Sunday

Sunday

I had forgotten, this morning, that it was Sunday. I went out and walked along the streets as usual. I had taken Eugénie Grandet with me. And then, all of a sudden, as I was pushing open the gate of the municipal park, I had the impression that something was signalling me. The park was bare and empty. But ... how shall I put it? It didn't have its usual look, it was smiling at me. I stayed for a moment leaning against the gate, and then, suddenly, I realized it was Sunday. It was there in the trees, on the lawns, like a faint smile. It was impossible to describe, you would have had to say very quickly: "This is a municipal park, this is winter, this is a Sunday morning."

I let go of the gate, I turned around towards the houses and the staid streets and I murmured: "It's Sunday."

It's Sunday: behind the docks, along the coast, near the goods station, all around the town there are empty warehouses and machines standing motionless in the darkness. In all the houses, men are shaving behind their windows: their heads are thrown back, they stare alternately at their mirror and at the cold sky to see whether it's going to be a fine day. The brothels are opening their doors to their first customers, peasants and soldiers. In the churches, in the light of the candles, a man is drinking wine in front of kneeling women. In all the suburbs, between the interminable walls of the factories, long black processions have set off, they are slowly advancing on the centre of the town. To receive them, the streets have assumed the appearance they have when there is rioting: all the shops, except for those in the rue Tournebride, have lowered their iron shutters. Soon, in complete silence, the black columns are going to invade these streets which are shamming death: the first to arrive will be the railway workers from Tourville and their wives who work in the Saint-Symphorin soap factories, then the small shopkeepers from Jouxtebouville, then the workers from the Pinot spinning-mills, then all the odd-job men from the Saint-Maxence district: the men from Thiérache will arrive last on the eleven o'clock tram. Soon the Sunday crowd will be born, between bolted shops and closed doors.

A clock strikes half-past ten and I set off: on Sunday, at this hour, you can see a wonderful show at Bouville, but you mustn't arrive too late after the end of High Mass.

The little rue Joséphin-Soulary is dead, it smells like a cellar. But, as on every Sunday, it is full of a rich noise, a noise like a tide. I turn into the rue due Président-Chamart, where the houses have four stories, with long white venetian blinds. This street of notaries is entirely filled with the voluminous din of Sunday. In the passage Gillet, the noise is even greater and I recognize it; it is a noise made by men. Then suddenly, on the left, there is a sort of explosion of light and sound. I have arrived: this is the rue Tournebride, and all I have to do is take my place among my fellows and I shall see the gentlemen of substance raising their hats to one another.

Only sixty years ago nobody would have dared to foresee the miraculous destiny of the rue Tournebride, which the inhabitants of Bouville today call the Little Prado. I have seen a map dated 1847 on which the street didn't even figure. At that time it must have been a dark, stinking alley, with a gutter along which fishes' heads and entrails floated between the paving-stones. But, at the end of 1873, the National Assembly declared the construction of a church on the Montmartre hill to be of public utility. A few months later, the wife of the Mayor of Bouville had a vision: St Cécile, her patron saint, came and remonstrated with her. Was it tolerable that the cream of Bouville society should muddy themselves every Sunday going to Saint-René or Saint-Claudien to hear Mass with shopkeepers? Hadn't the National Assembly set an example? Bouville, thanks to the patronage of Heaven, now had a first-class economic position; wouldn't it be fitting to build a church in which to give thanks to the Lord?

These visions were approved: the municipal council held an historic meeting and the Bishop agreed to organize a subscription. All that remained to be done was to choose the site. The old families of businessmen and ship-owners were of the opinion that the building should be erected on the summit of the Coteau Vert, where they lived, 'so that Saint Cécile could watch over Bouville like the Sacré-Coeur de Jésus over Paris.' The new gentlemen of the boulevard Maritime, who were few as yet but extremely rich, objected: they would give what was needed, but the church would have to be built on the place Marignan; if they were going to pay for a church, they intended to be able to use it; they were not reluctant to give a taste of their power to that haughty bourgeoisie which treated them like parvenus. The Bishop hit on a compromise: the church was built half-way between the Couteau Vert and the boulevard Maritime, on the place de la Halle-aux-Morues, which was baptized place Sainte-Cécile-de-la-Mer. This monstrous edifice, which was completed in 1887, cost no less than fourteen million francs.

