The Flood

Chapter Ten

François Besson experiences hunger, thirst, and loneliness — The smell of bread — The woman kneeling in the church — François Besson submits himself to God — His confession — The organs — How Besson learnt the beggar’s trade — The terrible look of the old woman who wished she could die

ON the tenth day, François Besson experienced hunger, thirst, and loneliness. The town was now a crazy maelstrom of hubbub and movement: he was jostled, banged to and fro like a ball, all but crushed to death. Four times he just missed being run down by cars and the walls of the houses leaned in towards him, as though about to collapse in a mountain of white dust and cockroaches. Every time he passed an old corner or alley-way, he would sidle into it and squat there for a while. But the feet continued their endless progress up and down the pavement, beating out a retreat on its surface. They were everywhere, like moving columns, or rather pistons, tapping the ground in regular time, rowing time, the paths they followed bristling with dangers and obstructions. The soles of their shoes resounded on the hard flat ground, and the staccato noise thus produced — first the dull thud of the heel stamping down, then the creak and scrape as the foot flattened out — could be heard far away down the street, growing louder, louder, till it was like a military march-past. The din would reach Besson, dislodge him from his place of concealment, march over his stomach, and then dwindle until it was lost in silence — an even more menacing effect. Footsteps, footsteps, nothing but footsteps, from left to right, from right to left, in one unceasing flow.

There were the cars, too, like great carnivores on the prowl: each one had a man in it, and bad luck to anyone who got in their way. A monstrous indifference had spread over the world, a sort of coldness that penetrated solid objects, that had permeated tree-trunks and car wheels and the pattern of the paving-stones that was painted over paint-work, mixed in with concrete, melted into spectacle-frames, riveted in steel girders.

On the big hoardings, where the posters were wrinkling now from a mixture of paste and rain, was a line of red-cheeked women, displaying cruel-looking rows of teeth, smiling with pale and cannibal mouths, while their dark eyes, capped by moustache-like sets of eyelashes, resembled so many giant hairy-legged spiders. Another advertisement showed a naked woman standing, half in shadow, beside a refrigerator, and the exaggerated curves of her body had a strangely obscene quality, as though she were a female of some quite different species in disguise.

At the back of one opalescent shop window were several wax dummies, frozen in all-too-human postures: Besson stopped and stared at these paralysed bodies, the crossed legs with their generous display of thigh, the hands that possessed such long, tapering fingers, the bosoms straining at the dresses that covered them, the bald heads masked by nylon wigs of various colours — blonde, auburn, raven, rose-pink. He felt a sudden desire to live with these imitation women as though they were the only real ones. He wanted to lie down on the white pebbles of those artificial ‘beaches’ at the back of shop windows, and stretch out under the blazing ‘sunlight’ of an arc-lamp. Here he could build himself a hut, amid the unstirring, luxuriant pot-plants, and abandon himself to these bright, shimmering colours, in a quiet, peaceful, prefabricated universe where silence was symbolized by a Veronese-green cloth of some plastic material, this closed-in cube redolent of such pervasive odours as those of moth-balls and powerful cheap scent. Perhaps he would choose a woman, too: say the one with green eyes and long blonde hair, who sat there, slightly askew, on a collapsible metal chair, smoking a dead cigarette, the black material of her draped dress revealing small patches of bare flesh, that ranged in colour from ochre to pale pink. Or perhaps the one who lay stretched out face downwards in the middle of the paper lawn, exposing her skin (already tanned the colour of milk chocolate) to the arc-lamp’s rays. Then there was the red-haired girl, who stood there, frozen in mid-step, smiling gently, her two dark-blue eyes, fringed with thick black lashes, staring out through the window. He would have liked them all. He would have spent hours caressing these tall, clean-limbed, elegant creatures, sliding their dresses off those rounded shoulders very carefully so as not to disarrange their wigs, or knock off a hand or foot. That’s what I’d like to do, he thought.

But outside, under that leaden sky, there was no chance of peace or relaxation. An army of legs continued to advance down the sidewalk, and the human bodies above them gave off odd flashes of brightness, fierce metallic reflections. Each individual had his armour. Hands glinted as they swung at the extremity of each arm; eyes shone with snow-white scleras, teeth sparkled, noses glowed, hair gleamed greasily, belt-buckles gave off little slivers of light. It was as though the sun had really come down on earth, or else had suddenly melted, behind that curtain of cotton-wool clouds, infusing the rain-drops with a shower of tinfoil and gold. The frozen air was as still and tangible as a sheet of plate-glass.

