But let’s get back to our Sophie! Her mere presence seemed a feat of daring in our sulking, fearful, unsavory household.
After she had been with us for some time, we were still glad to number her among our nurses, yet we could not help fearing that she might one day disturb the fabric of our infinite precautions or suddenly, one fine morning, wake up to our sleazy reality.
Sophie still failed to suspect the depth of our fetid resignation! A gang of failures! We admired her, so alive in our midst … just her way of getting up from a chair, coming to our table, leaving it again … She charmed us.
And every time she performed those simple gestures, we experienced surprise and joy. We made strides in poetry, so to speak, just marveling at her being so beautiful and so much more obviously free than we were. The rhythm of her life sprang from other, wellsprings than ours … Our wellsprings were forever slow and slimy.
The joyful strength, precise yet gentle, which animated her from her hair to her ankles troubled us, alarmed us in a charming sort of way, but definitely alarmed us, yes, that’s the word.
Though our instinct reveled in her innate joy, our peevish knowledge of the things of this world rather frowned on it, that essentially frightened, ever-present knowledge which cowers in the cellars of existence, accustomed to the worst by habit, by experience.
Sophie had the winged, elastic, precise gait that is so frequent, almost habitual, among the women of America, the gait of heroic creatures of the future, whom life and ambition carry lightly toward new kinds of adventure … Three-masters of joyful warmth, bound for the Infinite …
Parapine, who was hardly given to lyricism on the subject of attractive women, would smile to himself when she left the room. Just to look at her did your soul good. Especially mine, I must say, which had lost none of its aptitude for desire.
Wishing to take her by surprise, to ravish a little of her pride, of the prestige and power she had acquired over me, to diminish her, in short to humanize her a little and reduce her to our paltry proportions, I would go into her room when she was sleeping.
At such times, Sophie offered a very different sight—more commonplace, yet surprising and reassuring as well. Without ostentation, almost uncovered, lying crosswise on the bed, legs every which way, skin moist and relaxed, she was battling with fatigue.
In the depths of her body she dug into sleep, so hard that it made her snore. That was the only time when I found her within my reach. No more enchantment. No joking. This was serious. She toiled as though to pump more life out of existence … At such times she was greedy, drunk with wanting more and more. You should have seen her after those sleeping bouts, still swollen, her organs exultant, ecstatic under her rosy skin. At such times she was funny, as laughable as other people. For some minutes she’d reel with happiness, then the full light of day would come to her and delivered, as if too heavy a cloud had just passed, she’d resume her glorious flight …
All that can be fucked. It’s extremely pleasant to grasp this moment when matter becomes life. You rise up to the endless plateau that spreads out before men. “Whew!” you go. And again “Whew!” You come the limit up there, and then it’s like an enormous desert …
Among us, her friends rather than employers, I, I believe, was the most intimate. True, she was regularly unfaithful to me with the orderly in charge of the violent ward, an ex-fireman. For my own good, she told me, so as not to put too great a strain on me, considering all the brain work I had under way, which wasn’t exactly compatible with the demands of her fiery temperament. Entirely for my own good. She cuckolded me in the interest of hygiene. What could I say?
All this, when I think of it, could have given me nothing but pleasure if the Madelon business hadn’t been weighing on my mind. One fine day I told Sophie the whole story to see what she’d say. Telling her my troubles made me feel a little better. I was sick of the endless quarrels and resentments growing out of that wretched passion, and Sophie thought I was perfectly right.
Seeing that Robinson and I had been such good friends, she thought we should all have one big reconciliation, just patch the whole thing up as quickly as possible. Her advice came from a good heart. Central Europe is full of good hearts. The only trouble was that she didn’t know much about the characters and reactions of the people around here. With the best intentions in the world she gave me the worst possible advice. I came to realize that she’d been wrong, but too late.
“You should see Madelon,” she advised me. “From what you’ve told me, I’m sure she’s a good girl deep down … It’s just that you provoked her, and you were really brutal and mean to her … You owe her an apology and a nice present too, to make her forget …” That’s the way things were done in her country. Everything she advised me to do was exquisitely polite but not at all practical.
I took her advice, mostly because behind all the frills and foolishness, behind the diplomatic maneuvers, I envisaged the possibility of a little foursome that would have been most entertaining, in fact it would have made a new man of me. Under the pressure of age and circumstances, I note to my sorrow, my friendly feelings were taking an insidiously erotic turn. Betrayal. And Sophie, without meaning to, was abetting me in this betrayal. There was so much curiosity in Sophie she couldn’t help being attracted by danger. An excellent nature, nothing Protestant about her, she never tried to belittle the opportunities life offered and was never suspicious of them. Just my type. She went further. She understood the need for variety in the distractions of the rear end. An adventurous disposition of that sort, you’ll have to agree, is most unusual in women. We had definitely picked the right one.
She wanted me, and I thought it perfectly natural, to give her some idea of Madelon’s physique. She was afraid of seeming awkward in an intimate situation with a Frenchwoman, in view of the stupendous reputation in this line that has been pinned on Frenchwomen in foreign parts. As for enduring Robinson’s attentions at the same time, it was only to give me pleasure that she consented. Robinson didn’t send her at all, so she said, but on the whole we were in agreement. That was the main thing. Okay.
