M. Folantin picked at the cheese, folded his napkin, got up, and was bowed out by the waiter who closed the door behind him.
Once outside, M. Folantin opened his umbrella and hastened his step. The keen razor of cold that had cut ears and nose to the quick had given way to the fine strop of a beating rain. The hard, glacial winter which had gripped Paris for three days was relenting, and the melting snow trickled and gurgled away beneath a sky swollen and sodden with water.
M. Folantin was fairly galloping along now, thinking of the fire he’d lit at home before going to eat his fill at the restaurant.1 To tell the truth, he wasn’t without a certain apprehension; unusually, that particular evening, laziness had prevented him rebuilding the bonfire his concierge had prepared from top to bottom. ‘And coke is so difficult to get going,’ he thought; he rushed upstairs, went in, and saw not a single flame in the fireplace.
‘To think there isn’t a housekeeper or janitor who knows how to lay a fire,’ he groaned, and placing a candle on the floor – without even taking off his overcoat, his hat still on his head – he emptied out the grate, then filled it again methodically, leaving room for air in his construction. He lowered the vent, lit matches and paper, and stripped off his outdoor things.
Then he let out a sigh: now his lamp was making a loud burping noise.
‘Great, there’s no oil! That’s all I need now, it’s just one thing after another!’ And, despairingly, he contemplated the wick he’d just wound up between the burner’s jagged, soot-covered teeth, a wick that was dried-up and yellow.
‘This life is intolerable,’ he said to himself as he looked for scissors; he trimmed the lamp as best he could, then he threw himself into an armchair and lost himself in his thoughts.
It had been a bad day; he’d been in a black mood since the morning when the head of the office where he’d worked as a clerk for the last twenty years had reproached him, rudely, for arriving later than usual.
M. Folantin had bristled and, pulling out his old pocket-watch,2 remarked in a dry tone: “Eleven o’clock precisely.”
The chief clerk had, in his turn, drawn a sturdy stem-winder from his pocket.
“Eleven twenty,” he replied, “I set it by the Stock Exchange.” And with a contemptuous air, he’d deigned to excuse his employee, taking pity on the antique piece of clockwork Folantin was holding.
M. Folantin saw in this ironic way of exonerating him an allusion to his poverty and he made a pert riposte to his superior, who, no longer accepting the watch’s senile wanderings as an excuse, drew himself up and in menacing terms reproached M. Folantin again for being late.
The day, badly begun, had continued to be unbearable. He’d had to copy interminable letters in a dim light that dirtied his paper, to draw up voluminous tables and listen at the same time to the chattering of a colleague, a little old man who, his hands in his pockets, loved the sound of his own voice.
This man would recite the whole of the morning newspaper, and spin it out still further with opinions of his own; or rather he’d criticise the expressions of the editors and cite others he’d have been happier to see in the place of those he’d dispatched; and he interspersed these observations with details about the poor state of his health, which, nevertheless, he declared was improving slightly, thanks to the constant application of pilewort3 and to regular cold baths.
Listening to these fascinating pronouncements, M. Folantin ended up making mistakes; the lines in his report were all bunched up and the figures ran riot over the columns; he had to scratch out whole pages and squeeze in new lines, which was a total waste of time because the chief clerk sent his work back and ordered him to do it again.
Finally the day ended and, under a heavy sky, in the midst of wind and rain, M. Folantin had to wade through fondants of slush and sorbets of snow, in order to reach his lodgings and his restaurant, only to find that, on top of it all, the dinner was execrable and the wine was like ink.
Feet frozen, squeezed inside boots stiffened by showers and puddles, skull white hot from the gas burner hissing above his head, M. Folantin had barely eaten anything and even now bad luck wouldn’t let him be; his fire was faltering, his lamp was smoking, his tobacco was damp and kept going out, staining the cigarette paper with yellow nicotine.
A great depression gripped him; the emptiness of his narrow life became apparent, and as he stirred the coals with his poker, M. Folantin, leaning forward in his armchair, his forehead resting on the mantelpiece, began to review his forty-year Way of the Cross,4 stopping in despair at each Station.
