“Well, Monsieur Davenant, you have made your decision?” demanded Dr. Vernet.
“Yes.”
“Ah!”
“I am staying till Christmas.”
Dr. Vernet’s face grew rigid. His eyes looked as if they had been removed with ice-tongs from a refrigerator.
“In fact I probably won’t be leaving much before the New Year,” Paul added. If there were to be an explosion, it might as well be of spectacular proportions.
For a moment Dr. Vernet appeared to be contemplating a reply. Then without a word he left the room and slammed the door. Paul swallowed a small glass of cognac which, in anticipation of Dr. Vernet’s visit, he had concealed beneath an upturned cup on his table de nuit. The door flew open again.
“Don’t think that because you choose to turn my sanatorium into a residential hotel, you will be able to behave as you like. Also I refer you to the rule that the consumption of spirits in patients’ bedrooms is prohibited.” This time the force with which he slammed the door blew open the French windows.
Dr. Vernet’s mood, that day, reacted upon everyone else. Sœur Valérie came to him to complain that Mayevski, her old enemy (now installed on a different floor), had had the effrontery to call on Michèle during the evening cure. Dr. Vernet instantly sent for Mayevski and forbade him to pay Michèle another visit during the remainder of his stay (which stay, he commented, Mayevski might now terminate as soon as he liked, and without fear of medical opposition).
He stormed at everyone within reach. A patient reported that M. Halfont had entered a medical prescription on his bill as though it had been a dietary supplement. “Encore de votre escroquerie,” Dr. Vernet shouted at M. Halfont over the intercommunication system. “La prochaine fois j’avertis la police!”
Experienced patients and members of his staff recognised the signs and kept away from him.
Sœur Valérie now started to cultivate the intolerable habit of calling on Michèle with her knitting, and of discussing with her the benefits of a religious life, the desirability of renouncing the world whilst still very young, and the spiritual advantages conferred by an early death. She would sit at the bottom of Michèle’s bed, short legs apart, garters visible, pricking the rumps of passing devils with the shuttlecock points of her knitting needles. When Paul came into the room, there was nothing to be done but to sit down, to hold Sœur Valérie’s skein of wool, and to listen to the holy discourse.
He confided his difficulties to Glou-Glou, who very civilly agreed to ring for Sœur Valérie at a prearranged time, and to keep her occupied with a number of requests. Glou-Glou took to this new rôle with zest. Improvising brilliantly, he would demand in succession bed-pans, bed-baths, inhalants, massages, sedatives, lotions, drops for his eyes, nose and ears, the re-making of his bed, the refilling of his hot-water bottle, the preparation of a hot drink. At the same time he would present Sœur Valérie with bars of chocolate, admire her biceps, interrogate her on certain details touching on the nature of the divinity. Sœur Valérie, indignant and flattered, sweated, gobbled the chocolate, and attempted to answer Glou-Glou’s curious questions, whilst the latter, quacking compulsively, would time his pulse by the second hand of his alarm clock, or consult one (or compare both) of the thermometers which he kept permanently under each arm. For a little while, Paul and Michèle would be left in peace.
It was less easy to dispose of Dr. Vernet. He re-imposed the restrictions prevailing before Michèle’s operation, he enforced a religious observation of the times of the cures, and made no attempt to disguise the irritation which Paul’s presence caused him.
If Dr. Bruneau and Dr. Florent were present when he was giving Paul a refill of air, he would refer to him sarcastically as “ce monsieur byronique”; if he were unattended by his colleagues, he would conduct the whole operation in silence, neither greeting Paul on arrival nor saying the customary au revoir when he left. One day, encountering Paul in the company of the priest who months earlier had given him a transfusion of his blood, he commented: “Mon père, you would never guess the uses to which Monsieur Davenant has put your innocent blood!”
Most patients discerned a new moroseness in his demeanour. He frequently gave the impression of being preoccupied, whilst at the same time he seemed to have lost interest in the general routine of the sanatorium. He abstained more and more from medical rounds, procrastinated over diagnoses and appeared in no hurry to conduct the initial examination of new arrivals.
