It was a transparent night without a breath of wind; I imagined that the Seine flowing through its circular bridges, composites of the arches and their reflections, must look like the Bosporus. And, a symbol perhaps of the invasion predicted in the defeatism of M. de Charlus, or perhaps of the cooperation of our Muslim brothers with the armies of France, the moon, narrow and curved like a sequin, seemed to set the Parisian sky under the Oriental sign of the crescent.
For a few moments more, however, as he bade me farewell, he pressed my hand in a crushing grip, a peculiarly German habit among people of the Baron’s sort, and continuing for several moments, as Cottard might have said, to knead my hand, it was as if M. de Charlus had wanted to restore to my joints a suppleness which they had never lost. In some blind men, touch compensates to some extent for the absence of sight. I am not quite sure which sense it was replacing here. He may have believed he was merely shaking my hand, as he doubtless believed he was merely seeing a Senegalese soldier who was passing in the darkness and did not deign to notice that he was being admired. But in both instances the Baron was mistaken, the intensity of contact and of gaze exceeding the bounds of propriety. ‘Doesn’t that embody all the Orient of Decamps, Fromentin, Ingres and Delacroix?’ he asked, still immobilized by the passing Senegalese. ‘You know, personally, things and people only ever interest me as a painter, or a philosopher. Besides, I am too old. But how unfortunate that, to complete the picture, one of us is not an odalisque!’
*
It was not the Orient of Decamps, nor even of Delacroix, that started to haunt my imagination after the Baron had left me, but the old Orient of the Arabian Nights which I had loved so much, and as I plunged deeper into the maze of these dark streets I thought of the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid seeking for adventure in the hidden quarters of Baghdad. The hot weather and my walk had made me thirsty, but all the bars were long since shut and, because of the petrol shortage, the few taxis I came across, driven by Levantines or negroes, did not even bother to respond to my signals. The only place where I might have been able to get a drink and to gather my strength for the walk home would have been a hotel.
But in the street where I found myself, some distance from the centre of the city, all the hotels, since the Gothas had started dropping their bombs on Paris, had closed. The same was true of almost all the shops, the shop-keepers, either because of a lack of staff or because they themselves had taken fright, having fled to the country, and left the usual handwritten notice announcing that they would reopen, although even that seemed problematic, at some date far in the future. The few establishments which had still managed to survive similarly announced that they would open only twice a week. The whole quarter exuded a sense of poverty, neglect and fear. I was therefore all the more surprised to see that among these abandoned houses there was one where life seemed, on the contrary, to have triumphed over fear and bankruptcy and where activity and wealth continued to flourish. Behind the closed shutters of each window the lights, dimmed on account of the police regulations, none the less revealed a total disregard for economy. And at every moment the door opened to allow some new visitor to enter or leave. It was a hotel which (because of the money its owners must have been making) must have aroused the jealousy of all the neighbouring shop-keepers; and my curiosity was also aroused when, some fifteen metres away from me, that is to say too far away for me to be able, in the profound darkness, to make out who it was, I saw an officer hurriedly leaving it.
Something about him struck me, all the same; it was not his face, which I did not see, nor his uniform, which was concealed under a heavy greatcoat, but the extraordinary disproportion between the number of different points through which his body passed and the small number of seconds it took for him to effect this exit, which looked like an attempted dash to safety on the part of somebody under siege. So that I was reminded, even if I did not actually recognize him – I will not say exactly of the frame, or the slenderness, or the gait, or the speed of Saint-Loup – but of the sort of ubiquity which was so peculiar to him. The soldier who was capable of occupying so many different positions in space in such a short time had disappeared down a side-street without seeing me, and I stood there wondering whether or not I should enter the hotel, the modest appearance of which made me doubt very much whether it was Saint-Loup who had left it.
Involuntarily I recalled that Saint-Loup had been unjustly implicated in a case of espionage because his name had been found on some letters captured on a German officer. He had, of course, been completely cleared by the military authorities. But in spite of myself I connected this memory with what I had just seen. Was this hotel being used as a meeting-place for spies? The officer had been gone only a few moments when I saw some private soldiers from various branches of the service, which added further to my suspicions. On the other hand, I was extremely thirsty. I would probably be able to find something to drink there, and I might also have an opportunity, despite my anxiety at the prospect, to try to assuage my curiosity.
