The Age of Reason Read online

  ‘Yes — yes, I do,’ said the youth, rather taken aback.

  The gentleman stopped playing and came up to him.

  ‘But the game isn’t finished,’ said the youth ingenuously. ‘You’ve got five balls left.’

  ‘True. Well, we can play later on,’ said the gentleman. ‘I would sooner talk to you for a bit, if you don’t mind.’

  The youth smiled a professional smile. The gentleman, in order to join him, had to make a half-turn. He raised his head, and as he slowly licked his thin lips his look encountered Daniel’s. Daniel glared at him, the gentleman hastily averted his eyes, looked upset, uneasy, and rubbed his hands together like a priest. The youth had seen nothing; with open mouth, and vacant and submissive eyes he waited until he was spoken to. A silence fell, then the gentleman began to talk to him in an unctuous husky voice, but did not look at him. Daniel strained his ears, but could only catch the words — ‘villa’, and ‘billiards’. The youth shook his head emphatically.

  ‘It must be a posh place,’ said he loudly.

  The gentleman did not answer, and flung a furtive glance in Daniel’s direction. Daniel felt invigorated by a dry, delicious anger. He knew all the rites of departure: they would say goodbye and the gentleman would go first, padding busily out of the hall. The boy would nonchalantly rejoin his little friends, deal another blow or two at the nigger’s stomach, and then go too, shuffling out after a few casual good-byes: he was the one to follow. And the old gentleman, as he paced up and down in the next street, would suddenly see Daniel appear on the heels of the young beauty. What a moment! Daniel enjoyed it in anticipation, he devoured with magisterial gaze his victim’s delicate, lined face, his hands shook, and his joy would have been complete had not his throat been so dry; indeed he was agonizingly thirsty. If he saw a chance, he would impersonate a detective of police in charge of offences against morals: he could always take the old man’s name and reduce him to a state of jitters: ‘If he asks me for my inspector’s card I’ll show him my Prefecture pass.’

  ‘Good morning, Monsieur Lalique,’ said a timid voice.

  Daniel recoiled: Lalique was a pseudonym he sometimes used. He turned abruptly round.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked severely, ‘I had forbidden you to set foot inside the place.’

  It was Bobby. Daniel had got him a job with a chemist, he had become gross and fat, he was wearing a new ready-made suit, and was no longer in the least interesting. Bobby tilted his head sideways, as a child might do: he looked at Daniel without replying, but with an ingenuous, sly smile, as though he had said: ‘Here we are again!’ It was the smile that brought Daniel’s wrath to boiling-point.

  ‘Will you answer me!’ said he.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you for three days, Monsieur Lalique,’ said Bobby in his drawling voice. ‘I didn’t know your address. I said to myself — one of these days, Monsieur Daniel will be sure to come in here...’

  ‘One of these days. Impertinent little beast!’ He dared to predict what Daniel might do, and laid his petty plans accordingly. ‘He thinks he knows me, he thinks he can exploit me.’ There was nothing to be done but crush him like a slug: Daniel’s image was embedded in that narrow forehead, and there it would remain forever. Despite his repugnance, Daniel felt a bond between himself and that patch of flaccid, living flesh: it was he who thus lived in Bobby’s consciousness.

  ‘You are ugly,’ he said, ‘you have lost your figure, and that suit is a disgrace, where on earth did you pick it up? It’s dreadful how your vulgarity comes out when you put on your best clothes.’

  Bobby did not seem disconcerted: he looked at Daniel with wide, affectionate eyes, and continued to smile. Daniel detested the nerveless patience of poverty, its limp, tenacious, indiarubber smile: even if an angry fist crashed on to those lips, the smile would linger on the bleeding mouth. Daniel threw a furtive glance at the handsome gentleman: his look of uneasiness had vanished: he was leaning over the little blond ruffian, breathing into his hair and laughing genially. ‘It had to happen,’ thought Daniel wrathfully, ‘he sees me with this tart, he takes me for a colleague, my reputation’s gone.’ He hated this free-masonry of the urinal. ‘They imagine that everyone is in it. I, for one, would sooner kill myself than look like that old sod.’