Towards midday Besson felt the first pangs of hunger. He had eaten nothing since the previous evening, and had spent his last remaining coins on a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. All around him a faint smell of cooking filtered out through the closed windows of the houses he passed. People were having lunch now. Whether at home or in a restaurant, everyone was sitting down to a heaped plateful of food, was working through slices of savoury meat, potatoes, salad, spoonfuls of spinach purée. Food was slipping smoothly down countless oesophagi, a succession of saliva-lubricated little balls. Blood went surging round the stomach, jaws champed steadily.

After the earlier hubbub and bustle, from noon on the streets gradually began to empty. Life became more and more centred on the kitchen, with its clatter of cutlery and casseroles. There was a somnolent feeling in the air now, reminiscent of an afternoon siesta. Even the animals had vanished. They were either raiding the garbage-cans in people’s back yards, or else prowling around the family dinner-table, jaws wide open, eyes bright with anticipation.

Behind them they had left this grey deserted wilderness, over which the wind still blew fitfully. The streets seemed endless, the sidewalks were bare. The invisible tide had ebbed far out, uncovering a flat expanse of silt. People and things had withdrawn into themselves, to savour, each in their private retreat, the aroma of cooking food. Outside in the gardens, very stiff and upright in the black soil, the trees were feeding too. From the bottommost layers of humus they sucked up the soft elemental stuff of life and digested it. Phosphates dissolved slowly between their roots, and the sap, their life-blood, with the colour of milk and the taste of sugar, spread out and up till it reached the topmost branches.

Besson felt this torpor stealing over him, and tried to resist it for a moment. He stood quite still on the corner of an intersection, and tried to imagine himself giving a sumptuous banquet. He set out a dazzling table decorated with dishes of pheasants in aspic and poulet à l’estragon. Over their delectable flesh he poured golden wines and rich, thick sauces that spread out in iridescent splendour, like a peacock’s tail. He then destroyed the table and everything on it. But this was not enough. The streets and pavements around him were still deserted. Down those long, glabrous vistas, as though traced in the dust by a finger, or daubed with mud, the letters F O O D appeared, a depressing message that nothing could obliterate. As soon as people finished their meals, and the cats curled up beside the garbage-cans and fell asleep, this maleficent sign would vanish of itself. But for the moment it was still there. This was the time of day when people should not be out of doors; those who ventured into the streets would encounter the magic word, and then the winged shadow of that vast exodus would hover over them too, like a vulture.

Besson walked down one street in which the drains were up. The working-site was deserted except for a pile of shovels and pick-axes, and a yellow machine that smelt of oil and combustion, and was now cooling off in the sharp air.

Cars stood parked nose to tail along the kerb; their mock-leather seat-cushions still bore the impression of those who had been sitting in them. It was like night-time, except that even the ghosts were missing.

Outside a bakery, the smell of warm bread and cake brought Besson up short; it passed into his body with the breath he drew, and conjured up a veritable tide of saliva and digestive juices. When it reached his stomach, and stuck there, it became pure agony, turning, spreading, hardening into a sharp cross. Besson went over to the window and looked inside. The bread was there, long loaves packed upright in a big basket, their honey-coloured surface exposed for all to see, still hot from the oven, swag-bellied, dusted with flour, scarred and knobbly, that delicious and potent odour steaming gently off them. Inside the crust the bread was springy, delicate, soft, warm, permeated with millions of tiny bubbles. Its golden surface was so richly yellow that all the fire’s brightness, all the heat of the oven still seemed to live in it: it shone like the skin of a fruit. It lent itself to covetous urges by camouflaging the silken folds, crisp and melting at once, both crusty and feather-soft, of a slice from the cut loaf. It wafted the aroma of its bounty in waves to the four corners of the earth; its virginal, sculptured quality drew one gently towards it, and as gently mastered one. Besson felt himself melting, flowing imperceptibly into the heart of the loaf, as though the direction of the odour had been reversed to bring its victim back to its secret lair. He plunged head first into the middle of the warm capsule, swimming, gulping down great mouthfuls of the nourishment that none thought to deny him. He felt the thick, palpable smell of hunger, the taste of flour and yeast course through his limbs like molten stone. Now the odour filled the whole sky: the streets of the town, the roof-tops, clouds, tarred asphalt on the pavement, the bodywork of cars, all had become bread, rich full-bodied loaves, a fresh and foam-light mountain of crumb and crust, crust that one breaks with a sign of the cross over the laden table and its heavy baskets of fruit, bread that opens in whiteness and love to admit the light blessing from heaven, and yields to the holy spirit come down to dwell in it.

Besson stood there a long while lost in contemplation of the bread. After this he no longer felt any hunger or thirst. Round him the signs slowly dwindled and vanished. People began to emerge from their houses again, and cars drove away, accelerating fiercely. Pigeons came fluttering down on the sidewalk, and began to waddle round in circles, uttering short liquid cooing notes.

Some time later, well on in the afternoon, Besson came out on a large square surrounded by red-brick houses. There was a parking lot in the middle of the square and, large numbers of leafless plane-trees dotted about it. Besson crossed the road and made for the church. It was a high, rather ugly building, with a Greek-style portico supported by marble columns, above which was carved the inscription: MARIA SINE LABE CONCEPTA ORA PRO NOBIS. Towards the back of the building there rose a square bell-tower, with a clock at the top of it. The clock-face was white, and had Roman numerals round the dial. The short hand pointed to a spot just past the IV, while the long one was coming up for VI. When the long hand reached the VI there was a single dull chime from the tower; the note floated away over the roof-tops like a layer of fog. Two birds flew up and zigzagged away one behind the other. Besson heard this gong-stroke echoing faintly over the square for some time afterwards: the filaments of its metallic vibrations fixed themselves in his head like a souvenir.

The dial of the clock gleamed there high on the tower like a kind of moon. Eventually he tore his eyes away from it, walked up the front steps, pushed through an old brown swing door, and found himself inside the church.

The change in atmosphere was instantaneous. Throughout the vast and shadowy nave, empty now, and up in the deep, grotto-like vaulting silence reigned, the atmosphere had a dim grey profundity about it. Fine near-transparent clouds drifted slowly round the walls, dissolving into wisps, moving above the varnished pews, spreading across the stained-glass windows. Besson caught the terrifying smell of incense, and for a moment, because of something that stirred inside him, he thought his hunger had come back. But it was not hunger. There was no name one could put to the unfamiliar feeling of distress that surged to and fro between these dank walls, that set a bell tolling, on and on, echoing away deep into the earth, telling the beads for the dead, there was nothing about it that could be known or expressed. It was the fear induced by footsteps advancing over the hollow-echoing flagstones, it was the crushing weight of the vaulted roof overhead, pressing down with ton upon ton of stone, it was the power of everything obscure and ominous, of terror made into a dwelling-place. Shuddering, Besson advanced down the nave. On either side the rows of empty pews faded into semi-darkness. Great pillars soared up like tree-trunks, and lost themselves in the pearly white and foliated radiance of the vaulting. At the end of the nave, moving towards him as he moved towards it, was the pyramidal outline of the altar, glittering in candle-light.

Besson took a few more steps down the centre of the church; then he stopped, sat down in a pew, and listened to the silence. The bustle of the streets could not penetrate these stony ramparts. And yet it was not really silence: there was too rich and dense a quality about it. Rising amid the floating particles of incense, sliding through the shadows like a thief in the night, there came a muted yet resonant murmur, a continual hum like the roar of a distant waterfall, vibrating in the ground underfoot. It was exactly as though some terrifying full-dress quarrel had taken place inside the church just a few seconds before Besson entered it, and what remained now was the mere memory of the shock-waves, the last fading tremors, the atmospheric disturbances that follow any seismic upheaval. Though silence had replaced the previous deafening uproar, it was still quivering, muttering under its breath, filling dark nooks and corners with whispered blasphemies and stifled oaths and obscene phrases.

Besson glanced around him, and, for the first time since he had walked in, saw that there were other human beings with him in the church. A number of old women, gathered round the pillars because they were near the radiators, sat mumbling incomprehensible prayers; some of them wore large black headscarves which completely hid their faces and hair, and were on their knees at the prie-dieu, quite still. Their bodies, swathed in black dresses and old coats, bent forward; their heads were bowed towards the ground. In the side aisles one or two old crones were lighting candles before the images, with slow, meticulous gestures.

Not far from Besson, in the same row of pews but half-hidden by shadow, a woman was sitting, and Besson examined her attentively. She was, he saw, about sixty years of age, with grey, almost white hair tied up in a mauve headscarf. Her dress was mauve too, but of a somewhat darker tone than one ordinarily saw. Her rounded back was pressed against the seat behind her; her legs, swollen by varicose veins, were set squarely on the ground; her hands lay clasped in her lap. She sat thus, staring straight ahead of her, not moving her lips. Besson could just make out her pale, deeply lined face, with its strong nose; beneath the eye there was a dark stain, as though she had been crying and mascara had run down with the tears. These brown smudges came very low, following the line of the cheek-bone, and her eyelids seemed to be a curious purplish colour, as though someone had given her a couple of shiners. She remained absolutely immobile, looking almost translucent in the gloom; all that could be seen of her now were the pale patches denoting face, neck and hands. She moved once only, to push away a strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead. She simply looked straight ahead of her with those dark-ringed eyes, indifferent to anything going on around, as though into a mirror. Besson tried to deduce, from the direction of her gaze, just what she was looking at. Her eyes were focused a little above the horizontal, he decided. If one prolonged this line of vision it came out at the top of the altar, against a kind of gilded ornament in the shape of a double palm-leaf. There was nothing above or below it. Both the Cross and the altar-piece were away to one side, where she could not see them. The Tabernacle stood to the right of her, and it seemed clear enough that it too stood beyond her range of vision. Then what was the explanation? Why did she sit there staring at this piece of decoration, with its vague resemblance to a double palm-leaf, as though it were a mountain of gold? What was it about this piece of stucco moulding that attracted her?

