* * *
Sunday came at last. Monsieur Boudier-Martel was to arrive at four in the afternoon, after the heat of the day had died down.
I spent the entire morning getting ready. I bought wine, a tin of biscuits, some lemon soda. My room, tidied up, seemed larger than usual. I sat down on my bed, at the spot where there is a big hole in the quilt, and I waited. The window was open. The blinds are broken, so the harsh light from outside flooded the room.
I was in that contented state in which you find yourself when you’ve just finished a thousand little chores that are so easily forgotten. There were just the two glasses that I had not yet washed. I knew it. I was saving that task so I would have something to do when Monsieur Boudier-Martel arrived.
Suddenly I heard footsteps on the stairway. It had to be him. I stood and picked up the glasses so I would be busy rinsing them when he knocked.
I heard him on the landing. Although I had explained to him which door was mine, he was looking down the other end of the landing, where Lecoin lives. How I wished my neighbor could see Monsieur Boudier-Martel coming into my place!
There was a knock. I went to open the door.
There he was. Despite the fact that it was Sunday, he had put on old clothes to come see me. No doubt he had done so out of tact. He walked in, removing his hat at the door.
“As you can see, I’m just rinsing the glasses. Please sit down,” I said, and offered him my best chair.
“Oh, don’t trouble about me. I can sit anywhere.”
He sat on the bed, at the same spot I had been sitting because the sagging mattress forms a hollow there.
“Why, this is a very nice room. It’s clean, it’s airy. It’s a bit high up, but it’s airy.”
“You think so?”
“Rooms like this are rare.”
His admiration for my quarters displeased me. I had hoped that after he’d seen my place he would offer me a big, comfortable room in his apartment. Now I realized it was pointless to count on that.
“Do you do your own cooking?”
“Oh, no, monsieur!”
“You don’t?”
“No, I eat out.”
“You eat out?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“But restaurants are very expensive.”
“I have a little arrangement.”
“Oh, that’s different! When one is in a situation like yours, you have to know how to make little arrangements.”
“Indeed, monsieur.”
There was a moment of silence. While looking out the window, Monsieur Boudier-Martel was testing my bed with the back of his fist. Every now and again he raised his heel and struck the floor. He also turned around, looking everywhere.
While I was trying to find a dishrag, he said: “No, don’t dry the glasses. You mustn’t trouble yourself. I like drinking from glasses that have been freshly rinsed. You know, it’s not as bad as all that here. You probably have running water not too far.”
“Yes, on the landing.”
“Excellent. The other day, I couldn’t talk to you as I would have liked. I barely knew you. Now I want to tell you how noble I find your self-denial, your simplicity.”
These words, which I found full of truth, moved me. I looked tenderly at Monsieur Boudier-Martel. I felt that whatever was still separating us was about to vanish.
“Would you like a little wine, monsieur?”
“As you please, my child.”
My child. He said my child. This time, all my sorrow vanished. I was trembling as I poured the wine. He was about to get up to take his glass, so I said:
“No, don’t bother.” And I brought it to him, not without spilling a little.
He drank leaning forward, the way one drinks at a bar.
I found this tactless. I don’t think he should have noticed that I had filled the glass too much because if I did, it was because his kind words had disconcerted me. Even if he were to spill a little on himself, he should have drunk as if he were at home.
“You are very sensitive, my friend.”
For a second I thought he was reading my mind.
“I am fond of people like you. Human misery moves me. Tell me about your life. If something is troubling you, confide in me.”
Tell him about my life! Can one tell the story of one’s life to a friend? Can one tell the story of one’s life without making it more beautiful, or uglier, without lying? As for confiding, is it possible to do it just like that, on demand? To talk about my life, about myself, to a man who had just walked in—no, it could not be done.
Monsieur Boudier-Martel was waiting for me to speak, pretending to be very attentive. Yes, I said pretending: though his gaze was fixed on me, from time to time his eyes would momentarily turn away toward some object in my room.
“Do you wash in that basin?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“That must not be easy. Come now, tell me about your life, confide in me. You have a friend in me, a brother.”
“A brother?”
“Yes. I too have suffered from poverty.”
“You’ve suffered from poverty?”
“Yes.”
I sensed he wanted me to rejoice at this news. Yet deep down I respected him less.
“Would you like a little more wine, monsieur?” I asked, expecting a polite refusal.
I was mistaken. Monsieur Boudier-Martel accepted.
Have you noticed how often we are wrong about people? We are sure they will say one thing and they say the opposite. But this mustn’t change our opinion of them. For some infinitesimal reason that was unknown to me, Monsieur Boudier-Martel had not said no, yet his whole being was refusing the wine I offered.
This time I poured the wine slowly so that Monsieur Boudier-Martel would spare me from seeing him lean forward to drink. Though the glass was only half full, he still leaned forward.
“Well, then, when are you going to tell me about this life of yours?” he asked, looking for a place to set down his glass.
If only you could have seen how he searched! If he had truly cared about me, if he had truly been drawn to me by some feeling, he would not have had that self-conscious air about him; he would have set the glass on the floor.
“So, what about that life of yours?”
“Oh, monsieur! It’s not all that interesting.”
He stood, came over to me, and stroked my hair.
I lit up with joy, even though I was torn between the desire for him to stop and for him to go on—for him to stop, because there is something grotesque about emotional outpourings between men; for him to go on, because it was a sign of such deep friendship.
“Oh, child, child,” he said, pulling away from me. “I’m leaving now, my friend.”
“You’re going to leave?”
And I had thought we would stay together until nightfall!
“Come have lunch with me whenever you like. I’m not insisting. You are a free man. I’m not setting a date. I respect other people’s freedom too much.”
If only Monsieur Boudier-Martel knew how little one values one’s freedom when one is alone.
He took his hat and did not wait to go out to put it on. I realized he had made an effort to be tactful at first and now he was tired and couldn’t be bothered.
I caught a glimpse of the vast solitude awaiting me.
I stood up also.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I must get back.”
I lost my head.
“Monsieur, monsieur, don’t go.”
Disconcerted, Monsieur Boudier-Martel drew back a step. As a precaution, pretending to be surprised, he opened the door as if he weren’t thinking.
“Don’t go; I’ll be so alone without you, if only you knew how I suffer when I’m alone. Stay. You’ll talk to me. You have been so kind.”
Reassured, Monsieur Boudier-Martel released the doorknob.
“Come, come, my child, calm down. You know you can count on me.”