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked brutally. ‘I’m in a hurry. And keep your distance, you reek of brilliantine,’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Bobby placidly. ‘You were there leaning against the pillar, you didn’t look in a hurry, and that’s why I thought I would...’

  ‘Dear me, how correctly you talk!’ said Daniel with a burst of laughter. ‘I suppose you bought some ready-made speeches at the same time as your suit?’

  These sarcasms were lost on Bobby: he had tilted his head back and was contemplating the ceiling with an air of modest enjoyment, through his half-closed eyelids. ‘He attracted me because he looked like a cat.’ At that thought Daniel could not repress a quiver of rage. Yes, indeed; in days gone by, Bobby had then attracted him. Could he therefore make claims on Daniel for the rest of his life?

  The old gentleman had taken his young friend’s hand and was holding it paternally between his own. Then he said good-bye to him, tapped him on the cheek, threw a meaning glance at Daniel, and departed with long mincing strides. Daniel put out his tongue at him, but the man had already turned his back. Bobby began to laugh.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘It’s because you put your tongue out at the old pimp,’ said Bobby. And he added in a fawning line: ‘You’re still the same, Monsieur Daniel, just as boyish as ever.’

  ‘Well, really!’ said Daniel, quite dumbfounded. A suspicion seized him, and he said: ‘What about your chemist? Aren’t you with him still?’

  ‘I had no luck,’ said Bobby, plaintively.

  Daniel eyed him with disgust.

  ‘You’ve managed to get fat, though.’

  The blond boy was strolling casually out of the Fair, and brushed against Daniel as he passed. His three companions soon followed him, jostling each other as they went, and laughing loudly. ‘What am I doing here?’ thought Daniel. He looked round in search of the stooping shoulders and thin neck of the young man in the night-shirt.

  ‘Come, tell me,’ he said absently. ‘What did you do? Did you rob him?’

  ‘It was the chemist’s wife,’ said Bobby. ‘She got a down on me.’

  The young man in the night-shirt was no longer there. Daniel felt bored and exhausted, he was afraid of finding himself alone.

  ‘She got mad because I was seeing Ralph,’ pursued Bobby.

  ‘I told you to give up seeing Ralph. He’s a dirty little scab.’

  ‘Do you mean that a chap is to chuck his pals because he’s had a bit of luck?’ asked Bobby indignantly. ‘I was seeing less of him, but I wasn’t going to drop him all at once. — He’s a thief — that’s what she said: I forbid him to set foot in my shop. What are you to do with a bitch like that? I used to meet him outside so that she shouldn’t catch me. But the dispenser saw us together. Dirty little beast, I believe he’s one of them,’ said Bobby, virtuously. ‘When I was first there, it was Bobby here and Bobby there, you bet I told him off. I’ll get back on you, he said. He went to the shop and spat it all out, how he’d seen us together, and we were misbehaving, and the people had to look the other way. And the chemist’s wife, she said — What did I tell you, I forbid you to see him or you shan’t stay in our place. — Madame, I said, it’s you who give orders at the shop, but when I’m outside, what I do isn’t your business, so that was that!’

  The Fair was deserted, beyond the wall the hammering had ceased. The cashier got up — she was a tall, fair-haired girl. She pattered up to a scent machine and admired herself in the glass and smiled. Seven o’clock struck.

  ‘It’s you who gives orders in the shop, but when I’m outside, what I do isn’t your business,’ repeated Bobby complacently.

  Daniel shook himsel
f.

  ‘So they threw you out?’ he said, indifferently.

  ‘I went of my own accord,’ said Bobby with dignity. ‘I said — I prefer to go. And without a penny in my pocket. They wouldn’t even pay me what was due, but it can’t be helped: I’m like that. I’m sleeping at Ralph’s place. I sleep in the afternoon, because he receives a lady in the evening. It’s an affair. I haven’t had anything to eat since the day before yesterday.’

