Friday

The fog was so thick on the boulevard de Redoute that I thought it wise to keep close to the walls of the Barracks; on my right, the headlamps of the motorcars were driving a misty light along in front of them and it was impossible to tell where the pavement came to an end.  There were people around me; I could hear the sound of their footsteps or, occasionally, the slight hum of their words: but I couldn't see anybody.  Once a woman's face took shape on a level with my shoulder, but the mist promptly swallowed it up; another time somebody brushed past me, breathing hard.  I didn't know where I was going, I was too absorbed: you had to move forward cautiously, feel the ground with the toe of your shoe, and even stretch your hands out in front of you.  I wasn't enjoying this exercise.  All the same, I didn't think of going back, I was caught.  Finally, after half an hour, I caught sight of a bluish mist in the distance.  Using it as a guide, I soon reached the edge of a big glow; in the middle, piercing the fog with its lights, I recognized the Café Mably.

      The Café Mably has twelve electric lamps; but only two of them were on, one above the cash-desk, the other on the ceiling.  The only waiter there pushed me forcibly into a dark corner.

      "Not here, Monsieur, I'm cleaning up."

      He was wearing a jacket, without a waistcoat or a collar, and a white shirt with purple stripes.  He kept yawning and looked at me sullenly, running his fingers through his hair.

      "A black coffee and some croissants."

      He rubbed his eyes without answering and walked away.  I was up to my eyes in shadow, an icy, dirty shadow.  It was obvious that the radiator was not working.

      I was not alone.  A woman with a waxy complexion was sitting opposite me and her hands were moving all the time, sometimes smoothing her blouse, sometimes straightening her black hat.  She was with a tall fair-haired man who was eating a brioche without saying a word.  The silence struck me as oppressive.  I wanted to light my pipe, but I would have felt uncomfortable attracting their attention by striking a match.

      The telephone rang.  The hands stopped: they remained pressed against the blouse.  The waiter took his time.  He calmly finished sweeping before going to unhook the receiver.  "Hullo, is that Monsieur Georges?  Good morning, Monsieur Georges.... Yes, Monsieur Georges.... The patron isn't here.... Yes, he ought to be down.... Ah, with a fog like this.... He usually comes down about eight.... Yes, Monsieur Georges, I'll tell him.  Goodbye, Monsieur Georges."

      The fog was weighing on the windows like a heavy curtain of grey velvet.  A face pressed against the pane for a moment and disappeared.

      The woman said plaintively:

      "Do my shoe up for me."

      "It isn't undone," the man said without looking.  She became agitated.  Her hands ran up her blouse and over her neck like big spiders.

      "Yes, yes, do my shoe up."

      He bent down, looking peeved, and lightly touched her foot under the table:

      "It's done."

      She gave a satisfied smile.  The man called the waiter.

      "How much do I owe you?"

      "How many brioches have you had?" asked the waiter.

      I lowered my eyes so as not to seem to be staring at them.  After a few moments I heard a creaking noise and I saw the hem of a skirt and two boots stained with dry mud appear.  The man's shoes followed, polished and pointed.  They came towards me, stopped and turned round: he was putting on his coat.  At that moment a hand started moving down the skirt at the end of a stiff arm; it hesitated slightly, and then scratched the skirt.

      "Are you ready?" asked the man.

      The hand opened and touched a large splash of mud on the right boot, then disappeared.

      "Whew!" said the man.

      He had picked up a suitcase near the coat rack.  They went out, I saw them plunge into the fog.

      "They're on the stage," the waiter told me when he brought me my coffee.  "They've been doing the act in the interval at the Ciné-Palace.  The woman blindfolds her eyes and reads out the name and age of people in the audience.  They're leaving today because it's Friday and the programme changes."

      He went to get a plate of croissants from the table the couple had just left.

      "Don't bother."

      I didn't feel like eating those particular croissants.

      "I'll have to turn out the light.  The patron would give me hell if he found two lamps on for a single customer at nine o'clock in the morning."

      The café was plunged into semi-darkness.  A feeble light streaked with grey and brown was falling now from the tall windows.

      "I'd like to see Monsieur Fasquelle."

      I hadn't seen the old woman come in.  A gust of icy air made me shiver.

      "Monsieur Fasquelle hasn't come down yet."

      "Madame Florent sent me," she went on.  "She isn't well.  She won't be coming today."