The rue Tournebride, which was wide but dirty and ill-famed, had to be entirely rebuilt and its inhabitants were firmly driven back behind the place Sainte-Cécile; the Little Prado became - especially on Sunday mornings - the meeting-place of fashionable and distinguished people. One by one, fine shops opened upon the passage of the élite. They stay open on Easter Monday, all Christmas Eve, and every Sunday until noon. Next to Julien, the pork-butcher, who is renowned for his hot pies, Foulon the pastry-cook exhibits his famous specialities, wonderful cone-shaped petits-fours made of mauve butter, topped with a sugar violet. In the window of Dupaty's bookshop you can see the latest books published by Plon, a few technical works such as a theory of navigation or a treatise on sails, a large illustrated history of Bouville, and elegantly produced de luxe editions: Koenigsmark, bound in blue leather, The Book of my Sons, by Paul Doumer, bound in beige leather with crimson flowers. Ghislaine (Haute Couture, Paris Models) separates Piégeois the florist from Paquin the antique dealer. The hairdresser Gustave, who employs four manicurists, occupies the first floor of a brand-new yellow-painted building.

Two years ago, at the corner of the impasse des Moulins-Gémeaux and the rue Turnebride, an impudent little shop still displayed an advertisement for the Tu-pu-nez insecticide. It had flourished at the time when codfish were hawked on the place Sainte-Cécile, it was a hundred years old. The display windows were rarely washed: you had to make an effort in order to distinguish, through the dust and mist, a crowd of little wax figures dressed in flame-coloured doublets, representing rats and mice. These animals were disembarking from a rated ship, leaning on sticks; they had scarcely touched the ground before a peasant girl, smartly dressed but ghastly pale and black with dirt put them to flight by sprinkling them with Tu-pu-nez. I was very fond of this shop, it had a cynical, obstinate look, it insolently recalled the rights of vermin and dirt a stone's throw from the most costly church in France.

The herborist died last year and her nephew sold the house. It was enough to knock down a few walls: it is now a small lecture hall, 'La Bonbonnière'. Last year Henry Bordeaux gave a talk on mountaineering there.

In the rue Tournebride you mustn't be in a hurry: the families walk slowly. Sometimes you move up one place because a whole family has gone into Foulon's or Piégeois'. But at other times you have to stop and mark time because two families, one belonging to the column going up the street and the other to the column coming down, have met and clasped each other firmly by the hands. I advance slowly. I stand a whole head higher than both columns and I see hats, a sea of hats. Most of them are black and hard. Now and then you see one fly off at the end of an arm, revealing the soft gleam of a skull; then, after a few moments of clumsy flight, it settles again. At No. 16 rue Tournebride, the hatter Urbain, who specializes in army caps, has hung up as a symbol a huge red archbishop's hat whose gold tassels hang six feet from the ground.

Everybody comes to a halt: a group has just formed right under the tassels. My neighbour waits without any sign of impatience, his arms dangling: I do believe that this pale little old man, as fragile as porcelain, is Coffier, the president of the Chamber of Trade. It seems that he is so intimidating because he never says anything. He lives at the top of the Coteau Vert, in a big brick house whose windows are always wide open. It's over now: the group has broken up, we start moving again. Another group has just collected, but it takes up less space: it has no sooner been formed than it presses against Ghislaine's window. The column doesn't even stop: it barely moves a little to one side; we walk past six people who are holding hands: "Good morning, Monsieur. Good morning, my dear sir, how are you keeping? Do put your hat on again, Monsieur, you'll catch cold. Thank you, Madame, it isn't very warm, is it? Darling, allow me to introduce Doctor Lefrançois. Doctor, I am delighted to make your acquaintance, my husband is always talking to me about Doctor Lefrançois who took such good care of him, but do put your hat on, Doctor, in this cold weather you'll catch a chill. But the Doctor would cure himself quickly. Alas, Madame, it's doctors who are looked after worst of all. The Doctor is a remarkable musician. Heavens, Doctor, I didn't know, do you play the violin? The Doctor is very gifted."

