A Walk
When old Levas, bookkeeper in the service of Messrs. Labuze and Company, left the shop, he stood for some moments dazzled by the brilliance of the setting sun. All day long he had worked in the yellow light of a gas-jet, in the depths of the back part of the shop, which looked on to a courtyard as narrow and deep as a well. So dark was the little room in which he had spent his days for the past forty years that, even in the height of summer, artificial light was rarely to be dispensed with between the hours of twelve and three.
It was always damp and cold there; and the smell from the ditch under the window came into the gloomy room, filling it with an odour of decay and drains.
For forty years Monsieur Levas had been arriving at this prison at eight o’clock each morning, and staying there till seven at night, bent over his ledgers, writing with the savage concentration of a good workman.
He was now making three thousand francs a year, having begun at fifteen hundred francs. He had remained a bachelor, his means not permitting him to take a wife. And, never having had anything, he did not desire much. From time to time, however, wearying of his monotonous and endless task, he would formulate a Platonic wish: “Lord, if I had five thousand pounds, I’d have an easy time of it.” But he never had had an easy time, having never had anything but his monthly salary.
His life had gone by without adventures, without passions, almost without hopes. The facility of dreaming, planted in every man, had never blossomed in the narrow bed of his ambitions.
At the age of twenty-one he had gone into Labuze and Company. And he had never come out.
In 1856 his father died, and in 1859 his mother. Since then the only event had been a change of lodgings in 1860, his landlord having proposed to raise the rent.
Every day, at six o’clock precisely, his alarm clock made him leap out of bed with its fearful clatter, like a chain being unwound. Twice, however, once in 1866 and once in 1874, the mechanism had gone wrong, without his ever having found out why. He dressed, made his bed, swept out his room, and dusted his armchair and the top of his chest of drawers. These tasks took an hour and a half.
Then he went out, bought a roll at Lahure’s bakery, where he had known eleven different proprietors without the shop ever changing its name, and started off, eating his bread.
His entire existence had therefore taken place in the dark, narrow office, always covered with the same wallpaper. He had come into it in his youth as assistant to Monsieur Brument and with the ambition to take his place. He had taken his place, and hoped for nothing more.
All the harvest of memories which other men gather in the course of life, the unexpected happenings, the happy or tragic loves, the adventurous journeys, all the chances of a free existence, had passed him by. Days, weeks, months, seasons, years, were all alike. At the same hour each day he rose, went out, arrived at the office, lunched, left the office, dined, and went to bed, without anything having ever interrupted the regular monotony of the same actions, the same events, and the same thoughts.
Once upon a time he had looked at his fair moustache and curly hair in the little round mirror left behind by his predecessor. Now, every evening, before going, he contemplated in the same mirror his white moustache and his bald forehead. Forty years had gone by, long and swift, empty as a day of sorrow, alike as the hours of a sleepless night. Forty years of which nothing remained, not even a memory, not even a grief since the death of his parents. Nothing.
On this day Monsieur Levas stood dazzled, at the street-door, by the brilliance of the setting sun; instead of returning home, he thought of taking a little walk before dinner, as he did four or five times a year.
He reached the boulevards, where a flood of people streamed past under the budding trees. It was a spring evening, one of those first evenings of generous warmth which thrill the heart with a madness of life.
Monsieur Levas walked on with the rickety gait of old age. There was a gleam of gaiety in his eye; he was happy because the rest of the world was merry and the air was warm.
He reached the Champs-Élysées and continued to walk, freshened by the gusts of youth with which the wind caressed him.
The whole sky was aflame, and the Arc de Triomphe was a dark bulk silhouetted against the brilliant background of the horizon, like a giant straddling over a house on fire. When he drew near the huge monument, the old bookkeeper realised that he was hungry, and entered a restaurant for dinner.
He dined in front of the shop, on the pavement, off sheep’s trotters, a salad, and asparagus; and Monsieur Levas had the best meal he had eaten for a long time. He washed down his Brie cheese with half a bottle of good claret; then he took a cup of coffee, which was unusual with him, and after that a small glass of liqueur brandy.
When he had paid, he felt quite lively and merry, even a little excited. He said to himself: “What a glorious night! I’ll go on as far as the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne, it will do me good.”
He started off again. An old song, which a girl who had been his neighbour used once upon a time to sing, recurred obstinately into his head.
Quand le bois reverdit,
Mon amoureux me dit:
Viens respirer, ma belle,
Sous la tonnelle.
He hummed it endlessly, beginning again and again. Night had fallen over Paris, an airless night, as close as an oven. Monsieur Levas walked along the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne and watched the carriages go by. They came on with their gleaming eyes, one after another, allowing a glimpse of an embracing couple, the woman in a light dress, the man in black.