  He looked at Daniel with an insinuating air: ‘I said to myself — I can always try to find Monsieur Lalique, he’ll understand me.’

  ‘You’re a little fool,’ said Daniel. ‘You don’t interest me any more. I go all out to find you a job, and you get yourself sacked at the end of a month. Added to which, you know, don’t imagine that I believe half you tell me. You lie like a dentist at a fair.’

  ‘You can ask,’ said Bobby. ‘You’ll soon see if I’m not telling the truth.’

  ‘Ask? Ask whom?’

  ‘The chemist’s wife.’

  ‘Of course I shan’t,’ said Daniel. ‘I should hear some fine stories. Anyway, I can’t do anything for you.’

  He felt shaky, and he thought, ‘I must go away,’ but his legs were numb.

  ‘We had the idea of doing a job of work, Ralph and I...’ said Bobby with an air of detachment ‘We thought of setting up on our own.’

  ‘Indeed? And you’re come to ask me to advance you the money needed for a start, eh? Keep those stories for other people. How much do you want?’

  ‘You’re a fine chap, Monsieur Lalique,’ said Bobby in a clammy voice. ‘I was just saying to Ralph this morning; if only I can find Monsieur Lalique, you’ll see that he won’t leave me in the lurch,’

  ‘How much do you want?’ repeated Daniel.

  Bobby began to wriggle; ‘Well, if you could lend the amount, perhaps — and I mean lend — I would repay you at the end of the first month.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred francs.’

  ‘Here’s fifty,’ said Daniel, ‘as a gift. And now clear out.’

  Bobby pocketed the note without a word, and they stood face to face, irresolute.

  ‘Go away,’ said Daniel weakly.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Lalique,’ said Bobby. He made as though to go and then turned back. ‘If you want to see me, or Ralph, at any time, we live nearby, 6 Rue aux Ours, seventh floor. You’re wrong about Ralph, you know, he likes you very much.’

  ‘Go away.’

  Bobby moved off, walking backwards, still smiling, then he swung round and went. Daniel went up to the crane and had a look at it. In addition to the Kodak and the electric lamp, there were a pair of binoculars he had never noticed. He slipped a franc into the appropriate slot, and turned the knobs at random. The crane dropped its claws and began clumsily to rake about in the pile of sweets. Daniel picked up five or six sweets in the hollow of his hand and ate them.

  The sun began to plaster gold on to the great black buildings, the sky was filled with gold, but a soft and liquid shadow rose up from the street, and the people smiled at its caresses. Daniel was devoured by thirst but he would not drink: die, then! die of thirst. ‘After all,’ he thought, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ But he had done worse: he had let the evil thing come very close to him, he had done everything except satisfy his senses, and that was merely because he had not dared. Now he carried the evil thing within himself, it tingled down his body head to foot, he was infected, there was still that yellow after-taste in his eyes, indeed his eyes turned everything yellow. He would have done much better to let pleasure strike him down, and thus strike down the evil thing within him. It was true that it always revived. He swung round: ‘He might be following me to see where I live. Oh!’ thought he, ‘I wish he had done. I would give him such a thrashing in the open street!’ But Bobby did not appear. He had made his day, and now he had gone home. To Ralph’s place, 6 Rue aux Ours. Daniel quivered: ‘If I could forget that address! If only I could manage to forget that address...’ What was the use? He would take care not to forget it.

  People were chattering all around him, in amity and peace. A man said to his wife: ‘Why, it goes back to before the war. It was 1912. No. It was 1913. I was still with Paul Lucas.’ Peace. The peace of good and honest folk, the peace of men of goodwill. Why is their will good, and not mine? It couldn’t be helped, it just was so. Something in this sky, in this light, in this display of nature, had thus decided. They knew, they knew that they were right, that God, if He existed, was on their side. Daniel looked at their faces: how hard they were, despite their unconstraint. At the merest sign these men would fall upon him and tear him to pieces. And the sky, the light, the trees, the whole of Nature would be, as always, in league with them: Daniel was a man of evil will.

