'I told you just now that I didn't trust anyone. Do you remember?'
'Do I remember!'
'Well, it wasn't true. I was lying. I want to trust people, just as Christians say one has to want to believe.'
'I trust you.'
'And there you were, pacing up and down the room like a jungle cat ... or at least a jungle kitten ... '
She smiled, and he was mean enough to think that she had cheered up remarkably quickly....
'You're always making the most execrable jokes, but for once you've thought up a nice one ... And you're afraid of a kitten?'
'Yes, of course. Kittens can scratch your eyes out.'
However, he could not let himself go as he would have liked, clasp her wholeheartedly in his arms, because his anger had exploded as soon as they returned, before he had had a chance to change his shirt (a tennis shirt which he wore without a jacket), and, the day being extremely warm and humid, sweat had seeped through under his armpits, so that he was afraid Solange would notice the smell if he brought her too close. This fear of his modified the whole aspect of their reconciliation, made it somehow stiff and cold, which distressed Solange: she would have so loved to bury herself in his arms! For her part, she was embarrassed by her red-rimmed eyes and flushed face, in spite of the fact that she had quickly powdered it again. Both of them hesitated to admit to themselves that if they were to carry through a scene that would figure honourably in their sentimental annals, they would first have to go next door to spruce themselves up.
He said to her:
'I've twice made you a woman - the day I took you, and the day I made you cry. Now I've really set my seal on you. Nevertheless I ask you to forgive me for having made you cry.'
With the utmost solemnity she replied:
'Yes, I forgive you.'
He went into his own room, and, after a moment, lit a cigarette. After another moment, she knocked on the door, and he threw his cigarette out of the window: no, this was not the moment to appear nonchalant! She said to him:
'I've just put a stitch in my dress - the seam had come undone. While I've got a needle threaded, is there anything of yours that needs sewing?'
He saw that she in her turn wanted to be forgiven, and to obtain forgiveness by making herself useful - materially useful, since she had failed to make herself spiritually useful. He was partly touched and partly embarrassed. Embarrassed chiefly.
'No, thank you. Besides, there's the floor-maid ... '
Lovers' quarrels are said to cement love. In reality, they cause cracks that nothing will cement. When one looks back over one's past, one finds (especially if one is a highly-strung person) that the people one has loved most deeply are those with whom one has never had a quarrel. And there are some: the miracle exists.
The next five days passed so-so, with walks in the town or on the sea-shore, and a few excursions. Solange was more and more certain that nothing positive would come of her stay; she found Costals stiff and evasive, with already a whiff of absence; and she put on her ugly 'What's the use?' expression. 'It was too good to last,' she sighed on one occasion, after a long spell of mutism. The remark brought a sharp rejoinder: 'What do you mean by that? Personally, when something is going well, I say to myself: "It's too good not to last." And it lasts.' Costals thought that what she ought to have said when he had caressed her after her tears was: 'Well, since you don't love me, and since you've admitted it to me, God knows how forcefully, I had better give up the idea of marriage.' But she had not said this. She would put up with anything. She was stuck to him like a cupping-glass, and she would not unstick herself until he tore her off and threw her away, at the risk of breaking her. She was in love, not with him, but with marriage, or else simply with the idea of seeing her obstinacy triumph. He wanted to have it out with her once and for all.
'Do you still think, after what I said to you the other day, that this marriage should take place?'
She lowered her eyelids before answering, with a slightly superior, big-sisterly look, as if to say: 'Come, come, the question hardly arises,' and then she said:
'Of course. It will all come right in the end.'
