‘Well my man, I have brought you here because I take an interest in poor people.’
I changed my position. No creaking of springs came from the armchair.
‘Yes, I take an interest in poor people, the really poor, of course. I detest those who take advantage of other people’s kindness.’
Supporting himself on the desk, he got up like someone whose knees are painful, then he strode up and down the room with his hands behind his back, clicking two fingers like a Spanish dancer.
My head was on a level with his stomach. Embarrassed, I raised my eyes to look him in the face.
‘I love the poor, my man. They are unfortunate. Every time I have an opportunity to come to their aid, I do so. You yourself seem to me to be in an interesting situation.’
‘Oh, sir!’
On the mantelpiece three gilt horses were drinking a mirror in a gilt trough.
‘Your show of consideration pleased me very much. ’
‘Oh, sir.’
I was feeling very pleased with the way the conversation was going when the door opened. A girl appeared and, noticing me, hesitated to come in. She was fair and pretty, like those women who are shown kissing horses’ noses on English post-cards.
‘Come in, Jeanne.’
I got up with some difficulty.
‘Don’t get up . . . don’t get up . . .’ said the manufacturer.
I was humiliated by this command. Monsieur Lacaze had only told me to remain seated to make it clear to me that I had nothing to do with his family.
He sat down at his desk and wrote something. The girl waited and from time to time she glanced stealthily at me.
Our eyes met. Immediately she turned away her head.
I felt that for her I was a being from another world. She was watching me in order to find out what sort of creature I was, in the same way as she would have watched a prostitute or a murderer.
At last she withdrew, a piece of paper in her hand. She managed to take another look at me as she closed the door.
•
‘Were you in the army?’
‘Yes, I was.’
I showed my injured hand.
‘Ah, you were wounded; in the war, I hope. ’
‘Yes.’
‘So you draw a pension?’
‘Yes, sir . . . three hundred francs a quarter.’
‘So that’s invalidity benefit at fifty per cent.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have a job?’
‘No, I don’t.’
I added immediately:
‘But I’m looking for one. ’
‘Your case is interesting. I’ll do something for you. But meanwhile, here you are.’
Monsieur Lacaze got out his wallet.
I shivered so violently that I felt as if my scalp were creasing.
How much was he going to give me? A thousand francs perhaps!
He counted the notes, which were pinned together, as one flicks through the pages of a book. I followed every movement.
He took out the pin and passed me a hundred franc note, having first rubbed it between his fingers to make sure there was only one.
I took it. I was embarrassed at keeping it in my hand and I did not dare put it in my pocket straight away.
‘Come on, put it away, and above all don’t lose it. You must buy a second-hand suit. Yours is too big.’
‘Very well.’
‘And then come and see me in your new suit.’
While Monsieur Lacaze was speaking, I was thinking I ought not to have been so quick to take the note. My attitude no longer fitted in with the way I had behaved at the station.
‘Come and see me . . .’
The manufacturer, pausing on the word ‘me’, looked at his diary.
‘Come and see me the day after tomorrow, at the same time. I shall be expecting you.’
He wrote something down. Then he asked:
‘By the way, what is your name?’
‘Bâton, Victor.’
Having noted down my name and address, he rang the bell.
The maid showed me out.
‘Was he nice?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did he tell you to come back?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s because your case is interesting.’
III
The street was quiet. The sun could not be seen, though its presence could be felt. The pavement, which would be in the shade as soon as the sky cleared, was cooler.
I walked quickly in order to be more on my own and to be able to think.
Monsieur Lacaze had impressed me not only by his wealth but because he was kind. Things had not turned out as I had imagined during the night. That is how it always is. I know it but it is useless for me to try and stop myself picturing how things will be, because my imagination always gets the upper hand.
Some of the things the manufacturer had said had annoyed me, but after all he did not know me. Perhaps I too had annoyed him.
Rich people are not like us. I suppose they do not pay so much attention to details.
It was eleven o’clock. The prospect of going back to my own district was not inviting. I had some money. Why should I not go to Montmartre and have a drink and a good meal and forget my loneliness, sadness and poverty for a few hours?
•
At midday I reached the outer boulevards. I was hungry and to increase my hunger still further I purposely strolled about a bit.
Scraggy trees, leafless and without bark, tied to stakes, planted in holes with no railings, stood in a row, fifty yards apart. In each space there was one of those brown benches on which one has to sit up straight. Here and there were an empty stall, a urinal covered with pre-war advertisements, a foreigner unfolding a plan or consulting a Baedeker, which could be recognized by its spine.
I stopped in front of each restaurant to read the duplicated menu, stuck on to a window-pane.
Finally I went into a restaurant half-concealed behind barrels of shrubs.
The legs of the tables could not be seen because of the cloths. There were a lot of people there, and mirrors reflecting each other until they became too small to see, hats at an angle on the coat-racks and a cashier on an excessively tall stool.
