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diff --git a/76965-h/76965-h.htm b/76965-h/76965-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d0e92c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/76965-h/76965-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14907 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Counterfeiters | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +/* General headers */ +h2, h3 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +.nind {text-indent:0;} + +.nindc {text-align:center; text-indent:0;} + +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.spa1 { + margin-top: 1em + } + +.tb { + text-align: center; + padding-top: .76em; + padding-bottom: .24em; + letter-spacing: 1.5em; + margin-right: -1.5em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } +.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } + + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.tdlh { + text-align: left; + margin-left: 2em; + text-indent: 2em + } + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.blockquot-half { + padding-top: 2em; + padding-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 50% + } + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +img {max-width: 100%; width: 100%; height: auto;} +.width500 {max-width: 500px;} +.x-ebookmaker .width500 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + /*max-width: 100%;*/ +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent10 {text-indent: 2em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} + + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76965 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="cover" style="width: 1600px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="1600" height="2560" alt="The book +explores complex themes of identity, love, and moral ambiguity through +the story of Bernard Profitendieu."> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"><span class="large"> +THE COUNTERFEITERS</span></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +*<br> +<br> +<i>Other books<br> +<br> +by</i><br> +<br> +ANDRÉ GIDE<br> +<br> +*<br> +<br> +STRAIT IS THE GATE<br> +<br> +LAFCADIO’S ADVENTURES<br> +<br> +DOSTOEVSKY<br> +<br> +<br> +*<br> +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i_frontispiece" style="width: 791px;"> + <img src="images/i_frontispiece.jpg" width="791" height="1200" alt="Title page of the book The Counterfeiters by André Gide."> + +</figure> + + + +<h1>THE COUNTERFEITERS</h1> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +(<i>Les Faux-Monnayeurs</i>)</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<i>Translated from the French of</i></p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<span class="large">ANDRÉ GIDE</span></p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<i>by Dorothy Bussy</i></p> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i_logo1" style="width: 203px;"> + <img src="images/i_logo1.jpg" width="203" height="120" alt="decorative"> +</figure> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<i>New York</i> ALFRED · A · KNOPF <i>Mcmxxvii</i></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +COPYRIGHT 1927 BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.<br> +<br> +PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1927<br> +SECOND PRINTING OCTOBER, 1927<br> +THIRD PRINTING OCTOBER, 1927<br> +FOURTH PRINTING NOVEMBER, 1927<br> +FIFTH PRINTING NOVEMBER, 1927<br> +SIXTH PRINTING DECEMBER, 1927<br> +SEVENTH PRINTING DECEMBER, 1927<br> +<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">ORIGINAL TITLE</span><br> +LES FAUX-MONNAYEURS<br> +<span class="allsmcap">COPYRIGHT 1925 BY LIBRAIRIE GALLIMARD<br> +PARIS</span></p> + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +<span class="allsmcap">MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +*<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">I DEDICATE<br> +<br> +THIS, MY FIRST NOVEL,<br> +<br> +TO</span><br> +<br> +ROGER MARTIN DU GARD<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">IN TOKEN OF PROFOUND<br> +<br> +FRIENDSHIP<br> +<br> +A. G.</span><br> +<br> +<br> +* +</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<p class="nindc">*</p> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tbody><tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3">FIRST PART: PARIS</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">I. THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">II. THE PROFITENDIEUS</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">III. BERNARD AND OLIVIER</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">IV. VINCENT AND THE COMTE DE<br> +<span class="tdlh">PASSAVANT</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">V. VINCENT MEETS PASSAVANT AT LADY<br> +<span class="tdlh">GRIFFITH’S</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VI. BERNARD AWAKENS</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VII. LILIAN AND VINCENT</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VIII. EDOUARD AND LAURA</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">IX. EDOUARD AND OLIVIER</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">X. THE CLOAK-ROOM TICKET</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XI. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: GEORGE<br> +<span class="tdlh">MOLINIER</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XII. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: LAURA’S<br> +<span class="tdlh">WEDDING</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XIII. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: FIRST VISIT TO<br> +<span class="tdlh">LA PÉROUSE</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XIV. BERNARD AND LAURA</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XV. OLIVIER VISITS THE COMTE DE<br> +<span class="tdlh">PASSAVANT</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVI. VINCENT AND LILIAN</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVII. THE EVENING AT RAMBOUILLET</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVIII. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: SECOND VISIT<br> +<span class="tdlh">TO LA PÉROUSE</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3">SECOND PART: SAAS-FÉE</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">I. FROM BERNARD TO OLIVIER</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">II. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: LITTLE BORIS</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">III. EDOUARD EXPLAINS HIS THEORY<br> +<span class="tdlh">TO LA PÉROUSE</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">IV. BERNARD AND LAURA</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">V. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: CONVERSATION<br> +<span class="tdlh">WITH SOPHRONISKA</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VI. FROM OLIVIER TO BERNARD</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VII. THE AUTHOR REVIEWS HIS<br> +<span class="tdlh">CHARACTERS</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="3">THIRD PART: PARIS</td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">I. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: OSCAR<br> +<span class="tdlh">MOLINIER</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">II. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: AT THE<br> +<span class="tdlh">VEDELS’</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">III. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: THIRD VISIT<br> +<span class="tdlh">TO LA PÉROUSE</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">IV. THE FIRST DAY OF THE TERM</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">V. OLIVIER MEETS BERNARD</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VI. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: MADAME<br> +<span class="tdlh">MOLINIER</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VII. OLIVIER AND ARMAND</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">VIII. THE ARGONAUTS’ DINNER</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">IX. OLIVIER AND EDOUARD</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">X. OLIVIER’S CONVALESCENCE</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XI. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: PAULINE</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XII. EDOUARD AND THEN STROUVILHOU<br> +<span class="tdlh">VISIT PASSAVANT</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XIII. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: DOUVIERS<br> +<span class="tdlh">PROFITENDIEU</span></span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XIV. BERNARD AND THE ANGEL</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XV. BERNARD VISITS EDOUARD</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVI. EDOUARD WARNS GEORGE</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVII. ARMAND AND OLIVIER</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XVIII. THE STRONG MEN</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XIX. BORIS</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="allsmcap">XX. EDOUARD’S JOURNAL</span></td> +<td class="tdc"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_363">363</a></td> +</tr> + </tbody> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"> +FIRST PART<br> +PARIS</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I_a">I<br> +THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +“THE time has now come for me to hear a step in the passage,” said +Bernard to himself. He raised his head and listened. Nothing! His +father and elder brother were away at the law-courts; his mother +paying visits; his sister at a concert; as for his small brother +Caloub—the youngest—he was safely shut up for the whole afternoon in +his day-school. Bernard Profitendieu had stayed at home to cram for his +“<i>bachot</i>”;<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> he had only three more weeks before him. His family +respected his solitude—not so the demon! Although Bernard had stripped +off his coat, he was stifling. The window that looked on to the street +stood open, but it let in nothing but heat. His forehead was streaming. +A drop of perspiration came dripping from his nose and fell on to the +letter he was holding in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Pretending to be a tear!” thought he. “But it’s better to sweat than +to weep.”</p> + +<p>Yes; the date was conclusive. No one could be in question but him, +Bernard himself. Impossible to doubt it. The letter was addressed to +his mother—a love-letter—seventeen years old, unsigned.</p> + +<p>“What can this initial stand for? A ‘V’? It might just as well be an +‘N.’... Would it be becoming to question my mother?... We must give her +credit for good taste. I’m free to imagine he’s a prince. It wouldn’t +advance matters much to know that I was the son of a rapscallion. +There’s no better cure for the fear of taking after one’s father, than +not to know who he is. The mere fact of enquiry binds one. The only +thing to do is to welcome deliverance and not attempt to go any deeper. +Besides which, I’ve had sufficient for the day.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p> + +<p>Bernard folded the letter up again. It was on paper of the same size +and shape as the other twelve in the packet. They were tied up with +pink ribbon which there had been no need for him to untie, and which he +was easily able to slip round the bundle again to keep it tight. He put +the bundle back into the casket and the casket back into the drawer of +the console-table. The drawer was not open. It had yielded its secret +from above. Bernard fitted together the pieces of wood which formed its +top, and which were made to support a heavy slab of onyx, re-adjusted +the slab carefully and gently, and put back in their places on the top, +a pair of glass candelabra and a cumbersome clock, which he had been +amusing himself by repairing.</p> + +<p>The clock struck four. He had set it to the right time.</p> + +<p>“His Honour the judge and his learned son the barrister will not +be back before six. I shall have time. When His Honour comes in he +must find a letter from me on his writing table, informing him in +eloquent terms of my departure. But before I write it, I feel that +it’s absolutely essential to air my mind a little. I must talk to my +dear Olivier, and make certain of a perch—at any rate a temporary +one. Olivier, my friend, the time has come for <i>me</i> to put your +good-fellowship to the test, and for <i>you</i> to show your mettle. +The fine thing about our friendship so far has been that we have never +made any use of one another. Pooh! it can’t be unpleasant to ask a +favour that’s amusing to grant. The tiresome thing is that Olivier +won’t be alone. Never mind! I shall have to take him aside. I want to +appal him by my calm. It’s when things are most extraordinary that I +feel most at home.”</p> + +<p>The street where Bernard Profitendieu had lived until then was quite +close to the Luxembourg Gardens. There, in the path that overlooks +the Medici fountains, some of his schoolfellows were in the habit of +meeting every Wednesday afternoon, between four and six. The talk was +of art, philosophy, sport, politics and literature. Bernard walked to +the gardens quickly, but as soon as he caught sight of Olivier Molinier +through the railings, he slackened his pace. The gathering that day was +more numerous than usual—because of the fine weather, no doubt. Some +of the boys who were there were new-comers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> whom Bernard had never +seen before. Every one of them, as soon as he was in company with the +others, lost his naturalness and began to act a part.</p> + +<p>Olivier blushed when he saw Bernard coming up. He left the side of +a young woman to whom he had been talking and walked away a little +abruptly. Bernard was his most intimate friend, so that he took great +pains not to show that he liked being with him; sometimes he would even +pretend not to see him.</p> + +<p>Before joining him, Bernard had to run the gauntlet of several groups +and, as he himself affected not to be looking for Olivier, he lingered +among the others.</p> + +<p>Four of his schoolfellows were surrounding a little fellow with a beard +and a pince-nez, who was perceptibly older than the rest. This was +Dhurmer. He was holding a book and addressing one boy in particular, +though at the same time he was obviously delighted that the others were +listening.</p> + +<p>“I can’t help it,” he was saying, “I’ve got as far as page thirty +without coming across a single colour or a single word that makes a +picture. He speaks of a woman and I don’t know whether her dress was +red or blue. As far as I’m concerned, if there are no colours, it’s +useless, I can see nothing.” And feeling that the less he was taken +in earnest, the more he must exaggerate, he repeated: “—absolutely +nothing!”</p> + +<p>Bernard stopped attending; he thought it would be ill-mannered to +walk away too quickly, but he began to listen to some others who were +quarrelling behind him and who had been joined by Olivier after he +had left the young woman; one of them was sitting on a bench, reading +<i>L’Action Française</i>.</p> + +<p>Amongst all these youths how grave Olivier Molinier looks! And yet he +was one of the youngest. His face, his expression, which are still +almost a child’s, reveal a mind older than his years. He blushes +easily. There is something tender about him. But however gracious his +manners, some kind of secret reserve, some kind of sensitive delicacy, +keeps his schoolfellows at a distance. This is a grief to him. But for +Bernard, it would be a greater grief still.</p> + +<p>Molinier, like Bernard, had stayed a minute or two with each of the +groups—out of a wish to be agreeable, not that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> anything he heard +interested him. He leant over the reader’s shoulder, and Bernard, +without turning round, heard him say:</p> + +<p>“You shouldn’t read the papers—they’ll give you apoplexy.”</p> + +<p>The other replied tartly: “As for you, the very name of Maurras makes +you turn green.”</p> + +<p>A third boy asked, deridingly: “Do Maurras’s articles amuse you?”</p> + +<p>And the first answered: “They bore me bloody well stiff, but I think +he’s right.”</p> + +<p>Then a fourth, whose voice Bernard didn’t recognize: “Unless a thing +bores you, you think there’s no depth in it.”</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> seem to think that one’s only got to be stupid to be funny.”</p> + +<p>“Come along,” whispered Bernard, suddenly seizing Olivier by the arm +and drawing him aside. “Answer quickly. I’m in a hurry. You told me you +didn’t sleep on the same floor as your parents?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve shown you the door of my room. It opens straight on to the +staircase, half a floor below our flat.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you say your brother slept with you?”</p> + +<p>“George. Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Are you two alone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Can the youngster hold his tongue?”</p> + +<p>“If necessary.”</p> + +<p>“Listen. I’ve left home—or at any rate I’m going to this evening. I +don’t know where to go yet. Can you take me in for one night?”</p> + +<p>Olivier turned very pale. His emotion was so great that he was hardly +able to look at Bernard.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said he, “but don’t come before eleven. Mamma comes down to say +good-night to us and lock the door every evening.”</p> + +<p>“But then...?”</p> + +<p>Olivier smiled. “I’ve got another key. You must knock softly, so as not +to wake George if he’s asleep.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> + +<p>“Will the concierge let me in?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll warn him. Oh, I’m on very good terms with him. It’s he who gives +me the key. Good-bye! Till to-night!”</p> + +<p>They parted without shaking hands. While Bernard was walking away, +reflecting on the letter he meant to write for the magistrate to find +when he came in, Olivier, not wishing it to be thought that Bernard +was the only person he liked talking to in private, went up to Lucien +Bercail, who was sitting by himself as usual, for he was generally left +a little out of it by the others. Olivier would be very fond of him, if +he didn’t prefer Bernard. Lucien is as timid as Bernard is spirited. He +cannot hide his weakness; he seems to live only with his head and his +heart. He hardly ever dares to make advances, but when he sees Olivier +coming towards him, he is beside himself with joy; Lucien writes +poetry—everyone suspects as much; but I am pretty sure that Olivier is +the only person to whom Lucien talks of his ideas. They walked together +to the edge of the terrace.</p> + +<p>“What I should like,” said Lucien, “would be to tell the story—no, +not of a person, but of a place—well, for instance, of a garden path, +like this—just tell what happens in it from morning to evening. First +of all, come the children’s nurses and the children, and the babies’ +nurses with ribbons in their caps.... No, no ... first of all, people +who are grey all over and ageless and sexless and who come to sweep +the path, and water the grass, and change the flowers—in fact, to set +the stage and get ready the scenery before the opening of the gates. +D’you see? <i>Then</i> the nurses come in ... the kids make mud-pies +and squabble; the nurses smack them. Then the little boys come out of +school; then there are the workgirls; then the poor people who eat +their scrap upon a bench, and later people come to meet each other, and +others avoid each other, and others go by themselves—dreamers. And +then when the band plays and the shops close, there’s the crowd.... +Students, like us; in the evening, lovers who embrace—others who +cry at parting. And at the end, when the day is over, there’s an old +couple.... And suddenly the drum beats.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> Closing time! Everyone goes +off. The play is ended. Do you understand? Something which gives +the impression of the end of everything—of death ... but without +mentioning death, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I see it all perfectly,” said Olivier, who was thinking of +Bernard and had not listened to a word.</p> + +<p>“And that’s not all,” went on Lucien, enthusiastically; “I should like +to have a kind of epilogue and show the same garden path at night, +after everyone has gone, deserted and much more beautiful than in the +daytime. In the deep silence; all the natural sounds intensified—the +sound of the fountain, and the wind in the trees, and the song of a +night-bird. First of all, I thought that I’d bring in some ghosts to +wander about—or perhaps some statues—but I think that would be more +common place. What do you say?”</p> + +<p>“No, no! No statues, no statues!” said Olivier absent-mindedly; and +then, seeing the other’s disappointed face: “Well, old fellow, if you +bring it off, it’ll be splendid!” he exclaimed warmly.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> +Schoolboy’s slang for the <i>baccalauréat</i> examination.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II_a">II<br> +THE PROFITENDIEUS</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p class="right"> +<i>There is no trace in Poussin’s letters of any feeling of obligation +towards his parents.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>He never in later days showed any regret at having left them; +transplanted to Rome of his own free will, he lost all desire to +return to his home—and even, it would seem, all recollection of +it</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">PAUL DESJARDINS</span> (<i>Poussin</i>).</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +MONSIEUR PROFITENDIEU was in a hurry to get home and wished that his +colleague Molinier, who was keeping him company up the Boulevard St. +Germain, would walk a little faster. Albéric Profitendieu had just had +an unusually heavy day at the law-courts; an uncomfortable sensation +in his right side was causing him some uneasiness; fatigue in his case +usually went to his liver, which was his weak point. He was thinking +of his bath; nothing rested him better after the cares of the day than +a good bath—with an eye to which he had taken no tea that afternoon, +esteeming it imprudent to get into any sort of water—even warm—with +a loaded stomach. Merely a prejudice, perhaps; but prejudices are the +props of civilisation. Oscar Molinier walked as quickly as he could +and made every effort to keep up with his companion; but he was much +shorter than Profitendieu and his crural development was slighter; +besides which there was a little fatty accumulation round his heart and +he easily became short-winded. Profitendieu, who was still sound at +the age of fifty-five, with a well-developed chest and a brisk gait, +would have gladly given him the slip; but he was very particular as +to the proprieties; his colleague was older than he and higher up in +the career; respect was due to him. And besides, since the death of +his wife’s parents,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> Profitendieu had a very considerable fortune to +be forgiven him, whereas Monsieur Molinier, who was <i>Président de +chambre</i>, had nothing but his salary—a derisory salary, utterly +disproportionate to the high situation he filled with dignity, which +was all the more imposing because of the mediocrity it cloaked. +Profitendieu concealed his impatience; he turned to Molinier and looked +at him mopping himself; for that matter, he was exceedingly interested +by what Molinier was saying; but their point of view was not the same +and the discussion was beginning to get warm.</p> + +<p>“Have the house watched, by all means,” said Molinier. “Get the reports +of the concierge and the sham maid-servant—very good! But mind, if +you push the enquiry too far, the affair will be taken out of your +hands.... I mean there’s a risk of your being led on much further than +you bargained for.”</p> + +<p>“Justice should have no such considerations.”</p> + +<p>“Tut, tut, my dear sir; you and I know very well what justice ought +to be and what it is. We’re all agreed that we act for the best, but, +however we act, we never get nearer than an approximation. The case +before us now is a particularly delicate one. Out of the fifteen +accused persons—or persons who at a word from you will be accused +to-morrow—nine are minors. And some of these boys, as you know, +come of very honourable families. In such circumstances, I consider +that to issue a warrant at all would be the greatest mistake. The +newspapers will get hold of the affair and you open the door to every +sort of blackmail and calumny. In spite of all your efforts you’ll +not prevent names from coming out.... It’s no business of mine to +give you advice—on the contrary—it’s much more my place to receive +it. You’re well aware how highly I’ve always rated your lucidity and +your fair-mindedness.... But if I were you, this is what I should do: +I should try to put an end to this abominable scandal by laying hold +of the four or five instigators.... Yes! I know they’re difficult to +catch; but what the deuce, that’s part of our trade. I should have the +flat—the scene of the orgies—closed, and I should take steps for the +brazen young rascals’ parents to be informed of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> affair—quietly +and secretly; and merely in order to avoid any repetition of the +scandal. Oh! as to the women, collar <i>them</i> by all means. I’m +entirely with you there. We seem to be up against a set of creatures +of unspeakable perversity, and society should be cleansed of them at +all costs. But, let me repeat, leave the boys alone; content yourself +with giving them a fright, and then hush the matter up with some vague +term like “youthful indiscretion.” Their astonishment at having got +off so cheaply will last them for a long time to come. Remember that +three of them are not fourteen years old and that their parents no +doubt consider them angels of purity and innocence. But really, my dear +fellow, between ourselves, come now, did <i>we</i> think of women when +we were that age?”</p> + +<p>He came to a stop, breathless rather with talking than with walking, +and forced Profitendieu, whose sleeve he was holding, to stop too.</p> + +<p>“Or if we thought of them,” he went on, “it was +ideally—mystically—religiously, if I may say so. The boys of to-day, +don’t you think, have no ideals—no! no ideals.... A propos, how are +yours? Of course, I’m not alluding to them when I speak so. I know that +with your careful bringing-up—with the education you’ve given them, +there’s no fear of any such reprehensible follies.”</p> + +<p>And indeed, up to that time, Profitendieu had had every reason to +be satisfied with his sons. But he was without illusions—the best +education in the world was of no avail against bad instincts. God be +praised, <i>his</i> children had no bad instincts—nor Molinier’s +either, no doubt; they were their own protectors against bad companions +and bad books. For of what use is it to forbid what we can’t prevent? +If books are forbidden, children read them on the sly. His own plan was +perfectly simple—he didn’t forbid bad books, but he so managed that +his children had no desire to read them. As for the matter in question, +he would think it over again, and in any case, he promised Molinier to +do nothing without consulting him. He would simply give orders for a +discreet watch to be kept, and as the thing had been going on for three +months, it might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> just as well go on for another few days or weeks. +Besides, the summer holidays were upon them and would necessarily +disperse the delinquents. <i>Au revoir!</i></p> + +<p>At last Profitendieu was able to quicken his pace.</p> + +<p>As soon as he got in, he hurried to his dressing-room and turned on +the water for his bath. Antoine had been looking out for his master’s +return and managed to come across him in the passage.</p> + +<p>This faithful man-servant had been in the family for the last fifteen +years; he had seen the children grow up. He had seen a great many +things—and suspected a great many more; but he pretended not to notice +anything his masters wished to keep hidden.</p> + +<p>Bernard was not without affection for Antoine; he had not wanted to +leave the house without saying good-bye to him. Perhaps it was out of +irritation against his family that he made a point of confiding to a +servant that he was going away, when none of his own people knew it; +but, in excuse for Bernard, it must be pointed out that none of his own +people were at that time in the house. And besides, Bernard could not +have said good-bye to them without the risk of being detained. Whereas +to Antoine, he could simply say: “I’m going away.” But as he said it, +he put out his hand with such a solemn air that the old servant was +astonished.</p> + +<p>“Not coming back to dinner, Master Bernard?”</p> + +<p>“Nor to sleep, Antoine.” And as Antoine hesitated, not knowing what he +was expected to understand, nor whether he ought to ask any further +questions, Bernard repeated still more meaningly: “I’m going away”; +then he added: “I’ve left a letter for....” He couldn’t bring himself +to say “Papa,” so he corrected his sentence to “on the study writing +table. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>As he squeezed Antoine’s hand, he felt as moved as if he were then and +there saying good-bye to all his past life. He repeated “good-bye” very +quickly and then hurried off before the sob that was rising in his +throat burst from him.</p> + +<p>Antoine wondered whether it were not a heavy responsibility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> to let him +go in this way—but how could he have prevented him?</p> + +<p>That this departure of Bernard’s would be a blow to the whole +family—an unexpected—a monstrous blow—Antoine indeed was well +aware; but his business as a perfect servant was to pretend to take +it as a matter of course. It was not for him to know what Monsieur +Profitendieu was ignorant of. No doubt, he might simply have said to +him: “Do you know, sir, that Master Bernard has gone away?” But by so +saying, he would lose his advantage, and that was highly undesirable. +If he awaited his master so impatiently, it was to drop out in a +non-committal, deferential voice, and as if it were a simple message +left by Bernard, this sentence, which he had elaborately prepared +beforehand:</p> + +<p>“Before going away, sir, Master Bernard left a letter for you in the +study”—a sentence so simple that there was a risk of its passing +unperceived; he had racked his brains in vain for something which would +be more striking, and had found nothing which would be at the same time +natural. But as Bernard never left home, Profitendieu, whom Antoine was +watching out of the corner of his eye, could not repress a start.</p> + +<p>“Before going....”</p> + +<p>He pulled himself up at once; it was not for him to show his +astonishment before a subordinate; the consciousness of his superiority +never left him. His tone as he continued was very calm—really +magisterial.</p> + +<p>“Thank you.” And as he went towards his study: “Where did you say the +letter was?”</p> + +<p>“On the writing table, sir.”</p> + +<p>And in fact, as Profitendieu entered the room, he saw an envelope +placed conspicuously opposite the chair in which he usually sat when +writing; but Antoine was not to be choked off so easily, and Monsieur +Profitendieu had not read two lines of the letter, when he heard a +knock at the door.</p> + +<p>“I forgot to tell you, sir, that there are two persons waiting to see +you in the back drawing-room.”</p> + +<p>“Who are they?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Are they together?”</p> + +<p>“They don’t seem to be, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What do they want?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. They want to see you, sir.”</p> + +<p>Profitendieu felt his patience giving way.</p> + +<p>“I have already said and repeated that I don’t want to be disturbed +when I’m at home—especially at this time of day; I have my consulting +room at the law-courts. Why did you let them in?”</p> + +<p>“They both said they had something very urgent to say to you, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Have they been here long?”</p> + +<p>“Nearly an hour.”</p> + +<p>Profitendieu took a few steps up and down the room, and passed one hand +over his forehead; with the other he held Bernard’s letter. Antoine +stood at the door, dignified and impassive. At last, he had the joy of +seeing the judge lose his temper and of hearing him for the first time +in his life stamp his foot and scold angrily.</p> + +<p>“Deuce take it all! Can’t you leave me alone? Can’t you leave me alone? +Tell them I’m busy. Tell them to come another day.”</p> + +<p>Antoine had no sooner left the room than Profitendieu ran to the door.</p> + +<p>“Antoine! Antoine! And then go and turn off my bath.”</p> + +<p>Much inclined for a bath, truly! He went up to the window and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="nind"> +<span class="allsmcap">SIR</span>,</p> + +<p>Owing to an accidental discovery I happened to make this afternoon, I +have become aware that I must cease to regard you as my father. This +is an immense relief to me. Realizing as I do how little affection +I feel for you, I have for a long time past been thinking myself +an unnatural son; I prefer knowing I am not your son at all. You +will perhaps consider that I ought to be grateful to you for having +treated me as if I were one of your own children; but, in the first +place, I have always felt the difference<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> between your behaviour to +them and to me, and, secondly, I know you well enough to feel certain +that you acted as you did because you were afraid of the scandal and +because you wished to conceal a situation which did you no great +honour—and, finally, because you could not have acted otherwise. I +prefer to leave without seeing my mother again, because I am afraid +that the emotion of bidding her a final good-bye might affect me too +much and also because she might feel herself in a false position in +my presence—which I should dislike. I doubt whether she has any very +lively affection for me; as I was almost always away at school, she +never had time to know much of me, and as the sight of me must have +continually reminded her of an episode in her life which she would +have liked to efface, I think my departure will be a relief and a +pleasure to her. Tell her, if you have the courage to, that I bear her +no grudge for having made a bastard of me; on the contrary, I prefer +that to knowing I am your son. (Pray excuse me for writing in this +way; it is not my object to insult you; but my words will give you an +excuse for despising me and that will be a relief to you.)</p> + +<p>If you wish me to keep silent as to the secret reasons which have +induced me to leave your roof, I must beg you not to attempt to make +me return to it. The decision I have taken is irrevocable. I do not +know how much you may have spent on supporting me up till now; as long +as I was ignorant of the truth I could accept living at your expense, +but it is needless to say that I prefer to receive nothing from you +for the future. The idea of owing you anything is intolerable to me +and I think I had rather die of hunger than sit at your table again. +Fortunately I seem to remember having heard that my mother was richer +than you when she married you. I am free to think, therefore, that the +burden of supporting me fell only on her. I thank her—consider her +quit of anything else she may owe me—and beg her to forget me. You +will have no difficulty in explaining my departure to those it may +surprise. I give you free leave to put what blame you choose on me +(though I know well enough that you will not wait for my leave to do +this).</p> + +<p>I sign this letter with that ridiculous name of yours, which I should +like to fling back in your face, and which I am longing and hoping +soon to dishonour.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">BERNARD PROFITENDIEU.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + +<p>P.S. I am leaving all my things behind me. They belong more +legitimately to Caloub—at any rate I hope so, for your sake.</p> +</div> + +<p>Monsieur Profitendieu totters to an arm-chair. He wants to reflect, but +his mind is in a confused whirl. Moreover he feels a little stabbing +pain in his right side, just below his ribs. There can be no question +about it. It is a liver attack. Would there be any Vichy water in +the house? If only his wife had not gone out! How is he to break the +news of Bernard’s flight to her? Ought he to show her the letter? It +is an unjust letter—abominably unjust. He ought to be angry. But it +is not anger he feels—he wishes it were—it is sorrow. He breathes +deeply and at each breath exhales an “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” as swift +and low as a sigh. The pain in his side becomes one with his other +pain—proves it—localizes it. He feels as if his grief were in his +liver. He drops into an arm-chair and re-reads Bernard’s letter. He +shrugs his shoulders sadly. Yes, it is a cruel letter—but there is +wounded vanity, defiance—bravado in it, too. Not one of his other +children—his real children—would have been capable—any more than +he would have been capable himself—of writing it. He knows this, for +there is nothing in them which he does not recognize only too well in +himself. It is true that he has always thought it his duty to blame +Bernard for his rawness, his roughness, his unbroken temper, but he +realizes that it is for those very things that he loved him as he had +never loved any of the others.</p> + +<p>In the next room, Cécile, who had come in from her concert, had begun +to practise the piano and was obstinately going over and over again the +same phrase in a barcarole. At last Albéric Profitendieu could bear +it no longer. He opened the drawing-room door a little way and in a +plaintive, half supplicating voice, for his liver was beginning to hurt +him cruelly (and besides he had always been a little frightened of her):</p> + +<p>“Cécile, my dear,” he asked, “would you mind seeing whether there’s any +Vichy water in the house and if there isn’t, sending out to get some? +and it would be very nice of you to stop playing for a little.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>“Are you ill?”</p> + +<p>“No, no, not at all. I’ve just got something that needs thinking over a +little before dinner, and your music disturbs me.”</p> + +<p>And then a kindly feeling—for he was softened by suffering—made him +add:</p> + +<p>“That’s a very pretty thing you’re playing. What is it?”</p> + +<p>But he went away without waiting for the answer. For that matter, his +daughter, who was aware that he knew nothing whatever about music +and could not distinguish between “<i>Viens Poupoule</i>” and the +<i>March</i> in <i>Tannhäuser</i> (at least, so she used to say), had +no intention of answering.</p> + +<p>But there he was at the door again!</p> + +<p>“Has your mother come in?”</p> + +<p>“No, not yet.”</p> + +<p>Absurd! she would be coming in so late that he would have no time to +speak to her before dinner. What could he invent to explain Bernard’s +absence? He really couldn’t tell the truth—let the children into the +secret of their mother’s temporary lapse. Ah! all had been forgotten, +forgiven, made up. The birth of their last son had cemented their +reconciliation. And now, suddenly this avenging spectre had re-risen +from the past—this corpse had been washed up again by the tide.</p> + +<p>Good! Another interruption! As the study door noiselessly opens, he +slips the letter into the inside pocket of his coat; the portière is +gently raised—Caloub!</p> + +<p>“Oh, Papa, please tell me what this Latin sentence means. I can’t make +head or tail of it....”</p> + +<p>“I’ve already told you not to come in here without knocking. You +mustn’t disturb me like this for anything and everything. You are +getting too much into the habit of relying on other people instead of +making an effort yourself. Yesterday it was your geometry problem, and +now to-day it’s ... by whom is your sentence?”</p> + +<p>Caloub holds out his copy-book.</p> + +<p>“He didn’t tell us; but just look at it; <i>you’ll</i> know all right. +He dictated it to us. But perhaps I took it down wrong. You might at +any rate tell me if it’s correct?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>Monsieur Profitendieu took the copy-book, but he was in too much pain. +He gently pushed the child away.</p> + +<p>“Later on. It’s just dinner time. Has Charles come in?”</p> + +<p>“He went down to his consulting room.” (The barrister receives his +clients in a room on the ground floor.)</p> + +<p>“Go and tell him I want to speak to him. Quick!”</p> + +<p>A ring at the door bell! Madame Profitendieu at last! She apologizes +for being late. She had a great many visits to pay. She is sorry to see +her husband so poorly. What can be done for him? He certainly looks +very unwell. He won’t be able to eat anything. They must sit down +without him, but after dinner, will she come to his study with the +children?—Bernard?—Oh, yes; his friend ... you know—the one he is +reading mathematics with—came and took him out to dinner.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Profitendieu felt better. He had at first been afraid he would be +too ill to speak. And yet it was necessary to give an explanation of +Bernard’s disappearance. He knew now what he must say—however painful +it might be. He felt firm and determined. His only fear was that his +wife might interrupt him by crying—that she might exclaim—that she +might faint....</p> + +<p>An hour later she comes into the room with the three children. He makes +her sit down beside him, close against his arm-chair.</p> + +<p>“Try to control yourself,” he whispers, but in a tone of command; “and +don’t speak a word. We will talk together afterwards.”</p> + +<p>And all the time he is speaking, he holds one of her hands in both his.</p> + +<p>“Come, my children, sit down. I don’t like to see you standing there as +if you were in front of an examiner. I have something very sad to say +to you. Bernard has left us and we shall not see him again ... for some +time to come. I must now tell you what I at first concealed from you, +because I wanted you to love Bernard like a brother; your mother and I +loved him like our own child. But he was not our child ...<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> and one of +his uncles—a brother of his real mother, who confided him to us on her +death bed—came and fetched him away this evening.”</p> + +<p>A painful silence follows these words and Caloub sniffles. They all +wait, expecting him to go on. But he dismisses them with a wave of his +hand.</p> + +<p>“You can go now, my dears. I must speak to your mother.”</p> + +<p>After they have left the room, Monsieur Profitendieu remains silent +for a long time. The hand which Madame Profitendieu had left in his +seems like a dead thing; with the other she presses a handkerchief to +her eyes. Leaning on the writing table, she turns her head away to +cry. Through the sobs which shake her, Monsieur Profitendieu hears her +murmur:</p> + +<p>“Oh, how cruel of you!... Oh! You have turned him out....”</p> + +<p>A moment ago, he had resolved to speak to her without showing her +Bernard’s letter; but at this unjust accusation, he holds it out:</p> + +<p>“Here! Read this.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>must</i> read it.”</p> + +<p>He has forgotten his pain. He follows her with his eyes all through the +letter, line by line. Just now when he was speaking, he could hardly +keep back his tears; but now all emotion has left him; he watches his +wife. What is she thinking? In the same plaintive voice, broken by the +same sobs, she murmurs again:</p> + +<p>“Oh! why did you tell him?... You shouldn’t have told him.”</p> + +<p>“But you can see for yourself that I never told him anything. Read his +letter more carefully.”</p> + +<p>“I did read it.... But how did he find out? Who told him then?”</p> + +<p>So <i>that</i> is what she is thinking! <i>Those</i> are the accents of +her grief!</p> + +<p>This sorrow should bring them together, but, alas! Profitendieu feels +obscurely that their thoughts are travelling by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> divergent ways. And +while she laments and accuses and recriminates, he endeavours to bend +her unruly spirit and to bring her to a more pious frame of mind.</p> + +<p>“This is the expiation,” he says.</p> + +<p>He has risen, from an instinctive desire to dominate; he stands there +before her upright—forgetful or regardless of his physical pain—and +lays his hand gravely, tenderly, authoritatively on Marguerite’s +shoulder. He is well aware that her repentance for what he chooses to +consider a passing weakness, has never been more than half-hearted; +he would like to tell her now that this sorrow, this trial may serve +to redeem her; but he can find no formula to satisfy him—none that +he can hope she will listen to. Marguerite’s shoulder resists the +gentle pressure of his hand. She knows so well that from every event of +life—even the smallest—he invariably, intolerably, extracts, as with +a forceps, some moral teaching—he interprets and twists everything to +suit his own dogmas. He bends over her. This is what he would like to +say:</p> + +<p>“You see, my dear, no good thing can be born of sin. It was no use +covering up your fault. Alas! I did what I could for the child. I +treated him as my own. God shows us to-day that it was an error to +try....”</p> + +<p>But at the first sentence he stops.</p> + +<p>No doubt she understands these words, heavy with meaning as they are; +they have struck home to her heart, for though she had stopped crying +some moments before, her sobs break out afresh, more violently than +ever: then she bows herself, as though she were going to kneel before +him, but he stoops over her and holds her up. What is it she is saying +through her tears? He stoops his ear almost to her lips and hears:</p> + +<p>“You see.... You see.... Oh! why did you forgive me? Oh! I shouldn’t +have come back.”</p> + +<p>He is almost obliged to divine her words. Then she stops. She too can +say no more. How can she tell him that she feels imprisoned in this +virtue which he exacts from her ... that she is stifling ... that it is +not so much her fault that she regrets now, as having repented of it? +Profitendieu raises himself.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + +<p>“My poor Marguerite,” he says with dignity and severity, “I am afraid +you are a little stubborn to-night. It is late. We had better go to +bed.”</p> + +<p>He helps her up, leads her to her room, puts his lips to her forehead, +then returns to his study and flings himself into an arm-chair. It +is a curious thing that his liver attack has subsided—but he feels +shattered. He sits with his head in his hands, too sad to cry.... He +does not hear a knock at the door, but at the noise the door makes in +opening, he raises his head—his son Charles!</p> + +<p>“I came to say good-night to you.”</p> + +<p>He comes up. He wants to convey to his father that he has understood +everything. He would like to manifest his pity, his tenderness, +his devotion, but—who would think it of an advocate?—he is +extraordinarily awkward at expressing himself—or perhaps he becomes +awkward precisely when his feelings are sincere. He kisses his father. +The way in which he lays his head upon his shoulder, and leans and +lingers there, convinces Profitendieu that his son has understood. He +has understood so thoroughly that, raising his head a little, he asks +in his usual clumsy fashion—but his heart is so anxious that he cannot +refrain from asking:</p> + +<p>“And Caloub?”</p> + +<p>The question is absurd, for Caloub’s looks are as strikingly like his +family’s as Bernard’s are different.</p> + +<p>Profitendieu pats Charles on the shoulder:</p> + +<p>“No, no; it’s all right. Only Bernard.”</p> + +<p>Then Charles begins pompously:</p> + +<p>“God has driven the intruder away....”</p> + +<p>But Profitendieu stops him. He has no need of such words.</p> + +<p>“Hush!”</p> + +<p>Father and son have no more to say to each other. Let us leave them. +It is nearly eleven o’clock. Let us leave Madame Profitendieu in her +room, seated on a small, straight, uncomfortable chair. She is not +crying; she is not thinking. She too would like to run away. But she +will not. When she was with her lover—Bernard’s father (we need not +concern ourselves with him)—she said to herself: “No, no; try as I +may,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> I shall never be anything but an honest woman.” She was afraid +of liberty, of crime, of ease—so that after ten days, she returned +repentant to her home. Her parents were right when they said to her: +“You never know your own mind.” Let us leave her. Cécile is already +asleep. Caloub is gazing in despair at his candle; it will never +last long enough for him to finish the story-book, with which he is +distracting himself from thoughts of Bernard. I should be curious +to know what Antoine can have told his friend the cook. But it is +impossible to listen to everything. This is the hour appointed for +Bernard to go to Olivier. I am not sure where he dined that evening—or +even whether he dined at all. He has passed the porter’s room without +hindrance; he gropes his way stealthily up the stairs....</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III_a">III<br> +BERNARD AND OLIVIER</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardnes</i>s</div> + <div class="verse indent4"><i>ever</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Of hardiness is mother.</i>”</div> + <div class="verse indent10"><span class="allsmcap">CYMBELINE, ACT III, SC. VI.</span></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +OLIVIER had got into bed to receive his mother, who was in the habit +of coming every evening to kiss her two younger sons good-night before +they went to sleep. He might have got up and dressed again to receive +Bernard, but he was still uncertain whether he would come and was +afraid of doing anything to rouse his younger brother’s suspicions. +George as a rule went to sleep early and woke up late; perhaps he +would never notice that anything unusual was going on. When he heard a +gentle scratching outside, Olivier sprang from his bed, thrust his feet +hastily into his bedroom slippers, and ran to open the door. He did not +light a candle; the moon gave light enough; there was no need for any +other. Olivier hugged Bernard in his arms:</p> + +<p>“How I was longing for you! I couldn’t believe you would really come,” +said Olivier, and in the dimness he saw Bernard shrug his shoulders. +“Do your parents know you are not sleeping at home to-night?”</p> + +<p>Bernard looked straight in front of him into the dark.</p> + +<p>“You think I ought to have asked their leave, eh?”</p> + +<p>His tone of voice was so coldly ironical that Olivier at once felt the +absurdity of his question. He had not yet grasped that Bernard had left +“for good”; he thought that he only meant to sleep out that one night +and was a little perplexed as to the reason of this escapade. He began +to question: When did Bernard think of going home?—Never!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>Light began to dawn on Olivier. He was very anxious to be equal to +the occasion and not to be surprised at anything; nevertheless an +exclamation broke from him:</p> + +<p>“What a tremendous decision!”</p> + +<p>Bernard was by no means unwilling to astonish his friend a little; +he was particularly flattered by the admiration which these words +betrayed, but he shrugged his shoulders once more. Olivier took hold of +his hand and asked very gravely and anxiously:</p> + +<p>“But why are you leaving?”</p> + +<p>“That, my dear fellow, is a family matter. I can’t tell you.” And in +order not to seem too serious he amused himself by trying to jerk off +with the tip of his shoe the slipper that Olivier was swinging on his +bare toes—for they were sitting down now on the side of the bed. +There! Off it goes!</p> + +<p>“Then where do you mean to live?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“And how?”</p> + +<p>“That remains to be seen.”</p> + +<p>“Have you any money?”</p> + +<p>“Enough for breakfast to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“And after that?”</p> + +<p>“After that I shall look about me. Oh, I’m sure to find something. +You’ll see. I’ll let you know.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Olivier admires his friend with immense fervour. He knows him to be +resolute; but he cannot help doubting; when he is at the end of his +resources, and feeling, as soon he must, the pressure of want, won’t he +be obliged to go back? Bernard reassures him—he will do anything in +the world rather than return to his people. And as he repeats several +times over more and more savagely—“anything in the world!”—Olivier’s +heart is stabbed with a pang of terror. He wants to speak but dares +not. At last with downcast head and unsteady voice, he begins:</p> + +<p>“Bernard, all the same, you’re not thinking of ...” but he stops. His +friend raises his eyes and, though he cannot see him very distinctly, +perceives his confusion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>“Of what?” he asks. “What do you mean? Tell me. Of stealing?”</p> + +<p>Olivier shakes his head. No, that’s not it! Suddenly he bursts into +tears and clasping Bernard convulsively in his arms:</p> + +<p>“Promise me that you won’t....”</p> + +<p>Bernard kisses him, then pushes him away laughing. He has understood.</p> + +<p>“Oh! yes! I promise.... But all the same you must admit it would be the +easiest way out.” But Olivier feels reassured; he knows that these last +words are an affectation of cynicism.</p> + +<p>“Your exam?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; that’s rather a bore. I don’t want to be ploughed. I think I’m +ready all right. It’s more a question of feeling fit on the day. I must +manage to get something fixed up very quickly. It’s touch and go; but I +<i>shall</i> manage. You’ll see.”</p> + +<p>They sit for a moment in silence. The second slipper has fallen.</p> + +<p>Then Bernard: “You’ll catch cold. Get back into bed.”</p> + +<p>“No; <i>you</i> must get into bed.”</p> + +<p>“You’re joking. Come along! quick!” and he forces Olivier to get into +the bed which he has already lain down in and which is all tumbled.</p> + +<p>“But you? Where are <i>you</i> going to sleep?”</p> + +<p>“Anywhere. On the floor. In a corner. I must get accustomed to roughing +it.”</p> + +<p>“No. Look here! I want to tell you something, but I shan’t be able to +unless I feel you close to me. Get into my bed.” And when Bernard, +after undressing himself in a twinkling, has got in beside him:</p> + +<p>“You know ... what I told you the other day ... well, it’s come off. I +went.”</p> + +<p>There was no need to say more for Bernard to understand. He pressed up +against his friend.</p> + +<p>“Well! it’s disgusting ... horrible.... Afterwards I wanted to spit—to +be sick—to tear my skin off—to kill myself.”</p> + +<p>“You’re exaggerating.”</p> + +<p>“To kill <i>her</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Who was it? You haven’t been imprudent, have you?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> + +<p>“No; it’s some creature Dhurmer knows. He introduced me. It was her +talk that was the most loathsome. She never once stopped jabbering. And +oh! the deadly stupidity of it! Why can’t people hold their tongues at +such moments, I wonder? I should have liked to strangle her—to gag +her.”</p> + +<p>“Poor old Olivier! You didn’t think that Dhurmer could get hold of +anybody but an idiot, did you? Was she pretty, anyway?”</p> + +<p>“D’you suppose I looked at her?”</p> + +<p>“You’re a donkey! You’re a darling!... Let’s go to sleep.... But ... +did you bring it off all right?”</p> + +<p>“God! That’s the most disgusting thing about it. I was able to, in +spite of everything ... just as if I’d desired her.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s magnificent, my dear boy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shut up! If that’s what they call love—I’m fed up with it.”</p> + +<p>“What a baby you are!”</p> + +<p>“What would <i>you</i> have been, pray?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you know, I’m not particularly keen; as I’ve told you before, I’m +biding my time. In cold blood, like that, it doesn’t appeal to me. All +the same if I——”</p> + +<p>“If you...?”</p> + +<p>“If she.... Nothing! Let’s go to sleep.”</p> + +<p>And abruptly he turns his back, drawing a little away so as not to +touch Olivier’s body, which he feels uncomfortably warm. But Olivier, +after a moment’s silence, begins again:</p> + +<p>“I say, do you think Barrès will get in?”</p> + +<p>“Heavens! does that worry you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care a damn! I say, just listen to this a minute.” He presses +on Bernard’s shoulder, so as to make him turn round—“My brother has +got a mistress.”</p> + +<p>“George?”</p> + +<p>The youngster, who is pretending to be asleep, but who has been +listening with all his might in the dark, holds his breath when he +hears his name.</p> + +<p>“You’re crazy. I mean Vincent.” (Vincent is a few years older than +Olivier and has just finished his medical training.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p> + +<p>“Did he tell you?”</p> + +<p>“No. I found out without his suspecting. My parents know nothing about +it.”</p> + +<p>“What would they say if they knew?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Mamma would be in despair. Papa would say he must break +it off or else marry her.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. A worthy bourgeois can’t understand how one can be worthy +in any other fashion than his own. How did you find out?”</p> + +<p>“Well, for some time past Vincent has been going out at night after +my parents have gone to bed. He goes downstairs as quietly as he can, +but I recognize his step in the street. Last week—Tuesday, I think, +the night was so hot I couldn’t stop in bed. I went to the window +to get a breath of fresh air. I heard the door downstairs open and +shut, so I leant out and, as he was passing under a lamp post, I +recognized Vincent. It was past midnight. That was the first time—I +mean the first time I noticed anything. But since then, I can’t help +listening—oh! without meaning to—and nearly every night I hear him +go out. He’s got a latchkey and our parents have arranged our old +room—George’s and mine—as a consulting room for him when he has +any patients. His room is by itself on the left of the entrance; the +rest of our rooms are on the right. He can go out and come in without +anyone knowing. As a rule I don’t hear him come in, but the day before +yesterday—Monday night—I don’t know what was the matter with me—I +was thinking of Dhurmer’s scheme for a review.... I couldn’t go to +sleep. I heard voices on the stairs. I thought it was Vincent.”</p> + +<p>“What time was it?” asks Bernard, more to show that he is taking an +interest than because he wants to know.</p> + +<p>“Three in the morning, I think. I got up and put my ear to the door. +Vincent was talking to a woman. Or rather, it was she who was talking.”</p> + +<p>“Then how did you know it was he? All the people who live in the flat +must pass by your door.”</p> + +<p>“And a horrid nuisance it is, too. The later it is, the more row they +make. They care no more about the people who are asleep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> than.... It +was certainly he. I heard the woman calling him by his name. She kept +saying.... Oh, I can’t bear repeating it. It makes me sick....”</p> + +<p>“Go on.”</p> + +<p>“She kept saying: ‘Vincent, my love—my lover.... Oh, don’t leave me!’”</p> + +<p>“Did she say <i>you</i> to him and not <i>thou</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; isn’t it odd?”</p> + +<p>“Tell us some more.”</p> + +<p>“‘You have no right to desert me now. What is to become of me? Where am +I to go? Say something to me! Oh, speak to me!’... And she called him +again by his name, and went on repeating: ‘My lover! My lover!’ And her +voice became sadder and sadder and lower and lower. And then I heard +a noise (they must have been standing on the stairs), a noise like +something falling. I think she must have flung herself on her knees.”</p> + +<p>“And didn’t he answer anything? Nothing at all?”</p> + +<p>“He must have gone up the last steps; I heard the door of the flat +shut. And after that, she stayed a long time quite near—almost up +against my door. I heard her sobbing.”</p> + +<p>“You should have opened the door.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t dare. Vincent would be furious if he thought I knew anything +about his affairs. And then I was afraid it might embarrass her to be +found crying. I don’t know what I could have said to her.”</p> + +<p>Bernard had turned towards Olivier:</p> + +<p>“In your place I should have opened.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you! You’re never afraid of anything. You do everything that comes +into your head.”</p> + +<p>“Is that a reproach?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. It’s envy.”</p> + +<p>“Have you any idea who the woman is?”</p> + +<p>“How on earth should I know? Good-night.”</p> + +<p>“I say, are you sure George hasn’t heard us?” whispers Bernard in +Olivier’s ear. They listen a moment with bated breath.</p> + +<p>“No,” Olivier goes on in his ordinary voice. “He’s asleep. And besides, +he wouldn’t understand. Do you know what he asked Papa the other +day...?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> + +<p>At this, George can contain himself no longer. He sits up in his bed +and breaks into his brother’s sentence.</p> + +<p>“You ass!” he cries. “Didn’t you see I was doing it on purpose?... Good +Lord, yes! I’ve heard every word you’ve been saying. But you needn’t +excite yourselves. I’ve known all about Vincent for ever so long. +And now, my young friends, talk a little lower please, because I’m +sleepy—or else hold your tongues.”</p> + +<p>Olivier turns toward the wall. Bernard, who cannot sleep, looks out +into the room. It seems bigger in the moonlight. As a matter of fact, +he hardly knows it. Olivier was never there during the daytime; the few +times that Bernard had been to see him, it was in the flat upstairs. +But it was after school hours, when they came out of the <i>lycée</i>, +that the two friends usually met. The moonlight has reached the foot of +the bed in which George has at last gone to sleep; he has heard almost +everything that his brother has said. He has matter for his dreams. +Above George’s bed Bernard can just make out a little book-case with +two shelves full of school-books. On a table near Olivier’s bed, he +sees a larger sized book; he puts out his hand and takes it to look at +the title—Tocqueville; but as he is putting it back on the table, he +drops it and the noise wakes Olivier up.</p> + +<p>“Are you reading Tocqueville now?”</p> + +<p>“Dulac lent it me.”</p> + +<p>“Do you like it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s rather boring, but some of it’s very good.”</p> + +<p>“I say, what are you doing to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>To-morrow is Thursday and there is no school. Bernard thinks he +may meet his friend somewhere. He does not mean to go back to the +<i>lycée</i>; he thinks he can do without the last lectures and finish +preparing for his examination by himself.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow,” says Olivier, “I’m going to St. Lazare railway station at +11.30 to meet my Uncle Edouard, who is arriving from Le Havre, on his +way from England. In the afternoon, I’m engaged to go to the Louvre +with Dhurmer. The rest of the time I’ve got to work.”</p> + +<p>“Your Uncle Edouard?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes. He’s a half brother of Mamma’s. He’s been away for six months and +I hardly know him; but I like him very much. He doesn’t know I’m going +to meet him and I’m rather afraid I mayn’t recognize him. He’s not in +the least like the rest of the family; he’s somebody quite out of the +common.”</p> + +<p>“What does he do?”</p> + +<p>“He writes. I’ve read nearly all his books; but he hasn’t published +anything for a long time.”</p> + +<p>“Novels?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; kind of novels.”</p> + +<p>“Why have you never told me about them?”</p> + +<p>“Because you’d have wanted to read them; and if you hadn’t liked +them....”</p> + +<p>“Well, finish your sentence.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I should have hated it. There!”</p> + +<p>“What makes you say that he’s out of the common?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t exactly know. I told you I hardly know him. It’s more of a +presentiment. I feel that he’s interested in all sorts of things that +don’t interest my parents and that there’s nothing that one couldn’t +talk to him about. One day—it was just before he went away—he had +been to lunch with us; all the time he was talking to Papa I felt he +kept looking at me and it began to make me uncomfortable; I was going +to leave the room—it was the dining-room—where we had stayed on after +coffee, but then he began to question Papa about me, which made me more +uncomfortable than ever; and suddenly Papa got up and went to fetch +some verses I had written and which I had been idiotic enough to show +him.”</p> + +<p>“Verses of yours?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; you know—that poem you said you thought was like <i>Le +Balcon</i>. I knew it wasn’t any good—or hardly any—and I was furious +with Papa for bringing it out. For a minute or two, while Papa was +fetching the poem, we were alone together, Uncle Edouard and I, and I +felt myself blushing horribly. I couldn’t think of anything to say to +him. I looked away—so did he, for that matter; he began by rolling a +cigarette and lighting it and then to put me at my ease, no doubt, for +he certainly saw I was blushing, he got up and went and looked out of +the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> window. He was whistling. Then he suddenly said, ‘I feel far more +embarrassed than you do, you know.’ But I think it was just kindness. +At last Papa came back again; he handed my verses to Uncle Edouard, +and he began to read them. I was in such a state that I think if he +had paid me compliments, I should have insulted him. Evidently Papa +expected him to—pay me compliments—and as my uncle said nothing, he +asked him what he thought of them. But Uncle Edouard answered him, +laughing, ‘I can’t speak to him comfortably about them before you.’ +Then Papa laughed too and went out. And when we were alone again, he +said he thought my verses were very bad, but I liked hearing him say +so; and what I liked still more was that suddenly he put his finger +down on two lines—the only two I cared for in the whole thing; he +looked at me and said, ‘That’s good!’ Wasn’t it nice? And if you only +knew the tone in which he said it! I could have hugged him. Then he +said my mistake was to start from an idea, and that I didn’t allow +myself to be guided sufficiently by the words. I didn’t understand very +well at first; but I think I see now what he meant—and that he was +right. I’ll explain it to you another time.”</p> + +<p>“I understand now why you want to go and meet him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all that’s nothing and I don’t know why I’ve told you about it. We +said a great deal more to one another.”</p> + +<p>“At 11.30 did you say? How do you know he’s coming by that train?”</p> + +<p>“Because he wrote and told Mamma on a post-card; and then I looked it +up in the time-table.”</p> + +<p>“Will you have lunch with him?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. I must be back here by twelve. I shall just have time to shake +hands with him. But that’s enough for me.... Oh, one thing more before +I go to sleep. When shall I see you again?”</p> + +<p>“Not for some days. Not before I’ve got something fixed up.”</p> + +<p>“All the same.... Couldn’t I help you somehow...?”</p> + +<p>“You? Help me? No. It wouldn’t be fair play. I should feel as if I were +cheating. Good-night.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV_a">IV<br> +VINCENT AND THE COMTE DE PASSAVANT</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Mon père était une bête, mais ma mère avait de l’esprit; elle était +quiétiste; c’était une petite femme douce qui me disait souvent: Mon +fils, vous serez damné. Mais cela ne lui faisait pas de peine.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">FONTENELLE.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +No, it was not to see his mistress that Vincent Molinier went out every +evening. Quickly as he walks, let us follow him. He goes along the Rue +Notre Dame des Champs, at the further end of which he lives, until +he reaches the Rue Placide, which is its prolongation; then he turns +down the Rue du Bac, where there are still a few belated passers-by. +In the Rue de Babylone, he stops in front of a <i>porte-cochère</i> +which swings open to let him in. The Comte de Passavant lives here. +If Vincent were not in the habit of coming often, he would enter this +sumptuous mansion with a less confident air. The footman who comes to +the door knows well enough how much timidity this feigned assurance +hides. Vincent, with a touch of affectation, instead of handing him his +hat, tosses it on to an arm-chair.</p> + +<p>It is only recently that Vincent has taken to coming here. Robert +de Passavant, who now calls himself his friend, is the friend of +a great many people. I am not very sure how he and Vincent became +acquainted. At the <i>lycée</i>, I expect—though Robert de Passavant +is perceptibly older than Vincent; they had lost sight of each other +for several years and then, quite lately, had met again one evening +when, by some unusual chance, Olivier had gone with his brother to the +theatre; during the <i>entr’acte</i> Passavant had invited them both to +take an ice with him; he had learnt that Vincent had just finished his +last medical examinations and was undecided as to whether he should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +take a place as house physician in a hospital; science attracted him +more than medicine, but the necessity of earning his living ... in +short, Vincent accepted with pleasure the very remunerative offer +Robert de Passavant had made him a little later of coming every +evening, to attend his old father, who had lately undergone a very +serious operation; it was a matter of bandages, of injections, of +soundings—in fact, of whatever delicate services you please, which +necessitate the ministrations of an expert hand.</p> + +<p>But, added to this, the Vicomte had secret reasons for wishing a +nearer acquaintance with Vincent; and Vincent had still others for +consenting. Robert’s secret reason we shall try to discover later on. +As for Vincent’s—it was this: he was urgently in need of money. When +your heart is in the right place and a wholesome education has early +instilled into you a sense of your responsibilities, you don’t get +a woman with child, without feeling yourself more or less bound to +her—especially when the woman has left her husband to follow you.</p> + +<p>Up till then, Vincent had lived on the whole virtuously. His adventure +with Laura appeared to him alternately, according to the moment of +the day in which he thought of it, as either monstrous or perfectly +natural. It very often suffices to add together a quantity of little +facts which, taken separately, are very simple and very natural, to +arrive at a sum which is monstrous. He said all this to himself over +and over again as he walked along, but it didn’t get him out of his +difficulties. No doubt, he had never thought of taking this woman +permanently under his protection—of marrying her after a divorce, +or of living with her without marrying; he was obliged to confess to +himself that he had no very violent passion for her; but he knew she +was in Paris without means of subsistence; he was the cause of her +distress; at the very least he owed her that first precarious aid +which he felt himself less and less able to give her—less to-day +than yesterday. For last week he still possessed the five thousand +francs which his mother had patiently and laboriously saved to give +him a start in his profession; those five thousand francs would have +sufficed, no doubt, to pay for his mistress’s confinement, for her stay +in a nursing home, for the child’s first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> necessaries. To what demon’s +advice then had he listened? What demon had hinted to him one evening +that this sum which he had as good as given to Laura, which he had laid +by for her, pledged to her—that this sum would be insufficient? No, +it was not Robert de Passavant; Robert had never said anything of the +kind; but his proposal to take Vincent with him to a gambling club fell +out precisely the same evening. And Vincent had accepted.</p> + +<p>The hell in question was a particularly treacherous one, inasmuch as +the habitués were all people in society and the whole thing took place +on a friendly footing. Robert introduced his friend Vincent to one and +another. Vincent, who was taken unawares, was not able to play high +that first evening. He had hardly anything on him and refused the notes +which the Vicomte offered to advance him. But as he began by winning, +he regretted not being able to stake more and promised to go back the +next night.</p> + +<p>“Everybody knows you now; there’s no need for me to come with you +again,” said Robert.</p> + +<p>These meetings took place at Pierre de Brouville’s, commonly known as +Pedro. After this first evening Robert de Passavant had put his car at +his friend’s disposal. Vincent used to look in about eleven o’clock, +smoke a cigarette with Robert, and after chatting for ten minutes or +so, go upstairs. His stay there was more or less lengthy according to +the Count’s patience, temper or requirements; after this he drove in +the car to Pedro’s in the Rue St. Florentin, whence about an hour later +the car took him back—not actually to his own door, for he was afraid +of attracting attention, but to the nearest corner.</p> + +<p>The night before last, Laura Douviers, seated on the steps which led to +the Moliniers’ flat, had waited for Vincent till three o’clock in the +morning; it was not till then that he had come in. As a matter of fact, +Vincent had not been at Pedro’s that night. Two days had gone by since +he had lost every penny of the five thousand francs. He had informed +Laura of this; he had written that he could do nothing more for her; +that he advised her to go back to her husband or her father—to confess +everything. But things had gone so far, that confession seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +impossible to Laura and she could not contemplate it with any sort of +calm. Her lover’s objurgations merely aroused indignation in her—an +indignation which only subsided to leave her a prey to despair. This +was the state in which Vincent had found her. She had tried to keep +him; he had torn himself from her grasp. Doubtless, he had to steel +himself to do it, for he had a tender heart; but he was more of a +pleasure-seeker than a lover and he had easily persuaded himself that +duty itself demanded harshness. He had answered nothing to all her +entreaties and lamentations, and as Olivier, who had heard them, told +Bernard afterwards, when Vincent shut the door against her, she had +sunk down on the steps and remained for a long time sobbing in the dark.</p> + +<p>More than forty hours had gone by since that night. The day before, +Vincent had not gone to Robert de Passavant’s, whose father seemed to +be recovering; but that evening a telegram had summoned him. Robert +wished to see him. When Vincent entered the room in which Robert +usually sat—a room which he used as his study and smoking-room and +which he had been at some pains to decorate and fit up in his own +fashion—Robert carelessly held out his hand to him over his shoulder, +without rising.</p> + +<p>Robert is writing. He is sitting at a bureau littered with books. +Facing him the French window which gives on to the garden, stands wide +open in the moonlight. He speaks without turning round.</p> + +<p>“Do you know what I am writing? But you won’t mention it, will you? You +promise, eh?—a manifesto for the opening number of Dhurmer’s review. +I shan’t sign it, of course—especially as I puff myself in it.... And +then as it’ll certainly come out in the long run that I’m financing it, +I don’t want it known too soon that I write for it. So mum’s the word! +But it’s just occurred to me—didn’t you say that young brother of +yours wrote? What’s his name again?”</p> + +<p>“Olivier,” says Vincent.</p> + +<p>“Olivier! Yes; I had forgotten. Don’t stay standing there like +that! Sit down in that arm-chair. You’re not cold? Shall I shut the +window?... It’s poetry he writes, isn’t it? He ought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> bring me +something to see. Of course, I don’t promise to take it.... But, all +the same, I should be surprised if it were bad. He looks an intelligent +boy. And then he’s obviously <i>au courant</i>. I should like to +talk to him. Tell him to come and see me, eh? Mind, I count on it. A +cigarette?” And he holds out his silver cigarette-case.</p> + +<p>“With pleasure.”</p> + +<p>“Now then, Vincent, listen to me. I must speak to you very seriously. +You behaved like a child the other evening ... so did I, for that +matter. I don’t say it was wrong of me to take you to Pedro’s, but I +feel responsible, a little, for the money you’ve lost. I don’t know +if that’s what’s meant by remorse, but, upon my word, it’s beginning +to disturb my sleep and my digestion. And then, when I think of that +unhappy woman you told me about.... But that’s another story. We +won’t speak of that. It’s sacred. What I want to say is this—that I +wish—yes, I’m absolutely determined to put at your disposal a sum of +money equivalent to what you’ve lost. It was five thousand francs, +wasn’t it? And you’re to risk it again. Once more, I repeat, I consider +myself the cause of your losing this money—I owe it to you—there’s no +need to thank me. You’ll pay me back if you win. If not—worse luck! +We shall be quits. Go back to Pedro’s this evening, as if nothing had +happened. The car will take you there; then it’ll come back here to +take me to Lady Griffith’s, where I’ll ask you to join me later on. I +count upon it, eh? The car will fetch you from Pedro’s.”</p> + +<p>He opens a drawer and takes out five notes which he hands to Vincent.</p> + +<p>“Be off with you, now.”</p> + +<p>“But your father?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you: he died about....” He pulls out his +watch and exclaims: “By Jove! how late it is! Nearly midnight.... You +must make haste. Yes, about four hours ago.”</p> + +<p>All this is said without any quickening of his voice, on the contrary +with a kind of nonchalance.</p> + +<p>“And aren’t you going to stay to....”</p> + +<p>“To watch by the body?” interrupts Robert. “No, that’s my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> young +brother’s business. He is up there with his old nurse, who was on +better terms with the deceased than I was.”</p> + +<p>Then as Vincent remains motionless, he goes on:</p> + +<p>“Look here, my dear fellow, I don’t want to appear cynical, but I +have a horror of reach-me-down sentiments. In my early days I cut +out my filial love according to the pattern I had in my heart; but I +soon saw that my measurements had been too ample, and I was obliged +to take it in. The old man never in his life occasioned me anything +but trouble and vexation and constraint. If he had any tenderness +left, it was certainly not to me that he showed it. My first impulses +of affection towards him, in the days before I knew how to behave, +brought me nothing but snubs—and I learnt my lesson. You must have +seen for yourself when you were attending him.... Did he ever thank +you? Did you ever get the slightest look, the smallest smile from him? +He always thought everything his due. Oh, he was what people call a +<i>character</i>! I think he must have made my mother very unhappy, +and yet he loved her—that is, if he ever really loved anyone. I think +he made everyone who came near him suffer—his servants, his dogs, his +horses, his mistresses; not his friends, for he had none. A general +sigh of relief will go up at his death. He was, I believe, a man of +great distinction in ‘his line,’ as people say; but I have never been +able to discover what it was. He was very intelligent, undoubtedly. +At heart, I had—I still have—a certain admiration for him—but as +for making play with a handkerchief—as for wringing tears out ... no, +thank you, I’m no longer child enough for that. Be off with you now! +And join me in an hour’s time at Lilian’s. What! you’re not dressed? +Absurd! What does it matter? But if it’ll make you more comfortable, +I’ll promise not to change either. Agreed! Light a cigar before you go +and send the car back quickly—it’ll fetch you again afterwards.”</p> + +<p>He watched Vincent go out, shrugged his shoulders, then went into his +dressing-room to change into his dress suit, which was ready laid out +for him on a sofa.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +In a room on the first floor, the old count is lying on his death-bed. +Someone has placed a crucifix on his breast, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> has omitted to fold +his hands over it. A beard of some days’ growth softens the stubborn +angle of his chin. Beneath his grey hair, which is brushed up <i>en +brosse</i>, the wrinkles that line his forehead seem less deeply +graven, as though they were relaxed. His eye is sunk beneath the arch +of the brow and the shaggy growth of the eyebrow. I know that we shall +never see him again, and that is the reason that I take a long look at +him. Beside the head of the bed is an arm-chair, in which is seated the +old nurse Séraphine. But she has risen. She goes up to a table where an +old-fashioned lamp is dimly lighting the room; it needs turning up. A +lamp-shade casts the light on to the book young Gontran is reading....</p> + +<p>“You’re tired, Master Gontran. You had better go to bed.”</p> + +<p>The glance that Gontran raises from his book to rest upon Séraphine is +very gentle. His fair hair, a lock of which he pushes back from his +forehead, waves loosely over his temples. He is fifteen years old, and +his face, which is still almost girlish, expresses nothing as yet but +tenderness and love.</p> + +<p>“And you?” he says. “It is you who ought to go to bed, you poor old +Fine. Last night, you were on your feet nearly the whole time.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m accustomed to sitting up. And besides I slept during the +daytime—but you....”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m all right. I don’t feel tired; and it does me good to stay +here thinking and reading. I knew Papa so little; I think I should +forget him altogether if I didn’t take a good look at him now. I will +sit beside him till daylight. How long is it, Fine, since you came to +us?”</p> + +<p>“I came the year before you were born, and you’re nearly sixteen.”</p> + +<p>“Do you remember Mamma quite well?”</p> + +<p>“Do I remember your Mamma? What a question! You might as well ask me if +I remember my own name. To be sure, I remember your Mamma.”</p> + +<p>“I remember her too—a little.... But not very well.... I was only five +when she died. Used Papa to talk to her much?”</p> + +<p>“It depended on his mood. Your Papa was never a one to talk much, and +he didn’t care to be spoken to first. All the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> in those days he +was a little more talkative than he has been of late.... But there now! +What’s past is past, and it’s better not to stir it up again. There’s +One above who’s a better judge of these things than we are.”</p> + +<p>“Do you really think that He concerns Himself about such things, dear +Fine?”</p> + +<p>“Why, if He doesn’t, who should then?”</p> + +<p>Gontran puts his lips on Séraphine’s red, roughened hand. “You really +ought to go to bed now. I promise to wake you as soon as it is light, +and then I’ll take my turn to rest. Please!”</p> + +<p>As soon as Séraphine has left him, Gontran falls upon his knees at +the foot of the bed; he buries his head in the sheets, but he cannot +succeed in weeping. No emotion stirs his heart; his eyes remain +despairingly dry. Then he gets up and looks at the impassive face +on the bed. At this solemn moment, he would like to have some rare, +sublime experience—hear a message from the world beyond—send his +thought flying into ethereal regions, inaccessible to mortal senses. +But no! his thought remains obstinately grovelling on the earth; he +looks at the dead man’s bloodless hands and wonders for how much longer +the nails will go on growing. The sight of the unclasped hands grates +on him. He would like to join them, to make them hold the crucifix. +What a good idea! He thinks of Séraphine’s astonishment when she sees +the dead hands folded together; the thought of Séraphine’s astonishment +amuses him; and then he despises himself for being amused. Nevertheless +he stoops over the bed. He seizes the arm which is farthest from him. +The arm is stiff and will not bend. Gontran tries to force it, but the +whole body moves with it. He seizes the other arm, which seems a little +less rigid. Gontran almost succeeds in putting the hand in the proper +place. He takes the crucifix and tries to slip it between the fingers +and the thumb, but the contact of the cold flesh turns him sick. He +thinks he is going to faint. He has a mind to call Séraphine back. He +gives up everything—the crucifix, which drops aslant on the tumbled +sheet, and the lifeless arm, which falls back again into its first +position; then, through the depths of the funereal silence, he suddenly +hears a rough and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> brutal “God damn!” which fills him with terror, as +if someone else.... He turns round—but no! he is alone. It was from +his own lips, from his own heart, that that resounding curse broke +forth—his, who until to-day has never uttered an oath! Then he sits +down and plunges again into his reading.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V_a">V<br> +VINCENT MEETS PASSAVANT AT LADY GRIFFITH’S</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>C’était une âme et un corps où n’entrait jamais l’aiguillon.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">SAINTE-BEUVE.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +LILIAN half sat up and put the tips of her fingers on Robert’s chestnut +hair. “Take care, my dear. You are hardly thirty yet and you’re +beginning to get thin on the top. Baldness wouldn’t be at all becoming +to you. You take life too seriously.”</p> + +<p>Robert raised his face and looked at her, smiling. “Not when I am with +you, I assure you.”</p> + +<p>“Did you tell Molinier to come?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, as you asked me to.”</p> + +<p>“And ... you lent him money?”</p> + +<p>“Five thousand francs, as I told you ... and he’ll lose it, like the +rest.”</p> + +<p>“Why should he lose it?”</p> + +<p>“He’s bound to. I saw him the first evening. He plays anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“He’s had time to learn.... Will you make a bet that to-night he’ll +win?”</p> + +<p>“If you like.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, please don’t take it as a penance. I like people to do what they +do willingly.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be cross. Agreed then. If he wins, he’ll pay the money back to +you. But if he loses, it’s you who’ll pay me. Is that all right?”</p> + +<p>She pressed a bell.</p> + +<p>“Bring a bottle of Tokay and three glasses, please.... And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> if he comes +back with the five thousand and no more—he shall keep it, eh? If he +neither loses nor wins....”</p> + +<p>“That’s unheard of. It’s odd what an interest you take in him.”</p> + +<p>“It’s odd that you don’t think him interesting.”</p> + +<p>“You think him interesting because you’re in love with him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my dear boy, that’s true. One doesn’t mind admitting that +to <i>you</i>. But that’s not the reason he interests me. On the +contrary—as a rule, when my head’s attracted, the rest of me turns +cold.”</p> + +<p>A servant came in with wine and glasses on a tray.</p> + +<p>“First of all let’s seal our bet, and afterwards we’ll have another +glass in honour of the winner.”</p> + +<p>The servant poured out the wine and they drank to each other.</p> + +<p>“Personally, I think your Vincent a bore.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ‘my Vincent’!... As if it hadn’t been you who brought him here! +And then, I advise you not to go repeating everywhere that you think +him a bore. Your reason for frequenting him would be too obvious.”</p> + +<p>Robert turned a little to put his lips on Lilian’s bare foot; she drew +it away quickly and covered it with her fan.</p> + +<p>“Must I blush?” said he.</p> + +<p>“It’s not worth while trying as far as I am concerned. You couldn’t +succeed.”</p> + +<p>She emptied her glass, and then:</p> + +<p>“D’you know what, my dear friend? You have all the qualities of a man +of letters—you are vain, hypocritical, fickle, selfish....”</p> + +<p>“You are too flattering!”</p> + +<p>“Yes; that’s all very charming—but you’ll never be a good novelist.”</p> + +<p>“Because?”</p> + +<p>“Because you don’t know how to listen.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me I’m listening admirably.”</p> + +<p>“Pooh! <i>He</i> isn’t a writer and he listens a great deal better. But +when we are together, <i>I</i> am the one to listen.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<p>“He hardly knows how to speak.”</p> + +<p>“That’s because you never stop talking yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I know everything he’s going to say beforehand.”</p> + +<p>“You think so? Do you know the story of his affair with that woman?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Love affairs! The dullest things in the world!”</p> + +<p>“And then I like it when he talks about natural history.”</p> + +<p>“Natural history is even duller than love affairs. Does he give you +lectures then?”