“Every man is like his affliction,” said Kyo: “what does he suffer from?”
“His affliction, don’t you see, has no more importance, no more sense, touches nothing deeper than his lies, or his pleasures; he really has no depth, and that is perhaps what describes him best, because it’s rare. He does what he can to make up for it, but that requires certain gifts. When you’re not tied to a man, Kyo, you think of him in order to foresee his actions. Clappique’s actions. ”
He pointed to the aquarium in which the black carps, soft and lacy like streamers, rose and fell.
“l1iere you have them. He drinks, but he was made for opium: it’s also possible to choose the wrong vice; many men never strike the one that might save them. Too bad, for he is far from being without worth. But his field doesn’t interest you.”
It was true. If Kyo was unable to think in terms of action this evening, neither could he become interested in ideas: he could think only of himself. The heat was penetrating him little by little, as at the Black Cat a while ago; and once more the obsession of the records went through him like the weariness tingling through his legs. He told of his astonishment at the records, but as though he were referring merely to one of the voice- recordings which had been made in the English shops. Gisors listened, caressing his angular chin with his left hand: his hands, with their slender fingers, were very beautiful. He had bent his head forward: his hair feU over his eyes, though his forehead was bald. He threw it back with a toss of the head, but his eyes had a faraway look:
“I’ve had the experience of finding myself unexpectedly before a mirror and not recognizing myself. ” His thumb was gently rubbing the other fingers of his right hand, as though he were sprinkling a powder of memories. He was speaking for himself, pursuing a line of thought which excluded his son:
“It’s undoubtedly a question of means: we hear the voices of others with our ears.”
“And our own?”
“With our throats: for you can hear your own voice with your ears stopped. Opium is also a world we do not hear with our ears..”
Kyo got up. His father scarcely saw him.
“I have to go out again soon.”
“Can I be of any use to you with Clappique?”
“No. Thanks. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Kyo, lying down in an attempt to reduce his weariness, was waiting. He had not turned on the light; he did not move. It was not he who was thinking of the insurrection, it was the insurrection, living in so many brains like sleep in so many others, which weighed upon him to such a point that there was nothing left in him but anxiety and expectation. Less than four hundred guns in all. Victory-or the firing-squad, with some refinements. Tomorrow. No: by and by. A matter of speed: everywhere disarm the police and, with the five hundred Mausers, arm the combat groups before the soldiers of the governmental armored train entered into action. The masses were ready. Half the police, who were dying of starvation, would undoubtedly pass over to the insurgents. Which left the other half. But the insurrection was to begin at one o’clock-the general strike, therefore, at noon-and most of the combat groups had to be armed before five o’clock. “Soviet China/’ he thought. To conquer here the dignity of his people. And the U.S.S.R. increased to six hundred million men. Victory or defeat, the destiny of the world hovered here close by. Unless the Kuomintang, once Shanghai was taken, tried to crush its Communist allies. He started: the garden door was being opened. Recollection buried anxiety: his wife? He listened: the door of the house shut. May entered. Her blue leather coat, of an almost military cut, accentuated what was virile in her gait and even in her face-a large mouth, a short nose, the prominent cheek-bones of the Germans of the North.
“It’s really going to start very shortly, Kyo?
“Yes.
She was a doctor in one of the Chinese hospitals, but she had just come from the section of revolutionary women whose clandestine hospital she directed:
“Always the same story, you know. I’ve just left a kid of eighteen who tried to commit suicide with a razor blade in her wedding palanquin. She was being forced to marry a respectable brute. They brought her in her red wedding gown, all covered with blood. The mother behind, a little stunted shadow, that was sobbing, of course. When I told her the kid wouldn’t die, she said to me: ‘Poor little thing! she would almost have been lucky to die. ’ Lucky. That tells more than al our speeches about the condition of women here. ”
Ger^n, but born in Shanghai, a doctor of Heidelberg and Paris-she spoke French without an accent. She threw her beret on the bed. Her wavy hair was drawn back, so that it would be easy to fix. He felt like stroking it. Her very broad forehead, also, had something masculine about it, but since she had stopped talking she was becoming more feminine-Kyo did not take his eyes off her-because the release of tension softened her features, because fatigue relaxed them, and because she had taken off her beret. It was her sensual mouth and her eyes that animated her face-her eyes, sufficiently bright to make the intensity of her glance seem to come, not from her pupils but from the shadow of her forehead over the wide orbits.
Attracted by the light, a white Pekingese came trotting in. She called it with a tired voice:
“Little woolly dog!”
She caught it in her left hand, raised it caressingly to her face:
“Rabbit,” she said, smiling, “little rabbit.
“He looks like you,” said Kyo.
“Doesn’t he?”
She looked in the mirror at the white head glued against hers, above the little joined paws. The amusing resemblance was due to her high Germanic cheek-bones. Although she was barely pretty, he thought of Othello’s phrase, adapting it: “0 my dear warrior.
She put down the dog, got up. Her half-open coat now partly exposed her high breasts, which reminded one of her cheek-bones. Kyo told her the night’s happenings.
“At the hospital this evening,” she said, “some thirty young women of the propaganda circles who had escaped from the White troops. Wounded. More and more of them are arriving. They say the army is very near. And that there are many killed. ”
“And half the wounded will die. Suffering can have meaning only when it does not lead to death, and that’s where it almost always leads.”
May pondered:
“Yes,” she said at last. “And yet that’s perhaps a man’s idea. For me, for a woman, suffering-it’s strange-makes me think of life rather than of death. Because of child-birth, perhaps. "
She reflected again:
“The more wounded there are, the nearer the insurrection is, the more people go to bed together."
“Yes, it’s natural.”
“I have something to tell you which is perhaps going to annoy you a little. ”
Leaning on his elbow, he gave her a questioning look. She was intelligent and brave, but often clumsy.
“I finally yielded to Langlen and went to bed with ^m, this afternoon."
He shrugged his shoulder, as if to say: “That’s your affair.” But his gesture, the tense expression of his face, contrasted sharply with this indifference. She was watching him, haggard, her cheek-bones emphasized by the vertical light. He too was watching her eyes, expression- les in the shadow, and said nothing. He was wondering if the expression of sensuality in her face was not due to the fact that the obliterated eyes and the slight swelling of her lips, in contrast to her features, violently accentuated her femininity. She sat do^n on the bed, took his hand. He nearly withdrew it, but yielded it. She felt the impulse however:
“Are you hurt?”
“I have told you you were free.. Don’t ask too much,’’ he added bitterly.
The dog jumped up on the bed. He withdrew his hand, to caress it perhaps.