The Age of Reason (41 page)

He tugged savagely at the lace of his left shoe.

‘I shan’t say anything to him,’ said he, ‘he’s like that, he can’t help telling lies. But there’s one chap I swear I’ll catch by the short hairs.’

‘The chemist?’

‘Yes. Not the old one. The young chap.’

‘The dispenser?’

‘Yes. That’s the brute. You know what he said about Bobby and me. Bobby can’t have much pride to go back to that hole. Mark my words, I’ll be waiting for that chap one evening when he leaves the shop.’

He smiled an evil smile, in enjoyment of his own anger.

‘I’ll just stroll up with my hands in my pockets and a nasty look in my eye — You recognize me, do you? Good! What’s this you’ve been saying about me, eh? What have you been saying about me? — And the chap will answer: I didn’t say anything... I didn’t say anything — Oh, didn’t you! — Then a jab in the stomach that’ll knock him over, and I’ll jump on him and bash his mug against the pavement.’

Daniel eyed him with ironical disfavour: and he thought: ‘They’re all alike.’ All. Except Bobby, who was a female. Afterwords, they always talked about smashing someone’s face. Ralph was becoming excited, his eyes were gleaming and his ears were scarlet: he felt impelled to make abrupt and vivid gestures. Daniel could not resist the desire to humiliate him still further.

‘But perhaps he’ll knock you out?’

‘Ha?’ jeered Ralph. ‘Let him come along. You’ve only got to ask the waiter at the Oriental: he’ll tell you. A chap about thirty with tremendous arms. He said he was going to throw me out.’

Daniel smiled offensively. ‘And you just ate him up, of course.’

‘Ask anyone you like,’ said Ralph indignantly. ‘There were about ten of them, looking on — You come outside — I said to him. There was Bobby and a big chap, I’ve seen you with him — Corbin, works at the slaughterhouse. So he went out — Want to teach a grown man how to behave, eh? — says he to me. So I set about him properly. I socked him one in the eye to begin with, and then, when he came back for another, jabbed him with my elbow. Just like that. Flat on the nose.’ He had got up, and began to mimic the episodes of the encounter. He swung round, displaying his firm small buttocks under his tightly-fitting blue trousers. Daniel was seized by an access of rage, and longed to knock him down. ‘He was pissing blood,’ continued Ralph, ‘so I grabbed his legs and tipped him over. And my friend, the grown man, didn’t know where he was when I’d done with him.’

He paused, malevolent and swollen with pride, sheltering now behind his deed of glory. He looked like an insect. ‘I wish I could kill him,’ thought Daniel. He did not really believe these stories, but it none the less humiliated him to think that Ralph had knocked down a man of thirty. He began to laugh.

‘Mind how you throw your weight about,’ he said slowly: ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you one of these days.’

‘I don’t throw my weight about,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t the big chaps I’m afraid of.’

‘So,’ said Daniel, ‘you aren’t afraid of anyone, eh? Not of anyone?’

Ralph flushed. ‘The big chaps aren’t the strongest,’ he said.

‘And what about you? Let’s see how strong you are,’ said Daniel, pushing him. ‘Just let’s see.’

Ralph stood for a moment with his mouth open, then his eyes glittered.

‘As it’s you — I don’t mind. For fun, of course,’ he said in a sibilant voice. ‘And no dirty business. You won’t get the best of it.’

Daniel grabbed him by the belt: ‘I’ll show you, my poppet.’

Ralph was lithe and sinewy: his muscles rippled under Daniel’s hands. They wrestled in silence, and Daniel began to pant, he figured himself somehow as a tall fellow wearing a moustache. Ralph finally managed to lift him off his feet, but Daniel thrust both hands into his face, and Ralph let go. They stood confronting each other, each with a venomous smile upon his face.

‘So you would, would you!’ said Ralph in a strange voice. He made a sudden dash at Daniel with his head down. Daniel dodged his head, and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He was already out of breath. Ralph did not look in the least tired. They clinched again, and began to revolve in the middle of the room. Daniel was aware of a sour and feverish taste at the back of his mouth. ‘I must finish him off or he’ll do me in.’ He pushed at Ralph with all his strength, but Ralph resisted. Daniel was possessed by a maniacal fury, as he thought: ‘I’m making a fool of myself.’ He bent down suddenly, seized Ralph by the small of his back, lifted him, flung him on the bed, and with the same impulse fell on top of him. Ralph struggled and tried to scratch, but Daniel seized his wrists and held them down on the bolster. Thus they remained for several moments. Daniel was too exhausted to get up. Ralph lay immovable and helpless, with the weight of a man — another grown man — flattening him out.

