‘Anyway, I’ve only one more scene to revise,’ said Françoise.
She turned over a page. Two o’clock had struck a short time ago. Usually, at this hour, there was not a living soul left in the theatre: tonight there was life in it. The typewriter was clicking, the lamp threw a rosy glow over the papers … ‘And I am here, my heart is beating. Tonight the theatre has a heart and it is beating.’
‘I like working at night,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Gerbert, ‘it’s quiet.’
He yawned. The ashtray was filled with the stub-ends of Virginian cigarettes; two glasses and an empty bottle stood on a small table. Françoise looked at the walls of her little office: the rosy atmosphere was radiant with human warmth and light. Outside was the theatre, deprived of all human life and in darkness, with its deserted corridors circling a great hollow shell. Françoise put down her fountain pen.
‘Wouldn’t you like another drink?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Gerbert.
‘I’ll go and get another bottle from Pierre’s dressing-room.’
She went out of the office. It was not that she had any particular desire for whisky; it was the dark corridors which were the attraction. When she was not there, the smell of dust, the half-light, and their forlorn solitude did not exist for anyone; they did not exist at all. And now she was there. The red of the carpet gleamed through the darkness like a timid night-light. She exercised that power: her presence snatched things from their unconsciousness; she gave them their colour, their smell. She went down one floor and pushed open the door into the auditorium. It was as if she had been entrusted with a mission: she had to bring to life this forsaken theatre now in semi-darkness. The safety-curtain was down; the walls smelt of fresh paint; the red plush seats were aligned in their rows, motionless but expectant. A moment ago they had been aware of nothing, but now she was there and their arms were outstretched. They were watching the stage hidden behind the safety-curtain: they were calling for Pierre, for the footlights and for an enraptured audience. She would have had to remain there for ever in order to perpetuate this solitude and this expectancy. But she would have had to be elsewhere as well: in the props-room, in the dressing-rooms, in the foyer; she would have had to be everywhere at the same time. She went across the proscenium and stepped up on to the stage. She opened the door to the green-room. She went on down into the yard where old stage sets lay mouldering. She alone evoked the significance of these abandoned places, of these slumbering things. She was there and they belonged to her. The world belonged to her.
She went through the small iron stage-door and out into the middle of the formal garden. The houses all round the square were sleeping. The theatre was sleeping, except for a rosy glow from a single window. She sat down on a bench. The sky was glossy black above the chestnut trees: she might well have been in the heart of some small provincial town. At this moment she did not in the least regret that Pierre was not beside her: there were some joys she could not know when he was with her; all the joys of solitude. They had been lost to her for eight years, and at times she almost felt a pang of regret on their account.
She leaned back against the hard wood of the bench. A quick step echoed on the asphalt of the pavement; a motor lorry rumbled along the avenue. There was nothing but this passing sound, the sky, the quivering foliage of the trees, and the one rose-coloured window in a black façade. There was no Françoise any longer; no one existed any longer, anywhere.
Françoise jumped to her feet. It was strange to become a woman once more, a woman who must hurry because pressing work awaits her, with the present moment but one in her life like all the others. She put her hand on the door-knob, then turned back with a qualm of conscience. This was desertion, an act of treason. The night would once more swallow the small provincial square; the rose-coloured window would gleam in vain; it would no longer shine for anyone. The sweetness of this hour would be lost for ever; so much sweetness lost to ali the earth. She crossed the yard and climbed the green wood steps. She had long since given up this kind of regret. Only her own life was real. She went into Pierre’s dressing-room and took the bottle of whisky from the cupboard. Then she hastened back upstairs to her office.
‘Here you are, this will put new strength into us,’ she said. ‘How do you want it? Neat, or with water?’
‘Neat,’ said Gerbert.
‘D’you think you’ll be able to get home?’
‘Oh, I’m learning to hold my whisky,’ said Gerbert with dignity.
‘You’re learning …,’ said Françoise.
‘When I’m rich and run my own house, I’ll always keep a bottle of Vat 69 in my cupboard,’ said Gerbert.
‘That will be the end of your career,’ said Françoise. She looked at him with a kind of tenderness. He had pulled his pipe out of his pocket and was filling it with great deliberation. It was his first pipe. Every evening, when they had finished their bottle of Beaujolais, he put it on the table and looked at it with childish pride; he smoked it over his glass of cognac or marc. And then they went out into the streets, a little dazed after the day’s work, the wine and the brandy. Gerbert strode along, his lock of black hair over his face and his hands in his pockets. Now that was all over. She would often be seeing him again, but only with Pierre or with all the others, and once more they would be like two strangers.
‘And what about you! You hold your whisky well for a woman,’ said Gerbert, quite impartially. He looked hard at Françoise. ‘But you’ve been overworking today, you ought to get a little sleep. Then I’ll wake you up, if you like.’
‘No. I’d rather finish it off,’ said Françoise.
‘Aren’t you hungry? Wouldn’t you like me to go out and get you some sandwiches?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Françoise. She smiled at him. He had been so considerate, so attentive. Whenever she felt discouraged she had only to look into his laughing eyes to regain her confidence. She would like to have found words in which to thank him.
‘It’s almost a pity that we’ve finished,’ she said. ‘I’ve become so used to working with you.’
‘But it will be even greater fun when we go into production,’ said Gerbert. His eyes glistened; the whisky had given a flush to his cheeks. ‘It’s so good to think that in three days everything will be starting all over again. How I love the opening of the season.’
‘Yes, it will be fun,’ said Françoise. She pulled her papers towards her. He was apparently not at all sorry to see the end of their ten days together; that was only natural. She was not sorry either; surely she had no right to expect Gerbert alone to be sorry.
‘Every time I walk through this dead theatre I get the shivers,’ said Gerbert. ‘It’s dismal. This time I really thought it was going to stay closed the whole year.’
‘We’ve had a narrow escape,’ said Françoise.
‘Let’s hope that this lasts,’ said Gerbert.
‘Oh, it will last,’ said Françoise.
She had never believed in the possibility of war. War was like tuberculosis or a railway accident: something that could never happen to me. Things like that happened only to other people.
‘Are you able to imagine some really terrible misfortune befalling you personally?’
Gerbert screwed up his face: ‘Nothing easier,’ he said.
‘Well, I can’t,’ said Françoise. There was no point in even thinking about it. Dangers from which it was possible to protect oneself had to be envisaged, but war did not come within the compass of man. If one day war did break out, nothing else would matter any more, not even living or dying.
‘But that won’t happen,’ murmured Françoise. She bent over her manuscript; the typewriter was clicking, and the room smelt of Virginian tobacco,