Paul Morand - The Man in a Hurry

“I can hardly see anything. The image…”

In a mist of greyness, the bottom of the ribcage could be made out, the murky shadow of the mother’s pelvis and the skeleton of the well-developed child, head low down, knees next to the chin, making a motionless somersault, with the ringed backbone filling out, and looking like a shrivelled-up Peruvian mummy, as in the most ancient human tombs, as in Neolithic earthenware jars.

“How ugly it is!” said a disappointed Pierre.

“It’s beautiful,” said an enthusiastic Hedwige.

A few days later, it was something else. This time, Pierre wanted to listen to the heart of the embryo beating on the stethoscope. He bent over this large inhabited cavern that was Hedwige’s body, pressed his forehead to hers, plugged in the two earpieces, listening carefully for the whirr, for the delicate throbbing that was his child’s heart.

“If you continue to harass me like this, he’ll have convulsions,” cried Hedwige in exasperation.

HEDWIGE WENT INTO her husband’s bedroom, having made sure that he had gone out.

High-ceilinged, bright, with its fine natural lime-wood panelling, sparsely, yet nicely furnished, it was the most attractive room in the house. At the time they moved in, Hedwige had insisted that Pierre should have this room; seeing what his boisterousness had done to it, she must have regretted doing so. But Hedwige, out of loyalty, did not allow herself any regrets. She made up for this by taking advantage of Pierre’s absences to slip into his bedroom and impose her order on the disorder. Left to Pierre, the clutter sprang up with the spontaneity of a virgin forest. It was enough for him to breathe and bedlam ensued. He had an astonishing gift for disorganization and truly brilliant inconsistency; he created chaos in less time than it took the Demiurge to put an end to it.

Hedwige sat down on the bed, or rather on some shoe-trees, the Journal de la Société asiatique and a bull — a Hittite gold idol — that had been left on the bed. Staring distractedly, she made a list of the work that awaited her. By sitting lower down, level with the chairs, she has a better view of the things left on them in successive layers. As if rubber boots and a pair of fourteen-kilo dumb-bells were not enough to crush and dirty the ancient velvet of the bergère , Pierre has left a suitcase precariously balanced on Hedwige’s favourite chair. Furthermore, he has no idea how to pack or unpack a suitcase. This luggage has been lying there since he returned from Aix-la-Chapelle, a few days previously. The tube of shaving soap has burst and stained his ties, a flask of cognac is still leaking over a pullover whose roll-neck collar conceals some hairbrushes. Pierre was due to leave in a few days’ time for Turin and he had left everything in a mess. An hour before the train, it would be enough for him to throw in a few more things to add to the jumble and shut the case without having emptied it, firstly by kneeling on it, then by treading on it. “Please, I beg you, let me do your packing,” she implored him. “Certainly not! I wouldn’t be able to find anything!” he replied.

Today, Hedwige merely tidies up some of the smaller things, because her belly is too heavy. She had decided that she would gradually return the room to its period style, to its original perfection, and she would stop him making faces and playing the shipwrecked victim. Hedwige adored her home as though it were a living creature and it pained her to see it ruined. A puddle of water that was now evaporating was staining the patterned oak panels of a Louis XIV parquet floor. Pierre must have been drying himself in front of the radiator. For some mysterious reason, he never washed in the bathroom. A razor blade covered in facial hairs lay in the violet cavern of the fireplace in front of which, goodness knows why, he had been shaving. And he must have thought there was insufficient light, because he had tugged away at the damask curtains, which hung, torn from their rings, and resembled a mizzen sail put up during a gale, with their broken cords looking like discarded halyards.

Hedwige, who sometimes argued with Pierre, but would never ever dream of blaming him, was for the first time consumed with indignation. This shambles was really unbearable! It was as if he did it deliberately. There was not one single pretty object that he had not broken, not one pleasant moment he had not disrupted, not one pleasure he had not rushed.

In the waste-paper basket full of cigar ash (torn-up letters, on the other hand, were placed in the ashtray) Hedwige found a box of chocolates that Placide had brought. She grew furious at the sight of these pralines, which she had put aside to give to her mother; the previous day, Pierre had eaten a few of them, without enjoying them, simply because he could not stop himself from opening the box by pulling off the silk ribbons and the gold string, and tearing the whole thing apart. He really was impossible.

Hedwige pulled herself together and felt ashamed of her petty-mindedness. Was she going to hold these trivial things against Pierre? Against Pierre, who was so generous, who always came home laden with flowers, his pockets full of funny, useful, ingenious and well-chosen little presents, Pierre who, only yesterday, had torn down some hawthorn blossom for her and the honeysuckle she loved from trees in the lane, and who had come home all scratched and with his hands bleeding. Hedwige felt moved for a second… just enough time to notice beneath the chest of drawers, from which Pierre had pulled off one of the engraved handles, a scarf that he had torn to shreds instead of undoing the knot. He had bought a dozen of them, just as he bought everything, in large quantities and, not knowing what to do with them, he lost them, gave them away indiscriminately, wrapped them around his visitors’ necks, just as at table he piled all the food that was left on the plates of his guests, who had already eaten their fill and were begging for mercy: for Pierre to be happy, the plate had to be empty, the course completed, everything consumed and the meal brought swiftly to its conclusion. Generosity or wastefulness? An odd sort of generosity! Tips and never any charitable donations, bills paid twice or three times over, and never anything for grateful colleagues. “And yet he is good,” thought Hedwige.

She broke off and considered this notion: was he good? Is someone good when he is not even aware that others exist, when he does not even give himself time to look at them, to pause when faced with worry, grief, anger? Did Pierre even notice when people recoiled, shuddered, frowned, or the actual fear he aroused when, carried away by one of his impulses, he sped off and people fled for fear of being knocked over by him? If Pierre were good, he would be surrounded by people; yet he was alone.

Hedwige tried to think of someone who loved Pierre, but she could not produce a single name; pals, and not many at that, but no friend. She would have liked to feel sorry for him, to invent excuses for him, but the defence turned into an indictment each time. She felt remorse; she did not feel bad about having these wicked thoughts; what bothered her was having them without Pierre realizing or being aware of them. She would have liked to confide in him and for him to justify himself. She would have liked to accuse him, sentence him and forgive him. Explanations are one of the great pleasures of living together. But to talk to Pierre heart to heart was impossible; on his better days, he listened distractedly, out of politeness, while thinking of other things. More often, no sooner had Hedwige begun speaking than Pierre would reply impatiently: “And so? Conclusion? Let’s get to the point!” “To get to the point” was his favourite phrase. To get to the point of what? Can one not talk without getting to the point of things? Must one always run head down, as if pursued by the Furies? What crime could he have committed that was so horrible that his whole life should be a forward rush!