Auto-da-fé (9 page)

'Yes indeed, I shall be glad not to speak.'

'I should prefer to have that in writing.'

Following in his footsteps, she glided at top speed to the writing desk. The contract, which he hastily drew up, was not yet dry when she set her name to it.

'You are aware of the contents of what you have signed!' he said, lifted up the paper, and to make doubly sure, read the sentences out loud to her.

'I hereby declare that all the books in the three rooms which have been ceded to me, are the true and lawful property of my husband, and that I shall in no circumstances whatever alter any particular relating to his property. In return for the cession of three rooms, I hereby undertake to remain silent during meals.'

Both were satisfied. For the first time since the wedding ceremony, they shook hands.

In this way Thérèse, who had before been silent out of habit, learnt how highly he prized her silence. Yet she kept meticulously to the terms of the agreement by which she held her concession. At table she passed the dishes to him in silence. She had voluntarily to forego an age-old, long cherished wish to explain to her husband everything that went on in a kitchen when a meal was being prepared. But she had the terms of the contract firmly in her head. The compulsion to silence was harder for her to bear than silence itself.

One morning as he was leaving his room, ready for his morning walk, she intercepted him with the words:

'Now I may speak. This isn't a meal. I couldn't sleep on that divan bed! It doesn't go with the writing desk. Such an expensive old piece, and that shabby divan. In a decent house there's a decent bed. It's a shame before visitors. I've had that divan on my chest a long time. I meant to say so only yesterday. But I kept it back. The mistress can't take no for an answer. The divan is much too hard! Who ever heard of such a hard divan. Hard isn't beautiful. I'm not one of your fly-by-nights. But a person has to sleep. Early to bed, and a real good mattress, that's how it should be, not a hard thing like that!'

Kien let her talk. Sure of her silence at other times of day he had drawn up the contract wrongly and made a condition only of her silence at meals. Technically she had not broken her contract. But morally she had laid herself open. Not that that would trouble a person of her kind. Next time ne would be cleverer. If he spoke, he would give her an opportunity of speaking further. As if she were dumb, as if he were deaf, he stepped aside and went on his own way.

But she came again. Morning after morning she took up her place at the door and each time the divan became a little harder. Her monologue grew longer, his temper worse. Although he did not flicker an eyelid, he listened to her, carefully, to the end. She was as well informed about the divan as if she had slept on it herself for years. The insolence of her opinion impressed him. The divan was soft rather than hard. He was tempted to close her foolish mouth with a single sentence. He asked himself how far her impertinence would go, and in order to discover, he risked a small, malicious experiment.

One day while she was decrying the hard, hard, hardness of the divan, he scornfully approached his face to hers — two bloated cheeks and a black mouth — and said:

'You can know nothing about it.
I
sleep on it!'

'I know it all the same, the divan is hard.'

'Indeed! And how?'

She leered. 'I say nothing. I have my memories.'

Suddenly her leer recalled something. A piercing white petticoat machicolated with lace, a gross arm smiting books. They lay all about on the carpet, like corpses. A monstrosity, half naked, half a woman's blouse, briskly folded up the petticoat and laid it upon them, their shroud.

Kien's work this day was clouded. He could get on with nothing; before his meal he felt a sensation of nausea. Once he had managed to forget. For that reason he now remembered all the more clearly. At night he could not close an eye. The divan was contaminated. Had it out been hard indeed! A vile memory clung to it. Several times he got up and swept the burden off it. But the woman weighed heavy and stayed where she would. He thrust her emphatically off the divan on to the floor. No sooner did he lie down again, than he felt her presence near him. He could not sleep for loathing. He needed six hours sleep. His work to-morrow was doomed, like his work of yesterday. All evil thoughts, he noticed, centred on the divan alone. Towards four in the morning a happy idea saved him.

He ran to his wife's door, next die kitchen, as fast as he could and hammered on it until she recovered from her shock. She had not been asleep. She did not sleep much since her marriage. Still every night she secretly expected the great event. Now it had come. It took her several minutes to believe it. Softly she got out of bed, took off her nightdress and slipped on the petticoat with the lace insertions. Night after night she had taken it out of her trunk and laid it over the chair at the foot of the bed; you never could tell. Round her shoulders she threw a large open-work shawl, the other and outstanding treasure of her trousseau. His first rejection of her she ascribed to the blouse. She pushed her huge, flat feet into crimson slippers. At the door she whispered hoarsely:

'For Heaven's sake, shall I open the door?' What she had really intended to say was, 'What has happened'

'For the Devil's sake,' screamed Kien, 'no!' He was beside himself to find she could sleep so sound.