I do not think, therefore, that it was curiosity about my encounter which made me decide to climb the short flight of steps, at the top of which the door to a sort of lobby was open, doubtless because of the heat. I thought at first that I would not be able to satisfy my new-found curiosity, for from the steps, where I remained in shadow, I saw several people come and ask for a room only to be told that there was not a single one left. There could be nothing against them, though, except that they were obviously not part of the nest of spies, for a common sailor who appeared a moment later was speedily given room number 28. From my unseen position in the darkness, I could observe several soldiers and two working-class men who were chatting peacefully in a stifling little room, brashly decorated with coloured pictures of women cut out of illustrated magazines and reviews. These men, chatting peacefully, displayed undeniably patriotic views: ‘In the end it doesn’t matter, you have to do what your mates do,’ said one. ‘Oh, you can be quite sure I don’t intend to get killed,’ another, who, from what I could gather, was leaving the next day for a dangerous position, replied to some expression of good wishes which I had not heard. ‘Blimey, at twenty-two, after just six months, it would be a bit steep,’ he exclaimed in a voice that revealed, even more than the desire to live for a long time, a consciousness of the justice of his reasoning, as if the fact that he was only twenty-two had to give him a better chance of not being killed, and as if it were quite impossible that such a thing might happen. ‘It’s amazing in Paris, said another; you wouldn’t think there was a war on. What about you, Julot, are you still going to join up? – Of course I’m going to join up, I want to get in a few shots at those dirty Boches. – But that Joffre, he’s just a man who sleeps with politicians’ wives, he’s never done anything himself. – It’s awful to say things like that,’ said a slightly older airman, and turning to the workman who had just made the statement: ‘I’d advise you not to talk like that in the front line, you’d soon get done in by the poilus.’ The banality of the conversation did not make me very keen to hear more of it, and I was about to go in or go back down the steps when I was jolted out of my indifference by an exchange which made me shudder: ‘It’s amazing the boss isn’t back yet. Christ, I don’t know where he’ll find chains at this time of night. – But the guy’s already tied up, isn’t he? – Sure he is, up to a point. But if I was tied up like that I’d be able to undo my chains. – But they’re padlocked. – Of course they’re padlocked, but it’s not impossible to open a padlock. What it is, the chains aren’t long enough. – Don’t tell me what it is, I was beating him all last night till my hands were covered in blood. – Is it you that’s beating him tonight? – No, not me. It’s Maurice. But it’ll be me on Sunday, the boss promised me.’ I realized now why the sturdy arm of the sailor had been needed. If they had turned away peaceable citizens, it was not because the hotel was a nest of spies. A terrible crime was about to be committed, unless somebody arrived in time to reveal it and have the culprits arreste
d. And yet the whole thing, in this peaceful but ominous night, had the appearance of a dream or a fairy-tale, and so it was both with the pride of a champion of justice and the delight of a poet that I resolutely entered the hotel.