After some time the woman rose to her feet, picked up a handbag, and walked along the row to the aisle, her gentle, melancholy face an expressionless blank. As she passed Besson her eyes met his, and he felt his heart beat faster. Then they slipped away again, brown aureole and all, not really looking at anything, like two smooth drops of dark water in the middle of that white face.

Then Besson turned back towards the luminous hole shining at the far end of the church, and let the fear rise up in him. He breathed in the saffron-scented air, and listened to the silence throbbing around him. He was inside a boat now. On every side a wide expanse of ocean pressed against its stone hull, so that it groaned gently. A slight rolling motion rocked the marble pillars, and made the vaulting move up and down. Chandeliers swung from right to left, with a clash of crystal pendants, and on countless candles the tiny point flickered perilously. The hum of the great ship’s engines was counterpointed by Besson’s heart-beats, thudding in his chest and on either side of his head. Under the smooth wooden pews the floor stretched away, a vast bare grey expanse, feebly reflecting both daylight and lamplight, a lake that had frozen over. The great flagstones lay snugly side by side, so granite-hard, so peaceful, that one wanted to climb right up into the roof and then hurl oneself into empty space, come smashing down on this platitude, arms outspread in the form of a cross, to founder in a mess of blood and pulped-up flesh and bone.

Or perhaps one was imprisoned in the belly of a whale, still alive, and free to move around inside one’s living captor. Piping and cavities, rucks and folds of oozy wall — these suddenly began to multiply as one watched. Clustering glands sprang from its side, pink-and-green garlands swimming in gall and shadow. Soon one would be digested. The burning lava flow would come spurting through minuscule holes in the middle of each wall, and overwhelm one. Then the frenzied dance would begin, hurling its cramps and spasms from one end of the empty sac to the other. Beyond this activated corridor came the point of final absorption: swallowed up in gold and tinkling crystal, sucked out at one stroke by this gaudy cupping-glass, one would disappear into the void.

This was it, in fact: the building had a driving urge to engulf you. You couldn’t run away, you couldn’t shout or make a fight of it. The cold stone weighed down on you with its millions of years, the deathless gold mocked you with the laughter of madness. It was like being a fly, trapped in that abominable flower which slowly closes its clawed and curving petals over its victims; and the perfume that issued from those hidden mouths spread like some deadly poison. Marble, amber, rubies, incense, porphyry, all were ready to hook you.

The universe had been swallowed up. Streets, cars, cafés, sky and sun, trees, pigeons — nothing of this now remained. The world had suddenly become a cavern, an underground cathedral full of huge stalactites, a concrete air-raid shelter.

Besson knew he had to act fast. He knelt on the wooden kneeler and bowed his head. He tried to say a prayer, but the words would not come any more. Then, while vaulting and walls and floor danced in fury about him, he closed his eyes and submitted himself to God.

When the danger had passed, he got up again. A sudden vast tiredness came over him, as though he had just finished an all-night train journey. He left the pew and walked down the side aisle. The black-clad women were still there, silently moving their lips. Near a painted statue of John the Baptist administering baptism, a grey-clad figure knelt, head in hands. A little further on, close to a big candelabra with half a dozen wax tapers burning in it, a group of three or four women sat waiting. Besson joined them, and took his place in the queue. He looked at the candles burning on the tray of the candelabra; the wax had run down all of them, producing the most curious excrescences. At the top of each little column, attached to the wick like a banner, was a little tongue of yellow light, burning with stubborn persistence, more ephemeral and tragic than the life of a butterfly.

Other women arrived and sat down beside Besson, taking the places of those who had gone. Finally one of them turned to him and whispered: ‘It’s your turn.’

Besson hesitated. Then he got up and walked across to the little black box of the confessional. He pulled the purple velvet curtain aside, and knelt down. After a few seconds there was the sound of a panel being slid open, and a little light filtered through the grille. ‘Pray,’ a voice whispered in his ear.

Besson listened to the lengthy muttering that followed, spoken in a breathy whisper that filled the confessional. When it was over the voice told him to say Amen.

‘Amen,’ said Besson.

‘When was your last confession, my son?’