She saw her mistake. The masterful ring of his voice kept hope alive for a moment longer.

'To-morrow you will go out and buy a bed !' he shouted. She made no answer.

'Is that clear?'

She summoned all her art, and breathed softly through the door: 'As you please.'

Kien turned about, in confirmation of his act, slammed the door of his room so that the house shook, and at once fell asleep.

Thérèse pulled off her shawl, laid it tenderly on the chair and flung her massive bust across the bed.

Manners, indeed! What next! As though I cared. The conceit of the man! Is that a man? Here am I in my beautiful knickers with the expensive lace, and he doesn't bother. It can't be a man. I could have had a very different kind! What a lovely man that was who used to call at my other place! When I opened the door he tickled me under the chin and said, 'Younger every day!' That was a man, big and strong, he
did
look like something, none of your skin and bones. The way he stared at me! I'd only to say the word ... When he was there I went into the sitting-room and asked:

'What would madam prefer to-morrow? Roast beef with greens and roast potatoes, or boiled bacon with sauerkraut and dumplings?'

The two old people never could agree. He wanted dumplings, she wanted greens. So I walked up to the visitor and said:

'Mr. John shall choose !' He was their nephew.

I can see myself still, how I used to stand in front of him, and he — the cheek of him — he used to jump up and slap me on the shoulders, both hands at once — strong he was! — and say:

'Roast beef with greens and dumplings!'

I had to laugh. Beef with dumplings! Who ever heard of such a thing? You never saw such a thing in your life.

'Always bright and cheery, Mr. John,' I used to say.

A retired bank clerk he was, without a job, but a handsome bonus, all very well, but what do you do when you've eaten the bonus up. No, I'm for someone solid with a pension, or else a gentleman with something of his own. Well, I've managed it. Silly to throw it away for a lovely man, I must be careful. In my family we live to be old. Respectable people do. It makes a difference, early to bed and no gadding around. Even my old ma, the dirty old hag, was past seventy-four when she died. Not a natural death, hers. Starved she was, hadn't a bite of bread to put in her mouth in her old age. Wasted everything, she did. Every winter a new blouse. My old dad wasn't cold in his grave six years, and she took up with a fellow. He was a one, a butcher he was, knocked her about, and always after the girls. I scratched his face for him. He wanted me, too, but I didn't fancy him. I only humoured him to annoy the old woman. Everything for my children, she used to say. She looked a picture that time she came home from work and found her man with her daughter! Nothing had happened yet. The butcher tried to jump out of bed. I grabbed tight hold of him, so he couldn't get away until the old woman came right in and up to the bed. She did take on! Hunted him out of the room with her bare hands. She hugged hold of me, howled and tried to kiss me. But I didn't care for that and scratched her.

'No better than a step-mother, that's what you are!' I screamed. To her dying day she thought he'd done me wrong. He never did. I'm a respectable woman and never had anything to do with men. If a girl doesn't look out for herself, she'd have ten at every finger's end. And what would you do then? Prices going up every day. Potatoes cost double already. Where'U it end? You don't catch me that way. I'm a married woman with nothing to look forward to but a lonely old age....

From the personal columns of the newspapers, her only reading, Thérèse knew certain delightful phrases which, in moments of great excitement or after coming to some weighty decision, would interweave themselves in her thoughts. Such phrases exercised a sedative influence upon her. She repeated to herself: nothing but a lonely old age, and fell asleep.

On the following day Kien was comfortably at work when two men brought the new bed. The divan disappeared and its horrid freight. The bed occupied die same position. On leaving, the removal men forgot to shut the door. Suddenly they reappeared carrying a wash-stand. "Where do we put this?' One of them asked the other.

'Nowhere!' Kien protested. 'I ordered no wash-stand.'

'It's been paid for,' said the shorter of the two men. 'And the commode too,' added the other, hastily fetching it from outside, a wooden witness.

Thérèse appeared on the threshold. She had come in from shopping. Before entering the room she knocked at the open door. 'May I come in'

'Yes!' shouted the removal men without waiting for Kien, and laughed.