I touched my hat lightly, and the people in the room, without getting up, responded more or less politely to my greeting. ‘Could you please tell me who I should speak to? I should like a room, and something to drink sent up to it. – You’d better wait a minute, the boss has gone out. – But the owner’s here, he’s upstairs, put in one of the men who had been talking. – But you know he can’t be disturbed. – Do you think they’ll give me a room? – I should think so. – 43 must be free,’ said the young man who was sure he would not be killed because he was twenty-two. And he moved a little way along the sofa to make room for me. ‘Perhaps someone could open the window a bit, it’s very smoky in here!’ said the airman; and indeed each of them had a pipe or a cigarette. ‘Yes, but then close the shutters first, remember it’s forbidden to show any light because of the Zeppelins. – There won’t be any more Zeppelins over. There was even something in the papers about them all being shot down. – Won’t be any more over, won’t be any more over, what do you know about it? When you’ve had fifteen months at the front like me, and shot down your fifth Boche aeroplane, then you can talk. You don’t want to believe the papers. They were over Compiègne yesterday, they killed a mother and two children. – A mother and two children!’ said the young man who hoped not to be killed, with fiery eyes and a look of deep pity on his lively, open and extremely likeable face. ‘There’s been no news of big Julot. His “godmother” hasn’t had a letter from him for eight days, and that’s the first time he’s gone so long without writing. – Who is his “godmother”? – She’s the woman who looks after the public convenience just past the Olympia. – Are they sleeping together? – What are you on about? She’s a married woman, very respectable. She sends him money every week out of the kindness of her heart. She’s really nice, she is. – So you know big Julot, do you? – Do I know him!’ rejoined the young man of twenty-two with enthusiasm. ‘He’s one of my best and closest friends. There aren’t many I’d rate as high as him, he’s a good mate, he’d do anything for you. You’re dead right, it’d be a disaster if something’s happened to him.’ Somebody suggested a game of dice, and from the feverish haste with which the young man of twenty-two threw the dice and shouted out the results, his eyes starting from his head, it was easy to see that he had a
gambler’s temperament. I did not catch the next thing that was said, but he exclaimed in a deeply pitying voice: ‘Julot a pimp! You mean he says he’s a pimp. But he couldn’t pimp even if he tried. I’ve seen him with my own eyes paying his girl, actually paying her. I mean I’m not saying that Algerian Jeanne didn’t use to give him something, but never more than five francs, and she was working in a brothel, she was earning over fifty francs a day. Giving him just five francs, how stupid can a guy be! And now she’s at the front, it’s a hard life, granted, but she can make as much as she wants. And she doesn’t send him a thing. Huh, a pimp, Julot? There’s plenty could call themselves pimps at that rate. Not only is he not a pimp, but if you want my opinion, he’s a bloody fool.’ The oldest of the group, whom, doubtless because of his age, the manager had charged with maintaining a degree of respectability, had gone to the lavatory for a moment, and heard only the end of this conversation. But he could not help looking over at me and appeared visibly upset at the effect it must have had on me. Without addressing himself specifically to the young man of twenty-two, although it was he who had just been expounding this theory of venal love, he said, in a general way: ‘You’re talking too much, and it’s too loud, the window is open, and some people are asleep at this time of night. You know perfectly well that if the boss came back and heard you talking like that, he wouldn’t like it.’
At that precise moment we heard the door open, and everybody fell silent, thinking it was the manager, but it was only a foreign chauffeur, who was warmly welcomed by everybody. But seeing a splendid watch-chain prominently displayed on the chauffeur’s jacket, the young man of twenty-two threw him an interrogative and amused glance, followed by a frown and a severe wink in my direction. And I understood that the first look meant: ‘What’s that? Did you steal it? Congratulations.’ And the second: ‘Don’t say anything, because of this bloke we don’t know.’ Suddenly the manager came in, carrying several metres of heavy iron chain, enough to chain up several convicts, sweating, and said: ‘What a weight! If you weren’t all so lazy, I wouldn’t have to go and get them myself.’ I told him that I wanted a room. ‘Just for a few hours, I couldn’t find a cab and I’m feeling a little ill. But I would like something to drink sent up. – Pierrot, go down to the cellar and get some cassis, and tell them to get number 43 ready. There’s number 7 ringing again. They say they’re ill. Ill my foot, I think they’ve been taking coke, they look half-shot. Better kick them out. Has 22 had clean sheets? Good. There goes 7 again, run and see to it. Come on, Maurice, what are you standing about for? You know someone’s waiting for you, get up to 14b. And hurry up about it.’ And Maurice left hastily, following the manager, who, a bit annoyed about my seeing the chains, disappeared with them. ‘How come you’re so late?’ the young man of twenty-two asked the chauffeur. ‘What do you mean, late? I’m an hour early. But it’s too hot for walking about. I’m not meant to be meeting him until midnight. – Who have you come for then? – For the lovely Pamela,’ said the oriental chauffeur, whose smile revealed his fine white teeth. ‘Ah!’ said the young man of twenty-two.