I sat down. The cruet, the menu propped up between two glasses, a cut-glass carafe and a bread-basket were all within my reach.
Opposite me a man who nevertheless looked respectable was drawing naked women in order to have the pleasure of blackening in a triangle in the middle. Further off a woman was cleaning her nails with a pin; I could not have done that myself.
‘Rose, the bill!’ called a customer whose voice seemed strange to me, no doubt because I had never heard it before.
The waitress went towards him, with her white apron, a pencil in her hair and scissors for grapes.
I looked at her. Her legs disappeared under her skirt. Her breasts were too low. Her bosom was paler at the edge of her bodice. When she went away, removing the dirty plates, her body seemed more accessible, the nape of her neck more familiar, because I was seeing her from behind.
At last she turned her attention to me. She brought me one after another a bottle of wine, a sardine without a head, a slice of meat with a bit of string on it and some mashed potato striped with a fork.
A new customer settled himself beside me. I had to eat with my elbows squeezed against my body, which I did not like. He ordered a bottle of Vichy water. He wrote his name on the label because he was not going to drink all of it on the same day.
A tramp entered the restaurant, but he did not have time to ask for anything because the waitress chased him away with her tea-towel, just as, when she was a girl on the farm, she had frightened the geese by waving her arms.
My plate, which I had wiped with a piece of bread, shone greasily.
I called out, as I had heard other people doing:
‘Rose, the bill!’
The waitress pencilled in some figures on th
e back of a menu, then, while she gave me my change, held the note I had given her between her teeth.
Although I was a bit drunk, I went out as awkwardly as a naked man.
•
After I had bought some High Life cigarettes which, in spite of their name, only cost a franc, I went into a bar.
A small amount of steam hissed as it rose from a nickel percolator. A waiter wrapped in a white apron was wiping away the marks left by the glasses on the tables with a cloth. The spoons knocked against the thick cups, sounding like counterfeit money.
As I like seeing my profile, I settled myself where I could see my image in one mirror reflected in another.
Four women were smoking at one table. They were wearing blouses coloured with packets of dye. One of them had one of those coats you blow on to find out if they are otter fur.
Just then she rose and, with her coat open and her cigarette between two straight fingers, came towards me. The heels of her shoes were too high. She came forward like somebody walking on her toes.
She sat down near me.
Her mouth looked as if it had been drawn on her skin, the outline was so precise. Her face-powder, which was thick round the nostrils, smelled pleasant. She had a speck of gold from the end of her cigarette on her lips.
She crossed her legs easily, like a man. I noticed that her white stockings were black over her ankle bones.
‘Well, dearie, what are you going to get me?’
After all, for once I might as well forget my worries and enjoy myself.
‘Whatever you like.’
The waiter, who did not seem to find this woman’s behaviour at all odd, came up.
‘A Benedictine, Ernest.’
‘Right. And you, sir?’
‘Nothing, thank you . . . I’ve already had a coffee,’ and I pointed out my cup.
‘Come on . . . do have something with me . . . darling.’
‘Yes . . . if you want . . . A Benedictine.’
When my neighbour had drunk her liqueur, she got up and, having fetched her hat from where she had been sitting before, asked me to wait.
•
I waited until six o’clock. She did not come back: she had been making fun of me.
I called the waiter and while I paid I explained to him, although he had not asked, that a severe headache had obliged me to remain there.
Then I went out. It was only after I had been wandering about near the bar for half an hour that I managed to get away from it.
Night was falling. The air was heavy. The streets smelled of tarmac, as they do when they are under repair. I had the disagreeable feeling that I was leaving the table just as people were getting ready to sit down.
IV
In the window of a baker’s shop I had read a notice which said:
Black suit for sale because of owner’s death:
trousers, jacket, waistcoat. Enquire within.
The next day, being afraid that the notice might have been taken down, I got up early.
•
When I went into the bakery the proprietor, whom I could see in his entirety as his back was reflected in a mirror, asked me what I wanted, like a shopkeeper who was not prepared to wait for me.
‘I’ve come about the suit.’
‘Right.’
He called his wife who was putting some fancy loaves on end. Although she was very fat she had a belt round her waist.
She came forward, her knees all dusty with flour.
‘The gentleman has come about the suit,’ explained the baker.
His wife was about to tell me what I needed to know when a customer came in.
She abandoned me in order to serve him, while her husband slid the coins on the marble counter into an open drawer — as one might trap a fly.
One section of this drawer was filled with an untidy pile of bank-notes. Smoothing them out and counting them in the evening when the shop is closed must give great pleasure.
‘What is the person selling the suit called?’ I asked.
‘Junod. She’s a widow.’
I was highly delighted to hear that this person was a widow. I prefer to do business with women than with men.
