Sunday 1 November 2015

...of shunning

Already the doors were being slammed. The late-comers had settled into thier seats. Only that single couple remained. All of a sudden the young woman had become voluble. Her companion turned away his head, and his powerful shoulders moved in a faint shrug. It was she who briefly touched with her lips the cheek which he had not proffered. Without returning her kiss he climbed into the train, and, for the last few moments before it began to move, though she was still standing on the platform with her face raised to his, he refused to look at her as, quite obviously, she wanted him to.
Xavier heard a little cry come from the silent lips which he could now see quite close to him thorugh the window, for she had come nearer. A necklace of gold beads glittered on the smooth flesh of her faintly pulsating throat. He felt like saying to his fellow traveller, “do speak to her… say something” - but by this time the young man had settled down with a newspaper - an organ of the extreme Right. Xavier felt sure that he was only pretending to read. How could anyone, no matter how lacking in feeling, be busy with a paper at such a moment? Quite unexpectedly, he was given a short repsite, since the train which, strictly speaking, should have been under way, was still standing at the platform. A smile, a wave of the hand, a movement of the lips, could, even now, at the last moment, have made all well.

[The Lamb, Mauriac, F.]

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