</p> + +<p>“If I could only repeat what he says.... It’s thrilling, my dear +friend. He tells me all sorts of things about the deep seas. I’ve +always been particularly curious about creatures that live in the sea. +You know that in America they make boats with glass let into the sides, +so that you can go to the bottom of the sea and look all round you. +They say that the sights are simply marvellous—live coral and ... and +... what do you call them?... madrepores, and sponges, and sea-weeds, +and great shoals of fish. Vincent says that there are certain kinds of +fish which die according as the water becomes more salt or less, and +that there are others, on the contrary, which can live in any degree of +salt water; and that they swim about on the edge of the currents, where +the water becomes less salt, so as to prey on the others when their +strength fails them. You ought to get him to talk to you about it.... +I assure you it’s most curious. When he talks about things like that, +he becomes extraordinary. You wouldn’t recognize him.... But you don’t +know how to get him to talk.... It’s like when he tells me about his +affair with Laura Douviers—yes, that’s her name.... Do you know how he +got to know her?”</p> + +<p>“Did he tell you?”</p> + +<p>“People tell me everything. You know they do, you shocking creature!” +And she stroked his face with the feathers of her closed fan.</p> + +<p>“Did you suspect that he had been to see me every single day since the +evening you first brought him?”</p> + +<p>“Every day? No, really! I didn’t suspect that.”</p> + +<p>“On the fourth, he couldn’t resist any longer; he came out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> with the +whole thing. But on every day following, he kept adding details.”</p> + +<p>“And it didn’t bore you? You’re a wonder!”</p> + +<p>“I told you, my dear, that I love him.” And she seized his arm +emphatically.</p> + +<p>“And <i>he</i> ... loves the other woman?”</p> + +<p>Lilian laughed.</p> + +<p>“He did love her. Oh, I had to pretend at first to be deeply interested +in her. I even had to weep with him. And all the time I was horribly +jealous. I’m not any more now. Just listen how it began. They were +at Pau together in the same home—a sanatorium, where they had been +sent because they were supposed to be tuberculous. In reality, they +weren’t, either of them. But they thought they were very ill. They were +strangers, and the first time they saw each other was on the terrace in +the garden, where they were lying side by side on their deck chairs; +and all round them were other patients, who spend the whole day lying +out of doors in the sun to get cured. As they thought they were doomed +to die an early death, they persuaded themselves that nothing they +did would be of any consequence. He kept repeating all the time that +they neither of them had more than a month to live—and it was the +springtime. She was there all alone. Her husband is a little French +professor in England. She left him to go to Pau. She had been married +six months. He had to pinch and starve to send her there. He used to +write to her every day. She’s a young woman of very good family—very +well brought up—very reserved—very shy. But once there—I don’t +exactly know what he can have said to her, but on the third day she +confessed that though she lay with her husband and belonged to him, she +did not know the meaning of the word pleasure.”</p> + +<p>“And what did he say then?”</p> + +<p>“He took her hand, as it hung down beside her chair, and pressed a long +kiss upon it.”</p> + +<p>“And when he told you that, what did <i>you</i> say?”</p> + +<p>“I? Oh, frightful! Only fancy! I went off into a <i>fou rire</i>. I +couldn’t prevent myself, and once I had begun, I couldn’t stop.... +It’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> not so much what he said that made me laugh—it was the air of +interest and consternation which I thought it necessary to take, in +order to encourage him to go on. I was afraid of seeming too much +amused. And then, in reality, it was all very beautiful and touching. +You can’t imagine how moved he was when he told me about it. He had +never spoken of it to anyone before. Of course his parents know nothing +about it.”</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> are the person who ought to write novels.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Parbleu, mon cher</i>, if only I knew what language to write them +in!... But what with Russian, English and French, I should never be +able to choose.—Well, the following night he went to his new friend’s +room and there taught her what her husband had never been able to +teach—and I expect he made a very good master. Only as they were +convinced that they had only a short time to live, they naturally took +no precautions, and, naturally, after a little while, with the help of +love, they both began to get much better. When she realized she was +<i>enceinte</i>, they were in a terrible state. It was last month. It +was beginning to get hot. Pau in the summer is intolerable. They came +back to Paris together. Her husband thinks she is with her parents, who +have a boarding school near the Luxembourg; but she didn’t dare to go +to them. Her parents, on the other hand, think she is still in Pau; but +it must all come out soon. Vincent swore at first not to abandon her; +he proposed going away with her—anywhere—to America—to the Pacific. +But they had no money. It was just at that moment that he met you and +began to play.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t tell me any of all this.”</p> + +<p>“Whatever happens, don’t let him know that I’ve told you.” She stopped +and listened a moment.</p> + +<p>“I thought I heard him.... He told me that, during the railway +journey from Pau to Paris, he thought she was going mad. She had +only just begun to realize she was going to have a child. She was +sitting opposite him in the railway carriage; they were alone. She +hadn’t spoken to him the whole morning; he had had to make all the +arrangements for the journey by himself—she was absolutely inert—she +seemed not to know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> what was going on. He took her hands, but she +looked straight in front of her with haggard eyes, as if she didn’t see +him, and her lips kept moving. He bent towards her. She was saying: ‘A +lover! A lover! I’ve got a lover!’ She kept on repeating it in the same +tone; and still the same word kept coming from her over and over again, +as if it were the only one she remembered. I assure you, Robert, that +when he told me that, I didn’t feel in the least inclined to laugh any +more. I’ve never in my life heard anything more pathetic. But all the +same, I felt that as he was speaking he was detaching himself more and +more from the whole thing. It was as though his feeling were passing +away in the same breath as his words; it was as though he were grateful +to my emotion for coming to relay his own.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know how you would say it in Russian or English, but I assure +you that, in French, you do it exceedingly well.”</p> + +<p>“Thanks. I’m aware of it.—It was after that, that he began to talk to +me about natural history; and I tried to persuade him that it would be +monstrous to sacrifice his career to his love.”</p> + +<p>“In other words, you advised him to sacrifice his love. And is it your +intention to take the place of that love?”</p> + +<p>Lilian remained silent.</p> + +<p>“This time, I think it really is he,” went on Robert, rising. “Quick! +one word before he comes in. My father died this evening.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” she said simply.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t a fancy to become Comtesse de Passavant, have you?”</p> + +<p>At this Lilian flung herself back with a burst of laughter.</p> + +<p>“Oh, oh, my dear friend! The fact is I have a vague recollection that +I’ve mislaid a husband somewhere or other in England. What! I never +told you?”</p> + +<p>“Not that I remember.”</p> + +<p>“You might have guessed it; as a rule a Lady’s accompanied by a Lord.”</p> + +<p>The Comte de Passavant, who had never had much faith in the +authenticity of his friend’s title, smiled. She went on: “Is it to +cloak your own life, that you’ve taken it into your head<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> to propose +such a thing to me? No, my dear friend, no. Let’s stay as we are. +Friends, eh?” And she held out her hand, which he kissed.</p> + +<p>“Ah! Ah! I thought as much,” cried Vincent, as he came into the room. +“The traitor! He has dressed!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I had promised not to change, so as to keep him in countenance,” +said Robert. “I’m sorry, my dear fellow, but I suddenly remembered I +was in mourning.”</p> + +<p>Vincent held his head high. An air of triumph and of joy breathed from +his whole person. At his arrival, Lilian had sprung to her feet. She +looked him up and down for a moment, then rushed joyously at Robert +and began belabouring his back with her fists, jumping, dancing and +exclaiming as she did so. (Lilian irritates me rather when she puts on +this affectation of childishness.)</p> + +<p>“He has lost his bet! He has lost his bet!”</p> + +<p>“What bet?” asked Vincent.</p> + +<p>“He had bet that you would lose your money again to-night. Tell us! +Quickly! You’ve won. How much?”</p> + +<p>“I have had the extraordinary courage—and virtue—to leave off at +fifty thousand and come away.”</p> + +<p>Lilian gave a roar of delight.</p> + +<p>“Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” she cried. Then she flung her arms round +Vincent’s neck. From head to foot, he felt her glowing, lissom body, +with its strange perfume of sandal-wood, pressed against his own; and +Lilian kissed him on the forehead, on the cheeks, on the lips. Vincent +staggered and freed himself. He took a bundle of bank-notes out of his +pocket.</p> + +<p>“Here! take back what you advanced me,” he said, holding out five of +them to Robert.</p> + +<p>“No,” answered Robert. “It is to Lady Lilian that you owe them now.” +And he handed her the notes, which she flung on to the divan. She was +panting. She went out on the terrace to breathe. It was that ambiguous +hour when night is drawing to an end, and the devil casts up his +accounts. Outside not a sound was to be heard. Vincent had seated +himself on the divan. Lilian turned towards him:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> + +<p>“And now, what do you mean to do?” she asked; and for the first time +she called him “thou.”</p> + +<p>He put his head between his hands and said with a kind of sob:</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>Lilian went up to him and put her hand on his forehead; he raised it +and his eyes were dry and burning.</p> + +<p>“In the mean time, we’ll drink each other’s health,” said she, and she +filled the three glasses with Tokay. After they had drunk:</p> + +<p>“Now you must go. It’s late and I’m tired out.” She accompanied them +into the antechamber and then, as Robert went out first, she slipped +a little metal object into Vincent’s hand. “Go out with him,” she +whispered, “and come back in a quarter of an hour.”</p> + +<p>In the antechamber a footman was dozing. She shook him by the arm.</p> + +<p>“Light these gentlemen downstairs,” she said.</p> + +<p>The staircase was dark. It would have been a simple matter, no doubt, +to make use of electric light, but she made it a point that her +visitors should always be shown out by a servant.</p> + +<p>The footman lighted the candles in a big candelabra, which he held high +above him and preceded Robert and Vincent downstairs. Robert’s car was +waiting outside the door, which the footman shut behind them.</p> + +<p>“I think I shall walk home. I need a little exercise to steady my +nerves,” said Vincent, as the other opened the door of the motor and +signed to him to get in.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you really want me to take you home?” And Robert suddenly seized +Vincent’s left hand, which he was holding shut. “Open your hand! Come! +Show us what you’ve got there!”</p> + +<p>Vincent was simpleton enough to be afraid of Robert’s jealousy. He +blushed as he loosened his fingers and a little key fell on to the +pavement. Robert picked it up at once, looked at it and gave it back to +Vincent with a laugh.</p> + +<p>“Ho! Ho!” he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> was getting +into his car, he turned back to Vincent, who was standing there looking +a little foolish:</p> + +<p>“It’s Thursday morning. Tell your brother that I expect him this +afternoon at four o’clock.” And he shut the door of the carriage +quickly without giving Vincent time to answer.</p> + +<p>The car went off. Vincent walked a few paces along the quay, crossed +the Seine, and went on till he reached the part of the Tuileries which +lies outside the railings; going up to the little fountain, he soaked +his handkerchief in the water and pressed it on to his forehead and his +temples. Then, slowly, he walked back towards Lilian’s house. There +let us leave him, while the devil watches him with amusement as he +noiselessly slips the little key into the keyhole....</p> + +<p>It is at this same hour that Laura, his yesterday’s mistress, is at +last dropping off to sleep in her gloomy little hotel room, after +having long wept, long bemoaned herself. On the deck of the ship which +is bringing him back to France, Edouard, in the first light of the +dawn, is re-reading her letter—the plaintive letter in which she +appeals for help. The gentle shores of his native land are already in +sight, though scarcely visible through the morning mist to any but a +practised eye. Not a cloud is in the heavens, where the glance of God +will soon be smiling. The horizon is already lifting a rosy eyelid. How +hot it is going to be in Paris! It is time to return to Bernard. Here +he is, just awaking in Olivier’s bed.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI_a">VI<br> +BERNARD AWAKENS</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent10"><i>We are all bastards;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>And that most venerable man which I</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Did call my father, was I know not where</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>When I was stamped.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent10"><span class="allsmcap">SHAKESPEARE</span>: <i>Cymbeline</i>.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +BERNARD has had an absurd dream. He doesn’t remember his dream. He +doesn’t try to remember his dream, but to get out of it. He returns to +the world of reality to feel Olivier’s body pressing heavily against +him. Whilst they were asleep (or at any rate while Bernard was asleep) +his friend had come close up to him—and, for that matter, the bed +was too narrow to allow of much distance; he had turned over; he is +sleeping on his side now and Bernard feels Olivier’s warm breath +tickling his neck. Bernard has nothing on but his short day-shirt; +one of Olivier’s arms is flung across him, weighing oppressively +and indiscreetly on his flesh. For a moment Bernard is not sure +that Olivier is really asleep. He frees himself gently. He gets up +without waking Olivier, dresses and then lies down again on the bed. +It is still too early to be going. Four o’clock. The night is only +just beginning to dwindle. One more hour of rest, one more hour for +gathering strength to start the coming day valiantly. But there is no +more sleep for him. Bernard stares at the glimmering window pane, at +the grey walls of the little room, at the iron bedstead where George is +tossing in his dreams.</p> + +<p>“In a moment,” he says to himself, “I shall be setting out to meet my +fate. Adventure! What a splendid word! The <i>advent</i> of destiny! +All the surprising unknown that awaits me! I don’t know if everyone is +like me, but as soon as I am awake, I like despising the people who are +asleep. Olivier, my friend, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> shall go off without waiting for your +good-bye. Up! valorous Bernard! The time has come!”</p> + +<p>He rubs his face with the corner of a towel dipped in water, brushes +his hair, puts on his shoes and leaves the room noiselessly. Out at +last!</p> + +<p>Ah! the morning air that has not yet been breathed, how life-giving it +seems to body and soul! Bernard follows the railings of the Luxembourg +Gardens, goes down the Rue Bonaparte, reaches the Quays, crosses the +Seine. He thinks of the new rule of life which he has only lately +formulated: “If <i>I</i> don’t do it, who will? If I don’t do it at +once, when shall I?” He thinks: “Great things to do!” He feels that he +is going towards them. “Great things!” he repeats to himself, as he +walks along. If only he knew what they were!... In the mean time he +knows that he is hungry; here he is at the Halles. He has eight sous +in his pocket—not a sou more! He goes into a public house and takes a +roll and coffee, standing at the bar. Price six sous. He has two sous +left; he gallantly leaves one on the counter and holds out the other to +a ragamuffin who is grubbing in a dustbin. Charity? Swagger? What does +it matter? He feels as happy as a king. He has nothing left—and the +whole world is his!</p> + +<p>“I expect anything and everything from Providence,” thinks he. “If +only it sets a handsome helping of roast beef before me at lunch +time, I shall be willing to strike a bargain”—for last night he had +gone without his dinner. The sun has risen long ago. Bernard is back +again on the quays now. He feels all lightness. When he runs he feels +as though he were flying. His thoughts leap through his brain with +delicious ease. He thinks:</p> + +<p>“The difficulty in life is to take the same thing seriously for long at +a time. For instance, my mother’s love for the person I used to call +my father—I believed in it for fifteen years. I still believed in it +yesterday. <i>She</i> wasn’t able to take her love seriously, either. I +wonder whether I despise her or esteem her the more for having made her +son a bastard.... But in reality, I don’t wonder as much as all that. +The feelings one has for one’s progenitors are among the things that +it’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> better not go into too deeply. As for Mr. Cuckold, it’s perfectly +simple—for as far back as I can remember, I’ve always hated him; I +must admit now that I didn’t deserve much credit for it—and that’s the +only thing I regret. To think that if I hadn’t broken open that drawer +I might have gone on all my life believing that I harboured unnatural +feelings in my breast towards a father! What a relief to know!... All +the same I didn’t exactly break open the drawer; I never even thought +of opening it.... And there were extenuating circumstances: first of +all I was horribly bored that day. And that curiosity of mine—that +‘fatal curiosity’ as Fénelon calls it, it’s certainly the surest thing +I’ve inherited from my real father, for the Profitendieus haven’t an +ounce of it in their composition. I have never met anyone less curious +than the gentleman who is my mother’s husband—unless perhaps it’s +the children he has produced. I must think about them later on—after +I have dined.... To lift up a marble slab off the top of a table and +to see a drawer underneath is really not the same thing as picking a +lock. I’m not a burglar. It might happen to anyone to lift the marble +slab off a table. Theseus must have been about my age when he lifted +the stone. The difficulty in the case of a table is the clock as a +rule.... I shouldn’t have dreamt of lifting the marble slab off the +table if I hadn’t wanted to mend the clock.... What doesn’t happen to +everyone is to find arms underneath—or guilty love-letters. Pooh! The +important thing was that I should learn the facts. It isn’t everyone +who can indulge in the luxury of a ghost to reveal them, like Hamlet. +Hamlet! It’s curious how one’s point of view changes according as one +is the off-spring of crime or legitimacy. I’ll think about that later +on—after I have dined.... Was it wrong of me to read those letters!... +No, I should be feeling remorseful! And if I hadn’t read the letters, +I should have had to go on living in ignorance and falsehood and +submission. Oh, for a draught of air! Oh, for the open sea! ‘Bernard! +Bernard, that green youth of yours ...’ as Bossuet says. Seat your +youth on that bench, Bernard. What a beautiful morning! There really +are days when the sun seems<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> to be kissing the earth. If I could get +rid of myself for a little, there’s not a doubt but I should write +poetry.”</p> + +<p>And as he lay stretched on the bench, he got rid of himself so +effectually that he fell asleep.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII_a">VII<br> +LILIAN AND VINCENT</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THE sun, already high in the heavens, caresses Vincent’s bare foot on +the wide bed, where he is lying beside Lilian. She sits up and looks at +him, not knowing that he is awake, and is astonished to see a look of +anxiety on his face.</p> + +<p>It is possible that Lady Griffith loved Vincent; but what she loved in +him was success. Vincent was tall, handsome, slim, but he did not know +how to hold himself, how to sit down or get up. He had an expressive +face, but he did his hair badly. Above all she admired the boldness and +robustness of his intellect; he was certainly highly educated, but she +thought him uncultivated. With the instinct of a mistress and a mother, +she hung over this big boy of hers and made it her task to form him. +He was her creation—her statue. She taught him to polish his nails, +to part his hair on one side instead of brushing it back, so that his +brow, when it was half hidden by a stray lock, looked all the whiter +and loftier. And then instead of the modest little ready-made bows he +used to wear, she gave him really becoming neck-ties. Decidedly Lady +Griffith loved Vincent; but she could not put up with him when he was +silent or “moody,” as she called it.</p> + +<p>She gently passes a finger over Vincent’s forehead, as though to +efface a wrinkle—those two deep vertical furrows which start from his +eyebrows, and give his face a look almost of suffering.</p> + +<p>“If you are going to bring me regrets, anxieties, remorse,” she +murmurs, as she leans over him, “it would be better never to come back.”</p> + +<p>Vincent shuts his eyes as though to shut out too bright a light. The +jubilation in Lilian’s face dazzles him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> + +<p>“You must treat this as if it were a mosque—take your shoes off before +you come in, so as not to bring in any mud from the outside. Do you +suppose I don’t know what you are thinking of?” Then, as Vincent tries +to put his hand on her mouth, she defends herself with the grace of a +naughty child.</p> + +<p>“No! Let me speak to you seriously. I have reflected a great deal about +what you said the other day. People always think that women aren’t +capable of reflection, but you know, it depends upon the woman.... +That thing you said the other day about the products of cross breeding +... and that it isn’t by crossing that one gets satisfactory results +so much as by selection.... Have I remembered your lesson, eh? Well, +this morning I think you have bred a monster—a perfectly ridiculous +creature—you’ll never rear it! A cross between a bacchante and the +Holy Ghost! Haven’t you now?... You’re disgusted with yourself for +having chucked Laura. I can tell it from the lines on your forehead. If +you want to go back to her, say so at once and leave me; I shall have +been mistaken in you and I shan’t mind in the least. But if you mean +to stay with me, then get rid of that funereal countenance. You remind +me of certain English people—the more emancipated their opinions, +the more they cling to their morality; so that there are no severer +Puritans than their free-thinkers.... You think I’m heartless? You’re +wrong. I understand perfectly that you are sorry for Laura. But then, +what are you doing here?”</p> + +<p>Then, as Vincent turned his head away:</p> + +<p>“Look here! You must go to the bath-room now and try and wash your +regrets off in the shower-bath. I shall ring for breakfast, eh? And +when you come back, I’ll explain something that you don’t seem to +understand.”</p> + +<p>He had got up. She sprang after him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t dress just yet. In the cupboard on the right hand side of the +bath, you’ll find a collection of burnouses and haiks and pyjamas. Take +anything you like.”</p> + +<p>Vincent appeared twenty minutes later dressed in a pistachio coloured +silk jellabah.</p> + +<p>“Oh, wait a minute—wait! Let me arrange you!” cried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> Lilian in +delight. She pulled out of an oriental chest two wide purple scarves; +wound the darker of the two as a sash round Vincent’s waist, and the +other as a turban round his head.</p> + +<p>“My thoughts are always the same colour as my clothes,” she said. (She +had put on crimson and silver lamé pyjamas.) “I remember once, when I +was quite a little girl at San Francisco, I was put into black because +a sister of my mother’s had died—an old aunt whom I had never seen. +I cried the whole day long. I was terribly, terribly sad; I thought +that I was very unhappy and that I was grieving deeply for my aunt’s +death—all because I was in black. Nowadays, if men are more serious +than women, it’s because their clothes are darker. I’ll wager that your +thoughts are quite different from what they were a little while ago. +Sit down there on the bed; and when you’ve drunk a glass of vodka and +a cup of tea and eaten two or three sandwiches, I’ll tell you a story. +Say when I’m to begin....”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +She settled down on the rug beside the bed, crouching between Vincent’s +legs like an Egyptian statue, with her chin resting on her knees. When +she had eaten and drunk, she began:</p> + +<p>“I was on the <i>Bourgogne</i>, you know, on the day of the wreck. I +was seventeen, so now you know how old I am. I was a very good swimmer, +and to show you that I’m not hard-hearted, I’ll tell you that if my +first thought was to save myself, my second was to save someone else. +I’m not quite sure even whether it wasn’t my first. Or rather, I don’t +think I thought of anything; but nothing disgusts me so much in such +moments as the people who only think of themselves—oh, yes—the women +who scream. There was a first boatload, chiefly of women and children, +and some of them yelled to such an extent that it was enough to make +anyone lose his head. The boat was so badly handled that instead of +dropping down on to the sea straight, it dived nose foremost and +everyone in it was flung out before it even had time to fill with +water. The whole scene took place by the light of torches and lanterns<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +and search-lights. You can’t imagine how ghastly it was. The waves were +very big and everything that was not in the light was lost in darkness +on the other side of the hill of water.</p> + +<p>“I have never lived more intensely; but I was as incapable of +reflection as a Newfoundland dog, I suppose, when he jumps into the +water. I can’t even understand now what happened; I only know that I +had noticed a little girl in the boat—a darling thing of about five +or six; and when I saw the boat overturn, I immediately made up my +mind that it was her I would save. She was with her mother, but the +poor woman was a bad swimmer; and as usual in such cases, her skirts +hampered her. As for me, I expect I undressed mechanically; I was +called to take my place in the second boatload. I must have got in; and +then I no doubt jumped straight into the sea out of the boat; all I +can remember is swimming about for a long time with the child clinging +to my neck. It was terrified and clutched me so tight that I couldn’t +breathe. Luckily the people in the boat saw us and either waited for +us or rowed towards us. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story. +The recollection which remains most vividly with me and which nothing +will ever efface from my mind and my heart is this.—There were about +forty or so of us in the boat, all crowded together, for a number of +swimmers had been picked up at the last gasp like me. The water was +almost on a level with the edge of the boat. I was in the stern and I +was holding the little girl I had just saved tightly pressed against +me to warm her—and to prevent her from seeing what I couldn’t help +seeing myself—two sailors, one armed with a hatchet and the other with +a kitchen chopper. And what do you think they were doing?... They were +hacking off the fingers and hands of the swimmers who were trying to +get into our boat. One of these two sailors (the other was a Negro) +turned to me, as I sat there, my teeth chattering with cold and fright +and horror, and said, ‘If another single one gets in we shall be bloody +well done for. The boat’s full.’ And he added that it was a thing that +had to be done in all shipwrecks, but that naturally one didn’t mention +it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + +<p>“I think I fainted then; at any rate, I can’t remember anything more, +just as one remains deaf for a long time after a noise that has been +too tremendous.</p> + +<p>“And when I came to myself on board the X., which picked us up, I +realized that I was no longer the same, that I never could again be +the same sentimental young girl I had been before; I realized that a +part of myself had gone down with the <i>Bourgogne</i>; that henceforth +there would be a whole heap of delicate feelings whose fingers and +hands I should hack away to prevent them from climbing into my heart +and wrecking it.”</p> + +<p>She looked at Vincent out of the corner of her eye and, with a backward +twist of her body, went on: “It’s a habit one must get into.”</p> + +<p>Then, as her hair, which she had pinned up loosely, was coming down and +falling over her shoulders, she rose, went up to a mirror and began to +re-arrange it, talking as she did so:</p> + +<p>“When I left America a little later, I felt as if I were the golden +fleece starting off in search of a conqueror. I may sometimes have +been foolish ... I may sometimes have made mistakes—perhaps I am +making one now in talking to you like this—but you, on your side, +don’t imagine that because I have given myself to you, you have won me. +Make certain of this—I abominate mediocrity and I can love no one who +isn’t a conqueror. If you want me, it must be to help you to victory; +if it’s only to be pitied and consoled and made much of ... no, my +dear boy—I’d better say so at once—<i>I’m</i> not the person you +need—it’s Laura.”</p> + +<p>She said all this without turning round and while she was continuing to +arrange her rebellious locks, but Vincent caught her eye in the glass.</p> + +<p>“May I give you my answer this evening?” he said, getting up and taking +off his oriental garments to get into his day clothes. “I must go home +quickly now so as to catch my brother Olivier before he goes out. I’ve +got something to say to him.”</p> + +<p>He said it by way of apology, to give colour to his departure;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> but +when he went up to Lilian, she turned round to him smiling, and so +lovely that he hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Unless I leave a line for him to get at lunch time,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Do you see a great deal of him?”</p> + +<p>“Hardly anything. No, it’s an invitation for this afternoon, which I’ve +got to pass on to him.”</p> + +<p>“From Robert?... <i>Oh! I see!</i><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>...” she said, smiling oddly. +“That’s a person, too, I must talk to you about.... All right! Go at +once. But come back at six o’clock, because at seven his car is coming +to take us out to dinner in the Bois.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Vincent walks home, meditating as he goes; he realizes that from the +satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were +sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> +In English in the original.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII_a">VIII<br> +EDOUARD AND LAURA</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Il faut choisir d’aimer les femmes ou de les connaître; il n’y a +pas de milieu.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">CHAMFORT.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +EDOUARD, as he sits in the Paris express, is reading Passavant’s new +book, <i>The Horizontal Bar</i>, which he has just bought at the Dieppe +railway station. No doubt he will find the book waiting for him when +he gets to Paris, but Edouard is impatient. People are talking of +it everywhere. Not one of his own books has ever had the honour of +figuring on station book-stalls. He has been told, it is true, that it +would be an easy matter to arrange, but he doesn’t care to. He repeats +to himself that he hasn’t the slightest desire to see his books in +railway stations—but it is the sight of Passavant’s book that makes +him feel the need of repeating it. Everything that Passavant does, and +everything that other people do round about him, rubs Edouard up the +wrong way: the newspaper articles, for instance, in which his book is +praised up to the skies. It’s as if it were a wager; in every one of +the three papers that he buys on landing, there is a eulogy of <i>The +Horizontal Bar</i>. In the fourth there is a letter from Passavant, +complaining of an article which had recently appeared in the same paper +and which had been a trifle less flattering than the others. Passavant +writes defending and explaining his book. This letter irritates Edouard +even more than the articles. Passavant pretends to enlighten public +opinion—in reality he cleverly directs it. None of Edouard’s books +has ever given rise to such a crop of articles; but, for that matter, +Edouard has never made the slightest attempt to attract the favour of +the critics. If they turn him the cold shoulder, it is a matter of +indifference to him. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> as he reads the articles on his rival’s book, +he feels the need of assuring himself again that it is a matter of +indifference.</p> + +<p>Not that he detests Passavant. He has met him occasionally and has +thought him charming. Passavant, moreover, has always been particularly +amiable to him. But he dislikes Passavant’s books. He thinks Passavant +not so much an artist as a juggler. Enough of Passavant!</p> + +<p>Edouard takes Laura’s letter out of his coat pocket—the letter he was +reading on the boat; he reads it again:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="nind"> +“Dear friend, +</p> + +<p>The last time I saw you—(do you remember?—it was in St. James’s +Park, on the 2nd of April, the day before I left for the South?) you +made me promise to write to you if ever I was in any difficulty. I am +keeping my promise. To whom can I appeal but you? I cannot ask for +help from those to whom I should most like to turn; it is just from +them that I must hide my trouble. Dear friend, I am in very great +trouble. Some day perhaps, I will tell you the story of my life after +I parted from Felix. He took me out to Pau and then he had to return +to Cambridge for his lectures. What came over me, when I was left out +there all by myself—the spring—my convalescence—my solitude?... +Dare I confess to you what it is impossible to tell Felix? The time +has come when I ought to go back to him—but oh! I am no longer +worthy to. The letters which I have been writing to him for some time +past have been lying letters, and the ones he writes to me speak of +nothing but his joy at hearing that I am better. I wish to heaven I +had remained ill! I wish to heaven I had died out there!... My friend, +the fact must be faced: I am expecting a child and it is not his. +I left Felix more than three months ago; there’s no possibility of +blinding <i>him</i> at any rate. I dare not go back to him. I cannot. +I will not. He is too good. He would forgive me, no doubt, and I don’t +deserve—I don’t want his forgiveness. I daren’t go back to my parents +either. They think I am still at Pau. My father—if he knew, if he +understood—is capable of cursing me. He would turn me away. And how +could I face his virtue, his horror of evil, of lying, of everything +that is impure? I am afraid too of grieving my mother and my sister. +As for ... but I will not accuse him; when he was in a position<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +to help me, he promised to do so. Unfortunately, however, in order +to be better able to help me, he took to gambling. He has lost the +money which should have served to keep me until after my confinement. +He has lost it all. I had thought at first of going away with him +somewhere—anywhere; of living with him at any rate for a short time, +for I didn’t mean to hamper him—to be a burden to him; I should have +ended by finding some way of earning my living, but I can’t just yet. +I can see that he is unhappy at having to abandon me and that it is +the only thing that he can do. I don’t blame him—but all the same he +is abandoning me. I am here in Paris without any money. I am living on +credit in a little hotel, but it can’t go on much longer. I don’t know +what is to become of me. To think that ways so sweet should lead only +to such depths as these! I am writing to the address in London which +you gave me. But when will this letter reach you? And I who longed so +to have a child! I do nothing but cry all day long. Advise me. You are +the only hope I have left. Help me if you can, and if you can’t.... +Oh! in other days I should have had more courage, but now it is not I +alone who will die. If you don’t come—if you write that you can do +nothing for me, I shall have no word or thought of reproach for you. +In bidding you good-bye, I shall try and not regret life too much, but +I think that you never quite understood that the friendship you gave +me is still the best thing in my life—never quite understood that +what I called my friendship for you went by another name in my heart.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">LAURA DOUVIERS</span><br> +</p> + +<p>P. S. Before putting this letter in the post I shall make another +attempt. This evening I shall go and see him one last time more. +If you get this therefore it will mean that really.... Good-bye, +good-bye! I don’t know what I am writing.</p> +</div> + +<p>Edouard had received this letter on the morning of the day he had left +England. That is to say he had decided to leave as soon as he received +it. In any case he had not intended to stay much longer. I don’t mean +to insinuate that he would have been incapable of returning to Paris +specially to help Laura; I merely say that he is glad to return. He has +been kept terribly short of pleasure lately in England; and the first +thing he means to do when he gets to Paris is to go to a house<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> of +ill-fame; and as he doesn’t wish to take his private papers with him, +he reaches his portmanteau down from the rack and opens it, so as to +slip in Laura’s letter.</p> + +<p>The place for this letter is not among coats and shirts; he pulls out +from beneath the clothes a cloth-bound MS. book, half filled with his +writing; turns to the very beginning of the book, looks up certain +pages which were written last year and re-reads them; it is between +these that Laura’s letter will find its proper place.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">EDOUARD’S JOURNAL</p> + +<p><i>Oct. 18th.</i>—Laura does not seem to suspect her power; but I, who +can unravel the secrets of my own heart, know well enough that up till +now I have never written a line that has not been indirectly inspired +by her. I feel her still a child beside me, and all the skill of my +discourse is due only to my constant desire to instruct, to convince, +to captivate her. I see nothing—I hear nothing without asking myself +what she would think of it. I forsake my own emotion to feel only +hers. And I think that if she were not there to give definition to +my personality, it would vanish in the excessive vagueness of its +contours. It is only round her that I concentrate and define myself. +By what illusion have I hitherto believed that I was fashioning her +to my likeness, when, on the contrary, I was bending myself to hers? +And I never noticed it! Or rather—the influence of love, by a curious +action of give and take, made us both reciprocally alter our natures. +Involuntarily—unconsciously—each one of a pair of lovers fashions +himself to meet the other’s requirements—endeavours by a continual +effort to resemble that idol of himself which he beholds in the other’s +heart.... Whoever really loves abandons all sincerity.</p> + +<p>This was the way in which she deluded me. Her thought everywhere +companioned mine. I admired her taste, her curiosity, her culture, and +did not realize that it was her love for me which made her take so +passionate an interest in everything that I cared for. For she never +discovered anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> herself. Each one of her admirations—I see it +now—was merely a couch on which she could lay her thought alongside +of mine; there was nothing in all this that responded to any profound +need of her nature. “It was only for you that I adorned and decked +myself,” she will say. Yes! But I could have wished that it had been +only for <i>her</i> and that she had yielded in doing so to an intimate +and personal necessity. But of all these things that she has added to +herself for my sake, nothing will remain—not even a regret—not even a +sense of something missing. A day comes when the true self, which time +has slowly stripped of all its borrowed raiment, reappears, and then, +if it was of these ornaments that the other was enamoured, he finds +that he is pressing to his heart nothing but an empty dress—nothing +but a memory—nothing but grief and despair.</p> + +<p>Ah! with what virtues, with what perfections I had adorned her!</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +How vexing this question of sincerity is! <i>Sincerity!</i> When I +say the word I think only of her. If it is myself that I consider, I +cease to understand its meaning. I am never anything but what I think +myself—and this varies so incessantly, that often, if I were not +there to make them acquainted, my morning’s self would not recognize +my evening’s. Nothing could be more different from me than myself. It +is only sometimes when I am alone that the substratum emerges and that +I attain a certain fundamental continuity; but at such times I feel +that my life is slowing down, stopping, and that I am on the very verge +of ceasing to exist. My heart beats only out of sympathy; I live only +through others—by procuration, so to speak, and by espousals; and I +never feel myself living so intensely as when I escape from myself to +become no matter who.</p> + +<p>This anti-egoistical force of decentralization is so great in me, +that it disintegrates my sense of property—and, as a consequence, of +responsibility. Such a being is not of the kind that one can marry. How +can I make Laura understand this?</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Oct. 26th.</i>—The only existence that anything (including myself)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +has for me, is poetical—I restore this word its full signification. +It seems to me sometimes that I do not really exist, but that I +merely imagine I exist. The thing that I have the greatest difficulty +in believing in, is my own reality. I am constantly getting outside +myself, and as I watch myself act I cannot understand how a person who +acts is the same as the person who is watching him act, and who wonders +in astonishment and doubt how he can be actor and watcher at the same +moment.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Psychological analysis lost all interest for me from the moment that I +became aware that men feel what they imagine they feel. From that to +thinking that they imagine they feel what they feel was a very short +step...! I see it clearly in the case of my love for Laura: between +loving her and imagining I love her—between imagining I love her less +and loving her less—what God could tell the difference? In the domain +of feeling, what is real is indistinguishable from what is imaginary. +And if it is sufficient to imagine one loves, in order to love, so +it is sufficient to say to oneself that when one loves one imagines +one loves, in order to love a little less and even in order to detach +oneself a little from one’s love, or at any rate to detach some of the +crystals from one’s love. But if one is able to say such a thing to +oneself, must one not already love a little less?</p> + +<p>It is by such reasoning as this, that X. in my book tries to detach +himself from Z.—and, still more, tries to detach her from himself.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Oct. 28th.</i>—People are always talking of the sudden +crystallization of love. Its slow <i>decrystallization</i>, which I +never hear talked of, is a psychological phenomenon which interests +me far more. I consider that it can be observed, after a longer or +shorter period, in all love marriages. There will be no reason to fear +this, indeed, in Laura’s case (and so much the better) if she marries +Felix Douviers, as reason, and her family, and I myself advise her to +do. Douviers is a thoroughly estimable professor, with many excellent +points, and very capable in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> own line (I hear that he is greatly +appreciated by his pupils). In process of time and in the wear of daily +life, Laura is sure to discover in him all the more virtues for having +had fewer illusions to begin with; when she praises him, indeed, she +seems to me really not to give him his due. Douviers is worth more than +she thinks.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +What an admirable subject for a novel—the progressive and reciprocal +decrystallization of a husband and wife after fifteen or twenty years +of married life. So long as he loves and desires to be loved, the lover +cannot show himself as he really is, and moreover he does not see the +beloved—but instead, an idol whom he decks out, a divinity whom he +creates.</p> + +<p>So I have warned Laura to be on her guard against both herself and me. +I have tried to persuade her that our love could not bring either of us +any lasting happiness. I hope I have more or less convinced her.</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * * </div> + +<p>Edouard shrugs his shoulders, slips the letter in between the leaves +of his journal, shuts it up and replaces it in his suit-case. He then +takes a hundred-franc note out of his pocket-book and puts that too +in his suit-case. This sum will be more than sufficient to last him +till he can fetch his suit-case from the cloak-room, where he means to +deposit it on his arrival. The tiresome thing is that it has got no +key—or at any rate he has not got its key. He always loses the keys of +his suit-cases. Pooh! The cloak-room attendants are too busy during the +daytime and never alone. He will fetch it out at about four o’clock and +then go to comfort and help Laura; he will try and persuade her to come +out to dinner with him.</p> + +<p>Edouard dozes; insensibly his thoughts take another direction. He +wonders whether he would have guessed merely by reading Laura’s +letter, that her hair was black. He says to himself that novelists, +by a too exact description of their characters, hinder the reader’s +imagination rather than help it, and that they ought to allow each +individual to picture their personages to himself according to his own +fancy. He thinks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> of the novel which he is planning and which is to +be like nothing else he has ever written. He is not sure that <i>The +Counterfeiters</i> is a good title. He was wrong to have announced it +beforehand. An absurd custom this of publishing the titles of books +in advance, in order to whet the reader’s appetite! It whets nobody’s +appetite and it ties one. He is not sure either that the subject is a +very good one. He is continually thinking of it and has been thinking +of it for a long time past; but he has not yet written a line of it. +On the other hand, he puts down his notes and reflections in a little +note-book. He takes this note-book out of his suit-case and a fountain +pen out of his pocket. He writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>I should like to strip the novel of every element that does not +specifically belong to the novel. Just as photography in the past +freed painting from its concern for a certain sort of accuracy, so +the phonograph will eventually no doubt rid the novel of the kind +of dialogue which is drawn from the life and which realists take so +much pride in. Outward events, accidents, traumatisms, belong to the +cinema. The novel should leave them to it. Even the description of the +characters does not seem to me properly to belong to the <i>genre</i>. +No; this does not seem to me the business of the <i>pure</i> novel +(and in art, as in everything else, purity is the only thing I care +about). No more than it is the business of the drama. And don’t let it +be argued that the dramatist does not describe his characters because +the spectator is intended to see them transposed alive on the stage; +for how often on the stage an actor irritates and baffles us because +he is so unlike the person our own imagination had figured better +without him. The novelist does not as a rule rely sufficiently on the +reader’s imagination.</p> +</div> + +<p>What is the station that has just flashed past? Asnières. He puts +the note-book back in his suit-case. But, decidedly, the thought of +Passavant vexes him. He takes the note-book out again and adds:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The work of art, as far as Passavant is concerned, is not so much +an end as a means. The artistic convictions which he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> displays are +asserted with so much vehemence merely because they lack depth; no +secret exigence of his temperament necessitates them; they are evoked +by the passing hour; their <i>mot d’ordre</i> is opportunism.</p> + +<p><i>The Horizontal Bar!</i> The things that soonest appear out of date +are those that at first strike us as most modern. Every concession, +every affectation is the promise of a wrinkle. But it is by these +means that Passavant pleases the young. He snaps his fingers at the +future. It is the generation of to-day that he is speaking to—which +is certainly better than speaking to that of yesterday. But as what +he writes is addressed only to that younger generation, it is in +danger of disappearing with it. He is perfectly aware of this and +does not build his hopes on surviving. This is the reason that he +defends himself so fiercely, and that, not only when he is attacked, +but at the slightest restrictions of the critics. If he felt that his +work was lasting he would leave it to defend itself and would not so +continually seek to justify it. More than that, misunderstanding, +injustice, would rejoice him. So much the more food for to-morrow’s +critics to use their teeth upon!</p> +</div> + +<p>He looks at his watch: 11.35. He ought to have arrived by now. Curious +to know if by any impossible chance Olivier will be at the station to +meet him? He hasn’t the slightest expectation of it. How can he even +suppose that his post-card has come to Olivier’s notice—that post-card +on which he informed Olivier’s parents of his return, and incidentally, +carelessly, absent-mindedly to all appearance, mentioned the day and +hour of his arrival ... as one takes a pleasure in stalking—in setting +a trap for fate itself.</p> + +<p>The train is stopping. Quick! A porter! No! His suit-case is not very +heavy, nor the cloak-room very far.... Even supposing he were there, +would they recognize each other in all this crowd? They have seen so +little of each other. If only he hasn’t grown out of recognition!... +Ah! Great Heavens! Can that be he?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX_a">IX<br> +EDOUARD AND OLIVIER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +WE should have nothing to deplore of all that happened later if only +Edouard’s and Olivier’s joy at meeting had been more demonstrative; +but they both had a singular incapacity for gauging their credit in +other people’s hearts and minds; this now paralysed them; so that each, +believing his emotion to be unshared, absorbed in his own joy, and half +ashamed at finding it so great, was completely preoccupied by trying to +hide its intensity from the other.</p> + +<p>It was for this reason that Olivier, far from helping Edouard’s joy by +telling him with what eagerness he had come to meet him, thought fit to +speak of some job or other which he had had to do in the neighbourhood +that very morning, as if to excuse himself for having come. His +conscience, scrupulous to excess, cunningly set about persuading him +that he was perhaps in Edouard’s way. The lie was hardly out of his +mouth when he blushed. Edouard surprised the blush, and as he had at +first seized Olivier’s arm and passionately pressed it, he thought +(scrupulous he, too) that it was this that had made him blush.</p> + +<p>He had begun by saying:</p> + +<p>“I tried to force myself to believe that you wouldn’t come, but in +reality I was certain that you would.”</p> + +<p>Then it came over him that Olivier thought these words presumptuous. +When he heard him answer in an off-hand way: “I had a job to do in this +very neighbourhood,” he dropped Olivier’s arm and his spirits fell +from their heights. He would have liked to ask Olivier whether he had +understood that the post-card which he had addressed to his parents, +had been really intended for him; as he was on the point of putting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> +the question, his heart failed him. Olivier, who was afraid of boring +Edouard or of being misunderstood if he spoke of himself, kept silent. +He looked at Edouard and was astonished at the trembling of his lip; +then he dropped his eyes at once. Edouard was both longing for the look +and afraid that Olivier would think him too old. He kept rolling a bit +of paper nervously between his fingers. It was the ticket he had just +been given at the cloak-room, but he did not think of that.</p> + +<p>“If it was his cloak-room ticket,” thought Olivier, as he watched him +crumple it up and throw it absent-mindedly away, “he wouldn’t throw +it away like that.” And he glanced round for a second to see the wind +carry it off along the pavement far behind them. If he had looked +longer he might have seen a young man pick it up. It was Bernard, who +had been following them ever since they had left the station.... In the +mean while Olivier was in despair at finding nothing to say to Edouard, +and the silence between them became intolerable.</p> + +<p>“When we get opposite Condorcet,” he kept repeating to himself, “I +shall say, ‘I must go home now; good-bye.’”</p> + +<p>Then, when they got opposite the Lycée, he gave himself till as far as +the corner of the Rue de Provence. But Edouard, on whom the silence +was weighing quite as heavily, could not endure that they should part +in this way. He drew his companion into a café. Perhaps the port +wine which he ordered would help them to get the better of their +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>They drank to each other.</p> + +<p>“Good luck to you!” said Edouard, raising his glass. “When is the +examination?”</p> + +<p>“In ten days.”</p> + +<p>“Do you feel ready?”</p> + +<p>Olivier shrugged his shoulders. “One never knows. If one doesn’t happen +to be in good form on the day....”</p> + +<p>He didn’t dare answer “yes,” for fear of seeming conceited. He +was embarrassed, too, because he wanted and yet was afraid to say +“thou” to Edouard. He contented himself by giving his sentences an +impersonal turn, so as to avoid at any rate saying “you”; and by so +doing he deprived Edouard of the opportunity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> of begging him to say +“thou”—which Edouard longed for him to do and which he remembered well +enough he <i>had</i> done a few days before his leaving for England.</p> + +<p>“Have you been working?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty well, but not as well as I might have.”</p> + +<p>“People who work well always think they might work better,” said +Edouard rather pompously.</p> + +<p>He said it in spite of himself and then thought his sentence ridiculous.</p> + +<p>“Do you still write poetry?”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes.... I badly want a little advice.” He raised his eyes to +Edouard. “<i>Your</i> advice,” he wanted to say—“<i>thy</i> advice.” +And his look, in default of his voice, said it so plainly that Edouard +thought he was saying it out of deference—out of amiability. But why +should he have answered—and so brusquely too...?</p> + +<p>“Oh, one must go to oneself for advice, or to companions of one’s own +age. One’s elders are no use.”</p> + +<p>Olivier thought: “I didn’t ask him. Why is he protesting?”</p> + +<p>Each of them was vexed with himself for not being able to utter a word +that didn’t sound curt and stiff; and each of them, feeling the other’s +embarrassment and irritation, thought himself the cause and object of +them. Such interviews lead to no good unless something comes to the +rescue. Nothing came.</p> + +<p>Olivier had begun the morning badly. When, on waking up, he had found +that Bernard was no longer beside him, that he had left him without +saying good-bye, his heart had been filled with unhappiness; though +he had forgotten it for an instant in the joy of seeing Edouard, it +now surged up in him anew like a black wave and submerged every other +thought in his mind. He would have liked to talk about Bernard, to tell +Edouard everything and anything, to make him interested in his friend.</p> + +<p>But Edouard’s slightest smile would have wounded him; and as the +passionate and tumultuous feelings which were shaking him could not +have been expressed without the risk of seeming exaggerated, he kept +silence. He felt his features harden;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> he would have liked to fling +himself into Edouard’s arms and cry. Edouard misunderstood this silence +of Olivier’s and the look of sternness on his face; he loved him far +too much to be able to behave with any ease. He hardly dared look at +Olivier, whom he longed to take in his arms and fondle like a child, +and when he met his eyes and saw their dull and lifeless expression:</p> + +<p>“Of course!” he said to himself. “I bore him—I bore him to death. +Poor child! He’s just waiting for a word from me to escape.” And +irresistibly Edouard said the word—out of sheer pity: “You’d better be +off now. Your people are expecting you for lunch, I’m sure.”</p> + +<p>Olivier, who was thinking the same things, misunderstood in the same +way. He got up in a desperate hurry and held out his hand. At least he +wanted to say to Edouard: “Shall I see you—thee—again soon? Shall we +see each other again soon?”... Edouard was waiting for these words. +Nothing came but a commonplace “Good-bye!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="X_a">X<br> +THE CLOAK-ROOM TICKET</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THE sun woke Bernard. He rose from his bench with a violent headache. +His gallant courage of the morning had left him. He felt abominably +lonely and his heart was swelling with something brackish and bitter +which he would not call unhappiness, but which brought the tears to his +eyes. What should he do? Where should he go?... If his steps turned +towards St. Lazare Station at the time that he knew Olivier was due +there, it was without any definite purpose and merely with the wish to +see his friend again. He reproached himself for having left so abruptly +that morning; perhaps Olivier had been hurt?... Was he not the creature +in the world he liked best?... When he saw him arm in arm with Edouard +a peculiar feeling made him follow the pair and at the same time not +show himself; painfully conscious of being <i>de trop</i>, he would yet +have liked to slip in between them. He thought Edouard looked charming; +only a little taller than Olivier and with a scarcely less youthful +figure. It was he whom he made up his mind to address; he would wait +until Olivier left him. But address him? Upon what pretext?</p> + +<p>It was at this moment that he caught sight of the little bit of +crumpled paper as it escaped from Edouard’s hand. He picked it up, +saw that it was a cloak-room ticket ... and, by Jove, here was the +wished-for pretext!</p> + +<p>He saw the two friends go into a café, hesitated a moment in +perplexity, and then continued his monologue:</p> + +<p>“Now a normal fathead would have nothing better to do than to return +this paper at once,” he said to himself.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“‘<i>How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Seem to me all the uses of this world!</i>’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> + +<p class="nind"> +as I have heard Hamlet remark. Bernard, Bernard, what thought is this +that is tickling you? It was only yesterday that you were rifling a +drawer. On what path are you entering? Consider, my boy, consider.... +Consider that the cloak-room attendant who took Edouard’s luggage will +be gone to his lunch at 12 o’clock, and that there will be another one +on duty. And didn’t you promise your friend to stick at nothing?”</p> + +<p>He reflected, however, that too much haste might spoil everything. +The attendant might be surprised into thinking this haste suspicious; +he might consult the entry book and think it unnatural that a piece +of luggage deposited in the cloak-room a few minutes before twelve, +should be taken out immediately after. And besides, suppose some +passer-by, some busy-body, had seen him pick up the bit of paper.... +Bernard forced himself to walk to the Place de la Concorde without +hurrying—in the time it would have taken another person to lunch. +It is quite usual, isn’t it, to put one’s luggage in the cloak-room +whilst one is lunching and to take it out immediately after.... His +headache had gone. As he was passing by a restaurant terrace, he boldly +took a toothpick from one of the little bundles that were set out on +the tables, and stood nibbling it at the cloak-room counter, in order +to give himself the air of having lunched. He was lucky to have in +his favour his good looks, his well-cut clothes, his distinction, the +frankness of his eyes and smile, and that indefinable something in +the whole appearance which denotes those who have been brought up in +comfort and want for nothing. (But all this gets rather draggled by +sleeping on benches.)...</p> + +<p>He had a horrible turn when the attendant told him there were ten +centimes to pay. He had not a single, sou left. What should he do? The +suit-case was there, on the counter. The slightest sign of hesitation +would give the alarm—so would his want of money. But the demon is +watching over him; he slips between Bernard’s anxious fingers, as they +go searching from pocket to pocket with a pretence of feigned despair, +a fifty-centime bit, which had lain forgotten since goodness knows +when in his waistcoat pocket. Bernard hands it to the attendant.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> He +has not shown a sign of his agitation. He takes up the suit-case, and +in the simplest, honestest fashion pockets the forty centimes change. +Heavens! How hot he is! Where shall he go now? His legs are beginning +to fail him and the suit-case feels heavy. What shall he do with it?... +He suddenly remembers that he has no key. No! No! Certainly not! He +will not break open the lock; what the devil, he isn’t a thief!... But +if he only knew what was in it. His arm is aching and he is perspiring +with the heat. He stops for a moment and puts his burden down on the +pavement. Of course he has every intention of returning the wretched +thing to its owner; but he would like to question it first. He presses +the lock at a venture.... Oh miracle! The two shells open and disclose +a pearl—a pocket-book, which in its turn discloses a bundle of +bank-notes. Bernard seizes the pearl and shuts up the oyster.</p> + +<p>And now that he has the wherewithal—quick! a hotel. He knows of one +close by in the Rue d’Amsterdam. He is dying of hunger. But before +sitting down to table, he must put his suit-case in safety. A waiter +carries it upstairs before him; three flights; a passage; a door which +he locks upon his treasure. He goes down again.</p> + +<p>Sitting at table in front of a beefsteak, Bernard did not dare examine +the pocket-book. (One never knows who may be watching you.) But his +left hand amorously caressed it, lying snug in his inside pocket.</p> + +<p>“How to make Edouard understand that I’m not a thief—that’s the +trouble. What kind of fellow is Edouard? Perhaps the suit-case may shed +a little light upon that. Attractive—so much is certain. But there are +heaps of attractive fellows who have no taste for practical joking. If +he thinks his suit-case has been stolen, no doubt he’ll be glad to see +it again. If he’s the least decent he’ll be grateful to me for bringing +it back to him. I shall easily rouse his interest. Let’s eat the sweet +quickly and then go upstairs and examine the situation. Now for the +bill and a soul-stirring tip for the waiter.”</p> + +<p>A minute or two later he was back again in his room.</p> + +<p>“Now, suit-case, a word with you!... A morning suit,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> not more than +a trifle too big for me, I expect. The material becoming and in good +taste. Linen; toilet things. I’m not very sure that I shall give any +of all this back. But what proves that I’m not a thief is that these +papers interest me a great deal more than anything else. We’ll begin by +reading this.”</p> + +<p>This was the note-book into which Edouard had slipped Laura’s +melancholy letter. We have already seen the first pages; this is what +followed.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI_a">XI<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: GEORGE MOLINIER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"><i>Nov. 1st.</i>—A fortnight ago ...</p> + +<p>—it was a mistake not to have noted it down at once. It was not so +much that I hadn’t time as that my heart was still full of Laura—or, +to be more accurate, I did not wish to distract my thoughts from +her; moreover, I do not care to note anything here that is casual or +fortuitous, and at that time I did not think that what I am going +to relate could lead to anything, or be, as people say, of any +consequence; at any rate, I would not admit it to myself and it was, +in a way, to prove the unimportance of this incident that I refrained +from mentioning it in my journal. But I feel more and more—it would be +vain to deny it—that it is Olivier’s figure that has now become the +magnet of my thoughts, that their current sets towards him and that +without taking him into account I shall be able neither to explain nor +to understand myself properly.</p> + +<p>I was coming back that morning from Perrin’s, the publisher’s, where +I had been seeing about the press copies of the fresh edition of my +old book. As the weather was fine, I was dawdling back along the quays +until it should be time for lunch.</p> + +<p>A little before getting to Vanier’s, I stopped in front of a +second-hand bookseller’s. It was not so much the books that interested +me as a small schoolboy, about thirteen years old, who was rummaging +the outside shelves under the placid eye of a shop assistant, who sat +watching on a rush-bottomed chair in the door-way. I pretended to be +examining the bookstall, but I too kept a watch on the youngster out +of the corner of my eye. He was dressed in a threadbare overcoat, the +sleeves of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> which were too short and showed his other sleeves below +them. Its side pocket was gaping, though it was obviously empty; a +corner of the stuff had given way. I reflected that this coat must +have already seen service with several elder brothers and that his +brothers and he must have been in the habit of stuffing a great many, +too many, things into their pockets. I reflected too that his mother +must be either very neglectful or very busy not to have mended it. +But just then the youngster turned round a little and I saw that the +pocket on the other side was coarsely darned with stout black thread. +And I seemed to hear the maternal exhortations: “Don’t put two books +at a time into your pocket; you’ll ruin your overcoat. Your pocket’s +all torn again. Next time, I warn you, I shan’t darn it. Just look what +a sight you are!...” Things which my own poor mother used to say to +me, too, and to which I paid no more attention than he. The overcoat +was unbuttoned and my eye was attracted by a kind of decoration, a +bit of ribbon, or rather a yellow rosette which he was wearing in the +buttonhole of his inside coat. I put all this down for the sake of +discipline and for the very reason that it bores me to put it down.</p> + +<p>At a certain moment the man on the chair was called into the shop; he +did not stay more than a second and came back to his chair at once, but +that second was enough to allow the boy to slip the book he was holding +into his pocket; then he immediately began scanning the shelves again +as if nothing had happened. At the same time he was uneasy; he raised +his head, caught me looking at him and understood that I had seen him. +At any rate, he said to himself that I might have seen him; he was +probably not quite certain; but in his uncertainty he lost all his +assurance, blushed and started a little performance in which he tried +to appear quite at his ease, but which, on the contrary, showed extreme +embarrassment. I did not take my eyes off him. He took the purloined +book out of his pocket, thrust it back again, walked away a few steps, +pulled out of his inside pocket a wretched little pocket-book, in which +he pretended to look for some imaginary money; made a face, a kind of +theatrical grimace, aimed at me, and signifying, “Drat!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> Not enough!” +and with a little shade of surprise in it as well, “Odd! I thought I +had enough!” The whole thing slightly exaggerated, slightly overdone, +as when an actor is afraid of not being understood. Finally, under the +pressure of my look, I might almost say, he went back to the shelf, +pulled the book, this time decidedly, out of his pocket and put it +back in its place. It was done so naturally that the assistant noticed +nothing. Then the boy raised his head again, hoping that at last he +would be rid of me. But not at all; my look was still upon him, like +the eye that watched Cain—only my eye was a smiling one. I determined +to speak to him and waited until he should have left the bookstall +before going up to him; but he didn’t budge and still stood planted in +front of the books, and I understood that he wouldn’t budge as long as +I kept gazing at him. So, as at Puss in the Corner, when one tries to +entice the pretence quarry to change places, I moved a little away as +if I had seen enough and he started off at once in his own direction; +but he had no sooner got into the open than I caught him up.</p> + +<p>“What was that book?” I asked him out of the blue, at the same time +putting as much amenity as I could into my voice and expression.</p> + +<p>He looked me full in the face and I felt all his suspicions drop from +him. He was not exactly handsome, perhaps, but what charming eyes he +had! I saw every kind of feeling wavering in their depths like water +weeds at the bottom of a stream.</p> + +<p>“It’s a guide-book for Algeria. But it’s too dear. I’m not rich enough.”</p> + +<p>“How much?”</p> + +<p>“Two francs fifty.”</p> + +<p>“All the same, if you hadn’t seen me, you’d have made off with the book +in your pocket.”</p> + +<p>The little fellow made a movement of indignation. He expostulated in a +tone of extreme vulgarity:</p> + +<p>“Well, I never! What d’you take me for? A thief?” But he said it with +such conviction that I almost began to doubt my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> own eyes. I felt that +I should lose my hold over him if I went on. I took three coins out of +my pocket:</p> + +<p>“All right! Go and buy it. I’ll wait for you.”</p> + +<p>Two minutes later he came back turning over the pages of the coveted +work. I took it out of his hands. It was an old guide-book of the year +1871.</p> + +<p>“What’s the good of that?” I said as I handed it back to him. “It’s too +old. It’s of no use.”</p> + +<p>He protested that it was—that, besides, recent guide-books were much +too dear, and that for all he should do with it the maps of this one +were good enough. I don’t attempt to quote his words, which would lose +their savour without the extraordinarily vulgar accent with which he +said them and which was all the more amusing because his sentences were +not turned without a certain elegance.</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * * </div> + +<p>This episode must be very much shortened. Precision in the reader’s +imagination should be obtained not by accumulating details but by two +or three touches put in exactly the right places. I expect for that +matter that it would be a better plan to make the boy tell the story +himself; his point of view is of more signification than mine. He is +flattered and at the same time made uncomfortable by the attention I +pay him. But the weight of my look makes him deviate a little from his +own real direction. A personality which is over tender and still too +young to be conscious of itself, takes shelter behind an attitude. +Nothing is more difficult to observe than creatures in the period of +formation. One ought to look at them only sideways—in profile.</p> + +<p>The youngster suddenly declared that what he liked best was geography! +I suspected that an instinct for vagabonding was concealed behind this +liking.</p> + +<p>“You’d like to go to those parts?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t I?” he answered, shrugging his shoulders.</p> + +<p>The idea crossed my mind that he was unhappy at home. I asked him if he +lived with his parents. “Yes.” Didn’t he get on with them? He protested +rather lukewarmly that he did.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> He seemed afraid that he had given +himself away by what he had just said. He added:</p> + +<p>“Why do you ask that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, for nothing,” I answered, and then, touching the yellow ribbon in +his buttonhole, “What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“It’s a ribbon. Can’t you see?”</p> + +<p>My questions evidently annoyed him. He turned towards me abruptly and +almost vindictively, and in a jeering, insolent voice of which I should +never have thought him capable and which absolutely turned me sick:</p> + +<p>“I say ... do you often go about picking up schoolboys?” Then as I was +stammering out some kind of a confused answer, he opened the satchel he +was carrying under his arm to slip his purchase into it. It held his +lesson books and one or two copy-books, all covered with blue paper. I +took one out; it was a history note-book. Its small owner had written +his name on it in large letters. My heart gave a jump as I recognized +that it was my nephew’s:</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">GEORGE MOLINIER.</p> + +<p>(Bernard’s heart gave a jump too as he read these lines and the whole +story began to interest him prodigiously.)</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +It will be difficult to get it accepted that the character who stands +for me in <i>The Counterfeiters</i> can have kept on good terms with +his sister and yet not have known her children. I have always had the +greatest difficulty in tampering with real facts. Even to alter the +colour of a person’s hair seems to me a piece of cheating which must +lessen the verisimilitude of the truth. Everything hangs together and +I always feel such a subtle interdependence between all the facts +life offers me, that it seems to me impossible to change a single +one without modifying the whole. And yet I can hardly explain that +this boy’s mother is only my half-sister by a first marriage of my +father’s; that I never saw her during the whole time my parents were +alive; that we were brought into contact by business relating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> to +the property they left.... All this is indispensable, however, and I +don’t see what else I can invent in order to avoid being indiscreet. +I knew that my half-sister had three sons; I had met the eldest—a +medical student—but I had caught only a sight even of him, as he has +been obliged to interrupt his studies on account of a threatening of +tuberculosis and has gone to some place in the South for treatment. +The two others were never there when I went to see Pauline; the one +who was now before me was certainly the youngest. I showed no trace +of astonishment, but, taking an abrupt leave of young George after +learning that he was going home to lunch, I jumped into a taxi in order +to get to Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs before him. I expected that at this +hour of the morning Pauline would keep me to lunch—which was exactly +what happened; I had brought away a copy of my book from Perrin’s, and +made up my mind to present it to her as an excuse for my unexpected +visit.</p> + +<p>It was the first time I had taken a meal at Pauline’s. I was wrong to +fight shy of my brother-in-law. I can hardly believe that he is a very +remarkable jurist, but when we are together he has the sense to keep +off his shop as much as I off mine, so that we get on very well.</p> + +<p>Naturally when I got there that morning I did not breathe a word of my +recent meeting:</p> + +<p>“It will give me an opportunity, I hope, of making my nephews’ +acquaintance,” I said, when Pauline asked me to stay to lunch. “For, +you know, there are two of them I have never met.”</p> + +<p>“Olivier will be a little late,” she said; “he has a lesson; we will +begin lunch without him. But I’ve just heard George come in, I’ll call +him.” And going to the door of the adjoining room, “George,” she said, +“come and say ‘how-do-you-do’ to your uncle.”</p> + +<p>The boy came up and held out his hand. I kissed him ... children’s +power of dissembling fills me with amazement—he showed no surprise; +one would have supposed he did not recognize me. He simply blushed +deeply; but his mother must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> have thought it was from shyness. I +suspected he was embarrassed at this meeting with the morning’s +‘<i>tec</i>,’ for he left us almost immediately and went back to the +next room—the dining-room, which I understood is used by the boys as a +schoolroom between meals. He reappeared, however, shortly after, when +his father came into the room, and took advantage of the moment when +we were going into the dining-room, to come up to me and seize hold of +my hand without his parents’ seeing. At first I thought it was a sign +of good fellowship which amused me, but no! He opened my hand as I was +clasping his, slipped into it a little note which he had obviously just +written, then closed my fingers over it and gave them a tight squeeze. +Needless to say I played up to him; I hid the little note in my pocket +and it was not till after lunch that I was able to take it out. This is +what I read:</p> + +<p>“<i>If you tell my parents the story of the book, I shall</i>” (he had +crossed out “<i>detest you</i>”) “<i>say that you solicited me</i>.”</p> + +<p>And at the bottom of the page:</p> + +<p>“<i>I come out of school every morning at 10 o’clock.</i>”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Interrupted yesterday by a visit from X. His conversation upset me +considerably.</p> + +<p>Have been reflecting a great deal on what X. said. He knows nothing +about my life, but I gave him a long account of the plan of my +<i>Counterfeiters</i>. His advice is always salutary, because his point +of view is different from mine. He is afraid that my work may be too +factitious, that I am in danger of letting go the real subject for the +shadow of the subject in my brain. What makes me uneasy is to feel that +life (my life) at this juncture is parting company from my work, and my +work moving away from my life. But I couldn’t say that to him. Up till +now—as is right—my tastes, my feelings, my personal experiences have +all gone to feed my writings; in my best contrived phrases I still felt +the beating of my heart. But henceforth the link is broken between what +I think and what I feel. And I wonder whether this impediment which +prevents my heart from speaking is not the real cause that is driving +my work into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> abstraction and artificiality. As I was reflecting on +this, the meaning of the fable of Apollo and Daphne suddenly flashed +upon me: happy, thought I, the man who can clasp in one and the same +embrace the laurel and the object of his love.</p> + +<p>I related my meeting with George at such length that I was obliged to +stop at the moment when Olivier came on the scene. I began this tale +only to speak of him and I have managed to speak only of George. But +now that the moment has come to speak of Olivier I understand that it +was desire to defer that moment which was the cause of all my slowness. +As soon as I saw him that first day, as soon as he sat down to the +family meal, at my first look—or rather at <i>his</i> first look—I +felt that look of his take possession of me wholly, and that my life +was no longer mine to dispose of.</p> + +<p>Pauline presses me to go and see her oftener. She begs me urgently to +interest myself in her boys. She gives me to understand that their +father knows very little about them. The more I talk to her, the more +charming I think her. I cannot understand how I can have been so long +without seeing more of her. The children have been brought up as +Catholics; but she remembers her early Protestant training, and though +she left our father’s home at the time my mother entered it, I discover +many points of resemblance between her and me. She sends her boys to +school with Laura’s parents, with whom I myself boarded for so long. +This school (half a school and half a boarding house) was founded by +old Monsieur Azai’s (a friend of my father’s) who is still the head of +it. Though he started life as a pastor, he prides himself on keeping +his school free from any denominational tendency—in my time there were +even Turks there.</p> + +<p>Pauline says she has good news from the sanatorium where Vincent is +staying; he has almost completely recovered. She tells me that she +writes to him about me and that she wishes I knew him better; for I +have barely seen him. She builds great hopes on her eldest son; the +family is stinting itself in order to enable him to set up for himself +shortly—that is, to have rooms of his own where he can receive his +patients. In the mean time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> she has managed to set aside a part of +their small apartment for him, by putting Olivier and George on the +floor below in a room that happened to be vacant. The great question is +whether the state of Vincent’s health will oblige him to give up being +house-physician.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth I take very little interest in Vincent, and if I talk +to his mother about him, it is really to please her and so that we can +then go on to talk about Olivier at greater length. As for George, he +fights shy of me, hardly answers when I speak to him, and gives me a +look of indescribable suspicion when we happen to pass each other. He +seems unable to forgive me for not having gone to meet him outside the +<i>lycée</i>—or to forgive himself for his advances to me.</p> + +<p>I don’t see much of Olivier either. When I visit his mother, I don’t +dare go into the room where I know he is at work; if I meet him by +chance, I am so awkward and shy that I find nothing to say to him, and +that makes me so unhappy that I prefer to call on his mother at the +times when I know he will be out.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII_a">XII<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: LAURA’S WEDDING</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Nov. 2nd.</i>—Long conversation with Douviers. We met at Laura’s +parents’, and he left at the same time as I and walked across the +Luxembourg Gardens with me. He is preparing a thesis on Wordsworth, +but from the few words he let fall, I feel certain that he misses +the most characteristic points of Wordsworth’s poetry; he had better +have chosen Tennyson. There is something or other inadequate about +Douviers—something abstract and simple-minded and credulous. He always +takes everything—people and things—for what they set out to be. +Perhaps because he himself never sets out to be anything but what he is.</p> + +<p>“I know,” he said to me, “that you are Laura’s best friend. No doubt I +ought to be a little jealous of you. But I can’t be. On the contrary +everything she has told me about you has made me understand her better +herself and wish to become your friend. I asked her the other day if +you didn’t bear me too much of a grudge for marrying her. She answered +on the contrary, that you had advised her to.” (I really think he said +it just as flatly as that.) “I should like to thank you for it, and I +hope you won’t think it ridiculous, for I really do so most sincerely,” +he added, forcing a smile but with a trembling voice and tears in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>I didn’t know what to answer him, for I felt far less moved than I +should have been, and incapable of reciprocating his effusion. He must +have thought me a little stony; but he irritated me. Nevertheless I +pressed his hand as warmly as I could when he held it out to me. These +scenes, when one of the parties offers more of his heart than the other +wants, are always painful. No doubt he thought he should capture my +sympathy. If he had been a little more perspicacious he would have felt +he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> was being cheated; but I saw that he was both overcome by gratitude +for his own nobility and persuaded that he had raised a response to it +in me. As for me I said nothing, and as my silence perhaps made him +feel uncomfortable: “I count,” he added, “on her being transplanted +to Cambridge, to prevent her from making comparisons which might be +disadvantageous to me.”</p> + +<p>What did he mean by that? I did my best not to understand. Perhaps he +wanted me to protest. But that would only have sunk us deeper into +the bog. He is one of those shy people who cannot endure silences and +who think they must fill them by being exaggeratedly forthcoming—the +people who say to you afterwards, “I have always been open with you.” +The deuce they have! But the important thing is not so much to be +open oneself as to allow the other person to be so. He ought to have +realized that his openness was the very thing that prevented mine.</p> + +<p>But if I cannot be a friend of his, at any rate I think he will make +Laura an excellent husband; for in reality what I am reproaching him +with are his qualities. We went on to talk of Cambridge, where I have +promised to pay them a visit.</p> + +<p>What absurd need had Laura to talk to him about me?</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +What an admirable thing in women is their need for devotion! The man +they love is as a rule a kind of clothes-peg on which to hang their +love. How easily and sincerely Laura has effected the transposition! I +understand that she should marry Douviers; I was one of the first to +advise it. But I had the right to hope for a little grief.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Some reviews of my book to hand. The qualities which people are the +most willing to grant me are just the very ones I most detest. Was I +right to republish this old stuff? It responds to nothing that I care +for at present. But it is only at present that I see it does not. I +don’t so much think that I have actually changed, as that I am only +just beginning to be aware of myself. Up till now I did not know who I +was. Is it possible that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> I am always in need of another being to act +as a plate-developer? This book of mine had crystallized according to +Laura; and that is why I will not allow it to be my present portrait.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +An insight, composed of sympathy, which would enable us to be in +advance of the seasons—is this denied us? What are the problems which +will exercise the minds of to-morrow? It is for them that I desire +to write. To provide food for curiosities still unformed, to satisfy +requirements not yet defined, so that the child of to-day may be +astonished to-morrow to find me in his path.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +How glad I am to feel in Olivier so much curiosity, so much impatient +want of satisfaction with the past....</p> + +<p>I sometimes think that poetry is the only thing that interests him. And +I feel as I re-read our poets through his eyes, how few there are who +have let themselves be guided by a feeling for art rather than by their +hearts or minds. The odd thing is that when Oscar Molinier showed me +some of Olivier’s verses, I advised the boy to let himself be guided by +the words rather than force them into submission. And now it seems to +me that it is I who am learning it from him.</p> + +<p>How depressingly, tiresomely and ridiculously sensible everything that +I have hitherto written seems to be to-day!</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Nov. 5th.</i>—The wedding ceremony is over. It took place in the +little chapel in Rue Madame, to which I have not been for a long time +past. The whole of the Vedel-Azaïs families were present.