His childhood had not been the most prosperous; for generations the Folantins had been penniless; family records did mention, back in the distant past, a Gaspard Folantin who had made almost a million in the leather trade, but the chronicle added that after having squandered his fortune he was left insolvent; the memory of this man was still vivid in the minds of his descendants, who would curse him, citing him to their sons as an example not to be followed, and forever threatening them that if they frequented cafés or ran after women, they would die in poverty like him.
The fact is that Jean Folantin was born in disastrous circumstances; the day his mother’s lying-in came to an end, his father possessed nothing but a handful of coppers. An aunt, who though not a midwife was expert in that kind of work, helped bring forth the child, cleaning his face with butter and, to save money, powdering his thighs with some flour scraped from a crust of bread in lieu of talcum. “So you see, my boy, you come from humble stock,” his Aunt Eudore5 would say, acquainting him of these petty details, and from an early age Jean didn’t dare hope for any kind of good fortune in the future.
His father died very young and the stationer’s he ran in the Rue du Four6 was sold to pay off the debts incurred during his illness; mother and child found themselves on the street; Madame Folantin moved into lodgings and became a shop assistant, then a cashier in a draper’s, and the boy was sent to boarding school; even though Madame Folantin was in a truly wretched situation she obtained a bursary for the child and deprived herself of everything, saving money from her meagre monthly salary in order to meet the expense of future examinations and diplomas.
Jean recognised the sacrifices his mother made and he worked as hard as he could, carrying off all the prizes, his success in the annual examinations making up for the contempt his poverty-stricken situation had inspired in the eyes of the bursar. He was a very intelligent boy and, in spite of his youth, already very serious. Seeing the miserable existence his mother led, imprisoned from morning till night in the cashier’s glass booth, coughing, her hand in front of her mouth, over her ledgers, remaining meek and mild amid the insolent bustle of a shop crowded with customers, he understood that he could count on no mercy from fate, no justice from destiny.
Added to which he had the good sense not to listen to the urgings of his teachers, who tried to overwork him with a view to raising their reputation and winning promotion; working steadily he passed his Baccalaureate after a year in the fifth form.
He now needed a job without delay so as to alleviate the heavy burden borne by his mother; he remained a long time without finding one, because his shabby appearance wasn’t in his favour and he had a limp in his left leg following a childhood accident at school; finally, his bad luck seemed to change: Jean applied for a clerical post in one of the ministries and was engaged at a salary of fifteen hundred francs.7
When her son told her this good news Madame Folantin smiled sweetly: “You are now your own master,” she said, “you’re no longer dependent on anyone, my poor boy, and it’s high time too.” And indeed her feeble health worsened from day to day; a month later she died from the after-effects of a bad cold caught in the draughty booth in which she’d sat, winter and summer alike.
Jean was left on his own; his Aunt Eudore had been buried long ago, his other relatives were either scattered or dead; in any case, he’d never known them – it was as much as he could do to remember the name of an aunt no
w living in a convent in the provinces.
He made a few acquaintances at work, a few friends, then the moment came when some of them left Paris and others got married; he hadn’t the courage to make new ties and, little by little, he gave up the idea and lived alone.
‘All the same, solitude is a sorry state,’ he thought, as he put back the lumps of coke, one by one, in his grate, and his mind turned to his old colleagues. ‘How marriage spoiled everything! They’d been on familiar terms, they’d lived the same kind of life, they couldn’t do without one another; and now they scarcely even said hello when they met. A married friend is always a little embarrassed because it’s him who broke off relations, and also because he imagines you’re making fun of the life he’s leading and he believes, in good faith, that he occupies a more honourable rank in the world than a bachelor,’ thought M. Folantin, who recalled the embarrassment and the slight haughtiness of old colleagues he’d encountered since their marriage. ‘All this is very stupid!’ And he smiled, because the memory of those friends of his youth took him back to the time when he used to hang around with them.
