your sister, eh? You’d only got to watch him the other night at the Sumatra.’

‘Of Ivich? You make me sick.’

Lola flung him a sneering grin, and the smoke suddenly went to Boris’s head. A moment passed, and then the band happened to launch into the
St James’s Infirmary
, and Boris wanted to dance.

‘Shall we dance this?’

They danced. Lola had closed her eyes, and he could hear her quick breathing. The little pansy had got up and went across to ask the dancer from the Java for a dance. Boris reflected that he would soon see him from near-by and was pleased. Lola was heavy in his arms: she danced well, and she smelt nice, but she was too heavy. Boris thought that he would sooner dance with Ivich. Ivich danced magnificently: and he told himself that Ivich ought to learn the castanets. After which, Lola’s scent and smell banished all further thought. He pressed her to him, and breathed hard. She opened her eyes, and looked at him intently.

‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes,’ said Boris, making a face.

‘Why do you make a face like that?’

‘Because — Oh, you annoy me.’

‘Why? It isn’t true that you love me?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Why don’t you ever tell me so yourself? I always have to ask you.’

‘Because I don’t feel like it. It’s all rot: it’s the sort of thing that people don’t say.’

‘Does it annoy you when I say I love you?’

‘No, you can say it if you like. But you oughtn’t to ask me if I love you.’

‘It’s very seldom I ask you anything, darling. It’s usually enough for me to look at you and feel I love you. But there are moments when I wish I could get at your own real feelings.’

‘I understand,’ said Boris seriously, ‘but you ought to wait till I feel like it. If it doesn’t come naturally, there’s no sense in it.’

‘But, you little fool, you yourself say you never do feel that way unless somebody asks you.’

Boris began to laugh.

‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘you put me off. But one can feel affection for somebody, and not want to say so.’

Lola did not answer. They stopped, applauded, and the band began again. Boris was glad to observe that the pansy-lad was dancing towards them: but when he eyed him from near-by, he got a nasty shock: the creature was quite forty years old. His face retained the sheen of youth, but underneath it he had aged. He had large doll-like blue eyes, and a boyish mouth, but there were pouches under his porcelain eyes, and wrinkles round his mouth, his nostrils were pinched like those of a dying man, and his hair, which looked from a distance like a golden haze, scarcely covered his cranium. Boris looked with horror at this elderly, shaven child. ‘He was once young,’ thought he. There were fellows who seemed created to be thirty-five — Mathieu, for instance — because they had never known youth. But when a chap had really been young, he bore the marks of it for the rest of his life. It might last till twenty-five. After that — it was horrible. He set himself to look at Lola and said abruptly: ‘Lola, look at me, I love you.’

Lola’s eyes grew pink, and she stepped on Boris’s foot. She merely said: ‘Darling!’

He felt like exclaiming — Clasp me tighter, make me feel I love you. But Lola said nothing, she in her turn was alone, the moment had indeed come. There was a vague smile on her face, her eyelids were drooping, her face had again shut down upon her happiness. It was a calm, forlorn face. Boris felt desolate, and the thought — the grinding thought, suddenly came upon him: I won’t, I won’t grow old. Last year he had been quite unperturbed, he had never thought about that sort of thing: and now — it was rather ominous that he should so constantly feel that his youth was slipping between his fingers. Until twenty-five. ‘I’ve got five years yet,’ thought Boris; ‘and after that I’ll blow my brains out.’ He could no longer endure the noise of the band, and the sense of all these people around him.

‘Shall we go?’ said he.

‘At once, my lovely!’

They returned to their table. Lola called the waiter, paid the bill, and flung her velvet cloak over her shoulders.

‘Come along,’ she said.

They went out. Boris was no longer thinking of anything very definite, but there was a sense of something fateful in his mind. The Rue Blanche was crowded with random people, all looking harsh and old. They met the Maestro Piranese from the Puss in Boots, and greeted him: his little legs pattered along beneath his enormous belly. ‘Perhaps,’ thought Boris, ‘I too shall grow a paunch.’ What would it be like never to be able to look at oneself in a glass, nor to feel the crisp, wooden snap of one’s joints...And every instant that passed, every instant, consumed a little more of his youth. ‘If only I could save myself up, live very quietly, at a slower pace, I should perhaps gain a few years. But to do that, I oughtn’t to make a habit of going to bed at 2.0 a.m.’ He eyed Lola with detestation. ‘She’s killing me.’

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Lola.

‘Nothing.’

Lola lived in a hotel in the Rue Navarin. She took her key off the board, and they walked silently upstairs. The room was bare, there was a trunk covered with labels in one corner, and on the farther wall a photograph of Boris stuck on it with drawing-pins. It was an identity-photograph which Lola had had enlarged. ‘Ah,’ thought Boris, ‘that will remain when I’m a wreck; in that I shall always look young.’ He felt an impulse to tear it up.

‘There’s something odd about you,’ said Lola: ‘what’s the matter?’

‘I’m all in,’ said Boris. ‘I’ve got a pain in the top of my head.’

Lola looked anxious. ‘You aren’t ill, dear? Would like a cachet?’

‘No, it’s nothing, I shall soon feel better.’

Lola took his chin and raised his head.

‘You look as if you were angry with me. You aren’t, are you? Yes, you are. What have I done?’

She looked distraught.

‘I’m not angry with you — don’t be silly,’ protested Boris feebly.

‘You are, but what have I done to you? You’d much better tell me, because then I shall be able to explain. It’s sure to be some misunderstanding. It can’t be anything serious. Boris, I do implore you, tell me what’s the matter.’

‘But there’s nothing.’

He put his arms round Lola’s neck and kissed her on the lips. Lola quivered. Boris inhaled a perfumed breath, and felt against his mouth the moist nakedness of her lips. His senses thrilled. Lola covered his face with kisses: she began to pant a little.

Boris realized that he desired Lola, and was glad: desire absorbed his black ideas, as it did ideas of any other kind. His head began to whirl, its contents sped upwards and were scattered. He had laid his hand on Lola’s hip, he touched her flesh through the silken dress: he was, indeed, no more than a hand outstretched upon that silken flesh. He curved his hand slightly, and the stuff slipped between his fingers, like an exquisite skin, delicate and dead: below lay the real skin, resistant, elastic, and glossy as a kid glove. Lola tipped her cloak on to the bed, flung out two bare arms and clasped them round Boris’s neck; she smelt delicious. Boris could see her shaven arm-pits, powdered with bluish black dots, minute but clearly visible, like the heads of splinters thrust deep into the skin. Boris and Lola remained standing, on the very spot where desire had come upon them, because they had no longer strength to move. Lola’s legs began to tremble, and Boris wondered whether they would not both just sink down on to the carpet. He pressed Lola to him, and felt the rich softness of her breasts.

‘Ah,’ murmured Lola.

She was leaning backwards, and he was fascinated by that pale head and swollen lips, a veritable Medusa’s head. And he thought to himself: ‘These are her last good days.’ And he held her yet more tightly. ‘One of these mornings she will suddenly collapse.’ He detested her: he felt his body against hers, hard and gaunt and muscular, he clasped her in his arms and defended her against the years. Then there came upon him a moment of bewilderment and drowsiness: he looked at Lola’s arms, white as an old woman’s hair, it seemed to him that he held old age between his hands, and that he must clasp it close and strangle it.

‘Don’t hold me so tight,’ murmured Lola happily. ‘You’re hurting me. I want you.’

Boris released her; he was a little shocked.

‘Give me my pyjamas: I’ll go and undress in the bathroom.’