      Madame Florent is the cashier, the red-head.

      "This weather," said the old woman, "is bad for her stomach."

      The waiter put on an important air:

      "It's the fog," he answered, "it's the same with Monsieur Fasquelle; I'm surprised he isn't down yet.  Somebody wanted him on the telephone.  Usually he comes down at eight."

      The old woman looked automatically at the ceiling.

      "He's up there, is he?"

      "Yes, that's his room."

      In a drawling voice, as if she were talking to herself, the old woman said:

      "Suppose he's dead...."

      "Well I never!"  The waiter's face showed the liveliest indignation.  "What an idea!"

      Suppose he were dead ... this thought had occurred to me.  It was just the sort of idea you get in foggy weather.

      The old woman went off.  I should have followed her example: it was cold and dark.  The fog was filtering in under the door, it was going to rise slowly and envelop everything.  At the municipal library I should have found light and warmth.

      Once again a face came and pressed against the window; it made grimaces.

      "Just you wait," the waiter said angrily, and he ran out.

      The face disappeared, I remained alone.  I reproached myself bitterly for having left my room.  By this time the fog would have invaded it; I would have been afraid to go back into it.

      Behind the cash-desk, in the shadows, something creaked.  The noise came from the private staircase: was the manager coming down at last?  No: nobody appeared; the stairs were creaking by themselves.  Monsieur Fasquelle was still asleep.  Or else he was dead up there above my head.  Found dead in his bed, one foggy morning.  Sub-heading: in the cafe, customers were drinking unsuspectingly ...

      But was he still in his bed?  Hadn't he fallen out, dragging the sheets with him and bumping his head on the floor?

      I know Monsieur Fasquelle very well; now and then he has asked after my health.  He's a fat jolly fellow, with a carefully trimmed beard: if he is dead it must be from a stroke.  He will be an aubergine colour, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.  His beard in the air; his neck purple under the curling hairs.

      The private staircase disappeared into the dark.  I could scarcely make out the knob of the banister post.  I would have to cross those shadows.  The staircase would creak.  Upstairs, I would find the door of the room....

      The body is there, above my head.  I would turn the switch: I would touch the warm skin to see. - I can't stand it any longer, I get up.  If the waiter catches me on the stairs, I'll tell him that I heard a noise.

      The waiter came in suddenly, out of breath.

      "Yes, Monsieur!" he cried.

      The fool!  He came towards me.

      "That's two francs."

      "I heard a noise up there," I told him.

      "About time too!"

      "Yes, but I think there's something wrong: it sounded like a death-rattle and then there was a thud."

      In that dark cafe, with that fog behind the windowpanes, this sounded perfectly natural.  I shall never forget the look in his eyes.

      "You ought to go up and see," I said maliciously.

      "Oh, no!" he said; then: "I'd be afraid of him catching me.  What time is it?"

      "Ten o'clock."

      "I'll go up at half-past ten, if he isn't down by then."

      I took one step towards the door.

      "You're going?  You aren't staying?"

      "No."

      "It sounded like a real death-rattle?"

      "I don't know," I told him as I went out.  "Perhaps it was just because I was thinking about things like that."

      The fog had lifted a little.  I hurried towards the rue Tournebride: I longed for its lights.  It was a disappointment: true, there was plenty of light, it was streaming down the shop windows.  But it wasn't a gay light: it was all white because of the fog and it fell on your shoulders like a shower.

      A lot of people, especially women: maids, charwomen, ladies too - the sort who say: "I do the shopping myself, it's safer."  They would have a look at the window displays and finally go in.

      I stopped in front of Julien's, the pork-butcher's shop.  Through the glass I could see now and then a hand pointing to the truffled pigs' feet and the sausages.  Then a fat blonde bent forward, showing her bosom, and picked up the piece of dead flesh between her fingers.  In his room, five minutes' walk from there, Monsieur Fasquelle was dead.

      I looked around me for a support, for a defence against my thoughts.  There was none: little by little the fog had broken up, but something disquieting still lingered in the street.  Perhaps not a real menace: it was pale, transparent.  But it was precisely that which ended up by frightening me.  I pressed my forehead against the window.  On the mayonnaise of a stuffed egg, I noticed a dark red drop: it was blood.  This red on that yellow made me feel sick.

