Ralph stood for a moment with his mouth open, then his eyes glittered.
‘As it’s you — I don’t mind. For fun, of course,’ he said in a sibilant voice. ‘And no dirty business. You won’t get the best of it.’
Daniel grabbed him by the belt: ‘I’ll show you, my poppet.’
Ralph was lithe and sinewy: his muscles rippled under Daniel’s hands. They wrestled in silence, and Daniel began to pant, he figured himself somehow as a tall fellow wearing a moustache. Ralph finally managed to lift him off his feet, but Daniel thrust both hands into his face, and Ralph let go. They stood confronting each other, each with a venomous smile upon his face.
‘So you would, would you!’ said Ralph in a strange voice. He made a sudden dash at Daniel with his head down. Daniel dodged his head, and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He was already out of breath. Ralph did not look in the least tired. They clinched again, and began to revolve in the middle of the room. Daniel was aware of a sour and feverish taste at the back of his mouth. ‘I must finish him off or he’ll do me in.’ He pushed at Ralph with all his strength, but Ralph resisted. Daniel was possessed by a maniacal fury, as he thought: ‘I’m making a fool of myself.’ He bent down suddenly, seized Ralph by the small of his back, lifted him, flung him on the bed, and with the same impulse fell on top of him. Ralph struggled and tried to scratch, but Daniel seized his wrists and held them down on the bolster. Thus they remained for several moments. Daniel was too exhausted to get up. Ralph lay immovable and helpless, with the weight of a man — another grown man — flattening him out.
‘Well, who had the best of that?’ gasped Daniel. ‘Who had the best of that, my little friend?’
Ralph promptly smiled, and said slyly: ‘You’re a stout fellow, Monsieur Lalique.’
Daniel released him, and rose to his feet. He was out of breath, and felt humiliated. His heart was throbbing violently.
‘I used to be a stout fellow,’ he said. ‘At the moment I can hardly get my wind.’
Ralph was on his feet, straightening his collar, and breathing naturally. He tried to laugh, but he evaded Daniel’s eyes.
‘Wind isn’t what matters,’ he said generously. ‘It’s training.’
They both grinned with an air of embarrassment. Daniel longed to take Ralph by the throat and dash his fist into his face. He slipped on his coat again: his shirt, soaked as it was with sweat, stuck to his skin.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must be off. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, Monsieur Lalique.’
‘I’ve hidden something for you in the room,’ said Daniel, ‘look for it carefully, and you’ll find it.’
The door closed. Daniel walked rather unsteadily downstairs. ‘First and foremost I must get a wash,’ he thought: ‘wash myself from head to foot.’ As he emerged into the street, a thought suddenly came upon him and brought him up short. He had shaved that morning before going out: and he had left his razor on the mantelpiece wide open.
As he opened the door, Mathieu released the muffled tinkle of a bell. ‘I didn’t notice it this morning,’ he thought: ‘I suppose they connect it up in the evening, after nine o’clock.’ He flung a sidelong glance through the glass door of the office, and saw a shadow: there was someone there. He walked sedately up to the keyboard. Room 21. The key was hanging from a nail. Mathieu took it quickly, and slipped it into his pocket, then turned and approached the staircase. A door opened behind his back: ‘They’re going to stop me,’ he thought. He was not afraid: this had been foreseen.
‘Hullo there! Where are you going?’ said a harsh voice.
Mathieu turned. It was a tall thin woman in eyeglasses. She looked important and suspicious. Mathieu smiled at her.
‘Where are you going?’ she repeated. ‘Couldn’t you inquire at the office?’
Bolivar. The Negro’s name was Bolivar.
‘I’m going to see M. Bolivar, on the third floor,’ said Mathieu quietly.
‘Ah! And why were you nosing round the keyboard,’ said the woman suspiciously.
‘I was looking to see if his key was there.’
‘And isn’t it?’
‘No. He’s in,’ said Mathieu.
The woman went up to the board. One chance in two.
‘Yes,’ she said, with an air of disappointment and relief. ‘He’s in.’
Mathieu walked upstairs without replying. On the third landing, he stopped for a moment, then he slipped the key into the lock of No .21, and opened the door.