—Laura’s +grandfather, father and mother, her two sisters, her young brother, +besides quantities of uncles, aunts and cousins. The Douviers family +was represented by three aunts in deep mourning (they would have +certainly been nuns if they had been Catholics). They all three live +together, and Douviers, since his parents’ death, has lived with them. +Azaïs’s pupils sat in the gallery. The rest of the chapel was filled +with the friends of the family. From my place near the door I saw my +sister with Olivier. George, I suppose, was in the gallery with his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> +schoolfellows. Old La Pérouse was at the harmonium. His face has aged, +but finer, nobler than ever—though his eye had lost that admirable +fire and spirit I found so infectious in the days when he used to +give me piano lessons. Our eyes met and there was so much sadness in +the smile he gave me that I determined not to let him leave without +speaking to him. Some persons moved and left an empty place beside +Pauline. Olivier at once beckoned to me, and pushed his mother aside +so that I might sit next him; then he took my hand and held it for a +long time in his. It is the first time he has been so friendly with me. +He kept his eyes shut during the whole of the minister’s interminable +address, so that I was able to take a long look at him; he is like the +sleeping shepherd in a bas-relief in the Naples Museum, of which I have +a photograph on my writing desk. I should have thought he was asleep +himself, if it hadn’t been for the quivering of his fingers. His hand +fluttered in mine like a captured bird.</p> + +<p>The old pastor thought it his duty to retrace the whole of the Azaïs +family history, beginning with the grandfather, with whom he had +been at school in Strasburg before the war, and who had also been a +fellow-student of his later on at the faculty of theology. I thought he +would never get to the end of a complicated sentence in which he tried +to explain that in becoming the head of a school and devoting himself +to the education of young children, his friend had, so to speak, never +left the ministry. Then the next generation had its turn. He went on +to speak with equal edification of the Douviers family, though he +didn’t seem to know much about them. The excellence of his sentiments +palliated the deficiency of his oratory and I heard several members +of the congregation blowing their noses. I should have liked to know +what Olivier was thinking; I reflected that as he had been brought up +a Catholic, the Protestant service must be new to him and that this +was probably his first visit to the chapel. The singular faculty of +<i>depersonalization</i> which I possess and which enables me to feel +other people’s emotions as if they were my own, compelled me, as it +were, to enter into Olivier’s feelings—those that I imagined<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> him +to be experiencing; and though he kept his eyes shut, or perhaps for +that very reason, I felt as if, like him, I were seeing for the first +time the bare walls, the abstract and chilly light which fell upon the +congregation, the relentless outline of the pulpit on the background +of the white wall, the straightness of the lines, the rigidity of the +columns which support the gallery, the whole spirit of this angular +and colourless architecture and its repellent want of grace, its +uncompromising inflexibility, its parsimony. It can only be because +I have been accustomed to it since childhood, that I have not felt +all this sooner.... I suddenly found myself thinking of my religious +awakening and my first fervours; of Laura and the Sunday school where +we used to meet and of which we were both monitors, of our zeal and +our inability, in the ardour which consumed all that was impure in us, +to distinguish the part which belonged to the other and the part that +was God’s. And then I fell to regretting that Olivier had never known +this early starvation of the senses which drives the soul so perilously +far beyond appearances—that his memories were not like mine; but to +feel him so distant from the whole thing, helped me to escape from it +myself. I passionately pressed the hand which he had left in mine, +but which just then he withdrew abruptly. He opened his eyes to look +at me, and then, with a boyish smile of roguish playfulness, which +mitigated the extraordinary gravity of his brow, he leant towards me +and whispered—while just at that moment the minister was reminding all +Christians of their duties, and lavishing advice, precepts and pious +exhortations upon the newly married couple:</p> + +<p>“I don’t care a damn about any of it. I’m a Catholic.”</p> + +<p>Everything about him is attractive to me—and mysterious.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +At the sacristy door, I came across old La Pérouse. He said, a little +sadly but without any trace of reproach: “You’ve almost forgotten me, I +think.”</p> + +<p>I mentioned some kind of occupation or other as an excuse for having +been so long without going to see him and promised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> to go the day +after to-morrow. I tried to persuade him to come back with me to the +reception, which the Azaïses were giving after the ceremony and to +which I was invited; but he said he was in too sombre a mood and was +afraid of meeting too many people to whom he ought to speak, and would +not be able to.</p> + +<p>Pauline went away with George and left me with Olivier.</p> + +<p>“I trust him to your care,” she said, laughing; but Olivier seemed +irritated and turned away his face.</p> + +<p>He drew me out into the street. “I didn’t know you knew the Azaïses so +well.”</p> + +<p>He was very much surprised when I told him that I had boarded with them +for two years.</p> + +<p>“How could you do that rather than live independently—anywhere else?”</p> + +<p>“It was convenient,” I answered vaguely, for I couldn’t say that at +that time Laura was filling my thoughts and that I would have put up +with the worst disagreeables for the pleasure of bearing them in her +company.</p> + +<p>“And weren’t you suffocated in such a hole?” Then, as I didn’t answer: +“For that matter, I can’t think how I bear it myself—nor why in the +world I am there.... But I’m only a half-boarder. Even that’s too much.”</p> + +<p>I explained to him the friendship that had existed between his +grandfather and the master of the “hole,” and that his mother’s choice +was no doubt guided by that.</p> + +<p>“Oh well,” he went on, “I have no points of comparison; I dare say all +these cramming places are the same, and, most likely, from what people +say, the others are worse. I shouldn’t have gone there at all if I +hadn’t had to make up the time I lost when I was ill. And now, for a +long time past, I have only gone there for the sake of Armand.”</p> + +<p>Then I learnt that this young brother of Laura’s was his schoolfellow. +I told Olivier that I hardly knew him.</p> + +<p>“And yet he’s the most intelligent and the most interesting of the +family.”</p> + +<p>“That’s to say the one who interests you most.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> + +<p>“No, no, I assure you, he’s very unusual. If you like we’ll go and see +him in his room. I hope he won’t be afraid to speak before you.”</p> + +<p>We had reached the pension.</p> + +<p>The Vedel-Azaïses had substituted for the traditional wedding breakfast +a less costly tea. Pastor Vedel’s reception room and study had been +thrown open to the guests. Only a few intimate friends were allowed +into the pastoress’s minute private sitting-room; but in order to +prevent it from being overrun, the door between it and the reception +room had been locked—which made Armand answer, when people asked him +how they could get to his mother: “Through the chimney!”</p> + +<p>The place was crowded and the heat suffocating. Except for a few +“members of the teaching body,” colleagues of Douviers’, the society +was exclusively Protestant. The odour of Puritanism is peculiar to +itself. In a meeting of Catholics or Jews, when they let themselves go +in each other’s company, the emanation is as strong, and perhaps even +more stifling; but among Catholics you find a self-appreciation, and +among Jews a self-depreciation, of which Protestants seem to me very +rarely capable. If Jews’ noses are too long, Protestants’ are bunged +up; no doubt of it. And I myself, all the time I was plunged in their +atmosphere, didn’t perceive its peculiar quality—something ineffably +alpine and paradisaical and foolish.</p> + +<p>At one end of the room was a table set out as a buffet; Rachel, Laura’s +elder sister, and Sarah, her younger, were serving the tea with a few +of their young lady friends to help them....</p> + +<p>As soon as Laura saw me, she drew me into her father’s study, where +a considerable number of people had already gathered. We took refuge +in the embrasure of a window, and were able to talk without being +overheard. In the days gone by, we had written our two names on the +window frame.</p> + +<p>“Come and see. They are still there,” she said. “I don’t think anybody +has ever noticed them. How old were you then?”</p> + +<p>Underneath our names we had written the date. I calculated:</p> + +<p>“Twenty-eight.”</p> + +<p>“And I was sixteen. Ten years ago.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p> + +<p>The moment was not very suitable for awakening these memories; I tried +to turn the conversation, while she with a kind of uneasy insistence +continually brought me back to it; then suddenly, as though she were +afraid of growing emotional, she asked me if I remembered Strouvilhou?</p> + +<p>Strouvilhou in those days was an independent boarder who was a great +nuisance to her parents. He was supposed to be attending lectures, but +when he was asked which ones, or what examinations he was studying for, +he used to answer negligently:</p> + +<p>“I vary.”</p> + +<p>At first people pretended to take his insolences for jokes, in an +attempt to make them appear less cutting, and he would himself +accompany them by a loud laugh; but his laugh soon became more +sarcastic, and his witticisms more aggressive, and I could never +understand why or how the pastor could put up with such an individual +as boarder, unless it were for financial reasons, or because he +had a feeling that was half affection, half pity, for Strouvilhou, +and perhaps a vague hope that he might end by persuading—I mean +converting—him. I couldn’t understand either why Strouvilhou stayed +on at the pension, when he might so easily have gone elsewhere; for he +didn’t appear to have any sentimental reason, like me; perhaps it was +because of the evident pleasure he took in his passages with the poor +pastor, who defended himself badly and always got the worst of it.</p> + +<p>“Do you remember one day when he asked Papa if he kept his coat on +underneath his gown, when he preached?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. He asked him so insinuatingly that your poor father was +completely taken in. It was at table. I can remember it all as if....”</p> + +<p>“And Papa ingenuously answered that his gown was rather thin and that +he was afraid of catching cold without his coat.”</p> + +<p>“And then Strouvilhou’s air of deep distress! And how he had to be +pressed before he ended by saying, that of course it was of ‘very +little importance,’ but that when your father gesticulated in +preaching, the sleeves of his coat showed underneath<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> his gown and that +it had rather an unfortunate effect on some of the congregation.”</p> + +<p>“And after that, poor Papa preached a whole sermon with his arms glued +to his sides, so that none of his oratorical effects came off.”</p> + +<p>“And the Sunday after that he came home with a bad cold, because he had +taken his coat off. Oh! and the discussion about the barren fig-tree +in the Gospel and about trees that don’t bear fruit.... <i>I’m</i> not +a fruit-tree. What I bear is shade. <i>Monsieur le Pasteur</i>, I cast +you into the shade.’”</p> + +<p>“He said that too at table.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. He never appeared except at meals.”</p> + +<p>“And he said it in such a spiteful way too. It was that that made +grandfather turn him out. Do you remember how he suddenly rose to his +feet, though he usually sat all the time with his nose in his plate, +and pointed to the door with his outstretched arm, and shouted: ‘Leave +the room!’”</p> + +<p>“He looked enormous—terrifying; he was enraged. I really believe +Strouvilhou was frightened.”</p> + +<p>“He flung his napkin on to the table and disappeared. He went off +without paying us; we never saw him again.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder what has become of him.”</p> + +<p>“Poor grandfather!” Laura went on rather sadly. “How I admired him that +day! He’s very fond of you, you know. You ought to go up and pay him a +little visit in his study. I am sure you would give him a great deal of +pleasure.”</p> + +<p>I write down the whole of this at once, as I know by experience how +difficult it is to recall the tone of a dialogue after any interval. +But from that moment I began to listen to Laura less attentively. I had +just noticed—some way off, it is true—Olivier, whom I had lost sight +of when Laura drew me into her father’s study. His eyes were shining +and his face extraordinarily animated. I heard afterwards that Sarah +had been amusing herself by making him drink six glasses of champagne, +in succession. Armand was with him, and they were both following Sarah +and an English girl of the same age as Sarah, who has been boarding +with the family for over a year—pursuing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> them from group to group. +At last Sarah and her friend left the room, and through the open door +I saw the two boys rush upstairs after them. In my turn, I was on the +point of leaving the room in response to Laura’s request, when she made +a movement towards me:</p> + +<p>“Wait, Edouard, there’s one thing more ...” and her voice suddenly +became very grave. “It’ll probably be a long time before we see each +other again. I should like you to say ... I should like to know whether +I may still count on you ... as a friend.”</p> + +<p>Never did I feel more inclined to embrace her than at that moment—but +I contented myself with kissing her hand tenderly and impetuously, and +with murmuring: “Come what come may.” And then, to hide the tears which +I felt rising to my eyes, I hurried off to find Olivier.</p> + +<p>He was sitting on the stairs with Armand, watching for me to come out. +He was certainly a little tipsy. He got up and pulled me by the arm:</p> + +<p>“Come along,” he said. “We’re going to have a cigarette in Sarah’s +room. She’s expecting you.”</p> + +<p>“In a moment. I must first go up and see Monsieur Azaïs. But I shall +never be able to find the room.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. You know it very well. It’s Laura’s old room,” cried Armand. +“As it was one of the best rooms in the house, it was given to the +parlour-boarder, but as she doesn’t pay much, she shares it with Sarah. +They put in two beds for form’s sake—not that there was much need....”</p> + +<p>“Don’t listen to him,” said Olivier, laughing and giving him a shove, +“he’s drunk.”</p> + +<p>“And what about you?” answered Armand. “Well then, you’ll come, won’t +you? We shall expect you.”</p> + +<p>I promised to rejoin them.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Now that he has cut his hair <i>en brosse</i>, old Azaïs doesn’t +look like Walt Whitman any more. He has handed over the first and +second floors of the house to his son-in-law. From the windows of his +study (mahogany, rep and horse-hair furniture)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> he can look over the +play-ground and keep an eye on the pupils’ goings and comings.</p> + +<p>“You see how spoilt I am,” he said, pointing to a huge bouquet of +chrysanthemums which was standing on the table, and which a mother of +one of the pupils—an old friend of the family’s—had just left for +him. The atmosphere of the room was so austere that it seemed as if any +flower must wither in it at once. “I have left the party for a moment. +I’m getting old and all this noisy talk tires me. But these flowers +will keep me company. They have their own way of talking and tell the +glory of God better than men” (or some such stuff).</p> + +<p>The worthy man has no conception how much he bores his pupils with +remarks of this kind; he is so sincere in making them, that one hasn’t +the heart to be ironical. Simple souls like his are certainly the ones +I find it most difficult to understand. If one is a little less simple +oneself, one is forced into a kind of pretence; not very honest, but +what is one to do? It is impossible either to argue or to say what one +thinks; one can only acquiesce. If one’s opinions are the least bit +different from his, Azaïs forces one to be hypocritical. When I first +used to frequent the family, the way in which his grandchildren lied to +him made me indignant. I soon found myself obliged to follow suit.</p> + +<p>Pastor Prosper Vedel is too busy; Madame Vedel, who is rather foolish, +lives plunged in a religio-poetico day-dream, in which she loses all +sense of reality; the young people’s moral bringing-up, as well as +their education, has been taken in hand by their grandfather. Once a +month at the time when I lived with them, I used to assist at a stormy +scene of explanations, which would end up by effusive and pathetic +appeals of this kind:</p> + +<p>“Henceforth we will be perfectly frank and open with one another.” (He +likes using several words to say the same thing—an odd habit, left him +from the time of his pastorship.) “There shall be no more concealments, +we won’t keep anything back in the future, will we? Everything is to be +above board. We shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> be able to look each other straight in the face. +That’s a bargain, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>After which they sank deeper than ever into their bog—he of +blindness—and the children of deceit.</p> + +<p>These remarks were chiefly addressed to a brother of Laura’s, a year +younger than she; the sap of youth was working in him and he was making +his first essays of love. (He went out to the colonies and I have +lost sight of him.) One evening when the old man had been talking in +this way, I went to speak to him in his study; I tried to make him +understand that the sincerity which he demanded from his grandson was +made impossible by his own severity. Azaïs almost lost his temper:</p> + +<p>“He has only to do nothing of which he need be ashamed,” he exclaimed +in a tone of voice which allowed of no reply.</p> + +<p>All the same he is an excellent man—a paragon of virtue, and what +people call a heart of gold; but his judgments are childish. His great +esteem for me comes from the fact that, as far as he knows, I have no +mistress. He did not conceal from me that he had hoped to see me marry +Laura; he is afraid Douviers may not be the right husband for her, +and he repeated several times: “I am surprised at her choice”; then +he added, “Still he seems to me an excellent fellow.... What do you +think?...”</p> + +<p>To which I answered, “Certainly.”</p> + +<p>The deeper the soul plunges into religious devotion, the more it loses +all sense of reality, all need, all desire, all love for reality. I +have observed the same thing in Vedel upon the few occasions that I +have spoken to him. The dazzling light of their faith blinds them to +the surrounding world and to their own selves. As for me, who care for +nothing so much as to see the world and myself clearly, I am amazed at +the coils of falsehood in which devout persons take delight.</p> + +<p>I tried to get Azaïs to speak of Olivier, but he takes more interest in +George.</p> + +<p>“Don’t let him see that you know what I am going to tell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> you,” he +began; “for that matter, it’s entirely to his credit. Just fancy! your +nephew with a few of his schoolfellows has started a kind of little +society—a little mutual emulation league; the ones who are allowed +into it must show themselves worthy and furnish proofs of their +virtue—a kind of children’s Legion of Honour. Isn’t it charming? They +all wear a little ribbon in their button hole—not very noticeable, +certainly, but all the same I noticed it. I sent for the boy to my +study and when I asked him the meaning of this badge, he began by being +very much embarrassed. The dear little chap thought I was going to +reprove him. Then with a great deal of confusion and many blushes, he +told me about the starting of this little club. It’s the kind of thing, +you see, one must be very careful not to smile at; one might hurt all +sorts of delicate feelings.... I asked him why he and his friends +didn’t do it openly, in the light of day? I told him what a wonderful +power of propaganda, or proselytism, they would have, what fine things +they might do!... But at that age, one likes mysteries.... To encourage +his confidence, I told him that in my time—that’s to say, when I was +his age—I had been a member of a society of the same kind, and that we +went by the grand name of Knights of Duty; the President of the society +gave us each a note-book, in which we set down with absolute frankness +our failures and our shortcomings. He smiled and I could see that the +story of the note-books had given him an idea; I didn’t insist, but I +shouldn’t be surprised if he introduced the system of note-books among +his companions. You see, these children must be taken in the right way; +and in the first place, they must see that one understands them. I +promised him not to breathe a word of all this to his parents; though, +at the same time, I advised him to tell his mother all about it, as it +would make her so happy. But it seems that the boys had given their +word of honour to say nothing about it. It would have been a mistake to +insist. But before he left me we joined together in a prayer for God to +bless their society.”</p> + +<p>Poor, dear old Azaïs! I am convinced the little rascal was pulling his +leg and that there wasn’t a word of truth in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> whole thing. But what +else could he have said?... I must try and find out what it’s all about.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +I did not at first recognize Laura’s room. It has been repapered; its +whole atmosphere is changed. And Sarah too seemed to me unrecognizable. +Yet I thought I knew her. She has always been exceedingly confidential +with me. All her life I have been a person to whom one could say +anything. But I had let a great many months go by without seeing the +Vedels. Her neck and arms were bare. She seemed taller, bolder. She +was sitting on one of the two beds beside Olivier and right up against +him; he was lying down at full length and seemed to be asleep. He was +certainly drunk; and as certainly I suffered at seeing him so, but I +thought him more beautiful than ever. In fact they were all four of +them more or less drunk. The English girl was bursting with laughter +at Armand’s ridiculous remarks—a shrill laughter which hurt my ears. +Armand was saying anything that came into his head; he was excited and +flattered by the girl’s laughter and trying to be as stupid and vulgar +as she was; he pretended to light his cigarette at the fire of his +sister’s and Olivier’s flaming cheeks, and to burn his fingers, when +he had the effrontery to seize their heads and pull them together by +force. Olivier and Sarah lent themselves to his tomfoolery, and it was +extremely painful to me. But I am anticipating....</p> + +<p>Olivier was still pretending to be asleep when Armand abruptly asked me +what I thought of Douviers. I had sat down in a low arm-chair, and was +feeling amused, excited and, at the same time, embarrassed to see their +tipsiness and their want of restraint; and for that matter, flattered +too, that they had invited me to join them, when it seemed so evident +that it was not my place to be there.</p> + +<p>“The young ladies here present ...” he continued, as I found nothing to +answer and contented myself with smiling blandly, so as to appear up to +the mark. Just then, the English girl tried to prevent him from going +on and ran after him to put her hand over his mouth. He wriggled away +from her and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> called out: “The young ladies are indignant at the idea +of Laura’s going to bed with him.”</p> + +<p>The English girl let go of him and exclaimed in pretended fury:</p> + +<p>“Oh, you mustn’t believe what he says. He’s a liar!”</p> + +<p>“I have tried to make them understand,” went on Armand, more calmly, +“that with only twenty thousand francs for a dot, one could hardly look +for anything better, and that, as a true Christian, she ought first of +all to take into account his spiritual qualities, as our father the +pastor would say. Yes, my children. And then, what would happen to the +population, if nobody was allowed to marry who wasn’t an Adonis ... or +an Olivier, shall we say? to refer to a more recent period?”</p> + +<p>“What an idiot!” murmured Sarah. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know +what he is saying.”</p> + +<p>“I’m saying the truth.”</p> + +<p>I had never heard Armand speak in this way before. I thought him—I +still think him—a delicate, sensitive nature; his vulgarity seemed to +me entirely put on—due in part to his being drunk, and still more to +his desire to amuse the English girl. She was pretty enough, but must +have been exceedingly silly to take any pleasure in such fooling; what +kind of interest could Olivier find in all this?... I determined not to +hide my disgust, as soon as we should be alone.</p> + +<p>“But you,” went on Armand, turning suddenly towards me, “you, who don’t +care about money and who have enough to indulge in fine sentiments, +will you consent to tell us why you didn’t marry Laura?—when it +appears you were in love with her, and when, to common knowledge, she +was pining away for you?”</p> + +<p>Olivier, who up to that moment had been pretending to be asleep, opened +his eyes; they met mine and if I did not blush, it must certainly have +been that not one of the others was in a fit state to observe me.</p> + +<p>“Armand, you’re unbearable,” said Sarah, as though to put me at my +ease, for I found nothing to answer. She had hitherto been sitting on +the bed, but at that point she lay down at full<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> length beside Olivier, +so that their two heads were touching. Upon which, Armand leapt up, +seized a large screen which was standing folded against the wall, and +with the antics of a clown spread it out so as to hide the couple; +then, still clowning, he leant towards me and said without lowering his +voice:</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you didn’t know that my sister was a whore?”</p> + +<p>It was too much. I got up and pushed the screen roughly aside. Olivier +and Sarah immediately sat up. Her hair had come down. Olivier rose, +went to the washhand stand and bathed his face.</p> + +<p>“Come here,” said Sarah, taking me by the arm, “I want to show you +something.”</p> + +<p>She opened the door of the room and drew me out on to the landing.</p> + +<p>“I thought it might be interesting to a novelist. It’s a note-book I +found accidentally—Papa’s private diary. I can’t think how he came to +leave it lying about. Anybody might have read it. I took it to prevent +Armand from seeing it. Don’t tell him about it. It’s not very long. You +can read it in ten minutes and give it back to me before you go.”</p> + +<p>“But, Sarah,” said I, looking at her fixedly, “it’s most frightfully +indiscreet.”</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, if that’s what you think, you’ll be +disappointed. There’s only one place in which it gets interesting—and +even that—Look here; I’ll show it you.”</p> + +<p>She had taken out of her bodice a very small memorandum book, about +four years old. She turned over its pages for a moment, and then gave +it to me, pointing to a passage as she did so.</p> + +<p>“Read it quickly.”</p> + +<p>Under the date and in quotation marks, I first of all saw the Scripture +text: “He who is faithful in small things will be faithful also in +great.” Then followed: “Why do I always put off till to-morrow my +resolution to stop smoking? If only not to grieve Mélanie” (the +pastor’s wife). “Oh, Lord! give me strength to shake off the yoke of +this shameful slavery.” (I quote it, I think exactly.) Then came notes +of struggles, beseeching,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> prayers, efforts—which were evidently all +in vain, as they were repeated day after day. Then I turned another +page and there was no more mention of the subject.</p> + +<p>“Rather touching, isn’t it?” asked Sarah with the faintest touch of +irony, when I had done reading.</p> + +<p>“It’s much odder than you think,” I couldn’t help saying, though I +reproached myself for it. “Just think, I asked your father only ten +days ago if he had ever tried to give up smoking. I thought I was +smoking a good deal too much myself and.... Anyway, do you know what +he answered? First of all he said that the evil effects of tobacco +were very much exaggerated, and that as far as he was concerned he had +never felt any; and as I insisted: ‘Yes,’ said he, at last. ‘I have +made up my mind once or twice to give it up for a time.’ ‘And did you +succeed?’ ‘Naturally,’ he answered, as if it followed as a matter of +course—‘since I made up my mind to.’—It’s extraordinary! Perhaps, +after all, he didn’t remember,” I added, not wishing to let Sarah see +the depths of hypocrisy I suspected.</p> + +<p>“Or perhaps,” rejoined Sarah, “it proves that ‘smoking’ stood for +something else.”</p> + +<p>Was it really Sarah who spoke in this way? I was struck dumb. I looked +at her, hardly daring to understand.... At that moment Olivier came out +of the room. He had combed his hair, arranged his collar and seemed +calmer.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we go,” he said, paying no attention to Sarah, “it’s late.”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid you may mistake me,” he said, as soon as we were in the +street. “You might think that I’m in love with Sarah. But I’m not.... +Oh! I don’t detest her ... only I don’t love her.”</p> + +<p>I had taken his arm and pressed it without speaking.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t judge Armand either from what he said to-day,” he went on. +“It’s a kind of part he acts ... in spite of himself. In reality he’s +not in the least like that.... I can’t explain. He has a kind of desire +to spoil everything he most cares for. He hasn’t been like that long. +I think he’s very unhappy and that he jokes in order to hide it. He’s +very proud.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> His parents don’t understand him at all. They wanted to +make a pastor of him.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Memo.—Motto for a chapter of <i>The Counterfeiters</i>:</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +“<i>La famille ... cette cellule sociale.</i>”<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">PAUL BOURGET</span> (<i>passim</i>).<br> +</p> + +<p>Title of the chapter: THE CELLULAR SYSTEM.</p> +</div> + +<p>True, there exists no prison (intellectual, that is) from which a +vigorous mind cannot escape; and nothing that incites to rebellion is +definitively dangerous—although rebellion may in certain cases distort +a character—driving it in upon itself, turning it to contradiction and +stubbornness, and impiously prompting it to deceit; moreover the child +who resists the influence of his family, wears out the first freshness +of his energy in the attempt to free himself. But also the education +which thwarts a child strengthens him by the very fact of hampering. +The most lamentable victims of all are the victims of adulation. What +force of character is needed to detest the things that flatter us! +How many parents I have seen (the mother in especial) who delight +in encouraging their children’s silliest repugnances, their most +unjust prejudices, their failures to understand, their unreasonable +antipathies.... At table: “You’d better leave that; can’t you see, it’s +a bit of fat? Don’t eat that skin. That’s not cooked enough....” Out of +doors, at night: “Oh, a bat!... Cover your head quickly; it’ll get into +your hair.” Etc., etc.... According to them, beetles bite, grasshoppers +sting, earthworms give spots ... and such-like absurdities in every +domain, intellectual, moral, etc.</p> + +<p>In the suburban train the day before yesterday, as I was coming back +from Auteuil, I heard a young mother whispering to a little girl of +ten, whom she was petting:</p> + +<p>“You and me, darling, me and you—the others may go hang!”</p> + +<p>(Oh, yes! I knew they were working people, but the people too have a +right to our indignation. The husband was sitting in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> the corner of the +carriage reading the paper—quiet, resigned, not even a cuckold, I dare +say.)</p> + +<p>Is it possible to conceive a more insidious poison?</p> + +<p>It is to bastards that the future belongs. How full of meaning is the +expression “a natural child”! The bastard alone has the right to be +natural.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Family egoism ... hardly less hideous than personal egoism.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Nov. 6th.</i>—I have never been able to invent anything. But I +set myself in front of reality like a painter, who should say to his +model: “Take up such and such an attitude; put on such and such an +expression.” I can make the models which society furnishes me act as I +please, if I am acquainted with their springs; or at any rate I can put +such and such problems before them to solve in their own way, so that +I learn my lesson from their reactions. It is my novelist’s instinct +that is constantly pricking me on to intervene—to influence the course +of their destiny. If I had more imagination, I should be able to spin +invention intrigues; as it is, I provoke them, observe the actors, and +then work at their dictation.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 7th.</i>—Nothing that I wrote yesterday is true. Only this +remains—that reality interests me inasmuch as it is plastic, and that +I care more—infinitely more—for what may be than for what has been. +I lean with a fearful attraction over the depths of each creature’s +possibilities and weep for all that lies atrophied under the heavy lid +of custom and morality.</p> + +<div class="tb">* * * * * </div> + +<p>Here Bernard was obliged to pause. His eyes were blurred. He was +gasping as if the eagerness with which he read had made him forget +to breathe. He opened the window and filled his lungs before taking +another plunge. His friendship for Olivier was no doubt very great; +he had no better friend and there was no one in the world he loved so +much, now that he could no longer love his parents; and indeed he clung +to this affection in a manner that was almost excessive; but Olivier +and he did not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> understand friendship quite in the same way. Bernard, +as he progressed in his reading, felt with more and more astonishment +and admiration, though with a little pain too, what diversity this +friend he thought he knew so well, was capable of showing. Olivier +had never told him anything of what the journal recounted. He hardly +knew of the existence of Armand and Sarah. How different Olivier was +with them to what he was with him!... In that room of Sarah’s, on that +bed, would Bernard have recognized his friend? There mingled with the +immense curiosity which drove him on to read so precipitately, a queer +feeling of discomfort—disgust or pique. He had felt a little of this +pique a moment before, when he had seen Olivier on Edouard’s arm—pique +at being out of it. This kind of pique may lead very far and may make +one commit all sorts of follies—like every kind of pique for that +matter.</p> + +<p>Well, we must go on. All this that I have been saying is only to put a +little air between the pages of this journal. Now that Bernard has got +his breath back again, we will return to it. He dives once more into +its pages.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII_a">XIII<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: FIRST VISIT TO LA PÉROUSE</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> +<p> +<i>On tire peu de service des vieillards.</i> +</p> +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">VAUVENARGUES.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Nov. 8th.</i>—Old Monsieur and Madame de la Pérouse have changed +houses again. Their new apartment, which I had never seen so far, is +an <i>entresol</i> in the part of the Faubourg St. Honoré which makes +a little recess before it cuts across the Boulevard Haussmann. I rang +the bell. La Pérouse opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves and +was wearing a sort of yellowish whitish night-cap on his head, which +I finally made out to be an old stocking (Madame de La Pérouse’s no +doubt) tied in a knot, so that the foot dangled on his cheek like a +tassel. He was holding a bent poker in his hand. I had evidently caught +him at some domestic job, and as he seemed rather confused:</p> + +<p>“Would you like me to come back later?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“No, no.... Come in here.” And he pushed me into a long, narrow room +with two windows looking on to the street, just on a level with the +street lamp. “I was expecting a pupil at this very moment” (it was six +o’clock); “but she has telegraphed to say she can’t come. I am so glad +to see you.”</p> + +<p>He laid his poker down on a small table, and, as though apologizing for +his appearance:</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse’s maid-servant has let the stove go out. She only +comes in the morning; I’ve been obliged to empty it.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I help you light it?”</p> + +<p>“No, no; it’s dirty work.... Will you excuse me while I go and put my +coat on?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> + +<p>He trotted out of the room and came back almost immediately dressed in +an alpaca coat, with its buttons torn off, its elbows in holes, and its +general appearance so threadbare, that one wouldn’t have dared give it +to a beggar. We sat down.</p> + +<p>“You think I’m changed, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>I wanted to protest, but could hardly find anything to say, I was so +painfully affected by the harassed expression of his face, which had +once been so beautiful. He went on:</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve grown very old lately. I’m beginning to lose my memory. When +I want to go over one of Bach’s fugues, I am obliged to refer to the +book....”</p> + +<p>“There are many young people who would be glad to have a memory like +yours.”</p> + +<p>He replied with a shrug: “Oh, it’s not only my memory that’s failing. +For instance, I think I still walk pretty quickly; but all the same +everybody in the street passes me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said I, “people walk much quicker nowadays.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, don’t they?... It’s the same with my lessons—my pupils think +that my teaching keeps them back; they want to go quicker than I do. +I’m losing them.... Everyone’s in a hurry nowadays.”</p> + +<p>He added in a whisper so low that I could hardly hear him: “I’ve +scarcely any left.”</p> + +<p>I felt that he was in such great distress that I didn’t dare question +him.</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse won’t understand. She says I don’t set about it +in the right way—that I don’t do anything to keep them and still less +to get new ones.”</p> + +<p>“The pupil you were expecting just now....” I asked awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, she! I’m preparing her for the Conservatoire. She comes here to +practise every day.”</p> + +<p>“Which means she doesn’t pay you.”</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse is always reproaching me with it. She can’t +understand that those are the only lessons that interest me; yes, the +only lessons I really care about ... giving. I have taken to reflecting +a great deal lately. Here! there’s something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> I should like to ask you. +Why is it there is so little about old people in books?... I suppose +it’s because old people aren’t able to write themselves and young +ones don’t take any interest in them. No one’s interested in an old +man.... And yet there are a great many curious things that might be +said about them. For instance: there are certain acts in my past life +which I’m only just beginning to understand. Yes, I’m just beginning +to understand that they haven’t at all the meaning I attached to them +in the old days when I did them.... I’ve only just begun to understand +that I have been a dupe during the whole of my life. Madame de La +Pérouse has fooled me; my son has fooled me; everybody has fooled me; +God has fooled me....”</p> + +<p>The evening was closing in. I could hardly make out my old master’s +features; but suddenly the light of the street lamp flashed out and +showed me his cheeks glittering with tears. I looked anxiously at first +at an odd mark on his temple, like a dint, like a hole; but as he moved +a little, the spot changed places and I saw that it was only a shadow +cast by a knob of the balustrade. I put my hand on his scraggy arm; he +shivered.</p> + +<p>“You’ll catch cold,” I said. “Really, shan’t we light the fire?... Come +along.”</p> + +<p>“No, no; one must harden oneself.”</p> + +<p>“What? Stoicism?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, a little. It’s because my throat was delicate that I never would +wear a scarf. I have always struggled with myself.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well as long as one is victorious; but if one’s body +gives way....”</p> + +<p>“That would be the real victory.”</p> + +<p>He let go my hand and went on: “I was afraid you would go away without +coming to see me.”</p> + +<p>“Go where?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. You travel so much. There’s something I wanted to say to +you.... I expect to be going away myself soon.”</p> + +<p>“What! are you thinking of travelling?” I asked clumsily,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> pretending +not to understand him, notwithstanding the mysterious solemnity of his +voice. He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“You know very well what I mean.... Yes, yes. I know it will soon be +time. I am beginning to earn less than my keep; and I can’t endure it. +There’s a certain point beyond which I have promised myself not to go.”</p> + +<p>He spoke in an emotional tone which alarmed me.</p> + +<p>“Do you think it is wrong? I have never been able to understand why it +was forbidden by religion. I have reflected a great deal latterly. When +I was young, I led a very austere life; I used to congratulate myself +on my force of character every time I refused a solicitation in the +street. I didn’t understand, that when I thought I was freeing myself, +in reality I was becoming more and more the slave of my own pride. +Every one of these triumphs over myself was another turn of the key in +the door of my prison. That’s what I meant just now by saying that God +had fooled me. He made me take my pride for virtue. He was laughing at +me. It amuses him. I think he plays with us as a cat does with a mouse. +He sends us temptations which he knows we shan’t be able to resist; but +when we do resist he revenges himself still worse. Why does he hate us +so? And why.... But I’m boring you with these old man’s questions.”</p> + +<p>He took his head in his hands like a moping child and remained +silent so long that I began to wonder whether he had not forgotten +my presence. I sat motionless in front of him, afraid of disturbing +his meditations. Notwithstanding the noise of the street which was +so close, the calm of the little room seemed to me extraordinary, +and notwithstanding the glimmer of the street lamp, which shed its +fantastic light upon us from down below, like footlights at the +theatre, the shadow on each side of the window seemed to broaden, and +the darkness round us to thicken, as in icy weather the water of a +quiet pool thickens into immobility—till my heart itself thickened +into ice too. At last, shaking myself free from the clutch that held +me, I breathed loudly and, preparatory to taking my leave, I asked out +of politeness and in order to break the spell:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> + +<p>“How is Madame de La Pérouse?”</p> + +<p>The old man seemed to wake up out of a dream. He repeated:</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse...?” interrogatively, as if the words were +syllables which had lost all meaning for him; then he suddenly leant +towards me:</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse is in a terrible state ... most painful to me.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of state?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no kind,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as if there were +nothing to explain. “She is completely out of her mind. She doesn’t +know what to be up to next.”</p> + +<p>I had long suspected that the old couple were in profound disagreement, +but without any hope of knowing anything more definite.</p> + +<p>“My poor friend,” I said pityingly, “and since when?”</p> + +<p>He reflected a moment, as if he had not understood my question.</p> + +<p>“Oh, for a long time ... ever since I’ve known her.” Then, correcting +himself almost immediately: “No; in reality it was over my son’s +bringing up that things went wrong.”</p> + +<p>I made a gesture of surprise, for I had always thought that the La +Pérouses had no children. He raised his head, which he had been holding +in his hands, and went on more calmly:</p> + +<p>“I never mentioned my son to you, eh?... Well, I’ll tell you +everything. You must know all about it now. There’s no one else I can +tell.... Yes, it was over my son’s bringing up. As you see, it’s a long +time ago. The first years of our married life had been delightful. I +was very pure when I married Madame de La Pérouse. I loved her with +innocence ... yes, that’s the best word for it, and I refused to allow +that she had any faults. But we hadn’t the same ideas about bringing +up children. Every time that I wanted to reprove my son, Madame de +La Pérouse took his side against me; according to her, he was to be +allowed to do anything he liked. They were in league together against +me. She taught him to lie.... When he was barely twenty he took a +mistress. She was a pupil of mine—a Russian girl, with a great talent +for music, to whom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> I was very much attached. Madame de La Pérouse knew +all about it; but of course, as usual, everything was kept from me. And +of course I didn’t notice she was going to have a baby. Not a thing—I +tell you; I never suspected a thing. One fine day, I am informed that +my pupil is unwell, that she won’t be able to come for some time. When +I speak about going to see her, I am told that she has changed her +address—that she is travelling.... It was not till long after that I +learnt that she had gone to Poland for her confinement. My son joined +her there.... They lived together for several years, but he died before +marrying her.”</p> + +<p>“And ... she? did you ever see her again?”</p> + +<p>He seemed to be butting with his head against some obstacle:</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t forgive her for deceiving me. Madame de La Pérouse still +corresponds with her. When I learnt she was in great poverty, I sent +her some money for the child’s sake. But Madame de La Pérouse knows +nothing about that. No more does she ... she doesn’t know the money +came from me.”</p> + +<p>“And your grandson?”</p> + +<p>A strange smile flitted over his face; he got up.</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment. I’ll show you his photograph.” And again he trotted +quickly out of the room, poking his head out in front of him. When he +came back, his fingers trembled as he looked for the picture in a large +letter-case. He held it towards me and, bending forward, whispered in a +low voice:</p> + +<p>“I took it from Madame de La Pérouse without her noticing. She thinks +she has lost it.”</p> + +<p>“How old is he?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Thirteen. He looks older, doesn’t he? He is very delicate.”</p> + +<p>His eyes filled with tears once more; he held out his hand for the +photograph, as if he were anxious to get it back again as quickly as +possible. I leant forward to look at it in the dim light of the street +lamp; I thought the child was like him; I recognized old La Pérouse’s +high, prominent forehead and dreamy eyes. I thought I should please him +by saying so; he protested:</p> + +<p>“No, no; it’s my brother he’s like—a brother I lost....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> + +<p>The child was oddly dressed in a Russian embroidered blouse.</p> + +<p>“Where does he live?”</p> + +<p>“How can I tell?” cried La Pérouse, in a kind of despair. “They keep +everything from me, I tell you.”</p> + +<p>He had taken the photograph, and after having looked at it a moment, he +put it back in the letter-case, which he slipped into his pocket.</p> + +<p>“When his mother comes to Paris, she only sees Madame de La Pérouse; if +I question her, she always answers: ‘You had better ask her yourself.’ +She says that, but at heart she would hate me to see her. She has +always been jealous. She has always tried to take away everything I +care for.... Little Boris is being educated in Poland—at Warsaw, +I believe. But he often travels with his mother.” Then, in great +excitement: “Oh, would you have thought it possible to love someone +one has never seen?... Well, this child is what I care for most in the +world.... And he doesn’t know!”</p> + +<p>His words were broken by great sobs. He rose from his chair and threw +himself—fell almost—into my arms. I would have done anything to give +him some comfort—but what could I do? I got up, for I felt his poor +shrunken form slipping to the ground and I thought he was going to fall +on his knees. I held him up, embraced him, rocked him like a child. He +mastered himself. Madame de La Pérouse was calling in the next room.</p> + +<p>“She’s coming.... You don’t want to see her, do you?... Besides, she’s +stone deaf. Go quickly.” And as he saw me out on to the landing:</p> + +<p>“Don’t be too long without coming again.” (There was entreaty in his +voice.) “Good-bye; good-bye.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Nov. 9th.</i>—There is a kind of tragedy, it seems to me, which has +hitherto almost entirely eluded literature. The novel has dealt with +the contrariness of fate, good or evil fortune, social relationships, +the conflicts of passions and of characters—but not with the very +essence of man’s being.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> + +<p>And yet, the whole effect of Christianity was to transfer the drama +on to the moral plane. But properly speaking there are no Christian +novels. There are novels whose purpose is edification; but that has +nothing to do with what I mean. Moral tragedy—the tragedy, for +instance, which gives such terrific meaning to the Gospel text: “If the +salt have lost his flavour wherewith shall it be salted?”—that is the +tragedy with which I am concerned.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Nov. 10th.</i>—Olivier’s examination is coming on shortly. Pauline +wants him to try for the <i>École Normale</i> afterwards. His career is +all mapped out.... If only he had no parents, no connections! I would +have made him my secretary. But the thought of me never occurs to him; +he has not even noticed my interest in him, and I should embarrass him +if I showed it. It is because I don’t want to embarrass him that I +affect a kind of indifference in his presence, a kind of detachment. +It is only when he does not see me that I dare look my full at him. +Sometimes I follow him in the street without his knowing it. Yesterday +I was walking behind him in this way, when he turned suddenly round +before I had time to hide.</p> + +<p>“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” I asked him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, nowhere particular. I always seem most in a hurry when I have +nothing to do.”</p> + +<p>We took a few steps together, but without finding anything to say to +each other. He was certainly put out at having been met.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Nov. 12th.</i>—He has parents, an elder brother, school friends.... +I keep repeating this to myself all day long—and that there is no room +for me. I should no doubt be able to make up anything that might be +lacking to him, but nothing is. He needs nothing; and if his sweetness +delights me, there is nothing in it that allows me for a moment to +deceive myself.... Oh, foolish words, which I write in spite of myself +and which discover the duplicity of my heart.... I am leaving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> for +London to-morrow. I have suddenly made up my mind to go away. It is +time.</p> + +<p>To go away because one is too anxious to stay!... A certain love of the +arduous—a horror of indulgence (towards oneself, I mean) is perhaps +the part of my Puritan up-bringing which I find it hardest to free +myself from.</p> + +<p>Yesterday, at Smith’s, bought a copy-book (English already) in which +to continue my diary. I will write nothing more in this one. A new +copy-book!...</p> + +<p>Ah! if it were myself I could leave behind!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV_a">XIV<br> +BERNARD AND LAURA</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Il arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie, d’où il faut être +un peu fou pour se bien tirer.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +IT WAS with Laura’s letter, which Edouard had inserted into his +journal, that Bernard’s reading came to an end. The truth flashed upon +him; it was impossible to doubt that the woman whose words rang so +beseechingly in this letter was the same despairing creature of whom +Olivier had told him the night before—Vincent Molinier’s discarded +mistress. And it became suddenly evident to Bernard that, thanks to +this two-fold confidence, Olivier’s, and Edouard’s in his journal, he +was as yet the only one to know the two sides of the intrigue. It was +an advantage he could not keep long; he must play his cards quickly +and skilfully. He made up his mind at once. Without forgetting, for +that matter, any of the other things he had read, Bernard now fixed his +attention upon Laura.</p> + +<p>“This morning I was still uncertain as to what I ought to do; now I +have no longer any doubt,” he said to himself, as he darted out of the +room. “The imperative, as they say, is categorical. I must save Laura. +It was not perhaps my duty to take the suit-case, but having taken it, +I have certainly found in the suit-case a lively sense of my duty. +The important thing is to come upon Laura before Edouard can get to +her; to introduce myself and offer my services in such a way that she +cannot take me for a swindler. The rest will be easy. At this moment +I have enough in my pocket-book to come to the rescue of misfortune +as magnificently as the most generous and the most compassionate of +Edouards. The only thing which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> bothers me is how to do it. For Laura +is a Vedel, and though she is about to become a mother in defiance of +the code, she is no doubt a sensitive creature. I imagine her the kind +of woman who stands on her dignity and flings her contempt in your +face, as she tears up the bank-notes you offer her—with benevolence, +but in too flimsy an envelope. How shall I present the notes? How +shall I present <i>myself</i>? That’s the rub! As soon as one leaves +the high road of legality, in what a tangle one finds oneself! I +really am rather young to mix myself up in an intrigue as stiff as +this. But, hang it all, youth’s my strong point. Let’s invent a candid +confession—a touching and interesting story. The trouble is that it’s +got to do for Edouard as well; the same one—and without giving myself +away. Oh! I shall think of something. Let’s trust to the inspiration of +the moment....”</p> + +<p>He had reached the address given by Laura, in the Rue de Beaune. The +hotel was exceedingly modest, but clean and respectable looking. +Following the porter’s directions, he went up three floors. Outside +the door of No. 16 he stopped, tried to prepare his entry, to find +some words; he could think of nothing; then he made a dash for it and +knocked. A gentle, sister-like voice, with, he thought, a touch of fear +in it, answered:</p> + +<p>“Come in!”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Laura was very simply dressed, all in black; she looked as if she +were in mourning. During the few days she had been in Paris, she had +been vaguely waiting for something or somebody to get her out of her +straits. She had taken the wrong road, not a doubt of it; she felt +completely lost. She had the unfortunate habit of counting on the event +rather than on herself. She was not without virtue, but now that she +had been abandoned she felt that all her strength had left her. At +Bernard’s entrance, she raised one hand to her face, like someone who +keeps back a cry or shades his eyes from too bright a light. She was +standing, and took a step backwards; then, finding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> herself close to +the window, with her other hand she caught hold of the curtain.</p> + +<p>Bernard stopped, waiting for her to question him; but she too waited +for him to speak. He looked at her; with a beating heart, he tried in +vain to smile.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, Madame,” he said at last, “for disturbing you in this +manner. Edouard X., whom I believe you know, arrived in Paris this +morning. I have something urgent to say to him; I thought you might +be able to give me his address and ... forgive me for coming so +unceremoniously to ask for it.”</p> + +<p>Had Bernard not been so young, Laura would doubtless have been +frightened. But he was still a child, with eyes so frank, so clear a +brow, so timid a bearing, a voice so ill-assured, that fear yielded to +curiosity, to interest, to that irresistible sympathy which a simple +and beautiful being always arouses. Bernard’s voice gathered a little +courage as he spoke.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t know his address,” said Laura. “If he is in Paris, he will +come to see me without delay, I hope. Tell me who you are. I will tell +him.”</p> + +<p>“Now’s the moment to risk everything,” thought Bernard. Something wild +flashed across his eyes. He looked Laura steadily in the face.</p> + +<p>“Who I am?... Olivier Molinier’s friend....” He hesitated, still +uncertain; but seeing her turn pale at this name, he ventured further: +“Olivier, Vincent’s brother—the brother of your lover, who has so +vilely abandoned you....”</p> + +<p>He had to stop. Laura was tottering. Her two hands, flung backwards, +were anxiously searching for some support. But what upset Bernard +more than anything was the moan she gave—a kind of wail which was +scarcely human, more like that of some hunted, wounded animal (and the +sportsman, suddenly filled with shame, feels himself an executioner); +so odd a cry it was, so different from anything that Bernard expected, +that he shuddered. He understood all of a sudden that this was a matter +of real life, of veritable pain, and everything he had felt up till +that moment seemed to him mere show and pretence. An emotion surged +up in him so unfamiliar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> that he was unable to master it. It rose to +his throat.... What! is he sobbing? Is it possible?... He, Bernard!... +He rushes forward to hold her up, and kneels before her, and murmurs +through his sobs:</p> + +<p>“Oh, forgive me ... forgive; I have hurt you.... I knew that you were +in difficulties, and ... I wanted to help you.”</p> + +<p>But Laura, gasping for breath, felt that she was fainting. She cast +round with her eyes for somewhere to sit down. Bernard, whose gaze +was fixed upon her, understood her look. He sprang towards a small +arm-chair at the foot of the bed, with a rapid movement pushed it +towards her, and she dropped heavily into it.</p> + +<p>At this moment there occurred a grotesque incident which I hesitate to +relate, but it was decisive of Laura’s and Bernard’s relationship, by +unexpectedly relieving them of their embarrassment. I shall therefore +not attempt to embellish the scene by any artifices.</p> + +<p>For the price which Laura paid for her room (I mean, which the +hotel-keeper asked her) one could not have expected the furniture to +be elegant, but one might have hoped it would be solid. Now the small +arm-chair, which Bernard pushed towards Laura, was somewhat unsteady on +its feet; that is to say, it had a great propensity to fold back one +of its legs, as a bird does under its wing—which is natural enough +in a bird, but unusual and regrettable in an arm-chair; this one, +moreover, hid its infirmity as best it could beneath a thick fringe. +Laura was well acquainted with her arm-chair, and knew that it must be +handled with extreme precaution; but in her agitation she forgot this +and only remembered it when she felt the chair giving way beneath her. +She suddenly gave a little cry—quite different from the long moan she +had uttered just before, slipped to one side, and a moment later found +herself sitting on the floor, between the arms of Bernard, who had +hurried to the rescue. Bashful, but amused, he had been obliged to put +one knee on the ground. Laura’s face therefore happened to be quite +close to his; he watched her blush. She made an effort to get up; he +helped her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span></p> + +<p>“You’ve not hurt yourself?”</p> + +<p>“No; thanks to you. This arm-chair is ridiculous; it has been mended +once already.... I think if the leg is put quite straight, it will +hold.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll arrange it,” said Bernard. “There!... Will you try it?” Then, +thinking better of it: “No; allow me. It would be safer for me to try +it first. Look! It’s all right now. I can move my legs” (which he did, +laughing). Then, as he rose: “Sit down now, and if you’ll allow me +to stay a moment or two longer, I’ll take this chair. I’ll sit near +you, so that I shall be able to prevent you from falling. Don’t be +frightened.... I wish I could do more for you.”</p> + +<p>There was so much ardour in his voice, so much reserve in his manners, +and in his movements so much grace, that Laura could not forbear a +smile.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t told me your name yet.”</p> + +<p>“Bernard.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. But your family name?”</p> + +<p>“I have no family.”</p> + +<p>“Well, your parents’ name.”</p> + +<p>“I have no parents. That is, I am what the child you are expecting will +be—a bastard.”</p> + +<p>The smile vanished from Laura’s face; she was outraged by this +insistent determination to force an entrance into her intimacy and to +violate the secret of her life.</p> + +<p>“But how do you know?... Who told you?... You have no right to know....”</p> + +<p>Bernard was launched now; he spoke loudly and boldly:</p> + +<p>“I know both what my friend Olivier knows and what your friend Edouard +knows. Only each of them as yet knows only half your secret. I am +probably the only person besides yourself to know the whole of it.... +So you see,” he added more gently, “it’s essential that I should be +your friend.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, how can people be so indiscreet?” murmured Laura sadly. “But +... if you haven’t seen Edouard, he can’t have spoken to you. Has he +written to you?... Is it he who has sent you?”...</p> + +<p>Bernard had given himself away; he had spoken too quickly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> and had not +been able to resist bragging a little. He shook his head. Laura’s face +grew still darker. At that moment a knock was heard at the door.</p> + +<p>Whether they will or no, a link is created between two creatures who +experience a common emotion. Bernard felt himself trapped; Laura was +vexed at being surprised in company. They looked at each other like two +accomplices. Another knock was heard. Both together said:</p> + +<p>“Come in.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +For some minutes Edouard had been listening outside the door, +astonished at hearing voices in Laura’s room. Bernard’s last sentences +had explained everything. He could not doubt their meaning; he could +not doubt that the speaker was the stealer of his suit-case. His mind +was immediately made up. For Edouard is one of those beings whose +faculties, which seem benumbed in the ordinary routine of daily life, +spring into activity at the call of the unexpected. He opened the +door therefore, but remained on the threshold, smiling and looking +alternately at Laura and Bernard, who had both risen.</p> + +<p>“Allow me, my dear Laura,” said he, with a gesture as though to put +off any effusions till later. “I must first say a word or two to this +gentleman, if he will be so good as to step into the passage for a +moment.”</p> + +<p>His smile became more ironical when Bernard joined him.</p> + +<p>“I thought I should find you here.”</p> + +<p>Bernard understood that the game was up. There was nothing for him to +do but to put a bold face on it, which he did with the feeling that he +was playing his last card:</p> + +<p>“I hoped I should meet you.”</p> + +<p>“In the first place—if you haven’t done so already (for I’ll do you +the credit of believing that that is what you came for), you will go +downstairs to the bureau and settle Madame Douviers’ bill with the +money you found in my suit-case and which you must have on you. Don’t +come up again for ten minutes.”</p> + +<p>All this was said gravely but with nothing comminatory in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> the tone. In +the mean time Bernard had recovered his self-possession.</p> + +<p>“I did in fact come for that. You are not wrong. And I am beginning to +think that <i>I</i> was not wrong either.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“That you really are the person I hoped you would be.”</p> + +<p>Edouard was trying in vain to look severe. He was immensely +entertained. He made a kind of slight mocking bow:</p> + +<p>“Much obliged. It remains to be seen whether I shall be able to return +the compliment. I suppose, since you are here, that you have read my +papers?”</p> + +<p>Bernard, who had endured without flinching the brunt of Edouard’s gaze, +smiled in his turn with boldness, amusement, impertinence; and bowing +low, “Don’t doubt it,” he said. “I am here to serve you.”</p> + +<p>Then, quick as an elf, he darted downstairs.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +When Edouard went back into the room, Laura was sobbing. He went up +to her. She put her forehead down on his shoulder. Any manifestation +of emotion embarrassed him almost unbearably. He found himself gently +patting her on the back as one does a choking child:</p> + +<p>“My poor Laura,” said he; “come, come, be sensible.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, let me cry a little; it does me good.”</p> + +<p>“All the same we’ve got to consider what you are to do.”</p> + +<p>“What is there I <i>can</i> do? Where can I go? To whom can I speak?”</p> + +<p>“Your parents....”</p> + +<p>“You know what they are. It would plunge them in despair. And they did +everything they could to make me happy.”</p> + +<p>“Douviers?...”</p> + +<p>“I shall never dare face him again. He is so good. You mustn’t think I +don’t love him.... If you only knew.... If you only knew.... Oh, say +you don’t despise me too much.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, my dear; on the contrary. How can you imagine such a +thing?” And he began patting her on the back again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes; I don’t feel ashamed any more, when I am with you.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you been here?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t remember. I have only been living in the hopes that you would +come. There were times when I thought I couldn’t bear it. I feel now as +if I couldn’t stay here another day.”</p> + +<p>Her sobs redoubled and she almost screamed out, though in a choking +voice:</p> + +<p>“Take me away! Take me away!”</p> + +<p>Edouard felt more and more uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“Now Laura.... You must be calm. That ... that ... I don’t even know +his name....”</p> + +<p>“Bernard,” murmured Laura.</p> + +<p>“Bernard will be back in a moment. Come now; pull yourself together. +He mustn’t see you in this state. Courage! We’ll think of something, I +promise you. Come, come! Dry your eyes. Crying does no good. Look at +yourself in the glass. Your face is all swollen. You must bathe it. +When I see you crying I can’t think of anything.... There! Here he is! +I can hear him.”</p> + +<p>He went to the door and opened it to let in Bernard, while Laura, with +her back turned at the dressing-table, set about restoring a semblance +of calm to her features.</p> + +<p>“And now, sir, may I ask when I shall be allowed to get possession of +my belongings again?”</p> + +<p>He looked Bernard full in the face as he spoke, with the same ironical +smile on his lips as before.</p> + +<p>“As soon as you please, sir; but at the same time, I feel obliged to +confess that I shall certainly feel the loss of your belongings a good +deal more than you do. I am sure you would understand if you only knew +my story. But I’ll just say this, that since this morning I am without +a roof, without a family and with nothing better to do than throw +myself into the river, if I hadn’t met you. I followed you this morning +for a long time while you were talking to my friend Olivier. He has +spoken to me about you such a lot! I should have liked to go up to you. +I was casting about for some excuse to do so, by hook or by crook.... +When you threw your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> luggage ticket away, I blessed my stars. Oh, don’t +take me for a thief. If I lifted your suit-case, it was more than +anything so as to get into touch with you.”</p> + +<p>Bernard brought all this out almost in a single breath. An +extraordinary animation fired his words and features—as though they +were aflame with kindness. Edouard, to judge by his smile, thought him +charming.</p> + +<p>“And now...?” asked he.</p> + +<p>Bernard understood that he was gaining ground.</p> + +<p>“And now, weren’t you in need of a secretary? I can’t believe I should +fill the post badly—it would be with such joy.”</p> + +<p>This time Edouard laughed outright. Laura watched them both with +amusement.</p> + +<p>“Ho! Ho!... We must think about that. Come and see me to-morrow at the +same time, and here—if Madame Douviers will allow it—for I have a +great many things to settle with her too. You’re staying at a hotel, +I suppose? Oh, I don’t want to know where. It doesn’t matter in the +least. Till to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>He held out his hand.</p> + +<p>“Sir, before I leave you,” said Bernard, “will you allow me to remind +you that there is a poor old music-master, called La Pérouse, I think, +who is living in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and who would be made very +happy by a visit from you?”</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, that’s not a bad beginning. You have a very fair notion +of your future duties.”</p> + +<p>“Then.... Really? You consent?”</p> + +<p>“We’ll see about it to-morrow. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Edouard, after having stayed a few moments longer with Laura, went to +the Moliniers’. He hoped to see Olivier again; he wanted to speak to +him about Bernard. He saw only Pauline, though he stayed on and on in +desperation.</p> + +<p>Olivier, that very afternoon, yielding to the pressing invitation +passed on to him by his brother, had gone to visit the author of <i>The +Horizontal Bar</i>, the Comte de Passavant.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV_a">XV<br> +OLIVIER VISITS THE COMTE DE PASSAVANT</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +“I WAS afraid your brother hadn’t delivered my message,” said Robert on +seeing Olivier come into the room.</p> + +<p>“Am I late?” he asked, coming forward timidly and almost on tip-toe. He +had kept his hat in his hand and Robert took it from him.</p> + +<p>“Put that down. Make yourself comfortable. Here, in this arm-chair, I +think you’ll be all right. Not late at all, to judge by the clock. But +my wish to see you went faster than the time. Do you smoke?”</p> + +<p>“No, thank you,” said Olivier, waving aside the cigarette case, which +the Comte de Passavant held out to him. He refused out of shyness, +though he was really longing to try one of the slender, amber-scented +cigarettes (Russian, no doubt,) which lay ranged in the proffered case.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m glad you were able to come. I was afraid you might be too +much taken up with your examination. When is it?”</p> + +<p>“The written is in ten days. But I’m not working much. I think I’m +ready and I’m more afraid of being fagged when I go up.”</p> + +<p>“Still, I suppose you’d refuse to undertake any other occupation just +now?”</p> + +<p>“No ... if it isn’t too absorbing, that is.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you why I asked you to come. First, for the pleasure +of seeing you again. The other night in the foyer, during the +<i>entr’acte</i>, we were just getting into a talk. I was exceedingly +interested by what you said. I expect you don’t remember?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, I do,” said Olivier, who was under the impression he had said +nothing but stupidities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> + +<p>“But to-day I have something special to say to you.... I think you know +an individual of the Hebrew persuasion, called Dhurmer? Isn’t he one of +your schoolfellows?”</p> + +<p>“I have just this moment left him.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! You see a good deal of each other?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. We met at the Louvre to-day to talk about a review of which he is +to be the editor.”</p> + +<p>Robert burst into a loud, affected laugh.</p> + +<p>“Ha! Ha! Ha! the editor!... He’s in a deuce of a hurry.... Did he +really say that to you?”</p> + +<p>“He has been talking to me about it for ever so long.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I have been thinking of it for some time past. The other day I +asked him casually whether he’d agree to read over the manuscripts with +me; that’s what he at once called becoming editor—not even sub-editor; +I didn’t contradict him and he immediately.... Just like him, isn’t it? +What a fellow! He wants taking down a peg or two.... Don’t you really +smoke?”</p> + +<p>“After all, I think I will,” said Olivier, this time accepting. “Thank +you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, allow me to say, Olivier ... you don’t mind my calling you +Olivier, do you? I really can’t say Monsieur; you’re too young, and I’m +too intimate with your brother Vincent to call you Molinier. Well then, +Olivier, allow me to say that I have infinitely more confidence in your +taste than in Mr. Solomon Dhurmer’s. Now would you consent to taking +the literary direction? Under me a little, of course—at first, at any +rate. But I prefer not to have my name on the cover. I’ll tell you why +later.... Perhaps you’d take a glass of port wine, eh? I’ve got some +that’s quite good.”</p> + +<p>He stretched out his hand to a kind of little side-board that stood +near and took up a bottle of wine and two glasses, which he filled.</p> + +<p>“Well! What do you think?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed; first-rate.”</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t talking of the port,” protested Robert, laughing; “but of +what I was saying just now.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span></p> + +<p>Olivier had pretended not to understand. He was afraid of accepting too +quickly and of showing his joy too obviously. He blushed a little and +stammered with confusion:</p> + +<p>“My examination wouldn’t....”</p> + +<p>“You have just told me that you weren’t giving much time to it,” +interrupted Robert. “And besides, the review won’t come out yet awhile. +I am wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to put off launching it +till after the holidays. But in any case I had to sound you. We must +get several numbers ready before October and we ought to see each other +a great deal this summer so as to talk things over. What are you going +to do these holidays?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know exactly. My people will probably be going to Normandy. +They always do in the summer.”</p> + +<p>“And you will have to go with them?... Couldn’t you let yourself be +unhitched for a bit?...”</p> + +<p>“My mother would never consent.”</p> + +<p>“I’m dining to-night with your brother. May I speak to him about it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Vincent won’t be with us.” Then, realizing that this sentence was +no answer to the question, he added: “Besides, it wouldn’t do any good.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but if we find a good reason to give Mamma?”</p> + +<p>Olivier did not answer. He loved his mother tenderly and the mocking +tone in which Robert alluded to her displeased him. Robert understood +that he had gone too far.</p> + +<p>“So you appreciate my port,” he said by way of diversion. “Have another +glass?”</p> + +<p>“No, no, thank you; but it’s excellent.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I was struck by the ripeness and sureness of your judgment the +other night. Do you mean to go in for criticism?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Poetry?... I know you write poetry.”</p> + +<p>Olivier blushed again.</p> + +<p>“Yes, your brother has betrayed you. And no doubt you know other +young men who would be ready to contribute.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> This review must become +a rallying ground for the younger generation. That’s its <i>raison +d’être</i>. I should like you to help me draw up a kind of prospectus, +a manifesto, which would just give a sketch of the new tendencies +without defining them too precisely. We’ll talk it over later on. We +must make a choice of two or three telling epithets; they mustn’t be +neologisms; no old words that are thoroughly hackneyed; we’ll fill +them with a brand new meaning and make the public swallow them. After +Flaubert there was ‘cadenced and rhythmic’; after Leconte de Lisle, +‘hieratic and definitive’.... Oh! what would you say to ‘vital,’ eh?... +‘Unconscious and vital’.... No?... ‘Elementary, unconscious and vital’?”</p> + +<p>“I think we might find something better still,” Olivier took courage to +say, smiling, though without seeming to approve much.</p> + +<p>“Come, another glass of port....”</p> + +<p>“Not quite full, please.”</p> + +<p>“You see, the great weakness of the symbolist school is that it brought +nothing but an æsthetic with it; all the other great schools brought +with them, besides their new styles, a new ethic, new tables, a new +way of looking at things, of understanding love, of behaving oneself +in life. As for the symbolist, it’s perfectly simple; he didn’t behave +himself at all in life; he didn’t attempt to understand it; he denied +its existence; he turned his back on it. Absurd, don’t you think? They +were a set of people without greed—without appetites even. Not like us +... eh?”</p> + +<p>Olivier had finished his second glass of port and his second cigarette. +Reclining in his comfortable arm-chair, with his eyes half shut, +he said nothing, but signified his assent by slightly nodding his +head from time to time. At this moment a ring was heard, and almost +immediately afterwards a servant entered with a card which he presented +to Robert. Robert took the card, glanced at it and put it on his +writing desk beside him.</p> + +<p>“Very well. Ask him to wait a moment.” The servant went out. “Look +here, my dear boy, I like you very much and I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> think we shall get on +very well together. But somebody has just come whom I absolutely must +see and he wants to speak to me alone.”</p> + +<p>Olivier had risen.</p> + +<p>“I’ll show you out by the garden, if you’ll allow me.... Ah! whilst I +think of it. Would you care to have my new book? I’ve got a copy here, +on hand-made paper....”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t waited for that to read it,” said Olivier, who didn’t much +care for Passavant’s book, and tried his best to be amiable without +being fulsome.</p> + +<p>Did Passavant detect in his tone a certain tincture of disdain? He went +on quickly: “Oh, you needn’t say anything about it. If you were to +tell me you liked it, I should be obliged to doubt either your taste +or your sincerity. No; no one knows better than I do what’s lacking +in the book. I wrote it much too quickly. To tell the truth, the +whole time I was writing it I was thinking of my next one. Ah! that +one is a different matter. I care about that one. Yes, I care about +it exceedingly. You’ll see; you’ll see.... I’m so very sorry, but you +really must leave me now.... Unless.... No, no; we don’t know each +other well enough yet, and your people are certainly expecting you back +for dinner. Well, good-bye; au revoir. I’ll write your name in the +book; allow me.”</p> + +<p>He had risen; he went up to his writing desk. While he was stooping to +write, Olivier stepped forward and glanced out of the corner of his eye +at the card which the servant had just brought in:</p> + +<p class="nindc space-above2"> +VICTOR STROUVILHOU<br> +</p> + +<p>The name meant nothing to him.</p> + +<p>Passavant handed Olivier the copy of <i>The Horizontal Bar</i>, and as +Olivier was preparing to read the inscription:</p> + +<p>“Look at it later,” said Passavant, slipping the book under his arm.</p> + +<p>It was not till he was in the street that Olivier read the manuscript +motto with which the Comte de Passavant had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> adorned the first page and +which he had culled out of the book itself:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>“Prithee, Orlando, a few steps further. I am not perfectly sure +that I dare altogether take your meaning.”</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Underneath which he had added:</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +To OLIVIER MOLINIER<br> +from his presumptive friend<br> +COMTE ROBERT DE PASSAVANT<br> +</p> + +<p>An ambiguous motto, which made Olivier wonder, but which after all he +was perfectly free to interpret as he pleased.</p> + +<p>Olivier got home just after Edouard had left, weary of waiting.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI<br> +VINCENT AND LILIAN</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +VINCENT’S education, which had been materialistic in tendency, +prevented him from believing in the supernatural—which gave the +demon an immense advantage. The demon never made a frontal attack +upon Vincent; he approached him crookedly and furtively. One of his +cleverest manœuvres consists in presenting us our defeats as if they +were victories. What inclined Vincent to consider his behaviour to +Laura as a victory of his will over his affections, was that, being +naturally kind-hearted, he had been obliged to force himself, to steel +himself to be hard to her.</p> + +<p>Upon a closer examination of the evolution of Vincent’s character in +this intrigue, I discover various stages, which I will point out for +the reader’s edification:</p> + +<p>1st.—The period of good motives. Probity. Conscientious need of +repairing a wrong action. In actual fact: the moral obligation of +devoting to Laura the money which his parents had laboriously saved to +meet the initial expenses of his career. Is this not self-sacrifice? Is +this motive not respectable, generous, charitable?</p> + +<p>2nd.—The period of uneasiness. Scruples. Is not the fear that this sum +may be insufficient, the first step towards yielding, when the demon +dangles before Vincent’s eyes the possibility of increasing it?</p> + +<p>3rd.—Constancy and fortitude. Need after the loss of this sum to feel +himself “above adversity.” It is this “fortitude” which enables him to +confess his loss at cards to Laura; and which enables him by the same +occasion to break with her.</p> + +<p>4th.—Renunciation of good motives, regarded as a cheat, in the light +of the new ethic which Vincent finds himself obliged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> to invent in +order to legitimize his conduct; for he continues to be a moral being, +and the devil will only get the better of him by furnishing him with +reasons for self-approval. Theory of immanence, of totality in the +moment; of gratuitous, immediate and motiveless joy.</p> + +<p>5th.—Intoxication of the winner. Contempt of the reserve in hand. +Supremacy.</p> + +<p>After which the demon has won the game.</p> + +<p>After which the being who believes himself freest is nothing but a tool +at his service. The demon will never rest now till Vincent has sold his +brother to that creature of perdition—Passavant.</p> + +<p>And yet Vincent is not bad. All this, do what he will, leaves him +unsatisfied, uncomfortable. Let us add a few words more:</p> + +<p>The name “<i>exoticism</i>” is, I believe, given to those of Maia’s +iridescent folds which make the soul feel itself a stranger, which +deprive it of points of contact. There are some whose virtue would +resist, but that the devil, before attacking it, transplants them. No +doubt, if Vincent and Laura had not been under other skies, far from +their parents, from their past memories, from all that maintained them +in consistency with themselves, she would not have yielded to him, nor +he attempted to seduce her. No doubt it seemed to them out there that +their act did not enter into the reckoning.... A great deal more might +be said; but the above is enough as it is to explain Vincent to us +better.</p> + +<p>With Lilian too he felt himself in a foreign land.</p> + +<p>“Don’t laugh at me, Lilian,” he said to her that same evening. “I know +that you won’t understand, and yet I have to speak to you as if you +would, for I’m unable now to get you out of my mind.”</p> + +<p>Lilian was lying on the low divan, and he, half reclining at her feet, +let his head rest, lover-like, on his mistress’s knees, while she, +lover-like, caressed it.</p> + +<p>“The thing that was on my mind this morning was ... yes, I think it +was fear. Can you keep serious for a moment? Can you try to understand +me so far as to forget for a moment—not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> what you believe, for you +believe in nothing—but just that very fact that you believe in +nothing? I didn’t believe in anything either; I believed that I didn’t +believe in anything—not in anything but ourselves, in you, in me, in +what I am when I am with you, in what, thanks to you, I am going to +become....”</p> + +<p>“Robert will be here at seven,” interrupted Lilian. “I don’t want to +hurry you; but if you don’t get on a little quicker, he’ll interrupt +you just at the very moment you are beginning to get interesting. I +don’t suppose you’ll want to go on when he’s here. It’s odd that you +should think it necessary to take so many precautions to-day. You +remind me of a blind man, who has first to feel every spot with his +stick, before he puts his foot on it. And yet you can see I’m keeping +quite serious. Why haven’t you more confidence?”</p> + +<p>“Ever since I’ve known you, my confidence has become extraordinary,” +went on Vincent. “I’m capable of great things, I feel it; and you see +that everything I do turns out successful. But that’s exactly what +terrifies me. No; be quiet.... All day long I’ve kept thinking of what +you told me this morning about the wreck of the <i>Bourgogne</i>, and +of the people who wanted to get into the boat having their hands cut +off. It seems to me that something wants to get into my boat—I’m using +your image, so that you may understand me—something that I want to +prevent getting in....”</p> + +<p>“And you want me to help you drown it.... You old coward!”</p> + +<p>He went on without looking at her:</p> + +<p>“Something I keep off, but whose voice I hear ... a voice you have +never heard, that I listened to in my childhood....”</p> + +<p>“And what does your voice say? You don’t dare tell me. I’m not +surprised. I bet there’s a dash of the catechism in it, isn’t there?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lilian, try to understand; the only way for me to get rid of these +thoughts is to tell them to you. If you laugh at them, I shall keep +them to myself and they’ll poison me.”</p> + +<p>“Tell away then,” said she with an air of resignation. Then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> as he +kept silent and hid his face like a child in Lilian’s skirts: “Well, +what are you waiting for?”</p> + +<p>She seized him by the hair and forced him to raise his head:</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, he’s really taking it seriously! Just look at him! He’s +quite pale. Now, listen to me, my dear boy; if you mean to behave like +a child, it’s not my affair at all. One must have the strength of one’s +convictions. And, besides, you know I don’t like people who cheat. When +you try on the sly to pull things into your boat which oughtn’t to be +there, you’re cheating. I’m willing to play the game with you, but it +must be above board; and I warn you my object is to make you succeed. I +think you’re capable of becoming somebody important—really important; +I feel great intelligence in you, and great strength. I want to help +you. There are quite enough women who spoil the careers of the men they +fall in love with; I want to do the contrary. You’ve already told me +you wanted to give up doctoring in order to work at science and that +you were sorry you hadn’t enough money.... Now you have just won fifty +thousand francs, which isn’t bad to begin with. But you must promise me +not to play any more. I’ll put as much money as is necessary at your +disposition, on condition that if people say you are being kept, you’ll +be strong-minded enough to shrug your shoulders.”