The Age of Reason (14 page)

He saw the black smear on the brown material, and suddenly he felt that he was one person and no more. One only. A coward. A man who liked his cats and could not chuck them in the river. He picked up his pocket-knife, bent down, and cut the string. In silence. Even within himself there was silence now, he was too ashamed to talk in his own presence. He picked up the basket again, and climbed the stair: it was as though he were walking with averted head past someone who regarded him with contempt. Within himself desolation and silence still reigned. When he reached the top of the steps he ventured to speak his first words to himself: ‘What was that drop of blood?’ But he didn’t dare open the basket: he walked on, limping as he went. It is I: it is I: it is I. The evil thing. But in the depths of him there was an odd little smile because he had saved Poppaea.

‘Taxi!’ he shouted.

The taxi stopped.

‘Twenty-two, Rue Montmartre,’ said Daniel. ‘Will you put this basket beside you?’

He swayed to the movement of the cab. He couldn’t even despise himself any longer. And then shame resumed the upper hand, and again he began to see himself: it was intolerable: ‘Neither wholesale nor retail,’ he reflected bitterly. When he took out his pocket book to pay the chauffeur, he observed without satisfaction that it was stuffed with notes. ‘Make money, — oh yes, I can do that.’

‘So here you are again, Monsieur Sereno,’ said the concierge. ‘Someone has just gone up to your flat. One of your friends, a tall gentleman, with high shoulders. I told him you were out. Out, says he, well I’ll leave a note under his door.’

She noticed the basket and exclaimed: ‘Why, you’ve brought the little darlings back!’

‘Ah well, Madame Dupuy,’ said Daniel. ‘I daresay it was wrong of me, but I couldn’t part with them.’

‘It’s Mathieu,’ he thought, as he went upstairs. ‘He’s always on the spot.’ He was glad to be able to hate another person.

He encountered Mathieu on the third-floor landing.

‘Hullo,’ said Mathieu, ‘I’d given you up.’

‘I’ve been taking my cats for an outing,’ said Daniel. He was surprised to feel a sort of inner warmth. ‘Are you coming in with me?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Yes, I want you to do something for me.’

Daniel flung him a rapid glance and noticed that his face was drawn and ashen. ‘He looks damnably under the weather,’ he thought. He wanted to help the man. They went upstairs. Daniel put the key in the lock, and pushed open the door. ‘Go along in,’ he said. He touched the other lightly on the shoulder, and immediately withdrew his hand. Mathieu went into Daniel’s room, and sat down in an armchair.

‘I couldn’t make sense of what your concierge said,’ he remarked. ‘She told me that you had taken your cats to your sister’s place. Have you made it up with your sister lately?’

Something within Daniel suddenly froze. ‘He would look sick enough if he knew where I had come from.’ He gazed unsympathetically into his friend’s steady, penetrating eyes: ‘It’s true,’ thought he to himself, ‘he’s quite normal.’ And he was conscious of the gulf between them. He laughed: ‘Ah yes — my sister’s place. That was an innocent little falsehood,’ he said. He knew that Mathieu would not press the point: Mathieu had the irritating habit of treating Daniel as a romancer, and he affected never to inquire into the motives that compelled him to lie. Mathieu accordingly eyed the wicker receptacle with a perplexed air and fell silent.

‘Will you excuse me,’ said Daniel. He had become the man of action. His sole desire was to open the basket as soon as possible. What could that drop of blood have signified? He knelt down, thinking that they would probably fly in his face, and he bent his head over the lid, so that it was well within their reach. And he reflected, as he lifted the clasp, ‘A solid bit of worry wouldn’t do him any harm. It would shake him out of his optimism and that complacent air of his.’ Poppaea slipped out of the basket snarling, and fled into the kitchen. Scipio emerged in his turn: he had preserved his dignity but did not seem in the least reassured. He proceeded with measured steps to the wardrobe, looked about him with a sly expression, stretched himself, and finally crawled under the bed. Malvina did not move. ‘She’s hurt,’ thought Daniel. She lay full length at the bottom of the basket, prostrate. Daniel put a finger under her chin and pulled her head up: she had been deeply clawed on the nose, and her left eye was closed, but she was not bleeding. There was a blackish scab on her face, and round the scab the hairs were stiff and sticky.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mathieu. He had got up and was eyeing the cat politely. ‘He thinks me absurd, because I’m worrying about a cat. It would seem to him quite natural if it was a baby?’

‘Malvina has a nasty wound,’ explained Daniel. ‘It must have been Poppaea that clawed her, she really is the limit. Excuse me, my dear fellow, while I see to her.’

He produced a bottle of arnica and a packet of cotton wool from the cupboard. Mathieu followed him with his eyes without uttering a word, then he passed his hand over his forehead in a senile sort of gesture. Daniel began to bathe Malvina’s nose, the cat resisting feebly.

‘Now be a good little cat,’ said Daniel. ‘There, there — it will soon be over.’

He thought he must be exasperating Mathieu, and that gave him heart for the job. But when he raised his head he observed Mathieu staring grimly into vacancy.

‘Forgive me, my dear fellow,’ said Daniel, in his deepest voice. ‘I shan’t be more than a couple of minutes. I simply had to wash the creature, you know, a wound gets so quickly infected. I hope it doesn’t annoy you very much,’ he added, bestowing a frank smile on Mathieu. Mathieu shivered, and then began to laugh.

‘Now then, now then,’ said he. ‘Don’t you make your velvet eyes at me.’

‘Velvet eyes!’ Mathieu’s superiority was indeed offensive. ‘He thinks he knows me, he talks of
my
lies,
my
velvet eyes. He doesn’t know me in the least, but he likes to label me as if I were an object.’

Daniel laughed cordially and carefully wiped Malvina’s head. Malvina shut her eyes in an appearance of ecstasy, but Daniel knew very well that she was in pain. He gave her a little tap on the back.

‘There,’ he said, getting up. ‘There won’t be a sign of it tomorrow. But the other cat gave her a nasty clawing, you know.’

‘Poppaea? She’s a vile creature,’ said Mathieu, with an absent air. And then he said abruptly: ‘Marcelle is pregnant.’

‘Pregnant!’

Daniel’s surprise was of short duration, but he had to struggle against a huge desire to laugh. That was it — so that was it. ‘True enough, the creatures evacuate blood every lunar month, and they’re as prolific as fish into the bargain.’ He reflected with disgust that he was going to see her that same evening; ‘I wonder if I shall have the courage to touch her hand.’

‘It’s a ghastly business,’ said Mathieu with an objective air.

Daniel looked at him and said soberly, ‘I can quite understand that.’ Then he hurriedly turned his back on him on the pretext of replacing the bottle of arnica in the cupboard. He was afraid he would burst out laughing in his face. He set himself to think about his mother’s death, which always answered upon these occasions: and but for two or three convulsive spasms he did not betray himself. Mathieu went on gravely talking behind Daniel’s back: ‘The trouble is that it humiliates her,’ he said. ‘You haven’t seen her often, so you can’t quite understand, but she’s a sort of Valkyrie. A bedroom Valkyrie,’ he added without malice. ‘For her it’s an awful degradation.’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel with concern; ‘and it must be nearly as bad for you. Whatever you do, she of course hates the sight of you at the moment. I know that, in my own case, it would destroy love.’

‘I no longer feel any love for her,’ said Mathieu.

‘Don’t you?’

Daniel was profoundly astonished and amused. ‘We shall have some sport this evening,’ thought he to himself.

‘Have you told her so?’ he asked.

‘Of course I haven’t.’

‘Why — of course? You’ll have to tell her. I suppose you’ll...’

‘No, I’m not going to walk out on her, if that’s what you mean.’

‘What then?’

Daniel was solidly amused. He was now eager to see Marcelle again.

‘Nothing,’ said Mathieu. ‘So much the worse for me. It isn’t her fault if I no longer love her.’

‘It is yours?’

‘Yes,’ said Mathieu, curtly.

‘You’ll continue to see her on the quiet, and...’

‘Well?’

‘Well,’ said Daniel, ‘if you play that little game for any length of time you’ll end by hating her.’

‘I don’t want her to get into a mess,’ said Mathieu, with a set and obstinate expression.

‘If you prefer to sacrifice yourself...’ said Daniel, with indifference. When Mathieu adopted a Quakerish attitude, Daniel hated him.

‘What have I to sacrifice? I shall still teach at the Lycée. I shall see Marcelle. I shall write a short story every two years. Which is precisely what I have done until now.’ And he added with bitterness that Daniel had never seen in him before: ‘I am a Sunday writer. Besides,’ he went on, ‘I rather like her, and I couldn’t bear not to see her any more. Except that it gives me the feeling of family ties.’

A silence followed. Daniel came and sat down in the armchair opposite Mathieu.

‘You must help me,’ said Mathieu. ‘I’ve got an address, but no money. Lend me four thousand.’

‘Four thousand...’ repeated Daniel with a hesitant air.