The little old man next to me must be Coffier; there's one of the women in the group, the brunette, who is eating him up with her eyes, while smiling at the same time at the doctor. She seems to be thinking: "There's Monsieur Coffier, the president of the Chamber of Trade; how intimidating he looks, they say he's so cold." But Monsieur Coffier hasn't deigned to see anything: these people are from the boulevard Maritime, they don't belong to society. Since I started coming to this street to see the Sunday hat-raising, I have learnt to distinguish between the people from the boulevard and those from the Coteau. When a fellow is dressed in a new overcoat, a soft felt hat, and a dazzling shirt, when he displaces air in passing, there's no possibility of a mistake: he is somebody from the boulevard Maritime. The people from the Coteau Vert can be recognized by an indefinable, shabby, sunken look. They have narrow shoulders and an insolent expression on worn faces. This fat gentleman holding a child by the hand - I'd swear he comes from the Coteau: his face is all grey and his tie is knotted like a piece of string.

The fat gentleman comes towards us: he is staring hard at Monsieur Coffier. But, just before passing him, he turns his head away and starts joking in a fatherly way with his little boy. He takes a few more steps, bending over his son, his eyes gazing into the boy's eyes, nothing but a father; then, all of a sudden, turning quickly towards us, he darts a sharp glance at a little old man and gives a dry, ample salute with a sweep of his arm. Startled, the little boy hasn't taken off his cap: this is an affair between grown-ups.

At the corner of the rue Basse-de-Vieille, our column runs into a column of the faithful coming out of Mass: a dozen people bump into one another and greet one another, whirling round and round, but the hat-raising happens too quickly for me to spot the details; above this fat, pale crowd the church of Sainte-Cécile raises its monstrous white mass, chalk-white against a dark sky; behind these dazzling walls it retains within its flanks a little of the darkness of night. We move off again, in a slightly modified order. Monsieur Coffier has been pushed back behind me. A lady in navy blue has glued herself to my left side. She has come from Mass. She blinks her eyes, a little dazzled at coming back into the morning light. That gentleman who is walking in front of her and who has such a thin neck is her husband.

On the opposite pavement, a gentleman who is holding his wife by the arm has just whispered a few words in her ear and has started smiling. She promptly and carefully wipes all expression from her cream-coloured face and takes a few steps blindly. These signs are unmistakable: they are going to greet somebody. Sure enough, a moment later, the gentleman shoots his hand into the air. When his fingers are close to his felt hat, they hesitate for a second before settling delicately on the crown. While he is gently raising his hat, bowing his head a little to help the operation, his wife gives a little start and fixes a young smile on her face. A shadow passes them, bowing as it does so: but their twin smiles do not disappear straightaway: they remain for a few moments on their lips, by a sort of residual magnetism. By the time the lady and gentleman pass me, they have regained their impassivity, but a gay expression still lingers around their mouths.

It's over: the crowd is thinner, the hat-raising less frequent, the shop windows less exquisite in character: I am at the end of the rue Tournebride. Shall I cross the street and go back up the opposite pavement? I think I have had enough, I have seen enough of these pink skulls, of these thin, distinguished, insipid faces. I am going to cross the place Marignan. As I am cautiously extricating myself from the column, a real gentleman's head springs out of a black hat close to me. It's the husband of the lady in navy blue. Ah, what a fine, long dolichocephalic skull, planted with thick, short hairs! What a handsome American moustache, scattered with silver threads! And above all what a smile, what an admirable cultured smile! There is also a pince-nez, somewhere on a nose.

Turning to his wife, he says:

"He's a new draughtsman at the factory. I wonder what he can be doing here. He's a nice young fellow, he's shy and he amuses me."

