Jonadam Noel was in his fifties when the pigeon incident happened, and it suddenly changed his life. Looking back on nearly twenty years of peaceful life, he probably never expected that anything else would happen to him other than to abandon the world one day. This is completely appropriate for him, because he does not like turmoil and hates events that upset the inner balance and disturb the order of life in the outside world.
Thankfully, the vast majority of such events are left behind in the distant, vague childhood and youth. He was reluctant to think about it, even if it was sometimes very uncomfortable to think of a summer afternoon in Charente, in July 1942, when he was heading home from fishing...... It had just rained that day, and the rain had not stopped, a timely rain after several days of hot weather. On the way home, he took off his shoes and walked barefoot on the hot and wet asphalt road, crackling through small puddles, which brought him an indescribable pleasure...... When he had returned home from fishing, he ran into the kitchen, hoping that he would meet his mother cooking, but she was no longer there, only her apron was still on the back of the chair. The father said that the mother was gone, and she was going to be out for a longer time. Neighbors said she was taken away, first at the "Winter Velodrome" and then into a concentration camp in Drancy, from where she went east and never returned. Jonadan didn't understand anything about it, it completely confused him. A few days later, his father disappeared as well, and Jonadan and his little sister accidentally boarded a train bound for the south. At night, they were led by a group of strange men through the meadows and woods, and then boarded another southbound train to a place far from home. An uncle they had never met brought them from Cavalon back to their farmstead near Puget Town in the Deirance Valley. He hid them here until the end of the war, and after the war he made them work in the vegetable fields.
In the early fifties, Jonadan gradually became satisfied with the life of an agricultural worker. His uncle asked him to sign up for the army, and Jonadam obediently fulfilled his obligations for three years. For the first year, his only thing was to try to get used to that obnoxious barracks collective life. The following year, he was sent by ship to Indochina. He spent most of his third year in a field hospital, first with a shot in the foot, then another bullet in the leg, and a bout of amoebic dysentery. When he returned to Puget Town in the spring of 1954, his sister was gone. She is said to have emigrated to Canada. The uncle asked Nadan to marry a girl named Marie Bakuche as soon as possible. The girl lived in the nearby village of Lawless, and Jonadan had never seen her before. He obediently did everything as his uncle told him, and he even did it willingly, because, although marriage was only a vague concept for him at that time, he hoped that in marriage he could finally find that state of peace and tranquility, which was the only desire in his heart. Four months later, however, Marie gave birth to a boy, and in the autumn of the same year she eloped with a Tunisian fruit merchant from Marseille.
Jonadam Noel drew a conclusion from all these events: do not trust anyone, and only by keeping your distance from others can you have a peaceful life. Because he had become the laughing stock of the whole village—it was not the ridicule of him that stood in his way, but the public attention it attracted from him—for the first time in his life, he made a decision on his own: to go to the Agricultural Bank and withdraw his savings, pack his bags, and go to Paris.
Since then, he has had two good fortunes: he got a job as a guard at a bank on the rue de Sèvres, and on the seventh floor of a building on the rue de Planz, he found a place to stay, a so-called chambre de bonne (French: women's room). To get to the house, you have to go through the backyard and a narrow staircase dedicated to transporting goods, as well as a long, narrow, windowed, dimly lit passageway. On either side of the aisle there are twenty-four rooms, the doors are painted gray and marked with the room number, and at the end of the aisle is room number 24, the room of Jonadain. The room is 3.4 meters long, 2.2 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, and the furnishings are very simple: a bed, a table, a chair, an incandescent lamp, a coat hook, and nothing else. It was not until the sixties that the power lines were increased so that the occupants could connect the cooking stove and electric heater, and the running water pipes were laid, and each room was fitted with its own washbasin and boiler. Until then, all the residents of the attic — as long as they didn't use the alcohol stove in violation of the rules — ate cold food, slept in cold rooms, washed socks, washed the few dishes, and washed their faces and hands in the hallway in the only washbasin next to the public toilet. All of this is not in the way of Jonathan. He is not looking for a comfortable device, but a safe place to stay, which belongs entirely to him, to protect him from the sudden unpleasant events of life, from which no one can drive him away. When he first entered room 24, he immediately realized: this is the place you have been looking for, and you will stay here (at that time, his state of mind was like that of the man who fell in love at first sight, as people often say, and they suddenly realized that a woman he had never seen before was his lifelong partner, and he would possess her and grow old with her).
The rent for Jonadam Noel to rent this house was five thousand old francs per month. In the morning, he goes to work on the neighboring Avenue de Sèvres, and in the evening he returns with bread, sausages, apples and cheese. He eats, sleeps here, and feels very happy. On Sundays, he never left the room, but cleaned and put clean sheets on the bed. He lived in peace and contentment, day after day, year after year, for decades.
During this time, there have been some changes in the outside world, such as: the amount of rent, the types of tenants. In the fifties, it was mostly occupied by women, with a few young couples and a few retirees, and later came and went by Spaniards, Portuguese, and people from North African countries; at the end of the sixties, the main tenants were university students; and then, twenty-four rooms were never filled again, many of them empty or used by the landlords who lived on the lower floors to store miscellaneous items, or became their occasional dwellings for entertaining guests. Room 24 in Jonadam has been transformed into a relatively comfortable place to stay over the years. He bought a new bed, renovated a closet, covered the 7.5-square-meter floor with a gray carpet, and pasted the corners of the cooking and washing with beautiful red lacquered paper. He now has a radio, a television and an iron. Instead of hanging out of the window in small pockets, as in the past, food is stored in a small refrigerator under the washbasin, and now the butter does not melt and the ham does not dry hard, even on hot summer days. He had a bookshelf at the head of his bed lined with at least seventeen books, a three-volume pocket medical dictionary, several fine picture books of the Cromanu, the foundry techniques of the Bronze Age, ancient Egypt, the Etruscans, and the French Revolution, a book on sailing ships, a book on flags, a book on tropical animals, two novels by Alexandre Dumas, a memoir of Saint-Simon, a recipe for making simple food, a dictionary of Larousse the Petitive, and a Several provisions on the use of official handguns by guards and police in exceptional circumstances". Under the bed he was stocked more than a dozen bottles of red wine, including a bottle of the Château Cheval Blanc, which he had prepared for the day he retired in 1998. Jonadan had carefully considered the location of the lights, and now he sat in three different places in the room — at the foot of the bed, at the head of the bed, next to the small table — and read the newspaper without a shake from his eyes or a shadow on the newspaper.
With so many additions, the room naturally became smaller, like a pearl oyster that spits out too much pearl and grows inward. The variety of elaborate furnishings makes this room more like a ship's cabin or a luxurious train compartment than a humble chambre de bonne. But its essential character has remained after thirty years: it was and still is Jonadain's island of safety in this turbulent world, it was his solid support, it was his refuge, yes, his lover, because whenever he came back in the evening, this room always embraced him tenderly, gave him warmth and protection, nourished him physically and spiritually, was always by his side whenever he needed it, and it never left him. In fact, it was the only thing in his life that proved to be trustworthy. As a result, he had never thought of separating from it, and even now, when he was in his fifties, and the climb of so many stairs often made it a bit difficult for him, and his salary fully allowed him to rent a real apartment with a kitchen, toilets, and bathrooms. He was always loyal to his lover, even wanting to connect it with himself and himself more closely. In order for their relationship to be unbreakable forever, he wants to buy it. He had already signed a contract with the landlord, Mrs. LaSalle. This room is worth fifty-five thousand new francs. He has so far paid forty-seven thousand francs, and the remaining eight thousand francs will be paid at the end of the year. Then, it was his, forever, and until death separated them, nothing in the world could separate them—Jonadan and the room he liked—from each other.
This was the case on a Friday morning in August 1984, before the pigeon incident.
Jonathan had just woken up, put on his slippers and bathrobe, and was ready to go to the public toilet before shaving his face, as he did every morning. Before opening the door, he put his ear to the door panel to hear if there was anyone in the hallway. He didn't want to run into his neighbors, let alone in his pajamas or yukata early in the morning, and the last thing he wanted was on his way to the toilet. Finding someone in the toilet was uncomfortable enough, and it was embarrassing to meet another tenant in front of the toilet door. This has only happened once, and that was twenty-five years ago, in the summer of 1959. Whenever he thought back to this incident, he couldn't help but feel creepy; when the two of them saw each other, they both felt panicked at the same time, and this matter that was originally absolutely secret suddenly lost its confidentiality, and the two of them retreated at the same time, asking the other party to use it first, and at the same time said the humble words: Oh, no, you should use it first, sir, I am not in a hurry, no, you use it first, so be it...... All this in his pajamas? no, he would never want to happen to it again. He hadn't happened to him again, thanks to the fact that he had listened carefully beforehand. As he listened, he peered through the crack in the door into the hallway, familiar with the sounds of the floor, able to discern where every creak, click, crackle, rustle came from, and even explain the silence. Now, he only put his ear to the door and listened for a few seconds, and he was absolutely sure: there was no one in the hallway, the toilet was empty, and everyone was still sleeping. He unscrewed the safety lock with his left hand and the spring lock with his right hand, and the deadbolt retreated. He pulled it slightly, and the door opened.
He had almost crossed the threshold. However, just as he lifted his left foot and his thigh was ready to take a step, he saw the pigeon. It lay in front of his door, about twenty centimeters from the threshold, covered in the morning light shining through the window, two red paws propped up on the blood-red tiled floor, and its lead-gray feathers neat and smooth.
It tilted its head to the side and looked at Jonadan with its left eye. The eye looked terrible, like a small ball of glass, brown on all sides, with a black spot in the middle, like a button sewn on the head of a pigeon, with neither eyelashes nor eyebrows, and protruding outwards undisguised and unshyly, with a very frank gaze. However, there was also a faint hint of slyness in this eye. In fact, its gaze seems neither honest nor cunning, but rather lifeless, like the lens of a camera, swallowing all the light from the outside world, but revealing nothing inside itself. There was not a glimmer of shine in this eye, there was no glimmer of light, there was not a spark of life. It was a blind eye, and it looked at Jonadan.
He was terrified at the time—and in hindsight, he might have described it this way. However, this was not appropriate, because the fear was still a later thing, and he was first of all astonished.
His feet froze on the threshold, his hands still holding the doorknob, his feet raised to step forward, he could neither move forward nor backward, and it went on for maybe five seconds, maybe ten seconds, as if he were living forever. Then the pigeon moved slightly, either shifting its weight from one paw to the other, or raising its feathers, and at any rate it shuddered all over its body, and at the same time its two eyelids were closed, one from below and one from above, which were not really eyelids, but some kind of rubber-like trapcap, which swallowed the eyes like two lips emerging from nothingness. The eye disappeared for a moment. That's when fear grabbed Jonadain, and his hair stood on end. Before the pigeon could reopen this eye, he quickly jumped back, retreated into the house, and closed the door. He screwed on the safety lock, staggered three steps to the bed, and sat down trembling, his heart pounding, his forehead cold, and he felt a cold sweat break out around his neck and spine.
His first thought was: he was going to have a heart attack, or a stroke, or heart failure. You are now at the age of these diseases, and he thinks that since the age of fifty, the smallest cause is enough to cause such a calamity. He lay on his side on the bed, pulled the quilt up over his trembling shoulders, waited for the spasmodic pain, for the tingling in his chest and around his shoulders (he had read in that pocket medical encyclopedia dictionary that were obvious symptoms of myocardial infarction), and waited for the sensation to slowly fade away. However, none of this happened. The heartbeat gradually flattened, blood flowed into the brain and limbs again evenly, and the paralysis characteristic of stroke did not appear. Jonadan moved his toes and fingers, and a strange look appeared on his face, indicating that his body organs and nervous system were normal.
