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Henri shrugged his shoulders. 'What good did it do? The right used the camps to discredit the Communists, as if it was completely justified in doing so. As soon as you talk about exploitation, unemployment, famine, they answer you with "and how about the slave labour camps?" If they didn't exist, they would have invented them.'
They sat down in an outdoor cafe. It was a beautiful night; people seated at the little tables were laughing. What were they talking about? Tiny cars zigzagged along the street; young people passed by, arm in arm; under the sidewalks, in smoky cellar clubs, couples were dancing and the echo of first-rate jazz drifted up into the street. Of course, there were many other things in this world besides politics and films - for other people.
Henri was silent. The bitches who slept with the Germans had, until now, belonged to a different world, a world for which there could be only one possible feeling: hate. But Lucie was talking, he was listening; that contemptible world was his world; there was only one world. Josette had slipped into his arms from those of the German captain.
'You're so nice!' Josette said, clinging to him and offering him her mouth. He turned his face away. 'I disgust you?' she murmured in a voice so humble that Henri felt suddenly ashamed, ashamed of being on the side of right. He was a man facing a woman, a man with money, a name, culture, and, above all, principles! A little tarnished lately, those principles, but they still gave the illusion of being there. At times, he himself was taken in.
He kissed the mouth stained with salty tears. 'No, I disgust myself,' he said.
'You?'
She looked at him with eyes that understood nothing, and he kissed her again, feeling pity well up in him. What principles had they given her? What weapons? What hopes? There had been the slaps from her mother, the vulgarities of men, the humiliating beauty, and now there had been planted in her heart a remorse which bewildered her.
ohhhh man
She let out a sigh and put her head on Henri's shoulder. He fondled her hair. False testimony: the thought horrified him. But what of it? In perjuring himself, he would do no one any harm. Of course, he would save Mercier's head and that was regrettable, but there were so many others who deserved to be dead and who were walking around hale and hearty! If he refused, Josette would be quite capable of doing away with herself, or, in any event, her life would be ruined. No, he couldn't hold back: on the one side, there was Josette, on the other, qualms of conscience. He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. At any rate, there was damned little to be gained from having a clear conscience. The thought wasn't new to him: you were just as well off being frankly in the wrong. Now he was being offered a fine opportunity to say to hell with morality; he wasn't going to let it go by.
He withdrew his hand and ran it over his face. Playing the part of the devil didn't suit him. He would give that false testimony because he couldn't do otherwise, that's all. 'How did I ever come to this?' It seemed to him at the same time both completely logical and absolutely impossible. Never had he felt sadder.
She smiled at him sadly and unlocked the door. When she disappeared, he stood there for a long moment looking at the little lighted window above the door. Yes, perhaps it was merely jealousy; it would have been unbearable to take her in his arms tonight. 'I'm not being fair,' he said to himself. But fairness had no part in this; you don't sleep with a woman out of fairness. He drove away.
'I didn't invent anything,' Lambert said. 'Good God!' he added. 'What a fool I've been! I always thought you were so honest, so unbiased ... It frightened me! I thought I had to be loyal to you. Talk about loyalty! You're always passing judgment on everyone, but scruples don't hold you back any more than the next person.'
[...] he was far less moved than he would have thought possible. Going down the stairs, he said to himself vaguely, 'It's the price you have to pay.' The price for what? Sleeping with Josette? Wanting to save her? Trying to hold on to a private life when political action requires a man's whole being? Insisting on engaging in politics when he didn't give himself to it without reservations? He didn't know. And even if he had known, it wouldn't have changed anything.
He got up late and had just finished dressing when a messenger brought him a special delivery. His heart leaped when he recognised Dubreuilh's handwriting. 'I just read your farewell letter to L'Espoir. It's really absurd that our attitude accentuates only our differences when so many things draw us together. As for me, I'm still your friend.' There was a postscript. 'I'd like to speak to you as soon as possible regarding someone who seems to wish you ill.' Henri stared at those blue-black lines for a long time. He had thought of writing to him - and it was Dubreuilh who had written. You could impute his generosity to pride, but that was because pride with him was a generous virtue. I’ll go see him straight away,' Henri said to himself and he felt as if an army of red ants had been let loose inside his breast. What had Sezenac said? If he had raised suspicions in Dubreuilh, how would he be able to lie with enough conviction to still them? Since Dubreuilh was offering him his friendship, it was, no doubt, still not too late for lying. But how abominable it would be to reply to such an offer with an abuse of confidence! And yet, what else was there to do? Even Dubreuilh would be shocked by an admission, and then Henri would feel at fault. He got into his car. Now, for the first time, harbouring a secret weighed heavily upon him. It requires you either to deceive someone else or betray yourself; friendship becomes almost impossible. He hesitated for a long time in front of Dubreuilh's door before he could make up his mind to ring.
:(
'You've become damned fatalistic!' he said.
'No, I don't say that action in general is impossible. It is just now, for us.'
'I read your book,' Henri said. 'All in all, you think it's possible to do something only by going along unconditionally with the Communists.'
'Yes. It isn't that their position is striking, but the fact is that, besides them, there's nothing.'
'And yet you're not going along with them.'
'I can't remake myself,' Dubreuilh said. 'Their revolution is too unlike the one I used to hope for. I was wrong; unfortunately, you can't suddenly become someone else simply by realizing your errors. You're young; you still might be capable of making the leap. Not I.'
channeling kafka