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"No," said the old man, "you really can't do much of anything; you're only the executioner. That's why I fear you." "Really now," said Thomas, ('I'm not so fearsome. I am only asking that you tell me where Barbe is; if you do, then I'll help you." "That's not the right question," said the old man. ('I'm afraid that things are taking a wrong turn for us. Where's the maidservant?" he said, address ing Simon. Then, answering himself, he continued in a deep voice as if he were questioning himself. "Which Barbe is he talking about? Is it the same one? Aren't there several? Do we ever know whom it is we're dealing with? When she was speaking to me, did I not have the impression that there was a confusion of names and that the woman in front of me had neither the figure nor the features of the one who had called to me? And what was it she said? That she never leaves the first floor, that if she strays from the in firmary, even for a moment, all the patients would be lost, that she cannot even look in the other direction without their suffering from some terrible transformation. So someone, or several people, would take her place for the work in the basement. Or she would have a substitute in the hospital. Or else, as others claim, she long ago contracted a deadly disease and has been relieved of all her work." Thomas interrupted him. "What a lot of foolishness. I saw a maidser vant named Barbe who was not sick but was cleaning the rooms, and who worked in the basement, not in the hospital. She's the one I want to see, and you will not dissuade me by turning things around like this." Straining his ears and pressing his lips together, the old man listened anxiously; he was sitting on the floor and tried unsuccessfully to get up. "But that's the Barbe who spoke to me about you. She also wanted to see you. She asked me if I had met you, what you looked like, if you liked the house. I said yes, without knowing; I had no idea who you were." "But she had already seen me," said Thomas pensively. "Perhaps," said the old man, "but she also wanted to see you through the eyes of another." Thomas did not answer. He turned for a moment toward the door, as if to expel everything he had heard, then he shouted at the two employees: "You're free. Run to Barbe, both of you, and tell her that I want to talk to her right away." "But," they answered together, "we're not allowed to leave." "Alright then," said Thomas, "since I'm allowed to punish you, let the punishment begin." 13 0

He took up the piece of wood and struck them sharply but without any real cruelty. During the punishment, the guardian opened the door and came in. Without interrupting the beating, Thomas said: "They refused to obey." Then, since he felt tired, he threw down the stick and waited. The guard ian had brought with him three large white gowns that looked like the patients' gowns, although they were more shiny and silky. "Put these on," he said. The two employees, subdued by the beating, obeyed immediately; they showed no more signs of the stupefied terror that was so repulsive and seemed irresistibly to invite blows; the younger one, although his face was covered with red streaks, had regained all his vigor. Thomas thought they were just as hypocritical as they were cowardly. The third gown lay fiat on the table where the lamplight made it shine with a beautiful golden color. Thomas saw that it was his size, and he put it on, saying to himself all the while - in order to fight off the slight shiver he felt while touching the ma terial - that he would take it off at the first free opportunity. Only Dom kept the same clothes on. Before leaving, the guardian put out the light and said: "Now keep silent; the patients cannot tolerate any noise." So they were going to walk through the hospital. Hardly had they crossed the threshold when Thomas, who was in front, stopped short. The dark ness was total; it was darker, he thought, than the night he had entered when he left the gaming room. What peace! He had already had this im pression with the old man in the basement, but whereas there one re mained a stranger to the tranquility that lay all around, here one was a part of the calm, and although it was a calm without hope, it inspired only one desire: to go no farther and to linger indefinitely. Thomas remained motionless only for a few seconds; the guardian called him to order, saying in a voice he made little attempt to soften: "Keep moving please." Since it was forbidden for him to stop, he stepped slightly aside from the straight line they had formed and went into the little walkways that no doubt led to the patients' bedsides. He walked slowly, his hands out in front of him, his eyes wide open. Finally he knocked up against a small table and raised his voice in surprise. Dom's steady hand held him. Was he trying to stop him from moving forward, or was he pushing him on? Was he, too, lost in the shadows? He then knocked against something himself, and this second shock only increased the strangeness of the first. 13 1

