Dimanche and Other Stories (19 page)

“Egoist.”

A weeping young woman had called him that once. The sensual memory of her tears still touched his heart pleasurably: she had been so young and so beautiful. He had been young then, too. Egoist … he might have replied that in this world of mad, brutal men and their stupid victims, the only harmless people were egoists like him. They did not hurt anyone. All the misery suffered by human beings, thought Hugo, is unleashed by those who love others more than themselves and want that love to be acknowledged. Whereas he just wanted to lead a peaceful, quiet life. There was no great secret about it. One had to think of life as an interesting theatrical production, every detail of which deserved praise, and then it all acquired great beauty. He showed Magda a dank little street between two old houses, where a girl was standing by a gate clutching a crusty loaf of bread to her chest. Hugo looked at her kindly: a few basic elements—an anemic child, a pale golden loaf, some ancient stones—had by chance come together to form a graceful, touching picture that pleased Hugo Grayer.

“I’ve had my share of sadness, like everyone else,” he said to Magda. “Old Fontenelle used to insist that no sorrow, however wretched, could survive an hour’s reading. But for me it isn’t books or works of art that console me; it’s the contemplation of our imperfect world.”

“Fontenelle must have led a peaceful existence like yours,” said Magda, laughing.

Her laugh was the only thing about her that Hugo did not like; she laughed like a neighing horse.

“It’s not that peaceful,” he replied.

He did not know why, but he felt both proud and annoyed when it was implied that he was happier than other people. He was like a pedigree dog pulling on its lead, trying, for a change, to get at the food of lesser breeds.

“I’ve had my share of misery,” he said, thinking of his mother’s death. They had often quarreled: she was a horrible woman. But her last moments and the deathbed reconciliation had been brief; there were no tears or shouting, and due to their measured, almost aesthetic observance of convention, all had been forgiven. And he thought about his divorce twenty years ago, and about De Beers, which had just dropped a hundred points. Well, a man like himself had worries on a spiritual plane that the mass of humanity could not possibly grasp. He had suffered, truly suffered, because of certain books, unsuccessful journeys, silly women, dreams, and gloomy premonitions. A night spent in an ugly hotel room overwhelmed him with sadness. Some gaudy wallpaper, in an inn where a cold had kept him in bed for a week, had been at the root of a chronic melancholy, a tendency to migraine, and gloomy speculation about the future. And now this remark of Magda’s had irritated him: she was too down-to-earth to be able to understand him.

But Magda had stopped at the spot on the quay at which the Seine gently curved around to the right. Hugo thought how ugly and sharp the usual expression, “the river’s elbow,” was, evoking the image of an old beggar woman lifting her arm to ward off a blow. In fact, it was a graceful and exquisitely elegant movement. The Seine twined itself around Paris like a woman putting her arms around her lover—a very young woman, affectionate and blushing, Hugo said to himself, as he watched the water glitter. How he loved its flow, its pale color …

Nearby there was a quiet little square.

“It’s all so beautiful!” murmured Hugo. “Europe has the charm of those who are going to die,” he said, stroking the river’s gray stone parapet as he went on walking. “That’s what makes it so seductive. For several years I’ve felt particularly drawn to these threatened cities: Paris, London, Rome. Every time I leave I have tears in my eyes, as though I’m saying good-bye to a terminally ill friend. It was the same in Salzburg before the Anschluss … God, it was so moving, listening to Mozart’s music on those cold summer nights and thinking of Hitler a few miles away, tormented by insomnia and greed. One was witnessing the end of a civilization. One was watching a country shudder and die while singing, just as one might feel the beating heart of a wounded nightingale in one’s hand. Poor, charming Austria … And then all this,” he said, pointing at Notre
Dame, “destroyed in air raids, ruined and in ashes, how horrible! And yet …”

He felt a little out of breath. He could not keep up with Magda, who was walking too fast for him, but vanity would not allow him to admit it. (Magda was, in fact, older than he but considerably more robust.)

“Women are indestructible,” he thought.

He suggested sitting on a bench in the square; the weather was too nice to be shut up in a car.

“So do you believe in this war?” she asked, as she looked at herself in her little handbag mirror and rearranged her curls, which resembled the carved chunks of solid silver decorating a Victorian soup tureen. A young street urchin, fascinated by so much glamour, stopped in front of her and stared. She smiled.