  Before his doorway, a large and pallid concierge lay back in his chair enjoying the fresh air. Daniel caught sight of him from a distance, and he thought: ‘Goodwill personified.’ The concierge sat with his hands across his stomach, Buddha-fashion, watching the passers-by, from time to time nodding his approval: ‘Oh, to be a fellow like that,’ thought Daniel enviously. A truly serious character: and responsive to the great natural forces, heat, cold, light, and moisture. Daniel stopped, fascinated by those long, silky eyelashes, by the sententious malice of those plump cheeks. He longed to sink his senses until he was no more than that, until there was nothing in his head but a white paste and a faint scent of shaving cream. ‘Never misses a night’s sleep,’ he thought. He no longer knew whether he wanted to destroy the man, or slip into the warm refuge of that ordered soul.

  The large man lifted his head, and Daniel walked on: ‘Living the life I do, I can always expect to break up pretty soon,’

  He flung a dark look at his portfolio; he disliked carrying it in his hand: it made him look like a lawyer. But his ill-humour vanished when he remembered he had not bought it unintentionally: and indeed, it was going to be tremendously useful. He did not blink the fact that he was running risks, but he was calm and cold, merely a little more animated than usual: ‘If I reach the edge of the pavement in thirteen strides...’ He took thirteen strides, and stopped dead on the edge of the pavement, but the last stride had been noticeably longer than the others, he had lunged like a fencer. ‘However, no matter: whatever happens, the job is as good as done.’ It could not fail, it was foolproof, indeed, the surprising thing was that no one had thought of it before. ‘The plain fact is,’ he reflected scornfully, ‘thieves are bloody fools.’ He crossed the road, ruminating on his idea. They ought to have organized themselves a long time since. Into a syndicate, like conjurers. An association for the dissemination and exploitation of technical methods — that is what they need. With a registered office, a scale of awards, a code, and a library. A private cinema as well, and films that would analyse the more difficult actions in slow motion. Each new improvement would be filmed, and the theory recorded on gramophone discs, with the name of the inventor: each one being graded according to category: there would be, for example — the shop-window theft by method 1673, or the ‘Serguine Method’, also called the Christopher Columbus Egg (as being extremely simple, but yet to be discovered). Boris would gladly have presided over a little instructional film. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘and free instruction on the psychology of theft, that was indispensable.’ His method was based almost wholly on psychology. He threw an approving glance at a little one-storied café, painted pumpkin colour, and suddenly noticed that he was halfway along the Avenue d’Orléans. Strange how pleasant all these people looked, on the Avenue d’Orléans between seven and half past seven in the evening. The light accounted for a good deal — a most becoming russet-muslin light — and it was delightful to find oneself on the outskirts of Paris, near one of the gates, the streets speeding underfoot towards the old commercial centres of the city, the markets, and the dark alleys of Saint-Antoine, immersed where he was in the soft, religious seclusion of the evening and the suburbs. The people look as if they have come
out to enjoy each other’s company: they don’t mind being jostled, indeed they look into the shop-windows with a naive, dispassionate interest. On the Boulevard Saint-Michel people also look into the shop-windows, but they mean to buy. ‘I shall come back here every evening,’ Boris decided eagerly. Then, next summer, he would take a room in one of those three-storied houses, that looked so like twin sisters and recalled the Revolution of ’48. But I wonder how the good women of those days managed to push the bolsters through such narrow windows on to the heads of the soldiers below. The frames of the windows are all blackened with smoke, they look as though they had been scorched in a fire — but these bleak facades holed by small black windows are not depressing, indeed they look like bursts of storm-sky under a blue heaven; as I look at the windows, if I could climb on to the terrace-roof of that little café I should see the glass-doored wardrobes at the far end of the rooms, like pools up-ended: the crowds pass through me and I find myself thinking of the Municipal Guards, the gilded entrance-gates to the Palais Royal, and the 14th of July. ’What did that Communist fellow want with Mathieu?