have dubbed him a genius because the public have just damned his play.
All the same, it’s the most interesting thing that’s been put on the
stage for a long time.”
“I like _Ubu Roi_ very much,” said Sarah, “and I’m delighted to
see Jarry. I had heard he was always drunk.”
“I should think he must be to-night. I saw him drink two glasses
of neat absinthe at dinner. He doesn’t seem any the worse for it.
Won’t you have a cigarette? One has to smoke oneself so as not to be
smothered by the other people’s smoke.”
He bent towards her to give her a light. She crunched a few of the
crystals.
“Why! it’s nothing but sugar candy,” said she, a little disappointed.
“I hoped it was going to be something strong.”
All the time she was talking to Passavant, she kept smiling at Bernard,
who had stayed beside her. Her dancing eyes shone with an extraordinary
brightness. Bernard, who had not been able to see her before because
of the dark, was struck by her likeness to Laura. The same forehead,
the same lips.... In her features, it is true, there breathed a less
angelic grace, and her looks stirred he knew not what troubled depths
in his heart. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he turned to Olivier:
“Introduce me to your friend Bercail.”
He had already met Bercail in the Luxembourg, but he had never spoken
to him. Bercail was feeling rather out of it in this milieu into which
Olivier had introduced him, and which he was too timid not to find
distasteful, and every time Olivier presented him as one of the chief
contributors to the _Vanguard_, he blushed. The fact is, that the
allegorical poem of which he had spoken to Olivier at the beginning
of our story, was to appear on the first page of the new review,
immediately after the manifesto.
“In the place I had kept for you,” said Olivier to Bernard. “I’m sure
you’ll like it. It’s by far the best thing in the number. And so
original!”
Olivier took more pleasure in praising his friends than in hearing
himself praised. At Bernard’s approach, Bercail rose; he was holding
his cup of coffee in his hand so awkwardly, that in his agitation
he spilled half of it down his waistcoat. At that moment, Jarry’s
mechanical voice was heard close at hand:
“Little Bercail will be poisoned. I’ve put poison in his cup.”
Bercail’s timidity amused Jarry, and he liked putting him out of
countenance. But Bercail was not afraid of Jarry. He shrugged his
shoulders and finished his coffee calmly.
“Who is that?” asked Bernard.
“What! Don’t you know the author of _Ubu Roi_?”
“Not possible! _That_ Jarry? I took him for a servant.”
“Oh, all the same,” said Olivier, a little vexed, for he took a pride
in his great men. “Look at him more carefully. Don’t you think he’s
extraordinary?”
“He does all he can to appear so,” said Bernard, who only esteemed
what was natural, and who nevertheless was full of consideration for
_Ubu_.
Everything about Jarry, who was got up to look like the traditional
circus clown, smacked of affectation--his way of talking in particular;
several of the _Argonauts_ did their utmost to imitate it,
snapping out their syllables, inventing odd words, and oddly mangling
others; but it was only Jarry who could succeed in producing that
toneless voice of his--a voice without warmth or intonation, or accent
or emphasis.
“When one knows him, he is charming, really,” went on Olivier.
“I prefer not to know him. He looks ferocious.”
“Oh, that’s just the way he has. Passavant thinks that in reality he
is the kindest of creatures. But he has drunk a terrible lot to-night;
and not a drop of water, you may be sure--nor even of wine; nothing but
absinthe and spirits. Passavant’s afraid he may do something eccentric.”
In spite of himself, Passavant’s name kept recurring to his lips, and
all the more obstinately that he wanted to avoid it.
Exasperated at feeling so little able to control himself, and as if he
were trying to escape from his own pursuit, he changed his ground:
“You should talk to Dhurmer a little. I’m afraid he bears me a deadly
grudge for having stepped into his shoes at the _Vanguard_; but it
really wasn’t my fault; I simply had to accept. You might try and make
him see it and calm him down a bit. Pass.... I’m told he’s fearfully
worked up against me.”
He had tripped, but this time he had not fallen.
“I hope he has taken his copy with him. I don’t like what he
writes,” said Bercail; then turning to Bernard: “But, you, Monsieur
Profitendieu, I thought that you....”
“Oh, please don’t call me Monsieur.... I know I’ve got a ridiculous
mouthful of a name.... I mean to take a pseudonym, if I write.”
“Why haven’t you contributed anything?”
“Because I hadn’t anything ready.”