Early in December he summoned Kubahskoi to his bureau and informed him that the tuberculin treatment had failed and that it was to be abandoned. He should now make arrangements to return to his own country before Christmas. However, if—as once he had claimed—he were really willing to run any risk, there was an elderly surgeon at Brisset who practised (when he could find a patient) an operatory technique which, like tuberculin, had generally fallen into disrepute. It was radical and violent; it had virtually no advocates.
“I cannot recommend it,” said Dr. Vernet, “but if you care to take a chance, I will not dissuade you.” And he added casually that if Kubahskoi were to decide in favour of the operation, he would do best to leave Les Alpes, for administrative changes which were pending were likely, before long, to lead to the complete reorganisation of the sanatorium.
There were days when Michèle was obsessed by a desire to get up; nothing then would console her. Paul would bring her books; she would thank him and leave them uncut on the table de nuit. Manniez would try every way of cheering “le petite gosse”, as he termed her; it would be without avail. She lay in her bed as if in shackles, her eyes turned desperately towards the window, symbol of the world to which she now wished to return.
She had failed to regain the weight which she had lost at the period of her operation; Dr. Vernet ordered a bowl of porridge and an omelette to be supplied as daily supplements to her petit déjeuner. One day Paul opened her wardrobe: on the top shelf was a row of porringers, whilst the omelettes were stacked, one on top of the other, like loofahs in a chemist’s shop window.
Four weeks, three weeks, two weeks to Christmas and to the first legitimate occasion when she might leave her bed. Time passed, but time stood still. The six months that she had already been in bed, the danger, the suspense, the suffering—all were more endurable than the two weeks still to be got through.
Manniez started to re-decorate her room for Christmas. Michèle’s neighbours complained about the hammering; the gouvernante complained about the damage to the walls; the femme de chambre complained that the floor was always charged with débris.
No arrangement satisfied him; the holly, the mistletoe, the paper chains which he put up one day would be taken down the next. He fused all the lights whilst installing a row of Chinese lanterns, and alienated Sœur Valérie by disguising Mayevski in the costume of Saint Nicholas and trying to smuggle him into Michèle’s room one evening after supper.
At no period had Paul ever contemplated a second Christmas at Les Alpes, believing that by then either he must have left or be dead. With Christmas would come the absolute necessity of making some decision in respect of the future.
Taking stock: he got up for meals, he went out for walks, he was allowed to miss the morning cure on Sundays. He led what Dr. Vernet termed “a normal sanatorium life”. Indubitably it was an improvement on what had been his condition when first he had arrived at the sanatorium. But nevertheless he made no movement without effort; when he stood he wanted to sit down; when he sat down he wanted to lie down; when he lay down he wanted to sleep.
As the days passed, his anxiety and depression increased. Manniez was arranging the names of the people who were to sit at his table for the dinner on Christmas Eve: Paul, de la Marelle, Glou-Glou, Mayevski and Delmuth. And a place would be kept for Michèle. (She had to eat in her room, but she was to be allowed to come down for an hour afterwards). More than anything Paul wanted to be with Michèle, but alone and in very different circumstances.
At last, within a few days of Christmas, the whole idea of the meal became so intolerable that Paul decided to eat in his room. The decision, which to everyone else appeared merely petty or bloody-minded, was in reality an act of despair. Either the aftermath of the jaundice or his psychological state had caused a rash on his scalp. This had started to spread to his face. Shaving was made difficult and ineffective; hairs were enclosed by spots which became septic. As soon as one spot started to diminish another would develop elsewhere. It was perplexing and humiliating. And now the associative complications of Christmas had the effect of exacerbating the condition. Paul dreaded all encounters, especially those with Michèle.
A protestation from M. Halfont. He sent a message to Paul that all the waiters would be needed in the salle à manger, and that except in the case of patients too ill to get up there would be no room service. Paul replied that he did not mind forgoing the Christmas meal, as he had done the year before. Manniez, however, refused to take Paul’s resolution seriously, and persisted in reserving his place.
