left her at the nearest corner, mumbling some schoolboy excuse, and watched her stolid figure cross the boulevard toward the cafes.

I did not know what to do or where to go. I found myself at last along the river, slowly going home.

And this was perhaps the first time in my life that death occurred to me as a reality. I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it—it, the physical act. I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer. But the silence of the evening, as I wandered home, had nothing to do with that storm, that far-off boy. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.

The city, Paris, which I loved so much, was absolutely silent. There seemed to be almost no one on the streets, although it was still very early in the evening. Nevertheless, beneath me—along the river bank, beneath the bridges, in the shadow of the walls, I could almost hear the collective, shivering sigh—were lovers and ruins, sleeping, embracing, coupling, drinking, staring out at the descending night. Behind the walls of the houses I passed, the French nation was clearing away the dishes, putting little Jean Pierre and Marie to bed, scowling over the eternal problems of the sou, the shop, the church, the unsteady State. Those walls, those shuttered windows, held them in and protected them against the darkness and the long moan of this long night. Ten years hence, little Jean Pierre and Marie might find themselves out here beside the river and wonder, like me, how they had fallen out of the web of safety. What a long way, I thought, I've come—to be destroyed!

Yet it was true, I recalled, turning away from the river down the long street home, I wanted children. I wanted to be inside again, with the light and safety, with my manhood unquestioned, watching my woman put my children to bed. I wanted the same bed at night and the same arms and I wanted to rise in the morning, knowing where I was. I wanted a woman to be for me a steady ground, like the earth itself, where I could always be renewed. It had been so once; it had almost been so once. I could make it so again, I could make it real. It only demanded a short, hard strength for me to become myself again.

I saw a light burning beneath our door as I walked down the corridor. Before I put my key in the lock the door was opened from within. Giovanni stood there, his hair in his eyes, laughing. He held a glass of cognac in his hand. I was struck at first by what seemed to be the merriment on his face. Then I saw that it was not merriment but hysteria and despair.

I started to ask him what he was doing home, but he pulled me into the room, holding me around the neck tightly, with one hand. He was shaking. 'Where have you been?' I looked into his face, pulling slightly away from him. 'I have looked for you everywhere.'

'Didn't you go to work?' I asked him.

'No,' he said. 'Have a drink. I have bought a bottle of cognac to celebrate my freedom.' He poured me a cognac. I did not seem to be able to move. He came toward me again, thrusting the glass into my hand.

'Giovanni—what happened?'

He did not answer. He suddenly sat down on the edge of the bed, bent over. I saw then that he was also in a state of rage. 'Ils sont sale, les gens, tu sais?' He looked up at me. His eyes were full of tears. 'They are just dirty, all of them, low and cheap and dirty.' He stretched out his hand and pulled me down to the floor beside him. 'All except you. Tous, sauf toi.' He held my face between his hands and I suppose such tenderness has scarcely ever produced such terror as I then felt. 'Ne me laisse pas tomber, je t'en prie,' he said, and kissed me, with strange insistent gentleness on the mouth.

His touch could never fail to make me feel desire; yet his hot, sweet breath also made me want to vomit. I pulled away as gently as I could and drank my cognac. 'Giovanni,' I said, 'please tell me what happened. What's the matter?'

'He fired me,' he said. 'Guillaume. Il m'a mis à la porte.' He laughed and rose and began walking up and down the tiny room. 'He told me never to come to his bar any more. He said I was a gangster and a thief and a dirty little street boy and the only reason I ran after him—I ran after him—was because I intended to rob him one night. Après l'amour. Merde!' He laughed again.

I could not say anything. I felt that the walls of the room were closing in on me.