Why hadn't she at least thought of advancing her departure, if only, in order to avoid explanations, by pretending that her mother had called her back for some reason or other? But no, far from it; a remark of hers - 'Venice must be magnificent in autumn. Is it very difficult to get there from here?' - showed him beyond a shadow of doubt that she wanted him to take her to Venice. 'I only half-give to her, and half-giving is useless: one must give all or nothing. I put myself out a great deal for her; but in her heart of hearts she reproaches me for having brought her here to moulder in a rather ordinary town like Genoa. A town where no one is ever heard singing O sole mio, pooh! She bores me to death without getting any satisfaction herself: we know all about that. Take her to Venice! I'd rather die! Have her ruin all the exquisite memories of the time I was there with a woman I loved deeply, and the pure memories of the time I was there alone. She's unhappy here, and she sees that I'm unhappy because of her - so why does she stay? Because her trip's been paid for, and Genoa after all is a bit better than Etretat?' (For Costals, anyone who did a thing he had no particular desire to do, for the simple reason that he could do it for nothing, was condemned out of hand.) He asked her several times, almost reproachfully: 'So, in spite of that scene, you continue to love me?' She answered with a fond look. He was disappointed. Ah, if only she could have brought herself to break away from him!
He was already so immunized by habit that when she wandered round their suite half-naked he no longer even raised his eyes to look at her, pretty though she was, with that figure worthy of a 'Miss France'. Rather any unknown woman, however plain, than the most beautiful body in the world that one can have every night. In spite of this, from time to time he found himself wanting her, and hovered round her like a hawk above a hen; ridiculous no doubt, but not more so than cats or dogs that feel randy, and they, poor things, make no bones about it. She was slow to understand what he wanted. That endless rigmarole of caresses, with nothing to back it, that viscous sentimentalo-sexual mush - how loathsome it all was!
During the course of one of their conversations, she said to him:
'I admire you for having a moral code of your own, so totally non-conformist, and for remaining a decent man in spite of it. But you would do well to keep it to yourself, because if it fell on certain ears. ... It's lucky you haven't a son ... '
Costals felt himself turn pale, and was disturbed by it. So all the effort at dissimulation and pretence to which he submitted himself could be ruined in a second, and by whom! ... A wretched little female had the power to prise him open, as one prises open a box.
'And why is it lucky that I haven't a son?' he asked in a strained voice.
'Because if he heard all these theories from your lips.... '
He threw her a glance full of hatred. Ah, so she would be against him in front of his son, if ever....
'If I had a son ... I would passionately want to make him ... like me, towards and against everyone.... (His voice came in jerks, misfiring like an engine.) 'And his morality would be my morality ... towards and against everyone. And he would be a fine son. A miracle? But I live in expectation of miracles. I expect a miracle to happen every day. I wait for it, I challenge it, for weeks on end. For months. There have been times when I have waited for it for years. But it always comes. And I see it the very moment it comes - that is my gift - I see it as God could be seen when he appeared in the burning bush. Sometimes I grow tired of the miracle. Then I wait for another. For weeks. For months. You say to yourself that it must always be the same. But I've been at it for fifteen years and I'm still not bored with it. I'll never be bored with it. I'll croak in the middle of it. I'll croak with a miracle issuing from my mouth - like a fire-eater in a fair, puffing fire.... Now let's talk about something else. You and I are tired of this subject.'
An hour later, looking at his wa
tch, he saw that it had stopped an hour before. He thought it must have been the violence of his rage when Solange had said to him: 'Lucky you haven't a son', which, affecting the mechanism by bodily contact, had thrown it out of gear. It had happened to him several times.
The two days preceding Solange's departure passed fairly lightly for Costals. The loss of nervous energy to which she had subjected him was such that everything inside him seemed to be happening in a sort of vacuum peopled with ghosts. In Algeria, he had heard of a kif-smoking Arab who, when in the last stages of stupefaction, was in the habit of repeating (was it a sensation peculiar to him, or a dictum?): 'Inside the kif-smoker's head there is a little bird breaking dry twigs.' Inside Costals' head there was a little bird breaking dry twigs. But where had it gone, the strength she had drained from him? When he thought about it, a strange smile appeared in his eyes, as though he knew where that strength had gone.
