Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux

Author:Louis Guilloux
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681371467
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2017-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

He was dancing without the slightest sound—Cripure could barely see the furtive pattering of his steps. His long dark silhouette went back and forth across the pale window frame, the red crest flamed on his forehead like a will-o’-the-wisp, and the little bit of light left in the chamber tumbled into the glasses as they moved with the rhythm of the dance.

“Enough craziness,” he said, stopping. “We’re going to have a little glug glug. The important thing is that they don’t hear the cork pop.”

With a quick movement, he grabbed the bottle and uncorked it.

“My head is spinning,” Cripure murmured.

“Atten-tion! The cups?”

Cripure hastily held out the glasses and Moka turned and filled them triumphantly. The cork had slipped into his hand without a sound—not a drop had been spilled. “Aren’t I a well-prepared fellow?” he said, putting back the bottle. “I’ve got my little store, eh?”

“Good old Moka,” said Cripure. He drank it in one gulp, then lowered his head and let the glass dangle from his hand.

Moka sat next to him on the couch.

How quiet it was! Even here, the silence was grimy.

“What an innocent,” murmured Cripure. And Moka leaned closer, meeting his eyes.

“Would you come and see me someday?” he asked timidly. “Some Sunday?”

Cripure raised his eyes to the window. The rain was coming down, sideways and quick. “What do you do on Sundays?”

“I go to mass. Then, in the afternoon I have my stamps . . .with my stamps—but this is my idea—you won’t tell anyone?”

“No.”

“I stick them to my plates, you know. I . . . cover my plates with stamps. It’s very pretty, with all the colors. You know what I mean?”

Oh Flaubert! thought Cripure. Oh your tax collector, carving his table legs.[14]

“Dear Moka, give me another drink.”

They drank. Moka got up, walked around the room, worrying. His angular hand toying endlessly with the red forelock. He suddenly asked, “You haven’t heard anything . . . about me?” Standing in front of his old teacher, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and fixed two suspicious eyes on Cripure. His lower lip slowly swallowed the upper one, reached almost to his nose . . .“You haven’t heard anything?”

“Like what?”

“That I’m crazy?”

Cripure pretended to think about it. Finally he shook his head twice. “No.”

“Ah?”

“No, nothing.”

“Because,” said Moka, sitting down (he bent as he spoke, elbows on his knees, his face tipped forward) “because I’m aware of myself . . . I think it must be apparent . . . You, you’ve never noticed anything?” he asked in what was almost a whisper.

“Nnn—no. Nothing at all.”

“So that’s all right! Something of that nature wouldn’t have escaped your notice. That’s all right,” he continued happily. “But all the same, as a student of psychology, what do you think of this: from time to time I see a fly . . . it’s very hard to explain. It usually goes by very quickly. A giant fly, not in the air, but crawling. It goes by like a flash, from

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