Four Novels Read online

  “I only meant that if one traveled all the time as you do, I would have thought that one day one would want to stop and stay in one place That was all.”

  “It’s true I suppose that one should want to stop. But how do you stop doing one thing and start another? How do people decide to leave one job for another, and why?”

  “If I’ve understood you, the fact that you travel depends only on yourself, not on anything else?”

  “I don’t think I have ever quite known how such things are decided. I have no particular attachments. In fact I am a rather solitary person and unless some great piece of luck came my way I cannot really see how I could change my work. And somehow I can’t imagine where any luck would come from: there doesn’t seem much about my life which would attract it. Of course I don’t mean that some luck could not come my way—after all one never knows—nor that if it did I would not accept it very gladly. But for the moment I must confess I cannot see much luck coming my way helping me to a decision.”

  “But couldn’t you just simply want it? I mean just decide you wanted to change your work?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Each day I want to be clean, well fed and sleep well, and I also like to feel decently dressed. So you see I hardly have time for wanting much more. And then, after all, I don’t really dislike traveling.”

  “Can I ask you another question? How did all this start?”

  “How could I begin to tell you? Things like that are so long and so complicated, and sometimes I really think they are a little beyond me. It would mean going so far back that I feel tired before I start. But on the whole I think things happened to me as they do to anyone else, no differently.”

  A wind had risen, so light it seemed to carry the summer with it. For a moment it chased the clouds away, leaving a new warmth hanging over the city.

  “How lovely it is,” the man said.

  “Yes,” said the girl, “almost the beginning of the hot weather. From now on it will be a little warmer each day.”

  “You see, I had no special aptitude for any particular work or for any particular kind of life. And so I suppose I will go on as I am. Yes, I think I will.”

  “So really your feelings are only negative? They are just against any particular work or any particular life?”

  “Against? No. That’s too strong a word. I can only say that I have no very strong likes. I really just came to be as I am in the way that most people come to be as they are: there is nothing special about my case.”

  “But between the things that happened to you a long time ago and now, wasn’t there time for you to change—almost every day in fact—and start liking things? Anything?”

  “I suppose so. I don’t deny it. For some people life must be like that and then again for others it is not. Some people must get used to the idea of never changing and I think that really is true of me. So I expect I will just go on as I am.”

  “Well, for me things will change: they will not go on being the same.”

  “But can you know already?”

  “Yes, I can, because my situation is not one which can continue: sooner or later it must come to an end, that is part of it. I am waiting to marry. And as soon as I am married my present life will be quite finished.”

  “I understand.”

  “I mean that once it is over it will seem so unimportant that it might as well never have been.”

  “Perhaps I too—after all it’s impossible to foresee everything, isn’t it?—might change my life one day.”

  “Ah, but the difference is that I want to change mine. What I do now is hardly a job. People call it one to make things easier for themselves, but in fact it is not. It’s something different, something with no meaning outside itself like being ill or a child. And so it must come to an end.”

  “I understand, but I’ve come back from a long journey and now I’m resting. I never much like thinking of the future and today, when I’m resting, even less: that’s why I am so bad at explaining to you how it is I can put up with my life as it is and not change it, and what is more, not even be able to imagine changing. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh no, it is I who should apologize.”

  “Of course not. After all we can always talk.”

  “That’s right. And it means nothing.”

  “And so you are waiting for something to happen?”

  “Yes. I can see no reason why I should not get married one day like everybody else. As I told you.”

  “You’re quite right. There is no reason at all why you should not get married too.”

  “Of course with a job like mine—one which is so looked down upon—you could say that the opposite would be more true and that there is no reason at all why anyone should want to marry me. And so somehow I think that to make it seem quite ordinary and natural, I must want it with all my might. And that is how I want it.”

  “I am sure nothing is impossible. People say so at least.”

  “I have thought about it a great deal: here I am, young, healthy and truthful just like any woman you see anywhere whom some man has settled for. And surely it would be surprising if somewhere there isn’t a man who won’t see that I am just as good as anyone else and settle for me. I am full of hope.”

  “I am sure it will happen to you. But if you were suggesting that I make the same sort of change, I can only ask what I would do with a wife? I have nothing in the world but my suitcase and it is all I can do to keep myself.”

  “Oh no, I did not mean to say that you need this particular change. I was talking of change in general. For me marriage is the only possible change, but for you it could be something else.”

  “I expect you are right, but you seem to forget that people are different. You see, however much I wanted to change, even if I wanted it with all my might, I could never manage to want it as much as you do. You seem to want it at all costs.”

  “Perhaps that is because for you a change would be less great than it would for me. As far as I am concerned I feel I want the greatest change there could be. I might be mistaken but still it seems to me that all the changes I see in other people are simple and easy beside the one I want for myself.”