On the last night they spent together, a stormy night, he had made love to her mightily, and had gone back to his room, when a thought struck him which he was amazed not to have had before. He had asked her for a 'solemn promise' not to oppose a divorce if he married her. But he had not asked for a solemn promise about what the French language, with sybilline modesty, calls la suppression de part [Abortion (Translator's note).] We know how strongly he felt on the subject (there was no longer any question of the fourteen sons). This omission disconcerted and appalled him. He could not bear the uncertainty for another half-hour (the time it would take him to go to sleep), so he got up and went back to Solange's room.
She was asleep. He lay down beside her, above the sheet, without switching on the light. He could hear the rather unattractive noise of her grinding her teeth. He could hear the shrieks of the steamers in the storm-tossed harbour, the frightful shrieks they uttered when they went adrift, shrieks that might have been uttered by beasts or men. He had no desire to touch her, or even to look at her asleep, although there were so many others whom he had watched endlessly as they slept, full of frowns and sighs, like dreaming dogs, or with their mouths half-open and a thread of saliva strung from lip to lip.
'Solange!'
No answer.
He thought she might be dead. Oh, what a dawn! He remembered the night he had sat up beside his dead mother and had ended up by stretching out, exhausted, beside the corpse, above the sheet, as he was doing now.
'Solange!'
'Is it you?'
'Wake up.'
'What's the matter?'
'I have something important to say to you. Are you properly awake?'
'Yes.'
'I once asked you to make me a solemn promise. I now want you to make me another solemn promise. I emphasize the word "solemn" because just a mere promise.... For instance, when I give a promise.... Having "given" it, how can I possibly "keep" it? Whereas, a solemn promise is quite different.'
'What do you want me to promise?'
'If I married you, and you became pregnant, would you do whatever was necessary not to have a child?'
'Yes.'
'An abortion is always dangerous. If the child was born, would you do whatever was necessary to see that it didn't live?'
A flash of lightning lit up the room, a dazzling thought from on high: Nature, too, when she is angry, has infinite thoughts. And there followed a vast, long drawn-out roar, like the roar that the sea must have made when it closed over Pharaoh's host. 'Pharaoh, Pharaoh,' thought Costals. 'The hardening of Pharaoh's heart.... But it was Jehovah who hardened it, and afterwards punished him for it. So, which of the two, Jehovah or Pharaoh, behaved like a swine?' And his soul continued to call through the night, lovingly: 'Pharaoh! Pharaoh!'
When the trance was over, and silence had returned, he said to her:
'Do you remember what I asked you before the thunder?'
'Yes.'
'What is your answer?'
' "Yes".'
'Your answer is "yes"?'
'Yes.'
'Is it a solemn promise?'
'Yes.' .
'How naïve it was of me to think: "What sort of a world am I dragging this little girl into?'" Costals said to himself. 'Why, she has been in this world for ages!' A wave of affection swept over him: yes, they might well get on together ... 'I love this sinister world we live in: we suit each other. Innocents are not in my line.' He put his hand on her knee, above the sheet.
'Don't mistrust me,' he murmured, using the familiar second person singular.
'I shall never mistrust you.'
It was the first time he had used the familiar form ever since that distant day when, after their first kisses, he had ventured an occasional tu which she had promptly put a stop to by saying: 'I don't know how to say tu.' Supposedly a young girl, yet a woman. Supposedly respectable, yet travelling with a lover. Supposedly Catholic, yet prepared to by-pass the Church to get married. Supposedly honourable, yet ready to kill. And indeed, this is what a man likes in a woman. Mme X 'says' nothing to him. But suddenly she takes to robbing and killing, and at once he begins to desire her. Ten minutes earlier - supersaturated with the flesh - Costals had been loath to touch the body lying at his side. Now, suddenly, he slid under the sheet and covered her. He was embracing the child-killer.
Next day Solange was due to leave, and Costals gave an extraordinary proof of his exhaustion. Since it was still raining, they remained in his room, and after a while, as though by mutual accord, each of them picked up a book. Costals' eyes began to close ... He was re-reading, without noticing, the pages he had read the night before ... Suddenly, with a start, he saw close by him Solange's amused smile.
'Well, do you feel better?' she asked.
'What?'
'Yes, nature's sweet restorer ...
