Authors: Albert Cohen
In a toyshop, he buys a little articulated skier and a set of brightly coloured cornelian marbles. His eye is drawn by a false nose made out of cardboard. He buys that too, telling the assistant that his little boy will love it. Once outside, he takes the skier out of his paper bag, holds him by the arm, and swings him round and round. We're strolling along together. A bookshop. He stops, goes in, and buys a copy of
The Case of the Painted Parrot,
a detective novel spawned by the small brain of a large and elderly Englishwoman. A florist's. He stops, goes in, and orders three dozen roses to be delivered to the George V but dares not give his name. Room three-three-oh. Urgent. They're for a friend. 'I love you, you know,' he mutters reaching the street once more. Overall, he'd been treated quite decently by the florist. He claps his hands once. 'Come on, let's have some fun,' he murmurs.
All alone in the big city, he walks on, dragging his heart, dragging himself down the long streets, and watches as two army officers pass gaily by, talking in loud voices, for they have an absolute right to talk
in loud voices. To comfort himself, for the companionship of it, he buys a bar of milk chocolate. When the chocolate is all gone, he moves on again, alone once more. Dull-eyed and slack-mouthed, he stumbles on, feet uncertain, humming a happy tune in a low but expressive voice, to fill the emptiness. He takes
The Case of the Painted Parrot
out of his pocket and reads as he walks, so that there is no need to think.
A crowd outside a church. He stops, puts his book under his arm, and watches. There is a red carpet on the steps. Self-important assistants are arranging the display of potted plants. Now the fat church verger appears with his wand. A notable marriage is about to be celebrated. Large limousines. A lady in sky blue holds out her hand to a general in white gloves. Humiliated, he flees, humming an exorcising song, swinging his little skier.
He gives a start when he spots a policeman away to his left who is keeping pace with him. He whistles out of tune to demonstrate that he has nothing on his conscience, puts on a nonchalant little smile, he's not worried, the picture of innocence. I hate your guts, he tells him to himself. Go up to him straightforwardly and ask the way to the Madeleine to allay his suspicions? No, the best policy is to have nothing at all to do with the police. Quickening his step, he crosses from one pavement to the other. 'Foxed you,' he murmurs and walks on, clearing his throat at regular intervals, a man alone beating time to his thoughts with glottal clearings of his throat.
A photographer's shop window. He stops to look at the faces caught in a state of grace, free of the meanness of daily life. When people pose for a photograph, they smile, they are kindly disposed, their soul is garbed in its finest raiment. They are a pleasure to look at, they are seen at their best. A pleasure to behold, that workman there in his new suit, standing beside a table holding a book, with one leg hooked round the other and one foot arched. That's enough of that. He crosses the road, drawn to trees. He sits on a bench. All these people who pass by are going about occasions which though lawful are utterly poindess, such as going to the barber's or paying visits to electricity or gas showrooms. But if he were to ask them to save him, for instance by signing a petition, no chance. Chat to a barber? Yes. Spend hours looking at vacuum cleaners? You bet. But lift a finger to save a man's life? No. And all these women walking along, prettily mincing, heels tapping as they go, serenely believing that they will live for ever.
A little old man has just sat down on the bench and says: 'Morning.' You say 'Morning' because you don't know who I am. 'Nice day today,' the old man says, but the rain last week played the devil with his rheumatics. At his age, what with his rheumatics and his stomach that's playing up, he's not fit for doing skilled work any more. Just raising his arm makes him dizzy, but you got to when you're a decorator, not up to doing ceilings any more, the minute he gets anywhere near a ladder, that's it, he goes all giddy, everything goes round and round, so now all he does is a bit of odd-jobbing. 'And what line are you in, then?' he says. 'I'm a violinist,' says Solal. 'Ah, it's a gift is fiddling, you either got it or you haven't.' The conversation continues, takes a friendly turn. Oh yes, from now on all his friendships will be temporary. A quarter of an hour with a stranger and that's it. Can't be helped, grateful for whatever crumbs come his way, listen to what the old fool is saying. For more than a year she has been the only person he has talked to. 'Now your average Frenchman is a individdlest,' the old man says. And that too is friendship: the old man lays a table for him spread with the finest contents of his little brain, a posh word which he's read somewhere or heard a mate of his say. He puts it on display, rolls it round his tongue. It feels good when you can use words above your station. 'Myself, I reckon the Jews are to blame,' he ends. It was bound to come, of course. Oh poor innocent! Like a pickpocket in reverse, he quietly slips a banknote into the pocket of the jacket of the old man who is unsuspectingly cataloguing the crimes of the Jews. He stands up, shakes his roughened hand, smiles into his blue eyes, and moves on. There is a philosopher, Sartre, who has written that man is absolutely free and personally responsible for his moral actions. It is a middle-class idea, the idea of someone who has led a sheltered life, who has never had to stand on his own two feet.
