The Age of Reason Read online

  Marcelle flushed, and tapped her foot on the floor: ‘He’ll always be a flatterer!’

  They both laughed, and Daniel thought rather timorously: ‘Now for it.’ The opportunity was good — this was the moment, but he felt blank and listless. He thought of Mathieu, to put heart into himself, and was glad to find his hatred unimpaired. Mathieu was as compact and dry as a bone: a man who could be hated. It was not possible to hate Marcelle.

  ‘Marcelle, look at me.’

  He had thrust his chest forward and was eyeing her with a solicitous air.

  ‘There,’ said Marcelle.

  She returned his look, but her head was quivering: she found it difficult to meet a man’s look.

  ‘You seem tired.’

  Marcelle blinked. ‘I am rather under the weather,’ she said: ‘It’s the heat.’

  Daniel leaned a little closer, and repeated with an air of grieved reproach: ‘Very tired. I was looking at you just now; while your mother was telling us about her trip to Rome: you seemed so preoccupied, so nervous...’

  Marcelle interrupted him with an indignant laugh: ‘Look here, Daniel, that’s the third time she has told you about that trip: and you always listen with the same air of passionate interest: to be quite frank, it rather annoys me; I don’t know what is in your mind at such moments.’

  ‘Your mother amuses me,’ said Daniel. ‘I know her stories, but I like to hear her tell them, there are certain little gestures of hers I find delightful.’

  He jerked his head slightly, and Marcelle burst out laughing: Daniel was an admirable mimic when he chose. But he promptly resumed his serious expression and Marcelle stopped laughing. And she said. ‘It’s you who are looking odd this evening. What’s the matter with you?’

  He paused before replying. A heavy silence weighed them down, the room was a veritable furnace. Marcelle laughed a nervous little laugh that died at once upon her lips. Daniel was enjoying himself.

  ‘Marcelle,’ he said: ‘I oughtn’t to tell you...’

  She started: ‘What? What? For heaven’s sake, what is it?’

  ‘You won’t be angry with Mathieu?’

  She paled: ‘He... Oh the... He swore he wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Marcelle — were you really going to keep me in ignorance of something so important! Am I no longer a friend of yours?’

  ‘It’s so disgusting,’ she said.

  Ah! At last: she was naked. No more question of archangels, nor of youthful photographs: she had shed her mask of laughing dignity. Here was just a large and pregnant woman, who smelt of flesh. Daniel felt hot, he passed a hand across his damp forehead.

  ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘No, it’s not disgusting.’

  An abrupt movement of Marcelle’s elbow and forearm streaked through the torrid air of the room.

  ‘You find me repulsive,’ she said.

  He laughed a youthful laugh. ‘Repulsive? My dear Marcelle, it would be a very long time before you could find anything that would make me think you repulsive.’

  Marcelle did not answer, she stood with face downcast. At last she said: ‘I so much wanted to keep you out of all this...’

  They fell silent. There was now a fresh bond between them: a vile, loose bond, like an umbilical cord.

  ‘Have you seen Mathieu since he left me?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘He telephoned about one o’clock,’ said Marcelle curtly. She had recovered herself and stiffened, she now stood on the defensive, erect and with indrawn nostrils: she was in agony of mind.

  ‘Did he tell you that I had refused him the money?’

  ‘He told me you hadn’t any.’

  ‘But I had.’

  ‘You had?’ she repeated in astonishment ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t lend him any. Not before having seen you, at any rate.’

  He paused and then added: ‘Marcelle, am I to lend him the money?’

  ‘Well,’ she said with embarrassment, ‘I just don’t know. It’s for you to consider whether you can.’

  ‘I most certainly can. I have fifteen thousand francs that I can dispose of without inconveniencing myself in the slightest.’

  ‘Then — yes,’ said Marcelle. ‘Yes, my dear Daniel, you must lend us the money.’

  A silence fell. Marcelle crumpled the sheet between her fingers, and her heavy throat began to throb.

  ‘You don’t understand me,’ said Daniel. ‘What I mean is — do you honestly want me to lend him the money?’

  Marcelle raised her head and looked at him with surprise: ‘How odd you are, Daniel: you have something in your mind.’