At this moment, many chaotic, incongruous, and terrible thoughts were churning in his mind, and they were like a flock of crows screaming in his brain, flapping their wings, and croaking: "You're going to die? You're old and exhausted." One pigeon is enough to scare you half to death, and one pigeon will drive you back into the house, leaving you limp and caught. You're going to die, Jonadan, you're going to die, if not right away, only a few moments. Your life is false, and you make a mess of it, because a pigeon shakes it up. You have to kill the pigeon, but you can't kill it, you can't kill a fly, no, a fly is okay, you can kill a fly or a mosquito or a little beetle, but you can never kill any warm-blooded animal, you can't kill a warm-blooded animal like a pigeon that weighs about a pound. You'd rather kill someone. Bang bang, this kind of thing is very fast, leaving only a small hole of eight millimeters, everything is clean, and this is also allowed, and the first paragraph of the regulations for the work of the guards wearing weapons stipulates that this can be done, and even must be done in legitimate self-defense. If you shoot and kill someone, no one will blame you. However, if a pigeon is killed, it will be completely different. How can a person shoot a pigeon? A pigeon flapping its wings and it is not easy for people to hit it. Shooting at a pigeon is a brutal offense and is strictly forbidden. If you shoot a pigeon, you will have your weapons confiscated, you will lose your position, and you will have to go to jail. No, you can't kill it, but you can't live with it, it's absolutely not okay, you can't live in a house where pigeons live, pigeons are the epitome of chaos and anarchy, a pigeon can make countless noises, it scratches people with its claws, pecks people's eyes with its mouth, it keeps dirtying the environment, shakes off the terrible bacteria and meningitis virus on its body, the pigeon doesn't live alone, it attracts other pigeons, they mate, Fertility, rapid reproduction, an army of pigeons will soon surround you, you will never be able to get out of the room again, you will starve to death, you will suffocate from your own droppings, you will have to jump out of the window, lying on the sidewalk with broken limbs, this will not work, you are too timid. You're going to be trapped in the house all the time, you're going to cry out for help, you're going to cry out for fire, and people will bring ladders and get you away from a pigeon. You're going to be the laughing stock of this building, you're going to be the laughing stock of this city, and people will point their fingers at you and say, 'Look, that's Monsieur Enuoer, he's got you out of a pigeon!' and they're going to put you in a psychiatric clinic. Oh, Jonathan, Yonadan, your situation is so bad, you have no hope, Jonadan. ”
Thoughts like these were churning in his head. Jonadan was so overwhelmed and so desperate that he did something he hadn't done since childhood. He crossed his fingers in agony and began to pray: "Lord, Lord, why have you forsaken me? why have you punished me so severely? But, despite this, prayer helped him, as it required him to concentrate his thoughts to a certain extent and thus dispelled those cranky thoughts. There were other things that helped him even more, because, as soon as he finished praying, he felt impatient and in need of relief. He understood that if he didn't succeed in lightening the load in a matter of seconds, he would stain the bed on which he was lying, the beautiful feather-filled cushions, and even the beautiful gray carpet. He came to his senses completely, and stood up with a snort, glancing desperately towards the door...... No, he can't get out through this door, and even if the damn pigeon has flown away now, he won't be able to hold the toilet...... He walked over to the washbasin, ripped off his bathrobe, pulled down his pajama pants, unscrewed the faucet, and peed towards the washbasin.
He'd never done anything like that before. It is a sin to pee into a pretty, white, shiny sink for keeping the body clean and washing the dishes. He would never believe that he would fall to such a point, he would never believe that he could do such a low-level and obscene thing. Now, when he saw the urine coming out unhindered, mixed with the tap water, gurgling down the drain, and when he felt the pressure in his lower abdomen suddenly lessen, tears flowed from his eyes, and he felt very ashamed. When he had finished urinating, he let the tap water continue to flush for a while, and carefully wiped the sink with detergent to erase even the slightest trace of the crime he had just left. "This is the only time, not an example. He whispered to himself, as if apologizing to the sink, to the room, to himself. "This is the only time, not an example. This time it was a last resort, and it will not happen again in the future......"
His mood gradually stabilized. Scrubbing the sink, removing the detergent bottle, wring out the rag — these oft-repeated, comforting actions — brought him back to reality. He glanced at his watch: a quarter past seven. Usually, he has already shaved at a quarter past seven and has begun to make the bed. However, the time lost was not too much, and it was possible to make up for it, and if necessary, he could skip breakfast, and if he gave up breakfast—he was counting the time—he would even be seven minutes earlier than usual. It was important that he had to leave the room by eight and five at the latest, because he had to reach the bank at a quarter past eight. Although he didn't know what to do yet, he still had three quarters of an hour to go. That's not a small amount. If he had just faced death and almost suffered a myocardial infarction, three quarters of an hour was a long time. If you don't have to endure the pain of a full bladder anymore, it will take twice as long as this time. Therefore, he decided to pretend for a moment as if nothing had happened and go about his daily morning routine. He put hot water in the washbasin and started shaving.
He shaved his face and thought about it. "Jonadam Noel," he said to himself secretly, "you have been a soldier in Indochina for two years, and you have been through several difficult situations there. With all your courage and resourcefulness, and with the appropriate equipment, you should be able to get out of this room if you're lucky. What if you succeed? What if you do pass by the nasty animal outside the door and come to the stairwell and get to safety without a single hair? You can go to work, you can spend the day in peace, but what will you do in the future? Where will you go tonight? Where will you spend the night?" he would never want to meet the pigeon he had just escaped a second time, and he could not live in the same room with the pigeon under any circumstances, even for a day. One night, one hour, his belief was unshakable. Therefore, he had to be prepared to stay in a pension apartment for one night, maybe a few nights. This means that he now has to bring with him shaving kits, a toothbrush and a change of underwear, in addition to a checkbook and, for insurance, a savings passbook. He had 1,200 francs in his remittance account, which was enough for two weeks, provided he found a cheap hotel. If the pigeon continued to corclose his room, he would have to use his savings, and he had six thousand francs in his savings account, which was a large sum enough to keep him in the inn for a month. In addition, he had a salary, a net of three thousand seven hundred francs a month. At the end of the year, however, he had to pay Madame de la Salle eight thousand francs, the last instalment to be paid for the house. For his room! For this room in which he might not be able to stay at all! How could he explain to Madame de Lassalle and ask her to agree to the moratorium on the payment of the last payment? Of course he could not say to her: "Madame, I cannot pay you the last eight thousand francs, for I have been staying in an inn for several months, and the room I wanted to buy from you was blocked by a pigeon. "He can't say that, after all...... Then it dawned on him that he had five gold coins, each worth six hundred francs, which he had bought during the Algerian war in 1958 for fear of inflation. He couldn't forget to take the five gold Napoleonic coins with him...... In addition, he has a thin gold bracelet left by his mother. He should also have brought his transistor radio and a silver-plated high-grade ballpoint pen – a gift from the entire bank staff last Christmas. If he sold all these valuable things, and did his best to save money, he would be able to stay at the inn until the end of the year, and he would be able to pay Madame de la Salle the eight thousand francs. From January 1 next year, the situation will improve, because by then he will be the owner of the house and will not need to raise any more rent. That pigeon may not survive this winter. How long does a pigeon live? two years, three years, ten years, what if it's an old pigeon? maybe it will die in a week? maybe it will die today. Maybe it came here just to die......
After shaving his face, he let go of the dirty water in the washbasin, rinsed it, then filled it with water, washed his upper body and feet, and when he finished brushing his teeth and put the water out of the sink, he wiped the sink clean with a rag and began to make the bed.
Under the closet there was an old cardboard box containing his dirty clothes, which he sent to the laundry once a month to be washed. He dragged the cardboard box out, poured out the dirty clothes, and laid the box on the bed. In 1942, he used this cardboard box from Charente to Cavalon, and it was also used when he came to Paris in 1954. Now, he looked at the old cardboard box on his bed and began to fill it with things as if he were ready to travel—not dirty, but clean, a pair of low-top leather shoes, toiletries, an iron, a checkbook, and gold and silver jewelry. Tears welled up in his eyes again, but this time, not out of shame, but out of a dark despair. He felt like his life had gone back thirty years, and he seemed to have lost thirty years of his life.
By the time he packed the box, it was exactly a quarter past eight. He began to get dressed, first in his everyday clothes: gray trousers, a blue shirt, a leather jacket, a belt with a holster, a gray uniform cap, and then in his clothes to deal with the pigeon. He was sick just by the thought of possible physical contact with pigeons. The pigeon may peck at his ankle, or flap its wings, flap his hands or neck, and may even extend its fan-shaped paws and land on him. Therefore, instead of wearing those lightweight, low-tops, he wore a pair of sturdy high-quality leather boots with lambswool insoles. Usually, he only wears these leather boots in January or February. He put on a winter coat, buttoned tightly from top to bottom, a woollen scarf around his neck, and even his chin was cuffed, and he used a pair of lined leather gloves to protect his hands. He holds an umbrella in his right hand. Eight o'clock was seven o'clock, and he was ready to rush out of his room.
He took off his uniform cap and pressed his ear to the door. There was no movement. He put his hat back on, pressed it to his forehead, and lifted the box and laid it next to the door. He hung the umbrella on his wrist, held the doorknob with his free right hand, unscrewed the safety lock with his left hand, pulled back the deadbolt, opened the door a slit, and looked out.
The pigeon was no longer at the door, and left behind a cloud of emerald-colored pigeon droppings about the size of a five-franc coin and a fine white pile where it had squatted, which was gently fluttering by the wind blowing through the crack in the door. Jonadam shuddered with disgust, and he wanted to close the door immediately. He instinctively wanted to step back, back into the safety of his room, away from that horrible thing outside. However, he saw that there was not just one pigeon dropping, but many pigeon droppings. There were many of these emerald-coloured, wet, glittering pigeon droppings on the floor of the aisle as far as his eye could see. A strange phenomenon arose, and so many nasty things did not increase Jonadam's disgust, but on the contrary strengthened his determination to resist: in the presence of a ball of pigeon droppings and a piece of fluff, he might retreat, or he might close the door forever, but the annoying, unusual, and utterly vile thing which the pigeon had soiled the whole aisle summoned all his courage. He pulled the door open completely.
At this moment, he saw the pigeon, which was crouching about a meter and a half on the right side of the door, curled up in a corner at the end of the aisle. The light was dim, and Jonadan glanced hurriedly over it, unable to see whether it was asleep or awake, whether it was open or closed. He didn't want to know any of this, or even want to see it. He had read in that book about tropical animals that certain animals, especially orangutans, would attack people if they stared at them, and they would not bother people if they ignored them. Maybe this is also suitable for pigeons. Anyway, Jonadan decided to pretend as if the pigeon didn't exist, at least not to look at it again.
