The Age of Reason Page 19

  Boris was hurt by this bantering tone, and he suspected that Sereno’s purpose was to inveigle him into saying something unpleasant about Mathieu, for the pleasure of repeating it to Mathieu afterwards. He admired Sereno for being so gratuitously objectionable, but he was becoming restive, and he answered curtly: ‘Mathieu explains things very well.’

  This time Sereno burst out laughing, and Boris bit his lips.

  ‘I don’t for a moment doubt it. Only we are friends of rather too long standing, and I imagine he reserves his pedagogical qualities for younger men. He usually recruits his disciples from among his pupils.’

  ‘I am not his disciple,’ said Boris.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of you,’ said Daniel. ‘Indeed you haven’t the head of a disciple. I was thinking of Hourtiguère, a tall, fair fellow who went to Indo-China last year. You must have heard of him: that was the grand passion two years ago, they were always about together.’

  Boris had to admit that the stroke had been well aimed, and it increased his admiration of Sereno, but he would have liked to knock him down.

  ‘Mathieu did not mention him,’ he said.

  He detested the man Hourtiguère, whom Mathieu had known before himself. Mathieu sometimes assumed a set expression when Boris came to meet him at the Dôme, and said: ‘I must write to Hourtiguère,’ whereupon he became for a while abstracted and intent, like a soldier writing to his girl at home, and describing circles in the air with a fountain pen above a sheet of paper. Boris set to work beside him, with loathing in his heart. He was not, of course, jealous of Hourtiguère. On the contrary, his feeling for the man was one of pity touched with slight repulsion (indeed, he knew nothing of him except a photograph, which depicted him as a tall, rather dismal-looking fellow in plus fours; and a wholly fatuous philosophic dissertation that still lay on Mathieu’s desk). But he wouldn’t for the world have Mathieu treat him later on as he treated Hourtiguère. He would have preferred never to see Mathieu again if he could have believed that he would one day observe, with a set, portentous air, to another young philosopher: ‘Ah, I must write to Serguine today.’ He would, if he must, accept the fact that Mathieu was no more than a stage in his life — and that indeed was rather galling — but he could not bear to be a stage in Mathieu’s life.

  Sereno showed no disposition to move. He was leaning with both hands on the table, in a negligent and easy attitude: ‘I often regret I am such an ignoramus on that subject. Students of philosophy seem to get a great deal of satisfaction out of it.’

  Boris did not answer.

  ‘I should have needed someone to initiate me,’ said Sereno. ‘Someone of your sort. Not too much of an expert, but one who took the subject seriously.’ He laughed, as though a pleasant notion had crossed his mind: ‘Look here, it would be amusing if I took lessons from you...’

  Boris eyed him with mistrust. This must be another trap. He could not see himself in process of instructing Sereno, who must be much more intelligent than himself, and who would certainly ask him all sorts of embarrassing questions. He would choke with nervousness. He reflected with cold resignation that the time must now be twenty-five minutes past eight. Sereno was still smiling, he looked as though he were delighted with his own idea. But he had curious eyes. Boris found it hard to look him in the face.

  ‘I’m very lazy, you know,’ said Sereno. ‘You would have to be strict with me...’

  Boris could not help laughing, and said candidly: ‘I don’t think I could manage that...’

  ‘Oh yes you could,’ said Sereno. ‘I am quite sure you could.’

  ‘I should be frightened of you,’ said Boris.

  Sereno shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nonsense!... Look here, can you spare a minute? We might have a drink opposite, at the Harcourt, and discuss our scheme.’

  ‘Our scheme...’ It was with anguish that Boris watched one of the shop assistants begin to collect books into piles. He would indeed have liked to go to the Harcourt with Sereno: he was an odd fellow, he was extremely good-looking, and it was amusing to talk to him because of the need to be constantly on guard: the persistent sense of danger. He struggled against himself for a moment, but the sense of duty prevailed: ‘As a matter of fact, I’m in rather a hurry,’ he said, and his disappointment lent an edge to his voice.

  Sereno’s expression changed: ‘Oh, all right,’ said he. ‘I don’t want to put you out. Forgive me for having kept you so long. Well — good-bye, and give my regards to Mathieu.’

