“He stole so much from me that in the end he became as attached to me as a peasant does to the ox that provides him with a living by working the soil. Poor Marcel … I’d send him some sweetmeats, but he’ll be dead before they reach him. His health was bad and, after eight years’ service with me, he was very spoiled. It’s funny to think of him having wartime adventures,” he thought to himself, as he carefully chose a peach.
He usually fell asleep like that, half-undressed, one hand on his book, the other luxuriantly squeezing a piece of fresh fruit as if it were a woman’s breast. He would then wake up fifteen or twenty minutes later, put on his pajamas, cut an orange or a grapefruit in half,
drink a few mouthfuls of the delicious iced juice sprinkled with a little sugar, put down his book, and sleep until morning. But tonight a prolonged earsplitting blast of sound disturbed his sleep. He listened to it incredulously at first, thinking that he was dreaming about Paris and was imagining he was one of those wretched Parisians who were probably just then listening to the sirens in their beds. But he was Hugo Grayer, a neutral, on a neutral ship on a sea that belonged to no one! The call of the sirens reached Hugo’s ears from the depths of the sea and the pinnacle of the heavens, like an echo of those ringing out in a sorrowing Europe: it was a harsh, inhuman voice, quivering with anguish and concern, calling out to all mortals, “Watch out! Be careful! I can do nothing for you except warn you!”
He leaped out of bed and began to dress. Were they being shipwrecked? Impossible, the sea was so calm … Was it a fire, a submarine attack? Doors banged. People ran along the corridors. He put on trousers, socks, and a pullover. He had never felt so alert before, and yet he was very calm.
However, he could not get his jacket on; he could not find the sleeve. But so what! It was warm and “is not the body more than clothing?” This thought stunned him for a moment. From what buried memories did those ancient words come? In shirtsleeves, his life preserver correctly fastened but his soul uncertain and angry (it wasn’t fair; he was a neutral. He wasn’t mixed up in
their arguments. Why had they disturbed him?), Hugo Grayer went up on deck. He was not afraid. Perhaps a very intelligent, well brought up man can’t experience panic-stricken, primitive, animal terror? He was furious. It seemed to him that there must be someone to call to account, someone who had not done what he should, the captain of the ship perhaps, or the company that owned it? He had an acute sense of how ridiculous his situation was. It was vulgar, hateful, to be walking around in shirtsleeves, wearing a life preserver, on the deck of a torpedoed ship.
For now he knew. He had heard other passengers talking as they ran: they were being pursued by submarines. “A mistake they won’t make again,” Hugo Grayer had said at the bar the previous night, forgetting that human nature is fallible and man’s memory short.
He felt reduced to the level of a savage. It was as if, tattooed and with a ring in his nose, he had suddenly been forced to dance! He was a civilized man! He had nothing to do with their war! There were moments when he thought he was still dreaming. Yes, this all had the incoherence, the brutal speed, and unreality of a nightmare, right down to the colors that one sees only in dreams: the purple ink of the shadows, the livid brightness of torches, the blinding light of reflections in the swirling water. Split into small groups, the passengers were waiting at the embarkation points where the lifeboats were to be lowered from the upper deck. In the
darkness Hugo could see diamonds twinkling on bare hands. That’s where his people were; he went to join them. The women had put their fur coats on over their nightdresses and were wearing their jewels safely next to their skin, believing this to be more secure than leaving them in a case that might be dropped as they jumped into the sea.
Mechanically Hugo adjusted his life preserver and looked at the black water. The first boats were just being lowered when there was a blast of gunfire. A smell of gunpowder wafted past Hugo’s astonished nostrils; it was a smell he had never experienced, but something in him recognized it; it was a coarse, violent smell that aroused a muffled excitement rather than terror. A shudder ran right through him, from his narrow feet to his pale hands, and it seemed to him that death was touching him, blowing in his mouth, and grabbing him by the hair. Nearby there were screams of pain and fear. There was a second, then a third burst of gunfire.
An invisible hand was shuffling, shaking up and mixing all these hitherto separate groups of people, as if they were ingredients in a cocktail shaker. First- and third-class passengers, women in mink coats, young German-Jewish children on their way to an Uruguayan orphanage with an American charity: they were all running together now, bumping into one another as they rushed toward the boats that were slowly being lowered into the sea. A shell whistled past Hugo. It did not hit
him, but someone nearby who pulled him down as he fell.
