By a Slow River by Philippe Claudel Read Free Book Online Page A

her hand to Destinat; it was so slender he didn’t see it at first, busy as he was in examining the young woman’s shoes—slight summer pumps in black leather and crêpe, both daubed with mud at the heel and the toe. He would have noticed even had this mud, more gray than brown, not left its smudges on the floor, lightening the black squares and darkening the white.
    The prosecutor was known for keeping his shoes as shiny as the helmet of a Republican guard, no matter what the weather. A meter of snow might fall, it could rain cats and dogs, the street could disappear under the mud, but that man would keep his feet shod in immaculate leather. I had seen him brushing them off one day, in the hallway of the courthouse, when he believed that no one was observing him—while a little farther on, behind walnut paneling darkened by the years, twelve jurors were considering the weight of a man’s head. That day there was a hint of disdain mixed with horror in his gestures, and a lot became clear to me. Destinat detested stains, even the most earthly and natural. A shudder habitually seized him when he surveyed the splattered clodhoppers of the prisoners who ganged together on the courtroom benches, or of the men and women he passed in the street. The state of your shoes revealed whether you were worthy to be looked in the eyes or not. And everything depended on a perfect polish, on whether he beheld a gleam like a bald pate after a summer of bright sun or, instead, a crust of dried earth, the dust of the roads, the motling where a burst of rain had left its mark on the hard sunken leather.
    But there, before the tiny shoes spattered with mud that had altered the marble chessboard of the universe, something different happened: It was as though the forward march of the world had ground to a halt, the mechanism jammed.
    Finally, Destinat took the small proffered hand into his own and held it a long time. A very long time.
    “An eternity,” the mayor told us later. “And a long one at that!” he added. Then he continued. “The prosecutor wouldn’t let go of that hand. He kept holding it in his, and his eyes—you should have seen them—weren’t his anymore. Even his lips: They were moving, almost trembling a bit, but nothing came out. He stared at the girl as if he’d never seen a woman, not one like that, anyway. As for me, I could not have felt more superfluous, with those two lost in each other’s eyes—because the girl for her part didn’t blink, she didn’t bow her head; there was not the least shyness or embarrassment, just her pretty smile, which she shot at him with no letup. Really, the dumb fuck in the story is me, looking for some way to justify my presence; that’s when I took refuge in the big portrait of his wife, in those folds of her dress that fall all the way to her feet. What else could I do? Finally, it was the girl who withdrew her hand—but not her gaze—and the prosecutor looked at his palm, as though he’d touched the Holy Rood. After a silence, he glanced at me and said yes—that’s all, a simple yes. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
    He did know very well, no doubt, but it didn’t matter anymore. He and Lysia Verhareine left the château. Destinat remained, standing a long while in the place where he’d received them. And then at last he went back up to his apartments with a heavy step; I have that from Solemn, who’d never seen him so stooped before, so sluggish and dazed. When the old servant asked if everything was all right, Destinat didn’t even answer. Perhaps he returned to the entrance hall that very evening, with no light but the penumbra of the phosphorescent blue streetlights, to convince himself of what he had seen, to look for the delicate traces of mud on the black-and-white tile, which Barbe had dutifully wiped away, and then to search the eyes of his wife: She was smiling too, but a smile from former days that nothing could light up now, and which seemed as far from him