Giovanni stood in front of our whitewashed windows, his back to me. 'He said all these things in front of many people, right downstairs in the bar. He waited until people came. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kill them all.' He turned back into the center of the room and poured himself another cognac. He drank it at a breath, then suddenly took his glass and hurled it with all his strength against the wall. It rang briefly and fell in a thousand pieces all over our bed, all over the floor. I could not move at once; then, feeling that my feet were being held back by water but also watching myself move very fast, I grabbed him by the shoulders. He began to cry. I held him. And, while I felt his anguish entering into me, like acid in his sweat, and felt that my heart would burst for him, I also wondered, with an unwilling, unbelieving contempt, why I had ever thought him strong.

He pulled away from me and sat against the wall which had been uncovered. I sat facing him.

'I arrived at the usual time,' he said. 'I felt very good today. He was not there when I arrived and I cleaned the bar as usual and had a little drink and a little something to eat. Then he came and I could see at once that he was in a dangerous mood—perhaps he had just been humiliated by some young boy. It is funny'—and he smiled—'you can tell when Guillaume is in a dangerous mood because he then becomes so respectable. When something has happened to humiliate him and make him see, even for a moment, how disgusting he is, and how alone, then he remembers that he is a member of one of the best and oldest families in France. But maybe, then, he remembers that his name is going to die with him. Then he has to do something, quick, to make the feeling go away. He has to make much noise or have some very pretty boy or get drunk or have a fight or look at his dirty pictures.' He paused and stood up and began walking up and down again. 'I do not know what happened to him today, but when he came in he tried at first to be very business-like—he was trying to find fault with my work. But there was nothing wrong and he went upstairs. Then by and by, he called me. I hate going up to that little pied-à-terre he has up there over the bar, it always means a scene. But I had to go and I found him in his dressing gown, covered with perfume. I do not know why, but the moment I saw him like that, I began to be angry. He looked at me as though he were some fabulous coquette—and he is ugly, ugly, he has a body just like sour milk!—and then he asked me how you were. I was a little astonished, for he never mentions you. I said you were fine. He asked me if we still lived together. I think perhaps I should have lied to him but I did not see any reason to lie to such a disgusting old fairy, so I said, Bien sûr. I was trying to be calm. Then he asked me terrible questions and I began to get sick watching him and listening to him. I thought it was best to be very quick with him and I said that such questions were not asked, even by a priest or a doctor, and I said he should be ashamed. Maybe he had been waiting for me to say something like that, for then he became angry and he reminded me that he had taken me out of the streets, et il a fait ceci et il a fait cela, everything for me because he thought I was adorable, parce-qu'il m'adorait—and on and on and that I had no gratitude and no decency. I maybe handled it all very badly, I know how I would have done it even a few months ago, I would have made him scream, I would have made him kiss my feet, je te jure!—but I did not want to do that, I really did not want to be dirty with him. I tried to be serious. I told him that I had never told him any lies and I had always said that I did not want to be lovers with him—and—he had given me the job all the same. I said I worked very hard and was very honest with him and that it was not my fault if—if I did not feel for him as he felt for me. Then he reminded me that once—one time—and I did not want to say yes, but I was weak from hunger and had trouble not to vomit. I was still trying to be calm and trying to handle it right. So I said, Mais a ce moment là je n'avais pas un copain. I am not alone any more, je suis avec un gars maintenant. I thought he would understand that, he is very fond of romance and the dream of fidelity. But not this time. He laughed and said a few more awful things about you, and he said that you were an American boy, after all, doing things in France which you would not dare to do at home, and that you would leave me very soon. Then, at last, I got angry and I said that he did not pay me a salary for listening to slander and then I heard someone come into the bar downstairs so I turned around without saying anything more and walked out.'

He stopped in front of me. 'Can I have some more cognac?' he asked, with a smile. 'I won't break the glass this time.'

I gave him my glass. He emptied it and handed it back. He watched my face. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'We will be alright. I am not afraid.' Then his eyes darkened, he looked again toward the windows.

