He remembered all that like something glimpsed in a cave, like images of a world where everything took place and nothing happened. They’d stayed a few more minutes on the platform, and Louis Babinot had started to talk, in a dull monotone, a quiver in the back of his throat. “You tell them . . .” Trains groaning, the loud buzz of an airplane flying over made his voice go in and out. It wasn’t cold, it was lovely, and a nearby garden gave off the smell of wet earth. “For my father’s sake, I’ll have to die at the head of my battalion, leading my men in the assault. It’s so simple. You’ll go see him. You’ll tell him, ok? Tell him I was always the brave soldier. Remember that. It’s what will make him happiest. In the end, you’ll figure it out—how much truth to tell and how many lies. Everybody gets what’s owed to them, or maybe what they can bear,” he added in an even lower voice. “You don’t have to tell my mother anything. I think she understands . . .”
Lucien had promised.
The very day he got home, he’d gone in search of Babinot. As it was a Thursday, Babinot was at the town library instead of the school. He combined the job of town librarian with his duties as a teacher, and he worked there every Thursday and Sunday. A rotten place, that library. And it wasn’t even really a library, just a reading room. As an adolescent, Lucien had always hated going. Two or three old biddies out of a Goya painting, with high, whalebone collars and sharp snouts, reading the Revue des Deux Mondes with little glances through their pince-nez. And here and there a few invalid men, satisfied with drooling over the local paper. At the back of the room, in a glass booth, was Monsieur Babinot himself, wearing a tailcoat and smoking cap, lost in some scholarly and recently acquired book, something along the lines of The Yellow Peril or Oberlé. That was the scene on peak days, but there were empty ones too, and Lucien had arrived when it was quiet. No one. Not an old spinster, not even a invalid’s cane . . . Monsieur Babinot was alone there, and . . . he was fighting! Fighting with his shadow. Armed with a glittering foil—he must have spent hours polishing it—he was doing impressive thrusts, feints, and parries, so absorbed that he hadn’t even heard the door. In his jacket and cap, the big checkered handkerchief hanging down out of his pocket looked, from behind, like a third coattail. One of his pant legs had ridden up almost to the knee, revealing big woolly blue socks. Lucien had delicately left the room. The folly of these little gentlemen had something oppressive about it that left little room for comedy and many reasons for anger.
•
The policeman on the town hall steps continued his never-ending roll call.
From the other side of the square, Francis Montfort ran over. In the wind, his hair was blowing more wildly than ever beneath the bowler hat falling into his eyes, and his books were still pinned beneath an elbow. The corners of his jacket flapped, and one of his untied shoelaces was dragging dangerously. He arrived at a group of conscripts and stopped running. About to hurry into the town hall, he caught sight of Lucien. His face lit up, and he approached.
“Aren’t you a bit late?” said Lucien.
“That’s no problem,” Francis said, out of breath. “I was hurrying in, but since you’re here . . .” He put his books down on the bench and sat. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know why I ran. A habit.” He lifted his hat and pushed the hair back, looking around with astonishment. “You’d think it was a fair.”
“So true.”
“It’s like it hasn’t occurred to them. Weird, don’t you think? It’s like this is for fun.”
“They don’t come to town very often.”
“Yes, you have to take that into account. It’s funny how there’s a vision of life here that hides the life itself. Like life crusted over. Do you see it? You think things are what they appear, but it’s a silly mistake, isn’t it?” Francis said.
“Definitely.”
“I agree with you. And then, I used to believe a long time ago—” Lucien smiled at that “—I really thought that peasants like this were very different from me. I didn’t think I could ever become friends with a peasant. It’s strange isn’t it? And the only evidence I had was that I didn’t believe I could love them.”
“Are you in love with a peasant?”
“No. But I could be. Why not?”
“Good man,” said Lucien, putting a hand on his knee. “What used to turn you against peasant girls?”
“I don’t know . . . Really, I didn’t think about it. They didn’t seem very attractive to me.”
“And peasant boys?”
