The Age of Reason (22 page)

‘You would steal from your own mother,’ she would say to him, ‘and you’ll steal from me one day.’ Whereto he answered: ‘I daresay I shall!’ The suggestion was, of course, silly: one didn’t steal from one’s intimates, it was much too easy, he answered thus because he so detested Lola’s habit of relating everything to herself. But Mathieu... Yes, Mathieu, that was beyond comprehension. Why should he object to theft, provided of course that it was committed according to the rules. Mathieu’s unuttered disapproval distressed Boris for a few moments, then he shook his head, and said to himself: ‘What a drama!’ In five years, seven years, he would have his own ideas, Mathieu’s would seem to him pathetically antiquated, he would be his own critic: ‘Indeed we may no longer know each other at all.’ Boris did not look forward to that day, he felt perfectly happy, but he was sensible and he knew that it must come: he would inevitably develop, he would leave many things and people behind him, he was not yet mature. Mathieu was a stage on the route, like Lola, and even when Boris admired him most, his admiration was in so far provisional, that, extreme as it was, it never became abject. Mathieu was as sound as a man could be, but he could not develop as Boris would, indeed he could no longer develop at all, he was too complete. These reflections depressed Boris, and he was glad when he got to the Place Edmund Rostand: he enjoyed crossing it, and evading the motor-buses that blundered through it like gigantic turkeys, merely by drawing in his chest the needful inch or two. ‘If only it hasn’t occurred to them to take the book out of the window on this very day!’

At the corner of the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince and the Boulevard Saint-Michel, he stopped: he wanted to moderate his impatience, it would not have been wise to arrive with cheeks flushed, and predatory eyes. His principle was to act in cold blood. He forced himself to remain motionless outside an umbrella and cutlery shop, and to look methodically, one by one, at the articles displayed, midget umbrellas — green and red and oily, large umbrellas, ivory-handled umbrellas topped with bulldogs’ heads, all so utterly depressing that Boris tried to picture the elderly customers who came to buy these objects. He was just attaining a condition of cold and joyless resolve, when he suddenly caught sight of something that plunged him once more into jubilation: ‘A clasp-knife!’ he murmured, and his hands trembled. It was a genuine clasp-knife, with a thin long blade, a cross-guard, a black horn haft, as elegant as a crescent moon: there were two spots of rust on the blade, which might well have been blood. ‘Oh!’ groaned Boris, his heart constricted with desire. The knife lay, wide open, on a varnished slab of wood, between two umbrellas. Boris eyed it for a long while, and the world dislimned around him, everything but the cold radiance of that blade lost its value in his eyes, he wanted to fling everything aside, enter the shop, buy the knife, and escape no matter where, like a thief, carrying his plunder with him: ‘Picard will show me how to throw it,’ he said to himself. But his rigorous sense of duty soon prevailed: ‘Later on. I’ll buy it later on, as a prize for myself if I bring off the job.’

The Garbure book-shop formed the corner of the Rue de Vaugirard and the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and it had — which served Boris’s designs — a doorway on to each street. In front of the shop stood six long tables laden with books, for the most part second-hand. Boris espied out of the corner of his eye a gentleman with a red moustache who was often to be seen hanging about the district, and whom he suspected of being a nark. He approached the third table and behold: the book was there, enormous, so enormous indeed, that for an instant Boris was discouraged by the sight of it: seven hundred pages, quarto, with deckle edges as broad as a little finger: ‘And I’ve got to get that into my portfolio,’ he reflected with some dismay. But a glance at the gold letters of the title glowing softly on the binding sufficed to revive his courage:
Historical and Etymological Dictionary of Cant and Slang from the Fourteenth Century up to the Present Day
. ‘Historical!’ Boris repeated ecstatically to himself. He touched the binding with the tips of his fingers, a gesture of affectionate familiarity that restored his contact with the volume: ‘It’s not a book, it’s a piece of furniture,’ he thought with admiration. Behind his back, without doubt, the moustachioed gentleman had turned round to watch him. He must start the performance, look through the volume and play the part of an idler who hesitates and at last succumbs. Boris opened the dictionary at random. He read: ‘A man for’ — ‘To be inclined towards. A phrase now in fairly common use. Example: “The parson was no end of a man for” — Render: The parson was much inclined towards... "A man for men" or "A man’s man", is also used for "Invert". This idiom apparently originates in South-Western France...’