</p> + +<p>Vincent had risen. He went up to the window. Lilian went on:</p> + +<p>“To begin with, I think one might as well finish up with Laura and send +her the five thousand francs you promised her. Now that you’ve got the +money, why don’t you keep your word? I don’t like it at all. I detest +caddishness. You don’t know how to cut hands off decently. When that’s +done, we’ll go and spend the summer where it’ll be most profitable +for your work.... You mentioned Roskoff; personally, I should prefer +Monaco, because I know the Prince, and he might take us for a cruise +and perhaps give you a job in his laboratory.”</p> + +<p>Vincent kept silent. He felt disinclined to say to Lilian (he only told +her later) that before coming to see her, he had gone to the hotel, +where Laura had waited for him in such despair.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> Anxious to be at last +quit of his debt, he had slipped the notes, on which she no longer +counted, into an envelope. He had entrusted the envelope to a waiter, +and then waited in the hall until he should hear it had been delivered +to her personally. A few moments later the waiter had come downstairs +bringing with him the envelope, across which Laura had written:</p> + +<p>“<i>Too late.</i>”</p> + +<p>Lilian rang and asked for her cloak. When the maid had left the room:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I wanted to say to you, before Robert arrives, that if he proposes +an investment for your fifty thousand francs—be careful. He is very +rich, but he is always in want of money. There! look and see. I think +I hear his horn. He’s half an hour before the time; but so much the +better.... For all we were saying!...”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +“I’m early,” said Robert as he came into the room, “because I thought +it would be amusing to go and dine at Versailles. Do you agree?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Lady Griffith; “the fountains bore me. I had rather go to +Rambouillet; there’s time. We shan’t have such a good dinner, but we +shall be able to talk more easily. I want Vincent to tell you his fish +stories. He knows some marvellous ones. I don’t know if what he says is +true, but it’s more amusing than the best novel in the world.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not perhaps what a novelist will think,” said Vincent.</p> + +<p>Robert de Passavant held an evening paper in his hand:</p> + +<p>“D’you know that Brugnard has just been made assistant-secretary at the +Ministry of Justice? Now’s the moment to get your father decorated,” +said he, turning to Vincent. Vincent shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“My dear Vincent,” went on Passavant, “allow me to say that you’ll very +much offend him by not asking this little favour—which he’ll be so +delighted to refuse.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose you were to start by asking it for yourself,” Vincent replied.</p> + +<p>Robert made an affected little grimace:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p> + +<p>“No; for my part, my vanity consists in never blushing—not even in my +buttonhole.” Then, turning to Lilian:</p> + +<p>“Do you know it’s rare nowadays to find a man who has reached forty +without either the syph or the legion of honour?”</p> + +<p>Lilian smiled and shrugged her shoulders:</p> + +<p>“For the sake of a <i>bon-mot</i> he actually consents to make himself +out older than he is! I say, is it a quotation from your next book? +It’ll be tasty.... Go on downstairs. I’ll get my cloak and follow you.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +“I thought you had given up seeing him,” said Vincent to Robert on the +staircase.</p> + +<p>“Who? Brugnard?”</p> + +<p>“You said he was so stupid....”</p> + +<p>“My dear friend,” replied Passavant, pausing on a step and holding up +Molinier, for he saw Lady Griffith coming and wanted her to hear: “you +must know there’s not a single one of my friends whom I’ve known a +certain time, that hasn’t given me unmistakable proofs of imbecility. +I assure you that Brugnard resisted the test longer than a great many +others.”</p> + +<p>“Than I, perhaps?” asked Vincent.</p> + +<p>“Which doesn’t prevent me from being your best friend ... as you see.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s what’s called wit in Paris,” said Lilian, who had joined +them. “Take care, Robert; there’s nothing fades quicker.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be alarmed, dear lady; words only fade when they’re printed.”</p> + +<p>They took their places in the car and drove off. As their conversation +continued to be very witty, it is useless to record it here. They sat +down to table on the terrace of a hotel overlooking a garden where the +shades of night were gathering. Under cover of the evening, their talk +grew slower and graver; urged on by Lilian and Robert, Vincent found +himself at last the only speaker.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII_a">XVII<br> +THE EVENING AT RAMBOUILLET</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +“I SHOULD take more interest in animals if I were less interested in +men,” Robert had said. And Vincent had replied:</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you think them too different. Every single one of the great +discoveries in zoology has left its mark upon the study of man. +The whole subject is interlinked and interdependent, and I believe +that a novelist who also prides himself upon being a psychologist +can never turn aside his eyes from the spectacle of nature and +remain ignorant of her laws without paying for it. In the Goncourts’ +Journal, which you gave me to read, I fell upon an account of a visit +they paid to the Zoological houses in the Jardin des Plantes, in +which your charming authors deplore Nature’s—or the Lord’s—lack +of imagination. This paltry blasphemy merely serves to show up the +stupidity and incomprehension of their small minds. On the contrary, +what astonishing diversity! It seems as if Nature had essayed one after +the other every possible manner of living and moving, as if she had +taken advantage of every permission granted by matter and its laws. +What a lesson can be read in the progressive abandonment of certain +palæontological experiments which proved irrational and inelegant; +the economy which has enabled some forms to survive explains why the +others were abandoned. Botany is instructive, too. When I examine a +plant, I observe that at the place where each leaf springs from the +stem, a bud lies sheltered, which is capable in its turn of shooting +into life the following year. When I remark that out of all these +buds, two at most are destined to come to anything, and that by the +very fact of their growth they condemn all the others to atrophy, I +cannot help thinking that the case is the same with men. The buds which +develop naturally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> are always the terminal buds—that is to say, those +that are farthest away from the parent trunk. It is only by pruning +or layering that the sap is driven back and so forced to give life +to those germs which are nearest the trunk and which would otherwise +have lain dormant. And in this manner, the most recalcitrant plants, +which, if left to themselves, would no doubt have produced nothing but +leaves, are induced to bear fruit. Oh! an orchard or a garden is an +excellent school! and a horticulturist would often make the best of +pedagogues! There is more to be learnt, if one can use one’s eyes, in +a poultry-yard, or a kennel, or an aquarium, or a rabbit warren, or a +stable, than in all your books, or even, believe me, in the society of +men, where everything is more or less sophisticated.”</p> + +<p>Then Vincent spoke of selection. He explained how in order to obtain +the finest seedlings, the ordinary plan is to choose the most robust +specimens; and then he told them of the fantastic experiment of one +audacious horticulturist, who, out of a horror of routine—it really +seemed almost like a challenge—took it into his head, on the contrary, +to select the most weakly—with the result that he obtained blooms of +incomparable beauty.</p> + +<p>Robert, who had at first listened with only half an ear, like a person +who merely expects to be bored, now made no attempt to interrupt. His +attention delighted Lilian, who took it as a compliment to her lover.</p> + +<p>“You ought to tell us,” said she, “of what you were saying the other +day about fish and their power of accommodation to the different +amounts of salt in the sea.... That was it, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Except for certain regions,” went on Vincent, “the sea’s degree of +saltness is pretty constant; and marine fauna as a rule tolerates only +very slight variations of density. But the regions I was telling you +about are nevertheless not uninhabited; the regions I mean are those +which are subject to intense evaporation and in which, therefore, the +proportion of water to salt is greatly reduced—or, on the contrary, +those where the constant inflow of fresh water dilutes the salt and, +so to speak, un-salts the sea—those that are near the mouths of great +rivers, or such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> enormous currents as the Gulf Stream. In such regions +the animals called <i>stenohaline</i> grow enfeebled to the point +of perishing; and as they become incapable of defending themselves, +they inevitably fall a prey to the animals called <i>euryhaline</i>, +so that the <i>euryhalines</i> live by choice on the confines of the +great currents, where the density of the water varies and where the +<i>stenohalines</i> meet their death. You understand, don’t you, that +the <i>stenos</i> are those which can exist only in water whose degree +of saltness is unvarying; whilst the <i>eurys</i>....”</p> + +<p>“Are the pickles,” interrupted Robert,<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> who always referred +everything back to himself, and only took an interest in that part of a +theory which he could turn to account.</p> + +<p>“Most of them are ferocious,” added Vincent gravely.</p> + +<p>“I told you it was better than any novel!” cried Lilian, ecstatically.</p> + +<p>Vincent seemed transfigured—indifferent to the impression he was +making. He was extraordinarily grave and went on in a lower tone as if +he were talking to himself:</p> + +<p>“The most astonishing discovery of recent times—at any rate the one +that has taught me most—is the discovery of the photogenic apparatus +of deep-sea creatures.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, tell us about it!” cried Lilian, letting her cigarette go out and +her ice melt on her plate.</p> + +<p>“You know, no doubt, that the light of day does not reach very far +down into the sea. Its depths are dark ... huge gulfs, which for a +long time were thought to be uninhabited; then people began dragging +them, and quantities of strange animals were brought up from these +infernal regions—animals that were blind, it was thought. What use +would the sense of sight be in the dark? Evidently they had no eyes; +they wouldn’t, they couldn’t have eyes. Nevertheless, on examination +it was found to people’s amazement that some of them <i>had</i> eyes; +that they almost all had eyes, and sometimes antennæ of extraordinary +sensibility into the bargain. Still people doubted and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> wondered: why +eyes with no means of seeing? Eyes that are sensitive—but sensitive +to what?... And at last it was discovered that each of these animals +which people at first insisted were creatures of darkness, gives +forth and projects before and around it its <i>own</i> light. Each +of them shines, illuminates, irradiates. When they were brought up +from the depths at night and turned out on to the ship’s deck, the +darkness blazed. Moving, many-coloured fires, glowing, vibrating, +changing—revolving beacon-lamps—sparkling of stars and jewels—a +spectacle, say those who saw it, of unparalleled splendour.”</p> + +<p>Vincent stopped. No one spoke for a long time.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go home,” said Lilian suddenly; “I’m cold.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Lady Lilian took her seat beside the chauffeur, so as to be sheltered +by the glass screen. The two men at the back of the open carriage +carried on their own conversation. Robert had hardly spoken during the +whole of the dinner; he had listened to Vincent talking; now it was his +turn.</p> + +<p>“Fish like us, my dear boy, perish in calm waters,” said he to begin +with, giving his friend a thump on the shoulder. He allowed himself +a few familiarities with Vincent, but would not have suffered him to +reciprocate them; for that matter, Vincent was not disposed to. “Do +you know, I think you’re simply splendid! What a lecturer you’d make! +Upon my word, you ought to quit doctoring. I really can’t see you +prescribing laxatives and having no company but the sick. A chair of +comparative biology, or something of that sort is what you want.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Vincent, “I have sometimes thought so.”</p> + +<p>“Lilian ought to be able to manage it. She could get her friend the +Prince of Monaco to interest himself in your researches. It’s his line, +I believe. I must speak to her about it.”</p> + +<p>“She has suggested it already.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so I see there’s no possibility of doing you a service,” said he, +pretending to be vexed. “Just as I wanted to ask you one for myself, +too.”</p> + +<p>“It’s your turn to be in my debt. You think I’ve got a very short +memory.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p> + +<p>“What? You’re still thinking of that five thousand francs? But you’ve +paid it back, my dear fellow. You owe me nothing at all now—except a +little friendship, perhaps.” He added these words in a voice that was +almost tender, and with one hand on Vincent’s arm. “I want to appeal to +it now.”</p> + +<p>“I am listening,” said Vincent.</p> + +<p>But at that, Passavant immediately protested, as if the impatience were +Vincent’s, and not his own:</p> + +<p>“Goodness me! What a hurry you’re in! Between this and Paris there’s +time enough surely.”</p> + +<p>Passavant was particularly skilful in the art of fathering his own +words—and anything else he preferred to disown—on other people. He +made a feint of dropping his subject, like an angler who, for fear of +startling his trout, makes a long cast with his bait and then draws it +in again by imperceptible degrees.</p> + +<p>“A propos, thank you for sending me your brother. I was afraid you had +forgotten.”</p> + +<p>Vincent made a gesture and Robert went on:</p> + +<p>“Have you seen him since?... Not had time, eh?... Then it’s odd you +shouldn’t have asked me yet how the interview went off. At bottom, you +don’t in the least care. You don’t take the faintest interest in your +brother. What Olivier thinks and feels, what he is, what he wants to +be, never concerns you in the least....”</p> + +<p>“Reproaching me?” asked Vincent.</p> + +<p>“Upon my soul, yes. I can’t understand—I can’t swallow your +indifference. When you were ill at Pau, it might pass; you could only +think of yourself; selfishness was part of the cure. But now.... What! +you have growing up beside you a young nature quivering with life, +a budding intelligence, full of promise, only waiting for a word of +advice, of encouragement....”</p> + +<p>He forgot as he spoke that he too had a brother.</p> + +<p>Vincent, however, was no fool; the very exaggeration of this attack +showed him that it was not sincere and that his companion’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +indignation was merely brought forward to pave the way for something +else. He waited in silence. But Robert stopped short suddenly; he had +just surprised in the glimmer of Vincent’s cigarette a curious curl of +his lip, which he took for irony; now there was nothing in the world he +was more afraid of than being laughed at. And yet, was it really that +which made him change his tone? I wonder whether the sudden intuition +of a kind of connivance between Vincent and himself.... He assumed an +air of perfect naturalness and started again in the tone of “there’s no +need of any pretence with you”:</p> + +<p>“Well, I had a most delightful conversation with young Olivier. I like +the boy exceedingly.”</p> + +<p>Passavant tried to catch Vincent’s expression (the night was not very +dark); but he was looking fixedly in front of him.</p> + +<p>“And now, my dear Molinier, the service I wished to ask you....”</p> + +<p>But, here again, he felt the need of marking time, something like an +actor who drops his part for a moment with the assurance that he has +his audience well in hand, and wishes to prove that he has, both to +himself and to them. He bent forward therefore to Lilian, and speaking +in a loud voice as if to accentuate the confidential character of what +he had been saying, and of what he was going to say:</p> + +<p>“Are you sure, dear lady, that you aren’t catching cold? We have a rug +here that’s doing nothing....”</p> + +<p>Then, without waiting for an answer, he sank back into the corner of +the carriage beside Vincent, and lowering his voice once more:</p> + +<p>“This is what it is. I want to take your brother away with me this +summer. Yes; I tell you so frankly; what’s the use of beating about the +bush between us two?... I haven’t the honour of being acquainted with +your parents and of course they wouldn’t allow Olivier to come away +with me unless you were to intervene on my behalf. No doubt you’ll find +a way of disposing them in my favour. You know what they’re like,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> I +suppose, and you’ll be able to get round them. You’ll do this for me, +won’t you?”</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, and then, as Vincent kept silent, went on:</p> + +<p>“Look here, Vincent.... I’m leaving Paris soon.... I don’t know for +where as yet. I absolutely must have a secretary.... You know I’m +founding a review. I have spoken about it to Olivier. He seems to me +to have all the necessary qualities.... But I don’t want to look at it +merely from my own selfish point of view: I also think that this will +be an opportunity for him to show all his qualities. I have offered +him the place of editor.... Editor of a review at his age!... You must +admit that it’s unusual.”</p> + +<p>“So very unusual, that I’m afraid my parents may be rather alarmed by +it,” said Vincent at last, turning his eyes on him and looking at him +fixedly.</p> + +<p>“Yes; you’re no doubt right. Perhaps it would be better not to mention +that. You might just put forward the interest and advantage it would +be for him to go travelling with me, eh? Your parents must understand +that at his age one wants to see the world a bit. At any rate, you’ll +arrange it with them, won’t you?”</p> + +<p>He took a breath, lighted another cigarette, and went on without +changing his tone:</p> + +<p>“And since you’re going to be so nice, I’ll try and do something for +you. I think I can put you on to a thing which promises to turn out +quite exceptionally.... A friend of mine in the highest banking circles +is keeping it open for a few privileged persons. But please don’t +mention it; not a word to Lilian. In any case I can only dispose of +a very limited number of shares; I can’t offer them both to her and +you... Your last night’s fifty thousand francs?...”</p> + +<p>“I have already disposed of them,” answered Vincent rather shortly, for +he remembered Lilian’s warning.</p> + +<p>“All right, all right....” rejoined Robert quickly, as though he were +a little piqued; “I’m not insisting.” Then with the air of saying: “I +can’t be offended with you,” he added: “If you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> change your mind, send +me word at once ... because after five o’clock to-morrow evening, it’ll +be too late.”</p> + +<p>Vincent’s admiration for the Comte de Passavant had become much greater +since he had ceased to take him seriously.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> +Robert here makes a pun impossible to translate. +<i>Dessalé</i> (literally <i>unsalted</i>) is a slang expression +meaning something like <i>unscrupulous</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"> +—Translator’s note.</p> + + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: SECOND VISIT TO LA PÉROUSE</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Two o’clock.</i> Lost my suit-case. Serves me right. There was +nothing in it I cared about but my journal. But I cared about that too +much. In reality, very much amused by the adventure. All the same, +I should like to have my papers back again. Who will read them?... +Perhaps now that I have lost them, I exaggerate their importance. The +book I have lost came to an end with my journey to England. When I +was over there, I used another one, which I shall give up writing in, +now that I am back in France. I shall take good care not to lose this +one, in which I am writing now. It is my pocket-mirror. I cannot feel +that anything that happens to me has any real existence until I see it +reflected here. But since my return I seem to be walking in a dream. +What a miserable uphill affair my conversation with Olivier was! And +I had been looking forward to it with such joy.... I hope it has left +him as ill-satisfied as it has me—as ill-satisfied with himself as +with me. I was no more able to talk than to get him to talk. Oh, how +difficult the slightest word is, when it involves the whole assent of +the whole being! When the heart comes into play, it numbs and paralyses +the brain.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Seven o’clock.</i> Found my suit-case; or at any rate the person who +took it. The fact that he is Olivier’s most intimate friend makes a +link between us which it rests only with me to tighten. The danger is +that anything unexpected amuses me so intensely that I lose sight of my +goal.</p> + +<p>Seen Laura. My desire to oblige people becomes more acute if there is +a difficulty to be encountered, if a struggle has to be waged with +convention, banality and custom.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> + +<p>Visit to old La Pérouse. It was Madame de La Pérouse who opened the +door to me. I have not seen her for more than two years; she recognized +me, however, at once. (I don’t suppose they have many visitors.) She +herself for that matter is very little changed; but (is it because +I have a prejudice against her?) I thought her features harder, her +expression sourer, her smile falser than ever.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid Monsieur de La Pérouse is in no state to receive you,” +said she at once, with the obvious desire of getting me to herself; +then, taking advantage of her deafness in order to answer before I had +questioned her:</p> + +<p>“No, no; you’re not disturbing me in the least. Do come in.”</p> + +<p>She showed me into the room where La Pérouse gives his music lessons, +the two windows of which look on to the courtyard. And as soon as she +had got me safely inside:</p> + +<p>“I am particularly glad to have a word with you alone. Monsieur de La +Pérouse—I know what an old and faithful friend of his you are—is in a +state which causes me great anxiety. Couldn’t you persuade him to take +more care of himself? He listens to you; as for me, I might as well +talk to the winds.”</p> + +<p>And thereupon she entered upon an endless series of recriminations: the +old gentleman refuses to take care of himself, simply in order to annoy +her; he does everything he oughtn’t to do and nothing that he ought; he +goes out in all weathers and will never consent to put on a muffler; he +refuses to eat at meals—“Monsieur isn’t hungry”—and nothing she can +contrive tempts his appetite; but at night, he gets up and turns the +kitchen upside down, cooking himself some mess or other.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt the old lady didn’t invent anything; I could make +out from her tale that it was her interpretation alone which gave an +offensive meaning to the most innocent little facts and that reality +had cast a monstrous shadow on the walls of her narrow brain. But does +not her old husband on his side misinterpret all his wife’s attentions? +She thinks herself a martyr, while he takes her for a torturer. As for +judging them,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> understanding them, I give it up; or rather, as always +happens, the better I understand them, the more tempered my judgment +of them becomes. But this remains—that here are two beings tied to +each other for life and causing each other abominable suffering. I +have often noticed with married couples how intolerably irritating the +slightest protuberance of character in the one may be to the other, +because in the course of life in common it continually rubs up against +the same place. And if the rub is reciprocal, married life is nothing +but a hell.</p> + +<p>Beneath her smoothly parted black wig, which makes the features of +her chalky face look harder still, with her long black mittens, from +which protrude little claw-like fingers, Madame de La Pérouse has the +appearance of a harpy.</p> + +<p>“He accuses me of spying on him,” she continued. “He has always needed +a great deal of sleep; but at night he makes a show of going to bed, +and then when he thinks I am fast asleep, he gets up again; he muddles +about among his old papers, and sometimes stays up till morning reading +his late brother’s letters and crying over them. And he wants me to +bear it all without a word!”</p> + +<p>Then she went on to complain that he wanted to make her go into a home; +which would be all the more painful to her, she added, as he was quite +incapable of living alone and doing without her care. This was said in +a tearful tone, which was only too obviously hypocritical.</p> + +<p>Whilst she was continuing her grievances, the drawing-room door opened +gently behind her and La Pérouse came in, without her hearing him. +At his wife’s last words he smiled at me ironically, and touched his +head with his hand to signify she was mad. Then, with an impatience—a +brutality even—of which I should not have thought him capable, and +which seemed to justify the old woman’s accusations (but it was due too +to his having to raise his voice to a shout in order to make himself +heard):</p> + +<p>“Come, Madam,” he cried, “you ought to understand that you are tiring +this gentleman with your talk. He didn’t come to see you. Leave the +room.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span></p> + +<p>The old lady protested that the arm-chair she was sitting in was her +own and that she was not going to quit it.</p> + +<p>“In that case,” went on La Pérouse with a grim chuckle, “<i>we</i> will +leave <i>you</i>.” Then, turning to me, he repeated in gentler tones, +“come, let us leave her.”</p> + +<p>I made a sketchy and embarrassed bow, and followed him into the next +room—the same one in which I had paid him my last visit.</p> + +<p>“I am glad you heard her,” he said; “that’s what it’s like the whole +day long.”</p> + +<p>He shut the window.</p> + +<p>“There’s such a noise in the street, one can’t hear oneself speak. I +spend my time shutting the windows and Madame de La Pérouse spends +hers opening them again. She declares she’s stifling. She always +exaggerates. She refuses to realize that it’s hotter out of doors than +in. And yet I’ve got a little thermometer; but when I show it to her, +she says that figures prove nothing. She wants to be right even when +she knows she’s wrong. Her main object in life is to annoy me.”</p> + +<p>He himself, while he was speaking, seemed to me a little off his +balance; he went on with growing excitement:</p> + +<p>“Everything she does amiss in life she sets down as a grievance against +me. All her judgments are warped. I’ll just explain to you how it is: +You know our impressions of outside images come to us reversed and that +there’s an apparatus in our brains which sets them right again. Well, +Madame de La Pérouse has no such apparatus for setting them right. In +her brain they <i>remain</i> upside down. You can see for yourself how +painful it is.”</p> + +<p>It was certainly a great relief to him to explain himself and I took +care not to interrupt him. He went on:</p> + +<p>“Madame de La Pérouse has always eaten much too much. Well, now she +makes out that it’s I who eat too much. If she sees me presently with +a bit of chocolate (it’s my chief nourishment) she’ll be certain to +mutter, ‘Munching again!...’ She spies on me. She accuses me of getting +up in the night to eat on the sly, because she once surprised me making +myself a cup of chocolate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> in the kitchen.... What am I to do? When +I see her opposite me at table, falling ravenously upon her food, as +she does, it takes away my appetite entirely. Then she declares I’m +pretending to be fastidious just to torment her.”</p> + +<p>He paused, and then in a sort of lyrical outburst:</p> + +<p>“Her reproaches amaze me!... For instance, when she is suffering +from her sciatica, I condole with her. Then she stops me, shrugs her +shoulders and says: ‘Don’t pretend you have a heart.’ Everything I do +or say is in order to give her pain.”</p> + +<p>We had seated ourselves, but all the time he was speaking, he kept +getting up and sitting down again, in a state of morbid restlessness.</p> + +<p>“Would you believe that in each of these rooms there are some pieces of +furniture which belong to her and others to me? You saw her just now +with her arm-chair. She says to the charwoman, when she’s doing the +room, “No, that’s Monsieur’s chair; don’t touch that.” And the other +day, when by mistake I put a bound music-book on a little table which +belongs to her, Madam knocked it on to the ground. Its corners were +broken.... Oh, it can’t last much longer.... But, listen....”</p> + +<p>He seized me by the arm, and lowering his voice:</p> + +<p>“I have taken steps. She is continually threatening me if I ‘go on!’ to +take refuge in a home. I have set aside a certain sum of money which +ought to be enough to pay for her at Sainte-Périne’s; I hear it’s an +excellent place. The few lessons I still give, bring me in hardly +anything. In a little time I shall be at the end of my resources; I +should be forced to break into this sum—and I’m determined not to. So +I have made a resolution.... It will be in a little over three months. +Yes; I have fixed the date. If you only knew what a relief it is to +think that every hour it draws nearer.”</p> + +<p>He had bent towards me; he bent closer still:</p> + +<p>“And I have put aside a Government bond. Oh, it’s not much. But I +couldn’t do more. Madame de La Pérouse doesn’t know about it. It’s +in my bureau in an envelope directed to you, with the necessary +instructions. I know nothing about business,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> but a solicitor whom +I consulted, told me that the interest could be paid directly to my +grandson, until he is of age, and that then he would have the security. +I thought it wouldn’t be too great a tax on your friendship to ask you +to see that this is done. I have so little confidence in solicitors!... +And even, if you wished to make me quite easy, you would take charge of +the envelope at once.... You will, won’t you?... I’ll go and fetch it.”</p> + +<p>He trotted out in his usual fashion and came back with a large envelope +in his hand.</p> + +<p>“You’ll excuse me for having sealed it; for form’s sake,” said he. +“Take it.”</p> + +<p>I glanced at it and saw under my name the words “To be opened after my +death” written in printed letters.</p> + +<p>“Put it in your pocket quick, so that I may know it’s safe. Thank +you.... Oh, I was so longing for you to come!...”</p> + +<p>I have often experienced that, in moments as solemn as this, all +human emotion is transformed into an almost mystic ecstasy, into a +kind of enthusiasm, in which my whole being is magnified, or rather +liberated from all selfishness, as though dispossessed of itself and +depersonalized. Those who have never experienced this will certainly +not understand me. But I felt that La Pérouse understood. Any +protestation on my part would have been superfluous, would have seemed +unbecoming, I thought, and I contented myself with pressing the hand +which he gave me. His eyes were shining with a strange brightness. In +his free hand, in which he had at first been holding the envelope, was +another piece of paper.</p> + +<p>“I have written his address down here. For I know now where he is. At +Saas-Fée. Do you know it? It’s in Switzerland. I looked for it on the +map, but I couldn’t find it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said. “It’s a little village near the Matterhorn.”</p> + +<p>“Is it very far?”</p> + +<p>“Not so far but that I might perhaps go there.”</p> + +<p>“Really? Would you really?... Oh, how good you are!” said he. “As for +me, I’m too old. And besides, I can’t because of his mother.... All +the same, I think....” He hesitated for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> a word, then went on: “that I +should depart more easily, if only I had been able to see him.”</p> + +<p>“My poor friend.... Everything that is humanly possible to do to bring +him to you, I will do. You shall see little Boris, I promise you.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you!... Thank you!”</p> + +<p>He pressed me convulsively in his arms.</p> + +<p>“But promise me that you won’t think of...”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s another matter,” said he, interrupting me abruptly. Then +immediately and as if he were trying to prevent me from going on by +distracting my attention:</p> + +<p>“What do you think, the other day, the mother of one of my pupils +insisted on taking me to the theatre! About a month ago. It was a +matinée at the <i>Théâtre Français</i>. I hadn’t been inside a theatre +for more than twenty years. They were giving <i>Hernani</i> by Victor +Hugo. You know it? It seems that it was very well acted. Everybody was +in raptures. As for me, I suffered indescribably. If politeness hadn’t +kept me there, I shouldn’t have been able to stay it out.... We were in +a box. My friends did their best to calm me. I wanted to apostrophize +the audience. Oh! how can people? How can people?...”</p> + +<p>Not understanding at first what it was he objected to, I asked:</p> + +<p>“You thought the actors very bad?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. But how can people represent such abominations on the +stage?... And the audience applauded. And there were children in +the theatre—children, brought there by their parents, who knew the +play.... Monstrous! And that, in a theatre subsidized by the State!”</p> + +<p>The worthy man’s indignation amused me. By now I was almost laughing. +I protested that there could be no dramatic art without a portrayal +of the passions. In his turn, he declared that the portrayal of the +passions must necessarily be an undesirable example. The discussion +continued in this way for some time; and as I was comparing this +portrayal of the passions to the effect of letting loose the brass +instruments in an orchestra:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> + +<p>“For instance, the entry of the trombones in such and such a symphony +of Beethoven’s which you admire....”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t, I don’t admire the entry of the trombones,” cried he, +with extraordinary violence. “Why do you want to make me admire what +disturbs me?”</p> + +<p>His whole body was trembling. The indignant—the almost hostile tone of +his voice surprised me and seemed to astonish even himself, for he went +on more calmly:</p> + +<p>“Have you observed that the whole effect of modern music is to make +bearable, and even agreeable, certain harmonies which we used to +consider discords?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” I rejoined. “Everything must finally resolve into—be +reduced to harmony.”</p> + +<p>“Harmony!” he repeated, shrugging his shoulders. “All that I can see +in it is familiarization with evil—with sin. Sensibility is blunted; +purity is tarnished; reactions are less vivid; one tolerates; one +accepts....”</p> + +<p>“To listen to you, one would never dare wean a child.”</p> + +<p>But he went on without hearing me: “If one could recover the +uncompromising spirit of one’s youth, one’s greatest indignation would +be for what one has become.”</p> + +<p>It was impossible to start on a teleological argument; I tried to bring +him back to his own ground:</p> + +<p>“But you don’t pretend to restrict music to the mere expression of +serenity, do you? In that case, a single chord would suffice—a perfect +and continuous chord.”</p> + +<p>He took both my hands in his, and in a burst of ecstasy, his eyes rapt +in adoration, he repeated several times over:</p> + +<p>“A perfect and continuous chord; yes, yes; a perfect and continuous +chord.... But our whole universe is a prey to discord,” he added sadly.</p> + +<p>I took my leave. He accompanied me to the door and as he embraced me, +murmured again:</p> + +<p>“Oh! How long shall we have to wait for the resolution of the chord?”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SECOND_PART">SECOND PART<br> +SAAS-FÉE</h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I_b">I<br> +FROM BERNARD TO OLIVIER</h2> +</div> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">Monday</p> + +<p class="nind"> +<span class="allsmcap">MY DEAR OLD OLIVIER</span>, +</p> + +<p>First I must tell you that I’ve cut the “bachot.” I expect you +understood as much when I didn’t turn up. I shall go in for it next +October. An unparalleled opportunity to go travelling was offered me. +I jumped at it and I’m not sorry I did. I had to make up my mind at +once—without taking time to reflect—without even saying good-bye to +you. A propos, my travelling companion tells me to say how sorry he is +he had to leave without seeing you again. For do you know who carried +me off? You’ve guessed it already.... It was Edouard—yes! that same +uncle of yours, whom I met the very day he arrived in Paris, in rather +extraordinary and sensational circumstances, which I’ll tell you about +some day. But everything in this adventure is extraordinary, and when +I think of it my head whirls. Even now, I can hardly believe it is +true and that I am really here in Switzerland with Edouard and.... +Well! I see I must tell you the whole story, but mind you tear my +letter up and never breathe a word about it to a soul.</p> + +<p>Just think, the poor woman your brother Vincent abandoned, the one +you heard sobbing outside your door (I must say, it was idiotic of +you not to open it) turns out to be a great friend of Edouard’s and +moreover is actually a daughter of Vedel’s and a sister of your friend +Armand’s. I oughtn’t to be writing you all this, because a woman’s +honour is at stake, but I should burst if I didn’t tell someone.... +So, once more, don’t breathe a word! You know that she married +recently; perhaps you know that shortly after her marriage she fell +ill and went for a cure to the South of France. That’s where she met +Vincent—in the sanatorium at Pau. Perhaps you know that, too. But +what you don’t know is that there were consequences. Yes, old boy! +She’s going to have a child and it’s your clumsy ass of a brother’s +fault. She came back to Paris and didn’t dare show<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> herself to her +parents; still less go back to her husband. And then your brother, +as you know, chucked her. I’ll spare you my comments; but I can tell +you that Laura Douviers has not uttered a word against him, either of +reproach or resentment. On the contrary, she says all she can think +of to excuse his conduct. In a word, she’s a very fine woman, with a +very beautiful nature. And another very fine person is Edouard. As +she didn’t know what to do or where to go, he proposed taking her to +Switzerland; and at the same time he proposed that I should go with +them, because he didn’t care about travelling <i>tête à tête</i>, as +he is only on terms of friendship with her. So off we started. It +was all settled in a jiffy—just time to pack one’s suit-case and +for me to get a kit (for you know I left home without a thing). You +can’t imagine how nice Edouard was about it; and what’s more he kept +repeating all the time that it was I who was doing him a service. Yes, +really, old boy, you were quite right, your uncle’s perfectly splendid.</p> + +<p>The journey was rather troublesome, because Laura got very tired and +her condition (she’s in her third month) necessitated a great deal of +care; and the place where we had settled to go (it would be too long +to explain why) is rather difficult to get at. Besides, Laura very +often made things more complicated by refusing to take precautions; +she had to be forced; she kept repeating that an accident was the +best thing that could happen to her. You can imagine how we fussed +over her. Oh, Olivier, how wonderful she is! I don’t feel the same +as I did before I knew her, and there are thoughts which I no longer +dare put into words and impulses which I check, because I should be +ashamed not to be worthy of her. Yes, really, when one is with her, +one feels forced, as it were, to think nobly. That doesn’t prevent the +conversation between the three of us from being very free—Laura isn’t +at all prudish—and we talk about anything; but I assure you that when +I am with her, there are heaps of things I don’t feel inclined to +scoff at any more and which seem to me now very serious.</p> + +<p>You’ll be thinking I’m in love with her. Well, old boy, you aren’t far +wrong. Crazy, isn’t it? Can you imagine me in love with a woman who is +going to have a child, whom naturally I respect and wouldn’t venture +to touch with my finger-tip? Hardly on the road to becoming a rake, am +I?...</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<p>When we reached Saas-Fé, after no end of difficulties (we had a +carrying chair for Laura, as it’s impossible to get here by driving), +we found there were only two rooms available in the hotel—a big +one with two beds, and a little one, which it was settled with the +hotel-keeper should be for me—for Laura passes as Edouard’s wife, +so as to conceal her identity; but every night she sleeps in the +little room and I join Edouard in his. Every morning there’s a regular +business carrying things backwards and forwards, for the sake of the +servants. Fortunately the two rooms communicate, so that makes it +easier.</p> + +<p>We’ve been here six days; I didn’t write to you sooner because I was +rather in a state of bewilderment to begin with, and I had to get +straight with myself. I am only just beginning to find my bearings.</p> + +<p>Edouard and I have already done one or two little excursions in the +mountains. Very amusing; but to tell the truth, I don’t much care +for this country. Edouard doesn’t either. He says the scenery is +“declamatory.” That’s exactly it.</p> + +<p>The best thing about the place is the air—virgin air, which purifies +one’s lungs. And then we don’t want to leave Laura alone for too +long at a time, for of course she can’t come with us. The company +in the hotel is rather amusing. There are people of all sorts of +nationalities. The person we see most of is a Polish woman doctor, +who is spending the holidays here with her daughter and a little boy +she is in charge of. In fact, it’s because of this little boy that +we have come here. He’s got a kind of nervous illness, which the +doctor is treating according to a new method. But what does the little +fellow most good (he’s really a very attractive little thing) is that +he’s madly in love with the doctor’s daughter, who is a year or two +older than he and the prettiest creature I have ever seen in my life. +They never leave each other from morning till night. And they are so +charming together that no one ever thinks of chaffing them.</p> + +<p>I haven’t worked much and not opened a book since I left; but I’ve +thought a lot. Edouard’s conversation is extraordinarily interesting. +He doesn’t speak to me much personally, though he pretends to treat +me as his secretary; but I listen to him talking to the others; +especially to Laura, with whom he likes discussing his ideas. You +can’t imagine how much I learn by it. There<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> are days when I say to +myself that I ought to take notes; but I think I can remember it all. +There are days when I long for you madly; I say to myself that it’s +you who ought to be here; but I can’t be sorry for what’s happened to +me, nor wish for anything to be different. At any rate, you may be +sure that I never forget it’s thanks to you that I know Edouard and +that it’s to you I owe my happiness. When you see me again, I think +you’ll find me changed; I remain, nevertheless, and more faithfully +and devotedly than ever</p> + +<p class="right"> +Your friend.</p> + +<p>P.S. <i>Wednesday.</i> We have this moment come back from a tremendous +expedition. Climbed the Hallalin—guides, ropes, glaciers, precipices, +avalanches, etc. Spent the night in a refuge in the middle of the +snows, packed in with other tourists; needless to say we didn’t sleep +a wink. The next morning we started before dawn.... Well, old boy, +I’ll never speak ill of Switzerland again. When one gets up there, out +of sight of all culture, of all vegetation, of everything that reminds +one of the avarice and stupidity of men, one feels inclined to shout, +to sing, to laugh, to cry, to fly, to dive head foremost into the sky, +or to fall on one’s knees. Yours</p> + +<p class="right">Bernard.</p> +</div> + +<p>Bernard was much too spontaneous, too natural, too pure—he knew too +little of Olivier, to suspect the flood of hideous feelings his letter +would raise in his friend’s heart—a kind of tidal wave, in which +pique, despair and rage were mingled. He felt himself supplanted in +Bernard’s affection and in Edouard’s. The friendship of his two friends +left no room for his. One sentence in particular of Bernard’s letter +tortured him—a sentence which Bernard would never have written had he +imagined all that Olivier read into it: “In the same room,” he repeated +to himself—and the serpent of jealousy unrolled its abominable coils +and writhed in his heart. “They sleep in the same room!” What did he +not imagine? His mind filled with impure visions which he did not even +try to banish. He was not jealous in particular either of Edouard or +of Bernard; but of the two. He pictured each of them in turn or both +simultaneously,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> and at the same time envied them. He received the +letter one forenoon. “Ah! so that’s how it is ...” he kept saying +to himself all the rest of the day. That night the fiends of hell +inhabited him. Early next morning he rushed off to Robert’s. The Comte +de Passavant was waiting for him.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II_b">II<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: LITTLE BORIS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +I HAVE had no difficulty in finding little Boris. The day after our +arrival, he appeared on the hotel terrace and began looking at the +mountains through a telescope which stands outside, mounted on a swivel +for the use of the tourists. I recognized him at once. A little girl, +rather older than Boris, joined him after a short time. I was sitting +near by in the drawing-room, of which the French window was standing +open, and I did not lose a word of their conversation. Though I wanted +very much to speak to him, I thought it more prudent to wait till I +could make the acquaintance of the little girl’s mother—a Polish woman +doctor, who is in charge of Boris and keeps very careful watch over +him. Little Bronja is an exquisite creature; she must be about fifteen. +She wears her fair hair in two thick plaits, which reach to her waist; +the expression of her eyes and the sound of her voice are more angelic +than human. I write down the two children’s conversation:</p> + +<p>“Boris, Mamma had rather we didn’t touch the telescope. Won’t you come +for a walk?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will. No, I won’t.”</p> + +<p>The two contradictory sentences were uttered in the same breath. Bronja +only answered the second:</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Because it’s too hot, it’s too cold.” He had come away from the +telescope.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Boris, do be nice! You know Mamma would like us to go out. Where’s +your hat?”</p> + +<p>“Vibroskomenopatof. Blaf blaf.”</p> + +<p>“What does that mean?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p> + +<p>“Then why do you say it?”</p> + +<p>“So that you shouldn’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“If it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t matter about not understanding +it.”</p> + +<p>“But if it did mean something, anyhow you wouldn’t be able to +understand.”</p> + +<p>“When one talks it’s in order to be understood.”</p> + +<p>“Shall we play at making words in order to understand them only us?”</p> + +<p>“First of all, try to speak good grammar.”</p> + +<p>“My mamma can speak French, English, Roumanian, Turkish, Polish, +Italoscope, Perroquese and Xixitou.”</p> + +<p>All this was said very fast, in a kind of lyrical ecstasy. Bronja began +to laugh.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Boris, why are you always saying things that aren’t true?”</p> + +<p>“Why do you never believe what I say?”</p> + +<p>“I believe it when it’s true.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know when it’s true? I believed <i>you</i> the other day +when you told me about the angels. I say, Bronja, do you think that, if +I were to pray very hard, I should see them too?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you’ll see them if you get out of the habit of telling lies, +and if God wants to show them to you; but God won’t show them to you if +you pray to him only for that. There are heaps of beautiful things we +should see if we weren’t too naughty.”</p> + +<p>“Bronja, you aren’t naughty; that’s why you can see the angels. I shall +always be naughty.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you try not to be? Shall we go to—” some place whose name I +didn’t know—“and pray together to God and the Blessèd Virgin to help +you not to be naughty?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. No; listen—let’s take a stick; you shall hold one end and I the +other. I will shut my eyes, and I promise not to open them until we get +to the place.”</p> + +<p>They walked away, and as they were going down the terrace steps I heard +Boris again:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, no, not that end. Wait till I’ve wiped it.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve touched it.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Mme. Sophroniska came up to me as I was sitting alone, just finishing +my early breakfast and wondering how I could enter into conversation +with her. I was surprised to see that she was holding my last book in +her hand; she asked me with the most affable smile whether it was the +author whom she had the pleasure of speaking to; then she immediately +launched upon a long appreciation of my book. Her judgment—both praise +and criticism—seemed to me more intelligent than what I am accustomed +to hearing, though her point of view is anything but literary. She told +me she was almost exclusively interested in questions of psychology +and in anything that may shed a new light on the human soul. “But how +rare it is,” she added, “to find a poet, or dramatist or novelist, who +is not satisfied with a ready-made psychology—” the only kind, I told +her, that satisfies their readers.</p> + +<p>Little Boris has been confided to her for the holidays by his mother. I +took care not to let her know my reasons for being interested in him.</p> + +<p>“He is very delicate,” said Mme. Sophroniska. “His mother’s +companionship is not at all good for him. She wanted to come to +Saas-Fée with us, but I would only consent to look after the child +on condition that she left him entirely to my care; otherwise it +would be impossible to answer for his being cured. Just imagine,” she +went on, “she keeps the poor little thing in a state of continual +excitement—the very thing to develop the worst kind of nervous +troubles in him. She has been obliged to earn her living since his +father’s death. She used to be a pianist and, I must say, a marvellous +performer; but her playing was too subtle to please the ordinary +public. She decided to take to singing at concerts, at casinos—to go +on the stage. She used to take Boris with her to her dressing-room; I +believe the artificial atmosphere of the theatre greatly contributed to +upset the child’s balance. His mother is very fond of him, but to tell +the truth it is most desirable that he shouldn’t live with her.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> + +<p>“What is the matter with him exactly?” I asked.</p> + +<p>She began to laugh:</p> + +<p>“Is it the name of his illness you want to know? Oh, you wouldn’t be +much the wiser if I were to give you a fine scientific name for it.”</p> + +<p>“Just tell me what he suffers from.”</p> + +<p>“He suffers from a number of little troubles, tics, manias, which are +the sign of what people call a ‘nervous child,’ and which are usually +treated by rest, open air and hygiene. It is certain that a robust +organism would not allow these disturbances to show themselves. But if +debility favours them, it does not exactly cause them. I think their +origin can always be traced to some early shock, brought about by a +circumstance it is important to discover. The sufferer, as soon as he +becomes conscious of this cause, is half cured. But this cause, more +often than not, escapes his memory, as if it were concealing itself in +the shadow of his illness; it is in this refuge that I look for it, so +as to bring it out into the daylight—into the field of vision, I mean. +I believe that the look of a clear-sighted eye cleanses the mind, as a +ray of light purifies infected water.”</p> + +<p>I repeated to Sophroniska the conversation I had overheard the day +before, from which it appeared to me that Boris was very far from being +cured.</p> + +<p>“It’s because I am far from knowing all that I need to know of Boris’s +past. It’s only a short while ago that I began my treatment.”</p> + +<p>“Of what does it consist?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, simply in letting him talk. Every day I spend one or two hours +with him. I question him, but very little. The important thing is to +gain his confidence. I know a good many things already. I divine a good +many others. But the child is still on the defensive; he is ashamed; if +I insisted too strongly, tried to force his confidence too quickly, I +should be going against the very thing I want to arrive at—a complete +surrender. It would set his back up. So long as I shall not have +vanquished his reserve, his modesty....”</p> + +<p>An inquisition of this kind seemed to me so much in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> nature of an +assault that it was with difficulty I refrained from protesting; but my +curiosity carried the day.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that you expect the child to make you any shameful +revelations?”</p> + +<p>It was she who protested.</p> + +<p>“Oh, shameful? There’s no more shame in it than allowing oneself to +be sounded. I need to know everything and particularly what is most +carefully hidden. I must bring Boris to make a complete confession; +until I can do that, I shall not be able to cure him.”</p> + +<p>“You suspect then that he has a confession to make? Are you quite +sure—forgive me—that you won’t yourself suggest what you want him to +confess?”</p> + +<p>“That is a preoccupation which must never leave me, and it is for +that reason I work so slowly. I have seen clumsy magistrates who +have unintentionally prompted a child to give evidence that was pure +invention from beginning to end, and the child, under the pressure of +the magistrate’s examination, tells lies in perfect good faith and +makes people believe in entirely imaginary misdeeds. My part is to +suggest nothing. Extraordinary patience is needed.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me that in such cases the value of the method depends upon +the value of the operator.”</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t have dared say so. I assure you that after a little +practice one gets extraordinarily clever at it; it’s a kind of +divination—intuition, if you prefer. However, one sometimes goes off +on a wrong track; the important thing is not to persist in it. Do you +know how all our conversations begin? Boris starts by telling me what +he has dreamt the night before.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know he doesn’t invent?”</p> + +<p>“And even if he did invent!... All the inventions of a diseased +imagination reveal something.”</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment or two, and then: “‘<i>Invention</i>,’ +‘<i>diseased imagination</i>’ ... no, no, that’s not it. Words betray +one’s meaning. Boris dreams aloud in my presence. Every morning he +consents to remain during one hour in that state of semi-somnolence +in which the images which present themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> to us escape from the +control of our reason. They no longer group and associate themselves +according to ordinary logic, but according to unforeseen affinities; +above all, they answer to a mysterious inward compulsion—which is +the very thing I want to discover; and the ramblings of this child +are far more instructive than the most intelligent analysis of the +most conscious of minds could be. Many things escape the reason, and a +person who should attempt to understand life by merely using his reason +would be like a man trying to take hold of a flame with the tongs. +Nothing remains but a bit of charred wood, which immediately stops +flaming.”</p> + +<p>She was again silent and began to turn over the pages of my book.</p> + +<p>“How very little you penetrate into the human soul!” she cried; then +she laughed and added abruptly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t mean you in particular; when I say <i>you</i>, I mean +novelists in general. Most of your characters seem to be built on +piles; they have neither foundations nor sub-soil. I really think +there’s more truth to be found in the poets; everything which is +created by the intelligence alone is false. But now I am talking of +what isn’t my business.... Do you know what puzzles me in Boris? I +believe him to be exceedingly pure.”</p> + +<p>“Why should that puzzle you?”</p> + +<p>“Because I don’t know where to look for the source of the evil. Nine +times out of ten a derangement like his has its origin in some sort of +ugly secret.”</p> + +<p>“Such a one exists in every one of us, perhaps,” said I, “but it +doesn’t make us all ill, thank Heaven!”</p> + +<p>At that Mme. Sophroniska rose; she had just seen Bronja pass by the +window.</p> + +<p>“Look!” said she, pointing her out to me; “there is Boris’s real +doctor. She is looking for me; I must leave you; but I shall see you +again, shan’t I?”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +For that matter, I understand what Sophroniska reproaches the novel +for not giving her; but in this case, certain reasons of art escape +her—higher reasons, which make me think that a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> good novelist will +never be made out of a good naturalist.</p> + +<p>I have introduced Laura to Mme. Sophroniska. They seem to take to each +other, and I am glad of it. I have fewer scruples about keeping to +myself when I know they are chatting together. I am sorry that Bernard +has no companion of his own age; but at any rate the preparation for +his examination keeps him occupied for several hours a day. I have been +able to start work again on my novel.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III_b">III<br> +EDOUARD EXPLAINS HIS THEORY OF THE NOVEL</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +NOTWITHSTANDING first appearances, and though each of them did his +best, Uncle Edouard and Bernard were only getting on together fairly +well. Laura was not feeling satisfied, either. How should she be? +Circumstances had forced her to assume a part for which she was not +fitted; her respectability made her feel uncomfortable in it. Like +those loving and docile creatures who make the most devoted wives, +she had need of the proprieties to lean on, and felt herself without +strength now that she was without the frame of her proper surroundings. +Her situation as regards Edouard seemed to her more and more false +every day. What she suffered from most and what she found unendurable, +if she let her mind dwell on it, was the thought that she was living +at the expense of this protector—or rather that she was giving him +nothing in exchange—or more exactly, that Edouard asked nothing of +her in exchange, while she herself felt ready to give him everything. +“Benefits,” says Tacitus, through the mouth of Montaigne, “are only +agreeable as long as one can repay them”; no doubt this is only true +of noble souls, but without question Laura was one of these. She, who +would have liked to give, was on the contrary continually receiving, +and this irritated her against Edouard. Moreover when she went over +the past in her mind, it seemed to her that Edouard had deluded her by +awakening a love in her which she still felt strong within her and then +by evading this love and leaving it without an object. Was not that the +secret motive of her errors—of her marriage with Douviers, to which +she had resigned herself, to which Edouard had led her—and then of her +yielding so soon after to the solicitations of the springtime?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> For she +must needs admit it to herself, in Vincent’s arms it was still Edouard +that she sought. And as she could not understand her lover’s coldness, +she accused herself of being responsible for it, and imagined that she +might have vanquished him, had she had more beauty or more boldness; +and as she could not succeed in hating him, it was herself she +upbraided and depreciated, denying herself all value, and refusing to +allow herself any reason for existing or the possession of any virtue.</p> + +<p>Let us add further that this camping-out style of life, necessitated +by the arrangement of the rooms, though it might seem amusing to her +companions, hurt her delicacy in many sensitive places. And she could +see no issue to the situation, which yet was one it would be difficult +to prolong.</p> + +<p>The only scrap of comfort and joy Laura was able to find in her present +life, was by inventing for herself the duties of god-mother or elder +sister towards Bernard. The worship of a youth so charming touched her; +the adoration he paid her prevented her from slipping down that slope +of self-contempt and loathing which may lead even the most irresolute +creature to the extremest resolutions. Bernard, every morning that he +was not called off before daybreak by an expedition into the mountains +(for he loved early rising), used to spend two good hours with her +reading English. The examination he was going up for in October was a +convenient excuse.</p> + +<p>It cannot be said that his secretarial duties took up much of his +time. They were ill-defined. When Bernard undertook them he imagined +himself already seated at a desk, writing from Edouard’s dictation, +or copying out his manuscripts. Now Edouard never dictated, and his +manuscripts, such as they were, remained at the bottom of his trunk; +Bernard was free every hour of the day; but it only lay with Edouard +to make more calls upon Bernard, who was most anxious to have his +zeal made use of, so that Bernard was not particularly distressed by +his want of occupation, or by the feeling that he was not earning his +living—which, thanks to Edouard’s munificence, was a very comfortable +one. He was quite determined not to let himself be embarrassed by +scruples. He believed, I dare not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> say in Providence, but at any rate +in his star, and that a certain amount of happiness was due to him, as +the air is to the lungs which breathe it; Edouard was its dispenser +in the same way as the sacred orator, according to Bossuet, is the +dispenser of divine wisdom. Moreover Bernard considered the present +state of affairs as merely temporary, and was convinced that some day +he would be able to acquit his debt, as soon as he could bring to the +mint the uncoined riches whose abundance he felt in his heart. What +vexed him more was that Edouard made no demand upon certain gifts which +he felt within himself and which it seemed to him Edouard lacked. “He +doesn’t know how to make use of me,” thought Bernard, who thereupon +checked his self-conceit and wisely added: “Worse luck!”</p> + +<p>But then what was the reason of this uncomfortable feeling between +Edouard and Bernard? Bernard seems to me to be one of those people +who find their self-assurance in opposition. He could not endure that +Edouard should have any ascendancy over him and, rather than yield +to his influence, rebelled against it. Edouard, who never dreamed +of coercing him, was alternately vexed and grieved to feel him so +restive and so constantly on the alert to defend—or, at any rate, +to protect—himself. He came to the pitch of doubting whether he +had not committed an act of folly in taking away with him these two +beings, whom he seemed only to have united in order that they should +league together against him. Incapable of penetrating Laura’s secret +sentiments, he took her reserve and her reticence for coldness. It +would have made him exceedingly uncomfortable if he had been able to +see more clearly; and Laura understood this; so that her unrequited +love spent all its strength in keeping hidden and silent.</p> + +<p>Tea-time found them as a rule all assembled in the big sitting-room; +it often happened that, at their invitation, Mme. Sophroniska joined +them, generally on the days when Boris and Bronja were out walking. She +left them very free in spite of their youthfulness; she had perfect +confidence in Bronja and knew that she was very prudent, especially +with Boris, who was always particularly amenable with her. The +country was quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> safe; for of course there was no question of their +adventuring on to the mountains, or even of their climbing the rocks +near the hotel. One day when the two children had obtained leave to go +to the foot of the glacier, on condition they did not leave the road, +Mme. Sophroniska, who had been invited to tea, was emboldened, with +Bernard’s and Laura’s encouragement, to beg Edouard to tell them about +his next novel—that is, if he had no objection.</p> + +<p>“None at all; but I can’t tell you its story.”</p> + +<p>And yet he seemed almost to lose his temper when Laura asked him +(evidently a tactless question) what the book would be like?</p> + +<p>“Nothing!” he exclaimed; then, immediately and as if he had only been +waiting for this provocation: “What is the use of doing over again what +other people have done already, or what I myself have done already, or +what other people might do?”</p> + +<p>Edouard had no sooner uttered these words than he felt how improper, +how outrageous and how absurd they were; at any rate they seemed to +him improper and absurd; or he was afraid that this was how they would +strike Bernard.</p> + +<p>Edouard was very sensitive. As soon as he began talking of his work, +and especially when other people made him talk of it, he seemed to lose +his head.</p> + +<p>He had the most perfect contempt for the usual fatuity of authors; he +snuffed out his own as well as he could; but he was not unwilling to +seek a reinforcement of his modesty in other people’s consideration; if +this consideration failed him, modesty immediately went by the board. +He attached extreme importance to Bernard’s esteem. Was it with a view +to conquering this that, when Bernard was with him, he set his Pegasus +prancing? It was the worst way possible. Edouard knew it; he said so to +himself over and over again; but in spite of all his resolutions, as +soon as he was in Bernard’s company, he behaved quite differently from +what he wished, and spoke in a manner which immediately appeared absurd +to him (and which indeed was so). This might almost make one suppose +that he loved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> Bernard?... No; I think not. But a little vanity is +quite as effectual in making us pose as a great deal of love.</p> + +<p>“Is it because the novel, of all literary <i>genres</i>, is the freest, +the most <i>lawless</i>,” held forth Edouard, “... is it for that very +reason, for fear of that very liberty (the artists who are always +sighing after liberty are often the most bewildered when they get it), +that the novel has always clung to reality with such timidity? And I am +not speaking only of the French novel. It is the same with the English +novel; and the Russian novel, for all its throwing off of constraints, +is a slave to resemblance. The only progress it looks to is to get +still nearer to nature. The novel has never known that ‘formidable +erosion of contours,’ as Nietzsche calls it; that deliberate avoidance +of life, which gave style to the works of the Greek dramatists, +for instance, or to the tragedies of the French XVIIth century. Is +there anything more perfectly and deeply human than these works? But +that’s just it—they are human only in their depths; they don’t pride +themselves on appearing so—or, at any rate, on appearing real. They +remain works of art.”</p> + +<p>Edouard had got up, and, for fear of seeming to give a lecture, began +to pour out the tea as he spoke; then he moved up and down, then +squeezed a lemon into his cup, but, nevertheless, continued speaking:</p> + +<p>“Because Balzac was a genius, and because every genius seems to bring +to his art a final and conclusive solution, it has been decreed that +the proper function of the novel is to rival the <i>état-civil</i>.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +Balzac constructed his work; he never claimed to codify the novel; his +article on Stendhal proves it. Rival the <i>état-civil</i>! As if there +weren’t enough fools and boors in the world as it is! What have I to +do with the <i>état-civil</i>? <i>L’état c’est moi!</i> I, the artist; +civil or not, my work doesn’t pretend to rival anything.”</p> + +<p>Edouard, who was getting excited—a little factitiously, perhaps—sat +down. He affected not to look at Bernard; but it was for him that he +was speaking. If he had been alone with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> him, he would not have been +able to say a word; he was grateful to the two women for setting him on.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes it seems to me there is nothing in all literature I admire +so much as, for instance, the discussion between Mithridate and his two +sons in Racine; it’s a scene in which the characters speak in a way we +know perfectly well no father and no sons could ever have spoken in, +and yet (I ought to say for that very reason) it’s a scene in which all +fathers and all sons can see themselves. By localizing and specifying +one restricts. It is true that there is no psychological truth unless +it be particular; but on the other hand there is no art unless it +be general. The whole problem lies just in that—how to express the +general by the particular—how to make the particular express the +general. May I light my pipe?”</p> + +<p>“Do, do,” said Sophroniska.</p> + +<p>“Well, I should like a novel which should be at the same time as true +and as far from reality, as particular and at the same time as general, +as human and as fictitious as <i>Athalie</i>, or <i>Tartuffe</i> or +<i>Cinna</i>.”</p> + +<p>“And ... the subject of this novel?”</p> + +<p>“It hasn’t got one,” answered Edouard brusquely, “and perhaps that’s +the most astonishing thing about it. My novel hasn’t got a subject. +Yes, I know, it sounds stupid. Let’s say, if you prefer it, it hasn’t +got <i>one</i> subject ... ‘a slice of life,’ the naturalist school +said. The great defect of that school is that it always cuts its slice +in the same direction; in time, lengthwise. Why not in breadth? Or in +depth? As for me I should like not to cut at all. Please understand; +I should like to put everything into my novel. I don’t want any cut +of the scissors to limit its substance at one point rather than at +another. For more than a year now that I have been working at it, +nothing happens to me that I don’t put into it—everything I see, +everything I know, everything that other people’s lives and my own +teach me....”</p> + +<p>“And the whole thing stylized into art?” said Sophroniska, feigning the +most lively attention, but no doubt a little ironically.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> Laura could +not suppress a smile. Edouard shrugged his shoulders slightly and went +on:</p> + +<p>“And even that isn’t what I want to do. What I want is to represent +reality on the one hand, and on the other that effort to stylize it +into art of which I have just been speaking.”</p> + +<p>“My poor dear friend, you will make your readers die of boredom,” said +Laura; as she could no longer hide her smile, she had made up her mind +to laugh outright.</p> + +<p>“Not at all. In order to arrive at this effect—do you follow me?—I +invent the character of a novelist, whom I make my central figure; +and the subject of the book, if you must have one, is just that very +struggle between what reality offers him and what he himself desires to +make of it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; I’m beginning to see,” said Sophroniska politely, though +Laura’s laugh was very near conquering her. “But you know it’s always +dangerous to represent intellectuals in novels. The public is bored by +them; one only manages to make them say absurdities and they give an +air of abstraction to everything they touch.”</p> + +<p>“And then I see exactly what will happen,” cried Laura; “in this +novelist of yours you won’t be able to help painting yourself.”</p> + +<p>She had lately adopted in talking to Edouard a jeering tone which +astonished herself and upset Edouard all the more that he saw a +reflection of it in Bernard’s mocking eyes. Edouard protested:</p> + +<p>“No, no. I shall take care to make him very disagreeable.”</p> + +<p>Laura was fairly started.</p> + +<p>“That’s just it; everybody will recognize you,” she said, bursting into +such hearty laughter that the others were caught by its infection.</p> + +<p>“And is the plan of the book made up?” enquired Sophroniska, trying to +regain her seriousness.</p> + +<p>“Of course not.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? Of course not!”</p> + +<p>“You ought to understand that it’s essentially out of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> question for +a book of this kind to have a plan. Everything would be falsified if +anything were settled beforehand. I wait for reality to dictate to me.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought you wanted to abandon reality.”</p> + +<p>“My novelist wants to abandon it; but I shall continually bring him +back to it. In fact that will be the subject; the struggle between the +facts presented by reality and the ideal reality.”</p> + +<p>The illogical nature of his remarks was flagrant—painfully obvious +to everyone. It was clear that Edouard housed in his brain two +incompatible requirements and that he was wearing himself out in the +desire to reconcile them.</p> + +<p>“Have you got on far with it?” asked Sophroniska politely.</p> + +<p>“It depends on what you mean by far. To tell the truth, of the actual +book not a line has been written. But I have worked at it a great deal. +I think of it every day and incessantly. I work at it in a very odd +manner, as I’ll tell you. Day by day in a note-book, I note the state +of the novel in my mind; yes, it’s a kind of diary that I keep as one +might do of a child.... That is to say, that instead of contenting +myself with resolving each difficulty as it presents itself (and every +work of art is only the sum or the product of the solutions of a +quantity of small difficulties), I set forth each of these difficulties +and study it. My note-book contains, as it were, a running criticism of +my novel—or rather of the novel in general. Just think how interesting +such a note-book kept by Dickens or Balzac would be; if we had the +diary of the <i>Education Sentimentale</i> or of <i>The Brothers +Karamazof</i>!—the story of the work—of its gestation! How thrilling +it would be ... more interesting than the work itself....”</p> + +<p>Edouard vaguely hoped that someone would ask him to read these notes. +But not one of the three showed the slightest curiosity. Instead:</p> + +<p>“My poor friend,” said Laura, with a touch of sadness, “it’s quite +clear that you’ll never write this novel of yours.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let me tell you,” cried Edouard impetuously, “that I don’t +care. Yes, if I don’t succeed in writing the book, it’ll be because +the history of the book will have interested me more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> than the book +itself—taken the book’s place; and it’ll be a very good thing.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you afraid, when you abandon reality in this way, of losing +yourself in regions of deadly abstraction and of making a novel about +ideas instead of about human beings?” asked Sophroniska kindly.</p> + +<p>“And even so!” cried Edouard with redoubled energy. “Must we condemn +the novel of ideas because of the groping and stumbling of the +incapable people who have tried their hands at it? Up till now we have +been given nothing but novels with a purpose parading as novels of +ideas. But that’s not it at all, as you may imagine. Ideas ... ideas, +I must confess, interest me more than men—interest me more than +anything. They live; they fight; they perish like men. Of course it may +be said that our only knowledge of them is through men, just as our +only knowledge of the wind is through the reeds that it bends; but all +the same the wind is of more importance than the reeds.”</p> + +<p>“The wind exists independently of the reed,” ventured Bernard. His +intervention made Edouard, who had long been waiting for it, start +afresh with renewed spirit:</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know; ideas exist only because of men; but that’s what’s so +pathetic; they live at their expense.”</p> + +<p>Bernard had listened to all this with great attention; he was full of +scepticism and very near taking Edouard for a mere dreamer; but during +the last few moments he had been touched by his eloquence and had felt +his mind waver in its breath; “But,” thought Bernard, “the reed lifts +its head again as soon as the wind has passed.” He remembered what he +had been taught at school—that man is swayed by his passions and not +by ideas. In the mean time Edouard was going on:</p> + +<p>“What I should like to do is something like the art of fugue writing. +And I can’t see why what was possible in music should be impossible in +literature....”</p> + +<p>To which Sophroniska rejoined that music is a mathematical art, and +moreover that Bach, by dealing only with figures and by banishing all +pathos and all humanity, had achieved an abstract <i>chef d’œuvre</i> +of boredom, a kind of astronomical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> temple, open only to the few rare +initiated. Edouard at once protested that, for his part, he thought the +temple admirable, and considered it the apex and crowning point of all +Bach’s career.</p> + +<p>“After which,” added Laura, “people were cured of the fugue for a long +time to come. Human emotion, when it could no longer inhabit it, sought +a dwelling place elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>The discussion tailed off in an unprofitable argument. Bernard, who +until then had kept silent, but who was beginning to fidget on his +chair, at last could bear it no longer; with extreme, even exaggerated +deference, as was his habit whenever he spoke to Edouard, but with a +kind of sprightliness, which seemed to make a jest of his deference:</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, sir,” said he, “for knowing the title of your book, since +I learnt it through my own indiscretion—which however you have been +kind enough to pass over. But the title seemed to me to announce a +story.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, tell us what the title is!” said Laura.</p> + +<p>“Certainly, my dear Laura, if you wish it.... But I warn you that I may +possibly change it. I am afraid it’s rather deceptive.... Well, tell it +them, Bernard.”</p> + +<p>“May I?... <i>The Counterfeiters</i>,” said Bernard. “But now +<i>you</i> tell us—who are these Counterfeiters?”</p> + +<p>“Oh dear! I don’t know,” said Edouard.</p> + +<p>Bernard and Laura looked at each other and then looked at Sophroniska. +There was a long sigh; I think it was drawn by Laura.</p> + +<p>In reality, Edouard had in the first place been thinking of +certain of his fellow novelists when he began to think of <i>The +Counterfeiters</i>, and in particular of the Comte de Passavant. But +this attribution had been considerably widened; according as the +wind blew from Rome or from elsewhere, his heroes became in turn +either priests or free-masons. If he allowed his mind to follow its +bent, it soon tumbled headlong into abstractions, where it was as +comfortable as a fish in water. Ideas of exchange, of depreciation, +of inflation, etc., gradually invaded his book (like the theory of +clothes in Carlyle’s <i>Sartor Resartus</i>)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> and usurped the place +of the characters. As it was impossible for Edouard to speak of this, +he kept silent in the most awkward manner, and his silence, which +seemed like an admission of penury, began to make the other three very +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>“Has it ever happened to you to hold a counterfeit coin in your hands?” +he asked at last.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Bernard; but the two women’s “No” drowned his voice.</p> + +<p>“Well, imagine a false ten-franc gold piece. In reality it’s not worth +two sous. But it will be worth ten francs as long as no one recognizes +it to be false. So if I start from the idea that....”</p> + +<p>“But why start from an idea?” interrupted Bernard impatiently. “If you +were to start from a fact and make a good exposition of it, the idea +would come of its own accord to inhabit it. If I were writing <i>The +Counterfeiters</i> I should begin by showing the counterfeit coin—the +little ten-franc piece you were speaking of just now.”</p> + +<p>So saying, he pulled out of his pocket a small coin, which he flung on +to the table.</p> + +<p>“Just hear how true it rings. Almost the same sound as the real one. +One would swear it was gold. I was taken in by it this morning, just as +the grocer who passed it on to me had been taken in himself, he told +me. It isn’t quite the same weight, I think; but it has the brightness +and the sound of a real piece; it is coated with gold, so that, all the +same, it is worth a little more than two sous; but it’s made of glass. +It’ll wear transparent. No; don’t rub it; you’ll spoil it. One can +almost see through it, as it is.”</p> + +<p>Edouard had seized it and was considering it with the utmost curiosity.</p> + +<p>“But where did the grocer get it from?”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t know. He thinks he has had it in his drawer some days. He +amused himself by passing it off on me to see whether I should be taken +in. Upon my word, I was just going to accept it! But as he’s an honest +man, he undeceived me; then he let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> me have it for five francs. He +wanted to keep it to show to what he calls ‘amateurs.’ I thought there +couldn’t be a better one than the author of <i>The Counterfeiters</i>; +and it was to show you that I took it. But now that you have examined +it, give it back to me! I’m sorry that the reality doesn’t interest +you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it does”; said Edouard, “but it disturbs me too.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a pity,” rejoined Bernard.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">EDOUARD’S JOURNAL</p> + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Tuesday evening.</i>—Sophroniska, Bernard and Laura have been +questioning me about my novel. Why did I let myself go to speak of it? +I said nothing but stupidities. Interrupted fortunately by the return +of the two children. They were red and out of breath, as if they had +been running. As soon as she came in, Bronja fell into her mother’s +arms; I thought she was going to burst into sobs.</p> + +<p>“Mamma!” she cried, “do scold Boris. He wanted to undress and lie down +in the snow without any clothes on.”</p> + +<p>Sophroniska looked at Boris, who was standing in the door-way, his head +down, his eyes with a look in them of almost hatred; she seemed not to +notice the little boy’s strange expression, but with admirable calm:</p> + +<p>“Listen, Boris,” she said. “That’s a thing you mustn’t do in the +evening. If you like we’ll go there to-morrow morning; first of all you +must begin with bare feet....”</p> + +<p>She was gently stroking her daughter’s forehead; but the little girl +suddenly fell on the ground and began rolling about in convulsions. It +was rather alarming. Sophroniska lifted her and laid her on the sofa. +Boris stood motionless, watching the scene with a dazed, bewildered +expression.</p> + +<p>Sophroniska’s methods of education seem to me excellent in theory, but +perhaps she miscalculates the children’s powers of resistance.</p> + +<p>“You behave,” said I, when I was alone with her a little later (after +the evening meal I had gone to enquire after Bronja,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> who was too +unwell to come downstairs), “as if good were always sure to triumph +over evil.”</p> + +<p>“It is true,” she said, “I firmly believe that good must triumph. I +have confidence.”</p> + +<p>“And yet, through excess of confidence you might make a mistake....”</p> + +<p>“Every time I have made a mistake, it has been because my confidence +was not great enough. To-day, when I allowed the children to go out, I +couldn’t help showing them I was a little uneasy. They felt it. All the +rest followed from that.”</p> + +<p>She had taken my hand.</p> + +<p>“You don’t seem to believe in the virtue of convictions.... I mean in +their power as an active principle.”</p> + +<p>“You are right,” I said laughing. “I am not a mystic.”</p> + +<p>“Well, as for me,” she cried in an admirable burst of enthusiasm, +“I believe with my whole soul that without mysticism nothing great, +nothing fine can be accomplished in this world.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Discovered the name of Victor Strouvilhou in the visitors’ book. From +what the hotel-keeper says, he must have left Saas-Fée two days before +our arrival, after staying here nearly a month. I should have been +curious to see him again. No doubt Sophroniska talked to him. I must +ask her about him.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> +The state records of each individual citizen, in which are +noted the legal facts of his existence.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV_b">IV<br> +BERNARD AND LAURA</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +“I WANTED to ask you, Laura,” said Bernard, “whether you think there +exists anything in this world that mayn’t become a subject of doubt.... +So much so, that I wonder whether one couldn’t take doubt itself as a +starting point; for that, at any rate, will never fail us. I may doubt +the reality of everything, but not the reality of my doubt. I should +like.... Forgive me if I express myself pedantically—I am not pedantic +by nature, but I have just left the <i>lycée</i>, and you have no idea +what a stamp is impressed on the mind by the philosophical training of +our last year; I will get rid of it I promise you.”</p> + +<p>“Why this parenthesis? You would like...?”</p> + +<p>“I should like to write a story of a person who starts by listening to +everyone, who consults everyone like Panurge, before deciding to do +anything; after having discovered that the opinions of all these people +are contradictory in every point, he makes up his mind to consult no +one but himself, and thereupon becomes a person of great capacity.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the idea of an old man,” said Laura.</p> + +<p>“I am more mature than you think. A few days ago I began to keep a +note-book, like Edouard; I write down an opinion on the right hand +page, whenever I can write the opposite opinion, facing it, on the left +hand page. For instance, the other evening Sophroniska told us that +she made Bronja and Boris sleep with their windows open. Everything +she said in support of this régime seemed to us perfectly reasonable +and convincing, didn’t it? Well, yesterday in the smoking-room, I +heard that German professor who has just arrived maintain the contrary +theory, which seemed to me, I must admit, more reasonable still and +better grounded. The important thing during sleep, said he, is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> to +restrict as much as possible all expenditure and the traffic of +exchanges in which life consists—carburation, he called it; it is only +then that sleep becomes really restorative. He gave as example the +birds who sleep with their heads under their wings, and the animals who +snuggle down when they go to sleep, so as to be hardly able to breathe +at all; in the same way, he said, the races that are nearest to nature, +the peasants who are least cultivated, stuff themselves up at night in +little closets; and Arabs, who are forced to sleep in the open, at any +rate cover their faces up with the hood of their burnous. But to return +to Sophroniska and the two children she is bringing up, I come round to +thinking she is not wrong after all, and that what is good for others +would be harmful for these two, because, if I understand rightly, they +have the germs of tubercle in them. In short, I said to myself.... But +I’m boring you.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind about that. You said to yourself...?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve forgotten.”</p> + +<p>“Now, now, that’s naughty. You mustn’t be ashamed of your thoughts.”