Standing beside the window of Julien's, the pork-butcher's shop, the young draughtsman, who has just put his hat on again, still all pink, his eyes lowered, a stubborn look on his face, retains an appearance of intense pleasure. This is undoubtedly the first Sunday he has ventured to cross the rue Tournebride. He looks like a boy who has just had his First Communion. He has clasped his hands behind his back and turned his face towards the window with an air of positively exciting modesty; he is gazing unseeingly at four sausages shining with jelly, spread out on a bed of parsley.

A woman comes out of the shop and takes his arm. This is his wife, who is quite young, despite her wrinkled skin. She can roam about the rue Tournebride as much as she likes, nobody will take her for a lady; she is betrayed by the cynical sparkle of her eyes, by her intelligent, knowing look. Real ladies don't know the price of things, they like mad, extravagant gestures; their eyes are beautiful innocent flowers, hothouse flowers.

I reach the Brasserie Vézelize on the stroke of one o'clock. The old men are there as usual. Two of them have already started to eat. There are four who are playing cards and drinking aperitifs. The others are standing watching them play while their tables are being laid. The tallest, who has a flowing beard, is a stockbroker. Another is a retired commissioner from the Naval Conscription Board. They eat and drink like men of twenty. On Sunday they eat sauerkraut. The late arrivals call out to the others, who are already eating:

"What, the usual Sunday sauerkraut?"

They sit down and sigh happily:

"Mariette, my dear, a beer without a head on it and a sauerkraut."

This Mariette is a strapping wench. As I am sitting down at a table at the back, a red-faced old man starts coughing furiously while she is pouring him a vermouth.

"Come on, pour me more than that," he says, coughing.

But she gets angry herself: she hasn't finished pouring.

"Let me pour, will you? Anyway, what's the matter with you? You're like somebody who screams before he's hurt."

The others start laughing.

"She's got you there!"

The stockbroker, on his way to his table, takes Mariette by the shoulders:

"It's Sunday, Mariette. Are you going to the cinema this afternoon with your boyfriend?"

"Oh, sure! This is Antoinette's day off. As far as boyfriends are concerned, I haven't a hope."

The stockbroker has sat down opposite a clean-shaven old man with an unhappy face. The clean-shaven old man promptly launches out on an animated story. The stockbroker doesn't listen to him: he pulls faces and tugs at his beard. They never listen to each other.

I recognize my neighbours: they are small local shopkeepers. Sunday is their maid's day off. So they come here, always sitting at the same table. The husband eats a fine rib of under-done beef. He examines it closely and sniffs it now and then. The wife picks at her food. She is a heavy blonde of forty with red, downy cheeks. She has a pair of fine, hard breasts under her satin blouse. Like a man, she empties a bottle of claret at every meal.

I am going to read Eugénie Grandet. It isn't that I am enjoying it tremendously, but I have to do something. I open the book at random; the mother and daughter are talking about Eugénie's growing love:

Eugénie kissed her hand, saying:

'How kind you are dear Mama!'

At these words, the motherly old face, withered by protracted suffering, lit up.

'Do you like him?' asked Eugénie.

Madame Grandet's only reply was a smile; then, after a moment's silence, she murmured:

'Are you already in love with him? That would be wrong.'

'Wrong?' Eugénie went on. 'Why? You like him, Nanon likes him, why shouldn't I like him?

Come along, Mama, let's set the table for his luncheon.'

She put her needlework down, and her mother did likewise, saying:

'You are mad.'

But she took pleasure in justifying her daughter's madness by sharing it. Eugénie called Nanon.

'What do you want now, Mamselle?'

'Nanon, you will have some cream for midday, won't you?'

'Ah, for midday, yes,' replied the old servant.

'Well, serve him some very strong coffee. I have heard Monsieur de Grassins say that they made

coffee very strong in Paris. Put in a lot.'

'And where do you expect me to get it?'

'Buy some.'

'And what if Monsieur sees me?'

'He's out in the fields.'

My neighbours had remained silent since my arrival, but all of a sudden the husband's voice distracted me from my reading.

The husband, with an amused, mysterious air:

"I say, did you see that?"