He slowly moved the box into the aisle, carefully bypassed the green pigeon droppings, opened the umbrella, held it with his left hand, covering his chest and face like a shield, and then stepped into the aisle, keeping his eyes on the pigeon droppings on the ground, and pulled the door behind him. Despite his best efforts to pretend that nothing had happened, his heart was still uneasy, and his heart was pounding, as if it was about to jump out of his throat. He had gloves on his hands and couldn't get the keys out of his pocket right away. He trembled with so much nervousness that his umbrella almost slipped to the ground. He grabbed the umbrella with his right hand and tried to catch it with his shoulder and cheek, but the key also fell to the ground, almost exactly in the middle of a cloud of pigeon droppings. He had to bend down and pick it up, and at last he held the key firmly in his hand, and in his excitement, after three consecutive crooked insertions, he inserted the key into the keyhole, and then turned it twice. At this time, he seemed to think that he heard a hula sound behind him...... Maybe it was his umbrella that hit the wall?...... But he heard it again, this time clearly, it was a short flop from the wings of a pigeon, and he panicked. He pulls the key out of the keyhole, picks up the box, and flees. The open umbrella scraped off a piece of the wall, the box slammed the doors of the other rooms, and the two pages of the open window reached the center of the hallway, blocking his way, so he had to turn sideways and move the umbrella behind him, because the movement was so fierce and stupid, there were a few cuts in the umbrella, and he didn't mind. He doesn't care about everything, he just wants to get out of here, get out of here, get out of here.
He stopped at the top of the stairs, closed his umbrella, and glanced behind him: the bright morning light shone through the window, casting a well-defined pillar of light in the dimly lit hallway. His vision could barely penetrate the pillar of light. Jonathan narrowed his eyes and looked hard, and he saw that the pigeon was coming out of the dark corner at the end of the aisle, staggering a few steps forward, and then crouching down again, right in front of the door of his room.
He turned around in horror and hurried down the stairs. At this moment, he was completely sure that he would never come back.
He walked down the stairs, his mood calming down. When he reached the staircase on the third floor, he suddenly felt extremely hot. It was then that he suddenly realized that he had been wearing a winter coat, a scarf, and leather boots. Someone could come out of the door from the landlord's kitchen to the back staircase at any moment, such as a female servant going out to buy supplies, Mr. Rigaud putting an empty bottle of wine outside the door, and perhaps Madame Lassalle going out for some reason. Mrs. Lassalle had risen early, and must have gotten up by this time, and could smell the smell of her coffee throughout the stairwell. Mrs. Lassalle might open the back door of the kitchen at this moment, and Jonadain, standing at the top of the staircase, would be facing her, dressed in a strange winter dress in the bright August sun...... It is impossible for people to ignore this embarrassment, he has to explain, but how can he explain it? He has to make up a lie. I can't find any convincing explanation for the way he looks. People will think that he is insane, or that he is really insane.
He put down the box, first took out the low-top leather shoes, then quickly took off his gloves, coat, scarf and leather boots. He put on low-top leather shoes, packed his scarf, gloves, and leather boots into a box, and put his coat on his arm. At this point, he felt that he could be justified in front of anyone. If he met an acquaintance, he could well say that he was preparing to send his clothes to the laundry shop and his winter coat to the dry cleaner. Visibly relieved, he continued downstairs.
In the backyard, he ran into the janitor. She is using a small cart to carry empty garbage cans from the street back to the yard. Jonadan felt as if he had been caught red-handed, and immediately stopped. He couldn't go back into the gloomy stairwell, for she had seen him. He had no choice but to keep walking. As he walked past her with deliberate forceful steps, she said, "Good morning, Mr. Noel. ”
"Good morning, Madame Rocard. His voice was slurred. The two of them never said anything more. He had not said anything to her since she had come to the house ten years to guard the door, except to say "Good morning, ma'am," "Good evening, ma'am," and "Thank you, ma'am" when she handed him the mail. That's not to say that he doesn't have any objections to her, she's not a nuisance, and she's no different from the former janitor as well as the ex of the ex. She was as elusive as all janitors, between fifty and seventy years of age, and like all janitors, she was always shuffling down the aisles. Her waist was thick, her complexion was fair, and she smelled musty. If she's not hauling out or into the trash, scrubbing the stairs, or rushing to buy something, she's sitting in the gatehouse in the passage between the street and the yard, under the neon lights, with the television on, or doing needlework, or ironing clothes, or cooking. Like all janitor women, she loved cheap red wine and vermouth. No, he didn't really have any antipathy to her personally. He just doesn't like janitors, because they're people who are always watching people out of their profession. It is absolutely impossible to pass by Madame Rocal without her noticing, even if you move quickly and in a moment. Even if she falls asleep sitting on a chair in her room – which usually happens at noon and after dinner, the slight creak of the door is enough to wake her up for a few seconds to see who is coming in and out. No one in this world has paid such attention to Jonadan as often and so carefully as Mrs. Rocard. He had no friends. He's almost a bank ornament. The customer sees him as an embellishment, not as a living person. In the supermarket, on the street, on the bus (when did he ever take the bus?), people kept his anonymity. Madame Rocal was the only one who knew him, and recognized him every day, and she kept an eye on him at least twice a day. She can learn about some of his personal life, such as what he wears, how many times a week he changes his shirt, whether he has washed his hair, what he brings back from dinner, whether he has letters, who sent them, and so on. At this moment, although Jonadain, as he thought in his heart, did not have any aversion to Madame Rocal herself, and though he knew that her inappropriate gaze was not out of curiosity but out of a sense of professional obligation, he felt that her gaze was always like a silent interrogation of him. Even after all these years, every time he passed by Mrs. Rocard, there was always a short, extremely angry wave in his heart: hell, why did she pay attention to me again? Why should I be scrutinized by her? Why couldn't she not pay attention to me and let me keep my integrity? Why are some people always so annoying?
He was particularly sensitive today because of what had just happened. He thought that the appearance of himself carrying a suitcase and carrying a winter coat must be very eye-catching, and Madame Rocard's gaze made him feel particularly embarrassed. He felt that she was simply mocking him by saying "Good morning, Mr. Noel!" to him. That wave of anger had been suppressed in his heart until now, but this time it suddenly burst into public anger. He did something he had never done before: he walked past Madame Rocard, stopped, put down the suitcase, rested his coat on top of it, and turned away. He turned and walked back, deciding to strike back at her pestering gaze and politeness. As he walked towards her, he didn't know what he was going to do or say something. All he knows is that he has to act, he has to speak. The waves of anger surged against her. His anger knows no bounds.
She had unloaded the trash can from the trolley and was about to return to her cabin. At this moment, he blocked her way, almost in the middle of the courtyard. They stood facing each other, about half a meter apart. He had never seen her white face from such a close distance. He felt that the skin of this little face was fine and tender, like brittle silk that had been used. Her brown eyes, if viewed from a close distance, did not shoot an aggressive, obnoxious gaze, but a certain tenderness and girlish shyness. Jonadain, however, was not deceived by the situation before him, for all this certainly did not coincide with what he had in mind about Madame Rocard. To make a formal sign of his appearance, he raised his hand to the brim of his hat, saluted, and then said in a shrill voice, "Madame, I have something to say to you." (At this point, he still doesn't know what to say.)
"What's the matter, Mr. Noel?" said Madame Rocard, who shifted her body slightly, tilting her head back.
She looked like a bird, Jonadam thought, like a timid bird. He repeated in a sharp voice, "Madame, I have something to say to you......," and he himself was surprised to hear it, and the anger that was still growing in his heart unconsciously became this sentence: "There is a bird in front of the door of my room, Madam." He then specified: "It's a pigeon, ma'am." It was crouching on the floor in front of my room door. At this point, he finally restrained what seemed to be spoken subconsciously, and by means of an explanatory addendum, he led the subject in a definite direction: "Madam, this pigeon has made the aisle on the seventh floor full of droppings. ”
Mrs. Rocal shifted her weight from one foot to the other, tilted her head back a little, and asked, "Where did this pigeon come from, sir?"
"I don't know," Jonadan said, "maybe it flew in through the window of the hallway." That window was always open. It was supposed to be closed, that's what the housing code says. ”
"Perhaps some university student opened it," said Mrs. Rocard, "because it was too hot." ”
"It's also possible," Jonadam said, "but, despite this, it should be closed, especially in the summer." If there is a storm, the windows will be scratched and the glass will be shattered. This happened in the summer of 1962. At that time, it cost one hundred and fifty francs for new glass. Since then, the housing code has stated that the window must be closed at all times. ”
He probably found it comical to continue to invoke the housing code. Even he himself has no interest in how the pigeons get in. He did not want to go into more detail about the pigeon, the terrible question concerned him alone. He had wanted to vent his anger at Madame Rocard's pestering gaze, but there was nothing else he could ask for. After he finished the first few words, he had already achieved his goal. Now that his anger had subsided, he didn't know what to say next.
"The people had to get rid of the pigeon immediately and close the windows. Mrs. Rocard said. She spoke as if this was the simplest thing in the world, as if once the pigeons were gone, everything would return to normal. Jonadan was silent, his gaze fixed on her brown eyes, as if he were about to sink into a pool of gentle, brown water. He had to close his eyes for a second to free himself, and he cleared his throat in order to regain his voice.
"It's ...... everywhere," he cleared his throat again, "there's pigeon poop everywhere, there's green pigeon poop everywhere, and feathers, and it's staining the whole aisle." That's the main problem. ”
"Of course, sir. "The aisles must be cleaned," said Mrs. Rocard. But people first had to get that pigeon away. ”
"Yes," replied Jonadan, "yes, yes...... he thought: what did she mean? What did she want to say, why did she say that people had to drive the pigeon away?
"Yes, yes," he said intermittently, "people...... People have to get rid of it. I...... I would have chased it away a long time ago, however, I didn't succeed. I'm in a hurry. You look at all these clothes and winter coats that I have with me, I have to take my coats to the dry cleaner and the rest of my clothes to the laundry shop today before I go to work. I was short on time, ma'am, so I couldn't get the pigeon out. I'm reporting this to you, mainly because of the pigeon. Pigeon droppings soiling the aisle is the crux of the matter, which is a violation of the housing code. The housing code stipulates that corridors, stairs and toilets must be kept clean. ”
He couldn't remember if he had ever said something so awkward in his life. He felt that these lies could not have been more obvious, and that the only truth they had tried to conceal had been revealed in a very embarrassing way: he could never have driven the pigeon away, but on the contrary, it had driven him out. Even if Madame Rocal had not heard the truth in his words, she would have seen it in his face by this moment, for he felt himself hot all over, blood rushing to his head, and his cheeks flushed with shame.
Mrs. Rocard, however, pretended not to notice anything (maybe she really didn't notice anything?) and said, "Thank you for the reminder, sir. I'll look for a chance to look at this. With that, she lowered her head, walked in an arc around Jonadam, and then kicked and walked towards the small toilet next to the porter, and soon flashed in.
Jonadan looked at her back. If at first he had hoped that someone would free him from the pigeons, now that hope was lost when he watched hopelessly as Madame Rocal disappeared into the little toilet. "She doesn't care about anything," he thought to himself, "absolutely not." Why should she care? She's just a janitor, and she's just cleaning the stairs and aisles, flushing the public toilets once a week, not chasing away a pigeon. Even if she didn't forget about it now, right now, she would have forgotten it by this afternoon, when she was filled with absinthe......
