Again Mathias found himself out in the road that had no sidewalk. Of course he had not sold a single wrist watch. In the hardware shop¬window could be seen various objects that were ordinarily sold in dry-goods stores as well, ranging from big balls of thread for mending fishnets to black silk braids and pincushions.
Once past the butcher shop, Mathias disappeared into the next doorway.
He made his way down the same dark narrow corridor the arrangement of which he now recognized. Without, however, achieving any greater success. At the first door he knocked on, there was no answer. At the second, a very old woman, pleasant enough although stone deaf, obliged him to abandon all attempts at salesmanship: since she understood nothing of what he wanted, he retreated with many smiles and an expression indicating he was entirely satisfied with his visit; somewhat startled, the old woman decided to smile back and even to thank him warmly. With many reciprocal little bows, they parted after an affectionate handshake; in another moment she would have kissed him. He climbed the uncomfortable staircase to the first floor; there a woman shut the door in his face without giving him time to speak a word; a baby was screaming somewhere. On the second floor he found only some dirty, frightened children—perhaps they were sick, since they were home from school on a Tuesday.
On the quay again, he turned back to try to interest the butcher, who was waiting on two customers; no one paid enough attention to what he was saying to justify even opening the suitcase. He did not insist, repelled by the cold smell of the meat.
The next shop was the café “A l’Espérance.” He walked in. The first thing to do in a café is to buy a drink. He went to the bar, set his suitcase on the floor between his feet, and asked for an absinthe.
The girl working behind the bar had a timorous face and the ill-assured manner of a dog that had been whipped. When she ventured to raise her eyelids her large eyes could be seen—dark and lovely—but only for an instant; she lowered them immediately, leaving only her long doll’s lashes to be admired. Their delicate outlines emphasized her vulnerable expression.
Three men-three sailors—whom Mathias had passed as they were arguing in front of the door walked in and sat down at a table. They ordered red wine. The barmaid walked around the bar, awkwardly carrying the bottle and three glasses stacked one inside the other. Without a word she set down the glasses in front of the customers. To fill them exactly she leaned forward from the waist, her head to one side. Under her apron she was wearing a black dress cut low over the delicate skin of her back. Her hair was arranged so that the nape of her neck was completely exposed.
One of the sailors had turned toward the bar. Mathias, without having had time to realize what made him turn away, suddenly wheeled back to his glass of absinthe and drank a swallow of it. In front of him was someone new, standing against the door frame of the inner room, near the cash drawer. Mathias made a vague gesture of greeting.
The man did not seem to notice it. He kept his eyes fastened on the girl who was still pouring the wine.
She was not used to the job. She poured too slowly, constantly watching the level of the liquid in the glass, determined not to waste a drop. When the third one was filled to the brim she raised the bottle and, holding it in both hands, returned to her place with lowered eyes. At the other end of the bar the man watched her severely as she approached him, walking with short steps. She must have become aware of her master s presence—in a flicker of her lashes—for she stopped short, hypnotized by the floorboards at the tips of her shoes.
The others were already quite motionless. Once the girl’s change of position—too uncertain to last under such conditions—had been reabsorbed in its turn, the entire scene crystallized.
No one said anything.
The barmaid looked at the floor in front of her feet. The proprietor looked at the barmaid. Mathias watched the proprietor looking at her. The three sailors looked at their glasses. Nothing revealed the pulsation of the blood through the veins—not a quiver.
It would be pointless to try to estimate the time this lasted.
Four syllables rang out. But instead of breaking the silence, they were completely assimilated by it: “Are you asleep?”
The voice was heavy, deep, slightly singsong. Although spoken without anger, almost softly, the words concealed beneath their pretended gentleness an unspecified threat. Or it might have been in this very appearance of intimidation, on the other hand, that the pretense was to be found.
After a considerable delay—as if the command had taken a long time to reach her across a stretch of sand and stagnant water—the girl continued to advance timorously without lifting her head toward the man who had just spoken. (Had anyone seen his lips move?) Having reached a point near him—less than a step away—within reach of his hand—she leaned over to put the bottle back in place—presenting the nape of her neck from which, where it was exposed by her dress, protruded the tip of a vertebra. Then, straightening up, she busied herself drying the newly-washed glasses. Outside, behind the glass door, beyond the paving-stones and the mud, the water of the harbor sparkled in dancing flashes: undulating lozenges of flame forming transverse gothic arches, lines which suddenly contracted to produce a jagged flash of light—which as suddenly flattened, extending horizontally until it formed a line that broke once more into a brilliant zigzag—a jig-saw puzzle, a seamless series of incessant dislocations.
At the sailors’ table, air whistled between clenched teeth—preceding the imminent return of speech.
Passionately, though in an undertone, syllables picked out by one: …would deserve…” began the youngest, who was continuing some long-drawn-out argument begun elsewhere. “She deserves…” A silence…. A little whistle…. Squinting from the effort of choosing his words, he was looking into a dark corner where the pin-ball machine stood. “I don’t know what she deserves.”
“Oh, yes!” said one of the two others—the one next to him—in a more sonorous tone, exaggeratedly drawling the initial interjection.
The third sailor, sitting opposite, drank off the wine left in the bottom of his glass and said calmly, already bored by the subject: “A good smack…. And you too.”
They stopped talking. The proprietor had disappeared from the doorway to the inner room. Mathias noticed the girl’s large dark eyes—in a flicker of her lashes. He drank a swallow of absinthe. The glasses were all dried now; to give herself something to do the girl put her hands behind her back on the pretext of retying her apron strings.