The Age of Reason Read online

  ‘Will you excuse me,’ said Daniel. He had become the man of action. His sole desire was to open the basket as soon as possible. What could that drop of blood have signified? He knelt down, thinking that they would probably fly in his face, and he bent his head over the lid, so that it was well within their reach. And he reflected, as he lifted the clasp, ‘A solid bit of worry wouldn’t do him any harm. It would shake him out of his optimism and that complacent air of his.’ Poppaea slipped out of the basket snarling, and fled into the kitchen. Scipio emerged in his turn: he had preserved his dignity but did not seem in the least reassured. He proceeded with measured steps to the wardrobe, looked about him with a sly expression, stretched himself, and finally crawled under the bed. Malvina did not move. ‘She’s hurt,’ thought Daniel. She lay full length at the bottom of the basket, prostrate. Daniel put a finger under her chin and pulled her head up: she had been deeply clawed on the nose, and her left eye was closed, but she was not bleeding. There was a blackish scab on her face, and round the scab the hairs were stiff and sticky.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mathieu. He had got up and was eyeing the cat politely. ‘He thinks me absurd, because I’m worrying about a cat. It would seem to him quite natural if it was a baby?’

  ‘Malvina has a nasty wound,’ explained Daniel. ‘It must have been Poppaea that clawed her, she really is the limit. Excuse me, my dear fellow, while I see to her.’

  He produced a bottle of arnica and a packet of cotton wool from the cupboard. Mathieu followed him with his eyes without uttering a word, then he passed his hand over his forehead in a senile sort of gesture. Daniel began to bathe Malvina’s nose, the cat resisting feebly.

  ‘Now be a good little cat,’ said Daniel. ‘There, there — it will soon be over.’

  He thought he must be exasperating Mathieu, and that gave him heart for the job. But when he raised his head he observed Mathieu staring grimly into vacancy.

  ‘Forgive me, my dear fellow,’ said Daniel, in his deepest voice. ‘I shan’t be more than a couple of minutes. I simply had to wash the creature, you know, a wound gets so quickly infected. I hope it doesn’t annoy you very much,’ he added, bestowing a frank smile on Mathieu. Mathieu shivered, and then began to laugh.

  ‘Now then, now then,’ said he. ‘Don’t you make your velvet eyes at me.’

  ‘Velvet eyes!’ Mathieu’s superiority was indeed offensive. ‘He thinks he knows me, he talks of my lies, my velvet eyes. He doesn’t know me in the least, but he likes to label me as if I were an object.’

  Daniel laughed cordially and carefully wiped Malvina’s head. Malvina shut her eyes in an appearance of ecstasy, but Daniel knew very well that she was in pain. He gave her a little tap on the back.

  ‘There,’ he said, getting up. ‘There won’t be a sign of it tomorrow. But the other cat gave her a nasty clawing, you know.’

  ‘Poppaea? She’s a vile creature,’ said Mathieu, with an absent air. And then he said abruptly: ‘Marcelle is pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant!’

  Daniel’s surprise was of short duration, but he had to struggle against a huge desire to laugh. That was it — so that was it. ‘True enough, the creatures evacuate blood every lunar month, and they’re as prolific as fish into the bargain.’ He reflected with disgust that he was going to see her that same evening; ‘I wonder if I shall have the courage to touch her hand.’

  ‘It’s a ghastly business,’ said Mathieu with an objective air.

  Daniel looked at him and said soberly, ‘I can quite understand that.’ Then he hurriedly turned his back on him on the pretext of replacing the bottle of arnica in the cupboard. He was afraid he would burst out laughing in his face. He set himself to think about his mother’s death, which always answered upon these occasions: and but for two or three convulsive spasms he did not betray himself. Mathieu went on gravely talking behind Daniel’s back: ‘The trouble is that it humiliates her,’ he said. ‘You haven’t seen her often, so you can’t quite understand, but she’s a sort of Valkyrie. A bedroom Valkyrie,’ he added without malice. ‘For her it’s an awful degradation.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daniel with concern; ‘and it must be nearly as bad for you. Whatever you do, she of course hates the sight of you at the moment. I know that, in my own case, it would destroy love.’

