The Lepers Read online

  She stood up.

  'Do you mind if I fetch my coat?'

  'Are you cold?'

  'It isn't very warm in your flat.'

  'I worked here from two till seven, without moving, and I didn't feel cold...'

  'I'm not in very good health, I'm afraid, you must excuse me. As for you! Superb! The whole of Italy in your face.'

  Before he could forestall her, she had reached the hall. He sensed the reproach in her last remark. Yes, she was cold, in blood as in heart.

  They sat down to dinner, and he sighed:

  'What a difficult and perilous bit of coastal navigation we're undertaking together! To sail our boat along the shore of life without foundering....'

  She turned her face towards him with a look of pity, of slightly weary disdain:

  'I'd so like to have convinced you that it won't be so terrible.'

  'Of course it won't be terrible. In any case we've talked enough about that; we've nothing more to say to each other on the subject. One last word only. I want you to give me your solemn word, I appeal to all that is best in you, never to seek to harm me, and I hereby promise you the same. If there are solemn words on this earth, this is one of them.... But after all, is it a solemn word? How many solemn words must have been given ever since the world began!'

  'I've already given you that solemn word, and I give it to you again. And now, you're right, let's drop the subject.'

  They ate in silence. The silence went on and on.

  'Unforgettable first engagement meal,' he thought. 'Obviously my "yes" hasn't filled her with joy. I turn my life upside down for her sake. And it doesn't make her happy. Of course I always knew it; it's the rule. If, risking one's livelihood, one's job, etc., one carries off a minor, the moment one clasps her in one's arms after weeks of anxious scheming, she "resumes" so simply, so coolly, that one is rather put out by her apparent failure to appreciate all that this moment has cost you.... After all, our honeymoon being over and done with (in Genoa), it's true that the daily grind is all we have left. And it has its good side: the less we have to say to each other, the less she will need me, and the more time I shall have for the cherished things which aren't her.'

  Mlle Dandillot ate in silence, shading her eyes with her left hand from time to time as though the light hurt them, but in reality to hide the decline in her looks. No, she did not feel happy: it was a wingless victory. First of all, naturally, because she had left the paradise of the thing coveted and entered the limbo of the thing obtained. But mainly because for the past eight months she had propped herself up on the resistance of this man; and now this prop had yielded, she was thrown a little off balance. Yielded! He had yielded! And now, how shy and unsure of himself he was in front of her! How weak he was, this man whom the newspapers always described as a 'strong man'. Would he be capable of defending their home, their interests, if he let himself be manipulated like this? She had perhaps ended up by respecting him because she had been unable to do what she wanted with him. And doubtless she respected him still, for a different reason: because she saw that he had acted out of generosity. But it was a dubious respect. The constant duel in the male's psyche between his generosity and his egoism, between his blood and his sperm, creates an atmosphere of confusion in him that terrifies and fascinates women and moves them to pity. At this moment Mlle Dandillot was rather at the pitying stage. And she turned it all over in her mind as she ate in silence, making an effort not to scratch her hands and wrists, since for several days now the nervousness born of her anaemia had given her an itch on her wrists, her thumbs and between her fingers, which were covered with the scratches she had inflicted on herself.

  Thus did their first (unforgettable) meal as an engaged couple go by. Like the statue of the Commendatore at the banquet, a spectre was seated opposite them, a hydra-headed spectre: the head of Boredom, the head of Embarrassment, the head of Duty, etc. Casanova tells us that princes are always bored in the company of their mistresses. Is this trait peculiar to princes?

  That evening, Costals felt no desire to possess this dismal, emaciated, furunculous and faded girl (even though, from time to time, she showed a sudden and delightful gleam of life). Nor did she herself have any inclination in that direction, not only because it gave her no pleasure, but because she foresaw Costals' disillusionment; and now she was beginning to calculate, to try to be clever: after two cold showers, the icy water had opened her eyes a little. When she excused herself because of her boils and suggested the cinema instead, he acquiesced willingly enough. The everlasting cinema. But which film? Well, they would buy la Semaine à Paris.