</p> + +<p>“I said to myself that nothing is good for everyone, but only +relatively to some people; that nothing is true for everyone, but only +relatively to the person who believes it is; that there is no method +and no theory which can be applied indifferently to all alike; that +if, in order to act, we must make a choice, at any rate we are free +to choose; and that if we aren’t free to choose, the thing is simpler +still; the belief that becomes truth for me (not absolutely, no doubt, +but relatively to me) is that which allows me the best use of my +strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action. For I can’t +prevent myself from doubting, and at the same time I loathe indecision. +The soft and comfortable pillow Montaigne talks of, is not for my +head, for I’m not sleepy yet and I don’t want to rest. It’s a long way +that leads from what I thought I was to what perhaps I really am. I am +afraid sometimes that I got up too early in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“Afraid?”</p> + +<p>“No; I’m afraid of nothing. But, d’you know, I have already changed a +great deal; that is, my mind’s landscape is not at all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> what it was the +day I left home; since then I have met you. As soon as I did that I +stopped putting my freedom first. Perhaps you haven’t realized that I +am at your service.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you know quite well. Why do you want to make me say it? Do you +expect a declaration?... No, no; please don’t cloud your smile, or I +shall catch cold.”</p> + +<p>“Come now, my dear boy, you are not going to pretend that you are +beginning to love me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not beginning,” said Bernard. “It’s you who are beginning to +feel it, perhaps; but you can’t prevent me.”</p> + +<p>“It was so delightful for me not to have to be on my guard with you. +And now, if I’ve got to treat you like inflammable matter and not dare +go near you without taking precautions.... But think of the deformed, +swollen creature I shall soon be. The mere look of me will be enough to +cure you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if it were only your looks that I loved. And then, in the first +place, I’m not ill; or if it is being ill to love you, I prefer not to +be cured.”</p> + +<p>He said all this gravely, almost sadly; he looked at her more tenderly +than ever Edouard had done, or Douviers, but so respectfully that she +could not take umbrage. She was holding an English book they had been +reading, on her lap, and was turning over its pages absently; she +seemed not to be listening, so that Bernard went on without too much +embarrassment:</p> + +<p>“I used to imagine love as something volcanic—at all events the love +I was destined to feel. Yes; I really thought I should only be able to +love in a savage, devastating way, à la Byron. How ill I knew myself! +It was you, Laura, who taught me to know myself; so different from +what I thought I was! I was playing the part of a dreadful person +and making desperate efforts to resemble him. When I think of the +letter I wrote my supposed father before I left home, I feel very +much ashamed, I assure you. I took myself for a rebel, an outlaw, who +tramples underfoot everything that opposes his desire; and now here I +find that when I am with you I have no desires. I longed for liberty +as the supreme good, and no sooner was I free, than I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> bowed myself to +your.... Oh, if you only knew how maddening it is to have in one’s head +quantities of phrases from great authors, which come irresistibly to +one’s lips when one wants to express a sincere feeling. This feeling of +mine is so new to me that I haven’t yet been able to invent a language +for it. Let’s say it isn’t love, since you dislike that word; let’s +call it devotion. It’s as though this liberty which seemed to me so +infinite, had had limits set to it by your laws. It’s as though all +the turbulent and unformed things that were stirring within me, were +dancing an harmonious round, with you for their centre. If one of my +thoughts happens to stray from you, I leave it.... Laura, I don’t ask +you to love me—I’m nothing but a schoolboy; I’m not worth your notice; +but everything I want to do now is in order to deserve your ... (oh! +the word is frightful!) ... your esteem....”</p> + +<p>He had gone down on his knees before her, and though she had at first +drawn her chair away a little, Bernard’s forehead was on her dress, and +his arms thrown back behind him, in sign of adoration; but when he felt +Laura’s hand laid upon his forehead, he seized the hand and pressed his +lips to it.</p> + +<p>“What a child you are, Bernard! I am not free, either,” she said, +taking away her hand. “Here! Read this.”</p> + +<p>She took from her bodice a crumpled piece of paper, which she held out +to Bernard.</p> + +<p>Bernard saw the signature first of all. As he feared, it was Felix +Douviers’. One moment he kept the letter in his hand without reading +it; he raised his eyes to look at Laura. She was crying. Then Bernard +felt one more bond burst in his heart—one of the secret ties which +bind each one of us to himself, to his selfish past. Then he read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p> +<span class="allsmcap">MY BELOVED LAURA</span>,<br> +</p> + +<p>In the name of the little child who is to be born, and whom I swear +to love as if I were its father, I beseech you to come back. Don’t +think that any reproaches will meet you here. Don’t blame yourself too +much—that is what hurts me most. Don’t delay. My whole soul awaits +you, adores you, is laid humbly at your feet.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span></p> + +<p>Bernard was sitting on the floor in front of Laura, but it was without +looking at her that he asked:</p> + +<p>“When did you get this?”</p> + +<p>“This morning.”</p> + +<p>“I thought he knew nothing about it. Did you write and tell him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I told him everything.”</p> + +<p>“Does Edouard know this?”</p> + +<p>“He knows nothing about it.”</p> + +<p>Bernard remained silent a little while with downcast head; then turning +towards her once more:</p> + +<p>“And ... what do you mean to do now?”</p> + +<p>“Do you really ask?... Return to him. It is with him that my place +is—with him that I ought to live. You know it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Bernard.</p> + +<p>There was a very long silence. Bernard broke it:</p> + +<p>“Do you believe one can love someone else’s child as much as one’s own, +really?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know if I believe it, but I hope it.”</p> + +<p>“For my part, I believe one can. And, on the contrary, I don’t believe +in what people call so foolishly ‘the blood speaking.’ I believe this +idea that the blood speaks is a mere myth. I have read somewhere that +among certain tribes of South Sea Islanders, it is the custom to adopt +other people’s children, and that these adopted children are often +preferred to the others. The book said—I remember it quite well—‘made +more of.’ Do you know what I think now?... I think that my supposed +father, who stood in my father’s place, never said or did anything that +could let it be suspected that I was not his real son; that in writing +to him as I did, that I had always felt the difference, I was lying; +that, on the contrary, he showed a kind of predilection for me, which +I felt perfectly, so that my ingratitude towards him was all the more +abominable; and that I behaved very ill to him. Laura, my friend, I +should like to ask you.... Do you think I ought to beg his pardon and +go back to him?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Laura.</p> + +<p>“Why not? Since you are going back to Douviers?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> + +<p>“You were telling me just now, that what was true for one is not true +for another. I feel I am weak; you are strong. Monsieur Profitendieu +may love you; but from what you have told me, you are not of the kind +to understand each other.... Or, at any rate, wait a little. Don’t go +back to him worsted. Do you want to know what I really think?—that it +is for me and not for him that you are proposing it—to get what you +called ‘my esteem.’ You will only get it, Bernard, if I feel you are +not seeking for it. I can only care for you as you are naturally. Leave +repentance to me. It is not for you, Bernard.”</p> + +<p>“I almost get to like my name when I hear it on your lips. Do you +know what my chief horror was at home? The luxury. So much comfort, +so many facilities.... I felt myself becoming an anarchist. Now, on +the contrary, I think I’m veering toward conservatism. I realized that +the other day because of the indignation that seized me when I heard +the tourist at the frontier speak of his pleasure in cheating the +customs. ‘Robbing the State is robbing no one,’ he said. My feeling of +antagonism made me suddenly understand what the State was. And I began +to have an affection for it, simply because it was being injured. I had +never thought about it before. ‘The State is nothing but a convention,’ +he said, too. What a fine thing a convention would be that rested on +the bona fides of every individual! ... if only there were nothing +but honest folk. Why, if anyone were to ask me to-day what virtue I +considered the finest, I should answer without hesitation—honesty. Oh, +Laura! I should like all my life long, at the very smallest shock, to +ring true, with a pure, authentic sound. Nearly all the people I have +known ring false. To be worth exactly what one seems to be worth—not +to try to seem to be worth more.... One wants to deceive people, and +one is so much occupied with seeming, that one ends by not knowing what +one really is.... Forgive me for talking like this. They are my last +night’s reflections.”</p> + +<p>“You were thinking of the little coin you showed us yesterday. When I +go away....”</p> + +<p>She could not finish her sentence; the tears rose to her eyes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> and in +the effort she made to keep them back, Bernard saw her lips tremble.</p> + +<p>“Then you are going away, Laura ...” he went on sadly. “I am afraid +that when I no longer feel you near me, I shall be worth nothing at +all—or hardly anything.... But, tell me—I should like to ask you +... would you be going away—would you have made this confession, if +Edouard ... I don’t know how to say it ...” (and as Laura blushed), “if +Edouard had been worth more? Oh, don’t protest. I know so well what you +think of him.”</p> + +<p>“You say that, because yesterday you caught me smiling at what he said; +you immediately jumped to the conclusion that we were judging him in +the same way. But it’s not so. Don’t deceive yourself. In reality I +don’t know what I think of him. He is never the same for long together. +He is attached to nothing, but nothing is more attractive than his +elusiveness. He is perpetually forming, unforming, re-forming himself. +One thinks one has grasped him.... Proteus! He takes the shape of what +he loves, and oneself must love him to understand him.”</p> + +<p>“You love him. Oh, Laura! it’s not of Douviers I feel jealous, nor of +Vincent; it’s of Edouard.”</p> + +<p>“Why jealous? I love Douviers; I love Edouard, but differently. If I am +to love you, it must be with yet another love.”</p> + +<p>“Laura, Laura, you don’t love Douviers. You feel affection for him, +pity, esteem; but that’s not love. I think the secret of your sadness +(for you are sad, Laura) is that life has divided you; love has only +consented to take you, incomplete; you distribute among several what +you would have liked to give to one only. As for me, I feel I am +indivisible; I can only give the whole of myself.”</p> + +<p>“You are too young to speak so. You cannot tell yet whether life will +not ‘divide’ you too, as you call it. I can only accept from you the +... devotion which you offer me. The rest will have its exigencies and +will have to be satisfied elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Can it be true? Do you want to disgust me beforehand with myself and +with life, too?”</p> + +<p>“You know nothing of life. Everything is before you. Do you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> know +what my mistake was? To think there was nothing more for me. It was +when I thought, alas! that there was nothing more for me, that I let +myself go. I lived that last spring at Pau as if I were never to see +another—as if nothing mattered any more. I can tell you now, Bernard, +now that I’ve been punished for it—Never despair of life!”</p> + +<p>Of what use is it to speak so to a young creature full of fire? And +indeed Laura was hardly speaking to Bernard. Touched by his sympathy, +and almost in spite of herself, she was thinking aloud in his presence. +She was unapt at feigning, unapt at self-control. As she had yielded a +moment ago to the impulsive feeling which carried her away whenever she +thought of Edouard, and which betrayed her love for him, so now she had +given way to a certain tendency to sermonize, which she had no doubt +inherited from her father. But Bernard had a horror of recommendations +and advice, even if they should come from Laura; his smile told her as +much and she went on more calmly:</p> + +<p>“Are you thinking of keeping on as Edouard’s secretary when you go back +to Paris?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if he is willing to employ me; but he gives me nothing to do. +Do you know what would amuse me? To write that book of his with him; +for he’ll never write it alone; you told him so yesterday. That method +of working he described to us seemed to me absurd. A good novel gets +itself written more naïvely than that. And first of all, one must +believe in one’s own story—don’t you think so—and tell it quite +simply? I thought at one time I might help him. If he had wanted a +detective, I might perhaps have done the job. He could have worked on +the facts that my police work would have furnished him.... But with +an idea-monger there’s nothing doing. When I’m with him, I feel that +I have the soul of a reporter. If he sticks to his mistaken ways, I +shall work on my own account. I must earn my living. I shall offer my +services to a newspaper. Between times I shall write verses.”</p> + +<p>“For when you are with reporters, you’ll certainly feel yourself the +soul of a poet.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh! don’t laugh at me. I know I’m ridiculous. Don’t rub it in too +much.”</p> + +<p>“Stay with Edouard; you’ll help him; and let him help you. He is very +good.”</p> + +<p>The luncheon bell rang. Bernard rose. Laura took his hand:</p> + +<p>“Just one thing—that little coin you showed us yesterday ... in +remembrance of you, when I go away”—she pulled herself together and +this time was able to finish her sentence—“would you give it me?”</p> + +<p>“Here it is,” said Bernard, “take it.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V_b">V<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: CONVERSATION WITH SOPHRONISKA</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>C’est ce qui arrive de presque toutes les maladies de l’esprit +humain qu’on se flatte d’avoir guéries. On les répercute seulement, +comme on dit en médecine, et on leur en substitue d’autres.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">SAINTE-BEUVE</span> (<i>Lundis</i>, I, p. 19) +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +I AM beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying +subject” of my book. It is—it will be—no doubt, the rivalry between +the real world and the representation of it which we make to ourselves. +The manner in which the world of appearances imposes itself upon us, +and the manner in which we try to impose on the outside world our own +interpretation—this is the drama of our lives. The resistance of +facts invites us to transport our ideal construction into the realm of +dreams, of hope, of belief in a future life, which is fed by all the +disappointments and disillusions of our present one. Realists start +from facts—fit their ideas to suit the facts. Bernard is a realist. I +am afraid we shall never understand each other.</p> + +<p>How could I agree when Sophroniska told me I had nothing of the mystic +in me? I am quite ready to recognize, as she does, that without +mysticism man can achieve nothing great. But is it not precisely my +mysticism which Laura incriminates when I speak of my book?... Well, +let them settle the argument as they please.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Sophroniska has been speaking to me again about Boris, from whom she +thinks she has succeeded in obtaining a full confession. The poor child +has not got the smallest covert, the smallest tuft left in him, where +he can take shelter from the doctor’s scrutiny. He has been driven into +the open. Sophroniska takes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> to bits the innermost wheels of his mental +organism and spreads them out in the broad daylight, like a watchmaker +cleaning the works of a clock. If after that he does not keep good +time, it’s a hopeless job. This is what Sophroniska told me:</p> + +<p>When Boris was about nine years old, he was sent to school at Warsaw. +He there made friends with a schoolfellow one or two years older +than himself—one Baptistin Kraft, who initiated him into certain +clandestine practices, which the children in their ignorance and +astonishment believed to be “magic.” This is the name they bestowed +upon their vice, from having heard or read that magic enables one in +some mysterious way to gain possession of what one wishes for, that +it gives unlimited powers and so forth.... They believed in all good +faith that they had discovered a secret which made up for real absence +by illusory presence, and they freely put themselves in a state of +hallucination and ecstasy, gloating over an empty void, which their +heated imagination, stimulated by their desire for pleasure, filled +to overflowing with marvels. Needless to say, Sophroniska did not +make use of these terms; I should have liked her to repeat exactly +what Boris said, but she declares she only succeeded in making out +the above—though she certified its accuracy—through a tangle of +pretences, reticence and vagueness.</p> + +<p>“I have at last found out the explanation of something I have been +trying to discover for a long time past,” she added, “—of a bit of +parchment which Boris used always to wear hanging round his neck in a +little sachet, along with the religious medallions his mother forces +him to wear. There were six words on it, written in capital letters in +a childish, painstaking hand—six words whose meaning he never would +tell me.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="nindc"> +“GAS. TELEPHONE ... ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ROUBLES</p> +</div> + +<p>“‘But it means nothing—it’s magic,’ he used always to answer whenever +I pressed him. That was all I could get out of him. I know now that +these enigmatic words are in young Baptistin’s handwriting—the grand +master and professor of magic—and that these six words were the boys’ +formula of incantation—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> ‘Open Sesame’ of the shameful Paradise, +into which their pleasure plunged them. Boris called this bit of +parchment, his <i>talisman</i>. I had great difficulty in persuading +him to let me see it and still greater in persuading him to give it up +(it was at the beginning of our stay here); for I wanted him to give it +up, as I know now that he had already given up his bad habits. I had +hopes that the tics and manias from which he suffers would disappear +with the <i>talisman</i>. But he clung to it and his illness clung to +it as to a last refuge.”</p> + +<p>“But you said he had already given up his bad habits....”</p> + +<p>“His nervous illness only began after that. It arose no doubt from the +constraint Boris was obliged to exercise in order to get free from +them. I have just learnt from him that his mother caught him one day in +the act of ‘doing magic,’ as he says. Why did she never tell me?... out +of false shame?...”</p> + +<p>“And no doubt because she knew he was cured.”</p> + +<p>“Absurd!... And that is why I have been in the dark so long. I told you +that I thought Boris was perfectly pure.”</p> + +<p>“You even told me that you were embarrassed by it.”</p> + +<p>“You see how right I was!... The mother ought to have warned me. Boris +would be cured already if I had known this from the beginning.”</p> + +<p>“You said these troubles only began later on....”</p> + +<p>“I said they arose as a protestation. His mother, I imagine, scolded, +begged, preached. Then his father died. Boris was convinced that this +was the punishment of these secret practices he had been told were so +wicked; he held himself responsible for his father’s death; he thought +himself criminal, damned. He took fright; and it was then that his +weakly organism, like a tracked animal, invented all these little +subterfuges, by means of which he works off his secret sense of guilt, +and which are so many avowals.”</p> + +<p>“If I understand you rightly, you think it would have been less +prejudicial to Boris if he had gone quietly on with his ‘magic’?”</p> + +<p>“I think he might have been cured without being frightened. The change +of life which was made necessary by his father’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> death would have +been enough, no doubt, to distract his attention, and when they left +Warsaw he would have been removed from his friend’s influence. No good +result is to be arrived at by terror. Once I knew the facts, I talked +the whole thing over with him, and made him ashamed of having preferred +the possession of imaginary goods to the real goods which are, I told +him, the reward of effort. Far from attempting to blacken his vice, I +represented it to him simply as one of the forms of laziness; and I +really believe it is—the most subtle—the most perfidious.”</p> + +<p>These words brought back to my mind some lines of La Rochefoucauld, +which I thought I should like to show her, and, though I might have +quoted them by heart, I went to fetch the little book of <i>Maxims</i>, +without which I never travel. I read her the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Of all the passions, the one about which we ourselves know least +is laziness, the fiercest and the most evil of them all, though its +violence goes unperceived and the havoc it causes lies hidden.... +The repose of laziness has a secret charm for the soul, suddenly +suspending its most ardent pursuits and most obstinate resolutions. +To give, in fine, some idea of this passion, it should be said that +laziness is like a state of beatitude, in which the soul is consoled +for all its losses, and which stands in lieu to it of all its +possessions.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> +</div> + +<p>“Do you mean to say,” said Sophroniska then, “that La Rochefoucauld was +hinting at what we have been speaking of, when he wrote that?”</p> + +<p>“Possibly; but I don’t think so. Our classical authors have a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> right to +all the interpretations they allow of. That is why they are so rich. +Their precision is all the more admirable in that it does not claim to +be exclusive.”</p> + +<p>I asked her to show me this wonderful <i>talisman</i> of Boris’s. She +told me it was no longer in her possession, as she had given it to a +person who was interested in Boris and who had asked her for it as a +souvenir. “A certain M. Strouvilhou, whom I met here some time before +your arrival.”</p> + +<p>I told Sophroniska then, that I had seen the name in the visitors’ +book, and that as I had formerly known a Strouvilhou, I was curious +to learn whether it was the same. From the description she gave of +him it was impossible to doubt it. But she could tell me nothing that +satisfied my curiosity. I merely learnt that he was very polite, very +attentive, that he seemed to her exceedingly intelligent, but a little +lazy, “if I dare still use the word,” she added, laughing. In my turn +I told her all I knew of Strouvilhou, and that led me to speak of the +boarding school where we had first met, of Laura’s parents (she too +had been confiding in her), and finally of old La Pérouse, of his +relationship with Boris, and of the promise I had made him to bring the +child back to Paris. As Sophroniska had previously said that it was not +desirable Boris should live with his mother, “Why don’t you send him to +Azaïs’s school?” I asked. In suggesting this, I was thinking especially +of his grandfather’s immense joy at having him so near, and staying +with friends where he could see him whenever he liked. Sophroniska said +she would think it over; extremely interested by everything I told her.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Sophroniska goes on repeating that little Boris is cured—a cure +which is supposed to corroborate her method; but I am afraid she is +anticipating a little. Of course I don’t want to set my opinion against +hers, and I admit that his tics, his way of contradicting himself, his +hesitations of speech have almost entirely disappeared; but, to my +mind, the malady has simply taken refuge in some deeper recess of his +being, as though to escape the doctor’s inquisitorial glance, and now +it is his soul<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> itself which is the seat of mischief. Just as onanism +was succeeded by nervous movements, so these movements have given place +to some strange undefinable, invisible state of terror. Sophroniska, +it is true, is uneasy at seeing Boris, following upon Bronja’s lead, +fling himself into a sort of puerile mysticism; she is too intelligent +not to understand that this new “beatitude” which Boris is now seeking, +is not very different after all from the one he at first provoked by +artifice, and that though it may be less wasteful, less ruinous to the +organism, it turns him aside quite as much from effort and realization. +But when I say this she replies that creatures like Boris and Bronja +cannot do without some idealistic food, and that if they were deprived +of it, they would succumb—Bronja to despair, and Boris to a vulgar +materialism; she thinks she has no right to destroy the children’s +confidence, and though she thinks their belief is untrue, she must +needs see in it a sublimation of low instincts, a higher postulation, +an incitement, a safeguard, a what-not.... Without herself believing in +the dogmas of the Church, she believes in the efficacy of faith. She +speaks with emotion of the two children’s piety, of how they read the +Apocalypse together, of their fervour, their talk with angels, their +white-robed souls. Like all women, she is full of contradictions. But +she was right—I am decidedly not a mystic ... any more than I am lazy. +I rely on the atmosphere of Azaïs’s school to turn Boris into a worker; +to cure him in a word of seeking after <i>imaginary goods</i>. That is +where his salvation lies. Sophroniska, I think, is coming round to the +idea of confiding him to my care; but she will no doubt accompany him +to Paris so as to be able to settle him into the school herself, and so +reassure his mother, whose consent she makes sure of obtaining.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> +<i>De toutes les passions, celle qui est la plus inconnue +à nous-mêmes, c’est la paresse; elle est la plus ardente et la plus +maligne de toutes, quoique sa violence soit insensible et que les +dommages qu’elle cause soient très-cachés.... Le repos de la paresse +est un charme secret de l’âme qui suspend soudainement les plus +ardentes poursuites et les plus opiniâtres résolutions. Pour donner +enfin la véritable idée de cette passion, il faut dire que la paresse +est comme une béatitude de l’âme, qui la console de toutes ses pertes +et qui lui tient lieu de tous ses biens.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.</span></p> + + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI_b">VI<br> +FROM OLIVIER TO BERNARD</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Il y a de certains défauts qui, bien mis en œuvre brillent plus que +la vertu même</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.</span></p> +</div> + + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="nind"> +<span class="allsmcap">DEAR OLD FELLOW</span>—</p> + +<p>I must first tell you that I have passed my <i>bachot</i> all right. +But that’s of no importance. A unique opportunity came in my way of +travelling for a bit. I was still hesitating; but after reading your +letter, I jumped at it. My mother made some objections at first; but +Vincent soon got over them. He has been nicer than I could have hoped. +I cannot believe that in the circumstances you allude to, he can have +behaved like a cad. At our age, we have an unfortunate tendency to +judge people severely and condemn them without appeal. Many actions +appear to us reprehensible—odious even—simply because we don’t enter +sufficiently into their motives. Vincent didn’t ... but this would +take too long and I have too many things to say to you.</p> + +<p>You must know that the writer of this letter is no less a person than +the editor-in-chief of the new review, <i>The Vanguard</i>. After some +reflection I agreed to take up this responsible position, as Comte +Robert de Passavant considered I should fill it worthily. It is he +who is financing the review, though he doesn’t care about its being +known just yet, and my name is to figure alone on the cover. We shall +come out in October; try to send me something for the first number; +I should be heart-broken if your name didn’t adorn the first list of +contents alongside of mine. Passavant would like the first number to +contain something rather shocking and spicy, for he thinks the most +appalling thing that can be said against a new review is that it is +mealy-mouthed. I’m inclined to agree with him. We discuss it a great +deal. He has asked me to write the thing in question<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> and has provided +me with a rather risky subject for a short story; it worries me a +little because of my mother, who may be hurt by it. But it can’t be +helped. As Passavant says, the younger one is, the less compromising +the scandal.</p> + +<p>I am writing this from Vizzavone. Vizzavone is a little place half +way up one of the highest mountains in Corsica, buried in a thick +forest. The hotel in which we are staying is some way off the village +and is used by tourists as a starting place for their excursions. We +have been here only a few days. We began by staying in an inn not far +from the beautiful bay of Porto, where we bathed every morning; it is +absolutely deserted and one can spend the whole day without a stitch +on one. It was marvellous; but the weather turned too hot and we had +to go up to the mountains.</p> + +<p>Passavant is a delightful companion; he isn’t at all stuck up about +his title; he likes me to call him Robert; and the name he has +invented for me is Olive—isn’t it charming? He does all he can +to make me forget his age and I assure you he does. My mother was +rather alarmed at the idea of my going away with him, for she hardly +knows him at all. I hesitated at first for fear of distressing her. +Before your letter came I had almost given it up. Vincent persuaded +her, however, and your letter suddenly gave me courage. We spent the +last days before starting in doing a round of shops. Passavant is so +generous that he is always wanting to give me things and I had to stop +him all the time. But he thought my wretched rags frightful; shirts, +ties, socks—nothing I had pleased him; he kept repeating that if we +were to spend some time together, it would be too painful to him not +to see me properly dressed—that is to say, as he likes. Naturally +everything we bought was sent to his house, for fear of making my +mother uncomfortable. He himself is exquisitely elegant; but above all +his taste is very good, and a great many things which I used to think +quite bearable now seem odious to me. You can’t imagine how amusing he +was in the shops. He is really very witty. I should like to give you +an idea of it. One day, we were at Brentano’s, where he was having a +fountain pen mended. There was a huge Englishman just behind him who +wanted to be served before his turn, and as Robert pushed him away +rather roughly, he began to jabber something or other in his lingo; +Robert turned round very calmly and said:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p> + +<p>“It’s not a bit of use. I don’t understand English.”</p> + +<p>The Englishman was in a rage and answered back in the purest French:</p> + +<p>“Then you ought to.”</p> + +<p>To which Robert answered with a polite smile:</p> + +<p>“I told you it wasn’t a bit of use.”</p> + +<p>The Englishman was boiling over, but he hadn’t another word to say. It +was killing.</p> + +<p>Another day we were at the Olympia. During the <i>entr’acte</i> we +were in the promenade with a lot of prostitutes walking round. Two of +them—rather decayed looking creatures—accosted him:</p> + +<p>“Stand us a glass of beer, dearie?”</p> + +<p>We sat down at a table with them.</p> + +<p>“Waiter! A glass of beer for these ladies.”</p> + +<p>“And for you and the young gentleman, sir?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, for us? We’ll take champagne,” he said carelessly. He ordered a +bottle of Moët, and we blew it all to ourselves. You should have seen +the poor things’ faces!... I think he has a loathing for prostitutes. +He confided to me that he has never been inside a brothel, and gave me +to understand that he would be very angry with me if I ever went. So +you see he’s perfectly all right in spite of his airs and his cynical +talk—as, for instance, when he says he calls it a “dull day” if he +hasn’t met at least five people before lunch, with whom he wants to go +to bed. (I must tell you by the way, that I haven’t tried again ... +you know what.)</p> + +<p>He has a particularly odd and amusing way of moralizing. The other day +he said to me:</p> + +<p>“You see, my dear boy, the important thing in life is not to step on +to the downward path. One thing leads on to another and one never +can tell how it will end. For instance, I once knew a very worthy +young man who was engaged to marry my cook’s daughter. One night he +chanced to go into a small jeweller’s shop; he killed the owner; then +he robbed; after that he dissembled. You see where it leads. The last +time I saw him he had taken to lying. So do be careful.”</p> + +<p>“He’s like that the whole time. So there’s no chance of being bored. +We left with the idea of getting through a lot of work, but so +far we’ve done nothing but bathe, dry in the sun and talk. He has +extremely original ideas and opinions about everything.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span> I am trying +to persuade him all I can to write about some new theories he has +on deep-sea fishes and what he calls their “private lights,” which +enables them to do without the light of the sun—which he compares to +grace and revelation. Told baldly like that it doesn’t sound anything, +but I assure you that when he talks about it, it’s as interesting as +a novel. People don’t know that he’s extremely well up in natural +history; but he kind of prides himself on hiding his knowledge—what +he calls his secret jewels. He says it’s only snobs who like showing +off all their possessions—especially if they’re imitation.</p> + +<p>He knows admirably well how to make use of ideas, images, people, +things; that is, he gets something out of everything. He says the +great art of life is not so much to enjoy things as to make the most +of them.</p> + +<p>I have written a few verses, but I don’t care enough about them to +send them to you.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, old boy. Till October. You will find me changed, too. Every +day I get a little more self-confidence. I am glad to hear you are in +Switzerland, but you see that I have no cause to envy you.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">OLIVIER.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>Bernard held this letter out to Edouard, who read it without showing +any sign of the feelings that agitated him.</p> + +<p>Everything that Olivier said of Robert with such complacency filled +him with indignation and put the final touch to his detestation. What +hurt him more than anything was that Olivier had not even mentioned him +in his letter and seemed to have forgotten him. He tried in vain to +decipher three lines of postscript, which had been heavily inked over +and which had run as follows:</p> + +<p>“Tell Uncle E. that I think of him constantly; that I cannot forgive +him for having chucked me and that my heart has been mortally wounded.”</p> + +<p>These lines were the only sincere ones in a letter which had been +written for show and inspired by pique. Olivier had crossed them out.</p> + +<p>Edouard gave the horrible letter back to Bernard without breathing +a word; without breathing a word, Bernard took it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span> I have said +before that they didn’t speak to each other much—a kind of strange, +inexplicable constraint weighed upon them when they were alone +together. (I confess I don’t like the word “inexplicable” and use it +only because I am momentarily at a loss.) But that evening, when they +were alone in their room and getting ready to go to bed, Bernard, with +a great effort and the words sticking in his throat a little, asked:</p> + +<p>“I suppose Laura has shown you Douviers’ letter?”</p> + +<p>“I never doubted that Douviers would take it properly,” said Edouard, +getting into bed. “He’s an excellent fellow—a little weak, perhaps, +but still excellent. He’ll adore the child, I’m sure. And it’ll +certainly be more robust than if it were his own. For he doesn’t strike +me as being much of a Hercules.”</p> + +<p>Bernard was much too fond of Laura not to be shocked by Edouard’s cool +way of talking; but he did not let it be seen.</p> + +<p>“So!” went on Edouard, putting out his candle, “I am glad to see that +after all there is to be a satisfactory ending to this affair, which at +one time seemed as if it could only lead to despair. Anybody may make a +false start; the important thing is not to persist in....”</p> + +<p>“Evidently,” interrupted Bernard, who wanted to change the subject.</p> + +<p>“I must confess, Bernard, that I am afraid I have made one with you.”</p> + +<p>“A false start?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I’m afraid so. In spite of all the affection I have for you, I +have been thinking for the last few days that we aren’t the sort to +understand each other and that ...” (he hesitated a few seconds to +find his words) “... staying with me longer would set you on the wrong +track.”</p> + +<p>Bernard had been thinking the same till Edouard spoke; but Edouard +could certainly have said nothing more likely to bring Bernard back. +The instinct of contradiction carried the day and he protested.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know me yet, and I don’t know myself. You haven’t put me to +the test. If you have no complaint against me, mayn’t I ask you to wait +a little longer? I admit that we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> aren’t at all like each other: but my +idea was precisely that it was better for each of us that we shouldn’t +be too much alike. I think that if I can help you, it’ll be above all +by being different and by the new things I may be able to bring you. +If I am wrong, it will be always time enough to tell me so. I am not +the kind of person to complain or recriminate. See here—this is what +I propose—it may be idiotic.... Little Boris, I understand, is to go +to the Vedel-Azaïs school. Wasn’t Sophroniska telling you that she was +afraid he would feel a little lost there? Supposing I were to go there +myself, with a recommendation from Laura; couldn’t I get some kind of +place—under-master—usher—something or other? I have got to earn my +living. I shouldn’t ask much—just my board and lodging.... Sophroniska +seems to trust me and I get on very well with Boris. I would look after +him, help him, tutor him, be his friend and protector. But at the same +time I should remain at your disposition, work for you in the intervals +and be at hand at your smallest sign. Tell me what you say to that?”</p> + +<p>And as if to give “that” greater weight, he added:</p> + +<p>“I have been thinking of it for the last two days.”</p> + +<p>Which wasn’t true. If he hadn’t invented it on the spur of the moment, +he would have already spoken to Laura about it. But what was true, +and what he didn’t say, was that ever since his indiscreet reading +of Edouard’s journal, and since his meeting with Laura, his thoughts +often turned to the Vedels’ boarding school; he wanted to know Armand, +Olivier’s friend, of whom he never spoke; he wanted still more to know +Sarah, the younger sister; but his curiosity remained a secret one; out +of consideration for Laura, he did not even own it to himself.</p> + +<p>Edouard said nothing; and yet Bernard’s plan in so far as it provided +him with a domicile, pleased him. He didn’t at all care for the idea of +taking him in himself. Bernard blew out his candle, and then went on:</p> + +<p>“Don’t think that I didn’t understand what you said about your book and +about the conflict you imagine between brute reality and....”</p> + +<p>“I don’t imagine it,” said Edouard, “it exists.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span></p> + +<p>“But for that very reason, wouldn’t it be a good thing if I were to +beat in a few facts for you, so as to give you something to fight with? +I could do your observing for you.”</p> + +<p>Edouard had a suspicion that he was laughing at him a little. The truth +is he felt humiliated by Bernard. He expressed himself too well....</p> + +<p>“We’ll think it over,” said Edouard.</p> + +<p>A long time went by. Bernard tried in vain to sleep. Olivier’s letter +kept tormenting him. Finally, unable to hold out any longer, and +hearing Edouard tossing in his bed, he murmured:</p> + +<p>“If you aren’t asleep, I should like to ask you one thing more.... What +do you think of the Comte de Passavant?”</p> + +<p>“I should think you could pretty well imagine,” said Edouard. Then, +after a moment: “Are you?”</p> + +<p>“I?” said Bernard savagely, “... I could kill him.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII_b">VII<br> +THE AUTHOR REVIEWS HIS CHARACTERS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THE traveller, having reached the top of the hill, sits down and looks +about him before continuing his journey, which henceforward lies +all downhill. He seeks to distinguish in the darkness—for night is +falling—where the winding path he has chosen is leading him. So the +undiscerning author stops awhile to regain his breath, and wonders with +some anxiety where his tale will take him.</p> + +<p>I am afraid that Edouard, in confiding little Boris to Azaïs’s care, +is committing an imprudence. Every creature acts according to his own +law and Edouard’s leads him to constant experimentalizing. He has a +kind heart, no doubt, but for the sake of others I should prefer to +see him act out of self-interest; for the generosity which impels him +is often merely the accompaniment of a curiosity which is liable to +turn into cruelty. He knows Azaïs’s school; he knows the poisonous air +that reigns in it, under the stifling cover of morality and religion. +He knows Boris—how tender he is—how fragile. He ought to foresee the +rubs to which he is exposing him. But he refuses to consider anything +but the protection, the help, the support, which old Azaïs’s austerity +will afford the little boy’s precarious purity. To what sophisms does +he not lend an ear? They must be the promptings of the devil, for if +they came from anyone else, he would not listen to them.</p> + +<p>Edouard has irritated me more than once (when he speaks of Douviers, +for instance)—enraged me even; I hope I haven’t shown it too much; but +now I may be allowed to say so. His behaviour to Laura—at times so +generous—has at times seemed to me revolting.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span></p> + +<p>What I dislike about Edouard are the reasons he gives himself. Why does +he try and persuade himself that he is conspiring for Boris’s good? +Does the torrent which drowns a child pretend that it is giving him +drink?... I do not deny that there are actions in the world that are +noble, generous and even disinterested; I only say that there often +lies hidden behind the good motive a devil who is clever enough to find +his profit in the very thing one thought one was wresting from him.</p> + +<p>Let us make use of this summer season which disperses our characters +to examine them at leisure. And besides, we have reached that middle +point of our story, when its pace seems to slacken, in order to gather +a new impetus and rush on again with swifter speed to its end. Bernard +is assuredly much too young to take direction of an intrigue. He is +convinced he will be able to guard Boris; but the very utmost he will +be able to do is to observe him. We have already seen Bernard change; +passions may come which will modify him still more. I find in a +note-book a sentence or two in which I have written down what I thought +of him some time ago:</p> + +<p>“I ought to have been mistrustful of behaviour as excessive as +Bernard’s at the beginning of his story. It seems to me, to judge by +his subsequent state, that this behaviour exhausted all his reserves +of anarchy, which would no doubt have been kept replenished if he had +continued to vegetate, as is fitting, in the midst of his family’s +oppression. And from that time onwards his life was, so to speak, a +reaction and a protest against this original action. The habit he had +formed of rebellion and opposition incited him to rebel against his +very rebellion. Without a doubt not one of my heroes has disappointed +me more than he, for perhaps there was not one who had given me greater +hopes. Perhaps he gave way too early to his own bent.”</p> + +<p>But this does not seem very true to me any longer. I think we ought to +allow him a little more credit. There is a great deal of generosity +in him; virility too and strength; he is capable of indignation. He +enjoys hearing himself talk a little too much; but it’s a fact that he +talks well. I mistrust feelings that find their expression too quickly. +He is very good at his studies,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> but new feelings do not easily fill +forms that have been learnt by heart. A little invention would make him +stammer. He has already read too much, remembered too much, and learnt +a great deal more from books than from life.</p> + +<p>I cannot console myself for the turn of chance which made him take +Olivier’s place beside Edouard. Events fell out badly. It was Olivier +that Edouard loved. With what care he would have ripened him! With +what lover-like respect he would have guided, supported, raised him to +his own level! Passavant will ruin him to a certainty. Nothing could +be more pernicious for him than to be enveloped in so unscrupulous an +atmosphere. I had hoped that Olivier would have defended himself a +little better; but his is a tender nature and sensitive to flattery. +Everything goes to his head. Moreover I seem to gather from certain +accents in his letter to Bernard that he is a little vain. Sensuality, +pique, vanity—to what does not all this lay him open? When Edouard +finds him again, I very much fear it will be too late. But he is still +young and one has the right to hope.</p> + +<p>Passavant...? best not speak of him, I think. Nothing spreads more +ruin or receives more applause than men of his stamp—unless it be +women like Lady Griffith. At the beginning, I must confess, she rather +took me in. But I soon recognized my mistake. People like her are +cut out of a cloth which has no thickness. America exports a great +many of them, but is not the only country to breed them. Fortune, +intelligence, beauty—they seem to possess everything, except a soul. +Vincent, we may be sure, will soon find it out. No past weighs upon +them—no constraint; they have neither laws, nor masters, nor scruples; +by their freedom and spontaneity, they make the novelist’s despair; he +can get nothing from them but worthless reactions. I hope not to see +Lady Griffith again for a long time to come. I am sorry she has carried +off Vincent, who interested me more, but who becomes commonplace by +frequenting her. Rolling in her wake, he loses his angles. It’s a pity; +he had rather fine ones.</p> + +<p>If it ever happens to me to invent another story, I shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> allow only +well-tempered characters to inhabit it—characters that life, instead +of blunting, sharpens. Laura, Douviers, La Pérouse, Azaïs ... what is +to be done with such people as these? It was not I who sought them out; +while following Bernard and Olivier I found them in my path. So much +the worse for me; henceforth it is my duty to attend them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THIRD_PART">THIRD PART<br> +PARIS</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>When we are in possession of a few more local monographs—then, +and only then, by grouping their data, by minutely confronting and +comparing them, we shall be able to re-consider the subject as a whole, +and take a new and decisive step forward. To proceed otherwise, would +be merely to start, armed with two or three rough and simple ideas, +on a kind of rapid excursion. It would be, in most cases, to pass by +everything that is particular, individual, irregular—that is to say, +everything, on the whole, that is most interesting</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="allsmcap">LUCIEN FÈBVRE</span>: <i>La Terre et +L’Evolution Humaine</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I_c">I<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: OSCAR MOLINIER</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Son retour à Paris ne lui causa point de plaisir.</i></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">FLAUBERT</span>: <i>L’Education Sentimentale</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Sept. 22nd.</i>—Hot; bored. Have come back to Paris a week too +soon. My eagerness always makes me respond before I am summoned. +Curiosity rather than zeal; desire to anticipate. I have never been +able to come to terms with my thirst.</p> + +<p>Took Boris to see his grandfather. Sophroniska, who had been the day +before to prepare him, tells me that Madame de La Pérouse has gone into +the home. Heavens! What a relief!</p> + +<p>I left the little boy on the landing, after ringing the bell, thinking +it would be more discreet not to be present at the first meeting; I was +afraid of the old fellow’s thanks. Questioned the boy later on, but +could get nothing out of him. Sophroniska, when I saw her later, told +me he had not said anything to her either. When she went to fetch him +after an hour’s interval, as had been arranged, a maid-servant opened +the door; she found the old gentleman sitting in front of a game of +draughts and the child sulking by himself in a corner at the other end +of the room.</p> + +<p>“It’s odd,” said La Pérouse, very much out of countenance, “he seemed +to be amused, but all of a sudden he got tired of it. I am afraid he is +a little wanting in patience.”</p> + +<p>It was a mistake to leave them alone together too long.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +<i>Sept. 27th.</i>—This morning met Molinier under the arcades +of the Odéon. Pauline and George are not coming back till the day +after to-morrow. If Molinier, who has been by himself in Paris since +yesterday, was as bored as I am, it’s no wonder that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> he seemed +enchanted to see me. We went and sat down in the Luxembourg, till it +should be time for lunch, and agreed to take it together.</p> + +<p>Molinier, when he is with me, affects a rather jocose—even, at times, +a kind of rakish tone—which he no doubt thinks the correct thing to +please an artist. A desire too to show that he is still full of beans.</p> + +<p>“At heart,” he declared, “I am a passionate man.” I understand that +what he really meant was that he was a libidinous one. I smiled, as +one would if one heard a woman declare she had very fine legs—a smile +which signifies “I never doubted it for a moment.” Until that day I had +only seen the magistrate; the man at last threw aside his toga.</p> + +<p>I waited till we were seated at table at Foyot’s before speaking to him +of Olivier; I told him that I had recently had news of him through one +of his schoolfellows, and that I had heard he was travelling in Corsica +with the Comte de Passavant.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he’s a friend of Vincent’s: he offered to take him with him. +As Olivier had just passed his <i>bachot</i> rather brilliantly, his +mother thought it would be hard to refuse him such a pleasure.... The +Comte de Passavant is a writer. I expect you know him.”</p> + +<p>I did not conceal that I had no great liking for either his books or +his person.</p> + +<p>“Amongst <i>confrères</i> one is sometimes apt to be a little severe in +one’s judgments,” he retorted. “I tried to read his last novel; certain +critics think very highly of it. I didn’t see much in it myself; but +it’s not my line, you know....” Then as I expressed my fear as to the +influence Passavant might have over Olivier:</p> + +<p>“In reality,” he added in his rather woolly way, “I personally didn’t +approve of this expedition. But it’s no good not realizing that when +they get to a certain age our children escape from our control. It’s +in the nature of things and there’s nothing to be done. Pauline would +like to go on hanging over them for ever. She’s like all mothers. +I sometimes say to her: ‘But you worry your sons to death. Leave +them alone. It’s you who put<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> things into their heads with all your +questions....’ For my part I consider it does no good to watch over +them too long. The important thing is that a few good principles should +be inculcated into them during their early education. The important +thing above all is that they should come of a good stock. Heredity, my +dear friend, heredity triumphs over everything. There are certain bad +lots whom nothing can improve—the predestined, we call them. Those +must have a tight hand kept over them. But when one has to do with +well-conditioned natures, one can let them go a bit easy.”</p> + +<p>“But you were telling me,” I insisted, “that you didn’t approve of +Olivier’s being carried off in this way.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! approve ... approve!” he said with his nose in his plate, “there’s +no need for my approval. There are many households, you know—and those +the most united—where it isn’t always the husband who settles things. +But you aren’t married; such things don’t interest you....”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said I, laughing, “but I’m a novelist.”</p> + +<p>“Then you have no doubt remarked that it isn’t always from weakness of +character that a man allows himself to be led by his wife.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I conceded by way of flattery, “there are strong and even +dominating men whom one discovers to be of a lamb-like docility in +their married life.”</p> + +<p>“And do you know why?” he went on. “Nine times out of ten, when the +husband submits to his wife, it is because he has something to be +forgiven him. A virtuous woman, my dear fellow, takes advantage of +everything. If the man stoops for a second, there she is sitting on his +shoulders. Oh! we poor husbands are sometimes greatly to be pitied. +When we are young, our one wish is to have chaste wives, without a +thought of how much their virtue is going to cost us.”</p> + +<p>I gazed at Molinier, sitting there with his elbows on the table and +his chin in his hands. The poor man little suspected how naturally his +backbone fell into the stooping attitude of which he complained; he +kept mopping his forehead, ate a great deal—not like a gourmet, but +like a glutton—and seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> particularly to appreciate the old Burgundy +which we had ordered. Happy to feel himself listened to, understood, +and, no doubt he thought, approved, he overflowed in confessions.</p> + +<p>“In my capacity as magistrate,” he continued, “I have known women who +only lent themselves to their husbands against the grain of their heart +and senses ... and who yet are indignant when the poor wretch who has +been repulsed, seeks his provender elsewhere.”</p> + +<p>The magistrate had begun his sentence in the past; the husband finished +it in the present, with an unmistakable allusion to himself. He added +sententiously between two mouthfuls:</p> + +<p>“Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn’t +share them.” He drank a long draught of wine, then: “And this explains, +my dear friend, how a husband loses the direction of his household.”</p> + +<p>I understood, indeed—it was clear under the apparent incoherence of +his talk—his desire to make the responsibility of his own shortcomings +fall upon his wife’s virtue. Creatures as disjointed as this puppet, +I said to myself, need every scrap of their egoism to bind together +the disconnected elements of which they are formed. A moment’s +self-forgetfulness, and they would fall to pieces. He was silent. I +felt I must pour a few reflections over him, as one pours oil on an +engine that has accomplished a bout of work; and to set him going again +I remarked:</p> + +<p>“Fortunately Pauline is intelligent.”</p> + +<p>He prolonged his “ye-e-s” till it turned into a query; then:</p> + +<p>“But still there are things she doesn’t understand. However intelligent +a woman may be, you know.... Still, I must admit that in the +circumstances I didn’t manage very cleverly. I began telling her about +a little affair of mine at a time when I thought—when I was absolutely +convinced—that it wouldn’t go any further. It did go further ... and +Pauline’s suspicions too. It was a mistake to put her on the ‘<i>qui +vive</i>,’ as people say. I have been obliged to hide things from +her—to tell lies.... That’s what comes of not holding one’s tongue +to begin with. It’s not my fault. I’m naturally confiding.... But +Pauline’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> jealousy is alarming. You can’t imagine how careful I have +had to be.”</p> + +<p>“Was it long ago?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s been going on for about five years now; and I flatter myself +I had completely reassured her. But now the whole thing has to begin +all over again. What do you think! When I got back home the day before +yesterday.... Suppose we order another bottle of Pommard, eh?”</p> + +<p>“Not for me, please.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I could have a half bottle. I’ll go home and take a little nap +after lunch. I feel this heat so.... Well, I was telling you that the +day before yesterday, when I got back, I went to my writing desk to put +some papers away. I pulled open the drawer where I had hidden ... the +person in question’s letters. Imagine my stupefaction, my dear fellow; +the drawer was empty! Deuce take it! I see exactly what has happened; +about a fortnight ago, Pauline came up to Paris with George, to go to +the wedding of the daughter of one of my colleagues. I wasn’t able to +attend it myself; I was away in Holland.... And besides, functions of +that kind are women’s business. Well, there she was, with nothing to +do, in an empty flat; under pretence of putting things straight ... you +know what women are like—always rather curious ... she began nosing +about ... oh! intending no ill—I’m not blaming her. But Pauline has +always had a perfect mania for tidying.... Well, what on earth am I to +say to her, now that she’s got all the proofs? If only the silly little +thing didn’t call me by my Christian name! Such a united couple! When I +think what I’m in for!...”</p> + +<p>The poor man stuck in the slough of his confidences. He dabbed his +forehead—fanned himself. I had drunk much less than he. The heart does +not furnish compassion at command; I merely felt disgust for him. I +could put up with him as the father of a family (though it was painful +to me to think that he was Olivier’s father), as a respectable, honest, +retired bourgeois; but as a man in love, I could only imagine him +ridiculous. I was especially made uncomfortable by the clumsiness and +triviality of his words, of his pantomime; neither his face nor his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +voice seemed suited to the feelings he expressed; it was like a double +bass trying to produce the effects of an alto; his instrument brought +out nothing but squeaks.</p> + +<p>“You said that she had George with her....”</p> + +<p>“Yes; she didn’t want to leave him at the sea-side alone. But naturally +in Paris he wasn’t in her pocket the whole time.... Why, my dear +fellow, in twenty-six years of married life I have never had the +smallest scene, the slightest altercation.... When I think of what’s in +store for me!... for Pauline’s coming back in two days.... Oh! I say, +let’s talk of something else. Well, what do you think of Vincent? The +Prince of Monaco—a cruise.... By Jove!... What! didn’t you know?... +Yes; he has gone out in charge of soundings and deep-sea fishing near +the Azores. Ah! there’s no need to be anxious about him, I assure you. +<i>He’ll</i> make his way all right, without help from anyone.”</p> + +<p>“His health?”</p> + +<p>“Completely restored. With his intelligence, I think he is on the high +road to becoming famous. The Comte de Passavant made no bones about +saying that he considered him one of the most remarkable men he ever +met. He even said ‘the <i>most</i> remarkable’ ... but one must make +allowances for exaggeration.”</p> + +<p>The meal was finished; he lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>“May I ask you,” he went on, “who the friend is who gave you news of +Olivier? I must tell you that I attach particular importance to the +company my children keep. I consider that it’s a thing it’s impossible +to pay too much attention to. My sons fortunately have a natural +tendency to make friends with only the best people. Vincent, you see, +with his prince; Olivier with the Comte de Passavant.... As for George, +he has been going about at Houlgate with one of his schoolfellows—a +young Adamanti—he’s to be at the Vedel-Azaïs school next term too; a +boy in whom one can have complete confidence; his father is senator +for Corsica. But just see how prudent one has to be! Olivier had a +friend who seemed to belong to an excellent family—a certain Bernard +Profitendieu. I must tell you that old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> Profitendieu is a colleague of +mine; a most distinguished man. I have particular esteem for him. But +... (between ourselves) ... it has just come to my knowledge that he is +not the father of the boy who bears his name! What do you say to that?”</p> + +<p>“Young Bernard Profitendieu is the very person who spoke to me about +Olivier,” I said.</p> + +<p>Molinier drew a few deep puffs from his cigar and raised his eyebrows +very high, so that his forehead was covered with wrinkles:</p> + +<p>“I had rather Olivier saw as little as possible of that young fellow. +I have heard the most deplorable things about him—not that I’m much +astonished at that. We must admit that there’s no grounds for expecting +any good from a boy who has been born in such unfortunate conditions. I +don’t mean to say that a natural child mayn’t have great qualities—and +even virtues; but the fruit of lawlessness and insubordination must +necessarily be tainted with the germs of anarchy. Yes, my dear friend, +what was bound to happen has happened. Young Bernard has suddenly left +the shelter of the family which he ought never to have entered. He has +gone “to live his life,” as Emile Augier says; live Heaven knows how +or where. Poor Profitendieu, when he told me about this extravagant +behaviour, seemed exceedingly upset about it. I made him understand +that he ought not to take it so much to heart. In reality the boy’s +departure puts everything to rights again.”</p> + +<p>I protested that I knew Bernard well enough to vouch for his being a +charming, well-behaved boy. (Needless to say I took good care not to +mention the affair of the suit-case.) But Molinier only went on all the +more vigorously.</p> + +<p>“So! So! I see I must tell you more.”</p> + +<p>Then, leaning forward and speaking in a whisper:</p> + +<p>“My colleague Profitendieu has recently had to investigate an +exceedingly shady and disagreeable affair, both on its own account +and because of the scandalous consequences it may entail. It’s a +preposterous story and one would be only too glad if one could +disbelieve it.... Imagine, my dear fellow, a regular concern of +organized prostitution, in fact of a ... no,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> I don’t want to use +bad words; let’s say a tea-shop, with this particularly scandalous +feature, that its habitués are mostly, almost exclusively, very young +schoolboys. I tell you it’s incredible. The children certainly don’t +realize the gravity of their acts, for they hardly attempt to conceal +themselves. It takes place when they come out of school. They take +tea, they talk, they amuse themselves with the ladies; and the play +is carried further in the rooms which adjoin the tea rooms. Of course +not everyone is allowed in. One has to be introduced, initiated. Who +stands the expense of these orgies? Who pays the rent? It wouldn’t +have been very difficult to find out; but the investigations had to +be conducted with extreme prudence, for fear of learning too much, of +being carried further than one meant, of being forced to prosecute and +compromise the respectable families whose children are suspected of +being the principal clients of the affair. I did what I could therefore +to moderate Profitendieu’s zeal. He charged into the business like a +bull, without suspecting that with the first stroke of his horns ... +(oh! I’m sorry; I didn’t say it on purpose; ha! ha! ha! how funny! It +came out quite unintentionally) ... he ran the risk of sticking his own +son. Fortunately the holidays broke everything up. The schoolboys were +scattered and I hope the whole business will peter out, be hushed up +after a warning or so and a few discreet penalties.”</p> + +<p>“Are you quite sure Bernard Profitendieu was mixed up in it?”</p> + +<p>“Not absolutely, but....”</p> + +<p>“What makes you think so?”</p> + +<p>“First, the fact that he is a natural child. You don’t suppose that a +boy of his age runs away from home without having touched the lowest +depths?... And then I have an idea that Profitendieu was seized with +some suspicions, for his zeal suddenly cooled down; more than that, +he seemed to be backing out, and the last time I asked him how the +affair was going on he seemed embarrassed: ‘I think, after all that +nothing will come of it,’ he said and hastily changed the subject. +Poor Profitendieu! I must say he doesn’t deserve it. He’s an honest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> +man, and what’s rarer perhaps, a good fellow. By the way, his daughter +has just married exceedingly well. I wasn’t able to go to the wedding +because I was in Holland, but Pauline and George came back on purpose. +Did I tell you that before? It’s time I went and had my nap.... What! +really? You want to pay it all? No, no! You mustn’t. Bachelors—old +friends—go shares.... No use? Well! well! Good-bye! Don’t forget that +Pauline is coming back in two days. Come and see us. And don’t call me +Molinier. Won’t you say Oscar?... I’ve been meaning to ask you for a +long time.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +This evening a note from Rachel, Laura’s sister:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I have something very serious to say to you. Could you, without +inconvenience, look in at the school to-morrow afternoon? It would be +doing me a great service.”</p> +</div> + +<p>If she had wanted to speak about Laura, she wouldn’t have waited so +long. This is the first time she has written to me.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II_c">II<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: AT THE VEDELS’</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Sept. 28th.</i>—I found Rachel standing at the door of the big +class-room on the ground floor. Two servants were washing the boards. +She herself had a servant’s apron on and was holding a duster in her +hand.</p> + +<p>“I knew I could count on you,” she said, holding out her hand with a +look on her face of tender, resigned sadness, and yet a look that was +smiling too, and more touching than beauty itself. “If you aren’t in +too great a hurry, the best thing would be for you first to go up and +pay grandfather a little visit, and then Mamma. If they heard you had +been here without seeing them, they would be hurt. But keep a little +time for me; I simply must speak to you. You will find me here; you +see, I am superintending the maids’ work.”</p> + +<p>Out of a kind of modesty, she never says “my work.” Rachel has effaced +herself all her life and nothing could be more discreet, more retiring +than her virtue. Abnegation is so natural to her, that not one of her +family is grateful to her for her perpetual self-sacrifice. She has the +most beautiful woman’s nature that I know.</p> + +<p>I went up to the second floor to see old Azaïs. He hardly ever leaves +his arm-chair nowadays. He made me sit down beside him and began +talking about La Pérouse almost at once.</p> + +<p>“It makes me feel anxious to know that he is living all alone, and I +should like to persuade him to come and stay here. We are old friends, +you know. I went to see him the other day. I am afraid he has been very +much affected by his dear wife’s leaving him to go to Sainte Périne. +His maid told me he hardly eats anything. I consider that as a rule +we eat too much; but there should be moderation in all things and we +should avoid excess<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> in both directions. He thinks it useless to have +things cooked only for him; but if he took his meals with us, seeing +others eat would encourage him to do the same. Moreover, he would be +with his charming little grandson, whom he would otherwise see very +little of; for Rue Vavin is quite a long journey away from the Faubourg +St. Honoré. And moreover, I shouldn’t much care to let the child go +out by himself in Paris. I have known Anatole de La Pérouse for a long +time. He was always eccentric. I don’t mean it as a reproach, but he is +a little proud by nature, and perhaps he wouldn’t accept my hospitality +without wishing to make some return. So I thought I might propose that +he should take school preparation; it wouldn’t be tiring, and moreover +it would have the advantage of distracting him, of taking him out of +himself a little. He is a good mathematician, and if necessary he might +give algebra and geometry lessons. Now that he has no pupils left, his +furniture and his piano are of no use to him; he ought to give notice; +and as coming here would save his rent, I thought we might agree on a +little sum for his board and lodging, to put him more at his ease, so +that he shouldn’t feel himself too much under an obligation to me. You +ought to try and persuade him—and without much delay, for with his +poor style of living, I am afraid he may soon become too enfeebled. +Moreover, the boys are coming back in two days; so it would be a good +thing to know how the matter stands and whether we may count on him—as +he may count on us.”</p> + +<p>I promised to speak to La Pérouse the following day. As if relieved, he +went on at once:</p> + +<p>“Oh! by the bye, what a good fellow your young protégé Bernard is! He +has kindly offered to make himself useful to us; he spoke of taking +preparation in the lower school; but I’m afraid he’s rather young +himself and perhaps he might not be able to keep order. I talked to him +for a long time and found him most attractive. He is the metal out of +which the best Christians are forged. It is assuredly to be regretted +that an unfortunate early education has turned aside his soul from the +true path. He confessed that he was without faith; but the tone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> in +which he said so filled me with hope. I replied that I trusted I should +find in him all the qualities that go to the making of a good little +Christian soldier, and that he ought to devote himself to the increase +of those talents which God had vouchsafed to grant him. We read the +parable together and I think the seed has not fallen on bad ground. He +seemed moved by my words and promised to reflect on them.”</p> + +<p>Bernard had already given me an account of this interview; I knew what +he thought of it, so that I felt the conversation becoming a little +painful. I had already got up to go, but old Azaïs, keeping the hand I +held out to him in both his, went on:</p> + +<p>“Oh! by the bye. I have seen our Laura. I know the dear child passed a +whole delightful month with you in the mountains; it seems to have done +her a great deal of good. I am happy to think she is with her husband +once more; he must have been beginning to suffer from her long absence. +It is regrettable that his work would not allow of his joining you.”</p> + +<p>I was pulling away my hand to leave, more and more embarrassed, for I +didn’t know what Laura might have said, but with a sudden commanding +gesture he drew me towards him, and bending forward, whispered in my +ear:</p> + +<p>“Laura confided her hopes to me; but hush!... She prefers it not to +be known yet. I mention it to you because I know that you are in the +secret and because we are both discreet. The poor child was quite +abashed when she told me and blushed deeply; she is so reserved. As +she had gone down on her knees before me, we thanked God together for +having, in His goodness, blessed their union.”</p> + +<p>I think that Laura might have put off this confidence, which her +condition doesn’t as yet necessitate. Had she consulted me, I should +have told her to wait until she had seen Douviers before saying +anything. Azaïs can’t see an inch in front of his nose, but the rest of +the family will not be taken in so easily.</p> + +<p>The old fellow went on to execute a few further variations on diverse +pastoral themes; then he told me his daughter would be happy to see me +and I went downstairs to the Vedels’ floor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span></p> + +<p>Just re-read the above. In speaking so of Azaïs, it is myself that I +render odious. I am fully aware of it, and add these few lines for +Bernard’s sake, in case his charming indiscretion leads him to poke +his nose again into this note-book. He has only to go on frequenting +him a little longer in order to understand what I mean. I like the old +fellow very much, and “moreover,” as he says, I respect him; but when I +am with him I have the greatest difficulty in containing myself; this +doesn’t tend to make me enjoy his society.</p> + +<p>I like his daughter, the pastoress, very much. Madame Vedel is like +Lamartine’s Elvire—an elderly Elvire. Her conversation is not without +charm. She has a frequent habit of leaving her sentences unfinished, +which gives her reflections a kind of poetic vagueness. She reaches +the infinite by way of the indeterminate and the indefinite. She +expects from a future life all that is lacking to her in this one; this +enables her to enlarge her hopes boundlessly. The very narrowness of +her taking-off ground adds strength to her impetus. Seeing Vedel so +rarely enables her to imagine that she loves him. The worthy man is +incessantly on the go, in request on all sides, taken up by a hundred +and one different ploys—sermons, congresses, visits to the sick, +visits to the poor. He can only shake your hand in passing, but it is +with all the greater cordiality.</p> + +<p>“Too busy to talk to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind; we shall meet again in Heaven,” say I; but he hasn’t had +time to hear me.</p> + +<p>“Not a moment to himself,” sighs Madame Vedel. “If you only knew the +things he gets put on his shoulders now that.... As people know that he +never refuses anything, everyone.... When he comes home at night, he is +sometimes so tired that I hardly dare speak to him for fear of.... He +gives so much of himself to others that there’s nothing left for his +own family.”</p> + +<p>And while she was speaking I remembered some of Vedel’s home-comings +at the time I was staying at the pension. I sometimes saw him take his +head between his hands and pant aloud for a little respite. But even +then I used to think he feared a respite even more than he longed for +it, and that nothing more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> painful could have been accorded him than a +little time in which to reflect.</p> + +<p>“You’ll take a cup of tea, won’t you?” asked Madame Vedel, as a little +maid brought in a loaded tray.</p> + +<p>“There’s not enough sugar, Ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t I said that you must tell Miss Rachel about it? Quick!... Have +you let the young gentlemen know tea’s ready?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bernard and Mr. Boris have gone out.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! And Mr. Armand?... Make haste.”</p> + +<p>Then, without waiting for the maid to leave the room:</p> + +<p>“The poor girl has just arrived from Strasburg. She has no.... She has +to be told everything.... Well! What are you waiting for now?”</p> + +<p>The maid-servant turned round like a serpent whose tail has been +trodden on:</p> + +<p>“The tutor’s downstairs; he wanted to come up. He says he won’t go till +he’s been paid.”</p> + +<p>Madame Vedel’s features assumed an air of tragic boredom:</p> + +<p>“How many times must I repeat that I have nothing to do with settling +accounts. Tell him to go to Miss Rachel. Go along.... Not a moment’s +peace! What can Rachel be thinking of?”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t we going to wait tea for her?”</p> + +<p>“She never takes tea.... Oh! the beginning of term is a troublesome +time for us. The tutors who apply ask exorbitant fees, or when their +fees are possible, they themselves aren’t. Papa was not at all pleased +with the last; he was a great deal too weak with him; and now he comes +threatening. You heard what the maid said. All these people think of +nothing but money.... As if there were nothing more important than that +in the world.... In the mean time we don’t know how to replace him. +Prosper always thinks one has nothing to do but to pray to God for +everything to go right....”</p> + +<p>The maid came back with the sugar.</p> + +<p>“Have you told Mr. Armand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Ma’am; he’s coming directly.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span></p> + +<p>“And Sarah?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“She won’t be back for another two days. She’s staying with friends in +England; with the parents of the girl you saw here before the holidays. +They have been very kind, and I’m glad that Sarah was able to.... And +Laura. I thought she was looking much better. The stay in Switzerland +coming after the South has done her a great deal of good, and it was +very kind of you to persuade her to it. It’s only poor Armand who +hasn’t left Paris all the holidays.”</p> + +<p>“And Rachel?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course; Rachel too. She had a great many invitations, but she +preferred to stop in Paris. And then Grandfather needed her. Besides +one doesn’t always do what one wants in this life—as I am obliged to +repeat to the children now and then. One must think of other people. +Do you suppose I shouldn’t have enjoyed going away for a change to +Switzerland too? And Prosper? When he travels, do you suppose it’s for +his pleasure?... Armand, you know I don’t like you to come in here +without a collar on,” she added, as she saw her son enter the room.</p> + +<p>“My dear mother, you religiously taught me to attach no importance +to my personal appearance,” said he, offering me his hand; “and with +eminent <i>à propos</i> too, as the wash doesn’t come home till Tuesday +and all the rest of my collars are in rags.”</p> + +<p>I remembered what Olivier had told me about his schoolfellow, and it +seemed to me that he was right and that an expression of profound +anxiety lay hidden beneath the spiteful irony he affected. Armand’s +face had fined down; his nose was pinched; it curved hawk-like over +lips which had grown thin and colourless. He went on:</p> + +<p>“Have you informed your noble visitor that we have made several +additions to our usual company of performers and engaged a few +sensational stars for the opening of the winter season? The son of +a distinguished senator and the Vicomte de Passavant, brother to +the illustrious writer—without counting two recruits whom you know +already, but who are all the more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> honourable on that account—Prince +Boris and the Marquis de Profitendieu—besides some others whose titles +and virtues remain to be discovered.”</p> + +<p>“You see he hasn’t changed,” said the poor mother, smiling at these +witticisms.</p> + +<p>I was so terribly afraid that he would begin to talk about Laura that +I cut short my visit and went downstairs as fast as I could to find +Rachel.</p> + +<p>She had turned up her sleeves to help in the arrangement of the +class-room; but she hastily pulled them down again as she saw me come +up.</p> + +<p>“It is extremely painful to me to have recourse to you,” she began, +drawing me into a small room adjoining, which is used for private +lessons. “I meant to apply to Felix Douviers—he asked me to; but now +that I have seen Laura, I understand it’s impossible....”</p> + +<p>She was very pale, and as she said these last words, her chin and lips +quivered so convulsively that for some moments she was unable to speak. +I looked away from her, in the fear of adding to her discomfort. She +had shut the door and was leaning against it. I tried to take her hand, +but she tore it away from between mine. At last she went on again in a +voice that seemed strangled by the immensity of her effort:</p> + +<p>“Can you lend me ten thousand francs? The term promises to be fairly +good and I hope to be able to pay you back soon.”</p> + +<p>“When do you want it?”</p> + +<p>She made no answer.</p> + +<p>“I happen to have a little over a thousand francs on me,” I went on. “I +can complete the sum to-morrow morning—this evening, if necessary.”</p> + +<p>“No; to-morrow will do. But if you can let me have a thousand francs at +once without inconvenience....”</p> + +<p>I took out my pocket-book and handed them to her.</p> + +<p>“Would you like fourteen hundred?”</p> + +<p>She lowered her head and uttered a “yes” so faint that I could hardly +hear it, then she tottered to a school bench, dropped down on it, and +with her elbows leaning on the desk in front of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span> her, stayed for a few +moments, her face hidden in her hands. I thought she was crying, but +when I put my hand on her shoulder, she raised her head and I saw that +her eyes were dry.</p> + +<p>“Rachel,” I said, “don’t mind having had to ask me this; I am glad to +be able to oblige you.”</p> + +<p>She looked at me gravely:</p> + +<p>“What is painful to me is to have to ask you not to mention it either +to Grandfather or to Mamma. Since they gave the accounts of the school +over to me, I have let them think that ... well, they don’t know. Don’t +say anything, I beg you. Grandfather is old and Mamma takes so much +trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Rachel, it’s not your mother who takes trouble.... It’s you.”</p> + +<p>“She <i>has</i> taken trouble. She’s tired now. It’s my turn. I have +nothing else to do.”</p> + +<p>It was quite simply that she said these simple words. I felt no +bitterness in her resignation—on the contrary, a kind of serenity.</p> + +<p>“But don’t imagine that things are worse than they are. It’s just +a difficult moment to tide over, because some of the creditors are +getting impatient.”</p> + +<p>“I heard the maid just now mention a tutor who was asking to be paid.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; he came and had a very painful scene with Grandfather, which +unfortunately I was unable to prevent. He’s a brutal, vulgar man. I +must go and pay him.”</p> + +<p>“Would you like me to do it for you?”</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment, trying in vain to force a smile.</p> + +<p>“Thank you. No; I had better do it myself.... But come with me, will +you? I’m rather frightened of him. If he sees you, he won’t dare say +anything.”</p> + +<p>The school courtyard is separated from the garden by two or three steps +and a balustrade, against which the tutor was leaning with his elbows +thrust behind him. He had on an enormous soft felt hat and was smoking +a pipe. While Rachel was engaging him, Armand came up to me.</p> + +<p>“Rachel has been bleeding you,” he said cynically. “You<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> have come in +the nick of time to save her from a horrid anxiety. It’s Alexander—my +beast of a brother, who has been getting into debt again in the +colonies. She wants to hide it from my parents. She has already given +up half her ‘dot’ to make Laura’s a little larger; but this time all +the rest of it has gone. She didn’t tell you anything about that, I +bet. Her modesty exasperates me. It’s one of the most sinister jokes in +this world below that every time anyone sacrifices himself for others, +one may be perfectly certain he is worth more than they.... Just look +at all she has done for Laura! And how she has rewarded her! The +slut!...”</p> + +<p>“Armand!” I cried indignantly. “You have no right to judge your sister.”</p> + +<p>But he continued in a jerky, hissing voice:</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, it’s because I am no better than she that I am able +to judge her. I know all about it. Rachel doesn’t judge us. Rachel +never judges anyone.... Yes, the slut! the slut!... I didn’t beat +about the bush to tell her what I thought of her, I promise you. And +you! To have covered it all up, to have protected it! You who knew!... +Grandfather is as blind as a bat. Mamma tries all she can to understand +nothing. As for Papa, he trusts in the Lord; it’s the most convenient +thing to do. Whenever there’s a difficulty, he falls to praying and +leaves Rachel to get out of it. All he asks is to remain in the dark. +He rushes about like a lunatic; he’s hardly ever at home. I’m not +surprised he finds it stifling here. As for me, it’s smothering me to +death. He tries to stupefy himself, by Jove. In the mean time Mamma +writes verses. Oh! I’m not blaming her; I write them myself. But at any +rate, I know I’m nothing but a blackguard; and I’ve never pretended to +be anything else. But, I say, isn’t it disgusting—Grandfather setting +up to do the charitable by La Pérouse, because he’s in need of a +tutor?...” Then, suddenly: “What’s that beast there daring to say to my +sister? If he doesn’t take his hat off to her when he goes, I’ll black +his bloody eyes for him....”</p> + +<p>He darted towards the Bohemian, and I thought for a moment he was going +to hit him. But at Armand’s approach, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> man made a theatrical and +ironical flourish with his hat and disappeared under the archway. At +that moment the door into the street opened to let in the pastor. He +was dressed in a frock coat, chimney-pot hat and black gloves, like a +person on his way back from a christening or a wedding. The ex-tutor +and he exchanged a ceremonious bow.</p> + +<p>Rachel and Armand came towards me; when Vedel joined them:</p> + +<p>“It’s all arranged,” said Rachel to her father.</p> + +<p>He kissed her on the forehead.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t I tell you so, my child? God never abandons those who put their +trust in Him.”</p> + +<p>Then, holding out his hand to me:</p> + +<p>“Going already?... Well, we shall see you again one of these days, +shan’t we?”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III_c">III<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: THIRD VISIT TO LA PÉROUSE</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>Sept. 29th.</i>—Visit to La Pérouse. The maid hesitated before +letting me in. “Monsieur won’t see anyone.” I insisted so much that at +last she showed me into the drawing-room. The shutters were shut; in +the semi-obscurity I could hardly make out my old master, as he sat +huddled up in a straight-backed arm-chair. He did not rise. He held out +a limp hand, without looking at me, and let it fall again as soon as +I had pressed it. I sat down beside him, so that I could see him only +in profile. His features were hard and unbending. By moments his lips +moved, but he said nothing. I actually doubted whether he recognized +me. The clock struck four; then, as though he too were moved by +clock-work, he slowly turned his head.</p> + +<p>“Why,” he asked, and his voice was solemn and loud, but as toneless as +though it came from beyond the grave, “why did they let you in? I told +the maid to say if anyone came, that Monsieur de La Pérouse was dead.”</p> + +<p>I was greatly distressed, not so much by these absurd words, as by +their tone—a declamatory tone, unspeakably affected, to which I was +unaccustomed in my old master—so natural with me, as a rule—so +confiding.</p> + +<p>“The girl didn’t want to tell a falsehood,” I said at last. “Don’t +scold her for having let me in. I am happy to see you.”</p> + +<p>He repeated stolidly: “Monsieur de La Pérouse is dead,” and then +plunged back into silence. I had a moment’s ill temper and got up, +meaning to leave, and put off till another day the task of finding a +clue to this melancholy piece of acting. But at that moment the maid +came back; she was carrying a cup of smoking chocolate:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span></p> + +<p>“Make a little effort, sir; you haven’t tasted anything all day.”</p> + +<p>La Pérouse made an impatient gesture, like an actor whose effect has +been spoilt by a clumsy super.</p> + +<p>“Later. When the gentleman has gone.”</p> + +<p>But the maid had no sooner shut the door, when:</p> + +<p>“Be kind, my dear friend. Get me a glass of water—plain water. I’m +dying of thirst.”</p> + +<p>I found a water bottle and a glass in the dining-room. He filled the +glass, emptied it at a draught and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his +old alpaca coat.