Streets and yet more streets. Suddenly, two crashed cars, a policeman writing an accident report, onlookers arguing about the incident. He listens, joins in, ashamed for falling so low, but it's a good feeling. A group is anonymous, it's not like a someone you sense is hostile, a person who makes your blood run cold. Besides, it puts you in touch with the collective. You are part of it, you belong, you can say your piece, you can agree about the cause of the accident, you can smile at the others, you are all equal, you rub shoulders, you can criticize the driver who is to blame, you love each other.
The group has broken up. Goodbye love. He resumes his walking and crosses a square. A toddler staggering like a drunken man. A toddler is delightful, for a toddler is not dangerous, a toddler does not judge Jews. He feels like kissing him. No, his hair is too fair. Twenty years from now and he'll be a raging anti-Semite. He leaves the square. A regiment of soldiers. Must be the Foreign Legion, since they have white markings on their caps. Now legionnaires are happy men. Obeying orders, giving orders, never alone. He suddenly realizes that he is marching along with them, has fallen in with their despicable inilitary step which brings disgrace on the whole human race, is keeping time to the band just yards from a gallows-faced Heutenant with long sideboards. What if he enlisted? He wouldn't be asked to show his papers, he could give a false name. How about Jacques Christian'?
The church he passed a while back. The red carpet's gone. Tonight there'll be one virgin less. Pity. There aren't that many around. The church bells ring out, but not for him. They are summoning the fortunate, those whose cup of communion runneth over, calling them to their delectable duty, bidding them come warm themselves, inviting them to be together, to come in out of the cold, to mingle like the sounds of the tolling bells, sounds that tell of gladness and community, sounds that merge and blend in joy. Should he convert? He could never convert from conviction, but he might if it meant he would be one of them, if it meant being accepted. His intelligence and drive would make him be more Catholic than they, though he would not believe in their dogma. But he would exemplify and magnify their dogma once he'd taken holy orders and become a famed preacher of the Word, widely respected and loved by all. What acquaintances would he not have then, what friendships! Yes, loved by all, that was the thing. Another policeman watches him with the fixed, inane, dumbly insolent look usually seen on the faces of cows. He crosses the road to the pavement opposite.
Streets and yet more streets. On he goes with hunger in his heart and mistrust in his eye, on and on, a Jew humming a sad song, humming out of key, rolling his eyes like a lunatic to make the time pass, dipping into another bag* of oily, roasted, companionable peanuts, wandering into an amusement arcade to watch the balls crashing around the electric pin-tables, but most often muttering to himself and swinging his arms in time to his thoughts. At Easter, go to Rome and join the crowd cheering the Pope. No one will know what he is, he'll be able to shout 'Long live the Pope!' with the rest of them. He'd heard the 'Song of the Volga Boatmen' on the wireless the other day. Oh for a land where men would welcome him with open arms and kiss him on the lips! Stir yourself, speak, walk, don't stop, say something, anything. A writer's eccentricities fuel his writing. If an author has a neurotic obsession with trifles which leads him to attach vast importance to such small matters as, say, the knotting of his tie, it is this self-same absurd attention to minutiae which gives his work its particular charm, its ripeness, its wealth of detail. He is afraid to attract attention. He keeps his eyes down, believing that by doing so he will be invisible. A born suspect. Will they turn him into an anti-Semite? Is he one already? Is his pride merely a cover for shame and loathing? Is he proud because there is nothing else he can be? Come on, speak, say something, so that he shall not know his fate, say something quickly, oh why don't the words come? How serious Ariane looks when she is being praised for her beauty, she takes it all in and sighs happily and puts on her good-little-girl face. Darling girl, so faithful, so gullible, and destined to be deceived. She would have been better off with the lord who climbed mountains, an oaf with Character. Poor kid. She has no luck.