  ‘I no longer feel any love for her,’ said Mathieu.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Daniel was profoundly astonished and amused. ‘We shall have some sport this evening,’ thought he to himself.

  ‘Have you told her so?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘Why — of course? You’ll have to tell her. I suppose you’ll...’

  ‘No, I’m not going to walk out on her, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘What then?’

  Daniel was solidly amused. He was now eager to see Marcelle again.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mathieu. ‘So much the worse for me. It isn’t her fault if I no longer love her.’

  ‘It is yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mathieu, curtly.

  ‘You’ll continue to see her on the quiet, and...’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well,’ said Daniel, ‘if you play that little game for any length of time you’ll end by hating her.’

  ‘I don’t want her to get into a mess,’ said Mathieu, with a set and obstinate expression.

  ‘If you prefer to sacrifice yourself...’ said Daniel, with indifference. When Mathieu adopted a Quakerish attitude, Daniel hated him.

  ‘What have I to sacrifice? I shall still teach at the Lycée. I shall see Marcelle. I shall write a short story every two years. Which is precisely what I have done until now.’ And he added with bitterness that Daniel had never seen in him before: ‘I am a Sunday writer. Besides,’ he went on, ‘I rather like her, and I couldn’t bear not to see her any more. Except that it gives me the feeling of family ties.’

  A silence followed. Daniel came and sat down in the armchair opposite Mathieu.

  ‘You must help me,’ said Mathieu. ‘I’ve got an address, but no money. Lend me four thousand.’

  ‘Four thousand...’ repeated Daniel with a hesitant air.

  His swollen notecase, now bulging in his breast pocket — his pig-dealer’s notecase, he had but to open it and take out four notes. Mathieu had often done him kindnesses in the old days.

  ‘I’ll pay back half at the end of the month,’ said Mathieu: ‘and the other half on July 14th, because on that date I get my salary for both August and September.’

  Daniel looked at Mathieu’s ashen visage and thought: ‘The fellow is all in.’ Then he thought of the cats and felt merciless.

  ‘Four thousand francs,’ said he in a melancholy tone, ‘I haven’t got so much, my dear fellow, and I’m very much pressed...’

  ‘You told me the other day that you were just going to pull off a very good bit of business.’

  ‘Well, my dear chap,’ said Daniel, ‘that same bit of business fell down on me; you know what the Stock Exchange is like. However, the plain fact is that I’ve got nothing but debts.’

  He had not imparted much sincerity to his voice, because he did not want to convince his companion. But when he saw that Mathieu did not believe him, he became angry: ‘Mathieu can go to Hell. He thinks himself deep, he imagines he can see through me. Why on earth should I help him? He’s only got to touch one of his own set.’ What he could not stand was that normal, placid air which Mathieu never lost, even in trouble.

  ‘Right,’ said Mathieu briskly, ‘then you really can’t.’

  Daniel reflected that he must be in dire need to be so insistent. ‘I really can’t. I’m awfully sorry, my dear fellow.’ He was embarrassed by Mathieu’s embarrassment, but it was not a wholly disagreeable sensation; it had the feel of turning back a finger-nail.

  ‘Are you in urgent need?’ he inquired with solicitude. ‘Is there nowhere else you can apply?’

  ‘Well, you know, I did want t
o avoid touching Jacques.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Daniel, a little disappointed: ‘there’s your brother. So you’re sure of getting your money.’

  ‘Not by any means,’ said Mathieu rather gloomily. ‘He’s got into his head that he oughtn’t to lend me a penny, on the grounds that it would be doing me a bad turn. He told me I ought to be independent at my age.’

  ‘Oh, but in a case like this he’s sure to let you have what you want,’ said Daniel emphatically. He slowly thrust out the tip of his tongue and began to lick his upper lip with satisfaction: he had succeeded at the first attempt in striking that note of light and cheery optimism that so infuriated his acquaintances.

  Mathieu had blushed. ‘That’s just the trouble. I can’t tell him what it’s for.’

  ‘True,’ said Daniel, and he reflected for a moment. ‘In any case, there are firms, you know, who lend to Government officials. I ought to tell you that they’re mostly sharks. But I daresay you won’t bother about the amount of the interest, if you can only get hold of the money.’