Olivier, leaving his two friends to talk together, went up to Edouard.
“How nice of you to come! I was longing to see you again. But I would
rather have met you anywhere but here.... This afternoon, I went and
rang at your door. Did they tell you? I was so sorry not to find you;
if I had known where you were....”
He was quite pleased to be able to express himself so easily,
remembering a time when his emotion in Edouard’s presence kept him
dumb. This ease of his was due, alas! to his potations and to the
banality of his words.
Edouard realized it sadly.
“I was at your mother’s.” (And for the first time he said “you” to
Olivier instead of “thou.”)
“Were you?” said Olivier, who was in a state of consternation at
Edouard’s style of address. He hesitated whether he should not tell him
so.
“Is it in this milieu that you mean to live for the future?” asked
Edouard, looking at him fixedly.
“Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
These words were said in so grave, so tender, so fraternal a tone....
Olivier felt his self-assurance tottering within him.
“You think I am wrong to frequent these people?”
“Not all of them, perhaps; but certainly some.”
Olivier took this as a direct allusion to Passavant, and in his inward
sky a flash of blinding, painful light shot through the bank of clouds
which ever since the morning had been thickening and darkening in his
heart. He loved Bernard, he loved Edouard far too well to bear the loss
of their esteem. Edouard’s presence exalted all that was best in him;
Passavant’s all that was worst; he acknowledged it now; and indeed,
had he not always known it? Had not his blindness as regards Passavant
been deliberate? His gratitude for all that the count had done for him
turned to loathing. With his whole soul, he cast him off. What he now
saw put the finishing touch to his hatred.
Passavant, leaning towards Sarah, had passed his arm round her waist
and was becoming more and more pressing. Aware of the unpleasant
rumours which were rife concerning his relations with Olivier, he
thought he would give them the lie. And to make his behaviour more
public, he had determined to get Sarah to sit on his knees. Sarah had
so far put up very little defence, but her eyes sought Bernard’s, and
when they met them, her smile seemed to say:
“See how far a person may go with me!”
But Passavant was afraid of overdoing it; he was lacking in experience.
“If I can only get her to drink a little more, I’ll risk it,” he said
to himself, putting out his free hand towards a bottle of curaçao.
Olivier, who was watching him, was beforehand with him; he snatched up
the bottle, simply to prevent Passavant from getting it; but as soon as
he took hold of it, it seemed to him that the liqueur would restore him
a little of his courage--the courage he felt failing within him--the
courage he needed to utter, loud enough for Edouard to hear, the
complaint that was trembling on his lips:
“If only you had chosen....”
Olivier filled his glass and emptied it at a draught. Just at that
moment, he heard Jarry, who was moving about from group to group, say
in a half-whisper, as he passed behind Bercail:
“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail.”
Bercail turned round sharply:
“Just say that again out loud.”
Jarry had already moved away. He waited until he had got round the
table and then repeated in a falsetto voice:
“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail”; then, taking out of
his pocket a large pistol, with which the _Argonauts_ had often
seen him playing about, he raised it to his shoulder.
Jarry had acquired the reputation of being a good shot. Protests were
heard. In the drunken state in which he now was, people were not very
sure that he would confine himself to play-acting. But little Bercail
was determined to show he was not afraid; he got on to a chair, and
with his arms folded behind his back, took up a Napoleonic attitude. He
was just a little ridiculous and some tittering was heard, but it was
at once drowned by applause.
Passavant said to Sarah very quickly:
“It may end unpleasantly. He’s completely drunk. Get under the table.”
Des Brousses tried to catch hold of Jarry, but he shook him off and
got on to a chair in his turn (Bernard noticed he was wearing patent
leather pumps). Standing there straight opposite Bercail, he stretched
out his arm and took aim.
“Put the light out! Put the light out!” cried des Brousses.
Edouard, who was still standing by the door, turned the switch.
Sarah had risen in obedience to Passavant’s injunction; and as soon
as it was dark, she pressed up against Bernard, to pull him under the
table with her.
The shot went off. The pistol was only loaded with a blank cartridge.
But a cry of pain was heard. It came from Justinien, who had been hit
in the eye by the wad.
And, when the light was turned on again, there, to everyone’s
admiration, stood Bercail, still on his chair in the same attitude,
motionless and barely a shade paler.
In the mean time the President’s lady was indulging in a fit of
hysterics. Her friends crowded round her.
“Idiotic to give people such a turn.”
