The Age of Reason Read Online Free PDF

sensation. Boris saw the table-cloth he saw Lola’s glass (Lola had had supper: she never dined before her singing act). She had drunk some Château Gruau, she did herself well, and indulged in a few caprices because she was so terrified of growing old. There was still a little wine in the glass, which looked like dusty blood. The jazz-band began to play: The Moon is Turning Green and Boris found himself wondering if he could sing that song. He fancied himself strolling down the Rue Pigalle in the moonlight, whistling a little tune. Delarue had told him that he whistled like a pig. Boris began to laugh silently, and thought: ‘Blast the fellow!’ He was brimming with affection for Mathieu. He peered out of the corner of his eye, without turning round, and he saw Lola’s heavy eyes beneath a luxurious tress of auburn hair. As a matter of fact it was quite easy to withstand a look. The trouble was to get used to that special sort of ardent emanation that sets your face aflame when someone is watching you with passion in her eyes. Boris submissively yielded to Lola’s observing eyes — his body, his slim neck, and the half-profile that she loved so much: this done, he could take refuge in the depths of his own self and savour the agreeable little thoughts that came into his mind. ‘What are you thinking about?’ said Lola.
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘One is always thinking of something.’
    ‘I was thinking of nothing.’
    ‘Not even that you like the tune they were playing, or that you wished you could play the castanets?’
    ‘Yes — things like that.’
    ‘There you are. Why don’t you tell me? I want to know everything you think.’
    ‘They’re not things one can talk about, they’re too trivial.’
    ‘Trivial! One might suppose that your tongue had been given you simply to talk philosophy with your professor.’
    He looked at her and smiled: ‘I like her because she’s got red hair and looks rather old.’
    ‘You’re a strange boy,’ said Lola.
    Boris blinked and assumed a pleading air. He didn’t like people talking about himself: it was always so complicated, and he became bewildered. Lola looked as if she was angry, but it was simply because she loved him passionately and tormented herself about him. There were moments when it was more than she could bear, she would lose her temper for no reason, and glare at Boris, not knowing how to take him, and her hands began to quiver. All this used to surprise Boris, but he was quite accustomed to it by this time. Lola laid her hand on Boris’s head: ‘I wonder what’s inside it,’ she said. ‘I feel quite frightened sometimes.’
    ‘You needn’t: all quite harmless, I assure you,’ said Boris, laughing.
    ‘Yes, those thoughts of yours are just so many ways of getting away from me.’ And she ruffled his hair.
    ‘Don’t,’ said Boris. ‘Please don’t uncover my forehead.’
    He took her hand, stroked it for a minute or two, and laid it back on the table.
    ‘You are there, and quite affectionate,’ said Lola. ‘I begin to think you’re really fond of me, and then — suddenly — no one’s there at all, and I wonder where you’ve gone.’
    ‘I’m here.’
    Lola eyed him narrowly. Her pallid face was marred by the sort of dewy, sentimental expression she assumed when singing Les Écorchés . She thrust out her lips, those large drooping lips that he had at first loved so much. Since he had felt them on his month, they gave him the sense of a clammy, feverish nakedness set in the centre of a plaster mask. At present he preferred Lola’s skin, so white that it did not look real.
    ‘You — you aren’t fed up with me?’
    ‘I’m never fed up.’
    Lola sighed, and Boris thought with satisfaction: ‘It’s fantastic how old she looks, she doesn’t tell her age, but she must be well over forty.’ He preferred that people who liked him should look old, he found it reassuring. Added to which it gave them a sort of awesomely fragile air, not