FICTION
Michel Tournier
BLANDINE, or THE FATHER'S VISIT
"We bachelors are not only vulnerable, we're under at–
tack!"
Alexis had said this peremptorily; for a long time he had been
silent, listening to his friends' sorrows and grievances. Then he had
turned his back on us and squatted down to tend the fire in the
hearth. Tongs in one hand and poker in the other, he worked to
restore a structure of logs and burning coals that would lure, hold,
and feed the flame.
It
was not really a club for old bachelors, though it is true that
the four guests assembled at Alexis's place usually met once a
month, in one or the other of their homes. None of them had been
married, with the exception of Hebert, who was now divorced, and a
loner like the rest of us.
Alexis got to his feet and faced us again, leaning on the
mantelpiece.
"You moan about the tax-collector taking a sadistic pleasure in
ruining bachelors. But what about the way we get moved around?
In
big business they always assume that a single man, because he has
no wife or children to drag around, can be transferred, moved any
which way, to the provinces or the ends of the earth. He travels
light, and can be moved more economically than a married man. No
doubt this is fair enough for the company employing him, but for the
man involved it's a catastrophe. The fact is, a family man is attached
to and carries with him a minimum human community. His wife
and children make up a small society, which for better or for worse
goes with him in his travels. The bachelor has his human network
too: his relatives, his friends, his favorite haunts, perhaps a club or a
salon.
None of this can be transported.
If
he is uprooted he suffers
from the deepest and most complete form of loneliness.
It
will take
Editor's Note: This story appeared in
Sm/Jsi.
Copyright
©
Michel Tournier 1984.
