Chapitre 12: Chapter XII
Arduous flames disputed the darkness of the room. The lifeless shapes on the piles of cushions and sofas were illumined by the feeble attempts of the candles spread about the room, consuming themselves, much alike the dazed human shapes. The expanse was a vision of dark, chintz-curtained, velvet-cushioned beds of luxurious dissipation, interwoven by smoke and the scent of fragrant sticks. Scenic loosened limbs draped from the veiled sofas of recumbent patrons.
Dreams within dreams they sold here. Timelessness and sanctuary.
One of the candles was poised on the alder table not too far from his pile of cushions. That, Richard Crawford considered, to be his candle. His only amusement to perish the boredom after the smoke and the bourbon and the champagne had strayed in their grip upon his consciousness. Granted, it was a meagre amusement, but it was a cherished one, for it brought him light. The slight halo flickered and danced against the smokescreen that lingered persistently in the low-ceilinged room. So had wasted, all through the night, his little candlelight away. Growing fainter each hour of the night.
He was talking. Richard knew he was because he heard himself talking, and yet it sounded as if his voice came from behind a dense glass wall.
"For all that I may—" Richard halted. What had he been saying? He had some incredibly significant point to make. Richard waved his almost empty glass in the hope that whatever argument his inebriated mind had felt eager to make would return it to him. A few dark drops escaped the brim of the stemmed flute and broke on the cushions. He lay on his stomach, and a heavy breath of frustration escaped Richard as his memory had the audacity to refuse him any aid. It was gone. James should have said something by now, should have produced some form of appreciation, or reproach.
"James? James~?" Richard shifted in his heap of cushions. His progress sluggish. "James, what was I—?"
James Guillory lay asleep and dreaming, mouth open a little, producing faint, breathy noises that sounded tragically drunk. He lay draped on a large scrolled back lounge chair standing next to an immense gramophone. His hands lay folded on his chest and a flamboyant orange feather was braided in the madness that was his hair.
"James~," Richard whined, in surprise, although he was aware that James's capacity for alcohol did not exceed his own. Guillory had a habit of drinking faster, and without regard for consequences. Recalling that fact left Richard with a short bark of laughter far louder than he intended. Fortunately, it did not wake any of the people spread about the room.
"Why am I constantly finding myself awake amidst sleeping drunk people?" His eyes sought Mathi. The only person he recognised was Guillory. With supreme effort Richard pushed his way upright. He waited for a moment whilst the world settled around him and then, slowly, desperately trying to stop the shaking running through his limbs, he started to edge himself off the cushions. He lost his glass in the process as he edged further, placing his feet on the warm carpet, then stopped, screwing his eyes closed as a stabbing cramp flared into life deep in his gut. Richard winced, tried to ride it out and then pulled himself upright. He really ought to do this less. Richard wavered in his step as his legs wouldn't decide whether they were cooperating.
"Right," he said, tugging his shirt with the attitude of a cat that has just thoroughly embarrassed itself while pretending that had always been its intent.
"At least you finished the entire thing," he congratulated his friend, reaching down to move the pitcher that was halfway hidden behind James's back.
Richard knew better than to sit down again. He decided on putting his shoes back on, and finding the lost member of their party. He went onwards to the doorway, leaving the thick sweet-roasting hazelnut aroma behind him and stepped out into a corridor that was flooded with the grey birth of dawn. The light pained him. For a moment he contemplated going back for his jacket but then decided upon a purple sheet that lay festooned over a tripod. It was partly damp. Richard could not bring himself to care for it as he rose it up and shielded himself from the morning light. Passed out forms lounged on the ground; nothing but soft rising chests to indicate them being alive. In the distance, he still imagined the uniformed brass band to play some crass song.
When a young lad — perhaps no older than fourteen — jumped into his field of vision, Richard nigh gave a cry of alarm. He grasped the back of the shirt of the passing boy:
"How late?"
"Twenty past six." The child whispered, affright. "Maybe later."
Two hours ere his call from home. He would miss it, Richard Crawford knew. A loud, theatrical whine escaped him, and he shook his head as if physically driving the thoughts from his head. Richard released the boy with a grunt that might have been 'good job' or 'piss off' and if the shove he gave the boy was anything to go by it might have been the latter. He could not bring himself to feel very bad about it. Richard continued down the hall.
A distasteful, eerie weight lifted from his chest as he recognised the supple form that was Mathi. She had lost her shawl but had gained a hat that was neither James's nor his nor her own. But Richard decided it was a nice one. Italian. Agreeable condition.
"Mathilda Catherine Aldouin! What are you doing in the hallway?" He said aloud, shaking his head. Richard kept on shaking his head at her for a good minute or so, until he had satisfied his exasperation.
Richard crouched down, reached out and nudged Mathilda gently. She stirred with blinking eyes and a distant expression but was surprisingly quick to sit herself upright. Not too far from them, halfway hidden beneath an immense fern, a stunning tripod in gold vermeil finish carried a plateau with a decanter containing a clear liquid Richard hoped to be water. To approach it he had to fight off the unexpectedly assertive fern, but once there, he lifted the glass stop and smelled. He shoved it in Mathi's direction, who seemed to think Richard was offering her more alcohol.