The finishing touches were put to the decorations in halls and passages; the great tree was erected in the salle à manger. Almost every patient capable of climbing out of bed would be present at the dinner. Normally on these occasions the sisters sat with the patients; this year, however, they were informed that the exigencies of the kitchen required that they should dine at their communal table an hour or so in advance of the main meal.
Paul had long since stopped writing or receiving letters. Of the great mass of cards and parcels arriving at Les Alpes, none was delivered to his room. The only remaining contact he still possessed with England were the irregular statements of his shrinking bank account.
The day arrived. “Listen, Davenant,” said Manniez at lunch-time. “Or you come, or you don’t come. Say now please.” The maître d’hôtel was standing at the table, seating-plan in hand. “Puisque vous vous levez tous les jours, pourquoi pas ce soir?” he demanded. The situation was, of course, ridiculous.
Back in his bedroom, Paul looked in the mirror. Spots with white heads; emplacements where spots had been amputated by his razor; inflamed patches of scalp visible through the extremities of his hair. His whole face looked on fire. It was too obscene. If only he could manage to look merely ill, to look yellow, grey or green. He felt suddenly too exhausted to undress.
He awoke, sweating, at the end of the cure de silence, took his temperature, pulse, and timed his breathing. A light fever was already beginning. So much the better. His fingers crept to his scalp which was irritating. “Oh, Christ, my life,” he suddenly cried aloud, “my filthy, pustulous, neurotic life.” He jumped from his bed. He must start afresh, start again from the beginning. How? How? How? The useless body, the shop-soiled lungs …. With shaking hands he started to tie up the presents he had bought for Michèle.
Seven o’clock. In front of each sister was a plate of spaghetti. One sister was weeping, the remainder were eating in silence. M. Halfont came into the salle à manger and, smiling, wished them the compliments of the season. There was no reply. “What is the matter with you all?” he demanded. Then: “Is it possible? No! Ah, but I think so!” He looked accusingly from face to face. “You are sulking because this year we are not paying you to sit and gourmandise!”
Suddenly he clapped his hands together. “Listen to me! There is a bad spirit in the sanatorium. What right have you to complain? We are here to serve, not to blow out our stomachs! When will you realise that the true message of Christmas is not stuffing but self-sacrifice? You are eating good, second-quality spaghetti well prepared—in Germany or behind the Iron Curtain they would change their politics for it. Where else would you be gratuitously provided with such a meal?”
The sisters began to tell him. “Stop!” he shouted. “I’ve been asked to deliver a special invitation to you from the management, but you won’t listen!” The sisters stopped talking. “You are invited to come down to the salle à manger at half-past nine ….”
“For supper?” demanded one of the sisters.
“For the lighting of the candles on the Christmas tree.” He smiled uneasily. “It will be a splendid sight! And there will be music, too! And that is not all,” he added quickly, for his words had caused a gasp of astonishment. “Should any patient invite you over to his table to drink a glass of wine, the management hereby gives you full authorisation to accept.”
At eight o’clock Manniez and Mayevski came to Paul’s room and stripped the sheets and blankets from his bed. Paul resisted, half joking, half in anger. They gave him five minutes in which to get dressed. Paul re-made his bed and got back into it. They returned, reinforced by Glou-Glou and de la Marelle. The bed-clothes were again stripped back. De la Marelle opened the wardrobe and took out the only suit. Paul struggled abortively with Mayevski—for a moment he was on the verge of losing his temper. Then he laughed and submitted. They refused to leave the room until he had finished dressing.
In the main hall, which was full of patients, they were joined by Delmuth. Emile had been stationed outside the entrance to the salle à manger with instructions to admit no one; he was arguing with a group of patients who were insisting that they were too tired to remain standing. At exactly half-past eight the doors were opened from within by the maître d’hôtel, while Emile stood to one side. The salle à manger was in darkness but for small clusters of candles on the tables; ‘Heilige Nacht’ was playing through an amplifier. When everyone was seated and the record had come to an end, the main lights were turned on and M. Halfont, speaking through a microphone, asked that, as a safety measure, the candles should be extinguished.