'Well,' he said, 'I hoped that that would be the end of it. I worked in the bar and tried not to think of Guillaume or of what he was thinking or doing upstairs. It was aperitif time, you know? and I was very busy. Then, suddenly I heard the door slam upstairs and the moment I heard that I knew that it had happened, the awful thing had happened. He came into the bar, all dressed now, like a French business man, and came straight to me. He did not speak to anyone as he came in, and he looked white and angry and, naturally, this attracted attention. Everyone was waiting to see what he would do. And, I must say, I thought he was going to strike me, or he had maybe gone mad and had a pistol in his pocket. So I am sure I looked frightened and this did not help matters, either. He came behind the bar and began saying that I was a tapette and a thief and told me to leave at once or he would call the police and have me put behind bars. I was so astonished I could not say anything and all the time his voice was rising and people were beginning to listen and, suddenly, mon cher, I felt that I was falling, falling from a great, high place. For a long while I could not get angry and I could feel the tears, like fire, coming up. I could not get my breath, I could not believe that he was really doing this to me. I kept saying, what have I done? What have I done? And he would not answer and then he shouted, very loud, it was like a gun going off, 'Mais tu le sais, salop!' You know very well! And nobody knew what he meant, but it was just as though we were back in that theatre lobby again, where we met, you remember? Everybody knew that Guillaume was right and I was wrong, that I had done something awful. And he went to the cash-register and took out some money—but I knew that he knew that there was not much money in the cash-register at such an hour—and pushed it at me and said, 'Take it! Take it! Better to give it to you than have you steal it from me at night! Now go!' And, oh, the faces in that bar, you should have seen them, they were so wise and tragic and they knew that now they knew everything, that they had always known it, and they were so glad that they had never had anything to do with me. Ah! Les encules! The dirty sons-of-bitches! Les gonzesses!' He was weeping again, with rage this time. 'Then, at last, I struck him and then many hands grabbed me and now I hardly know what happened but by and by I was in the street, with all these torn bills in my hand and everybody staring at me. I did not know what to do, I hated to walk away but I knew if anything more happened the police would come and Guillaume would have me put in jail. But I will see him again, I swear it, and on that day—!'

He stopped and sat down, staring at the wall. Then he turned to me. He watched me for a long time, in silence. Then, 'If you were not here,' he said, very slowly, 'this would be the end of Giovanni.'

I stood up. 'Don't be silly,' I said. 'It's not so tragic as all that.' I paused. 'Guillaume's disgusting. They all are. But it's not the worst thing that ever happened to you. Is it?'

'Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker,' said Giovanni, as though he had not heard me, 'and so you can stand less and less.' Then, looking up at me, 'No. The worst thing happened to me long ago and my life has been awful since that day. You are not going to leave me, are you?'

I laughed, 'Of course not.' I started shaking the broken glass off our blanket onto the floor.

'I do not know what I would do if you left me.' For the first time I felt the suggestion of a threat in his voice—or I put it there. 'I have been alone so long—I do not think I would be able to live if I had to be alone again.'

'You aren't alone now,' I said. And then, quickly, for I could not, at that moment, have endured his touch: 'Shall we go for a walk? Come—out of this room for a minute.' I grinned and cuffed him roughly, football fashion, on the neck. Then we clung together for an instant. I pushed him away. 'I'll buy you a drink,' I said.

'And will you bring me home again?' he asked.

'Yes. I'll bring you home again.'

'Je t'aime, tu sais?'

'Je le sais, mon vieux.'

He went to the sink and started washing his face. He combed his hair. I watched him. He grinned at me in the mirror, looking, suddenly, beautiful and happy. And young—I had never in my life before felt so helpless or so old.

'But we will be alright!' he cried. 'N'est-ce pas?'

'Certainly,' I said.

He turned from the mirror. He was serious again. 'But you know—I do not know how long it will be before I find another job. And we have almost no money. Do you have any money? Did any money come from New York for you today?'

'No money came from New York, today,' I said, calmly, 'but I have a little money in my pocket.' I took it all out and put it on the table. 'About four thousand francs.'