Jonadan arrived at the bank on time at a quarter past eight o'clock, five minutes before Mr. Werman, the bank's vice president, and Mrs. Roque, the bank's chief cashier. Together, they unlocked the lock on the gate: Jonathan opened the outer safety fence, Mrs. Roque opened the outer bulletproof glass door, and Mr. Werman opened the inner bulletproof glass door. Mr. Jonadam and Mr. Werman then used their respective blade keys to disarm the alarm system, with Mr. Jonadam and Mrs. Rock opening the two-lock fire door leading to the basement, and Mrs. Rocke and Mr. Werman going into the basement and using the keys paired with each other to open the vault. By this time, Jonadan had already locked the suitcase, umbrella, and winter coat into the closet next to the bathroom, stood next to the bulletproof glass door on the inside, and pressed two buttons with his hands to let in the bank clerks who were arriving one after another. These two buttons, one controls the outer bulletproof glass door and the other controls the inner layer, so that the two electric retractable doors open alternately. At 8:30 a.m., all the staff were there, and everyone was in place behind the window, at the cashier's desk, and at the office desk. Jonadan walked out of the banking hall and stood guard on the marble steps outside the main gate to begin his real work.
For thirty years, Jonadam's job consisted only of standing in front of the gate from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., at best, walking with steady steps on the lowest step of the three steps. Between about 9.30 a.m. and between 4.30 p.m. and 5 p.m., there was a brief interruption in each of his work, which was due to the entry and exit of the black limousine of the bank's president, Mr. Rodel. He had to leave the marble steps, hurry twelve meters down the gate of the bank building towards the backyard, pull open the heavy iron fence, raise his hand to the brim of his hat, and salute respectfully to let the limousine pass. Every morning or evening, when the blue bulletproof cargo truck of Brink Valuables Transportation Service pulls in or out, he does something similar. He had to open the bars for it, and the people in the car would get a salute, not respectfully, of course, with their hands stretched out against the brim, but between colleagues who hurriedly touched the brim of their forefingers. Other than that, there is nothing about Jonathan. He stood there, distracted, silently waiting. Sometimes staring at your feet, sometimes at the sidewalk, sometimes at a café across the street. Occasionally, he paced up the lowest step, seven steps to the left and seven steps to the right, sometimes to the bottom of the staircase and to the second, and sometimes, when the sun was strong and sweat was running down the hatband, he stood on the third step, which was shaded by the eaves above the gate. He took off his hat, wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve, and stood there stunned, waiting.
He once calculated that by the time of his retirement he would stand seventy-five thousand hours on the three marble steps, and that by that time he would surely be the longest man in the same place in all of Paris, and perhaps all of France. Perhaps he was already the one who had stood in the same place for the longest time, for he had spent fifty-five thousand hours on these marble steps. In the city, there are very few guards who are counted as regular employees. The vast majority of banks contract with so-called asset protection companies, which send people to guard their doors. These young guys with their legs spread apart, with blank faces, glazed eyes, are usually replaced after a few months, or a few weeks, by other guys who are also flat-faced and glazed. It is said that this is due to the psychology of labor: if a guard works in a place for too long, his concentration will be weakened, his sense of what is happening around him will be dulled, and he himself will become lazy and sloppy, and therefore incompetent for his job......
This is pure nonsense! Jonnathan knew better: the guards' attention had waned after a few hours. From day one, he had not consciously observed the people around him, let alone the hundreds of people who came in and out of the bank. This is also completely unnecessary, because it is impossible to see the difference between a bank robber and a bank customer anyway. Even if the guards were able to see the difference, the guy who rushed at the bank would have been shot dead by the robber before he could open the safety clasp of the holster, because the bank robber had an advantage over the guards in terms of suddenness.
The guard is like a sphinx, Jonadan thinks (because he once read about the sphinx in one of his books). The guard is like a sphinx, he does not act through some kind of action, but only through the appearance of his body, he uses his body to fend off potential robbers, and that's it. "You must pass me," the Sphinx said to the grave robbers, "I can't stop you, but you must pass me." If you dare to rob the tomb, the revenge of the gods and the pharaoh's spirits will fall on you!" The guard said, "You must pass by me, I cannot stop you, but if you dare to do so, you must shoot me to death, then the revenge of the court will fall on you, and you will be sentenced for murder!"
Of course, Jonnathan also knew that the Sphinx had a more effective means of punishment than the guards. It is impossible for the guards to threaten with the revenge of the gods, and there is no danger to the Sphinx in the event that the robbers do not care about any punishment. It was carved out of basalt – pure rock, molded in bronze or built of hard stone, and it has survived effortlessly for five thousand years, going through tomb robbing time and time again...... However, if the guards were caught in the bank robbery, they would have died within five seconds. Despite this, Jonadan still believes that the Sphinx and the guards are very similar to each other, as their power is not by means of equipment, but by symbolism. It was because of this symbolic power that Jonadan served as a guard for thirty years. This symbolic power formed all his pride and self-esteem, gave him strength and patience, gave him more effective protection than attention, weapons, bulletproof glass, and to this day he stands on the marble steps in front of the bank without fear, without doubt, without the slightest trace of dissatisfaction, without dull and indifferent facial expressions.
Today, however, everything has completely changed. Today, Jonadam couldn't keep himself in the same calm as the Sphinx no matter what. After standing for a few minutes, he felt the weight of his body weigh on his heels and felt a lot of pain, he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and when he slipped without paying attention to his feet, he quickly took a few steps to the side so as not to lose his balance. To this day, he has maintained his balance like a plumb weight for measurement. Suddenly, he felt an itch on his thighs, on both sides, and under his neck. After a while, my forehead itched too, as if it had cracked from dryness in winter. However, it was very hot now, a little too hot for a quarter past nine, and his forehead was covered with sweat, which usually only happened until eleven thirty o'clock...... His arms, chest, back, and calves also began to itch, and everywhere there was skin on his body. He really wanted to scratch the itch without any scruples. However, one of the guards openly tickled it, which was absolutely not possible at this moment, so he had to take a deep breath, straighten his chest, arch his back, shrug his shoulders, and rub his body and clothes back and forth in this way to reduce the degree of itching on his body. This abnormal twisting of his limbs only made his body shake even more, and a few small steps to the side were not enough to maintain his balance. Jonathan was compelled to break his custom and renounce his upright posture before Mr. Rodel's car arrived at about nine thirty. Round trip instead: seven steps to the left and seven steps to the right. At the same time, he tried to fix his gaze on the edge of the second-class marble steps, as if it were a trolley running back and forth on a safe track, and through his monotonous, identical impression of the marble steps he hoped for the calm and composure of the Sphinx, so that he would forget the weight of his body, the itching of his skin, and all his physical and mental disorders. But this did not help, and the trolley often went off the rails. With each blink of an eye, his gaze would leave the damn steps and jump into something else: a tattered newspaper on the sidewalk, a foot in blue socks, a woman's back, a shopping basket with bread, the bulbous handle of the outer bulletproof glass door, the flashing red diamond-shaped tobacco monopoly sign on the door of the coffee shop opposite, a bicycle, a straw hat, a face...... He could not draw strength from any one place, and he could not find a new anchor point from anywhere to provide him with support and orientation. Before he could see the straw hat on his right, a bus drew his attention to the street on his left. His gaze followed for a few meters before he turned to a white race car, which once again drew his gaze back to the street on the right. By this time the straw hat was gone, and his eyes searched in vain among the many pedestrians and among the many hats, and his gaze rested on a rose pinned to another hat and swaying in the wind, and then moved away from there and returned to the steps. His eyes remained idle, and he continued to scan around, constantly moving from dot to dot, from one stain to another, from one stripe to another...... Today, the air seems to be so hot that it hums, like on the afternoon of July at its hottest. All objects are covered with a transparent veil and tremble slightly. The house, the roof, and the ridge are all outlined by the sunlight in a dazzling, indistinct outline, as if they have been set with a circle of tassels. The gaps between the gutters and the fine ashlars of the pavement shimmered and zigzagged forward, usually straight as if they had been drawn with a ruler. The women all seemed to be dressed in dazzling costumes today, floating lightly like a burning flame, attracting Jonadam's gaze without letting it linger too long. Nothing is well-defined, nothing can be seen clearly. Everything is shaking incessantly.
It's because of my eyes, Jonadam thought to himself, and overnight I became nearsighted and needed a pair of glasses. When he was a child, he used to wear a pair of glasses, which were not deep, and the refractive power of his left and right eyes was 0.75. It's a bit strange that now that I'm older, my myopia has deepened. He read in the book that when people get older, their eyes are farsighted, and the degree of myopia will decrease. Perhaps he did not suffer from typical myopia in the past, but something that could not be corrected with glasses: cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachment, eye cancer, brain tumors that compressed the optic nerve......
He was so enchanted with this terrible thought that he did not hear a short, recurring trumpet sound in time. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth sound—the driver had now dragged out the horn—that he heard it, reacted hastily, and raised his head. Mr. Rodel's black limousine was already parked in front of the fence! The driver honked his horn again, apparently having been waiting for several minutes. In front of the fence!Mr. Rodel's limousine!When had he ever failed to notice the car's arrival? Normally, he didn't even need to look with his eyes, he could feel its arrival, he could hear the hum of its engine, he could doze off with peace of mind, and whenever Mr. Rodel's limousine approached, he would wake up as immediately as a dog.
He was not walking, but he threw himself forward, and in his hurry he almost fell to the ground, he unlocked the fence, pulled it open, raised his hand in salute, and let the car pass. He felt his heart pounding, and his hand against the brim of his hat trembled slightly.
By the time he locked the fence and walked towards the gate, he was already sweating. "You didn't notice Mr. Rodel's car," he muttered to himself in a slightly trembling voice, as if he couldn't understand it, "you didn't notice Mr. Rodel's car...... You don't notice it, you don't use it, you are grossly derelict in your duties, not only your eyes are not working, but your ears are also not working, you are old and you are no longer fit to be a guard. ”
He returned to the bottom of the marble staircase and struggled to climb the staircase, trying to reassume the guard posture, but he immediately realized that it was impossible to do so. Unable to keep his shoulders level, his arms dangling against the seams of his pants. He knew that he must be very ridiculous at this moment, but there was nothing he could do. He looked desperately and silently at the sidewalk, the street, and the café opposite. The fluttering phenomenon of the air is gone. The objects were all restored to their original state, the lines became horizontal and vertical again, and the whole world was clearly displayed before his eyes. He heard the rumble of a moving car, the sizzling of a bus's valves, the shouting of a café waiter, the clucking of a woman's heels. His visual and auditory abilities were not impaired in the slightest. Sweat rolled down his forehead. He felt weak. He turned, ascended the second step, then the third, and stood in the shadow in front of the column next to the outer bulletproof glass door. He crossed his hands behind his back and touched the column. He slowly leaned back, towards his hands, towards the cylinder, against which he had leaned his body for the first time in his thirty-year career. His eyes closed for a few seconds, and he felt very ashamed.
During his lunch break, he took out his suitcase, coat, and umbrella from his closet and went to the nearby Rue de Saint-Placid. There is a small hotel on this street, and the tenants are mainly university students and foreign workers. He asked for the cheapest room, and the inn offered him a room for fifty-five francs, which he rented without even looking at it, paid the rent in advance, and left his luggage at the reception. At the kiosk, he bought two snail-shaped raisin rolls and a bag of milk and walked towards Bucico Park opposite. The park is right in front of the cheap shops. He sat down on a bench under the shade of a tree and ate it.