The succeeding pages were not cut. Boris read no further and began to laugh silently. He repeated with delight: ‘The parson was no end of a man for...’ Then he became abruptly serious and began to count: ‘One: two: three: four,’ while a high, pure joy made his heart beat faster.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder. ‘I’m done,’ thought Boris, ‘but they’ve struck too soon, they can’t prove anything against me.’ He turned round slowly and with composure. It was Daniel Sereno, a friend of Mathieu. Boris had seen him two or three times, and thought him rather splendid: though, at the moment, he did not look too pleasant.

‘Good morning,’ said Sereno. ‘What are you reading? You look quite absorbed.’

No, he didn’t really look unpleasant, but there was no sense in taking risks: as a matter of fact he seemed rather too agreeable, as though he had a nasty surprise in store for Boris. And then, as ill luck would have it, he had come upon Boris just as he was looking at the Slang Dictionary, a fact which would certainly reach Mathieu’s ears, and give him much sardonic satisfaction.

‘I just stopped as I was passing,’ he said rather awkwardly.

Sereno smiled: he picked up the volume in both hands and raised it to his eyes: he must be rather short-sighted. Boris admired his nonchalance: those who turned over the pages of books usually took care to leave them on the table, for fear of detectives. But it was clear that Sereno thought he could do as he pleased. Boris muttered hoarsely, with an assumed air of indifference: ‘It’s a curious work...’

Sereno did not answer: he seemed absorbed in what he was reading. Boris became annoyed, and scrutinized him narrowly. But he had fairly to recognize that Sereno presented an extremely elegant appearance. In point of fact, there was, in the almost pink tweed suit, the linen shirt, and yellow necktie, a calculated bravado that rather shocked Boris. Boris liked a sober, slightly casual elegance. None the less, the total effect was irreproachable, though rather lusciously suggestive of fresh butter. Sereno burst out laughing. He had a warm, attractive laugh, and Boris liked him because he opened his mouth wide when he laughed.

‘A man’s man!’ said Sereno. ‘A man’s man! That’s a grand phrase, I must use it whenever I can.’

He replaced the book on the table.

‘Are you a man’s man, Serguine?’

‘I...’ began Boris, and his breath failed him.

‘Don’t blush,’ said Sereno — and Boris felt himself becoming scarlet — ‘and believe me when I tell you that the idea didn’t even enter my head. I know how to recognize a man’s man’ — the expression obviously amused him — ‘there’s a soft rotundity in their movements that is quite unmistakable. Whereas you — I’ve been watching you for a moment or two, and was greatly charmed: your movements are quick and graceful, but they are also angular. You must be clever with your hands.’

Boris listened attentively: it is always interesting to hear someone explain his view of you. And Sereno had a very agreeable bass voice. His eyes, indeed, were baffling: at first sight, they seemed to be brimming with friendly feeling, but a closer view discovered in them something hard and almost fanatic. ‘He’s trying to pull my leg,’ thought Boris, and remained on the alert. He would have liked to ask Sereno what he meant by ‘angular movements’ but he did not dare, he thought it would be better to talk as little as possible, and then, under that insistent gaze, he felt a strange and bewildered access of sensibility arise within him, and he longed to snort and stamp to dispel that dizzying impulse. He turned his head away and a rather painful silence followed. ‘He’ll take me for a bloody fool,’ thought Boris with resignation.

‘You are studying philosophy, I believe,’ said Sereno.

‘Yes, I’m studying philosophy,’ rejoined Boris.

He was glad of a pretext to break the silence. But at that moment, one stroke sounded from the Sorbonne clock, and Boris paused in sudden horror. ‘A quarter past eight,’ he thought with anguish: ‘if he doesn’t go away at once, it’s all up.’ The Garbure bookshop closed at half past eight Sereno did not in the least look as if he wanted to go away.

‘I must admit,’ said he, ‘that I don’t understand philosophy at all. You, of course, do...’

‘I don’t know — to some extent, I think,’ said Boris, now in torment.

And he thought: ‘I’m sure I must seem rude, but why doesn’t he go away.’ Not but what Mathieu hadn’t warned him that Sereno always appeared at the wrong moment, it was a part of his demoniac character.

‘I suppose you like it,’ said Sereno.

‘Yes,’ said Boris, who felt himself blushing for the second time. He hated talking about what he liked: it was indecent. He had the impression that Sereno guessed as much, and was being deliberately tactless. Sereno eyed him with an air of penetrating intentness.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Boris.

It was true: he didn’t know. And yet he did like it very much. Even Kant.

