by Unknown
see any stairs right away. According to his calculations, the room he was looking for would be on the fourth floor, perhaps even higher; he was anx ious to search for it and to climb up as quickly as possible. The corridor seemed to have no way out. He went quickly down the length of it and then came back. When he had returned to his point of departure, he set out again, this time slowing his pace, sticking close to the wall and follow ing its cracks and crevices. This second attempt was no more successful than the first. However, since his first inspection, he had noticed a door, covered with thick curtains, above which was written in crudely traced let ters: The entrance is here. So the entrance was there. Thomas went back to it again, and reproaching himself for having overlooked it, he studied the massive door with an almost painful concentration; it was heavily set on iron hinges and was made of solid oak so thick as to defy any assault. It was a skillful piece of carpentry, ornamented with intricate sculptures, but it appeared no less rough and massive for all that and would have seemed in its proper place in an underground passage whose exit it would have hermetically sealed. Thomas moved closer to inspect the lock; he tried to move the bolt and saw that a simple piece of wood, wedged tightly into the stone, held the door in its slot. It would take nothing to push it in. But he remain-ed wanted also to be able to leave whenever he wished. After waiting patiently for a few moments, he was startled by the noise of a violent quarrel that seemed to have erupted on the other side of the wall. As far as he could judge, this incident was occurring in one of those ground floor rooms that sank below street level and were repulsively filthy. The noise soon began to annoy him -the shouts echoed oppressively, but he could not tell how they reached his ears with such force. He could not remember ever hearing cries at once so raucous, strident, and smothered. One would have thought that the quarrel had erupted in an atmosphere of harmony and friendship so perfect that it could be broken only by the most terrible curses. At first Thomas found it irksome to be the witness of such a scene. He looked around and thought of how he could leave this place. But since the shouting was becoming more familiar, without losing any of its violence, he thought that it was too late. He raised his own voice in turn and asked through the din if he could enter. No one answered, but a silence fell, a strange silence in which accusations and anger were expressed even more sharply than in shouts and noise. Certain that he had been heard, he won3
dered how they would respond to his appeal. He had brought some sup plies, and although he was not hungry, he ate a little to gain some strength. When he had finished, he took off his overcoat, folded it, and, stretching out on the floor, laid his head on it like a pillow. It was not long before his eyes were closed. He had no desire to sleep, but he rested in a feeling of calm that for him took the place of sleep and carried him far away from here. The same calm reigned outside. It was a tranquility so assured and disdainful that he felt he had behaved foolishly in thinking of nothing but his rest. Why did he remain where he was without doing anything? Why was he waiting for help that would never come? He began to feel a great nostalgia, but soon there was nothing greater than his fatigue, and he fell fast asleep. When he woke, nothing had changed. Raising himself up, he leaned on his elbow and listened for a few moments. The silence was not unpleasant; neither hostile nor strange, it was simply impenetrable, that was all. Seeing that he was still forgotten inside the house, Thomas tried to sleep a second time. And yet, though he was still weary, he could not find sleep again. He fell into a momentary doze, then woke abruptly wondering whether indeed this really was sleep. No, it was not real sleep. It was a restfulness in which his worries fell out of sight but that nonetheless made him even more sad and anxious. He grew so tired that when he woke again, he was not at all happy to see a man with thick hair and troubled eyes waiting for him in the doorway. It was even a rather unpleasant surprise. "What's this?" he said to himself. "Is that the man they've sent for me?" Never theless, he stood up, shook out his coat, tried in vain to brush away its wrinkles, and, having taken all the time he needed, made as if to enter. The guardian let him take a few steps and seemed unaware of his intentions until Thomas was right up against him, about to knock him out of the way in order to get past. At that point, he placed his hand on Thomas's arm in a timid gesture. They were so close to each other that it was impossible to tell them apart. Thomas was the taller of the two. The guardian, seen up close, appeared even more abject and debilitated. His eyes trembled. His suit had been pieced together from odds and ends, and despite the skillful stitching and the proper appearance of the whole outfit, it left a disturbing impression of poverty and negligence. It was impossible to see these rags as a real uniform. Thomas gently pulled himself away without meeting any resistance. The 4
door was only half open. Through this opening he could see the first steps of a stairway leading down into a more shadowy region. One, two, three steps were dimly visible, but the light went no farther. Thomas took from his pocket a few coins, passed them from one hand to the other, and looked out of the corner of his eye to see if this offer would be well received. It was difficult to read the thoughts of the guardian. "Should I speak to him?" he wondered. But before he could open his mouth or do anything more than outline a friendly gesture, his interlocutor reached out forcefully, grabbed the coins, and threw them into the only pocket still intact on his vest, a very wide and deep pocket trimmed with dirty gold braids. Thomas was surprised but did not take the incident badly. He looked hurriedly for the latch in order to push the door all the way open. The guardian stood be fore him. Something in his attitude had changed, but what? It was hard to tell. He still had a ragged and even humble look; it seemed that his anxiety had become sheer distress, and his eyes flashed with a spark that comes from fear. And yet he barred Thomas's way. He did so without authority, without conviction, but he held himself quite firmly in the doorframe so that, in order to pass, it now became necessary to use force. "What a nui sance," thought Thomas. How had such a transformation taken place? It was as if the guardian had had nothing to guard until now, as if Thomas had suddenly created new duties for him by buying his complicity. This new obstacle was soon reduced to its proper proportions; the man still had the same modest attitude, and perhaps all he wanted was to be the first to walk the path they were about to take together. A word from Thomas cleared the way: "Is that," he said, "the stairway to the fourth floor?" The guardian, after reflecting a moment, responded with an evasive gesture, then turned around and, opening the door all the way, stepped through to the top of the stairway. Thomas was intrigued by the gesture. Its meaning was not very clear. Did the porter, this everlasting porter, mean to acknowledge that he knew nothing about the house, that he could not give the least information about anything? Was he attempting to evade his responsibilities? Or did he know so much about it that he could only wave away his thoughts with a gesture of doubt and indifference? Thomas de cided that his first duty, his only duty for now, was to get his companion to speak before it was too late. He called to him, and the other man took up his position again. He considered him anew. What could he expect from 5
someone so wretched, so degraded? He was overcome with a feeling of solitude and by the anguish of his own destitution. "Are you the porter?" he asked the man. He answered yes with a nod. That was all. The response was definite, but it said nothing. Seeing what meager help he was receiving from the guardian, he took a step back and realized that he was right up against the door. This was a surprise. The door did not look the same as before. The sculptures and designs, which appeared to be set in wood, were made up of the heads of extremely long nails whose threatening points stuck out several inches on the other side. On the side of the door facing the hallway, these designs were rather pleasing. They were not visible right away; it was necessary to give up trying to discover anything by looking too intently and to wait pa tiently to receive the emerging patterns, almost by force. Thomas looked at the other side as well. Was there any order in this crisscrossing of points and metal rods? He
stared for a long time at the panel, but the craftsman must have neglected the backside of his work; the arrangement was com pletely random. But there was one detail at least that rendered the artist's thought: above the latch was a small sliding window, painted bright red, which a twisted and monstrous iron hinge seemed to bury in the thick ness of the wood. The small piece of metal serving as a shutter had recently been covered with a thick layer of paint that stood out brilliantly from its pathetic and dilapidated surroundings; it seemed to promise a new sensa tion to anyone inclined to stoop to the level of the opening. Thomas pre pared to find out how it would be. He tried to lift the iron slat from its wooden frame but was met with heavy resistance: the window opened only from the outside, and the opening was meant for the visitor who wished to look into the house from outside without opening the door. There was yet another oddity: by opening the window, one also bolted the door; when the metal rod reached the end of its slot, it slid into two metal hooks that held it in place, so that whoever wanted to look into the house had also to give up entering it for the moment. Although such details as these no longer held much interest for Thomas, he lingered over them for a long time. He would have liked to reverse his steps and peek through the little window into this dark vestibule at the first stairs he had to walk down. He thought that in this way he would have understood many things. But now it was too late; he had to keep moving forward. In itself the stairway was 6
