A Singular Man Page 16

  The rue Rodier I recall was a steeper street, more crowded with people, it had a more working-class feel. But climbs are becoming less sharp. During the war I took a walk up to Sacré-Coeur one day. I thought I was scaling a mountain. Nowadays it sits upon an inconsequential knoll.

  Rue Rodier ascends hardly at all. I am beginning to think peculiar thoughts again. Being seen entering Lucette's building bothers me. Every door in Paris is the same to me. I enter anywhere. But not while cutting such a ridiculous figure: a cake in my hand, a closely-fitting overcoat, turned-down gloves, a felt hat with upturned brim placed squarely on my head, whereas in the past I wore it tilted back and to the side. Today my desire is to appear elegant.

  I feel now like giving my cake to the first person who seems to me apt to accept it. This would be an original thing to do, one of those gestures to which I used to attribute an underlying meaning and which led me to part with far more precious objects.

  "Monsieur, allow me to offer you this cake."

  "Monsieur, I don't know what to make of this. I don't understand. I have no reason to go along with such a thing."

  "Please accept it, Monsieur."

  And now I am obliged to lie, lie to get someone to accept what I am giving away. Admirable, isn't it?

  "I was expected for lunch at the home of some friends, I wanted to bring them a cake. But they must have forgotten that I was to come for they're not at home."

  In my voice, nothing whatever to indicate disappointment or hint at blame.

  "In as much as I shall be having lunch at a restaurant, I don't want to look as though I were bringing my dessert."

  I scan some passers-by. Not one strikes me as capable of accepting anything whatever from a stranger. In the end I step into the dark lobby of the building. A small windowed door gives access to the stairway. It is not the way it is in working-class buildings, where there are no such doors. I open it, and right there in front of me rises the stairway, whose first step, like the first rung of a ladder, is no wider than the rest. I climb up to the fifth floor just as Lucette told me. The farther up I go, the more cheerful everything seems to become. That's what happens in apartment buildings of this kind. The mediocrity fades as you get farther from the entrance. Something more and more personal emanates from more light-colored walls. At each new floor three fewer families go past on the landing. Eventually you remain alone with those you are visiting.

  I pull the bell. I have difficulty pushing the brass plunger back in, coated as it is with dried oil. The door opens and Lucette greets me. She has no hat, no coat, no handbag, but she is still in the same dress. She is still the salesgirl at Metyl's. She was bright enough to understand that it is thus she looks her best, that as an alert salesgirl is how I prefer her. I present her with the cake. The cardboard box with its cleverly interlocking flaps, the little piece of wood whose notch keeps the string from slipping, the name Boissier printed everywhere, do definitely make more of an impression than wrapping paper tied up with a bow. I am shown in. It is a modest apartment, but everything is there. I recall seeing several of this type back in the days of Germaine. You can fairly hear the words: "We may not be rich, but we don't deprive ourselves of anything." I sense that these apartments are not as foreign to me as I would like to have it believed.

  The conversation at table starts on a lively note. It seems that we are sorry we did not get to know one another sooner. Suddenly, at the end of the meal, I come to a strange realization. We have not said anything. Its preliminaries have been the conversation itself.

  Not for an instant do Lucette's parents think of bringing it home to me that because of their daughter I have obligations towards them. It is a joy, for this little family, to have me here. They display an excessive consideration for me. They understand that Lucette and I would not have waited to be married before having intimate relations. I recall Lucette's comment: "You'll see, it isn't at all what you are thinking." She is quite right. But herein lies the tragedy. This broadmindedness does not render me better. Deep in my heart I remain contemptuous of this narrow life that could so easily have been mine. Lucette senses this and her face becomes sad. I talk with animation in order to appear touched by her parents' welcome. They are looking at me oddly now. Was it not presumptuous of me to come here? Had I not imagined that condescension could be concealed?

  On saying goodbye I cannot resist the urge to display my effortless self-confidence. My departure is perfect. I seem to hear them saying: "He's a genuine man of the world." As I back my way out I do not trip over any furniture. I am so sure of myself that I even pause to move a chair aside so as to forestall an unpleasant incident for others.

