The Self-Taught Man laughs innocently and the sun plays through his sparse hair:
"Would you like to order?"
He hands me the menu: I am allowed one hors d'oeuvre: either five slices of sausage or radishes or shrimps, or a dish of stuffed celery. Snails are extra.
"I'll have sausage," I tell the waitress.
He tears the menu from my hands:
"Isn't there anything better? Here are Bourgogne snails."
"I don't care to much for snails."
"Ah! What about oysters?"
"They're four francs more," the waitress says.
"All right, oysters, Mademoiselleùand radishes for me."
Blushing, he explains to me:
"I like radishes very much."
So do I.
I glance over the list of meats. Spiced beef tempts me. But I know in advance that I shall have chicken, the only extra meat.
"This gentleman will have," he says, "the chicken. Spiced beef for me."
He turns the card. The wine list is on the back:
"We shall have some wine," he says solemnly.
"Well!" the waitress says, "times have changed. You never drank any before."
"I can stand a glass of wine now and then. Will you bring us a carafe of pink Anjou?"
The Self-Taught Man puts down the menu, breaks his bread into small bits and rubs his knife and fork with his napkin. He glances at the white-haired man reading the paper, then smiles at me:
"I usually come here with a book, even though it's against doctor's orders: one eats too quickly and doesn't chew. But I have a stomach like an ostrich, I can swallow anything. During the winter of 1917, when I was a prisoner, the food was so bad that everyone got ill. Naturally, I went on the sick list like everybody else: but nothing was the matter."
He had been a prisoner of war. . . . This is the first time he mentioned it to me; I can't get over it: I can't picture him as anything other than the Self-Taught Man.
"Where were you a prisoner?"
He doesn't answer. He puts down his fork and looks at me with prodigious intensity. He is going to tell me his troubles: now I remember he said something was wrong, in the library. I am all ears: I am only too glad to feel pity for other people's troubles, that will make a change. I have no troubles, I have money like a capitalist, no boss, no wife, no children; I exist, that's all. And that trouble is so vague, so metaphysical that I am ashamed of it.
The Self-Taught Man doesn't seem to want to talk. What a curious look he gives me. It isn't a casual glance, but heart searching. The soul of the Self-Taught Man is in his eyes, his magnificent, blindman's eyes, where it blooms. Let mine do the same, let it come and stick its nose against the windows: they could exchange greetings.
I don't want any communion of souls, I haven't fallen so low. I draw back. But the Self-Taught Man throws his chestout above the table, his eyes never leaving mine. Fortunately the waitress brings him his radishes. He drops back in his chair, his soul leaves his eyes, and he docilely begins to eat.
"Have you straightened out your troubles?"
He gives a start.
"What troubles, Monsieur?" he asks, nervously.
"You know, the other day you told me ..."
He blushes violently.
"Ha!" he says in a dry voice. "Ha! Yes, the other day. Well, it's that Corsican, Monsieur, that Corsican in the library."
He hesitates a second time, with the obstinate look of a sheep.
"It's really nothing worth bothering you about, Monsieur."
I don't insist. Without seeming to, he eats, with extraordinary speed. He has already finished his radishes when the girl brings me the oysters. Nothing is left on his plate but a heap of radish stalks and a little damp salt.
Outside, a young couple has stopped in front of the menu which a cook in cardboard holds out to them in his left hand (he has a frying pan in his right). They hesitate. The woman is cold, she tucks her chin into her fur collar. The man makes up his mind first, he opens the door and steps inside to let the woman pass.
She enters. She looks around her amiably and shivers a little:
"It's hot," she says gravely.
The young man closes the door.
"Messieurs, dames," he says.
The Self-Taught Man turns round with a pleasant: "Messieurs, dames."
The other customers do not answer, but the distinguished-looking gentleman lowers his paper slightly and scrutinizes the new arrivals with a profound look.
"Don't bother, thank you."
Before the waitress, who had run up to help him, could make a move, the young man had slipped out of his raincoat. In place of a morning coat he wears a leather blouse with a zip. The waitress, a little disappointed, turns to the young woman. But once more he is ahead of her and helps the girl out of her coat with gentle, precise movements. They sit near us, one against the other. They don't look as if they'd known each other very long. The young woman has a weary face, pure and a little
sullen. She suddenly takes off her hat, shakes her black hair and smiles.
The Self-Taught Man studies them at great length, with a kindly eye; then he turns to me and winks tenderly as if to say: "How wonderful they are!"
They are not ugly. They are quiet, happy at being together, happy at being seen together. Sometimes when Anny and I went into a restaurant in Piccadilly we felt ourselves the objects of admiring attention. It annoyed Anny, but I must confess that I was somewhat proud. Above all, amazed; I never had the clean-cut look that goes so well with that young man and no one could even say that my ugliness was touching. Only we were young: now, I am at the age to be touched by the youth of others. But I am not touched. The woman has dark, gentle eyes; the young man's skin has an orange hue, a little leathery, and a charming, small, obstinate chin. They are touching, but they also make me a little sick. I feel them so far from me: the warmth makes them languid, they pursue the same dream in their hearts, so low, so feeble. They are comfortable, they look with assurance at the yellow walls, the people, and they find the world pleasant as it is just as it is, and each one of them, temporarily, draws life from the life of the other. Soon the two of them will make a single life, a slow, tepid life which will have no sense at allùbut they won't notice it.