“So do you believe in this war?” she repeated.

“My dear friend,” said Hugo emphatically, “do you believe in the bullet that comes out of a loaded revolver when the trigger is pulled?”

They contemplated Notre Dame with compassion.

“The fate of those old stones affects me more than that of human beings, Magda.”

The little boy was still standing in front of them. Hugo Grayer took some small change out of his pocket.

“Here you are, child, go and buy yourself some barley sugar.”

Surprised, the child looked down, hesitated, then took the money and walked away.

“After all, it took centuries to build an irreplaceable cathedral and it takes only a few seconds to create a man, similar to all other men, for they are interchangeable, alas, with their vulgar passions and pleasures and crass stupidity.”

“Yes,” said Magda, “at mealtimes during the Spanish War, when I thought about the El Grecos that might be destroyed, I couldn’t eat a thing. I could truthfully hear a voice repeating in my ear, ‘the El Grecos, the El Grecos you’ll never see again!’”

“There were certain scenes from the Spanish War in the cinema that could match the El Grecos.” Hugo sighed.

Magda gazed at the sky, trying to look as if she was thinking about the war in Spain. Actually she was wondering if her stockbroker had managed to sell her Mexican Eagle shares in time. Dear Hugo was so detached from worldly concerns, unsurprisingly since he possessed one of the largest fortunes in Uruguay. Then she thought about the two big rooms on the first floor of her home in New York, briefly considering the best combination of colors: purple and pink, perhaps? That could be fun, with her Italianate mirrors painted with birds and flowers …

Hugo smiled in the sunlight. Even though it was the height of summer, the light wasn’t too bright, but soft and gentle. He would go to the Louvre and look at
L’homme au verre de vin
, one of his favorite paintings,
before going home to dress for dinner. He had been invited to dine outside Paris by a Brazilian woman friend who lived in Versailles. Yes, it was strange to watch old Europe sinking like this, like a ship taking on water from all sides, plunging into those terrible depths where God’s voice ceaselessly resounds. In a few weeks or months would the ancient towers of Notre Dame be blown up by bombs, hurling their martyred stones to the heavens? And all those beautiful old houses … What a pity! He felt compassion, as well as a suitable indignation, and the comfortable peace of mind one experiences when watching a play. There is a lot of blood, and a lot of tears, but they are flowing a long way away from you and will never affect you. He himself was a neutral; “a citizen of no man’s land” was how he smilingly described himself. There was a handful of people on earth (Magda was one) who, by virtue of their birth, ancestors, family ties, and a quirk of fate, had so many different racial strains within them that no country could lay claim to them. Hugo’s father was Scandinavian, his mother Italian. He had been born in the United States but had become a national of the small South American republic in which he owned some property.

Young men and women strolled slowly along with their arms around each other’s waists. How would they all feel if one day …? What curious conflicts of emotion and duty they would have! And their poor bodies, made for pleasure! No, the human body was certainly
not
created
for pleasure, thought Hugo; he put his hand over his eyes, for the sun suddenly shone brightly between two dark clouds that had come from nowhere: man had been created to endure hunger, cold, and exhaustion, and his heart was made to be filled with primitive, violent passions—fear, hope, and hatred.

Benevolently he watched the pedestrians strolling by. They didn’t understand the resources within them, or that the human species could endure almost anything. Hugo Grayer was deeply convinced of this. The way things were at the moment, it took courage to come to Europe every year as he did. He might find himself trapped, an innocent man, among these nations going up in flames, just like some poor rat in a burning house. So what? He would leave in good time. With some difficulty he wrenched his thoughts back to Magda, who was asking his advice about the house she had recently bought in New Jersey. Then they got up and walked back to the Boulevard Saint Germain, where the car was waiting for them. Then they went to Versailles for dinner, and Hugo went back to his hotel. He was still asleep the next morning when the citizens of France were reading the announcement printed in capital letters on the front page of their newspaper: AUGUST 22, 1939. THE OFFICIAL GERMAN NEWS AGENCY STATES: THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REICH AND THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT HAVE DECIDED TO AGREE TO A PACT OF NON-AGGRESSION.