  “But don’t you think that even if everyone needed to change, and needed it very badly indeed, that even so they would feel differently about it according to their own particular circumstances?”

  “I am sorry but I must explain that I am quite uninterested in particular circumstances. As I told you I am full of hope and what is more I do everything possible to make my hopes come true. For instance every Saturday I go to the local Dance Hall and dance with anyone who asks me. They say that the truth will out and I believe that one day someone will take me for what I am, a perfectly marriageable young woman who would make just as good a wife as anyone else.”

  “I don’t think it would help me to go dancing, even if I wanted to change, and wanted it less than you do. My profession is insignificant: in fact it can hardly even be called a profession since it only just provides enough for one person, or perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say a half-person. And so I couldn’t, even for an instant, imagine that anything like that would change my life.”

  “But then perhaps, as I said before, it would be enough for you to change your work?”

  “Yes, but how? How does one change a profession, even such a miserable one as mine? One which doesn’t even allow me to marry? All I do is to go with my suitcase through one day to the next, from one night to another and even from one meal to the next meal, and there is no time for me to stop and think about it as perhaps I should. No, if I were to change then the opportunity must come to me: I have no time to meet it halfway. And then again I should, perhaps, explain that I never felt that anyone particularly needed my services or my company—so much so that quite often I am amazed that I occupy any place in the world at all.”

  “Then perhaps the change you should make would be just to feel differently about things?”

  “Of cours
e. But you know how it is. After all, one is what one is and how could anyone change so radically? Also I have come to like my work, even if it could hardly be called that: I like catching trains, and sleeping almost anywhere no longer worries me much.”

  “You must not mind my saying this, but it seems to me that you should never have let yourself become like this.”

  “You could perhaps say I was always a little predisposed to it.”

  “For me it would be terrible to go through life with nothing but a suitcase full of things to sell. I think I should be frightened.”

  “Of course that can happen, especially at the beginning, but one gets used to little things like that.”

  “I think in spite of everything I would rather be as I am, in my present position rather than in yours. But perhaps that is because I am only twenty.”

  “But you musn’t think that my work has nothing but disadvantages. That would be quite wrong. With all the time I have on my hands for instance, on the road, in trains, in Squares like this, I can think of all manner of things. I have time to look around and even time to work out reasons for things.”

  “But I thought you said you had only enough time to think of yourself? Or rather of managing to keep yourself and of nothing else?”

  “No. What I lack is time to think of the future, but I have time to think of other things, or perhaps I should say I make it. Because, after all, if one can face struggling a little more than others do, just to get enough to eat, it is only possible on condition that once a meal is over one can stop thinking about the whole problem. If immediately one meal is finished you had to start thinking about the next one it would be enough to drive you mad.”

  “I imagine so. But you see, what would drive me mad would be going from city to city as you do with no other company than a suitcase.”

  “Oh, one is not always alone you know. I mean so alone that one might go mad. No, there are boats and trains full of people to watch and observe and then, if one ever feels one is really going mad, there is always something to be done about it.”

  “But what good would it do me to make the best of things since all I want is to finish with my present position? In the end all your attitude does for you is to give you more reasons for not finishing with yours.”

  “That is not completely true, because should an opportunity arise for me to change my work I would certainly seize it: no, my attitude helps me in other ways. For example it helps me to see the advantages of my profession, such as traveling a great deal and possibly of becoming a little wiser than I was before. I am not saying I am right. I could easily be wrong and, without realizing it, have become far less wise than I ever was. But then, since I wouldn’t know, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “And so you are continually traveling? As continually as I stay in one place?”

  “Yes. And even if sometimes I go back to the same places they can be different. In the spring for instance cherries appear in the markets. That is really what I wanted to say and not that I thought I was right in putting up with my life as it is.”

  “You’re right. Quite soon, in about six weeks, the first cherries will be in the markets. I am glad for your sake. But tell me what other things you see when you travel?”

  “Oh, a thousand things. One time it will be spring and another winter; either sunshine or snow, making the place unrecognizable. But I think it is really the cherries which change things the most: suddenly there they are, and the whole marketplace becomes scarlet. Yes, they will be there in about six weeks. You see, that is what I wanted to explain, not that I thought my work was entirely satisfactory.”

  “But apart from the cherries and the sunshine and the snow, what else do you see?”

  “Sometimes nothing much: small things you would hardly notice, but a number of little things which added together seem to change a place. Places can be familiar and unfamiliar at the same time: a market which once seemed hostile can, quite suddenly, become warm and friendly.”

  “But sometimes isn’t everything exactly the same?”

  “Yes. Sometimes so exactly the same that you can only think you left it the night before. I have never understood how this could happen because after all it would seem impossible that anything could remain so much the same.”