  I proceed toward the Châteaudun intersection. My head feels stuffy from alcohol. Gold from the invisible sun suffuses the mist. From out of the back-shops of the dealers in antiques, in old prints, in postage stamps comes an idea of the comfort of bourgeois apartments. My thoughts turn to the pleasures which correspond to the poetry of this waning winter afternoon. Loving, being loved, these are insufficient. One must love because one has done fine things. Pleasures must be linked, this joy must not be unique, there must be others, such as having friends and fortune.

  I walk past the Opéra. I cannot prevent myself from turning down rue Cambon. There is the building. By day its shadow cuts across the narrow street, and by night, its glow. Today nobody walks up the stairs to the bank for me. "Go on up," I used to say to Denise, "I'll wait for you in this café." That café is still there, a café where they are careful with electricity, where the personnel of the neighboring hotels find a modesty reminiscent of their origins. Mixed in amongst the employees I would be on the lookout behind the curtains. I do not mix in with them anymore. Even so, I have not changed so very much. That lunch with Lucette and her parents proved it. How it dragged on! What an idea, to tell me about a purportedly very rich uncle who drives around in a car and owns a former monastery in the Gironde! I had an urge to say that I detested him. What a dropping of jaws! It would have been pointed out to me that I did not know him. I would have answered back that I despised him anyway. And a hush would have fallen upon the table overladen with food.

  I am going to go back to my room. Being recognized by the manager, by the cashier, by the chambermaids nowadays leaves me indifferent. I know I shall not be able to prevent myself from going out again. So why even go back?

  It is ten o'clock in the evening. I have just switched on the light and, for a few seconds, the room I see has the look of belonging to a stranger. I put away my clothes so that they will not be spoiled. There was a time when I would dream of tossing them here or there, when I marvelled at the off-hand manner in which certain women undress. I bring my trouser cuffs up to the light, those cuffs that have grazed the ground all day long. I shake out the insides where some bread-crumbs have lodged. I inspect my shoes. Everything is more rapid now, not only the wearing out of things, but the growth of nails and hair. I foresaw that someday I would be alone again and that I would then rid myself of the odd habits I had contracted during married life. That day did come, but I have just as many odd habits. I become even more attached to things. It distresses me that in our shared life they take so little account of the time I have yet to exist, that they are so quick to play me false. The conditions are there for me to change for the better. And an old habit has scarcely done fading away than a new one appears.

  I stretch out on my back, arms above my head, savoring the coolness that enters the hollows of my armpits. I think: "Here is a man on his bed just like thousands of others." Am I going to lose myself in speculations of a general nature? No. I get up. In order to do something, I shake out my handkerchief in front of the fireplace. The chimney draft draws away a few specks of dust. A thread of water dribbles into the sink. I tighten the faucet. It does no good, the dribble continues. Its descent into the basin is noiseless, but I must tell the chambermaid. My head aches. Even so minute a detail gives me the impression that the whole world is against me.


  At last, midnight strikes. I am going to be able to go to bed. The light once out, I do not fall asleep. I turn the lamp on, I get up. I like getting up, imagining that my bed is not a nest but a kind of couch. This is connected with my notions about freedom, about genuine comfort. I hate those carefully tucked in beds of people who are always cold. Space, a neat floor so that I can walk barefoot, a mild temperature, that is what I like. I have got into my pajamas. My underwear and shirt and socks are strewn over the chairs. In this little routine I play the part of the man who never thinks of hiding anything. This is the way I like being surprised in the morning, after saying "Come in!" to the chambermaid, then exaggerating the yawns and grimaces of awakening.

  That chambermaid is a fat woman from Brittany. My coquetries with her are the more incomprehensible in as much as they vanish the moment I am dressed. The behavior I then affect with her is that of a generous master toward a poor servant. The other Sunday I gave her some rusks that had softened. Just yesterday I absolutely insisted that she take her husband a pair of shoes I had stopped wearing. "Starting tomorrow, I won't ring for you," I told her a few days ago, "just bring me up my breakfast at nine o'clock."

