At this moment he discovered that the sailor was looking in his direction. He glanced to his left; the man was staring at him with so profound an expression of astonishment that Mathias himself was surprised. After all, he had said nothing remarkable. Was it only because his interlocutor did not expect an answer? Mathias tried to remember if he had said anything else since he had come into the cottage. He was unable to be sure: perhaps he had said that the room was warm—perhaps some banality about the lighthouse. . . . He swallowed a mouthful of wine and sighed as he put down his glass: “Children are a lot of trouble.”
But he was relieved to see that the fisherman was no longer concerned with him; his face had grown serious again, preoccupied as it had been before. He stopped talking, his hands empty, inert, his forearms leaning on the edge of the table. His gaze—over the remains of the crab, the empty bottle, the full bottle, the shoulder under the black cotton—was unquestionably toward the little window.
“Rain tomorrow,” he said.
He was still not moving. After about twenty seconds he corrected himself: “Tomorrow—or the day after for sure.”
In any case, the salesman would be far away.
Without changing position, the fisherman said: “If it's that Jacqueline you're watching for . . .”
Mathias supposed he was speaking to his young companion, but nothing gave him the slightest clue. She had begun to toy with her food again, and behaved as if she had not heard. The man continued: “You can hope I'll give her a fine reception.”
He emphasized the word “fine” to show that it should be taken in the opposite sense. Furthermore, like most islanders, he used “hope” instead of “imagine"—which in the present case seemed more likely to mean “fear.”
“She won't come now,” the salesman said.
He wished he had not spoken, and merely increased his confusion by adding far too hurriedly: “I mean, she must have gone to lunch by now.”
He glanced anxiously around him: luckily no one seemed to have noticed his interruption or his embarrassment. The girl had lowered her eyes over a piece of shell into which she was trying to insert the tip of her tongue. Over the outline of her shoulder which the thin cloth divided into two parts—one flesh, the other black—the man was looking toward the window.
In a low though distinct voice he pronounced these words: “. . . with the crabs . . .,” which seemed to have no relation to anything at all, and then burst out laughing for the second time.
Mathias’ sudden fear gave way to a sense of confusion and lassitude. He tried to find something to cling to in his distress, but found only fragments. He wondered what he was doing there. He wondered what he had done for an hour or more: in the fisherman's cottage . . . along the top of the cliff . . . in the village café . . .
In the cottage, at this moment, there was a man sitting at the table whose face (eyes half-closed) was turned toward a little window. His strong, inert, empty hands, half-open, showed his long nails which were slightly curved, like claws. In passing his eyes grazed the slender, smooth neck of the young woman who was also sitting at the table, as motionless as he, keeping her eyes lowered on her own hands.
Sitting at the man's right and facing the girl, at an equal distance from each, Mathias imagined exactly what could be seen from where his neighbor was sitting. . . . In the fisherman's cottage, at this moment, he was eating lunch, waiting until it was time for him to continue his rounds. To get here, he had had to walk along the cliff top with his host—the old friend he had met in the village. As for the café, hadn't he managed to sell one of his wrist watches there?
Nevertheless, these justifications did not manage to satisfy him. Casting back still further, he asked himself what he was doing on the road between the town and the light-house, then in the town itself, then earlier still . . .
What had he been doing, then, since morning? This whole extent of time seemed to him long, uncertain, unaccounted for—not so much, perhaps, because of the small number of items sold, as because of the casual and unsystematic way in which these sales had been conducted, which also applied to the sales that had not succeeded, and even the intervening expeditions.
He would have preferred to go at once. But he could hardly leave his hosts so abruptly, without even knowing if the meal was over. The complete lack of form which presided over the latter's arrangement prevented the salesman once again from knowing what to do. Here too he found himself unable to act according to any rule he could interpret as applicable—which might serve as an example for his conduct—behind which he could have entrenched himself.
The state of things around him furnished no point of reference: the meal had no more reason to be over than it had to continue. An empty bottle stood next to one that was still untouched (although uncorked); one of the crabs had been scattered about in innumerable shreds of shell, scarcely identifiable now, while the other, still intact, lay as before on its spiny back, its angular legs bent inward toward a central point on the belly where the whitish carapace showed a (/-shaped star; about half the potatoes were still left in the casserole.
No one was eating any more, however.
The regular sound of the waves dashing against the rocks at the entrance to the cove almost imperceptibly filled the silence, remotely at first, but soon drowning the whole room in its swelling volume.
The head bent in front of the window, with the light behind it, turned to the left—exposing all four square panes to view—in profile again, but this time in the opposite direction: the forehead toward the darkest corner, the nape of the neck in full light. Just above the black cloth at the nape of the neck, appeared a long, fresh scratch, the kind left by brambles on a skin that is too tender. The tiny pearls of blood along its length seemed to be still wet.
A wave broke, farther off, almost inaudibly—or else it beat, Mathias counted to nine; a wave broke. On the panes the former course of raindrops could be traced in the dust. In front of this window, one rainy day when they had left him alone in the house, he had spent all afternoon drawing a sea gull perched on one of the fence posts at the end of the garden. He had often heard the story before.