"Too much noise, too much noise," yelled the guardian. Thomas wanted to go back to the middle of the room. Suddenly the light came on. The large hall was visible in all its immensity. The beds were lined up side by side, and at the foot of each one was a small wooden trunk that looked like the first step of a stairway. The beds were empty. Several of them seemed to have been carelessly made, but most of them probably had not had a patient in them for a long time. Thomas looked especially at the trunks. They were large boxes painted in lively colors that hurt one's eyes if stared at too intently. They were used for storing medication. Thomas was absorbed in this contemplation until he noticed again the presence of the guardian, who was undoing Dom's chains. "Go wait for me outside," said the guardian to the young man, who, free of his fetters, walked toward the vestibule. Thomas walked away too. He came to the middle of the large space, and seeing that the doors at each end were open, he turned his back to his companions and crossed in a few steps to the other side of the room. He entered another vestibule, and the first person he saw was Barbe. The maidservant gave him a friendly smile. She was seated at a small table where she had spread out large pieces of cloth. The material seemed rough, and it was difficult to stick the needle through. "Now that," said Thomas, "is a tough piece of work for you." Barbe nodded very seriously. "When do you have a chance to rest?" he added. "I never see you when you're not in the middle of some enormous chore. You don't seem to be like the other employees." "Everyone here works a lot," she said. "There is so much to do in a house like this." "But," said Thomas, "I think you work more than the others. What are you doing now?" "As always, it's work for the sick," she said, with a sigh. "It never ends." Without speaking, Thomas studied her pretty face: it had a tired look; her remarkably fine features showed no satisfaction; everything that gave her confidence, and even a certain pretension, had disappeared. "Pardon me," he said. "If I'm intruding into your affairs, please don't hesitate to tell me so. But 1 can't help seeing how tired your lovely face looks. Do you have many worries?" The maidservant ran her hand over her face, closed her eyes for a mo13 2

ment, as though to gather her thoughts, and managed finally to smile. "It's always like this," she said, "when there are new patients. Worries? No, why would I have worries? But the work is overwhelming, and one hardly knows where to begin." Nevertheless, she sat there calmly enough, and her fingers negligently pulled through the black thread that fringed the cloth. "Are there a lot of new patients?" asked Thomas. "How would I know?" she said. "The staff keeps it a secret. Just try to find out what's happening. All they do is give us commands -and how they bark at us ! - commands to put everything in order, as if the entire house were to be transformed into a hospital. Sometimes a dozen patients come, sometimes one, sometimes none. All the while we're working day and night." "Improper methods," said Thomas. "But," he added, "since I have the pleasure of seeing you here, and we can speak freely, tell me: wasn't there some question of a message for me not long ago?" " A message?" said the girl in a questioning tone. "Are you sure?" "Completely sure," replied Thomas. "I certainly didn't dream it. We were on the first underground floor, and you had asked me to leave my room. You were at that moment in the middle of a large cleaning job. I remember your words, more or less; you said: 'I have a message for you.' And then you added: 'Go wait until I'm finished.' " "I remember our meeting very well," said the girl . "It was even a very pleasant meeting for me. How energetic you were, how strong and deter mined you looked! But did I really speak of a communication?" "Not exactly of a communication," said Thomas, "rather a message. But see if you still remember the circumstances of our discussion, because then it should be plain; I was a little afraid that you had forgotten everything. You recall how I followed you around to the rooms, and we stayed a while with a very old man who, according to you, was faking his illness. I lin gered there for a moment, and at the time I didn't know how quick you were, and I lost you." That was not quite the truth, as Thomas himself knew; it was he who had voluntarily left the girl to find his way alone, but there was no need for her to know this. "Didn't you have a companion?" she asked. "Yes, I did," said Thomas, annoyed that she was letting her thoughts wan der away from what he was saying. "We were just separated." 133

"That's too bad for you, isn't it?" she said. "Now you'll be left to decide and to act on your own. Wasn't he very tall and strong?" She looked carefully at Thomas; he had the impression that at first she had confused the two of them in her memory. "This message," she con tinued, "perhaps it was meant for your companion." "That's impossible," said Thomas emphatically. "Think about it: I could not have made such a mistake. When we were together, the three of us, and despite our good relations, you treated us somewhat differently, my part ner and me; it never would have occurred to me to think that something you said to him was meant for me. You would no doubt have put things in a completely different way. How could anyone think you were speaking to him?" "Yes, I see," said the girl. "I would have said: A message has been sub mitted to me, which the regulations forbid me to impart to you; I could do so only if it were official business; you must therefore wait until I have terminated my work so that I may confer with you at a time other than my assigned working hours." "You're joking," said Thomas, although the girl had spoken very seri ously. "What language! It might have been necessary to use such solemn expressions with me, insofar as I was a tenant, were it not that we had dis pensed with that type of relationship from the beginning. But with my companion! You would have laughed at it yourself. If you will just think about it for a moment, you will recall that it was quite the contrary. I would be glad to repeat to you the words you used. May I do so?" "Go ahead then," said Barbe, who had stopped her work the better to follow the conversation. ''I'm afraid I may shock you," said Thomas. "Nevertheless, since you give me permission, I will try, for this may not be irrelevant to our discussion. But you must help me. Am I mistaken or did you not call him 'my sweet heart'?" "Why not?" said Barbe. "Did you not also say 'this little pet, this little darling'? Of course, in your mind it was only a question of some friendly terms meant to put him at ease, with no other intention. And yet a stranger such as myself, who up to then had only had dealings with very formal employees, could not fail to be surprised by this. Since things do not happen here the way they do elsewhere, I was tempted to find a special meaning in this way of speaking." 134