not very pleasant. Its steps had been washed, and the stone, though worn down and marked in certain spots by deep imprints, was so shiny that it appeared to be new. On each side, and at a considerable distance, stood two walls between which the stairway passed like a ridiculously narrow path. This path was very short, six steps, perhaps ten, for the last ones were lost in obscurity, and it was impossible to tell if they led to another ves tibule or if everything ended there. Thomas set off toward his goal with such enthusiasm that he did not at first hear the guardian call to him and did not stop until he was on the second step. And yet the voice he heard was extraordinary. It was marked by a gravity and sadness that made it difficult to believe everything it said. Certainly it was because of his voice that the guardian had been chosen to fulfill his function. Thomas remained motionless when he heard it. The guardian had to repeat what he had said; this time his voice was not so gentle. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Are you looking for someone?" Thomas did not answer. Although he was not surprised by this ques tion, and although he was in fact rather relieved to notice that he was not being ignored, he suffered from a painful impression. Indeed, where was he going? How could he explain his presence here? He looked over at the wall from whrch he was separated by a veritable abyss. He was there, that was all he could say. "Why are you questioning me?" he asked. "Is it forbidden to come and go in this house?" The porter lifted his head in surprise. He was still a young man, and there was in his youth an inexplicable reflection of grandeur and dejection, oflife and cruel endings, something that made one think of another world, but one that is wretched and inferior. "Naturally," he answered in his grave voice, "anyone can enter here, if he has a reason for coming. Whoever is a tenant here can do what he wants and need not answer to anyone, on the condition, of course, that the rules be respected." Thomas replied energetically: "I could become a tenant." "Well then," said the guardian, "you're on the right track, for I'm the one in charge of tenancy." So this porter was not so unimportant after all. At that moment, he pushed the door to and it gently closed. It was hard to see anything in the stairway now. It seemed that the steps were even narrower than be7
fore and that night had suddenly filled the vestibule, transforming it into a gloomy prison. What was the weather like outside? Thomas could hardly remember the impressions of his arrival at dawn; it all seemed so far away. The only thing he remembered - and it was as if he had lost everything he had -was the woman lying in the middle of the shop, her face turned toward the wall, calm and distant from everything. He felt lightheaded. The guardian, as though aware of his discomfort, slipped up to him and took his arm in a benevolent gesture. "First of all," he said, "you must tell me your name." He spoke politely-what kindness in his manners! Thomas leaned heavily on the arm offered to him and took a step forward. His compan ion gave him support; the steps came quickly to an end. They came to a circular room connecting several hallways and lit from above by a half concealed lamp. Seats draped with dust cloths had been placed around an empty space so carefully and with such geometric precision that they seemed rather a mockery of order and propriety and human cares. No one was there. Thomas even had the impression that no one had ever been there before him, and even though he saw on one of the chairs a cap decorated with beautiful golden braids, this did nothing to change his conviction. The room was small and round, and the dim lamp, which emitted more shadow than light, revealed its rigorously designed shape. Thomas now thought that the house seemed more luxurious and com fortable than was apparent from its exterior; everything was clean and elegantly adorned. But this did not make one want to stay there. Pictures hung on the walls. They had been painted with such meticulous care that, although each one of them seemed rather large in such a small room, it was necessary to look very closely not only to distinguish the details but also to have a sense of the whole. It was difficult to see the images clearly, but they did not offer a subject of great interest. Although the precision of the exe cution suggested a certain skill, it was tedious always to find the same fea tures over and over, the same tricks and inventions, the laborious effort of an incoherent, unsatisfied, obstinate mind. Thomas went from one to the other. They were all similar to one another, and if their confused charac ter had not made it impossible to grasp anything more than fragments, he would have thought them all identical. It was very odd. He made an effort to understand what they represented, and once he managed to disregard the useless ornamentation - especially the acanthus leaves that were scat8