The woman gives a start and, coming out of a dream, looks at him. He eats and drinks, and then goes on, with the same mischievous air:

"Ha, ha!"

A moment's silence, the woman has returned to her dream.

Suddenly she shivers and asks:

"What's that you were saying?"

"Suzanne yesterday."

"Ah, yes," the woman says, "she had been to see Victor."

"What did I tell you?"

The woman pushes her plate away impatiently.

"It's no good."

The edge of her plate is decorated with lumps of gristle she has spat out. The husband continues his train of thought:

"That little old woman ..."

He stops and smiles vaguely. Opposite us the old stockbroker is stroking Mariette's arm and panting slightly. After a moment:

"I told you so, the other day."

"What did you tell me?"

"Victor - that she'd go and see him. What's the matter?" he asks abruptly with a startled expression, "don't you like it?"

"It's no good."

"It isn't the same," he says pompously, "it isn't like it was when Hécart was here. Do you know where he is now, Hécart?"

"He's at Domrémy, isn't he?"

"Yes, that's right, who told you?"

"You did. You told me on Sunday."

She eats a crumb of bread lying on the paper tablecloth. Then, smoothing the paper on the edge of the table with her hand, she says hesitatingly:

"You know, you're wrong, Suzanne is more ..."

"That may be, my dear, that may well be," he replies absentmindedly. He looks around for Mariette and beckons her.

"It's hot."

Mariette leans familiarly on the edge of the table.

"Oh, yes, it is hot," says the woman with a groan, "it's stifling here and what's more the beef's no good, I'm going to tell the patron, it isn't like it used to be, do open the window a bit, Mariette dear."

The husband assumes his amused expression again:

"I say, didn't you see her eyes?"

"When, pet?"

He apes her impatiently:

"When, pet? That's you all over: in summer when it's snowing."

"Oh, you mean yesterday? I see."

He laughs, he looks into the distance, he recites very quickly, with a certain application:

"The eyes of a cat on hot bricks."

He is so pleased with himself that he seems to have forgotten what he wanted to say. She laughs in her turn, without malice.

"Ha, ha, you old rogue."

She slaps him on the back.

"You old rogue, you old rogue."

He repeats with more assurance:

"A cat on hot bricks."

But she stops laughing:

"No, seriously, you know, she isn't like that."

He leans forward, he whispers a long story in her ear. She listens for a moment with her mouth open, her face a little drawn and hilarious, like someone who is going to burst out laughing, then suddenly she throws herself back and scratches his hand.

"That isn't true, that isn't true."

He says in a slow, reasonable voice:

"Listen, dear, he said so himself: if it wasn't true why would he have said so?"

"No, no."

"But he said so: listen, suppose ..."

She starts laughing:

"I'm laughing because I'm thinking about René."

"Yes."

He laughs too. She goes on in a low, earnest voice:

"So that means he noticed on Tuesday."

"Thursday."

"No, Tuesday, you know because of the ..."

She sketches a sort of curve in the air.

A long silence. The husband dips a piece of bread in his sauce. Mariette changes the plates and brings them a couple of tarts. Later on I shall have a tart too. Suddenly the woman, a little dreamy with a proud and slightly shocked smile on her lips, says in a drawling voice:

"Oh no, really!"

There is so much sensuality in her voice that it stirs him, and he strokes the back of her neck with his fat hand.

"Charles, stop it, you're exciting me, darling," she murmurs with a smile, her mouth full.

I try to go back to my reading:

'And where do you expect me to get it?'

'Buy some.'

'And what if Monsieur sees me?'

But I can still hear the woman, who is saying:

"I say, I'm going to make Marthe laugh, I'm going to tell her ..."

My neighbours have fallen silent. After the tarts, Mariette has served them with prunes and the woman is busy gracefully laying the stones in her spoon. The husband, staring at the ceiling, taps out a military march on the table. You get the impression that their normal condition is silence and that speech is a slight fever which attacks them now and then.

'And where do you expect me to get it?'

'Buy some.'

I close the book, I'm going out for a walk.