  Mathieu looked interested, and Daniel realized with annoyance that he had reassured him slightly.

  ‘What sort of people are they? Do they lend money on the spot?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Daniel briskly, ‘they take quite ten days: certain inquiries have to be made.’

  Mathieu fell silent, and seemed to be reflecting: Daniel was suddenly aware of a faint shock: Malvina had jumped on to his knees, where she established herself and began to purr. ‘Here is someone who does not bear malice,’ thought Daniel with disgust. He began to stroke her with a light, indifferent touch. Animals and people never succeeded in hating him. They could not resist a sort of good-natured inertia he cultivated, or possibly his face. Mathieu had plunged into his pitiable little calculations: he, too, bore no malice. Daniel bent over Malvina and fell to scratching the top of her head: his hand shook.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, without looking at Mathieu, ‘I should be almost glad not to have the money. It has just occurred to me: you always want to be free, here is a superb opportunity of proclaiming your freedom.’

  ‘Proclaiming my freedom?’ Mathieu didn’t seem to understand. Daniel raised his head.

  ‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘You have only to marry Marcelle.’

  Mathieu eyed him with a frown: he was probably wondering whether Daniel was serious. Daniel met his look with decorous gravity.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ asked Mathieu.

  ‘Why should I be? Say one word, and you can change your whole life, and that doesn’t happen every day.’

  Mathieu began to laugh. ‘He has decided to laugh at the whole business,’ thought Daniel angrily.

  ‘You won’t persuade me to do any such thing,’ said Mathieu, ‘and especially not at this moment.’

  ‘Well, but... that’s just it,’ said Daniel in the same light tone, ‘it must be very entertaining to do — the exact opposite of what one wants to do. One feels oneself becoming someone else.’

  ‘I don’t fancy the prospect. Do you expect me to beget three brats for the pleasure of feeling like someone else when I take them for a walk in the Luxemburg? I can well imagine that I should alter if I became an utter wash-out.’

  ‘Not so much as all that,’ thought Daniel, ‘not so much as you think.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said; ‘it can’t he so very disagreeable to be a wash-out. I mean an utter and absolute wash-out. Flat and finished. Married, with three children, just as you said. That would quieten a man down.’

  ‘It would indeed,’ said Mathieu. ‘I meet fellows like that every day: fathers of pupils who come to see me. Four children, unfaithful wives, members of the Parents’ Association. They certainly look quiet enough — I might even say benign.’

  ‘They’ve got a kind of gaiety of their own, too,’ said Daniel. ‘They make me shudder. So the prospect doesn’t tempt you? I can see you so well as a married man,’ he continued. ‘You’d be just like them, fleshy, neatly-dressed, rather facetious, and with celluloid eyes. Not at all a bad type of fellow, I think.’

  ‘And not unlike yourself,’ said Mathieu blandly. ‘But I would, none the less, much prefer to ask my brother for four thousand francs.’

  He got up. Daniel put Malvina down and got up too. ‘He knows I’ve got the money, and he doesn’t hate me: what on earth can one do to such people?’

  The notecase was there; Daniel had only to put his hand in his pocket and say, ‘There you are, my dear chap, I was just putting you off for a bit, — I wasn’t serious.’ But he was afraid he might despise himself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a halting tone. ‘If I see any prospect, I’ll write...’

  He had accompanied Mathieu to the outer door.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said Mathieu cheerfully. ‘I’ll manage.’

  He shut the door behind him. As Daniel listened to his brisk step on the staircase, he thought: ‘That’s final.’ And he caught his breath. But the feeling didn’t last: ‘Not for a moment,’ he said to himself, ‘did Mathieu cease to be balanced, composed, and in perfect accord with himself. He’s certainly upset, but that doesn’t go very deep. Inside, he’s quite at ease.’ Daniel walked up to the mirror and inspected his dark and comely countenance, and thought: ‘All the same, it would be worth a packet if he were forced to marry Marcelle.’

