Page 86 - BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK

THE MAN OF COLOR AND THE WHITE WOMAN 47

the level of ideas and knowledge. As a matter of fact, his friends
and schoolmates hold him in high regard: “What a perpetual
dreamer! You know, my old pal, Veneuse, is really a character.
He never takes his nose out of his books except to scribble all
over his notebooks.” 2
But a sentimentalist who goes nonstop from singing Spanish
songs to translating into English. Shy, but uneasy as well: “As I
was leaving them, I heard Divrande say to him: ‘A good kid, that
Veneuse—he seems to like being sad and quiet, but he’s always
helpful. You can trust him. You’ll see. He’s the kind of Negro that
a lot of white guys ought to be like.’ ” 3
Uneasy and anxious indeed. An anxious man who cannot
escape his body. We know from other sources that René Maran
cherished an affection for André Gide. It seems possible to fi nd a
resemblance between the ending of Un homme pareil aux autres
and that of Gide’s Strait is the Gate. This departure, this tone of
emotional pain, of moral impossibility, seems an echo of the story
of Jérôme and Alissa.
But there remains the fact that Veneuse is black. He is a bear
who loves solitude. He is a thinker. And when a woman tries to
start a fl irtation with him, he says, “Are you trying to smoke
out an old bear like me? Be careful, my dear. Courage is a fi ne
thing, but you’re going to get yourself talked about if you go on
attracting attention this way. A Negro? Shameful—it’s beneath
contempt. Associating with anybody of that race is just utterly
disgracing yourself.” 4
Above all, he wants to prove to the others that he is a man, their
equal. But let us not be misled: Jean Veneuse is the man who has
to be convinced. It is in the roots of his soul, as complicated as
that of any European, that the doubt persists. If the expression
may be allowed, Jean Veneuse is the lamb to be slaughtered. Let
us make the effort.
After having quoted Stendhal and mentioned the phenomenon
of “crystallization,” he declares that he loves

2. Ibid., p. 87.
3. Ibid., pp. 18–19.
4. Ibid., pp. 45–46.

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