      Suddenly I had a vision: somebody had fallen face forward and was bleeding in the dishes.  The egg had rolled in the blood; the slice of tomato which crowned it had come off and fallen flat, red on red.  The mayonnaise had run a little: a pool of yellow cream which divided the trickle of blood into two streams.

      "This is really too silly, I must pull myself together.  I'll go and work in the library."

      Work?  I knew perfectly well that I shouldn't write a single line.  Another day wasted.  Crossing the municipal park, I saw a big blue cape, motionless on the bench where I usually sit.  There's somebody who isn't cold.

      When I entered the reading-room, the Autodidact was just coming out.  He rushed at me:

      "I really must thank you, Monsieur.  Your photographs have given me some unforgettable hours."

      Seeing him, I had a moment's hope: perhaps it would be easier to get through the day if there were two of us.  But with the Autodidact, you are never two in anything but appearance.

      He tapped a quarto volume.  It was a history of religion.

      "Monsieur, nobody was better qualified than Nouçapié to attempt this vast synthesis.  Is that true?"

      He looked weary and his hands were trembling.

      "You look ill," I told him.

      "Ah, Monsieur, I can well believe it!  Something abominable has happened to me."

      The attendant was coming towards us: he is a bad-tempered little Corsican with mustachios like a drum major's.  He walks for hours at a time between the tables, clicking his heels.  In winter he spits into handkerchiefs which he dries out afterwards on the stove.

      The Autodidact came close enough to breathe into my face:

      "I shan't say anything to you in front of this man," he said with a confidential air.  "Monsieur, if you would ..."

      "Would what?"

      He blushed and his hips swayed gracefully:

      "Monsieur, I'm going to take the plunge.  Would you do me the honour of lunching with me on Wednesday?"

      "With pleasure."

      I had as much desire to lunch with him as to hang myself.

      "How happy you have made me," said the Autodidact.  He added rapidly: "I'll come and pick you up at your hotel, if you like," and disappeared, probably for fear that I would change my mind if he gave me time.

      It was half-past eleven.  I worked until a quarter to two.  Poor work: I had a book in front of me, but my thoughts were constantly returning to the Café Mably.  Had Monsieur Fasquelle come down by now?  At heart, I didn't really believe he was dead and it was precisely that which irritated me: it was a floating idea of which I could neither convince myself nor rid myself.  The Corsican's shoes creaked on the floor.  Several times he came and planted himself in front of me, as if he wanted to speak to me.  But he changed his mind and walked away.

      About one o'clock, the last readers went off.  I wasn't hungry; above all I didn't want to leave.  I worked a little longer, then I gave a start: I felt buried in silence.

      I raised my head: I was alone.  The Corsican must have gone down to his wife who is the concierge of the library; I wanted to hear the sound of his footsteps.  The most I could hear was that of a little coal falling inside the stove.  The fog had invaded the room: not a real fog, which had gone a long time before, but the other fog, the one the streets were still full of, which was coming out of the walls and pavements.  A sort of insubstantiality of things.  The books were still there of course, arranged in alphabetical order on the shelves, with their black or brown backs and their labels PU fl. 7.996 (Public Use - French Literature) or PU ns (Public Use - Natural Sciences).  But ... how can I put it?  Usually, strong and stocky, together with the stove, the green lamps, the big windows, the ladders, they dam up the future.  As long as you stay between these walls, whatever comes along must come along to the right or the left of the stove.  If St Denis himself were to come in carrying his head in his hands, he would have to enter on the right, and walk between the shelves devoted to French Literature and the table reserved for women readers.  And if he doesn't touch the ground, if he floats a foot above the floor, his bleeding neck will be exactly at the level of the third shelf of books.  Thus these objects serve at least to fix the limits of probability.  Well, today they no longer fixed anything at all: it seemed that their very existence was being called into question, that they were having the greatest difficulty in passing from one moment to the next.  I gripped the volume I was reading tightly in my hands, but the strongest sensations were blunted.  Nothing looked real; I felt surrounded by cardboard scenery which could suddenly be removed.  The world was waiting, holding its breath, making itself small - it was waiting for its attack, its Nausea, like Monsieur Achille the other day.

      I got up.  I could no longer stay where I was in the midst of these enfeebled objects.  I went to the window and glanced out at the skull of Impétraz.  I murmured: "Anything can occur, anything can happen."  Obviously not the sort of horrible thing that men have invented; Impetraz wasn't going to start dancing on his pedestal: it would be something else.