  He turned abruptly and departed. ‘Have I offended him?’ thought Boris uncomfortably. It was with an uneasy look that he watched Sereno’s broad shoulders as he made his way up the Boulevard Saint-Michel. And then he suddenly realized that he had not a minute to spare. ‘One. Two. Three. Four. Five.’ At five he openly picked the volume up with his right hand, and walked towards the bookshop without any attempt at concealment.

  A throng of words flying no matter where: words in flight, Daniel himself in flight from a tall, frail, round-shouldered body, hazel-eyed, with such an ascetic and charming face, a veritable little monk, a Russian monk, Aliosha. Footsteps, words, footsteps ringing inside his head, he longed to merge himself into those footsteps and those words, anything was better than silence: the little fool, I had judged him rightly. My parents have forbidden me to talk to people I don’t know — Would you like a sweet, darling — My parents have forbidden me...Ah, well! It’s only a very small brain, I don’t know, I don’t know, do you like philosophy, I don’t know, how could he know it, poor lamb! Mathieu acts the sultan in his class, he has thrown him the handkerchief, he takes him to a café, and the lad swallows everything, cream-coffees and theories, as if they were sacred wafers: you needn’t show off like a girl at her first Communion, there he was, as solemn and sedate as a donkey loaded with relics. Oh, I understand, I wasn’t going to lay a hand on you, I am not worthy: and the look he flung at me when I told him I didn’t understand philosophy, he wasn’t even taking the trouble to be polite towards the end. I am sure — I suspected as much at the time of Hourteguère — I am sure he puts them on their guard against me. ‘Well, well,’ said Daniel, with a complacent laugh: ‘It’s an excellent lesson and a cheap one, too, I’m glad he packed me off: if I had been crazy enough to take a little interest in him, and talk to him confidentially, he would have promptly reported it all to Mathieu for both of them to gloat over.’ He stopped so abruptly that a woman who was walking behind him bumped into his back, and emitted a faint shriek. ‘He has discussed me with him!’ That was an in-tol-er-able notion, enough to make a man sweat with fury — picture the pair of them, in excellent humour, glad to be together, the young one gaping and goggling, with his hands behind his ears, anxious to lose none of the divine manna, in some Montparnasse café, one of those noisome little dens that smelt of dirty linen...‘Mathieu must have peered at him with a deep look on his face, and explained what I was like — oh, what a scream!’ And Daniel repeated: ‘What a scream,’ and dug his nails into the palms of his hands. They had judged him from behind, they had dismantled and dissected him, he was defenceless, for all he knew, he might have existed on that day as on other days, as though he were no more than a transparency devoid of memory or purpose, as though he were not, for others, a rather corpulent personage with thickening cheeks, a waning Oriental beauty, a cruel smile, and — who knows?...No, no one. Yes, Bobby knows, Ralph knows, Mathieu doesn’t. Bobby is a shrimp, not a conscious entity, he lives at 6, Rue aux Ours, with Ralph. Oh, to live among the blind! He indeed isn’t blind, and he is proud of it, he can use his eyes, he is an astute psychologist, and he has the right to talk about me, having known me fifteen years and my best friend, and he won’t give up that right: when he meets someone, there are two people for whom I exist, and then three, and then nine, and then a hundred. Sereno, Sereno, the broker, the man of the Bourse, Sereno, the...Perish the man, but no, he walks around as he likes with his opinion of me in his head, injecting it into all and sundry — well, he must dash about
and scratch, scratch, scrub and swill, I have scratched Marcelle to the bone. She gave me her hand, looked at me intently on the first occasion, and she said: ‘Mathieu has so often spoken of you.’ And I looked at her in my turn, fascinated, I was inside his woman, I existed in that flesh, behind that set forehead, in the depths of those eyes, the slut. At the moment, she no longer believes a word he says about me.

