but of some letters he had put in a drawer and which he says he can’t
find. He thinks you have taken them.”
At these words, I saw Pauline turn pale, and the horrible suspicion
which darted upon her, forced itself suddenly into my mind too. I
regretted having spoken, but it was too late. She looked away from me
and murmured:
“Would to Heaven it _were_ I!”
She seemed overcome.
“What am I to do?” she repeated. “What am I to do?” Then raising her
eyes to mine again: “You? Couldn’t _you_ speak to him?”
Although she avoided, as I did, pronouncing George’s name, it was clear
that she was thinking of him.
“I will try. I will think it over,” I said, rising. And as she
accompanied me to the front door:
“Say nothing about it to Oscar, please. Let him go on suspecting
me--thinking what he thinks.... It is better so. Come and see me
again.”
VII
OLIVIER AND ARMAND
IN THE mean time Olivier, deeply disappointed at not having found his
Uncle Edouard, and unable to bear his solitude, turned his thoughts
towards Armand with a heart aching for friendship. He made his way to
the Pension Vedel.
Armand received him in his bedroom. It was a small, narrow room,
reached by the backstairs. Its window looked on to an inner courtyard,
on to which the water-closets and kitchens of the next-door house
opened also. The light came from a corrugated zinc reflector, which
caught it from above and cast it down, pallid, leaden and dreary. The
room was badly ventilated; an unpleasant odour pervaded it.
“But one gets accustomed to it,” said Armand. “My parents, you
understand, keep the best rooms for the boarders who pay best.
It’s only natural. I have given up the room I had last year to a
Vicomte--the brother of your illustrious friend Passavant. A princely
room--but under the observation of Rachel’s. There are heaps of rooms
here, but not all of them are independent. For instance, poor Sarah,
who came back from England this morning, is obliged to pass, either
through our parents’ room (which doesn’t suit her at all) to get to
her new abode, or else through mine, which, truth to tell, is really
nothing but a dressing-room or box-room. At any rate, I have the
advantage here of being able to go out and in as I please, without
being spied upon by anyone. I prefer that to the attics, where the
servants live. To tell the truth, I rather like being uncomfortably
lodged; my father would call it the ‘love of maceration,’ and would
explain that what is hurtful to the body leads to the salvation of the
soul. For that matter, he has never been inside the place. He has other
things to do, you understand, than worrying over his son’s habitat.
My papa’s a wonderful fellow. He has by heart a number of consoling
phrases for the principal events of life. It’s magnificent to hear him.
A pity he never has any time for a little chat.... You’re looking at
my picture gallery; one can enjoy it better in the morning. That is a
colour print by a pupil of Paolo Ucelli’s--for the use of veterinaries.
In an admirable attempt at synthesis, the artist has concentrated on
a single horse all the ills by means of which Providence chastens the
equine soul; you observe the spirituality of the look.... That is a
symbolical picture of the ages of life from the cradle to the grave.
As a drawing, not much can be said for it; its chief value lies in its
intention. Further on you will note with admiration the photograph of
one of Titian’s courtesans, which I have put over my bed in order to
give myself libidinous thoughts. That is the door into Sarah’s room.”
The almost sordid aspect of the place made a melancholy impression on
Olivier; the bed was not made and the basin on the wash-stand was not
emptied.
“Yes, I fix up my room myself,” said Armand, in response to his
anxious look. “Here, you see, is my writing table. You have no idea
how the atmosphere of the room inspires me.... ‘_L’atmosphère d’un
cher réduit...._’ I even owe it the idea of my last poem--_The
Nocturnal Vase_.”
Olivier had come to see Armand with the intention of speaking about his
review and asking him to contribute to it; he no longer dared to. But
Armand’s own conversation was coming round to the subject.
“_The Nocturnal Vase_--eh? What a magnificent title!... With this
motto from Baudelaire:
‘_Funereal vase, what tears awaitest thou?_’[6]
BAUDELAIRE.
“I take up once more the ancient (and ever young) comparison of the
potter creator, who fashions every human being as a vase destined to
hold--ah! what? And I compare myself in a lyrical outburst to the
above-mentioned vase--an idea which, as I was telling you, came to me
as the natural result of breathing the odour of this chamber. I am
particularly pleased with the opening line:
‘_Whoe’er at forty boasts no hemorrhoids...._’
I had first of all written, in order to reassure the reader, Whoe’er at
fifty...’ but I should have missed the assonance. As for ‘hemorrhoids,’
it is undoubtedly the finest word in the French language--independently
of its meaning,” he added with a saturnine laugh.