There were those who thought, “Things will sort themselves out again.”

Others thought, “There’s nothing to be done this time; we’ll have to leave.”

It was like hearing a knock on the door in the night, warning you that your sleep is over, that you must set off again, and for a moment your heart seems to stop beating. Women looked at their husbands, or at sons old enough to fight, and prayed, “Not that! Have pity! Lord, remove this cup from me.”

That same morning a thousand candles were lit in churches “for peace.” In the street people stopped at newspaper stands, and strangers talked to one another; their faces looked calm but very solemn. Hugo had lived in Europe long enough to be able to interpret warning signs like this. He asked for his bill. He was sad to be leaving, but of course there was nothing he could do here. He handed out generous tips.

“Monsieur is going?” asked the chambermaid. “It’s because of what’s happening, isn’t it? Everyone wants to go back to their own country. It’s only natural in a way.”

Where would Hugo go? Well, first to America, where he had heard there was to be a sale of antique ivory: he was beginning to get bored with porcelain. After that, he’d see. It was very disappointing to think that he wouldn’t see Cannes this year.

“Of course, I’d love to stay,” he said, “but there’ll be air raids …”

When he looked at all the strong, handsome men who might be going to their deaths, he felt a sort of ironic affection for himself, for his fragile bones, his narrow spine, and his long, pale hands that had never in his life done any ordinary, rough work; they had never touched an ax or a weapon, but they knew how to stroke old books, look after flowers, or gently rub boiled linseed oil into some valuable piece of Elizabethan furniture.

However, the weather was so beautiful that he decided to put off his departure until the next day, and still he lingered. War was declared on a radiant September day. That day, on the Alexandre III bridge, Hugo came across a middle-class family going for a walk: father, mother, and a son—still young, but almost old enough to join up. The father looked at his watch and said, “We’ve been at war for twenty minutes.”

“It’s remarkable how resigned these Europeans are,” Hugo Grayer thought. Some pigeons flew away with cheerful squawks.

Hugo would leave the next day. He sighed. He was starting to think that Paris would not be bombed … not straightaway … but there was the potential inconvenience, gasoline rationing, the best restaurants being closed … Yet how interesting it would have been to see the beginning of this war! What would everyone feel? How shaken they would be! What would come out of this terrible crisis? Heroism? A longing for pleasure?
Hatred? And how would it manifest itself? Would men become better? More intelligent? Or worse? It was fascinating, all this, fascinating! Behind each human face lay a mystery that, until now, had been seen only in works of art. Yet, above all, he felt a kind of detached pity, like that of a god who, from the empyrean heights, watches the futile activities of mankind. Those poor people! Poor mad people! Never mind—the human body was made for suffering and death. And maybe these monotonous, gray lives would be livened up by enthusiasm, by passion, by new experiences. Like all fortunate, intelligent men, Hugo was inclined to be pessimistic about his own prospects but optimistic on others’ behalf. It was nevertheless quite clear that he could do nothing to help them and it would be madness to stay.

He left France at the same time as Magda. Their ship was neutral, of course. It sailed serenely across a blue sea. It was moving farther away from Europe. Soon they would not think about it anymore. It would be like the stage after you have left the theater, like a blood-soaked Shakespearean tragedy when the curtain comes down and the footlights are turned out. The horror was unreal, but the memory of it still held a certain beauty. Sometimes, on a fine evening, in the bar or on deck, people competed with one another to recall these historic moments: “When I knew it was about to start, I wanted to see how the French were taking it: I went to Fouquet’s.”

“Well, I went all around Paris; it was a historic moment. I stopped in all the cafés in Montparnasse. It was so moving! And, as it was dark, there were people kissing each other in every corner.”

But by the second evening Europe was already forgotten.

In his cabin Hugo was undressing. On a tray next to his bed there was a bowl of fruit, some iced tea, and a book. He wanted desperately to go to sleep. He was one of those men who would continue to enjoy some of their childhood pleasures until the day they died: deep sleep, the subtle taste of little cream cakes dusted with icing sugar, the best fruit. He greatly missed his French servant, whom he had been forced to leave in Paris in the first hours of the war. The poor devil had been called up. They had almost cried as they parted.