  People go to infinite pains to kill time hour after hour. Even so, they are incapable of managing it alone - they need guidance. A magazine has been created with this end in view: to call the attention of Parisians, in a methodical way, to the opportunities available to them for wasting their time. This magazine is incidentally extremely well conceived: when one sees that it is edited in a thoroughly practical way, when one sees that one can really find what one is looking for in it, one is amazed that it should be run by Frenchmen.

  'There's The Admirable Mr Fane,' said Solange, flicking through la Semaine à Paris outside in the street. 'It's being talked about a lot.'

  'An American film! Do you want me to bring up my dinner! Technical perfection in the service of cretinism - what greater sin against the mind?'

  'What would you say to Brigade Mondaine?'

  'How often must I tell you that I refuse to go to a French film at any price? Isn't there something English?'

  'Here's one: Rainbow.'

  'Let's go.'

  When the taxi dropped them at the cinema in Montparnasse, Costals first of all sniffed around outside it.

  'H'm. It looks a bit sentimental. And when the English start getting sentimental.... I'd better find out what it's about.'

  He asked the cashier to let him look at the programme.

  'Are you taking tickets?' she asked.

  'That depends on what I see in the programme.'

  'We only give programmes to people who've bought their seats.'

  'I'm not asking you to give it to me, I'm asking you to sell it to me.'

  'The programme isn't for sale, it's gratis. Buy your tickets and you'll be given one. You only have to do the same as everyone else.'

  Foaming with rage, Costals spun round and left, dragging Solange after him.

  'Isn't there an exotic film of some sort? At least the scenery would help one to swallow the plot.'

  'There's The Sorcerer of Sacramento - that must be South American…' [sic]. 'Then there's Waikiki Night…'

  'That'll do. Driver! Take us to Waikiki.'

  They drove towards the Champs-Elysées. From time to time he took her hand in a rather convulsive way. But no sooner had the taxi stopped than he shouted:

  'You didn't tell me that filthy whore was in it! Ah! that'll be really something. In disguise, striking plastic poses in the virgin forest. No, Solange, I don't care what you think, but it's literally more than I could bear to watch that female ape for a full two hours. Have another look at la Semaine à Paris. Isn't there a single Russian film? I promise you, if there's a Russian film, we'll go and see it and stay to the end.'

  'The Volga Boatmen, on the grands boulevards.'

  'That's the thing!'

  The taxi drove off again. Solange hummed the song of the Volga Boatmen, as in Genoa she had hummed 0 sole mio. Costals thought that in every woman there was a tart waiting to get out, and who did get out whenever she hummed.

  On the Boulevard des Italiens they got out and examined the posters: all the actors were French. It was indeed a film about Russia, but shot at Joinville.

  Solange had stopped in front of one poster, Costals in front of another, a few yards away. He whistled to bring her across to him, like a pimp.

  'Are we going in?' asked Solange, who had given a start.

  Weariness made her features look more drawn than ever.

&
nbsp; 'Not on your life! ... All that French riff-raff! ... Tramps disguised as Russian princes....'

  He stamped his foot with rage. It quite often occurred to him to stamp his foot - literally stamp his foot - like a small child or an oriental potentate.

  'Let's go to a cafe,' she said. The boil on her bottom, after being shaken up by the taxis, was throbbing painfully. And she was weary of this man, weary to death of his spoilt child whims - or were they bachelor eccentricities or aesthete's poses? And of his punctuality: Phineas Fogg! . . . And of the cigarette ash he dropped all over the place - on her coat, on her gloves - like bird-droppings. And of his coarseness.

  'No,' said Costals vehemently. 'We haven't driven round Paris in order to end up in a café. Let's walk up the boulevards. There are cinemas every fifty yards. We're bound to find something.'

  She took his arm (horrible gesture: 'I've got a good grip on you.') and he closed his hand over her wrist. He felt no more pleasure in touching her skin than if he were touching the smooth surface of a rubber cushion, whereas had he but touched the wrist of any one of these passing women! ... He never looked at her; he looked into himself, and outside himself, at the women he did not possess. It was not Mlle Dandillot he loved, it was a moment of Mlle Dandillot's life he had loved.

  The neon sign of an Austrian film brought them to a halt. But when they drew near they saw there was a queue - a dense queue - at the box-office. Costals declared that he would gladly have seen this film but that he absolutely refused to queue. 'Queue for a theatre or a concert, well and good, but I absolutely refuse to queue for a film.' (We know how dear class distinctions in the arts - some being more noble than others - are to the French.)

  They walked on again. Costals' exasperation vented itself in laughter and joking. Here he was, a man who believed in ordering his life, a man who believed that every hour must give proof of something gained or accomplished, and look how he had spent the last two hours! Yes, one had to laugh at it if one didn't want to lose one's temper.

  On the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, a little cinema was showing a Russian film with Russian actors. But it was a three-franc flea-pit. 'After all, I can't take you to a three-franc cinema.' He hoped she would say 'What does the price matter, if we've found a film that interests you at last.' But she merely gave a little laugh, in obvious agreement. So she too suffered from that base love of luxury, that base subjection to the 'done thing.'

  'Let's go back,' he said.

  They walked back along the boulevards. Costals became more and more desperately animated: the evening could only be made bearable by turning it into a gag. Every true artist at times develops more of a liking for the personality he puts on than for his real personality. And it is at these moments that he should say, like the stage Marseillais: 'Hold me back!' For, with 'the wittiest people in the world', an author cannot sacrifice his solemnity without sacrificing his prestige, despite Victor Hugo's line:

  L'Olympe reste grand en éclatant de rire.

  They passed a news cinema close to the Madeleine:

  'Well,' said Solange, 'what about this one? Newsreels are harmless enough!'

  'It's half past eleven,' said Costals, pulling out his watch. 'And you've got a bad backside. It would be a sin to put that backside to bed at some unearthly hour. It's quite pointless to go to a cinema for half an hour.'

  This remark was so superbly typical of a husband that it took Solange's breath away. Ah! he was cut out for it far more than he thought! She dragged herself along for another few steps, and then flopped down on the stone ledge that runs along the foot of the railings of the Madeleine.

  Costals sat down beside her. The passers-by, numerous at that hour, turned and looked with astonishment at this respectably dressed couple sitting among the crowd on this freezing January night at the foot of the Madeleine railings, like exhausted provincials on the stairs at exhibitions. They both burst out laughing. Costals took off his hat and held it upside down between his knees.

  'I hope they'll start throwing coins into it.'

  A penny,

  A penny,

  To set up our home!

  They sat there for a while. Their laughter had subsided and they no longer spoke. Solange began to tear la Semaine à Paris into little pieces, which she carefully arranged on the ledge beside her. Costals felt that at all costs this scene must be prevented from turning to melancholy. He burst out gaily:

  'A literary man, yes, a nice present to give to a little girl! You see, almost without thinking, I've been turning our first evening as an engaged couple into a scene from a play or a film. You must admit my gags have been a success. And now you're joining in the game! It was your idea to sit here, and then tearing la Semaine à Paris to shreds like that - the sentimental note after the comic turn.... We were made to get on together.'

  'Why, of course, we were made to get on together,' she repeated, tenderly.

  He escorted her home. As he was about to leave her at her front door (he no longer accompanied her up to her landing - ah! how remote they were, those long conversations of theirs on that landing, while the time-switch for the electric light had to be pressed three or four times), she asked him: 'When shall we be seeing each other again?' And he thought what torture this question can be when it is asked by somebody one does not care for. Oh, how sweet it is to be able to leave a person without having to arrange a 'next time'!

