“Where was it then? And what time?”
“What time, don’t ask me! I never know what time it is
It was still dark. And it was here, going out…here…here… here…”
With each new “here” his voice gets louder; at the same time, the man makes a series of huge vague gestures toward the door with his right arm. Then, suddenly calmer, he adds in almost a whisper, and as though to himself:
“Where else would it be?”
Wallas despairs of getting anything out of him. Still the pleasant temperature of the room keeps him from leaving. He sits down at the next table.
“At this time yesterday I was over a hundred kilometers from here…”
Slowly the commissioner begins rubbing his palms together again:
“Of course! Don’t good murderers always have an alibi?”
A satisfied smile. The two plump hands come to rest on the desk, fingers wide apart
“What time was it?” the drunk asks.
“When you said.”
“That’s just it, I didn’t say!” the drunk exclaims triumphantly. “You pay for the round.”
Funny joke, Wallas thinks. But he does not budge. The manager now looks at him reproachfully.
“It’s all a lie,” the drunk concludes after a pause for laborious reflection. He examines Wallas and adds scornfully: “You don’t even have a car.”
“I came by train,” Wallas says.
“Oh,” the drunk says.
His good humor has vanished; he seems worn out by the discussion. Nevertheless he translates for the manager, but in a completely gloomy tone:
“He says he came by train.”
The manager does not answer. He has changed position; his head up, his arms dangling, it is apparent he is preparing to take some action. As a matter of fact he grasps his rag and wipes it back and forth across the top of the bar.
“What’s the difference,” the drunk begins with difficulty…“what’s the difference between a railroad and a bottle of wine?”
He is talking to his glass. Wallas automatically tries to think of the difference.
“Well?” his neighbor suddenly asks, cheered by the prospect of a victory.
“I don’t know,” Wallas says.
“So there’s no difference for you? You hear that, bartender, he doesn’t see any difference!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes you did!” the drunk shouts. “The bartender’s here to back me up. You said it. You pay for the round!”
“I’ll pay for the round,” Wallas admits. “Bartender, give us two glasses of white wine.”
“Two glasses of white wine!” repeats his companion, who has recovered his good humor.
“Don’t wear yourself out,” the manager says. “I’m not deaf.”
The drunk has emptied his glass in one gulp. Wallas is just starting to drink his. He is surprised to feel so comfortable in this filthy bar; is it only because it’s warm in here? After the sharp air of the street, a somewhat numbing sense of well-being penetrates his body. He feels full of kindness toward this drunken bum, and even toward the manager who scarcely encourages sympathy. As a matter of fact the latter keeps his eyes on his latest customer; and his expression is so deliberately suspicious that Wallas ends up, in spite of everything, by being somewhat disturbed. He turns back toward the riddle-lover, but the wine the latter has just drunk seems to have plunged him back into his gloomy thoughts. In the hope of cheering him up, Wallas asks:
“Well, what was the difference?”
“The difference?” The drunk seems completely in the dark this time. “The difference between what?”
“You know, between the railroad and the bottle!”
“Oh…the bottle…” the other man says slowly, as if he were coming back from a great distance away. “The difference…Well, it’s a big one, the difference…the railroad!… It’s not at all the same thing…”
It would certainly have been better to question him before giving him more to drink. Mouth open, the man is staring into space, one elbow on the table propping up his bloated head. He stammers incoherent words; then, with an obvious effort to make himself clear, he manages to say, with several halts and repetitions:
“You make me laugh with your railroad…If you think I didn’t recognize…didn’t recognize…just leaving here…We walked the whole way together…the whole way. That’s too easy! It’s not enough to change your coat…”
After that, the monologue becomes more obscure. A word that sounds like foundling keeps recurring, without any apparent reason.
Half asleep on his table, he stammers incomprehensible phrases, broken by exclamations and attempted gestures that fall back heavily or dissolve in the fog of his memories…
In front of him a tall man in a raincoat is walking along the fence.
“Hey! Aren’t you waiting for me? Hey, you!”
The man is deaf!
“Hey, you! Hey!”
Good, this time he heard.
“Wait up! Hey! I’ve got a riddle for you!”
Pretty rude, that man. Funny how no one likes riddles.
“Hey, wait up! You’ll see: it’s not hard!”
Not hard! They never guess them.
“Hey, you!”
“All right, you made me run to catch up!”
With a sudden movement, the man brushes off his arm.
“All right, if you won’t let me take your arm…Hey, not so fast! Let me catch my breath until I can remember my riddle…”
But the other man turns around threateningly, and the drunk steps back.
“What’s the animal…”
He chokes when he catches sight of the man’s furious expression; he is obviously about to beat the drunk to a pulp. The latter retreats, stammering some pacifying words; but as soon as the other man, who decides he produced his effect, starts walking again, the drunk begins following, trotting after him and whining:
“Hey, don’t walk so fast Hey! Wait up! Hey!”
People stop as they pass, turn around and step aside to make room for this surprising couple; a tall, powerful man wearing a raincoat too tight for him and a pale gray felt hat whose brim conceals the upper part of his face is walking fast, head down, hands in his pockets; he walks without rushing and seems to pay no attention whatever to the creature-strange as he is-who accompanies him, sometimes on his right, sometimes on his left, most often behind him, where he makes a series of unexpected swerves with the sole purpose, it seems, of keeping up with him. He manages to, more or less, but at the cost of a considerable amount of gymnastics, covering a course twice or three times as long as the one which would be necessary, with spurts of speed and stops so sudden that he looks as if he’s going to fall down at any moment. Despite these continual difficulties, he still manages to keep talking, in fragments, it’s true, but so that certain elements remain intelligible: “Hey! Wait up!…ask a riddle…” and something that sounds like “foundling.” Obviously he has had too much to drink. He is short and potbellied, wrapped in odd clothes, mostly in tatters. But from time to time the man walking ahead turns around without any warning and the drunk, terrified, steps back to keep out of reach; then as soon as the danger seems less, he starts walking again, stubbornly trying to catch up with his companion and sometimes even hanging onto his arm to hold him back-or else getting a step ahead of him only to find himself, an instant later, trotting along far behind-as if he were trying to make up for lost time.
Night has almost fallen now. The light from the rare street lamps and a few shops does not manage to create anything but a dim, fragmentary illumination-interrupted by gaps, more or less widely fringed with vague areas where the mind hesitates to venture.
Still the staggering little man persists in his chase, though perhaps he has undertaken it somewhat at random, and has not even figured out what its origin is.
Ahead of him, the wide, inaccessible back has gradually assumed terrifying dimensions. The tiny L-shaped rip on the left shoulder of the raincoat has grown so large that a whole flap of the garment has been detached and floats in his wake, like a flag, beating furiously against his legs. As for the hat, which was already drawn exaggeratedly far down over the face, it now forms a tremendous bell from which escapes, like the tentacles of some giant octopus, the vortex of intertwined ribbons to which, finally, the rest of the coat has been reduced.