“You know Lirat? … He had another attack yesterday, this time on the street.”
And names of important personages were mentioned who had assisted in the scene and who had seen him rolling in the mud, lying, with foam at his mouth.
I must confess that I myself at the beginning of our friendship was greatly troubled by these stories. I could not think of Lirat without at the same time picturing to myself horrible fits in which, I was told, he was writhing. Victim of a delusion born of an obsession with this idea, I seemed to discover in him symptoms of horrible diseases; I often imagined that he suddenly became livid, that his mouth was distorted, that his body was convulsed in horrible spasms, that his eyes, wild and streaked with red, were shunning the light and seeking the shadow of deep vacuous space, like the eyes of trapped beasts that are about to die. And I regretted that I did not see him fall, shriek, writhe here in his studio filled with his genius, under my avid glance that watched him and hoped for the worst! … Poor Lirat! … And still I loved him! …
The day was drawing to a close. All over Rodrigues place one heard the slamming of doors; the noise of steps upon the street was rapidly dying away, and in the shops voices were heard rising in song at the end of the day’s work. Lirat had not uttered a word since resuming his work, except to fix my posture, which I did not keep just the way he wanted.
“The leg a little this way! … A little more now! … Your chest not quite so drawn in! … You’ll excuse me, my dear Mintié, but you pose like a pig!”
He worked now feverishly, now haltingly, mumbling in his mustache, swearing from time to time. His crayon snapped at the canvas with a sort of uneasy haste of angry nervousness.
“Ah, shucks!” he cried out, pushing away the easel with a kick. … “I can do nothing but botch-work today! … The devil take me, one might think I was competing for a prize.”
Moving back his chair he examined his sketch with a frigid air and muttered:
“Whenever women come here it’s the same old story. … When they go away the women leave you the soul of a Boulanger in the pretty claws of a Henner. … Henner, do you understand? … Let’s go out.”
When we were at the end of the street:
“Are you coming to dine with me, Lirat?” I asked him.
“No,” he replied in a dry tone, reaching out his hand.
And he walked away, stiff, formal, solemn, with the business air of a deputy who has just discussed the budget.
That evening I did not go out and remained at home to muse in solitude. Stretched on a sofa, with half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the heat, almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to bring to life things dead and to recall memories which escaped me. Five years had passed since the war—the war in which I began my apprenticeship in life by entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer. … Five years already! … Still it seemed like yesterday … the smoke, the fields covered with snow, stained with blood and ruins, these fields where, like ghosts, we wandered about piteously, worn out with fatigue. … Only five years! … And when I came back to the Priory, the house was empty, my father dead! … My letters had come to him only rarely, at long intervals and they had always been short, dry, written in haste on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate; only once had I poured out my heart to him, and this letter which should have brought him sweetness, hope and consolation he had not received! … Every morning, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate an hour before the arrival of the mailman and watch the turn of the road, a prey to mortal fear. Old woodcutters would pass on their way to the woods; my father used to question them:
“Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the mailman, by any chance?”
“Why no, Monsieur Mintié—it’s a little early yet.”
“Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late.”
“That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be.”
When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mailman he became pale, trembling with the fear of bad news. As the mailman approached, the heart of my father beat furiously, almost bursting.
“Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié.”
“How is that! … No letters at all! You must be mistaken, my boy. Look … look again. …”
He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go through them again. …
“Nothing! … Why it’s impossible!”
And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair heaving a sigh:
“Just think of it,” he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk, “just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!”
During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in the army; the conversation was always the same.
“Well, have you heard from your boys.”
“Why, no, M’sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from Jean?”
“I haven’t either.”
“That’s very strange. How is it possible? … Can you explain it? …”
That they themselves did not get any letters only half surprised them, but that Mintié, the mayor, had not received any either, surprised them very much. Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to the confusing statements of the papers, they questioned old soldiers who told them their war experiences with the most extravagant and lavish details; at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with lighter hearts.
“Don’t worry M’sieur Mayor. You’ll see him back a colonel, sure.”
“Colonel, colonel!” my father would say, shaking his head. … “I don’t ask that much. … Just so he comes back! …”
One day—nobody knew how that happened—Saint-Michel found itself full of Prussian soldiers.
