The Age of Reason (21 page)

The sun began to plaster gold on to the great black buildings, the sky was filled with gold, but a soft and liquid shadow rose up from the street, and the people smiled at its caresses. Daniel was devoured by thirst but he would not drink: die, then! die of thirst. ‘After all,’ he thought, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ But he had done worse: he had let the evil thing come very close to him, he had done everything except satisfy his senses, and that was merely because he had not dared. Now he carried the evil thing within himself, it tingled down his body head to foot, he was infected, there was still that yellow after-taste in his eyes, indeed his eyes turned everything yellow. He would have done much better to let pleasure strike him down, and thus strike down the evil thing within him. It was true that it always revived. He swung round: ‘He might be following me to see where I live. Oh!’ thought he, ‘I wish he had done. I would give him such a thrashing in the open street!’ But Bobby did not appear. He had made his day, and now he had gone home. To Ralph’s place, 6 Rue aux Ours. Daniel quivered: ‘If I could forget that address! If only I could manage to forget that address...’ What was the use? He would take care not to forget it.

People were chattering all around him, in amity and peace. A man said to his wife: ‘Why, it goes back to before the war. It was 1912. No. It was 1913. I was still with Paul Lucas.’ Peace. The peace of good and honest folk, the peace of men of goodwill. Why is their will good, and not mine? It couldn’t be helped, it just was so. Something in this sky, in this light, in this display of nature, had thus decided. They knew, they knew that they were right, that God, if He existed, was on their side. Daniel looked at their faces: how hard they were, despite their unconstraint. At the merest sign these men would fall upon him and tear him to pieces. And the sky, the light, the trees, the whole of Nature would be, as always, in league with them: Daniel was a man of evil will.

Before his doorway, a large and pallid concierge lay back in his chair enjoying the fresh air. Daniel caught sight of him from a distance, and he thought: ‘Goodwill personified.’ The concierge sat with his hands across his stomach, Buddha-fashion, watching the passers-by, from time to time nodding his approval: ‘Oh, to be a fellow like that,’ thought Daniel enviously. A truly serious character: and responsive to the great natural forces, heat, cold, light, and moisture. Daniel stopped, fascinated by those long, silky eyelashes, by the sententious malice of those plump cheeks. He longed to sink his senses until he was no more than that, until there was nothing in his head but a white paste and a faint scent of shaving cream. ‘Never misses a night’s sleep,’ he thought. He no longer knew whether he wanted to destroy the man, or slip into the warm refuge of that ordered soul.

The large man lifted his head, and Daniel walked on: ‘Living the life I do, I can always expect to break up pretty soon,’

He flung a dark look at his portfolio; he disliked carrying it in his hand: it made him look like a lawyer. But his ill-humour vanished when he remembered he had not bought it unintentionally: and indeed, it was going to be
tremendously
useful. He did not blink the fact that he was running risks, but he was calm and cold, merely a little more animated than usual: ‘If I reach the edge of the pavement in thirteen strides...’ He took thirteen strides, and stopped dead on the edge of the pavement, but the last stride had been noticeably longer than the others, he had lunged like a fencer. ‘However, no matter: whatever happens, the job is as good as done.’ It could not fail, it was foolproof, indeed, the surprising thing was that no one had thought of it before. ‘The plain fact is,’ he reflected scornfully, ‘thieves are bloody fools.’ He crossed the road, ruminating on his idea. They ought to have organized themselves a long time since. Into a syndicate, like conjurers. An association for the dissemination and exploitation of technical methods — that is what they need. With a registered office, a scale of awards, a code, and a library. A private cinema as well, and films that would analyse the more difficult actions in slow motion. Each new improvement would be filmed, and the theory recorded on gramophone discs, with the name of the inventor: each one being graded according to category: there would be, for example — the shop-window theft by method 1673, or the ‘Serguine Method’, also called the Christopher Columbus Egg (as being extremely simple, but yet to be discovered). Boris would gladly have presided over a little instructional film. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘and free instruction on the psychology of theft, that was indispensable.’ His method was based almost wholly on psychology. He threw an approving glance at a little one-storied café, painted pumpkin colour, and suddenly noticed that he was halfway along the Avenue d’Orléans. Strange how pleasant all these people looked, on the Avenue d’Orléans between seven and half past seven in the evening. The light accounted for a good deal — a most becoming russet-muslin light — and it was delightful to find oneself on the outskirts of Paris, near one of the gates, the streets speeding underfoot towards the old commercial centres of the city, the markets, and the dark alleys of Saint-Antoine, immersed where he was in the soft, religious seclusion of the evening and the suburbs. The people look as if they have come out to enjoy each other’s company: they don’t mind being jostled, indeed they look into the shop-windows with a naive, dispassionate interest. On the Boulevard Saint-Michel people also look into the shop-windows, but they mean to buy. ‘I shall come back here every evening,’ Boris decided eagerly. Then, next summer, he would take a room in one of those three-storied houses, that looked so like twin sisters and recalled the Revolution of ’48. But I wonder how the good women of those days managed to push the bolsters through such narrow windows on to the heads of the soldiers below. The frames of the windows are all blackened with smoke, they look as though they had been scorched in a fire — but these bleak facades holed by small black windows are not depressing, indeed they look like bursts of storm-sky under a blue heaven; as I look at the windows, if I could climb on to the terrace-roof of that little café I should see the glass-doored wardrobes at the far end of the rooms, like pools up-ended: the crowds pass through me and I find myself thinking of the Municipal Guards, the gilded entrance-gates to the Palais Royal, and the 14th of July. ’What did that Communist fellow want with Mathieu?‘ he suddenly asked himself. Boris did not like Communists, they were so serious. Brunet, in particular, was intolerably magisterial. ‘He slung me out,’ chuckled Boris to himself: ‘damn him, he fairly pitched me out.’ And then, quite suddenly, like a violent little tornado inside his head, there came upon him the impulse to smash something. ‘I daresay Mathieu has noticed that he has got in completely wrong, and now he’ll join the Communist Party.’ For a moment he lingered over all the incalculable results of such a conversion. But in a sudden flush of fear he stood still. Surely Mathieu had not been in the wrong, that would be too awful now that Boris was committed: in the philosophy class there had been a good deal of lively interest in Communism, and Mathieu had evaded the issue by explaining what freedom was. Boris had promptly understood: the individual’s duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person. Boris had constructed his life on this basis, and he kept himself conscientiously free: indeed, he always challenged everyone, excepting Mathieu and Ivich: that would have been futile, for they were above criticism. As to freedom, there was no sense in speculating on its nature, because in that case one was then no longer free. Boris scratched his head in perplexity, and wondered what was the origin of these destructive impulses which gripped him from time to time. ‘Perhaps I am naturally highly strung,’ he reflected, with amusement and surprise. Because, after all, taking a cool view of matters, Mathieu was definitely not in the wrong: Mathieu was not that sort. Boris felt reassured and brandished the portfolio. He also wondered if it was moral to be highly strung, he considered the pros and cons of the matter, but he refrained from pushing his inquiries any further; he would ask Mathieu. Boris considered it indecent for a fellow of his age to aspire to think for himself. He had seen enough of such people at the Sorbonne, pretentious young wiseacres, bleak, bespectacled products of the École Normale, who always had a personal theory in reserve, and invariably ended by making fools of themselves somehow, and even so, their theories were repellent and crude. Boris had a horror of the ridiculous, he had no intention of making a fool of himself, he preferred to say nothing and let it be assumed that he had no ideas — this was much the more agreeable line to take. Later on, of course, things would be different, but for the moment he deferred to Mathieu, whose profession it was to solve problems. Besides he always enjoyed watching Mathieu apply his mind to a subject: he flushed, stared at his fingers, stammered a little, but it was an honest and admirable effort. Sometimes, not indeed very often, some trifling idea came to Boris, much against his will, and he tried to prevent Mathieu noticing the fact, but the old toad always did notice it, and he would say: ‘You’ve got something at the back of your head,’ and promptly plied him with questions: Boris was in agony, he struggled to divert the conversation, but Mathieu was extremely tenacious — in the end, Boris blurted the thing out, looking down at the floor, and the worst of it all was that Mathieu proceeded to abuse him, saying: ‘That’s just rubbish, you can’t think straight,’ precisely as if Boris had claimed to have conceived an inspired idea. ‘The old toad!’ repeated Boris cheerfully. He stopped before the window of a fine, red-painted chemist’s shop, and impartially considered his reflection. ‘I’m a decent sort of chap,’ he thought. He liked his looks. He stepped on to the automatic weighing-machine to see if he had put on weight since the day before. A red bulb flashed, a mechanism began to function with a rattle and a whirr, and Boris received a cardboard ticket: nine stones and a half. For a moment he was dismayed. ‘I’ve put on over a pound.’ Luckily he noticed he was still carrying his portfolio. He got off the machine and went on his way. Nine stone for five feet nine was quite all right. He was in excellent humour, and felt a genial glow within him. Around him, indeed, the tenuous melancholy of that decaying day was slowly sinking into darkness, and, as it faded, touched him lightly with its amber radiance, its perfumes laden with regret. That day, that tropical sea, receding now and leaving him alone beneath a fading light, was a stage upon his progress, though not one of much significance. The night would come, he would go to the Sumatra, he would see Mathieu, he would see Ivich, and he would dance. But soon, exactly at the hinge of day and night, this masterly act of larceny would be committed. He drew himself up and quickened his step: he must be cautious: he must remember that those nondescript-looking fellows who stand solemnly turning over the pages of books are narks. Six of them were employed at the Garbure book-shop. Boris had this information from Picard who had served in the shop for three days after failing in his geology examination; he had to do something, his parents having cut off supplies, but he soon cleared out in disgust. Not only did he have to spy on the customers, he also had orders to watch out for simple-minded people, wearers of pince-nez, for instance, who strolled nervously up to the shop-window, and suddenly leap out on them, accusing them of having tried to slip a book into their pocket. The wretched creatures were naturally terror-stricken, and having been conducted down a long corridor into a small dark office, a hundred francs were extorted from them under threat of prosecution. Boris felt intoxicated: he would avenge them all:
he
would not be caught. ‘Most of these fellows,’ he thought, ‘have no notion of defending themselves — of a hundred thieves, eighty were amateurs.’ He was no amateur: it was true that he did not know everything, but what he did know he had learned methodically, having always thought that a fellow who worked with his head should be familiar with some form of manual labour, to keep himself in touch with reality. Hitherto he had drawn no profit from his enterprises: he attached no importance to possessing seventeen tooth-brushes, some twenty ash-trays, a compass, a poker, and a darning-mushroom. What he took into consideration in each case was the technical difficulty. It was far better, as he had done in the previous week, to annex a little box of Blackoid liquorice tablets under the eyes of the chemist, than a morocco pocket-book from an empty shop. The benefit of the theft was entirely moral: on this point Boris felt himself in complete agreement with the ancient Spartans; it was a test of character. And there was indeed a delicious moment when you said to yourself: I shall count up to five, and at five, the toothbrush must be in my pocket: you caught your breath and were conscious of an extraordinary sensation of clarity and power. He smiled: he was going to make an exception to his principles; for the first time, his own interest should be the motive for the theft: in half an hour or later, he would possess that jewel, that indispensable treasure. ‘The Thesaurus!’ he muttered, for he liked the word Thesaurus, as reminding him of the Middle Ages, Abelard, herbalists, Faust, and the chastity belts at the Cluny Museum. ‘It will be mine, I shall be able to consult it any hour of the day.’ Hitherto he had been obliged to look through it in the shop-window, in a hurry, and as the pages were not cut, the information he had acquired was often incomplete. He would put it, that very evening, on his night table, and tomorrow when he awoke it would be the first object that met his eye. ‘Alas, no,’ he thought peevishly: ‘I’m sleeping with Lola this evening.’ In any case he would take it to the Sorbonne library, and from time to time, interrupting his work of revision, he would glance into it to refresh his mind: he resolved to learn one phrase and perhaps even two every day, in six months that would make six times three, which was eighteen, multiplied by two: three hundred and sixty, with the five or six hundred that he knew already, adding up to pretty near a thousand, which might be described as a good average of achievement. He crossed the Boulevard Raspail and turned into the Rue Denfert-Rochereau with a faint sense of dislike. The Rue Denfert-Rochereau always irritated him extremely, perhaps because of its chestnut trees: in any case, it was a characterless place, except for a black-painted dyeing establishment with blood-red curtains looped dismally across the window like two scalped heads of hair. Boris, on his way past, looked appreciatively at the dyeing shop, and then plunged into the blonde, fastidious silence of the street. Street, indeed! It was no more than a burrow with houses on each side. ‘Yes, but the Metro passes underneath it,’ thought Boris, and he drew some comfort from this notion, conceiving himself for a minute or two as walking on a thin crust of bitumen, which might perhaps crack. ‘I must tell Mathieu about it,’ Boris said to himself; ‘he’ll be furious.’ No. The blood suddenly rushed into his face, he would do nothing of the kind. Ivich, yes: she understood him, and if she did not herself steal, it was because she was not gifted that way. He would also tell Lola, just to infuriate her. But Mathieu was not too candid on the subject of these thefts. He grinned indulgently when Boris mentioned them, but Boris was not very sure that he approved. For instance, he found himself wondering what arguments Mathieu could use against him. Lola just got wild, but that was natural, she could not understand certain fine distinctions, and the more so because she was rather common.