Olivier, a pain at his heart, kept silent. Armand went on:
“Needless to say, the night vase is particularly flattered when it
receives a visit from a pot filled with aromatics like yourself.”
“And haven’t you written anything but that?” asked Olivier at last,
desperately.
“I was going to offer my _Nocturnal Vase_ to your great and
glorious review, but from the tone in which you have just said
‘_that_,’ I see there isn’t much likelihood of its pleasing you.
In such cases the poet always has the resource of arguing: ‘I don’t
write to please,’ and of persuading himself that he has brought forth
a master-piece. But I cannot conceal from you that I consider my poem
execrably bad. For that matter, I have so far only written the first
line. And when I say _written_, it’s a figure of speech, for I
have this very moment composed it in your honour.... No, really? were
you thinking of publishing something of mine? You actually desired my
collaboration? You judged me, then, not incapable of writing something
decent? Can you have discerned on my pale brow the revealing stigmata
of genius? I know the light here is not very favourable for looking at
oneself in the glass, but when--like another Narcissus--I gaze at my
reflection, I can see nothing but the features of a failure. After all,
perhaps it’s an effect of chiaroscuro.... No, my dear Olivier, no; I
have done nothing this summer, and if you are counting on me for your
review, you may go to blazes. But that’s enough about me.... Did all go
well in Corsica? Did you enjoy your trip? Did it do you good? Did you
rest after your labours? Did you....”
Olivier could bear it no longer:
“Oh! do shut up, old boy. Stop playing the ass. If you imagine I think
it’s funny....”
“And what about me?” cried Armand. “No, my dear fellow, no; all the
same I’m not so stupid as all that. I’ve still intelligence enough to
understand that everything I’ve been saying is idiotic.”
“Can’t you ever talk seriously?”
“Very well; we’ll talk seriously, since seriousness is the style you
favour. Rachel, my eldest sister, is going blind. Her sight has been
getting very bad lately. For the last two years, she hasn’t been able
to read without glasses. I thought at first it would be all right if
she were to change them. But it wasn’t. At my request, she went to
see an oculist. It seems the sensitiveness of the retina is failing.
You understand there are two very different things--on the one hand,
a defective power of accommodation of the crystalline, which can be
remedied by glasses. But even after they have brought the visual image
to the proper focus, that image may make an insufficient impression
on the retina and be only dimly transmitted to the brain. Do I make
myself clear? You hardly know Rachel, so don’t imagine that I am trying
to arouse your pity for her. Then why am I telling you all this?...
Because, reflecting on my own case, I became aware that not only images
but ideas may strike the brain with more or less clearness. A person
with a dull mind receives only confused perceptions; but for that very
reason he cannot realize clearly that he is dull. He would only begin
to suffer from his stupidity if he were conscious of it; and in order
to be conscious of it, he would have to become intelligent. Now imagine
for a moment such a monster--an imbecile who is intelligent enough to
understand that he is stupid.”
“Why, he would cease to be an imbecile.”
“No, my dear fellow; you may believe me, because as a matter of fact,
_I_ am that very imbecile.”
Olivier shrugged his shoulders. Armand went on:
“A real imbecile has no consciousness of any idea beyond his own.
_I_ am conscious of the _beyond_. But all the same I’m an
imbecile, because I know that I shall never be able to attain that
‘_beyond_’!...”
“But, old fellow,” said Olivier, in a burst of sympathy, “we are all
made so that we might be better, and I think the greatest intelligence
is precisely the one that suffers most from its own limitations.”
Armand shook off the hand that Olivier had placed affectionately on his
arm.
“Others,” said he, “have the feeling of what they possess; I have only
the feeling of what I lack. Lack of money, lack of strength, lack of
intelligence, lack of love--an everlasting deficit. I shall never be
anything but below the mark.”
He went up to the toilette table, dipped a hairbrush in the dirty water
in the basin and plastered his hair down in hideous fashion over his
forehead.
“I told you I hadn’t written anything; but a few days ago, I did have
an idea for an essay, which I should have called: _On Incapacity_.
