She Who Was No More Read Online Free PDF

instance.
    Fog. There was no end to it. The sun would never shine again. He was convinced of that. He was in a land which had no frontier and which he’d never get out of. He was made of the same stuff himself. A wandering soul, a phantom. He had often been tormented by that idea—that he was nothing more than a phantom…
    He let in the clutch and went round the Place du Commerce in bottom gear. Blurred figures were visible through the misty windows of the cafés. Lights. Lights everywhere. That’s what Ravinel needed—light, and lots of it, enough to fill his carcass which seemed to hang loosely about him. He drew up at the Brasserie de la Fosse and went through the revolving door on the heels of a fair-haired girl who was laughing. Inside, hefound himself in another fog, that of pipe and cigarette smoke, which lay in wisps between the faces and eddied round a tray of bottles which a waiter was carrying shoulder high.
    The waiter was hailed on every side.
    ‘What about that brandy I ordered?’
    Coins clinked on the tables and on the cash desk, where a cash register worked incessantly. Someone ordered coffee for three.
    ‘Three filtres ?’
    ‘Yes. Three.’
    Balls rolled across the billiard table, colliding gently, just audible above the din. What a din! But Ravinel needed that too, for it was the sound of life. He found a seat in a corner, sat down and relaxed.
    I’ve got here, he thought.
    His hands rested on the table in front of him. Beside him was a square ashtray on each side of which was the word Byrrh in brown letters. Just an advertisement. Reassuring, though. A solid, comforting, everyday thing, pleasant to touch.
    ‘Monsieur?’ The waiter bent down with a mixture of deference and friendliness. Ravinel had a sudden idea.
    ‘Some punch,’ he answered. ‘A large glass.’
    ‘Very good, Monsieur.’
    Little by little Ravinel forgot the night’s work and the house on the quay. He was warm here. He smoked a cigarette. It smelt nice. The waiter was busy mixing his drink. His movements were careful, expert. A little more rum. Sugar. And the next moment the liquid was ablaze. A beautiful flame seemed to come spontaneously out of the air and hover over the punch. First it was blue, then orange. It was a delight to the eye. Itreminded him of a calendar whose gorgeous colors he had admired as a little boy.
    He drank, sip by sip, and the warm potent liquid went down his gullet like a river of gold. The sun rose again, banishing the shadows, the fears, the scruples, the horrors. After all he had a right to live a full, varied life, and he wasn’t accountable to anyone. He felt as if he had at last shaken off something which for a long time had been suffocating him. For the first time, he was able to look straight into the eyes of that other Ravinel, the one that looked back at him from the mirror. Thirty-eight. His face, however, looked old already. Yet he hadn’t really begun to live. Not really. Was it too late? Certainly not. Why should it be?
    ‘Waiter! The same again. And bring me a timetable.’
    Ravinel fished a postcard out of his pocket. Naturally it was Lucienne’s idea that he should send a line to Mireille. I’ll be returning Saturday morning … He shook his fountain pen. The waiter came back.
    ‘By the way, what’s the date?’
    ‘The fourth…’
    ‘Of course. How silly of me to forget. I’ve been writing it all day long. You wouldn’t have a stamp, I suppose?’
    The timetable was dirty and dog-eared, but Ravinel was beyond being disgusted by such things. He turned the pages over till he came to the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée line.
    Dijon, Lyon, the Rhône valley. The Riviera Express. His fingers moved down the list of stations. Antibes 7:44. This train went right up the coast to the Italian frontier and beyond. He turned over the pages. More trains to Italy. Through the Simplon or the Mont Cenis. He could almost see them as he gazed into his cigarette smoke—long trains with dark