When I left the Brasserie Vézelize, it was nearly three o'clock; I could feel the afternoon all through my heavy body. Not my afternoon, but theirs, the one a hundred thousand citizens of Bouville were going to live in common. At this same moment, after their long and copious Sunday dinner, they were getting up from table and for them something had died. Sunday had spent its light-hearted youth. Now it was a matter of digesting the chicken and the tart, and getting dressed to go out.

The bell at the Ciné-Eldorado rang out in the clear air. This is a familiar Sunday sound, the ringing in broad daylight. Over a hundred people were queuing up alongside the green wall. They were eagerly awaiting the hour of soft shadows, of relaxation, of abandon, the hour when the screen, shining like a white pebble under water, would speak and dream for them. A vain longing: something in them would remain tense; they were too frightened of their lovely Sunday being spoilt. Before long, as on every Sunday, they would be disappointed: the film would be stupid, their neighbour would smoke a pipe or spit between his knees, or else Lucien would be unpleasant, he wouldn't have anything nice to say, or else, as if on purpose, today of all days, when for once they went to the cinema, the pain in their side would start up again. Soon, as on every Sunday, small, hidden rages would grow in a dark hall.

I walked along the quiet rue Bressan. The sun had scattered the clouds and it was fine. A family had just come out of a villa called 'The Wave'. The daughter was buttoning her gloves out on the pavement. She could have been about thirty. The mother, planted on the first of the flight of steps, was looking straight ahead with an assured expression, and breathing hard. Of the father I could see only the huge back. Bent over the keyhole, he was locking the door. The house would remain dark and empty until they got back. In the neighbouring houses, which were already bolted and deserted, the floors and furniture were creaking gently. Before going out they had put out the fire in the dining-room fireplace. The father joined the two women, and the family set off without a word. Where were they going? On Sunday you go to the cemetery, or else you visit relatives, or else, if you are completely free, you go for a walk along the Jetty. I was free; I walked along the rue Bressan which comes out on the Jetty Promenade.

The sky was pale blue with a few wisps of smoke; now and then a drifting cloud passed in front of the sun. In the distance I could see the white cement balustrade which runs along the Jetty Promenade; the sea was shining through the openings. The family turned right, up the rue de l'Aumônier-Hilaire, which climbs up to the Coteau Vert. I saw them walking slowly upwards, they made three black patches on the glittering asphalt. I turned left and joined the crowd filing along the sea-shore.

It was more of a mixture than in the morning. It seemed as if all these men no longer had the strength to uphold that magnificent social hierarchy they were so proud of before lunch. Businessmen and civil servants walked side by side; they let themselves be elbowed, jostled, and even pushed to one side by shabby-looking clerks. Aristocracies, élites, and professional groups had melted away in this warm crowd. There remained men who were almost alone and no longer representative.

There was a puddle of light in the distance, the sea at low tide. A few reefs awash with water pierced that bright surface with their heads. On the sand there lay some fishingboats, not far from the sticky stone cubes which have been thrown pell-mell at the foot of the jetty, to protect it from the waves, with gaps between them through which the sea rumbles. At the entrance to the outer harbour, the silhouette of a dredger stood out against the sun-bleached sky. Every evening until midnight it howls and groans and kicks up an infernal row. But on Sunday the workers stroll about on land, there is only a watchman on board: the boat is silent.

The sun was bright and diaphanous: a thin white wine. It's light barely touched people's bodies, gave them no shadows, no relief: faces and hands formed patches of pale gold. All these men in overcoats seemed to float gently along a few inches above the ground. Now and then the wind pushed shadows over us which trembled like water; faces lost their colour for a moment, turned chalky-white.

It was Sunday; boxed in between the balustrade and the gates of the villas, the crowd flowed away in little waves, to disappear in a thousand rivulets behind the Grand Hôtel de la Compagnie Transatlantique. And how many children there were! Children in prams, in arms, held by the hand or walking stiffly in twos or threes in front of their parents. I had seen all these faces a few hours before, almost triumphant in the youth of a Sunday morning. Now, dripping with sunlight, they no longer expressed anything but calm, relaxation, and a sort of obstinacy.