  He smiled with satisfaction: he was so proud of that victory that for a second he forgot to keep an eye on himself: a rent appeared in the web of words, which gradually increased and widened into silence. A heavy, empty silence. He ought not — he ought not to have stopped talking. The wind had fallen, anger paused. In the depths of that silence Serguine’s face appeared, like a wound. A mild, dim face: much patience and ardour were needed to light it up a little. And he thought: ‘I could have...’ That year, that day even, he could have done it. Afterwards... ‘It’s my last chance,’ he thought. It was his last chance, and Mathieu had hinted as much, rather casually. Ralphs and Bobbys — these were all he had. ‘And he’ll transform that poor lad into a learned ape!’ He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing inside his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence: he must be somebody else’s nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon. Fortunately, anger again surged forth, and enveloped everything, the vigour of his wrath restored him, and the flight began again, the procession of words began again: he hated Mathieu. Here was a man who found it quite natural to exist, he did not ask himself any questions, that light, so Greek and so impartial, that uncorrupted sky, were made for him, he was at home, he had never been alone: ‘Upon my word,’ thought Daniel: ‘he takes himself for Goethe. ’ He had raised his head, he was looking into the faces of the passers-by: he was cherishing his hatred: ‘Take care, train disciples if it amuses you, but not as instruments against me, because I shall get the better of you in the end. ’ A fresh gust of rage laid hold of him, his feet no longer touched the ground, he flew, delighted in his consciousness of power, when suddenly an idea, edged and flashing, came upon him: ‘But, but, but... there might be a chance of helping him to think, to withdraw into himself, of ensuring that things should not be too easy for him, that would indeed be a good deed done. ’ He remembered the abrupt and masculine air with which Marcelle had once snapped at him over her shoulder: ‘When a woman is completely up against it she can always get herself into the family way. ’ It would be too amusing if they were not altogether agreed on the matter, if he went on haunting the herbalists’ shops, while she, ensconced in her pink room, was pining to have a child. She would not have dared to tell him, only... If there were someone, a kindly common friend, to give her a little courage. ‘I am a truly evil man,’ he thought, with a flush of satisfaction. Evil — that must be this extraordinary sense of speed, that detaches you from your own self and flings you forward: speed took you by the neck, awful and ecstatic, gaining momentum every second, smashing into all manner of insubstantial obstacles that rose abruptly to the left and right —Mathieu, poor devil, I really am a scoundrel, I shall wreck his life — and snapped like rotten branches: — how intoxicating was the fearful joy of it, sharp as an electric shock, joy irresistible. ‘I wonder whether he will still acquire disciples? A family man won’t be quite so popular in such a part.’ Serguine’s face when Mathieu came to announce his marriage, the lad’s contempt, his devastating amazement. ‘You’re going to be married?’ And Mathieu would stammer in reply: ‘A man has some sort of duties.’ But young men didn’t understand duties of that kind. There was something timidly struggling back to life — Mathieu’s face, his honest, loyal face, but the race at once resumed its headlong course: evil could only maintain its balance at full speed, like a bicycle. His thought leapt ahead of him, alert and joyous. ‘He is a good fellow: no evil in him at all: he is of the race of Abel, he has his own form of conscience. Well, he ought to marry Marcelle. After that, he can rest upon his laurels, he is still young, he will have a whole life in which to congratulate himself on a good deed.’

  There was something quite dizzy in the languishing repose of a pure conscience, a pure, unfathomable conscience beneath this genial and familiar sky, that he didn’t know whether he aspired to it for Mathieu’s sake, or for his own. The fellow was set, resigned, and calm — yes, perfectly calm...‘And if she wouldn’t...Ah, if there’s a chance, a single chance that she might want to have the baby, I’ll swear she’ll ask him to marry her tomorrow evening.’ Monsieur and Madame Delarue...Monsieur and Madame Delarue, have the honour to inform you...‘After all, I am their guardian angel, the angel of the hearth.’ It was an archangel, an archangel of hatred, a very magisterial archangel, who turned into the Rue Vercingétorix. For one instant he saw before him once again a lean visage bent over a book, but the vision was immediately engulfed, and it was Bobby who reappeared. ‘6, Rue aux Ours.’ He felt as free as air, he could allow himself any sort of indulgence. The large grocer’s shop in the Rue Vercingétorix was still open, and he went in. When he emerged he was carrying in his right hand Saint Michael’s sword of fire, and in his left hand a box of sweets for Madame Duffet.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE little clock struck ten. Madame Duffet did not seem to hear. She looked intently at Daniel: but her eyes had reddened. ‘It won’t be long before she goes,’ he thought. She threw him a wry smile, but little drifts of air still filtered through her half-closed lips. She was yawning beneath her smile. Suddenly she flung her head back and seemed to make up her mind: and she said with an air of arch vivacity: ‘Well, my children, it’s time for me to go to bed. Don’t keep her up too late, Daniel, I rely on you. If she stays up late, she sleeps next day till twelve o’clock.’