</p> + +<p>“Are you feverish?” I asked.</p> + +<p>The words brought him back to the remembrance of the part he was +playing.</p> + +<p>“Monsieur de La Pérouse is not feverish. He is not anything. On +Wednesday evening Monsieur de La Pérouse ceased to live.” I wondered +whether it would not be best to humour him.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t Wednesday the very day little Boris came to see you?”</p> + +<p>He turned his head towards me; a smile, the ghost of the one he used to +have at Boris’s name, lighted up his features, and at last consenting +to abandon his rôle:</p> + +<p>“My friend,” he said, “I can at any rate talk to you about it. That +Wednesday was the last day I had left.” Then he went on in a lower +voice: “The very last day, in fact, which I had allowed myself before +... putting an end to everything.”</p> + +<p>It was with extreme pain that I heard La Pérouse revert to this +sinister topic. I realized that I had never taken seriously what he had +said about it before, for I had allowed it to slip from my memory; and +now I reproached myself. Now I remembered everything clearly, but I was +astonished, for he had at first mentioned a more distant date, and as I +reminded him of this, he confessed, in a voice that had become natural +again, and even a little ironical, that he had deceived me as to the +date, in the fear that I should try and prevent him, or hasten my +return from abroad; but that he had gone on his knees<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> several nights +running to pray God to allow him to see Boris before dying.</p> + +<p>“And I had even agreed with Him,” added he, “that if needs were, I +should delay my departure for a few days ... because of the assurance +you had given me that you would bring him back with you, do you +remember?”</p> + +<p>I had taken his hand; it was icy and I chafed it between mine. He +continued in a monotonous voice:</p> + +<p>“Then when I saw that you weren’t going to wait till the end of the +holidays before coming back, and that I should be able to see the boy +without putting off my departure, I thought ... it seemed to me that +God had heard my prayer. I thought that He approved me. Yes, I thought +that. I didn’t understand at first that He was laughing at me, as +usual.”</p> + +<p>He took his hand from between mine and went on in a more animated voice:</p> + +<p>“So it was on Wednesday evening that I had resolved to put an end to +myself; and it was on Wednesday afternoon that you brought me Boris. +I must admit that I did not feel the joy I had looked forward to on +seeing him. I thought it over afterwards. Evidently I had no right to +expect that the child would be glad to see me. His mother has never +talked to him about me.</p> + +<p>He stopped; his lips trembled and I thought he was going to cry.</p> + +<p>“Boris asks no better than to love you,” I ventured, “but give him time +to know you.”</p> + +<p>“After the boy had left me,” went on La Pérouse, without having heard +me, “when I found myself alone again in the evening (for you know +that Madame de La Pérouse is no longer here), I said to myself: ‘The +moment has come! Now for it!’ You must know that my brother—the one I +lost—left me a pair of pistols, which I always keep beside me, in a +case, by my bedside. I went then to fetch the case. I sat down in an +arm-chair; there, just as I am now. I loaded one of the pistols....”</p> + +<p>He turned towards me and abruptly, brutally, repeated, as if I had +doubted his word:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, I did load it. You can see for yourself. It still is loaded. +What happened? I can’t succeed in understanding. I put the pistol to +my forehead. I held it for a long time against my temple. And I didn’t +fire. I couldn’t.... At the last moment—it’s shameful ... I hadn’t the +courage to fire.”</p> + +<p>He had grown animated while speaking. His eye was livelier and his +cheeks faintly flushed. He looked at me, nodding his head.</p> + +<p>“How do you explain that? A thing I had resolved on; a thing I hadn’t +ceased thinking of for months.... Perhaps that’s the very reason. +Perhaps I had exhausted all my courage in thought beforehand.”</p> + +<p>“As before Boris’s arrival, you had exhausted the joy of seeing him,” +said I; but he continued:</p> + +<p>“I stayed a long time with the pistol to my temple. My finger was +on the trigger. I pressed it a little; but not hard enough. I said +to myself: ‘In another moment I shall press harder and it will go +off.’ I felt the cold of the metal and I said to myself: ‘In another +moment I shall not feel anything. But before that I shall hear a +terrible noise.’... Just think! So near to one’s ear!... That’s the +chief thing that prevented me—the fear of the noise.... It’s absurd, +for as soon as one’s dead.... Yes, but I hope for death as a sleep; +and a detonation doesn’t send one to sleep—it wakes one up.... Yes; +certainly that was what I was afraid of. I was afraid that instead of +going to sleep I should suddenly wake up.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to be collecting himself, and for some moments his lips again +moved without making a sound.</p> + +<p>“I only said all that to myself,” he went on, “afterwards. In reality, +the reason I didn’t kill myself is that I wasn’t free. I say now that +I was afraid; but no; it wasn’t that. Something completely foreign to +my will held me back. As if God didn’t want to let me go. Imagine a +marionette who should want to leave the stage before the end of the +play.... Halt! You’re wanted for the <i>finale</i>. Ah! Ah! you thought +you would be able to go off whenever you liked!... I understood that +what we call our will is merely the threads which work the marionette,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> +and which God pulls. Don’t you see? Well, I’ll explain. For instance, +I say to myself: ‘Now I’m going to raise my right arm’; and I raise +it.” (And he did raise it.) “But it’s because the string had already +been pulled which made me think and say: ‘I’m going to raise my right +arm.’... And the proof that I’m not free is that if it had been my left +arm that I had had to raise, I should have said to you: ‘Now I’m going +to raise my left arm.’... No; I see you don’t understand.... You are +not free to understand.... Oh! I realize now that God is playing with +us. It amuses him to let us think that what he makes us do is what +we wanted to do. That’s his horrible game.... Do you think I’m going +mad? A propos—Madame de La Pérouse ... you know she has gone into a +home?... Well, what do you think? She is convinced that it’s a lunatic +asylum and that I have had her shut up to get rid of her—that I am +passing her off for mad.... You must grant that it’s rather a curious +thing that the first passer-by in the street would understand one +better than the woman one has given one’s life to.... At first I went +to see her every day. But as soon as she caught sight of me, she used +to call out: ‘Ah! there you are again! come to spy on me!...’ I had to +give up my visits, as they only irritated her. How can you expect one +to care about life, when one’s of no good to anyone?”</p> + +<p>His voice was stifled by sobs. He dropped his head and I thought he was +going to relapse again into his dejection. But with a sudden start:</p> + +<p>“Do you know what she did before she left? She broke open my drawer +and burnt all my late brother’s letters. She has always been jealous +of my brother; especially since he died. She used to make scenes when +she found me reading his letters at night. She used to cry out: ‘Ah! +you wanted me to go to bed! You do things on the sly!’ Or else: ‘You +had far better go to bed and sleep. You’re tiring your eyes.’ One would +have said she was full of attentions; but I know her; it was jealousy. +She didn’t want to leave me alone with him.”</p> + +<p>“Because she loved you. There’s no jealousy without love.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, you must allow it’s a melancholy business when love, instead of +making the happiness of life, becomes its calamity.... That’s no doubt +the way God loves us.”</p> + +<p>He had become excited while he was speaking and all of a sudden he +exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“I’m hungry. When I want to eat, that servant always brings me +chocolate. I suppose Madame de La Pérouse must have told her that I +never took anything else. It would be very kind of you to go to the +kitchen ... the second door on the right in the passage ... and see +whether there aren’t any eggs. I think she told me there were some....”</p> + +<p>“Would you like her to get you a poached egg?”</p> + +<p>“I think I could eat two. Will you be so kind? I can’t make myself +understood.”</p> + +<p>“My dear friend,” said I when I came back, “your eggs will be ready in +a moment. If you’ll allow me I’ll stay and see you eat them; yes; it +will be a pleasure. I was very much distressed just now to hear you say +that you were of no good to anyone. You seem to forget your grandson. +Your friend, Monsieur Azaïs, proposes that you should go and live with +him, at the school. He commissioned me to tell you so. He thinks that +now that Madame de La Pérouse is no longer here, there’s nothing to +keep you.”</p> + +<p>I expected some resistance, but he hardly enquired the conditions of +the new existence which was offered him.</p> + +<p>“Though I didn’t kill myself, I am none the less dead. Here or there, +it doesn’t matter to me. You can take me away.”</p> + +<p>It was settled I should come and fetch him the next day but one; and +that before then I should put at his disposal two trunks, for him to +pack his clothes in and anything else he might want to take with him.</p> + +<p>“And besides,” I added, “as you will keep this apartment on till the +expiration of your lease, you will always be able to come and fetch +anything you need.”</p> + +<p>The maid brought in the eggs, which he devoured hungrily. I ordered +dinner for him, greatly relieved to see that nature at last was getting +the upper hand.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span></p> + +<p>“I give you a great deal of trouble,” he kept repeating. “You are very +kind.”</p> + +<p>I should have liked him to hand over his pistols to me, and I told him +he had no use for them now; but he would not consent to part with them.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing to fear. What I didn’t do that day, I know I shall +never be able to do. But they are the only remembrances I have left of +my brother—and I need them too to remind me that I am nothing but a +plaything in God’s hands.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV_c">IV<br> +THE FIRST DAY OF THE TERM</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THE day was very hot. Through the open windows of the Vedels’ school +could be seen the tree-tops of the Gardens, over which there still +floated an immense, unexhausted store of summer.</p> + +<p>The first day of the term was an opportunity old Azaïs never missed of +making a speech. He stood at the foot of the master’s desk, upright and +facing the boys, as is proper. At the desk sat old La Pérouse. He had +risen as the boys came in; but Azaïs, with a friendly gesture, signed +to him to sit down again. His anxious eyes had gone straight to Boris, +and this look of his embarrassed Boris all the more because Azaïs, +in the speech in which he introduced the new master to his pupils, +thought fit to allude to his relationship to one of them. La Pérouse, +in the mean time was distressed at receiving no answering look from +Boris—indifference, he thought, coldness.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” thought Boris, “if only he would leave me alone! If only he +wouldn’t make me ‘an object’!” His schoolfellows terrified him. On +coming out of the <i>lycée</i>, he had had to join them, and as he +walked with them from the <i>lycée</i> to the Vedels’, he had listened +to their talk. He would have liked to fall in with it, for he had great +need of sympathy, but he was of too fastidious and sensitive a nature, +and he could not overcome his repugnance; the words froze on his lips; +he reproached himself for his foolishness and tried hard not to let +it show; tried hard even to laugh, so as not to be scoffed at; but it +was no good; he looked like a girl among the others, and realized it +sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>They had broken up into groups almost immediately. A certain Léon +Ghéridanisol was a central figure and was already beginning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> to +take the lead. Rather older than the others, and more advanced in +his studies, of a dark complexion, with black hair and black eyes, +Ghéridanisol was neither very tall nor particularly strong—but he had +what is called “<i>lip</i>.” Really infernal lip! Even young George +Molinier admitted that Ghéridanisol had “made him sit up”; “and you +know, it takes a good deal to make me sit up!” Hadn’t he seen him +that very morning, with his own eyes, go up to a young woman who was +carrying a child in her arms:</p> + +<p>“Is that kid yours, Madam?” (This with a low bow.) “It’s jolly ugly, I +must say. But don’t worry. It won’t live.”</p> + +<p>George was still rocking.</p> + +<p>“No? Honour bright?” said Philippe Adamanti, his friend, when George +told him the story.</p> + +<p>This piece of insolence filled them with rapture; impossible to imagine +anything funnier. A stale enough joke. Léon had learnt it from his +cousin Strouvilhou, but that was no business of George’s.</p> + +<p>At school, Molinier and Adamanti got leave to sit on the same bench as +Ghéridanisol—the fifth, so as not to be too near the usher. Molinier +had Adamanti on his left hand and Ghéridanisol (Ghéri for short) on his +right; at the end of the bench sat Boris. Behind him was Passavant.</p> + +<p>Gontran de Passavant’s life has been a sad one since his father’s +death—not that it had been very lively before it. He had long ago +understood that he could expect no sympathy from his brother, no +support. He had spent his holidays in Brittany, where his old nurse, +the faithful Séraphine, had taken him to stay with her people. All +his qualities are folded inwards; he devotes himself to his work. A +secret desire spurs him on to prove to his brother that he is worth +more than he. It is by his own choice that he is at school; out of a +wish too not to go on living with his brother in the big house in the +Rue de Babylone, which has nothing but melancholy recollections for +him. Séraphine has taken a lodging in Paris so as not to leave him +alone; she is able to do this with the little pension specially left +her by the late Count’s will and served her by his two sons. Gontran<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> +has one of her rooms, and it is here that he spends his free time. +He has furnished it to his own taste. He takes two meals a week with +Séraphine; she looks after him and sees that he wants for nothing. +When he is with her, Gontran chatters freely enough, though he can +speak to her of hardly any of the things he has most at heart. At +school he keeps his independence; he listens absent-mindedly to his +schoolfellows’ nonsense, and often refuses to join in their games. He +prefers reading to any but out-of-door games. He likes sports—all +kinds of sports—but preferably those that are solitary. For he is +proud and will not associate with everyone. On Sundays, according to +the season, he skates or swims, or boats, or takes immense walks in the +country. He has repugnances and does not try to overcome them; nor does +he try to widen his mind so much as to strengthen it. He is perhaps not +so simple as he thinks—as he tries to make himself become; we have +seen him at his father’s death-bed; but he does not like mysteries +and whenever he is unlike himself, he is disgusted. If he succeeds +in remaining at the top of his class, it is through application, not +through facility. Boris would find a protector in him, if he were only +to look towards him, but it is his neighbour George who attracts him. +As for George, he has eyes for no one but Ghéri, who has eyes for no +one.</p> + +<p>George had some important news to communicate to Philippe Adamanti, +which he had judged it more prudent not to write.</p> + +<p>That morning he had arrived at the <i>lycée</i> doors a quarter of an +hour before the opening and had waited for him in vain. It was while he +was waiting that he had heard Léon Ghéridanisol apostrophize the young +woman so brilliantly, after which incident the two urchins had entered +into conversation and had discovered to George’s great joy that they +were going to be schoolfellows.</p> + +<p>On coming out of the <i>lycée</i>, George and Phiphi had at last +succeeded in meeting. They walked to the Pension Azaïs in company with +the other boys, but a little apart, so as to be able to talk freely.</p> + +<p>“You had better hide that thing,” George had begun, pointing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> to the +yellow rosette which Phiphi was still sporting in his buttonhole.</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Philippe, noticing that George was no longer wearing his.</p> + +<p>“You run the risk of getting collared. I wanted to tell you before +school, my boy; why didn’t you turn up earlier? I was waiting outside +the doors to warn you.”</p> + +<p>“But I didn’t know,” Phiphi had answered.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” George repeated, mimicking him. “You +might have guessed that there would be things to tell you when I didn’t +see you again at Houlgate.”</p> + +<p>The perpetual aim and object of these two boys is to get the better of +each other. His father’s situation and fortune give Philippe certain +advantages, but George is greatly superior in audacity and cynicism. +Phiphi has to make an effort to keep up with him. He isn’t a bad boy; +but lacking in back bone.</p> + +<p>“Well then, out with your things!” he had said.</p> + +<p>Léon Ghéridanisol, who had come up, was listening to them. George was +not ill pleased that he should overhear him; if Ghéri had filled him +with admiration just now, George had a little surprise in store for +Ghéri; he therefore answered Phiphi quite calmly:</p> + +<p>“That girl Praline has got run in.”</p> + +<p>“Praline!” cried Phiphi, thunderstruck by George’s coolness. And Léon +showed signs of being interested. Phiphi said to George:</p> + +<p>“Can one tell him?”</p> + +<p>“As you please,” said George, shrugging his shoulders. Then Phiphi, +pointing to George:</p> + +<p>“She’s his tart.” Then to George:</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I met Germaine and she told me.”</p> + +<p>And he went on to tell Phiphi how, when he had come up to Paris a +fortnight before, he had wanted to visit the apartment which the +procureur Molinier had once called “the scene of the orgies,” and had +found the doors closed; that a little later as he was strolling about +the neighbourhood, he had met Germaine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> (Phiphi’s tart) and she had +given him the news: the place had been raided by the police at the +beginning of the holidays. What neither the women nor the boys knew, +was that Profitendieu had taken good care to wait before taking this +action until the younger delinquents should have left Paris, so that +their parents might be spared the scandal of their being caught.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord!...” repeated Phiphi without comments. “Oh Lord!...” It had +been a narrow squeak, thought he, for George and him.</p> + +<p>“Makes your marrow freeze, eh?” said George, with a grin. He considered +it perfectly useless to confess—especially before Ghéridanisol, that +he had himself been terrified.</p> + +<p>From the dialogue here recorded, these children might be thought more +depraved than they actually are. I feel convinced that it is chiefly to +show off that they talk in this way. There is a good deal of bravado in +their case. No matter: Ghéridanisol is listening to them. He listens +and leads them on. His cousin Strouvilhou will be greatly amused when +he reports the conversation to him this evening.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +That same evening Bernard went to see Edouard.</p> + +<p>“Well? Did the first day go off all right?”</p> + +<p>“Pretty well.” And then as he said no more:</p> + +<p>“Master Bernard, if you are not in the humour to talk of your own +accord, don’t expect me to pump you. There’s nothing I dislike so much. +But allow me to remind you that you offered me your services and that I +have a right to expect a few stories....”</p> + +<p>“What do you want to know?” rejoined Bernard, with no very good +grace. “That old Azaïs made a solemn speech and exhorted the boys ‘to +press forward in a common endeavour and with the impetuous ardour +of youth...’? I remember those words because they occurred three +times. Armand declares the old boy regularly puts them into all his +pi-jaws. He and I were sitting on the last bench at the back of the +class-room, watching the boys come into school—like Noah, watching the +animals come into the Ark. There were every kind and sort—ruminants,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span> +pachiderms, molluscs and other invertebrates. When they began to talk +to each other after the speech, Armand and I calculated that four +sentences out of ten began with: ‘I bet you won’t....’”</p> + +<p>“And the other six?”</p> + +<p>“‘As for me, <i>I</i>....’”</p> + +<p>“Not badly observed, I’m afraid. What else?”</p> + +<p>“Some of them seem to me to have a <i>fabricated</i> personality.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?” asked Edouard.</p> + +<p>“I am thinking particularly of a boy who sat beside young Passavant. +(Passavant himself just seems to me a good boy.) His neighbour, whom +I watched for a long time, appears to have adopted the ‘<i>Ne quid +nimis</i>’ of the ancients as his rule of life. Doesn’t that strike you +as an absurd device at his age? His clothes are meagre; his neck-tie +exiguous; even his bootlaces are only just long enough to tie. In the +course of a few moments, energies, and to repeat, like a refrain: +‘Let’s have no useless efforts!’”</p> + +<p>“A plague upon the economical!” said Edouard. “In art they turn into +the prolix.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because they can’t bear to lose anything. What else? You have said +nothing about Armand.”</p> + +<p>“He’s an odd chap. To tell you the truth, I don’t much care for him. +I don’t like contortionists. He’s by no means stupid; but he uses +his intelligence for mere destruction; for that matter, it’s against +himself that he’s the most ferocious; everything that’s good in him, +that’s generous, or noble, or tender, he’s ashamed of. He ought to go +in for sport—take the air. Being shut up indoors all day is turning +him sour. He seems to like my company. I don’t avoid him; but I can’t +get accustomed to his cast of mind.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think that his sarcasm and his irony are the veil of +excessive sensitiveness—and perhaps of great suffering? Olivier thinks +so.”</p> + +<p>“It may be. I have sometimes wondered. I don’t know him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> well enough +to say yet. The rest of my reflections are not ripe. I must think them +over. I’ll tell you about them—but later. This evening, forgive me if +I leave you. I’ve got my examination in two days; and besides, I may as +well own up to it ... I’m feeling sad.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br> +OLIVIER MEETS BERNARD</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Il ne faut prendre, si je ne me trompe, que la fleur de chaque +objet</i>....</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">FÉNELON.</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +OLIVIER, who had returned to Paris the day before, arose that morning +fresh and rested. The air was warm, the sky pure. When he went out, +after his shave and his shower-bath, elegantly dressed, conscious of +his strength, his youth, his beauty, Passavant was still sleeping.</p> + +<p>Olivier hastened to the Sorbonne. This was the morning that Bernard had +to go up for his examination. How did Olivier know that? But perhaps he +didn’t know it. He was going to find out.</p> + +<p>He quickened his step. He had not seen his friend since the night that +Bernard came to take refuge in his room. What changes since then! Who +knows whether he was not more anxious to show himself to his friend +than to see him. A pity that Bernard cared so little about elegance. +But it’s a taste that sometimes comes with affluence. Olivier knew that +by experience, thanks to the Comte de Passavant.</p> + +<p>Bernard was doing his written examination this morning. He wouldn’t +be out before twelve. Olivier waited for him in the quadrangle. He +recognized a few of his schoolfellows, shook a few hands. He felt +slightly embarrassed by his clothes. He felt still more so when +Bernard, free at last, came up to him in the quadrangle and exclaimed, +with outstretched hand:</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear! how lovely he is!”</p> + +<p>Olivier, who <i>had</i> thought he would never blush again, blushed. +He could not but feel the irony of these words, notwithstanding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span> the +cordiality of their tone. As for Bernard, he was still wearing the same +suit he had on the evening of his flight. He had not been expecting to +see Olivier. With his arm in his, he drew him along, questioning as +they went. He felt a sudden shock of joy at seeing him. If at first he +smiled a little at the refinement of his dress, it was with no malice; +his heart was good; he was without bitterness.</p> + +<p>“You’ll lunch with me, won’t you? Yes; I have got to go back at one +thirty for Latin. This morning it was French.”</p> + +<p>“Pleased?”</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> am, yes; but I don’t know whether the examiners will be. We +had to discuss these lines from La Fontaine:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Papillon du Parnasse, et semblable aux abeilles</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Je suis chose légère et vole à tout sujet,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Je vais de fleur en fleur et d’objet en objet.</i>’</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="nind"> +How would you have done it?”</p> + +<p>Olivier could not resist a desire to shine:</p> + +<p>“I should have said that La Fontaine, in painting himself, had painted +the portrait of the artist—of the man who consents to take merely +the outside of things, their surface, their bloom. Then I should have +contrasted with that the portrait of the scholar, the seeker, the man +who goes deep into things, and I should have shown that while the +scholar seeks, the artist finds; that the man who goes deep, gets +stuck, the man who gets stuck, gets sunk—up to his eyes and over them; +that the truth is the appearance of things, that their secret is their +form and that what is deepest in man is his skin.”</p> + +<p>This last phrase Olivier had stolen from Passavant, who himself had +gathered it from the lips of Paul-Ambroise, as he was discoursing one +day in a lady’s drawing-room. Everything that was not printed was fish +for Passavant’s net; what he called “ideas in the air”—that is to +say—other people’s.</p> + +<p>Something or other in Olivier’s tone showed Bernard that this phrase +was not his own. Olivier’s voice did not seem at home in it. Bernard +was on the point of asking: “Whose?”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span> But besides not wishing to hurt +his friend, he was afraid of hearing Passavant’s name, which up till +now had not been pronounced. Bernard contented himself with giving his +friend a searching look; and Olivier, for the second time, blushed.</p> + +<p>Bernard’s surprise at hearing the sentimental Olivier give voice to +ideas which were entirely different from those which he had once known +him to have, immediately gave place to violent indignation; he was +overwhelmed by something as sudden and surprising and irresistible +as a cyclone. And it was not precisely against the ideas themselves +that he was angry—though they struck him as absurd. And even perhaps, +after all, they were not as absurd as all that. In his collection of +contradictory opinions, he might have written them down on the page +facing his own. Had they been genuinely Olivier’s ideas, he would not +have been angry either with him or with them; but he felt there was +someone hidden behind them; it was with Passavant that he was angry.</p> + +<p>“It’s with ideas like those that France is being poisoned!” he cried in +a muffled, vehement voice. He took a high stand. He wished to outsoar +Passavant. And he was himself surprised at what he said—as if his +words had preceded his thoughts; and yet it was these very thoughts +he had developed that morning in his essay; but he felt shamefaced at +expressing what he called “fine sentiments,” particularly when he was +talking to Olivier. As soon as they were put into words, they seemed to +him less sincere. So that Olivier had never heard his friend speak of +the interests of “France”; it was his turn to be surprised. He opened +his eyes wide, without even thinking of smiling. Was it really Bernard? +He repeated stupidly:</p> + +<p>“France?...” Then, so as to disengage his responsibility—for Bernard +was decidedly not joking:</p> + +<p>“But, old boy, it isn’t <i>I</i> who think so, it’s La Fontaine.”</p> + +<p>Bernard became almost aggressive:</p> + +<p>“By Jove, I know well enough it isn’t you who think so. But, my +dear fellow, it isn’t La Fontaine either. If he had only had that +lightness, which, for that matter, he regretted and apologized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> for at +the end of his life, he would never have been the artist we admire. +That’s just what I said in my essay this morning, and I brought a +great many quotations in support of my theory—for you know I’ve a +fairly good memory. But I soon left La Fontaine, and taking as my +text the justification these lines might afford to a certain class +of superficial minds, I just let myself go in a tirade against the +spirit of carelessness, of flippancy, of irony, of what is called +‘French wit,’ which some people think is the spirit of France, and +which sometimes gives us such a deplorable reputation among foreigners. +I said that we ought not to consider all this as even the smile of +France, but as her grimace; that the real spirit of France was a spirit +of investigation, of logic, of devotedness, of patient thoroughness; +and if La Fontaine had not been animated by that spirit, he might have +written his tales, but never his fables nor the admirable epistle (I +showed that I knew it) from which the lines we had to comment upon were +taken. Yes, old boy, a violent attack—perhaps I shall get ploughed for +it. But I don’t care two straws; I had to say it.”</p> + +<p>Olivier had not particularly meant what he had said just before. He +had yielded to his desire to be brilliant and to bring out, as it were +carelessly, a sentence which he thought would tremendously impress his +friend. But now that Bernard took it in this way, there was nothing +for him to do but to beat a retreat. But his great weakness lay in the +fact that he was in much more need of Bernard’s affection than Bernard +of his. Bernard’s speech had humiliated, mortified him. He was vexed +with himself for having spoken too soon. It was too late now to go back +on it—to agree with Bernard, as he certainly would have done if he +had let him speak first. But how could he have foreseen that Bernard, +whom he remembered so scathingly subversive, would set up as a defender +of feelings and ideas which Passavant had taught him could not be +considered without a smile? But he really had no desire to smile now; +he was ashamed. And as he could neither retract nor contradict Bernard, +whose genuine emotion he couldn’t help respecting, his one idea was to +protect himself—to slip out of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh! well, if you put that in your essay, it wasn’t against me that you +were saying it.... I’m glad of that.”</p> + +<p>He spoke as though he were vexed—not at all in the tone he would have +liked.</p> + +<p>“But it <i>is</i> against you that I am saying it now,” retorted +Bernard.</p> + +<p>These words cut straight at Olivier’s heart. Bernard had certainly not +said them with a hostile intention, but how else could they be taken? +Olivier was silent. Between Bernard and him a gulf was yawning. He +tried to think of some question to fling from one side of the gulf +to the other which might re-establish the contact. He tried, without +much hope of succeeding. “Doesn’t he understand how miserable I am?” +he said to himself, and he grew more miserable still. He did not have +to force back his tears, perhaps, but he said to himself that it was +enough to make anyone cry. It was his own fault, too; his meeting +with Bernard would have seemed less sad if he had looked forward to +it with less joy. When two months before he had hurried off to meet +Edouard, it had been the same thing. It would always be the same thing, +he said to himself. He wanted to go away—anywhere—by himself—to +chuck Bernard—to forget Passavant, Edouard.... An unexpected meeting +suddenly interrupted these melancholy thoughts.</p> + +<p>A few steps in front of them, going up the Boulevard Saint-Michel, +along which he and Bernard were walking, Olivier caught sight of his +young brother George. He seized Bernard’s arm, and, turning sharply on +his heel, drew him hurriedly along with him.</p> + +<p>“Do you think he saw us?... My people don’t know I’m back.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Young George was not alone. Léon Ghéridanisol and Philippe Adamanti +were with him. The conversation of the three boys was exceedingly +animated; but George’s interest in it did not prevent him from keeping +“his eyes skinned,” as he said. In order to listen to the children’s +talk we will leave Olivier and Bernard for a moment; especially since +our two friends have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> gone into a restaurant, and are for the moment +more occupied in eating than in talking—to Olivier’s great relief.</p> + +<p>“Well then, <i>you</i> do it,” says Phiphi to George.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s got the dithers! He’s got the dithers!” retorts George, +putting what cold contempt he can into his voice, so as to goad +Philippe to action. Then says Ghéridanisol with calm superiority:</p> + +<p>“Look here, my lambs, if you aren’t game, you had better say so at +once. I shan’t have any difficulty in finding fellows with a little +more pluck than you. Here! Give it back!”</p> + +<p>He turns to George, who is holding a small coin in his tight-shut hand.</p> + +<p>“I’ll do it!” cries George, in a sudden burst of courage. “Won’t I +just! Come on!” (They are opposite a tobacco shop.)</p> + +<p>“No,” says Léon; “we’ll wait for you at the corner. Come along, Phiphi.”</p> + +<p>A moment later George comes out of the shop; he has a packet of +so-called “de luxe” cigarettes in his hand and offers them to his +friends.</p> + +<p>“Well?” asks Phiphi anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Well, what?” replies George with an air of affected indifference, as +if what he has just done has suddenly become so natural that it wasn’t +worth mentioning.</p> + +<p>But Philippe insists:</p> + +<p>“Did you pass it?”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord! Didn’t I?”</p> + +<p>“And nobody said anything?”</p> + +<p>George shrugged his shoulders:</p> + +<p>“What on earth should they say?”</p> + +<p>“And they gave you back the change?”</p> + +<p>This time George doesn’t even deign to answer. But as Philippe, still +a little sceptical and fearful, insists again: “Show us,” George pulls +the money out of his pocket. Philippe counts—the seven francs are +there right enough. He feels inclined to ask: “Are you sure <i>they</i> +aren’t false too?” But he refrains.</p> + +<p>George had given one franc for the false coin. It had been agreed that +the money should be divided between them. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> holds out three francs to +Ghéridanisol. As for Phiphi, he shan’t have a farthing; at the outside +a cigarette; it’ll be a lesson to him.</p> + +<p>Encouraged by this first success, Phiphi is now anxious to try for +himself. He asks Léon to sell him another coin. But Léon considers +Phiphi a muff, and in order to screw him up to the right pitch, he +affects contempt for his former cowardice and pretends to hold back. He +had only to make up his mind sooner; they could very well do without +him. Besides which, Léon thinks it imprudent to risk another attempt +so close upon the first. And then it’s too late now. His cousin +Strouvilhou is expecting him to lunch.</p> + +<p>Ghéridanisol is not such a duffer that he can’t pass his false coins +by himself; but his big cousin’s instructions are that he is to get +himself accomplices. He goes off now to give him an account of his +successfully performed mission.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +“The kids we want, you see, are those who come of good families, +because then if rumours get about, their parents do all they can to +stifle them.” (It is Cousin Strouvilhou who is talking in this way, +while the two are having lunch together.) “Only with this system of +selling the coins one by one, they get put into circulation too slowly. +I’ve got fifty-two boxes containing twenty coins each, to dispose of. +They must be sold for twenty francs a box; but not to anyone, you +understand. The best thing would be to form an association to which no +one should be admitted who didn’t furnish pledges. The kids must be +made to compromise themselves, and hand over something or other which +will give us a hold over their parents. Before letting them have the +coins, they must be made to understand that—oh! without frightening +them. One must never frighten children. You told me Molinier’s father +was a magistrate? Good. And Adamanti’s father?”</p> + +<p>“A senator.”</p> + +<p>“Better still. You’re old enough now to grasp that there’s no family +without some skeleton or other in the cupboard, which the people +concerned are terrified of having discovered. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span> kids must be set +hunting; it’ll give them something to do. Family life as a rule is +so boring! And then it’ll teach them to observe, to look about them. +It’s quite simple. Those who contribute nothing will get nothing. When +certain parents understand that they are in our hands, they’ll pay a +high price for our silence. What the deuce! we have no intention of +blackmailing them; we are honest folk. We merely want to have a hold +on them. Their silence for ours. Let them keep silent and make other +people keep silent, and then we’ll keep silent too. Here’s a health to +them!”</p> + +<p>Strouvilhou filled two glasses. They drank to each other.</p> + +<p>“It’s a good—it’s even an indispensable thing,” he went on, “to create +ties of reciprocity between citizens; by so doing societies are solidly +established. We all hold together, good Lord! <i>We</i> have a hold on +the children, who have a hold on their parents, who have a hold on us. +A perfect arrangement. Twig?”</p> + +<p>Léon twigged admirably. He chuckled.</p> + +<p>“That little George....” he began.</p> + +<p>“Well, what about him? That little George...?”</p> + +<p>“Molinier. I think he’s pretty well screwed up. He has laid his hands +on some letters to his father from an Olympia chorus girl.”</p> + +<p>“Have you seen them?”</p> + +<p>“He showed them to me. I overheard him talking to Adamanti. I think +they were pleased at my listening to them; at any rate they didn’t +hide from me; I had already taken steps and treated them to a little +entertainment in your style, to inspire them with confidence. George +said to Phiphi (to give him a stunner): ‘My father’s got a mistress.’ +Upon which, Phiphi, not to be outdone, answered: ‘<i>My</i> father’s +got two.’ It was idiotic and really nothing to make a fuss about; +but I went up to George and said: ‘How do you know?’ ‘I’ve seen some +letters,’ he answered. I pretended I didn’t believe him and said: +‘Rubbish!’... Well, I went on at him, until at last he said he had got +them with him; he pulled them out of a big letter-case and showed them +to me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></p> + +<p>“Did you read them?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t have time to. I only saw they were all in the same +handwriting; one of them began: ‘My darling old ducky.’”</p> + +<p>“And signed?”</p> + +<p>“‘Your little white mousie.’ I asked George how he had got hold of +them. He grinned and pulled out of his trouser pocket an enormous bunch +of keys.... To fit every drawer in the universe,’ said he.”</p> + +<p>“And what did Master Phiphi say?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. I think he was jealous.”</p> + +<p>“Would George give you the letters?”</p> + +<p>“If necessary I’ll get him to. I don’t want to take them from him. +He’ll give them if Phiphi joins in, too. They each of them egg the +other on.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what goes by the name of emulation. And you don’t see anyone +else at the school?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll look about.”</p> + +<p>“One thing more I wanted to say.... I think there must be a little +boy called Boris amongst the boarders. You’re to leave him alone”; he +paused a moment and then added in a whisper: “for the moment.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Olivier and Bernard are seated at a table in one of the Boulevard +restaurants. Olivier’s unhappiness melts like hoar-frost in the warmth +of his friend’s smile. Bernard avoids pronouncing Passavant’s name; +Olivier feels it; a secret instinct warns him; but the name is on the +tip of his tongue; he must speak, come what may.</p> + +<p>“Yes; I didn’t let my people know we were coming back so soon. +This evening the <i>Argonauts</i> are giving a dinner. Passavant +particularly wants me to be present. He wishes our new review to be +on good terms with its elder and not to set up as a rival.... You +ought to come; and I tell you what ... you ought to bring Edouard.... +Perhaps not to dinner, because one’s got to be invited, but immediately +after. It’s to be in the upstairs room of the Taverne du Panthéon. The +principal members of the <i>Argonaut</i> staff will be there and a good +many of our own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> <i>Vanguard</i> contributors. Our first number is +nearly ready; but, I say, why didn’t you send me anything?”</p> + +<p>“Because I hadn’t anything ready,” he answers rather curtly.</p> + +<p>Olivier’s voice becomes almost imploring:</p> + +<p>“I put your name down next to mine in the list of contents.... We could +wait a little, if necessary ... no matter what; anything.... You had +almost promised.”</p> + +<p>It grieves Bernard to hurt his friend; but he hardens himself:</p> + +<p>“Look here, old boy, I had better tell you at once—I’m afraid I +shouldn’t hit it off with Passavant very well.”</p> + +<p>“But it’s I who am the editor. He leaves me perfectly free.”</p> + +<p>“And then I dislike the idea of sending you <i>no matter what</i>; I +don’t want to write <i>no matter what</i>.”</p> + +<p>“I said <i>no matter what</i>, because I knew that no matter what you +wrote would be good ... that it would never really be <i>no matter +what</i>.”</p> + +<p>He doesn’t know what to say. He is just floundering. If he cannot feel +his friend beside him, all his interest in the review vanishes. It had +been such a delightful dream, this of making their début together.</p> + +<p>“And then, old fellow, if I’m beginning to know what I don’t want to +do, I don’t know yet what I <i>do</i> want to do. I don’t even know +whether I shall write.”</p> + +<p>This declaration fills Olivier with consternation. But Bernard goes on:</p> + +<p>“Nothing that I could write easily tempts me. It’s because I can +turn my sentences easily that I have a detestation of well-turned +sentences. Not that I like difficulty for its own sake; but I really +do think that writers of the present time take things a bit too easy. +I don’t know enough about other people’s lives to write a novel; and I +haven’t yet had a life of my own. Poetry bores me. The alexandrine is +worn threadbare; the <i>vers libre</i> is formless. The only poet who +satisfies me nowadays is Rimbaud.”</p> + +<p>“That’s exactly what I say in our manifesto.”</p> + +<p>“Then it’s not worth while my repeating it. No, old boy; no; I don’t +know whether I shall write. It sometimes seems to me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> that writing +prevents one from living, and that one can express oneself better by +acts than by words.”</p> + +<p>“Works of art are acts that endure,” ventured Olivier timidly; but +Bernard was not listening.</p> + +<p>“That’s what I admire most of all in Rimbaud—to have preferred life.”</p> + +<p>“He made a mess of his own.”</p> + +<p>“What do you know about it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! really, old boy!...”</p> + +<p>“One can’t judge other people’s lives from the outside. But anyhow, +let’s grant he was a failure; with ill-luck, poverty, illness to +bear.... Even so, I envy him his life; yes, I envy it more—even with +its sordid ending—more than the life of....”</p> + +<p>Bernard did not finish his sentence; on the point of naming an +illustrious contemporary, he hesitated between too many of them. He +shrugged his shoulders and went on:</p> + +<p>“I have a confused feeling in myself of extraordinary aspirations, +surgings, stirrings, incomprehensible agitations, which I don’t want to +understand—which I don’t even want to observe, for fear of preventing +them. Not so long ago, I was constantly talking to myself. Now, even if +I wanted to, I shouldn’t be able to. It was a mania that came to an end +suddenly, without my even being aware of it. I think that this habit +of soliloquizing—of inward dialogue, as our professor used to call +it—necessitated a kind of division of the personality, which I ceased +to be capable of, the day that I began to love someone else better than +myself.”</p> + +<p>“You mean Laura,” said Olivier. “Do you still love her as much as ever?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Bernard; “more than ever. I think it’s the special quality +of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase +under pain of diminishing; and that’s what distinguishes it from +friendship.”</p> + +<p>“Friendship, too, can grow less,” said Olivier sadly.</p> + +<p>“I think that the margins of friendship aren’t so wide.”</p> + +<p>“I say ... you won’t be angry if I ask you something?”</p> + +<p>“Try.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span></p> + +<p>“I don’t want to make you angry.”</p> + +<p>“If you keep your questions to yourself, you’ll make me more angry +still.”</p> + +<p>“I want to know whether you feel ... desire for Laura.”</p> + +<p>Bernard suddenly became very grave.</p> + +<p>“If it weren’t you ...” he began. “Well, old boy, it’s a curious thing +that’s happened to me: ever since I have come to know her, all my +desires have gone; I have none left at all. You remember in the old +days how I used to be all fire and flame for twenty women at once whom +I happened to pass by in the street (and that’s the very thing that +prevented me from choosing any one of them); well, now it seems to me +that I shall never be touched again by any other form of beauty than +hers; that I shall never be able to love any other forehead than hers; +her lips, her eyes. But what I feel for her is veneration; when I am +with her every carnal thought seems an impiety. I think I was mistaken +about myself, and that in reality I am very chaste by nature. Thanks to +Laura, my instincts have been sublimated. I feel I have within me great +unemployed forces. I should like to make them take up service. I envy +the Carthusian who bends his pride to the rule of his order; the person +to whom one says: “I count upon you.” I envy the soldier.... Or rather, +no; I envy no one; but the turbulence I feel within me oppresses me +and my aspiration is to discipline it. It’s like steam inside me; +it may whistle as it escapes (that’s poetry), put in motion wheels +and pistons; or even burst the engine. Do you know the act which I +sometimes think would express me best? It’s.... Oh! I know well enough +I shan’t kill myself; but I understand Dmitri Karamazof perfectly when +he asks his brother if he understands a person killing himself out of +enthusiasm, out of sheer excess of life ... just <i>bursting</i>.”</p> + +<p>An extraordinary radiance shone from his whole being. How well he +expressed himself! Olivier gazed at him in a kind of ecstasy.</p> + +<p>“So do I,” he murmured timidly, “I understand killing oneself too; but +it would be after having tasted a joy so great, that all one’s life to +come would seem pale beside it; a joy so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span> great, that it would make one +feel: ‘I have had enough. I am content; never again shall I....’”</p> + +<p>But Bernard was not listening. He stopped. What was the use of talking +to empty air? All his sky clouded over again. Bernard took out his +watch:</p> + +<p>“I must be off. Well then, this evening, you say?... What time?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I should think ten would be early enough. Will you come?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I’ll try to bring Edouard, too. But you know he doesn’t much care +for Passavant; and literary gatherings bore him. It would only be to +see you. I say, can’t we meet somewhere after my Latin paper?” Olivier +did not immediately answer. He reflected with despair that he had +promised to meet Passavant that afternoon at the printer’s to talk over +the printing of the <i>Vanguard</i>. What would he not have given to be +free?</p> + +<p>“I should like to, but I’m engaged.”</p> + +<p>No trace of his unhappiness was apparent; and Bernard answered:</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”</p> + +<p>And at that the two friends parted.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Olivier had said nothing to Bernard of all he had meant and hoped +to say. He was afraid Bernard had taken a dislike to him. He took a +dislike to himself. He, so gay, so smart that morning, walked now with +lowered head. Passavant’s friendship, of which at first he had been so +proud, began to be irksome to him; for he felt Bernard’s reprobation +weighing upon it. Even if he were to meet his friend at the dinner +that evening, he would be unable to speak to him in front of all those +people. He would be unable to enjoy the dinner if they had not come to +an understanding beforehand. And what an unfortunate idea his vanity +had suggested to him of trying to get Uncle Edouard to come too! +There, in the presence of Passavant, surrounded by elder men, by other +writers, by the future contributors to the <i>Vanguard</i>, he would be +obliged to show off. Edouard would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> misjudge him still more—misjudge +him no doubt irrevocably.... If only he could see him before this +evening!... see him at once; he would fling his arms round his neck; +he would cry perhaps; he would tell all his troubles.... From now till +four o’clock, he has the time. Quick! a taxi.</p> + +<p>He gives the address to the chauffeur. He reaches the door with a +beating heart; he rings.... Edouard is out.</p> + +<p>Poor Olivier! Instead of hiding from his parents, why did he not simply +return home? He would have found his Uncle Edouard sitting with his +mother.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI_c">VI<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: MADAME MOLINIER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THOSE novelists deceive us who show the individual’s development +without taking into account the pressure of surroundings. The forest +fashions the tree. To each one how small a place is given! How many +buds are atrophied! One shoots one’s branches where one can. The mystic +bough is due more often than not to stifling. The only escape is +upwards. I cannot understand how Pauline manages not to grow a mystic +bough, nor what further pressure she needs. She has talked to me more +intimately than ever before. I did not suspect, I confess, the amount +of disillusionment and resignation she hides beneath the appearance +of happiness. But I recognize that she would have had to have a +very vulgar nature not to have been disappointed in Molinier. In my +conversation with her the day before yesterday, I was able to gauge his +limits. How in the world could Pauline have married him?... Alas! the +most lamentable lack of all—lack of character—is a hidden one, to be +revealed only by time and usage.</p> + +<p>Pauline puts all her efforts into palliating Oscar’s insufficiencies +and weaknesses, into hiding them from everyone; and especially from his +children. Her utmost ingenuity is employed in enabling them to respect +their father; and she is really hard put to it; but she does it in such +a way that I myself was deceived. She speaks of her husband without +contempt, but with a kind of indulgence which is expressive enough. She +deplores his want of authority over the boys; and, as I expressed my +regrets at Olivier’s being with Passavant, I understood that if it had +depended on her, the trip to Corsica would not have taken place.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t approve of it,” she said, “and to tell you the truth,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> +I don’t much care about that Monsieur Passavant. But what could I +do? When I see that I can’t prevent a thing, I prefer granting it +with a good grace. As for Oscar, he always gives in; he gives in to +me, too. But when I think it’s my duty to oppose any plan of the +children’s—stand out against them in any way, he never supports me in +the least. On this occasion Vincent stepped in as well. After that, how +could I oppose Olivier without risking the loss of his confidence? And +it’s that I care about most.”</p> + +<p>She was darning old socks—the socks, I said to myself, which were no +longer good enough for Olivier. She stopped to thread her needle, and +then went on again in a lower voice, more confidingly and more sadly:</p> + +<p>“His confidence.... If I were only sure I still had it. But no; I’ve +lost it....”</p> + +<p>The protest I attempted—without conviction—made her smile. She +dropped her work and went on:</p> + +<p>“For instance, I know he is in Paris. George met him this morning; he +mentioned it casually, and I pretended not to hear, for I don’t like +him to tell tales about his brother. But still I know it. Olivier hides +things from me. When I see him again, he will think himself obliged to +lie to me, and I shall pretend to believe him, as I pretend to believe +his father every time <i>he</i> hides things from me.”</p> + +<p>“It’s for fear of paining you.”</p> + +<p>“He pains me a great deal more as it is. I am not intolerant. There are +a number of little shortcomings that I tolerate, that I shut my eyes +to.”</p> + +<p>“Of whom are you talking now?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! of the father as well as the sons.”</p> + +<p>“When you pretend not to see them, <i>you</i> are lying too.”</p> + +<p>“But what am I to do? It’s enough not to complain. I really can’t +approve! No, I say to myself that, sooner or later, one loses hold, +that the tenderest affection is helpless. More than that. It’s in +the way; it’s a nuisance. I have come to the pitch of hiding my love +itself.”</p> + +<p>“Now you are talking of your sons.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p> + +<p>“Why do you say that? Do you mean that I can’t love Oscar any more? +Sometimes I think so, but I think too that it’s for fear of suffering +too much that I don’t love him more. And.... Yes, I suppose you are +right—in Olivier’s case, I prefer to suffer.”</p> + +<p>“And Vincent?”</p> + +<p>“A few years ago everything I now say of Olivier would have been true +of Vincent.”</p> + +<p>“My poor friend.... Soon you will be saying the same of George.”</p> + +<p>“But one becomes resigned, slowly. And yet one didn’t ask so much of +life. One learns to ask less ... less and less.” Then she added softly: +“And of oneself, more and more.”</p> + +<p>“With ideas of that kind, one is almost a Christian,” said I, smiling +in my turn.</p> + +<p>“I sometimes think so too. But having them isn’t enough to make one a +Christian.”</p> + +<p>“Any more than being a Christian is enough to make one have them.”</p> + +<p>“I have often thought—will you let me say so?—that in their father’s +default, <i>you</i> might speak to the boys.”</p> + +<p>“Vincent is not here.”</p> + +<p>“It is too late for him. I am thinking of Olivier. It’s with you that I +should have liked him to go away.”</p> + +<p>At these words, which gave me the sudden imagination of what might have +been if I had not so thoughtlessly listened to the appeal of passing +adventure, a dreadful emotion wrung my heart, and at first I could find +nothing to say; then, as the tears started to my eyes, and wishing to +give some appearance of a motive to my disturbance:</p> + +<p>“Too late, I fear, for him too,” I sighed.</p> + +<p>Pauline seized my hand:</p> + +<p>“How good you are!” she cried.</p> + +<p>Embarrassed at seeing her thus mistake me, and unable to undeceive her, +I could only turn aside the conversation from a subject which put me +too ill at my ease.</p> + +<p>“And George?” I asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p> + +<p>“He makes me more anxious than the other two put together,” she +answered. “I can’t say that with him I am losing my hold, for he has +never been either confiding or obedient.”</p> + +<p>She hesitated a few moments. It obviously cost her a great deal to say +what follows.</p> + +<p>“This summer something very serious happened,” she went on at last, +“something it’s a little painful for me to speak to you about, +especially as I am still not very sure.... A hundred-franc note +disappeared from a cupboard in which I was in the habit of keeping +my money. The fear of being wrong in my suspicions prevented me from +bringing any accusation; the maid who waited on us at the hotel was a +very young girl and seemed to me honest. I said I had lost the note +before George; I might as well admit that my suspicions fell upon him. +He didn’t appear disturbed; he didn’t blush.... I felt ashamed of +having suspected him; I tried to persuade myself I had made a mistake. +I did my accounts over again; unfortunately there was no possibility +of a doubt—a hundred francs were missing. I shrank from questioning +him, and finally I didn’t. The fear of seeing him add a lie to a theft +kept me back. Was I wrong?... Yes, I reproach myself now for not having +insisted; perhaps it was out of a fear that I should have to be too +severe—or that I shouldn’t be severe enough. Once again, I played the +part of a person who knows nothing, but with a very anxious heart, I +assure you. I had let the time go by, and I said to myself it was too +late and that the punishment would come too long after the fault. And +how punish him? I did nothing; I reproach myself for it ... but what +could I have done?</p> + +<p>“I had thought of sending him to England; I even wanted to ask your +advice about it, but I didn’t know where you were.... At any rate, +I didn’t hide my trouble from him—my anxiety; I think he must have +felt it, for, you know, he has a good heart. I count more on his own +conscience to reproach him than on anything I could have said. He won’t +do it again, I feel certain. He used to go about with a very rich boy +at the sea-side, and he was no doubt led on to spend money. No doubt I +must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> have left the cupboard open; and I repeat, I’m not really sure +it was he. There were a great many people coming and going in the +hotel....”</p> + +<p>I admired the ingenious way in which she put forward every possible +consideration that might exonerate her child.</p> + +<p>“I should have liked him to put the money back,” I said.</p> + +<p>“I hoped he would. And when he didn’t, I thought it must be a proof of +his innocence. And then I said to myself that he was afraid to.”</p> + +<p>“Did you tell his father?”</p> + +<p>She hesitated a few moments:</p> + +<p>“No,” she said at last, “I prefer him to know nothing about it.”</p> + +<p>No doubt she thought she heard a noise in the next room; she went to +make sure there was no one there; then she sat down again beside me.</p> + +<p>“Oscar told me you lunched together the other day. He was so loud in +your praise, that I suppose what you chiefly did was to listen to him.” +(She smiled sadly, as she said these words.) “If he confided in you, +I have no desire not to respect his confidences ... though in reality +I know a great deal more about his private life than he imagines. +But since I got back, I can’t understand what has come over him. He +is so gentle—I was almost going to say—so humble.... It’s almost +embarrassing. He goes on as if he were afraid of me. He needn’t be. +For a long time past I’ve been aware that he has been carrying on.... +I even know with whom. He thinks I know nothing about it and takes +enormous pains to hide it; but his precautions are so obvious, that the +more he hides, the more he gives himself away. Every time he goes out +with an affectation of being busy, worried, anxious, I know that he +is off to his pleasure. I feel inclined to say to him: ‘But, my dear +friend, I’m not keeping you; are you afraid I’m jealous?’ I should +laugh if I had the heart to. My only fear is that the children may +notice something; he’s so careless—so clumsy! Sometimes, without his +suspecting it, I find myself forced to help him, as if I were playing +his game. I assure you I end by being almost amused by it; I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> invent +excuses for him; I put the letters he leaves lying about back in his +coat pocket.”</p> + +<p>“That’s just it,” I said; “he’s afraid you have discovered some +letters.”</p> + +<p>“Did he tell you so?”</p> + +<p>“And that’s what’s making him so nervous.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I want to read them?”</p> + +<p>A kind of wounded pride made her draw herself up. I was obliged to add:</p> + +<p>“It’s not a question of the letters he may have mislaid inadvertently; +but of some letters he had put in a drawer and which he says he can’t +find. He thinks you have taken them.”</p> + +<p>At these words, I saw Pauline turn pale, and the horrible suspicion +which darted upon her, forced itself suddenly into my mind too. I +regretted having spoken, but it was too late. She looked away from me +and murmured:</p> + +<p>“Would to Heaven it <i>were</i> I!”</p> + +<p>She seemed overcome.</p> + +<p>“What am I to do?” she repeated. “What am I to do?” Then raising her +eyes to mine again: “You? Couldn’t <i>you</i> speak to him?”</p> + +<p>Although she avoided, as I did, pronouncing George’s name, it was clear +that she was thinking of him.</p> + +<p>“I will try. I will think it over,” I said, rising. And as she +accompanied me to the front door:</p> + +<p>“Say nothing about it to Oscar, please. Let him go on suspecting +me—thinking what he thinks.... It is better so. Come and see me +again.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII_c">VII<br> +OLIVIER AND ARMAND</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +IN THE mean time Olivier, deeply disappointed at not having found his +Uncle Edouard, and unable to bear his solitude, turned his thoughts +towards Armand with a heart aching for friendship. He made his way to +the Pension Vedel.</p> + +<p>Armand received him in his bedroom. It was a small, narrow room, +reached by the backstairs. Its window looked on to an inner courtyard, +on to which the water-closets and kitchens of the next-door house +opened also. The light came from a corrugated zinc reflector, which +caught it from above and cast it down, pallid, leaden and dreary. The +room was badly ventilated; an unpleasant odour pervaded it.</p> + +<p>“But one gets accustomed to it,” said Armand. “My parents, you +understand, keep the best rooms for the boarders who pay best. +It’s only natural. I have given up the room I had last year to a +Vicomte—the brother of your illustrious friend Passavant. A princely +room—but under the observation of Rachel’s. There are heaps of rooms +here, but not all of them are independent. For instance, poor Sarah, +who came back from England this morning, is obliged to pass, either +through our parents’ room (which doesn’t suit her at all) to get to +her new abode, or else through mine, which, truth to tell, is really +nothing but a dressing-room or box-room. At any rate, I have the +advantage here of being able to go out and in as I please, without +being spied upon by anyone. I prefer that to the attics, where the +servants live. To tell the truth, I rather like being uncomfortably +lodged; my father would call it the ‘love of maceration,’ and would +explain that what is hurtful to the body leads to the salvation of the +soul. For that matter, he has never been inside the place. He has other +things to do, you understand,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> than worrying over his son’s habitat. +My papa’s a wonderful fellow. He has by heart a number of consoling +phrases for the principal events of life. It’s magnificent to hear him. +A pity he never has any time for a little chat.... You’re looking at +my picture gallery; one can enjoy it better in the morning. That is a +colour print by a pupil of Paolo Ucelli’s—for the use of veterinaries. +In an admirable attempt at synthesis, the artist has concentrated on +a single horse all the ills by means of which Providence chastens the +equine soul; you observe the spirituality of the look.... That is a +symbolical picture of the ages of life from the cradle to the grave. +As a drawing, not much can be said for it; its chief value lies in its +intention. Further on you will note with admiration the photograph of +one of Titian’s courtesans, which I have put over my bed in order to +give myself libidinous thoughts. That is the door into Sarah’s room.”</p> + +<p>The almost sordid aspect of the place made a melancholy impression on +Olivier; the bed was not made and the basin on the wash-stand was not +emptied.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I fix up my room myself,” said Armand, in response to his +anxious look. “Here, you see, is my writing table. You have no idea +how the atmosphere of the room inspires me.... ‘<i>L’atmosphère d’un +cher réduit....</i>’ I even owe it the idea of my last poem—<i>The +Nocturnal Vase</i>.”</p> + +<p>Olivier had come to see Armand with the intention of speaking about his +review and asking him to contribute to it; he no longer dared to. But +Armand’s own conversation was coming round to the subject.</p> + +<p>“<i>The Nocturnal Vase</i>—eh? What a magnificent title!... With this +motto from Baudelaire:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘<i>Funereal vase, what tears awaitest thou?</i>’<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></div> + <div class="verse indent10"><span class="allsmcap">BAUDELAIRE.</span></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>“I take up once more the ancient (and ever young) comparison of the +potter creator, who fashions every human being as a vase destined to +hold—ah! what? And I compare myself in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> lyrical outburst to the +above-mentioned vase—an idea which, as I was telling you, came to me +as the natural result of breathing the odour of this chamber. I am +particularly pleased with the opening line:</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +‘<i>Whoe’er at forty boasts no hemorrhoids....</i>’</p> + +<p class="nind space-above2"> +I had first of all written, in order to reassure the reader, Whoe’er at +fifty...’ but I should have missed the assonance. As for ‘hemorrhoids,’ +it is undoubtedly the finest word in the French language—independently +of its meaning,” he added with a saturnine laugh.</p> + +<p>Olivier, a pain at his heart, kept silent. Armand went on:</p> + +<p>“Needless to say, the night vase is particularly flattered when it +receives a visit from a pot filled with aromatics like yourself.”</p> + +<p>“And haven’t you written anything but that?” asked Olivier at last, +desperately.</p> + +<p>“I was going to offer my <i>Nocturnal Vase</i> to your great and +glorious review, but from the tone in which you have just said +‘<i>that</i>,’ I see there isn’t much likelihood of its pleasing you. +In such cases the poet always has the resource of arguing: ‘I don’t +write to please,’ and of persuading himself that he has brought forth +a master-piece. But I cannot conceal from you that I consider my poem +execrably bad. For that matter, I have so far only written the first +line. And when I say <i>written</i>, it’s a figure of speech, for I +have this very moment composed it in your honour.... No, really? were +you thinking of publishing something of mine? You actually desired my +collaboration? You judged me, then, not incapable of writing something +decent? Can you have discerned on my pale brow the revealing stigmata +of genius? I know the light here is not very favourable for looking at +oneself in the glass, but when—like another Narcissus—I gaze at my +reflection, I can see nothing but the features of a failure. After all, +perhaps it’s an effect of chiaroscuro.... No, my dear Olivier, no; I +have done nothing this summer, and if you are counting on me for your +review, you may go to blazes. But that’s enough about me.... Did all go +well in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span> Corsica? Did you enjoy your trip? Did it do you good? Did you +rest after your labours? Did you....”</p> + +<p>Olivier could bear it no longer:</p> + +<p>“Oh! do shut up, old boy. Stop playing the ass. If you imagine I think +it’s funny....”</p> + +<p>“And what about me?” cried Armand. “No, my dear fellow, no; all the +same I’m not so stupid as all that. I’ve still intelligence enough to +understand that everything I’ve been saying is idiotic.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you ever talk seriously?”</p> + +<p>“Very well; we’ll talk seriously, since seriousness is the style you +favour. Rachel, my eldest sister, is going blind. Her sight has been +getting very bad lately. For the last two years, she hasn’t been able +to read without glasses. I thought at first it would be all right if +she were to change them. But it wasn’t. At my request, she went to +see an oculist. It seems the sensitiveness of the retina is failing. +You understand there are two very different things—on the one hand, +a defective power of accommodation of the crystalline, which can be +remedied by glasses. But even after they have brought the visual image +to the proper focus, that image may make an insufficient impression +on the retina and be only dimly transmitted to the brain. Do I make +myself clear? You hardly know Rachel, so don’t imagine that I am trying +to arouse your pity for her. Then why am I telling you all this?... +Because, reflecting on my own case, I became aware that not only images +but ideas may strike the brain with more or less clearness. A person +with a dull mind receives only confused perceptions; but for that very +reason he cannot realize clearly that he is dull. He would only begin +to suffer from his stupidity if he were conscious of it; and in order +to be conscious of it, he would have to become intelligent. Now imagine +for a moment such a monster—an imbecile who is intelligent enough to +understand that he is stupid.”</p> + +<p>“Why, he would cease to be an imbecile.”</p> + +<p>“No, my dear fellow; you may believe me, because as a matter of fact, +<i>I</i> am that very imbecile.”</p> + +<p>Olivier shrugged his shoulders. Armand went on:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span></p> + +<p>“A real imbecile has no consciousness of any idea beyond his own. +<i>I</i> am conscious of the <i>beyond</i>. But all the same I’m an +imbecile, because I know that I shall never be able to attain that +‘<i>beyond</i>’!...”</p> + +<p>“But, old fellow,” said Olivier, in a burst of sympathy, “we are all +made so that we might be better, and I think the greatest intelligence +is precisely the one that suffers most from its own limitations.”</p> + +<p>Armand shook off the hand that Olivier had placed affectionately on his +arm.</p> + +<p>“Others,” said he, “have the feeling of what they possess; I have only +the feeling of what I lack. Lack of money, lack of strength, lack of +intelligence, lack of love—an everlasting deficit. I shall never be +anything but below the mark.”</p> + +<p>He went up to the toilette table, dipped a hairbrush in the dirty water +in the basin and plastered his hair down in hideous fashion over his +forehead.</p> + +<p>“I told you I hadn’t written anything; but a few days ago, I did have +an idea for an essay, which I should have called: <i>On Incapacity</i>. +But of course I was incapable of writing it. I should have said.... But +I’m boring you.”</p> + +<p>“No; go on; you bore me when you make jokes; you’re interesting me very +much now.”</p> + +<p>“I should have tried to find throughout nature the dividing line, +below which nothing exists. An example will show you what I mean. +The newspapers the other day had an account of a workman who was +electrocuted. He was handling some live wires carelessly; the +voltage was not very high; but it seems his body was in a state of +perspiration. His death is attributed to the layer of humidity which +enabled the current to envelop his body. If his body had been drier, +the accident wouldn’t have taken place. But now let’s imagine the +perspiration added drop by drop.... One more drop—there you are!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” said Olivier.</p> + +<p>“Because my example is badly chosen. I always choose my examples badly. +Here’s another: Six shipwrecked persons are picked up in a boat. They +have been adrift for ten days in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> storm. Three are dead; two are +saved. The sixth is expiring. It was hoped he might be restored to +life; but his organism had reached the extreme limit.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I understand,” said Olivier. “An hour sooner and he might have +been saved.”</p> + +<p>“An hour! How you go it! I am calculating the extremest point. It is +possible. It is still possible.... It is no longer possible! My mind +walks along that narrow ridge. That dividing line between existence +and non-existence is the one I keep trying to trace everywhere. The +limit of resistance to—well, for instance, to what my father would +call temptation. One holds out; the cord on which the devil pulls is +stretched to breaking.... A tiny bit more, the cord snaps—one is +damned. Do you understand now? A tiny bit less—non-existence. God +would not have created the world. Nothing would have been. ‘The face of +the world would have been changed,’ says Pascal. But it’s not enough +for me to think—‘if Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter.’ I insist. I +ask: shorter, by how much? For it might have been a tiny bit shorter, +mightn’t it?... Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap.... +<i>Natura non fecit saltus.</i> What absurd rubbish! As for me, I +am like the Arab in the desert who is dying of thirst. I am at that +precise point, you see, when a drop of water might still save him ... +or a tear....”</p> + +<p>His voice trailed away; there had come into it a note of pathos which +surprised Olivier and disturbed him. He went on more gently—almost +tenderly:</p> + +<p>“You remember: ‘I shed that very tear for thee....’”</p> + +<p>Olivier remembered Pascal’s words; he was even a little put out that +his friend had not quoted them exactly. He could not refrain from +correcting: “‘I shed that very drop of blood for thee....’”</p> + +<p>Armand’s emotion dropped at once. He shrugged his shoulders:</p> + +<p>“What can we do? There are some who get through with more than enough +and to spare.... Do you understand now what it is to feel that one is +always ‘on the border line’? As for me, I shall always have one mark +too little.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span></p> + +<p>He had begun to laugh again. Olivier thought that it was for fear of +crying. He would have liked to speak in his turn, to tell Armand how +much his words had moved him, and how he felt all the sickness of +heart that lay beneath his exasperating irony. But the time for his +rendezvous with Passavant was pressing him; he pulled out his watch.</p> + +<p>“I must go now. Are you free this evening?”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“To come and meet me at the Taverne du Panthéon. The <i>Argonauts</i> +are giving a dinner. You might look in afterwards. There’ll be a lot of +fellows there—some of them more or less well known—and most of them +rather drunk. Bernard Profitendieu has promised to come. It might be +funny.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not shaved,” said Armand a little crossly. “And then what should I +do among a lot of celebrities? But, I say—why don’t you ask Sarah? She +got back from England this very morning. I’m sure it would amuse her. +Shall I invite her from you? Bernard could take her.”</p> + +<p>“All right, old chap,” said Olivier.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> +<i>Es-tu vase funèbre attendant quelques pleurs?</i></p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII_c">VIII<br> +THE ARGONAUTS’ DINNER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +IT HAD been agreed then that Bernard and Edouard, after having dined +together, should pick up Sarah a little before ten o’clock. She had +delightedly accepted the proposal passed on to her by Armand. At about +half past nine, she had gone up to her bedroom, accompanied by her +mother. She had to pass through her parents’ room in order to reach +hers; but another door, which was supposed to be kept shut, led from +Sarah’s room to Armand’s, which in its turn opened, as we have seen, on +to the backstairs.</p> + +<p>Sarah, in her mother’s presence, made as though she were going to bed, +and asked to be left to go to sleep; but as soon as she was alone, she +went up to her dressing table to put an added touch of brilliancy to +her lips and cheeks. The toilette table had been placed in front of the +closed door, but it was not too heavy for Sarah to lift noiselessly. +She opened the door.</p> + +<p>Sarah was afraid of meeting her brother, whose sarcasms she dreaded. +Armand, it is true, encouraged her most audacious exploits; it was as +though he took pleasure in them—but only with a kind of temporary +indulgence, for it was to judge them later on with all the greater +severity; so that Sarah wondered whether his complaisance itself was +not calculated to play the censor’s game.</p> + +<p>Armand’s room was empty. Sarah sat down on a little low chair and, as +she was waiting, meditated. She cultivated a facile contempt for all +the domestic virtues as a kind of preventive protest. The constraint of +family life had intensified her energies and exasperated her instinct +for revolt. During her stay in England, she had worked herself up +into a white heat of courage. Like Miss Aberdeen, the English girl +boarder, she was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span> resolved to conquer her liberty, to grant herself +every license, to dare all. She felt ready to affront scorn and blame +on every side, capable of every defiance. In the advances she had made +to Olivier, she had already triumphed over natural modesty and many an +instinctive reluctance. The example of her two sisters had taught her +her lesson; she looked upon Rachel’s pious resignation as the delusion +of a dupe, and saw in Laura’s marriage nothing but a lugubrious barter +with slavery as its upshot. The education she had received, that which +she had given herself, that which she had taken, inclined her very +little to what she called “conjugal piety.” She did not see in what +particular the man she might marry could be her superior. Hadn’t she +passed her examinations like a man? Hadn’t she her opinions and ideas +on any and every subject? On the equality of the sexes in particular; +and it even seemed to her that in the conduct of life, and consequently +of business, and even, if need were, of politics, women often gave +proof of more sense than many men....</p> + +<p>Steps on the staircase. She listened and then opened the door gently.</p> + +<p>Bernard and Sarah had never met. There was no light in the passage. +They could hardly distinguish each other in the dark.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel?” whispered Bernard. She took his arm without +more ado.</p> + +<p>“Edouard is waiting for us at the corner of the street in a taxi. He +didn’t want to get down for fear of meeting your parents. It didn’t +matter for me; you know I am staying in the house.”</p> + +<p>Bernard had been careful to leave the door into the street ajar, so +as not to attract the porter’s attention. A few minutes later, the +taxi deposited them all three in front of the Taverne du Panthéon. As +Edouard was paying the taxi, they heard a clock strike ten.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Dinner was finished. The table had been cleared, but it was still +covered with coffee-cups, bottles and glasses. Everyone was smoking +and the atmosphere was stifling. Madame des Brousses,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> the wife of the +editor of the <i>Argonauts</i>, called for fresh air in a strident +voice, which rang out shrilly above the hum of general talk. Someone +opened a window. But Justinien, who wanted to put in a speech, had it +shut almost immediately “for acoustics’ sake.” He rose to his feet +and struck on his glass with a spoon, but failed to attract anyone’s +attention. The editor of the <i>Argonauts</i>, whom people called the +Président des Brousses, interposed, and having at last succeeded in +obtaining a modicum of silence, Justinien’s voice gushed forth in a +copious stream of dullness. A flood of metaphors covered the triteness +of his ideas. He spoke with an emphasis which took the place of wit, +and managed to ladle out to everyone in turn a handsome helping of +grandiloquent flummery. At the first pause, and just as Edouard, +Bernard and Sarah were making their entry, there was a loud burst of +polite applause. Some of the company prolonged it, no doubt a little +ironically, and as if hoping to put an end to the speech; but in +vain—Justinien started off afresh; nothing could daunt his eloquence. +At that moment it was the Comte de Passavant whom he was bestrewing +with the flowers of his rhetoric. He spoke of <i>The Horizontal Bar</i> +as of another <i>Iliad</i>. Passavant’s health was drunk. Edouard had +no glass, neither had Bernard nor Sarah, so that they were dispensed +from joining in the toast.</p> + +<p>Justinien’s speech ended with a few heartfelt wishes for the prosperity +of the new review and a few elegant compliments to its future +editor—“the young and gifted Molinier—the darling of the Muses, +whose pure and lofty brow would not long have to wait for its crown of +laurels.”</p> + +<p>Olivier was standing near the door, so as to welcome his friends as +soon as they should arrive. Justinien’s blatant compliments obviously +embarrassed him, but he was obliged to respond to the little ovation +which followed them.</p> + +<p>The three new arrivals had dined too soberly to feel in tune with the +rest of the assembly. In this sort of gathering, late comers understand +ill—or only too well—the others’ excitement. They judge, when they +have no business to judge, and exercise, even though involuntarily, a +criticism which is without<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span> indulgence; this was the case at any rate +with Edouard and Bernard. As for Sarah, in this milieu, everything was +new to her; her one idea was to learn what she could, her one anxiety +to be up to the mark.</p> + +<p>Bernard knew no one. Olivier, who had taken him by the arm, wanted to +introduce him to Passavant and des Brousses. He refused. Passavant, +however, forced the situation by coming up to him and holding out a +hand, which he could not in decency refuse:</p> + +<p>“I have heard you spoken of so often that I feel as if I knew you +already.”</p> + +<p>“The same with me,” said Bernard in such a tone that Passavant’s +amenity froze. He at once turned to Edouard.</p> + +<p>Though often abroad travelling, and keeping, even when he was in Paris, +a great deal to himself, Edouard was nevertheless acquainted with +several of the guests and feeling perfectly at his ease. Little liked, +but at the same time esteemed, by his <i>confrères</i>, he did not +object to being thought proud, when, in reality, he was only distant. +He was more willing to listen than to speak.</p> + +<p>“From what your nephew said, I was hoping you would come to-night,” +began Passavant in a gentle voice that was almost a whisper. “I was +delighted because....”</p> + +<p>Edouard’s ironical look cut short the rest of his sentence. Skilful +in the arts of pleasing and accustomed to please, Passavant, in order +to shine, had need to feel himself confronted by a flattering mirror. +He collected himself, however, for he was not the man to lose his +self-possession for long or to let himself be easily snubbed. He raised +his head, and his eyes were charged with insolence. If Edouard would +not follow his lead with a good grace, he would find means to worst him.</p> + +<p>“I was wanting to ask you ...” he went on, as if he were continuing his +first remark, “whether you had any news of your other nephew, Vincent? +It was he who was my special friend.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Edouard dryly.</p> + +<p>This “no” upset Passavant once more; he did not know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> whether to +take it as a provocative contradiction, or as a simple answer to his +question. His disturbance lasted only a second; it was Edouard who +unintentionally restored him to his balance by adding almost at once:</p> + +<p>“I have merely heard from his father that he was travelling with the +Prince of Monaco.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I asked a lady, who is a friend of mine, to introduce him to the +Prince. I was glad to hit upon this diversion to distract him a little +from his unlucky affair with that Madame Douviers.... You know her, so +Olivier told me. He was in danger of wrecking his whole life over it.”</p> + +<p>Passavant handled disdain, contempt, condescension with marvellous +skill; but he was satisfied with having won this bout and with keeping +Edouard at sword’s length. Edouard indeed was racking his brains for +some cutting answer. He was singularly lacking in presence of mind. +That was no doubt the reason he cared so little for society—he had +none of the qualities which are necessary to shine in it. His eyebrows +however began to look frowningly. Passavant was quick to notice; when +anything disagreeable was coming to him, he sniffed it in the air, and +veered about. Without even stopping to take breath, and with a sudden +change of tone:</p> + +<p>“But who is that delightful girl who is with you?” he asked smiling.</p> + +<p>“It is Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel, the sister of the very lady you were +mentioning—my friend Madame Douviers.”</p> + +<p>In default of any better repartee, he sharpened the words “my friend” +like an arrow—but an arrow which fell short, and Passavant, letting it +lie, went on:</p> + +<p>“It would be very kind of you to introduce me.”</p> + +<p>He had said these last words and the sentence which preceded them loud +enough for Sarah to hear, and as she turned towards them, Edouard was +unable to escape:</p> + +<p>“Sarah, the Comte de Passavant desires the honour of your +acquaintance,” said he with a forced smile.</p> + +<p>Passavant had sent for three fresh glasses, which he filled with +kummel. They all four drank Olivier’s health. The bottle was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> almost +empty, and as Sarah was astonished to see the crystals remaining at the +bottom, Passavant tried to dislodge them with a straw. A strange kind +of clown, with a befloured face, a black beady eye, and hair plastered +down on his head like a skull-cap, came up.</p> + +<p>“You won’t do it,” he said, munching out each one of his syllables with +an effort which was obviously assumed. “Pass me the bottle. I’ll smash +it.”</p> + +<p>He seized it, broke it with a blow against the window ledge, and +presenting the bottom of the bottle to Sarah:</p> + +<p>“With a few of these little sharp-edged polyhedra, the charming young +lady will easily induce a perforation of her gizzard.”</p> + +<p>“Who is that pierrot?” she asked Passavant, who had made her sit down +and was sitting beside her.</p> + +<p>“It’s Alfred Jarry, the author of <i>Ubu Roi</i>. The <i>Argonauts</i> +have dubbed him a genius because the public have just damned his play. +All the same, it’s the most interesting thing that’s been put on the +stage for a long time.”</p> + +<p>“I like <i>Ubu Roi</i> very much,” said Sarah, “and I’m delighted to +see Jarry. I had heard he was always drunk.”</p> + +<p>“I should think he must be to-night. I saw him drink two glasses +of neat absinthe at dinner. He doesn’t seem any the worse for it. +Won’t you have a cigarette? One has to smoke oneself so as not to be +smothered by the other people’s smoke.”</p> + +<p>He bent towards her to give her a light. She crunched a few of the +crystals.</p> + +<p>“Why! it’s nothing but sugar candy,” said she, a little disappointed. +“I hoped it was going to be something strong.”</p> + +<p>All the time she was talking to Passavant, she kept smiling at Bernard, +who had stayed beside her. Her dancing eyes shone with an extraordinary +brightness. Bernard, who had not been able to see her before because +of the dark, was struck by her likeness to Laura. The same forehead, +the same lips.... In her features, it is true, there breathed a less +angelic grace, and her looks stirred he knew not what troubled depths +in his heart. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he turned to Olivier:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span></p> + +<p>“Introduce me to your friend Bercail.”