      I looked in alarm at these unstable creatures which, in another hour, in another minute, were perhaps going to collapse: yes, I was there, I was living in the midst of these books crammed full of knowledge, some of the describing the immutable forms of animal species, and others explaining that the quantity of energy in the world remained unchanged; I was there, standing in front of a window whose panes had an established index of refraction.  But what weak barriers!  It is out of laziness, I suppose, that the world looks the same day after day.  Today it seemed to want to change.  And in that case anything, anything could happen.

      I had no time to lose: at the root of this uneasiness there was the Café Mably affair.  I had to go back there, I had to see Monsieur Fasquelle alive, I had to touch his beard or his hands if need be.  Then, perhaps, I would be free.

      I grabbed my overcoat and threw it round my shoulders; I fled.  Crossing the municipal park, I saw the fellow in the blue cape sitting in the same place; he had a huge pale face between two ears which were scarlet with cold.

      The Café Mably was sparkling in the distance: this time the twelve lamps must be on.  I hurried along: I had to get it over.  First of all I glanced in through the big bay window; the place was empty.  The cashier wasn't there, nor the waiter - nor Monsieur Fasquelle.

      I had to make a great effort to go in; I didn't sit down.  I shouted: "Waiter!"  Nobody answered.  An empty cup on a table.  A lump of sugar in the saucer.

      "Is there anybody here?"

      An overcoat was hanging on a peg.  Some magazines were piled in black cardboard boxes on a small table.  I listened intently for the slightest sound, holding my breath.  The private staircase creaked slightly.  Outside, a boat's hooter.  I walked out backwards, keeping my eyes fixed on the staircase.

      I know: at two in the afternoon customers are few and far between.  Monsieur Fasquelle had influenza; he must have sent the waiter out on an errand - possibly to fetch a doctor.  Yes, but I needed to see Monsieur Fasquelle.  At the entrance to the rue Tournebride I turned round, I gazed in disgust at the bright, empty café.  The venetian blinds on the first floor were closed.

      An absolute panic took hold of me.  I no longer knew where I was going.  I ran along the docks, I turned into the deserted streets of the Beauvoisis district: the houses watched my flight with their mournful eyes.  I kept saying to myself in anguish: "Where shall I go?  Where shall I go?  Anything can happen."  Every now and then, with my heart pounding wildly, I would suddenly swing round: what was happening behind my back?  Perhaps it would start behind me, and when I suddenly turned round it would be too late.  As long as I could fix objects nothing would happen: I looked at as many as I could, pavements, houses, gas lamps; my eyes went rapidly from one to the other to catch them out and stop them in the middle of their metamorphosis.  They didn't look any too natural, but I told myself insistently: "This is a gas-lamp, that is a drinking fountain," and I tried to reduce them to their everyday appearance by the power of my gaze.  Several times I came across bars on my way: the Café des Bretons, the Bar de la Marine.  I stopped, I hesitated in front of their pink net curtains: perhaps these cosy places had been spared, perhaps they still contained a bit of yesterday's world, isolated, forgotten.  But I would have had to push open the door and go in.  I didn't dare; I went on.  The doors of the houses frightened me most of all.  I was afraid that they might open by themselves.  I ended up by walking in the middle of the street.

      I suddenly came out on the quai des Bassins du Nord.  Fishing boats, small yachts.  I put my foot on a ring set in the stone.  Here, far from the houses, far from the doors, I was going to know a moment's respite.  On the calm water, speckled with black spots, a cork was floating.

      "And under the water?  Haven't you thought about what there may be under the water?"

      A monster?  A huge carapace, half embedded in the mud?  A dozen pairs of claws slowly furrow the slime.  The monster raises itself a little, every now and then.  At the bottom of the water.  I went nearer, watching for an eddy, a tiny ripple.  The cork remained motionless among the black spots.

      At that moment I heard some voices.  It was time.  I turned round and started running again.

      I caught up with the two men who were talking in the rue de Castiglione.  At the sounds of my footsteps they gave a violent start and turned round together.  I saw their anxious eyes look at me, then behind me to see if something else was coming.  So they were like me, they were frightened too?  When I passed them we looked at one another: we very nearly spoke.  But our glances suddenly expressed mistrust: on a day like this you don't speak to just anybody.

