whom?’ Henri asked with a smile.
Lambert hesitated again. ‘It seems that Dubreuilh has been waiting impatiently for you to get back. Don’t let yourself get involved in his schemes …’
‘I’m already more or less involved in them,’ Henri said.
‘Well, if I were you, I’d get myself disinvolved fast!’
‘No,’ Henri replied, smiling. ‘It just isn’t possible nowadays to stay apolitical.’
Lambert’s face grew sombre. ‘I suppose that means you disapprove of me, doesn’t it?’
‘Not at all. What I mean is that it’s impossible for me. We’re not the same age, you know.’
‘What’s age got to do with it?’ Lambert asked.
‘You’ll find out. You change, you begin to understand a lot of things when you get older.’ Henri smiled and added, ‘But I promise you I’ll find time enough to continue writing.’
‘You have to,’ Lambert said.
‘I just remembered something, my sermonizing friend! What happened to those short stories you were telling me about?’
‘They aren’t worth a damn,’ Lambert replied.
‘Let me have them. And then we’ll have dinner together some evening and talk about them.’
‘Right,’ Lambert said. He got up. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll want to see her, but little Marie-Ange Bizet is dead set on interviewing you. She’s been waiting for two hours. What’ll I tell her?’
‘That I never give interviews and that I’m up to my ears in work.’
Lambert closed the door behind him and Henri emptied the contents of the yellow envelope on his desk. On a bulging folder, his secretary had written: ‘Correspondence – Novel.’ He hesitated a moment. He had written the novel during the war without ever having given any thought to what the future might hold for him; he hadn’t even been sure that the future would hold anything at all for him. And now the book had been published, people had already read it. All at once, Henri found himself judged, discussed, classified, as he himself had so often judged and discussed others. He spread out the clippings and began going through them one at a time. ‘A sensation’, Paula had said, and he had thought she was exaggerating. But, as a matter of fact, the critics also used some pretty impressive words. Lambert, of course, was prejudiced; Lachaume, too. All those young critics who had just come into their own had a natural predisposition for the writers of the Resistance. But it was the admiring letters sent by both friends and strangers that confirmed the verdict of the press. Really, without getting a swelled head about it, it was certainly enough to make any man happy. His pages, written with deep feeling, had actually stirred people! Henri stretched happily. In a way, it was miraculous – what had just happened. Two years earlier, thick curtains had veiled blue-painted windows; he had been completely shut off from the black city, from the whole earth; his pen would pause hesitantly over the paper. Now those unformed sounds in his throat had become a living voice in the world; the secret stirrings in his heart had been transformed into truths for other hearts. ‘I should have tried explaining it to Nadine,’ he said to himself. ‘If others don’t count, it’s meaningless to write. But if they do count, it’s wonderful to gain their friendship and their confidence with words; it’s magnificent to hear your own thoughts echoed in them.’ He raised his eyes; someone was opening the door.
‘I’ve been waiting for you for two hours,’ said a plaintive voice. ‘You could at least give me fifteen minutes.’ Marie-Ange planted herself solidly in front of his desk. ‘It’s for Lendemain. A big front-page spread, with pictures.’
‘Look, I never give interviews.’
‘Exactly. That’s why mine will be worth its weight in gold.’
Henri shook his head, and Marie-Ange said indignantly, ‘You wouldn’t ruin my whole career just because of a principle?’
He smiled. Fifteen minutes meant so very much to her, and it would cost him so very little! To tell the truth, he even felt like talking about himself. Among the people who liked his book, there were certainly some who wanted to know the author better. And he felt like telling them about himself, telling them so that their approval would really be directed at him.
‘You win,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’
‘First of all, where do you come from?’
‘My father was a pharmacist in Tulle.’
‘And?’
Henri hesitated. It isn’t easy to begin talking about yourself out of a clear sky.
‘Go ahead,’ Marie-Ange prodded. ‘Tell me a few things about your childhood.’
Like everyone else, he had memories enough, only they didn’t seem very important to him. Except for that dinner, in the Henri II dining-room, when he finally delivered himself of his fear.
‘All right, here’s one for you,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s nothing, but for me it was the beginning of a great many things.’
Her pencil poised above her note-book, Marie-Ange gave him an encouraging look.
‘The major subject of conversation between my parents,’ he began, ‘was the disasters that were menacing the world – the red peril, the yellow peril, barbarism, decadence, revolution, bolshevism. And I imagined them all as horrible monsters who were going to swallow up all humanity. Well, at dinner one evening, my father was doing his usual prophesying – the revolution was imminent, civilization was foundering. And my mother was nodding agreement, a look of terror on her face. And then suddenly I thought, “But no matter what happens, the winners will still be men.” Maybe those aren’t exactly words I used, but that’s the gist of it.’ Henri smiled. ‘The effect was miraculous. No more monsters. It was all here on earth, among human creatures, among ourselves.’
‘And then?’ Marie-Ange asked.
‘So, ever since then I’ve been hunting down monsters,’ he replied.
Marie-Ange looked perplexed. ‘But your story?’ she asked. ‘How does it end?’
‘What story?’
‘The one you just began,’ she replied impatiently.
‘It’s finished; there is no other ending,’ Henri answered.
‘Oh,’ Marie-Ange said, disappointed. ‘I was hoping for something picturesque,’ she added plaintively.
‘There was nothing picturesque about my childhood,’ Henri said. ‘The pharmacy bored me to death and living out in the country was annoying. Fortunately, I had an uncle in Paris who managed to get me a job with Vendredi.’
He hesitated. There were a great many things he could say about his first years in Paris, but he didn’t know which ones to choose.
‘Vendredi was a leftist paper?’ Marie-Ange said. ‘You had leftist ideas even then?’
‘Let’s say I loathed