His swollen notecase, now bulging in his breast pocket — his pig-dealer’s notecase, he had but to open it and take out four notes. Mathieu had often done him kindnesses in the old days.

‘I’ll pay back half at the end of the month,’ said Mathieu: ‘and the other half on July 14th, because on that date I get my salary for both August and September.’

Daniel looked at Mathieu’s ashen visage and thought: ‘The fellow is all in.’ Then he thought of the cats and felt merciless.

‘Four thousand francs,’ said he in a melancholy tone, ‘I haven’t got so much, my dear fellow, and I’m very much pressed...’

‘You told me the other day that you were just going to pull off a very good bit of business.’

‘Well, my dear chap,’ said Daniel, ‘that same bit of business fell down on me; you know what the Stock Exchange is like. However, the plain fact is that I’ve got nothing but debts.’

He had not imparted much sincerity to his voice, because he did not want to convince his companion. But when he saw that Mathieu did not believe him, he became angry: ‘Mathieu can go to Hell. He thinks himself deep, he imagines he can see through me. Why on earth should I help him? He’s only got to touch one of his own set.’ What he could not stand was that normal, placid air which Mathieu never lost, even in trouble.

‘Right,’ said Mathieu briskly, ‘then you really can’t.’

Daniel reflected that he must be in dire need to be so insistent. ‘I really can’t. I’m awfully sorry, my dear fellow.’ He was embarrassed by Mathieu’s embarrassment, but it was not a wholly disagreeable sensation; it had the feel of turning back a finger-nail.

‘Are you in urgent need?’ he inquired with solicitude. ‘Is there nowhere else you can apply?’

‘Well, you know, I did want to avoid touching Jacques.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Daniel, a little disappointed: ‘there’s your brother. So you’re sure of getting your money.’

‘Not by any means,’ said Mathieu rather gloomily. ‘He’s got into his head that he oughtn’t to lend me a penny, on the grounds that it would be doing me a bad turn. He told me I ought to be independent at my age.’

‘Oh, but in a case like this he’s sure to let you have what you want,’ said Daniel emphatically. He slowly thrust out the tip of his tongue and began to lick his upper lip with satisfaction: he had succeeded at the first attempt in striking that note of light and cheery optimism that so infuriated his acquaintances.

Mathieu had blushed. ‘That’s just the trouble. I can’t tell him what it’s for.’

‘True,’ said Daniel, and he reflected for a moment. ‘In any case, there are firms, you know, who lend to Government officials. I ought to tell you that they’re mostly sharks. But I daresay you won’t bother about the amount of the interest, if you can only get hold of the money.’

Mathieu looked interested, and Daniel realized with annoyance that he had reassured him slightly.

‘What sort of people are they? Do they lend money on the spot?’

‘Oh no,’ said Daniel briskly, ‘they take quite ten days: certain inquiries have to be made.’

Mathieu fell silent, and seemed to be reflecting: Daniel was suddenly aware of a faint shock: Malvina had jumped on to his knees, where she established herself and began to purr. ‘Here is someone who does not bear malice,’ thought Daniel with disgust. He began to stroke her with a light, indifferent touch. Animals and people never succeeded in hating him. They could not resist a sort of good-natured inertia he cultivated, or possibly his face. Mathieu had plunged into his pitiable little calculations: he, too, bore no malice. Daniel bent over Malvina and fell to scratching the top of her head: his hand shook.

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, without looking at Mathieu, ‘I should be almost glad not to have the money. It has just occurred to me: you always want to be free, here is a superb opportunity of proclaiming your freedom.’

‘Proclaiming my freedom?’ Mathieu didn’t seem to understand. Daniel raised his head.

‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘You have only to marry Marcelle.’

Mathieu eyed him with a frown: he was probably wondering whether Daniel was serious. Daniel met his look with decorous gravity.

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Mathieu.

‘Why should I be? Say one word, and you can change your whole life, and that doesn’t happen every day.’

Mathieu began to laugh. ‘He has decided to laugh at the whole business,’ thought Daniel angrily.

‘You won’t persuade me to do any such thing,’ said Mathieu, ‘and especially not at this moment.’

‘Well, but... that’s just it,’ said Daniel in the same light tone, ‘it must be very entertaining to do — the exact opposite of what one wants to do. One feels oneself becoming someone else.’

‘I don’t fancy the prospect. Do you expect me to beget three brats for the pleasure of feeling like someone else when I take them for a walk in the Luxemburg? I can well imagine that I should alter if I became an utter wash-out.’