But of course I was incapable of writing it. I should have said.... But
I’m boring you.”
“No; go on; you bore me when you make jokes; you’re interesting me very
much now.”
“I should have tried to find throughout nature the dividing line,
below which nothing exists. An example will show you what I mean.
The newspapers the other day had an account of a workman who was
electrocuted. He was handling some live wires carelessly; the
voltage was not very high; but it seems his body was in a state of
perspiration. His death is attributed to the layer of humidity which
enabled the current to envelop his body. If his body had been drier,
the accident wouldn’t have taken place. But now let’s imagine the
perspiration added drop by drop.... One more drop--there you are!”
“I don’t understand,” said Olivier.
“Because my example is badly chosen. I always choose my examples badly.
Here’s another: Six shipwrecked persons are picked up in a boat. They
have been adrift for ten days in the storm. Three are dead; two are
saved. The sixth is expiring. It was hoped he might be restored to
life; but his organism had reached the extreme limit.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Olivier. “An hour sooner and he might have
been saved.”
“An hour! How you go it! I am calculating the extremest point. It is
possible. It is still possible.... It is no longer possible! My mind
walks along that narrow ridge. That dividing line between existence
and non-existence is the one I keep trying to trace everywhere. The
limit of resistance to--well, for instance, to what my father would
call temptation. One holds out; the cord on which the devil pulls is
stretched to breaking.... A tiny bit more, the cord snaps--one is
damned. Do you understand now? A tiny bit less--non-existence. God
would not have created the world. Nothing would have been. ‘The face of
the world would have been changed,’ says Pascal. But it’s not enough
for me to think--‘if Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter.’ I insist. I
ask: shorter, by how much? For it might have been a tiny bit shorter,
mightn’t it?... Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap....
_Natura non fecit saltus._ What absurd rubbish! As for me, I
am like the Arab in the desert who is dying of thirst. I am at that
precise point, you see, when a drop of water might still save him ...
or a tear....”
His voice trailed away; there had come into it a note of pathos which
surprised Olivier and disturbed him. He went on more gently--almost
tenderly:
“You remember: ‘I shed that very tear for thee....’”
Olivier remembered Pascal’s words; he was even a little put out that
his friend had not quoted them exactly. He could not refrain from
correcting: “‘I shed that very drop of blood for thee....’”
Armand’s emotion dropped at once. He shrugged his shoulders:
“What can we do? There are some who get through with more than enough
and to spare.... Do you understand now what it is to feel that one is
always ‘on the border line’? As for me, I shall always have one mark
too little.”
He had begun to laugh again. Olivier thought that it was for fear of
crying. He would have liked to speak in his turn, to tell Armand how
much his words had moved him, and how he felt all the sickness of
heart that lay beneath his exasperating irony. But the time for his
rendezvous with Passavant was pressing him; he pulled out his watch.
“I must go now. Are you free this evening?”
“What for?”
“To come and meet me at the Taverne du Panthéon. The _Argonauts_
are giving a dinner. You might look in afterwards. There’ll be a lot of
fellows there--some of them more or less well known--and most of them
rather drunk. Bernard Profitendieu has promised to come. It might be
funny.”
“I’m not shaved,” said Armand a little crossly. “And then what should I
do among a lot of celebrities? But, I say--why don’t you ask Sarah? She
got back from England this very morning. I’m sure it would amuse her.
Shall I invite her from you? Bernard could take her.”
“All right, old chap,” said Olivier.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: _Es-tu vase funèbre attendant quelques pleurs?_]
VIII
THE ARGONAUTS’ DINNER
IT HAD been agreed then that Bernard and Edouard, after having dined
together, should pick up Sarah a little before ten o’clock. She had
delightedly accepted the proposal passed on to her by Armand. At about
half past nine, she had gone up to her bedroom, accompanied by her
mother. She had to pass through her parents’ room in order to reach
hers; but another door, which was supposed to be kept shut, led from
Sarah’s room to Armand’s, which in its turn opened, as we have seen, on
to the backstairs.
Sarah, in her mother’s presence, made as though she were going to bed,
and asked to be left to go to sleep; but as soon as she was alone, she
went up to her dressing table to put an added touch of brilliancy to
her lips and cheeks. The toilette table had been placed in front of the
closed door, but it was not too heavy for Sarah to lift noiselessly.