  This morning, I have kicked off my covers. I have my eyes closed. I uncovered myself without knowing it, while asleep. When the chambermaid knocks at the door, I say "Come in!" in a dull voice. Then, as if I had only now noticed that I was uncovered, I pull up the sheets. Is it too late? I don't dare look at the chambermaid. It only adds to my embarrassment that she seems totally unmoved. A quarter of an hour later, I undertake to convince her that what just happened was accidental. I ring for her on some sort of excuse, and I stand behind the door, just showing my head, as though I did not want to be seen even in pajamas. This kind of diversion is too frequent in hotels for the chambermaid to be taken in. However, such is my gift for persuasion that she ends up saying to herself: "After all, it could be he wasn't up to any funny business."

  The incident is forgotten. I invited Lucette over several times. In this way I showed that I was a normal man. For it would indeed be beyond comprehension that having so young and so pretty a mistress I be subject to such troubles.

  Two weeks later I start in again. This time the chambermaid acts offended. I feign surprise at this. She gives me a piece of her mind in a fairly loud voice. Doors creep open. I shout: "What are you about to imagine!" I believe that it is difficult to be more dishonest. Once she leaves, I lock the door after her. I am shaking. It seems to me that what I have done will have terrible consequences. Then I think I can hear a voice telling me that I am not responsible. This, after he has killed, is the one the murderer must hear. Life has mistreated me. I have been so absorbed with my misfortunes that, all unawares, I have little by little ceased to mind my p's and q's. Actually, it is a good thing this incident occurred. It opened my eyes. But for it, I might have done worse later on.

  The very same day I check out of the hotel.

  I sit on a bench in the Tuileries, my face toward the sun. I enjoy looking at it. It is like reaching your hand out toward a fire. You withdraw your eyes the way you withdraw your hand. My thoughts turn to the future. It is obvious that this life cannot last any longer. I ask myself whether it is because of what has just taken place or because of me. I never know. An event occurs that turns our existence upside down. But if that event had not occurred! A tree hides the clock from my view. It is eleven-thirty, or noon, or half-past twelve. A stroller sits down next to me. How is it possible to disclose with such indifference so many habits, quirks, traits of character simply through one's clothes, one's gestures, the charms on one's watch chain? I compare myself to this stranger. I wish I had the help of a mirror. I wish I could see myself. I would like to know whether from looking at me one can guess who I am. Perhaps dissimulation betrays us as much as a tie-pin.

  But what has got into me? I put on a scowl. I adjust it to my face and I tell myself: "I'm not scowling. This is my everyday face." I start talking to myself. My neighbor does not turn aside. A woman walks by with her child. She looks at me and she shows no surprise. I can become another man, no one will notice. My fellow creatures care very little whether I put on scowls. Once, I remember, I wanted to give myself all sorts of airs: the air of an intellectual, of an artist, of a sportsman, of a young man from a good family. Having abandoned them all, what sort of air do I have today?

  I get up. Am I going to deform my movements the way I deformed my face? I alter my gait. It becomes a hippety-hop. Here comes a pretty woman. I go on hippety-hopping. After all, it may emerge that I am a native hippety-hopper. It may emerge that my hippety-hopping pleases her more than the step I normally use. I leave the Tuileries. This garden is not favorable to such exercises. You are obliged to zigzag if you are going to encounter strollers. I prefer the boulevards.

  I am still the same man. I am still unable to understand the awfulness of certain comparisons. Coming straight from the most degrading intimacy, I would have fun playing with children, without wondering that their parents would leave me alone with them. I have not changed since I turn my departure from the Hôtel Maillot into an opportunity to spend a few days in Compiègne.