At that very moment the moon rose with a horribly theatrical brilliance, just like a spotlight over a stage. Hugo saw a woman who had been cut in half. Her head with its dark hair, her ears with their silver earrings, and her torso were intact, but her legs had been blown off. There were cries of “the torpedo!” and everyone crowded onto the starboard side, away from the expected point of impact. The crowd was now behaving as one, quivering like an animal about to be whipped. Hugo got up and ran farther off. The first torpedo had missed them. The second arrived. It seemed strange still to be alive. The second went through the bow of the ship.
There were very few boats left that were of any use: some of the lifeboats had been smashed and several sailors killed by the shelling. Hugo realized that he would not get a place on one; there were too many women and children on board. He jumped into the sea. He didn’t know how to swim. Buoyed up by his life preserver, he made futile and exhausting efforts to get away from the ship. The waves played with him, tossing him from one to another with ironic condescension.
A lifeboat went past, but no one saw him. At last he was noticed by some sailors on a raft. They had picked up some women and children floating in the sea, and now Hugo. They wanted to get away from the torpedoed
ship, but the wind was blowing them back. They were still close, horribly close … They did not have time to worry about the survivors lying at their feet. Hugo had injured his hip jumping into the water. He was lying among people as drenched as he, as frozen as he, and as dazed as he, none of whom could help him. There were two little girls beside him. They must have been part of the group of orphans traveling to Uruguay; their wet hair hung limply over their pale faces. He could give them nothing. He tried to talk to them, to reassure them. They did not reply; they did not understand. Like him, they were awaiting death, for although the ship was still afloat, it would soon capsize and the raft would go down with it, sucked in by the backwash.
Hours passed, as slow and confusing as a night of fever. He was shivering with cold. The wind that had seemed so soft was in fact bitterly cold. It would soon be daylight.
He asked one of the sailors, “Are there many dead?”
He did not know. A woman sitting near Hugo, probably one of the chambermaids, as she addressed him formally, answered, “Monsieur cannot imagine how many bodies I’ve seen.”
The ship was still afloat. Fascinated, he watched the black hull that, like a careless fish, would soon dive below the water, taking them with it. Was Hugo afraid of death? He had always thought not—but it’s one thing to see death at the end of a long road, a natural end to a
long and happy life, quite another to think that this very night, this very morning, these very moments, might be his last. And what a death! In the dawning light he looked at the water.
It was terrifying. It was being churned up by the wind, bringing to the surface a sort of scum that could not be seen in broad daylight or from the top deck of a ship; foam, seaweed, and the thousands of bits of rubbish floating there since the previous day, or since time began, created a greenish sludge that Hugo contemplated with horror. Where was the fresh sea of a September morning on a French beach? Was this what it concealed in its depths? The waves rose and fell all around him, and he was surrounded by steam, shadows, and ghosts.
Occasionally he became confused again. What was he doing here? Hugo Grayer, a victim of the war, how ridiculous! With every wave, he thought, “This time, it’s the end!” But the raft was solid. It was not sinking, but it was not making any progress.
“If I could row, it would help,” Hugo thought.
But where would he find the strength to pick up oars? His hip was so painful … He felt as if he had been lying there for weeks, or even months, although in moments of lucidity he realized that it was barely daylight, that the torpedo had struck in the middle of the night, that he had been suffering like this for only a few hours—the period of time that had once separated
lunch from dinner, or a concert, or one pleasure from another. Five or six hours at most! How short that was! How long! How long it was when every second trickled by in beads of anguished sweat! How cold he was! Suddenly his stomach heaved and he vomited. He wanted to turn his head away out of a sense of decency, but he found his neck was too stiff to move; he remained lying down, vomiting over himself like an animal.
“Monsieur is ill,” the woman next to him said compassionately. The awful retching had relieved him for a moment and he was able to reply, “No, it’s nothing.”
He suddenly remembered that once—a century ago, or was it yesterday?—he had said to someone—Magda? Someone else?—that he was curious to know what sort of emotions would be aroused by extreme danger. Now he knew. He also knew that everything was not immediately lost, that shame, pity, and human solidarity stayed alive in people’s hearts. It gave him some comfort to know that he had answered with a measure of dignity. He wanted to do better. Painfully, he breathed, “Thank you.”
