‘And my name is Pascal. Blaise Pascal. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Yes, but you’re not Blaise Pascal.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘You don’t look like him. He was clean-shaven and neatly dressed.’
‘You’re talking about my physical appearance. What about his soul? I’ve run into his soul here, Monsieur, wandering in the damp woods of the Chevreuse valley, lingering by the noisome waters of these pools. I have merely given it a body, my own. His soul is warm there; it no longer wanders cold and alone, and I’d go so far as to say that it’s enjoying itself. I grant you it’s not inventing wheelbarrows, problems of geometry or pulley systems to draw water from a well, but it has other amusements. We discuss grace and the world’s folly and talk to the animals.’
He stood up and raised his hat, revealing his baldness and a dirt-encrusted scalp.
‘It’s been my pleasure, Monsieur Arnaud.’
‘Mine too.’
He took three steps and paused.
‘That’s not just a figure of speech. I have greatly enjoyed our conversation. Perhaps I’ve exaggerated to myself the inanity of intercourse with my fellow men. Where do you live? Oh … don’t worry … I’ve no intention of visiting … Purely curiosity.’
‘A Spanish friend has bought an old farmhouse behind the birch forest. He’s a painter.’
‘Are you talking about that tall hairy fellow always in his shirtsleeves? I’ve seen him sawing wood. A painter? Now that’s interesting. I find art to be window dressing. I mean the art of today. I once had a collection of paintings, can you imagine? And you have no idea how easily one can do without. Adieu! Or perhaps au revoir. Who knows? If you’re passing my house — a delightful Louis XIII hunting lodge — tap on one of the few remaining window panes. I’ll always be happy to see you. You have a pleasing face. We’ll talk of those “gentlemen”, of Mother Angélique25 and Saint-Cyran26 … What formidable intelligence! And we’ll speak ill of the Jesuits … I hope you weren’t raised by them …’
‘No. I was cast in the ordinary mould of village primary school and lycée.’
‘I detest the Jesuits. Well, cordially detest them.’
He made a comical gesture with his arms as if he was about to strangle the entire community. His laughter followed him as he plunged into the wood, where the hessian of his sacks camouflaged him instantly.
Jean clapped his palms together. The teal took off and spiralled up above the pool before hiding themselves again in the reeds.
Jesús was sawing the last log.
‘One hun’red! And Chris’mas mornin’! I am the only man in the worl’ who ’as sawed one hun’red logs today. Come inside. Lunch mus’ be on the table. The boy came to find you three times.’
Laura did not join them. Jesús said she did not want to make their lunch gloomy. She was not hungry. She had not cried but sat still in an armchair, next to the window, her eyes full of images. When he bent over her he could see her brother there, playing with her as a boy, a garden, a wide meadow where there stood ricks of hay that they sprawled on, a sandy Baltic beach, bordered by a curtain of mist hiding the boats whose anxious foghorns sounded at regular intervals. Jesús told himself that when she had reviewed these images she would feel quieter. They were her prayer for the dead, for a young infantry lieutenant buried beneath the snow.
Jean told the story of his encounter that morning. Cyrille wanted to talk to the scarecrow who did not scare away the teal. Jesús had never seen him, but knew of his existence. At Gif, in the cafés and shops, they discussed the man in the woods as if he was a legend. A few walkers had glimpsed him fleeing at their approach. A search by the gendarmes had produced no results. They had entered the hunting lodge, which was a true pigsty. Yet the man existed, and Jesús had sensed him one day outside the front door, invisible in the bushes, spying on him. A sensation more than a certainty. A madman, without a doubt.
‘He’s not mad at all!’ Jean said. ‘Very sensible, actually, apart from the fact that he thinks he’s Blaise Pascal.’
‘Blaise Pascal?’ Cyrille said. ‘I know him. He plays every morning in the Luxembourg Gardens. He’s a little boy. He wears red. He’s got a submarine.’
‘So there are several Blaise Pascals. Why shouldn’t the man in the woods be one of them?’
Jesús admitted he did not know Blaise Pascal and that, being wholly ignorant of his personality, he did not see why the teal hunter should not call himself that. For one thing, the little boy in red with the submarine claimed that was his name and nobody thought he was mad, since they let him carry on playing in the Luxembourg Gardens.
‘What’s even more interesting than his name,’ Jean said, ‘is what he lives on. He doesn’t smoke or drink, and boasts about it, which would seem to indicate that he must once have smoked and drunk a lot. He also claims to have once possessed a collection of paintings …’
‘I can do him a drawing,’ Cyrille said. ‘Jesús showed me how.’
‘If you like I’ll take him one, and perhaps he’ll rediscover his taste for life when he finds out it’s the work of a small boy. Then I’ll know who he really is.’
‘I want to go and see him now.’
Jesús promised Cyrille he would take him.
After lunch Claude bundled up her son and he went out with Jesús. Jean stayed behind, standing warming himself at the fire. He watched Claude clear the table. She had not said a word during lunch.
‘Come here. I want to be alone with you.’
‘We are alone.’
‘No. The way we were yesterday.’
He took her hand and drew her to the stairs and then into the bedroom where she stayed standing by the window.
‘Take your clothes off,’ he said.
She did as she was told, indifferently, almost as if she was not there, and her nakedness felt all the more shocking to Jean.
‘Do you want me?’ she asked, her face pale, her eyes feverish.
‘Completely.’
She got into bed and he joined her. She was neither wanton nor reticent, just outside time. Then, as he caressed her, she seemed to come back to herself and wrapped her arms around him. Later she said again, ‘I love you.’
He felt like crying. He wanted to clasp her to him all his life, to never let her go more than a metre from his side. All of their misfortunes came from their not being able to live together.
‘I love you too,’ he said.
She kissed his neck. He stroked the back of hers. Their legs were intertwined so tightly that their desire, satisfied moments before, revived without a pause. Jean said nothing. He carried on holding her tightly, deferring until later, for ever, the questions and answers that would make him so unhappy that they might not see each other again. Claude fell asleep. He bent over her face, which still wore the traces of recent days. Her private suffering made her features, usually so peaceful, even more beautiful. Jean did not recognise her. An immense tenderness gripped him: it was a face full of pathos. Her courage had left her; she had surrendered. He realised that from now on he would have charge of her as she, for nearly two years, had had charge of him without his noticing, so discreet and restrained had she been in helping him to survive. It was thanks to her that from now on he would be a man and through her that he had known a happiness, before they made love, that no other woman would ever be able to give him again. He knew too that Claude’s deep generosity caused her problems and that mean spirits would always be tempted to do her injury. It was a time to remember that he had wounded her himself on at least two or three occasions, and that he continued to wound her by his affair with Nelly. He looked for excuses. They were all too easy.