  “Tell me more about other things you see.”

  “Well, sometimes a new block of flats which was half built when last I was there is finished and lived in: full of people and noise. And the odd thing is that although the town had never seemed overcrowded before, there it suddenly is—a brand new block of flats, completed and inhabited as if had always been utterly necessary.”

  “All the things you describe and the changes you notice are there for anyone to see, aren’t they? They are not things which exist for you alone, for you and for no one else?”

  “Sometimes there are things which I alone can see, but only negligible things. In general you are right: the things I notice are mostly changes in the weather, in buildings, things which anyone would notice. And yet sometimes, just by watching them carefully, such things can affect one just as much as events which are completely personal. In fact it feels as though they were personal, as if somehow one had put the cherries there oneself.”

  “I see what you mean and I am trying to put myself in your place, but it’s no good, I still think I should be frightened.”

  “That does happen. It happens to me sometimes when I wake up at night. But on the whole it is only at night that I feel frightened, although I can also feel it at dusk—but then only when it’s raining or there’s a fog.”

  “Isn’t it strange that although I have never actually experienced the fear we are talking about, I can still understand a little what it must be like.”

  “It is not the kind of fear you might feel if you said to yourself that when you died no one would care. No, it’s another kind of fear, a general one which affects everything and not just you alone.”

  “As if you were suddenly terrified of being yourself, of being what you are instead of different, almost instead of being some quite other kind of thing.”

  “Yes. It comes from feeling at the same time like everyone else, exactly like everyone else, and yet being oneself. In fact I think it is just that: being one kind of thing rather than another. . . .”

  “It’s complicated, but I understand.”

  “As for the other kind of fear—the fear of thinking that no one would notice if you died—it seems to me that sometimes this can make one happier. I think that if you knew that when you died no one would suffer, not even a dog, it makes it easier to bear the thought of dying.”

  “I am trying to follow you, but I am afraid I don’t understand. Perhaps because women are different from men? All I do know is that I could not bear to live as you do, alone with that suitcase. It is not that I would not like to travel, but unless there was someone who cared for me somewhere in the world I don’t think I could do it. In fact I can only say that I would prefer to be where I am.”

  “But could you not think of traveling while waiting for what you want?”

  “No. I don’t believe you know what it is to want to change one’s life. I must stay here and think about it, think with all my might, or else I know I will never manage to change.”

  “Perhaps. I don’t really know.”

  “How could you know? Because, however modest a way of life you have, it is at least yours. So how could you know what it is like to be nothing?”

  “Am I right in thinking that no one would particularly care if you died either?”

  “No one. And I’ve been twenty now for two weeks. But one day someone will care. I know it. I am full of hope. Otherwise nothing would be possible.”

  “You are quite right. Why shouldn’t someone care about you as much as about anyone else?”

  “That’s just it. That’s just what I say to myself.”

  “You’re right, and now I’d like to ask you a question. Do you get enough to eat?�
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  “Yes, thank you, I do. I eat as much as and even more than I need. Always alone, but one eats well in my job since after all one does the cooking; and good things too. Even if I have to force myself I always eat a great deal because sometimes I feel I would like to be fatter and more impressive so that people would notice me more. I think that if I were bigger and stronger I would stand a better chance of getting what I want. You may say I’m wrong, but it seems to me that if I were radiantly healthy people would find me more attractive. And so you see, we are really very different.”

  “Probably. But in my own way I am also someone who tries. I must have explained myself badly just now. I assure you that if I should ever want to change, why then I would set about it like everyone else.”

  “You know, it is not very easy to believe you when you say that.”

  “Perhaps, but you see while I have nothing against hope in general, the fact is that there has never seemed much reason for it to concern me. And yet I feel that it would not take a great deal for me to feel that hope is as necessary to me as it is to others. It might only need the smallest bit of faith. Perhaps I lack the time for it, who knows? I don’t mean the time I spend in trains thinking of this or that, or passing the time of day with other people, no, I mean the other kind of time: the time anyone has, each day, to think of the one that follows. I just lack the time to start thinking about that particular subject and so discovering that it might mean something to me too.”

  “And yet it seems to me, as I think you yourself said, that there was a time when you were like everyone else?”

  “Yes, but almost so much so that I was never able to do anything about it. I could never make up my mind to choose a profession. No one can be everything at once or, as you said, want everything at once, and personally I was never able to get over this difficulty. But after all I have traveled, my suitcase takes me to a great many places and once I even went to a foreign country. I didn’t sell much there but I saw it. If anyone had told me some years ago that I should want to go there I would never have believed them, and yet you see one day when I woke up I suddenly felt I would like to visit it and I went; and although very little has happened to me in my life at least I managed that—I went to that country.”