Enno Character Analysis

Paris is looking very nice tonight....You are looking very nice tonight, my beautiful, my darling, and oh what a bitch you can be! But you didn’t kill me after all, did you? And they couldn’t kill me either....

Just about here we waited for a couple of hours to see Anatole France’s funeral pass, because, Enno said, we mustn’t let such a great literary figure disappear without paying him the tribute of a last salute.

And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease.

And there he is, lying with a ticket tied round his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease....

I haven’t any money. He hasn’t any either. We both thought the other had money. But people are doing crazy things all over the place. The war is over. No more war—never, never, never. Après la guerre, there’ll be a good time everywhere....And not to go back to London. It isn’t so fine, what I have to go back to in London.

I am tuned up to top pitch. Everything is smooth, soft and tender. Making love. The colours of the pictures. The sunsets. Tender, north colours when the sun sets—pink, mauve, green and blue. And the wind very fresh and cold and the lights in the canals like gold caterpillars and the seagulls swooping over the water. Tuned up to top pitch. Everything tender and melancholy—as life is sometimes, just for one moment....

‘I want very much to go back to Paris,’ Enno would say. ‘It has no reason, no sense. But all the same I want to go back there. Certain houses, certain streets….No sense, no reason. Just this nostalgia[…]’

Suddenly I am in a fever of anxiety to get there. Let’s be on our way, let’s be on our way....Why shouldn’t we get as far as Brussels? All right, we’ll get as far as Brussels; might be something doing in Brussels.

But the fifteen pounds have gone. We raise every penny we can. We sell most of our clothes.

My beautiful life in front of me, opening out like a fan in my hand….

‘I’ve got some money,’ he says. ‘My God, isn’t it hot? Peel me an orange.’

‘I'm very thirsty’ he says. ‘Peel me an orange.’

Now is the time to say ‘Peel it yourself’, now is the time to say ‘Go to hell’, now is the time to say ‘I won’t be treated like this’. But much too strong—the room, the street, the thing in myself, oh, much too strong....I peel the orange, put it on a plate and give it to him.

‘Lise, don’t cry.’

‘Non, non, j’en ai assez.’

I also start to cry. No, life is too sad; it’s quite impossible.

Sitting in front of the flamme bleue, arms round each other’s waists, crying. No, life is too sad....My tears fall on her thick hair, which always smells so nice.

Enno, coming in with another bottle of Asti spumante, says: ‘Oh, my God, this is gay,’ and laughs loudly. Lise and I look at each other and start laughing too. Soon we are all rolling, helpless with laughter. It’s too much, I can’t any more, it’s too much....

Just the sensation of spending, that’s the point. I’ll look at bracelets studded with artificial jewels, red, green and blue, necklaces of imitation pearls, cigarette-cases, jewelled tortoises....And when I have had a couple of drinks I shan’t know whether it’s yesterday, today or tomorrow.