is man when he reflects on himself? Let him consider his place against the totality of being. He is but an aberration in a sequestered corner of nature, his lodgment but a dungeon in the universe, from which he apprehends the earth, its kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is man in the Infinite? [72]
One can take only so much dazzling, or disruptive self-examination, even from Pascal. After translating a number of other relevant thoughts, I laid my pen aside and left the room. The rains from the previous day had enveloped the city in a soft fog. Cool air settled about the streets. The cafés and boutiques huddled under wet awnings. I had chosen no particular destination for my promenade, or better, my mindless wandering. But my mind was numbed by the dozen or so homeless people I noted, asleep in doorways along the side streets. To my horror, one was the old woman I had attempted to assist on the steps of the Pantheon. She appeared comatose, her body curled in fetal position against a doorframe. I paused and stared down at this human “aberration in her sequestered corner of nature” and remembered Jesus’ famous maxim: “You will always have the poor with you and you can do for them what you will.” I squatted beside her and placed a five franc note in her wrinkled right fist. I tucked it inside her clenched fingers. Hopefully, no one else would find it, or steal it from her.
Whatever I had intended to do evaporated as a goal, as I “considered my place against the totality of being.” I wandered into a bon marché, stumbled upon a bargain department entirely by accident, and spotted rain gear on sale. I bought one and returned to the old woman. She was still asleep, the money still clenched in her fist. Perhaps it was out of sheer self-indulgence, or remorse for wrongs forgotten and lost, but I bent down and covered her shoulders with the coat. Feeling somewhat absolved and yet sad, I walked up to the Boulevard du Montparnasse and searched for a quiet café for lunch. I had lost my appetite but ordered a sandwich and beer, nonetheless. Afterwards, I hunched over a café noir. Slowly, I stirred in two lumps of hard sugar, until they dissolved into a brown froth of momentary anodyne.
Never one to waste even a glum day, I resolved to take the metro to the Louvre and revisit my favorite artworks. Upon arriving at the Louvre, I paid and mounted the stairs to gaze at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. With wings windblown and ready to take flight, the stone figurehead inspired my ascent as I drew ever closer to her pedestal. I stood before her in silence. After that, I sought out the rooms that displayed the Mona Lisa and Rembrandt’s Bathsheba. I had included a description of the latter in my published dissertation: The Ethics of Virtue, and had never tired of viewing it, again and again. Bathsheba’s comely simplicity, the contemplative look on her face, and the soft glow of lamp light about her hips and breasts, had a way of slipping into the deepest crevices of my humanity. Her nudity aroused neither lust nor inordinate desire. She was the complete opposite of Manet’s Olympia. Before leaving the museum, I returned downstairs to gawk at the Venus de Milo: the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. For me, her statue elicited the highest sense of grace and respect for love’s mystery that a human masterpiece can create. I tried not to glance back as I departed her room. It was time to return to the pension for tea and Mme. Angleterre’s visit.
I had no idea what the concierge deemed so urgent. She brought the tray, nicely arranged with two bone-white cups and saucers, a silver creamer and sugar bowl, with spoons and forks and napkins and two small shimmering peach tarts. “The British know how to do it better than we, but, voila, Monsieur. Just for you!” she gestured with a flourish of her hands, after setting the tray on my desk.
“Well, do take a seat and tell me what’s up,” I smiled.
“Ohh, a pension’s secrets, Monsieur! The walls have eyes, you know, and ears. Don’t be upset if I whisper.”
“Whisper away,” I grinned. “You’ve got my ears burning with curiosity, and my mouth salivating over these tarts.”
“Ohhhh, you charming devil, if only I were younger and pretty, like the English mademoiselle. You like her, non?”
“Oui. She’ll do in a rainstorm.”
“Ahhh, l’amour, it isn’t just for the young, you know? I was married myself,” she boasted shyly. “But Robert was killed in the war; actually, during the Resistance. They shot him not far from here.”
“I’m humbled to hear that.”
“Humiliating was more like it. They lined him up with three others and gunned them down. Bang! Bang! Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!” she motioned, as if spraying the room with a machine gun. “They left them on the sidewalk of the Rue D’Ulm for their families to take away. But, that’s not why I’m here!” she frowned, regaining her composure. “It’s to share a little scandal, oui!”
“I’m listening.”
“Alors! It’s Mme. Dufavre. She’s hiding a man in her apartment, a lover, I do believe. He comes late at night and leaves before anyone can see him. I’ve watched him do it three times.” She sipped her tea, while munching on the sticky tart. She wiped its glaze off her fingers and onto her apron, never once touching her fork or napkin.
“But how do you know he’s her lover? Maybe he’s just a friend, or relative?”
“Ohhh, Professeur! Come now, we’re adults!” she said, raising her voice a tiny pitch. She completed eating her tart and, tilting her head back, drained the cup to the last drop of tea, then wiped the saucer with her napkin.
“My grandmother used to do that, only she drank her tea, or rather coffee, from a saucer. Perhaps that’s an old French custom.”
“I think there’s more to Madame’s lover than—,” she paused, as if searching for the mot juste, “sensuality,” she beamed.
“Oh!”
“Yes! Definitely! I think he’s the thief who killed the old woman across the street.”
“How do you know that, or that the motive was a theft?”
“The old woman was rich, they say. Kept her money in a pillow slip. The Madame knew her. She used to be a lodger here.”
“Still, murder and theft would be hard to prove.”
“I know, so I don’t tell anyone but you.” She leaned forward and stared curiously at me. “I’d keep an eye on her. She’s a strange one, I tell you. Beware!”
Seeing I had finished my tart and tea, Mme. Angleterre gathered up the tray, with its empty dishes, and walked toward the door. I rose to open it for her.
“Remember. Watch your back.”
“Yes! Thank you. I will.”
After the concierge left, I returned to my desk to mull over her “secret.” I hardly believed that Dufavre and her visitor were murderers or thieves. Why would Mme. Angleterre have even posed the possibility, unless she herself were implicated, or entertained an incredible, creative imagination, or thwarted desire for riches of her own? I could only assume the latter disjunctives, but, surely she wasn’t involved! But that wouldn’t be the first time a concierge was at fault. There were always whispers in the dining room about previous concierges, who had cheated Dufavre of clients’ money. “They come to your room, pretend that Dufavre is ill, and that she has delegated them to collect the rent,” the two companions to my right had explained. The short, black-haired one had shaken his head with great disapprobation. “Terrible! It was terrible!” he stated, with a dour look. “She made us pay again, twice! Called us ‘Stupid!’ Oui!”
I