About two benches away from him was a homeless man with a bottle of white wine between his thighs, half a piece of white French bread in his hand, and a bag of smoked sardines on the bench next to him. He took the fish by the tail, took the sardines out of the bag one by one, bit off the head, spit it out, stuffed the rest whole into his mouth, then took a bite of bread, drank a large sip of wine, and let out a contented hum. Jonadam knew this man, who always sat on the fence above the heating room in front of the store's warehouse in the winter and in front of the fashion store on Sèvres Street, or near the gate of the diplomatic mission, or next to the post office in the summer. Like Jonadam, he has lived in the urban area for decades. Jonadan remembers that when he first met him thirty years ago, there was a wave of envy in his heart for his carefree lifestyle. Jonathan went to work at nine o'clock every day, and the homeless man often did not show up until ten or eleven o'clock, and Jonathan had to stand upright while the man sat comfortably on a piece of cardboard smoking a cigarette, and Jonathan risked his life day after day, year after year, to guard the bank and toiled to earn a living, while this fellow had nothing to do but count on mercy and handouts from others, and throw some cash into his hat. His mood never seemed to be bad, and he didn't lose his temper even when the hat was empty. He never had a pained, uncomfortable, frightened, or bored expression, and he always exuded an indignant air of self-confidence and complacency, showing a free and easy spirit of provoking trouble.
Later, one autumn in the mid-seventies, Jonnathan once went to the post office on Dupont Street and nearly tripped over a wine bottle at the door—the bottle was placed on a piece of cardboard, between a plastic bag and a very familiar hat containing a few coins—and he involuntarily looked around looking for the homeless man. Not because he felt a little lost in not seeing the man, but because there was a lack of a center in this still life sketch of wine bottles, plastic bags, and cardboard...... He saw the man squatting between two cars parked across the street to shit: he was crouching in front of the gutter by the sidewalk, his pants down to his knees, his bare ass facing Jonadan, and passers-by could see the white ass as white as flour, with many blue spots and reddish scabs. It looked like a bedridden old man with a bedsore buttocks—but the man was no older than Jonadam's age, maybe thirty, thirty-five at most. At this moment, a large cloud of brown gruel-like liquid spewed out of the man's ugly buttocks, and a small puddle formed on the paved pavement, which surrounded the shoes like a pool of water, and the splashes stained the socks, the laces, the thighs, the trousers, the shirt, everything......
The scene was so bleak and miserable that it was so disgusting and shocking that Jonadan shuddered at the thought of it today. He stood stupidly stunned for a moment before running for his life to the post office, pay the electricity bill, and buy a few stamps, even though he didn't need them at all. His intention was simply to stay a little longer so that he would never meet the pooping homeless man again when he left the post office. He walked out of the post office with his eyes squinted and his gaze lowered, forcing himself not to look across the street. He stared to the left, and walked down Dupont Street, turning to the left, even though he had nothing to do to go to those places. As long as he doesn't go past the place where the bottles, cardboard and hats are kept, he will take a long detour. He crossed the streets of Schersch-Midi and Raspaj before returning to the rue de la Planzi, where he returned to the safe hiding place of his room.
From that moment on, the feeling of envy for the homeless man in Jonadain's heart was gone. If only then he had often wondered whether his job was meaningful, that is, to spend a third of his life standing in front of the bank, all he did was to pull the fence a few times, salute the limousine of the bank president, take very few vacations, pay very little, and disappear without a trace for most of it as taxes, rent, and social security...... He had wondered if it all made sense. Now, when he saw the horrific scene of Dupont Street, the answer was in front of him: Yes, this kind of work was meaningful, even meaningful, because it would save him from showing his ass in public and shit on the street. Is there anything more tragic than shit on the street with your bare ass in public? What could be more isolated and humiliating than taking off your pants, squatting on the ground, and being forced to do such embarrassing things in front of everyone? Shit! These two words alone carry the connotation of torture. Like all things that people have to do under irresistible pressure, no one else should be present in order for the person to be able to bear it...... Or at least as if no one was present: look for a wood, if the person is in the country, a bush, if the person is in the wilderness, or a ditch, or at dusk, if none of these are available, in an open area within a kilometer radius. So what to do in the city, where there are so many people, there is not a single dark corner, where even a lonely ruin is not safe enough to avoid the aggressive gaze. In the city, there is no other way to keep your distance from others than to hide in a well-locked hut. Whoever doesn't have this hut, this safe place to, is the most pitiful and pathetic of all, free and unfree. If money were scarce, Jonathan could get by, he could imagine himself wearing a scruffy blouse and a pair of tattered trousers, and if necessary—he used all his romantic imagination—he even thought it was conceivable to sleep on a piece of cardboard, and confine his cozy little home to a corner, next to a heating fence, or on a landing at a subway station. But if one is in a big city and there is not even a door behind him—even the door of the public toilet in the hallway—if one is deprived of this freedom, the most important freedom, the freedom to avoid others in one's own predicament, then all other freedoms are worthless, and life becomes meaningless, and it is better to die.
When Jonadam realized that the essence of human freedom lies in the possession of a public toilet in the hallway, and that he had this vital freedom, he felt a deep sense of satisfaction. yes, he's had a good life! he's lived a completely successful life. There is nothing, there is indeed nothing to regret for him, and there is no one to envy.
From this moment on, as if he had grown a pair of more determined legs, he stood in front of the gate of the bank, where he stood like a bronze statue. The strong self-confidence he had previously thought of as a tramp flowed into his body like molten metal, casting into an inner armor that made him even heavier. From then on, there was nothing to shake him, no doubt to shake him, and he found the peace of mind of the Sphinx. In the presence of that homeless man—if he meets him or sees him sitting anywhere—he produces only what is commonly called a feeling of tolerance: an emotion mixed with disgust, contempt, and sympathy. That person would never excite him again, he didn't care about that person anymore.
Until today, sitting in Bucico Park, eating snail-shaped raisin rolls and drinking bags of milk, this man doesn't care about Jonadain. He used to go home during his lunch break because he lived five minutes away. At home, he always makes something hot on the stove, such as omelets, ham poached eggs, cheese noodles, leftover porridge from the previous day, salad and coffee. It was a long time ago that I sat on a park bench and ate snail-shaped raisin rolls and drank bags of milk during my lunch break. He didn't have a particular sweet tooth and didn't drink milk. But to-day he had paid fifty-five francs for the inn room, and he thought it too much luxury to go to the café and order salad, beer, and omelets.
The homeless man on the bench opposite had already finished eating. After the sardines and bread, he ate cheese, raw pears and biscuits, took a long sip of wine, let out a contented hum, and then rolled his shirt into a pillow, laid it on a bench, rested his head on it, and stretched out his lazy, well-fed body for a nap. Now he's asleep. The sparrows jumped up and pecked at the crumbs, and then several pigeons were attracted to the bench and pecked at the bitten sardine head on the ground with their black beaks. The homeless man was not disturbed by these birds in the slightest, and slept peacefully and peacefully.
Jonadan looked at him as a strange uneasiness struck him. But this uneasiness is not due to envy, as before, but to amazement. He could not help but ask himself, how could this man who was over fifty still alive? With his way of life, which was not responsible for his own life at all, he should not have starved to death, froze to death, died of cirrhosis—he would have died a certain death anyway? On the contrary, he ate and drank with relish, and slept soundly and sweetly. He wears a pair of patched trousers — certainly not the one he took off when he pooped on Dupont Street, but a pair of pretty, arguably fashionable fleece pants with only a few patches — and a cotton coat that gives the impression of a man who is in perfect harmony with himself and with the outside world and enjoys life...... And he was a man who was upright, law-abiding, simple, ascetic, neat, punctual, obedient, reliable, and decent...... Every penny of his salary is earned by himself, and no matter what it is, he has always paid cash, electricity, rent, and the porter's Christmas tip...... Never been in debt, never burdened anyone, never even sick, never spent social security payments...... I have never hurt anyone, and there is no other luxury in life except to maintain and protect a little peace of mind for myself, and there is no ...... At the age of fifty-three, however, he was suddenly thrust into a crisis that shook his entire life plan, and made him so confused that he ate snail-shaped raisin rolls out of confusion and fear. Yes, he was terrified! Indeed, he trembled at the mere sight of the sleeping tramp: he was suddenly terrified, and he feared that he too would become the destitute man lying on the bench. How quickly does a man become impoverished and decayed!How quickly does his seemingly solid foundation of life crumble!" You did not see Mr. Rodel's car," he suddenly remembered again, "what has never been, and will never be allowed to be, has come today: you have not seen this car." If you don't see the car today, you may neglect your entire job tomorrow, you may lose the key to the barred gate, you will be disgracefully fired the next month, and you will not be able to find a new job, because who will hire someone who is not useful? No one can live on unemployment benefits. By then you had long since lost your room, where a pigeon lived. A family of pigeons lives in your room and makes it dirty and messy. The cost of the inn rises unfathomably, and you get drunk and drunk, and you drink more and more, and you drink all your savings, and you fall into the mire of drunkenness, and you will be sick, and you will be depraved, and you will be covered with lice, and you will be destitute, and you will be thrown out of the last of the cheapest inns, penniless, and empty-handed, and you will stand in the streets, and live in the streets, and sleep in the streets, and on the streets, and you will be finished, and in a year, you will be finished, and you will be a bum, in tattered clothes, and lie on a bench in the park like him, your poor buddy。 ”
His mouth became dry, and he took his eyes off the sleeping man, who meant bad omen, and swallowed the last bite of the snail-shaped raisin rolls. It took a long time for the bread to swallow into his stomach, and it crawled into his esophagus like a snail, and several times it seemed to be stuck, and it choked him so much that it hurt like a nail drilling through his chest, and Jonadan thought that this time he had to choke to death on this pesky piece of bread, but then it slid down little by little, and finally reached the bottom, the spasmodic pain disappeared, and Jonadan took a deep breath. He wanted to leave now, not wanting to stay here any longer, even though there was still half an hour left in the lunch break. He's tired of it, and he's not interested in this place. He dusted off the crumbs that had fallen on the knee of his overalls with the back of his hand, pinched the folds of his trousers, stood up, and walked away without looking at the homeless man.
When he returned to Sèvres Street, he suddenly remembered to put the milk bag on a park bench. He felt unhappy because he hated people throwing their garbage on benches or in the streets, not where it should be, the ubiquitous garbage baskets. He himself had never littered or left garbage on a park bench, never, neither by negligence nor forgetfulness, that would not have happened to him at all...... Therefore, he did not want this to happen today, precisely today, when many unpleasant things have happened one after another. He had gone down the wrong path, he behaved like a fool, like an abnormal fellow, like a man out of step with this society—not noticing Mr. Rodel's car! Lunch was spent in the park with snail-shaped raisin rolls! If he had not now been careless in his little things, and had not resisted with the utmost determination the most minor negligence such as the littering of milk bags, he would soon have no support, and nothing could prevent his tragic doom.
So, he turned around and went back to the park. From a long distance he saw that the bench on which he had sat was empty, and when he got closer, he saw the white milk sack through the slit of the back of the chair, painted dark green, and he breathed a sigh of relief, as if his negligence had not yet attracted anyone's attention, and that he could correct the unforgivable mistake. He walked up to the bench from behind, leaned deep into the back of the chair, took the milk bag with his left hand, and as he stood up, he jerked to the right, in the direction of the nearest garbage basket he knew—then he felt his trousers suddenly tugged down heavily, but he had no time to retreat, for it was so sudden, and he was in a motion that was spinning upwards in the opposite direction. As his pants were pulled down, there was an unpleasant sound, a loud "whoop", and he felt a gust of wind blow through the skin of his left thigh, indicating that the air outside had broken in unhindered. For a moment he was so stunned that he didn't even dare to look at it, and the sound of the "whoop"—which was still ringing in his ears—was so loud as if not only had something on his trousers been torn, but that himself, this bench, this park, had been torn open like a great crack in the earthquake, and all the people around seemed to have heard the terrible "whoop," and now they were all looking at him angrily, and taking him as the culprit. But no one was looking at him. A few elderly women continued to weave, and several elderly men continued to read the newspaper. On the small playground, several children continued to play on the slide, and the homeless man was still sleeping. Jonadan slowly lowered his gaze, the tear was about twelve centimeters long, and from the lower end of his left trouser pocket, which was caught by a protruding screw on the bench when he turned around, down his thigh, not neatly along the seam of the trousers, but horizontally in the middle of the beautiful gabardine cargo pants, and then turned at a right angle. The folds that had been ironed out of the trousers were torn about two thumb widths, so that instead of an unobtrusive crack, there was a visible hole in the trousers, on which a small pennant fluttered.
