Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (19 page)

Another path then leads from the bed to the chest. From here, the narrow strip of gleaming floor which leads from the chest to the table, joining the two large areas cleared of dust, swerves slightly in order to pass closer to the fireplace whose grate contains a heap of ashes, without andirons. The black marble of the mantlepiece, like everything else, is covered with gray dust. But the layer is not so thick as on the table or on the floor, and it is uniform on the entire surface of the shelf; now no object encumbers the shelf, and only one has left its outlines, clear and black, in the exact center of the rectangle. This is the same four- branched cross: one branch elongated and pointed, one shorter and oval, the continuation of the first, and two small flaring appendages set perpendicularly on each side.

A similar design also embellishes the wallpaper. The wallpaper is pale gray with slightly darker vertical stripes; between the dark stripes, in the middle of each lighter stripe, runs a line of small dark-gray identical designs: a rosette, some kind of clove, or a tiny torch whose handle consists of what was just now the blade of a dagger, the dagger handle now representing the flame, and the two lateral flaring appendages which were the dagger's guard now representing the little cup which keeps the burning substance from running down the handle.

But it might be a kind of electric torch instead, for the tip of what is supposed to produce the light is clearly rounded like an oblong bulb instead of being pointed like a flame. The design, reproduced thousands of times up and down the walls all around the room, is a simple silhouette about the size of a large insect, of a uniform color so that it is difficult to make it out: it reveals no greater relief than the incandescent filament which must be inside the bulb. Besides, the bulb is hidden by the lampshade. Only the image of the filament is visible on the ceiling: a small, open hexagon appearing as a luminous line against the dim background, and farther to the right an identical small hexagon, but in motion, silhouetted against the circle of light cast by the lamp, advancing slowly, steadily, along the inner rim until it reaches the vertical wall and disappears.

The soldier is carrying a package under his left arm. His right arm, from shoulder to elbow, is leaning against the lamppost. His head is turned toward the street, showing his growth of beard and the serial number on the collar of his overcoat, five or six black figures in a red diamond. Behind him the double door of the corner apartment house is not completely closed—not ajar either, but one leaf simply pushed against the fixed one, which is narrower, leaving perhaps an inch or two of space between them, a vertical stripe of darkness. To the right is the row of ground floor windows interrupted only by the doors of the buildings, identical windows and identical doors, the latter similar to the windows in shape and size. There is not a single shop in sight from one end of the street to the other.

To the left of the door that is not closed tight, there are only two windows, then the corner of the building, then, at right angles, another row of identical windows and doors which look like the reflection of the first, as if a mirror had been set there, making an obtuse angle (a right angle increased by half a right angle) with the plane of the house-fronts; and the same series is repeated: two windows, a door, four windows, a door, etc. . . . The first door is ajar on a dark hallway, leaving between its two unequal leaves a dark interval wide enough for a man, or at least a child, to slip through.

In front of the door, at the edge of the sidewalk, a street light is on, although it is still daylight. But the dim and diffuse light of this snowy landscape makes the light from the electric bulb apparent at first glance: somewhat brighter, a little yellower, a little more localized. Against the base of the streetlight a bareheaded soldier is leaning, his head lowered, his hands hidden in his overcoat pockets. Under his right arm is a package wrapped in brown paper that looks something like a shoe box, with a white string doubtless tied in a cross; but only that part of this string around the length of the box is visible, the other part, if it exists, being hidden by the overcoat sleeve. On this sleeve at elbow level are several dark stains that may be the remains of fresh mud, or paint, or grease.

The box wrapped in brown paper is now on the chest. It no longer has its white string, and the wrapping paper, carefully folded back along the shorter side of the parallelepiped, gapes a little in a sharp fold narrowing toward the bottom. At this point the marble top of the chest shows a long, almost straight crack passing diagonally under the corner of the box and reaching the wall toward the middle of the chest. Just over it is hung the picture.

The picture framed in varnished wood, the striped wallpaper, the fireplace with its heap of ashes, the table with its lamp and its glass ashtray, the heavy red curtains, the large day bed covered with the same red velvety material, and finally the chest with its three drawers and its cracked marble top, the brown package on top of it, and above that the picture, and the vertical lines of little gray insects rising to the ceiling.

Outside, the sky remains the same dull white. It is still daylight. The street is empty: there is no traffic, and there are no pedestrians on the sidewalks. It has been snowing; and the snow has not yet melted. It forms a rather thin layer —an inch or so—which is quite regular, however, and covers all the horizontal surfaces with the same dull, neutral whitish color. The only interruptions visible are the straight paths parallel to the housefronts and the gutters (made even more distinct by their vertical curbs which have remained black) separating the sidewalks into two unequal strips for their entire length. At the crossroads, at the base of the street light, a small circle of trampled snow has the same yellowish color as the narrow paths that run alongside the buildings. The doors are closed. The windows show no figure either pressed against the panes or even looming farther back in the rooms. The flatness of this entire setting, moreover, suggests that there is nothing behind these panes, behind these doors, behind these housefronts. And the entire scene remains empty: without a man, a woman, or even a child.

The picture, in its varnished wood frame, represents a tavern scene. It is a nineteenth-century etching, or a good reproduction of one. A large number of people fill the room, a crowd of drinkers sitting or standing, and, on the far left, the bartender standing on a slightly raised platform behind his bar.

The bartender is a fat, bald man wearing an apron. He leans forward, both hands resting on the edge of the bar, over several half-full glasses that have been set there, his massive shoulders turned toward a small group of middle-class citizens in frock coats who appear to be engaged in an animated discussion; standing in various attitudes, many are making expansive gestures that sometimes involve the whole body, and are doubtless quite expressive.

