think that _I_ was not wrong either.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That you really are the person I hoped you would be.”
Edouard was trying in vain to look severe. He was immensely
entertained. He made a kind of slight mocking bow:
“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?”
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.”
Then, quick as an elf, he darted downstairs.
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:
“My poor Laura,” said he; “come, come, be sensible.”
“Oh, let me cry a little; it does me good.”
“All the same we’ve got to consider what you are to do.”
“What is there I _can_ do? Where can I go? To whom can I speak?”
“Your parents....”
“You know what they are. It would plunge them in despair. And they did
everything they could to make me happy.”
“Douviers?...”
“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.”
“On the contrary, my dear; on the contrary. How can you imagine such a
thing?” And he began patting her on the back again.
“Yes; I don’t feel ashamed any more, when I am with you.”
“How long have you been here?”
“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.”
Her sobs redoubled and she almost screamed out, though in a choking
voice:
“Take me away! Take me away!”
Edouard felt more and more uncomfortable.
“Now Laura.... You must be calm. That ... that ... I don’t even know
his name....”
“Bernard,” murmured Laura.
“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.”
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.
“And now, sir, may I ask when I shall be allowed to get possession of
my belongings again?”
He looked Bernard full in the face as he spoke, with the same ironical
smile on his lips as before.
“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 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.”
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.
“And now...?” asked he.
Bernard understood that he was gaining ground.
“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.”
This time Edouard laughed outright. Laura watched them both with
amusement.
“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.”
He held out his hand.
“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?”
“Upon my word, that’s not a bad beginning. You have a very fair notion
of your future duties.”
“Then.... Really? You consent?”
“We’ll see about it to-morrow. Good-bye.”
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.
Olivier, that very afternoon, yielding to the pressing invitation
passed on to him by his brother, had gone to visit the author of _The
Horizontal Bar_, the Comte de Passavant.
XV
OLIVIER VISITS THE COMTE DE PASSAVANT
“I WAS afraid your brother hadn’t delivered my message,” said Robert on
seeing Olivier come into the room.
“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.
“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?”
“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.
“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?”
“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.”
“Still, I suppose you’d refuse to undertake any other occupation just
now?”
“No ... if it isn’t too absorbing, that is.”
“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
_entr’acte_, we were just getting into a talk. I was exceedingly
interested by what you said. I expect you don’t remember?”
“Oh yes, I do,” said Olivier, who was under the impression he had said
nothing but stupidities.
“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?”
“I have just this moment left him.”
“Ah! You see a good deal of each other?”
“Yes. We met at the Louvre to-day to talk about a review of which he is
to be the editor.”
Robert burst into a loud, affected laugh.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! the editor!... He’s in a deuce of a hurry.... Did he
really say that to you?”
“He has been talking to me about it for ever so long.”
“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?”
“After all, I think I will,” said Olivier, this time accepting. “Thank
you.”
“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.”
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.
“Well! What do you think?”
“Yes, indeed; first-rate.”
“I wasn’t talking of the port,” protested Robert, laughing; “but of
what I was saying just now.”
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:
“My examination wouldn’t....”
“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?”
“I don’t know exactly. My people will probably be going to Normandy.
They always do in the summer.”
“And you will have to go with them?... Couldn’t you let yourself be
unhitched for a bit?...”
“My mother would never consent.”
“I’m dining to-night with your brother. May I speak to him about it?”
“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.”
“Well, but if we find a good reason to give Mamma?”
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.
“So you appreciate my port,” he said by way of diversion. “Have another
glass?”
“No, no, thank you; but it’s excellent.”
“Yes, I was struck by the ripeness and sureness of your judgment the
other night. Do you mean to go in for criticism?”
“No.”
“Poetry?... I know you write poetry.”
Olivier blushed again.
“Yes, your brother has betrayed you. And no doubt you know other
young men who would be ready to contribute. This review must become
a rallying ground for the younger generation. That’s its _raison
d’être_. 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’?”
“I think we might find something better still,” Olivier took courage to
say, smiling, though without seeming to approve much.
“Come, another glass of port....”
“Not quite full, please.”
“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?”
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.
“Very well. Ask him to wait a moment.” The servant went out. “Look
here, my dear boy, I like you very much and I 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.”
Olivier had risen.
“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....”
“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.
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.”
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:
VICTOR STROUVILHOU
The name meant nothing to him.
Passavant handed Olivier the copy of _The Horizontal Bar_, and as
Olivier was preparing to read the inscription:
“Look at it later,” said Passavant, slipping the book under his arm.
It was not till he was in the street that Olivier read the manuscript
motto with which the Comte de Passavant had adorned the first page and
which he had culled out of the book itself:
_“Prithee, Orlando, a few steps further. I am not perfectly sure
that I dare altogether take your meaning.”_
Underneath which he had added:
To OLIVIER MOLINIER
from his presumptive friend
COMTE ROBERT DE PASSAVANT
An ambiguous motto, which made Olivier wonder, but which after all he
was perfectly free to interpret as he pleased.
Olivier got home just after Edouard had left, weary of waiting.
XVI
VINCENT AND LILIAN
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.
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:
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?
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?
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.
4th.--Renunciation of good motives, regarded as a cheat, in the light
of the new ethic which Vincent finds himself obliged 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.
5th.--Intoxication of the winner. Contempt of the reserve in hand.
Supremacy.
After which the demon has won the game.
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.
And yet Vincent is not bad. All this, do what he will, leaves him
unsatisfied, uncomfortable. Let us add a few words more:
The name “_exoticism_” 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.
With Lilian too he felt himself in a foreign land.
“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.”
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.
“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 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....”
“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?”
“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 _Bourgogne_, 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....”
“And you want me to help you drown it.... You old coward!”
He went on without looking at her:
“Something I keep off, but whose voice I hear ... a voice you have
never heard, that I listened to in my childhood....”
“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?”
“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.”
“Tell away then,” said she with an air of resignation. Then, as he
kept silent and hid his face like a child in Lilian’s skirts: “Well,
what are you waiting for?”
She seized him by the hair and forced him to raise his head:
“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.”
Vincent had risen. He went up to the window. Lilian went on:
“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.”
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. 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:
“_Too late._”
Lilian rang and asked for her cloak. When the maid had left the room:
“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!...”
“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?”
“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.”
“That’s not perhaps what a novelist will think,” said Vincent.
Robert de Passavant held an evening paper in his hand:
“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.
“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.”
“Suppose you were to start by asking it for yourself,” Vincent replied.
Robert made an affected little grimace:
“No; for my part, my vanity consists in never blushing--not even in my
buttonhole.” Then, turning to Lilian:
“Do you know it’s rare nowadays to find a man who has reached forty
without either the syph or the legion of honour?”
Lilian smiled and shrugged her shoulders: