Vincent; Passavant would probably have news of him. He had indeed
determined not to answer Douviers, should he question him; but he
thought it would be a good thing to be himself acquainted with the
facts, in order the better to avoid his enquiries. It would strengthen
his resistance. He seized this pretext as a diversion.
“Vincent has not written to me,” said Passavant; “but I have had a
letter from Lady Griffith--you know--the successor--in which she speaks
of him at length. See, here it is.... After all, I don’t know why you
shouldn’t read it.”
He handed him the letter, and Edouard read:
25th August
My dear,[7]
The prince’s yacht is leaving Dakar without us. Who knows where we
shall be when you get this letter which it is taking with it? Perhaps
on the banks of the Casamance, where Vincent wants to botanize, and
I to shoot. I don’t exactly know whether it is I who am carrying him
off, or he me; or whether it isn’t rather that we have both of us
fallen into the clutches of the demon of adventure. He was introduced
to us by the demon of boredom, whose acquaintance we made on board
ship.... _Ah, cher!_ one must live on a yacht to know what
boredom is. In rough weather life is just bearable; one has one’s
share of the vessel’s agitation. But after Teneriffe, not a breath;
not a wrinkle on the sea.
_“... grand miroir_
_De mon désespoir.”_
And do you know what I have been engaged in doing ever since? In
hating Vincent. Yes, my dear, love seemed too tasteless, so we have
gone in for hating each other. In reality it began long before;
really, as soon as we got on board; at first it was only irritation,
a smouldering animosity, which didn’t prevent closer encounters. With
the fine weather, it became ferocious. Oh! I know now what it is to
feel passion for someone....
The letter went on for some time longer.
“I don’t need to read any further,” said Edouard, giving it back to
Passavant. “When is he coming back?”
“Lady Griffith doesn’t speak of returning.”
Passavant was mortified that Edouard showed so little appetite for this
letter. Since he had allowed him to read it, such a lack of curiosity
must be considered as an affront. He enjoyed rejecting other people’s
offers, but could not endure to have his own disdained. Lilian’s
letter had filled him with delight. He had a certain affection for her
and Vincent; and had even proved to his own satisfaction that he was
capable of being kind to them and helpful; but as soon as one got on
without it, his affection dwindled. That his two friends should not
have set sail for perfect bliss when they left him, tempted him to
think: “Serves them right!”
As for Edouard, his early morning felicity was too genuine for him not
to be made uncomfortable by the picture of such outrageous feelings. It
was quite unaffectedly that he gave the letter back.
Passavant felt it essential to recover the lead at once:
“Oh! I wanted to say too--you know that I had thought of making Olivier
editor of a review. Of course there’s no further question of that.”
“Of course not,” rejoined Edouard, whom Passavant had unwittingly
relieved of a considerable anxiety. He understood by Edouard’s tone
that he had played into his hand, and without even giving himself the
time to bite his lips:
“Olivier’s things are in the room he was occupying. You have a taxi, I
suppose? I’ll have them brought down to you. By the bye, how is he?”
“Very well.”
Passavant had risen. Edouard did the same. They parted with the coldest
of bows.
The Comte de Passavant had been terribly put out by Edouard’s visit. He
heaved a sigh of relief when Strouvilhou came into the room.
Although Strouvilhou, on his side, was perfectly able to hold his own,
Passavant felt at ease with him--or, to be more accurate, treated
him in a free and easy manner. No doubt his opponent was by no means
despicable, but he considered himself his match, and piqued himself on
proving it.
“My dear Strouvilhou, take a seat,” said he, pushing an arm-chair
towards him. “I am really glad to see you again.”
“Monsieur le Comte sent for me. Here I am entirely at his service.”
Strouvilhou liked affecting a kind of flunkey’s insolence with
Passavant, but Passavant knew him of old.
“Let’s get to the point; it’s time to come out into the open. You’ve
already tried your hand at a good many trades.... I thought to-day of
proposing you an actual dictatorship--only in the realms of literature,
let us hasten to add.”
“A pity!” Then, as Passavant held out his cigarette case: “If you’ll
allow me, I prefer....”
“I’ll allow nothing of the kind. Your horrid contraband cigars make the
room stink. I can’t understand how anyone can smoke such stuff.”
“Oh! I don’t pretend that I rave about them. But they’re a nuisance to
one’s neighbours.”
“Playful as ever?”
“Not altogether an idiot, you know.”
