The Age of Reason (30 page)

‘What do you mean — as well as I do?’

‘We’re alike.’

‘What’s the sense of that?’

‘Look at us,’ said he, ‘and look at them.’

‘We are not alike,’ said Lola, with a contemptuous grimace.

Mathieu shrugged his shoulders, and they lapsed into silence, still at cross purposes. They both looked at Boris and Ivich. Boris and Ivich were dancing, they were cruel, but quite unconsciously so. Or perhaps they were faintly aware of being so. Mathieu was sitting beside Lola, they did not dance, feeling beyond the age for doing so. ‘People must take us for lovers,’ he thought. And he heard Lola murmur to herself: ‘If only I were sure it was for Picard.’

Boris and Ivich were coming towards them. Lola got up with an effort. Mathieu thought she was going to fall, but she leaned against the table and drew a deep breath.

‘Come,’ she said to Boris, ‘I want to talk to you.’

Boris looked ill at ease.

‘Can’T you do it here?’

‘No.’

‘Well, wait till the band starts and we’ll dance.’

‘No,’ said Lola, ‘I’m tired. You must come to my dressing-room. You’ll excuse me, Ivich darling?’

‘I’m tight,’ said Ivich amiably.

‘We won’t be long,’ said Lola. ‘Anyway, I shall have to be singing again soon.’

Lola moved away, and Boris followed her ungraciously. Ivich collapsed on to her chair.

‘I’m certainly tight,’ she said. ‘It came over me while I was dancing.’

Mathieu did not answer.

‘Why have they gone away?’ asked Ivich.

‘There’s something they want to talk about. And Lola has just drugged herself. As you know, after the first dose, people just hang on till the second one.’

‘I rather think I should like to take drugs,’ said Ivich, meditatively.

‘Of course.’

‘Well, and what about it?’ she said, indignantly. ‘If I’ve got to stay in Laon all my life, I must have something to do.’

Mathieu did not reply.

‘Ah, I see,’ she said. ‘You’re angry with me because I’m tight.’

‘Not in the least.’

‘Yes, you are — you disapprove.’

‘Well, naturally. However, you aren’t so very tight.’

‘I am ex-cess-ive-ly tight,’ said Ivich complacently.

The crowd was beginning to thin. It was about two o’clock in the morning. In her dressing-room, a mean little apartment hung with red velvet, with an ancient gilt-framed mirror, Lola pleaded and threatened: ‘Boris! Boris! Boris! You’re driving me mad.’ And Boris looked down his nose, with an air of nervous obstinacy. A long black dress swirling between red walls, the black glitter of the dress in the mirror, and lovely white arms flung upwards in antiquated pathos. Then Lola would slip behind a screen, and, with head thrown back as though to stop her nose from bleeding, she would sniff two pinches of white powder. Mathieu’s forehead dripped with sweat, but he did not dare to wipe it, he was ashamed of perspiring in front of Ivich: she had danced without respite, she was still pale, she did not perspire. She had said that very morning: ‘I loathe all these damp hands.’ He no longer knew what to do with his hands. He felt weak and listless, without desire for anything; his mind was vacant. From time to time he told himself that the sun would soon rise, that he must now take further steps, telephone to Marcelle, and to Sarah, live through the whole extent of a new day from end to end, which seemed beyond his compass of belief. He longed to remain indefinitely at that table, beneath those artificial lights, and beside Ivich.

‘I’m enjoying myself,’ said Ivich, in a tipsy voice.

Mathieu looked at her: she was in that state of gay exaltation which a trifle could transform into fury.

‘I don’t care a blast for examinations,’ said Ivich. ‘If I’m ploughed, I shall be quite content. I’m burying my bachelor life this evening.’

She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: ‘It shines like a little diamond.’

‘What does?’

‘This moment. It is quite round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal.’

She picked up Boris’s knife by the handle, laid the flat of the blade against the edge of the table, and amused herself by bending it.

‘What’s the matter with that woman?’ she asked, suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘The creature in black at the next table. She’s been glaring at me ever since she came in.’

Mathieu turned his head: the woman in black was looking at Ivich out of the corner of her eye.

‘Well,’ said Ivich, ‘isn’t it true?’

‘I think it is.’

He looked at Ivich’s pinched little face, now quite congested, her malicious, roving gaze, and he thought: ‘I should have done better to keep quiet.’ The woman in black was quite aware that they had been talking about her: she had assumed a majestic air, her husband had woken up and was staring at Ivich, ‘What a bore it all is,’ thought Mathieu. He felt lethargic and indifferent, his sole desire was to avoid trouble.