'Already here, gentlemen?' She glided with dignity over to her husband, nodded to him familiarly with head and shoulder, as though they had been the closest friends for years, and said:

'You see how well I lay out your money. Everything inclusive. The master expects one piece, the mistress brings home three.'

'I don't want them. I only want the bed.'

'But why not; good gracious me, a person must wash.'

The removal men nudged each other. They probably believed that he had never washed. Thérèse was forcing him into a private conversation. He had no desire to make himself a laughing stock. If he were to start explaining about the wash-trolley they would think him a fool. He preferred to leave the new wash-stand where it was, in spite of its cold marble top. It could be at least half concealed behind trie bed. In order to finish quickly with the inconvenient piece of furniture he helped to move it.

'The commode is superfluous,' he said (it was still where they had put it down) and pointed to the narrow, squat object which looked ridiculous in the middle of the lofty room.

'And the chamber?'

'The chamber?' The idea of a chamber pot in his library struck him dumb.

'Do you want to keep it here, under the bed?'

'What's the meaning of this?'

'Don't take up your wife before strangers.'

All this was simply an excuse for her to talk. She wanted to talk, and to talk and to do nothing else. For this purpose she was taking advantage of the removal men. But she could not impose her chatter on him. In comparison to her chatter, a chamber pot could be classed as a book.

'Put it here, by the bed !' he said briefly to the men. 'There, now you can go.'

Thérèse accompanied them to the door. She treated them with exquisite affability, and gave them, breaking her usual custom, a gratuity out of her husband's money. When she returned, he showed her the back of his chair, on which he was again seated. He wished to have no more exchanges with her, not so much as a look. As he had the writing desk in front of him she could not pass round him to look in his face and had to make do with an angry profile. She perceived how necessary justification was, and began to complain of the old wash-trolley.

'Twice every day the same job. Once in the morning, once in the evening. Is it reasonable? A wife wants a little consideration too. A servant does at least get

Kien jumped up and, without turning round, gave his orders:

'Silence! Not another word! The arrangements will stay as they are. Further discussion is superfluous. From now on I shall keep the door into your rooms locked. I forbid you to step over my threshold as long as I am here. If I want books from your rooms I shall fetch them myself. At one o'clock and at seven o'clock precisely I shall come to meals. I request you not to call me; I can tell the time myself. I shall take steps to prevent further interruption. My time is valuable. Kindly go!'

He struck the tips of his fingers together. He had found the right words: clear, practical and superior. She would not with her clumsy vocabulary dare to answer him. She went, closing the communicating door behind her. At last he had found means to stop her chattering plans. Instead of making contracts with her, whose true meaning she tailed to understand, he must show her who was master. He sacrificed something: the clear vista of those dim, book-filled rooms, die inviolate emptiness of his study. But he had in exchange something he valued more; the possibility of continuing his work, for which the first and most important condition was quiet. He panted for silence as others do for air.

All the same the first necessity was to accustom himself to the oppressive change in his surroundings. For some weeks he was irritated by the narrowness of his new quarters. Confined to a fourth part of his original living space, he began to understand the wretchedness of prisoners, whom he had earlier been inclined — for what exceptional opportunities for learning they have, men learn nothing in freedom —to regard as fortunate. It was all over now with his pacing up and down when a significant idea visited him. In days of old, when every door stood open, a healing wind coursed through the library. Through the lofty skylights poured illumination and inspiration. In moments of excitement he had only to rise and stride fifty yards in one direction, fifty yards back again. The unbroken view of the sky was as uplifting as the invigorating distance. Through the glass above him he could see the condition of the heavens, more tranquil, more attenuated than the reality. A soft blue: the sun shines, but not on me. A grey no less soft: it will rain, but not on me. A gentle murmur announced the falling drops. He was aware of them at a distance, they did not touch him. He knew only: the sun shines, the clouds gather, the rain falls. It was as if he had barricaded himself against the world: against all material relations, against all terrestrial needs, had builded himself an hermitage, a vast hermitage, so vast that it would hold those few things on this earth which are more than this earth itself, more than the dust to which our life at last returns; as if he had closely sealed it and filled it with those things alone. His journey through the unknown was like no journey. Enough for him to watch from the windows of his observation car the continued validity of certain natural laws; the change from night to day, the capricious incessant working of the climate, the flow of time — and the journey was as nothing.