"And you were wrong," said Paul. "A railway accident is horrible for somebody who was on the train or who had a son there. But in news reports death means exactly the same thing as in the novels of Agatha Christie, who incidentally was the greatest magician of all time, because she knew how to turn murder into amusement, and not just one murder but dozens of murders, hundreds of murders, an assembly line of murders performed for our pleasure in the extermination camp of
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her novels. Auschwitz is forgotten, but from the crematorium ot Agatha's novels the smoke is forever rising into the sky, and only a very naive person could maintain that it is the smoke of tragedy."
The Bear remembered that it was precisely with this kind of paradox that Paul had long been influencing his colleagues in the newsroom And so it was that when the staff came under the critical scrutiny of the imagologues they were of little help to their chief, the Bear, for deep in their hearts they all considered his attitude passe. The Bear was ashamed of having submitted in the end, yet he knew he had no other choice. Such forced compromises with the spirit of the times, though quite banal, are actually inevitable unless we are ready to ask everyone who doesn't like our century to join in a general strike. In Paul's case, however, it was impossible to speak of a forced compromise. He was eager to put his wit and his intellect at the service of his century quit-voluntarily and, to the Bear's taste, much too fervently. That's why he answered in a voice still icier, "I, too, read Agatha Christie! When I am tired, when I feel like turning into a child for a while. But if all our lives turn into child's play, then one day the world will die to the sound of childish prattle and laughter."
Paul said, "I'd prefer to die to the sound of childish laughter than to the sound of Chopin's Funeral March. And let me tell you this: all the evil in the world is in that Funeral March, which is a glorification of death. If there were fewer funeral marches there might perhaps be fewer deaths. Understand what I'm trying to say: respect for tragedy is much more dangerous than the thoughtlessness of childish prattle. Do you realize what is the eternal precondition of tragedy? The existence ol ideals that are considered more valuable than human life. And what is the precondition of wars? The same thing. They drive you to your death because presumably there is something greater than your life War can only exist in a world of tragedy; from the beginning of history man has known only a tragic world and has not been capable of stepping out of it. The age of tragedy can be ended only by the revolt ol frivolity. Nowadays, people no longer know Beethoven's Ninth from concerts but from four lines of the Ode to Joy that they hear every day in the ad for Bella perfume. That doesn't shock me. Tragedy will be
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driven from the world like a ludicrous old actress clutching her heart and declaiming in a hoarse voice. Frivolity is a radical diet for weight reduction. Things will lose ninety percent of their meaning and will become light. In such a weightless environment fanaticism will disappear. War will become impossible."
"I am glad that you have finally found a way to eliminate war," said the Bear.
"Can you imagine today's French youth rushing fervently to fight for their country? My dear Bear, in Europe war has become unthinkable. Not politically. Anthropologically unthinkable. European people are no longer capable of waging war."
Don't tell me that two men who deeply disagree with each other can still like each other; that's a fairy tale. Perhaps they would like each other if they kept their opinions to themselves or if they only discussed them in a joking way and thus played down their significance (this, indeed, was the way Paul and the Bear had always spoken to each other until now). But once a quarrel breaks out, it's too late. Not because they believe so firmly in the opinions they defend, but because they can't stand not to be right. Look at those two. After all, their dispute won't change anything, it will lead to no decision, it will not influence the course of events in the slightest, it is quite sterile and unnecessary, confined to the cafeteria and its stale air, soon gone when the cleaning lady opens the windows. And yet, observe the rapt attention of the small audience around the table! Everyone is quiet, listening intently; they even forget to sip their coffee. The two rivals now care only about one thing: which of them will be recognized by the opinion of this small audience as the possessor of the truth, for to be proved wrong means for each of them the same thing as losing his honor. Or losing a piece of his own self. The opinion they advocate is itself not all that important to them. But because once they have made this opinion an attribute of their self, attacking it is like stabbing a part of their body.
Somewhere in the depths of his soul the Bear felt satisfaction that Paul would no longer be presenting his sophisticated commentaries; his voice, full of bearish pride, was getting ever quieter and icier. Paul, on the other hand, kept talking louder and louder, and his ideas were
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getting more and more exaggerated and provocative. He said, "High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong in the same stadium."
"Beethoven and Stalin belong together?" asked the Bear with icy irony.
"Of course, no matter how much that may shock you. War and culture, those are the two poles of Europe, her heaven and hell, her glory and shame, and they cannot be separated from each other. When one comes to an end, the other will end also, and one cannot end without the other. The fact that no war has broken out in Europe for fifty years is connected in some mysterious way with the fact that for fifty years no new Picasso has appeared either."