Jonadan felt the adrenaline rush into his bloodstream, and he had read in a book that when the body was in extreme danger and the spirit was about to collapse completely, the adrenal glands excreted this irritating substance in order to mobilize the last reserves in the body to escape for life or to fight for the last life-and-death struggle. In fact, he felt that he was wounded, and it seemed that not only his pants but also his own flesh had been torn open with a twelve-centimeter wound. His blood, his life circulating in his body, was gushing out of the wound, and if he didn't close it immediately, he would die. But it was this adrenaline that enlivened in a wonderful way what he thought he was going to die of bleeding, his heart beating hard, his courage flowing, his thoughts suddenly became very clear, and he was focused on one goal. "You must act now," a voice cried out in his heart, "you must act now to close this hole, or you're done!" As he asked himself what he could do, he already knew the answer—the elixir of adrenaline works so quickly that fear can hasten the effect of wisdom and energy. He decisively grabbed the milk bag that he had been holding in his left hand with his right hand, nested it in a ball, threw it aside, threw it anywhere, on the grass, on the road covered with sand, and he didn't care. He pressed the hole in his trouser leg tightly with his free left hand, and ran away. He stretched his left leg as far as he could, so that his left hand would not slide, and his right arm swayed like a madness, and with the characteristic gait of a lame man, he hurried out of the park, out of the rue de Sèvres, and he had less than half an hour to go.
There was a seamstress in the food department of the bargain shop at the corner of Buck Street, whom he had seen a few days earlier. She was sitting near the entrance, where the shopping cart was placed. There was a small sign on her sewing machine, which he clearly remembered: Jean Nina Topel – who specialises in altering old clothes and sewing them also – is finely made and quick to deliver. This woman would have helped him, and she would have helped him, if she hadn't taken a lunch break. She probably won't be taking a lunch break. No, no, otherwise it would be too unlucky, he wouldn't have encountered so many unlucky things in one day. Not now, not at such extremely difficult times. If a person is in the most difficult time, he will be lucky and will be helped. Mrs. Toppel will be where the work is, and she will help.
Mrs. Topper was where she was working! He saw her at the entrance of the food department sitting in front of the sewing machine. Yes, Mrs. Topel is trustworthy, and even during her lunch break, she is still working, attentive and quick. He ran to her, stood beside the sewing machine, removed his hand from his thigh, glanced at his watch hurriedly, and at two o'clock and five he cleared his throat and opened his mouth and said, "Madame!"
Mrs. Topel finished the pleats of a red pleated skirt in her hand, stopped the sewing machine, loosened the stitches, cut the thread, and looked up at Jonadain. She wore a pair of large glasses, with thick mother-of-pearl frames and thick lenses, which made her eyes look like giants and turned her eye sockets into hidden pools. Her hair was chestnut brown and hung straight down to her shoulders, her lips were silvery-purple, she was perhaps forty-eight or nineteen, she might be fifty-five or sixteen, and she behaved like those ladies who were so disgraced that they no longer really deserved the title of "lady," and people quickly came to trust them as such. Her fingers—she pushed her glasses up her nose with them so that she could see Jonadam clearly—her fingers were short, like little sausages, and in spite of all the manual work, they were well maintained, and their nails were stained silvery-purple. It's quite a bit of a trustworthy charm. Mrs. Topel asked in a slightly hoarse voice, "Is there something wrong with you?"
Jonadan turned his body to her side, pointed to the hole in his pants and asked, "Can you make up for this?" Because he felt that his question was too abrupt to make one see that he was in a state of adrenaline-induced agitation, he lowered his tone and added in as casual a tone as possible, "It's a hole, a small crack...... A little misfortune, ma'am, can you make up for it?"
Mrs. Topper moved her wide-eyed gaze to Jonadain's body, found the hole in her thigh, and bent down to take a closer look. Her sleek, chestnut-brown hair slid from her shoulders to the back of her head, revealing a short, white, chubby neck, and at the same time emanating from her a scent, so rich and fragrant, so intoxicating, that Jonadan involuntarily tilted his head back and quickly moved his gaze from the nearby neck to the distant supermarket. For a moment, he had been staring at the space in front of him, rows of shelves, refrigerators, cheese and sausage counters, bargain counters, mountains of wine bottles, vegetable shelves, customers pushing shopping carts, pulling children, shuttling customers, salespeople, cashiers and storekeepers—the crowd was bustling, and he Yonadan, in his torn pants, stood to the side, exposed to the public...... A thought crossed his mind that Mr. Villeman, Mrs. Roque, and even Mr. Rodell might be watching him in the crowd as he was examined in public by a chestnut-haired, middle-fashioned lady of an embarrassing part of his body. He felt a little uncomfortable, especially as he felt the skin of Madame Topel's thigh, like a small sausage, touch the skin of his thigh, and she was turning the torn flag up and down again......
But at this moment Mrs. Topel straightened up from his thighs and sat down in the chair with his back, and the smell of perfume in his nose disappeared, and Jonadan lowered his head, and withdrew his gaze from the bewildering space in the distance, to the large, thick glasses of the trusty Mrs. Topel in front of him.
"How?" he asked, followed by a second question, "How?" He was both nervous and impatient, like a patient standing in front of a doctor, afraid of a dismal diagnosis.
"No problem," said Mrs. Topell, "just to line something underneath, and perhaps leave a little seam, no other way." ”
"It doesn't matter," said Jonadan, "it doesn't matter if there's a little seam, and who would look into this remote place?" he said, glancing at his watch, at two fourteen. "So, you can make it up, you can help me, ma'am?"
"Yes, of course. Mrs. Toppel said, pushing the glasses that had slipped down a little from the hole and pushed it to the bridge of her nose.
"Ah, thank you, ma'am," said Jonadam, "I thank you so much. You helped me get out of this dilemma. I have one more request now, can you ...... "There's ......only ten minutes, can you make it up right away?" I mean, right now, without a minute?"
There are questions that people have rejected as soon as they ask them, and there are requests that people look into the eyes of the other person as soon as they ask them and know that they are completely futile. Jonadan looked at Mrs. Topel's blackened giant-like eyes, and immediately understood that everything was meaningless, hopeless, and hopeless. He already knew it before that, when he was still stammering questions, he already knew it, so to speak, he felt it from his own body, and when he looked at his watch, he felt that the level of adrenaline in his blood was dropping: ten minutes to go. He felt like he was sinking, like standing on a piece of soft ice that was about to melt into water. Ten minutes! Who can heal this terrible hole in ten minutes? This is impossible. It can't be done at all. Besides, you can't just fill the hole in your thigh, you have to put something underneath, which means you have to take off your pants. But in the meantime, in the middle of the food department of the cheap store, where are you going to get another pair of pants? Take off your pants and stand here in your underwear?...... Ridiculous, ridiculous.
"Immediately?" asked Mrs. Topell. Even though Jonadan knew it was all in vain, he nodded despite a deep sense of frustration that gripped him.
Mrs. Topel smiled. "Look, sir, look at these things," she said, pointing to a two-metre-long coat rack full of dresses, jackets, trousers, and blouses, "and I have to do it at once, and I have to do it for ten hours a day." ”
"Yes, of course," said Jonadam, "I understand perfectly, ma'am, that this is a stupid question. When do you think I'll be able to fill this hole?"
Topel turned back to her sewing machine, leveled the material of the red dress, and lowered the stitches. "If you bring your pants in the next Monday, they can be mended in three weeks. ”
"Three weeks later?" Jonadam repeated numbly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Toppel, "after three weeks, it could not be any faster. ”
Then she kicked the machine, and her presser feet rattled. At this moment, Jonathan felt as if he didn't exist at all. Although he could see Madame Topel sitting at the sewing machine less than an arm's length away, he could see her chestnut-brown hair, mother-of-pearl glasses, short, thick fingers moving quickly, and a whirring needle at the edge of the red dress...... You can also see the bustling crowd in the supermarket behind the seamstress...... But suddenly he couldn't see himself, that is, he no longer saw himself as a part of the world around him, and for a few seconds he felt that he was standing far away, in a paradise, as if he were looking at the world through an upside-down telescope. Feeling dizzy and dizzy again as he had been in the morning, he staggered as he took a step to the side, turned around, and walked towards the exit. Through the movement of walking, he returned to this world, and the telescopic effect disappeared from his eyes. But he still felt lost in his heart.
He bought a roll of self-adhesive tape in the stationery department and pasted the cracks in his trousers so that the little pennant would not open with every step. Then he went back to work.
He spent the whole afternoon in a mood of sorrow and exasperation, and he stood on the top step in front of the bank, close to the column, but not leaning on it, because he did not want to give in to his weakness. Actually, it was impossible for him to lean on it at all, because to lean on it without attracting attention, he had to cross his hands behind his back, however, this was not possible, because his left hand had to hang down where the thigh was covered with tape. Therefore, in order to maintain a stable posture, he was forced to stand with his legs spread apart like those silly boys. He felt his spine bulge outwards as a result, and he was usually straight, and naturally his neck was tucked between his shoulders along with his head and hat, so that the contemptuous gaze and depressed expression of the other guards naturally appeared under the brim. He felt like he had become strange, and a caricature of a guard appeared in front of him, a caricature of himself. He despised himself, hated himself for those hours. He resented himself with anger and wanted to rush out of his skin, and he really wanted to rush out of his skin, because his whole body was itching at this moment. He can no longer even scratch by rubbing against his own clothes and body, because every pore of his skin is sweating, and his clothes are attached to his skin like a second skin. The places that are not attached to the skin, and there is still a little space between the clothes and the skin, are the depressions above the calves, forearms, and sternum...... The itchy place was precisely in this depression, for the stinging, itchy beads of sweat were dripping down in large drips—precisely this place where he did not want to tickle, no, he did not want to get this possible little pleasure, for it would not make his whole miserable situation any better, but would only make it more obvious and ridiculous. He is willing to suffer now, and the more he suffers, the better. The suffering was right for him, justified his hatred and anger, and fanned the fire of his hatred and anger, which in turn led to suffering, because they boiled his blood more and more, and squeezed more and more beads of sweat out of the pores of his skin. Sweat was dripping down his face and the hairs on his chin and neck, and the brim of his hat was stuck on his swollen forehead, but he wouldn't take it off anyway, even for a moment. The hat should be worn on his head like a lid tightly screwed on a pressure cooker, and over his temples like a tight hoop, even if his head explodes. He didn't want to do anything in order to alleviate his suffering. He stood there, not moving, for hours. He only felt that his spine was getting more and more curved, his shoulders, neck, and head were drooping lower and lower, and his body was short and fat, like a toad.
