The Devil in the Flesh Read Free Page A

much money as possible in the morning, handed in our takings to the Lady Bountiful at lunchtime, and spent the rest of the day getting up to mischief in the hills by Chennevières. For the first time I had a friend. I enjoyed going out collecting with his sister. For the first time I got along with another boy who was as advanced for his age as I was, even admired his beauty, his impudence. The contempt we shared for others of our generation brought us even closer. We considered that we were the only ones capable of understanding things; in short, we believed we were the only ones worthy of women. We believed we were men. By a lucky chance we weren’t separated. René was already at the Lycée Henri IV, and I was going to be in his class, in the Remove. He didn’t have to take Greek, but he made the ultimate sacrifice for me, and persuaded his parents to let him do it. This meant we could stay together. Since he had missed the first year, he had to have private tuition. René’s parents, who the year before had given in to his pleas and agreed that he didn’t have to learn Greek, couldn’t understand. In it they saw my good influence, and if they put up with his other classmates, at least I was the only friend of whom they approved.
    For the first time, not a single day of that year’s holidays weighed on me. It was then I realised that no one can escape his age, and that my dangerous contempt hadmelted like ice the moment someone was kind enough to show they cared about me, and in a way that suited me. The progress we made together halved the journey that pride ensures that each of us must travel.
    On the first day of the school year, René was an invaluable guide.
    With him everything was a pleasure, and twice a day I, who couldn’t take a single step on my own, enjoyed our walks between Henri IV and the station at the Bastille, where we caught the train.
    Three years went by in this way, without any other friendships, without any hopes other than our naughty games on Thursdays—with young girls innocently provided for us by my friend’s parents, who invited their son’s and their daughter’s friends to tea together—trifling little favours that we stole, and which they surreptitiously stole—on the pretence of playing forfeits.

IV
    WHEN THE FINE WEATHER ARRIVED, MY FATHER liked to take my brothers and I on long walks. One of our favourite places to go was Ormesson, beside the Morbras, a river that was at least a metre wide, across meadows where there were flowers that you never saw anywhere else, and whose names I’ve forgotten. Clumps of water cress or mint hid the marshy banks from our wandering feet. In springtime, thousands of pink and white petals floated on the surface of the water. It was May blossom.
    One Sunday in April 1917, as we often did, we caught the train to La Varenne, after which we had to walk to Ormesson. My father said we would be meeting up with some agreeable people at La Varenne, the Grangiers. I knew of them from having seen the name of their daughter Marthe in the catalogue for an exhibition of paintings. I had once overheard my parents talking about a visit from a Monsieur Grangier. He had brought a box of pictures painted by his daughter, who was eighteen. Marthe wasn’t very well. Her father had wanted to give her a surprise: having her watercolours included in an exhibition organised by a charity of which my mother was chairwoman. The watercolours were quite unremarkable; they bore the hallmark of the dutiful pupil of the art class, moistening her brushes with the tip of her tongue.
    The Grangiers were waiting for us on the platform at La Varenne. Monsieur and Madame Grangier must have been the same age, almost fifty. Yet Madame Grangier seemed older than her husband; her ungainliness, the fact that she was short, made me dislike her at first glance.
    During the walk I would notice that she often frowned, which covered her brow with creases that took a moment or two to fade. So