The room was plunged in darkness. A red darkness that smelt of fever and scent. He locked the door behind him, and went up to the bed. At first he held out his hands in front of him so as not to bump into anything, but he soon became accustomed to the dimness. The bed was unmade, there were two pillows on the bolster, still hollowed by the weight of heads. Mathieu knelt down by the suitcase and opened it: he was aware of a faint desire to be sick. The notes he had dropped that morning had fallen on to the packages of letters: Mathieu took four: he did not want to steal anything for his own benefit. ‘What am I going to do with the key?’ He hesitated for a moment, and then decided to leave it in the lock of the suitcase. As he got up he noticed, at the far end of the room, a door which he had not seen that morning. He went and opened it: it was a dressing-room. Mathieu struck a match, and saw his face, gilded by the flame, appear in a mirror. He looked at himself until the flame went out, then he dropped the match and went back into the bedroom. He could now clearly distinguish the furniture, Lola’s clothes, her pyjamas, her dressing-gown, her coat and skirt, carefully laid out on chairs and suitcases: he laughed a curt, malicious laugh, and went out.
The corridor was deserted, but he could hear the sound of footsteps and laughter, there were people coming upstairs. He half-turned to go back into the room: but no: he did not in the least mind if he were caught. He slipped the key into the lock and double-locked the door. When he stood up again, he saw a woman followed by a soldier.
‘It’s on the fourth floor,’ said the woman.
And the soldier said: ‘It’s a long way up.’
Mathieu let them pass, and then went down. He reflected with amusement that the hardest part was yet to come: the key would have to be replaced on the board.
On the first floor he stopped and leaned over the banisters. The woman was standing in the entrance doorway, with her back towards him, and looking out into the street. Mathieu walked noiselessly down the last few stairs, hung the key on its nail, then tiptoed up again to the first landing, waited a moment, and marched heavily down the staircase. The woman turned, and he greeted her as he passed.
‘Good evening, Madame.’
‘Evening,’ she mumbled.
He went out, feeling the weight of the woman’s look upon his back, and he wanted to laugh.
Dead the beast, dead the poison. He walks with long strides, feeling rather weak in the legs. He is afraid, his mouth is dry. The streets are too blue, the air is too soft. The flame runs along the fuse, with a barrel of powder at the end of it. He dashes upstairs four steps at a time. He finds it difficult to put the key into the lock, his hand shakes. Two cats dart between his legs; they are afraid of him just now. Dead the beast...
The razor is there, on the night table, wide open. He picks it up by the handle and looks at it The handle is black, the blade is white. The flame runs along the fuse. He slips his finger down the edge of the blade, he feels at the tip of his finger the acid savour of a cut, he shudders: it is my hand that must do it all. The razor does not help, it lies inert, weighing no more than an insect in the hand. He takes a few steps into the room, looking for support or for a sign. Everything is inert and silent. Table and chairs are all inert, afloat in a motionless light. He alone is erect, he alone alive in the oppressively blue light. Nothing will help me, nothing will happen. The cats are scratching in the kitchen. He leans his hand upon the table, it responds to his pressure with an equal pressure, no more, no less. Objects are servile: submissive: subject to cont
rol. My hand will do it all. He yawns, from anguish and from boredom: but mainly from boredom. He is alone upon the scene. Nothing impels him to decide, nothing stops him from doing so: he alone must decide. His act is purely negative. That red flower between his legs — it is not there: that red stain on the floor, it is not there. He looks at the floor. The floor is an even, smooth expanse: nowhere is there room for any mark. I shall be lying on the floor, inert, my clothes torn and sticky: the razor will be on the floor, red, jagged and inert. He is spellbound by the razor, on the floor: if only he could picture them vividly enough — the red stain and the gash, vividly enough to bring them into being without his having to commit that act. Pain — I can bear it. I long for it, I welcome it But it’s the act — that act. He looks at the ceiling, then at the blade. In vain: the air is soft, the room is softly lit, the razor gleams softly, weighs softly in his hand. An act, an act is needed, the moment rocks upon the first drop of blood. It is my hand, my hand that must do it all.