  She got up, and tapped Marcelle on the shoulder with a small, brisk hand. Marcelle was sitting on the bed.

  ‘You hear, ginger-cat,’ she said, amusing herself by speaking between clenched teeth: ‘You sleep too late, my girl, you sleep till midday, and you’re getting fat.’

  ‘I promise faithfully to go away before midnight,’ said Daniel.

  Marcelle smiled: ‘If I want you to.’

  He turned towards Madame Duffet with an elaborately helpless air. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Well, be sensible,’ said Madame Duffet. ‘And thank you for the delicious sweets.’

  She lifted the ribboned box to the level of her eyes, with a rather menacing gesture: ‘You are too kind, you spoil me, I shall have to scold you soon.’

  ‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure than your appreciation of them,’ said Daniel gravely.

  He leaned over Madame Duffet’s hand and kissed it. Seen from near-by, the skin was a network of mauve patches.

  ‘Archangel!’ said Madame Duffet with a melting look. ‘And now I’m off,’ she added, kissing Marcelle on the forehead.

  Marcelle put an arm round her waist, and held her close for a moment; Madame Duffet ruffled her hair, and slipped quickly out of her embrace.

  ‘I’ll come and tuck you up later on,’ said Marcelle.

  ‘No you won’t, you bad girl: I leave you to your archangel.’

  She fled with the agility of a child, and Daniel followed her slim back with a cold eye: he had thought she would never go. The door closed, but he did not feel relieved: he was a little afraid of staying alone with Marcelle. He turned towards her and saw that she was smiling at him.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ he asked.

  ‘It always amuses me to see you with Mother,’ said Marcelle. ‘What a flatterer you are, my poor archangel! It’s a shame, you simply can’t help trying to fascinate people.’

  She eyed him with a proprietary affection, apparently well content to have him to herself. ‘She already has the mask of pregnancy,’ thought Daniel maliciously. He disliked her for looking so happy. He always felt a little apprehensive when he found him
self on the brink of those long, whispered interviews, but he had to take the plunge. He cleared his throat: ‘I’m in for an attack of asthma,’ he thought. Marcelle was just a solid, dreary smell, deposited on the bed; a huddle of flesh that would disintegrate at the slightest movement.

  She got up: ‘I have something to show you.’ She picked up a photograph from the mantelpiece. ‘You always wanted to know what I looked like when I was a girl...’ she said, handing it to him.

  Daniel took it: it was Marcelle at eighteen, she looked like a tart, with her slack mouth and hard eyes. And always the same limp flesh that hung about her like too loose a frock. But she was thin. Daniel looked up, and caught her anxious look.

  ‘You were charming,’ he said judiciously: ‘but you have scarcely changed.’

  Marcelle began to laugh. ‘Nonsense! You know very well that I have changed, you wicked flatterer; but you shouldn’t trouble, you aren’t talking to my mother.’ And she added: ‘Still, I was a fine, strapping lass, wasn’t I?’

  ‘I like you better as you are,’ said Daniel. ‘There was something rather slack about your mouth... You now look so much more interesting.’

  ‘One never knows if you are serious,’ she said peevishly. But it was easy to see that she was flattered.

  She stiffened a little, and threw a brief glance at the mirror. This silly, naive gesture annoyed Daniel: there was a childish and ingenuous candour in this coquetry of hers which clashed with her very ordinary female face. He smiled at her.

  ‘And now I’m going to ask you why you’re smiling,’ she said.

  ‘Because you looked at yourself in the glass just as a little girl would do. I’m always touched when you happen to take notice of yourself.’