Planus Read Free Page A

or less official career for themselves, but professional men, members of a great family of craftsmen, who, following a tradition that has endured for two or three centuries, work with their hands to gain a livelihood, and, at the same time, practise logic, dialectics and rationalism, aware of the need to see clearly and keep their minds free, and who, being products of the most famous rabbinical colleges in Poland and southern Russia, have lost their faith by dint of ratiocinating on the commentaries of commentaries (what else is the Talmud?), no longer practise the prescribed rites, and have been atheists from one generation to the next, ever since the gem-cutters came from Spain and the goldbeaters from Portugal, to be the first inhabitants of the ghettoes of the Low Countries. Such are the diamond-cutters of Antwerp, or at least a very small group of them, exclusive, given to contemplation of the Holy Spirit and to mysticism, critics of pure reason. It is a very closed circle. They all belong to Jewish families.
    ing you from the street for over a quarter of an hour. Hasn't Grischa come, then?'
    'Grischa? No . . . but who is Grischa?' I said, as if in a dream, painfully hauling myself to my feet to greet her and offer her my seat on the bench.
    'Grischa?' she said, taking my seat, warmed by the half-day I had been sitting on it like a broody hen. 'Grischa? But he's my fiance!'
    'My felicitations,' I said, bowing and kissing her hand.
    She was gripping her handbag with both hands, as if it contained a fortune, a consignment of jewels perhaps, or sick pearls for curing. ^
    'And how is your work going? Are you still enjoying it?' I asked her for the sake of something to say.
    I was in a bad mood. The waiter was beginning to congratulate himself on having had confidence in me. He was bringing another glass!
    'We have not been working for months and months. . . . My brother cannot carry on. . . . He is dying. . . . And I simply haven't the heart' .. . Sephira replied distractedly.
    It was easy to see that things were not going smoothly for her. She must be at the end of her tether.
    She was impatient. She was restless. She avoided my eye. She leaned to the right and then to the left, as if she were looking for something under the table or for someone lost at the far end of the restaurant. She looked nervously at the time, sometimes at the restaurant clock, sometimes at a minute watch, a diamond cut into a ball and attached by a ring of elephant hair to a bracelet on her wrist.
    'And Grischa?' she asked me. 'Hasn't he come, really?'
    'But I don't know Grischa, Sephira.5
    'Please don't lie to me, Monsieur Cendrars. He is your friend . . . the one who brought me this little book, earlier on, at home. . . . He has a beautiful voice. . .. What does he do?'
    And she drew the little Villon out of her purse and threw it down on the table. She was giving me back my Villon.
    That wretch Korzakow! I did not even know he had a Christian name of his own. Amongst his intimates, that is to say the card- sharpers of the rue Cujas, he was called Paul, Big Paul.
    I was on the point of answering Sephira by way of asking her an indiscreet question about her engagement, when I saw Korzakow come in.
    The blackguard was all decked out in new clothes.
    Ach, the swine!
    So I said nothing.
    We dined without saying a word and it was Korzakow who settled the bills.
    It was absurd, and it was the waiter who was victorious!
    It was past midnight.
    We did the rounds of Antwerp like Grand Dukes.
    Still I did not say anything.
    And then, embarrassed and finding little to say to each other, the betrothed couple went dancing.
    We visited all the dance-halls in Antwerp. Perfect. It was Korzakow who paid everywhere. I burst out laughing. . . .
    In the early hours we took Sephira home in a taxi. We went upstairs for a couple of minutes. I went into Mandaieff's room to see how he was faring. He was in bed. He was at death's door amongst his books and some oxygen