Eventually—he could not and would not stop it—his long-standing self-hatred filled his body, and poured out of his body, into the increasingly sinister and vicious eyes under the brim of his hat, and turned into an extremely brutal hatred of the outside world. Jonadan casts a patina over everything in his field of vision. One can say that the true face of the world can no longer enter his body through his eyes, and the direction of the light seems to be reversed, and the eyes are only used as a door to the outside world, in order to paint the whole world with funny pictures: for example, the waiters on the sidewalk in front of the café across the street, these young, mischievous, stupid waiters sit lazily between the tables and chairs, gossiping, playing, getting in the way of passers-by, whistling behind the girl's back. The roosters didn't do anything, except occasionally threw the customer's drink loudly at the counter inside the open door, shouting, "A cup of coffee, a bottle of beer, a bottle of lemonade!" and then they reluctantly walked through the door, pretending to be in a hurry, and brought out the drink they wanted. The waiters made pretentious, juggling gestures to bring the drink to the customer: they swirled the cup and placed it on the table, tucked the bottle of Coca-Cola between their thighs and opened the cap with their hand, spit out the bill between their lips and pressed it under the ashtray in one hand, and reached out to the adjacent table with the other hand to collect a large handful. The prices are staggering: five francs for a cup of espresso, eleven francs for a small beer, and fifteen percent of the service charge and extra gratuities for the posing waiter. Yes, these idle gentlemen, these brazen scoundrels, that's what they're waiting for, an extra tip—— otherwise they won't even say "thank you", let alone "goodbye", and if the customer doesn't give an extra tip, it's just a cloud of air in the eyes of the waiter, and when they leave the café, they can only see the waiter's arrogant back and arrogant ass. Stuffed with bulging black purses in their trouser pockets above their butts, because they thought it was chic, these stupid dudes flaunted purses like fat tailbones—well, he wished he could stab them with his gaze at these arrogant, penetrating second-rate people in short-sleeved uniforms! He wanted to run over and grab them by the ears, pull them out from under the cool umbrellas, slap them in the street, crackle, shoot them left and right, slap them in the mouth, punch them in the ass......
But not just beat them! No, not only the stinking waiters, but also the customers' butts. The silly tourists, the scoundrels in summer clothes, straw hats, and sunglasses on the bridge of their noses, sit lazily and drink expensive cool drinks, while others stand sweating and work. And beat up the car drivers! There! These stupid monkeys sitting in stinky, polluted air, nasty noises have nothing better to do than drive around the streets of Sèvres all day. Isn't the air polluted enough? Isn't the noise of this street, this city enough, isn't the heat coming from the sky enough? Don't you have to use your engines to suck up and burn up the last bit of air you can breathe, and blow it into the noses of the decent public with toxins, dust, and hot smoke? You garbage bags! You criminals! You should be wiped out. Whip, exterminate, shoot. Everyone, everyone. He wanted to draw his pistol and shoot it indiscriminately, into the café, through the glass window, at the cars, or simply at the skyscrapers opposite, at these ugly, tall, palpitating high-rises, or towards the air, upwards, towards the sky, yes, towards the hot sky, towards the foggy, gray-blue-gray-blue sky that weighed heavily overhead, and smash it to pieces, so that this shell as heavy as lead cracked and collapsed. Overturned, crushed everything into powder, buried underneath, everything, everything, the whole hateful, nasty, noisy, foul-smelling world. That afternoon, Jonadam Noel's hatred was so wide, so great, that he wanted to turn the whole world into rubble and ashes for a hole in his trousers.
However, he did nothing, and thankfully, he didn't do anything. He didn't shoot at the sky, at the café opposite, or at the cars coming and going, he stood still, sweating and motionless. The hatred that had elicited in him, and the hostility to the world that flowed from his gaze, had also made him so limp that he could no longer move his limbs, let alone reach for a gun or pull the trigger. yes, he couldn't even shake his head anymore and shake off a small uncomfortable bead of sweat from the tip of his nose. This power turned him into a fossil. In the course of a few hours, the power of this power had indeed turned him into a Sphinx, a majestic but vain stone statue. This force has a certain voltage that can suck up a core of iron like a magnet and suspend it in the air. It also has a tremendous amount of pressure that can press the first masonry of a building's vault firmly against a fixed position. It's a hypothetical virtual power whose full potential resides in "I want, I might, I do." Jonadan weaves the most terrifying virtual threats and curses in his mind, and he knows that he will never be able to make it a reality. He was not a man who did such a thing, not a murderer who committed a crime out of inner anguish, insanity, or impulse. This is not because he feels that such criminal behavior is morally turpitude, but simply because it is simply impossible for him to put his attitude into action or words. He is not a positive man, but a man who is submissive.
At about five o'clock in the afternoon, he was in such a miserable state that he felt that he could no longer leave the place in front of the column of the third step of the bank's gate, and that he would surely die here. He felt at least twenty years old, twenty centimeters shorter, and hours of external sun exposure and internal anger had melted him and drained his energy, yes, he felt exhausted, because he could no longer feel the wet sweat on his body. He was exhausted, like a stone sphinx that had weathered, eroded, and cracked for five thousand years, and it would not be long before he would be dried, scorched, shrunk, shattered, turned to dust and ashes, and lay in this place. Now he could barely stand there, like a small pile of garbage, blown away by a gust of wind, or swept away by a cleaning lady, or washed away by the rain. Yes, this is how he ended: he would not die in his own bed in his own home as a respectable, pensionable old man, but would stay forever in this place in front of the bank like a small pile of garbage! He hoped that this had already come to this point, that the process of decay would be accelerated and that it would come to an end sooner. He wished he could really lose consciousness, go limp in his knees, and pass out. He tried with all his might to make himself unconscious and faint to the ground. When he was young, he used to have this ability. He can cry whenever he wants, he can hold his breath until he faints, and he can even stop his heart beating once. Now he can't do anything, he can't control himself anymore. He could no longer even bend his knees and squat on the ground. He could only stand and endure everything.
Then he heard the soft sound of Mr. Rodel's car, not the beep of the car horn, but a soft birdsong, the sound of a car that had just started as it drove from the backyard to the gate. Just as this slight sound reached his ears and entered his ears like a storm through all the nerves in his body, Jonadan felt his joints rattle, his spine elongated, his outstretched right leg involuntarily moved closer to his left leg, his left heel turned, his right knee bent and he took a step forward, then his left knee bent and then his right knee...... He jumped down three steps, walked briskly to the door, pulled open the fence, kept upright, and raised his right hand to the brim of his hat to let the car pass. He does all this like a robot, without the slightest personal will, and his conscious involvement is limited to being aware of these movements and movements. Jonadam's only unique contribution to the affair was to glare viciously at the speeding Monsieur Rodel's car, and curse silently.
However, when he returned to the position where he had stood, the anger in his heart, the last impulse that existed in him, gradually disappeared. As he mechanically ascended the three steps, the last of his hatred was gone. When he returned to the top of the steps, there was no more fierce and vicious gaze in his eyes. He looked down the street with a dejected gaze. He felt that these eyes did not belong to him at all, as if he were sitting behind his eyes, as if looking out through two inanimate round windows. Yes, he felt as if the shell that had wrapped around him was no longer his own, that he had no more than Nathan—or what was still left of him—was just a small, shriveled dwarf in the body of a tall stranger, a dwarf who was tied to an overly large, overly complex humanoid machine, helpless, helpless, he could no longer dominate, could no longer manipulate the humanoid machine as he pleased, and it either manipulated itself or was manipulated by some other force. Now the machine stood silently in front of the column, standing for the last ten minutes of its working day—no longer able to maintain its inner peace like the Sphinx, but hanging there like a puppet with a stripped string. At 5:30 a.m., Mr. Verman appeared in front of the outer bulletproof glass door and shouted, "Close the door!" At this time, the humanoid puppet machine Jonadam Noel obediently got into operation, walked into the bank, stood next to the console of the electric door closer, opened the device, and alternately pressed the two buttons that controlled the inner and outer bulletproof glass doors in order to let the staff out of the door. Subsequently, together with Mrs. Roark, he locked the fire door leading to the underground vault, which had been jointly locked by Mrs. Roark and Mr. Werman, opened the alarm system with Mr. Wheelman, turned off the electric door locking device, walked out of the bank with Mrs. Roark and Mr. Wheelman, and locked the safety fence as prescribed after Mr. Weldman and Mrs. Roark had locked the inner and outer bulletproof glass doors, respectively. Then he bowed awkwardly to Mrs. Roque and Mr. Velman, and opened his mouth to say goodnight and happy weekend to them, and at the same time accepted the thanks, and Mr. Velman's best wishes for the weekend and Mrs. Roarke's "Monday," and he politely waited until they had walked a few steps before merging into the flow of people, and allowing himself to be swept in the opposite direction of theirs.
Walking calms people and walks have a health benefit. The rhythmic swing of the arms, the regular step by step walking, the increased breathing rate, the gentle beating of the pulse, the necessary work of the ears and eyes to orient and maintain balance, the feeling of air passing over the skin...... All of this merges the body and the spirit in an irresistible way, allowing even withered and damaged souls to grow and develop.
The same is true for the dual personality of Jonadan, a dwarf hidden in an overly large puppet body. Gradually, step by step, he grew, gradually approaching his shell, stuffing it from within, visibly controlling it, and finally merging with it. This is what happened around the corner from Buck Street. He crossed the rue de Barker (where the puppet Jonathan should have naturally turned to the right and followed the familiar route to rue de la Prussian), deliberately ignoring the rue Saint-Placid, where the inn was located, and went straight down to the rue Friars Gregvar, and from there to the rue de la Vogillar, and from there to the Jardin du Luxembourg. He walked into the park and circled three times along the forest vagina next to the fence. The road is the outermost and therefore the longest, and some people are jogging. Then he turned south, walked up the Avenue Montparnasse, walked around the Montparnasse cemetery, walked again, then went west to the 15th arrondissement, crossed the whole 15th arrondissement to the Seine, went up the Seine, went northeast to the 7th arrondissement, and then to the 6th arrondissement, and he walked and walked - there is no end to the summer night - and returned to the Jardin du Luxembourg. When he got to the door, the park had just closed. He stopped in front of the tall fence gate, which was to the left of the Senate building. At about nine o'clock, the sky was still bright and almost daylight, and I could only feel that night was approaching from the soft golden yellow sky and the purple edges of the shade of the trees. The cars on the streets of Wagilar were becoming scarcer, only one appeared once in a while, and the crowd on the street had long since dispersed. The groups of people at the exit of the park and on the street corners soon left, and one by one disappeared into the streets and alleys around the Teatro Adeon and the church of San Sulpis, some for an aperitif, some to the restaurant, and some to go home. The air is soft and has a hint of florals. The surroundings were quiet, and Paris was eating.
He suddenly felt exhausted. After walking for several hours, my thighs, back, and shoulders ached, and my feet hurt hotly in my shoes. Suddenly, he felt so hungry that his stomach cramped. He wanted a bowl of porridge, a salad and fresh white bread, and a piece of meat. He knew a nearby restaurant, on rue Cannet, where everything was available, and a meal plus service charge totaled forty-seven francs and fifty centimes. But he couldn't just sweat and stink in his torn pants.
He began to walk towards the hotel. On the way, on the Rue de Assas, a Tunisian grocery store was still open, and he bought a saldine soaked in oil, a small piece of lanolin cheese, a raw pear, a bottle of red wine and an Arabic bread.
The room in the hotel was smaller than the one on the rue de la Prancy, and the wall on the other side of the door was not much wider than the door, and the longest side was only three metres at most. The walls, of course, do not meet at right angles, but, as viewed from the direction of the door, they divide diagonally to the sides until the room is about two meters wide, and then they move closer to each other and meet at the façade to form a triangular apse-like space. This room looks like a coffin from the plane, and the opening room is not much more spacious than the coffin. On one side of the long wall there is a bed, on the other side is a washbasin, below which is a bathtub that can be turned down, and a chair rests in the triangular apse of the church, and the window opens to the upper right of the washbasin, against the ceiling, which is a small glass lid with glass, tied with two ropes, which can be opened and closed, like a light well, through which a faint stream of moist and hot air blows into the coffin, bringing in some dull sounds from the outside world: the clanging of cups and plates, the pumping of toilets, The sound of staccato Spanish and Portuguese speaking, a burst of laughter, the cry of a child, and sometimes a car horn from a long distance.
Jonathan squatted on the edge of the bed to eat in his underwear and underwear, pulled the chair over as a table, placed the cardboard box on it, and spread the shopping bag on the box. He used his knife to cut the sardine's torso in half, forked it in half, rested it on a slice of bread, and stuffed it into his mouth. During the chewing, the crunchy oil-soaked sardines and the bland and tasteless slices of bread turn into a delicious mass. Maybe a few drops of lemon juice were missing, he thought. However, it can already be said that it is a luxurious meal. Every time he finished a bite of bread and drank a small sip of red wine from a bottle, letting it run through his tongue and swim between his teeth, the rusty sardines and the slightly sour, richly fragrant wine merged in a convincing way, and Jonadam was convinced that he had never eaten a better meal in his life than now, more than now. There are four sardines in the can, which can be eaten in eight bites, munched leisurely on the bread, and then drunk eight sips of wine. He ate slowly. He once read in a magazine that eating too hard when he was extremely hungry was not good for his health, and it could cause indigestion and even nausea and vomiting. In addition, the reason why he chewed slowly was because he thought that this was his last meal.
After eating the sardines, he dipped the rest of the oil from the can with bread, and then began to eat mutton butter cheese and raw pears. The juice of the pear was so great that it almost slipped out of his hand while peeling. The sheep fat cheese was pressed very firmly, and it was already a little sticky, and even stuck to the blade, and it tasted sour and bitter, and the gums began to shrink as if frightened, and even the saliva was scared away for a while. He then ate the raw pear, and after taking a mouthful of the sweet, juicy pear, everything began to flow and dissolve again, leaving the front palate and teeth, sliding over the tongue, and then downward...... Another bite of cheese, a slight startle, and a refreshing bite of raw pear, cheese, raw pear...... It tasted so good that he scraped the last bit of cheese residue off the paper with a knife, and ate it all along with the little bit of pear flesh that had been cut off from the pit he had cut at first.
He sat pensively for a while, licked his teeth with his tongue, and then ate the last bite of bread and drank the last sip of wine. He put together the empty cans, pear peels, and cheese wrappers, wrapped them in a shopping bag along with the breadcrumbs, put the garbage and empty wine bottles in the corner behind the door, removed the box from the chair, put the chair back in the triangular apse, washed his hands and went to bed. He rolled up the woolen blanket and put it on his feet, covering him with only a sheet. Then he turned off the lights. The room was pitch black, and there was not even a single ray of light coming in from the window above, only a faint, damp, hot air stream and a sound from a far, far away. The weather was very muggy. "I'll kill myself tomorrow. He said. After a while, he fell asleep.
There was a thunderstorm at night, and it was not the kind of thunderstorm that thundered and thundered as soon as it was spoken, but a thunderstorm that could not come for a long time and suppressed its own strength for a long time. The clouds lingered in the air for two hours, gently lightning and softly thundering, from one city to another, as if it did not know where to gather, and at the same time it spread out, bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, until at last it covered the whole city like a thin sheet of lead-gray coverers, and it was still waiting, and by hesitating to charge itself with more electricity, it still did not strike...... There was not a single movement under the quilt, not a single wind in the sultry air, not a single leaf moving, not a single speck of dust moving, the city seemed to freeze, and it shivered a little—if it may say so—it shivered in a paralyzing state of tension, as if it were a thunderstorm itself, waiting for the moment to explode into the sky.
It was almost dawn, and the sky was slightly white, when at last there was a thunderclap in the sky, and it was the only sound, as if the whole city had exploded. Jonadan sat up from the bed. He didn't realize it was a thunderbolt, let alone hear it was thunder, and worse: the moment he woke up, the thunderbolt made him feel extremely frightened, he didn't know the reason for the fear, it was the fear of death. The only sound he heard was the echo of a thunderbolt, an echo repeated many times and a rumbling thunder. At first glance, it sounds as if the houses outside are falling like bookshelves. His first thought was: now is the time, this is the end. He was not just referring to his own end, but also the end of the world, the destruction of the world, an earthquake, an atomic bomb, or both – it was an absolute end anyway.
But then all at once there was a dead silence, no more rumbling thunder, no collapse, no cracking, nothing, no echo. This sudden, continuous silence was even more terrifying than the screams of a world that was being destroyed. For Jonadan felt that though he still existed, there was nothing but him, no opposite, no above, no below, no outside, nothing else that would allow him to discern his direction. All the senses, all the senses, the sights, the hearings, the balance—everything that could tell him where he was, who he was, was plunged into a void of darkness and silence. He could only feel the beating of his heart and the tremor of his body. He knew only that he was in bed, but he did not know which bed it was, and he did not know where it was—if it was still standing, if it had not yet overturned, had not fallen into some bottomless abyss—the bed seemed to shake, and he clung to the mattress with both hands to prevent him from falling off the bed, in case he lost the only thing he was holding. He looked for support in the darkness with his eyes, and he relied on the silence with his ears, and he could hear nothing, see nothing, nothing, his stomach churned, and a foul smell of sardines welled up. "Don't throw up," he thought, "don't throw up, don't turn yourself out now!" ...... After a long and frightening time, he finally saw something, it was a faint light in the upper right, a little bit of light. He stared blankly at the upper right, his eyes fixed on it, a small bright spot in a square, a small hole, a boundary between inside and outside, a unique window in a room...... Which room is it? It's not his room! It's not your room! The windows of your room are above the foot of the bed, not next to the ceiling. This is...... It's not my uncle's house, it's the children's dormitory at Charente's parents' house—no, it's not the children's bedroom, it's the cellar, yes, the cellar, you're in the cellar of your parents' house, you're a child, you're just having a dream that you've grown up and become a nasty old guard in Paris, but you're a child, you're sitting in the cellar of your parents' house, there's a war going on outside, you're captured, you're buried, you're forgotten. Why didn't they come? Why didn't they save me? Why is there deathly silence here?Where are the others? My God, where are the others? I can't live without anyone else!
He almost shouted, he wanted to shout into the darkness, "I can't live without anyone else!" He was extremely confused, and the old boy Jonadam Noel was so terrified that his fear of loneliness was so great. Then, just as he was about to shout, he was answered, and he heard a noise.
There was a beating, very soft, and another beat, a third, a fourth, somewhere overhead, and then the beating became a rhythmic, soft drumming, and it grew quicker and faster, and at last it was no longer a drumming, but a powerful and cheerful crackling sound, which Jonadan could hear as the sound of raindrops.
The room had returned to its original order, and Jonadam could now see that the highlight of the square was the well-like trap, and he could distinguish the outline of the room, the washbasin, the chairs, the chests, and the walls in the dim light.
He let go of his grip on the mattress, brought his legs to his chest, and wrapped his arms around him. He sat curled up for a long time, maybe half an hour, listening to the sound of the raindrops.
Then he got out of bed and got dressed. He didn't need to turn on the light, he could see clearly in the morning light. He picked up the suitcase, coat, umbrella, and left the room. He crept down the stairs, the night shift concierge at the reception downstairs still sleeping. In order not to wake the man up, Jonadam stood on tiptoe and walked past him, quickly flicked the button of the electric door opening mechanism, and with a soft "squeak", the door popped open. He walked out the door and went outside.
On the street, he was bathed in a cool, gray-blue morning light. The rain had stopped, but the eaves and shade were still dripping, and there was a pool of stagnant water on the sidewalk. Jonadan walked towards Sèvres Street, and there was no one in sight, not a single car in sight. The surrounding houses were quiet, humble and innocent, as if the rain had washed away their pride, their pride, their pride, and all their dangers. In front of the food department of the cheap store opposite, a cat was running briskly along the shop window, disappearing under the empty vegetable shelves. In Bucico Park on the right, the rain-soaked trees rustle. A few crows began to chirp, and the chirping bounced off the tall buildings, adding to the tranquility of the sky above the city.
Jonadam crossed Sèvres Street, turned onto Buck Street, and walked towards home. With each step, the wet heel made a "pop" on the wet asphalt. Like walking barefoot, he thought. He was referring to the sound rather than the wet and slippery feeling of his feet inside his shoes and socks. He really wanted to take off his shoes and socks and walk barefoot. He didn't do it out of laziness, not because he felt it was unseemly. He stamped his feet vigorously through the stagnant water, picked the puddle in the middle, zigzagged from one staple to another, and at one point even turned to the other side of the street, for he found a beautiful staple of stagnant water on the opposite sidewalk, and he crackled through the stagnant water with the heel of his flat shoe, splashing it on the shop window, the car parked next to him, and his trouser leg. It was amusement, he enjoyed this little child's prank, as if enjoying an infinite regained freedom, and he was still in a cheerful mood when he came to the rue de Planche, and walked into the building, and quietly walked past Madame Rocard's closed porter, and through the backyard, and up the narrow servant's staircase.
It wasn't until he was almost on the seventh floor that he became a little scared, he was afraid of the end of the aisle: the pigeon, the terrible animal waiting on it. It was probably crouching at the end of the aisle, its red paws, surrounded by pigeon droppings and fluttering fluff in the wind, and the horrible naked-eyed pigeon would flutter its wings and touch him with its wings, and it would be impossible to avoid it in such a narrow aisle......
He lowered the box and stopped, even though there were still five steps ahead of him. He didn't want to turn away, he just wanted to take a short break before finishing the last stretch of the road, to take a breath and calm his heartbeat.
He glanced behind him, his gaze following the spiral handrail to the bottom of the staircase. He saw the light slanting into each floor, and he felt that the morning light had lost its blue color, gradually turning yellow, and warmer. He heard the first noises coming from the landlord's room as the building woke up: the clinking of cups and plates, the opening and closing of the refrigerator, the soft music of the radio. Then, a familiar scent suddenly came to his nose, the scent of Madame Lasalle's coffee, and he took a few sips and felt as if he had drunk coffee. All of a sudden, he was no longer afraid.
As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he immediately saw two things: a closed window and a rag drying on the sink next to the public toilet on the floor. He couldn't see the end of the hallway, a blinding light coming in through the window obscuring his vision. He continued to walk, fearless, and he passed through the light to the backlight. The aisles were empty, the pigeons were gone, the pigeon droppings had been wiped off the floor, there was not a single little feather on the red tiles, no more little fluff fluttering.
Translated by Cai Hongjun and Zhang Jianguo
# Writer Bio
Patrick Juskind (1949-), a German writer, whose main works include "Perfume", "Dove", "The Story of Mr. Xia", etc. Born on March 26, 1949 in Ambach am Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany, he studied at the University of Munich and then at the University of Provence. In 1980, he published his debut screenplay "Double Bass", and in 1985, he published his first novel "Perfume". He has won the Gutenberg Award for Outstanding Foreign Fiction.