Few movements: admittedly there was a little hat-raising here and there, but without the grandiloquence, the nervous gaiety of the morning. The people all allowed themselves to lean back a little, their heads high, their eyes gazing into the distance, abandoned to the wind which pushed them along and puffed out their coats. Now and then a dry laugh, quickly stifled; the call of a mother, Jeannot, Jeannot, will you come here. And then silence. A faint aroma of mild tobacco: it's the shop assistants who are smoking. Salammbô, Aïcha, Sunday cigarettes. On a few faces, which were more relaxed, I thought I could detect a little sadness: but no, these people were neither sad nor gay: they were resting. Their wide-open, staring eyes passively reflected the sea and the sky. Soon they would go back home and drink a cup of tea all together around the dining-room table. For the moment they wanted to live as cheaply as possible, to economize on gestures, words, thoughts, to float along: they had only one day in which to smooth away their wrinkles, their crow's-feet, the bitter lines made by their work during the week. Only one day. They could feel the minutes flowing between their fingers; would they have time to stock up enough youth to start afresh on Monday morning? They filled their lungs because sea air is invigorating: only their breathing, as regular and deep as that of sleepers, still testified that they were alive. I walked along steathily, I didn't know what to do with my hard, fresh body, in the midst of this tragic crowd taking its rest.

The sea was now the colour of slate; it was rising slowly. It would be high tide at nightfall: tonight the Jetty Promenade would be more deserted than the boulevard Victor Noir. In front and on the left a red light would shine in the channel.

The sun went down slowly over the sea. On its way it lit up the window of a Norman chalet. A woman, dazzled by the light, wearily put her hand over her eyes and shook her head.

"Gaston, it's blinding me," she said with a faltering laugh.

"Get along with you," said her husband, "that sun's all right, it doesn't warm you but it's very pleasant all the same."

Turning towards the sea, she said:

"I thought we would have seen it."

"Not a hope," said the man, "it's in the sun."

They must have been talking about the Ile Caillebotte, whose southern tip ought to have been visible between the dredger and the quay of the outer harbour.

The light grew softer. At this uncertain hour, something indicated the approach of evening. Already this Sunday had a past. The villas and the grey balustrade seemed like recent memories. One by one the faces lost their leisured look, several became almost tender.

A pregnant woman was leaning on a fair, rough-looking young man.

"There, there, there, look," she said.

"Look at what?"

"There, there, the seagulls."

He shrugged his shoulders: there were no seagulls. The sky had become almost pure, a little pink on the horizon.

"I heard them. Listen, they're crying."

He replied:

"It was something creaking."

A gas lamp shone suddenly. I thought it was the lamp-lighter who had gone past. The children watch for him because he gives the signal for them to go home. But it was only a last ray of the setting sun. The sky was still bright, but the earth was bathed in shadow. The crowd was getting thinner, you could distinctly hear the death-rattle of the sea. A young woman, leaning with both hands on the balustrade, lifted up towards the sky her blue face, barred in black by her lipstick. I wondered for a moment if I were not going to love mankind. But, after all, it was their Sunday and not mine.

The first light to come on was that of the Caillebotte lighthouse; a little boy stopped near me and murmured ecstatically: "Oh, the lighthouse!"

Then I felt my heart swell with a great feeling of adventure.

I turn left and, by way of the rue des Voiliers, I return to the Little Prado. The iron shutters have been lowered over the shop windows. The rue Tournebride is bright but empty, it has lost its brief morning glory; at this time nothing distinguishes it anymore from the neighbouring streets. A fairly strong wind has come up. I can hear the archbishop's metal hat creaking.

I am alone, most people have gone home, they are reading the evening paper and listening to the wireless. This Sunday which is drawing to a close has left them with a taste of ashes and already their thoughts are turning towards Monday. But for me there is neither Monday nor Sunday: there are days which push one another along in disorder, and then, all of a sudden, revelations like this.