Besson reflected for a moment.

‘It was — I think it was sixteen years ago. Fifteen or sixteen years.’

There was a brief silence.

‘Why did you go so long without confessing?’

‘I don’t know, I–I lost my faith.’

‘What sins have you committed, my son?’

Besson hesitated again.

‘Almost all of them,’ he said.

‘Will you list them, please?’ said the voice, patiently.

‘It may take a long time,’ Besson said.

‘That’s all right,’ said the voice. ‘We’re in no hurry. What are your sins?’

‘I have lied,’ Besson said. ‘I have been a habitual liar. I have stolen. I have blasphemed. I have had evil thoughts. And — and I have committed degrading acts…. I have — I have been egotistical, covetous, full of envy. I have taken pleasure in spreading harm around me…. I have doubted the existence of God, and of His bounty. I have been indifferent to Him. I have sworn. I have taken advantage of others for my own profit. I have been idle, and self-indulgent. I have refused to help others, to aid those who might have need of me…. I have scorned the poor. I have been luxurious, and full of pride, and on many occasions excessively angry. I have struck my mother. I have felt hatred for my father. I have entertained thoughts of murder, and planned criminal projects. I have committed the sin of vanity, and of complacency in vice. I have refused to follow good advice…. I have prayed to the Devil. I have been dishonest. I have failed to keep my promises. I have squandered other people’s money. I have desired evil things, I have longed for war. I have been a libertine. I have shown lack of respect towards my parents and relations. I have killed animals.’

‘Is that all?’ the voice asked.

‘No,’ Besson said, ‘no, it isn’t. I have also been coarse in my behaviour. I have fallen into the sin of despair. I have rejected love. I have been cowardly, and have made insulting statements about the Church. I have — I have thought of suicide. I have felt arrogant contempt for others, and I have never loved my neighbour. I have been cruel. I have been malicious.’

‘Is that all, my son?’ the voice said again.

Besson reflected for a moment.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I have committed many other sins.’

‘What are they?’

‘I have been impatient, ill-tempered, and unfaithful. I have committed the sin of gluttony. I have laughed at other people’s misfortunes. I have never been charitable. I have been unclean both in thought and deed, and I have shown lack of respect both for my own body and for the woman’s. I have committed acts of filthiness. I have soiled what was pure.’

‘What else?’

‘I have blasphemed on many occasions. I have said that God is dead.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I–I have cheated in my work. I have cheated during examinations. I have been unjust. I have refused to work. I have taken pleasure in hurting other people’s feelings. I have worshipped money and beauty. I have worshipped violence. I have uttered slanders. I have transgressed against God. I have loved sinfulness.’

For a few seconds there was silence in the confessional. Besson could hear the sound of regular breathing. As he stared into darkness, his nose picked up the faint odour of box-wood. Then he bent forward to the grille once more and whispered: ‘I have tried to find out too much. I believed—’ He hesitated. ‘I have forgotten what truth is. I have forgotten—’

‘Forgetfulness is not a sin,’ the voice said.

‘I forgot through mere sloth. Because it suited me to forget.’

‘Is that all, my son?’ murmured the voice.

‘I have insulted Our Lady. I have said that Jesus was a man like other men.’ Besson paused a moment, thinking. ‘I have failed to perform my religious duties. And this I have done deliberately, as an insult. I have not said my prayers. I have disbelieved in the life everlasting.’

‘What else?’

‘I can’t remember anything more now. But there’s plenty. I have been indifferent. And I’ve committed all my sins not once, but a hundred times, a thousand times, as often as possible. When temptation came, instead of thrusting it aside, I would plunge into sin, and snap my fingers at my conscience. I have ceased to be a believer. I have said—’ He paused again. ‘I have forgotten everything, even the sins themselves. I have been cynical and indifferent. I have thought of nothing but pleasure, my own physical pleasure.’

‘Have you been happy?’ the voice asked.

Besson’s reply was embarrassed, almost inaudible. ‘No,’ he whispered.

There was a cough from the other side of the grille; and Besson suddenly realized that it was an old man’s voice. Its blend of firmness and gentleness bore the weight of the years: it was a voice that had to be heard and reckoned with. It had, surely, already embarked on the road that led to death, and its murmured utterances were all darkened by this shadow, this sense of decline. It belonged to a physically frail man, with rounded shoulders and pale grey eyes, faded now after much use. Besson longed to catch a glimpse of him, however fleeting. He pressed his face right against the holes in the grille, and tried to make out his features. But it was so dim that all he could see was a vague shadowy silhouette, and the sharp glint of gold-rimmed spectacles.

When the voice reached him again it was tremulous, as though a breath of wind had blown on it.

‘Are you sorry you committed these sins?’ it asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Besson said.