‘Well, who had the best of that?’ gasped Daniel. ‘Who had the best of that, my little friend?’

Ralph promptly smiled, and said slyly: ‘You’re a stout fellow, Monsieur Lalique.’

Daniel released him, and rose to his feet. He was out of breath, and felt humiliated. His heart was throbbing violently.

‘I used to be a stout fellow,’ he said. ‘At the moment I can hardly get my wind.’

Ralph was on his feet, straightening his collar, and breathing naturally. He tried to laugh, but he evaded Daniel’s eyes.

‘Wind isn’t what matters,’ he said generously. ‘It’s training.’

They both grinned with an air of embarrassment. Daniel longed to take Ralph by the throat and dash his fist into his face. He slipped on his coat again: his shirt, soaked as it was with sweat, stuck to his skin.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must be off. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye, Monsieur Lalique.’

‘I’ve hidden something for you in the room,’ said Daniel, ‘look for it carefully, and you’ll find it.’

The door closed. Daniel walked rather unsteadily downstairs. ‘First and foremost I must get a wash,’ he thought: ‘wash myself from head to foot.’ As he emerged into the street, a thought suddenly came upon him and brought him up short. He had shaved that morning before going out: and he had left his razor on the mantelpiece wide open.

As he opened the door, Mathieu released the muffled tinkle of a bell. ‘I didn’t notice it this morning,’ he thought: ‘I suppose they connect it up in the evening, after nine o’clock.’ He flung a sidelong glance through the glass door of the office, and saw a shadow: there was someone there. He walked sedately up to the keyboard. Room 21. The key was hanging from a nail. Mathieu took it quickly, and slipped it into his pocket, then turned and approached the staircase. A door opened behind his back: ‘They’re going to stop me,’ he thought. He was not afraid: this had been foreseen.

‘Hullo there! Where are you going?’ said a harsh voice.

Mathieu turned. It was a tall thin woman in eyeglasses. She looked important and suspicious. Mathieu smiled at her.

‘Where are you going?’ she repeated. ‘Couldn’t you inquire at the office?’

Bolivar. The Negro’s name was Bolivar.

‘I’m going to see M. Bolivar, on the third floor,’ said Mathieu quietly.

‘Ah! And why were you nosing round the keyboard,’ said the woman suspiciously.

‘I was looking to see if his key was there.’

‘And isn’t it?’

‘No. He’s in,’ said Mathieu.

The woman went up to the board. One chance in two.

‘Yes,’ she said, with an air of disappointment and relief. ‘He’s in.’

Mathieu walked upstairs without replying. On the third landing, he stopped for a moment, then he slipped the key into the lock of No .21, and opened the door.

The room was plunged in darkness. A red darkness that smelt of fever and scent. He locked the door behind him, and went up to the bed. At first he held out his hands in front of him so as not to bump into anything, but he soon became accustomed to the dimness. The bed was unmade, there were two pillows on the bolster, still hollowed by the weight of heads. Mathieu knelt down by the suitcase and opened it: he was aware of a faint desire to be sick. The notes he had dropped that morning had fallen on to the packages of letters: Mathieu took four: he did not want to steal anything for his own benefit. ‘What am I going to do with the key?’ He hesitated for a moment, and then decided to leave it in the lock of the suitcase. As he got up he noticed, at the far end of the room, a door which he had not seen that morning. He went and opened it: it was a dressing-room. Mathieu struck a match, and saw his face, gilded by the flame, appear in a mirror. He looked at himself until the flame went out, then he dropped the match and went back into the bedroom. He could now clearly distinguish the furniture, Lola’s clothes, her pyjamas, her dressing-gown, her coat and skirt, carefully laid out on chairs and suitcases: he laughed a curt, malicious laugh, and went out.

The corridor was deserted, but he could hear the sound of footsteps and laughter, there were people coming upstairs. He half-turned to go back into the room: but no: he did not in the least mind if he were caught. He slipped the key into the lock and double-locked the door. When he stood up again, he saw a woman followed by a soldier.

‘It’s on the fourth floor,’ said the woman.

And the soldier said: ‘It’s a long way up.’

Mathieu let them pass, and then went down. He reflected with amusement that the hardest part was yet to come: the key would have to be replaced on the board.