'And I'—he went through his pockets, scattering bills and change. He shrugged and smiled at me, that fantastically sweet and helpless and moving smile. 'Je m'excuse. I went a little mad.' He went down on his hands and knees and gathered it up and put it on the table beside the money I had placed there. About three thousand francs' worth of bills had to be pasted together and we put those aside until later. The rest of the money on the table totalled about nine thousand francs.

'We are not rich,' said Giovanni, grimly, 'but we will eat tomorrow.'

I somehow did not want him to be worried. I could not endure that look on his face. 'I'll write my father again tomorrow,' I said. 'I'll tell him some kind of lie, some kind of lie that he'll believe and I'll make him send me some money.' And I moved toward him as though I were driven, putting my hands on his shoulders, and forcing myself to look into his eyes. I smiled and I really felt at that moment that Judas and the Saviour had met in me. 'Don't be frightened. Don't worry.'

And I also felt, standing so close to him, feeling such a passion to keep him from terror, that a decision—once again!—had been taken from my hands. For neither my father, nor Hella, was real at that moment. And yet even this was not as real as my despairing sense that nothing was real for me, nothing would ever be real for me again—unless, indeed, this sensation of falling was reality.

The hours of this night begin to dwindle and now, with every second that passes on the clock, the blood at the bottom of my heart begins to boil, to bubble, and I know that no matter what I do anguish is about to overtake me in this house, as naked and silver as that great knife which Giovanni will be facing very soon. My executioners are here with me, walking up and down with me, washing things, and packing, and drinking from my bottle. They are everywhere I turn. Walls, windows, mirrors, water, the night outside—they are everywhere. I might call—as Giovanni, at this moment, lying in his cell, might call. But no one will hear. I might try to explain. Giovanni tried to explain. I might ask to be forgiven—if I could name and face my crime, if there were anything, or anybody, anywhere, with the power to forgive.

No. It would help if I were able to feel guilty. But the end of innocence is also the end of guilt.

No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again. And this might be a great relief if I did not also know that, when the knife has fallen, Giovanni, if he feels anything will feel relief.

I walk up and down this house—up and down this house. I think of prison. Long ago, before I had ever met Giovanni, I met a man at a party at Jacques' house who was celebrated because he had spent half his life in prison. He had then written a book about it which displeased the prison authorities and won a literary prize. But this man's life was over. He was fond of saying that, since to be in prison was simply not to live, the death penalty was the only merciful verdict any jury could deliver. I remember thinking that, in effect, he had never left prison, prison was all that was real to him, he could speak of nothing else. All his movements, even to the lighting of a cigarette, were stealthy, wherever his eyes focussed one saw wall rise up. His face, the color of his face, brought to mind darkness and dampness, I felt that if one cut him his flesh would be the flesh of mushrooms. And he described to us, in avid, nostalgic detail, the barred windows, the barred doors, the judas, the guards standing at far ends of corridors, under the light. It is three tiers high inside the prison and everything is the color of gunmetal. Everything is dark and cold, except for those patches of light, where authority stands. There is on the air, perpetually, the memory of fists against the metal, a dull, booming tom-tom possibility, like the possibility of madness. The guards move and mutter and pace the corridors and boom dully up and down the stairs. They are in black, they carry guns, they are always afraid, they scarcely dare be kind. Three tiers down, in the prison's center, is the prison's great, cold heart, there is always activity: trusted prisoners wheeling things about, going in and out of the offices, ingratiating themselves with the guards for privileges of cigarettes, alcohol, and sex. The night deepens in the prison, there is muttering everywhere, and everybody knows—somehow—that death will be entering the prison courtyard early in the morning. Very early in the morning, before the trusties begin wheeling great garbage cans of food along the corridors, three men in black will come noiselessly down the corridor, one of them will turn the key in the lock. They will lay hands on someone and rush him down the corridor, first to the priest and then to a door which will open only for him, which will allow him, perhaps, one glimpse of the morning before he is thrown forward on his belly on a board and the knife falls on his neck.

