'Don't let it upset you. I'm not one to be jealous of a child, especially Nadine!' She walked over to Henri and sat down on the arm of his chair. 'On Christmas Eve I told you a man like you isn't subject to the same laws as other men. I still believe that. There's a commonplace form of faithfulness that I'll never demand of you. Have a good time with Nadine, and anyone else you like.' She ruffled Henri's hair. 'You see how much I respect your freedom!'

She looked at him imploringly, hopefully waiting for him to say, 'I hold no grudge against you.' She could wait a long time for him to say it. She sighed. 'You love me,' she said, 'but you're never willing to sacrifice anything for our love. It always has to be me who gives everything.'

'She could at least be a little more agreeable!' he said to himself angrily the next morning as the train made its way towards the border. When they had changed trains at Hendaye, where a light breeze and the warm sun played against their skins, Nadine hadn't so much as smiled; instead, she yawned unrestrainedly while their passports were being checked. Now she was walking in front of him with her long boyish strides as he struggled with their two heavy suitcases, growing hotter by the minute under the unaccustomed sun. He looked with distaste at her strong, rather hairy legs; her socks underlined their ungracious bareness. Behind them, a barrier closed; for the first time in six years he was walking on soil that wasn't French. Another barrier rose before them and he heard Nadine cry out unbelievingly: 'Oh!' It was an impassioned sound, a sound he had tried in vain to wring from her with his caresses.

In Marseilles, Naples, Piraeus, in Chinatowns of many cities, he had spent hours wandering through these same squalid streets. Of course, then as now, he wished that all this misery could be done away with. But the wish remained an abstract thing. He had never felt like running away, and the overpowering human odour of these streets went to his head. From the top of the hill to the bottom, the same swarming multitudes, the same blue sky burning above the roof tops. It seemed to Henri that from one moment to the next he would rediscover his old joy in all its intensity. That was what he sought from street to street. But it wouldn't come back. Barefooted women — everyone here went barefooted — were squatting before their doors frying sardines over charcoal fires, and the stench of stale fish mingled in the air with the smell of hot oil. In cellar apartments opening on to the street, not a bed, not a piece of furniture, not a picture; nothing but straw mats, children covered with rashes, and from time to time a goat. Outside, no happy voices, no laughter; only sombre dead eyes. Was misery more hopeless here than in the other cities? Or instead of becoming hardened to misfortune, does one grow more sensitive to it? The blue of the sky seemed cruel above the unhealthy shadows; he began to share Nadine's silent dismay. They passed a haggard-looking woman dressed in black rags who was scurrying through the street with a child clinging to her bare breast, and Henri said abruptly, 'You're right; let's get out.'

It was impossible to get out of it. Henri spent the following morning visiting a series of wretched hovels. At the end of the afternoon, the former cabinet minister gathered his friends for the sole purpose of having them meet him. It was impossible to refuse. All of them were wearing dark suits, stiff collars, and bowlers; they spoke ceremoniously but every now and then a look of hatred crossed their sensitive faces. They were mostly former cabinet members, former journalists, former professors who had been crushed because of their obstinate refusal to rally to the new regime. All of them were poor and trapped, many had relatives in France who had been deported. Those who stubbornly continued to take what action they could knew that the Island of Hell awaited them. A doctor who treated poverty-stricken people without remuneration, who tried to open a clinic or introduce a little hygiene into the hospitals, was immediately suspect. Whosoever dared organize an evening course, whosoever made a generous gesture, or simply a charitable one, was branded enemy of both Church and State. And yet they doggedly persisted. They wanted to believe that the destruction of Nazism would somehow bring to an end this hypocritical fascism, and they dreamed constantly of overthrowing Salazar and creating a National Front like the one which had been formed in France. But they knew they were alone: the English capitalists had large interests in Portugal and the Americans were negotiating with the government for the purchase of air bases in the Azores. 'France is our only hope,' they repeated over and over. 'Tell the people of France the truth,' they begged. 'They do not know; if they knew they would come to our rescue.'

'And there could still be more,' she said, the cold blue of her eyes growing warmer. 'Why don't you just forget those old dreamers? They're not what we came here for. Let's keep on the move; let's enjoy ourselves while we can, while we still have flesh on our bones.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'It's not so easy to enjoy oneself.'

'Well, let's try, anyhow. Let's drive through the mountains! Wouldn't that be wonderful? You like driving so much. But those meetings and investigations, all they ever do is bore you.'

'Yes, that's true.'

'Well, why do you always have to be doing things that bore you? That's no way to live.'

'Try to understand. Can I tell those poor old men that no one's interested in their misfortunes, that Portugal is too small, that no one gives a damn what happens to her?' Henri leaned over Nadine and smiled gently. 'Can I?'

'She's going to bend over backwards to prove to me I'm free,' he thought unhappily as he got into the little black car. 'But it won't last. I won't stay there indefinitely,' he said to himself bitterly. ‘I’ll start taking care of that little matter tomorrow.' But for the moment, he no longer wanted to think about Paula; all he wanted was to luxuriate in his happiness at being back in Paris. The streets were grey and the people had been cold and hungry that winter; but here, at least, everyone wore shoes. And then, you could speak to them, speak for them. In Portugal, the thing that was so depressing was the feeling of being a completely impotent witness to a totally foreign disaster.

'I felt as if I were back in school writing a composition: Describe your impressions while visiting a concentration camp,' he said ironically. 'I think there were more than twenty of us there writing on the same subject.' Suddenly his face brightened. 'Do you want to know something that's really good? Your book. I started it after driving a whole night and day without sleep, and believe me I was really beat. But I read it straight through, couldn't go to sleep until I finished it.'

'You make me happy,' Henri said.

Compliments always embarrassed him. Yet what Lambert said gave him real pleasure. It was precisely the way he had dreamed of being read — straight through in a single night by an impatient young man. That alone made writing worthwhile. Especially that.

To have been a Party member in Russia in 1930 wasn't a mistake,' Dubreuilh said.

'If you have no right to make a mistake, it was a crime.'

'It's not a question of right,' Dubreuilh replied.

'How dare you set yourselves up as judges?' Scriassine said, without listening to him. 'Do you know Volange's reasons, his explanations? Are you sure that all the people you accept on your team are better men than he?'

'We don't judge,' Henri said. 'We choose sides. There's a big difference.'

'How can I get it through your thick skull?' Dubreuilh said, shrugging his shoulders. 'Being on the side of the Resistance doesn't constitute a political programme nowadays.'

'No, I don't have a programme,' Henri admitted. 'But whenever the occasion demands it, L'Espoir does choose sides.'

'No, it doesn't, not any more so than all the other papers. You argue about trifles, but when it comes to the big things, all of you somehow manage to agree on covering up the truth.' There was anger in Dubreuilh's voice. 'From Figaro to L'Humanite, you're all nothing but a bunch of humbugs. You say yes to de Gaulle, yes to Yalta, yes to everything; you act as if you believe there's still a Resistance and that we're heading steadily towards socialism. Your friend- Luc has really been going to town with that hogwash in his recent editorials. All we're doing, really, is marking time; in fact, we're even beginning to retreat. And not a one of you has the guts to tell the truth!'

'I always thought you agreed with L'Espoir,' Henri said. He was stunned; his heart began beating rapidly. During the past four days, he had meshed with that paper as one meshes with one's own life. And then all of a sudden L'Espoir was being indicted. And by Dubreuilh!

'Agree with what?' Dubreuilh asked. 'L'Espoir has no line. You're constantly complaining that nothing's been nationalized. And what do you do about it? Nothing. Now what would be interesting would be to tell who's putting on the brakes, and why.'