Read She Who Was No More for Free Online

road. Haven’t you ever wanted to change to the Paris area?’
    ‘No. In any case it’s the territory of the most senior travelers. Besides, I get a much better turnover here.’
    ‘For my part,’ said Tamisier, ‘I’ve never been able to make out how you came to choose a job like that. With your education.’
    And he explained to Belloeil that Ravinel had taken a degree in law. But how could the latter explain something he’d never understood himself? Was it just that everything to do with water had an irresistible attraction for him?
    ‘Still hurting?’ asked Belloeil.
    ‘A jab now and again.’
    Water and poetry, yes. For there is poetry in instruments that are beautifully made, perfectly balanced and highly polished. A bit childish, no doubt. A sign that he’d never grown up. Perhaps he hadn’t. But why should he want to? To turn into a Belloeil, selling shirts and ties and steadily pickling himself in alcohol? Slowly and patiently. Without hope.
    So many people in the world! All anchored by invisible chains to their own particular hole and corner. Is there any point in telling them you despise them because you yourself belong to another race, because you’re a nomad, because you sell airy playthings, lovingly displaying your fishhooks and flies on your customer’s counter? It’s a job, of course, like everyone else’s. Only it’s different. It has affinities with painting and literature. Difficult to explain. But there’s no getting away from the fact that fishing is an escape.
    An escape for what? That was the whole problem…
    Ravinel started. Half past nine. For three quarters of an hour he had been turning over the events of the previous day.
    ‘Waiter. A brandy.’
    After that talk in the café, what had happened next? He had called on Le Flem, near the Pont de Pirmil. Le Flem had given him an order for three punt guns. They had been joined by a hairdresser who went fishing every Monday and never failed to come home with a huge pike. A lot of heavy fishermen’s talk. The hairdresser didn’t believe in artificial flies, and he wasn’t won over until Ravinel had tied a Hitchcock then and there before his eyes, using bits of partridge feather for the wings. Ravinel had the knack. For tying flies, there was no one to touch him in France, possibly in the whole of Europe. It takes some doing, particularly if you haven’t got a vise to hold the hook. The body and the hackle are comparatively easy, but tying on the wings—that really is tricky. It’s certainly a knack, tying flies. An art, rather. For even when the fly doesn’t imitate any known insect, the illusion is so perfect that it is difficult to believe it isn’t real.
    ‘My word!’ said the hairdresser.
    Brandishing an imaginary rod, Le Flem went through the motions of casting. Then his arms quivered as though he really had a fish at the end of his line.
    ‘You see! That’s the way to do it. Come here, little fellow…’
    And he thrust an imaginary landing net under his victim. His movements were expressive. Ravinel could see at once that the hairdresser had fishing in his blood.
    The hours had dragged on. In the afternoon he had gone to the moving pictures. Ditto in the evening. That night he had stayed at a different hotel. This time it was too quiet, and his mind had been obstinately haunted by Mireille. Not the Mireille in the bath. The one at Enghien, very much alive. It would have been nice if he could have talked things over with her.
    ‘Look here, Mireille. What would you have done in my place?’
    It was impossible to get away from the fact that he still loved her. Or rather that he was beginning to. Shyly. It was fantastic, monstrous if you like, and yet…
     
    ‘Why! If it isn’t Ravinel!’
    Two men had stopped in front of him. One of them was Cadiou, the other a tall, spare man in a fur-lined jacket, who looked hard at him as though…
    ‘Larmingeat,’ said Cadiou, introducing his friend.
    Larmingeat! That’s who