"Let me tell you something, Paul," the Bear said in a slow voice, as if he were lifting his heavy paw for a shattering blow. "If high culture is coming to an end, it is also the end of you and your paradoxical ideas, because paradox as such belongs to high culture and not to childish prattle. You remind me of the young men who supported the Nazis or communists not out of cowardice or out of opportunism but out of an excess of intelligence. For nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of nonthought. I experienced it with my own eyes and ears after the war, when intellectuals and artists rushed like a herd of cattle into the Communist Party, which soon proceeded to liquidate them systematically and with great pleasure. You are doing the same. You are the brilliant ally of your own gravediggers."
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B
ernard's familiar voice sounded from the transistor radio lying by their heads; he was conversing with an actor whose film was about to have its premiere. The actor raised his voice and woke them from their light sleep:
"I came to speak to you about films and not about my son."
"Don't worry, we'll get to films, too," Bernard's voice was saying. "But first there are some questions about recent events. I've heard it said that you yourself played a role in your son's affair."
"When you invited me to come here, you explicitly stated that you wanted to talk to me about films. So let's discuss films and not my private life."
"You are a public figure and I'm asking you about things that interest the public. I'm only doing my job as a journalist."
"I am ready to answer your questions dealing with films."
"As you wish. But our listeners will wonder why you refused to answer."
Agnes got out of bed. A quarter of an hour after she left for work, Paul got up, too, dressed, and went downstairs to collect his mail. One letter was from the Bear. He used many sentences, mixing excuses with a bitter humor, to inform Paul of what we already know: that the station no
longer required his services.
He reread the letter four times. Then with a wave of his arm he brushed it aside and left for the office. But he couldn't get anything done, couldn't keep his mind on anything except the letter. Was it such a blow to him? From a practical viewpoint, not at all. But it hurt all the same. He spent his whole life trying to get away from the company of lawyers: he was happy to be able to conduct a seminar at the university,
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and he was happy to do radio broadcasts. Not that he didn't enjoy the practice of law; on the contrary, he was fond of his clients, he tried to understand their crime and to give it a meaning. "I am not a lawyer, I am the poet of the defense!" he would say jokingly; he deliberately took the side of people finding themselves outside the law, and he considered himself (not without considerable vanity) a traitor, a fifth columnist, a humanist guerrilla fighter in a world of inhuman laws accumulated in thick tomes that he would take in his hands with the distaste of a blase expert. He put great emphasis on remaining in touch with people outside the courthouse, with students, literary personalities, and journalists, so as to preserve the certainty (not merely the illusion) of belonging among them. He clung to them and now found it painful that the Bear's letter was driving him back to the office and the courtroom.
But something else wounded him, too. When the previous day the Bear had called him the ally of his own gravediggers, he considered it just an elegant taunt without any concrete basis. The word "grave-diggers" did not suggest anything to him. At that point he had known nothing about his gravediggers. But today, after receiving the Bear's letter, it suddenly became clear that gravediggers do exist, that they had him targeted and were waiting for him.
He suddenly realized, too, that people saw him differently from how he saw himself or from how he thought he was seen by others. He was the only one among all his colleagues at the station who was forced to leave, even though (and he had no doubt about it) the Bear had defended him as well as he could. What was it about him that bothered the advertising men? For that matter, it would be naive of him to think that it was only they who found him unacceptable. Others must have found him unacceptable, too. Without his realizing it in the slightest, something must have happened to his image. Something must have happened and he didn't know what it was, and he'd never know. Because that's how things are, and this goes for everyone: we will never find out why we irritate people, what bothers people about us, what they like about us, what they find ridiculous; for us our own image is our greatest mystery.
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Paul knew that he would not be able to think of anything else all day, and so he picked up the phone and invited Bernard to a restaurant for lunch.
They sat down facing each other, and Paul was bursting to bring up the letter from the Bear, but because he had been well brought up he said first of all, "I listened to you this morning. You cornered that actor as if he were a rabbit."
"I know," said Bernard. "Maybe I overdid it. But I was in an awful mood. Yesterday I had a visit I'll never forget. A stranger came to see me, a man taller than me by a head, with an enormous belly. He introduced himself, smiled in an alarmingly affable manner, and told me: 'I have the honor of presenting you with this diploma.' Then he handed me a big cardboard tube and insisted that I open it in his presence. It contained a diploma. In color. In beautiful script. I read: 'Bernard Bertrand is hereby declared a Complete Ass.'"
"What?" Paul burst out laughing, but he controlled himself as soon as he saw that Bernard's serious features didn't betray the slightest hint of amusement.
"Yes," Bernard repeated in a mournful voice, "I was declared a complete ass."
"By whom? Was there the name of an organization?"
"No. There was only an illegible signature."
Bernard described the whole incident a few more times and then added, "At first I couldn't believe my eyes. I had the feeling I was the victim of an attack, I wanted to shout and to call the police. But then I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do. The fellow smiled and reached out his hand: 'Allow me to congratulate you,' he smiled, and I was so confused that I shook his hand."