‘Are you sorry, now, that you committed these sins?’ the voice repeated patiently.

‘Sometimes, yes,’ Besson said. ‘Some of them.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Pride. And the lies, and the blasphemies—’

‘Repeat after me: Eternal God, Thou art all good, and deserving of all my love—’

Hesitantly Besson whispered: ‘Eternal God — Thou art all good — and deserving of all my love—’

‘May you find peace,’ said the voice.

Besson was touched by the simplicity of these words. He said: ‘You are good—’

But the voice began to whisper, in a kind of fury: ‘No, no, I am not good — never say that. God alone is good. God alone can judge. I am not here to judge you or to understand you, but to give you help. Only to give you help.’

He paused for a moment, then in a calmer voice murmured: ‘You will find peace, my son.’

‘What must I do?’ Besson asked.

‘Turn towards God,’ the voice said. ‘Learn to see Him. Love His works. His beauty is everywhere; it is that you must admire. It is that which will give you rest and peace.’ He broke off for a moment. ‘God’s creatures speak for themselves,’ he went on. ‘They will show you that life is an eternal principle. Death is no more than a change in the appearances.’

‘And what about animals?’ Besson asked.

‘God has chosen men,’ the voice said slowly. ‘Men have not chosen God.’

‘Why do I not have faith?’

‘You have faith,’ the voice whispered. ‘But you do not know it.’

Besson shrank into himself at this. Then the voice broke silence once more. ‘You must humble yourself, my son,’ it said, ‘Humble yourself both in body and spirit. Renounce idle things. Kill your pride.’

The words came in groups, punctuated by that somewhat sibilant breathing. Besson let them enter him like so many tiny darts aimed at the nervous centres.

‘Do you not realize that intelligence is of no use to you? You judge people and events, and think you have understood them. But you have not understood them at all, because you do not love them. Learn to question your own achievements. Feel a little self-doubt. As you did today, or else you wouldn’t be here. Realize that you’re not alone. Your sufferings are shared by the rest of mankind, and God is well aware of them. You are going to change your way of life. You will renounce your pursuit of self and prostrate yourself before Our Lord. It is a hard decision; but this is the price you must pay for peace of mind.’

‘It is a hard decision,’ Besson said.

‘Humble yourself. Humble yourself, and be contrite.’

‘What if I have no faith?’

‘What do you know about it?’ the voice said. ‘Do not be presumptuous. Perhaps God had chosen you.’

‘Then why — why does He not manifest Himself?’

‘He manifests Himself. But you do not know how to see Him.’

‘Yet He knows—’

‘You are free within His will. Your life belongs to you. But you are free within the will of God.’

‘You mean it’s an illusion, then?’

‘No. This is no illusion, but truth. Beyond you there exists a plane of reality which no one will ever be able to comprehend, but in which you nevertheless have your place. You are inside the circle, yes: but you are free there. If you bow to His will, if you submit yourself, then you will be free. Otherwise you will remain a slave to yourself. Root out pride from you, since pride is the prisonhouse of evil. Become as a child again. Learn anew that you are only one of God’s creatures.’

There was a last period of silence, broken only by tiny creaking sounds in the wooden structure of the confessional. Besson listened to the breathing from beyond the grille: it wheezed a little, probably because of a blocked nasal passage. Then the voice continued, in a more solemn tone: ‘I am going to give you absolution. While I pray I want you to repeat, several times: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.’

The voice began to murmur behind the grille, and Besson, kneeling alone before the wooden partition, repeated in a low gabble: ‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. O my God … heartily sorry … having offended Thee … who art all good … all my love … detest all my sins because they offend thee … O my God … O my God … sorry … all good … all my love … sins … sins … offend Thee … my God … all good … deserving of all … sin … good … my love … good … O my God … O my God … all good … all my love … all my love …’

‘Go in peace,’ said the voice.

As Besson was walking back down the church towards the exit a sudden burst of organ music crashed out, and began to echo round the marbled walls. Besson stopped for a moment to listen to the crystal clear flow of notes from far above him, notes that rippled down into the very depths of one’s soul, flooding eyes and throat with their clear, pure water, each individual drop hanging fixed and motionless like a minuscule diamond. Then the notes descended from the heights, became a ’cello, a woman’s voice, stirring words that yet said nothing, that wove in and out, unbroken by any interrution till at last inexorably the music plunged down and was lost in some deep subterranean abyss, and the thunderous climax sounded so deep and solemn, so slow, so full of terrifying cavernous echoes, that it seemed on the brink of fading into total silence. Overwhelmed by this great chord — so agonizingly held at the lowest limit of the human ear’s capacity to receive it — and bowed down beneath the organ’s vast and unleashed power, Besson once more, for the last time, muttered those magic words of repentance and oblivion: ‘… O my God … who art all good and deserving of all my love … all my love … because they offend Thee … all my sins …’

Then he pushed open the leather-bound wooden door, and went out into the street.