  ‘Well... I was merely wondering whether Mathieu had consulted you.’

  ‘Of course he did. Anyway’ — she said with a faint smile — ‘you know how it is with people like ourselves; we don’t consult each other, one of us says — we will do this or that, and the other objects, if he or she doesn’t agree.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes. Only, that is wholly to the advantage of the person who has made up his mind: the other is bustled around and hasn’t time to make it up.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Marcelle.

  ‘I know how much Mathieu respects your advice,’ he said. ‘But I can so well imagine the scene: it has haunted me all the afternoon. He must have got on the high horse, as he always does on these occasions, and then said as he swallowed his saliva: “Ha! Very well, this calls for extreme measures.” He had no hesitations, and besides, he couldn’t have any: he’s a man. Only... wasn’t it rather hasty? You yourself can hardly have known what you wanted to do?’ Again he leaned towards Marcelle: ‘Isn’t that what happened?’

  Marcelle was not looking at him. She had turned her head towards the hand-basin, and Daniel viewed her in profile. She looked downcast ‘Something like that,’ she said. Then she blushed violently. ‘Oh, please don’t let’s talk any more about it, Daniel. It... it upsets me rather.’

  Daniel did not take his eyes off her. ‘She is trembling,’ he thought to himself. But he no longer quite knew whether his enjoyment lay in humiliating her, or himself with her. And he said to himself: ‘It will be easier than I thought.’

  ‘Marcelle,’ he said. ‘Don’t be so aloof, I do beseech you: I know how disagreeable it must be to you to discuss all this...’

  ‘Especially with you,’ said Marcelle. ‘Daniel, you are so different!’

  Good heavens, I am her purity embodied! Again she trembled and pressed her arms against her chest.

  ‘I no longer dare look at you,’ she said. ‘Even if I don’t disgust you, I feel as if I had lost you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Daniel bitterly. ‘An archangel is easily scared. Look here, Marcelle, don’t go on making me play this ridiculous part. There’s nothing archangelic about me: I am just your friend, your best friend. And there’s something I intend to say anyway,’ he added firmly: ‘since I’m in a position to help you. Marcelle, are you really sure that you don’t want a child?’

  A faint and sudden shock thrilled through Marcelle’s body, as though it were about to collapse. But the disintegrating impulse was abruptly arrested, and the body sank, a motionless bulk, on to the edge of the bed. She turned her head towards Daniel: she was crimson: but she eyed him without malice, in helpless amazement. ‘She is desperate,’ thought Daniel.

  ‘You have but to say one word: if you are sure of yourself, Mathieu shall have the money tomorrow morning.’

  He almost wanted her to say she was. He would send the money, and that would be that. But she said nothing, she had turned towards him, she looked expectant: he must persevere to the end. ‘My God!’ thought Daniel, ‘she’s actually looking grateful.’ Like Malvina after he had slapped her.

  ‘You!’ said she, ‘you actually asked yourself that question! And he!... Daniel, there’s no one but you who takes any interest in me.’

  He got up, came and sat down beside her, and took her hand. The hand was as soft and fevered as a confidence: silently he held it in his own. Marcelle seemed to be struggling ag
ainst her tears: she was looking at her knees.

  ‘Marcelle, don’t you really mind if the baby is got rid of?’

  ‘What else is there to do?’ said Marcelle with a weary gesture.

  ‘I’ve won,’ thought Daniel: but he felt no pleasure at his victory. He was choking. At close quarters, Marcelle smelt a little, he could have sworn she did: so faintly that indeed it could not, perhaps, be properly described as an odour, it was a sort of impregnation of the air around her. And then there was this hand that lay sweating in his own. He forced himself to squeeze it harder, to make it exude all its sap.

  ‘I don’t know what can be done,’ he said in rather a dry voice: ‘we’ll consider that later on. At this moment, I am thinking solely of you. If you have this baby, it might be a disaster, but it might also be a chance of better things. Marcelle, you must not be able to accuse yourself later on of not having thought enough about all this.’

  ‘Yes...’ said Marcelle. ‘Yes...’