And without replying directly to Passavant’s proposal, Strouvilhou
thought proper to establish his positions; afterwards he would see. He
went on:
“Philanthropy was never one of my strong points.”
“I know, I know,” said Passavant.
“Nor egoism either. That’s what you don’t know.... People want to
make us believe that man’s single escape from egoism is a still more
disgusting altruism! As for me, I maintain that if there’s anything
more contemptible and more abject than a man, it’s a lot of men. No
reasoning will ever persuade me that the addition of a number of sordid
units can result in an enchanting total. I never happen to get into a
tram or a train without hoping that a good old accident will reduce
the whole pack of living garbage to a pulp; yes, good Lord! and myself
into the bargain. I never enter a theatre without praying that the
chandelier may come crashing down, or that a bomb may go off; and even
if I had to be blown up too, I’d be only too glad to bring it along in
my coat pocket--if I weren’t reserving myself for something better. You
were saying?...”
“No, nothing; go on, I’m listening. You’re not one of those orators who
need the stimulus of contradiction to keep them going.”
“The fact is, I thought I heard you offer me some of your incomparable
port.”
Passavant smiled.
“Keep the bottle beside you,” he said, as he passed it to him. “Empty
it if you like, but talk.”
Strouvilhou filled his glass, sat comfortably back in his big arm-chair
and began:
“I don’t know if I’ve got what people call a hard heart; in my opinion,
I’ve got too much indignation, too much disgust in my composition--not
that I care. It is true that for a long time past I have repressed
in that particular organ of mine everything which ran the risk of
softening it. But I am not incapable of admiration, and of a sort of
absurd devotion; for, in so far as I am a man, I despise and hate
myself as much as I do my neighbours. I hear it repeated everywhere and
constantly that literature, art and science work together in the long
run for the good of mankind; and that’s enough to make me loathe them.
But there’s nothing to prevent me from turning the proposition round,
and then I breathe again. Yes, what for my part I like to imagine is,
on the contrary, a servile humanity working towards the production of
some cruel master-piece; a Bernard Palissy (how they have deaved us
with that fellow!) burning his wife and children to get a varnish for
a fine plate. I like turning problems round; I can’t help it, my mind
is so constructed that they keep steadier when they are standing on
their heads. And if I can’t endure the thought of a Christ sacrificing
himself for the thankless salvation of all the frightful people I
knock up against daily, I imagine with some satisfaction, and indeed
a kind of serenity, the rotting of that vile mob in order to produce
a Christ ... though, in reality, I should prefer something else; for
all His teaching has only served to plunge us deeper into the mire.
The trouble comes from the selfishness of the ferocious. Imagine what
magnificent things an unselfish ferocity would produce! When we take
care of the poor, the feeble, the rickety, the injured, we are making
a great mistake; and that is why I hate religion--because it teaches
us to. That deep peace, which philanthropists themselves pretend they
derive from the contemplation of nature, and its fauna and flora, comes
from this--that in the savage state, it is only robust creatures that
flourish; all the rest is refuse and serves as manure. But people won’t
see it; won’t admit it.”
“Yes, yes; I admit it willingly. Go on.”
“And tell me whether it isn’t shameful, wretched ... that men have
done so much to get superb breeds of horses, cattle, poultry, cereals,
flowers, and that they themselves are still seeking a relief for
their sufferings in medicine, a palliative in charity, a consolation
in religion, and oblivion in drink. What we ought to work at is the
amelioration of the breed. But all selection implies the suppression
of failures, and this is what our fool of a Christianized society
cannot consent to. It will not even take upon itself to castrate
degenerates--and those are the most prolific. What we want is not
hospitals, but stud farms.”
“Upon my soul, Strouvilhou, I like you when you talk so.”
“I am afraid, Monsieur le Comte, that you have misunderstood me. You
thought me a sceptic, and in reality I am an idealist, a mystic.
Scepticism has never been any good. One knows for that matter where it
leads--to tolerance! I consider sceptics people without imagination,
without ideals--fools.... And I am not ignorant of all the delicacies,
the sentimental subtleties which would be suppressed by the production
of this robust humanity; but no one would be there to regret the
delicacies, since the people capable of appreciating them would be
suppressed too. Don’t make any mistake--I am not without what is
called culture, and I know that certain among the Greeks had caught a
glimpse of my ideal; at any rate, I like imagining it, and remembering
that Coré, daughter of Ceres, went down to Hades full of pity for the
shades; but that after she had become queen, and Pluto’s wife, Homer
never calls her anything but ‘implacable Proserpine.’ See Odyssey,
Bk. VI. ‘_Implacable_’--that’s what every man who pretends to be
virtuous owes it to himself to be.”