By way of penance, François Besson decided to do a stint as a beggar. He strolled through the town at random for a while, to find himself a suitable corner. He examined several different sites, but none of them really satisfied him. If they were not too dry, they were too rain-sodden. Either they had not enough light, or else far too much. Here the pavement was on the slope, and would be uncomfortable to sit on; there the potential pitch was right by a bus-stop. Another was too near a police-station. In one place there was somebody already installed, an old upturned hat in front of him, displaying his empty eye-socket.

Finally Besson found a corner that he liked. It was on a very busy street, with wide sidewalks, and rows of smart shops and expensive cafés. At widely-spaced intervals, on either side of the street, leafless chestnut trees rose from their protective metal cages, the mouths of which resembled radiant suns. Cars drove by, or stood parked at the kerbside. Everything shone and glittered, and the gleam of the neon signs and the streets-lamp was reflected on the tarred asphalt, with clear-cut, clean patterns of light, as though they had been washed down.

Besson settled himself on the pavement and leaned back against the wall. He put the beach-bag down beside him. Then he sat watching the crowds go by. It got dark very quickly. People became dim shadows, suddenly illuminated by the white light streaming out of cinemas and bars. Women walked along swivelling their hips, tripping on high-heeled shoes. The eyes up there in those white, mask-like faces were dull and vacant: they gave a quick glance at Besson, then moved away with indifference. The incessant flurry of footsteps made the ground vibrate, a sound both witless and somehow menacing, like a mass exodus of rats. Besson curled his legs up under him and tried to ignore it. But this proved impossible: the vibration passed right through him, like an electric current, and set him shivering. He found himself wishing he could melt into the roughcast wall behind him, shrink back into the core of all the plaster and rubble, flatten himself, become a mere membrane, a pale splash on the reddish distemper.

The crowd swam past, swag-bellied, a crazy fish opening and shutting its mouth. Faces, faces, faces — weakness and cruelty, glances from under heavy half-closed lids, thick lips opening to reveal decayed teeth, greasy hair slicked down with sour sweat, the smell of tallow, the smell of wet feet, dirt under the fingernails, more faces, degenerate faces, swollen and murderous, the sort that might have come out of hell to gibber round your skylight, yes, there, pale grey shadows, all in step, men, women, children, fat and thin, young and old, bald, bearded, lame, short-sighted, sexless — oh, what slugs they are, what jellyfish, what wretched uncivilized clowns! Here they come, waves of them, rolling and dribbling up to my window, their cheeks all a-bounce and aquiver, materializing out of the darkness, crouching there in great heaped-up masses, then suddenly, frighteningly, springing up like so many huge elongated black rags, gliding through the air to usurp my domain: the terror of the Tongs, moaning sirens, like some black and muted nightmare of life after death these ranks of human jelly come pressing and fluttering at the glass. They keep peering at me, besmirching me with their eyes, endlessly, pale ghastly creatures, cruel glances, snickers of laughter. My body is emptied like a trussed chicken’s, the looks and the laughter run through it, draw blood.

Now Besson leaned forward a little, and with hand outstretched towards the shadows flitting by, began to intone, in a whining monotonous voice: ‘Kind sir, kind lady…. Not a bite of food for two days…. Kind sir, kind lady … please spare a copper.… Not a bite of food for two days….’

To his great surprise, several figures detached themselves from the crowd, one after another, and put a coin in the palm of his upturned hand. He kept the money there, and thanked each donor; but the shadows flitted away without saying saying a word, and vanished in the distance.

In this way he soon acquired his own special section of pavement, a kind of invisible circle with him at its centre, and a protective empty space around him. Groups of men or old women would approach, and then make a detour, giving him quick curious glances, then looking away again, attention wandering. Little by little, as time went on, Besson began to learn his new trade. It was simple enough, but required a certain amount of tact. You had to huddle up at the foot of the wall, letting your legs and the bottom part of your body sprawl like a heap of dirty rags. When a group of people passed by, you had to be careful not to scare them off: this meant keeping quite still, so that you were not mistaken for a drunk, or someone who had been taken ill. Watch the feet passing by, keep your eyes fixed on the ground. When people were just coming abreast of you, you lifted your head and looked at them with a mildly worried expression, that could not be interpreted as containing either hatred or cupidity; at which point, with a firm, decisive gesture, you stretched out your hand towards theirs, and softly — yet with as clear an articulation as possible — muttered the words ‘Nothing to eat’. Then you followed their movement with your hand, as though merely asking for someone to help you up. The most important thing was not to shout insults at those who went past without giving you anything, but just to let your arm drop very slowly, in a discouraged fashion. Often people would be stung by remorse and come back to make you some contribution. You also had to be careful when deciding who you were going to ask: women were the best bets, especially when on their way to a restaurant or the cinema, and escorted by a man. Children accompanied by their parents were also pretty good customers more often than not, though you had to take care not to scare them, or look them straight in the eye. They would come forward hesitantly, pushed on by their mothers, thrust their coin into Besson’s hand, and run off. But as they fled they would look back over their shoulder, with those proud, nervous, inquisitorial eyes they all had. Besson also had to keep glancing up and down the street the whole time, ready to take off if a policeman appeared.