"You shook his hand? You really thanked him?" said Paul, trying hard to keep from laughing.
"When I realized that I couldn't have the man arrested, I wanted to show my self-control, and I behaved as if everything happening were quite normal and had not touched me in the least."
"That's unavoidable," said Paul. "When a person is declared an ass, he begins to act like an ass."
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"Unfortunately, that is so."
"And you have no idea who this man was? He introduced himself, after all!"
"I was so flustered that I forgot the name right away."
Paul couldn't help laughing again.
"Yes, I know, you'll say it was all a joke, and of course you're right, it was a joke," said Bernard, "but I can't help it. I've been thinking about it ever since, and I can't think about anything else."
Paul stopped laughing, because he realized that Bernard was speak- ing the truth: he had undoubtedly thought of nothing else since yester- day. How would Paul react if he were to receive such a diploma? The same way as Bernard. If you're declared a complete ass, it means that at least one person sees you as an ass and wants you to know it. That in itself is very unpleasant. And it is quite possible that it's not a question of just one person but that the diploma represents the initiative of dozens of people. And it is also possible that those people are preparing something else, perhaps sending a release to the newspaper, and in tomorrow's Le Monde, in the section devoted to funerals, weddings, and honors, there may be an announcement that Bernard has been declared a complete ass.
Then Bernard confided (and Paul didn't know whether to laugh or cry over him) that the same day the anonymous man had given him the diploma he had proceeded to show it to everybody he met. He didn't want to remain alone in his shame, so he tried to involve others in it, he explained to everybody that the attack was not meant only for him personally: "If it had been designated only for me, they would have brought it to my house, to my home address. But they brought it to the station! It is an attack on me as a journalist! An attack on us all!"
Paul cut the meat on his plate, sipped his wine, and said to himself: here sit two friends; one has been called a complete ass, the other the brilliant ally of his gravediggers. He realized (while his sympathy for his younger friend grew even more poignant) that in his heart he would never again think of him as Bernard but only as a complete ass and nothing else, not because of malice but because nobody is capable of resisting such a beautiful name; nor would any of those to whom
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Bernard, in his unwise haste, showed the diploma ever think of him as anything else.
And it also occurred to him how decent it was of the Bear to call him the brilliant ally of his gravediggers only during their table talk. If he had inscribed this title on a diploma, things would be a lot worse. And so Bernard's grief almost made him forget his own troubles, and when Bernard said, "Anyway, you too have had an unpleasant experience," Paul merely waved it aside: "It's just an episode," and Bernard agreed: "I thought right away that it couldn't really hurt you. You can do a thousand other things, and a lot better ones to boot!"
When Bernard walked with him to the car, Paul said with sadness, "The Bear is wrong and the imagologues are right. A person is nothing but his image. Philosophers can tell us that it doesn't matter what the world thinks of us, that nothing matters but what we really are. But philosophers don't understand anything. As long as we live with other people, we are only what other people consider us to be. Thinking about how others see us and trying to make our image as attractive as possible is considered a kind of dissembling or cheating. But does there exist another kind of direct contact between my self and their selves except through the mediation of the eyes? C
an we possibly imagine love without anxiously following our image in the mind of the beloved? When we are no longer interested in how we are seen by the person we love, it means we no longer love."
"That's true," Bernard said mournfully.
"It's naive to believe that our image is only an illusion that conceals our selves, as the one true essence independent of the eyes of the world. The imagologues have revealed with cynical radicalism that the reverse is true: our self is a mere illusion, ungraspable, indescribable, misty, while the only reality, all too easily graspable and describable, is our image in the eyes of others. And the worst thing about it is that you are not its master. First you try to paint it yourself, then you want at least to influence and control it, but in vain: a single malicious phrase is enough to change you forever into a depressingly simple caricature."
They stopped at the car, and Paul glanced at Bernard's face, even more anxious and pale. Not long ago he had had the best of intentions
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to cheer up his friend and now he saw that his words had only wounded him. He regretted it: he had allowed himself to launch into his reflections only because he was thinking too much about himself, about his own situation, rather than about Bernard. But now it couldn't be helped.
They took leave of each other, and Bernard said, with a hesitancy that Paul found moving, "Only, I beg you, don't mention it to Laura. Don't even mention it to Agnes."
Paul firmly shook his friend's hand: "Trust me."
He returned to the office and started to work. His meeting with Bernard had had a peculiarly soothing effect, and he felt a lot better than he had earlier in the day. Toward evening he went home. He told Agnes about the letter and immediately stressed that the whole thing meant nothing to him. He tried to say it with a laugh, but Agnes noticed that between the words and the laughter Paul was coughing. She knew that cough. He knew how to control himself whenever something unpleasant happened to him, but he was betrayed by that short, embarrassed cough, of which he was unaware.
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