‘And she lives at number 23.’
‘Thank you.’
I could not go straight to the door because there was a girl crouching on the floor, washing the square flags.
•
The house which bore the number 23 had balconies which gave it a middle-class air.
I felt for my wallet. I always take this precaution before I buy anything and even sometimes when I am not buying anything.
Under the porch was a thick damp mat to wipe one’s feet on and further on in the shadow a glass door which did not open from the outside.
‘Concierge!’
A voice from the stairs called out:
‘Here.’
‘Madame Junod?’ I enquired politely.
‘What have you come about?’
‘The suit.’
‘Second floor, the door on the left.’
The wall of the staircase was painted to look like marble. The old wooden steps were polished.
On the first floor I read: mezzanine: on the second: first.
As I had counted two storeys, I stopped. At the left-hand door a bell-cord hung down to the keyhole. I pulled it gently, as it did not look very strong.
A bell tinkled, not directly behind the wall, but far away in the flat. Then someone closed a door — the kitchen door, probably.
A man appeared, hatless and without a tie. I thought he looked as if he had been taken by surprise. As I looked at him I wondered what he had been doing before I rang his bell.
‘I’ve come about the suit,’ I said at last.
‘What suit?’
‘I saw a notice in the . . .’
‘That’s the floor above. The concierge ought to have told you.’
He pointed at the ceiling with his forefinger.
‘The concierge told me it was the second floor.’
‘This is the first floor . . . can’t you read?’
I apologized and went up another storey. This time I made no mistake. Madame Junod’s card was nailed to a door. The address had been crossed out with ink.
I rang. An ugly little woman with neatly done hair opened the door. A wedding-ring sat loosely on the skinny joint of one of her fingers. It is odd how ugly women’s wedding-rings are particularly noticeable.
‘I’ve come about the suit.’
‘Oh! . . . come in . . . come in.’
This invitation pleased me. People who trust me are so unusual.
I wiped my feet very carefully as I always do when I visit anyone for the first time. I took off my hat and followed the woman.
She showed me into a dining-room. I stood in the middle, a long way from anything which might possibly be stolen.
‘Do sit down.’
‘Thank you . . . thank you.’
‘So, you’ve come about the suit.’
‘Yes . . . I have.’
‘Oh, if only you knew how much it costs me to part with my poor husband’s things! He died in his prime. If he knew that I had been forced to sell his clothes in order to live . . .’
I like it when people confide in me, just as I like it when I hear gossip about people. It makes conversation more lively.
‘What can be more painful than to sell objects you have lived with and are as familiar with as the beauty-spots on your body!’
‘That’s true . . . one clings to memories,’ I said, raising my hand.
‘Especially to memories which bring back so much. Ah, if I could, I would keep this suit. It suited my husband so well. My poor husband was exactly your height. Perhaps he was a bit better built. He certainly was a real man. He was in charge of an office. You must have read his card on the door.’
‘I didn’t notice it.’
‘The address was crossed out because we had the cards printed before we moved here. Yes, this su
it brings back a lot of memories. My husband and I went to buy it together at Reaumur. I have kept the bill. I’ll give it to you. It was an afternoon in the spring. People were looking to see if there were buds on the trees. The sun lit up the whole sky. A month later, my husband was dying. He had worn this suit twice, on two Sundays.’
‘Only twice?’
‘Yes. A suit that cost a hundred and sixty francs in 1916. At that time money was worth more than it is now. It is a proper suit. There are the trousers, the jacket and the waistcoat. Wait, I’ll go and fetch it.’
Madame Junod came back a few moments later with the suit wrapped in a piece of cloth.
She put it down on the table, removed the pins and, taking the jacket, showed it to me front and back, on her outstretched arm.
I touched the fabric.
‘Look at the lining.’
The suit really was new. There were no stains under the arms. The buttonholes and pockets were stiff.
‘It’s heart-breaking for me to have to part with these relics. I’m afraid my husband, who is in heaven, may see me. But in any case I am not rich. I have to live. My husband will forgive me. Look, you see, there we are. ’
She pointed out a photograph three-feet high which showed a married couple.
‘You see it’s an enlargement of an enlargement. The bigger my husband is, the more he seems to be alive.’ I looked carefully at the couple. I could not recognize Madame Junod.
‘Yes, that’s really us, in 1915. The next day we were going off into the country.’
She looked me up and down from head to foot.
‘He was your height, but rather better built.’
I thought that if he had been fatter, the suit would not fit me. But I was too tactful to voice my fears.
‘In 1914, we were already engaged. Oh, those evenings beside the Seine. It was too hot in Paris. And because of the war, everybody put obstacles in our way.’
‘But your husband wasn’t a soldier.’
‘Oh, but just think. He wasn’t strong. And he, who ought to have lived because he wasn’t a soldier, was carried off by sickness.’
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