‘ he suddenly asked himself. Boris did not like Communists, they were so serious. Brunet, in particular, was intolerably magisterial. ‘He slung me out,’ chuckled Boris to himself: ‘damn him, he fairly pitched me out.’ And then, quite suddenly, like a violent little tornado inside his head, there came upon him the impulse to smash something. ‘I daresay Mathieu has noticed that he has got in completely wrong, and now he’ll join the Communist Party.’ For a moment he lingered over all the incalculable results of such a conversion. But in a sudden flush of fear he stood still. Surely Mathieu had not been in the wrong, that would be too awful now that Boris was committed: in the philosophy class there had been a good deal of lively interest in Communism, and Mathieu had evaded the issue by explaining what freedom was. Boris had promptly understood: the individual’s duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person. Boris had constructed his life on this basis, and he kept himself conscientiously free: indeed, he always challenged everyone, excepting Mathieu and Ivich: that would have been futile, for they were above criticism. As to freedom, there was no sense in speculating on its nature, because in that case one was then no longer free. Boris scratched his head in perplexity, and wondered what was the origin of these destructive impulses which gripped him from time to time. ‘Perhaps I am naturally highly strung,’ he reflected, with amusement and surprise. Because, after all, taking a cool view of matters, Mathieu was definitely not in the wrong: Mathieu was not that sort. Boris felt reassured and brandished the portfolio. He also wondered if it was moral to be highly strung, he considered the pros and cons of the matter, but he refrained from pushing his inquiries any further; he would ask Mathieu. Boris considered it indecent for a fellow of his age to aspire to think for himself. He had seen enough of such people at the Sorbonne, pretentious young wiseacres, bleak, bespectacled products of the École Normale, who always had a personal theory in reserve, and invariably ended by making fools of themselves somehow, and even so, their theories were repellent and crude. Boris had a horror of the ridiculous, he had no intention of making a fool of himself, he preferred to say nothing and let it be assumed that he had no ideas — this was much the more agreeable line to take. Later on, of course, things would be different, but for the moment he deferred to Mathieu, whose profession it was to solve problems. Besides he always enjoyed watching Mathieu apply his mind to a subject: he flushed, stared at his fingers, stammered a little, but it was an honest and admirable effort. Sometimes, not indeed very often, some trifling idea came to Boris, much against his will, and he tried to prevent Mathieu noticing the fact, but the old toad always did notice it, and he would say: ‘You’ve got something at the back of your head,’ and promptly plied him with questions: Boris was in agony, he struggled to divert the conversation, but Mathieu was extremely tenacious — in the end, Boris blurted the thing out, looking down at the floor, and the worst of it all was that Mathieu proceeded to abuse him, saying: ‘That’s just rubbish, you can’t think straight,’ precisely as if Boris had claimed to have conceived an inspired idea. ‘The old toad!’ repeated Boris cheerfully. He stopped before the window of a fine, red-painted chemist’s shop, and impartially considered his reflection. ‘I’m a decent sort of chap,’ he thought. He liked his looks. He stepped on to the automatic weighing-machine to see if he had put on weight since the day before. A red bulb flashed, a mechanism began to function with a rattle and a whirr, and Boris received a cardboard ticket: nine stones and a half. For a moment he was dismayed. ‘I’ve put on over a pound.’ Luckily he noticed he was still carrying his portfolio. He got off the machine and went on his way. Nine stone for five feet nine was quite all right. He was in excellent humour, and felt a genial glow within him. Around him, indeed, the tenuous melancholy of that decaying day was slowly sinking into darkness, and, as it faded, touched him lightly with its amber radiance, its perfumes laden with regret. That day, that tropical sea, receding now and leaving him alone beneath a fading light, was a stage upon his progress, though not one of much significance. The night would come, he would go to the Sumatra, he would see Mathieu, he would see Ivich, and he would dance. But soon, exactly at the hinge of day and night, this masterly act of larceny would be committed. He drew himself up and quickened his step: he must be cautious: he must remember that those nondescript-looking fellows who stand solemnly turning over the pages of books are narks. Six of them were employed at the Garbure