"But," said Barbe, "there was nothing in any of that to be surprised about. That's the natural way of speaking among employees." "Among employees?" asked Thomas. He would have liked to leave it at that, but he could not help adding: "Dom - do you remember him? this name was your invention - Dom was not an employee." This was not a question; it was even, to judge by the categorical tone he had used, a statement that ruled out any possible response; this did not prevent the girl from declaring: "Well, what was he then?" "I don't wish to elaborate on this subject at the moment," said Thomas. "What I have said to you already is enough to show the unlikelihood of any confusion of language between him and me. In addition, if a moment ago you thought that the message might have been addressed to him which certainly must appear impossible to you now - then it must be the case that you have not forgotten him and that a little effort will be enough for you to remember him perfectly. Now let me ask you some questions. Was this message from you, or was someone sending it through you?" "How can I answer you?" said the girl. "In principle, I could only be serving as an intermediary; what could I have had to say, I who did not know you? And even if I had known you better, whether through hearsay or through direct relations, I could never have taken it upon myself to speak with you about something important without calling on powers other than my own." "From your remark, then, I can draw two conclusions," said Thomas. "First, the message was important. And then, it is likely that some other person had given it to you." "I said nothing of the kind," answered the girl. "How can you interpret my words in such a way? And yet it is clear that if the communication were really important, and if someone had placed it in my hands, I could not have forgotten it; all the circumstances of the incident would be clearly present in my mind; I would recall every last detail of it. But you can be excused," she added, "for you do not know that I am renowned for my memory. Whatever someone has said to me, I am capable of repeating it ten years later without leaving out a single word." "A good quality that can be counted among all the rest," said Thomas. "And it will greatly facilitate our little research efforts. Let us admit then that what you had to tell me was not necessarily of very great interest, at least in your eyes - although for me it is a different matter entirely - and 135

that it had to do with a few personal reflections you wished to address to me: does it not surprise you, you who are so spontaneous, so unaffected by your privileges, that in order to announce them to me, you used the rather emphatic term 'message'? In your view, is such an expression suitable for remarks that had to remain outside the scope of your service? Are there not grounds here for reflection?" Before responding, Barbe took up her sewing again, as ifher work would support her during the discussion. She seemed to attach great importance to the conversation; at first Thomas was delighted by this, but soon it began to worry him. After passing the needle through the cloth, she said: "In any event, my words could not have had anything to do with the service, otherwise I would have communicated them to you while I was working." "Then their value was not as great as I had thought?" asked Thomas. "On the contrary," replied the girl, with a sad smile. "Unfortunately, they were all the more valuable. After all, we're not automatons; even during work hours we can allow ourselves to make remarks that do not involve our occupation; in general, we are very free to speak as we wish. But of course it is a completely different question if during our work we have some distant thought or memory that we could not express without im propriety; so we save it for another moment, because if we spoke right then, we might risk never getting back to work; we continue to work, and, in the meantime, we forget whatever it was, which is a good thing for all concerned. Now you can understand," she added, with a happier smile, "why this whole affair slipped from my memory." "I can understand," said Thomas. "But it only makes me wish all the more that it would arise again from oblivion. MIle Barbe, you used an expression whose meaning escaped me. You spoke of a 'distant thought or memory.' Could you explain what you meant by that?" "No," said Barbe, "I cannot." Thomas did not take this answer seriously. "This refusal," he said, "is supposed to put an end to my curiosity, but it is so aroused at the moment that I cannot rest content with that, and at the risk of being indiscreet, I will ask you another question. Are you thinking of your private life when you speak of things as 'distant,' or are you afraid, on the contrary, of putting your service into question in a way that would run counter to what is expected of you?" The girl did not answer; she was involved in her work, and Thomas