“Glad to see you come back to literature--that is, if we may be said
ever to have left it. Well then, virtuous Strouvilhou, I want to know
whether you’ll consent to become the implacable editor of a review?”
“To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating
human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most.
I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far
as to doubt whether it can be anything else--at any rate until it has
made a clean sweep of the past. We live upon nothing but feelings which
have been taken for granted once for all and which the reader imagines
he experiences, because he believes everything he sees in print; the
author builds on this as he does on the conventions which he believes
to be the foundations of his art. These feelings ring as false as
counters, but they pass current. And as everyone knows that ‘bad money
drives out good,’ a man who should offer the public real coins would
seem to be defrauding us. In a world in which everyone cheats, it’s
the honest man who passes for a charlatan. I give you fair warning--if
I edit a review, it will be in order to prick bladders--in order to
demonetize fine feelings, and those promissory notes which go by the
name of _words_.”
“Upon my soul, I should very much like to know how you’ll set about it.”
“Let me alone and you’ll soon see.... I have often thought it over.”
“No one will understand what you’re after; no one will follow you.”
“Oh, come now! The cleverest young men of the present day are already
on their guard against poetical inflation. They perfectly recognize
a gas bag when they see one--even in the disguise of scientifically
elaborate metre, and trimmed up with all the hackneyed effusions of
high-sounding lyrical verse. One can always find hands for a work of
destruction. Shall we found a school with no other object but to pull
things down?... Would you be afraid?”
“No.... So long as my garden isn’t trampled on.”
“There’s enough to be done elsewhere ... _en attendant_. The
moment is propitious. I know many a young man who is only waiting for
the rallying cry; quite young ones.... Oh, yes, I know! That’s what you
like; but I warn you they aren’t taking any.... I have often wondered
by what miracle painting has gone so far ahead, and how it happens
that literature has let itself be outdistanced. In painting to-day,
just see how the ‘_motif_,’ as it used to be called, has fallen
into discredit. _A fine subject!_ It makes one laugh. Painters
don’t even dare venture on a portrait unless they can be sure of
avoiding every trace of resemblance. If we manage our affairs well, and
leave me alone for that, I don’t ask for more than two years before a
future poet will think himself dishonoured if anyone can understand
a word of what he says. Yes, Monsieur le Comte, will you wager? All
sense, all meaning will be considered anti-poetical. Illogicality
shall be our guiding star. What a fine title for a review--_The
Scavengers!_”
Passavant had listened without turning a hair.
“Do you count your young nephew among your acolytes?” he asked after a
pause.
“Young Léon is one of the elect; he doesn’t let the flies settle on
him, either. Really, it’s a pleasure teaching him. Last term he thought
it would be a joke to cut out the swotters in his form and carry off
all the prizes. Since he came back from the holidays he has let his
work go to the deuce; I haven’t the least idea what he’s hatching; but
I have every confidence in him, and I wouldn’t for the world interfere.”
“Will you bring him to see me?”
“Monsieur le Comte is joking, no doubt.... Well, then, this review?”
“We’ll see about it later. I must have time to let your plans mature in
my mind. In the mean time, you might really find me a secretary. I’m
not satisfied with the one I had.”
“I’ll send you little Cob-Lafleur to-morrow. I shall be seeing him this
afternoon, and I make no doubt he’ll suit you.”
“Scavenger style?”
“A little.”
“_Ex uno_...”
“Oh, no; don’t judge them all from him. He is one of the moderate ones.
Just right for you.”
Strouvilhou rose.
“A propos,” said Passavant, “I haven’t given you my book, I think. I’m
sorry not to have a first edition left....”
“As I don’t mean to sell it, it isn’t of the slightest importance.”
“It’s only because the print’s better.”
“Oh! as I don’t mean to read it either.... _Au revoir._ And if the
spirit moves you, I’m at your service. I wish you good morning.”
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: In English in the original.]
XIII
EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: DOUVIERS’ PROFITENDIEU
BROUGHT back Olivier’s things from Passavant’s. As soon as I got home,
set to work on _The Counterfeiters_. My exaltation is calm and
lucid. My joy is such as I have never known before. Wrote thirty pages
without hesitation, without a single erasure. The whole drama, like
a nocturnal landscape suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning,
emerges out of the darkness, very different from what I had been trying
to invent. The books which I have hitherto written seem to me like the
ornamental pools in public gardens--their contours are defined--perfect
perhaps, but the water they contain is captive and lifeless. I wish it
now to run freely, according to its bent, sometimes swift, sometimes
slow; I choose not to foresee its windings.