Nothing has changed and yet everything exists in a different way. I can't describe it; it's like the Nausea and yet it's just the opposite: at last an adventure is happening to me and when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here: it is I who am piercing the darkness, I am as happy as the hero of a novel.

Something is going to happen: in the shadows of the rue Basse-de-Vieille there is something waiting for me, it is over there, just at the corner of that quiet street that my life is going to begin. I see myself advancing with a sense of fate. At the corner of the street there is a sort of white stone. From a distance it seemed black, and at each step I take it turns a little whiter. That dark body getting gradually lighter makes an extraordinary impression on me: when it is completely white, I shall stop just beside it and then the adventure will begin. It is so close now, that white beacon emerging from the shadows, that I am almost afraid: for a moment I think of turning back. But it is impossible to break the spell. I go forward, I stretch out my hand, I touch the stone.

Here is the rue Basse-de-Vieille and the huge mass of Sainte-Cécile crouching in the shadows, its stained-glass windows glowing. The metal hat creaks. I don't know whether the world has suddenly shrunk or whether it is I who am establishing such a powerful unity between sounds and shapes: I cannot even imagine anything around me being other than it is.

I stop for a moment, I wait, I can feel my heart beating; my eyes search the empty square. I see nothing. A fairly strong wind has come up. I was mistaken, the rue Basse-de-Vieille was only a stage; the thing is waiting for me at the far side of the place Ducoton.

I am in no hurry to start walking again. It seems to me that I have reached the summit of my happiness. In Marseille, in Shanghai, at Meknès, what haven't I done to obtain a feeling of such satisfaction? Today I expect nothing more, I am going home at the end of an empty Sunday: it is there.

I set off again. The wind carries the wail of a siren to my ears. I am all alone, but I walk like a band of soldiers descending on a town. At this very moment there are ships echoing with music on the sea; lights are going on in all the cities of Europe; Communists and Nazis are shooting it out in the streets of Berlin, unemployed are pounding the pavements of New York, women at their dressing-tables, in warm rooms, are putting mascara on their eyelashes. And I am here, in this empty street, and every shot fired from a window in Neukölln, every bloody hiccough of the wounded men being carried away, every precise, tiny gesture of the women making up answers my every footstep, my every heartbeat.

Standing in front of the passage Gillet, I no longer know what to do. Isn't something waiting for me at the end of the passage? But in the place Ducoton, at the end of the rue Tournebride, there is also a certain thing which needs me in order to come to life. I am full of anguish: the slightest gesture engages me. I can't imagine what is required of me. Yet I must choose: I sacrifice the passage Gillet, I shall never know what it held for me.

The place Ducoton is empty. Was I mistaken? I don't think I could bear it if I was. Will nothing really happen? I go towards the lights in the Café Mably. I am bewildered, I don't know whether to go in; I glance through the big, misted-up windows.

The place is packed. The air is blue with cigarette smoke and the steam rising from damp clothes. The cashier is at her counter. I know her well: she is red-haired like myself; she has some sort of stomach disease. She is rotting quietly under her skirts with a melancholy smile, like the smell of violets which is sometimes given off by decomposing bodies. I shudder from head to foot. It is ... it is she who is waiting for me. She was there, holding her bust erect above the counter: she was smiling. From the far end of this cafe something goes back over the scattered moments of this Sunday and solders them together, gives them a meaning: I have gone through the whole of this day to end up here, with my forehead pressed against the window, to gaze at this delicate face blossoming against a red curtain. Everything has come to a stop; my life has come to a stop: this big window, this heavy air, as blue as water, this thick-leaved white plant at the bottom of the water, and I myself, we form a complete and motionless whole: I am happy.

When I found myself on this boulevard de la Redoute again, nothing remained but bitter regret. I said to myself: "Perhaps there is nothing in the world I value more than this feeling of adventure. But it comes when it pleases; it goes away so quickly and how dry I feel when it has gone! Does it pay me these brief, ironical visits in order to show me that my life is a failure?"

Behind me, in the town, in the big straight streets lit by the cold light of the street lamps, a tremendous social event was dying: it was the end of Sunday.