“Paul, we absolutely must go home.”
My friend took me by the arm, leaned over to see me better and, hardly opening his mouth, whispered:
“You’re leaving me?”
“I must. It’s late.”
“You’re going to leave me alone?”
“We can’t stay outside all night!”
His lower lip trembled then. The sweat already beading on his forehead flowed out of the wrinkles and dripped below his eyebrows. He released my arm and leaned against a wall, either so he would not fall, or else in order to feel something solid.
I realized how difficult it would be for me to leave him. Although my friendship for him was strong right then, it seemed ridiculous to spend a night consoling him. If it could have eased his pain, I would have done it. But, with me or without me, he would be just as miserable. And if he wanted me with him, it was not because he hoped I would be able to comfort him. He knew that all my words could not change his wife’s decision in the least.
“Come on, Paul, we have to leave each other.”
“You want to leave me?”
“Yes, what do you expect!”
“No, Jean, please, don’t do that. Alone, I don’t know what will become of me. I’ll kill myself. Oh, I don’t know.”
He seemed completely distraught. He was not moving at all. It was as if he were no longer suffering, as if he had stopped fighting his pain, as if he were letting himself slip into unconsciousness.
Seeing him like that, I wondered if he was really determined to kill himself or if some sort of resentment was making him think I was the sole cause of his suffering; or perhaps he was trying to make me feel remorseful.
“Yes, I’m going to end my life,” he murmured.
I, too, have suffered. I too have thought about killing myself, yet I never did anything about it. Why should I have taken his threat seriously? In a few days, he would cheer up. In a few days, we would both laugh about this episode.
“See you tomorrow, Paul. Be brave.”
These few words that, in my opinion, should have left us in the same situation in regard to each other, brought him out of his dejection.
“So you’re not my friend?”
“Of course I am, but what can I do for you right now? Show some fortitude. Only you can overcome your pain.”
“I know that, Jean. But please take pity on me. Don’t abandon me. Do you want to make me really happy? Let’s stay together until tomorrow. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t think I have the strength. I’ll go home with you. I’ll sleep in an armchair. That’s all I ask. You can’t refuse.”
“You’re being ridiculous. How will that resolve anything?”
Suddenly Paul’s attitude changed from imploring to remote.
“So you want to leave me, Jean?”
Although I sensed my friend had made a decision, my position remained the same.
“I do. It’s late. We must part.”
“Very well. Adieu.”
He walked away without even offering me his hand. I had a foreboding of some misfortune. I am sure I’m no different from anyone else, yet I was afraid he would do what he said, that he would kill himself. I shouted:
“Where are you going?”
He did not answer, walking away with great strides.
“Paul!”
Already another streetlamp was lighting him.
For a moment I glimpsed the consequences of my refusal. He was going to kill himself. For the rest of my life I would be aware of being responsible for his death. And everything going on in my head became more and more confused as he walked away. I ran behind him.
“Paul, where are you going?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Answer me! Be reasonable. Why are you running away like this?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Leave me be, I’m going to end it all.”
He kept on walking, staring ahead.
“You didn’t understand what I was saying before, Paul. Come on, let’s go to my place. Tomorrow, everything will be sorted out.”
He stopped and as he looked at me, he gradually realized what I had just said. He did not smile. Yet his face brightened. I took his arm and without a word we started off toward my place.
An automobile on its way to Les Halles passed very close to us. In the pure, freezing air, it left such a circumscribed scent of vegetables that when we took one step to the side, we could not smell it anymore. In the middle of the sleeping city, beneath the sky, we were alone. The moon had disappeared. And without it, as if they lacked a leader, the stars seemed to be in disarray.
WHAT I SAW
I don’t often write on an impulse like this. Something very serious has to have happened to me for me to decide to do so. So I shall ask, dear sir, for your indulgence. It is not an author you find before you. It is a man who is suffering and who is seeking the one word that will explain everything.
Slowly I had recovered from the great shock I’d had. Everything was going well. I felt strong again and then, suddenly, once more I began to doubt.
It would be impossible to explain why I am overwhelmed by anxiety. It returned, all-powerful, without my having any say in the matter. I was at home reading a book when, for no apparent reason, I realized I had not been mistaken. I tried not to think about it anymore, but you know that the harder you attempt to forget an ordeal, the more it clings to you.
Yes, I was reading a book that was as interesting to me as any book can be. I was so deep into this novel that I forgot where I was when, all of a sudden while turning a page, during that brief moment of distraction that interrupts the story with each new page, I had the clear realization that I had not been wrong.
I had seen the thing with my own eyes and as a result, it was true. My girlfriend could deny it all she wanted, but because I had seen it, it was true. The proof that I was wrong is all around me. My friends, to whom I made the mistake of telling this story, disagreed with me. My girlfriend’s parents hinted that I had taken leave of my senses. Even my Henriette, after having heatedly defended herself, in the end simply shrugged whenever I mentioned this scene.
And so I managed, by the strength of my will, to doubt my own eyes. Gradually I forgot what I had seen. I forced myself to think I had been wrong. Life became bearable again. My girlfriend was ever more loving.
And now, in some idiotic way, I have begun thinking about this episode again. And so, all my efforts have been in vain! That painstaking and salutary process I suffered through in order to find peace was for naught!
Ridiculously, I again find myself anxious and desperate, like on the first day.
Yet I believe I was wrong, that my girlfriend is innocent, and that I was the victim of a hallucination. I want to believe this, even though my eyes will not let me. But despite all my efforts, I feel I will always have before me that ludicrous vision that pains me so.
This is why I am writing to you, so as not to be alone with my doubts. And perhaps for you to give me some advice. I must confess that I feel the need to ask you to forgive me for writing. When a man suffers as I am suffering, writing should not be a consolation. Forgive me, dear sir, for speaking to you like this. You are not used to such confessions. They seem to you some artifice meant to hold your attention, whereas in reality they are the proof of deep despair. It’s true. I feel some embarrassment in writing. I know I shouldn’t tell you this. One never admits that the person who is writing to us is doing so reluctantly—and with good reason. If, at the theater, an actor were to say he did not want to play his part, that it annoyed him to do so, I admit that I, like any theatergoer, would boo him off the stage.
But this, I must say, is a different situation. I am suffering as much as a man can suffer. And I am not writing to entertain or interest you, but simply to ask you what I should do.