“Naturally, I thought they were all a bit dumb and without . . . polish. But all this was when I was too stupid. I’ve changed a lot.”
“You mean you’ve become smarter?”
“Yes. Why not say it?”
“Why not,” said Lucien, “since it’s true.”
“It’s possible to figure it out on your own. You can tell down to the minute when the transformation takes place, don’t you think? All of a sudden, the things you missed yesterday have become obvious. You must know what I mean.”
“Yes. But what became obvious so suddenly?” Lucien asked.
“Oh!” said Francis, laughing, “first of all, that I was pretty dumb. That I had fallen into step.”
“And you’re not marching anymore?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because. I like living.”
“Short as life is?”
“No. The love of life . . . a real life, you know,” he said, conscious of being inarticulate. “They’ve betrayed us too much. Oh!” he said all of a sudden. “Will it bore you if I read a poem?”
“Not at all.”
“Really?”
Francis took a little notebook out of his pocket and read:
“You’ve wronged me
Lied to me
Jackets and glasses
Shoes polished
Bowler hats
I thought were all that!
Can you show me a bit of your immortal soul?
I’ve perceived
nothing but wind
falling on a hundred thousand bodies.”
“I wrote that in five minutes.”
“It’s good.”
“Good?”
“Very good.”
“May I read you another? Since it’s just right here in my notebook . . .”
“I’d be happy to hear it.”
“Sir, at your house
All is straw
At the straw man’s
Your place, Madame, is just a haystack
The mill is stuffed, the clogs are stuffed
Hay and straw
Inside and outside the heart
like a hat.”
“Not bad, not bad at all,” said Lucien, laughing. “And how long did it take you to write that one?” He might as well play along a little.
“A flick of the pen.”.
“Oh! Impressive.”
“Yeah. That one is hilarious. I spent part of last night copying them into this notebook. It’s so I can carry them with me—on loose sheets they disappear. I lost one that was really good, much more revolutionary than those two!”
Lucien smiled again, and Francis continued:
“I can’t put my hand on it. It’s strange because I had it just the day before yesterday—I read it to my old classmates, in study hall.”
“What?”
“They asked me to.”
“And how did they respond?”
“Well, they seemed pretty surprised. I don’t think they liked it. You know, it was a pretty straightforward call for rebellion, that poem. They must have told on me. Nabucet had a word with me just now, telling me I’d be called in to see the principal.”
“Marchandeau is a good man. The other is an accumulation of all the worst possible qualities the category has to offer . . . and I’ve known him for a long time. What will you say to Marchandeau?”
“I don’t know . . . I wante
d to show you the poem.”
“They’ve stolen it from you.”
“You think?”
It was clear—the naive boy had fallen into a trap. “If I were in your shoes, I’d keep a sharper lookout.”
“But I’m so careful!” Francis thought he was a concealment expert—you could see it just by looking at him.
“Well. We’ll see.”
“What does it matter if Marchandeau snaps at me? In less than half an hour, I’ll be called up into the armed forces.”
“That’s one view. What do you think about going up there?”
“It’s filthy. But I’ll have brothers there.”
They didn’t say anything for a moment.
“You’re not worried about keeping them waiting?” Lucien asked.
“Who?”
“The draft board.”
“It’s no problem. I’m in no hurry. And you?”
“I’ve done my time.”
“Do you know they tried to kill Cripure?”
This incredible segue bowled Lucien over.
“Is your head all right, my friend?”
“Perfectly ok. Better than most.”
“To kill Cripure?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“The kids at school.”
Lucien shook his head. Cripure had never been more than a joke to the schoolboys . . .“It’s not serious?”
“But I’m telling you, his life was hanging on nothing but a . . . bolt. Cripure always bikes around, you know. Yesterday the boys found a way to unscrew the bolts on the forks.”
“Tell me more.”
“I warned him. I had a note taken to him this morning, by my friend Étienne. I just saw him, and that’s why I was late. Cripure screamed.”
