Free North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

know better . . . if we tried to force it the whole corridor would cave in! . . . maybe the whole Steinbock . . . the walls are only too glad to open up . . . but it takes a delicate touch! Le Vigan is handy with his penknife, he loosens a brick . . . another . . . very subtly. . . careful to keep away from the doors!. . . there, that does it! . . . his room is like ours, except no bedside table . . . no pitcher, no basin . . . a little mirror . . . cracked, but even so! . . ."
    "Ferdinand, I look terrible!"
    "Oh no, a little tired, it's only natural. . ."
    He often gets that end-of-the-road-of-sorrows look . . . Christ on the Mount of Olives . . . ever since his last picture La Passion . . . and now since the Care de l'Est, the attack on his train, his shirts all hacked up and the state of France . . . he gets a bit dejected sometimes . . . Christ himself had a pretty rough time . . . once they've played Christ . . . I've seen it time and time again, actors and even directors . . . its for life . . . give them the slightest chance and they're Christ! . . . Just ask an actor if he's played Christ, if the answer's yes you know what to expect . . . or a woman if she's played the Virgin . . . she'll still be doing it when he's a hundred . . . I didn't want him to start in now, crucify himself on the folding bed . . . the situation was sticky enough without that, it seemed to me . . . quick! . . . quick! . . . I say something about our soup, the moujik , and our messkits . . . would he kindly go see . . . if they'd forgotten us . . . he knew where . . . the end of the court . . . but somebody's coming! . . . steps . . . the man with the beard! . . . I change the subject . . . the last alert? I ask him . . .
    Oh, every night! but no more bombs! the bombs are . . . finished!"
    Maybe so, but for my money those planes are nuts, they'll start in again . . . they came back all right, but not until months later, and then for a three-ring circus . . . right now, us there, it was a lull . . . they were busy on the borders and on London, not Berlin . . . anyway, we had a pad! not very solid, but oh well! . . . the whole world was fragile! . . . if we'd been in Paris it'd been our skins! . . . stripped to the bone! . . . no use complaining . . . better the Steinbock than the slaughterhouse! . . .
    We sit down on our folding beds and think . . . plenty to think about . . . Bébert goes exploring . . . the way cats do, the minute they get someplace, even in times of great danger, they've got to reconnoiter the premises and environs . . . their living space . . . that's why it's so ticklish taking them to the country . . . their instinct, they run away and end up in somebody's cookpot . . . there at the Steinbock his "living space" was the corridor . . . in half a second he'd got to the end . . . Lili calls him . . . he doesn't come . . . she goes to see . . . a curtain . . . I go too, the three of us look out, Lili, me, and Bébert . . . nothing! . . . the void . . . a void at least seven stories deep, a giant bomb had made a crater big enough to hold several buildings . . . the Steinbock can say it had a close call! . . . a bomb is a lottery . . . it finds you? gone forever! If you're in luck, somebody else takes the plunge! It's a game you can play on your vacation: who dives? him? her? or me? . . . At the Steinbock, all in all, we had it good . . . Le Vigan comes back with the messkits . . . very decent! red cabbage with cream, the moujik follows with bottled beer and mineral water . . . a perfect meal! . . . say! and black bread . . . the  moujik  is spoiling us . . . he doesn't ask for coupons . . . we he down, we're entitled, we've had quite a hike . . . No more. Windows . . . only the frames and two three half-panes . . . this Russian is really okay, he brings us two big rugs to use for curtains . . . we hang them up . . . now we've got privacy, of sorts . . . all we've got to do to visit Le Vigan is take out two squares of plaster .