“At what time, please?” He wished her to say something more to him, be it no more than the time of their “meeting again.”
“Seven,” she said on her way out, without a goodbye, in businesslike haste.
Leaving angry gloom in the room — nobody even sneezed after her.
He lay in state: arms down sides, chin above blanket, eyes closed. This is what it will be like one day. Candles, flowers, whispers all around, everything in black. The widow. Acika. An unfitting name for a widow — too coquettish. She “exchanging” glances with “Menthou,” with my nose not even cold yet. It’s best to beat them while you’re still alive, preventively. “Why are you beating me? For staining my memory, you bitch! Two strange trees will grow at the head of my grave, your monument to me — the horns of a cuckold!”—and I’ll carry on: bam! bop! … Or I’ll dispense with the explanation and just beat. No, Acika doesn’t suit her. Not the right name, Acika. Lucretia. — I would have liked your name to be Lucretia. — Why? — Lucretia was a legendary woman. She killed herself after being raped. — I’d kill myself too if that happened to me. — I don’t believe you. — Why? Just because my name is Acika? — I don’t believe in rape any more than I believe in the immaculate conception. I don’t believe a woman can be raped. — It has happened to more than one woman, you know. — It may have happened to some, but only partially. I don’t propose to go into the details, I’ll leave them to your imagination, but the second part of that violent act is no longer violence. — Well, what is it, then? (she, flushed with anger). — A kind of … acceptance, and I won’t swear there isn’t a certain sort of pleasure in it either; a “peculiar” kind of pleasure to be sure; “painful” even, as you might put it. It’s only afterward, when it’s all over and exists only as a memory, that the “shame” sets in. But the shame stems mostly from disappointment. With the man’s savagery and, even more, his lack of consideration, his selfishness and cynicism. If a savage were to convert while on top of her, in a manner of speaking, this could even blossom into love. She would forgive him everything thanks to his subsequent redeeming tenderness. “Ah, I remember how rough you were when you first took me! But I can now confess I liked it so much. What a he-man! A warrior! Then again, perhaps it’s the only way to find true love. You know, we women actually prefer to believe we’re being raped. We would ‘never’ have acquiesced if we hadn’t been ‘forced’ into it. We say, ‘no, no, no,’ don’t we, but woe to him who believes us: we never forgive him for it. Now I’ve told you all.” And then he beats her for being sincere (there, that’s the thanks you get for being sincere with them!) and calls her the worst names he can think of, as you can well imagine. — Ugh! That’s a fine opinion to have of women! Since you’re like that, you can’t really love a single one. It can’t be that all women are tarred by the same brush. Do you really think so about all women? — No, Vivi … er, Acika. That’s what the Parampion — my friend Ugo — thinks, and he fancies all women. — Well, that’s the most repugnant thing — fancying all but loving and respecting none. — But they like him, too! — Every one? — Well, most of them. You, too, would find him appealing if you knew him, precisely because he’s like that. — Then you don’t know me at all! (deeply offended). — No, no, I’m sorry (Melkior took fright), I really don’t know you yet. Nevertheless … (after some timid hesitation) I daresay you, too, are unable to love someone truly — a man, I mean. You belong to the Major’s Samaritan school (that’s why I’m going to give him a kiss tomorrow): a soldier in hospital is a miserable patient and nothing more. Your kindness has only sanitary value. Duty. Therapeutic, optimistic, a cheery atmosphere for the pulmonary patients: the cheerfulness of a headwaiter in the service of good appetite — have a nice time in our establishment. The winsome blandishments of an air hostess at celestial heights. The angelic smiles for sick bodies, for boils, for wounds, for the reek of rotting lungs, the stale stench of candidates for death. What’s a white swan doing in life’s repulsive hellholes? Is this a climate for love? Swan lake …
“You there … whatever your name is,” spoke up Menjou in the end.
“Melkior.” Of course. Here it comes. He had been expecting it.
“You there, Meteor …”
“Melkior!”
“Listen, Meteor,” said Menjou with the greatest contempt, “have you been up to any funny business with her?”
“You won’t thcore with her, my boy …” Herma was saying in an almost friendly tone.
“There have been better Toreadors before you, Mon-sewer Matador, and they’ve all drawn a blank.”
“I was polite with the young lady …”
“Listen to this — he was polite!” exclaimed Menjou, stirring them up.
“She never, never went away like that before, without a goodbye,” said Little Guy to him in a low, confidential voice. “You must’ve offended her in some way.”
“Tho, thee!” jubilated Hermaphrodite maliciously. “You offended the wady!”
“I didn’t say anything bad to her …”
I’m being defensive, thought Melkior, and that’s not good, damn it. The Parampion would have attacked. He would have pulled off a putsch and taken control.
But how do you go about it? (He had long been trying to think of a putsch whereby the red-haired Asclepian would take control of the cannibals.) Perhaps if he opened the window overlooking the courtyard and spoke from there, made a demagogical speech … Oh no, friends and countrymen, I come not to the window to denounce, for Menjou is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men … (muttering in the courtyard — a sign of protest) but only to vindicate my vain heart. You know how weak the human heart is for you are good, kindhearted men; and mine is wounded withal. I would show you my wounded heart, but this dare I not, for I should do Menjou wrong, I should do them all wrong, and they, as you know full well, are honorable men. (Hem, hem — uncertain muttering in the courtyard.) I choose, then, to keep my silence and bear my pain for the sake of peace and for the esteem in which I hold so honorable a man as Menjou. But he says I offended her and was up to, ahem, funny business with her … and his words are prompted by love, by care of her honor, for he is an honorable man and doth love her honorably. He knows, therefore, what love is and could certainly tell you what offense there be in one man’s love that there be not in another’s. I know not — alas! — how my sighs can be an impediment to his love. Can sighs infect the air wherein basks a man’s bliss? I am not the orator Menjou is; I have not the power of speech to couch in sweet-sounding words that which you yourselves do know. But he is wise and eloquent, and thus bound to tell you wherein my offense lay. (Let us ask him! Let him tell us!) He will no doubt answer you for he is indeed an honorable man.
But what will he be able to tell you? That I did with but one finger touch her dress; that and nothing more. What private griefs they have, alas! I know not, that made them call me impertinent. They know it. But what impertinence be there in that light touch of a finger — a finger which fear had made to tremble withal? (A voice: Oh woeful day!) Sweet friends and countrymen, a brazen fellow hath not a blushing cheek, as you know full well. Not a trembler he, but a grabber. And I tremble e’en now at the thought of the touch of that sacred dress. Perhaps she expected me to grab her hand and kiss it. What woman does not? As she was counting the beat of my maddened pulse, perhaps she felt the same stirrings in her own blood? And what is it I did? Nothing, or nearly nothing: I touched her dress with a finger. Did this in me seem brazen? (A voice: Never! Another voice: If thou consider rightly of the matter, he has had great wrong. Third voice: Truly spoken! He is a just man, and they are villains! First voice: We see it now — Menjou is a traitor! Second voice: Let not the traitor live! We’ll burn the bed of Menjou!)