Alone on the far side of the château his steps become slower and slower until he finally stops altogether. The strokes of the stable clock sound like five languid birds floating on the warm air. He must hurry if he is not to be late for his game. He knows he ought to walk quickly up the hill, but instead he stands motionless, with drooping shoulders, the racquet dangling limp from his hand. He is suffering the reaction from his recent display of sociability and vivaciousness. An expression that is at the same time bitter and mournful overshadows his face, he feels lonely, resentful, depressed. The remainder of the day stretches before him in a dreary vista of boredom, like a dull newspaper that he has already read through many times. He thinks with distaste, with irritation, of the tennis and of his partner, the red-haired American girl who sulks whenever they lose a game. She will be waiting for him now up there on the court, beginning to get bad tempered because he is five minutes late.
‘Confound them all! Why should I play when I don’t feel like it?’ he mutters under his breath. And suddenly he turns his back on the path leading up the hill and walks down towards the lake again, passing this time round the opposite side of the château, so that he emerges on a part of the lawn some distance away from the groups at the tea-tables. Although he walks quickly he has no object in view, but is merely expressing an instinctive rebellion against the boring tennis, the detestable American girl.
The low wall bordering the lake pulls him up short. He pauses irresolute, with a sense of frustration, not knowing what to do next. Finally he sits down on the warm stone wall, letting his legs hang over the water. A clump of bushes conceals him from the distant people, not one of whom seems to have noticed his presence. This makes him feel isolated, a sensation not at all pleasing to his nature, but one from which he nevertheless derives a certain masochistic satisfaction just now. For some seconds he gazes idly into the shallow, transparent, almost stagnant water through which shoals of tiny fish are busily moving. Although the water is clear it has a tepid, stale look; all sorts of unappetizing scraps of refuse have collected on the stony bed of the lake. A black, thin shape like a minature eel comes wriggling through the shallows towards the stones at the edge; it is a leech. With a suppressed exclamation of disgust Marcel looks in another direction.
His glance now falls on a rowing boat moored a few yards away. Usually the boat is padlocked to an iron ring in the wall, but now it is only loosely secured by a knotted rope. He vaguely remembers seeing the gym mistress unfasten the padlock while he was sitting at tea. Perhaps some of the patients are going out for a row. Well, that does not interest him any more than the tennis. He raises his wide, bright, unstable eyes and sees, straight across the smooth water, the French coast with its mountains and its lower hills crested with countless poplars.
Immediately a new thought sequence springs to activity in his brain. ‘It’s high time I went home. I ought to get back to work or I shall be losing all my connections. A barrister can’t afford to take such long holidays, even if he has a rich wife —’ He tries to reckon up how many months he has spent in the clinic, but somehow the calculation eludes him, and this inability to concentrate on a simple question of dates increases his general discontent. ‘All the days are alike in this wretched place — One quite loses count of time,’ he thinks angrily. And then: ‘Why are they still keeping me here? I’m quite well — it’s not as if there ever was much wrong with me. I’d been overworking — I only needed a rest. Now I’m perfectly fit, and yet they still keep me hanging about — wasting my time.’ He scowls as he thinks of the doctors, of the evasive replies they give him when he suggests fixing a day for his departure. ‘Of course, it’s just a money-making concern: they’re all a lot of sharks trying to make as much out of us as they can.’
The mental picture of his wife now passes before him, a handsome young woman, rather plump, and beautifully dressed in black with pearls round her throat: it is she who is paying for him to stay at the clinic. An atrocious suspicion that often crosses his mind causes him to pick up a stone and hurl it viciously into the lake, startling the small fish out of their ceaseless voyaging. ‘No, it’s simply not possible — no one could be so wicked, so unscrupulous. I mustn’t allow myself to imagine such terrible things.’
All the same, he can no longer remain quietly sitting on the wall, but jumps up and takes a few restless paces in the direction of the rowing boat, above which he stands, tapping his foot against the iron ring to which the mooring rope is attached.
‘If only I could be certain what’s going on at home. If only I could get back,’ he says to himself, now for the first time admitting in his own mind that there exists some obstacle to his departure. A fantasy of leave-taking next occupies him: he imagines himself packing his luggage, going up to the chief doctor and demanding his money, his passport, booking a sleeper on the Paris train. ‘Yes, I’ll do it,’ he says aloud, twice, first with enthusiasm, then with dwindling conviction. But he does not move to put the plan into practice: something which he cannot, dare not, acknowledge, forbids him to make the attempt.
Instead, he begins to think nostalgically of his old life, of the gaiety of the city, of his work, and of his friends who will be so pleased to see him again. He looks across the lake at the mountains of Savoie, his own country: and it seems to him that only this negligible strip of water, which looks as smoothly solid as if one could walk over it, divides him from the fulfilment of his desires.
A sudden idea comes to him, and it is curious to observe the rapid change in his face which now all at once assumes a mischievous, crafty expression. He glances at the people sitting rather more than the width of the chateau away. Enervated by the hot afternoon, not a soul seems to have moved, not a soul is paying any attention to him. He stoops down and with hurried movements unfastens the knotted rope: then springs into the boat and hastily rows off. A few strong pulls carry him round a small promontory, out of sight of the chateau grounds. Smiling, with an almost roguish look, he rows on with powerful, regular strokes.
Soon he is far out from the land, alone in his boat in the midst of the practically colourless expanse of smooth water. About half a dozen other small boats are scattered over the lake. They are far away from him, but he is glad of their presence which means that his own boat will be less conspicuous from the shore. There is no breeze, it is very hot, the air shimmers with heat. Sweat rolls down Marcel’s face, but he does not mind; still smiling his roguish smile, he wipes the sweat out of his eyes and rows on. His bare, brown, muscular arms swing to an indefatigable rhythm. This man who could not find energy for a game of tennis is now quite happy toiling in the blind watery glare, gratified by his own strength.
It is further than he expected across the lake, but before very long the French coast is appreciably nearer, he can distinguish the windows of houses, then human figures, then dogs and chickens moving about. He rows parallel with the shore for a little way seeking a secluded landing place: he has the idea that it might be wiser not to land in a village where he could be questioned immediately. He has not formulated any plan of action as yet. So far, he has been occupied solely with the physical effort and with the elation he feels at his own enterprise.
Now he has found just the place to land, a curved beach like a diminutive bay, out of sight of all dwellings, with green grass banks rising steeply above. He brings the boat close to the shore but makes no attempt to disembark. He sits still, with the oars trailing in the water and the sweat slowly drying on his face which now begins to acquire a look of uncertainty. Why does he hesitate? All he has to do is to ground the boat, to jump out and climb up the bank into his own land. True, he has no passport and only a few coins of trifling value in his pockets: but still, he will be free, safe, among his own countrymen. He has only to explain his position to someone in authority and all will arrange itself satisfactorily: a telephone call will be put through to Paris, his railway fare will be advanced to him, he will be at home in the morning.