He goes to the window, be looks at the sky. He draws the curtains: with his left hand. He switches on the light: with his left hand. He transfers the razor to his left. He takes out his pocket-book and produces four thousand-franc notes. He takes an envelope from his desk and puts the money into the envelope. He writes on the envelope: For M. Delarue, 12 Rue Huyghens. He places the envelope conspicuously on the table. He gets up, he walks, the beast is lying close against his stomach, the beast is sucking at him, he can feel it. Yes or no. He is caught in the trap. He must decide. He has all night for doing so. Alone in confrontation with himself. All night. His right hand recovers the razor. He is afraid of his hand, he watches it: quite stiff at the extremity of his arm. And he says: ‘Now!’ A little laughing shiver runs up him from the small of the back to his neck. ‘Now — finish it!’ If only he could find himself with his throat cut, as a man finds himself on his legs in the morning, when the alarm has sounded, without knowing how he got there. But first that foul and filthy act must be done, carefully and patiently he must undo his buttons. The inertness of the razor passes into his hand, into his arm. A warm and living body with an arm of stone. The huge arm of a statue, inert, frozen, with a razor at the tip of it. He loosens his grip. The razor falls on to the table.
The razor is there, on the table, open. Nothing has changed. He can reach out a hand, and pick it up. The razor, inert still, will obey. There is yet time; there will be plenty of time, I have all night. He walks across the room. He does not hate himself, he now wants nothing, he is adrift in a void. The beast is there between his legs. How loathsome! Well, my young friend, if it disgusts you too much, the razor lies there, on the table. Dead the beast... The razor. The razor. He walks round and round the table without taking his eyes off the razor. Will nothing stop me from picking it up? Nothing. The room and all in it is inert and quiet. He reaches out a hand, he touches the blade. My hand will do it all. He leaps back, opens the door, and dashes out on to the staircase. One of his cats darts wildly downstairs in front of him.
Daniel ran out into the street. Up above, the door stood wide open, the lamp was still alight, and the razor on the table: the cats were prowling about the dark stairway. There was nothing to prevent him from retracing his steps, and going back. The room was awaiting him, submissive to his will. Nothing had been decided, nothing ever would be decided. He must run, he must get away as far as possible, immerse himself in noise and light, in a throng of people, he must become a man among his fellows, and feel the eyes of other men upon him. He ran all the way to the Roi Olaf, and pushed open the door, gasping for breath.
‘Bring me a whisky,’ he panted.
His heart was shaken by heavy throbs that reached to the tips of his fingers, there was an inky taste in his mouth. He sat down in an alcove at the far end.
‘You look tired,’ said the waiter with a respectful air.
He was a tall Norwegian who spoke French without a trace of accent. He looked genially at Daniel, and Daniel felt himself transformed into a rich, eccentric client who could be relied on for a good tip. He smiled: ‘I’m rather out of sorts,’ he explained, ‘a little feverish.’
The waiter nodded and departed. Daniel relapsed into his solitude. His room awaited him up yonder, all prepared, the door stood wide open, the razor glittered on the table. ‘I shall never be able to go back home.’ He would drink for as long as he felt inclined. On the stroke of four, the waiter, assisted by the barman, would put him into a taxi, as always happened on these occasions.
The waiter returned with a half-filled glass and a bottle of Perrier water.
‘Just as you like it,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
Daniel was alone in this very ordinary, quiet café, all around him a froth of amber light, and amber gleams from the wood of the partitions, which were plastered with thick varnish, sticky to the touch. He poured the Perrier water into his glass, the whisky sparkled for a moment, busy bubbles mounted to the surface, like a throng of eager gossips, and then the little agitation subsided, Daniel eyed the yellow, viscous liquid, still faintly flecked with effervescence: it looked very like flat beer. At the bar, out of his sight, the waiter and the barman were talking in Norwegian.
‘More drink!’
With a sudden stroke he swept the glass off the table, and sent it crashing to the floor. The barman and the waiter promptly stopped their conversation: Daniel leaned down beneath the table: the liquid was oozing slowly over the tiled floor, thrusting out tentacles towards the foot of an adjacent chair.
