The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet Read Free Book Online

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IX
    FROM THE VERY START OF OUR RELATIONSHIP, Marthe had let me have a key to her apartment, so if she happened to have gone into town I wouldn’t have to wait for her in the garden. I could have made more innocent use of this key. It was a Saturday. I left her, promising to come for lunch the following day. But I had actually decided to come back as soon as I could that night.
    During dinner I told my parents that the next day I was going on a long walk in the forest of Sénart with René. So I would have to leave at five in the morning. As the whole house would still be asleep, no one would know what time I had left, or whether I had spent the night away from home.
    No sooner had I announced my intentions than my mother offered to make up a basket of food for my journey. I was filled with dismay; a basket wrecked all that was lofty and romantic about what I was planning to do. Having been looking forward to seeing the shock on Marthe’s face when I walked into her bedroom, I now imagined her shrieks of laughter when Prince Charming arrived with a shopping basket over his arm. However much I told my mother that René was bringing everything, she wouldn’t listen. To protest further would have aroused her suspicions.
    It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. As mymother was packing the basket that ruined my first night of love before it had even started, I saw the envious looks in my brothers’ eyes. I thought of secretly offering it to them, but once everything had been eaten, at the risk of getting a thrashing, and for the pleasure of landing me in trouble, they might have let the cat out of the bag.
    So I had to put up with it, since I couldn’t think of any safe hiding places.
    I had vowed not to leave before midnight so as to make sure my parents were asleep. I tried to read. But when the town-hall clock struck ten, my parents having been in bed for a while already, I couldn’t wait. Their room was upstairs, mine downstairs. I didn’t put my boots on, so I would make as little noise as possible when I climbed over the wall. With them in one hand and the basket, so fragile with all the bottles, in the other, I carefully opened the small service door. It was raining. All the better! It would muffle any noise. Seeing that the light was still on in my parents’ room, I nearly went back to bed. But I was already on my way. I couldn’t take precautions with the boots now; I had to put them on because of the rain. Then I had to climb the wall to avoid making the bell ring on the gate. I walked over to the wall, where I had made a point of putting a garden chair after dinner, to aid my escape. The wall had tiles along the top. The rain made them slippery. As I was hanging there, one of them fell off. In my nervousness the noise sounded ten times louder. Now I had to jump down into the street. I held the basket in my teeth; I landed in a puddle. For an endless minute I just stood there, looking at my parents’ window to see if they had got up, havingheard something. No one appeared at the window. I was safe!
    To get to Marthe’s house I went along by the Marne. I was planning to hide the basket under a bush and come back for it the next day. But wartime made this risky. Standing at the only spot where there were bushes where I could have hidden the basket was a sentry, guarding the bridge at J.… For a long time I wavered, paler than someone trying to plant dynamite. Nonetheless I found a place to hide my food.
    Marthe’s gate was shut. I got the key that was always left in the letter box. I tiptoed through the small garden, then up the front steps. Before going upstairs, I took my boots off.
    Marthe was so nervous! She might faint when I appeared in her bedroom. I was shaking; I couldn’t find the keyhole. But at last I turned the key, slowly, so as not to wake anyone. In the hall I bumped into the umbrella stand. I was afraid of pressing a bell, thinking it was a light switch. I groped my way to