‘I’m in a bad way, M. le President!’ said Tunda.
The President’s expression became even graver and he indicated a comfortable leather armchair, like a doctor prepared to listen and to take in the details with the cheerful interest medical men show in a case-history which might further their studies. He sat there like God the Father, shaded as in a cloud, while a broad beam of sunlight fell through the window onto Tunda so that his knees were illuminated and the light stood before him like a golden transparent wall behind which the President sat and listened, or did not listen. But then a remarkable thing came to pass; the President arose, the wall of crystalline gold advanced towards him, he broke through it, it turned into a golden veil which conformed to the shape of his body, lay on his shoulders and showed up a little white scurf on his blue suit. The President stood there, human now, extended a hand to Tunda, and said: ‘Perhaps I can do something for you.’
XXX
Tunda walked through the bright streets with a great void in his heart, feeling like a released convict on his first emergence to freedom. He knew that the President could not help him, even if he made it possible for him to eat and to buy a suit. As little as one makes a convict free by releasing him from prison. As little as one renders a parentless child happy by finding him a place in an orphanage. He was not at home in this world. Where then? In the mass graves.
The blue light shone on the grave of the Unknown Soldier. The wreaths withered. Young Englishmen stood there, soft grey hats in their hands, their hands behind their backs. They had left the Café de la Paix to visit the memorial. An old father thought of his son. Between him and the young Englishmen lay the tomb. Deep under both lay the remains of the Unknown Soldier. The old man and the young ones exchanged glances over the tomb. There was a tacit understanding between them. It was as if they sealed a pact, not to join in mourning for the dead soldier, but to join in forgetting.
Tunda had already passed by this memorial a number of times. There were always tourists standing around, hat in hand, and nothing upset him more than their marks of respect. It was like globe-trotters, who happened also to be devout, visiting a famous church during a service and kneeling, guidebook in hand, before the altar, out of habit and in order not to incur self-reproach. Their devotion is a blasphemy and a ransom for their conscience. The blue flame burned under the Arc de Triomphe, not to honour the dead soldier but to reassure those who survived him. Nothing was more gruesome than the unsuspecting devotion of a surviving father at the tomb of his son, whom he had sacrificed without knowing it. Tunda sometimes felt as if he himself lay there in the ground, as if we all lay there, all those of us who set out from home and were killed and buried, or who came back but never again came home — for it is a matter of indifference whether we are buried or alive and well. We are strangers in this world, we come from the realm of the dead.
A few days later the President asked him to call.
Between the two there now existed that distance which exists between the man who gives help and the one who accepts it, a distance different from that between an older and a younger man, a native and a foreigner, someone powerful and someone who, though weak, is still independent. Although there was no contempt in the President’s gaze, it no longer showed that quiet preparedness for respect, the open-minded hospitality, which distinguished people reserve for foreigners. It may be that Tunda had touched his heart. But they were no longer as free with each other as they had been. Perhaps, after this, the old man would have trusted Tunda with one of his secrets, but he would no longer trust him with one of his daughters.
‘I have found something,’ said the President. ‘There is a M. Cardillac, whose daughter is taking a trip to Germany and needs a little conversational practice. The usual thing in such cases is to find some elderly lady from Alsace. But I am against that kind of teacher in principle because, though they certainly have a command of the language, it is quite another branch of the language — not at all what a young lady from a wealthy family requires. These teachers lack the necessary vocabulary. On the other hand I felt that a young man from a good background, a man of the world, knowledgeable and with much experience’ — the list of Tunda’s virtues grew noticeably — ‘would be versed in exactly the right sort of parlance. It will also be a matter of explaining to the young lady the conditions in the areas she is about to visit, naturally quite objectively and without stirring up any preconceptions. Such prejudices would be all the worse since M. Cardillac — between ourselves, that is not his real name — has relations, distant relations naturally, in Germany — in Dresden and Leipzig if I am not mistaken.’
As if a President who supported peace in Europe and declared his esteem for Germany had to justify being acquainted with a M. Cardillac who owned German relations, the old man said:
‘I don’t know M. Cardillac very well. He was introduced to me some years ago. He comes from an old Milanese family which produces the world-famous tiled stoves, as well as common knick-knacks of all kinds. M. Cardillac is well-situated; he practises as an art-dealer, I believe, his contacts are more of a business than a social nature, but as you know, my dear sir,’ he repeated, ‘my dear sir’ — ‘since the war business and social life have become more or less identical …’ And for a few moments the President lapsed into silence, into a restorative pause to allow himself time to recover from the self-administered shock of propounding the identity of commerce and society.
He certainly desired peace between nations, but what he understood by that was peace between certain social strata; he had no prejudices, he considered himself the most progressive member of the cultural world, but the categories he had created for himself were firmly based on the very prejudices he abjured. With those who are labelled ‘reactionary’, the President had a common foundation; his house was more airy, it had more windows, but it would collapse the moment its foundations were disturbed. He was certainly ashamed of his acquaintance with M. Cardillac. It was distasteful for him to have to speak of that gentleman. Perhaps he could just as easily have put Tunda in touch with some other, better-connected young lady. But then, Tunda no longer stood so high in his estimation since his appeal for help.
XXXI
Thus Tunda gained entrance to M. Cardillac’s home.
He had never seen a larger house. It seemed to him even more spacious than it really was because he did not become fully acquainted with the whole of it, because — since he only managed to see parts or fragments of the house — he knew it as little as one knows a dictionary where one singles out a particular section from time to time in order to look up a particular word.
He was most interested in Mlle. Pauline, with whom he had to carry on conversation. Eighteen years old, with the familiar brown complexion of the Balkans — M. Cardillac originated from southern Rumania — a complexion reminiscent of the colour of meteorites and seeming to comprise iron, wind and sun, with sloping, meagre, pitiful shoulders, with soft, delicate hips threatened, in years to come, by a dangerously disfiguring breadth — Pauline seemed worthy of a better father than the one she had, and a wider, fuller life than the one she led. It was one of Tunda’s fatal propensities to feel compassion for pretty women. To him their beauty seemed merely the proper index of their value, he could not get used to the idea that beauty is not some abundance of the female body, not grace or luxury, something akin to the genius of a masculine mind, but the self-evident tool of their existence, like their limbs, their head, their eyes. A woman’s beauty is her single, yes her primary distinguishing feature, as the breast is the organ of her sexuality and her maternity. Most women are beautiful, just as most men are not cripples. But Tunda was disconcerted by this beauty to such an extent that he was inclined to seek an explanation for it in some inadequately appreciated virtue in its possessor. His love was always initiated by compassion, together with the compulsion to rid the world of an atrocious injustice.