  She stared into vacancy with a naive air of candour that seemed to rejuvenate her. Daniel thought of the young student of the photograph. ‘It’s true. She was once young...’ But on that unresponsive face even the reflections of youth had no attraction. He dropped the hand abruptly, and drew back a little.

  ‘Think,’ he said in an urgent tone. ‘Are you really sure?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marcelle.

  She got up: ‘Excuse me, I must go and tuck up Mamma.’

  Daniel bowed silently: it was a ritual. ‘I’ve won,’ he thought, as the door closed. He wiped his hands on his handkerchief, then he got up briskly and opened the drawer in the night-table: it sometimes contained amusing letters, brief missives from Mathieu, quite conjugal in tone, or interminable lamentations from Andrée, who was not happy. The drawer was empty: Daniel sat down again in the easy-chair and thought: ‘I’ve won, she’s pining to lay an egg.’ He was glad to be alone: he could thus recover from his hatred. ‘I bet he’ll marry her,’ he said to himself. ‘Besides, he has behaved very badly, he didn’t even consult her. But,’ he continued with a curt laugh: ‘It’s not worth the trouble of hating him for good motives: I’ve got my hands full with the others.’

  Marcelle returned with a distraught expression on her face.

  ‘And even supposing I wanted the baby?’ she said abruptly. ‘What good would that do me? I can’t afford the luxury of being a girl-mother, and there’s no question of his marrying me, of course.’

  Daniel raised astonished eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t he marry you?’

  Marcelle eyed him in bewilderment, then she decided to laugh: ‘But Daniel! Surely you know how we stand together!’

  ‘I know nothing at all,’ said Daniel. ‘I know only one thing: if he wants to, he has only to take the necessary steps, like everybody else, and in a month you are his wife. Was it you, Marcelle, who decided never to marry?’

  ‘I should hate him to marry me in self-defence.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  Marcelle relaxed a little. She began to laugh, and Daniel realized that he had taken the wrong line. ‘No, really,’ she said: ‘I don’t in the least mind not being called Madame Delarue.’

  ‘I’m sure of that,’ said Daniel briskly: ‘What I meant was — if it were the only means of keeping the child?...’

  Marcelle seemed overwhelmed. ‘But... I have never looked at things in that light.’

  That was doubtless true. It was very difficult to make her face facts: her nose would have to be kept down to it, otherwise she scattered herself in all directions.

  ‘It’s... it’s a matter,’ she added: ‘that was just accepted between us: marriage is a form of slavery, and neither of us wanted that sort of thing.’

  ‘But you want the child?’

  She did not answer. It was the decisive moment: Daniel repeated harshly: ‘Isn’t that so? You want the child?’

  Marcelle leaned one hand on the pillow, she had laid the other on her thighs. She lifted it, and laid it against her stomach, as though she felt a pain there: it was a grotesque, intriguing scene. Then she said in a forlorn voice: ‘Yes. I want the child.’

  The game was won. Daniel said nothing. He could not take his eyes off that stomach. Enemy flesh, lush, fostering flesh, a veritable larder. He reflected that Mathieu had desired it, and a brief flash of satisfaction leapt within him: a foretaste of his vengeance. The brown, ringed hand lay clenched on the silk frock, pressing against the body. What did she feel inside her, this bulky female in her disarray? He would have liked to be her.

  ‘Daniel,’ said Marcelle in a hollow voice: ‘You have saved me. I... I couldn’t say that to anyone, not to anyone in the world, I had come to believe it was wrong.’ She eyed him anxiously: ‘It isn’t wrong, is it?’

  He could not help laughing. ‘Wrong? But that’s a perverted point of view, Marcelle. Do you think your desires wrong when they are natural?’

  ‘No, I mean — as concerning Mathieu. It’s like a breach of contract.’

  ‘You must have a frank talk with him, that’s all.’

  Marcelle did not answer: she looked as though she were reflecting. Then she said suddenly, and with fervour: ‘Ah, if I had a child, I swear I wouldn’t let him spoil his life as I have done.’

  ‘You haven’t spoilt your life.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘No, you haven’t, Marcelle. Not yet.’

  ‘I have indeed. I have done nothing and nobody needs me.’