Two or three times people stopped to take a good look at him. The first of these was a man of about fifty, with a crew-cut, and wearing a navy-blue gabardine raincoat. He strolled past Besson a couple of times, then lingered on the kerbside, pretending to watch the cars go by. But his eyes kept glancing towards Besson: there was a very odd glint in them.

Then there was the very old woman who came limping up the street on a cane, step by step, till she at last drew abreast of Bessson, her puffy face thrust forward with the laborious effect she was making. Besson heard her quick, shallow breathing, interspersed with the occasional groan; then he caught sight of her legs, dragging along over the black asphalt like two granite pillars, both of them covered with huge varicose veins and bandaged ulcers. The cane tapped along the pavement to the right of her legs: it had a rubber tip. She advanced slowly, shoulders and buttocks working, a heavy, massive figure whose every step pressed into the ground and left the mark of her suffering there; heaving the solid burden of her body forward, on and on, panting, groaning, coughing, eyes fixed, eyelids snapping, mouth open, dirty strands of grey hair streaming down loose on either side of her forehead.

When the old woman drew level with Besson, she stopped, turned her head very slowly, gave him a terrible look, and began to mutter incomprehensible noises: ‘Bé,’ she mumbled, ‘Hé … Mana … Bé….’ And it was as though no one on earth would ever, from now on, be able to die. It was a kind of boundless malediction, projected through the broken utterance of this creature standing beside him, a piteous cry of outrage that shattered the silence of the street with its longing for death, for peace at the last. She stood there in front of Besson like a statue sculpted in grease, heavy-faced, mouth open, eyelids snapping continuously. Without a word or gesture she still contrived to demand, to implore, using instead her bloated bosom and deformed legs, her aged hands, her sparse, straggling hair, her hunched and dirt-encrusted back. Like a sick rhinoceros, she was looking around her for the instrument of her own destruction. She wanted to see the darts, she was impatient to find some strong enemy lying in wait for her, ready to floor her with a single blow and then — ah, ecstasy — choke the life out of her. But no such saviour appeared. The sharpened weapons remained hidden behind the arras, and the air continued to flow into her lungs, without interruption. This was why she gave Besson that terrible look: it was, quite simply, an appeal for someone to kill her. But did death really exist? Was it not a mere legend, an abominable legend created specially for her, to give her hope, to make her bear her affliction with patience, and accept the agony she suffered? There was nothing, on the face of it, to stop someone chopping her to pieces. She would have collapsed on the ground, bleeding sparsely and with difficulty. Even if one were to carve her limb from limb, and decapitated her, there and then, in the gutter, life would still persist in her; no eternal repose would descend on her body.

To be cursed by an old woman who wanted to die was something Besson could not stand for long. He got up, grabbed his beach-bag, and rushed off down the street without looking back.

Later, he went and had a meal at the Soupe Populaire. Here, in a bare room illuminated by the livid glow of strip neon lighting, the down-and-outs stood eating at a clean, sterilized counter. The menu had been pinned on the wall:

Soup

Boiled Beef and Carrots

Bread and Cheese

Fruit

Besson ate quickly, standing between an old man in a threadbare suit and a bearded tramp with a large wen on the back of his neck. Nobody said a word. Men and women bent over their plates, toothless jaws working rapidly. The ultra-white light gleamed on polished zinc and plastic, making the filth and ugliness of this human flotsam stand out all the more by comparison. A strange mixed odour of stew and disinfectant floated in the chilly, silent air. The bare room reeked of shame and embarrassment.

When he had finished eating, Besson left the canteen and walked through the night smoking a cigarette. It was his last packet. When that was gone he would have to pick up tab-ends from the pavement, or else smoke rolled-up newspaper, which has a foul, acrid, sugary stench while burning.

He climbed down some steps to the river-bed, near the caissons of the new bridge, and spent some little while hunting round for a snug corner where he could sleep, without being too much exposed to the icy wind that was set to blow steadily all night.