‘That woman despises me because she’s respectable,’ muttered Ivich, addressing the knife. ‘I, on the contrary, am not respectable, I enjoy myself, I get tight, I’m going to fail in my exam. I hate respectability,’ she rapped out at the top of her voice.

‘Do be quiet, Ivich.’

Ivich eyed him with a glacial air. ‘You were speaking to me, I believe? True, you too are respectable. Don’t be afraid: when I’ve been ten years at Laon, in the society of my mother and father, I shall be a great deal more respectable than you are.’

She sat huddled in her chair, feverishly bending the knife-blade against the table. A heavy silence followed, then the woman in black turned towards her husband.

‘I don’t understand how anyone can behave like that girl,’ she said.

The husband looked apprehensively at Mathieu’s shoulders. ‘Hum!’ he observed.

‘It isn’t entirely her fault,’ pursued the woman: ‘the people who brought her are to blame.’

‘Now we’re in for a row,’ thought Mathieu. Ivich had certainly heard, but she sat silent and sedate, she remained quiet. Rather too sedate; she appeared to be on the watch for something, she had raised her head, and a strangely wild and ecstatic expression came into her face.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mathieu, uneasily.

‘Nothing. I... I’m going to do just one more disrespectable thing, to amuse Madame. I wonder how she’ll stand the sight of blood.’

Ivich’s neighbour uttered a faint shriek, and blinked. Mathieu looked hurriedly at Ivich’s hands. She was holding the knife in her right hand, and slashing at the palm of her left hand. The flesh was laid open from the ball of the thumb to the root of the little finger, and the blood was oozing slowly from the wound.

‘Ivich!’ cried Mathieu. ‘Your poor hand!’

Ivich grinned vaguely. ‘Is she going to faint?’ she asked. Mathieu reached a hand across the table and Ivich let him take the knife. Mathieu was dumbfounded, he looked at Ivich’s slender fingers already spattered with blood, and her hand must be hurting her.

‘You’re crazy,’ he said. ‘Come along with me to the toilet, the attendant will bandage your hand.’

‘Bandage my hand?’ said Ivich, with an unpleasant laugh. ‘Do you realize what you’re saying?’

‘Come along at once, Ivich, please.’

‘It’s a very agreeable sensation,’ said Ivich without getting up. ‘My hand felt like a pat of butter.’

She had lifted her left hand to the level of her nose, and was eyeing it judicially. The blood was trickling all over it, with the busy to and fro of ants in an antheap, ‘It’s my blood,’ she said. ‘I like seeing my blood.’

‘That’s enough,’ said Mathieu.

He gripped Ivich by the shoulder, but she shook herself free, and a large drop of blood fell on to the table-cloth. Ivich looked at Mathieu with hatred gleaming in her eyes.

‘You’ve dared to touch me again,’ she said. And she added with a savage laugh: ‘I ought to have guessed that you would find that too much for you. You are shocked that anyone should enjoy the sight of their own blood.’

Mathieu felt himself growing pale with rage. He sat down again, laid his left hand flat on the table, and said suavely: ‘Too much for me? Certainly not, Ivich, I find it charming. It’s a game for a noble lady, I suppose.’

He jabbed the knife into his palm, and felt almost nothing. When he took his hand away, the knife remained embedded in his flesh, straight up, with its haft in the air.

‘Oh-h-h!’ shrieked Ivich. ‘Pull it out! Pull it out at once!’

‘You see,’ said Mathieu, with clenched teeth; ‘anybody can do that.’

He felt benignantly impressive, and was a little afraid that he might faint. But a sort of dogged satisfaction, and the malice of a silly schoolboy took possession of his mind. It was not only to defy Ivich that he had stuck the knife into his hand, it was as a challenge to Jacques, and Brunet, and Daniel, and to his whole life. ‘I’m a ghastly kind of fool,’ he thought. ‘Brunet was right in saying that I’m a grown-up child.’ But he couldn’t help being pleased. Ivich looked at Mathieu’s hand, nailed to the table, and the blood gathering round the blade. Then she looked at Mathieu, her expression had entirely changed.

‘Why did you do that?’ she said, gently.

‘Why did you?’ said Mathieu, stiffly.

From their left came the mutter of a little tumult: this was public opinion. Mathieu ignored it, he was looking at Ivich.

‘Oh!’ said Ivich. ‘I... I’m so sorry.’

The mutter grew, and the lady in black began to yelp: ‘They’re drunk, they’ll do themselves an injury. Stop them! I can’t bear it.’