He went into the bathroom, and locked the door: he hated Lola to come in while he was undressing. He washed his face and his feet, and amused himself by dusting talcum powder on his legs. He had quite recovered his composure, and he thought to himself: ‘It’s fantastic.’ His head was vague and heavy, and he hardly knew what he was thinking about. ‘I must talk to Delarue about it,’ he decided. Beyond the door she awaited him, she was certain to be undressed by now. But he did not feel inclined to hurry. A naked body, full of naked odours, was something rather overwhelming, which was what Lola would not understand. He was now about to be engulfed into an enveloping and strong-savoured sensuality. Once in it, all would be well, but
before
— well, a fellow couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous. ‘In any case,’ he reflected with annoyance, ‘I don’t intend to get involved like I did the other time.’ He combed his hair carefully over the basin, to see whether it was falling out. But not one hair dropped on to the white porcelain. When he had put on his pyjamas, he opened the door and went back into the bedroom.

Lola was outstretched on the bed, completely naked. It was another Lola, sluggish and menacing, watching him from beneath her eyelids. Her body, on the blue counterpane, was silvery-white, like the belly of a fish, and on it a triangular tuft of reddish hair. She was beautiful. Boris approached the bed, and eyed her with an eagerness not unmingled with disgust. She stretched out her arms.

‘Wait,’ said Boris.

He switched off the light and the room was promptly filled with a red glow: at the third storey of the building opposite, an illuminated sign had been recently installed. Boris lay down beside Lola, and began to stroke her shoulders and her breasts. Her skin was so soft that it felt exactly as though she had kept her silk wrap on. Her breasts were slackening, but Boris liked that; they were the breasts of a woman who has lived. It was in vain that he had turned out the light, he could still see, in the glare from the electric wall sign, Lola’s face, pale in the red glow, and black-lipped: she looked as though she was in pain, and her eyes were hard. Boris felt oppressed with the sense of tragedy to come, just as he had done at Nîmes, when the first bull bounded into the arena: something was going to happen, something inevitable, awesome, and yet rather tedious, like the bull’s ensanguined death.

‘Take off your pyjamas,’ pleaded Lola.

‘No,’ said Boris.

This was a ritual. Every time Lola asked him to take off his pyjamas, and Boris was obliged to refuse, Lola’s hands slipped under his jacket, and caressed him gently. Boris began to laugh.

‘You’re tickling me.’

They kissed. A moment passed, Lola took Boris’s hand and laid it on her body, against the tuft of reddish hair: she always had odd caprices, and Boris had to protect himself sometimes. For an instant or two he let his hand hang inert against Lola’s thighs, and then slid it gently upwards to her shoulders.

‘Come,’ said Lola, pulling him on to her, ‘come, I adore you — come, come!’

She was beginning to moan, and Boris thought, ‘Now I’m for it.’ A clammy thrill ran up his body from waist to neck. ‘I won’t,’ said Boris, and he clenched his teeth. But then he had a sudden sense of being picked up by the neck, like a rabbit, and he sunk upon Lola’s body, lost in a red, voluptuous dazzlement of passion.

‘Darling.’

She let him gently slip aside, and got out of bed. Boris remained prostrate, his head on the pillow. He heard Lola open the bathroom door, and he thought: ‘When this is over, I don’t want any more affairs. I loathe making love. No — to be honest, that isn’t what I loathe most, it’s the entanglement of it all, the sense of domination; and besides, what’s the point of choosing a girl friend, it would be just the same with anyone, it’s physiological.’ And he repeated with disgust ‘physiological’. Lola was getting ready for the night. The water ran into the basin with a pleasant, limpid gurgle which Boris rather enjoyed. Men suffering from the hallucinations of thirst, in the desert, heard just such sounds, the sound of running water. Boris tried to imagine that he was under a hallucination. The room, the red light, the splashes, these were hallucinations, he would soon find himself in the middle of the desert, lying on the sand with a cork helmet over his eyes. Mathieu’s face suddenly appeared to him: ‘It’s fantastic,’ he thought: ‘I like men better than girls. When I’m with a girl I’m not half as happy as with a man. And yet I wouldn’t dream of going to bed with a man.’ He cheered himself with the thought: ‘A monk, that’s what I’ll be when I’ve left Lola.’ He felt arid and austere. Lola jumped into the bed, and took him in her arms.