Aminadab 0803213131 (21 page)

"You surprise me," answered Thomas. "In the large meeting room only one of them fulfilled any function. The other one seemed to be threatened by a punishment. He held no authority; he only submitted to it." "An unimportant detail," said the young man, sitting back down. "It is not through such signs that one can distinguish a tenant from an em ployee." "So there are distinctive signs?" asked Thomas, without taking his eyes off the two players. "There are all kinds," answered the young man. "Some are rather crude, like the inscriptions on the arms of some of the servants. We might have some real trust in this sign if it were subject to official control, but unfortu nately that is not the case. Other signs can be read from the details of their suits: the clothes worn by the employee may resemble a uniform, or they may be distinguished from the common types of outfit by their refined elegance. These are unreliable indications; others no longer have any value in themselves, but they attract more attention. In general, the employees, while keeping close watch over their manners so as to approximate them to ours, are ill at ease among the tenants; they say nothing, or else they talk too much; their voices have a jagged sharpness they cannot quite hide. They are either overly attentive or indifferent to the point of excess. So, as a likely consequence of this disoriented state, they demonstrate a physical awkwardness that is often taken as ill will." "It is not very easy to make use of these indications," said Thomas doubt fully. "Why would it be?" answered the young man. "They are even, if you wish, completely worthless. One can always find other details that deprive them of all their significance, just as it is easy to find other indications that make one reconsider yet again. But isn't this natural? Are there such marked differences between the servants and the tenants? Have I not told you how the staff was recruited from among the inhabitants of the house? No doubt, the domestics have always been tempted to set themselves up as a separate caste that, because of the originality of their occupations, they had a duty to defend against the influences of ordinary life. The caste exists, but it does not depend on the choice of particular persons, since everyone can, and actually does, participate in it; it is connected to a way of seeing that is imposed on each one of us. Why would we want to oppose the ten ants to the domestics when the tenants are always domestics, more or less, 111

and cannot be distinguished among themselves, even - and especially by the most penetrating eye? We are at fault when we refuse to see in each being a man who will one day be called among the members of the staff." "That means," said Thomas, "that you too may be a domestic." "Perhaps," replied the young man, with a smile. "It is not certain then," Thomas added, "that your way of seeing is that of an ordinary tenant." "Judge it however you will," said the young man, "it corresponds to the truth." "It may also be," Thomas continued, "that I -who am not even a tenant, do not even inhabit the house, and remain here as a stranger- it is pos sible that I must be wary ofyour words, not because they might inspire me with mistrust, but because I cannot trust my own strength." "That is a useless concern," said the young man. "I have not forgotten who you are." "I sense now," said Thomas, "that my presence here is out of place and that I am not equal to the role for which I was brought here. I am incapable of being a witness in an affair where I cannot distinguish the nature of the accused." "All your remarks are superfluous," said the young man, who had lis tened with an impertinent indulgence. "Now it's too late to evade your duty since the proceedings have begun. I will limit myself, for the sake of facilitating the operation, to drawing your attention to two points. The first is that however minute your task may be, it proves that you have been distinguished and that consequently those who have observed you have recognized your capacity. The second point is that you are uselessly tor menting yourselfover the relations between the tenants and the staff, given that when you took your first step into the house, you also took your first step on the very long, almost infinite, and yet already traced out path that will lead you to the status of a domestic. Now, keep your eyes on the two employees." The invitation may have been ironic, for Thomas had not ceased staring at the players, casually at first, then more severely, in order to discover the crimes for which they felt it necessary to reproach themselves. Now he could think only of looking around the room and studying certain details, especially the paintings on the ceiling, which he looked up to contem plate at length. These paintings, which Thomas now perceived with sur112

prise, were curious; they represented in a very precise manner the room itself, such as it might appear on the day of a gala ball. The clients - cer tain faces could be recognized on careful inspection - were dressed with great distinction; they had flowers in their buttonholes and shiny deco rations dangled across their chests. In the middle, couples were dancing, and the spectacle would have been altogether graceful if the cavalrymen, probably in the middle of a dance figure, were not blocking the faces of their partners. Some of them, in an excess of enthusiasm, were covering their eyes, showing with this naIve gesture that the view they were forbid ding to others was unbearable even to them. On the platform, instead of musicians, the painter had depicted three persons of great beauty, seated in richly decorated armchairs, gravely contemplating the scene. The examination of the painting greatly moved the two players. They rose abruptly, and as if they had lost all sense of politeness, they demanded in loud voices why there was no dance show that day. The others around them, disconcerted, did not know how to answer. They rose in their turn and stuttered a few words whose meaning was not very clear but that must have meant: We're not in charge; we have nothing to do with it. "Then who is in charge here?)) shouted the two men in a tone of ecstatic reproach. To calm them down, they were directed to a table chosen at random in the corner of the room. The younger of the two began to sing, and his voice, rising slowly above the murmurs of the crowd, let out a song of unexpected beauty. The words were probably in a foreign language; Thomas under stood so little of what they said that he thought he was hearing a melody in which music took the place ofwords. It was a sweet and happy song whose sounds came in quick succession but did not all die away, for some con tinued on and, without blending with the new notes, remained untouched by the rest of the modulation. This singularity -which one was tempted to explain in terms of the acoustics of the room, but that Thomas attributed to the vocal memory of the singer - did not create a cacophony but finally transformed the melody entirely, a melody that was at first gracious and light but then took on a gravity and a poignant sadness. The columns of sound seemed to surround the singer and to separate him from the crowd, placing him at the center of a melancholy peristyle that he himself could not shake without endangering his life. It soon seemed to Thomas that the man's voice had gone silent and that, overwhelmed by the sonorous 113

monument it had constructed, it could find only in silence the expression of joy to which it had devoted itself. The words then sprang from the con fusion in which they had been lost. The song exalted the good fortune of a man who does not avoid his duty and who finds in a benevolent action the compensation for a difficult labor. A remarkable fact was that in listening attentively, one had the impression that the first part of the melody, which was perceived as a whole and, as it were, simultaneously, reproduced the words in the opposite direction, beginning from the end, and that only the second half presented them in their proper order. All these inventions were no less beautiful than they were odd, and the emotion one felt in dis covering them far surpassed the feeling of a peaceful artistic enjoyment. Thomas was therefore very surprised to hear some of the spectators burst out laughing in mockery of the unfortunate young man, as though he had been engaged in a ridiculous burlesque. He looked back at the audi ence, and seeing the open mouths and the gestures full of compunction, he saw that a large number of people in the room were singing and that Jerome himself, together with his companion, were letting out a long note on which they lingered indefinitely. He thought then that the spectators, to ridicule the singer, had taken up the melody and, instead of singing it in the order it required, sang various passages of it according to a new de sign with which they were familiar. The singer was therefore condemned to silence, and now all that was left was to hear the tragic essence of the song that had until then seemed to express the peaceful and noble happiness of life. Shortly after that, everyone fell silent, and the last sounds, softly echo ing, sought in vain to prolong this painful parody. One spectator rose; he stepped up to the two men and said in a firm voice: "Dancing is no longer allowed at present." This deferential response threw the first of the two players, the very one who had just been so cruelly humiliated, into great confusion, but the other one, without being shaken in the least, stood half way up and asked what was the point of the musician's platform in such conditions as these. "It still has its uses," said the spectator politely. "On this stage those who have grounds for complaint come to express their grievances. Also, bottles of cognac and casks of beer are kept beneath the planks." "Very well, very well," answered the employee in his great raucous voice, and without further ado he invited the spectator to sit at his table. 11 4

He accepted, and now their only thought was of drinking and singing. Thomas drank several glasses of an excellent wine. Jerome was also drink ing and began to speak to him again, as if there had been no disagree ment between them. He told him that this meeting was very important, because it helped one understand how the staff could be monitored and controlled. The domestics, he said, who were so gluttonous and perverted, were always very sober in public. Eating or sleeping was for them a de praved act that they dared not perform in front of the tenants. This was indeed why one saw them so rarely. But at times, after a crisis whose sig nificance it was very difficult to understand, discipline became relaxed, and they mingled with the other inhabitants of the house, taking part in their entertainments. This was notably the case when they made their way into this room. Was the atmosphere particularly depressing? Did it have an effect on the nervous systems of the domestics, or did they come here only when they already felt on the verge of succumbing to it? One thing that is certain is that they indulged wholeheartedly in all the little pleasures that previously they made it their business to do without. If their sugges tions had been heeded, certain long forbidden customs would have been revived, and their bodies, by neglecting the precautions taken since time immemorial, would have lost at one stroke the advantages of this healthy regimen. Although they were not permitted to indulge all their whims whether out of humanity or for the sake of decorum - the excesses into which they threw themselves were enough for them to feel a double effect that was both moral and physical. As a result of their lack of training, they were more sensitive than the tenants, and as soon as the intoxication had worn off, they experienced a sudden increase of bodily vigor, a revival of their appetites, an expansion of all their senses that for a long time made them generally unfit to carry out their functions. The distinctive signs still attaching them to their caste faded away) and they fell back into the pleas ant but monotonous existence of the tenants. Added to this was the shame that tormented their souls - at least during the first hours - and forced them to struggle in vain with themselves against the temptations to which they had already yielded. The consequences were so harsh for them that the very sight of the other inhabitants was unbearable, and if they ever thought they were exposed to it, they probably would have perished. For this reason, they would be locked in isolated cells where they remained for some forty days and where they believed themselves to be sheltered 115

from the world. This was an illusion, for the tenants took such pleasure in seeing them thus - a pleasure that by the way was very pure and un disturbed by any feeling of revenge - that they could not do without this spectacle, and during the imprisonment they took turns standing in front of the door where a small sliding window was perfectly situated to offer them the delights that made them so curious. "Is any of this unclear to you?" the young man asked obligingly. Everything was indeed all too clear; Thomas looked with disgust at the cup that still held a little wine, and he stood up, dragging Dom along with him. The room had grown dim. But the curious fact was that now there were several people on the platform holding in their hands a pitcher that emit ted rays of light. Drawn by this sweet light, Thomas walked over to the table occupied by the two employees; several guests were drinking with them, and they stared at him with that insatiable curiosity they had so often shown already. "Let's go," said Thomas to the two men. "This is our tenant," answered the older of the two, but neither one of them got up to go with him. "Well, I'm leaving," said Thomas. He had to push against the spectators who crowded around him and blocked his way; one of them grabbed his arm and wanted to accompany him. ''A sorry bunch," he thought. The faces he saw seemed eaten away by sickness, and their fine features appeared to be a sign of debility. The two employees, seeing themselves suddenly abandoned at their table, pre ferred to join the little company gathered around Thomas, and in a trium phant procession they went toward the door amid laughter, shouts, and even singing. This gaiety was turned into disorder by another turn of events. The guardians on the platform raised their pitchers, and light filled the room. The flames enclosed in stoneware pots gave off such an intense brightness that everyone hid their faces to avoid the assault; and there were some, already half drunk, who fell to the ground believing they had been struck and who cried out with all their strength, although there was no real cause for this. Thomas stopped only for an instant. He wanted to leave the room as quickly as possible. What a dreadful meeting! In his desire to remain free, he wondered if it would be better to leave the two employees behind. 116