As there was no water on the table, Jarry, who had climbed down from
his pedestal, dipped a handkerchief in brandy to rub her temples with,
by way of apology.
Bernard had stayed only a second under the table, just long enough to
feel Sarah’s two burning lips crushed voluptuously against his. Olivier
had followed them; out of friendship, out of jealousy.... That horrible
feeling which he knew so well, of being out of it, was exacerbated by
his being drunk. When, in his turn, he came out from underneath the
table, his head was swimming. He heard Dhurmer exclaim:
“Look at Molinier! He’s as funky as a girl!”
It was too much. Olivier, hardly knowing what he was doing, darted
towards Dhurmer with his hand raised. He seemed to be moving in a
dream. Dhurmer dodged the blow. As in a dream, Olivier’s hand met
nothing but empty air.
The confusion became general, and while some of the guests were
fussing over the President’s lady, who was still gesticulating wildly
and uttering shrill little yelps as she did so, others crowded round
Dhurmer, who called out: “He didn’t touch me! He didn’t touch me!” ...
and others round Olivier, who, with a scarlet face, wanted to rush at
him again, and was with great difficulty restrained.
Touched or not, Dhurmer must consider that he had had his ears boxed;
so Justinien, as he dabbed his eye, endeavoured to make him understand.
It was a question of dignity. But Dhurmer was not in the least inclined
to receive lessons in dignity from Justinien. He kept on repeating
obstinately:
“Didn’t touch me!... Didn’t touch me!”
“Can’t you leave him alone?” said des Brousses. “One can’t force a
fellow to fight if he doesn’t want to.”
Olivier, however, declared in a loud voice, that if Dhurmer wasn’t
satisfied, he was ready to box his ears again; and, determined to force
a duel, asked Bernard and Bercail to be his seconds. Neither of them
knew anything about so-called “affairs of honour”; but Olivier didn’t
dare apply to Edouard. His neck-tie had come undone; his hair had
fallen over his forehead, which was dank with sweat; his hands trembled
convulsively.
Edouard took him by the arm:
“Come and bathe your face a little. You look like a lunatic.”
He led him away to a lavatory.
As soon as he was out of the room, Olivier understood how drunk he was.
When he had felt Edouard’s hand laid upon his arm, he thought he was
going to faint, and let himself be led away unresisting. Of all that
Edouard had said to him, he only understood that he had called him
“thou.” As a storm-cloud bursts into rain, he felt his heart suddenly
dissolve in tears. A damp towel which Edouard put to his forehead
brought him finally to his sober senses again. What had happened? He
was vaguely conscious of having behaved like a child, like a brute. He
felt himself ridiculous, abject.... Then, quivering with distress and
tenderness, he flung himself towards Edouard, pressed up against him
and sobbed out:
“Take me away!”
Edouard was extremely moved himself:
“Your parents?” he asked.
“They don’t know I’m back.”
As they were going through the café downstairs on the way out, Olivier
said to his companion that he had a line to write.
“If I post it to-night it’ll get there to-morrow morning.”
Seated at a table in the café he wrote as follows:
My dear George,
Yes, this letter is from me, and it’s to ask you to do something for
me. I don’t suppose it’s news to you to hear I am back in Paris, for
I think you saw me this morning near the Sorbonne. I was staying
with the Comte de Passavant (Rue de Babylone); my things are still
there. For reasons it would be too long to explain and which wouldn’t
interest you, I prefer not to go back to him. You are the only person
I can ask to go and fetch them away--my things, I mean. You’ll do this
for me, won’t you? I’ll remember it when it’s your turn. There’s a
locked trunk. As for the things in the room, put them yourself into
my suit-case, and bring the lot to Uncle Edouard’s. I’ll pay for the
taxi. To-morrow’s Sunday fortunately; you’ll be able to do it as soon
as you get this line. I can count upon you, can’t I?
Your affectionate brother
OLIVIER
P.S.--I know you’re sharp enough and you’ll be able to manage all
right. But mind, that if you have any direct dealings with Passavant,
you are to be very distant with him.
Those who had not heard Dhurmer’s insulting words could not understand
the reason of Olivier’s sudden assault. He seemed to have lost his
head. If he had kept cool, Bernard would have approved him; he didn’t
like Dhurmer; but he had to admit that Olivier had behaved like a
madman and put himself entirely in the wrong. It pained Bernard to hear
him judged severely. He went up to Bercail and made an appointment with
him. However absurd the affair was, they were both anxious to conduct
it correctly. They agreed to go and call on their client at nine
o’clock the next morning.
