Aminadab 0803213131 (18 page)

selves with your friends who will never be ours. The house is forever closed to you." Since they did not understand what we were saying, our voices, which sounded like the voice of the dwelling, attracted them more than it pushed them away. They came around to the balcony with tears in their eyes; they wandered like shadows around the enclosure they could not enter. It became necessary to use force. One evening, we heard them no more. They must have completed the external stairways that we had not wanted to help them build, since the cold outside air prevented us from going that far. So they left, or rather they were no longer present for us. Some believe that they could not have left the house, that in any event, whatever their faults may have been, they were still tenants and could not have broken the contract. These people claim that they set themselves up in the basement rooms, or perhaps in new basement rooms that they dug deeply into the ground and where they live, outside the house, to be sure, and yet all the closer to its foundations, cut off from the comfort it brought them but not liberated from its commandments and its rules. Others be lieve that they are still weeping at the door in an effort to soften us or, since we are not there, to soften the wall that stops them, they who were not stopped by the wall of the law. Perhaps they are indeed very close to us, invisible and incpable of making themselves heard. But how could they be close to us? Wherever they are, even if it is right where you are, they are infinitely far away, and we have no more of a right to think of them than we have the means to see or speak to them. Some of them, it is said, have set up in the street, and by making signs they try to draw us into the curse under which they live. An infernal dream. Such thoughts lead to damnation." There was another knock on the small door. "Is it the domestics again?" asked Thomas. "Yes," said the young man, "but this time it's to call us back to our work. Damned domestics! " "So there is still a staff here?" asked Thomas. "Naturally," said the young man. "How could a house do without a staff? Do you hear me!" he shouted at the servant. "Could I really do without your services?" The servant, who had fallen asleep with his head on the back of the chair, woke with a start; he certainly had not heard, and thinking that someone had called him to order, he hastily wiped the table. "No," said the young man, gravely answering his own question, "we could not do without it; so we have a large number of domestics." 93

"Always invisible, of course," said Thomas. "Invisible?" replied the young man, with a look of sadness. "Invisible? You may be a newcomer, but you have nonetheless had the opportunity to make a few observations. So you will know what I am talking about. Well, do you know of a building where one encounters the staff more often than here? At every step there's a servant, behind every door a maid. If some one begins to speak up to ask for something, the domestic is already there. I would even say that it's unbearable. They are everywhere; you never see anyone else; they are the only ones you ever speak to; 'Discreet service,' it says in the brochure. What a joke! The service is utterly oppressive." "So everything has changed," said Thomas, "since the incident you just recounted to me." The young man looked at him wearily. "Everything has changed, if you wish," he said. "But in my opinion noth ing has really changed. How could there be a real change here? The rules do not permit it; the house is untouchable. It's the young tenants who see only appearances and who believe that the world has been turned upside down as soon as the furniture's been rearranged. The older tenants know that in the end everything is as it was before." "So what you told me has no real importance," observed Thomas. "That's for you to judge," said the young man. "It's a question of inter pretation. Allow me to remark, however, that practically nothing that hap pens here is without importance; all the more reason, then, for the events I have related to you to be given their proper value." "I don't see," said Thomas, "how they are important for me." "And to tell the truth," said the young man, "I don't see why they would interest you. The house does not need the interest of those who inhabit it. It receives them when they come; it forgets them when they go." "So it is possible to leave the building," said Thomas. "It's not a prison," said the young man disdainfully. "You are free; you are entirely free, and your freedom, I'm afraid, will only be too great." "I can see," said Thomas, as he stood up, "that there are many things I do not know. Let me therefore take advantage of my ignorance; it will leave me even more free." "Stay," said the young man, who stood up in his turn. "In the name of all I have said to you, I demand that you stay." Thomas gave him a questioning look. 94

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"We have not yet begun our work," added the young man, "and this work concerns you." Thomas sat back down. The room was loud. At every table a tenant was leaning over speaking to his friends in a low voice, but the echo made the words resound so much that they fell back onto everyone else with an oppressive force. The acoustics of the room were such that certain words stood out while others were muffled, which gave the impression that the same conversation was being repeated at every table and that everything they were saying was being said at the same time by the entire room. "What is this work?" said Thomas. The young man looked at Joseph, who had been listening attentively, as though he were hearing of these events for the first time. Thomas wondered if the conversation were not meant for Joseph, who after all was much more capable than he was of understanding its true meaning. "I hesitate to respond to your question," said the young man. "My friend is so sensitive, and the subject is so deeply serious, that he may not be able to bear my words. Therefore I will be brief. But first promise me that you will never forget where you are. What I have taught you is not without im portance, whatever your opinion of it may be, and in a certain sense it is impossible to live here without having these facts engraved in one's mem ory or without the possibility of repeating them at each moment, even if their true meaning escapes you. But on the other hand it would be foolish to believe that I have told you the whole truth. In the ocean of our life, you have seen only one drop of water; it is only a miniscule slice of the events that occur incessantly; I would have to pass my entire existence with you to retrace the main lines, and then, as I have said, we quickly forget; how could we hold on to the memory of everything that happens to us? That would be insane." He fell silent, as if he had suddenly plunged into that dangerous im mensity in which he risked being lost, but he soon returned to himself. At that moment someone called to Thomas from another table. He rec ognized two people from the grand hall; although their faces were rather unpleasant, he greeted them and leaned toward them to hear better what they were shouting to him. He had the impression that they were out of place in the cafe. He was struck by the poor quality of their clothing, and their attitude was far from what would have been proper. These two men carried themselves like peasants; they were robust and overbearing; and