She opened the door.
Sarah was afraid of meeting her brother, whose sarcasms she dreaded.
Armand, it is true, encouraged her most audacious exploits; it was as
though he took pleasure in them--but only with a kind of temporary
indulgence, for it was to judge them later on with all the greater
severity; so that Sarah wondered whether his complaisance itself was
not calculated to play the censor’s game.
Armand’s room was empty. Sarah sat down on a little low chair and, as
she was waiting, meditated. She cultivated a facile contempt for all
the domestic virtues as a kind of preventive protest. The constraint of
family life had intensified her energies and exasperated her instinct
for revolt. During her stay in England, she had worked herself up
into a white heat of courage. Like Miss Aberdeen, the English girl
boarder, she was resolved to conquer her liberty, to grant herself
every license, to dare all. She felt ready to affront scorn and blame
on every side, capable of every defiance. In the advances she had made
to Olivier, she had already triumphed over natural modesty and many an
instinctive reluctance. The example of her two sisters had taught her
her lesson; she looked upon Rachel’s pious resignation as the delusion
of a dupe, and saw in Laura’s marriage nothing but a lugubrious barter
with slavery as its upshot. The education she had received, that which
she had given herself, that which she had taken, inclined her very
little to what she called “conjugal piety.” She did not see in what
particular the man she might marry could be her superior. Hadn’t she
passed her examinations like a man? Hadn’t she her opinions and ideas
on any and every subject? On the equality of the sexes in particular;
and it even seemed to her that in the conduct of life, and consequently
of business, and even, if need were, of politics, women often gave
proof of more sense than many men....
Steps on the staircase. She listened and then opened the door gently.
Bernard and Sarah had never met. There was no light in the passage.
They could hardly distinguish each other in the dark.
“Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel?” whispered Bernard. She took his arm without
more ado.
“Edouard is waiting for us at the corner of the street in a taxi. He
didn’t want to get down for fear of meeting your parents. It didn’t
matter for me; you know I am staying in the house.”
Bernard had been careful to leave the door into the street ajar, so
as not to attract the porter’s attention. A few minutes later, the
taxi deposited them all three in front of the Taverne du Panthéon. As
Edouard was paying the taxi, they heard a clock strike ten.
Dinner was finished. The table had been cleared, but it was still
covered with coffee-cups, bottles and glasses. Everyone was smoking
and the atmosphere was stifling. Madame des Brousses, the wife of the
editor of the _Argonauts_, called for fresh air in a strident
voice, which rang out shrilly above the hum of general talk. Someone
opened a window. But Justinien, who wanted to put in a speech, had it
shut almost immediately “for acoustics’ sake.” He rose to his feet
and struck on his glass with a spoon, but failed to attract anyone’s
attention. The editor of the _Argonauts_, whom people called the
Président des Brousses, interposed, and having at last succeeded in
obtaining a modicum of silence, Justinien’s voice gushed forth in a
copious stream of dullness. A flood of metaphors covered the triteness
of his ideas. He spoke with an emphasis which took the place of wit,
and managed to ladle out to everyone in turn a handsome helping of
grandiloquent flummery. At the first pause, and just as Edouard,
Bernard and Sarah were making their entry, there was a loud burst of
polite applause. Some of the company prolonged it, no doubt a little
ironically, and as if hoping to put an end to the speech; but in
vain--Justinien started off afresh; nothing could daunt his eloquence.
At that moment it was the Comte de Passavant whom he was bestrewing
with the flowers of his rhetoric. He spoke of _The Horizontal Bar_
as of another _Iliad_. Passavant’s health was drunk. Edouard had
no glass, neither had Bernard nor Sarah, so that they were dispensed
from joining in the toast.
Justinien’s speech ended with a few heartfelt wishes for the prosperity
of the new review and a few elegant compliments to its future
editor--“the young and gifted Molinier--the darling of the Muses,
whose pure and lofty brow would not long have to wait for its crown of
laurels.”
Olivier was standing near the door, so as to welcome his friends as
soon as they should arrive. Justinien’s blatant compliments obviously
embarrassed him, but he was obliged to respond to the little ovation
which followed them.