On the first floor he stopped and leaned over the banisters. The woman was standing in the entrance doorway, with her back towards him, and looking out into the street. Mathieu walked noiselessly down the last few stairs, hung the key on its nail, then tiptoed up again to the first landing, waited a moment, and marched heavily down the staircase. The woman turned, and he greeted her as he passed.

‘Good evening, Madame.’

‘Evening,’ she mumbled.

He went out, feeling the weight of the woman’s look upon his back, and he wanted to laugh.

Dead the beast, dead the poison.
He walks with long strides, feeling rather weak in the legs. He is afraid, his mouth is dry. The streets are too blue, the air is too soft.
The flame runs along the fuse, with a barrel of powder at the end of it.
He dashes upstairs four steps at a time. He finds it difficult to put the key into the lock, his hand shakes. Two cats dart between his legs; they are afraid of him just now.
Dead the beast
...

The razor is there, on the night table, wide open. He picks it up by the handle and looks at it The handle is black, the blade is white.
The flame runs along the fuse.
He slips his finger down the edge of the blade, he feels at the tip of his finger the acid savour of a cut, he shudders: it is my hand that must do it all. The razor does not help, it lies inert, weighing no more than an insect in the hand. He takes a few steps into the room, looking for support or for a sign. Everything is inert and silent. Table and chairs are all inert, afloat in a motionless light. He alone is erect, he alone alive in the oppressively blue light. Nothing will help me, nothing will happen. The cats are scratching in the kitchen. He leans his hand upon the table, it responds to his pressure with an equal pressure, no more, no less. Objects are servile: submissive: subject to control.
My hand
will do it all. He yawns, from anguish and from boredom: but mainly from boredom. He is alone upon the scene. Nothing impels him to decide, nothing stops him from doing so: he alone must decide. His act is purely negative. That red flower between his legs —
it is not there
: that red stain on the floor,
it is not there
. He looks at the floor. The floor is an even, smooth expanse: nowhere is there room for any mark. I shall be lying on the floor,
inert, my clothes torn and sticky: the razor will be on the floor, red, jagged and inert
. He is spellbound by the razor, on the floor: if only he could picture them vividly enough — the red stain and the gash, vividly enough to bring them into being without his having to commit that act. Pain — I can bear it. I long for it, I welcome it But it’s the act — that act. He looks at the ceiling, then at the blade. In vain: the air is soft, the room is softly lit, the razor gleams softly, weighs softly in his hand. An act, an act is needed, the moment rocks upon the first drop of blood. It is my hand, my hand that must do it all.

He goes to the window, be looks at the sky. He draws the curtains: with his left hand. He switches on the light: with his left hand. He transfers the razor to his left. He takes out his pocket-book and produces four thousand-franc notes. He takes an envelope from his desk and puts the money into the envelope. He writes on the envelope: For M. Delarue, 12 Rue Huyghens. He places the envelope conspicuously on the table. He gets up, he walks, the beast is lying close against his stomach, the beast is sucking at him, he can feel it. Yes or no. He is caught in the trap. He must decide. He has all night for doing so. Alone in confrontation with himself. All night. His right hand recovers the razor. He is afraid of his hand, he watches it: quite stiff at the extremity of his arm. And he says: ‘Now!’ A little laughing shiver runs up him from the small of the back to his neck. ‘Now — finish it!’ If only he could find himself with his throat cut, as a man finds himself on his legs in the morning, when the alarm has sounded, without knowing how he got there. But first that foul and filthy act must be done, carefully and patiently he must undo his buttons. The inertness of the razor passes into his hand, into his arm. A warm and living body with an arm of stone. The huge arm of a statue, inert, frozen, with a razor at the tip of it. He loosens his grip. The razor falls on to the table.

The razor is there, on the table, open. Nothing has changed. He can reach out a hand, and pick it up. The razor, inert still, will obey. There is yet time; there will be plenty of time, I have all night. He walks across the room. He does not hate himself, he now wants nothing, he is adrift in a void. The beast is there between his legs. How loathsome! Well, my young friend, if it disgusts you too much, the razor lies there, on the table.
Dead the beast
... The razor. The razor. He walks round and round the table without taking his eyes off the razor. Will nothing stop me from picking it up? Nothing. The room and all in it is inert and quiet. He reaches out a hand, he touches the blade.
My hand will do it all.
He leaps back, opens the door, and dashes out on to the staircase. One of his cats darts wildly downstairs in front of him.