Sereno smiled: ‘At any rate, there’s nothing intellectual in your enthusiasm, that’s quite clear.’

Boris quivered, and Sereno added briskly: ‘I’m not serious. As a matter of fact, I think you’re lucky. I myself have read some philosophy, like everybody else. But I couldn’t be induced to like it... I imagine it was Delarue who disgusted me with it: he’s too clever for me. I sometimes used to ask him to explain a difficulty, but as soon as he started, I was completely at sea: indeed, I no longer understood my own question.’

Boris was hurt by this bantering tone, and he suspected that Sereno’s purpose was to inveigle him into saying something unpleasant about Mathieu, for the pleasure of repeating it to Mathieu afterwards. He admired Sereno for being so gratuitously objectionable, but he was becoming restive, and he answered curtly: ‘Mathieu explains things very well.’

This time Sereno burst out laughing, and Boris bit his lips.

‘I don’t for a moment doubt it. Only we are friends of rather too long standing, and I imagine he reserves his pedagogical qualities for younger men. He usually recruits his disciples from among his pupils.’

‘I am not his disciple,’ said Boris.

‘I wasn’t thinking of you,’ said Daniel. ‘Indeed you haven’t the head of a disciple. I was thinking of Hourtiguère, a tall, fair fellow who went to Indo-China last year. You must have heard of him: that was the grand passion two years ago, they were always about together.’

Boris had to admit that the stroke had been well aimed, and it increased his admiration of Sereno, but he would have liked to knock him down.

‘Mathieu did not mention him,’ he said.

He detested the man Hourtiguère, whom Mathieu had known before himself. Mathieu sometimes assumed a set expression when Boris came to meet him at the Dôme, and said: ‘I must write to Hourtiguère,’ whereupon he became for a while abstracted and intent, like a soldier writing to his girl at home, and describing circles in the air with a fountain pen above a sheet of paper. Boris set to work beside him, with loathing in his heart. He was not, of course, jealous of Hourtiguère. On the contrary, his feeling for the man was one of pity touched with slight repulsion (indeed, he knew nothing of him except a photograph, which depicted him as a tall, rather dismal-looking fellow in plus fours; and a wholly fatuous philosophic dissertation that still lay on Mathieu’s desk). But he wouldn’t for the world have Mathieu treat him later on as he treated Hourtiguère. He would have preferred never to see Mathieu again if he could have believed that he would one day observe, with a set, portentous air, to another young philosopher: ‘Ah, I must write to Serguine today.’ He would, if he must, accept the fact that Mathieu was no more than a stage in his life — and that indeed was rather galling — but he could not bear to be a stage in Mathieu’s life.

Sereno showed no disposition to move. He was leaning with both hands on the table, in a negligent and easy attitude: ‘I often regret I am such an ignoramus on that subject. Students of philosophy seem to get a great deal of satisfaction out of it.’

Boris did not answer.

‘I should have needed someone to initiate me,’ said Sereno. ‘Someone of your sort. Not too much of an expert, but one who took the subject seriously.’ He laughed, as though a pleasant notion had crossed his mind: ‘Look here, it would be amusing if I took lessons from you...’

Boris eyed him with mistrust. This must be another trap. He could not see himself in process of instructing Sereno, who must be much more intelligent than himself, and who would certainly ask him all sorts of embarrassing questions. He would choke with nervousness. He reflected with cold resignation that the time must now be twenty-five minutes past eight. Sereno was still smiling, he looked as though he were delighted with his own idea. But he had curious eyes. Boris found it hard to look him in the face.

‘I’m very lazy, you know,’ said Sereno. ‘You would have to be strict with me...’

Boris could not help laughing, and said candidly: ‘I don’t think I could manage that...’

‘Oh yes you could,’ said Sereno. ‘I am quite sure you could.’

‘I should be frightened of you,’ said Boris.

Sereno shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nonsense!... Look here, can you spare a minute? We might have a drink opposite, at the Harcourt, and discuss our scheme.’

‘Our scheme...’ It was with anguish that Boris watched one of the shop assistants begin to collect books into piles. He would indeed have liked to go to the Harcourt with Sereno: he was an odd fellow, he was extremely good-looking, and it was amusing to talk to him because of the need to be constantly on guard: the persistent sense of danger. He struggled against himself for a moment, but the sense of duty prevailed: ‘As a matter of fact, I’m in rather a hurry,’ he said, and his disappointment lent an edge to his voice.