Paul looked about him. Dr. Vernet, wearing a blue suit, winged collar and bright red tie was sitting with a few guests at a table at the head of the dining-room. At some tables there were patients whose appearances were so changed by the substitution of day clothes for pyjamas and dressing-gowns that at first Paul failed to recognise them; there were even some he had never seen before, men and women who, in the course of the year, would only be allowed out of their rooms to attend the Christmas or New Year dinner.
The music started again—a selection of carols. The waiters began to serve the hors d’œuvre. “Gentlemens,” said Delmuth, smiling confidently and leaning forward across the table, “gentlemens, we are all known to each other, but to avoid embarrassment, and as a gesture to the season, and to put us all at our ease, let us announce in order our names, ages, nationalities and occupations. I will voluntarily start. Hans Delmuth, thirty-nine, Flemish, a civil engineer.” He got up and bowed.
“We know each other,” said Mayevski, “and I think we lose our time in talking so.”
“Good—as you like. It is true I make the suggestion in the hope of encountering a brother engineer, for I am lonely and at Christmas I specifically seek out the company of a brother engineer. And what is your profession, sir?” Delmuth demanded, turning towards Paul.
“None.”
“Is not possible, please.”
“Then I am a professional invalid.”
“Ho! Ho! Very good! That is British humour, gentlemens. ‘A professional invalid’! Very good indeed. I depict we shall much laugh this evening. Now I am wondering, gentlemens, how many languages we all speak between us. That must be very interesting. I speak thirteen—Flemish, French, Dutch, German, English, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish and Croat. Say, please, who speaks more than this?”
The question was ignored.
“You speak Cockney?” Delmuth asked Paul.
“No.”
“Pity. I next wish to learn Cockney.”
The service was very slow. Glou-Glou refused to eat his hors d’œuvre or to let the plate be taken away. He was dressed in professional black, with a clean pyjama jacket instead of a shirt. He kept one knee crossed over the other, and periodically tested his reflexes with the handle of his fork.
“On Christmas Eve one thinks where one was the year before,” said Delmuth, showering pepper into his soup. “Let us, to pass the time, recount what we were doing this day one year ago. For me it is very simple—I was here. But I have a strange story to relate ….”
Suddenly all the lights went out, leaving the great Christmas tree as a blazing set piece. There were cries of approbation. The ‘Marseillaise’ was played over the amplifier, and everyone rose to his feet and started to clap. A waiter dropped a heavily charged tray. The lights were turned on again.
“Quite a ghost story,” continued Delmuth, as though there had been no interruption. “How do you think I spent last Christmas? In the company of a suicidal woman, a dying English pauper and a beardless Sikh! Not bad! But why do I specify ‘beardless’ Sikh? It is the key to my story, which I now name ‘The Story of the Beardless Sikh’.”
“Michèle, she will soon be here, and we still eat the soup,” said Mayevski. He tried to attract the attention of a waiter.
“It was like this. I had just arrived at Les Alpes. Think, gentlemens, to arrive at a sana for Christmas! From Dr. Vernet I had the authorisation to get myself up for the repast, but I concluded from induction that it was more wise to stay in bed. But I made the compromise to visit my neighbour, who called himself an emancipated Sikh, emancipated because the previous evening he had cut off his beard. Is that not picturesque? You see, the Sikh is not permitted to cut off his beard.”
Paul swallowed the rest of his wine. “The English pauper?” he demanded.
“Oh, a pauper student.”
“You mean a student studying to be a pauper?”
“Yes. No! Ha! Ha! Very good, a play on compound nounds, or do I confound?”
“Let him finish the story or he never stop,” said Mayevski, glaring at Paul.
Delmuth recharged his glass and swallowed the contents like an oyster. His rudimentary face was growing pinker. “The Story of the Beardless Sikh,” he repeated thickly.
“Misericordia!” cried Manniez. “I can no longer hear this rubbish.”
“It was the night of the anniversary of the matriculate contraception of Our Lord, and I, Hans Delmuth, engineer …”
“Qu-est-ce qu’il raconte? Comprends pas l’anglais,” complained de la Marelle.