It was one long procession of lovers, driving under the warm and starry sky. Continually they came, went by, came, went by, side by side in the carriages, silent, clasped to each other, lost in the illusion and fever of their desires, in the shuddering longing for the next embrace. The warm air seemed filled with swift, wandering kisses. They spread a strange tenderness through the air, making it more stifling than ever. A mad excitement eddied through the air, created by these intertwined couples, these people inflamed with the same expectation, the same thought. All these carriages filled with lovemaking brought with them their own atmosphere, subtle and disturbing.
Monsieur Levas, a little tired at the end of his walk, sat down on a bench to watch the passage of these cabs heavy with love. Almost at once a woman drew near and sat down beside him.
“Hallo, darling,” she said.
He made no answer. She continued:
“Let me love you, dearie; you’ll find me so kind.”
“You are making a mistake, madame,” he said.
She put her arm through his.
“Come on, don’t be a silly boy; listen …”
He had risen, and walked away, a feeling of tightness round his heart.
A hundred yards further on another woman accosted him.
“Come and sit beside me for a while, dearie!”
“Why do you follow this trade?” he said to her.
She stood in his way, and her voice was changed, hoarse and bitter.
“God, I don’t do it for fun.”
“Then what drives you to it?” he insisted gently.
“One must live, worse luck.”
And she went off with a little song on her lips.
Monsieur Levas was bewildered. Other women passed him, called to him, invited him. He felt as though something black and oppressive hung above his head.
He sat down on a bench. The carriages were still rolling past.
“I should have done better not to come,” he thought; “I’m quite put out.”
And he began to think of all this love, venal or passionate, all these kisses, bought or free, which were passing before his eyes.
Love! He hardly knew aught of it. In all his life he had known but two or three women, chance meetings, unsought; his means had allowed him no more. And he thought of the life he had led, so different from everyone else’s, so sombre, so gloomy, so dull, so empty.
There are some people who have no luck. And suddenly, as though a thick veil had been torn aside, he saw clearly the misery, the infinite, monotonous misery of his life, past, present, and to come; the last days like the first, nothing before him, nothing behind him, nothing round him, nothing in his heart; nothing anywhere.
Still the line of carriages went by. Always he saw, appearing and disappearing with the swift passage of the open vehicle, the two inside, silently embracing. It seemed to him as though the whole human race was passing by, drunk with joy, pleasure, and happiness. And he watched them alone, alone, all alone. He would still be alone tomorrow, always alone, alone, as no other creature in the world is alone.
He got up, walked a few steps, and, quickly tired, as though he had just finished a long walk, sat down on the next bench.
What was he waiting for? What was he hoping for? Nothing. He thought how good it must seem, in old age, to hear the chatter of little children as you come home at night. It must be sweet to grow old surrounded with those who owe their lives to you, love you, caress you, tell you those ridiculous, delightful things that warm your heart and console you for everything.
And thinking of his empty room, the clean sad little room into which no one but himself had ever gone, a feeling of distress oppressed his soul. It seemed to him even more melancholy than his little office.
No one ever came to it; no one ever spoke in it. It was dead, dumb; it lacked even an echo of a human voice. It seemed as though walls must hold something of the people who live between them, something of their ways, their faces, their speech. Houses lived in by happy families are more cheerful than the houses of the miserable. His room was empty of memories, like his life. And the thought of returning to it alone, of getting into bed, of going through all the movements and duties of every evening, was horrible to him. And, as though to get further away from this sinister dwelling-place and from the moment when he must return to it, he rose, and, suddenly reaching the first path in the Bois, he turned into a little copse, to sit down on the grass.
He heard, around him, above him, everywhere, a confused, immense, continuous roar, made up of innumerable different noises, a dull roar, near and distant, a vast vague quivering of life: the breath of Paris, breathing like a colossal being.
The sun, already high in the heavens, threw a flood of light upon the Bois de Boulogne. A few carriages were driving up and down, and groups of riders were trotting gaily past.
A young couple walked along a lonely path. Suddenly the woman, lifting her eyes, caught sight of something brown in the branches. She pointed to it, surprised and uneasy.
“Look. … What is that?”
Then with a cry she collapsed into the arms of her companion, who was forced to lower her on to the ground.
The keepers, promptly summoned, let down from the tree the body of an old man, hanged by his braces.
It was discovered that death had taken place the previous evening. Papers found on the man showed that he was a bookkeeper at Messrs. Labuze and Company, and that his name was Levas.
Death was attributed to suicide from a cause unknown. Possibly temporary insanity?