'Did I fall asleep?'
'You've slept for exactly twenty-five minutes.'
He never slept in the day-time. Never. Not even in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Who do you take me for! He had only done it during the war. So this was what she had driven him to! He who was in the prime of life and the pink of condition, he who was always on the alert, always so keen never to waste his time, he had fallen asleep in an armchair at four o'clock in the afternoon, like a decrepit old man. He felt humiliated, and took it out on her. The new-found warmth he had felt towards her during the past two days vanished in an instant, like the warmth of a room in which one opens the window in winter. Ah! if only she had realized, she would never have given him that amused smile. Small victories are dearly bought.
But Costals was never to know that Solange, next day, herself exhausted by the nervous tension of that fortnight, would lie down fully dressed on the bed in which Mme Dandillot was having her after-lunch siesta, and fall asleep too, curled up and snuggling against her mother, who dared not get up for fear of waking her.
At seven o'clock in the evening, after seeing Solange off, he left the station, went back to the hotel, and ate. It was the first time for a fortnight that he had eaten wholeheartedly. For when he was at table with Solange he was preoccupied with what to say to her, what she was thinking, whether she was bored, how they could kill time that afternoon, etc., and could not eat wholeheartedly. Afterwards, no sooner was he undressed than he drifted off into a sleep as opaque as wine (the sort of wine he loved).
He slept until two o'clock the next afternoon. And from three o'clock until nightfall he lay stretched out on his bed, his eyes closed, trying to recuperate his strength and bring back his soul, which the woman had devoured.
And when he woke up next day, before he had even washed he had himself driven back to his flat. And he felt the pressure of his creation knocking inside him to be let out, for his strength had returned. He was himself once more. He was a man once more.
And no sooner had he arrived, without opening his suitcases or anything, than he picked up from the table all his notes and drafts and files, and scattered them over the floor. And he said: 'Now I'll show them!'
And his work-room was the smallest room in
the flat, so that its exiguousness might concentrate his thoughts, send them back to him, so that he should really feel cornered. And it was in a state of disorder worthy of the gods.
And he stripped off his jacket, his waistcoat, and his shirt, and threw them on the floor as well, and remained in his aertex vest. And he took off his shoes, and remained in his stocking feet. And he ruffled his hair with both hands. And thus, neither washed nor shaved, he sat down at his table. And with one deep breath he filled his lungs with air, like the big bad wolf in the Three Little Pigs. And whatever he may have looked like, he certainly looked a brute; and he was one. And he uttered his war-cry, his 'Montjoye and St Denis!' at the top of his voice: 'B— the lot of them!' (For is not the creation of novels a violation of nature?) And he bent over the blank sheet of paper. And he plunged back into his work, hungrily. And his integrity was restored to him.
And the first sentence took shape, sure in its sweep, its curve and its aim, rejoicing in its promised length, with the coruscating coils of its which's and its what's, with its parentheses, its grammatical errors (deliberate), its commas and its semi-colons (he scanned it aloud: 'comma ... semi-colon ...': it was the text breathing; if the text did not breathe, it would die, like a living thing) - took shape, coiled and uncoiled its spirals, its rugosities, its softnesses and its iridescences, with sacred deliberation; and when it had satisfactorily exercised its which's and its what's, and its parentheses, and its grammatical errors, and its commas and its semi-colons, it raised itself up for the final image, as a king cobra, with lazy strength, glides at its leisure one way and another, though always with a single end in view, then raises its glittering head above the rocks and strikes.
He wrote for nine days running, at the rate of twelve hours' work a day. He dipped his pen into himself, and wrote with blood, sperm, fire and sweat. He drained the girl dry, as one sops up a dish of food, as one dredges a silted pond. He pumped her dry and disgorged her into his novel. She was far away and thought herself safe. But from afar he drew off her fluids and depersonalized her by the intensity of boredom that emanated from her. And he doubly depersonalized her, by distributing her traits among several of the characters in his book. She ceased to be an individual; she ceased to be. 'Ah! so you wanted to devour my soul, did you!'
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