book-shop. Boris had this information from Picard who had served in the shop for three days after failing in his geology examination; he had to do something, his parents having cut off supplies, but he soon cleared out in disgust. Not only did he have to spy on the customers, he also had orders to watch out for simple-minded people, wearers of pince-nez, for instance, who strolled nervously up to the shop-window, and suddenly leap out on them, accusing them of having tried to slip a book into their pocket. The wretched creatures were naturally terror-stricken, and having been conducted down a long corridor into a small dark office, a hundred francs were extorted from them under threat of prosecution. Boris felt intoxicated: he would avenge them all: he would not be caught. ‘Most of these fellows,’ he thought, ‘have no notion of defending themselves — of a hundred thieves, eighty were amateurs.’ He was no amateur: it was true that he did not know everything, but what he did know he had learned methodically, having always thought that a fellow who worked with his head should be familiar with some form of manual labour, to keep himself in touch with reality. Hitherto he had drawn no profit from his enterprises: he attached no importance to possessing seventeen tooth-brushes, some twenty ash-trays, a compass, a poker, and a darning-mushroom. What he took into consideration in each case was the technical difficulty. It was far better, as he had done in the previous week, to annex a little box of Blackoid liquorice tablets under the eyes of the chemist, than a morocco pocket-book from an empty shop. The benefit of the theft was entirely moral: on this point Boris felt himself in complete agreement with the ancient Spartans; it was a test of character. And there was indeed a delicious moment when you said to yourself: I shall count up to five, and at five, the toothbrush must be in my pocket: you caught your breath and were conscious of an extraordinary sensation of clarity and power. He smiled: he was going to make an exception to his principles; for the first time, his own interest should be the motive for the theft: in half an hour or later, he would possess that jewel, that indispensable treasure. ‘The Thesaurus!’ he muttered, for he liked the word Thesaurus, as reminding him of the Middle Ages, Abelard, herbalists, Faust, and the chastity belts at the Cluny Museum. ‘It will be mine, I shall be able to consult it any hour of the day.’ Hitherto he had been obliged to look through it in the shop-window, in a hurry, and as the pages were not cut, the information he had acquired was often incomplete. He would put it, that very evening, on his night table, and tomorrow when he awoke it would be t
he first object that met his eye. ‘Alas, no,’ he thought peevishly: ‘I’m sleeping with Lola this evening.’ In any case he would take it to the Sorbonne library, and from time to time, interrupting his work of revision, he would glance into it to refresh his mind: he resolved to learn one phrase and perhaps even two every day, in six months that would make six times three, which was eighteen, multiplied by two: three hundred and sixty, with the five or six hundred that he knew already, adding up to pretty near a thousand, which might be described as a good average of achievement. He crossed the Boulevard Raspail and turned into the Rue Denfert-Rochereau with a faint sense of dislike. The Rue Denfert-Rochereau always irritated him extremely, perhaps because of its chestnut trees: in any case, it was a characterless place, except for a black-painted dyeing establishment with blood-red curtains looped dismally across the window like two scalped heads of hair. Boris, on his way past, looked appreciatively at the dyeing shop, and then plunged into the blonde, fastidious silence of the street. Street, indeed! It was no more than a burrow with houses on each side. ‘Yes, but the Metro passes underneath it,’ thought Boris, and he drew some comfort from this notion, conceiving himself for a minute or two as walking on a thin crust of bitumen, which might perhaps crack. ‘I must tell Mathieu about it,’ Boris said to himself; ‘he’ll be furious.’ No. The blood suddenly rushed into his face, he would do nothing of the kind. Ivich, yes: she understood him, and if she did not herself steal, it was because she was not gifted that way. He would also tell Lola, just to infuriate her. But Mathieu was not too candid on the subject of these thefts. He grinned indulgently when Boris mentioned them, but Boris was not very sure that he approved. For instance, he found himself wondering what arguments Mathieu could use against him. Lola just got wild, but that was natural, she could not understand certain fine distinctions, and the more so because she was rather common.