  The weather is glacial when I arrive in that city. Stare as I will at the flowing Oise, the river seems not to be moving. Every stone, every tree is gray. Sometimes, in the final days of a season, we recapture the emotion it aroused in us at its start. You experience fresh winter sensations when, on a February morning, you land in a small city. The streets have not been cleaned because the hydrants are frozen. This neglect gives them the day-after-a-holiday look. It is ten o'clock and no one is abroad. I am a stranger. You may have lived for a long time in a city and there will still be sections of it where you have never set foot. I strike out in their direction, toward the barracks, the gasworks. Why this initial avoidance of parts that are familiar to me? Why this detour? When I used to go to Albert Dechatellux's, I would enter by a door located at the end of the garden. Thus did I seem more cordially greeted. To appear at ease, I always resorted to little tricks of this sort.

  After having walked all the way around the large park, I come, by way of the forest, to the neighborhood where the avenues are. A stillness lies over the properties. Are they inhabited by the same persons? What presents itself to my view, but to my view alone, is the past. I run into a certain Doctor Fernstein whom I thought was dead. "It is with regret that we learn of the death of Dr. Fernstein of Compiègne." My eyes fell upon that obituary notice. But it was not he, since he is walking past me, unaware that I thought him to be dead. How peaceful these broad avenues are! I feel like a stranger here. A little farther on I catch sight of the town's foremost personage, a former government minister, for three decades a deputy in parliament, member of the departmental council, and mayor: Monsieur Chauvigny. He is walking along briskly. Where is he going? Being the most notable figure hereabouts, he cannot have humiliating errands to attend to. Today as in days past, he is yet on his way to the home of friends.

  Why should I not pay a visit to Jacqueline? We are not enemies. She performed good works beyond what duty requires. I have no right to resent her not having done enough. I present myself at her door. What a surprise! Jacqueline is a ghost. Growing old, she has become thin. Her back is bowed. Her hair has thinned. I had no acquaintance with old age. I had never had the occasion to compare it with youth. To me it had always had the appearance of a gradual evolution. And today, as though nature had placed me outside of time, I come back to find old a person I had known young. Jacqueline is now but an elderly lady who receives me with kindness because we have both understood our errors. And when she speaks to me as if to a brother her own age, I feel that she does not understand me any better today than she did yesterday. She was thirty years old, I was ten. I gaze at her. I am still less her son now than in the past. I am just some boy she brought up and whom she lost contact with. But she, ah, she is more than my mother. She is that beautiful young woman whom unhappy children run past in order to
attract attention. Denise was also that sort of woman, not for me, for other children. I remember seeing them run past. They used to wait for her, then start their little game all over again. I would have to tell them to go on home. Then I would rejoin Denise, feeling I was cruel. I had forgotten what I myself had gone through.

  "What would have become of that little boy if I hadn't been there?" Jacqueline is asking herself, no doubt finding it an admirable thing that I have grown to manhood. What a strange question! Why does she not ask herself others of the same sort? "Who would I have married if I had not met Etienne? What would have happened if war hadn't broken out?"

  I return to Paris. I return to where I lead my life whereas for so long I would take this same train in to Paris just for the day. For a few seconds I consider the odd-looking boulevard Denain, so short for a street so wide. I am carrying a suitcase bought years ago in a secondhand shop. It is lined inside with red leather. F. Best, 186 Sloane Street. It reflects my tastes: richness and simplicity. It does however have a stain: its origin. But that stain, does it not extend to my whole person?

  I take the bus. Former Cabinet Minister Chauvigny does not see me. Many is the time we have made this trip together. I know he will get off at the corner of boulevard Haussmann, rejoicing at the splendid door-to-door service since he will have only a few steps to take in order to reach the headquarters of I know not what corporation, whose president he is.

  I get off farther on, at Opéra. Paris may shift this way and that but for me Opéra is still its center. I am heading toward the Louvre. I get on another bus, a little put out by this unnecessary inconvenience of having to change.

  On rue du Laos there is an hotel where I recall living at one time. It is not until ten o'clock that I make up my mind to go in. There is no one in sight. I take a seat in the foyer and wait. The night-clerk comes up to me. He is prematurely bald. That is the only thing I notice. I offer him a cigarette. I say to him: "Let's go have a drink." It's typical of me, this way of ingratiating myself. He accepts provided I not take offence if he is obliged to leave. No, I shall not take offence.