“What on earth should they say?”
“And they gave you back the change?”
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 _they_
aren’t false too?” But he refrains.
George had given one franc for the false coin. It had been agreed that
the money should be divided between them. He 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.
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.
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.
“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?”
“A senator.”
“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 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!”
Strouvilhou filled two glasses. They drank to each other.
“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! _We_ have a hold on
the children, who have a hold on their parents, who have a hold on us.
A perfect arrangement. Twig?”
Léon twigged admirably. He chuckled.
“That little George....” he began.
“Well, what about him? That little George...?”
“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.”
“Have you seen them?”
“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: ‘_My_ 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.”
“Did you read them?”
“I didn’t have time to. I only saw they were all in the same
handwriting; one of them began: ‘My darling old ducky.’”
“And signed?”
“‘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.”
“And what did Master Phiphi say?”
“Nothing. I think he was jealous.”
“Would George give you the letters?”
“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.”
“That’s what goes by the name of emulation. And you don’t see anyone
else at the school?”
“I’ll look about.”
“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.”
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.
“Yes; I didn’t let my people know we were coming back so soon.
This evening the _Argonauts_ 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 _Argonaut_ staff will be there and a good
many of our own _Vanguard_ contributors. Our first number is
nearly ready; but, I say, why didn’t you send me anything?”
“Because I hadn’t anything ready,” he answers rather curtly.
Olivier’s voice becomes almost imploring:
“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.”
It grieves Bernard to hurt his friend; but he hardens himself:
“Look here, old boy, I had better tell you at once--I’m afraid I
shouldn’t hit it off with Passavant very well.”
“But it’s I who am the editor. He leaves me perfectly free.”
“And then I dislike the idea of sending you _no matter what_; I
don’t want to write _no matter what_.”
“I said _no matter what_, because I knew that no matter what you
wrote would be good ... that it would never really be _no matter
what_.”
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.
“And then, old fellow, if I’m beginning to know what I don’t want to
do, I don’t know yet what I _do_ want to do. I don’t even know
whether I shall write.”
This declaration fills Olivier with consternation. But Bernard goes on:
“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 _vers libre_ is formless. The only poet who
satisfies me nowadays is Rimbaud.”
“That’s exactly what I say in our manifesto.”
“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 that writing
prevents one from living, and that one can express oneself better by
acts than by words.”
“Works of art are acts that endure,” ventured Olivier timidly; but
Bernard was not listening.
“That’s what I admire most of all in Rimbaud--to have preferred life.”
“He made a mess of his own.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Oh! really, old boy!...”
“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....”
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:
“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.”
“You mean Laura,” said Olivier. “Do you still love her as much as ever?”
“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.”
“Friendship, too, can grow less,” said Olivier sadly.
“I think that the margins of friendship aren’t so wide.”
“I say ... you won’t be angry if I ask you something?”
“Try.”
“I don’t want to make you angry.”
“If you keep your questions to yourself, you’ll make me more angry
still.”
“I want to know whether you feel ... desire for Laura.”
Bernard suddenly became very grave.
“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 _bursting_.”
An extraordinary radiance shone from his whole being. How well he
expressed himself! Olivier gazed at him in a kind of ecstasy.
“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 great, that it would make one
feel: ‘I have had enough. I am content; never again shall I....’”
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:
“I must be off. Well then, this evening, you say?... What time?”
“Oh, I should think ten would be early enough. Will you come?”
“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 _Vanguard_. What would he not have given to be
free?
“I should like to, but I’m engaged.”
No trace of his unhappiness was apparent; and Bernard answered:
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”
And at that the two friends parted.
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 _Vanguard_, he would be
obliged to show off. Edouard would 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.
He gives the address to the chauffeur. He reaches the door with a
beating heart; he rings.... Edouard is out.
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.
VI
EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: MADAME MOLINIER
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.
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.
“I didn’t approve of it,” she said, “and to tell you the truth,
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.”
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:
“His confidence.... If I were only sure I still had it. But no; I’ve
lost it....”
The protest I attempted--without conviction--made her smile. She
dropped her work and went on:
“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 _he_ hides things from me.”
“It’s for fear of paining you.”
“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.”
“Of whom are you talking now?”
“Oh! of the father as well as the sons.”
“When you pretend not to see them, _you_ are lying too.”
“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.”
“Now you are talking of your sons.”
“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.”
“And Vincent?”
“A few years ago everything I now say of Olivier would have been true
of Vincent.”
“My poor friend.... Soon you will be saying the same of George.”
“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.”
“With ideas of that kind, one is almost a Christian,” said I, smiling
in my turn.
“I sometimes think so too. But having them isn’t enough to make one a
Christian.”
“Any more than being a Christian is enough to make one have them.”
“I have often thought--will you let me say so?--that in their father’s
default, _you_ might speak to the boys.”
“Vincent is not here.”
“It is too late for him. I am thinking of Olivier. It’s with you that I
should have liked him to go away.”
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:
“Too late, I fear, for him too,” I sighed.
Pauline seized my hand:
“How good you are!” she cried.
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.
“And George?” I asked.
“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.”
She hesitated a few moments. It obviously cost her a great deal to say
what follows.
“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?
“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 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....”
I admired the ingenious way in which she put forward every possible
consideration that might exonerate her child.
“I should have liked him to put the money back,” I said.
“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.”
“Did you tell his father?”
She hesitated a few moments:
“No,” she said at last, “I prefer him to know nothing about it.”
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.
“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 invent
excuses for him; I put the letters he leaves lying about back in his
coat pocket.”
“That’s just it,” I said; “he’s afraid you have discovered some
letters.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“And that’s what’s making him so nervous.”
“Do you think I want to read them?”
A kind of wounded pride made her draw herself up. I was obliged to add: