Journey to the End of the Night

Bardamu thinks about how little people have to say to one another. When they do talk, they talk only about their own problems. Falling in love, he reasons, is done so that people can find someone who will listen to their problems. Bardamu’s problems involve money and bills. Bébert dies, but Bébert’s aunt does not blame Bardamu. He quickly becomes more concerned with the Henrouilles. Grandma Henrouille visits Bardamu to see whether he will aid her son and daughter-in-law in having her committed. She also socializes with Bardamu’s neighbors and comforts Bébert’s aunt. Robinson begins to visit, and he often talks to the old woman. Robinson complains about his various health issues and wants Bardamu to find him a job, even though Bardamu has “no desire whatever to see him any more” (263).

Their afternoon stroll is interrupted when Bardamu is summoned to a house in which a man is dying of cancer in one household and a woman is experiencing a miscarriage in another. The old man dies, and Bardamu does his best to help the woman, though he becomes annoyed with the attending midwife. The husband of the woman must decide whether to send her to the hospital, and when the family fails to come to a decision, Bardamu tries to leave. The husband ventures out with him, offering to buy Bardamu a drink in the nearby bar. Bardamu shares a drink with the man, who remains in the “throes of doubt” (271), then never sees him again. On the way home, he runs into Robinson. Reluctantly asking about the planks of wood in Robinson’s hands, Bardamu learns that Robinson has been hired by Madame and Monsieur Henrouille to get rid of Grandma Henrouille. He will build a rabbit hutch and fill it with fireworks, killing the old woman in an explosion that will look like an accident. He will be paid more than a thousand francs for this.

Bardamu visits a patient at a carnival. At the carnival, a shooting gallery is present like the one that caused him a panic attack while on a date with Lola earlier in the novel. Now, small airplanes have been added. This, Bardamu suggests, is “novelty. Progress. Fashion” (277). As families enjoy themselves at the carnival, Bardamu can only cynically think about the money being made from them. Bardamu stiches up a wound in the hand of a barmaid at the carnival, whereupon he meets Robinson again. Robinson, he learns, is now demanding money from the Henrouilles; otherwise he will reveal their murderous plot. He wants 10,000 francs to keep quiet. Bardamu is “fascinated and horrified at the same time” (280).

Martrodin, the owner of the bar at the carnival, complains to Bardamu as the waitress with the bandaged hand leaves with two Arab men. Bardamu departs from the bar, refusing to speak again to Robinson. Some time later, Bardamu hears a strange, loud noise in the neighborhood. He is summoned to the Henrouilles’ house, where he discovers that the trap being laid by Robinson has exploded prematurely. The bomb detonated in Robinson’s face, leaving him blind and in terrible pain. Grandma Henrouille angrily accuses her son and daughter in law of trying to kill her. The “bungled murder” (285), Bardamu notes, seems to have revived the old woman’s spirits. The Henrouilles rightly fear that people will gossip about the incident. Bardamu treats Robinson’s wounds, wrapping his head in a bandage while he stays at the Henrouilles’ house. Bardamu is worried about telling Robinson that his sight might be permanently damaged, so he allows Robinson to believe that the room is dark, rather than that there is an issue with his sight.

Eventually, however, Robinson realizes what has happened. He laments that he is trapped in his “own private darkness” (290). Robison weeps for his lost sight and considers suicide, though Bardamu is sure that Robinson will not take his own life. He believes Robinson to be a “natural-born coward” (291). Bardamu sits with him often, and they discuss their shared memories as well as Robinson’s dismal childhood. Bardamu is sure that Robinson will never receive payment from the Henrouilles, but he tries to comfort his friend as he treats his wounds. Still needing money, Bardamu takes up a role in a small neighborhood dispensary for tuberculosis. Though the poor patients are often desperate, he insists that he cannot perform miracles. Like Robinson, many of the patients are worried about their financial futures. One evening, Bardamu is visited by a priest named Protiste. They talk about how to administer help to those in their care and about Bardamu’s reputation as a doctor in the neighborhood, which is not great. He knows about the Henrouilles’ desire to move Grandma Henrouille into some kind of facility.