The three new arrivals had dined too soberly to feel in tune with the
rest of the assembly. In this sort of gathering, late comers understand
ill--or only too well--the others’ excitement. They judge, when they
have no business to judge, and exercise, even though involuntarily, a
criticism which is without indulgence; this was the case at any rate
with Edouard and Bernard. As for Sarah, in this milieu, everything was
new to her; her one idea was to learn what she could, her one anxiety
to be up to the mark.
Bernard knew no one. Olivier, who had taken him by the arm, wanted to
introduce him to Passavant and des Brousses. He refused. Passavant,
however, forced the situation by coming up to him and holding out a
hand, which he could not in decency refuse:
“I have heard you spoken of so often that I feel as if I knew you
already.”
“The same with me,” said Bernard in such a tone that Passavant’s
amenity froze. He at once turned to Edouard.
Though often abroad travelling, and keeping, even when he was in Paris,
a great deal to himself, Edouard was nevertheless acquainted with
several of the guests and feeling perfectly at his ease. Little liked,
but at the same time esteemed, by his _confrères_, he did not
object to being thought proud, when, in reality, he was only distant.
He was more willing to listen than to speak.
“From what your nephew said, I was hoping you would come to-night,”
began Passavant in a gentle voice that was almost a whisper. “I was
delighted because....”
Edouard’s ironical look cut short the rest of his sentence. Skilful
in the arts of pleasing and accustomed to please, Passavant, in order
to shine, had need to feel himself confronted by a flattering mirror.
He collected himself, however, for he was not the man to lose his
self-possession for long or to let himself be easily snubbed. He raised
his head, and his eyes were charged with insolence. If Edouard would
not follow his lead with a good grace, he would find means to worst him.
“I was wanting to ask you ...” he went on, as if he were continuing his
first remark, “whether you had any news of your other nephew, Vincent?
It was he who was my special friend.”
“No,” said Edouard dryly.
This “no” upset Passavant once more; he did not know whether to
take it as a provocative contradiction, or as a simple answer to his
question. His disturbance lasted only a second; it was Edouard who
unintentionally restored him to his balance by adding almost at once:
“I have merely heard from his father that he was travelling with the
Prince of Monaco.”
“Yes, I asked a lady, who is a friend of mine, to introduce him to the
Prince. I was glad to hit upon this diversion to distract him a little
from his unlucky affair with that Madame Douviers.... You know her, so
Olivier told me. He was in danger of wrecking his whole life over it.”
Passavant handled disdain, contempt, condescension with marvellous
skill; but he was satisfied with having won this bout and with keeping
Edouard at sword’s length. Edouard indeed was racking his brains for
some cutting answer. He was singularly lacking in presence of mind.
That was no doubt the reason he cared so little for society--he had
none of the qualities which are necessary to shine in it. His eyebrows
however began to look frowningly. Passavant was quick to notice; when
anything disagreeable was coming to him, he sniffed it in the air, and
veered about. Without even stopping to take breath, and with a sudden
change of tone:
“But who is that delightful girl who is with you?” he asked smiling.
“It is Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel, the sister of the very lady you were
mentioning--my friend Madame Douviers.”
In default of any better repartee, he sharpened the words “my friend”
like an arrow--but an arrow which fell short, and Passavant, letting it
lie, went on:
“It would be very kind of you to introduce me.”
He had said these last words and the sentence which preceded them loud
enough for Sarah to hear, and as she turned towards them, Edouard was
unable to escape:
“Sarah, the Comte de Passavant desires the honour of your
acquaintance,” said he with a forced smile.
Passavant had sent for three fresh glasses, which he filled with
kummel. They all four drank Olivier’s health. The bottle was almost
empty, and as Sarah was astonished to see the crystals remaining at the
bottom, Passavant tried to dislodge them with a straw. A strange kind
of clown, with a befloured face, a black beady eye, and hair plastered
down on his head like a skull-cap, came up.
“You won’t do it,” he said, munching out each one of his syllables with
an effort which was obviously assumed. “Pass me the bottle. I’ll smash
it.”
He seized it, broke it with a blow against the window ledge, and
presenting the bottom of the bottle to Sarah:
“With a few of these little sharp-edged polyhedra, the charming young
lady will easily induce a perforation of her gizzard.”
“Who is that pierrot?” she asked Passavant, who had made her sit down
and was sitting beside her.