Every time I hear someone use the word “promiscuity,” I recall an
experience I once had. An experience,--that is a great deal to say, it
was such a slight affair after all.
It was in the days when there still used to be in Paris those omnibuses
with upper stories. I was returning home quite late, on one of those
fresh, airy nights when one suddenly draws in, through the fetid breath
of the streets, a gust that comes from afar and seems unwilling to
let itself be defiled, obliterated. I was dreaming all alone, quite
to myself, about things of no interest to anyone but myself, but that
happily filled the infinite space of the world.
Through the depths of this reverie I became aware of a slight,
muffled blow against my right shoulder. This did not rouse me from
my own absorption. A second time the blow came, followed by a soft,
continuous contact. It gave me a disagreeable sensation.
By my side there was a young boy of sixteen or seventeen, dressed like
an apprentice. The uncertain glimmer of the street-lamps lighted up
his pale, weary face. His eyes were closed and he seemed overwhelmed
with sleep. I noticed that every few moments his head, swaying with the
jolts of the vehicle, would strike against my shoulder. He would raise
it up with an instinctive movement, only to let it fall back the more
heavily the next moment. Once he let it lie there. At the time I was
so lost in my dreams that the animal in me alone rose to its defense:
I pushed the young lad gently back into his place. It was trouble
lost; the next second he abandoned himself anew against my shoulder
with a sort of desperate ingenuousness. I pushed him back two or three
times, then I gave it up and tried, in spite of this slight burden, to
continue my glorious excursion in the interior of my own self.
But I did not succeed. An extraordinary, unforeseen, unknown sensation
was sweeping over me. It was a penetrating animal warmth. It came
from that head propped against my shoulder, and also from a certain
frail, bent arm which I felt slowly digging into my side. The little
apprentice was sound asleep.
I bent down my face and felt his breath like that of a child passing
in little puffs over my cheek and my chin. From that moment on, I
ceased completely to think of my important personal affairs and I had
only one anxiety: to see to it that the boy did not awaken.
I do not know how long this sleep lasted: I was warm with a strange,
delicate warmth; I had a sense of well-being, I was absorbed, I was
penetrating into an unknown universe, as vast, as starry as my own. I
could not understand how this contact could have offended me at first,
even disgusted me. I had torn off the prickly shell and was tasting,
like a nourishing kernel, that human presence and companionship. I was
happy and interested.
We reached a place where there were shouts and lights. The little
fellow sat up with a start, rubbed his eyes and ran stumbling towards
the stairway and disappeared; he had not even seen me.
He did not know what I owed him and that he would never be forgotten.