*
Quick, more words, anything, paper over the misery with words. Each day when he was Under-Clown-General he would go among ersatz versions of his fellow men and find a kind of brotherhood, for though they did stupid things at least they did them together, and the brotherliness was wholesome. Quick, more words: if you stop talking the misery breaks through. He can't make out the change he is given, can't work out if it is right. He pretends to check so that the shopkeeper is not surprised. When that girl assistant in the grocer's realized she'd given him too much change, she smiled nicely just to say she didn't hold him to blame for the close shave she'd had. And the look that man had given him the other day when he'd said he'd forgotten his wallet, such a suspicious look, the look an honest man gives when confronted by a shady customer. Be an officer, but just a lieutenant. Obey, give orders, belong, know your place, have uncoin-plicated dealings with other people. Or else live alone with a kitten, which will have no idea that he is a pariah and will be happy to be with him and won't be troubled by a discontented, censorious, adulterous unconscious. Keep her in his room in the George V and kiss her fondly all the time and say: 'Pretty pussy, we're happy together you and I, you don't need anyone but me.' The sealed packet. All the care she'd taken to work out her plan. The large envelope which he'd received poste restante containing the sealed packet and her little note. He knows the little note by heart. He's going to recite it. 'Darling, In the enclosed packet sealed with sealing-wax are photographs of me. I took them all by myself: they're time exposures. I warn you now. They're a weeny bit risque. If you don't care for the idea, please, please tear them up without looking at them. If you do look at them and you like them, wire and tell me. Naturally I developed and printed them myself. Don't open the sealed packet until you are all by yourself, and then only if you really want to.' Crossing the street will bring him luck. Cross now. No, green light, have to wait. If it turns red before you get to seven it'll be a sign that everything will turn out right. Six. Red light. He shrugs his shoulders and crosses. A group of building workers sitting with their backs to the wall eating their snap. Chatting together as they chew their sausage. An act of communion, a ritual to warm the heart.
Streets and yet more streets. Wake up, more words, words to fill the vacuum. Despair is waiting in the wings to pounce at the first drop of silence. How about going to see a doctor? He'll have to sit in the waiting-room under the fierce eye of some wounded tigress, but then he'll have a friend for a quarter of an hour, a brother who will take an interest in him and lay a perfumed head on his bare chest for twenty or maybe a hundred francs. A hundred francs isn't a lot for a quarter of an hour's kindness. No, the doc will tell him to strip so that he can examine him and he'll see, he'll notice. Doctors are all anti-Semites. Like lawyers. Maybe he is too. Yes, when he gets back to the hotel, tear them up without looking at them. Or maybe go to a barber who will look after him, shave him, talk to him, love him. Barbers are less anti-Semitic than people in the liberal professions, except if your hair crinkles too much. The newspaper report about the body of the child found in Fontainebleau forest. They'll make out it was a ritual murder, and he has no alibi. The good-looking newspaper-boy on the boulevard the other day had yelled: 'Read all abaht it! Get your
Antijuif
'ere!' And lots of people had bought
L'Antijuif.
He had too, couldn't resist it. He read it as he walked along, bumping into passers-by while looking at a cartoon showing a pot-bellied banker with a top-hat and a large nose. Heal thyself, stop thinking about their hate all the time. Ask someone the way to the Place de la Concorde, to get back into the way of having normal relations with others, to get into the habit, to get over it. Perhaps the man he asks will answer him civilly. Or should he ask him for a light? The man smiles benevolently while another man uses his flame to light a cigarette.
Streets and yet more streets. In his mouth is the cheap, unclean fetor, the depressing, cloying after-taste of peanuts. On he goes, with shoulders hunched and eyes like two narrow slits. Another square. A dog sniffing round the base of a tree for a smell which will catch his fancy.'O happy dog! Quickly now, have some thoughts, any thoughts. How can you believe what they say if you only see things from the outside? 'God, it's a joke,' he mutters and looks round to see if anyone is listening. In reality the fear of dying has given them mental dyspepsia and they wallow in the diarrhoea it produces. 'Their patriotism, what a joke,' he mutters, and looks round to see if anyone is listening. To die defending your hot-water bottle is the best, the most enviable of fates. The way they pause for One Minute's Silence (just the one) to honour their dead and then go off to lunch. The cleric on the wireless who spoke of grief, a decidedly cold fish who said mere words, paused to clear his throat, and talked of grief in a comfortable voice. The other day he'd felt so alone there in the street, was swamped by such pain that before he could go back to his hotel he had needed to be stayed by chocolate cakes, which he bought in cakeshops along his way. Only those fortunate enough to have a regular place in society hanker after solitude, and they do so with such stupid smugness. Last Sunday morning the bells of the nearby church had rung out, and he had heard them ring even though he had put his head under the pillow so that he would not hear their summons, their tolling happiness.