Dr. Florent came over to the table. He was making a circuit of the dining-room, shaking hands with all the patients. Glou-Glou seized the proffered hand excitedly, tested the pulse, and forced Dr. Florent to sit down. “Comme ordonnance, un bon verre de vin,” he shouted, rising to his feet. A waiter took the opportunity to remove Glou-Glou’s hors d’œuvre and soup and to serve the next course.
“Ça va, Davenant?” inquired Florent.
“Ça va.”
“Vous allez quand même mieux qu’il y a un an.”
“Oui, oui, je vais mieux.” The wine was increasing Paul’s habitual streptomycin dizziness. He looked at his watch. It was nearly time for him to fetch Michèle.
“This so emancipated Sikh was now fearful for the consequences of his beard-cutting. For this reason he would not anger his god more by attendance at a Christian celebration. I said to him that one floor below there was an English pauper who was dying, kaputt, no hope, finito. I said: ‘Why you worry? Here is someone nearly dead, but you are nearly well.’ Then as I am still saying there came terrible screams!”
To offset the slowness of the service, two patients got up from their table and started to dance. It was a test case—everyone awaited the official reaction. The dancers passed quite close to Dr. Vernet. He gave no indication of having noticed them. Immediately a number of couples left their tables and began to circle the salle à manger.
Paul got up, staggered badly and sat down again. “Will you fetch Michèle? I’m too dizzy,” he said to Manniez. Mayevski and de la Marelle joined in the dancing. Dr. Florent excused himself and went to visit another table. Glou-Glou hummed tonelessly to himself and scraped his knife across a plate in time with the music.
Manniez returned with Michèle. Paul stood up. “But you didn’t call for me,” Michèle protested. “Can’t walk—I’m drunk,” Paul replied. She stared hard at him before she sat down. “I’ve swallowed half a glass of wine,” he went on, laughing, “but you know what my sense of balance is like. Oh! You look so lovely!” He reached for her hand, but she drew it away. De la Marelle came over and asked her to dance. She smiled and refused. He sat down beside her and started to flirt.
“Do you like my story, Monsieur Davenant?” shouted Delmuth across the table.
“No,” said Paul.
“Ha! You joke again!”
“No. I’m not joking.”
Delmuth shot out his hand and grasped Paul’s wrist. Paul jerked his wrist free and a bottle of wine fell off the table and shattered on the stone floor. Conversation suddenly stopped. Everyone looked up to see what had happened. “Gentlemens, please silence, gentlemens!” There were calls of ‘Sh’ and ‘Silence’. “Gentlemens,” Delmuth shouted above the sound of the loudspeaker, “gentlemens, fill your glasses. Hommage au passé! Hommage aux thoraces! Hommage aux détraqués!” “Taisez-vous, espèce d’imbécile,” called out a waiter. “Hommage aux foutus! It is my pleasure to wish you Happy Christmas in thirteen different languages! Joyeux Noël! Auguri per Natale, Huggelig Jul …” His greetings were lost in cries of approval and emulation. Everyone kissed or shook hands with everyone else. Some climbed on to chairs and tables. Glasses were raised. Toasts were drunk. The health of each doctor was individually called. Dr. Vernet replied on behalf of the staff with the toast: “De tous à tous!”
The dancing was resumed. Delmuth sat down, smiled impassively at Paul, and ordered some more wine. Michèle reached out and removed Paul’s glass, at the same time continuing to talk to de la Marelle. Mayevski came back to the table, a peculiar smile of anticipation on his lips. There was a series of reports. Sœur Valérie, who had come down with the other sisters, ran screaming across the salle à manger, a squib attached to the hem of her skirt. After initial consternation, patients and sisters laughed and applauded. Dr. Vernet sat smiling broadly, Sœur Valérie was led away weeping.
The meal was over. Tables were pushed back to widen the area of the dance floor. A popular American tune. Manniez pulled Michèle to her feet and they joined the dancers. Paul drained his glass, refilled it, then drained it again. The lights were lowered. Delmuth was dancing with a fat Swedish patient. “I accept your apology,” he called out to Paul as they passed the table.