“But finish the story!”
“He shouted a lot. He went crazy when he read my note. Other times, I’ve ignored what’s gone on between them, but Étienne couldn’t stop telling me Cripure’s a crook.”
“Tell me the story,” Lucien said, losing patience, “tell it a little bit clearly why don’t you . . .”
“All I can tell you,” said the young man, “is how I learned of the plan. It’s very strange, as you’ll see. Among the students I supervise is a certain Blondl. He’s a boy of twelve or so, a little wily one, a bootlicker, very conscientious. Rich. A future Nabucet. So, that morning in the dormitory, I went by to check the boy’s comb. He’d lost his and was looking for it . . .while crooning to himself.” Francis paused. “Singing in the dormitory, that’s an offense. Coming from someone else, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But Blondl! I said to myself right away that there must be something behind it, especially because he was singing while puttering around, clearly trying to attract my attention. I went over to him. I saw his comb right away, of course, but Blondl wasn’t interested in that, and the singing didn’t stop. I took the comb,” said Francis, getting up to demonstrate, “and examined it like this, turning my back to Blondl. I was, you understand,
convinced he had something to tell me. His song sounded like something improvised by a daydreaming kid, apparently unaware. It wasn’t until I heard Cripure’s name repeated over and over, mixed with a story about bicycling and loosened bolts that I started to understand. Then, he told the whole story, clearly, while still singing. I turned around to give him back his comb, and our eyes met . . . his looked like the eyes of someone in love.”
Lucien had listened to the whole tale with intense concentration, completely forgetting about Cripure, so astonished at what Francis had described—the troubling image of this sweet, rotten boy. He didn’t doubt that Francis had told the truth, even though the story had an artful quality. But he had to ask, “And you’re sure things happened that way?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I do.”
“I’ve never seen anything more—how to put it? Characteristic. But I’m well versed in the behavior of those little pricks.”
“That’s all to the good.”
“He’ll be a policeman someday and never look back.”
Something else was bothering him. “Poor Cripure,” Lucien muttered. “He doesn’t deserve this. It’s strange—” his smile was almost timid “—It seems so much like . . .” He stopped, a sad look on his face.
“Like?”
“Nothing. Perhaps some kind of sign, if you know what I mean,” said Lucien, brightening. “A warning. But let’s leave it. Poor Cripure! We had a depressing conversation yesterday. In some ways, Cripure’s a fallen man who has nothing left to cherish but his fallenness. But again, let’s leave it, my friend. This isn’t the time to tell you about that,” said Lucien, getting up.
Francis took the offered hand. “You know,” he said, not without a certain quaver in his voice, “you know, I love him too.”
“I know it,” said Lucien. “Even though he’s a crook?”
“Yes.”
“Well then . . .you must know how hard it is to love someone who has to disappear?”
“Has to? Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I’d wish,” said Lucien. “And now, I have to go. I need to be alone. Good luck,” he said, “try someday to find brothers who aren’t your enemies and neither are you theirs.”
MADAME de Villaplane was an astonishing old lady. If she imitated life, the imitation was perfect. Who would have guessed, seeing her full, supple features, that she’d just turned sixty? Her well-formed nose, her still-lovely mouth, and from her oval face, under the clips which held back her barely whitened hair, the pressing look of those dark eyes—what a sensation she must have created at twenty! Her high yet refined voice was still loud enough during arguments to be heard from the basement to the attic, and even by the neighbors. Besides her way of appearing and disappearing as if she could walk through walls, what gave Madame de Villaplane the air of a marionette was her jerky step and her great artfulness in falling suddenly into someone’s arms—stiff as a board, not breathing, lifeless—so convincingly that you had to ask yourself whether it was really a corpse you held, or a wind-up toy at the end of its spring. She had already fallen twice into the arms of Kaminsky, her lodger.