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at every opportunity they addressed people they knew, people for whom these signs of attention were terribly aggravating. Conversations from one table to another seemed to be forbidden, which was perfectly reasonable since the bad acoustics would have created an unbearable racket. Despite his desire to respect the customs, Thomas was glad to speak to his new neighbors. He only wanted to say a couple of words to them. "Who are you exactly?" he said in a quiet voice, but the echo immedi ately took hold of his question, and it was as if he had shouted it with all his might. Everyone turned to look at him; it was very unpleasant, but now it was too late -he could no longer take back his words. A response came, and it was no less jarring. "Your former guide," said the older of the two. Was it really he? Indeed, from his imperious demeanor Thomas should have recognized the man who had led him through the crowd; now there was not the least trace of irony on his face, but his manner was all the more unpleasant. The other was the player who had spoken to him when he had first entered the room. "Do you know them?" asked Thomas, turning to Jerome. "I saw them both in the grand hall." He waited for an answer, but the young man went no further than to say with a certain coldness that he never went to the gaming room. "Never," said Thomas, with a look of surprise. "Do you mean that you don't like the games?" "I adore the games," said the young man. "It is certainly not because I have no taste for it that I have left that room behind." "Perhaps it's the noise that drives you away," said Thomas. "Indeed, the noise is unbearable. We have asked more than once that measures be taken to make the room less resonant; our requests have not been granted. It seems that the players cannot do without the noise, that it helps them overcome the emotions to which they would succumb entirely without some distraction." "How superstitious these people are!" said Thomas. "For you that is no doubt yet another reason to stay away?" Before answering, the young man looked around the room, letting his eyes wander from one person to another in search of some solid point they could rest on. He looked slowly and solemnly, as if everything threatened to disappear and as if he were afraid of no longer finding this scene still there after giving his response.

"One must always tell the truth," he declared. "You are questioning me because you were shocked by the customs that have been established in the house, and you wish to hear from my mouth the truth that you believe you have already come to know. I cannot hold it against you; it's quite natu ral that our conversation has not yet penetrated your mind and that most of the facts I have shared with you seem without interest. How could it be otherwise? Are you not a stranger to this place? Are you not so distant that at times I can hardly believe you are present and must say to myself: 'He is there,' so that I can continue my story? It would be very unusual and even illegal for you to be interested in my conversation, but it is not necessary for you to be interested in it; there is hardly any need for you to listen to it at all; it is enough that I say what is useful for you to be able to profit from it. And yet, since through certain circumstances you may become mixed up in our relations with the domestics, I have a duty to enlighten you. Of course, I am not speaking of our real relations, these pass at an infinite distance above your head; you may try your best to look upward, but you will not even glimpse what we have in mind when we describe them. The important thing for you, what you cannot in any way afford to neglect, are the practical relations with the staff. You may be called on at any moment to give your opinion, and you must not let your ignorance this ignorance for which you congratulate yourself so heartily-lead you to commit any errors. What, therefore, should you know about the domes tics? They have their good qualities, that is undeniable; they are devoted and capable, and they are so proud that the slightest reproach makes them ill . It is all the more touching, then, to see them neglect their work when concerns of a higher order demand this negligence. No one suffers more than they do from the disorder, and yet everything here, as you yourself have noticed, is pure incoherence and waste. For them this is a terrible dis tress. It is almost tempting to close one's eyes to the imperfections of the service, because while the tenants find it extremely inconvenient, for the domestics it is a perpetual torment. How can we punish them for some thing that in their eyes is already such a terrible punishment? Neverthe less, this point of view is not enough to justify their behavior. Are they not domestics above all else? Is it not their duty, their primary duty, to fulfill to the letter the obligations of the service- without thinking of anything else and without wishing to rise above their functions? Is it up to them to interpret the desires of the tenants? Do they not already commit an error 97

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when they reflect and meditate on the orders they have been given and when they try to discern whether these orders correspond to the true well being of their clients? But - so they answer-we are not only in the service of the tenants, we are also in the service of the house. No doubt; but even that is not always admitted. The tenants make up an integral part of the building, and from the moment they have entered and begin to live here, from the moment they respect the laws, one cannot neglect them with out at the same time neglecting the house. Otherwise, if they did not have the real and effective feeling of participating in the entire building, how would they know they are really there, how could they not let themselves be carried away by the desperate thought that they are still outside? One might even say-though this is a risky proposition -that the tenants are more important than the house itself, or at least that they are the house, that the house has no reality except through them, that if there were no tenants, there would not even be a building, and that if they all went away, this would be enough for the rooms, the walls, and even the foundations to disappear completely. These are bold and daring thoughts, and they are largely false; it is the same with them as it is with those explanations often passed on to newcomers when they are told: The house is the staff; the house is the rules. As though one could stuff such vast and undefinable truths into a definition! What it is useful to remember about these debates is that no one can bring the house over to their side or use it as an argu ment in a dispute. Whenever one introduces it, it blasts everything apart. The domestics themselves say this in their own defense when someone ac cuses them of not keeping up the building and of damaging its reputation. 'The house is not well kept?' they ask. 'How can that be possible? We are not powerful men; we are merely modest servants, and you well know that even with all the power in the world we would not succeed in lessening the value of the building, no more in any case than we could increase it. No, the house is always at every moment in the state that perfectly suits it. It is essentially out of reach. We serve it as it demands to be served.' There is some truth in this line of thought, and yet the servants are wrong. For they too belong to the house; they are its main gears; they are thus to a certain extent everything it is, and if, through their irregularities or their negligence, they cannot really harm it or shake its foundations, they are responsible for the bad thoughts that distort the judgment of the tenants. Good God, no, they cannot reach it. Who ever could? But if it remains