She Came to Stay

‘Oh, it will last,’ said Françoise.

She had never believed in the possibility of war. War was like tuberculosis or a railway accident: something that could never happen to me. Things like that happened only to other people.

‘Are you able to imagine some really terrible misfortune befalling you personally?’

Gerbert screwed up his face: ‘Nothing easier,’ he said.

‘Well, I can’t,’ said Françoise. There was no point in even thinking about it. Dangers from which it was possible to protect oneself had to be envisaged, but war did not come within the compass of man. If one day war did break out, nothing else would matter any more, not even living or dying.

‘But that won’t happen,’ murmured Françoise. She bent over her manuscript; the typewriter was clicking, and the room smelt of Virginian tobacco, ink, and the night. On the other side of the window-panes, the small, secluded square was asleep under the black sky; and, some way away, a train was moving through an empty landscape … And I am there. I am there, but for me this square exists and that moving train … all Paris, and all the world in the rosy shadows of this little office … and in this very instant all the long years of happiness. I am here, at the heart of my life …

‘It’s a pity that we have to sleep,’ said Françoise.

‘It’s even more of a pity we can’t know that we are asleep,’ said Gerbert. ‘The moment we begin to be aware that we are sleeping, we wake up. We gain nothing by it.’

‘But don’t you think it’s marvellous to stay awake while everyone else is asleep?’ Françoise laid down her fountain pen and listened attentively. Not a sound could be heard; the square was in darkness, the theatre in darkness. ‘I’d like to think that the whole world is asleep, that at this moment you and I are the only living souls on earth.’

‘Oh no, that would give me the creeps.’ He tossed back the long lock of black hair that kept falling into his eyes. ‘It’s like when I think about the moon; all those icy mountains and crevasses and nobody about on them. The first person to go up there will have to have a nerve.’

‘I wouldn’t refuse if anyone were to suggest going,’ said Françoise. She looked at Gerbert. Usually, they sat side by side, and she was happy to feel him near her even though they did not speak. Tonight, she felt that she wanted to talk with him. ‘It seems queer to think of what things are like when one isn’t there,’ she said.

‘Yes, it does seem queer,’ said Gerbert.

‘It’s like trying to imagine you’re dead; you can’t quite manage it, you always feel that you are somewhere in a corner, looking on.’

‘It’s maddening to think of all the goings-on one never will see,’ said Gerbert.

‘It used to break my heart to think that I’d never know anything but one small section of the world. Don’t you feel like that?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Gerbert.

Françoise smiled. From time to time, conversation with Gerbert reached a dead-end; but it was difficult to extract a definite opinion from him.

‘I feel calmer now, because I’m convinced that wherever I may go, the rest of the world will move with me. That’s what keeps me from having any regrets.’

‘Regrets for what?’ said Gerbert.

‘Having to live only in my own skin when the world is so vast.’

Gerbert looked at Françoise.

‘Yes, specially since you live such a well-regulated life.’

He was always so discreet; this vague question amounted to a kind of impudence for him. Did he think Françoise’s life too well regulated? Was he passing judgement on it? I wonder what he thinks of me … this office, the theatre, my room, books, papers, work … Such a well-regulated life.

‘I came to the conclusion that I must be resigned to making a choice,’ she said.

‘I don’t like having to make a choice,’ said Gerbert.

‘At first it was hard for me; but now I have no regrets, because I feel that things that don’t exist for me, simply do not exist at all.’

‘How do you mean?’ said Gerbert.

Françoise hesitated. She felt very strongly about this; the corridors, the auditorium, the stage, none of these things had vanished when she had again shut the door on them, but they existed only behind the door, at a distance. At a distance the train was moving through the silent countryside which encompassed, in the depths of the night, the warm life of her little office.

‘It’s like a lunar landscape,’ said Françoise. ‘It’s unreal. It’s nothing but make-believe. Don’t you feel that?’

‘No,’ said Gerbert. ‘I don’t think I do.’

‘And doesn’t it irk you never to be able to see more than one thing at a time?’

Gerbert thought for a moment.

‘What worries me is other people,’ he said. ‘I’ve a horror when someone talks to me about some chap I don’t know, especially when they speak well of him: some chap outside, living in his own sphere, who doesn’t even know that I exist.’

It was rare for him to speak about himself at such length. Was he, too, aware of the touching though transitory intimacy of the last few hours? The two of them were living within this circle of rosy light; for both of them, the same light, the same night. Françoise looked at his fine green eyes beneath their curling lashes, at his expectant mouth – ‘If I had wanted to …’ Perhaps it was still not too late. But what could she want?

‘Yes, it’s insulting,’ she said.

‘As soon as I get to know the chap, I feel better about it,’ said Gerbert.

‘It’s almost impossible to believe that other people are conscious beings, aware of their own inward feelings, as we ourselves are aware of our own,’ said Françoise. ‘To me, it’s terrifying when we grasp that. We get the impression of no longer being anything but a figment of someone else’s mind. But that hardly ever happens, and never completely.’

‘That’s right,’ said Gerbert eagerly, ‘perhaps that’s why I find it so unpleasant to listen to people talking to me about myself, even in a pleasant way. I feel they’re gaining some sort of an advantage over me.’

‘Personally, I don’t care what people think of me,’ said Françoise.

Gerbert began to laugh. ‘Well, it can’t be said that you’ve too much vanity,’ he said.

‘And their thoughts seem to me exactly like their words and their faces: things that are in my own world. It amazes Elisabeth that I’m not ambitious; but that’s precisely why. I don’t want to try to cut out a special place for myself in the world. I feel that I am already in it.’ She smiled at Gerbert. ‘And you’re not ambitious either, are you?’

‘No,’ said Gerbert. ‘Why should I be?’ He thought a moment. ‘All the same, I’d like to be a really good actor some day.’

‘I feel the same; I’d like to write a really good book some day. We like to do our work well; but not for any honour or glory.’

‘No,’ said Gerbert.

A milk-cart rattled by underneath the windows. Soon the night would be growing pale. The train was already beyond Châteauroux and approaching Vierzon. Gerbert yawned and his eyes became red-rimmed like a child’s full of sleep.

‘You ought to get some sleep,’ said Françoise.

Gerbert rubbed his eyes. ‘We’ve got to show this to Labrousse in its final form,’ he said stubbornly. He took hold of the bottle and poured himself out a stiff peg of whisky. ‘Besides, I’m not sleepy. I’m thirsty! ’ He drank and put down his glass. He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps I’m sleepy after all.’

‘Thirsty or sleepy, make up your mind,’ said Françoise gaily.

‘I never really know what I want,’ said Gerbert.

‘Well, look,’ said Françoise, ‘this is what you are going to do. Lie down on the couch and sleep. I’ll finish looking over this last scene. Then you can type it out while I go to meet Pierre at the station.’