      I found myself back in the rue Boulibet, out of breath.  Well, the die was cast: I was going to return to the library, take a novel and try to read.  Walking by the railing of the municipal park, I caught sight of the man in the cape.  He was still in the deserted park; his nose had become as red as his ears.

      I was going to push open the gate, but the expression on his face stopped me: he was wrinkling up his eyes and half-grinning, in a stupid, simpering way.  But at the same time he was staring straight ahead at something I couldn't see, with a look so concentrated and intense than I suddenly swung round.

      Opposite him, with one foot in the air and her mouth half-open, a little girl of about ten was watching him in fascination, tugging nervously at her scarf and thrusting her pointed face forward.

      The fellow was smiling to himself, like somebody who is about to play a good joke.  All of a sudden he stood up, with his hands in the pockets of his cape, which reached down as far as his feet.  He took a couple of steps forward and his eyes started rolling.  I thought he was going to fall.  But he went on smiling, with a sleepy air.

      Suddenly I understood: the cape!  I should have liked to stop him.  It would have been enough for me to cough or to push open the gate.  But I in my turn was fascinated by the little girl's face.  Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating madly: but on that rat-like face I could also distinguish something potent and evil.  It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation.  I felt helpless: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama; but they were riveted to each other by the obscure power of their desires, they formed a couple.  I held my breath, I wanted to see what expression would appear on that wizened face when the man, behind my back, opened the skirts of his cape.

      But suddenly, released, the little girl shook her head and started running.  The fellow in the cape had seen me: that was what had stopped him.  For a second he remained motionless in the middle of the path, then he went off.  His cape flapped against his calves.

      I pushed open the gate and caught up with him in one bound.

      "Hey, I say!" I cried.

      He started trembling.

      "A great menace is hanging over the town," I said politely as I walked past him.

      I went into the reading room and I picked up La Chartreuse de Parme from a table.  I tried to bury myself in what I was reading, to find a refuge in Stendhal's bright Italy.  I succeeded at moments, by means of brief hallucinations, then I fell back again into this threatening day, opposite a little old man who kept clearing his throat, and a young man who was leaning back in his chair, dreaming.

      The hours went by, the windows had turned black.  There were four of us, not counting the Corsican who was at his desk, stamping the library's latest acquisitions.  There was that little old man, the fair-haired young man, a young woman who is working for her degree - and I.  Now and then one of us would look up and glance rapidly and suspiciously at the other three, as if he were afraid of them.  At one moment the little old man started laughing: I saw the young woman shudder from head to foot.  But I had read upside down the title of the book he was reading: it was a humorous novel.

      Ten minutes to seven.  I suddenly remembered that the library closed at seven o'clock.  I was going to be thrown out once more into the town.  Where would I go?  What would I do?  The old man had finished his novel.  But he didn't go off.  He started drumming on the table with one finger, with sharp, regular taps.

      "Gentlemen," said the Corsican, "it will be closing time soon."

      The young man gave a start and darted a swift glance at me.  The young woman had turned towards the Corsican, then she picked up her book again and seemed to bury herself in it.

      "Closing time," said the Corsican five minutes later.

      The old man shook his head with an uncertain air.  The young woman pushed her book away, but without getting up.

      The Corsican was at a loss what to do.  He took a few hesitant steps, then turned a switch.  The lamps on the reading tables went out.  Only the centre bulb remained alight.

      "Do we have to leave?" the old man asked quietly.

      The young man got up slowly and regretfully, it was a question of who was going to take the longest time putting on his coat.  When I went out, the woman was still sitting in her chair, with one hand lying flat on her book.

      Down below, the door gaped open into the night.  The young man, who was walking in front, looked back, walked slowly downstairs, crossed the hall; he stopped for a moment on the threshold, then plunged into the darkness and disappeared.

      When I reached the bottom of the stairs I looked up.  After a moment the old man left the reading room, buttoning his overcoat.  When he had come down the first three steps, I took off and dived out, closing my eyes.

      I felt a cool little caress on my face.  In the distance somebody was whistling.  I opened my eyes: it was raining.  A calm, gentle rain.  The square was peacefully lighted by its four lamp-posts.  A provincial square in the rain.  The young man was walking away with great strides; it was he who was whistling: I felt like calling to the two others, who didn't know yet that they could leave without fear, that the menace had passed.

      The little old man appeared at the door.  He scratched his cheek with an embarrassed air, then he smiled broadly and opened his umbrella.