He was twenty-two years old then and everything amused him. The theatre seemed like a place of delight, the café a place of wonder, and the Bullier dance hall,8 with its girls arching their bodies to the sound of cymbals and whooping as they kicked their feet in the air, aroused him; in his ardour he would imagine them naked and beneath their pantaloons and petticoats see their moist and tender flesh. The smell of woman would be carried up on clouds of dust, and he would sit there, ecstatic, envying the men in fedoras who paraded by, beating time on their thighs. He was shy, lame, and broke. But no matter, this was a sweet torment and – just like many a poor devil – a trifle would satisfy him. A chance word as he went by, or a casual smile over the shoulder, would make him happy, and on his return home he would dream of these women and imagine that those who looked and smiled at him were better than the others.
Ah, if only his salary had been higher. Short of money as he was, unable to pick up the girls who plied their trade in the dance hall, he turned to those who lurked in dark passageways, to those unfortunate women whose fat bellies all but touched the ground; he would dive into alleyways, trying to make out a face lost in the shadows; and neither the crudity of their makeup, the horrors of their age, the ignominy of their uncleanliness, or the squalidness of their rooms could deter him. Just as in those cheap eateries, where hunger led him to devour the cheapest of meats, his carnal lust led him to embrace the dregs of love. There were even some evenings when, penniless and consequently with no hope of satisfying himself, he would wander along the Rue de Buci, the Rue de l’Egout, the Rue du Dragon, the Rue Neuve-Guillemin and the Rue Beurriere,9 in order to bump into some woman; he was happy to be accosted and when he recognised one of these hookers, he would talk to her, pass the time of day, then out of discretion withdraw, fearful of scaring away her clients, and he would sigh for the end of the month, promising himself some rare pleasures as soon as he got paid.
Happy days! And to think that now he was a little richer, now that he could afford to graze in better pastures and wear himself out in cleaner beds, he no longer felt any desire. The money had come too late, now that no pleasure could seduce him.
But there had been an intermediate stage between then, when his blood seethed with turbulent passions, and now, when he would stay at home, indifferent, almost impotent, in an armchair by the fire. At around the age of twenty-seven he’d become disgusted by the licensed prostitutes10 scattered around his neighbourhood; he’d felt the need for a bit of seduction, a few caresses; he’d dreamed of not having to hurriedly hurl himself onto a divan, but to be able to take his time and sit down. As his straitened means wouldn’t allow him to keep a woman, as he was sickly and possessed no social skills, no rakish charm and no way with words, he’d been able to reflect at leisure on the bountifulness of a Providence that gave everything to some men – money, honours, good health, women – and nothing to others. He’d still had to satisfy himself with banal provisions, but as he paid more, he was served in cleaner rooms with whiter linen.
Once, he thought he’d struck lucky: he’d made the acquaintance of a young working girl who dispensed something approaching tenderness, but suddenly one night, for no reason, she deserted him, leaving him a souvenir he had difficulty curing himself of.11 He shuddered, recalling that period of suffering when he’d had to go to the office as if nothing had happened, even though it hurt to walk. But he’d been young, and instead of going straight to a doctor he’d had recourse to quacks, ignoring the graffiti scrawled on the advertisements in public urinals, sincere comments such as “A purgative remedy? Yes, it purges your wallet”, or warnings such as “It makes your hair fall out”, and resigned, philosophical remarks such as “better to sleep with your wife”; and in all of them the adjective “free” next to the word “treatment” had been scratched, scored and slashed with a knife, by men who you felt had accomplished this task in anger and out of conviction.
Now his sex life was over, his impulses completely suppressed; the breathless fervour of passion had given way to continence and a profound peace, but what a terrible emptiness had opened up in his existence the moment sensual considerations no longer held sway!
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ thought M. Folantin, shaking his head as he poked his fire. ‘It’s freezing in here,’ he muttered, ‘it’s a pity wood is so expensive, what a glorious blaze one could have…’ And this reflexion led him to think about the huge amount of wood that was allotted to them at the Ministry, then about the Civil Service itself, and finally about his own office.