Paul watched Michèle and Manniez as they steered their way into and through the dancing throng. It was nearly midnight. Under M. Halfont’s direction, waiters started to bring up crates of champagne from the cellar. The music changed. Delmuth returned to the table, but Manniez and Michèle continued dancing. “Listen,” said Delmuth, “you want to hear the end of my story?” Paul paid no attention. He was watching Sœur Thérèse, who had crossed the floor to speak to Michèle. “Your hands were trembling, you are very drunk,” said Delmuth. “Shut up!” said Paul. He was trying to catch what Sœur Thérèse was saying. “Davenant, you will hear my story!” shouted Delmuth, beginning himself to tremble. The music stopped. M. Halfont beat the strokes of midnight on a brass gong. A line of waiters marched in with armfuls of balloons. At the same time there was a rapid distribution of streamers, squeakers and coloured paper missiles. The maître d’hôtel opened the first champagne bottle. There was a cheer. Popping corks then sounded a broadside. The music started again.
Manniez came back to the table. “Where’s Michèle?” demanded Paul. “Ordered from Vernet to bed,” said Manniez. “I must go to her,” said Paul. He tried to get up, but found that he could not co-ordinate his movements. “Christ! I really am drunk!” he said to himself.
“Come!” shouted Delmuth to Mayevski, who was now sitting at a neighbouring table, “champagne for everyones!” He signalled his instructions to a waiter. Patients were aiming the paper pellets at each other. The streamers were dividing the salle à manger into multi-coloured segments. A volley of missiles from the next table landed on the face of the waiter who was about to set down the champagne glasses. He dropped the lot. In retaliation Delmuth hurled back handfuls of cold potato. There were cries of protestation.
“Now I finish my story,” said Delmuth, pouring the champagne when fresh glasses had been brought.
“But we know it,” said Paul. “The woman jumped out of the window. And that’s the end of the story.”
“Is not the end!” cried Delmuth, banging his fist on the table. “She jump, but you don’t know why! It was directly because the Sikh run into her room. She scream. The nurse who anæsthetise her turn round. In this moment she escape from her bed and jump from the window. Now you see! The Sikh then go nearly mad, fall on his knees and swear it is a warning of his god for shaving his beard. From that day he never shave again!”
“Who cares?” said Mayevski, pouring himself more champagne.
“He cares! The pauper student!” shouted Delmuth, lunging at Paul across the table. “Sale petit homme de charité! Why too did you not jump out? You live on charity, you take money. I am an engineer. I am ill since twenty years, but always I pay for myself. I work, I relapse, then I work again. While I am ill, I work. In bed during one year I work and keep myself. I speak thirteen languages and you speak not two. What are you? An artist? You despise engineers. We despise you. When I hear of artists who starve and die, it lights a fire in my heart. All my story was to expose you, and now is all gone wrong.” In exasperation he looked for something to throw. Then he seized the edge of the table and turned it over.
Paul pushed back his chair just in time. Crockery, cutlery and glass cascaded all round him. Delmuth’s voice sounded above the crash. “Gentlemens, an error! I slip, gentlemens! Make no attention! No one is hurt!” Dr. Vernet stood up. The dancers crowded round to see what had happened. “Enlevez tout! Le plus vite possible!” said Delmuth, handing a thousand-franc note to each staring waiter. “Good! You see, it is nothing!” he said, smiling on all sides. “I settle all. I pay for all.” M. Halfont came up. “Please—on my bill, all, everything. One, two, three times the value. I liquidate all my indebtedness!”
The table was righted, re-laid. “More champagne,” cried Delmuth. “I pay! Please have the pleasure, gentlemens, to join me. Sit down! No more stories, I think! Where were we all this night, two years ago? That must be very interesting! For myself I was in a sana in the Bernese Oberland! Pull up, please, your chairs. Quite different from here, and not a little special! Garçon! Garçon! Le champagne!”
He changed his seat in order to be next to Paul, put his arm around him, called him “dearest friend”, inquired about his mathematics, wrote formulæ on the table-cloth. Paul drank two more glasses of champagne, then lowered his head on to the table.