I waited a while for a good opportunity to approach Robinson with my plan for a general reconciliation. One morning when he was in the office copying medical reports into the big book, the moment struck me as propitious, and I interrupted him to ask him very simply whether he thought it would be a good idea for me to see Madelon and suggest that we let our violent bygones be bygones … Whether on the same occasion I might introduce her to Sophie, my new friend? And lastly, if he didn’t think it was time we all got together and patched up our quarrels.
At first, I could see, he hesitated, then he replied, but without enthusiasm, that he saw no objection … I suspect Madelon had told him that I’d try to see her soon on one pretext or another. About the slap in the face I’d given her the day she came to Vigny, I didn’t breathe a word.
I couldn’t run the risk of his yelling at me there and calling me a brute in public, because after all, though we’d been friends a long time, there in the institution he was under my orders. Authority first.
January was a funny time for that sort of operation. Because it was most convenient, we decided to meet in Paris one Sunday and go to the movies together. We thought maybe we’d drop in at the Batignolles carnival for a while first if it wasn’t too cold out. Robinson had promised to take her to the Batignolles carnival. Madelon, he told me, was wild about carnivals. That was a lucky thing. Meeting again for the first time, a carnival was the best possible place.
We sure got an eyeful of that carnival! And a headful too! Bim bam! And bam again! We whirl around! And we’re carried away! And we scream and we yell! There we were, in the crowd with lights and noise and all the rest of it! Step up, step up! Show your skill, show your daring, and laugh laugh laugh! Whee! Everyone tried in his overcoat to appear to his best advantage, sharp and just a little aloof, to show that he usually went elsewhere for his entertainment,
to more “expensif” places, as they say in English.
You tried to make the impression of knowing, lighthearted young blades in spite of the icy wind, just one more humiliation, and the depressing fear that you were spending too much money on these amusements and might have occasion to regret it for a whole week.
The merry-go-round sends up a big belch of music. It can’t quite deliver itself of the waltz from Faust, but it tries hard. The waltz plumps down and shoots up again and swirls around the circular ceiling, which spins with its thousands of pastry light bulbs. The steam calliope’s having a bad time. The music is giving it a pain in its pipe, its stomach. Would you care for a piece of nougat? Or would you rather try another target? Take your choice.
In our group at the shooting gallery it was Madelon, with the brim of her hat turned up over her forehead, who showed the most skill. “Look,” she says to Robinson. “My hand isn’t shaking. And we had plenty to drink, didn’t we?” … Just to show you the kind of things we were saying. We’d just come out of a restaurant. “One more try!” And Madelon won the bottle of champagne. Bing bang! Bull’s-eye! Then I bet her she can’t catch me on the Dodge’em cars. “I’ll take you up on that,” she says as chipper as you please. “We’ll take separate cars!” And there we go! I was glad she’d accepted. It was a way of making up to her. Sophie wasn’t jealous. She had her reasons.
So Robinson climbs into the back car with Madelon and I get into another up front with Sophie. Man, do we collide! And it’s crash! And hold tight! But I see right away that Madelon doesn’t enjoy being shaken up. Neither does Léon for that matter, he used to like it, but no more. It’s plain that he doesn’t feel comfortable with us. While we’re clutching at the rail, some sailorboys come along and start feeling us up, men and women alike, and making propositions. We’re freezing. We shake them off. We laugh. More and more feeler-uppers come from all directions with music and rhythm and excitement. You get such jolts on these barrels on wheels that your eyes pop out of your head every time you clash. Great fun! Violence and joy! The whole accordion of pleasures! I want to make up with Madelon before we leave the carnival. I want to very much, but she doesn’t respond to my overtures anymore. It’s no soap. She’s snubbing me. Keeping me at a distance. I can’t make her out. These moods that come over her. I’d had hopes of something better. Physically, come to think of it, she has changed completely.
She can’t bear comparison with Sophie, no sparkle, no luster. Good humor was more becoming to her, but now she has an air of possessing superior knowledge. That irritates me. I’d gladly give her another slap in the face, maybe that would bring her around or maybe then she’d tell me what she knows that’s so superior. Come on, smile! This is a place of merriment, we haven’t come here to weep! Let’s whoop it up!
She’s found work with an aunt of hers, so she tells Sophie while we’re strolling later on. On the Rue du Rocher. Her aunt is a corset maker. May as well believe her.
It wasn’t hard to see that if reconciliation was the idea, this meeting was a failure. My little scheme was a washout too. In fact, a gigantic flop.
Seeing each other again had been a mistake. Sophie hadn’t really grasped the situation. She hadn’t realized that this get-together would just make everything more complicated … Robinson should have warned me, told me how stubborn she was … Too bad! Oh well! Bam! Bam! The carnival goes on! Let’s try the “Caterpillar,” as they call it. My idea and my treat! One more attempt to make up with Madelon. But she keeps slipping away from me, avoiding me. Taking advantage of the crush, she climbs into another seat up front with Robinson, I’m flummoxed again. We’re dazed by waves and whirls of darkness. I mutter under my breath that it’s hopeless. Sophie finally agrees with me. She realizes that in this whole affair I had been led away by my lecherous fantasies. “You see how it is? She’s sore. I think we’d better leave them alone now … You and I could drop in at the Chabanais before we go home …” That suggestion appealed to Sophie, because while still in Prague she had often heard people talking about the Chabanais, and she was delighted at the thought of trying the Chabanais and judging for herself. But then we figured that considering the amount of money we had brought with us, the Chabanais would be too expensive. We’d just have to try and revive our interest in the carnival.
While we were in the Caterpillar, Robinson must have had a scene with Madelon. They were both in a foul humor when they got out. You really couldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole that evening. To smooth things over I suggested an absorbing amusement—fishing for bottlenecks. Madelon accepted sulkily. Even so she beat us all hollow. She got her ring just over the cork and slipped it on just before the bell rang. Click! And that was that. The stand owner couldn’t get over it. He gave her a half bottle of Grand-Due de Malvoison.* Just to give you an idea of how skillful she was. But it didn’t make her happy. Right away she announced that she wouldn’t drink it. “It’s no good,” she said. So Robinson uncorked the bottle and drank it. Down the hatch! At one gulp. A funny thing for him to do, because he practically never drank.
Then we came to the tin wedding. Biff! Bang! We all had a try with hard balls. It’s depressing how clumsy I am at these things … I congratulate Robinson. He beats me at any game. But not even his skill could make him smile. They both looked as if we were leading them off to slaughter. We tried hard, but nothing could put any life into them. “This is a carnival!” I yelled at them. For once I was completely out of ideas.
My shouting things in their ears and trying to cheer them up didn’t mean a thing to them. They didn’t even hear me. “What about youth?” I asked them. “What are we going to do about it? … Has youth stopped making merry? Look at me, ten years older than the rest of you! All right, sweetheart, what do you say?” He and Madelon looked at me as if I were drunk, gassed, nuts, and there was no point in even answering me … no point in trying to speak to me, because I’d certainly be incapable of understanding anything they could say … I wouldn’t understand a thing … maybe they’re right, I said to myself, looking anxiously at the people around us.
But all those people were doing the things you do to have fun, they weren’t nursing their little troubles like us. Far from it. They were getting something out of the carnival. A franc’s worth here! … Fifty centimes’ worth there! … Lights! Music, spiel, and candy … They were buzzing around like flies, scads of them, with their little grubs in their arms, livid, pasty-faced babies, so pale in the glaring light that you could hardly see them. Just around their noses those babies had a bit of pink, in the area for colds and getting kissed.
Among all the stands I immediately recognized the Gallery of the Nations … A memory, I didn’t mention it to the others.—That makes fifteen years that have gone by … A long time … And what a lot of friends I’ve lost along the way! I’d never have thought the Gallery of the Nations could drag itself out of the mud it was sunk in out there in Saint-Cloud … But now it was all refurbished, as good as new, with music and everything. You gotta hand it to them. And all these people shooting. A shooting gallery always does business. And the egg was back again like me, there in the middle, supported by practically nothing, bobbing up and down. It cost two francs. We passed it by, we were too cold to try, it was best to keep moving. But not because we were short of change, our pockets were still full of change, our little pocket music.
I’d have tried anything just then to put some life into us, but no one was doing a thing to help. If Parapine had been with us, it would probably have been worse, seeing how gloomy he was with people. Luckily he’d stayed home to look after the loonies. I was sorry I’d come. Then Madelon started laughing after all, but there was nothing funny about her laugh. Robinson, who was beside her, snickered so as not to be different. Then Sophie started making jokes. That was all we needed.
As we were passing the photographer’s booth, he noticed our hesitation. We had no great desire to go in, except Sophie maybe. But a moment later, thanks to our
hesitation, we were at the mercy of his camera. He drawled out his commands, and we submitted on the cardboard bridge—he must have built it himself—of a purported ship, La Belle France. The name was written on imitation life belts. We stood there for quite some time, staring straight ahead, challenging the future. Other customers were waiting impatiently for us to come down off the bridge, and already they were avenging themselves for having to wait by not only finding us too ugly for words, but telling us so out loud.
They thought they could take advantage of our not being able to move. But they couldn’t faze Madelon, she slanged them back with the full force of her Southern accent. She could be heard for miles around. She told them where to get off!
A magnesium flash. We all flinch. We each get a picture. We’re even uglier than before. The rain comes through the canvas roof. Our feet are footsore and frozen stiff. The wind had found holes all over us while we were posing, so much so that there’s hardly anything left of my overcoat.
All we can do is keep walking among the booths. I didn’t dare suggest going back to Vigny. It was too early. Our teeth were already chattering with the cold and the heart-throb organ of the merry-go-round jangled our nerves till we were shivering even more. The end of the whole world—that’s what the damned organ is laughing about. It bellows its message of disaster through its silver-plated kazoos, and the tune goes out to die in the environing darkness, along the pissy streets that come down from Montmartre.
Journey to the End of the Night Page 49