When his two friends had gone, Bernard had neither reason nor
inclination to stay. He looked round the room in search of Sarah and
his heart swelled with a kind of rage to see her sitting on Passavant’s
knee. They both seemed drunk; Sarah, however, rose when she saw Bernard
coming up.
“Let’s go,” she said, taking his arm.
She wanted to walk home. It was not far. They spoke not a word on the
way. At the pension all the lights were out. Fearful of attracting
attention, they groped their way to the backstairs, and there struck
matches. Armand was waiting for them. When he heard them coming
upstairs, he went out on to the landing with a lamp in his hand.
“Take the lamp,” said he to Bernard. “Light Sarah; there’s no candle
in her room ... and give me your matches so that I can light mine.”
Bernard accompanied Sarah into the inner room. They were no sooner
inside than Armand, leaning over from behind them, blew the lamp out at
a single breath, then, with a chuckle:
“Good-night!” said he. “But don’t make a row. The parents are sleeping
next door.”
Then, suddenly stepping back, he shut the door on them; and bolted it.
IX
OLIVIER AND EDOUARD
ARMAND has lain down in his clothes. He knows he will not be able to
sleep. He waits for the night to come to an end. He meditates. He
listens. The house is resting, the town, the whole of nature; not a
sound.
As soon as a faint light, cast down by the reflector from the narrow
strip of sky above, enables him to distinguish once more the hideous
squalor of his room, he rises. He goes towards the door which he bolted
the night before; opens it gently....
The curtains of Sarah’s room are not drawn. The rising dawn whitens the
window pane. Armand goes up to the bed where his sister and Bernard
are resting. A sheet half hides them as they lie with limbs entwined.
How beautiful they are! Armand gazes at them and gazes. He would like
to be their sleep, their kisses. At first he smiles, then, at the foot
of the bed, among the coverings they have flung aside, he suddenly
kneels down. To what god can he be praying thus with folded hands? An
unspeakable emotion shakes him. His lips are trembling ... he rises....
But on the threshold of the door, he turns. He wants to wake Bernard so
that he may gain his own room before anyone in the house is awake. At
the slight noise Armand makes, Bernard opens his eyes. Armand hurries
away, leaving the door open. He leaves his room, goes downstairs; he
will hide no matter where; his presence would embarrass Bernard; he
does not want to meet him.
From a window in the class-room a few minutes later, he sees him go by,
skirting the walls like a thief....
Bernard has not slept much. But that night he has tasted a
forgetfulness more restful than sleep--the exaltation at once and the
annihilation of self. Strange to himself, ethereal, buoyant, calm and
tense as a god, he glides into another day. He has left Sarah still
asleep--disengaged himself furtively from her arms. What! without one
more kiss? without a last lover’s look? without a supreme embrace?
Is it through insensibility that he leaves her in this way? I cannot
tell. He cannot tell himself. He tries not to think; it is a difficult
task to incorporate this unprecedented night with all the preceding
nights of his history. No; it is an appendix, an annex, which can find
no place in the body of the book--a book where the story of his life
will continue, surely, will take up the thread again, as if nothing had
happened.
He goes upstairs to the room he shares with little Boris. What a child!
He is fast asleep. Bernard undoes his bed, rumples the bed-clothes,
so as to give it the look of having been slept in. He sluices himself
with water. But the sight of Boris takes him back to Saas-Fée. He
recalls what Laura once said to him there: “I can only accept from
you the devotion which you offer me. The rest will have its exigences
and will have to be satisfied elsewhere.” This sentence had revolted
him. He seems to hear it again. He had ceased to think of it, but this
morning his memory is extraordinarily active. His mind works in spite
of himself with marvellous alacrity. Bernard thrusts aside Laura’s
image, tries to smother these recollections; and, to prevent himself
from thinking, he seizes a lesson book and forces himself to read for
his examination. But the room is stifling. He goes down to work in the
garden. He would like to go out into the street, walk, run, get into
the open, breathe the fresh air. He watches the street door; as soon as
the porter opens it, he makes off.
He reaches the Luxembourg with his book, and sits down on a bench.
