new entry
but there is no need to continue searching for the flatulent man. He is delivered to them. Or to Adrien, at least, on a temporary basis: the subject for a study of Embarrassment. M. Pujols face, upon seeing the photographer, causes the director to reconsider. He is Stupefaction, the director cries, personified! Adrien ducks behind his machinery. He, too, is taken by surprise. For here at the hospital, where hygiene is so furiously: pursued, the matron has forbidden moustaches, especially those that require waxing, and M. Pujols face, destitute of moustache, is hardly recognizable as his face at all. It would have been preferable I if he had lost an eye. Also his body: it does not seem the same. Underneath the white smock that all the patients must wear, M. Pujol appears to be less perfectly slim, less gendemanlike, and though Adrien has seen him a hundred times without clothes, the thought of it now horrifies him, faintly. For this reason the photographer remains hidden beneath his black hood, even after the director has left them alone. He is afraid that if he were to emerge, his own face would be legible, a new entry for the alphabet. Under D, for Deadened Affection? No, that is not it, exacdy. The sight of M. Pujol still provokes him. He is dismayed to feel something twitching, like the snout of a little dog rooting in the leaves. He snaps it backwards on its leash; his nose wrinkles at what it has found. Perhaps, if M. Pujol were behind the camera and he in front of it, the photograph would be tided Repulsion.
pardon
the widow? She is well? We have come to rescue you. And the others in our company? But we haven’t figured out a plan. So you are no longer taking art photographs? The girl and I. We came here. You have chosen, instead, the scientific. As 1 did! It will not be easy. Though I think I might be a disappointment to the director. She loves you. Apparendy little can be learned without opening me up. I am just helping her. Could you say that again? Your voice. It is muffled.
what if
the pony cart, never known for its reliability, seems now in danger of collapsing altogether. It is unaccustomed to the weight of M. Jouy, who sits placidly at its edge, his feet dragging along the dim road and raising dust. To keep the cart from upsetting, all the brothers and sisters have scrambled to the front. They disagree over who will wield the switch. Their teeth rattle in their heads. But this cannot stop them from singing. We are the most cunning family in the world! Claude shouts to the moon. Jean-Luc, who has strained his back, is not as convinced of this. Next we should kidnap the prime minister and demand ransom, says Lucie. No! cries Mimi. He dislikes children, and will make an unpleasant prisoner. I say we should take the princess, who will do everything as we tell her. Oh, it is easiest for the little ones! Jean-Luc moans. To Claude’s disappointment, M. Jouy has not joined them in their singing. He has not spoken, in fact, since his abduction, nor made any sound at all. It is because his mouth is full, says Mimi. Lucie makes a note of this: He has been taught good manners, even though he is an idiot. What if we take away his cookie? Claude suggests. But they shy away from the idea, these fierce-hearted children. It touches them strangely to see M. Jouy eating, the slow grinding movement of his terrible jaws, heavy as death. But he takes the tiniest of bites! It is like waking up the miller, setting those huge stones into motion, for only a half cup of meal. But this is clever, thinks Lucie. To make the cookie last. I know, says Jean-Luc, forgetting for a moment the pain in his back: ‘What if we were to flick him, lightly, with the switch?
hold me
Madeleine stirs in her sleep. She opens her eyes to see the photographer, his face close to hers. In this half light, she is not afraid to reach up and touch it with her ruined hand. What is happening? From the corridor outside she hears the ringing of a hundred litde bells, bells meant for summoning the director to his dinner or announcing the arrival of a visitor, but now their small polite voices are raised all at once, in alarm. The long hallway hisses with the sound of slippered feet. A patient was kidnapped, the photographer whispers. And knowing that the matron is thus occupied, he lifts up the covers on Madeleine’s cot and climbs in beside her. They lie close together for a long time. The girl breathes so heavily he thinks she is asleep. But then she says, clearly, So it can be done. He moves her hand. He places it carefully. She is talking about escape.
delivery
jean-luc expects to receive some credit for the cruelty of his suggestion. But Beatrice only laughs at him. A switch! How childish. Her laugh reveals every way in which his thinking is tedious and quaint. Jean-Luc returns sadly to nursing the strain in his back. She acts as if she is the oldest of them all now. She turns and looks at the other children, daringly. You want to hear him talk? she asks. Not one of them says yes. But she doesn’t need them to. The horse lets out a litde groan when she pulls on the reins, a warning he might not get started back up again. She’s heard it before; she drops down onto the road, marches to the rear of the cart. On her face is the sly, important expression that the postman wears while making deliveries. She pretends as if she doesn’t notice how hungrily her brothers and sisters are watching her. And then, with the same neatness of movement, the same absence of imagination with which she straightens the tablecloth, wrings the laundry, beats the carpets, dresses the children, heeds her mother’s every command, she lifts the edge of M. Jouy’s smock so that she can unbutton the opening to his breeches. The children, too, let out a litde groan. This is a constant source of wonder to them, that Beatrice should appear docile while being so profoundly disobedient.
dominoes
Madeleine’s voice beside him is incredulous. You found him? In his hurry, he forgot to mention it. It was not what he was thinking of, as he slid into the cot. Why didn’t you come get me? She sits up. She grabs his shoulder with her sticky hand and shakes him. I was playing dominoes in the pantry, she says. As I always do Her head wags back and forth in bewilderment. In the pantry, she says. Just down the stairs. He knew that; he did. From the embittered cook, she had already won twenty-two cigarettes, which she kept in a biscuit tin at the bottom of his wagon and often asked him to recount. I don’t understand, she says slowly, while poking him. We had a conspiracy. When she jabs her hand at his chest, it feels searching, not spiteful. She brings her face down to look at him, and he thinks for a moment that she is going to press her ear against his heart and listen. Then she subsides, without warning. The sticky hand is withdrawn. She inhales sharply, in discovery. Oh! she breathes. The two of you— He wishes that she would poke him again, or shake him. That she would not take away her hand. But full of understanding, she whispers to him: You wanted to be alone.