They look as though they frighten each other. Finally, the young man, awkward and resolute, takes the girl's hand with the tips of his fingers. She breathes heavily and together they lean over the menu. Yes, they're happy. So what.
The Self-Taught Man puts on an amused, mysterious air:
"I saw you the day before yesterday."
"Where?"
"Ha, ha!" he says, respectfully teasing.
He makes me wait for a second, then:
"You were coming out of the museum."
"Oh, yes," I say, "not the day before yesterday: Saturday."
The day before yesterday I certainly had no heart for running around museums.
"Have you seen that famous reproduction in carved woodù Orsini's attempted assassination?"
"I don't recall it."
"Is it possible? It's in a little room on the right, as you go in. It's the work of an insurgent of the Commune who lived inBouville until the amnesty, hiding in an attic. He wanted to go to America but the harbour police there were too quick for him. An admirable man. He spent his spare time carving a great oak panel. The only tools he had were a penknife and a nail file. He did the delicate parts with the file: the hands and eyes. The panel is five feet long by three feet wide; there are seventy figures, each one no larger than a hand, without counting the two horses pulling the emperor's carriage. And the faces, Monsieur, the faces made by the file, they have a distinct physiognomy, a human look. Monsieur, if I may allow myself to say so, it is a work worth seeing."
I don't want to be involved:
"I had simply wanted to see Bordurin's paintings again."
The Self-Taught Man suddenly grows sad:
"Those portraits in the main hall, Monsieur?" he asks, with a trembling smile, "I understand nothing about painting. Of course, I realize that Bordurin is a great painter, I can see he has a certain touch, a certain knack as they say. But pleasure, Monsieur, aesthetic pleasure is foreign to me."
I tell him sympathetically:
"I feel the same way about sculpture."
"Ah, Monsieur, I too, alas! And about music and about dancing. Yet I am not without a certain knowledge. Well, it is inconceivable: I have seen young people who don't know half what I know who, standing in front of a painting, seem to take pleasure in it."
"They must be pretending," I said to encourage him.
"Perhaps. . . ."
The Self-Taught Man dreams for a moment:
"What I regret is not so much being deprived of a certain taste, but rather that a whole branch of human activity is foreign to me. . . . Yet I am a man and men have painted those pictures. . . ."
Suddenly his tone changes:
"Monsieur, at one time I ventured to think that the beautiful was only a question of taste. Are there not different rules for each epoch? Allow me, Monsieur. . . ."
With surprise I see him draw a black leather notebook from his pocket. He goes through it for an instant: a lot of blank pages, and further on, a few lines written in red ink. He has turned pale. He has set the notebook flat on the tablecloth and
spread his huge hand on the open page. He coughs with embarrassment:
"Sometimes things come to my mindùI dare not call them thoughts. It is very curious, I am there, I'm reading when suddenly, I don't know where it comes from, I feel illuminated. First I paid no attention and then I resolved to buy a notebook."
He stops and looks at me: he is waiting.
"Ah," I say.
"Monsieur, these maxims are naturally unpolished: my instruction is not yet completed."
He picks up the notebook with trembling hands, he is deeply moved:
"And there just happens to be something here about painting. I should be very happy if you would allow me to read . . ."
"With pleasure," I say.
He reads:
"No longer do people believe what the eighteenth century held to be true. Why should we still take pleasure in works because they thought them beautiful?"
He looks at me pleadingly.
"What must one think, Monsieur? Perhaps it is a paradox? I thought to endow my idea with the quality of a caprice."
"Well, I ... I find that very interesting."
"Have you read it anywhere before?"
"No, of course not."
"Really, nowhere? Then, Monsieur," he says, his face growing sad, "it is because it is not true. If it were true, someone would already have thought of it."
"Wait a minute," I tell him, "now that I think about it, I believe I have read something like that."
His eyes are shining; he takes out his pencil.
"Which author?" he asks me, his voice precise.
"Oh . . . Renan."
He is in Paradise.
"Would you be kind enough to quote the exact passage for me?" he asks, sucking the point of his pencil.
"Oh, as a matter of fact, I read that quite a while ago." "Oh, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter."
He writes Renan in his notebook, just below his maxim.
"I have come upon Renan! I wrote the name in pencil," he explains, delighted, "but this evening I'll go over it in red ink."
He looks ecstatically at his notebook for a moment, and Iexpect him to read me other maxims. But he closes it cautiously and stuffs it back in his pocket. He undoubtedly has decided that this is enough happiness for one time.
"How pleasant it is," he says intimately, "to be able to talk sometimes, as now, with abandon."
This, as might be supposed, puts an end to our languishing conversation. A long silence follows.
The atmosphere of the restaurant has changed since the arrival of the young couple. The two red-faced men are silent; they are nonchalantly detailing the young lady's charms. The distinguished-looking gentleman has put down his paper and is watching the couple with kindness, almost complicity. He thinks that old age is wise and youth is beautiful, he nods his head with a certain coquetry: he knows quite well that he is still handsome, well preserved, that with his dark complexion and his slender figure he is still attractive. He plays at feeling paternal. The waitress' feelings appear simpler: she is standing in front of the young people staring at them open-mouthed.
They are speaking quietly. They have been served their hors d'ceuvres but they don't touch them. Listening carefully I can make out snatches of their conversation. I understand better what the woman says, her voice is rich and veiled.
"No, Jean, no."
"Why not?" the young man murmurs with passionate vivacity.
"I told you why."
"That's not a reason."
A few words escape me then the young woman makes a charming, lax gesture: