‘Yes,’ Zagreus said, ‘but you can’t live that way and work …’ ‘No, because I’m constantly in revolt. That’s what’s wrong.’ Zagreus said nothing. The rain had stopped, but in the sky night had replaced the clouds, and the darkness was now virtually complete in the room. Only the fire illuminated their gleaming faces. Zagreus, silent for a long time, stared at Patrice, and all he said was: ‘Anyone who loves you is in for a lot of pain …’ and stopped, surprised by Mersault’s abrupt gesture.
‘Other people’s feelings have no hold over me,’ Patrice ex-claimed, thrusting his head into the shadows.
‘True,’ Zagreus said, ‘I was just remarking on the fact. You’ll be alone some day, that’s all. Now sit down and listen to me. What you’ve told me is interesting.
One thing especially, be-cause it confirms everything my own experience of human beings has taught me. I like you very much, Mersault. Because of your body, moreover. It’s your body that’s taught you all that. Today I feel as if I can talk to you frankly.’
Mersault sat down again slowly, and his face turned back to the already dimmer firelight that was sinking closer to the coals. Suddenly a kind of opening in the darkness appeared in the square of the window between the silk curtains. Something relented behind the panes. A milky glow entered the room, and Mersault recognized on the Bodhisattva’s ironic lips and on the chased brass of the trays the familiar and fugitive signs of the nights of moonlight and starlight he loved so much.
It was as if the night had lost its lining of clouds and shone now in its tran-quil lustre. The cars went by more slowly. Deep in the valley, a sudden agitation readied the birds for sleep. Footsteps passed in front of the house, and in this night that covered the world like milk, every noise seemed larger, more distinct.
Between the reddening fire, the ticking of the clock, and the secret life of the familiar objects which surrounded him, a fugitive poetry was being woven which prepared Mersault to receive in a dif-ferent mood, in confidence and love, what Zagreus would say.
He leaned back in his chair, and it was in front of the milky sky that he listened to Zagreus’ strange story.
‘What I’m sure of,’ he began, ‘is that you can’t be happy without money. That’s all. I don’t like superficiality and I don’t like romanticism. I like to be conscious. And what I’ve noticed is that there’s a kind of spiritual snobbery in certain “superior beings” who think that money isn’t necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly. You see, Mersault, for a man who is well born, being happy is never complicated. It’s enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will to renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will to happiness. Only it takes time to be happy.
A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. That’s the only problem that’s ever interested me. Very specific. Very clear.’ Zagreus stopped talking and closed his eyes. Mersault kept on staring at the sky.
For a moment the sounds of the road and the countryside became distinct, and then Zagreus went on, without hurrying: ‘Oh, I know perfectly well that most rich men have no sense of happiness. But that’s not the question. To have money is to have time. That’s my main point. Time can be bought. Everything can be bought. To be or to become rich is to have time to be happy, if you deserve it.’
He looked at Patrice. ‘At twenty-five, Mersault, I had already realized that any man with the sense, the will, and the craving for happi-ness was entitled to be rich. The craving for happiness seemed to me the noblest thing in man’s heart. In my eyes, that justi-fied everything. A pure heart was enough …’ Still looking at Mersault, Zagreus suddenly began to speak more slowly, in a cold harsh tone, as if he wanted to rouse Mersault from his apparent distraction. ‘At twenty-five I began making my for-tune. I didn’t let the law get in my way. I wouldn’t have let anything get in my way. In a few years, I had done it — you know what I mean.
Mersault, nearly two million. The world was all before me. And with the world, the life I had dreamed of in solitude and anticipation …’ After a pause Zagreus con-tinued in a lower voice: ‘The life I would have had, Mersault, without the accident that took off my legs almost immediately afterwards. I haven’t been able to stop living … And now, here I am. You understand — you have to understand that I didn’t want to live a lesser life, a diminished life. For twenty years my money has been here, beside me. I’ve lived modestly. I’ve scarcely touched the capital.’
He passed his hard palms over his eyelids and said, even more softly: ‘Life should never be tainted with a cripple’s kisses.’
At this moment Zagreus had opened the chest next to the fireplace and showed Mersault a tarnished steel safe inside, the key in the lock. On top of the safe lay a white envelope and a large black revolver. Zagreus had answered Mersault’s invol-untarily curious stare with a smile. It was very simple. On days when the tragedy which had robbed him of his life was too much for him, he took out his letter, which he had not dated and which explained his desire to die.
Then he laid the gun on the table, bent down to it and pressed his forehead against it, rolling his temples over it, calming the fever of his cheeks against the cold steel. For a long time he stayed like that, letting his fingers caress the trigger, lifting the safety catch, until the world fell silent around him and his whole being, already half asleep, united with the sensation of the cold, salty metal from which death could emerge.
Realizing then that it would be enough for him to date his letter and pull the trigger, dis-covering the absurd feasibility of death, his imagination was vivid enough to show him the full horror of what life’s nega-tion meant for him, and he drowned in his somnolence all his craving to live, to go on burning in dignity and silence. Then, waking completely, his mouth full of already bitter saliva, he would lick the gun barrel, sticking his tongue into it and suck-ing out an impossible happiness.
‘Of course my life is ruined. But I was right in those days: everything for happiness, against the world which surrounds us with its violence and its stupidity,’ Zagreus laughed then and added: ‘You see, Mersault, all the misery and cruelty of our civilization can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.’
It was very late now. Mersault could not tell what time it was — his head throbbed with feverish excitement.
The heat and the harshness of the cigarette he had smoked filled his mouth. Even the light around him was an accomplice still. For the first time since Zagreus had begun his story, he glanced towards him: ‘I think I understand.’
Exhausted by his long effort, the cripple was breathing hoarsely. After a silence he nonetheless said, laboriously: ‘I’d like to be sure. Don’t think I’m saying that money makes happiness. I only mean that for a certain class of beings happiness is possible, provided they have time, and that having money is a way of being free of money.’
He had slumped down in his chair, under his blankets. The night had closed in again, and Mersault could scarcely see Za-greus now.
A long silence followed and Mersault, wanting to re-establish contact, to assure himself of the other man’s pres-ence in the darkness stood up and said, as though groping: ‘It’s a beautiful risk to take.’
‘Yes,’ Zagreus said, almost in a whisper. ‘And it’s better to bet on this life than on the next. For me, of course, it’s another matter.’
‘A wreck’ Mersault thought. ‘A zero is the world.’
‘For twenty years I’ve been unable to have the experience of certain happiness. This life which devours me — I won’t have known it to the full, and what frightens me about death is the certainty it will bring me that my life has been consum-mated without me. I will have lived … marginally — do you un-derstand?’ With no transition, a young man’s laugh emerged from the darkness: ‘Which means, Mersault, that underneath, and in my condition, I still have hope.’
Mersault took a few steps towards the table. ‘Think about it,’ Zagreus said, ‘think about it.’ Mersault merely asked: ‘Can I turn on the light?’ ‘Please.’
Zagreus’ nostrils and his round eyes looked paler in the sud-den glare. He was still breathing hard. When Mersault held out his hand he replied by shaking his head and laughing too loud. ‘Don’t take me too seriously. It always annoys me the tragic
