consider that we’re nothing.
On the way out my shoulder unsettled a stack of newspapers, which collapsed with the rustle of withered leaves. Lost days scattered at my feet, dead years, bygone dramas. From among the jumble of headlines that had lost all urgency, one jumped out at me, with Matziev’s name in big letters, above a short item from 1894.
It was late in the year, on a December day. Evening, to be precise. Lieutenant Isidore Matziev, it reported,
had proclaimed his belief in the innocence of Captain Dreyfus
in the back room of a café. Applauded by the assembly of unionists and revolutionaries, Matziev, in full uniform, also declared
his shame at serving in an army that would imprison the just
while letting real traitors go unpunished.
The approval of the crowd was interrupted by the arrival of the police. Several arrests were made, including the lieutenant, and a more than sufficient number of blows were dealt with billy clubs. Considered a troublemaker for breaking the code of silence and tarnishing the French army’s honor, Lieutenant Matziev had appeared two days later before a military tribunal that condemned him (two days prior to this report) to six months of close arrest.
The hack who’d written the piece concluded by huffing about the young officer’s insolent manner and his name, which “smacked of a Jew, or a Russian, unless it was both.” It was signed Amédée Prurion, a nice idiotic name for a real bastard. Whatever became of this Prurion? Did he keep on vomiting his petty bile for years and years? If he’s dead today, that makes one less bag of shit on earth. If he’s still alive, he can’t be a pretty sight. Hate is a cruel marinade; it gives meat a flavor of trash, no doubt about it: Though I knew him only as a son of a bitch, Matziev was worth ten Prurions. At least he could point to one time in his life when he hadn’t disgraced his humanity. How many can say as much?
I kept the article as proof—of what I don’t know. I never went back to the house; life can’t stand returns. I remembered the Matziev I had known: his thin waxed moustache, his twisted cigars, his phonograph scratching out the little song. He disappeared eventually, with all his kit, once the Case had been settled—settled for them, you understand. No doubt he’d gone on lugging his “Caroline” around with him, going through the motions. Whenever our eyes had met, he gave the impression of a man who had reached his destination. Wherever he happened to be, it no longer served any purpose for him to put himself out. All that was behind him. The only thing left for him was to wait for the final rendezvous.
The snow fell for hours tonight. I kept hearing it as I sought sleep in my bed. Or perhaps it’s better to say I was hearing its silence and sensing its pervasive whiteness behind the improperly closed shutters, a whiteness that intensified hour by hour.
All that silence and whiteness, cutting me off still more from the world. Just what I need! Clémence loved this snow. “If it comes, there couldn’t be a more beautiful blanket for our baby.” She would never know the extent of that truth. The beautiful blanket would cover her too.
At seven o’clock I pushed the door open. The landscape was out of a pastry shop: cream and powdered sugar everywhere. I blinked as though before a miracle. The low sky was rolling its heavy humps on the crest of the hill, and the factory, which usually blew its stack with rage, was reduced to purring, almost a pleasant sound. A new world. The first morning of a new world. Like being the first man. Before the stains, the trail of footprints—and of misdeeds. I don’t really know how to put it better. Words were never easy for me. I hardly used them when I was still alive. If I write as if I’m a dead man, as a matter of fact, that’s true, true as true can be. For a long time I’ve felt like one, just keeping up a pretense of living for a while longer. I’m serving a
On the way out my shoulder unsettled a stack of newspapers, which collapsed with the rustle of withered leaves. Lost days scattered at my feet, dead years, bygone dramas. From among the jumble of headlines that had lost all urgency, one jumped out at me, with Matziev’s name in big letters, above a short item from 1894.
It was late in the year, on a December day. Evening, to be precise. Lieutenant Isidore Matziev, it reported,
had proclaimed his belief in the innocence of Captain Dreyfus
in the back room of a café. Applauded by the assembly of unionists and revolutionaries, Matziev, in full uniform, also declared
his shame at serving in an army that would imprison the just
while letting real traitors go unpunished.
The approval of the crowd was interrupted by the arrival of the police. Several arrests were made, including the lieutenant, and a more than sufficient number of blows were dealt with billy clubs. Considered a troublemaker for breaking the code of silence and tarnishing the French army’s honor, Lieutenant Matziev had appeared two days later before a military tribunal that condemned him (two days prior to this report) to six months of close arrest.
The hack who’d written the piece concluded by huffing about the young officer’s insolent manner and his name, which “smacked of a Jew, or a Russian, unless it was both.” It was signed Amédée Prurion, a nice idiotic name for a real bastard. Whatever became of this Prurion? Did he keep on vomiting his petty bile for years and years? If he’s dead today, that makes one less bag of shit on earth. If he’s still alive, he can’t be a pretty sight. Hate is a cruel marinade; it gives meat a flavor of trash, no doubt about it: Though I knew him only as a son of a bitch, Matziev was worth ten Prurions. At least he could point to one time in his life when he hadn’t disgraced his humanity. How many can say as much?
I kept the article as proof—of what I don’t know. I never went back to the house; life can’t stand returns. I remembered the Matziev I had known: his thin waxed moustache, his twisted cigars, his phonograph scratching out the little song. He disappeared eventually, with all his kit, once the Case had been settled—settled for them, you understand. No doubt he’d gone on lugging his “Caroline” around with him, going through the motions. Whenever our eyes had met, he gave the impression of a man who had reached his destination. Wherever he happened to be, it no longer served any purpose for him to put himself out. All that was behind him. The only thing left for him was to wait for the final rendezvous.
The snow fell for hours tonight. I kept hearing it as I sought sleep in my bed. Or perhaps it’s better to say I was hearing its silence and sensing its pervasive whiteness behind the improperly closed shutters, a whiteness that intensified hour by hour.
All that silence and whiteness, cutting me off still more from the world. Just what I need! Clémence loved this snow. “If it comes, there couldn’t be a more beautiful blanket for our baby.” She would never know the extent of that truth. The beautiful blanket would cover her too.
At seven o’clock I pushed the door open. The landscape was out of a pastry shop: cream and powdered sugar everywhere. I blinked as though before a miracle. The low sky was rolling its heavy humps on the crest of the hill, and the factory, which usually blew its stack with rage, was reduced to purring, almost a pleasant sound. A new world. The first morning of a new world. Like being the first man. Before the stains, the trail of footprints—and of misdeeds. I don’t really know how to put it better. Words were never easy for me. I hardly used them when I was still alive. If I write as if I’m a dead man, as a matter of fact, that’s true, true as true can be. For a long time I’ve felt like one, just keeping up a pretense of living for a while longer. I’m serving a
Similar Books
