Some day someone would realize. Then the builders would come. Or a priest, with his sprinkler, and another acre would be God’s. When prosperity returned.
Camier was reading in his notebook. He tore out the little leaves when read, crumpled them and threw them away. He watches me, he said, without a word. He drew a big envelope from his pocket, took from it and threw away the following: buttons, two specimens of head or body hair, an embroidered handkerchief, a number of laces (his speciality), one toothbrush, a strange piece of rubber, one garter, samples of material. The envelope too, when he had emptied it, he threw away. I might as well be picking my nose, he said, for all he cares. He rose, impelled by scruples that did him credit, and gathered up the crumpled leaves, those at least which the light morning breeze had not blown away, or hidden in a fold of the ground, or behind a clump of thistles. The leaves thus recovered he tore up and threw away. So, he said, I feel lighter now. He turned back towards Mercier. You’re not sitting on the wet grass, I hope, he said.
I’m sitting on my half of our coat, said Mercier, clover is nothing to it.
Fine too early, said Camier, bad sign.
What is the weather doing, said Mercier, now you mention it.
Look and see, said Camier.
I’d rather you told me, said Mercier.
A pale raw blotch, said Camier, has appeared in the east, the sun presumably. Happily it is intermittent, thanks to a murk of tattered wrack driving from the west before its face. It is cold, but not yet raining.
Sit, said Mercier. I know you do not share my chilly nature, but profit by the bank just the same. Don’t overdo it, Camier, a nice bloody fool I’d look if you caught pneumonia.
Camier sat.
Cuddle close, said Mercier, snug and warm. Now look, like me, wrap the slack round your legs. So. All we need now is the hard-boiled egg and bottle of pop.
I feel the damp creeping up my crack, said Camier.
So long as none creeps down, said Mercier.
I fear for my cyst, said Camier.
What you lack, said Mercier, is a sense of proportion.
I don’t see the connexion, said Camier.
Just so, said Mercier, you never see the connexion. When you fear for your cyst think of your fistula. And when you tremble for your fistula consider your chancre. This method holds equally for what is called happiness. Take one for example entirely free from pain all over, both his body and the other yoke. Where can he turn for relief? Nothing simpler. To the thought of annihilation. Thus, whatever the conjuncture, nature bids us smile, if not laugh. And now, let us look things calmly in the face.
After a moment’s silence Camier began to laugh. Mercier in due course was tickled too. Then they laughed long together, clutching each other by the shoulders so as not to collapse.
What innocent merriment, said Camier, finally.
Well you know what I mean, said Mercier.
Before going any further they asked and told each other how they felt. Then Mercier said:
What exactly did we decide? I remember we agreed, as indeed we always do, in the end, but I forgot as to what. But you must know, since it is your plan, is it not, we are putting into execution.
For me too, said Camier, certain details have faded, and certain refinements of reasoning. So if I have any light to throw it is rather on what we are going to do, or rather again on what we are going to try and do, than on why we are going to try and do it.
I’m ready to try anything, said Mercier, so long as I know what.
Well, said Camier, the idea is to return to town, at our leisure, and stay there for as long as necessary.
Necessary for what? said Mercier.
For retrieving our belongings, said Camier, or giving them up for lost.
It must indeed have been rich in refinements, said Mercier, the reasoning responsible for that.
It would seem to have seemed to us, said Camier, though I cannot swear to it, that the sack is the crux of the whole matter in that it contains, or did contain, certain objects we cannot dispense with.
But we have reviewed its entire contents, said Mercier, and deemed them superfluous without exception.
True, said Camier, and our conception of what is superfluous can scarcely have evolved since yesterday. Whence then our disquiet?
Well, whence? said Mercier.
From the intuition, said Camier, if I remember right, that the said sack contains something essential to our salvation.
But we know that is not so, said Mercier.
You know the faint imploring voice, said Camier, that drivels to us on and off of former lives?
I confuse it more and more, said Mercier, with the one that tries to cod me I’m not yet dead. But I take your meaning.
It would seem to be some such organ, said Camier, that for the past twenty-four hours has not ceased to murmur, The sack! Your sack! Our latest heart to heart made this quite clear.
I recall nothing of the kind, said Mercier.
And so the need for us, said Camier, if not to find, at least to look for it, and for the bicycle, and for the umbrella.
I fail to see why, said Mercier. Why not the sack alone, since our concern is with the sack alone.
I too fail to see why, said Camier, exactly why. All I know is that yesterday we did see why, exactly why.