The priest Protiste proposes a scheme to Bardamu. In this scheme, Robinson and Grandma Henrouille will both go south to Toulouse. There, they can take over the running of a museum that displays “some sort of mummy show” (303). Bardamu’s job, the priest says, is to convince Robinson to go with her. The Henrouilles hope that this will put an end to the scandalous gossip in the neighborhood. Bardamu is paid a thousand francs for convincing Robinson to go. After Robinson leaves for Toulouse, Bardamu’s practice continues to flounder. He goes to tell Bébert’s aunt that he has decided to leave Rancy. She will not stop talking about Bébert, even though it makes her sad. Bardamu then walks through the streets, bidding farewell to the familiar sights. In a café, he happens to meet Professor Parapine who has lost his job due to his inappropriate obsession with schoolgirls. He has found a new job testing the benefits of cinema visits on “the education of cretin children” (310-11). The two men talk at length about history and Napoleon in particular. Bardamu tells Parapine about recent events, including Robinson’s injury and subsequent departure. Parapine suggests that Bardamu take up a role in a traveling stage show. This silent role will not demand too much of him and will put him in proximity to “a sumptuous flock of English dancing girls” (313). Bardamu gets the job and joins the show at the Tarapout. The new job eases Bardamu’s financial concerns and allows him to return to his youthful decadence. Living in a hotel, he finds himself surrounded by students. He sneers at their belief that they will be successful if they work hard, though he allows them to show him around several of Paris’s seediest brothels. During this time, Bardamu meets a man named Pomone who makes money thanks to his “monumental penis” (317). Having been exposed to so many vices, Bardamu loses interest in this world. At the theater, he is “a quiet, punctual extra” (319). He only lasts four months in this job, however.

Bardamu describes how his job at the Tarapout came to an end. He starts a relationship with a Polish dancer named Tania who wants to return to Berlin, where her true love lives. When she receives news that he has died of sickness, however, Bardamu tries to comfort her. As they sit in a café, Bardamu sees a procession of ghosts passing by in the streets. These are the people he has met in his travels who have since died, including patients from his medical practice, colonists and colonial subjects from Africa, and Bébert. All have “turned into angels without [his] noticing” (323). The sight has a profound effect on Bardamu and sends him into a reflective reverie. He is woken by Tania the next day and feigns illness to make her leave him alone. He dwells on his “strange taste of remorse” (326) and thinks about Robinson while heading to Rancy. After a brief encounter with Pomone, he decides to visit the Henrouilles. There, Monsieur Henrouille is dying of a heart problem. Bardamu’s only advice to his wife is to remove his dental plate. She is too late, however, as he has already flushed it down the toilet. Madame Henrouille is annoyed by this, as the partially gold dental plate was valuable. Bardamu does not attend the funeral.

A short time later, Protiste visits Bardamu with good news and the commission owed to him for convincing Robinson to go to Toulouse. Robinson, he says, is recovering well and is now engaged to be married to the daughter of a woman who sells candles in the church near the museum crypt where Grandma Henrouille is working. Bardamu, pleased to have received the commission, talks jovially with the priest. Grandma Henrouille, he learns, has turned the mummy show into a profitable venture. Bardamu admits to himself that he has developed a “taste for shady undertakings” (335), and, against his better judgement, he plans to join Robinson in Toulouse. He takes a train south and arrives at the crypt, where he is shown around by a young woman. Bardamu studies her, suspecting that she is Robinson’s fiancée. As she shows him around the crypt, Bardamu kisses her “a little on the neck” (339). She protests at first, then allows him to kiss her. She introduces herself as Madelon, and Bardamu quizzes her about why she would marry an “invalid” (340) like Robinson.