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.”
He had bent towards me; he bent closer still:
“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, 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.”
He trotted out in his usual fashion and came back with a large envelope
in his hand.
“You’ll excuse me for having sealed it; for form’s sake,” said he.
“Take it.”
I glanced at it and saw under my name the words “To be opened after my
death” written in printed letters.
“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!...”
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.
“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.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s a little village near the Matterhorn.”
“Is it very far?”
“Not so far but that I might perhaps go there.”
“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 a word, then went on: “that I
should depart more easily, if only I had been able to see him.”
“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.”
“Thank you!... Thank you!”
He pressed me convulsively in his arms.
“But promise me that you won’t think of...”
“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:
“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 _Théâtre Français_. I hadn’t been inside a theatre
for more than twenty years. They were giving _Hernani_ 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?...”
Not understanding at first what it was he objected to, I asked:
“You thought the actors very bad?”
“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!”
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:
“For instance, the entry of the trombones in such and such a symphony
of Beethoven’s which you admire....”
“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?”
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:
“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?”
“Exactly,” I rejoined. “Everything must finally resolve into--be
reduced to harmony.”
“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....”
“To listen to you, one would never dare wean a child.”
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.”
It was impossible to start on a teleological argument; I tried to bring
him back to his own ground:
“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.”
He took both my hands in his, and in a burst of ecstasy, his eyes rapt
in adoration, he repeated several times over:
“A perfect and continuous chord; yes, yes; a perfect and continuous
chord.... But our whole universe is a prey to discord,” he added sadly.
I took my leave. He accompanied me to the door and as he embraced me,
murmured again:
“Oh! How long shall we have to wait for the resolution of the chord?”
SECOND PART
SAAS-FÉE
I
FROM BERNARD TO OLIVIER
Monday
MY DEAR OLD OLIVIER,
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.
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 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 _tête à tête_, 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.
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.
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?...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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
Your friend.
P.S. _Wednesday._ 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
Bernard.
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, 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.
II
EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: LITTLE BORIS
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:
“Boris, Mamma had rather we didn’t touch the telescope. Won’t you come
for a walk?”
“Yes, I will. No, I won’t.”
The two contradictory sentences were uttered in the same breath. Bronja
only answered the second:
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too hot, it’s too cold.” He had come away from the
telescope.
“Oh, Boris, do be nice! You know Mamma would like us to go out. Where’s
your hat?”
“Vibroskomenopatof. Blaf blaf.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why do you say it?”
“So that you shouldn’t understand.”
“If it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t matter about not understanding
it.”
“But if it did mean something, anyhow you wouldn’t be able to
understand.”
“When one talks it’s in order to be understood.”
“Shall we play at making words in order to understand them only us?”
“First of all, try to speak good grammar.”
“My mamma can speak French, English, Roumanian, Turkish, Polish,
Italoscope, Perroquese and Xixitou.”
All this was said very fast, in a kind of lyrical ecstasy. Bronja began
to laugh.
“Oh, Boris, why are you always saying things that aren’t true?”
“Why do you never believe what I say?”
“I believe it when it’s true.”
“How do you know when it’s true? I believed _you_ 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?”
“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.”
“Bronja, you aren’t naughty; that’s why you can see the angels. I shall
always be naughty.”
“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?”
“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.”
They walked away, and as they were going down the terrace steps I heard
Boris again:
“Yes, no, not that end. Wait till I’ve wiped it.”
“Why?”
“I’ve touched it.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“What is the matter with him exactly?” I asked.
She began to laugh:
“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.”
“Just tell me what he suffers from.”
“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.”
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.
“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.”
“Of what does it consist?”
“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....”
An inquisition of this kind seemed to me so much in the nature of an
assault that it was with difficulty I refrained from protesting; but my
curiosity carried the day.
“Do you mean that you expect the child to make you any shameful
revelations?”
It was she who protested.
“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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“It seems to me that in such cases the value of the method depends upon
the value of the operator.”
“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.”
“How do you know he doesn’t invent?”
“And even if he did invent!... All the inventions of a diseased
imagination reveal something.”