There again, his illusions hadn’t lasted long. After having believed that you got into top positions through hard work and good behaviour, he soon realised that influence was everything; employees born in the provinces were supported by their local MP and so advanced whatever happened. As for him, he’d been born in Paris; he wasn’t supported by anyone so he remained a simple forwarding clerk, and year after year he copied and recopied mountains of despatches, drew up innumerable tables, amassed piles of reports and repeated a thousand times the same conventional stock phrases. After years of this carry on, his enthusiasm had cooled, and now, with no expectation of a bonus, no hope of advancement, he was neither a diligent nor dedicated worker.
With his 237 francs 40 centimes a month he’d never been able to afford large enough lodgings to employ a maid, to relax in front of a fire and warm his slippered feet; one disastrous attempt, tried in a moment of weakness despite all notions of practical reality and commonsense, had in any case been enough, and at the end of two months he’d had to go back to the same round of restaurants, thinking himself lucky nevertheless to be rid of his housekeeper, a certain Madame Chabanel, an old widow six feet tall, with hair on her top lip and obscene eyes set above flabby cheeks. She was a sort of vivandière,12 a female sutler who ate like a carter and drank enough for four;13 she was a terrible cook and familiar beyond belief. She would lay out plates higgledy-piggledy on the table, then sit down opposite her master, hitch up her skirts and fart,14 giggling as she did so, her bonnet askew and her hands on her hips.
Impossible to get good service; but M. Folantin might still have endured such humiliating impertinence if this astonishing woman hadn’t been robbing him blind: flannel vests and socks kept disappearing, old shoes couldn’t be found, his wine evaporated, and even his matches seemed to burn by themselves.
He had to put an end to this state of affairs, so M. Folantin plucked up his courage and, fearful that this woman would completely pillage his apartment while he was out at work, cut the whole farce short one evening by sacking her on the spot.
Madame Chabanel went scarlet, her toothless mouth gaping; then she started to fidget and flap her arms about until M. Folantin said amiably: “Since I shan’t be dining at home from now on, I want you to take any provisions that are left rather than waste them, so if you like, we can go through them together.”
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br /> And then he opened the cupboards.
“There, that’s a bag of coffee, and that bottle contains brandy doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Monsieur, that it does,” moaned Madame Chabanel.
“Well, they’re worth keeping, so I’ll leave them there,” said M. Folantin – and so on with the rest; in the end Madame Chabanel inherited nothing but a few pennies’ worth of vinegar, a handful of sea salt and a little bottle of lamp oil.
“Phew,” exclaimed M. Folantin, as the woman was going downstairs, dragging her feet at every step, but his joy quickly evaporated; from that time on his domestic life went all to pot. The widow Chabanel had been replaced by a concierge who knocked his bed out of shape with blows of his fist, but who took such care not to disturb cobwebs that the spiders were practically tame.
From that time on his meals had been as bizarre as they were dubious; a Way of the Cross had been ceaselessly enacted in the eating houses of the district, and his stomach had seized up; the period of mineral waters from Saint-Galmier and Seltzer,15 and of mustard to mask the high taste of the meat and pep up lifeless, washed-out sauces, had arrived.
As a result of evoking this whole sequence of memories, M. Folantin fell into a terrible depression. He’d valiantly endured solitude for years, but this evening he admitted defeat; he regretted not being married and countered all the arguments he’d spouted when preaching celibacy for the poor. ‘So what if there were children? You’d raise them, you’d tighten your belt a little more. By heaven, I’d do as other people do, I’d buckle down to more copying work in the evenings so my wife could be better dressed; we’d have meat only at lunchtimes, and, like most poor families, we’d be content with a bowl of soup for dinner. What are all these sacrifices in comparison to an ordered life, to evenings spent with one’s wife and child, to good healthy food, even if there isn’t much of it, to mended clothes and linen that’s regularly washed and folded? Ah, laundry… what a song and dance that is for a bachelor! They come whenever they feel like it, they bring back shirts that are limp and stained blue, handkerchiefs that are in rags, socks that are riddled with holes like a sieve, and then they ignore me when I get angry. Oh, where will it all end? In a hospital or an asylum,16 if my disease goes on much longer, or here, arousing the pity of a sicknurse, if death is quick.’
Drifting a Vau-L'eau (Dedalus European Classics) Page 3