  CHAPTER 8

  SHE had by now been awake a long time: and she must be fretting. He ought to go and cheer her up, and tell her that she would not go there in any case. Mathieu recalled with affection her poor ravaged face of the day before, and he suddenly envisaged her as pathetically fragile. He must telephone to her. But he decided to call on Jacques first. ‘In that way, I might perhaps have a bit of good news for her.’ He thought with annoyance of the attitude Jacques would adopt. An attitude of sage amusement, without a hint of reproach or tolerance, his head on one side, and his eyes half-closed. ‘What! In need of money again?’ The prospect made Mathieu’s flesh creep. He crossed the road, thinking of Daniel: he wasn’t angry with him. That was how it was, one couldn’t be angry with Daniel. He was angry with Jacques. He stopped outside a squat building in the Rue Réaumur, and read with irritation, as indeed he always did: ‘Jacques Delarue. Solicitor. Second Floor.’ He went in and took the lift, sincerely hoping that Odette would not be at home.

  She was: Mathieu caught sight of her through the glass door of the little drawing-room, sitting on a divan, elegant, slim, and neat to the point of insignificance. She was reading. Jacques often said: ‘Odette is one of the few women in Paris who find time to read.’

  ‘Would you like to see Madame, sir?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Yes, just to say good morning: but will you tell Monsieur that I shall be coming along to his office in a few minutes?’

  He opened the door, and Odette looked up: it was a lovely face, impassive, much made-up.

  ‘Good morning, Thieu,’ she said, pleasantly. ‘I hope this is my visit at last.’

  ‘Your visit?’ said Mathieu.

  It was with rather baffled appreciation that he observed that high calm forehead and those green eyes. She was beautiful beyond all doubt, but her beauty was of the kind that vanishes under observation. Accustomed to faces like Lola’s, the sense of which was grossly obvious at once, Mathieu had on countless occasions tried to unify these fluid features, but they escaped him: as a face, Odette’s always seemed to be dissolving, and thus retained its delusive bourgeois mystery.

  ‘Indeed I wish it were your visit,’ he continued. ‘But I must see Jacques, I want to ask him to do something for me.’

  ‘You aren’t in such a hurry as all that,’ said Odette. ‘Jacques won’t run away. Sit down here.’ And she made room for him beside her. ‘Take care,’ she said with a smile. ‘One of these days I shall be angry. You neglect me. I have a right to my personal visit, you promised me one.’

  ‘You mean that you yourself promised to receive me one of these days.’

  �
�How polite you are,’ she laughed. ‘Your conscience is uneasy.’

  Mathieu sat down. He liked Odette but he never knew what to say to her.

  ‘How are you getting on, Odette?’ He imparted a little warmth to his voice in order to disguise his rather clumsy question.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Do you know where I’ve been this morning? To Saint-Germain, with the car, to see Francoise; it was delightful.’

  ‘And Jacques?’

  ‘He is very busy these days: I see very little of him. But he’s in rude health as usual.’

  Mathieu was suddenly aware of a profound sense of dissatisfaction. She belonged to Jacques. He looked distastefully at the long brown arm emerging from a very simple frock caught in at the waist with a scarlet cord, almost a girl’s frock. The arm, the frock, and the body beneath the frock, belonged to Jacques, as did the easy chair, the mahogany writing-table, and the divan. This discreet and modest lady was redolent of possession. A silence followed, after which Mathieu resumed the warm and rather nasal tone that he kept for Odette. ‘That’s a nice frock of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Oh come!’ said Odette with a pettish laugh. ‘Leave my frock alone: every time you see me you talk about my frocks. Suppose you tell me what you’ve been doing this week.’

  Mathieu laughed too, and began to feel more at ease. ‘In point of fact,’ said he, ‘I have something to say about that frock.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Odette, ‘what can it be?’

  ‘Well, I’m wondering whether you shouldn’t wear ear-rings with it.’

  ‘Ear-rings?’ Odette eyed him with a strange expression.

  ‘I suppose you think them vulgar?’

  ‘Not at all. But they give one a rather forward look.’ And she added brusquely, with a frank laugh: ‘You would certainly be much more at ease with me if I did wear them.’

  ‘Surely not — why should I?’ said Mathieu vaguely.

  He was surprised, and he realized that she was by no means stupid. Odette’s intelligence was like her beauty — there was an elusive quality about it.