Free Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute Page B

yes, we can try, it takes well. And now a naïve manner so as to dare to say truths that might seem harsh, to show interest in him, because he loved that, tease him, he adored that game. There now, watch out, gently, gently, it’s getting dangerous, but we can try, he might find it pithy, amusing, tantalizing. Now it’s a story, the story of a scandal, of the private lives of people he knows, to whose home he is frequently invited, and who look up to him. That will interest him, generally he likes that . . . But he doesn’t! Ah! That was mad, it doesn’t interest him, or it displeased him; he suddenly frowns, how frightening he is, he is going to snub them with a furious scowl, he is going to say something vilifying to them, make them conscious of their baseness (they don’t know how), if not now at least on the first occasion, without their being able to answer him, in that roundabout way of his, which is so mean.
    Heavens, how exhausting! How exhausting is all this effort, this perpetual hopping and skipping about in his presence: backward, forward, forward, forward, and backward again, now circling about him, then again on one’s toes, with eyes glued to him, and sidewise and forward and backward, to give him this voluptuous pleasure.
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    V
    On hot July days, the wall opposite cast a brilliant, harsh light into the damp little courtyard.
    Underneath this heat there was a great void, silence, everything seemed in suspense: the only thing to be heard, aggressive, strident, was the creaking of a chair being dragged across the tiles, the slamming of a door. In this heat, in this silence, it was a sudden coldness, a rending.
    And she remained motionless on the edge of her bed, occupying the least possible space, tense, as though waiting for something to burst, to crash down upon her in the threatening silence.
    At times the shrill notes of locusts in a meadow petrified by the sun and as though dead, induce this sensation of cold, of solitude, of abandonment in a hostile universe in which something anguishing is impending.
    In the silence, penetrating the length of the old blue-striped wallpaper in the hall, the length of the dingy paint, she heard the little click of the key in the front door. She heard the study door close.
    She remained there hunched up, waiting, doing nothing. The slightest act, such as going to the bathroom to wash her hands, letting the water run from the tap, seemed like a provocation, a sudden leap into the void, an extremely daring action. In the suspended silence, the sudden sound of water would be like a signal, like an appeal directed towards them; it would be like some horrible contact, like touching a jellyfish with the end of a stick and then waiting with loathing for it suddenly to shudder, rise up and fall back down again.
    She sensed them like that, spread out, motionless, on the other side of the walls, and ready to shudder, to stir.
    She did not move. And about her the entire house, the street, seemed to encourage her, seemed to consider this motionlessness natural.
    It appeared certain, when you opened the door and saw the stairway filled with relentless, impersonal, colorless calm, a stairway that did not seem to have retained the slightest trace of the persons who had walked on it, not the slightest memory of their presence, when you stood behind the dining room window and looked at the house fronts, the shops, the old women and little children walking along the street, it seemed certain that, for as long as possible, she would have to wait, remain motionless like that, do nothing, not move, that the highest degree of comprehension, real intelligence, was that, to undertake nothing, keep as still as possible, do nothing.
    At the most, by being careful not to wake anybody, you could go down without looking at the dark, dead, stairway, and proceed unobtrusively along the pavements, along the walls, just to get a breath, to move about a bit, without knowing