Joseph Roth - Flight Without End

The lady in the middle was the first elegant woman I have seen since I returned from my last leave in Vienna.

They came to see me early today.

They are French. The gentleman is a Parisian lawyer and also writes for Le Temps . The lady is his wife, the young man his secretary. The young man is one of the few Frenchmen who understand Russian. It is probably for this reason, and on the lady’s behalf, that he has come with them to Russia.

When the lady looked at me, I thought of Irene, of whom I have not thought for a long time now. Not that this lady was anything like my betrothed!

She is dark, very dark, her hair is almost blue. Her eyes are narrow, she looks at me with elegant shortsightedness. It is almost as if she did not care to look at me openly and directly. When she speaks to me, I always expect some command. But it does not occur to her to give me a command. I should probably be delighted if she were to condescend to give me some commissions.

At times she drums with the index, middle and ring fingers of one hand on a book, a chairback, the table. It is a slow drumming and a kind of rapid caress. Her nails are white and slender, bloodless nails; her lips, as if in deliberate contrast, are painted red.

She wears narrow grey shoes made of thin glove-leather, I could trace them with a pencil.

The secretary — whose name, according to his card, is Monsieur Edmond de V. — said to me:

‘You don’t speak French like a Slav. Are you Caucasian or Russian?’

I lied, I told him that my parents were immigrants and that I was born in Russia.

‘We are spending three months in Russia,’ said Monsieur de V. We have been to Leningrad, to Moscow, to Novgorod, the Volga, Astrakhan. In France we know so little about Russia. We imagine that Russia is in chaos. We are surprised by the general order, but also by the high cost of living. For the same money we could have explored all the French African colonies — if they were not so tedious.’

‘Are you disillusioned then?’ I asked.

The bearded lawyer threw a glance at his secretary. The lady looked straight ahead; she did not want to become involved in our conversation, even by a glance. I noticed that all three were disconcerted by my question. Perhaps they did not wholly believe in our public order. Possibly they took me for an informer.

‘You have nothing to be afraid of. You can tell me what you think quite safely. I don’t belong to the police. I make scientific films for our Institute.’

The lady threw me a rapid, narrow glance. I could not tell whether she was angry or whether she believed me.

(It occurs to me now that I may have disappointed her. Perhaps she liked me only as long as she was able to imagine that I hid some secret.)

However, Monsieur Edmond de V. spoke to me, with friendly eyes but with a disdainful mouth, so that I did not know which feature to trust. Monsieur de V. said:

‘My dear sir, please don’t imagine that we feel any anxiety. We are furnished with the best credentials, so that it is almost as if we were on an official mission. We would let you know if we felt disillusioned. No, we do not. We are delighted with the hospitality of your authorities, your people, your nation. We see only — I can speak for all of us — we see only the ethnological, the Russian aspects of what you postulate to be a fundamental social change. For us, Bolshevism is as Russian — forgive the comparison — as Tsarism. Besides — and here I find myself differing from my hosts — I have the hope that you will pour much water into your wine.’

‘You probably mean,’ I countered, ‘wine into your water.’

‘You exaggerate, my dear sir, I appreciate your civility.’

‘Perhaps you are being provocative?’ said the lady, and stared into space.

It was the first sentence she had addressed to me directly. Yet she did not look at me, as if she wanted to make it clear that, even when she spoke to me, she said nothing that was unequivocally for myself alone.

‘I trust that you are joking and don’t suspect …’

‘It was a joke,’ interrupted the lawyer. When he spoke he wagged his beard; I tried to decipher from its movements what he had said.

‘Perhaps you may care to tell me something about France. It’s seldom anyone comes here from your country. I know nothing about it.’

‘It is difficult to describe France to a Russian unacquainted with Europe,’ said the secretary, ‘and especially difficult for us French. In any case, you would not gain an altogether accurate impression from our books and newspapers. What can I say? Paris is the capital of the world, Moscow may well become so one day. In addition, Paris is the only free city of the world. We have living among us reactionaries and revolutionaries, nationalists and internationalists, Germans, Englishmen, Chinese, Spaniards, Italians, we have no censorship, we have statutory education acts, upright judges —’

‘— and an efficient police force,’ I put in, because I knew this from the accounts of a number of communists.

‘You’ve certainly nothing to complain about as far as your police are concerned,’ said the lady. She still did not look at me.

‘You have nothing to fear from our police,’ opined the secretary. ‘If you should ever wish to visit us, naturally not with hostile intentions, you can always count on me.’

‘Absolutely,’ asserted the beard.

‘I shall come with the most peaceful intentions,’ I affirmed. I realized how artless I must have looked. The lady looked at me. I regarded her thin red lips and said, awkwardly and childishly, for it seemed to me that I had to exaggerate my clumsy candour further: ‘I should like to visit you — on account of your wife.’

‘Ah, how charming you are!’ exclaimed the beard very quickly. Perhaps he was afraid that his wife might say it. Notwithstanding, he could not prevent her from smiling.

I would willingly have said to her: ‘I love you, Madame.’

She began to talk as if she were quite alone.

‘I could never live in Russia. I need the asphalt of the boulevards, a terrasse in the Bois de Boulogne, the shop-windows of the Rue de la Paix.’

She fell silent as suddenly as she had begun. It was as if she had spilled a shower of fragrant glittering objects before me. It was for me to pick them up, to admire, to praise.

I looked at her for some minutes after she had stopped speaking. I remained expectant of further glories. I was really waiting for her voice. It was deep, penetrating and shrewd.

‘One can’t live anywhere as well as in Paris,’ began the secretary again. ‘I myself am a Belgian, so this is no local patriotism.’

‘You are from Paris?’ I asked the lady.

‘From Paris; we would like to visit the petroleum fields this afternoon,’ she said quickly.

‘If you have no objection, I’ll accompany you.’

‘Then I would prefer to work and not go until tomorrow morning,’ spoke the beard.

Before our appointment I ate in the vegetarian restaurant, as I was not hungry. Also, money was running out. My wages were not due for ten days. I was afraid that the lady might require a carriage — I might just be able to pay for it. But what if she asked for more? If she suddenly wanted to eat? I could hardly expect to be repaid by the secretary.

I ate without appetite. At half-past two I was standing in the scorching sunlight in front of the station.

After twenty minutes she arrived in a carriage, alone.

‘You will have to travel just with me,’ she said. ‘We have decided to leave Monsieur de V. with my husband. He wants to wander around in the town and is afraid that he won’t make himself understood.’

We sat among street-vendors, workers, half-veiled Mohammedan women, homeless boys, lame beggars, hawkers, white confectioners who sold oriental sweetmeats. I pointed out the drilling towers to her.