“Did you speak, Armand?”
The first time, Barthe leaped to his feet and cried out nervously: “I didn’t speak, no, I didn’t say anything—no!”
After that he did not respond to the question. Somehow it seemed to mark an indefinite passage of time.
Suddenly Guiret burst out unexpectedly in a thin voice: “Will the day never end?”
Immediately he regretted his words, for Barthe passed into a sort of muffled hysteria. He threw himself downward on the divan, rolling his head among the pillows.
“Legros must have heard by now,” Guiret said cheerfully, trying to calm him. “Surely he will show up any moment now. Don’t let him find you like this.”
Barthe did not seem to hear. He remained face downward among the silken pillows, his shoulders lifting and falling with spasmodic shivers.
A little later Guiret spoke again: “It will be dark soon.” And again he regretted his words and resolved to remain silent. Barthe repeated the words with new terror: “Yes, you are right, it will be dark soon.”
The day seemed eternal. At last the shadows descended the length of the windows and gathered in the corners of the room. One by one the chairs became blurred, the trunk, however, in the middle of the room remaining visible, illuminated by a beam of light that seemed to come from nowhere. Guiret got up and went to the window and located the light from an apartment house window. He sighed and sat down again.
For a while the darkness brought peace to both of them, for it blotted out the trunk. Barthe tried to forget that it was there and succeeded until the obscurity suddenly became peopled with ghosts. He got up jerkily and fumbled about for the cord that lighted the reading lamp.
They faced each other again. The day was over, yes, but the night as many hours long was before them. Barthe stretched himself on the divan, turning toward the wall. His breathing became regular in sleep, then he lurched up with a choking gasp, awakened by the beginning of a nightmare that started with the events of the day before unrolling in memory toward that time when he had bent over her where she lay on the rug, and saw that she was dead.
At daylight Barthe got up, raised the shades, turned out the light, took his place again on the divan, face to the wall, and seemed to be soundly asleep.
“Now that he’s quiet, I can sleep,” thought Guiret, and lifted his feet on a stool, his head in the comfortable curved back of the armchair. In the beginning of that torpor where the will held but fragile control, he recalled vividly the events of the night before, events that he dare not think of in his waking moments for fear that once started on the path of memory he would find himself unable to stop when he reached the first premises of that terrible climax, the result of which was now securely locked and strapped in Barthe’s large trunk.
It had been a gay evening at the start. Guiret and Barthe had gone by special invitation to the apartment of Roland Marousse, a wealthy merchant, who found, in common with the two students, pleasure in card-playing and gambling. It was the first of the month and both Guiret and his roommate had received their allowances. It was planned that the three of them would go together to another apartment where they would meet other acquaintances. They had expected to find Marousse alone….
Guiret, half-conscious, knew that he was breathing heavily, as he had heard Barthe breathe when he first tried to sleep, and he knew that if he could not throw off the torpor of weariness, pull himself out of the swoon that he was in, he would like Barthe go on and on until he, too, awakened with a hoarse, strangled cry.
“No—no—no—” he muttered, and that was what he was saying when suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair, rubbing his eyes with his palms.
How much time had elapsed, he could not tell. Possibly he had slept for a while before the recollections started to turn into the nightmare. He listened, hoping to hear a clock strike. From the sounds below in the street it must be ten o’clock or later.
“Armand—Armand—” he said tensely. “Wake up—someone is coming up the stairs!”
Barthe awakened with a start of fright and Guiret tried to calm him:
“What is there to worry about? It must be Legros. If he’s coming here who else could it be?” he asked confusedly.
He went to the door and unlocked it, opened it wide. Then he fell back into the room.
“Who is it?” Barthe asked, from the bedroom where he had gone as if to hide himself.
“Marousse!” Guiret exclaimed. “What on earth has brought you here so early?”
Marousse came into the room wearily. He seemed very tired and somewhat embarrassed.
“I was passing. I hope I do not disturb you.”
“No, no!”
Marousse looked at the trunk: “You are leaving—”
“For a short stay at Cannes. We are waiting for the concierge to bring the bill. Sit down—sit down—”
Marousse sat down uneasily and looked around the room. “Where is Barthe?”
“In his bedroom. He—he has a headache. Ill luck, too, when we have planned to take the train this afternoon. Armand—”
“Don’t bother him. I know how one feels with a headache. I’m none too well myself,” Marousse said wearily.
Guiret noticed that his usual jovial expression was lacking. He showed his age this morning. His body looked as if it had suddenly become emaciated.
A constrained silence seemed to weigh upon them. Guiret was the first to break it.
“Oh, Marousse,” he said, fumbling in his pocket. “Don’t let me forget that little sum of money I owe you.”
“Never mind. Let it go,” Marousse protested. “You’ll be back, won’t you?”
“Of course—but I want you to know that I wouldn’t leave— even for a trip without mentioning—”
“Never mind. I cannot think or care about money. I am too much disturbed.” He broke off, waiting for Guiret to question him. Guiret did not offer to do so and he went on: “I am terribly worried. Chouchou has not come back.”
“I have not seen her, not since she left us night before last.”
“But—I don’t understand—”
“Neither do I. You recall what happened. I should think you might well remember. Both you and Barthe lost so much at cards. You noticed, no doubt, that—” he hesitated, embarrassed, then forced himself to continue—”that Chouchou and I quarreled.”
“Yes, I mean I—I thought no more about it.”
“I was jealous, I admit. I should not have been, but I was. She was trying always to—to be alone with—well—” he lowered his voice—”with Barthe—you noticed, did you not?”
“Yes, I did—”
“She had won so much at cards from all of us I thought she should go on playing and I told her so—well, you know how she got angry at me in the taxi on the way home and got out and called a taxi to go to her apartment—I haven’t seen her since—”
“But that was night before last—”
“Yes! That’s why I am so worried. When I got to my apartment I telephoned her, you know, to find out if she was still angry. No answer. I called later, in an hour. Still no answer. You remember it was very late when we parted. I slept a little, then took a bath and changed my clothes, and telephoned again. Still no Chouchou—”
“Perhaps she was there but did not answer the phone.”
“That’s what I thought. I called a taxi and went to her place. The maid had not seen her. She had not been back that night. I knew she could not be shopping. She had not been back to change her clothes, and she would not go about in evening clothes in the morning. I waited a while. Ten o’clock, half past ten, then I decided to telephone her friends. No one had seen her. I went down in the street and waited for an hour before the door, watching the taxis go by, expecting, hoping every moment to see her step out.”