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.”
Robert raised his face and looked at her, smiling. “Not when I am with
you, I assure you.”
“Did you tell Molinier to come?”
“Yes, as you asked me to.”
“And ... you lent him money?”
“Five thousand francs, as I told you ... and he’ll lose it, like the
rest.”
“Why should he lose it?”
“He’s bound to. I saw him the first evening. He plays anyhow.”
“He’s had time to learn.... Will you make a bet that to-night he’ll
win?”
“If you like.”
“Oh, please don’t take it as a penance. I like people to do what they
do willingly.”
“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?”
She pressed a bell.
“Bring a bottle of Tokay and three glasses, please.... And if he comes
back with the five thousand and no more--he shall keep it, eh? If he
neither loses nor wins....”
“That’s unheard of. It’s odd what an interest you take in him.”
“It’s odd that you don’t think him interesting.”
“You think him interesting because you’re in love with him.”
“Yes, my dear boy, that’s true. One doesn’t mind admitting that
to _you_. 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.”
A servant came in with wine and glasses on a tray.
“First of all let’s seal our bet, and afterwards we’ll have another
glass in honour of the winner.”
The servant poured out the wine and they drank to each other.
“Personally, I think your Vincent a bore.”
“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.”
Robert turned a little to put his lips on Lilian’s bare foot; she drew
it away quickly and covered it with her fan.
“Must I blush?” said he.
“It’s not worth while trying as far as I am concerned. You couldn’t
succeed.”
She emptied her glass, and then:
“D’you know what, my dear friend? You have all the qualities of a man
of letters--you are vain, hypocritical, fickle, selfish....”
“You are too flattering!”
“Yes; that’s all very charming--but you’ll never be a good novelist.”
“Because?”
“Because you don’t know how to listen.”
“It seems to me I’m listening admirably.”
“Pooh! _He_ isn’t a writer and he listens a great deal better. But
when we are together, _I_ am the one to listen.”
“He hardly knows how to speak.”
“That’s because you never stop talking yourself.”
“I know everything he’s going to say beforehand.”
“You think so? Do you know the story of his affair with that woman?”
“Oh! Love affairs! The dullest things in the world!”
“And then I like it when he talks about natural history.”
“Natural history is even duller than love affairs. Does he give you
lectures then?”
“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?”
“Did he tell you?”
“People tell me everything. You know they do, you shocking creature!”
And she stroked his face with the feathers of her closed fan.
“Did you suspect that he had been to see me every single day since the
evening you first brought him?”
“Every day? No, really! I didn’t suspect that.”
“On the fourth, he couldn’t resist any longer; he came out with the
whole thing. But on every day following, he kept adding details.”
“And it didn’t bore you? You’re a wonder!”
“I told you, my dear, that I love him.” And she seized his arm
emphatically.
“And _he_ ... loves the other woman?”
Lilian laughed.
“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.”
“And what did he say then?”
“He took her hand, as it hung down beside her chair, and pressed a long
kiss upon it.”
“And when he told you that, what did _you_ say?”
“I? Oh, frightful! Only fancy! I went off into a _fou rire_. I
couldn’t prevent myself, and once I had begun, I couldn’t stop....
It’s 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.”
“_You_ are the person who ought to write novels.”
“_Parbleu, mon cher_, 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
_enceinte_, 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.”
“He didn’t tell me any of all this.”
“Whatever happens, don’t let him know that I’ve told you.” She stopped
and listened a moment.
“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 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In other words, you advised him to sacrifice his love. And is it your
intention to take the place of that love?”
Lilian remained silent.
“This time, I think it really is he,” went on Robert, rising. “Quick!
one word before he comes in. My father died this evening.”
“Ah!” she said simply.
“You haven’t a fancy to become Comtesse de Passavant, have you?”
At this Lilian flung herself back with a burst of laughter.
“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?”
“Not that I remember.”
“You might have guessed it; as a rule a Lady’s accompanied by a Lord.”
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 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.
“Ah! Ah! I thought as much,” cried Vincent, as he came into the room.
“The traitor! He has dressed!”
“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.”
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.)
“He has lost his bet! He has lost his bet!”
“What bet?” asked Vincent.
“He had bet that you would lose your money again to-night. Tell us!
Quickly! You’ve won. How much?”
“I have had the extraordinary courage--and virtue--to leave off at
fifty thousand and come away.”
Lilian gave a roar of delight.
“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.
“Here! take back what you advanced me,” he said, holding out five of
them to Robert.
“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:
“And now, what do you mean to do?” she asked; and for the first time
she called him “thou.”
He put his head between his hands and said with a kind of sob:
“I don’t know.”
Lilian went up to him and put her hand on his forehead; he raised it
and his eyes were dry and burning.
“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:
“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.”
In the antechamber a footman was dozing. She shook him by the arm.
“Light these gentlemen downstairs,” she said.
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.
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.
“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.
“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!”
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.
“Ho! Ho!” he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then as he was getting
into his car, he turned back to Vincent, who was standing there looking
a little foolish:
“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.
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....
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.
VI
BERNARD AWAKENS
_We are all bastards;_
_And that most venerable man which I_
_Did call my father, was I know not where_
_When I was stamped._
SHAKESPEARE: _Cymbeline_.
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.
“In a moment,” he says to himself, “I shall be setting out to meet my
fate. Adventure! What a splendid word! The _advent_ 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 shall go off without waiting for your
good-bye. Up! valorous Bernard! The time has come!”
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!
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_ 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!
“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:
“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. _She_ 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 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 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.”
And as he lay stretched on the bench, he got rid of himself so
effectually that he fell asleep.
VII
LILIAN AND VINCENT
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
Vincent shuts his eyes as though to shut out too bright a light. The
jubilation in Lilian’s face dazzles him.
“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.