Madame de Villaplane was a noblewoman fallen on hard times. She’d spent years trying to sue her children, but because she was “too good” and “too lenient,” she’d lost everything and there was nothing left now but a “pretty penny”—this little house, which had become an inn. It was her rock, she said, her island of Elba. Once, the house belonged to the Turnier family, whom Cripure loved and hated in turn. She’d inherited some of Turnier’s father’s wealth, and this was where the son had returned after his unhappy adventures. And he’d left from there, when Mercédès didn’t come, to throw himself into the sea.
It had been a solitary spot, but since then a whole new neighborhood had grown up around it—Turnier’s house was no more than a house among others. No one (besides researchers and curious locals) knew the story anymore. One year, it was true, she’d lobbied the municipality to put a plaque on the front of the house in memory of the great departed man, but she’d come up against the brusque refusal of those gentlemen, who, since they were mainly clerics, wouldn’t hear of honoring a suicide in any way, no matter the circumstances. It must be said that Cripure had, for his part, refused to support it, due to other objections of course, which were mainly that it was best to leave men like Turnier in peace, since he had been abandoned during his lifetime. And so it was that the gray façade of this boardinghouse had no markings on it—save for a wooden crest over the door. The house had an air of poverty, which never ceased to embarrass Madame de Villaplane, born Blanche d’Elloudan, granddaughter of an imperial colonel, daughter of a prefect! And what a colonel, what a prefect! She liked to bring up, as a particularly appropriate example of her father’s good taste and sense of duty toward his position in the government, the fact that he would never tolerate clipping his wig to his hair with fasteners that weren’t silver. A great man,
that prefect. If there was any doubt, you only had to see his portrait hanging in the dining room, next to the portrait of her grandfather, another great man it was impossible not to notice. No portrait of her former husband.
Regarding this fellow who had vanished many years ago, Madame de Villaplane exercised a discretion that was fairly suspicious. She never shut up about her children, whom she accused of all sorts of crimes, but as for their father, not a word. It was so bad that you might have thought he had never existed, if it weren’t for certain people, scattered around town, with good, faithful memories, who could recall the scandal of yesteryear which had resulted in the inexplicable flight of Monsieur de Villaplane. So Madame de Villaplane wasn’t a widow, as one might have thought, but an abandoned wife, one of these martyred women plagued by an evil husband. All this was more than twenty years ago. No one could say which particular vice had led Monsieur de Villaplane to all of a sudden break the sacred and charming bonds of marriage, and without the normal recourse to divorce, he had resolved it by disappearing completely, without leaving even the shortest letter behind on his ministerial desk. Nothing. Not even a scene. No tears. He hadn’t fled. He’d simply left. He’d taken the train, carrying a few thousand francs with him, which meant he had only enough money for the time being. A motiveless man. Since then, no one had heard from him. Madame de Villaplane certainly tried to play out a farce of great sorrow after her husband’s disappearance, but she’d gotten sick of the role, discovering nothing inside but indifference. And the absence of her husband in the dining room, next to the two other portraits, could easily be explained this way: she’d never thought to put him there.
All of that had little importance compared, for example, to the slightest quarrel with one of her boarders, and these quarrels were frequent. Madame de Villaplane was rightly considered extremely straitlaced in matters of deportment. She was a strict landlady. As soon as a new lodger arrived, she’d check his luggage and try to figure out what kind of a background he came from, what his religious and political opinions were, and, if he passed this inspection, she would detail the rules everyone had to follow under her roof. First: she only took male lodgers. She wasn’t silly enough to rent rooms to those ladies of La Poste and other fast girls who’d get nothing but bad reputations. No scandals. Second: it was to be absolutely understood that the men swore on their honor to never bring women home, even for tea. No woman, except the maid, could cross the threshold of her rooms. Whoever broke that rule was kicked out immediately. Third: you had to be home by nine in winter, ten in summer. No making noise. Keep the bathroom clean. She didn’t think she had to mention that cooking or washing up in your room was forbidden, that was an obvious general rule, etc. All these rules were copied out by her own hand onto large sheets of blue paper that she hung over the bed in each of the rooms.
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