The head returned to its original position in front of the panes, above the soup plate full of spider-crab legs broken into tiny red and white fragments.
A wave broke, farther off, almost inaudibly—or else it was only the sound of breathing—the salesman's, for instance.
He recalled the movement of the water rising and falling against the verticle embankment.
Nearer, on his own plate, he found the same red and white accumulation of blades and needles. Once again the water covered the marks made by the iron ring.
He was on the point of making the gestures and speaking the words which would automatically lead to his departure —looking at his watch, saying, “It is already such and such an hour,” suddenly standing up and apologizing for having to. . . , etc.—when the sailor, making a sudden decision, stretched his right hand toward the casserole, seized a potato, and brought it close to his eyes, too close, really, as if to examine it near-sightedly—but with his mind elsewhere, perhaps. Mathias thought he was going to begin peeling it. Nothing of the kind occurred. The tip of his thumb was passed slowly over the surface of a large, gnarled-looking excrescence, then after a few moments more of this silent observation, the potato rejoined the rest in the bottom of the casserole.
“The blight's starting again,” the fisherman murmured to himself.
Doubtless the preceding subject of conversation was closer to his heart, for he immediately returned to it. He had, he said, run into Maria Leduc, one of the two older girls, who was out looking for her sister Jacqueline “one more time.” He bestowed upon the latter a number of insulting names, of which the most emphatic ranged from “hellcat” to “little vampire” warming to his subject, he shouted that she would never again set foot in his house, that he was even forbidding her to come near the place, and that he didn't advise “her” to try seeing her on
the sly anywhere else. “Her” was the girl sitting opposite Mathias. She did not react to these threats, even when the man, standing up in anger, leaned across the table as if he were going to strike her.
His violence somewhat abated, he spoke cryptically of the Leduc girl's crimes—still the same ones—which seemed to the salesman, on this new hearing, even more obscure than they had been before. Instead of a straight-forward account of this or that act, there were only—as usual—involved allusions to matters of a psychological or moral order, lost in an interminable series of consequences and causes among which the responsibilities of the protagonists disappeared altogether.
. . . Julian, the bakery apprentice, had almost drowned himself the week before. Besides Jacqueline Leduc, several other people were involved, if not with the event, at least with the story the sailor told about it; in particular, a young fisherman called “little Louis” and his fiancee—"his ex-fiancee,” to be more exact, since she now refused to marry him. Louis was just twenty, Julian was two years younger. A quarrel had broken out between them on Sunday evening. . . .
But Mathias could not determine to what degree the girl was the subject of this quarrel, nor whether it was a matter of attempted murder or attempted suicide, or merely an accident. The fiancee's role was not confined, furthermore, merely to breaking off her engagement (she had probably only threatened to break it off); as for the older friend who had repeated to the baker's apprentice his rival's words—distorting them somewhat, it seemed . . .
It seemed to Mathias that the sailor was particularly irritated with the two youths for not agreeing to drown the girl. Lest he be suspected of avoiding the discussion of Violet's misdeeds and their necessary punishment, the salesman did not dare manifest his eagerness to continue on his way. He even decided it would look better if he took an active part. His host having started on a eulogy of “that poor Leduc woman,” Mathias decided to tell about his morning visit to the three girls’ mother; as he did not recall a single detail concerning the approaching marriages of the two older daughters, he was constrained to improvise. Then he mentioned his friendship with their uncle Joseph, who worked for the steamship line in the city. Speaking of a recent conversation he had had with the latter on the quay, just before sailing, he proceeded quite naturally to a complete account of his day. He had got up, he said, very early in order to catch the boat, for he had to make the long trip between his house and the harbor on foot. He had walked fast, without stopping once. He had arrived a little too early to go on board, and had taken advantage of the remaining time to sell his first watch to a sailor of the line. He had been less fortunate since landing on the island —at least at first. Altogether, though, he couldn't complain about his morning—thanks of course to the pains he took to prepare his sales trips in every detail. According to his plans made the day before, he had begun with the houses along the harbor; having then rented a good bicycle, he had headed toward Black Rocks, stopping at every door, and even leaving the main road here and there to visit isolated dwellings whenever it seemed worth it. That was how he had happened to sell one of his finest models at the Marek farm. All these side-trips took a negligible amount of time, for the bicycle he had rented worked perfectly—it was a real pleasure to ride on it. The sales themselves were sometimes transacted with astonishing speed: it was enough to open his suitcase, and the quality of the merchandise immediately gained him customers. Press the clasp, open the cover, etc. . . . This had happened, for example, in the case of the couple who lived along the road just before you reached the village at the lighthouse. A little farther on, at the village café, the salesman had just sold another watch and was getting ready to have his lunch, when he met his old friend Jean Robin, and had immediately been invited here for lunch.
Mathias had then followed him to his cottage, situated just beyond the village in a little cove near the sea. They had begun dinner at once, exchanging old recollections and discussing the changes that had occurred in the countryside since those days. Afterward, the salesman had shown them his line of watches, but without delaying long, for he had to continue his rounds according to the established schedule in order to be back at the harbor before the boat left—at four-fifteen.