  Back home, he noticed in his bathroom mirror that there were red smudges round his mouth. He wiped them off, leaving the towel stained pink. So, not content with wearing lipstick, which he loathed and despised, Solange was still schoolgirlish enough to buy a cheap brand. Not only did she do something stupid, but she did it stupidly. And for four hours she had let him walk round with lipstick all over his mouth! Either she did not see it, in which case she was a fool. Or she did not dare tell him, for fear of annoying him, which was worse still. 'To think that this mouth has given thousands of kisses which never showed. And a single kiss from a clumsy girl betrays it!' He heard again the little laugh she had given when he had spoken to her about the flea-pit, that laugh that was so profoundly revealing of her mediocrity, the little laugh of the woman-who-doesn't-go-to-three-franc-cinemas. He saw again the pink smudge on his mouth, like that of a wounded soldier who has just vomited blood. And he felt like a wounded soldier himself - badly wounded.

  6

  And he goeth after her straightaway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter. Proverbs 7, 20

  'Is there anyone with whom you have as little conversation as with your wife?' - 'Almost no one.' Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 3, 12

  And now, religion and myth, literature and history, help me! Let's really get ourselves worked up, for God's sake! How can one still complain about culture when it helps to gild the pills of daily life? In the Bibliothèque Nationale, while the guardian angels of the establishment discharged enemas of sweet perfumes into the atmosphere (impossible, though, to counteract the organic fetor of the thinker), Costals devoured tome after tome, sheathed in dust like bottles of vintage wine, describing the customs and legends of marriage in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in the East, etc. Methodically he squeezed the phenomenon of 'marriage' to extract from it the last drop of true or false poetry it might contain; pen in hand, and making copious notes, for the foundations of every 'working up' need to be as solid as rock.

  Afterwards he went to see his solicitor. The latter, who had already received a telephone call from the Dandillot lawyer, could not refrain from observing that Mme Dandillot was proving very generous in this matter (she too, with her 'magnificent negative qualities': neither ill-natured, nor conceited, nor self-seeking). Whereupon Costals realized that, if Mme Dandillot had never asked for details as to her future son-in-law's means, he had never asked for details about the family he was about to join. For all he knew, Mme Dandillot might have been fished out of a brothel and the late lamented brother might have skipped to Madagascar because he was in trouble with the police. On both sides they were marrying in
the dark. But it was a little annoying that Mme Dandillot was being so 'generous': a man of quality, when striking a bargain, must ensure that he gets the worst of it.

  On the advice of his solicitor - appalled by his ignorance about the married state - Costals called at the town hall, where he was handed a yellow leaflet: 'General information concerning marriage'. But this leaflet, a masterpiece of French administrative prose, was incomprehensible: it reminded him of an income tax form. The only thing that was clear about it was that marriage must be regarded as a 'bond issue'. Costals would go back to his solicitor the following day for an exegesis of the yellow leaflet.

  On all these matters he could seek advice. But there was one question on which he could not seek advice from anyone: the question of his son.

  Solange, who was irritated by boys, would not like Brunet. Brunet would take a dislike to Solange. Or, on the other hand, would take too much of a liking to her, and it is too great a blessing to be able to think well of one's child for one to endanger it in such a way. In any case, how horrible it would be to have this outsider coming between father and son!

  Why had he kept his son's existence secret? Because he loved him. Because he did not want him criticized. Because he did not want his way of bringing him up criticized. He clung to this secrecy inordinately, irrationally, as Arabs cling to the secrecy in which they guard their wives. Once he was married, everything would change. There could be no question of Brunet appearing to be kept at arm's length. So he would be prostituted to this rabble of mediocrities, this vapid, brainless young woman, that ludicrous old hag, and all the cousins and aunts. He would no longer be hortus conclusus.... And then, what was the use of having resolved the difficulty foreseen by the sages ['Must one then agree to subject oneself to woman in the hope of having children?' - Djâmi, Beharistan (Author's note).], what was the use of having succeeded in having the child without the woman, only to take on the woman after the event?