I wonder about the size of Giovanni's cell. I wonder if it is bigger than his room. I know that it is colder. I wonder if he is alone or with two or three others; if he is perhaps playing cards, or smoking, or talking, or writing a letter—to whom would he be writing a letter?—or walking up and down. I wonder if he knows that the approaching morning is the last morning of his life. (For the prisoner, usually, does not know: the lawyer knows and tells the family or friends but does not tell the prisoner.) I wonder if he cares. Whether he knows or not, cares or not, he is certainly afraid. Whether he is with others or not, he is certainly alone. I try to see him, his back to me, standing at the window of his cell. From where he is perhaps he can only see the opposite wing of the prison; perhaps, by straining a little, just over the high wall, a patch of the street outside. I do not know if his hair has been cut or is long—I should think it would have been cut. I wonder if he is shaven. And now a million details, proof and fruit of intimacy, flood my mind. I wonder, for example, if he feels the need to go to the bathroom, if he has been able to eat today, if he is sweating, or dry. I wonder if anyone has made love to him in prison. And then something shakes me, I feel shaken hard and dry, like some dead thing in the desert, and I know that I am hoping that Giovanni is being sheltered in someone's arms tonight. I wish that someone were here with me. I would make love to whoever was here all night long, I would labor with Giovanni all night long.

Those days after Giovanni had lost his job, we dawdled; dawdled as doomed mountain climbers may be said to dawdle above the chasm, held only by a snapping rope. I did not write my father—I put it off from day to day. It would have been too definitive an act. I knew which lie I would tell him and I knew the lie would work—only—I was not sure that it would be a lie. Day after day we lingered in that room and Giovanni began to work on it again. He had some weird idea that it would be nice to have a bookcase sunk in the wall and he chipped through the wall until he came to the brick and began pounding away at the brick. It was hard work, it was insane work, but I did not have the energy or the heart to stop him. In a way he was doing it for me, to prove his love for me. He wanted me to stay in the room with him. Perhaps he was trying, with his own strength, to push back the encroaching walls, without, however, having the walls fall down.

Now—now, of course, I see something very beautiful in those days, which were such torture then. I felt, then, that Giovanni was dragging me with him to the bottom of the sea. He could not find a job. I knew that he was not really looking for one, that he could not. He had been bruised, so to speak, so badly that the eyes of strangers lacerated him like salt. He could not endure being very far from me for very long. I was the only person on God's cold, green earth who cared about him, who knew his speech and silence, knew his arms, and did not carry a knife. The burden of his salvation seemed to be on me and I could not endure it.

And the money dwindled—it went, it did not dwindle, very fast. Giovanni tried to keep panic out of his voice when he asked me, each morning, 'Are you going to American Express today?'

'Certainly,' I would answer.

'Do you think your money will be there today?'

'I don't know.'

'What are they doing with your money in New York?'

Still, still, I could not act. I went to Jacques and borrowed ten thousand francs from him again. I told him that Giovanni and I were going through a difficult time but that it would be over soon.

'He was very nice about it,' said Giovanni.

'He can, sometimes, be a very nice man.' We were sitting on a terrace near Odéon. I looked at Giovanni and thought, for a moment, how nice it would be if Jacques would take him off my hands.

'What are you thinking?' asked Giovanni.

For a moment I was frightened and I was also ashamed. 'I was thinking,' I said, 'that I'd like to get out of Paris.'

'Where would you like to go?' he asked.

'Oh, I don't know. Anywhere. I'm sick of this city,' I said suddenly, with a violence that surprised us both. 'I'm tired of this ancient pile of stone and all these goddam, smug people. Everything you put your hands on here comes to pieces in your hands.'

'That,' said Giovanni, gravely, 'is true.' He was watching me with a terrible intensity. I forced myself to look at him and smile.

'Wouldn't you like to get out of here for awhile?' I asked.

'Ah!' he said, and raised both hands, briefly, palms outward, in a kind of mock resignation. 'I would like to go wherever you go. I do not feel so strongly about Paris as you do, suddenly. I have never liked Paris very much.'

