The Town Below. Roger Lemelin

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СКАЧАТЬ Gonzagues hastily decamped. Then it was that Jean realized he was no longer a vendor of worms. His gestures were expressive of a new and delightful sense of power; he felt that he could sweep everything before him if he chose.

      “Will you smoke, Denis?”

      “No, thanks; I don’t use tobacco.”

      The curtain went up. The Buveuse de Larmes was now to receive her punishment. Denis had a feeling of lassitude. Was he the jeering lad of a short while ago? How did the world really look to him, anyhow? He wished he were somewhere else, in some Eden where he knew no one and where there would be nothing to do but feel sorry for himself, or rather for his past. Nonchalantly, he contemplated the back of Lise’s white neck — how white it was! — As revealed in gleams and flashes between her dark, wavy curls. He imagined her as being a stranger to her sex, a woman in body only. The two of them would flee this filthy suburb, would go soaring up to the magnificent clouds above, where there would be no question of rising any higher. And then, in turn, he felt a great desire to have her fall in love with Jean and to render Jean wholly his debtor in this regard.

      There are certain egoists whose need of approbation finds its first expression in the temptation to give all. Men excuse themselves for their meanness on the ground that it begins, often, as an act of tenderness, an emotion that grips them and, for a moment, takes them far from all the pettiness of life. It was this impulse to give generously what he looked upon as better than himself that Denis was experiencing. He was not thinking of Jean. The latter’s frank, submissive nature and instinctive good-heartedness along with a certain weakness of will had led Denis to adopt him as a friend. What he did not realize was that Jean was for him a sort of intellectual prop, strengthening the edifice of self-pride that he had built up. The Langevins were no more than spectators. He was indifferent to them. He did not even want their admiration any longer, did not care to astonish them. Of little worth in themselves, they served at best as listeners, and it was for this reason alone that he bestowed a little friendship upon them, holding them in reserve until his crowning success should be achieved.

      “Are you coming?” he said, rising abruptly from his seat. “I’ve had enough of this stupidity!”

      Jean was stunned. “Are you crazy? I’m staying till the end. You don’t pay twenty-five cents for nothing!”

      “I understand!” said Denis contemptuously. Colin had a feeling that he was not equal to his newfound love.

      “You die, atrocious Messalina!” cried the avenger as he plunged his dagger. “You who have left a trail of broken hearts and ruined lives!”

      The audience applauded enthusiastically, deliriously. Denis noisily kicked over his chair and shook his fist at the crowd. “Imbeciles! Imbeciles, all of you” he shouted.

      “What insolence! Quiet! Sit down!”

      “Denis, listen to me!” his mother begged him.

      The Gonzagues who were tiptoeing about the side of the room now gathered in a little group and ceased talking, appearing to be very intent upon the play as they saw Denis coming toward them threateningly. Almost running, he went down the aisle that led to the entrance. The silence of the outdoors, in which he hoped to find a refuge, was calling to him, and in his eyes was the feverish flame that one associates with heroic fugitives. A fierce joy welled up in him as he ran on — for he was running now — without looking back at the rows of faces foundering in mediocrity on either side of him. He all but knocked over the Abbé Trinchu and a couple of fawning churchwardens who were hanging around the priest. The doors banged behind him and, out of breath, he found himself alone with the sleeping city. Clenching his fists, he took a long, deep breath. The ramshackle houses, spangled with light, appeared to stretch away into the infinite, all the way to the mountains. Only the plaintive sound of automobile horns moaning in the distance came to disturb the retreat of the worker who had no car.

      “How happy I am!” he exclaimed, running his hand through his hair.

      He dropped down, a satisfied smile on his lips. His youth! What strength lay in that! The mediocrity he had just blotted out by his flight, these shanties stretched out at his feet and less ugly than usual in the darkness — they were but an unpleasant memory, the life of everyday in all its littleness. His restive, stubborn youth had suddenly given a thrust like a battering ram. Laying low the stupidity of men, it had plunged forward into silence, had become aerial, the master of its superior fate. Was not this the moment for him to be going away across the damp fields, taking the trees for ghosts and being afraid of them as when he was a child? A shadow came drifting over his shoulder. Lise? Yes, he would take her along. He would embrace her madly. But he would make sport of her — How then? What kind of madness was this, anyway?

      He rose, as if to shake himself free. Was it, then, a woman who was at the bottom of this splendid mood of exaltation? No, no, he was not going to flounder there as the others did! Nervously, he walked through the deserted streets, telling himself over and over that this vision was but the accidental result of his overheated imagination. But those dark red lips of hers defied all bravado on his part; they made their way into his virgin thoughts, overthrowing all his pride, all his rancour, transforming them into a strange, unwonted thirst.

      Deeply distressed, he wandered about on the sidewalks. There was the school where he had finished in the eighth year. He had been unwilling to continue his studies, believing that he had nothing more to learn. What remained was superfluous, the property of a caste of clever idlers. The sight of the school building depressed him, as did everything but the image of Lise. He made an inventory of his intellectual equipment and found nothing but cause for hope, a brilliant promise. Entering the house, he turned on the radio. He was trying to bring himself to love symphonic music. Slowly, his thoughts went back to Lise, and he was engaged in making all sorts of decisions, concessions, and compromises by way of deceiving himself when his reverie was interrupted by his father’s sharp-toned voice:

      “Shut that off, I have to get up at six tomorrow morning!”

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