nervous temperament. She suffers from headaches and various minor maladies. It signifies nothing. Believe me, I know her very well and I have learned how to live with her little ways.” He gave a glance of complicity toward Bérard, who chuckled. “You yourself are fortunate in having a robust constitution.”
“Has she always suffered from headaches?” Madame Bérard was persistent.
Azaire’s lips stretched into a narrow smile. “It is a small price one pays. It is you to play, Monsieur.”
“What?” Stephen looked down at his cards. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t concentrating.” He had been watching Azaire’s smile and wondering what it meant.
Bérard talked to Azaire about the strike as they laid down their cards on the table with swift assurance.
Stephen tried to concentrate on the game and to engage Madame Bérard in some sort of conversation. She seemed indifferent to his attention, though her face lit up whenever her husband addressed her.
“What these strikers need,” said Azaire, “is for someone to call their bluff. I’m not prepared to see my business stagnate because of the gross demands of a few idle men. Some owner has to have the strength to stand up to them and sack the whole lot.”
“I fear there would be violence. The mobs would rampage,” said Bérard.
“Not without food in their stomachs.”
“I’m not sure it would be wise for a town councillor like yourself, René, to be involved in such a dispute.”
Bérard took up the pack to shuffle it; his thick fingers moved dextrously over the rippling cards. When he had dealt, he lit a cigar and sat back in his chair, pulling his waistcoat smartly down over his belly.
The maid came in to ask if there was anything further. Stephen stifled a yawn. He had been travelling since the previous day and was drawn to the idea of his modest room with the starched sheets and the view across the boulevard.
“No, thank you,” said Azaire. “Please go to Madame Azaire’s room on your way to bed and tell her I shall look in to see if she’s all right later.”
For a moment Stephen thought he had seen another half-glance of complicity between the two men, but when he looked at Bérard his face was absorbed in the cards that were fanned out in his hand.
Stephen said good-bye to the visitors when they finally got up to leave. He stood at the window of the sitting room, watching them in the light of the porch. Bérard put on a top hat as though he were some baron on his way home from the opera; Madame Bérard, her face glowing, wrapped her cape round her and took his arm. Azaire leant forward from the waist and talked in what looked like an urgent whisper.
A soft rain had begun to fall outside, loosening the earth at the sides of the rutted tracks on the road and sounding the leaves on the plane trees. It gave a greasy film to the window of the sitting room and then formed larger drops, which began to run down theglass. Behind it Stephen’s pale face was visible as he watched the departing guests—a tall figure, his hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes patient and intent, the angle of his body that of a youthful indifference cultivated by willpower and necessity. It was a face that in turn most people treated cautiously, unsure whether its ambivalent expressions would resolve themselves into passion or acquiescence.
Up in his room, Stephen listened to the noises of the night. A loose shutter turned slowly on its hinges and banged against the wall at the back of the house. There was an owl somewhere deep in the gardens, where the cultivation gave way to wildness. There was also the irregular wheeze and rush of the plumbing in its narrow pipes.
Stephen sat down at the writing table by the window and opened a notebook with pages ruled in thick blue lines. It was half-full of inky writing that spread over the lines in clusters that erupted from the red margin on the left. There were dates at intervals in the text, though there were gaps of days