'Perhaps,' I said—I scarcely knew what I was saying—'we could go to the country. Or to Spain.'

'Ah,' he said, lightly, 'you are lonely for your mistress.'

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms. 'That's no reason to go to Spain,' I said, sullenly. 'I'd just like to see it, that's all. This city is expensive.'

'Well,' he said, brightly, 'let us go to Spain, perhaps it will remind me of Italy.'

'Would you rather go to Italy? Would you rather visit your home?'

He smiled. 'I do not think I have a home there any more.'

And then: 'No. I would not like to go to Italy—perhaps after all, for the same reason you do not want to go to the United States.'

'But I am going to the United States,' I said, quickly. And he looked at me. 'I mean, I'm certainly going to go back there one of these days.'

'One of these days,' he said. 'Everything bad will happen—one of these days.'

'Why is it bad?'

He smiled, 'Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home any more. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home.' He played with my thumb and grinned. 'N'est-ce pas?'

'Beautiful logic,' I said. 'You mean I have a home to go to as long as I don't go there?'

He laughed. 'Well, isn't it true? You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.'

'I seem,' I said, 'to have heard this song before.'

'Ah, yes,' said Giovanni, 'and you will certainly hear it again. It is one of those songs that somebody, somewhere, will always be singing.'

We rose and started walking. 'And what would happen,' I asked, idly, 'if I shut my ears?'

He was silent for a long while. Then: 'You do, sometimes, remind me of the kind of man who is tempted to put himself in prison in order to avoid being hit by a car.'

'That,' I said, sharply, 'would seem to apply much more to you than to me.'

'What do you mean?' he asked.

'I'm talking about that room, that hideous room. Why have you buried yourself there so long?'

'Buried myself? Forgive me, mon cher Americain, but Paris is not like New York, it is not full of palaces for boys like me. Do you think I should be living in Versailles instead?'

'There must—there must,' I said, 'be other rooms.'

'Cane manque, les chambres. The world is full of rooms—big rooms, little rooms, round rooms, square ones, rooms high up, rooms low down—all kinds of rooms! What kind of room do you think Giovanni should be living in? How long do you think it took me to find the room I have? And since when, since when'—he stopped and beat with his forefinger on my chest—'have you so hated the room? Since when? Since yesterday, since always? Dis-moi.'

Facing him, I faltered. 'I don't hate it. I—I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.'

His hands dropped to his sides. His eyes grew big. He laughed. 'Hurt my feelings! Am I now a stranger that you speak to me like that, with such an American politeness?'

'All I mean, baby, is that I wish we could move.'

'We can move. Tomorrow! Let us go to a hotel. Is that what you want? Le Crillon peut-être?'

I sighed, speechless, and we started walking again.

'I know,' he burst out, after a moment, 'I know! You want to leave Paris, you want to leave the room—ah! you are wicked. Comme tu es mérchant!'

'You misunderstand me,' I said. 'You misunderstand me.'

He smiled grimly, to himself. 'J'espère bien.'

Later, when we were back in the room, putting the loose bricks Giovanni had taken out of the wall into a sack, he asked me, 'This girl of yours—have you heard from her lately?'

'Not lately,' I said. I did not look up. 'But I expect her to turn up in Paris almost any day now.'

He stood up, standing in the center of the room, under the light, looking at me. I stood up, too, half smiling, but also, in some strange, dim way, a little frightened.

'Viens m'embrasser,' he said.

I was vividly aware that he held a brick in his hand, I held a brick in mine. It really seemed for an instant that if I did not go to him, we would use these bricks to beat each other to death.

Yet, I could not move at once. We stared at each other across a narrow space that was full of danger, that almost seemed to roar, like a flame.

'Come,' he said.

I dropped my brick and went to him. In a moment I heard his fall. And at moments like this I felt that we were merely enduring and committing the longer and lesser and more perpetual murder.