First he had finished the systematic canvassing of the village at Black Rocks, where he had managed to sell several more watches—including three to a single family, the one that ran the grocery-general store. He had also found the two fishermen he had met an hour before, at the café. One of them had bought a watch.
Once beyond the village, the road followed the coast east, but at a certain distance from the cliff, across a moor as barren of bushes as of houses. The ocean, because of the rolling ground, remained generally invisible. Mathias pedaled rapidly, impelled rather than impeded by the wind. The sky was quite overcast. It was neither cold nor hot.
The road, narrower and less well-kept than that leading from town to the lighthouse, was nevertheless satisfactorily paved—broad enough, in any case, for a bicycle. In this almost deserted section of the island—and off the main arteries —there was probably never much traffic. The road made a large semicircular curve which reached the farthest point of the island and then curved back toward the center. It was on this last portion, extending from the seaboard villages to the southwest section of town, that he might meet a cart or an old automobile. But on the less-frequented part, toward the tip of the island, the traffic was so rare that patches of low vegetation had invaded the sides of the road in some places, while the wind, at others, accumulated little beaches of dust and sand in which the bicycle left its tracks. Crushed into the surface of the road—no toad, no frog.
No streak of shadow could be seen lying across the road, since there was neither telegraph pole nor sunshine. Having already crossed the narrow passageway between the dried corpse and the rounded extremity of the pole, old Madame Marek would have continued on her way without seeing him.
The salesman, at the last moment, had had to call out to her in order to be recognized. After having inquired why he had found the farm deserted and locked, he turned to the object of his visit: the sale of wrist watches. There, at the roadside, he had gained his first success on the island.
He tried to calculate from memory the total amount received since he had landed. First of all there was old Madame Marek: one hundred fifty-five crowns; next, the exhausted-looking couple: one hundred fifty-five crowns, making three hundred ten; then the proprietress of the café: two hundred seventy-five—and three hundred ten: five hundred eighty five . . . five hundred eighty-five . . . five hundred eighty-five. . . . The next transaction had not been a sale but a gift: he had made a present of a gold-plated lady's watch to the girl . . . or young woman . . .
As a matter of fact there had been a third person at lunch at Jean Robin's. It was to her that Mathias had shown his collection, since the sailor was obviously uninterested. (Standing in front of the little window, he was looking outside.) The salesman had set down his suitcase at the end of the long table—pressing the clasp, folding back the cover, moving aside the memorandum book . . .—the girl, who was beginning to clear the table, had come closer to look.
He took the cardboard strips out of the suitcase one by one; she admired them without saying a word, opening her eyes very wide. He stepped back a little to let her examine his wares as long as she liked.
Over her shoulder, he saw her fingering a gold-plated watch strap, then the case itself, more slowly. Twice—once in one direction, then in the other—her middle finger followed the circular shape. She was slender and graceful, bending her neck at the nape—under his eyes—within reach of his hand.
Leaning over a little, he says: “Which do you like best?”
Still without answering, without turning around, she picks up the cardboard strips one by one. Exposed by the rounded collar of her dress, a long scratch studded with red pearls tears across the tender skin of her neck. Mathias imperceptibly stretches out his hand.
He checks the gestur
e at once. The arm falls back. He has not tried to stretch out his hand. Slender and graceful, the young woman bends her head a little lower, exposing the nape of her neck and the long scratch at its base. The tiny pearls of blood seem to be still wet.
“This one is the prettiest.”
After the story about Violet, the fisherman had again begun on some general considerations of life on the island—oddly contradictory though they were. Each time that he seemed to want to illustrate what he was saying by some more personal detail, the latter contradicted the very point of view he was defending. In spite of this, the general tone of his remarks retained—in appearance, at least—a coherent structure, so that a distracted attention would not realize the anomalies involved.
It was to have a pretext for leaving the table—the first step toward departure—that Mathias had proposed showing the watches. He could not delay any longer, for he had to finish his rounds and return to the harbor before four-fifteen.
Suitcase, clasp, cover, black memorandum book . . .
Having glanced distractedly at the first cardboard strip, the fisherman turned his back to look out the window. His companion, on the contrary, came closer to look. It occurred to Mathias that he might thank her for her hospitality by making her a present of one of the cheaper watches, which at her age would still make her happy.
Afterward, he returned to the village, which he quickly finished canvassing. He managed to sell several more watches—including three to a single family, the one that ran the grocery-general store.
After Black Rocks, the road ran east along the coast, but at a certain distance from the cliff, and turned inland after the fork leading to the nearby point—where there was no house to interest the salesman—toward the seaboard villages extending to the southwest section of town. Mathias, who was riding very fast, hurrying because of the lateness of the hour, soon found himself among the first houses. He managed to make a good many sales without wasting too much time, as many in the little clusters of houses as in the isolated cottages that marked the intervals between them. Encouraged by his success, he even made excursions off the main road (venturing farther inland again), returning to the coast at an important fishing village—the last before the big pier, the harbor dominated by its ruined fortifications, the flat housefronts along the quay, the landing slip, and the little steamer which was doubtless already preparing for departure.
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