He spins his thoughts like silk; but how fragile! If he pulls it,
the thread breaks. As soon as he tries to work, indiscreet memories
wander obtrusively between his book and him; and not the memories
of the keenest moments of his joy, but ridiculous, trifling little
details--so many thorns, which catch and scratch and mortify his
vanity. Another time he will show himself less of a novice.
About nine o’clock, he gets up to go and fetch Lucien Bercail. Together
they make their way to Edouard’s.
Edouard lived at Passy on the top floor of an apartment house. His room
opened on to a vast studio. When, in the early dawn, Olivier had risen,
Edouard at first had felt no anxiety.
“I’m going to lie down a little on the sofa,” Olivier had said. And
as Edouard was afraid he might catch cold, he had told Olivier to
take some blankets with him. A little later, Edouard in his turn had
risen. He had certainly been asleep without being aware of it, for he
was astonished to find that it was now broad daylight. He wanted to
see whether Olivier was comfortable; he wanted to see him again; and
perhaps an obscure presentiment guided him....
The studio was empty. The blankets were lying at the foot of the couch
unfolded. A horrible smell of gas gave him the alarm. Opening out of
the studio, there was a little room which served as a bath-room. The
smell no doubt came from there. He ran to the door; but at first was
unable to push it open; there was some obstacle--it was Olivier’s body,
sunk in a heap beside the bath, undressed, icy, livid and horribly
soiled with vomiting.
Edouard turned off the gas which was coming from the jet. What had
happened? An accident? A stroke?... He could not believe it. The bath
was empty. He took the dying boy in his arms, carried him into the
studio, laid him on the carpet, in front of the wide open window. On
his knees, stooping tenderly, he put his ear to his chest. Olivier
was still breathing, but faintly. Then Edouard, desperately, set all
his ingenuity to work to rekindle the little spark of life so near
extinction; he moved the limp arms rhythmically up and down, pressed
the flanks, rubbed the thorax, tried everything he had heard should
be done in a case of suffocation, in despair that he could not do
everything at once. Olivier’s eyes remained shut. Edouard raised his
eyelids with his fingers, but they dropped at once over lifeless eyes.
But yet his heart was beating. He searched in vain for brandy, for
smelling salts. He heated some water, washed the upper part of the body
and the face. Then he laid this inanimate body on the couch and covered
it with blankets. He wanted to send for a doctor, but was afraid to
absent himself. A charwoman was in the habit of coming every morning
to do the house-work; but not before nine o’clock. As soon as he heard
her, he sent her off at once to fetch the nearest doctor; then he
called her back, fearing he might be exposed to an enquiry.
Olivier, in the mean time, was slowly coming back to life. Edouard sat
beside his couch. He gazed at the shut book of his face, baffled by
its riddle. Why? Why? One may act thoughtlessly at night in the heat
of intoxication, but the resolutions of early morning carry with them
their full weight of virtue. He gave up trying to understand, until at
last the moment should come when Olivier would be able to speak. Until
that moment came he would not leave him. He had taken one of his hands
in his and concentrated his interrogation, his thoughts, his whole life
into that contact. At last it seemed to him that he felt Olivier’s hand
responding feebly to his clasp.... Then he bent down, and set his lips
on the forehead, where an immense and mysterious suffering had drawn
its lines.
A ring was heard at the door. Edouard rose to open it. It was Bernard
and Lucien Bercail. Edouard kept them in the hall and told them what
had happened; then, taking Bernard aside, he asked if he knew whether
Olivier was subject to attacks of giddiness, to fits of any kind?...
Bernard suddenly remembered their conversation of the day before, and,
in particular, some words of Olivier’s which he had hardly listened to
at the time, but which came back to him now, as distinctly as if he
heard them over again.
“It was I who began to speak of suicide,” said he to Edouard. “I asked
him if he understood a person’s killing himself out of mere excess of
life, ‘out of enthusiasm,’ as Dmitri Karamazof says. I was absorbed in
my thought and at the time I paid no attention to anything but my own
words; but I remember now what he answered.”
“What did he answer?” insisted Edouard, for Bernard stopped as though
he were reluctant to say anything more.
“That he understood killing oneself, but only after having reached such
heights of joy, that anything afterwards must be a descent.”
They both looked at each other and added nothing further. Light was
beginning to dawn on them. Edouard at last turned away his eyes; and
Bernard was angry with himself for having spoken. They went up to
Bercail.
“The tiresome thing is,” said he, “that people may think he has tried
to kill himself in order to avoid fighting.”
Edouard had forgotten all about the duel.