“You’re very cold, monsieur …”
She was no longer speaking so formally. She took Hugo’s pale, inert hands in hers and held them; she squeezed them, gently rubbing each one as she lifted it …
There was no end to the suffering his poor body could endure. His hip was being stabbed cruelly and
relentlessly, as if a wicked and intelligent lobster were digging at him with its pincers. Seasickness added to his appalling feeling of cold and abandonment. The day was passing. He dozed, cried out. No one could help him. They looked at him with pity; that was all they could offer him. To hell with their pity! He, too, had watched with compassion as French soldiers went off to fight. Enough, he’d had enough! It was time for these horrible waves to stop! It was time for some warmth! Time to stop seeing those little girls’ faces in front of him, as pale and lifeless as dead fish! How tolerable misfortunes appear when they affect only other people! How strong the human body seems when it’s another man’s flesh that bleeds! How easy it is to look death in the face when it’s another man’s turn! Well, now it was his turn. This was no longer about a Chinese child, a Spanish woman, a Central European Jew, or those poor charming Frenchmen, but about him, Hugo Grayer. It was about his body being tossed about in the spume of the waves, his vomiting; it was about his frozen, lonely, wretched, shivering self! How often, before going to bed, had he casually crumpled the newspaper he had been reading, in which there were stories about air raids, torpedoes, or fires—oh, so many of them that he wearied of pity? So tomorrow, decent, untroubled people would briefly consider the picture of a calm, smooth sea with its floating wreckage and would not lose an hour’s sleep over it or pause over their breakfast. His
body would be bloated by the water, eaten by sea creatures, while in a cinema in New York or Buenos Aires the screen would show “The first neutral ship torpedoed in this war!” Then it would be old news, of interest to nobody. People would be thinking about other things, their ailments and their little irritations. Boys would grab hold of girls’ waists in the dark; children would suck their sweets.
It was appalling; it was unfair! The whole lot of them were behaving like chickens that allow their mothers and sisters to have their throats cut while they carry on clucking and pecking at their food. They did not understand that it was this passivity, this silent acquiescence, that would, when the time came, also deliver them up to a strong, merciless hand. Hugo thought suddenly that he had always proclaimed his hatred of violence and how it was one’s duty to be opposed to evil. Hadn’t he said that? Perhaps he had not had time to say it, but one thing was certain: he had always thought it, professed it, believed it! And now here he was in this terrible situation, while others … others, in their turn, would maintain their fastidious scruples, parade their well-meaning neutrality, and enjoy delightful peace of mind.
Meanwhile the hours dragged on …
Monsieur Rose
[ MR. ROSE ]
HE WAS AS ALOOF AND SELF-CONTAINED AS A CAT.
He had an easy life; he had never married; and he was rich. Ever since he had been a child his face had had a condescending, mocking expression that inspired respect. He seemed to think that the world was peopled by fools; that, in fact, was what he did believe, and there was little to be said in response. He was well into his fifties, with nice plump cheeks, a sharp, authoritative voice, a sensitive and discreet manner, and a pointed wit. He had a good wine cellar and gave excellent dinners for selected friends. To get to know a man, you have to see him at the table or with a woman he finds attractive: whether he was peeling a piece of fruit, or kissing a woman’s hand, Monsieur Rose showed the same fastidious, coaxing attention.
He cared for no one; he hated no one. The general opinion was that he was the most easygoing man in the world. He managed his fortune remarkably well. He had traveled a great deal in his youth, but this no longer gave him any pleasure. He lived on the Boulevard Malesherbes, in the house where he was born. He slept in the same room, in exactly the same corner that his bed had been as a child. His monotonous, reclusive life held joys known only to him. He approved of simple pleasures: long walks, strolls, reading, the same liqueur drunk at the same time every evening in the same quiet bar, children’s treats—fondant creams, chocolates, soft-centered sweets; he never picked out a praline rashly but, through half-closed eyes, would look thoughtfully at the pink bag and then, with a little sigh, choose one and delicately put it in his mouth. He thought that one should plan ahead, weigh things up, be wary of the unknown. He was happy to admit that this was not always easy, but patiently he tried to ward off misfortune.