“You were to explain to me, Mr. ”
They both realized at once that they were being made fools of. They looked at each other, in the midst of the sly smiles of the “boys” and the gravity, too great to be natural, of the white employees. It was the cocktail hour, and all Shanghai was there. Ferral felt himself to be the more ridiculous: the Englishman was almost a youth.
A contempt as intense as the anger which inspired him immediately compensated for the humiliation which was being imposed on him. He felt himself surrounded by the very essence of human stupidity, that which sticks like glue, which weighs on one’s shoulders: the creatures who were looking at him were the most despicable fools on earth. Nevertheless, having no idea how much they knew, he imagined that they knew everything and felt himself stricken, in the presence of their sly amusement, by a paralysis shot through with hatred.
“Is it for a bird show?” his “boy” asked the other. “Don’t know.”
“Mine is a male.”
“Yes. Mine is a female.”
“It must be for that.”
The Englishman bowed before Ferral, went up to the porter. The latter handed him a letter. He read it, took out a visiting card from his pocketbook, attached it to the cage, said to the porter: “For Madame Serge,” and went out.
Ferral tried to bring himself to think, to defend himself. She had struck him at his most sensitive point, as though she had put his eyes out during his sleep: she denied him. What he might think, do, want, did not exist. This ridiculous scene was, nothing could prevent its having happened. He alone existed in a world of phantoms, and it was he, precisely he, who was being outraged. And to make matters worse-for he did not think of it as a consequence, but as one more blow in a succession of defeats, as if rage had made him a masochist- to make matters worse, he would not even be going to bed with her. More and more intent on avenging himself on that ironic body, he stood there alone, facing those nincompoops and the expressionless “boys” with their cages dangling from their arms. Those birds were a constant insult. But he must by all means remain. He ordered a cocktail and lighted a cigarette, then remained motionless, busy breaking up a match between his fingers in his coat-pocket. A couple attracted his eye. The man had the charm which gray hair gives to a youngish face; the woman-sweet, but a little flashy-was looking at him with an amorous gratitude born of tenderness or sensuality. “She loves him,” thought Ferral enviously. “And he’s undoubtedly some obscure fool who perhaps is dependent on one of my enterprises. ” He sent for the porter.
“You have a letter for me. Give it to me.”
The porter, astonished but maintaining his seriousness, handed him the letter.
“Do you know, dear, that Persian women beat their husbands with tbeir nailed slippers when they are' ang;ry? They are irresponsible. And then, of course, they afterwards return to everyday life, the life in which to weep with a man does not co'^mit you, but in which to go to bed with him makes you a slave, the life in which one ‘has’ women. I am not a woman to be had, a stupid body in which you may find your pleasure by telling lies as to children and invalids. You know a good many things, dear, but you will probably die without its ever having occurred to you that a woman is also a human being. I have always met (perhaps I shall never meet any who are different, but so much the worse-you can't know how thoroughly I mean ‘so much the worseP) men who have credited me with a certain amount of charm, who have gone to touching lengths to set off my follies, but who have never failed to go straight to their men-friends whenever it was a question of something really human (except of course to be consoled). I must have my whims, not only to please you, but even to make you listen when I speak; I want you to know what my charming folly is worth: it resembles your affection. If any unhappiness could have resulted from the hold you wanted to have on me, you would not even have noticed it.
“I have met enough men to know how to regard a passing affair: nothing is without importtmce to a the moment it involves his pride, and pleasure allows him to gratify it most quickly and most often. I refuse to be regarded as a body, just as you refuse to be regarded as a check-book. You act with me as the prostitutes do with you: ‘Talk, but pay., I am also that body which you want me to be wholly; I know it. It is not always easy for me to protect myself from the idea people have of me. Your presence brings me close to my body with disgust, as springtime brings me close to it with joy. Speaking of spring, have a good time with the birds. And, by the way, the next time do leave the electric switches alone.
“V.”
He told himself that he had built roads, transformed a country, torn from their straw-huts the thousands of peasants now housed in the cabins of corrugated iron- sheets around his factories-like a feudal lord, like a delegate of empire; in its cage, the blackbird seemed to be making fun of him. Ferral’s energy, his lucidity, the audacity which had transformed Indo-China and whose crushing weight he had just felt upon reading the letter from America, led to nothing but this ridiculous bird- ridiculous as the universe-which was undeniably making fun of him. “So much importance given to a woman.” The woman had nothing to do with it. She was nothing but a bandage torn away from his eyes: he had thrown himself with all his might against the boundaries of his will. His thwarted sexual excitement fed his anger, threw him into the choking state of hypnosis in which ridicule calls for blood. One can get quick revenge only on bodies. Clappique had told a gruesome story about an Afghan chief whose wife, after having been violated by a neighboring chief, had returned with a letter, saying: “I am returning your woman, she is not so good as she is said to be”; and who, having caught the offender, had tied him in front of the naked woman to tear out his eyes, saying: “You have seen her and despised her, but you can swear that you will never see her again.” He imagined himself in Valerie’s room, with her tied to the bed, screaming till her exhausted cries became choking sobs, so close to cries of pleasure, bound with cords, writhing under the possession of suffering, since it was not under that of sex. The porter was waiting. “I must remain unmoved, like this idiot-l’d like to box his ears, just the same.” The idiot did not betray the slightest smile. He was saving it up for later on. Ferral said: “I’ll return shortly,” did not pay for his cocktail, left his hat and went out.
“To the biggest bird-dealer,” he said to the chauffeur.
It was near by. But the shop was closed.
“In Chinese city,” said the chauffeur, “street of bird- dealers.”
“Go ahead.”
As the car drove along there ran through Ferral’s mind the confession, which he had read in some medical book, of a woman seized with an uncontrollable desire to be flagellated, making an assignation by letter with an unknown man and discovering with terror that she wanted to run away at the very moment when she was lying on the hotel-bed and the man armed with the whip was completely paralyzing her arms under her lifted skirt. The face was invisible, but it was Valerie’s. Stop at the first Chinese brothel? No: no flesh would give him relief from the outraged sexual pride which tormented him.
The car was forced to stop before the barbed-wires. Ahead, the Chinese city, very black, unsafe. So much the worse. Ferral left the car, slipped his revolver into his coat-pocket, hoping for some assault: one kills what one can.