Soon I was taken up to Room 43, but the room was so unpleasantly airless and my curiosity was so great that, once I’d drunk my cassis, I went downstairs again, then, a new idea having struck me, I went back up, past the floor that Room 43 was on, as far as the top floor. Suddenly, from a room set apart from the others at the end of a corridor, I thought I heard stifled moans. I walked quickly in their direction and placed my ear to the door. ‘I beg you, mercy, mercy, have pity, untie me, don’t hit me so hard, said a voice. I’ll crawl, I’ll kiss your feet, I shan’t do it again. Have pity. – No, you piece of filth, replied another voice, and if you scream and drag yourself about on your knees like that, you’ll be tied to the bed, and there’ll be no mercy,’ and I heard the sound of a whip, probably one with nails to give it extra sharpness, for it was followed by cries of pain. Then I noticed that the room had a small round side-window and that somebody had forgotten to draw the curtain behind it; advancing stealthily through the darkness, I slid up to the window and there, chained to a bed like Prometheus to his rock, receiving the blows which Maurice was delivering with a whip which was indeed studded with nails, I saw, already running with blood, and covered in bruises which proved that the flogging was not happening for the first time, there, right in front of me, I saw M. de Charlus.
Suddenly the door opened and somebody came in who fortunately did not see me. It was Jupien. He approached the Baron respectfully and with a smile of complicity: ‘So, you don’t need me?’ The Baron asked Jupien to send Maurice out of the room for a moment. Jupien did so without a second thought. ‘Nobody can hear us, can they?’ said the Baron to Jupien, who assured him that nobody could. The Baron knew that Jupien, although as intelligent as a man of letters, had no practical sense at all, and was always talking about people in their presence, dropping hints in ways which deceived nobody and using nicknames which everybody recognized.
‘Just a second,’ interrupted Jupien, who had heard a bell ring in room number 3. It was a Deputy from Action libérale,66 who was leaving. Jupien did not need to look at the bell-board, for he recognized the ring, as in fact the Deputy came every day after lunch. He had been forced to change his time on this occasion, as his daughter’s wedding had taken place at noon at Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot. He had therefore come in the evening but was anxious to leave early because of his wife, who became worried very easily when he was late home, especially in these days
of bombardment. Jupien liked to show him out himself in order to demonstrate his deference for the title of ‘honourable member’, but he had no personal interest in him. For although the Deputy, who repudiated the extreme positions of the Action française67 (and anyway would have been incapable of understanding a word of Charles Maurras or Léon Daudet), was well in with the ministers, whom he flattered by inviting them to his shoots, Jupien would not have dared to ask him for the slightest support in his troubles with the police. He knew that, if he had taken the risk of mentioning it to the well-provided but pusillanimous legislator, he would not only not have avoided even the most harmless raid, but would instantly have lost the most generous of his clients. After having escorted the Deputy as far as the door, where he pulled his hat down over his eyes, turned up his collar, and glided away with the same slickness that he employed in his electoral addresses, hoping thereby to hide his features, Jupien went back upstairs to M. de Charlus, to whom he said: ‘That was M. Eugène.’ At Jupien’s establishment, as in sanatoriums, people were known only by their first names, although to satisfy the curiosity of the regular visitors, or to enhance the prestige of the house, their real names were generally added in a whisper. Sometimes, however, Jupien was unaware of the real identity of a client, and would imagine, and say, that he was some stockbroker or nobleman or artist, short-lived mistakes that amused those who were given the wrong name, and in the end would have to resign himself to the fact that he still did not know who M. Victor was. So, to please the Baron, Jupien would habitually reverse the procedure proper to certain sorts of gathering. ‘May I introduce M. Lebrun? (then, in a whisper: ‘He likes to be known as M. Lebrun but he is really a Russian Grand Duke’). Jupien, by contrast, felt that it was not quite enough to introduce M. de Charlus to a milkman. He would murmur to him with a wink: ‘He works as a milkman, but really he’s one of the most dangerous villains in Belleville’ (the salacious tone in which Jupien said the word ‘villain’ was something to hear). And if these references were insufficient, he would attempt to add a few ‘citations’. ‘He’s been convicted several times for house-breaking and theft, he’s been in Fresnes for assaulting (the same salacious note) people in the street and practically crippling them, and he was in the punishment battalion in Africa. He killed his sergeant.’
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