When the cause eludes me, said Mercier, I begin to feel uneasy.
Here Camier was alone in wetting his trousers.
Mercier does not join in Camier’s laugh? said Camier.
Not just this once, said Mercier.
This thing we think we need, said Camier, once in our possession and now no longer so, we situate in the sack, as in that which contains. But on further thought nothing proves it is not in the umbrella, or fastened to some part of the bicycle. All we know is we had it once and now no more. And even that we do not know for sure.
There’s premises for you if you like, said Mercier.
It boils down then to some unknown, said Camier, which not only is not necessarily in the sack, but which perhaps no sack of this type could possibly accommodate, the bicycle itself for example, or the umbrella, or both. By what token shall we know the truth? By a heightened sense of well-being? Unlikely.
I had a strange dream last night, said Mercier, I was in a wood with my grandmother, she was—.
Most unlikely, said Camier. No, but perhaps rather a gradual feeling of relief, spun out in time, reaching its paroxysm a fortnight or three weeks later, without our knowing exactly to what it was due. An example of bliss in ignorance, bliss at having recovered an essential good, ignorance of its nature.
She was carrying her breasts in her hands, said Mercier, by the nipples held between finger and thumb. But unfortunately—.
Camier flew into a rage, into a feigned rage that is, for into a true rage with Mercier Camier could not fly. The former sat agape. Drops seemingly from nowhere glistened in the grey tangles of his beard. The fingers fumbled at the great bony nose, its red skin stretched to bursting, delved furtively in the black holes, spread to feel their way down the channelled cheeks, began again. The ashen eyes stared into space aghast. The brow, scored deep with aliform furrows due less to meditation than to chronic amaze, this brow was perhaps, all things considered, of this grotesque head the least grotesque feature. It culminated in an unbelievably tousled mass of dirty hair comprising every tone from tow to snow. The ears—no.
Mercier had little to say for himself.
You ask me to explain, said Camier, I do so and you don’t mind me.
It’s my dream came over me again, said Mercier.
Yes, said Camier, instead of minding me you tell me your dreams. And yet you know our covenant: no communication of dreams on any account. The same holds for quotes. No dreams or quotes at any price. He got up. Do you feel strong enough to move? he said.
No, said Mercier.
Camier go get you food, said Camier.
Go, said Mercier.
The stout l
ittle bandy legs carried him in no time to the village, from the waist up all swagger and swing, an act. Mercier, alone in the lee of the bank, wavered between his two familiar leanings, not knowing which way to fall. Was not the outcome the same? In the end he said, I am Mercier, alone, ill, in the cold, the wet, old, half mad, no way on, no way back. He eyed briefly, with nostalgia, the ghastly sky, the hideous earth. At your age, he said. Another act. Immaterial.
I was about to go, said Mr. Conaire, all hope abandoned.
George, said Camier, five sandwiches, four wrapped and one on the side. You see, he said, turning graciously to Mr. Conaire, I think of everything. For the one I eat here will give me the strength to get back with the four others.
Sophistry, said Mr. Conaire. You set off with your five, wrapped, feel faint, open up, take one out, eat, recuperate, push on with the others.
For all response Camier began to eat.
You’ll spoil him, said Mr. Conaire. Yesterday cakes, today sandwiches, tomorrow crusts and Thursday stones.
Mustard, said Camier.
Before leaving me yesterday, said Mr. Conaire, for your matter of life and death, you appointed to meet me here, at this very place, that very afternoon. I arrive, ask George in what a state, with my invariable punctuality. I wait. Doubts gradually assail me. Can I have mistaken the place? The day? The hour? I unburden myself to the barman. I learn you are somewhere above-stairs, with your butty, for some time past what is more, the pair of you plunged in a crapulous stupor. I invoke the urgency of my business and request you be waked. No question. You are not to be disturbed, on any account. You entice me to this place and take measures to prevent my seeing you. I receive advice. Stay around, they’ll soon be down. Weakly I stay. Are you soon down? Bah! I return to the charge. Wake him, tell him Mr. Conaire is below. What a hope! The guest’s desires are sacred. I offer threats. They laugh in my face. I press my point. By force. They bar the way. By stealth, sneaking up the stairs. They overtake me. I go down on my knees. General hilarity. They egg me on to drink, to stay for dinner, to stay the night. I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll be told the moment you’re down. The saloon fills. Labourers, travellers. I get carried away. I come to on a couch. It is seven in the morning. You are gone. Why was I not told? No one knew. What time did you leave? No one knows. Are you expected back? No one knows.