The waiter hurried up.
‘How clumsy of me!’ lamented Daniel with a smile.
‘Shall I get you another?’ asked the waiter. He had bent down with back outstretched to mop up the liquid, and collect the fragments of the glass.
‘Yes... No,’ said Daniel brusquely. ‘It’s a warning,’ he added in a jocular tone. ‘I mustn’t take any alcohol this evening. Bring me another small Perrier with a slice of lemon.’
The waiter departed. Daniel felt more composed. An impenetrable present had begun to encompass him once more. The smell of ginger, amber light, and wood partitions.
‘Thanks.’
The waiter had opened the bottle and half-filled the glass. Daniel drank and put the glass down. ‘I knew it,’ he thought: ‘I knew I wouldn’t do it.’ While he was striding through the streets and dashing upstairs four steps at a time, he knew he would not actually do the deed: he knew it when he picked up the razor, he had not deceived himself for one second — wretched comedian that he was! All that had happened was that, in the outcome, he had succeeded in frightening himself, and had fled in disorder. He picked up his glass and gripped it: with all his might he longed to loathe himself, he would never find so good an opportunity. ‘Beast! — coward and comedian: beast!’ For an instant he thought he would succeed, but no — these were mere words. He ought to have... Ah, no matter who it was, he would have accepted any person’s judgement, no matter whose, so it were not his own, not that ghastly self-contempt, that utterly futile, weak, moribund self-contempt, which seemed at every moment on the point of self-annihilation, but always survived. If only someone knew, if he could feel upon him the weight of someone else’s contempt. But I never shall, I would sooner castrate myself. He looked at his watch, eleven o’clock, eight more hours to kill before morning. Time flowed no longer.
Eleven o’clock! He gave a sudden start. ‘Mathieu is with Marcelle. She’s talking to him. At this very moment, she is talking to him, she puts her arms round his neck, and thinks him deplorably slow in declaring himself... This too; — I did it.’ He began to tremble all over: ‘he will give way, he will end by yielding, I have wrecked his life.’
He had relinquished his glass, he was on his feet, staring into vacancy, he cannot despise himself nor yet forget himself. He wishes he were dead, and he exists, he obstinately maintains his own existence. He wants to be dead, he thinks he wants to be dead, he thinks that he thinks he wants to be dead... There is a way.
‘Did you call me?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel, absent-mindedly. ‘That’s for yourself.’
He threw a hundred francs on to the table. There is a way. A way to settle everything. He stood erect and walked briskly towards the door. ‘An admirable way.’ He laughed shortly: he was always amused when he found occasion to play a little trick upon himself.
CHAPTER 17
MATHIEU closed the door quietly, lifting it slightly on its hinges so that it should make no noise, then he set his foot on the top step of the staircase, bent down and unlaced his shoes. His chest was almost touching his knee. He removed his shoes, held them in his left hand, got up, and laid his right hand on the banisters, looking upwards at the pale pink haze that seemed to hover in the shadows. He passed no more judgements on himself. Slowly he climbed up into the darkness, treading carefully to avoid making the stairs creak.
The door of the room was ajar: he pushed it open. The room smelt oppressive. All the heat of the day had settled into its depths, like the lees in a bottle. On the bed sat a woman eyeing him with a smile: Marcelle. She had put on her elegant white dressing-gown with the gilded cord, she was carefully made-up, and her expression was composed and cheerful. Mathieu shut the door behind him and stood motionless, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, the unbearable delight of mere existence had caught him by the throat. He was there, he was finding his fulfilment there, in the presence of this smiling lady, immersed in this odour of sickness, sweets, and love. Marcelle had thrown her head back, and was now surveying him maliciously through half-closed eyelids. He returned her smile, and deposited his shoes in the wardrobe. A voice swollen with affection sighed at his back: ‘Darling.’
He turned abruptly round and stood backing on to the wardrobe.
‘Hullo!’ he said in an undertone.
Marcelle raised a hand to the level of her temple, and flickered her fingers.
The Age of Reason Page 34