"Let it haste to cure my old despair," Mathilda muttered. "And drown the reviving childhood dreams."
"Yes. Dreams and whatnot. Drink it. We're ought to get James."
"James?"
"James. At the end of the hall." He made a gesture.
"James?"
"—I'm Richard."
"Richard." Mathilda blinked.
"English. Cheeky. Gorgeous — you adore me." She scrunched her nose. Richard looked away as Mathilda shook her head and an amused grin appeared, a remark on her lips that would unfailingly diminish him. "Come on." He said.
Once Richard had confirmed Mathilda could stand upright, and received a smile upon complimenting her hat, Richard ventured back towards the room. Taffeta rustled across the hallway. A woman scampered dizzily from one room to another, another woman, laughing, clutching a deflated oiled-silk bag, ran after. The air was redolent with the scents of brandy, cigars, sex, and sweetness.
What had the young boy said— something past six?
Stepping back into the fragrant room was overbearing but he dismissed the smoke and approached the lounge chair. There was a softness in James's resting, relaxed face like a soundness, much alike a promise of comfort, of protection and ease.
He imagined his friend as if he were awake already: 'I was ought to be home by midnight, Richard! I have, things—!'
"No, look, it's fine." Richard said aloud, sliding an arm beneath the young man's knees. Knowing full well James would most likely awake on time for diner, he smiled: "shower at my place and then go straight on with your day. Tell old Mr Moreau you were working all night."
Picking James up on insecure legs, Richard made an attempt to leave. A slender hand curled round the portiere to reveal Mathilda.
"Not awake?" She said.
"Not awake. Can you get my jacket? — no, by the cushions, yes— yes, the navy one."
"It's ruined."
Richard shrugged. "My housekeeper gets everything out. Hat's by the table."
It took them another half hour to navigate the cabaret; have the bill send to their respective addresses before they were back outside, blinking and breathing the morning air. The morning sun slanted sideways along the cobbles. Richard was about to cross the street for James's car, when Mathi held him back, indicating she would hail a hansom.
"Let him get it tomorrow," Mathilda said.
"You could drive."
"He doesn't let anyone drive."
Richard brightened. "I thought it was me."
"No. He treats that Rouxel as if he paid for it himself."
A hansom halted at her beckoning. They made haste to lay James comfortably on the bench as — while he had twice awakened — he could hardly stand or keep conscious.
"Let me see you home," said Mathi, seating herself beside James. "How can you go alone like this?"
Richard could hardly restrain a smile at the idea that he needed an escort.
"No, I often go about alone, and nothing ever happens to me," he said, putting on his hat. And smiling at her once more, he stepped back out of the hansom and vanished into the dawn of the summer day. Behind, a harsh bark of the coachman and the clatter of wheels followed.
Walking the morning alleys, Richard heard the call of early vendors. The cold wind seemed to rouse the city and the stone-cast walls surrounding him were a labyrinth to all but those who were native. A sluice of dirty water ran gently from a roof down a rain pipe down upon the pavement, wetting the clustered marish-mosses creeping through the seams. Richard Crawford felt elated. Happy, even. The previous night had been spend with people he held dear, and while several recent memories stirred in him feelings of regret at opportunities and ambitions that had passed by, he held his head high.
In the past four months, Richard had tried his luck once or twice, but the independent life he aimed for seemed to him all the more unattainable. Jobs were either too laborious for his taste, or unattainable for his lack of experience. Connections he had, and they were not trifle, but those lacked the prestige he sought.
But— as he so often convinced himself, it was better to practice patience than to rush. Richard Crawford was not a patient man.
An all silver-green poplar with gnarled bark marked the lawn of one of the residences he passed. The sun was still low, but the nightly curtain had parted enough so that the shadow of the poplar fell before his feet.
Richard's first viable venture had been investing the gross of his monthly allowance in a company selling duvets, who claimed the duvet industry to explode over the coming years; while it had intrigued him, he had soon dropped the idea — to the dissatisfaction of many — and soon after Richard had shook hands upon a deal with Bouquet, Garcin & Schivre, a French company specialising in electric cars who claimed they would soon be manufacturing for the whole of Europe. The fact that every company made such claims left him cold— Bouquet, Garcin & Schivre had made an appealing case.
It hadn't ended well. And now he had near nothing left till his father would send him his next remittance. A hoarse grunt escaped him as he recalled the fact that today would be the day of reckoning. Mayhap Richard should ask Deslys to teach him to play on horses.
The sudden feeling that he was being followed befell Richard. He was walking through a long, narrow street that was nothing but a slit between vertical walls of houses, without a shop in it and with hardly enough light for him to see where he was going. There was nothing but unbroken house-fronts and the tall, firmly locked doors of the french house gates that were flush with the walls. Nowhere to run to if he were attacked, no house door to duck into.
Mathi would have laughed after his proud claim that 'nothing ever happened to him'. But then perhaps she would not. Because she knew how dangerous it could be.
Richard did not know who would attack him, if he were attacked. He did not imagine robbers, necessarily. He was afraid of nameless, formless things that haunted his mind. As if his parents would walk in on him past the next corner saying: 'well hallo, my boy. We heard you were going all wrong about it. Don't you think you'd rather do something else?' Richard shook his head. Then he walked on, whistling with faux felicity.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone