inept
To everyone’s surprise, the photographer, whose fingers are nimble, whose tread is light, whose every movement is small and inconspicuous, has become suddenly, wretchedly, clumsy. Glass plates slip from his grasp and shatter into fragments on the floor. He trips over carpets, over doorstops; he trips as he is walking down the widow’s marble hallways. From his darkroom come cries of misery and exasperation. The performers become impatient; many photographs must be retaken. Their necks grow stiff from holding the same stultifying pose. It is M. Pujol, however, who suffers most. The photographer is forever bumping into him. When he stumbles, it is always in M. Pujol’s direction that he falls. The photographer cannot, it seems, refill his wine glass, wash his hands, extract his handkerchief, illustrate a point, without somehow getting in M. Pujol’s way. Their soapy knuckles knock against each other in the basin. They reach for the botde at the same time, and their forearms brush. During the course of a lively conversation, it often happens that the back of Adrien’s gesticulating hand will hit M. Pujol in the face. The flatulent man finds himself apologizing even more often than he usually does. But the photographer is ungracious; though he is the one who always bumps and crowds, he never asks for forgiveness. He never once says, Pardon me. Instead, he skulks behind a caravan, where he furtively examines his knuckles, his arm, the back of his hand, as if it were he who stood the greatest risk of being bruised.
in the candlelight
Louder, the widow says, leaning forward in her chair.
by the folly
M. pujol is charmed by his reflection: he appears enormous! There he is, in the still waters of the fishpond, looking nearly as tall as the temple that rises up behind him. He sits down upon its crumbling steps. Of course, he has not really grown; it is only that the temple is perfecdy small. There was once a widow, M. Pujol says, to no one in particular He is alone. And it seems that he has gone mad, that failure and humiliation have destroyed his sense, but indeed he has not, or at least not yet, for this afternoon he has an audience, whom he spotted in the mirror of the fishpond. A small figure, unannounced, crouching in the reeds, watching him. She has taken off her stockings and her boots. The hem of her white dress drifts in the water. And the widow, M. Pujol continues, loved all beautiful things. But she was very old, and decrepit, and had barely the strength to leave her rooms. She said to her gardener, Dig me a pond; I will sit by my window and the sight of it will soothe me. Then she said: Fill my pond with fish, so that I might see their scales flashing in the sunlight. A voice from the reeds says: I know a widow. The gardener did as she wished, but one by one the fish began to disappear. The gardener told the widow, There is an orange carp that is slowly devouring the contents of your pond. Unless I kill him, he will eat all the other fish, and you will no longer be able to look at them. But the widow said: He is the most beautiful; he is my favorite. Let him do as he likes. A voice from the reeds says: She lives in a very grand house. So the carp grew to a gigantic size. He spent his days turning lazily about the pond, the sun glinting off his prodigious scales. Reflections swayed across the ceiling of the widow’s room, so that now, even from her bed, she could take pleasure in her carp. All summer long he illuminated her ceiling, and when she wheeled herself to the window and peered down into her pond, he seemed to grow even more languorous, even more indifferent, as though he could feel her watching him.
justice
but THEN a thunderstorm descended, and a lightning bolt struck the window’s pond. Laughter erupts from the reeds. The audience’s sense of justice is delighted.
bloodless
YES; one would think the carp had died. The gardener was certain of it: he brought with him a net to drag the fish out from the water. As he neared the pond, he spied a pale shape slipping beneath the surface — not a shape but a shade, belonging perhaps to a ghostly carp. Upon closer inspection, however, the gardener found the fish very much alive; the accident had simply drained him of color. After his encounter with the lightning bolt, the carp resumed his lazy circles about the pond. Instead of resembling a great golden shield, flashing in the green depths of the water, the fish was now mistaken, by turns, for a sunken chamberpot, an abandoned bedsheet, for the swollen arm of a drowned woman.
moral
From the reeds, a voice says: And so the gardener killed the carp. The widow wished him to. M. Pujol asks, How did you know? A stone is sent splashing into the water. Madeleine says, This pond doesn’t have any fish. For the first time, M. Pujol notices this. No, he says, it doesn’t. Who is the carp? Madeleine asks. Oh, M. Pujol says. No one. That story is only to say, I’m afraid of the window.
nothing
the girls of the village have all disappeared. Who will bring in the goats? Who will set the table? Mothers stand in doorways, looking provoked. Their daughters are nowhere to be found, although the twilight is filled with names: Marianne! Sophie! Emma! Beatrice! Those girls. Wedded to mischief. What will we do with them? A cry rises up from the far field: Aha! Papa has discovered them. And he will bellow; he will make them hurry home. The tall grasses parting, their caps gone askew, they 11 come spilling out, red-faced, mock-penitent, grinning with secrets. But all is quiet. Papa has not made a sound. He is too surprised to speak. Aha! he had shouted, and at once the girls stiffened — hands outstretched, knees deep in the grass. Now Beatrice sits upright, blinking wildly, petals shedding from her face, her breasts, the dark fall of her hair. She has been laid out on the grass; she has been strewn with flowers. The girls have been tending to her: they touched her skin, and spread her hair; they held a mirror beneath her nose. Before Papa has even the breath to ask, the’ girls answer his question: Nothing, they murmur. It’s nothing
game
Beatrice is enraptured by rules, especially those of her own making-In the beginning, her rules were simple enough to remember. She had told the other girls: when visiting Madeleine, one must have very clean hands. One must bring her small gifts, such as ribbons or nosegays. When one approaches, die eyes are lowered, the lips whispering, Hush. Then, if you are old enough, and pretty, you might be allowed to arrange her hair on the pillowcase, or stroke her temples with your fingertips. While younger girls should prepare themselves by standing nearby and murmuring, How beautiful. Now that I think about it, Beatrice had said, you had better practice on me first. That way, if you make any mistakes, I can correct you. Touch me there, she recommends. And speak more softly. Ow! she complains. You must be more carefiil. And when you hurt me, you should make up for it with kisses. The girls listen, and obey. But try as they might, they never seem to master the rules. Someone inevitably laughs; or a pair of fingers gets tangled in Beatrice’s hair — all accidents, merely. But this is why practice is necessary, and punishment, too. You must turn ten somersaults. You must be tied to that tree. You must take off your dress and run around in a circle, singing. And then, the girls ask, gasping and aglow, will you let us see Madeleine? But even this question forms its own mysterious rule, the girls asking out of neither curiosity nor need but simply habit, in a game where one rule begets another at a pace so dizzying that the outcome has altogether ceased to matter.