When next he raised his head, it was two o’clock in the morning. The dance was still in progress. Dr. Vernet was leading a conga reel between the tables and in and out of the doors. Glou-Glou was performing a solo in the middle of the floor. Delmuth was retelling his story in German to a drunken Hungarian.
Paul got up and edged his way out of the salle à manger. At the entrance to the lift there was another reveller. After a confused discussion, each claiming that the other had the true right of precedence, they entered the lift together. Paul pressed the button for the floor of his companion. The lift mounted. They both began to sing. When the lift stopped, the reveller refused to get out. He insisted that Paul should press the button for his own floor. The lift set off again, both occupants singing uninhibitedly. At his own floor, Paul felt impelled to return the gesture. The lift remounted. It descended and re-ascended several times before Paul’s companion at last staggered out. Standing with his arms threaded through the wrought-iron lift shaft, he sustained a duet with Paul as the latter descended.
“Chagrin d’amour,” chanted Paul, as he left the lift unsteadily. A door opened. Michèle, wearing her cherry-coloured dressing-gown, shot out into the passage. “Oh! You’re so drunk! Go straight to your room!” Paul was so startled that he nearly lost his balance. He clung to her for support. “Don’t touch me! I hate you!” She guided him as far as his door. He entered, stumbled and fell on to the bed. Michèle went away. She returned almost immediately with the presents he had given her a few hours earlier, and tossed them on the bed. Then she left, slamming the doors.
Paul tried to get up, but slipped off the bed to his knees. He lowered his dizzy head on to the duvet. To Michèle, who returned at that moment, it looked as if he were trying to pray. “Oh! Hypocrite!” she cried. She pulled him up roughly and started to remove his clothes. He tried to explain, to protest his sobriety, but his speech was at the same level as his condition.
She put him to bed, turned out the light and left the room. In the darkness the bed heaved and rolled. He sat up and felt for his bedside lamp. Under his fingers it crashed to the ground. He tried to pick it up but cut his hand on the shattered bulb. He lay back. The end of the bed was rising and dipping. There would be no question of sleep.
He woke up very startled, his mind clear and aghast. It was still dark. The village clock struck five. There was not a moment to be lost. He threw aside the bed-clothes. He must go at once to Michèle. Everything must be explained. He must induce her to take back the rejected presents.
He opened his door very quietly. All the lights in the corridor were out. A floor-board creaked. He turned sharply. The sound of heavy breathing. He stepped quickly back into the room and shut the door.
Muffled footsteps and the handle turned. Emile stood in the doorway, a torch in his hand and a figure in a white sack balanced across his great shoulder. “Sh! Don’t make a sound!” he said. “This is only the old woman out of forty-six. Have you got a sip of cognac?” He came into the room and shut the door carefully. He had a pair of socks pulled over his boots. “You’re looking green, Monsieur Davenant. You shouldn’t come out of your room at this time in the morning if you don’t want to see some queer sights!” He guffawed. “Did you say you had a sip of cognac?”
“Cognac,” repeated Paul. Unable to withdraw his gaze from the sack, he backed towards the cupboard in which he kept his provisions.
“Didn’t you know this was the way we did it? The lift’s too narrow for a coffin,” said Emile, guffawing again. “But they don’t like me to be seen on the job—that’s why I stood up against the wall when your door opened. Then I said to myself: ‘Monsieur Davenant won’t mind—he’s an old hand now!’”
Paul removed the cap from the bottle and passed it to Emile, who wished him Bon Noël and raised it to his lips. “They say I drink,” he said. “Well, they’re right! In my time I’ve carried out more than three hundred on my shoulder!” He took two more gulps at the bottle. “That’s better. That’s a lot better. I’d best go along now or I’ll be meeting some more early birds!” He chuckled insinuatingly.
At the door he stopped and turned as if struck by a sudden thought. (After having delivered a patient’s mail, he would often stop and turn in the same way, demanding: “Have you heard the one about the Jew and the farmer’s daughter?”) “Monsieur Davenant,” he said, fixing Paul with his watery eyes, “I hope that one of these days I’ll not be carrying you out over my shoulder!”