Camier raised an imaginary tankard, with flexed fingers to clinch his meaning. The real he emptied slowly at a single draught, then caught up his packet and went to the door. There he turned.
Mr. Conaire, he said, I present my apologies. There was a moment yesterday when you were much in my thoughts. Then suddenly pff! no longer, gone from them utterly. As if you had never been, Mr. Conaire. No, that’s not right, as if you had ceased to be. No, that’s not right either, as if you were without my knowledge. Don’t take what I say in evil part, Mr. Conaire, I have no wish to offend. The truth is I suddenly saw my work was over, I mean the work I am famous for, and that it was a mistake to have thought you might join me here, if only for a moment. I renew my apologies, Mr. Conaire, and bid you farewell.
And my bitch! cried Mr. Conaire.
Your old pet, said Camier. You miss her. You’d pay dear, what passes for dear, to get her back. You don’t know when you’re well off.
He went. Mr. Conaire half made to follow him. But for some time past he had been fighting the need. On his return from the yard he went to the street door and looked out, then turned back into the saloon where such sadness overcame him that he ordered more gin.
My little bitch! he groaned.
Come, come, said George, we’ll get you another.
Queenie! groaned Mr. Conaire. Her smile was almost human!
One more out of the way, with any luck.
Mr. Gast was nowhere to be seen, and with good reason, for he was looking for snowdrops in a little wood, snowdrops for Patrick’s sheaf.
Blow, blow, thou ill wind.
Teresa was nowhere to be seen either, without regret be it said, Teresa was nowhere to be seen.
Mercier would not eat. But Camier made him.
You are green, said Camier.
I think I’m going to be sick, said Mercier.
He was not mistaken. Camier held him up.
You’ll feel better without it, said Camier.
And sure enough, little by little, Mercier did feel better, better than before being sick that is.
It’s all the dark thoughts I’ve been revolving, said Mercier, ever since you went. I even wondered if you had abandoned me.
Leaving you the raincoat? said Camier.
There is every reason to abandon me, I know, said Mercier. He reflected a moment. It takes Camier not to abandon Mercier, he said.
Can you walk? said Camier.
I’ll walk, never fear, said Mercier. He got up and took a few steps. How’s that? he said.
The raincoat, said Camier, why not dump it? What good is it?
It retards the action of the rain, said Mercier.
A cerecloth, said Camier.
You go too far, said Mercier.
Do you want my honest opinion? said Camier. The one who has it on is no less to be pitied, physically and morally, than the one who has it off.
There’s something in what you say, said Mercier.
They contemplated the raincoat where it lay spread out at the foot of the bank. It looked flayed. Flitters of chequered lining, its ghostly tartan rending to behold, still clung to the shoulders. A paler yellow marked those patches where the wet had not yet soaked through.
Let us be gone from here, said Camier.
Shall we not throw it away? said Mercier.
Let it lie where it is, said Camier, no needless exertion.
I should have liked to launch it, said Mercier.
Let it lie there, said Camier. Soon no trace of our bodies will subsist. Under the action of the sun it will shrivel, like dead leaf.
We could bury it, said Mercier.
Don’t be mawkish, said Camier.
Otherwise someone will come and take it, said Mercier, some verminous brute.
What do we care? said Camier.
True, said Mercier, but we do.
Camier moved off. After a little Mercier came up with him.
You may lean on me, said Camier.
Not now, not now, said Mercier irritably.
What has you looking back all the time? said Camier.
It moved, said Mercier.
To wave, said Camier.
We didn’t leave anything in the pockets by any chance? said Mercier.
Punched tickets of all sorts, said Camier, spent matches, scraps of newspaper bearing in their margins the obliterated traces of irrevocable rendezvous, the classic last tenth of pointless pencil, crumples of soiled bumf, a few porous condoms, dust. Life in short.
Nothing we’ll be needing? said Mercier.
Did you not hear what I said? said Camier. Life.
They went a little way in silence, as every now and then it was their wont.
We’ll take ten days if need be, said Camier.
No further transport? said Mercier.
What we seek is not necessarily behind the back of beyond, said Camier. So let our watchword be—.
Seek? said Mercier.
We are not faring for the love of faring, that I know of, said Camier. Cunts we may be, but not to that extent. He cast a cold eye on Mercier. Don’t choke, he said. If you have anything to say, now speak.
I was thinking of saying something, said Mercier, but on second thoughts I’ll keep it to myself.
Selfish pig, said Camier.
Go on you, said Mercier.
Where was I? said Camier.
Let our watchword be, said Mercier.
Ah yes, said Camier, lente, lente, and circumspection, with deviations to right and left and sudden reversals of course. Nor let us hesitate to halt, for days and even weeks on end. We have all life before us, all the fag end that is.
What
’s the weather like now, said Mercier, if I look up I’ll fall down.
Like what it’s always like, said Camier, with this slight difference, that we’re beginning to get used to it.
I thought I felt drops on my cheeks, said Mercier.
Cheer up, said Camier, we are coming to the station of the damned, I can see the steeple.
God be praised, said Mercier, now we can get some rest.
Summary of two preceding chapters
III
The train.
Madden interlude I.
The slow train.
Madden interlude conclusion.
The village.
The inn.
Mr. Gast.
The beasts on the roads.
The farmers.
Mercier’s dream.
The journey in jeopardy.
Camier’s presence of mind.
Patrick’s illness.
Mercier and Camier mount.
Mr. Graves.
Patrick’s death.
His second-last words.
Conaire interlude I.
Mr. Gast treats of the guest.
Mr. Gast’s vision.
Conaire interlude II.
Mercier and Camier sleep.
IV
Next day.
The field.
The goat.
The dawn.
Mercier and Camier laugh.
Mercier and Camier confer.
Camier laughs alone.
Mercier’s face.
Camier departs.
Mercier alone.
The inn.
Conaire interlude conclusion.
The snowdrops.
Mercier eats and vomits.
The raincoat.
They press on.
The steeple of the damned.
V
The day came at last when lo the town again, first the outskirts, then the centre. They had lost the notion of time, but all pointed to the Lord’s Day, or day of rest, the streets, the sounds, the passers-by. Night was falling. They prowled about the centre, at a loss where to go. Finally, at the suggestion of Mercier, whose turn it must have been to lead, they went to Helen’s. She was in bed, a trifle unwell, but rose none the less and let them in, not without having first cried, from behind the door, Who goes there? They told her all the latest, their hopes both shattered and forlorn. They described how they had been chased by the bull. She left the room and came back with the umbrella. Camier manipulated it at length. But it’s in perfect trim, he said, quite perfect. I mended it, said Helen. Perhaps even if possible more perfect than before, said Camier. If possible perhaps, said Helen. It opens like a dream, said Camier, and when I release—click!—the catch it collapses unaided. I open, I close, one, two, click, plop, click, pl—. Have done, said Mercier, before you break it on us again. I’m a trifle unwell, said Helen. No better omen, said Camier. But the sack was nowhere to be seen. I don’t see the parrot, said Mercier. I put it out in the country, said Helen. They passed a peaceful night, for them, without debauch of any kind. All next day they spent within doors. Time tending to drag, they manstuprated mildly, without fatigue. Before the blazing fire, in the twofold light of lamp and leaden day, they squirmed gently on the carpet, their naked bodies mingled, fingering and fondling with the languorous tact of hands arranging flowers, while the rain beat on the panes. How delicious that must have been! Towards evening Helen fetched up some vintage bottles and they drifted off contentedly to sleep. Men less tenacious might not have withstood the temptation to leave it at that. But the following afternoon found them in the street again, with no other thought than the goal they had assigned themselves. Only a few more hours and it would be night, nightfall, a few more leaden hours, so no time was to be lost. Yet even total darkness, total but for the streetlamps, so far from hindering their quest could only further it, all things considered. For the district they now aimed to get to, one to which they hardly knew the way, would be easier for them to get to by night than by day, since the one time they had got to it before, the one and only time, it had not been day, no, but night, nightfall. So they entered a bar, for it is in bars that the Merciers of this world, and the Camiers, find it least tedious to await the dark. For this they had another if less weighty reason, namely the advantage to be derived, on the mental level too, from immersion as complete as possible in that selfsame atmosphere which had so unsteadied their first steps. They set to therefore without delay. There is too much at stake, said Camier, for us to neglect the elementary precautions. Thus with a single stone they accounted for two birds, and even three. For they availed themselves of the respite to talk freely of this and that, with great profit, to themselves. For it is in bars that the Merciers of this heavenly planet, and the Camiers, talk with greatest freedom, greatest profit. Finally a great light bathed their understandings, flooding in particular the following concepts.