The street of the pet-shops was asleep; the “boy” quietly knocked at the first shutter, crying “Buyer”: the shopkeepers were afraid of the soldiers. Five minutes later someone opened. In the magnificent russet halflight, around a lantern, a few smothered leaps of cats or monkeys and beatings of wings announced the awakening of the animals. In shadows beyond the radius of the light, were long splotches of dul red: macaws chained to perches.
“How much for all those birds?”
“Just the birds? Eight hundred dollars.”
He was a small dealer, and he had no rare birds. Ferral pulled out his check-book, hesitated: the dealer would want cash. The “boy” understood. “He is Monsieur Ferral,” he said; “his car is over there.” The dealer went out, saw the headlights of the car, scratched by the barbed wires.
“That’s all right.”
This confidence, a proof of his authority, exasperated Ferral; his power, obvious to the point that his name was known to this shopkeeper, was absurd since he could not use it. Pride, however, helped by the activity in which he was engaged and by the cold night-air, came to his rescue: sadistic anger and imaginings were breaking up into disgust, even though he knew he had not done with them.
“I also have a kangaroo,” said the dealer.
Ferral shrugged his shoulders. But already a youngster, who had also been awakened, was approaching with the kangaroo in his arms. It was a small, furry creature, and it looked at Ferral with the frightened eyes of a deer.
“Fine.”
Another check.
Ferral returned slowly to the car. It was necessary above all that, if Valerie told the story of the cages- she would not fail to-he would only have to tell the end in order to escape ridicule. The dealer, the youngster and the “boy” were bringing the small cages, arranging them in the car, and returning to fetch more; finally, the last ones, the kangaroo and the parrots, brought in large round cages. Beyond the Chinese city, a few shots. Very good: the more they fought the better it would be. The car started off again, before the bewildered eyes of the post.
At the Astor Ferral sent for the manager.
“Will you please come upstairs with me to Madame Serge’s room. She is away and I want to give her a surprise.”
The manager concealed his astonishment, and even more his disapprovaclass="underline" the Astor was dependent on the Consortium. The mere presence of a white man to whom he could talk detached Ferral from his universe of humiliation, helped him to return among “the others”; the Chinese dealer and the night had left him in his obsession; he was not entirely freed from it yet, but at least it no longer dominated him wholly.
Five minutes later he was having the cages arranged in the room. All the precious objects were put away in the closets, one of which was left open. He picked up a pair of pajamas that lay spread out on the bed, but the moment he touched the warm silk it seemed to him that this warmth became communicated through his arm to his whole body and that the material he was grasping had exactly covered one of her breasts: the dresses, the pajamas hanging in the half-open closet, held within them something more sensual, perhaps, than Valerie’s body itself. He had an impulse to bury his face in those pajamas, to press or tear, as though he were penetrating them, those garments still saturated with her presence. He would have taken the pajamas with him, if he had been able. He threw them into the closet, and the “boy” closed the door upon them. As the pajamas left his hand, the legend of Hercules and Omphale brusquely seized his imagination-Hercules dressed as a woman in soft, flimsy garments like these, humiliated and content in his humiliation. In vain he tried to summon the sadistic scenes that had insistently come before him awhile ago: the man worsted by Omphale and Dejanira weighed upon his whole mind, drowned it in a humiliating satisfaction. A sound of steps approached. He put his hand to his revolver in his pocket: if she had entered at that moment he would undoubtedly have killed her. The steps passed by the door and grew fainter. Ferral’s hand changed pockets and he nervously pulled out his handkerchief. He had to act, do something, escape from this state of mind: he had the parrots and cockatoos unchained, but the timid birds took refuge in the corners and in the curtains. The kangaroo had jumped on the bed and remained there. Ferral turned out the center light, left only the night-lamp: pink and white, with the magnificent curved flashes of their ornate wings, reminding of the phcenixes of the East India Company, the cockatoos began to stir about with a clumsy and restless flutter.
Those boxes full of excited little birds, scattered about on all the furniture, on the floor, in the fireplace, bothered him. He tried to discover why, could not imagine. Went out. Came in again, immediately understood: the room seemed devastated. Would he escape idiocy tonight? In spite of himself he had left here the blatant image of his anger.
“Open the cages,” he said to the “boy.”
“The room wil get dirty, Monsieur Ferral,” said the manager.
“Madame Serge will change her room. Don't worry, it won’t be tonight. You’ll send me the bill.”
“Flowers, Monsieur Ferral?”
“Nothing but the birds. And let no one come in here, not even the servants.”
The window was protected from mosquitoes by a screen. The birds would not fly away. The manager opened the casement to prevent the room from smelling foul.
And now, on the furniture and the curtains, in the corners of the ceiling, the island birds were wildly fluttering, their colors dull in this feeble light, like those of Chinese frescoes. Through hatred he would have offered Valerie his handsomest gift. He turned out the light, turned it on again, turned it out, then on. He was using the bed-side switch; he remembered the last night he had spent with Valerie in his apartment. He had an impulse to tear off the switch so that she would never be able to use it-with anyone. But he wanted to leave no trace of anger here.
“Take away the empty cages,” he said to the “boy.” “Have them burned.”
“If Madame Serge should ask who sent the birds,” said the manager, looking at Ferral with admiration, “is she to be told?”
“Won't ask. It's signed.”
He went out. He must have a woman tonight. However, he had no desire to go to the Chinese restaurant immediately. It was enough-for the time being-that he was sure there were bodies at his disposal. Often, when he was awakened with a start from a nightmare, he would feel the desire to continue his sleep in spite of the nightmare which would seize him again, and at the same time, the desire to escape it by becoming completely awake; sleep was the nightmare, but it was himself; awakening was peace, but the world. Tonight lust was the nightmare. He finally made up his mind to awaken from it, and had himself driven to the French Club: to talk, to enter into relation again with a human being, if only through conversation, was the surest awakening.
The bar was crowded: troubled times. Close to the half-open window, a beige cape of rough wool over his shoulders, alone and almost isolated, Gisors was seated with a sweet cocktail before him; Kyo had telephoned him that all was well and his father had come to the bar to pick up the rumors of the day, often absurd but at times significant: they were not so tonight. Ferral went up to him amid the greetings. He knew the nature of his lectures, but attached no importance to them; and he did not know that Kyo was in Shanghai at the present time. He considered it beneath his dignity to question Martial about persons, and Kyo’s role did not have a public character.
All those idiots who were iooldng at him with timid disapproval believed the bond between him and the oid man was opium. They were wrong. Ferral pretended to smoke-one, two pipes, always iess than would have been necessary for him to feei the effect of the opium-be- cause he found in the atmosphere of smoke-sessions, in the pipe that passed rrom mouth to mouth, a means of making advances to women. Having a horror of counship, of the exchange in which he paid by attributing importance to a woman for what she gave him in the way of pleasure, he eagerly seized everything that enabled him to dispense with it.