THINGS ON STRIKE

By JEAN-JACQUES BERNARD

MCHAMOIS comes home greatly disturbed. He had • lost his head over this dinner at the Magistrans. From the salmon trout to the chocolate ice, by way of the foie gras truffi, there had been talk of nothing but the high cost of living. The Marquis of Villemondieu, General d'Archimont and M. Blanganez, manufacturer and deputy, were agreed in putting the responsibility on the back of the workers. Ensconced in the drawing room in upholstered chairs, cigar in mouth and feet stretched out to the fire, these gentlemen deplored the infamous wave of idleness.

Blanganez spoke of his last strike : " They didn't even know what they wanted. A pack of good-for-nothings. If that sort of thing goes on Heaven knows where we shall land." Madame Magistran burst out with a little shiver : " It's quite simple ; those creatures want to be where we are."

The ladies hid their faces behind their fans. The gentlemen gave sceptical smiles. M. Chamois alone seemed the victim of a profound terror : he saw himself sweeping the Faubourg Montmartre, bespattered by the car of his concierge.

" I must ask you to excuse me for handing round the liqueurs myself," said M. Magistran. " My new butler refuses to work later than nine o'clock even when I have company," " It's a comic business," declared one young man. " We shall soon be doing our own boots, our housework, our cooking, perhaps baking our own bread."

" You find that comic ? " M. Chamois couldn't help asking.

Straightway rival camps formed themselves, some bold spirits finding it amusing to follow the young man. He himself laughingly painted a grim picture of society, in a couple of sentences transformed the wave of idleness into a wave of fury, and aroused himself by letting these poor souls feel the breath of revolution on their frightened spines. And then, thinking no more about it, he settled down at a bridge table.

But M. Chamois was still a little breathless : " Do you really think things may turn out so badly ? " he asked M. Silver, the merchant.

" Don't talk to me about it. I've 20,000 kilos of woollen goods rotting on the quay at Le Havre through this strike."

" There's a strike there ? "

" Yes. There, too."

M. Chamois cast an anguished glance at the company.

How could all those people go on laughing and joking, or - even living ?

Coming away with Madame Chamois he hailed a taxi which was passing slowly as though on the look out for a fare.

" Fifteen francs at this time of the night."

" We're not going far. I'll give you ten francs."

" You'd better think again. I'd rather go home without a sou."

And he disappeared, sneering.

" Let's go by Underground," nid Madame Chamois. " The Underground's on strike."

They arrived home on foot. The concierge let them ring several times before admitting them.

" You might think she was doing it on purpose," murmured Chamois.

The lift wasn't working. They climbed their five storeys. That was certainly intentional, that stoppage of the lift. The world is full of enemies, visible and invisible. " Come on. Have you forgotten how to open the door ? "

" It's sticking."

One big push. The door has opened. But, feeling for the light switch, Chamois has knocked a plate off a cabinet. Broken crockery ! Everything going wrong.

His wife makes a scene—on principle. But being in a hurry to go to bed, it is an abridged scene. Even so it is too much for Chamois' nerves.

" Even she," he murmurs.

Spiritlessly he takes refuge in the small drawing-room. But he tears his coat on the door handle. Why should that handle have thrust itself into his pocket ? He contemplates it. It seems to have an air of bravado.

Everything breathes hostility : this chair that wasn't in its place and against which he almost crashed ; this carpet edge that has come unstitched (why ?) in which he catches his foot ; this inkwell left on the edge of a table (why ?) that he upsets in passing.

He sinks on to a divan and turns over grimly in his mind the difficulties of life. M. Chamois would have made a perfect mollusc on the shore of a calm sea, against a well- sheltered rock. But a harsh fate had brought him to birth in the society of men at a tormented epoch in their history.

And now things themselves were declaring war. on him. There was a wholesale conspiracy not only against his income but against his daily calm. From now on he would no longer eat or sleep in peace, Who knows what treachery may not animate a fork that is rather too pointed or a bed that seems square enough on its four legs ?

With what jealousies he is surrounded ! With what ill-will and danger ! His eye wandering restlessly round • the room detects a hostile and rather terrifying aspect in the various objects, as a man might, boasting confidently among friends, who finds suddenly that he is surrounded by enemies.

" We've been too indulgent towards you," the pictures, and china vases and silver plate seemed to say.

" Don't count on us," added the chairs which his mother had covered herself.

" Emancipation for us," concluded the Norman side- board which had uncomplainingly served three generations of Chamois.

The unhappy man cannot turn his glance on to the humblest companion of his life without immediately seeing china, wood or pewter give out a reproach or a menace. From every corner of his flat, as from every quarter of the globe, rises a hostile murmur. Every man and thing is refusing to play its role. One great conspiracy directed against Chamois. Wouldn't it be better to have done with it at once ?

" I'm going on strike, too," he declares.

He springs to the window. It is reluctant to open. He practically tears it from the hinges. He strides over the sill and throws himself into the void . . .

But what presumption ! To kill oneself thus ! To escape so easily from the universal spite ! He realises, during his transit from the fifth storey to the ground floor, that Some obstacle will thwart even his will to die. At the bottom he arrives gracefully and is received gently by the pavement which refuses to stun him . . .

Then he wakes up, dazed, stupefied, having slipped from the divan on to the carpet.