To their right, that is, in the center of the scene, several groups of drinkers are sitting at tables that are irregularly arranged—or rather, crammed—in a space too small to hold them all comfortably. These men are also making extravagant gestures and their faces are violently contorted, but their movements, like their expressions, are frozen by the drawing, suspended, stopped short, which also makes their meaning uncertain; particularly since the words being shouted on all sides seem to have been absorbed by a thick layer of glass. Some of them, carried away by their excitement, have half risen from their chairs or their benches and are pointing over the heads of the others toward a more distant interlocutor. Everywhere hands rise, mouths open, heads turn; fists are clenched, pounded on tables, or brandished in mid-air.

At the far right a group of men, almost all workers judging from their clothes, like those sitting at the tables, have their backs to the latter and are crowding around some poster or picture tacked on the wall. A little in front of them, between their backs and the first row of drinkers facing in the other direction, a boy is sitting on the floor among all these legs with their shapeless trousers, all these clumsy boots stamping about and trying to move toward his left; on the other side he is partially protected by the bench. The child is shown facing straight ahead. He is sitting with his legs folded under him, his arms clasped around a large box something like a shoe box. No one is paying any attention to him. Perhaps he was knocked down in the confusion. As a matter of fact, in the foreground, not far from where he is sitting, a chair has been overturned and is still lying on the floor.

Somewhat apart, as though separated from the crowd surrounding them by an unoccupied zone—narrow, of course, but nevertheless wide enough for their isolation to be noticeable, in any case wide enough to call attention to them though they are in the background—three soldiers are sitting around a smaller table, the second from the rear on the right, their motionlessness and rigidity in marked contrast to the civilians who fill the room. The soldiers are looking straight ahead, their hands resting on the checkered oilcloth; there are no glasses in front of them. They are the only men whose heads are not bare, for they are wearing low-peaked fatigue caps. Behind them, at the extreme rear, the last seated drinkers are mingled with others who are standing, forming a confused mass; besides, the drawing here is vaguer too. Under the print, in the white margin, someone has written a title: "The Defeat of Reichenfels."

On closer examination, the isolation of the three soldiers seems to result less from the narrow space between them and the crowd than from the direction of the glances around them. All the figures in the background look as if they are passing—or trying to pass, for the space is cramped—behind the soldiers to reach the left side of the picture, where there is probably a door (though this hypothetical exit cannot be seen in the picture because of a row of coat racks covered with hats and coats); every head is looking straight ahead (that is, toward the coat racks), except for one here and there who turns to speak to someone who has remained in the rear. Everyone in the crowd gathered on the right is looking toward the right wall. The drinkers at the tables are represented in natural poses, turning toward the center of each group or else toward one neighbor or another. As for the middle-class citizens in front of the bar, they too are completely absorbed in their own conversation, and the bartender leans toward them without paying any attention to the rest of his customers. Among the various groups circulate a number of persons not yet settled, but obviously about to adopt one of several probable attitudes: either walking over to examine the bulletin board, sitting down at one of the tables, or else going out behind the coat racks; a moment's scrutiny is enough to reveal that each man has already determined what he is going to do next; here, as among the groups, no face, no movement betrays hesitation, perplexity, inner vacillation, or contradiction. The three soldiers, on the contrary, seem forsaken. They are not talking to each other; they are not looking at anything in particular: neither glasses, nor bulletins, nor their neighbors. They have nothing to do. No one looks at them and they themselves have nothing to look at. The position of their faces—one full face, the other in profile, the last in a three-quarters view —indicates no common subject of attention. Besides, the first man—the only one whose features are completely visible—betrays no expression whatever, merely a fixed, vacant stare.

The contrast between the three soldiers and the crowd is further accentuated by a precision of line, a clarity in rendering, much more evident in their case than in that of other individuals the same distance from the viewer. The artist has shown them with as much concern for detail and  almost as much sharpness of outline as if they were sitting in the foreground. But the composition is so involved that this is not apparent at first glance. Particularly the soldier shown full face has been portrayed with a wealth of detail that seems quite out of proportion to the indifference it expresses. No specific thought can be discerned. It is merely a tired face, rather thin, and narrowed still further by several days' growth of beard. This thinness, these shadows that accentuate the features without, on the other hand, indicating the slightest individual characteristic, nevertheless emphasize the brilliance of the wide-open eyes.

The military overcoat is buttoned up to the neck, where the regimental number is embroidered on a diamond- shaped tab of material. The cap is set straight on the head, covering the hair, which is cut extremely short, judging from its appearance at the temples. The man is sitting stiffly, his hands lying flat on the table which is covered with a red-and-white checked oilcloth.

He has finished his drink some time ago. He does not look as if he were thinking of leaving. Yet, around him, the café has emptied. The light is dim now, the bartender having turned out most of the lamps before leaving the room himself.

The soldier, his eyes wide open, continues to stare into the half-darkness a few yards in front of him, where the child is standing, also motionless and stiff, his arms at his side. But it is as if the soldier did not see the child—or anything else. He looks as if he has fallen asleep from exhaustion, sitting close to the table, his eyes wide open.

It is the child who speaks first. He says: "Are you asleep?" He has spoken almost in a whisper, as if he were afraid to awaken the sleeper. The latter has not stirred. After a few seconds the child repeats his question a trifle louder: "Are you asleep?" and he adds, in the same expressionless, slightly singsong tone of voice: "You can't sleep here, you know."

The soldier has not stirred. The child might suppose he is alone in the room, merely pretending to have a conversation with someone who does not exist, or else with a doll, a toy unable to answer. Under these conditions there was certainly no need to speak louder; the voice was actually that of a child telling himself a story.