  He did not answer: it was true.

  ‘Mathieu doesn’t need me. If I were to die... Well, he wouldn’t feel it in his bones. Nor would you, Daniel. You have a great affection for me, which is perhaps what I most value in the world. But you don’t need me: it is I who need you.’

  Should he answer? Or protest? He must be careful: Marcelle seemed to be possessed by one of her accesses of cynical clairvoyance. He took her hand without saying a word, and squeezed it meaningly.

  ‘A baby,’ Marcelle went on. ‘A baby certainly would need me.’

  He stroked her hand. ‘It’s to Mathieu that you ought to be saying all this.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’m dumb. I wait for it to come from him.’

  ‘But you know it never will: he doesn’t think of such a thing.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he? You thought of it.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Very well, then, we must leave things as they are. You will lend us the money, and I will go to this doctor.’

  ‘You can’t!’ cried Daniel brusquely. ‘You can’t!’

  He stopped short, and eyed her with mistrust: it was emotion that had forced that foolish exclamation out of him. The idea made him shiver, he loathed any sort of self-abandonment. He bit his lips, and raised one eyebrow in an attempt to look sarcastic. All in vain: he ought not to have seen her: she sat with shoulders bent, her arms hanging loosely at her sides: she waited, passive and exhausted, she would wait thus for years to come, until the end. ‘Her last chance,’ as he had thought in his own case a little while ago. Between thirty and forty, people staked on their last chance. She was going to stake and she would lose: in a few days she would be nothing but a lump of misery. This he must prevent.

  ‘Suppose I discussed it with Mathieu myself?’ A slime of pity had engulfed him. He had no sympathy for Marcelle, and he felt profoundly disgusted, but the pity was there, and not to be denied. He would have done anything to extricate himself. Marcelle raised her head, her expression suggested that she thought him crazy.

  ‘Discuss it with him? You? Really, Daniel, what can you be thinking about?’

  ‘One could tell him... that I’ve met you...’

  ‘Where? I never go out. And even so, should I have been likely to tell you all this point-blank?’

  ‘No. No, clearly not.’

  Marcelle laid a hand on his knee: ‘Daniel, I do beseech you not to take a hand in this affair. I’m very
angry with Mathieu, he oughtn’t to have told you...’

  But Daniel clung to his idea. ‘Listen, Marcelle, this is what we must do. Tell him the truth quite simply. I shall say: You must forgive us our little bit of deception: Marcelle and I do see each other now and again, and we haven’t told you.’

  ‘Daniel!’ begged Marcelle. ‘It can’t be done. I won’t have you talking about me. I wouldn’t for the world seem to make any claims. It’s for him to understand.’ She added with a conjugal air: ‘And then, you know, he would not forgive me for not having told him myself. We always tell each other everything.’

  Daniel thought, ‘She is a good creature.’ But he did not want to laugh.

  ‘But I should not speak in your name,’ he said. ‘I should tell him that I’ve seen you, that you looked distressed, and that things were possibly not so simple as he thought. All this as though coming from myself.’

  ‘I won’t have it,’ said Marcelle doggedly. ‘I won’t have it.’

  Daniel looked avidly at her shoulders and neck. This crass obstinacy annoyed him: he wanted to break it down. He was possessed by a vast and vile desire — to desecrate that conscience, and with her plumb the depths of this humility. But it was not sadism: it was something more tentative and clinging, more a matter of the flesh. It was goodwill.

  ‘It must be done, Marcelle. Marcelle, look at me.’

  He took her by the shoulders, and his fingers seemed to slide into soft butter.

  ‘If I don’t tell him, you never will, and... what will be the result? You will live beside him in silence, and come to hate him in the end.’

  Marcelle did not answer, but he understood from her peevish and deflated look that she was about to yield. Again she said: ‘I won’t have it.’

  He released her. ‘If you won’t let me do as I say,’ he said angrily, ‘I shan’t forgive you for a long while. You will have wrecked your life with your own hands.’

  Marcelle rubbed her toes on the bedside mat ‘You would... you would have to speak quite vaguely,’ she said: ‘just to make him take notice.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Daniel. And he added to himself, ‘You can rely on that.’