</p> + +<p>He had already met Bercail in the Luxembourg, but he had never spoken +to him. Bercail was feeling rather out of it in this milieu into which +Olivier had introduced him, and which he was too timid not to find +distasteful, and every time Olivier presented him as one of the chief +contributors to the <i>Vanguard</i>, he blushed. The fact is, that the +allegorical poem of which he had spoken to Olivier at the beginning +of our story, was to appear on the first page of the new review, +immediately after the manifesto.</p> + +<p>“In the place I had kept for you,” said Olivier to Bernard. “I’m sure +you’ll like it. It’s by far the best thing in the number. And so +original!”</p> + +<p>Olivier took more pleasure in praising his friends than in hearing +himself praised. At Bernard’s approach, Bercail rose; he was holding +his cup of coffee in his hand so awkwardly, that in his agitation +he spilled half of it down his waistcoat. At that moment, Jarry’s +mechanical voice was heard close at hand:</p> + +<p>“Little Bercail will be poisoned. I’ve put poison in his cup.”</p> + +<p>Bercail’s timidity amused Jarry, and he liked putting him out of +countenance. But Bercail was not afraid of Jarry. He shrugged his +shoulders and finished his coffee calmly.</p> + +<p>“Who is that?” asked Bernard.</p> + +<p>“What! Don’t you know the author of <i>Ubu Roi</i>?”</p> + +<p>“Not possible! <i>That</i> Jarry? I took him for a servant.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all the same,” said Olivier, a little vexed, for he took a pride +in his great men. “Look at him more carefully. Don’t you think he’s +extraordinary?”</p> + +<p>“He does all he can to appear so,” said Bernard, who only esteemed +what was natural, and who nevertheless was full of consideration for +<i>Ubu</i>.</p> + +<p>Everything about Jarry, who was got up to look like the traditional +circus clown, smacked of affectation—his way of talking in particular; +several of the <i>Argonauts</i> did their utmost to imitate it, +snapping out their syllables, inventing odd words, and oddly mangling +others; but it was only Jarry who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span> could succeed in producing that +toneless voice of his—a voice without warmth or intonation, or accent +or emphasis.</p> + +<p>“When one knows him, he is charming, really,” went on Olivier.</p> + +<p>“I prefer not to know him. He looks ferocious.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s just the way he has. Passavant thinks that in reality he +is the kindest of creatures. But he has drunk a terrible lot to-night; +and not a drop of water, you may be sure—nor even of wine; nothing but +absinthe and spirits. Passavant’s afraid he may do something eccentric.”</p> + +<p>In spite of himself, Passavant’s name kept recurring to his lips, and +all the more obstinately that he wanted to avoid it.</p> + +<p>Exasperated at feeling so little able to control himself, and as if he +were trying to escape from his own pursuit, he changed his ground:</p> + +<p>“You should talk to Dhurmer a little. I’m afraid he bears me a deadly +grudge for having stepped into his shoes at the <i>Vanguard</i>; but it +really wasn’t my fault; I simply had to accept. You might try and make +him see it and calm him down a bit. Pass.... I’m told he’s fearfully +worked up against me.”</p> + +<p>He had tripped, but this time he had not fallen.</p> + +<p>“I hope he has taken his copy with him. I don’t like what he +writes,” said Bercail; then turning to Bernard: “But, you, Monsieur +Profitendieu, I thought that you....”</p> + +<p>“Oh, please don’t call me Monsieur.... I know I’ve got a ridiculous +mouthful of a name.... I mean to take a pseudonym, if I write.”</p> + +<p>“Why haven’t you contributed anything?”</p> + +<p>“Because I hadn’t anything ready.”</p> + +<p>Olivier, leaving his two friends to talk together, went up to Edouard.</p> + +<p>“How nice of you to come! I was longing to see you again. But I would +rather have met you anywhere but here.... This afternoon, I went and +rang at your door. Did they tell you? I was so sorry not to find you; +if I had known where you were....”</p> + +<p>He was quite pleased to be able to express himself so easily,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span> +remembering a time when his emotion in Edouard’s presence kept him +dumb. This ease of his was due, alas! to his potations and to the +banality of his words.</p> + +<p>Edouard realized it sadly.</p> + +<p>“I was at your mother’s.” (And for the first time he said “you” to +Olivier instead of “thou.”)</p> + +<p>“Were you?” said Olivier, who was in a state of consternation at +Edouard’s style of address. He hesitated whether he should not tell him +so.</p> + +<p>“Is it in this milieu that you mean to live for the future?” asked +Edouard, looking at him fixedly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.”</p> + +<p>“Are you quite sure of that?”</p> + +<p>These words were said in so grave, so tender, so fraternal a tone.... +Olivier felt his self-assurance tottering within him.</p> + +<p>“You think I am wrong to frequent these people?”</p> + +<p>“Not all of them, perhaps; but certainly some.”</p> + +<p>Olivier took this as a direct allusion to Passavant, and in his inward +sky a flash of blinding, painful light shot through the bank of clouds +which ever since the morning had been thickening and darkening in his +heart. He loved Bernard, he loved Edouard far too well to bear the loss +of their esteem. Edouard’s presence exalted all that was best in him; +Passavant’s all that was worst; he acknowledged it now; and indeed, +had he not always known it? Had not his blindness as regards Passavant +been deliberate? His gratitude for all that the count had done for him +turned to loathing. With his whole soul, he cast him off. What he now +saw put the finishing touch to his hatred.</p> + +<p>Passavant, leaning towards Sarah, had passed his arm round her waist +and was becoming more and more pressing. Aware of the unpleasant +rumours which were rife concerning his relations with Olivier, he +thought he would give them the lie. And to make his behaviour more +public, he had determined to get Sarah to sit on his knees. Sarah had +so far put up very little defence, but her eyes sought Bernard’s, and +when they met them, her smile seemed to say:</p> + +<p>“See how far a person may go with me!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span></p> + +<p>But Passavant was afraid of overdoing it; he was lacking in experience.</p> + +<p>“If I can only get her to drink a little more, I’ll risk it,” he said +to himself, putting out his free hand towards a bottle of curaçao.</p> + +<p>Olivier, who was watching him, was beforehand with him; he snatched up +the bottle, simply to prevent Passavant from getting it; but as soon as +he took hold of it, it seemed to him that the liqueur would restore him +a little of his courage—the courage he felt failing within him—the +courage he needed to utter, loud enough for Edouard to hear, the +complaint that was trembling on his lips:</p> + +<p>“If only you had chosen....”</p> + +<p>Olivier filled his glass and emptied it at a draught. Just at that +moment, he heard Jarry, who was moving about from group to group, say +in a half-whisper, as he passed behind Bercail:</p> + +<p>“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail.”</p> + +<p>Bercail turned round sharply:</p> + +<p>“Just say that again out loud.”</p> + +<p>Jarry had already moved away. He waited until he had got round the +table and then repeated in a falsetto voice:</p> + +<p>“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail”; then, taking out of +his pocket a large pistol, with which the <i>Argonauts</i> had often +seen him playing about, he raised it to his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Jarry had acquired the reputation of being a good shot. Protests were +heard. In the drunken state in which he now was, people were not very +sure that he would confine himself to play-acting. But little Bercail +was determined to show he was not afraid; he got on to a chair, and +with his arms folded behind his back, took up a Napoleonic attitude. He +was just a little ridiculous and some tittering was heard, but it was +at once drowned by applause.</p> + +<p>Passavant said to Sarah very quickly:</p> + +<p>“It may end unpleasantly. He’s completely drunk. Get under the table.”</p> + +<p>Des Brousses tried to catch hold of Jarry, but he shook<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span> him off and +got on to a chair in his turn (Bernard noticed he was wearing patent +leather pumps). Standing there straight opposite Bercail, he stretched +out his arm and took aim.</p> + +<p>“Put the light out! Put the light out!” cried des Brousses.</p> + +<p>Edouard, who was still standing by the door, turned the switch.</p> + +<p>Sarah had risen in obedience to Passavant’s injunction; and as soon +as it was dark, she pressed up against Bernard, to pull him under the +table with her.</p> + +<p>The shot went off. The pistol was only loaded with a blank cartridge. +But a cry of pain was heard. It came from Justinien, who had been hit +in the eye by the wad.</p> + +<p>And, when the light was turned on again, there, to everyone’s +admiration, stood Bercail, still on his chair in the same attitude, +motionless and barely a shade paler.</p> + +<p>In the mean time the President’s lady was indulging in a fit of +hysterics. Her friends crowded round her.</p> + +<p>“Idiotic to give people such a turn.”</p> + +<p>As there was no water on the table, Jarry, who had climbed down from +his pedestal, dipped a handkerchief in brandy to rub her temples with, +by way of apology.</p> + +<p>Bernard had stayed only a second under the table, just long enough to +feel Sarah’s two burning lips crushed voluptuously against his. Olivier +had followed them; out of friendship, out of jealousy.... That horrible +feeling which he knew so well, of being out of it, was exacerbated by +his being drunk. When, in his turn, he came out from underneath the +table, his head was swimming. He heard Dhurmer exclaim:</p> + +<p>“Look at Molinier! He’s as funky as a girl!”</p> + +<p>It was too much. Olivier, hardly knowing what he was doing, darted +towards Dhurmer with his hand raised. He seemed to be moving in a +dream. Dhurmer dodged the blow. As in a dream, Olivier’s hand met +nothing but empty air.</p> + +<p>The confusion became general, and while some of the guests were +fussing over the President’s lady, who was still gesticulating wildly +and uttering shrill little yelps as she did so, others crowded round +Dhurmer, who called out: “He didn’t touch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> me! He didn’t touch me!” ... +and others round Olivier, who, with a scarlet face, wanted to rush at +him again, and was with great difficulty restrained.</p> + +<p>Touched or not, Dhurmer must consider that he had had his ears boxed; +so Justinien, as he dabbed his eye, endeavoured to make him understand. +It was a question of dignity. But Dhurmer was not in the least inclined +to receive lessons in dignity from Justinien. He kept on repeating +obstinately:</p> + +<p>“Didn’t touch me!... Didn’t touch me!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you leave him alone?” said des Brousses. “One can’t force a +fellow to fight if he doesn’t want to.”</p> + +<p>Olivier, however, declared in a loud voice, that if Dhurmer wasn’t +satisfied, he was ready to box his ears again; and, determined to force +a duel, asked Bernard and Bercail to be his seconds. Neither of them +knew anything about so-called “affairs of honour”; but Olivier didn’t +dare apply to Edouard. His neck-tie had come undone; his hair had +fallen over his forehead, which was dank with sweat; his hands trembled +convulsively.</p> + +<p>Edouard took him by the arm:</p> + +<p>“Come and bathe your face a little. You look like a lunatic.”</p> + +<p>He led him away to a lavatory.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was out of the room, Olivier understood how drunk he was. +When he had felt Edouard’s hand laid upon his arm, he thought he was +going to faint, and let himself be led away unresisting. Of all that +Edouard had said to him, he only understood that he had called him +“thou.” As a storm-cloud bursts into rain, he felt his heart suddenly +dissolve in tears. A damp towel which Edouard put to his forehead +brought him finally to his sober senses again. What had happened? He +was vaguely conscious of having behaved like a child, like a brute. He +felt himself ridiculous, abject.... Then, quivering with distress and +tenderness, he flung himself towards Edouard, pressed up against him +and sobbed out:</p> + +<p>“Take me away!”</p> + +<p>Edouard was extremely moved himself:</p> + +<p>“Your parents?” he asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span></p> + +<p>“They don’t know I’m back.”</p> + +<p>As they were going through the café downstairs on the way out, Olivier +said to his companion that he had a line to write.</p> + +<p>“If I post it to-night it’ll get there to-morrow morning.”</p> + +<p>Seated at a table in the café he wrote as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="nind"> +My dear George,</p> + +<p>Yes, this letter is from me, and it’s to ask you to do something for +me. I don’t suppose it’s news to you to hear I am back in Paris, for +I think you saw me this morning near the Sorbonne. I was staying +with the Comte de Passavant (Rue de Babylone); my things are still +there. For reasons it would be too long to explain and which wouldn’t +interest you, I prefer not to go back to him. You are the only person +I can ask to go and fetch them away—my things, I mean. You’ll do this +for me, won’t you? I’ll remember it when it’s your turn. There’s a +locked trunk. As for the things in the room, put them yourself into +my suit-case, and bring the lot to Uncle Edouard’s. I’ll pay for the +taxi. To-morrow’s Sunday fortunately; you’ll be able to do it as soon +as you get this line. I can count upon you, can’t I?</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +Your affectionate brother</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">OLIVIER</span></p> + +<p>P.S.—I know you’re sharp enough and you’ll be able to manage all +right. But mind, that if you have any direct dealings with Passavant, +you are to be very distant with him.</p> +</div> + +<p>Those who had not heard Dhurmer’s insulting words could not understand +the reason of Olivier’s sudden assault. He seemed to have lost his +head. If he had kept cool, Bernard would have approved him; he didn’t +like Dhurmer; but he had to admit that Olivier had behaved like a +madman and put himself entirely in the wrong. It pained Bernard to hear +him judged severely. He went up to Bercail and made an appointment with +him. However absurd the affair was, they were both anxious to conduct +it correctly. They agreed to go and call on their client at nine +o’clock the next morning.</p> + +<p>When his two friends had gone, Bernard had neither reason nor +inclination to stay. He looked round the room in search of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span> Sarah and +his heart swelled with a kind of rage to see her sitting on Passavant’s +knee. They both seemed drunk; Sarah, however, rose when she saw Bernard +coming up.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go,” she said, taking his arm.</p> + +<p>She wanted to walk home. It was not far. They spoke not a word on the +way. At the pension all the lights were out. Fearful of attracting +attention, they groped their way to the backstairs, and there struck +matches. Armand was waiting for them. When he heard them coming +upstairs, he went out on to the landing with a lamp in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Take the lamp,” said he to Bernard. “Light Sarah; there’s no candle +in her room ... and give me your matches so that I can light mine.” +Bernard accompanied Sarah into the inner room. They were no sooner +inside than Armand, leaning over from behind them, blew the lamp out at +a single breath, then, with a chuckle:</p> + +<p>“Good-night!” said he. “But don’t make a row. The parents are sleeping +next door.”</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly stepping back, he shut the door on them; and bolted it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX_c">IX<br> +OLIVIER AND EDOUARD</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +ARMAND has lain down in his clothes. He knows he will not be able to +sleep. He waits for the night to come to an end. He meditates. He +listens. The house is resting, the town, the whole of nature; not a +sound.</p> + +<p>As soon as a faint light, cast down by the reflector from the narrow +strip of sky above, enables him to distinguish once more the hideous +squalor of his room, he rises. He goes towards the door which he bolted +the night before; opens it gently....</p> + +<p>The curtains of Sarah’s room are not drawn. The rising dawn whitens the +window pane. Armand goes up to the bed where his sister and Bernard +are resting. A sheet half hides them as they lie with limbs entwined. +How beautiful they are! Armand gazes at them and gazes. He would like +to be their sleep, their kisses. At first he smiles, then, at the foot +of the bed, among the coverings they have flung aside, he suddenly +kneels down. To what god can he be praying thus with folded hands? An +unspeakable emotion shakes him. His lips are trembling ... he rises....</p> + +<p>But on the threshold of the door, he turns. He wants to wake Bernard so +that he may gain his own room before anyone in the house is awake. At +the slight noise Armand makes, Bernard opens his eyes. Armand hurries +away, leaving the door open. He leaves his room, goes downstairs; he +will hide no matter where; his presence would embarrass Bernard; he +does not want to meet him.</p> + +<p>From a window in the class-room a few minutes later, he sees him go by, +skirting the walls like a thief....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span></p> + +<p>Bernard has not slept much. But that night he has tasted a +forgetfulness more restful than sleep—the exaltation at once and the +annihilation of self. Strange to himself, ethereal, buoyant, calm and +tense as a god, he glides into another day. He has left Sarah still +asleep—disengaged himself furtively from her arms. What! without one +more kiss? without a last lover’s look? without a supreme embrace? +Is it through insensibility that he leaves her in this way? I cannot +tell. He cannot tell himself. He tries not to think; it is a difficult +task to incorporate this unprecedented night with all the preceding +nights of his history. No; it is an appendix, an annex, which can find +no place in the body of the book—a book where the story of his life +will continue, surely, will take up the thread again, as if nothing had +happened.</p> + +<p>He goes upstairs to the room he shares with little Boris. What a child! +He is fast asleep. Bernard undoes his bed, rumples the bed-clothes, +so as to give it the look of having been slept in. He sluices himself +with water. But the sight of Boris takes him back to Saas-Fée. He +recalls what Laura once said to him there: “I can only accept from +you the devotion which you offer me. The rest will have its exigences +and will have to be satisfied elsewhere.” This sentence had revolted +him. He seems to hear it again. He had ceased to think of it, but this +morning his memory is extraordinarily active. His mind works in spite +of himself with marvellous alacrity. Bernard thrusts aside Laura’s +image, tries to smother these recollections; and, to prevent himself +from thinking, he seizes a lesson book and forces himself to read for +his examination. But the room is stifling. He goes down to work in the +garden. He would like to go out into the street, walk, run, get into +the open, breathe the fresh air. He watches the street door; as soon as +the porter opens it, he makes off.</p> + +<p>He reaches the Luxembourg with his book, and sits down on a bench. +He spins his thoughts like silk; but how fragile! If he pulls it, +the thread breaks. As soon as he tries to work, indiscreet memories +wander obtrusively between his book and him; and not the memories +of the keenest moments of his joy, but ridiculous,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> trifling little +details—so many thorns, which catch and scratch and mortify his +vanity. Another time he will show himself less of a novice.</p> + +<p>About nine o’clock, he gets up to go and fetch Lucien Bercail. Together +they make their way to Edouard’s.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Edouard lived at Passy on the top floor of an apartment house. His room +opened on to a vast studio. When, in the early dawn, Olivier had risen, +Edouard at first had felt no anxiety.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to lie down a little on the sofa,” Olivier had said. And +as Edouard was afraid he might catch cold, he had told Olivier to +take some blankets with him. A little later, Edouard in his turn had +risen. He had certainly been asleep without being aware of it, for he +was astonished to find that it was now broad daylight. He wanted to +see whether Olivier was comfortable; he wanted to see him again; and +perhaps an obscure presentiment guided him....</p> + +<p>The studio was empty. The blankets were lying at the foot of the couch +unfolded. A horrible smell of gas gave him the alarm. Opening out of +the studio, there was a little room which served as a bath-room. The +smell no doubt came from there. He ran to the door; but at first was +unable to push it open; there was some obstacle—it was Olivier’s body, +sunk in a heap beside the bath, undressed, icy, livid and horribly +soiled with vomiting.</p> + +<p>Edouard turned off the gas which was coming from the jet. What had +happened? An accident? A stroke?... He could not believe it. The bath +was empty. He took the dying boy in his arms, carried him into the +studio, laid him on the carpet, in front of the wide open window. On +his knees, stooping tenderly, he put his ear to his chest. Olivier +was still breathing, but faintly. Then Edouard, desperately, set all +his ingenuity to work to rekindle the little spark of life so near +extinction; he moved the limp arms rhythmically up and down, pressed +the flanks, rubbed the thorax, tried everything he had heard should +be done in a case of suffocation, in despair that he could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span> not do +everything at once. Olivier’s eyes remained shut. Edouard raised his +eyelids with his fingers, but they dropped at once over lifeless eyes. +But yet his heart was beating. He searched in vain for brandy, for +smelling salts. He heated some water, washed the upper part of the body +and the face. Then he laid this inanimate body on the couch and covered +it with blankets. He wanted to send for a doctor, but was afraid to +absent himself. A charwoman was in the habit of coming every morning +to do the house-work; but not before nine o’clock. As soon as he heard +her, he sent her off at once to fetch the nearest doctor; then he +called her back, fearing he might be exposed to an enquiry.</p> + +<p>Olivier, in the mean time, was slowly coming back to life. Edouard sat +beside his couch. He gazed at the shut book of his face, baffled by +its riddle. Why? Why? One may act thoughtlessly at night in the heat +of intoxication, but the resolutions of early morning carry with them +their full weight of virtue. He gave up trying to understand, until at +last the moment should come when Olivier would be able to speak. Until +that moment came he would not leave him. He had taken one of his hands +in his and concentrated his interrogation, his thoughts, his whole life +into that contact. At last it seemed to him that he felt Olivier’s hand +responding feebly to his clasp.... Then he bent down, and set his lips +on the forehead, where an immense and mysterious suffering had drawn +its lines.</p> + +<p>A ring was heard at the door. Edouard rose to open it. It was Bernard +and Lucien Bercail. Edouard kept them in the hall and told them what +had happened; then, taking Bernard aside, he asked if he knew whether +Olivier was subject to attacks of giddiness, to fits of any kind?... +Bernard suddenly remembered their conversation of the day before, and, +in particular, some words of Olivier’s which he had hardly listened to +at the time, but which came back to him now, as distinctly as if he +heard them over again.</p> + +<p>“It was I who began to speak of suicide,” said he to Edouard. “I asked +him if he understood a person’s killing himself out of mere excess of +life, ‘out of enthusiasm,’ as Dmitri Karamazof<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span> says. I was absorbed in +my thought and at the time I paid no attention to anything but my own +words; but I remember now what he answered.”</p> + +<p>“What did he answer?” insisted Edouard, for Bernard stopped as though +he were reluctant to say anything more.</p> + +<p>“That he understood killing oneself, but only after having reached such +heights of joy, that anything afterwards must be a descent.”</p> + +<p>They both looked at each other and added nothing further. Light was +beginning to dawn on them. Edouard at last turned away his eyes; and +Bernard was angry with himself for having spoken. They went up to +Bercail.</p> + +<p>“The tiresome thing is,” said he, “that people may think he has tried +to kill himself in order to avoid fighting.”</p> + +<p>Edouard had forgotten all about the duel.</p> + +<p>“Behave as if nothing had happened,” said he. “Go and find Dhurmer, and +ask him to tell you who his seconds are. It is to them that you must +explain matters, if the idiotic business doesn’t settle itself. Dhurmer +didn’t seem particularly keen.”</p> + +<p>“We will tell him nothing,” said Lucien, “and leave him all the shame +of retreating. For he will shuffle out of it, I’m certain.”</p> + +<p>Bernard asked if he might see Olivier. But Edouard thought he had +better be kept quiet.</p> + +<p>Bernard and Lucien were just leaving, when young George arrived. +He came from Passavant’s, but had not been able to get hold of his +brother’s things.</p> + +<p>“Monsieur le Comte is not at home,” he had been told. “He has left no +orders.”</p> + +<p>And the servant had shut the door in his face.</p> + +<p>A certain gravity in Edouard’s tone, in the bearing of the two others, +alarmed George. He scented something out of the way—made enquiries. +Edouard was obliged to tell him.</p> + +<p>“But say nothing about it to your parents.”</p> + +<p>George was delighted to be let into a secret.</p> + +<p>“A fellow can hold his tongue,” said he. And as he had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> nothing to do +that morning, he proposed to accompany Bernard and Lucien on their way +to Dhurmer’s.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +After his three visitors had left him, Edouard called the charwoman. +Next to his own room was a spare room, which he told her to get ready, +so that Olivier might be put into it. Then he went noiselessly back to +the studio. Olivier was resting. Edouard sat down again beside him. He +had taken a book, but he soon threw it aside without having opened it, +and watched his friend sleeping.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="X_c">X<br> +OLIVIER’S CONVALESCENCE</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot-half"> + +<p><i>Rien n’est simple de ce qui s’offre à l’âme; et l’âme ne s’offre +jamais simple à aucun sujet</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">PASCAL</span></p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +“I THINK he will be glad to see you,” said Edouard to Bernard next +morning. “He asked me this morning if you hadn’t come yesterday. +He must have heard your voice, at the time when I thought he was +unconscious.... He keeps his eyes shut, but he doesn’t sleep. He +doesn’t speak. He often puts his hand to his forehead, as if it were +aching. Whenever I speak to him he frowns; but if I go away, he calls +me back and makes me sit beside him.... No, he isn’t in the studio. +I have put him in the spare room next to mine, so that I can receive +visitors without disturbing him.”</p> + +<p>They went into it.</p> + +<p>“I’ve come to enquire after you,” said Bernard very softly.</p> + +<p>Olivier’s features brightened at the sound of his friend’s voice. It +was almost a smile already.</p> + +<p>“I was expecting you.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go away if I tire you.”</p> + +<p>“Stay.”</p> + +<p>But as he said the word, Olivier put his finger on his lips. He didn’t +want to be spoken to. Bernard, who was going up for his <i>viva +voce</i> in three days’ time, never moved without carrying in his +pocket one of those manuals which contain a concentrated elixir of the +bitter stuff which is the subject matter of examinations. He sat down +beside his bed and plunged into his reading. Olivier, his face turned +to the wall, seemed to be asleep. Edouard had gone to his own room, +which communicated with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> Olivier’s; the door between them had been left +open, and from time to time he appeared at it. Every two hours he made +Olivier drink a glass of milk, but only since that morning. During the +whole of the preceding day, the patient had been unable to take any +food.</p> + +<p>A long time went by. Bernard rose to go. Olivier turned round, held out +his hand, and with an attempt at a smile:</p> + +<p>“You’ll come back to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>At the last moment he called him back, signed to him to stoop down, as +if he were afraid of not making himself heard, and whispered:</p> + +<p>“Did you ever know such an idiot?”</p> + +<p>Then, as though to forestall Bernard’s protest, put his finger again to +his lips.</p> + +<p>“No, no; I’ll explain later.”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +The next morning Edouard received a letter from Laura, when Bernard +came, he gave it to him to read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="nind"> +My dear friend,</p> + +<p>I am writing to you in a great hurry to try and prevent an absurd +disaster. You will help me, I am sure, if only this letter reaches you +in time.</p> + +<p>Felix has just left for Paris, with the intention of going to see you. +His idea is to get from you the explanation which I refuse to give +him; he wants you to tell him the name of the person, whom he wishes +to challenge. I have done all I can to stop him, but nothing has any +effect and all I say merely serves to make him more determined. You +are the only person who will perhaps be able to dissuade him. He has +confidence in you and will, I hope, listen to you. Remember that he +has never in his life held a pistol or a foil in his hands. The idea +that he may risk his life for my sake is intolerable to me; but—I +hardly dare own it—I am really more afraid of his covering himself +with ridicule.</p> + +<p>Since I got back, Felix has been all that is attentive and tender and +kind; but I cannot bring myself to show more love for him than I feel. +He suffers from this; and I believe it is his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span> desire to force my +esteem, my admiration, that is making him take this step, which will +no doubt appear to you unconsidered, but of which he thinks day and +night, and which, since my return, has become an <i>idée fixe</i> with +him. He has certainly forgiven me; but he bears ... a mortal grudge.</p> + +<p>Please, I beg of you, welcome him as affectionately as you would +welcome myself; no proof of your friendship could touch me more. +Forgive me for not having written to you sooner to tell you once more +how grateful I am for all the care and kindness you lavished on me +during our stay in Switzerland. The recollection of that time keeps me +warm and helps me to bear my life.</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +Your ever anxious and ever confident friend</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="allsmcap">LAURA</span></p> +</div> + +<p>“What do you mean to do?” asked Bernard, as he gave the letter back.</p> + +<p>“What <i>can</i> I do?” replied Edouard, slightly irritated, not so +much by Bernard’s question, as by the fact that he had already put +it to himself. “If he comes, I will receive him to the best of my +abilities. If he asks my advice, I will give him the best I can; and +try to persuade him that the most sensible thing he can do is to keep +quiet. People like poor Douviers are always wrong to put themselves +forward. You’d think the same if you knew him, believe me. Laura, on +the other hand, was cut out for a leading rôle. Each of us assumes the +drama that suits his measure, and is allotted his share of tragedy. +What can we do about it? Laura’s drama is to have married a super. +There’s no help for that.”</p> + +<p>“And Douviers’ drama is to have married someone who will always be his +superior, do what he may,” rejoined Bernard.</p> + +<p>“Do what he may ...” echoed Edouard, “—and do what Laura may. The +admirable thing is that Laura, out of regret for her fault, out of +repentance, wanted to humble herself before him; but he immediately +prostrated himself lower still; so that all that each of them did +merely served to make <i>him</i> smaller and <i>her</i> greater.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span></p> + +<p>“I pity him very much,” said Bernard. “But why won’t you allow that he +too may become greater by prostrating himself?”</p> + +<p>“Because he lacks the lyrical spirit,” said Edouard irrefutably.</p> + +<p>“What <i>do</i> you mean?”</p> + +<p>“He never forgets himself in what he feels, so that he never feels +anything great. Don’t push me too hard. I have my own ideas; but they +don’t lend themselves to the yard measure, and I don’t care to measure +them. Paul-Ambroise is in the habit of saying that he refuses to take +count of anything that can’t be put down in figures; I think he is +playing on the words ‘take count’; for if that were the case, we should +be obliged to leave God out of ‘the account.’ That of course is where +he is tending and what he desires.... Well, for instance, I think I +call <i>lyrical</i> the state of the man who consents to be vanquished +by God.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that exactly what the word <i>enthusiasm</i> means?”</p> + +<p>“And perhaps the word <i>inspiration</i>. Yes, that is just what I +mean: Douviers is a being who is incapable of inspiration. I admit that +Paul-Ambroise is right when he considers inspiration as one of the most +harmful things in art; and I am willing to believe that one can only be +an artist on condition of mastering the lyrical state; but in order to +master it, one must first of all experience it.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think that this state of divine visitation can be +physiologically explained by....”</p> + +<p>“Much good that will do!” interrupted Edouard. “Such considerations +as that, even if they are true, only embarrass fools. No doubt there +is no mystical movement that has not its corresponding material +manifestation. What then? Mind, in order to bear its witness, cannot do +without matter. Hence the mystery of the incarnation.”</p> + +<p>“On the other hand, matter does admirably without mind.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ho! we don’t know about that!” said Edouard, laughing.</p> + +<p>Bernard was very much amused to hear him talk in this way. As a +rule Edouard was more reserved. The mood he was in to-day came from +Olivier’s presence. Bernard understood it.</p> + +<p>“He is talking to me as he would like already to be talking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span> to him,” +thought he. “It is Olivier who ought to be his secretary. As soon as +Olivier is well again, I shall retire. My place is not here.”</p> + +<p>He thought this without bitterness, entirely taken up as he now was by +Sarah, with whom he had spent the preceding night and whom he was to +see that night too.</p> + +<p>“We’ve left Douviers a long way behind,” he said, laughing in his turn. +“Will you tell him about Vincent?”</p> + +<p>“Goodness no! What for?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think it’s poisoning Douviers’ life not to know whom to +suspect?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you are right. But you must say that to Laura. I couldn’t tell +him without betraying her.... Besides I don’t even know where he is.”</p> + +<p>“Vincent?... Passavant must know.”</p> + +<p>A ring at the door interrupted them. Madame Molinier had come to +enquire for her son. Edouard joined her in the studio.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI_c">XI<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: PAULINE</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +VISIT from Pauline. I was a little puzzled how to let her know, and yet +I could not keep her in ignorance of her son’s illness. I thought it +useless to say anything about the incomprehensible attempt at suicide +and spoke simply of a violent liver attack, which, as a matter of fact, +remains the clearest result of the proceedings.</p> + +<p>“I am reassured already by knowing Olivier is with you,” said Pauline. +“I shouldn’t nurse him better myself, for I feel that you love him as +much as I do.”</p> + +<p>As she said these last words, she looked at me with an odd insistence. +Did I imagine the meaning she seemed to put in her look? I was feeling +what one is accustomed to call “a bad conscience” as regards Pauline, +and was only able to stammer out something incoherent. I must also say +that, sur-saturated as I have been with emotion for the last two days, +I had entirely lost command of myself; my confusion must have been very +apparent, for she added:</p> + +<p>“Your blush is eloquent!... My poor dear friend, don’t expect +reproaches from me. I should reproach you if you didn’t love him.... +Can I see him?”</p> + +<p>I took her in to Olivier. Bernard had left the room as he heard us +coming.</p> + +<p>“How beautiful he is!” she murmured, bending over the bed. Then, +turning towards me: “You will kiss him from me. I am afraid of waking +him.”</p> + +<p>Pauline is decidedly an extraordinary woman. And to-day is not the +first time that I have begun to think so. But I could not have hoped +that she would push comprehension so far. And yet it seemed to me that +behind the cordiality of her words and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span> the pleasantness she put into +her voice, I could distinguish a touch of constraint (perhaps because +of the effort I myself made to hide my embarrassment); and I remembered +a sentence of our last conversation—a sentence which seemed to me +full of wisdom even then, when I was not interested in finding it so: +“I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan’t be able to +prevent.” Evidently Pauline was striving after good grace; and, as if +in response to my secret thoughts, she went on again, as soon as we +were back in the studio:</p> + +<p>“By not being shocked just now, I am afraid it is I who have shocked +you. There are certain liberties of thought of which men would like to +keep the monopoly. And yet I can’t pretend to have more reprobation +for you than I feel. Life has not left me ignorant. I know what a +precarious thing boys’ purity is, even when it has the appearance of +being most intact. And besides, I don’t think that the youths who are +chastest turn into the best husbands—nor even, unfortunately, the most +faithful!” she added, smiling sadly. “And then their father’s example +made me wish other virtues for my sons. But I am afraid of their taking +to debauchery or to degrading liaisons. Olivier is easily led astray. +You will have it at heart to keep him straight. I think you will be +able to do him good. It only rests with you....”</p> + +<p>These words filled me with confusion.</p> + +<p>“You make me out better than I am.”</p> + +<p>That is all I could find to say, in the stupidest, stiffest way. She +went on with exquisite delicacy:</p> + +<p>“It is Olivier who will make you better. With love’s help what can one +not obtain from oneself?”</p> + +<p>“Does Oscar know he is with me?” I asked, to put a little air between +us.</p> + +<p>“He does not even know he is in Paris. I told you that he pays very +little attention to his sons. That is why I counted on you to speak to +George. Have you done so?”</p> + +<p>“No—not yet.”</p> + +<p>Pauline’s brow grew suddenly sombre.</p> + +<p>“I am becoming more and more anxious. He has an air of assurance, which +seems to me a combination of recklessness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> cynicism, presumption. He +works well. His masters are pleased with him; my anxiety has nothing to +lay hold of....”</p> + +<p>Then all of a sudden, throwing aside her calm and speaking with an +excitement such that I barely recognized her:</p> + +<p>“Do you realize what my life is?” she exclaimed. “I have restricted my +happiness; year by year, I have been obliged to narrow it down; one by +one, I have curtailed my hopes. I have given in; I have tolerated; I +have pretended not to understand, not to see.... But all the same, one +clings to something, however small; and when even that fails one!... In +the evening he comes and works beside me under the lamp; when sometimes +he raises his head from his book, it isn’t affection that I see in his +look—it’s defiance. I haven’t deserved it.... Sometimes it seems to me +suddenly that all my love for him is turned to hatred; and I wish that +I had never had any children.”</p> + +<p>Her voice trembled. I took her hand.</p> + +<p>“Olivier will repay you, I vouch for it.”</p> + +<p>She made an effort to recover herself.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am mad to speak so; as if I hadn’t three sons. When I think of +one, I forget the others.... You’ll think me very unreasonable, but +there are really moments when reason isn’t enough.”</p> + +<p>“And yet what I admire most about you is your reasonableness,” said I +baldly, in the hopes of calming her. “The other day, you talked about +Oscar so wisely....”</p> + +<p>Pauline drew herself up abruptly. She looked at me and shrugged her +shoulders.</p> + +<p>“It’s always when a woman appears most resigned that she seems the most +reasonable,” she cried, almost vindictively.</p> + +<p>This reflection irritated me, by reason of its very justice. In order +not to show it, I asked:</p> + +<p>“Anything new about the letters?”</p> + +<p>“New? New?... What on earth that’s new can happen between Oscar and me?”</p> + +<p>“He was expecting an explanation.”</p> + +<p>“So was I. I was expecting an explanation. All one’s life long one +expects explanations.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span></p> + +<p>“Well, but,” I continued, rather annoyed, “Oscar felt that he was in a +false situation.”</p> + +<p>“But, my dear friend, you know well enough that nothing lasts more +eternally than a false situation. It’s the business of you novelists +to try to solve them. In real life nothing is solved; everything +continues. We remain in our uncertainty; and we <i>shall</i> remain to +the very end without knowing what to make of things. In the mean time +life goes on and on, the same as ever. And one gets resigned to that +too; as one does to everything else ... as one does to everything. +Well, well, good-bye.”</p> + +<p>I was painfully affected by a new note in the sound of her voice, which +I had never heard before; a kind of aggressiveness, which forced me +to think (not at the actual moment, perhaps, but when I recalled our +conversation) that Pauline accepted my relations with Olivier much less +easily than she said; less easily than all the rest. I am willing to +believe that she does not exactly reprobate them, that from some points +of view she is glad of them, as she lets me understand; but, perhaps +without owning it to herself, she is none the less jealous of them.</p> + +<p>This is the only explanation I can discover for her sudden outburst of +revolt, so soon after, and on a subject which, on the whole, she had +much less at heart. It was as though by granting me at first what cost +her more, she had exhausted her whole stock of benignity and suddenly +found herself with none left. Hence her intemperate, her almost +extravagant language, which must have astonished her herself, when she +came to recall it, and in which her jealousy unconsciously betrayed +itself.</p> + +<p>In reality, I ask myself, what can be the state of mind of a woman who +is not resigned? An “honest woman,” I mean.... As if what is called +“honesty” in woman did not always imply resignation!</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +This evening Olivier is perceptibly better. But returning life brings +anxiety along with it. I reassure him by every device in my power.</p> + +<p>“His duel?”—Dhurmer has run away into the country. One really can’t +run after him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span></p> + +<p>“The review?”—Bercail is in charge of it.</p> + +<p>“The things he had left at Passavant’s?”—This is the thorniest point. +I had to admit that George had been unable to get possession of them; +but I have promised to go and fetch them myself to-morrow. He is +afraid, from what I can gather, that Passavant may keep them as a +hostage; inadmissable for a single moment!</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Yesterday, I was sitting up late in the studio, after having written +this, when I heard Olivier call me. In a moment I was by his side.</p> + +<p>“I should have come myself, only I was too weak,” he said. “I tried +to get up, but when I stand, my head turns round and I was afraid of +falling. No, no, I’m not feeling worse; on the contrary. But I had to +speak to you.</p> + +<p>“You must promise me something.... Never to try and find out why I +wanted to kill myself the other night. I don’t think I know myself. +I can’t remember. Even if I tried to tell you, upon my honour, I +shouldn’t be able to.... But you mustn’t think that it’s because of +anything mysterious in my life, anything you don’t know about.” Then, +in a whisper: “And don’t imagine either that it was because I was +ashamed....”</p> + +<p>Although we were in the dark, he hid his face in my shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Or if I am ashamed, it is of the dinner the other evening; of being +drunk, of losing my temper, of crying; and of this summer ... and of +having waited for you so badly.”</p> + +<p>Then he protested that none of all that was part of him any more; that +it was all that that he had wanted to kill—that he had killed—that he +had wiped out of his life.</p> + +<p>I felt, in his very agitation, how weak he still was, and rocked him in +my arms, like a child, without saying anything. He was in need of rest; +his silence made me hope he was asleep; but at last I heard him murmur:</p> + +<p>“When I am with you, I am too happy to sleep.”</p> + +<p>He did not let me leave him till morning.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII_c">XII<br> +EDOUARD AND THEN STROUVILHOU VISIT PASSAVANT</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +BERNARD arrived early that morning. Olivier was still asleep. As on the +preceding days, Bernard settled himself down at his friend’s bedside +with a book, which allowed Edouard to go off guard, in order to call on +the Comte de Passavant, as he had promised. At such an early hour he +was sure to be in.</p> + +<p>The sun was shining; a keen air was scouring the trees of their last +leaves; everything seemed limpid, bathed in azure. Edouard had not been +out for three days. His heart was dilated by an immense joy; and even +his whole being, like an opened, empty wrapping, seemed floating on a +shoreless sea, a divine ocean of loving-kindness. Love and fine weather +have this power of boundlessly enlarging our contours.</p> + +<p>Edouard knew that he would want a taxi to bring back Olivier’s things; +but he was in no hurry to take one; he enjoyed walking. The state of +benevolence in which he felt himself towards the whole world, was no +good preparation for facing Passavant. He told himself that he ought +to execrate him; he went over in his mind all his grievances—but +they had ceased to sting. This rival, whom only yesterday he had so +detested, he could detest no longer—he had ousted him too completely. +At any rate he could not detest him that morning. And as, on the other +hand, he thought it prudent that no trace of this reversal of feeling +should appear, for fear of its betraying his happiness, he would +have gladly evaded the interview. And indeed, why the dickens was he +going to it? He! Edouard! Going to the Rue de Babylone, to ask for +Olivier’s things—on what pretext? He had undertaken the commission +very thoughtlessly, he told himself, as he walked along; it would imply +that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span> Olivier had chosen to take up his abode with him—exactly what he +wanted to conceal.... Too late, however, to draw back; Olivier had his +promise. At any rate, he must be very cold with Passavant, very firm. A +taxi went by and he hailed it.</p> + +<p>Edouard knew Passavant ill. He was ignorant of one of the chief traits +of his character. No one had ever succeeded in catching Passavant out; +it was unbearable to him to be worsted. In order not to acknowledge his +defeats to himself, he always affected to have desired his fate, and +whatever happened to him, he pretended that that was what he wished. As +soon as he understood that Olivier was escaping him, his one care was +to dissemble his rage. Far from attempting to run after him, and risk +being ridiculous, he forced himself to keep a stiff lip and shrug his +shoulders. His emotions were never too violent to keep under control. +Some people congratulate themselves on this, and refuse to acknowledge +that they owe their mastery over themselves less to their force of +character than to a certain poverty of temperament. I don’t allow +myself to generalize; let us suppose that what I have said applies only +to Passavant. He did not therefore find much difficulty in persuading +himself that he had had enough of Olivier; that during these two summer +months he had exhausted the charm of an adventure which ran the risk of +encumbering his life; that, for the rest, he had exaggerated the boy’s +beauty, his grace and his intellectual resources; that, indeed, it was +high time he should open his eyes to the inconveniences of confiding +the management of a review to anyone so young and inexperienced. Taking +everything into consideration, Strouvilhou would serve his purpose far +better (as regards the review, that is). He had written to him and +appointed him to come and see him that very morning.</p> + +<p>Let us add too that Passavant was mistaken as to the cause of Olivier’s +desertion. He thought he had made him jealous by his attentions to +Sarah; he was pleased with this idea which flattered his self-conceit; +his vexation was soothed by it.</p> + +<p>He was expecting Strouvilhou; and as he had given orders that he was to +be let in at once, Edouard benefited by the instructions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> and was shown +in to Passavant without being announced.</p> + +<p>Passavant gave no signs of his surprise. Fortunately for him, the part +he had to play was suited to his temperament and he was easily able to +switch his mind on to it. As soon as Edouard had explained the motive +of his visit:</p> + +<p>“I’m delighted to hear what you say. Then really? You’re willing to +look after him? It doesn’t put you out too much?... Olivier is a +charming boy, but he was beginning to be terribly in my way here. I +didn’t like to let him feel it—he’s so nice.... And I knew he didn’t +want to go back to his parents.... Once one has left one’s parents, +you know—.... Oh! but now I come to think of it, his mother is a +half-sister of yours, isn’t she?... Or something of that kind? Olivier +must have told me so, I expect. Then, nothing could be more natural +than that he should stay with you. No one can possibly smile at it” +(though he himself didn’t fail to do so as he said the words). “With +me, you understand, it was rather more shady. In fact, that was one of +the reasons that made me anxious for him to go.... Though I am by no +means in the habit of minding public opinion. No; it was in his own +interest rather....”</p> + +<p>The conversation had not begun badly; but Passavant could not resist +the pleasure of pouring a few drops of his poisonous perfidy on +Edouard’s happiness. He always kept a supply on hand; one never knows +what may happen.</p> + +<p>Edouard felt his patience giving way. But he suddenly thought of +Vincent; Passavant would probably have news of him. He had indeed +determined not to answer Douviers, should he question him; but he +thought it would be a good thing to be himself acquainted with the +facts, in order the better to avoid his enquiries. It would strengthen +his resistance. He seized this pretext as a diversion.</p> + +<p>“Vincent has not written to me,” said Passavant; “but I have had a +letter from Lady Griffith—you know—the successor—in which she speaks +of him at length. See, here it is.... After all, I don’t know why you +shouldn’t read it.”</p> + +<p>He handed him the letter, and Edouard read:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right"> +25th August</p> + +<p class="nind"> +My dear,<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +</p> + +<p>The prince’s yacht is leaving Dakar without us. Who knows where we +shall be when you get this letter which it is taking with it? Perhaps +on the banks of the Casamance, where Vincent wants to botanize, and +I to shoot. I don’t exactly know whether it is I who am carrying him +off, or he me; or whether it isn’t rather that we have both of us +fallen into the clutches of the demon of adventure. He was introduced +to us by the demon of boredom, whose acquaintance we made on board +ship.... <i>Ah, cher!</i> one must live on a yacht to know what +boredom is. In rough weather life is just bearable; one has one’s +share of the vessel’s agitation. But after Teneriffe, not a breath; +not a wrinkle on the sea.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“... grand miroir</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>De mon désespoir.”</i></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="nind"> +And do you know what I have been engaged in doing ever since? In +hating Vincent. Yes, my dear, love seemed too tasteless, so we have +gone in for hating each other. In reality it began long before; +really, as soon as we got on board; at first it was only irritation, +a smouldering animosity, which didn’t prevent closer encounters. With +the fine weather, it became ferocious. Oh! I know now what it is to +feel passion for someone....</p> +</div> + +<p>The letter went on for some time longer.</p> + +<p>“I don’t need to read any further,” said Edouard, giving it back to +Passavant. “When is he coming back?”</p> + +<p>“Lady Griffith doesn’t speak of returning.”</p> + +<p>Passavant was mortified that Edouard showed so little appetite for this +letter. Since he had allowed him to read it, such a lack of curiosity +must be considered as an affront. He enjoyed rejecting other people’s +offers, but could not endure to have his own disdained. Lilian’s +letter had filled him with delight. He had a certain affection for her +and Vincent; and had even proved to his own satisfaction that he was +capable of being kind to them and helpful; but as soon as one got on +without it, his affection dwindled. That his two friends should not +have set sail<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span> for perfect bliss when they left him, tempted him to +think: “Serves them right!”</p> + +<p>As for Edouard, his early morning felicity was too genuine for him not +to be made uncomfortable by the picture of such outrageous feelings. It +was quite unaffectedly that he gave the letter back.</p> + +<p>Passavant felt it essential to recover the lead at once:</p> + +<p>“Oh! I wanted to say too—you know that I had thought of making Olivier +editor of a review. Of course there’s no further question of that.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” rejoined Edouard, whom Passavant had unwittingly +relieved of a considerable anxiety. He understood by Edouard’s tone +that he had played into his hand, and without even giving himself the +time to bite his lips:</p> + +<p>“Olivier’s things are in the room he was occupying. You have a taxi, I +suppose? I’ll have them brought down to you. By the bye, how is he?”</p> + +<p>“Very well.”</p> + +<p>Passavant had risen. Edouard did the same. They parted with the coldest +of bows.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +The Comte de Passavant had been terribly put out by Edouard’s visit. He +heaved a sigh of relief when Strouvilhou came into the room.</p> + +<p>Although Strouvilhou, on his side, was perfectly able to hold his own, +Passavant felt at ease with him—or, to be more accurate, treated +him in a free and easy manner. No doubt his opponent was by no means +despicable, but he considered himself his match, and piqued himself on +proving it.</p> + +<p>“My dear Strouvilhou, take a seat,” said he, pushing an arm-chair +towards him. “I am really glad to see you again.”</p> + +<p>“Monsieur le Comte sent for me. Here I am entirely at his service.”</p> + +<p>Strouvilhou liked affecting a kind of flunkey’s insolence with +Passavant, but Passavant knew him of old.</p> + +<p>“Let’s get to the point; it’s time to come out into the open. You’ve +already tried your hand at a good many trades....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> I thought to-day of +proposing you an actual dictatorship—only in the realms of literature, +let us hasten to add.”</p> + +<p>“A pity!” Then, as Passavant held out his cigarette case: “If you’ll +allow me, I prefer....”</p> + +<p>“I’ll allow nothing of the kind. Your horrid contraband cigars make the +room stink. I can’t understand how anyone can smoke such stuff.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! I don’t pretend that I rave about them. But they’re a nuisance to +one’s neighbours.”</p> + +<p>“Playful as ever?”</p> + +<p>“Not altogether an idiot, you know.”</p> + +<p>And without replying directly to Passavant’s proposal, Strouvilhou +thought proper to establish his positions; afterwards he would see. He +went on:</p> + +<p>“Philanthropy was never one of my strong points.”</p> + +<p>“I know, I know,” said Passavant.</p> + +<p>“Nor egoism either. That’s what you don’t know.... People want to +make us believe that man’s single escape from egoism is a still more +disgusting altruism! As for me, I maintain that if there’s anything +more contemptible and more abject than a man, it’s a lot of men. No +reasoning will ever persuade me that the addition of a number of sordid +units can result in an enchanting total. I never happen to get into a +tram or a train without hoping that a good old accident will reduce +the whole pack of living garbage to a pulp; yes, good Lord! and myself +into the bargain. I never enter a theatre without praying that the +chandelier may come crashing down, or that a bomb may go off; and even +if I had to be blown up too, I’d be only too glad to bring it along in +my coat pocket—if I weren’t reserving myself for something better. You +were saying?...”</p> + +<p>“No, nothing; go on, I’m listening. You’re not one of those orators who +need the stimulus of contradiction to keep them going.”</p> + +<p>“The fact is, I thought I heard you offer me some of your incomparable +port.”</p> + +<p>Passavant smiled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span></p> + +<p>“Keep the bottle beside you,” he said, as he passed it to him. “Empty +it if you like, but talk.”</p> + +<p>Strouvilhou filled his glass, sat comfortably back in his big arm-chair +and began:</p> + +<p>“I don’t know if I’ve got what people call a hard heart; in my opinion, +I’ve got too much indignation, too much disgust in my composition—not +that I care. It is true that for a long time past I have repressed +in that particular organ of mine everything which ran the risk of +softening it. But I am not incapable of admiration, and of a sort of +absurd devotion; for, in so far as I am a man, I despise and hate +myself as much as I do my neighbours. I hear it repeated everywhere and +constantly that literature, art and science work together in the long +run for the good of mankind; and that’s enough to make me loathe them. +But there’s nothing to prevent me from turning the proposition round, +and then I breathe again. Yes, what for my part I like to imagine is, +on the contrary, a servile humanity working towards the production of +some cruel master-piece; a Bernard Palissy (how they have deaved us +with that fellow!) burning his wife and children to get a varnish for +a fine plate. I like turning problems round; I can’t help it, my mind +is so constructed that they keep steadier when they are standing on +their heads. And if I can’t endure the thought of a Christ sacrificing +himself for the thankless salvation of all the frightful people I +knock up against daily, I imagine with some satisfaction, and indeed +a kind of serenity, the rotting of that vile mob in order to produce +a Christ ... though, in reality, I should prefer something else; for +all His teaching has only served to plunge us deeper into the mire. +The trouble comes from the selfishness of the ferocious. Imagine what +magnificent things an unselfish ferocity would produce! When we take +care of the poor, the feeble, the rickety, the injured, we are making +a great mistake; and that is why I hate religion—because it teaches +us to. That deep peace, which philanthropists themselves pretend they +derive from the contemplation of nature, and its fauna and flora, comes +from this—that in the savage state, it is only robust<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span> creatures that +flourish; all the rest is refuse and serves as manure. But people won’t +see it; won’t admit it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes; I admit it willingly. Go on.”</p> + +<p>“And tell me whether it isn’t shameful, wretched ... that men have +done so much to get superb breeds of horses, cattle, poultry, cereals, +flowers, and that they themselves are still seeking a relief for +their sufferings in medicine, a palliative in charity, a consolation +in religion, and oblivion in drink. What we ought to work at is the +amelioration of the breed. But all selection implies the suppression +of failures, and this is what our fool of a Christianized society +cannot consent to. It will not even take upon itself to castrate +degenerates—and those are the most prolific. What we want is not +hospitals, but stud farms.”</p> + +<p>“Upon my soul, Strouvilhou, I like you when you talk so.”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid, Monsieur le Comte, that you have misunderstood me. You +thought me a sceptic, and in reality I am an idealist, a mystic. +Scepticism has never been any good. One knows for that matter where it +leads—to tolerance! I consider sceptics people without imagination, +without ideals—fools.... And I am not ignorant of all the delicacies, +the sentimental subtleties which would be suppressed by the production +of this robust humanity; but no one would be there to regret the +delicacies, since the people capable of appreciating them would be +suppressed too. Don’t make any mistake—I am not without what is +called culture, and I know that certain among the Greeks had caught a +glimpse of my ideal; at any rate, I like imagining it, and remembering +that Coré, daughter of Ceres, went down to Hades full of pity for the +shades; but that after she had become queen, and Pluto’s wife, Homer +never calls her anything but ‘implacable Proserpine.’ See Odyssey, +Bk. VI. ‘<i>Implacable</i>’—that’s what every man who pretends to be +virtuous owes it to himself to be.”</p> + +<p>“Glad to see you come back to literature—that is, if we may be said +ever to have left it. Well then, virtuous Strouvilhou, I want to know +whether you’ll consent to become the implacable editor of a review?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span></p> + +<p>“To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating +human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most. +I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far +as to doubt whether it can be anything else—at any rate until it has +made a clean sweep of the past. We live upon nothing but feelings which +have been taken for granted once for all and which the reader imagines +he experiences, because he believes everything he sees in print; the +author builds on this as he does on the conventions which he believes +to be the foundations of his art. These feelings ring as false as +counters, but they pass current. And as everyone knows that ‘bad money +drives out good,’ a man who should offer the public real coins would +seem to be defrauding us. In a world in which everyone cheats, it’s +the honest man who passes for a charlatan. I give you fair warning—if +I edit a review, it will be in order to prick bladders—in order to +demonetize fine feelings, and those promissory notes which go by the +name of <i>words</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Upon my soul, I should very much like to know how you’ll set about it.”</p> + +<p>“Let me alone and you’ll soon see.... I have often thought it over.”</p> + +<p>“No one will understand what you’re after; no one will follow you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come now! The cleverest young men of the present day are already +on their guard against poetical inflation. They perfectly recognize +a gas bag when they see one—even in the disguise of scientifically +elaborate metre, and trimmed up with all the hackneyed effusions of +high-sounding lyrical verse. One can always find hands for a work of +destruction. Shall we found a school with no other object but to pull +things down?... Would you be afraid?”</p> + +<p>“No.... So long as my garden isn’t trampled on.”</p> + +<p>“There’s enough to be done elsewhere ... <i>en attendant</i>. The +moment is propitious. I know many a young man who is only waiting for +the rallying cry; quite young ones.... Oh, yes, I know! That’s what you +like; but I warn you they aren’t taking any.... I have often wondered +by what miracle painting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span> has gone so far ahead, and how it happens +that literature has let itself be outdistanced. In painting to-day, +just see how the ‘<i>motif</i>,’ as it used to be called, has fallen +into discredit. <i>A fine subject!</i> It makes one laugh. Painters +don’t even dare venture on a portrait unless they can be sure of +avoiding every trace of resemblance. If we manage our affairs well, and +leave me alone for that, I don’t ask for more than two years before a +future poet will think himself dishonoured if anyone can understand +a word of what he says. Yes, Monsieur le Comte, will you wager? All +sense, all meaning will be considered anti-poetical. Illogicality +shall be our guiding star. What a fine title for a review—<i>The +Scavengers!</i>”</p> + +<p>Passavant had listened without turning a hair.</p> + +<p>“Do you count your young nephew among your acolytes?” he asked after a +pause.</p> + +<p>“Young Léon is one of the elect; he doesn’t let the flies settle on +him, either. Really, it’s a pleasure teaching him. Last term he thought +it would be a joke to cut out the swotters in his form and carry off +all the prizes. Since he came back from the holidays he has let his +work go to the deuce; I haven’t the least idea what he’s hatching; but +I have every confidence in him, and I wouldn’t for the world interfere.”</p> + +<p>“Will you bring him to see me?”</p> + +<p>“Monsieur le Comte is joking, no doubt.... Well, then, this review?”</p> + +<p>“We’ll see about it later. I must have time to let your plans mature in +my mind. In the mean time, you might really find me a secretary. I’m +not satisfied with the one I had.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll send you little Cob-Lafleur to-morrow. I shall be seeing him this +afternoon, and I make no doubt he’ll suit you.”</p> + +<p>“Scavenger style?”</p> + +<p>“A little.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Ex uno</i>...”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; don’t judge them all from him. He is one of the moderate ones. +Just right for you.”</p> + +<p>Strouvilhou rose.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span></p> + +<p>“A propos,” said Passavant, “I haven’t given you my book, I think. I’m +sorry not to have a first edition left....”</p> + +<p>“As I don’t mean to sell it, it isn’t of the slightest importance.”</p> + +<p>“It’s only because the print’s better.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! as I don’t mean to read it either.... <i>Au revoir.</i> And if the +spirit moves you, I’m at your service. I wish you good morning.”</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> +In English in the original.</p> + +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII_c">XIII<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: DOUVIERS’ PROFITENDIEU</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +BROUGHT back Olivier’s things from Passavant’s. As soon as I got home, +set to work on <i>The Counterfeiters</i>. My exaltation is calm and +lucid. My joy is such as I have never known before. Wrote thirty pages +without hesitation, without a single erasure. The whole drama, like +a nocturnal landscape suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, +emerges out of the darkness, very different from what I had been trying +to invent. The books which I have hitherto written seem to me like the +ornamental pools in public gardens—their contours are defined—perfect +perhaps, but the water they contain is captive and lifeless. I wish it +now to run freely, according to its bent, sometimes swift, sometimes +slow; I choose not to foresee its windings.</p> + +<p>X. maintains that a good novelist, before he begins to write his book, +ought to know how it is going to finish. As for me, who let mine flow +where it will, I consider that life never presents us with anything +which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as +a termination. “Might be continued”—these are the words with which I +should like to finish my <i>Counterfeiters</i>.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow.</p> + +<p>As I exaggerated my sympathy for him, I was obliged to submit to his +effusions, which were rather embarrassing. All the time I was talking +to him, I kept repeating to myself La Rochefoucauld’s words: “I am +very little susceptible to pity; and should like not to be so at +all.... I consider that one ought to content oneself with showing it +and carefully refrain from feeling it.” And yet my sympathy was real, +undeniable, and I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span> was moved to tears. Truth to tell, my tears seemed +to console him better than my words. I almost believe that he gave up +being unhappy as soon as he saw me cry.</p> + +<p>I was firmly resolved not to tell him the name of the seducer; but to +my surprise he did not ask it. I think his jealousy dies down as soon +as he no longer feels Laura’s eyes upon him. In any case, its energy +had been somewhat diminished by the act of coming to see me.</p> + +<p>There is something illogical in his case; he is indignant that the +other man should have deserted Laura. I pointed out that if it had not +been for his desertion, Laura would not have come back to him. He is +resolved to love the child as if it were his own. Who knows whether he +would ever have tasted the joys of paternity without the seducer? I +took good care not to point this out to him, for at the recollection +of his insufficiencies, his jealousy becomes more acute. But then it +belongs to the domain of vanity and ceases to interest me.</p> + +<p>That an Othello should be jealous is comprehensible; the image of his +wife’s pleasure obsesses him. But when a Douviers becomes jealous it +can only be because he imagines he ought to be.</p> + +<p>And no doubt he nurses this passion from a secret need to give body to +his somewhat unsubstantial personage. Happiness would be natural to +him; but he has to admire himself and he esteems only what is acquired, +not what is natural. I did all I could therefore to persuade him that +simple happiness was more meritorious than torments and very difficult +to attain. I did not let him go till he was calm again.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Inconsistency. Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way +through exactly as one expects them to.... This consistency of theirs, +which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing +which makes us recognize that they are artificially composed.</p> + +<p>Not that I pretend that inconsistency is a sure indication of +naturalness, for one often meets, especially among women, affected +inconsistencies; and on the other hand, in some few<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span> instances, +there is reason to admire what is known as <i>esprit de suite</i>; +but, as a rule, such consecutiveness is obtained only by vain and +obstinate perseverance, and at the expense of all naturalness. The +more fundamentally generous an individual is, and the more fertile in +possibilities, the more liable he is to change, and the less willing to +allow his future to be decided by his past. The “<i>justum et tenacem +propositi virum</i>,” who is held up to us as a model, more often than +not offers a stony soil and is refractory to culture.</p> + +<p>I have known some of yet another sort: these assiduously fabricate for +themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice +of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart +from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not +a moment’s relaxation. (I remember X., who refused to let me fill +his glass with Montrachet 1904, saying: “I don’t like anything but +Bordeaux.” As soon as I pretended it was a Bordeaux, he thought the +Montrachet delectable.)</p> + +<p>When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were +virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I +wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies +the secret of not growing old.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Olivier has asked me what I am working at. I let myself be carried away +into talking of my book, and even—he seemed so much interested—into +reading him the pages I had just written. I was afraid of what he +would say, knowing how sweeping young people’s judgments are and how +difficult they find it to admit another point of view from their own. +But the few remarks which he diffidently offered, seemed to me most +judicious, and I immediately turned them to account.</p> + +<p>My breath, my life comes to me from him—through him.</p> + +<p>He is still anxious about the review he was going to edit, and +particularly about the story which he wrote at Passavant’s request and +which he now repudiates. I told him that Passavant’s new arrangements +will necessitate the re-casting of the first number; he will be able to +get his MS. back.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span></p> + +<p>Just received a very unexpected visit from <i>M. le juge +d’instruction</i> Profitendieu. He was mopping his forehead and +breathing heavily, not so much, it seemed to me, from having come up my +six flights of stairs, as from embarrassment. He kept his hat in his +hand and did not sit down till I pressed him to. He is a handsome man, +with a fine figure and considerable presence.</p> + +<p>“I think you are President Molinier’s brother-in-law,” he said. “It is +about his son George that I have taken the liberty of coming to see +you. I feel sure you will excuse a step which at first sight may seem +indiscreet, but which the affection and esteem I have for my colleague +will, I hope, sufficiently explain.”</p> + +<p>He paused. I got up and went to let down a portière, for fear the +charwoman, who is very inquisitive, and who was, I knew, in the next +room, should overhear. Profitendieu approved me with a smile.</p> + +<p>“In my capacity as <i>juge d’instruction</i>, I have an affair on my +hands which is causing me extreme embarrassment. Your young nephew has +already been mixed up in a most compromising manner in a ... this is +quite between ourselves, I beg ... in a somewhat scandalous adventure. +I am willing to believe, considering his extreme youth, that he was +taken by surprise, owing to his simplicity—his innocence; but I +may say that it has required some skill on my part to ... ahem ... +circumscribe this affair, without injuring the interests of justice. +In the face of a second breach—of quite another kind, I hasten to +add—I cannot answer for it that young George will get off so easily. +I even doubt whether it is in the boy’s own interest to <i>try</i> to +get him off, notwithstanding all my desire as a friend to spare your +brother-in-law such a scandal. Nevertheless I <i>will</i> try; but +I have officers, you understand, who are zealous, and whom I am not +always able to restrain. Or, if you prefer it, I am still able to keep +them in hand to-day, but to-morrow I shall be unable to. And I thought +you might speak to your young nephew and warn him of the risk he is +running.”</p> + +<p>Profitendieu’s visit (I might as well admit it) had at first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span> alarmed +me horribly; but as soon as I understood that he had come neither as an +enemy nor as a judge, I began to be amused. I was a great deal more so +when he went on:</p> + +<p>“For some time past a certain number of counterfeit coins have been put +into circulation. So far I am informed. But I have not yet succeeded +in discovering their origin. I know, however, that young George—quite +innocently, I am willing to believe—is one of those who circulate +them. A few young boys of your nephew’s age are lending themselves to +this shameful traffic. I don’t doubt that their simplicity is being +abused and that these foolish children are tools in the hands of one +or two unscrupulous elders. We should have had no difficulty in taking +up the younger delinquents and making them confess the origin of the +coins; but I am only too well aware that after a certain point a case +escapes our control, so to speak; that is to say, we cannot go back on +the police court proceedings, and we sometimes find ourselves forced +to become acquainted with things we should prefer to ignore. Upon this +occasion, I have no doubt I shall discover the real culprits without +having recourse to the minors’ evidence. I have given orders therefore +not to alarm them. But my orders are only provisional. I don’t want +your nephew to force me to countermand them. He had better be told that +the authorities’ eyes are open. It wouldn’t be a bad thing indeed to +frighten him a little; he is on a downward course....”</p> + +<p>I declared I would do my best to warn him, but Profitendieu seemed +not to hear me. His eyes became vague. He repeated twice: “on what is +called a downward course,” and then was silent.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long his silence lasted. Without his having to +formulate his thoughts, I seemed to see them forming in his mind, and +before he spoke, I already heard his words:</p> + +<p>“I am a father myself, sir....”</p> + +<p>Everything he had been saying disappeared; there was nothing left +between us but Bernard. The rest was only a pretext; it was to talk of +him that he had come.</p> + +<p>If effusions make me feel uncomfortable, if exaggerated feelings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> +irritate me, nothing, on the contrary, could have been more calculated +to touch me than this restrained emotion. He kept it back as best he +could, but with so great an effort that his lips and hands trembled. He +was unable to continue. He suddenly hid his face in his hands, and the +upper part of his body was shaken with sobs:</p> + +<p>“You see,” he stammered, “you see how miserable a child can make us.”</p> + +<p>What was the good of pretending? Extremely moved myself, “If Bernard +were to see you,” I cried, “his heart would melt; I can vouch for it.”</p> + +<p>At the same time I felt in rather an awkward situation. Bernard had +hardly ever mentioned his father to me. I had morally accepted his +having left his family, ready as I am to consider such desertions +natural, and disposed to see in them nothing but what will be to the +child’s greatest advantage. In Bernard’s case, there was the additional +factor of his bastardy.... But here was his false father discovering +feelings which were all the stronger, no doubt, that they were beyond +control, and all the more sincere that they were in no way obligatory. +In the face of this love, this grief, I was forced to ask myself +whether Bernard had done right to leave. I had no longer the heart to +approve him.</p> + +<p>“Make use of me, if you think I can be of any use,” I said, “if you +think that I ought to speak to him. He has a good heart.”</p> + +<p>“I know. I know.... Yes, you can do a great deal. I know he was with +you this summer. My police work is well done.... I know too that he is +going up for his <i>viva voce</i> this very day. I chose the moment I +knew he would be at the Sorbonne to come and see you. I was afraid of +meeting him.”</p> + +<p>For some minutes, my emotion had been dwindling, for I had just +noticed that the verb “to know” figured in nearly all his sentences. I +immediately became less interested in what he was saying than in this +trick of speech, which was perhaps professional.</p> + +<p>He told me also that he “knew” that Bernard had passed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span> his written +examination brilliantly. An obliging examiner, who happened to be a +friend of his, had enabled him to see his son’s French essay, which +it appears was most remarkable. He spoke of Bernard with a kind of +restrained admiration, which made me wonder whether after all he did +not believe he was really his father.</p> + +<p>“Heavens!” added he, “whatever you do, don’t tell him what I have just +been saying. He is so proud by nature, so easily offended!... If he +suspected that ever since he left I have never ceased thinking of him, +following him.... But all the same, you can tell him that you have +seen me.” (He breathed painfully after each sentence.) “You can tell +him, what no one else can, that I am not angry with him”; then with +a voice that grew fainter: “that I have never ceased to love him ... +like a son. Yes, I know that you know.... You can tell him too ...” and +without looking at me, with difficulty, in a state of extreme confusion +“that his mother left me ... yes, for good, this summer; and that if he +... would come back, I....”</p> + +<p>He was unable to finish.</p> + +<p>When a big, strong, matter-of-fact man, who has made his way in life +and is firmly established in his career, suddenly throws aside all +decorum and pours out his heart before a stranger, he affords him (in +this case it was I) a most singular spectacle. I was able once more to +verify, as I have often done before, that I am more easily moved by +the effusions of an outsider than by those of a familiar acquaintance. +(Will examine into the reason of this another time.)</p> + +<p>Profitendieu did not conceal that he had at first been prejudiced +against me, not having understood, and still not understanding, why +Bernard had left his home to join me. This was what had prevented him +from coming to see me in the first place. I did not dare tell him the +story of the suit-case, and merely spoke of his son’s friendship for +Olivier, which had quickly led to our becoming intimate in our turn.</p> + +<p>“These young men,” went on Profitendieu, “start off in life without +knowing to what they are exposed. No doubt their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span> ignorance of danger +makes their strength. But we who know, we, their fathers, tremble for +them. Our solicitude irritates them, and the best thing is to let +them see it as little as possible. I know that it is sometimes very +troublesome and clumsy. Rather than incessantly repeat to a child that +fire burns, let us consent to his burning his fingers. Experience is a +better instructor than advice. I always allowed Bernard the greatest +possible liberty—so much so, that he fancied, I grieve to say, that I +was indifferent to him. I am afraid that was his mistake and the reason +of his running away. Even then, I thought it was better to let him +be; though I kept a watch on him all the time without his suspecting +it. Thank God, I had the means!” (Evidently the organization of his +police was Profitendieu’s special pride—this was the third time he +had alluded to it.) “I thought I must take care not to belittle the +risks of his initiative in the boy’s eyes. Shall I own to you that his +rebellious conduct, notwithstanding the pain it gave me, has only made +me fonder of him than ever? It seemed to me a proof of courage, of +valour....”</p> + +<p>Now that he felt himself on confidential terms, the worthy man would +have gone on for ever. I tried to bring the conversation back to what +interested me more and, cutting him short, asked him if he had ever +seen one of the counterfeit coins of which he had spoken. I was curious +to know whether they were like the little glass piece which Bernard had +shown us. I had no sooner mentioned this, than Profitendieu’s whole +countenance changed; his eyelids half closed and a curious light burned +in his eyes; crow’s feet appeared upon his temples, his lips tightened, +his features were all drawn upwards in his effort at attention. There +was no further question of anything that had passed before. The judge +ousted the father and nothing existed for him but his profession. He +pressed me with questions, took notes and spoke of sending a police +officer to Saas-Fée to take the names of the visitors in the hotel +books.</p> + +<p>“Though in all likelihood,” he added, “the coin you saw was given to +the grocer by an adventurer who was merely passing through the place.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span></p> + +<p>To which I replied that Saas-Fée was at the further end of an +<i>impasse</i> and that it was not easy to go there and back from it +in the same day. He appeared particularly pleased with this piece of +information, and after having thanked me warmly, left me, with an +absorbed, delighted look on his face, and without having once recurred +either to George or to Bernard.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV_c">XIV<br> +BERNARD AND THE ANGEL</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +BERNARD was to experience that morning that for a nature as generous as +his, there is no greater joy than to rejoice another being. This joy +was denied him. He had just heard that he had passed his examination +with honours, but finding no one near to whom he could communicate +it, the news lost all its savour. Bernard knew well enough that the +person who would have been most pleased to hear it, was his father. +He even hesitated a moment whether he would not go there and then +and tell him; but pride held him back. Edouard? Olivier? It was +really giving too much importance to a certificate. He had passed his +<i>baccalauréat</i>. Nothing to make a fuss about! It was now that the +difficulties would begin.</p> + +<p>In the Sorbonne quadrangle, he saw one of his schoolfellows, who had +also been successful; but he had drawn apart from the others and was +crying. The poor boy was in mourning. Bernard knew that he had just +lost his mother. A great wave of sympathy drove him towards the orphan; +then a feeling of absurd shyness made him pass on. The other boy, who +had seen him come up and then go by, was ashamed of his tears; he +esteemed Bernard and was hurt by what he took for contempt.</p> + +<p>Bernard went into the Luxembourg gardens. He sat down on a bench in +the same part of the gardens where he had gone to meet Olivier the +evening he had sought shelter with him. The air was almost warm and the +blue sky laughed down at him through the branches of the great trees, +already stripped of their leaves. One could not believe that winter +was really on the way; the cooing birds themselves were deceived. But +Bernard did not look at the gardens; he saw the ocean of life spread +out before him. People say there are paths on the sea, but they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> are +not traced and Bernard did not know which one was his.</p> + +<p>He had been meditating for some moments, when he saw coming towards +him—gliding on so light a foot that one felt it might have rested on +the waves—an angel. Bernard had never seen any angels, but he had not +a moment’s doubt, and when the angel said: “Come!” he rose obediently +and followed him. He was not more astonished than he would have been +in a dream. He tried to remember afterwards if the angel had taken him +by the hand; but in reality they did not touch each other and even +kept a little apart. They returned together to the quadrangle where +Bernard had left the orphan, firmly resolved to speak to him; but the +quadrangle was empty.</p> + +<p>Bernard walked, with the angel by his side, towards the church of +the Sorbonne, into which the angel passed first—into which Bernard +had never been before. Other angels were going to and fro in this +place; but Bernard had not the eyes that were needed to see them. An +unfamiliar peace enfolded him. The angel went up to the high altar, +and Bernard, when he saw him kneel down, knelt down beside him. He did +not believe in any god, so that he could not pray, but his heart was +filled with a lover’s longing for dedication, for sacrifice; he offered +himself. His emotion was so confused that no word could have expressed +it; but suddenly the organ’s song arose.</p> + +<p>“You offered yourself in the same way to Laura,” said the angel; and +Bernard felt the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Come, follow me.”</p> + +<p>As the angel drew him along, Bernard almost knocked up against one of +his old schoolfellows, who had also just passed his <i>viva voce</i>. +Bernard considered him a dunce and was astonished that he had got +through. The dunce did not notice Bernard, who saw him slip some money +for a candle into the beadle’s hand. Bernard shrugged his shoulders and +went out.</p> + +<p>When he found himself in the street again, he saw that the angel had +left him. He went into a tobacco shop—the very same in which George, +a week before, had risked his first false coin. He had passed a great +many more since then. Bernard bought a packet of cigarettes and smoked. +Why had the angel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span> gone? Had Bernard and he then nothing to say to each +other?... Noon struck. Bernard was hungry. Should he go back to the +pension? Should he join Olivier and share with him Edouard’s lunch?... +He made sure that he had enough money in his pocket and went into a +restaurant. As he was finishing his lunch, a soft voice murmured in his +ear:</p> + +<p>“The time has come to do your accounts.”</p> + +<p>Bernard turned his head. The angel was again beside him.</p> + +<p>“You will have to make up your mind,” he said. “You have been living at +haphazard. Do you mean to let chance dispose of your life? You want to +be of service—but what do you wish to serve? That is the question.”</p> + +<p>“Teach me; guide me,” said Bernard.</p> + +<p>The angel led Bernard into a hall full of people. At the bottom of the +hall was a platform and on the platform a table covered with a dark red +cloth. A man, who was still young, was seated behind the table and was +speaking.</p> + +<p>“It is a very great folly,” he was saying, “to imagine that there is +anything we can discover. What have we that we have not received? It is +the duty of each one of us to understand while we are still young, that +we derive from the past, that we are bound to this past by every kind +of obligation, and that the whole of our future is marked out by it.”</p> + +<p>When he had finished developing this theme, another orator took his +place; he began by approving the former and then raised his voice +against the presumption of the man who thinks he can live without a +doctrine, or guide himself by his own lights.</p> + +<p>“A doctrine has been bequeathed us,” he said. “It has already traversed +many centuries. It is assuredly the best—the only one. The duty of +each one of us is to prove this truth. It has been handed down to us by +our masters. It is our country’s and every time she repudiates it, she +has to pay for her error dearly. No one can be a good Frenchman without +holding it, nor succeed in anything good without conforming to it.”</p> + +<p>To this second orator succeeded a third, who thanked the other two for +having so ably traced what he called the theory<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span> of their programme; +then he set forth that this programme consisted in nothing less than +the regeneration of France, which was to be brought about by the united +efforts of each single member of their party. He himself, he declared, +was a man of action; he affirmed that the end and proof of every theory +is in its practice, and that the duty of every good Frenchman is to be +a combatant.</p> + +<p>“But, alas!” he added, “how many isolated efforts are wasted! +Our country would be far greater, our activity would be far more +wide-spread, all that is best in us would be brought forward, if every +effort were co-ordinated, if every act contributed to the glory of law +and order, if everyone were willing to serve in the ranks.”</p> + +<p>And while he was speaking, a number of young men went round the +audience, distributing printed forms of membership, which had only to +be signed.</p> + +<p>“You wanted to offer yourself,” said the angel then. “What are you +waiting for?”</p> + +<p>Bernard took one of the papers which were handed him; it began with +these words: “I solemnly pledge myself to....” He read it, then looked +at the angel and saw that he was smiling; then he looked at the meeting +and recognized among the young men present, the schoolfellow whom he +had seen just before in the church, burning a candle in gratitude +for having passed his examination; and suddenly, further on, he +caught sight of his eldest brother, whom he had not seen since he had +left home. Bernard did not like him and was a little jealous of the +consideration with which their father seemed to treat him. He crumpled +the paper nervously in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I ought to sign?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the angel, “certainly—if you have doubts of yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I doubt no longer,” said Bernard, flinging the paper from him.</p> + +<p>In the mean time the orator was still speaking. When Bernard began to +listen to him again, he was teaching an infallible method for never +making a mistake, which was to give up ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span> forming a judgment for +oneself and always to defer to the judgments of one’s superiors.</p> + +<p>“And who are these superiors?” asked Bernard; and suddenly a great +indignation seized him.</p> + +<p>“If you went on to the platform,” he said to the angel, “and grappled +with him, you would be sure to throw him....”</p> + +<p>“It is with <i>you</i> I will wrestle. This evening. Do you agree...?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Bernard.</p> + +<p>They went out. They reached the boulevards. The crowds that were +thronging them seemed entirely composed of rich people; each of them +seemed sure of himself, indifferent to the others, but anxious.</p> + +<p>“Is that the image of happiness?” asked Bernard, who felt the tears +rising in his heart.</p> + +<p>Then the angel took Bernard into the poor quarters of the town, whose +wretchedness Bernard had never suspected. Evening was falling. They +wandered for a long time among tall, sordid houses, inhabited by +disease, prostitution, shame, crime and hunger. It was only then that +Bernard took the angel’s hand, and the angel turned aside to weep.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +Bernard did not dine that evening; and when he went back to the pension +he did not attempt to join Sarah, as he had done the other evenings, +but went straight upstairs to the room he shared with Boris.</p> + +<p>Boris was already in bed but not asleep. He was re-reading, by the +light of his candle, the letter he had received that very morning from +Bronja.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid,” wrote his friend, “that I shall never see you again. I +caught cold when we got back to Poland. I have a cough; and though the +doctor hides it from me, I feel I cannot live much longer.”</p> + +<p>When he heard Bernard coming up, Boris hid the letter under his pillow, +and blew the candle out hurriedly.</p> + +<p>Bernard came in in the dark. The angel was with him, but, although the +night was not very dark, Boris saw only Bernard.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span></p> + +<p>“Are you asleep?” asked Bernard in a whisper. And as Boris did not +answer, he concluded he was sleeping.</p> + +<p>“Then, now,” said Bernard to the angel, “we’ll have it out.”</p> + +<p>And all that night, until the breaking of the day, they wrestled.</p> + +<p>Boris dimly perceived that Bernard was struggling. He thought it was +his way of praying and took care not to disturb him. And yet he would +have liked to speak to him, for his unhappiness was very great. He got +up and knelt down at the foot of his bed. He would have liked to pray, +but he could only sob:</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bronja! You who can see angels, you who were to have opened my +eyes, you are leaving me! Without you, Bronja, what will become of me? +What will become of me?”</p> + +<p>Bernard and the angel were too busy to hear him. They wrestled together +till daybreak. The angel departed without either of them having +vanquished the other.</p> + +<p>When, a little later, Bernard himself left the room, he met Rachel in +the passage.</p> + +<p>“I want to speak to you,” she said. Her voice was so sad that Bernard +understood at once what it was she had to say to him. He answered +nothing, bowed his head, and in his great pity for Rachel suddenly +began to hate Sarah and to loathe the pleasure he took with her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV_c">XV<br> +BERNARD VISITS EDOUARD</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +ABOUT ten o’clock, Bernard turned up at Edouard’s with a hand bag which +was sufficient to contain the few clothes and books that he possessed. +He had taken leave of Azaïs and of Madame Vedel, but had not attempted +to see Sarah.</p> + +<p>Bernard was grave. His struggle with the angel had matured him. He no +longer resembled the careless youth who had stolen the suit-case and +who thought that all that is needed in this world is to be daring. He +was beginning to understand that boldness is often achieved at the +expense of other people’s happiness.</p> + +<p>“I have come to ask for shelter,” said he to Edouard. “Here I am again +without a roof.”</p> + +<p>“Why are you leaving the Vedels’?”</p> + +<p>“For private reasons ... forgive me for not telling you.”</p> + +<p>Edouard had observed Bernard and Sarah on the evening of the dinner +enough to guess at the meaning of this silence.</p> + +<p>“All right,” he said smiling. “The couch in my studio is at your +service. But I must first tell you that your father came to see me +yesterday.” And he repeated the part of their conversation which he +thought likely to touch him. “It is not in my house that you ought to +spend the night, but in his. He is expecting you.”</p> + +<p>Bernard, however, kept silent.</p> + +<p>“I will think about it,” he said at last. “Allow me in the mean time to +leave my things here. May I see Olivier?”</p> + +<p>“The weather is so fine, that I advised him to go out. I wanted to go +with him, for he is still very weak, but he wouldn’t let me. But it’s +more than an hour since he left and he will be back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span> soon. You had +better wait for him.... But I’ve just thought.... Your examination?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve passed; but it’s of no importance; the important thing is to know +what I’m to do now. Do you know the chief reason that prevents me from +going back to my father’s? It’s because I don’t want to take his money. +You’ll think me absurd to fling away such an opportunity; but I made a +vow that I would make my way without it. I feel I must prove to myself +that I am a man of my word—someone I can count on.”</p> + +<p>“It strikes me as pride more than anything else.”</p> + +<p>“Call it by any name you please—pride, presumption, conceit ... it’s a +feeling you won’t succeed in cheapening in my eyes. But at the present +moment, what I should like to know is this—is it necessary to fix +one’s eyes on a goal in order to guide oneself in life?”</p> + +<p>“Explain.”</p> + +<p>“I wrestled over it all last night. What am I to do with the strength +I feel I possess? To what use am I to put it? How am I to get out of +myself the best that’s in me? Is it by aiming at a goal? But how choose +such a goal? How know what it is before reaching it?”</p> + +<p>“To live without a goal, is to give oneself up to chance.”</p> + +<p>“I am afraid you don’t understand. When Columbus discovered America did +he know towards what he was sailing? His goal was to go ahead, straight +in front of him. Himself was his goal, impelling him to go ahead....”</p> + +<p>“I have often thought,” interrupted Edouard, “that in art, and +particularly in literature, the only people who count are those who +launch out on to unknown seas. One doesn’t discover new lands without +consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. But our +writers are afraid of the open; they are mere coasters.”</p> + +<p>“Yesterday, when I came out from my examination,” Bernard said, without +hearing him, “some demon or other urged me into a hall where there was +a public meeting going on. The talk was all about national honour, +devotion to one’s country, and a whole lot of things that made my heart +beat. I came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span> within an ace of signing a paper by which I pledged +myself on my honour to devote my energies to the service of a cause, +which certainly seemed to me a fine and noble one.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad you didn’t sign, but what prevented you?”</p> + +<p>“No doubt some secret instinct....” Bernard reflected a few moments, +and then added, laughing: “I think it was chiefly the looks of the +audience—starting with my brother, whom I recognized among them. +It seemed to me all the young men I saw there, were animated by the +best of sentiments, and that they were doing quite right to abdicate +their initiative (for it wouldn’t have led them far) and their +judgment (for it was inadequate) and their independence of mind (for +it was still-born). I said to myself too, that it was a good thing +for the country to count among its citizens a large number of these +well-intentioned individuals with subservient wills, but that my will +would never be of that kind. It was then that I began to ask myself how +to establish a rule, since I did not accept life without a rule and yet +would not accept a rule from anyone else.”</p> + +<p>“The answer seems to me simple: to find the rule in oneself; to have +for goal the development of oneself.”</p> + +<p>“Yes ... that, as a matter of fact, is what I said to myself. But I +wasn’t much further on. If I were certain of preferring what is best +in myself, I might develop that rather than the rest. But I can’t even +find out what <i>is</i> best in myself.... I wrestled over it all +night, I tell you. Towards morning I was so tired that I thought of +enlisting—before I was called up.”</p> + +<p>“Running away from the question doesn’t solve it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I said to myself, and that even if I put the question off +now, it would come up again more seriously than ever after my service. +So I came to ask you your advice.”</p> + +<p>“I have none to give you. You can only find counsel in yourself; you +can only learn how you ought to live by living.”</p> + +<p>“And if I live badly, whilst I’m waiting to decide how to live?”</p> + +<p>“That in itself will teach you. It’s a good thing to follow one’s +inclination, provided it leads up hill.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span></p> + +<p>“Are you joking?... No; I think I understand you, and I accept your +formula. But while I am developing myself, as you say, I shall have to +earn my living. What do you say to an alluring advertisement in the +papers: “Young man of great promise requires a job. Could be employed +in any capacity?”</p> + +<p>Edouard laughed.</p> + +<p>“No job is so difficult to find as any job. Better be a little more +explicit.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps one of the innumerable little wheels in the organization +of a big newspaper would do? Oh! I’d accept any post however +subordinate—proof-reader—printer’s devil—anything. I need so little.”</p> + +<p>He spoke with hesitation. In reality, it was a secretaryship he +wanted; but he did not dare say so to Edouard, because of their +mutual dissatisfaction with each other on this score. After all, it +wasn’t his, Bernard’s, fault, that this trial of theirs had failed so +lamentably.</p> + +<p>“I might perhaps,” said Edouard, “get you into the <i>Grand +Journal</i>; I know the editor....”</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +While Bernard and Edouard were conversing in this manner, Sarah was +having an extremely painful explanation with Rachel. Sarah had suddenly +understood that Rachel’s remonstrances were the cause of Bernard’s +abrupt departure; and she was indignant with her sister, who, she said, +was a kill-joy. She had no right to impose upon others a virtue which +her example was enough to render odious.</p> + +<p>Rachel, who was terribly upset by these accusations, for she had always +sacrificed herself, turned very white, and protested with trembling +lips:</p> + +<p>“I can’t let you go to perdition.”</p> + +<p>But Sarah sobbed and cried out:</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe in your heaven. I don’t want to be saved.”</p> + +<p>She decided on the spot to return to England, where she would go and +stay with her friend. For, after all, she was free and claimed the +right to live in any way she pleased. This melancholy quarrel left +Rachel shattered.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI_c">XVI<br> +EDOUARD WARNS GEORGE</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +EDOUARD took care to arrive at the pension before the boys came in. He +had not seen La Pérouse since the beginning of the term and it was to +him that he wanted to speak first. The old music master carried out his +new duties as well as he could—that is to say, very badly. He had at +first tried to make himself liked, but he had no authority; the boys +took advantage of him; his indulgence passed for weakness, and they +began to take strange liberties. La Pérouse tried to be severe, but too +late; his exhortations, his threats, his reprimands finally set the +boys against him. If he raised his voice, they laughed; if he thumped +his fist resoundingly on his desk, they shrieked in pretended terror; +they mimicked him; they called him by absurd nicknames; caricatures +of him circulated from bench to bench; he—so kind and courteous—was +portrayed armed with a pistol (the pistol which Ghéridanisol, +George and Phiphi had found one day in the course of an indiscreet +investigation of his room), ferociously massacring the boys; or else on +his knees before them, with hands clasped, imploring, as he had done at +first, for “a little quiet, for pity’s sake.” He was like a poor old +stag at bay among a savage pack of hounds. Edouard knew nothing of all +this.</p> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2">EDOUARD’S JOURNAL</p> + +<p>La Pérouse received me in a small class-room on the ground floor, +which I recognized as the most uncomfortable one in the school. Its +only furniture consisted of four benches attached to four desks, a +blackboard and a straw chair, on which La Pérouse forced me to sit +down, while he screwed himself up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span> slantwise on to one of the benches, +after vain endeavours to get his long legs under the desk.</p> + +<p>“No, no. I’m perfectly comfortable, I assure you,” he declared, while +the tone of his voice and the expression of his face said:</p> + +<p>“I am horribly uncomfortable, and I hope it’s obvious; but I prefer +to be so; and the more uncomfortable I am, the less you will hear me +complain.”</p> + +<p>I tried to make a joke, but could not succeed in getting him to smile. +His manner was ceremonious and stiff, as if he wished to keep me at a +distance and imply: “I owe it to you that I am here.”</p> + +<p>At the same time he declared himself perfectly satisfied with +everything, though all the while eluding my questions and seeming vexed +at my insisting. I asked him, however, where his room was.</p> + +<p>“Rather too far from the kitchen,” he suddenly exclaimed; and as +I expressed my astonishment: “Sometimes during the night, I want +something to eat ... when I can’t sleep.”</p> + +<p>I was near him; I came nearer still and put my hand gently on his arm. +He went on in a more natural tone:</p> + +<p>“I must tell you that I sleep very badly. When I do go to sleep, I +never lose the feeling that I am asleep. That’s not proper sleep, is +it? A person who is properly asleep, doesn’t feel that he is asleep. +When he wakes up, he just knows that he has been asleep.”</p> + +<p>Then, leaning towards me, he went on with a kind of finicky insistence:</p> + +<p>“Sometimes I’m inclined to think that it’s an illusion and that, all +the same, I <i>am</i> properly asleep, when I think I’m not asleep. But +the proof that I’m not properly asleep is that if I want to open my +eyes, I open them. As a rule, I don’t want to. You understand, don’t +you, that there’s no object in it? What’s the use of proving to myself +that I’m not asleep? I always go on hoping that I shall go to sleep by +persuading myself that I’m asleep already....”</p> + +<p>He bent still nearer and went on in a whisper:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p> + +<p>“And then there’s something that disturbs me. Don’t tell anyone.... I +haven’t complained, because there’s nothing to do about it; and if a +thing can’t be altered, there’s no good complaining, is there?... Well, +just imagine, in the wall, right against my bed and exactly on a level +with my head, there’s something that makes a noise.”</p> + +<p>He had grown excited as he spoke. I suggested that he should take me to +his room.</p> + +<p>“Yes! Yes!” he said getting up suddenly. “You might be able to tell me +what it is ... I can’t succeed in making out. Come along.”</p> + +<p>We went up two stories and then down a longish passage. I had never +been into that part of the house before.</p> + +<p>La Pérouse’s room looked on to the street. It was small but decent. On +the bedside table, I noticed, next a prayer book, the case of pistols, +which he had insisted on taking with him. He seized me by the arm, and +pushing aside the bed a little:</p> + +<p>“There! Now!... Put your ear to the wall.... Can you hear it?”</p> + +<p>I listened for a long time with the greatest attention. But +notwithstanding the best will in the world, I could not succeed in +hearing anything. La Pérouse grew vexed. Just then a van drove by, +shaking the house and making the windows rattle.</p> + +<p>“At this time of day,” I said, in the hopes of pacifying him, “the +little noise that irritates you is drowned by the noise of the +street....”</p> + +<p>“Drowned for you, because you can’t distinguish it from the other +noises,” he exclaimed with vehemence. “As for me, I hear it all the +same. In spite of everything, I go on hearing it. Sometimes I am so +exasperated by it that I make up my mind to speak to Azaïs or to the +landlord.... Oh, I don’t suppose I shall get it to stop.... But, at any +rate, I should like to know what it is.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to reflect for a few moments, then went on: “It sounds +something like a nibbling. I’ve done everything I can think of not to +hear it. I pull my bed away from the wall. I put cotton wool in my +ears. I hang my watch (you see, I’ve put<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span> a little nail there) just +at the place where the pipe (I suppose) passes, so that its ticking +may prevent my hearing the other noise.... But then it’s even more +fatiguing, because I have to make an effort to distinguish it. Absurd, +isn’t it? But I really prefer to hear it without any disguise, since I +know it’s there all the same.... Oh! I oughtn’t to talk to you in this +way. You see, I’m nothing but an old man now.”</p> + +<p>He sat down on the edge of the bed, and stayed for some time, as though +sunk in a kind of dull misery. The sinister degradation of age is not +so much attacking La Pérouse’s intelligence as the innermost depths of +his nature. The worm lodges itself in the fruit’s core, I thought, as I +saw him give way to his childish despair, and remembered him as he used +to be, so firm—so proud. I tried to rouse him by speaking of Boris.</p> + +<p>“Yes, his room is near mine,” said he, raising his head. “I’ll show it +to you. Come along.”</p> + +<p>He preceded me along the passage and opened a neighbouring door.</p> + +<p>“The other bed you see there is young Bernard Profitendieu’s.” (I +judged it useless to tell him that Bernard had left that very day, and +would not be coming back to sleep in it.) He went on: “Boris likes +having him as a companion and I think he gets on with him. But, you +know, he doesn’t talk to me much. He’s very reserved.... I am afraid +the child is rather unfeeling.”</p> + +<p>He said this so sadly that I took upon myself to protest and to say +that I could answer for his grandson’s warmheartedness.</p> + +<p>“In that case, he might show it a little more,” went on La Pérouse.</p> + +<p>“For instance, in the mornings, when he goes off to the <i>lycée</i> +with the others, I lean out of my window to see him go by. He knows I +do.... Well, he never turns round.”</p> + +<p>I wanted to explain to him that no doubt Boris was afraid of making a +spectacle of himself before his schoolfellows and dreaded being laughed +at; but at that moment a clamour arose from the courtyard below.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span></p> + +<p>La Pérouse seized me by the arm and, in an altered, agitated voice:</p> + +<p>“Listen! Listen!” he cried, “they are coming in.”</p> + +<p>I looked at him. He had begun to tremble all over.</p> + +<p>“Do the little wretches frighten you?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” he said in some confusion; “how could you think such a +thing?...” Then, very quickly: “I must go down. Recreation only lasts a +few minutes and you know I take preparation. Good-bye. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>He darted into the passage, without even shaking my hand. A moment +later I heard him stumbling downstairs. I stayed for a few moments +to listen, as I had no wish to go past the boys. I could hear them +shouting, laughing and singing. Then a bell rang and silence was +abruptly restored.</p> + +<p>I went to see Azaïs and obtained permission for George to leave school +in order to come and speak to me. He soon joined me in the same small +room in which La Pérouse had received me a little while before.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +As soon as he was in my presence, George thought fit to assume a +jocular air. It was his way of concealing his embarrassment. But I +wouldn’t swear that he was the more embarrassed of the two. He was on +the defensive; for no doubt he expected to be sermonized. He seemed +trying as hastily as possible to lay hold of anything he could use as a +weapon against me, for, before I had opened my mouth, he enquired after +Olivier, in such a bantering tone of voice, that I should have had the +greatest pleasure in boxing his ears. He was in a position to score off +me. His ironical eyes, the mocking curl of his lips all seemed to say: +“I’m not afraid of you, you know.” I at once lost all my self-assurance +and my one anxiety was to conceal the fact. The speech I had prepared +suddenly struck me as inappropriate. I had not the prestige necessary +to play the censor. At bottom, George amused me too much.</p> + +<p>“I have not come to scold you,” I said at last; “I only want<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span> to warn +you.” (And, in spite of myself, my whole face was smiling.)</p> + +<p>“Tell me first whether it’s Mamma who has sent you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes and no. I have spoken about you to your mother; but that was some +days ago. Yesterday I had a very important conversation about you with +a very important person, whom you don’t know. He came to see me on +purpose to talk about you. A <i>juge d’instruction</i>. It’s from him +I’ve come. Do you know what a <i>juge d’instruction</i> is?”</p> + +<p>George had turned suddenly pale, and no doubt his heart had stopped +beating for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders, it is true, but his +voice trembled a little:</p> + +<p>“Oh! all right! Out with it! What did old Profitendieu say?”</p> + +<p>The youngster’s coolness took me aback. No doubt it would have been +simpler to go straight to the point; but going straight to the point is +a thing particularly foreign to my nature, whose irresistible bent is +towards moving obliquely. In order to explain my conduct, which, though +it afterwards appeared absurd to me, was quite spontaneous at the time, +I must say that my last conversation with Pauline had greatly exercised +me. I had immediately inserted the reflections it had suggested to me +into my novel, putting them into the form of a dialogue, which exactly +fitted in with certain of my characters. It very rarely happens that I +make direct use of what occurs to me in real life, but for once I was +able to take advantage of this affair of George’s; it was as though my +book had been waiting for it, it came in so pat; I hardly had to alter +one or two details.</p> + +<p>But I did not give a direct account of this affair (I mean his +stealing). I merely showed it—with its consequences—by glimpses, +in the course of conversations. I had put down some of these in a +note-book, which I had at that very moment in my pocket. On the +contrary, the story of the false coins, as related by Profitendieu, did +not seem to me capable of being turned to account. And no doubt that is +why, instead of making immediately for this particular point, which was +the main object of my visit, I tacked about.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span></p> + +<p>“I first want you to read these few lines,” I said. “You will see why.” +And I held him out my note-book, which I had opened at the page I +thought might interest him.</p> + +<p>I repeat it—this behaviour of mine now seems to me absurd. But in my +novel, it is precisely by a similar reading that I thought of giving +the youngest of my heroes a warning. I wanted to know what George’s +reaction would be; I hoped it might instruct me ... and even as to the +value of what I had written.</p> + +<p>I transcribe the passage in question:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>There was a whole obscure region in the boy’s character which +attracted Audibert’s affectionate curiosity. It was not enough for +him to know that young Eudolfe had committed thefts; he would have +liked Eudolfe to tell him what had made him begin, and what he had +felt on the occasion of his first theft. But the boy, even if he had +been willing to confide in him, would no doubt have been incapable +of explaining. And Audibert did not dare question him, for fear of +inducing him to tell lies in self-defence.</p> + +<p>One evening when Audibert was dining with Hildebrant, he spoke to him +about Eudolfe—without naming him and altering the circumstances so +that Hildebrant should not recognize him.</p> + +<p>“Have you ever observed,” said Hildebrant, “that the most decisive +actions of our life—I mean those that are most likely to decide the +whole course of our future—are, more often than not, unconsidered?”</p> + +<p>“I easily believe it,” replied Audibert. “Like a train into which one +jumps without thinking, and without asking oneself where it is going. +And more often than not, one does not even realize that the train is +carrying one off, till it is too late to get down.”</p> + +<p>“But perhaps the boy you are talking of has no wish to get down?”</p> + +<p>“Not so far, doubtless. For the moment he is being carried along +unresisting. The scenery amuses him, and he cares very little where he +is going.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to talk morals to him?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span></p> + +<p>“No indeed! It would be useless. He has been overdosed with morals +till he is sick.”</p> + +<p>“Why did he steal?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t exactly know. Certainly not from real need. But to +get certain advantages—not to be outdone by his wealthier +companions—Heaven knows what all! Innate propensity—sheer pleasure +of stealing.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the worst.”</p> + +<p>“Of course! Because he’ll begin again.”</p> + +<p>“Is he intelligent?”</p> + +<p>“I thought for a long time that he was less so than his brothers. But +I wonder now whether I wasn’t mistaken, and whether my unfavourable +impression was not caused by the fact that he does not as yet +understand what his capabilities are. His curiosity has gone off the +tracks—or rather, it is still in the embryonic state—still at the +stage of indiscretion.”</p> + +<p>“Will you speak to him?”</p> + +<p>“I propose making him put in the scales, on the one hand the little +profit his thefts bring him, and on the other what his dishonesty +loses him: the confidence of his friends and relations, their esteem, +mine amongst others ... things which can’t be measured and the value +of which can be calculated only by the enormousness of the effort +needed later to regain them. There are men who have spent their +whole lives over it. I shall tell him, what he is still too young to +realize—that henceforth if anything doubtful or unpleasant happens +in his neighbourhood, it will always be laid to his door. He may find +himself accused wrongfully of serious misdeeds and be unable to defend +himself. His past actions point to him. He is marked. And lastly what +I should like to say.... But I am afraid of his protestations.”</p> + +<p>“You would like to say?...”</p> + +<p>“That what he has done has created a precedent, and that if some +resolution is required for a first theft, for the ensuing ones nothing +is needed but to drift with the current. All that follows is mere +<i>laisser aller</i>.... What I should like to say is, that a first +movement, which one makes almost without thinking, often begins to +trace a line which irrevocably draws our figure, and which our after +effort will never be able to efface. I should like ... but no, I +shan’t know how to speak to him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span></p> + +<p>“Why don’t you write down our conversation of this evening? You could +give it him to read.”</p> + +<p>“That’s an idea,” said Audibert. “Why not?”</p> +</div> + +<p>I did not take my eyes off George while he was reading; but his face +showed no signs of what he was thinking.</p> + +<p>“Am I to go on?” he asked, preparing to turn the page.</p> + +<p>“There’s no need. The conversation ends there.”</p> + +<p>“A great pity.”</p> + +<p>He gave me back the note-book, and in a tone of voice that was almost +playful:</p> + +<p>“I should have liked to know what Eudolfe says when he has read the +note-book.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly. I want to know myself.”</p> + +<p>“Eudolfe is a ridiculous name. Couldn’t you have christened him +something else?”</p> + +<p>“It’s of no importance.”</p> + +<p>“Nor what he answers either. And what becomes of him afterwards?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know yet. It depends upon you. We shall see.”</p> + +<p>“Then if I understand right, <i>I</i> am to help you go on with your +book. No, really, you must admit that....”</p> + +<p>He stopped as if he had some difficulty in expressing his ideas.</p> + +<p>“That what?” I said to encourage him.</p> + +<p>“You must admit that you’d be pretty well sold,” he went on, “if +Eudolfe....”</p> + +<p>He stopped again. I thought I understood what he meant and finished his +sentence for him:</p> + +<p>“If he became an honest boy?... No, my dear.” And suddenly the tears +rose to my eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder. But he shook it off:</p> + +<p>“For after all, if he hadn’t been a thief, you wouldn’t have written +all that.”</p> + +<p>It was only then that I understood my mistake. In reality, George +was flattered at having occupied my thoughts for so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span> long. He felt +interesting. I had forgotten Profitendieu; it was George who reminded +me of him.</p> + +<p>“And what did your <i>juge d’instruction</i> say to you?”</p> + +<p>“He commissioned me to warn you that he knew you were circulating false +coins....”</p> + +<p>George changed colour again. He understood denials would be useless, +but he muttered indistinctly:</p> + +<p>“I’m not the only one.”</p> + +<p>“... and that if you and your pals don’t stop your traffickings at +once, he’ll be obliged to arrest you.”</p> + +<p>George had begun by turning very pale. Now his cheeks were burning. +He stared fixedly in front of him and his knitted brows drew two deep +wrinkles on his forehead.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” I said, holding out my hand. “I advise you to warn your +companions as well. As for you, you won’t be offered a second chance.”</p> + +<p>He shook my hand silently and left the room without looking round.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +On re-reading the pages of <i>The Counterfeiters</i> which I showed +George, I thought them on the whole rather bad. I transcribe them as +George read them, but all this chapter must be rewritten. It would be +better decidedly to speak to the child. I must discover how to touch +him. Certainly, at the point he has reached, it would be difficult to +bring Eudolfe (George is right; I must change his name) back into the +path of honesty. But I mean to bring him back; and whatever George may +think, this is what is most interesting, because it is most difficult. +(Here am I reasoning like Douviers!) Let us leave realistic novelists +to deal with the stories of those who drift.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +As soon as he got back to the class-room, George told his two friends +of Edouard’s warnings. Everything his uncle had said about his +pilferings slipped off the child’s mind, without causing him the +slightest emotion; but, when it came to the false coins, which ran the +risk of getting them into trouble, he saw the importance of getting rid +of them as quickly as possible.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span> Each of the three boys had on him a +certain number which he intended disposing of the next free afternoon. +Ghéridanisol collected them and hurried off to throw them down the +drains. That same evening he warned Strouvilhou, who immediately took +his precautions.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII_c">XVII<br> +ARMAND AND OLIVIER</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THAT same evening, while Edouard was talking to his nephew George, +Olivier, after Bernard had left him, received a visit from Armand.</p> + +<p>Armand Vedel was unrecognizable; shaved, smiling, carrying his head +high; he was dressed in a new suit, which was rather too smart and +looked perhaps a trifle ridiculous; he felt it and showed that he felt +it.</p> + +<p>“I should have come to see you before, but I’ve had so much to do +lately!... Do you know that I’ve actually become Passavant’s secretary? +or, if you prefer it, the editor of his new review. I won’t ask you +to contribute, because Passavant seems rather worked up against you. +Besides the review is decidedly going more and more to the left. That’s +the reason it has begun by dropping Bercail and his pastorals....”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry for the review,” said Olivier.</p> + +<p>“And that’s why, on the other hand, it has accepted my <i>Nocturnal +Vase</i>, which, by the bye, is, without your permission, to be +dedicated to you.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry for me.”</p> + +<p>“Passavant even wished my work of genius to open the first number; but +my natural modesty, which was severely tried by his encomiums, was +opposed to this. If I were not afraid of fatiguing a convalescent’s +ears, I would give you an account of my first interview with the +illustrious author of <i>The Horizontal Bar</i>, whom I had only known +up till then through you.”</p> + +<p>“I have nothing better to do than to listen.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t mind smoke?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll smoke myself to show you.”</p> + +<p>“I must tell you,” began Armand, lighting a cigarette, “that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span> your +desertion left our beloved Count somewhat in a fix. Let it be said, +without flattery, that it isn’t easy to replace such a bundle of gifts, +virtues, qualities as are united in your....”</p> + +<p>“Get on,” interrupted Olivier, exasperated by this heavy-footed irony.</p> + +<p>“Well, to get on, Passavant wanted a secretary. He happened to know a +certain Strouvilhou, whom I happen to know myself, because he is the +uncle of a certain individual in the school, who happened to know Jean +Cob-Lafleur, whom you know.”</p> + +<p>“Whom I don’t know,” said Olivier.</p> + +<p>“Well, my boy, you ought to know him. He’s an extraordinary fellow; +a kind of faded, wrinkled, painted baby, who lives on cocktails +and writes charming verses when he’s drunk. You’ll see some in our +first number. So Strouvilhou had the brilliant idea of sending him +to Passavant, to take your place. You can imagine his entry into the +Rue de Babylone mansion. I must tell you that Cob-Lafleur’s clothes +are covered with stains; that he has flowing flaxen locks, which fall +upon his shoulders; and that he looks as if he hadn’t washed for a +week. Passavant, who always wants to be master of the situation, +declares that he took a great fancy to Cob-Lafleur. Cob-Lafleur has +a gentle, smiling, timid way with him. When he chooses he can look +like Banville’s Gringoire. In a word, Passavant was taken by him and +was on the point of engaging him. I must tell you that Lafleur hasn’t +got a penny piece.... So he gets up to take leave:—‘Before leaving, +Monsieur le Comte, I think it’s only right to inform you that I have +a few faults.’—‘Which of us has not?’—‘And a few vices. I smoke +opium.’—‘Is that all?’ says Passavant, who isn’t to be put off by a +little thing of that kind; ‘I’ve got some excellent stuff to offer +you.’—‘Yes, but when I smoke it, I completely lose every notion of +spelling.’ Passavant took this for a joke, forced a laugh and held +out his hand. Lafleur goes on:—‘And then I take hasheesh.’—‘I have +sometimes taken it myself,’ says Passavant.—‘Yes, but when I am under +the influence of hasheesh, I can’t keep from stealing.’ Passavant began +to see then that he was being made a fool of; and Lafleur, who was set +going by now, rattled on, impulsively:—‘And besides, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span> drink ether; +and then I tear everything to bits—I smash everything I can lay my +hands on,’ and he seizes a glass vase and makes as if he were going to +throw it into the fire. Passavant just had time to snatch it out of his +hands.—‘Much obliged to you for warning me.’”</p> + +<p>“And he chucked him out?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; and watched out of the window to see Lafleur didn’t drop a bomb +into the cellar as he left.”</p> + +<p>“But why did Lafleur behave so? From what you say, he was really in +need of the place.”</p> + +<p>“All the same, my dear fellow, you must admit that there are people who +feel impelled to act against their interest. And then, if you want to +know, Lafleur ... well, Passavant’s luxury disgusted him—his elegance, +his amiable manners, his condescension, his affectation of superiority. +Yes; it turned his stomach. And I add that I perfectly understand +him.... At bottom, your Passavant makes one’s gorge rise.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you say ‘your Passavant’? You know quite well that I’ve given +him up. And then why have you accepted his place, if you think him so +disgusting?”</p> + +<p>“For the very reason that I like things that disgust me ... to start +with my own delightful—or disgusting—self. And then, in reality, +Cob-Lafleur suffers from shyness; he wouldn’t have said any of all that +if he hadn’t felt ill at ease.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! come now!”</p> + +<p>“Certainly. He was ill at ease, and he was furious at being made to +feel ill at ease by someone he really despises. It was to conceal his +shyness that he bluffed.”</p> + +<p>“I call it stupid.”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, everyone can’t be as intelligent as you are.”</p> + +<p>“You said that last time, too.”</p> + +<p>“What a memory!”</p> + +<p>Olivier was determined to hold his ground.</p> + +<p>“I try,” said he, “to forget your jokes. But last time you did at last +talk to me seriously. You said things I can’t forget.”</p> + +<p>Armand’s eyes grew troubled. He went off into a forced laugh.</p> + +<p>“Oh, old fellow, last time I talked to you as you wanted to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span> talked +to. You called for something in a minor key, so, in order to please +you, I played my lament, with a soul like a corkscrew and anguish à +la Pascal.... It can’t be helped, you know. I’m only sincere when I’m +cracking jokes.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll never make me believe that you weren’t sincere when you talked +to me as you did that day. It’s now that you are playing a part.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, simplicity! What a pure angelic soul you possess! As if we weren’t +all playing parts more or less sincerely and consciously. Life, my dear +fellow, is nothing but a comedy. But the difference between you and me +is that I know I am playing a part, whilst....”</p> + +<p>“Whilst ...” repeated Olivier aggressively.</p> + +<p>“Whilst my father, for instance, not to speak of you, is completely +taken in when he plays at being a pastor. Whatever I say or do, there’s +always one part of myself which stays behind, and watches the other +part compromise itself, which laughs at and hisses it, or applauds it. +When one is divided in that way, how is it possible to be sincere? I +have got to the point of ceasing to understand what the word means. It +can’t be helped; when I’m sad, I seem so grotesque to myself that it +makes me laugh; when I’m cheerful, I make such idiotic jokes that I +feel inclined to cry.”</p> + +<p>“You make me feel inclined to cry too, my dear boy. I didn’t think you +were in such a bad way.”</p> + +<p>Armand shrugged his shoulders and went on in a totally different tone +of voice:</p> + +<p>“To console you, should you like to know the contents of our +first number? Well, there’s my <i>Nocturnal Vase</i>; four songs +by Cob-Lafleur; a dialogue by Jarry; some prose poems by young +Ghéridanisol, one of our boarders; and then <i>The Flat Iron</i>, a +vast essay in general criticism, in which the tendencies of the review +will be more or less definitely laid down. Several of us have combined +together to produce this <i>chef-d’œuvre</i>.”</p> + +<p>Olivier, not knowing what to say, objected clumsily:</p> + +<p>“No <i>chef-d’œuvre</i> was ever produced by several people together.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span></p> + +<p>Armand burst out laughing:</p> + +<p>“But, my dear fellow, I said it was a <i>chef-d’œuvre</i> as a joke. +It isn’t a <i>chef-d’œuvre</i>; it isn’t anything at all. And, for +that matter, what does one mean by <i>chef-d’œuvre</i>? That’s just +what <i>The Flat Iron</i> tries to get to the bottom of. There are +heaps of works one admires on faith, just because everyone else does, +and because no one so far has thought of saying—or dared to say—that +they were stupid. For instance, on the first page of this number, we +are going to give a reproduction of the <i>Monna Lisa</i>, with a pair +of moustaches stuck on to her face. You’ll see! The effect is simply +staggering.”</p> + +<p>“Does that mean you consider the <i>Monna Lisa</i> a stupidity?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all, my dear fellow. (Though I don’t think it as marvellous as +all that.) You don’t understand me. The thing that’s stupid is people’s +admiration for it. It’s the habit they have got of speaking of what are +called <i>chefs-d’œuvre</i> with bated breath. The object of <i>The +Flat Iron</i> (it’s to be the name of the review too) is to make this +reverence appear grotesque—to discredit it.... Another good plan is +to hold up to the reader’s admiration something absolutely idiotic (my +<i>Nocturnal Vase</i> for instance) by an author who is absolutely +senseless.”</p> + +<p>“Does Passavant approve of all this?”</p> + +<p>“He’s very much amused by it.”</p> + +<p>“I see I did well to retire.”</p> + +<p>“Retire!... Sooner or later, old man, willynilly, one always has to end +by retiring. This wise reflection naturally leads me to take my leave.”</p> + +<p>“Stop a moment, you old clown.... What made you say just now that your +father played the part of pastor? Don’t you think he is in earnest?”</p> + +<p>“My revered father has so arranged his life that he hasn’t the right +now—or even the power—not to be in earnest. Yes, it’s his profession +to be in earnest. He’s a professor of earnestness. He inculcates faith; +it’s his <i>raison d’être</i>; it’s the rôle he has chosen and he must +go through with it to the very end. But as for knowing what goes on in +what he calls his ‘inner consciousness’ ... it would be indiscreet to +enquire. And I don’t think<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span> he ever enquires himself. He manages in +such a way that he never has time to. He has crammed his life full of +a lot of obligations which would lose all meaning if his conviction +failed; so that in a manner they necessitate his conviction and at the +same time keep it going. He imagines he believes, because he continues +to act as if he did. If his faith failed, my dear fellow, why, it +would be a catastrophic collapse! And reflect, that at the same time +my family would cease to have anything to live on. That’s a fact that +must be taken into consideration, old boy. Papa’s faith is our means of +subsistence. So that to come and ask me if Papa’s faith is genuine, is +not, you must admit, a very tactful proceeding on your part.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you lived chiefly on what the school brings in.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; there’s some truth in that. But that’s not very tactful +either—to cut me short in my lyrical flights.”</p> + +<p>“And you then? Don’t you believe in anything?” asked Olivier sadly, for +he was fond of Armand, and his ugliness pained him.</p> + +<p>“<i>Jubes renovare dolorem</i>.... You seem to forget, my dear friend, +that my parents wanted to make a pastor of me. They nourished me on +pious precepts—fed me up with them, if I may say so.... But finally +they were obliged to recognize that I hadn’t the vocation. It’s a pity. +I might have made a first-class preacher. But my vocation was to write +<i>The Nocturnal Vase</i>.”</p> + +<p>“You poor old thing! If you knew how sorry I am for you!”</p> + +<p>“You have always had what my father calls ‘a heart of gold’ .... I +won’t trespass on it any longer.”</p> + +<p>He took up his hat. He had almost left the room, when he suddenly +turned round:</p> + +<p>“You haven’t asked after Sarah?”</p> + +<p>“Because you could tell me nothing that I haven’t heard from Bernard.”</p> + +<p>“Did he tell you that he had left the pension?”</p> + +<p>“He told me that your sister Rachel had requested him to leave.”</p> + +<p>Armand had one hand on the door handle; with his walking-stick<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span> in the +other, he pushed up the portière. The stick went into a hole in the +portière and made it bigger.</p> + +<p>“Account for it how you will,” said he, and his face became very grave. +“Rachel is, I believe, the only person in the world I love and respect. +I respect her because she is virtuous. And I always behave in such +a way as to offend her virtue. As for Bernard and Sarah, she had no +suspicions. It was I who told her the whole thing.... And the oculist +said she wasn’t to cry! It’s comic!”</p> + +<p>“Am I to think you sincere now?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think the most sincere thing about me is a horror—a hatred of +everything people call Virtue. Don’t try to understand. You have no +idea what a Puritan bringing-up can do to one. It leaves one with an +incurable resentment in one’s heart ... to judge by myself,” he added, +with a jarring laugh.</p> + +<p>He put down his hat and went up to the window. “Just look here; on the +inside of my lip?”</p> + +<p>He stooped towards Olivier and lifted up his lip with his finger.</p> + +<p>“I can’t see anything.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you can; there; in the corner.”</p> + +<p>Olivier saw a whitish spot near the corner. A little uneasily: “It’s a +gum-boil,” he said to reassure Armand.</p> + +<p>But Armand shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk nonsense—such a serious fellow as you! A gum-boil’s soft +and it goes away. This is hard and gets larger every week. And it gives +me a kind of bad taste in my mouth.”</p> + +<p>“Have you had it long?”</p> + +<p>“It’s more than a month since I first noticed it. But as the +<i>chef-d’œuvre</i> says: ‘<i>Mon mal vient de plus loin</i>....’”</p> + +<p>“Well, old boy, if you’re anxious about it, you had better consult a +doctor.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t suppose I needed your advice for that.”</p> + +<p>“What did he say?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t need your advice to say to myself that I ought to consult a +doctor. But all the same, I didn’t consult one, because if it’s what I +think, I prefer not to know it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span></p> + +<p>“It’s idiotic.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it stupid? But so human, my friend, so human....”</p> + +<p>“The idiotic thing is not to be treated for it.”</p> + +<p>“So that when one <i>is</i> treated, one can always say: ‘Too late!’ +That’s what Cob-Lafleur expresses so well in one of his poems which +you’ll see in the review:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>‘Il faut se rendre à l’évidence;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Car, dans ce bas monde, la danse</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Précède souvent la chanson.’”</i></div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>“One can make literature out of anything.”</p> + +<p>“Just so; out of anything. But, dear friend, it’s not so easy as all +that. Well, good-bye.... Oh! there’s one thing more I wanted to tell +you. I’ve heard from Alexandre.... Yes, you know—my eldest brother, +who ran away to Africa. He began by coming to grief over his business +and running through all the money Rachel sent him. He’s settled now on +the banks of the Casamance; and he has written to say that things are +doing well and that he’ll soon be able to pay everything back.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of a business?”</p> + +<p>“Heaven knows! Rubber, ivory, Negroes perhaps ... a lot of odds and +ends.... He has asked me to go out to him.”</p> + +<p>“Will you go?”</p> + +<p>“I would to-morrow, if it weren’t for my military service. Alexandre is +a kind of donkey, something in my style. I think I should get on with +him very well.... Here! would you like to see? I’ve got his letter with +me.”</p> + +<p>He took an envelope out of his pocket, and several sheets of note-paper +out of the envelope; he chose one, and held it out to Olivier.</p> + +<p>“There’s no need to read it all. Begin here.”</p> + +<p>Olivier read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“For the last fortnight, I have been living in company with a singular +individual whom I have taken into my hut. The sun of these parts seems +to have touched him in the upper story. I thought at first it was +delirium, but there’s no doubt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span> it’s just plain madness. This curious +young man is about thirty years old, tall, strong, good-looking, and +certainly ‘a gentleman,’ to judge from his manners, his language, and +his hands, which are too delicate ever to have done any rough work. +The strange thing about him is that he thinks himself possessed by the +devil—or rather, as far as I can make out, he thinks he <i>is</i> the +devil. He must have had some odd adventure or other, for when he is +dreaming or half dozing, a state into which he often falls (and then +he talks to himself as if I weren’t there) he continually speaks of +hands being cut off, and as at those times he gets extremely excited +and rolls his eyes in an alarming manner, I take care that there shall +be no weapons within reach. The rest of the time, he is a good fellow +and an agreeable companion—which I appreciate, as you can imagine, +after months of solitude. Besides which, he is of great assistance +to me in my work. He never speaks of his past life, so that I can’t +succeed in discovering who he can be. He is particularly interested +in plants and insects, and sometimes in his talk shows signs of being +remarkably well educated. He seems to like staying with me and doesn’t +speak of leaving; I have decided to let him stay as long as he likes. +I was wanting a help; all things considered, he has come just in the +nick of time.</p> + +<p>“A hideous Negro who came up the Casamance with him, and to whom I +have talked a little, speaks of a woman who was with him, and who, +I gather, must have been drowned in the river one day when their +boat upset. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that my companion had +had a finger in the accident. In this country, if one wants to get +rid of anyone, there is a great choice of means, and no one ever +asks a question. If one day I learn anything more, I’ll write it to +you—or rather I’ll tell you about it when you come out. Yes, I know, +there’s your service.... Well, I’ll wait. For you may be sure that +if ever you want to see me again, you will have to make up your mind +to come out. As for me, I want to come back less and less. I lead +a life here which I like and which suits me down to the ground. My +business is flourishing, and that badge of civilization—the starched +collar—appears to me a straight waistcoat which I shall never be able +to endure again.</p> + +<p>“I enclose a money order which you can do what you like with. The last +was for Rachel. Keep this for yourself....”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span></p> + +<p>“The rest isn’t interesting,” said Armand.</p> + +<p>Olivier gave the letter back without saying anything. It never occurred +to him that the murderer it spoke of was his brother. Vincent had given +no news of himself for a long time; his parents thought he was in +America. To tell the truth, Olivier did not trouble much about him.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII_c">XVIII<br> +“THE STRONG MEN”</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +IT WAS only a month later that Boris heard of Bronja’s death from +Madame Sophroniska, who came to see him at the pension. Since his +friend’s last sad letter, Boris had been without news. Madame +Sophroniska came into Madame Vedel’s drawing-room one day when he was +sitting there, as was his habit during recreation hour, and as she was +in deep mourning, he understood everything before she said a word. They +were alone in the room. Sophroniska took Boris in her arms and they +cried together. She could only repeat: “My poor little thing.... My +poor little thing ...” as if Boris was the person to be pitied, and as +though she had forgotten her own maternal grief in the presence of the +immense grief of the little boy.</p> + +<p>Madame Vedel, who had been told of Madame Sophroniska’s arrival, came +in, and Boris, still convulsed with sobs, drew aside to let the two +ladies talk to each other. He would have liked them not to speak of +Bronja. Madame Vedel, who had not known her, spoke of her as she would +of any ordinary child. Even the questions which she asked seemed to +Boris tactless and commonplace. He would have liked Sophroniska not to +answer them and it hurt him to see her exhibiting her grief. He folded +his away and hid it like a treasure.</p> + +<p>It was certainly of him that Bronja was thinking when, a few days +before her death, she said to her mother:</p> + +<p>“Do tell me, Mamma.... What is meant exactly by an <i>idyll</i>?”</p> + +<p>These words pierced Boris’s heart and he would have liked to be the +only one to hear them.</p> + +<p>Madame Vedel offered her guest tea. There was some for Boris, too; +he swallowed it hastily as recreation was finishing;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span> then he said +good-bye to Sophroniska, who was leaving next day for Poland on +business.</p> + +<p>The whole world seemed a desert to him. His mother was too far away +and always absent; his grandfather too old; even Bernard, with whom +he was beginning to feel at home, had gone away.... His was a tender +soul; he had need of someone at whose feet he could lay his nobility, +his purity, as an offering. He was not proud enough to take pleasure +in pride. He had loved Bronja too much to be able to hope that he +would ever again find that reason for loving which he had lost in her. +Without her, how could he believe in the angels he longed to see? +Heaven itself was emptied.</p> + +<p>Boris went back to the schoolroom as one might cast oneself into +hell. No doubt he might have made a friend of Gontran de Passavant; +Gontran is a good, kind boy, and they are both exactly the same age; +but nothing distracts him from his work. There is not much harm +in Philippe Adamanti either; he would be quite willing to be fond +of Boris; but he is under Ghéridanisol’s thumb to such an extent +that he does not dare have a single feeling of his own; he follows +Ghéridanisol’s lead, and Ghéridanisol is always quickening his pace; +and Ghéridanisol cannot endure Boris. His musical voice, his grace, his +girlish look—everything about him exasperates him. The very sight of +Boris seems to inspire him with that instinctive aversion which, in a +herd, makes the strong fall ruthlessly upon the weak. It may be that he +has listened to his cousin’s teaching and that his hatred is somewhat +theoretical, for in his mind it assumes the shape of reprobation. He +finds reasons for being proud of his hatred. He realizes and is amused +by Boris’s sensitiveness to this contempt of his, and pretends to be +plotting with George and Phiphi, merely in order to see Boris’s eyes +grow wide with a kind of anxious interrogation.</p> + +<p>“Oh, how inquisitive the fellow is!” says George then. “Shall we tell +him?”</p> + +<p>“Not worth while. He wouldn’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“He wouldn’t understand.” “He wouldn’t dare.” “He wouldn’t know how.” +They are constantly casting these phrases at him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span> He suffers horribly +from being kept out of things. He cannot understand, indeed, why they +give him the humiliating nick-name of “Wanting”; and is indignant when +he understands. What would not he give to be able to prove that he is +not such a coward as they think.</p> + +<p>“I cannot endure Boris,” said Ghéridanisol one day to Strouvilhou. “Why +did you tell me to let him alone? He doesn’t want to be let alone as +much as all that. He is always looking in my direction.... The other +day he made us all split with laughter because he thought that a woman +togged out in her bearskin meant wearing her furs. George jeered at +him, and when at last Boris took it in I thought he was going to howl.”</p> + +<p>Then Ghéridanisol pressed his cousin with questions and finally +Strouvilhou gave him Boris’s <i>talisman</i> and explained its use.</p> + +<p>A few days later, when Boris went into the schoolroom, he saw this +paper, whose existence he had almost forgotten, lying on his desk. He +had put it out of his mind with everything else that related to the +“magic” of his early childhood, of which he was now ashamed. He did not +at first recognize it, for Ghéridanisol had taken pains to frame the +words of the incantation</p> + +<p class="nindc"> +“GAS ... TELEPHONE ... ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND<br> +ROUBLES.”</p> + +<p class="nind"> +with a large red and black border adorned with obscene little imps, +who, it must be owned, were not at all badly drawn. This decoration +gave the paper a fantastic—an infernal appearance, thought +Ghéridanisol—which he calculated would be likely to upset Boris.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was done in play, but it succeeded beyond all expectation. +Boris blushed crimson, said nothing, looked right and left, and +failed to see Ghéridanisol, who was watching him from behind the +door. Boris had no reason to suspect him, and could not understand +how the talisman came to be there; it was as though it had fallen +from heaven—or rather, risen up from hell. Boris was old enough to +shrug his shoulders, no doubt, at these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span> schoolboy bedevilments; but +they stirred troubled waters. Boris took the talisman and slipped it +into his pocket. All the rest of the day, the recollection of his +“magic” practices haunted him. He struggled until evening with unholy +solicitations and then, as there was no longer anything to support him +in his struggle, he fell.</p> + +<p>He felt that he was going to his ruin, sinking further and further away +from Heaven; but he took pleasure in so falling—found in his very fall +itself the stuff of his enjoyment.</p> + +<p>And yet, in spite of his misery, in the depths of his dereliction, +he kept such stores of tenderness, his companions’ contempt caused +him suffering so keen, that he would have dared anything, however +dangerous, however foolhardy, for the sake of a little consideration.</p> + +<p>An opportunity soon offered.</p> + +<p>After they had been obliged to give up their traffic in false coins, +Ghéridanisol, George and Phiphi did not long remain unoccupied. The +ridiculous pranks with which they amused themselves for the first few +days were merely stop-gaps. Ghéridanisol’s imagination soon invented +something with more stuff to it.</p> + +<p>The chief point about <i>The Brotherhood of Strong Men</i> at +first consisted in the pleasure of keeping Boris out of it. But it +soon occurred to Ghéridanisol that it would be far more perversely +effective to let him in; he could be brought in this way to enter +into engagements, by means of which he might gradually be led on to +the performance of some monstrous act. From that moment Ghéridanisol +was possessed by this idea; and as often happens in all kinds of +enterprises, he thought much less of the object itself, than of how to +bring it about; this seems trifling, but is perhaps the explanation +of a considerable number of crimes. For that matter Ghéridanisol was +ferocious; but he felt it prudent to hide his ferocity, at any rate +from Phiphi. There was nothing cruel about Phiphi; he was convinced up +to the last minute that the whole thing was nothing but a joke.</p> + +<p>Every brotherhood must have its motto. Ghéridanisol, who had his idea, +proposed: “<i>The strong man cares nothing for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span> life.</i>” The motto +was adopted and attributed to Cicero. George proposed that, as a sign +of fellowship, they should tattoo it on their right arms; but Phiphi, +who was afraid of being hurt, declared that good tattooers could only +be found in sea-ports. Besides which, Ghéridanisol objected that +tattooing would leave an indelible mark which might be inconvenient +later on. After all, the sign of fellowship was not an absolute +necessity; the members would content themselves with taking a solemn +vow.</p> + +<p>At the moment of starting the traffic in false coins, there had been +talk of pledges, and it was on this occasion that George had produced +his father’s letters. But this idea had dropped. Such children as +these, very fortunately, have not much consistency. As a matter of +fact, they settled practically nothing, either as to “conditions of +membership” or as to “necessary qualifications.” What was the use, when +it was taken for granted that all three of them were “in it,” and that +Boris was “out of it”? On the other hand they decreed that “the person +who flinched should be considered as a traitor, and forever excluded +from the brotherhood.” Ghéridanisol, who had determined to make Boris +come in, laid great stress upon this point.</p> + +<p>It had to be admitted that without Boris the game would have been dull +and the virtue of the brotherhood without an object. George was better +qualified to circumvent him than Ghéridanisol, who risked arousing his +suspicions; as for Phiphi, he was not artful enough and had a dislike +to compromising himself.</p> + +<p>And in all this abominable story, what perhaps seems to me the most +monstrous, is this comedy of friendship which George went through. +He pretended to be seized with a sudden affection for Boris; until +then, he had seemed never so much as to have set eyes on him. And I +even wonder whether he was not himself influenced by his own acting, +and whether the feelings he feigned were not on the point of becoming +sincere—whether they did not actually become sincere as soon as +Boris responded to them. George drew near him with an appearance of +tenderness;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span> in obedience to Ghéridanisol, he began to talk to him.... +And, at the first words, Boris, who was panting for a little esteem and +love, was conquered.</p> + +<p>Then Ghéridanisol elaborated his plan, and disclosed it to Phiphi and +George. His idea was to invent a “test” to which the member on whom +the lot fell should be submitted; and in order to set Phiphi at ease, +he let it be understood that things would be arranged in such a manner +that the lot would be sure to fall on Boris. The object of the test +would be to put his courage to the proof.</p> + +<p>The exact nature of the test, Ghéridanisol did not at once divulge. He +was afraid that Phiphi would offer some resistance.</p> + +<p>And, in fact, when Ghéridanisol a little later began to insinuate that +old La Pérouse’s pistol would come in handy, “No, no!” he cried, “I +won’t agree to that.”</p> + +<p>“What an ass you are! It’s only a joke,” retorted George, who was +already persuaded.</p> + +<p>“And then, you know,” added Ghéri, “if you want to play the fool, you +have only got to say so. Nobody wants you.”</p> + +<p>Ghéridanisol knew that this argument always told with Phiphi; and as he +had prepared the paper on which each member of the brotherhood was to +sign his name, he went on: “Only you must say so at once; because once +you’ve signed, it’ll be too late.”</p> + +<p>“All right. Don’t be in a rage,” said Phiphi. “Pass me the paper.” And +he signed.</p> + +<p>“As for me, old chap, I’d be delighted,” said George, with his arm +fondly wound round Boris’s neck; “it’s Ghéridanisol who won’t have you.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Because he’s afraid. He says you’ll funk.”</p> + +<p>“What does he know about it?”</p> + +<p>“That you’ll wriggle out of it at the first test.”</p> + +<p>“We shall see.”</p> + +<p>“Would you really dare to draw lots?”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t I!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span></p> + +<p>“But do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”</p> + +<p>Boris didn’t know, but he wanted to. Then George explained. “<i>The +strong man cares nothing for life.</i>” It remained to be seen.</p> + +<p>Boris felt a great swimming in his head; but he nerved himself and, +hiding his agitation, “Is it true you’ve signed?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Here! You can see for yourself.” And George held out the paper, so +that Boris could read the three names on it.</p> + +<p>“Have you ...” he began timidly.</p> + +<p>“Have we what?...” interrupted George, so brutally that Boris did not +dare go on. What he wanted to ask, as George perfectly understood, was +whether the others had bound themselves likewise, and whether one could +be sure that they wouldn’t funk either.</p> + +<p>“No, nothing,” said he; but from that moment he began to doubt them; +he began to suspect they were saving themselves and not playing fair. +“Well and good!” thought he then; “what do I care if they funk? I’ll +show them that I’ve got more pluck than they have.” Then, looking +George straight in the eyes: “Tell Ghéri he can count on me.”</p> + +<p>“Then you’ll sign?”</p> + +<p>Oh! there was no need now—he had given his word. He said simply: “As +you please.” And, in a large painstaking hand, he inscribed his name on +the accursed paper, underneath the signatures of the three Strong Men.</p> + +<p>George brought the paper back in triumph to the two others. They agreed +that Boris had behaved very pluckily. They took counsel together.</p> + +<p>Of course, the pistol wouldn’t be loaded! For that matter there were no +cartridges. Phiphi still had fears, because he had heard it said that +sometimes a too violent emotion is sufficient in itself to cause death. +His father, he declared, knew of a case when a pretence execution.... +But George shut him up:</p> + +<p>“Your father’s a dago!”</p> + +<p>No, Ghéridanisol would not load the pistol. There was no need to. The +cartridge which La Pérouse had one day put into it, La Pérouse had not +taken out. This is what Ghéridanisol<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span> had made sure of, though he took +good care not to tell the others.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +They put the names in a hat; four little pieces of paper all alike, and +folded in the same manner. Ghéridanisol, who was “to draw,” had taken +care to write Boris’s name a second time on a fifth, which he kept in +his hand; and, as though by chance, his was the name to come out. Boris +suspected they were cheating; but he said nothing. What was the use of +protesting? He knew that he was lost. He would not have lifted a finger +to defend himself; and even if the lot had fallen on one of the others, +he would have offered to take his place—so great was his despair.</p> + +<p>“Poor old boy! you’ve no luck,” George thought it his duty to say. The +tone of his voice rang so false, that Boris looked at him sadly.</p> + +<p>“It was bound to happen,” he said.</p> + +<p>After that, it was agreed there should be a rehearsal. But as there was +a risk of being caught, they settled not to make use of the pistol. +They would only take it out of its case at the last moment, for the +<i>real</i> performance. Every care must be taken not to give the alarm.</p> + +<p>On that day, therefore, they contented themselves with fixing the hour, +and the place, which they marked on the floor with a bit of chalk. It +was in the class-room, on the right hand of the master’s desk, in a +recess, formed by a disused door, which had formerly opened on to the +entrance hall. As for the hour, it was to be during preparation. It was +to take place in front of all the other boys; it would make them sit up.</p> + +<p>They went through the rehearsal when the room was empty, the three +conspirators being the only witnesses. But in reality there was not +much point in this rehearsal. They simply established the fact that, +from Boris’s seat to the spot marked with chalk, there were exactly +twelve paces.</p> + +<p>“If you aren’t in a panic, you’ll not take one more,” said George.</p> + +<p>“I shan’t be in a panic,” said Boris, who was outraged by this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span> +incessant doubt. The little boy’s firmness began to impress the other +three. Phiphi considered they ought to stop at that. But Ghéridanisol +was determined to carry on the joke to the very end.</p> + +<p>“Well! to-morrow,” he said, with a peculiar smile, which just curled +the corner of his lip.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we kissed him!” cried Phiphi, enthusiastically. He was +thinking of the accolade of the knights of old; and he suddenly flung +his arms round Boris’s neck. It was all Boris could do to keep back his +tears when Phiphi planted two hearty, childish kisses on his cheeks. +Neither George nor Ghéri followed Phiphi’s example; George thought his +behaviour rather unmanly. As for Ghéri, what the devil did he care!...</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIX_c">XIX<br> +BORIS</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +THE next afternoon, the bell assembled all the boys in the class-room.</p> + +<p>Boris, Ghéridanisol, George and Philippe were seated on the same +bench. Ghéridanisol pulled out his watch and put it down between Boris +and him. The hands marked five thirty-five. Preparation began at +five o’clock and lasted till six. Five minutes to six was the moment +fixed upon for Boris to put an end to himself, just before the boys +dispersed; it was better so; it would be easier to escape immediately +after. And soon Ghéridanisol said to Boris, in a half whisper, and +without looking at him, which gave his words, he considered, a more +fatal ring:</p> + +<p>“Old boy, you’ve only got a quarter of an hour more.”</p> + +<p>Boris remembered a story-book he had read long ago, in which, when the +robbers were on the point of putting a woman to death, they told her +to say her prayers, so as to convince her she must get ready to die. +As a foreigner who, on arriving at the frontier of the country he is +leaving, prepares his papers, so Boris searched his heart and head +for prayers, and could find none; but he was at once so tired and so +over-strung, that he did not trouble much. He tried to think, but could +not. The pistol weighed in his pocket; he had no need to put his hand +on it to feel it there.</p> + +<p>“Only ten minutes more.”</p> + +<p>George, sitting on Ghéridanisol’s left, watched the scene out of the +corner of his eye, pretending all the while not to see. He was working +feverishly. The class had never been so quiet. La Pérouse hardly knew +his young rascals and for the first time was able to breathe. Philippe, +however, was not at ease; Ghéridanisol frightened him; he was not very +confident the game<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span> mightn’t turn out badly; his heart was bursting; it +hurt him, and every now and then he heard himself heave a deep sigh. +At last, he could bear it no longer, and tearing a half sheet of paper +out of his copy-book (he was preparing an examination, but the lines +danced before his eyes, and the facts and dates in his head) scribbled +on it very quickly: “Are you quite sure the pistol isn’t loaded?”; then +gave the note to George, who passed it to Ghéri. But Ghéri, after he +had read it, raised his shoulders, without even glancing at Phiphi; +then, screwing the note up into a ball, sent it rolling with a flick +of his finger till it landed on the very spot which had been marked +with chalk. After which, satisfied with the excellence of his aim, he +smiled. This smile, which began by being deliberate, remained fixed +till the end of the scene; it seemed to have been imprinted on his +features.</p> + +<p>“Five minutes more.”</p> + +<p>He said it almost aloud. Even Philippe heard. He was overwhelmed by a +sickening and intolerable anxiety, and though the hour was just coming +to an end, he feigned an urgent need to leave the room—or was perhaps +seized with perfectly genuine colic. He raised his hand and snapped +his fingers, as boys do when they want to ask permission from the +master; then, without waiting for La Pérouse to answer, he darted from +his bench. In order to reach the door he had to pass in front of the +master’s desk; he almost ran, tottering as he did so.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately after Philippe had left the room, Boris rose in his +turn. Young Passavant, who was sitting behind him, working diligently, +raised his eyes. He told Séraphine afterwards that Boris was +frightfully pale; but that is what is always said on these occasions. +As a matter of fact, he stopped looking almost at once and plunged +again into his work. He reproached himself for it bitterly later. If he +had understood what was going on, he would certainly have been able to +prevent it; so he said afterwards, weeping. But he had no suspicions.</p> + +<p>So Boris stepped forward to the appointed place; he walked slowly, like +an automaton—or rather like a somnambulist. He had grasped the pistol +in his right hand, but still kept it in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span> pocket of his coat; he +took it out only at the last moment. The fatal place was, as I have +said, in the recess made by a disused door on the right of the master’s +desk, so that the master could only see it by leaning forward.</p> + +<p>La Pérouse leant forward. And at first he did not understand what his +grandson was doing, though the strange solemnity of his actions was of +a nature to alarm him. Speaking as loudly and as authoritatively as he +could, he began:</p> + +<p>“Master Boris, kindly return at once to your....”</p> + +<p>But he suddenly recognized the pistol: Boris had just raised it to his +temple. La Pérouse understood and immediately turned icy cold as if +the blood were freezing in his veins. He tried to rise and run towards +Boris—stop him—call to him.... A kind of hoarse rattle came from his +throat; he remained rooted to the spot, paralytic, shaken by a violent +trembling.</p> + +<p>The shot went off. Boris did not drop at once. The body stayed upright +for a moment, as though caught in the corner of the recess; then the +head, falling on to the shoulder, bore it down; it collapsed.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +When the police made their enquiry a little later, they were astonished +not to find the pistol near Boris’s body—near the place, I mean, where +he fell, for the little corpse was carried away almost immediately and +laid upon a bed. In the confusion which followed, while Ghéridanisol +had remained in his place, George had leapt over his bench and +succeeded in making away with the weapon, without anyone’s noticing +him; while the others were bending over Boris, he had first of all +pushed it backwards with his foot, seized it with a rapid movement, +hidden it under his coat, and then surreptitiously passed it to +Ghéridanisol. Everyone’s attention being fixed on a single point, no +one noticed Ghéridanisol either, and he was able to run unperceived +to La Pérouse’s room and put the pistol back in the place from which +he had taken it. When, in the course of a later investigation, the +police discovered the pistol in its case, it might have seemed +doubtful whether it had ever left it, or whether Boris had used it, +had Ghéridanisol only remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span> to remove the empty cartridge. He +certainly lost his head a little—a passing weakness, for which, I +regret to say, he reproached himself far more than for the crime +itself. And yet it was this weakness which saved him. For when he came +down and mixed with the others, at the sight of Boris’s dead body +being carried away, he was seized with a fit of trembling, which was +obvious to everyone—a kind of nervous attack—which Madame Vedel and +Rachel, who had hurried to the spot, mistook for a sign of excessive +emotion. One prefers to suppose anything, rather than the inhumanity +of so young a creature; and when Ghéridanisol protested his innocence, +he was believed. Phiphi’s little note, which George had passed him and +which he had flicked away with his finger, was found later under a +bench and also contributed to help him. True, he remained guilty, as +did George and Phiphi, of having lent himself to a cruel game, but he +would not have done so, he declared, if he had thought the weapon was +loaded. George was the only one who remained convinced of his entire +responsibility.</p> + +<p>George was not so corrupted but that his admiration for Ghéridanisol +yielded at last to horror. When he reached home that evening, he flung +himself into his mother’s arms; and Pauline had a burst of gratitude to +God, who by means of this dreadful tragedy had brought her son back to +her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XX_c">XX<br> +EDOUARD’S JOURNAL</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +WITHOUT exactly pretending to explain anything, I should not like to +put forward any fact which was not accounted for by a sufficiency of +motive. And for that reason I shall not make use of little Boris’s +suicide for my <i>Counterfeiters</i>; I have too much difficulty in +understanding it. And then, I dislike police court items. There is +something peremptory, irrefutable, brutal, outrageously real about +them.... I accept reality coming as a proof in support of my thought, +but not as preceding it. It displeases me to be surprised. Boris’s +suicide seems to me an <i>indecency</i>, for I was not expecting it.</p> + +<p>A little cowardice enters into every suicide, notwithstanding La +Pérouse, who no doubt thinks his grandson was more courageous than he. +If the child could have foreseen the disaster which his dreadful action +has brought upon the Vedels, there would be no excuse for him. Azaïs +has been obliged to break up the school—for the time being, he says; +but Rachel is afraid of ruin. Four families have already removed their +children. I have not been able to dissuade Pauline from taking George +away, so that she may keep him at home with her; especially as the +boy has been profoundly shaken by his schoolfellow’s death, and seems +inclined to reform. What repercussions this calamity has had! Even +Olivier is touched by it. Armand, notwithstanding his cynical airs, +feels such anxiety at the ruin which is threatening his family, that he +has offered to devote the time that Passavant leaves him, to working in +the school, for old La Pérouse has become manifestly incapable of doing +what is required of him.</p> + +<p>I dreaded seeing him again. It was in his little bedroom on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span> the second +floor of the pension, that he received me. He took me by the arm at +once, and with a mysterious, almost a smiling air, which greatly +surprised me, for I was expecting tears:</p> + +<p>“That noise,” he said, “you know ... the noise I told you about the +other day....”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“It has stopped—finished. I don’t hear it any more, however much I +listen.”</p> + +<p>As one humours a child, “I wager,” said I, “that now you regret it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! no; no.... It’s such a rest. I am so much in need of silence. Do +you know what I’ve been thinking? That in this life we can’t know what +real silence is. Even our blood makes a kind of continual noise; we +don’t notice it, because we have become accustomed to it ever since +our childhood.... But I think there are things in life which we can’t +succeed in hearing—harmonies ... because this noise drowns them. Yes, +I think it’s only after our death that we shall really be able to hear.”</p> + +<p>“You told me you didn’t believe....”</p> + +<p>“In the immortality of the soul? Did I tell you that?... Yes; I suppose +I did. But I don’t believe the contrary either, you know.”</p> + +<p>And as I was silent, he went on, nodding his head and with a +sententious air:</p> + +<p>“Have you noticed that in this world God always keeps silent? It’s +only the devil who speaks. Or at least, at least ...” he went on, “... +however carefully we listen, it’s only the devil we can succeed in +hearing. We have not the ears to hear the voice of God. The word of +God! Have you ever wondered what it is like?... Oh! I don’t mean the +word that has been transferred into human language.... You remember the +Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ I have often thought that the +word of God was the whole of creation. But the devil seized hold of it. +His noise drowns the voice of God. Oh! tell me, don’t you think that +all the same it’s God who will end by having the last word?... And if, +after death, time no longer exists, if we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span> enter at once into Eternity, +do you think we shall be able to hear God then ... directly?”</p> + +<p>A kind of transport began to shake him, as if he were going to fall +down in convulsions, and he was suddenly seized by a fit of sobbing.</p> + +<p>“No, no!” he cried, confusedly; “the devil and God are one and the +same; they work together. We try to believe that everything bad on +earth comes from the devil, but it’s because, if we didn’t, we should +never find strength to forgive God. He plays with us like a cat, +tormenting a mouse.... And then afterwards he wants us to be grateful +to him as well. Grateful for what? for what?...”</p> + +<p>Then, leaning towards me:</p> + +<p>“Do you know the most horrible thing of all that he has done?... +Sacrificed his own son to save us. His son! his son!... Cruelty! that’s +the principal attribute of God.”</p> + +<p>He flung himself on his bed and turned his face to the wall. For a few +moments a spasmodic shudder ran through him; then, as he seemed to have +fallen asleep, I left him.</p> + +<p>He had not said a word to me about Boris; but I thought that in this +mystical despair was to be seen the expression of a grief too blinding +to be looked at steadfastly.</p> + +<p class="space-above2"> +I hear from Olivier that Bernard has gone back to his father’s; and, +indeed, it was the best thing he could do. When he learnt, from a +chance meeting with Caloub, that the old judge was not well, Bernard +followed the impulse of his heart. We shall meet to-morrow evening, for +Profitendieu has invited me to dinner with Molinier, Pauline and the +two boys. I feel very curious to know Caloub.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN<br> +WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET</p> +</div> + + +<p class="nind"> +<i>This book is set</i> (<i>on the Linotype</i>) <i>in Elzevir No. 3, a +French Old Style. For the modern revival of this excellent face we are +indebted to Gustave Mayeur of Paris, who reproduced it in 1878, basing +his designs, he says, on types used in a book which was printed by the +Elzevirs at Leyden in 1634. The Elzevir family held a distinguished +position as printers and publishers for more than a century, their +best work appearing between about 1590 and 1680. Although the Elzevirs +were not themselves type founders, they utilized the services of +the best type designers of their time, notably Van Dijk, Garamond, +and Sanlecque. Many of their books were small, or, as we should say +now, “pocket” editions, of the classics, and for these volumes they +developed a type face which is open and readable but relatively narrow +in body, although in no sense condensed, thus permitting a large amount +of copy to be set in limited space without impairing legibility.</i></p> + + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="i_logo2" style="width: 186px;"> +<img src="images/i_logo2.jpg" width="186" height="120" alt="decorative"> +</figure> + + +<p class="nindc"> +SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED AND<br> +BOUND BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS,<br> +INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · PAPER<br> +MANUFACTURED BY TICONDEROGA<br> +PULP AND PAPER CO.,<br> +TICONDEROGA, N. Y. AND<br> +FURNISHED BY W. F.<br> +ETHERINGTON & CO.,<br> +NEW YORK<br> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote spa1"> +<p class="nindc"><b>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</b></p> + +<p>Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced.</p> + +<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed.</p> +</div></div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76965 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76965-h/images/cover.jpg b/76965-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..349a3fa --- /dev/null +++ b/76965-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76965-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg b/76965-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d416fa --- /dev/null +++ b/76965-h/images/i_frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/76965-h/images/i_logo1.jpg b/76965-h/images/i_logo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1feb2a --- /dev/null +++ b/76965-h/images/i_logo1.jpg diff --git a/76965-h/images/i_logo2.jpg b/76965-h/images/i_logo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0a3b16 --- /dev/null +++ b/76965-h/images/i_logo2.jpg |