tered profusely throughout - he discovered, amidst the disorder of these too carefully traced lines and figures, the image of a bedroom with its vari ous pieces of furniture and its particular layout. Each picture represented a room or an apartment. In his naIvete, whoever had executed the drawing had substituted a vague and crude symbol for the direct representation of an object. In place of a lamp meant to burn during the night, there was a sun; there was no window, but everything visible through the window the street, the shops across the way, and, farther in the distance, the trees of the public square - had been faithfully drawn on the wall. Because of the repugnance that had prevented the painter from showing certain fig ures in their true forms, the beds and couches had been replaced in all the rooms by whimsical constructions, such as a mattress laid on top of three chairs, or an alcove with no way in or out. Thomas looked patiently at these details. How childish it all was ! "I see," said the guardian, "that you are interested in our rooms. Go ahead and choose the one you want." So these were the rooms of the house. Out of politeness, Thomas pre tended to examine the images with greater pleasure, now that he under stood their significance. But either because he directed his curiosity to de tails without importance, and therefore seemed stupid and intolerable to someone more informed, or else because he ignored things worthy of ad miration, and so gave away his lack of inclination to take the matter seri ously, his goodwill did not seem to satisfy the guardian who approached certain paintings and abruptly turned them against the wall. Thomas was vexed and astonished. It was precisely the pictures he could no longer see that he would have liked to examine more closely. "I believe," he said, "that you are pressing me unduly." And, pointing to the forbidden images, he added, "I have not yet decided against taking one of those rooms." The incident did not stop there. As though to show how casually he re garded all these grave and formal proceedings, Thomas himself tried to turn one of the pictures around, and he would have done so if the guardian had not stopped him with a rapid gesture, yelling: "That one is rented! " Did he mean the picture or the apartment represented in the pict
ure? There was no way to clarify this right now; Thomas barely had time to jump back to avoid a brutal blow. The shock, the sudden movements, and the bizarre emotion invading him now compelled him to sit down, with9
out watching what he was doing, on a large armchair. He settled into it with a real sense of well-being. He rested his hands on the arms of the chair, sat up straight, put his legs squarely in front of him, and it seemed then that he was a powerful judge, that he had suddenly regained an authority that, however, he had never possessed. The guardian himself humbly ap proached, as if he wanted to ask for pardon, stopping and bowing a few steps in front of him so that he might receive from such a magnificent client the right to treat him as befitted his rank. Thomas glanced at him dis tractedly: "I have no use," he thought, "for this subordinate." Finally, the guardian turned around, and after picking up the cap with gold braids and putting it on, he walked toward a small wooden desk, opened it, and pulled out a notebook with a white label on it. "Now it's clear enough," thought Thomas. "All I have to do is sign my name and everything will be in order." The guardian opened the notebook with its blank pages and slowly leafed through it, though he more than anyone knew that he would find nothing there. He stopped occasionally on a certain page and followed unwritten lines with his finger, or else he went back to a page he had already read and seemed to compare it with a new passage that it clarified or contradicted. Thomas intended at first to let the guardian believe that he was taken in by this playacting and to do nothing to put a stop to it. Was not everything here playacting? So he remained where he was and sat back comfortably. It was out of sheer politeness that he said, addressing his words not to his present interlocutor but to others with whom he would have liked to make contact: "I will wait as long as it takes." The wait, however, was very short. The little room soon seemed much less pleasant, and the lack of air, the absence of space, the painful impres sion made by the walls pressing in on all sides rapidly dissipated all the charm one might find in this neat but cramped room. Thomas had to un button his jacket. He tore off his collar. He slid down on the armchair, and despite some efforts to maintain a measure of dignity, he gave himself over to an attitude of misery. The guardian rushed to help him, but he was so clumsy that in trying to prevent Thomas from falling, he lost his balance and had to cling to him, half crushing him and, with his arm now wrapped around his neck, on the verge of suffocating him completely. Never had Thomas felt his guard ian so close to him, and the contact was in no way pleasant. The odor was especially unbearable; it gave the impression that his body was discharging 10