Some heads were turned in their direction, and the waiter hurried up.

‘Does madame want anything?’

The woman in black pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, she pointed silently at Mathieu and Ivich without uttering a word. Mathieu quickly pulled the knife out of the wound, which hurt him a good deal.

‘We’ve cut ourselves with this knife.’

The waiter had seen many such incidents. ‘If you, sir, and madame, would kindly go to the toilet,’ he said calmly, ‘the cloakroom attendant has everything required.’

This time Ivich rose without protest. They crossed the dancing-floor behind the waiter, each with a hand in the air: it was so comic, that Mathieu burst out laughing. Ivich eyed him anxiously, and then she too began to laugh. She laughed so violently that her hand shook. Two drops of blood fell on to the floor.

‘This is fun,’ said Ivich.

‘Dear, dear,’ exclaimed the cloakroom woman. ‘My poor young lady, what have you done to yourself! And the poor gentleman, too!’

‘We were playing with a knife,’ said Ivich.

‘Well, I never!’ said the attendant, reproachfully, ‘and an accident can happen in no time. Was it one of our knives?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, no, I was just thinking... It’s a nasty wound,’ she said, examining Ivich’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, I can fix you up all right.’

She opened a cupboard, and half her body disappeared inside it. Mathieu and Ivich smiled at each other. Ivich seemed to have recovered her sobriety.

‘I wouldn’t have believed you could do it,’ she said to Mathieu.

‘You see that all is not lost,’ said Mathieu.

‘It’s hurting me now,’ said Ivich.

‘Me too,’ said Mathieu.

He felt quite happy. He read ‘Ladies’ then ‘Gentlemen’ in gold letters on two creamy-grey enamelled doors, he looked at the white tiled floor, he breathed the aniseed odour of disinfectant, and his heart dilated.

‘A cloakroom lady’s job can’t be so very disagreeable,’ said he gaily.

‘Indeed no,’ said Ivich, amiably. She was looking at him with an affectionately fierce expression; she hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly applied the palm of her left hand to Mathieu’s wounded palm, with a sticky, smacking sound. ‘That’s the mingling of the blood,’ she explained. Mathieu pressed her hand without saying a word, and felt a stinging pain: he had the feeling that a mouth was opening in his hand. ‘You’re hurting me,’ said Ivich.

‘I know.’

The cloakroom lady had emerged from the cupboard, rather flushed. She opened a tin box. ‘Here we are,’ she said.

Mathieu observed a bottle of iodine tincture, some needles, a pair of scissors, and a roll of bandage.

‘You are well provided,’ he said.

She wagged her head gravely.

‘Indeed, sir, there are days when my job is no joke. Two days ago, a lady threw her glass at the head of one of our best clients. How he did bleed, poor gentleman! I was afraid for his eyes, I took a great splinter of glass out of his eyebrow.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Mathieu.

The cloakroom dame was busy with Ivich.

‘Patience, dearie, it will smart a bit, that’s the iodine: there, that’s done.’

‘You... you will tell me if I’m indiscreet?’ asked Ivich in an undertone.

‘Yes.’

‘I want to know what you were thinking about when I was dancing with Lola.’

‘Just now?’

‘Yes, just when Boris asked the blonde lady to dance. You were alone in your corner.’

‘I fancy I was thinking about myself,’ said Mathieu.

‘I was watching you, you were... almost handsome. If only you could always look like that!’

‘One can’t be always thinking of oneself.’ Ivich laughed: ‘I believe I’m always thinking of myself.’

‘Now your hand, sir,’ said the cloakroom lady. ‘Steady! it will sting. There — that’s over.’

Mathieu felt a sharp, scorching pain, but he ignored it, he was watching Ivich tidying her hair rather awkwardly before the mirror, and holding her curls in her bandaged hand. In the end she flung her hair back, leaving her broad face exposed to view. Mathieu felt a sharp and desperate desire grow great within him.

‘You are beautiful,’ said he.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Ivich, laughing. ‘On the contrary, I’m disgustingly plain. This is my private face.’

‘I think I prefer it to the other one,’ said Mathieu.

‘I’ll do my hair like this tomorrow,’ she said.

Mathieu could find no reply. He nodded, and said nothing.

‘That’s done,’ said the cloakroom lady.

Mathieu noticed she had a grey moustache.

‘Thank you very much, madame — you’re as clever as a nurse.’

The lady of the lavatory blushed with gratification.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s natural enough. In our job, we have lots of tricky things to do.’