X. maintains that a good novelist, before he begins to write his book,
ought to know how it is going to finish. As for me, who let mine flow
where it will, I consider that life never presents us with anything
which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as
a termination. “Might be continued”--these are the words with which I
should like to finish my _Counterfeiters_.
Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow.
As I exaggerated my sympathy for him, I was obliged to submit to his
effusions, which were rather embarrassing. All the time I was talking
to him, I kept repeating to myself La Rochefoucauld’s words: “I am
very little susceptible to pity; and should like not to be so at
all.... I consider that one ought to content oneself with showing it
and carefully refrain from feeling it.” And yet my sympathy was real,
undeniable, and I was moved to tears. Truth to tell, my tears seemed
to console him better than my words. I almost believe that he gave up
being unhappy as soon as he saw me cry.
I was firmly resolved not to tell him the name of the seducer; but to
my surprise he did not ask it. I think his jealousy dies down as soon
as he no longer feels Laura’s eyes upon him. In any case, its energy
had been somewhat diminished by the act of coming to see me.
There is something illogical in his case; he is indignant that the
other man should have deserted Laura. I pointed out that if it had not
been for his desertion, Laura would not have come back to him. He is
resolved to love the child as if it were his own. Who knows whether he
would ever have tasted the joys of paternity without the seducer? I
took good care not to point this out to him, for at the recollection
of his insufficiencies, his jealousy becomes more acute. But then it
belongs to the domain of vanity and ceases to interest me.
That an Othello should be jealous is comprehensible; the image of his
wife’s pleasure obsesses him. But when a Douviers becomes jealous it
can only be because he imagines he ought to be.
And no doubt he nurses this passion from a secret need to give body to
his somewhat unsubstantial personage. Happiness would be natural to
him; but he has to admire himself and he esteems only what is acquired,
not what is natural. I did all I could therefore to persuade him that
simple happiness was more meritorious than torments and very difficult
to attain. I did not let him go till he was calm again.
Inconsistency. Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way
through exactly as one expects them to.... This consistency of theirs,
which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing
which makes us recognize that they are artificially composed.
Not that I pretend that inconsistency is a sure indication of
naturalness, for one often meets, especially among women, affected
inconsistencies; and on the other hand, in some few instances,
there is reason to admire what is known as _esprit de suite_;
but, as a rule, such consecutiveness is obtained only by vain and
obstinate perseverance, and at the expense of all naturalness. The
more fundamentally generous an individual is, and the more fertile in
possibilities, the more liable he is to change, and the less willing to
allow his future to be decided by his past. The “_justum et tenacem
propositi virum_,” who is held up to us as a model, more often than
not offers a stony soil and is refractory to culture.
I have known some of yet another sort: these assiduously fabricate for
themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice
of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart
from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not
a moment’s relaxation. (I remember X., who refused to let me fill
his glass with Montrachet 1904, saying: “I don’t like anything but
Bordeaux.” As soon as I pretended it was a Bordeaux, he thought the
Montrachet delectable.)
When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were
virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I
wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies
the secret of not growing old.
Olivier has asked me what I am working at. I let myself be carried away
into talking of my book, and even--he seemed so much interested--into
reading him the pages I had just written. I was afraid of what he
would say, knowing how sweeping young people’s judgments are and how
difficult they find it to admit another point of view from their own.
But the few remarks which he diffidently offered, seemed to me most
judicious, and I immediately turned them to account.
My breath, my life comes to me from him--through him.
He is still anxious about the review he was going to edit, and
particularly about the story which he wrote at Passavant’s request and
which he now repudiates. I told him that Passavant’s new arrangements
will necessitate the re-casting of the first number; he will be able to
get his MS. back.
Just received a very unexpected visit from _M. le juge
d’instruction_ Profitendieu. He was mopping his forehead and
breathing heavily, not so much, it seemed to me, from having come up my
six flights of stairs, as from embarrassment. He kept his hat in his
hand and did not sit down till I pressed him to. He is a handsome man,
with a fine figure and considerable presence.
“I think you are President Molinier’s brother-in-law,” he said. “It is
about his son George that I have taken the liberty of coming to see
you. I feel sure you will excuse a step which at first sight may seem
indiscreet, but which the affection and esteem I have for my colleague
will, I hope, sufficiently explain.”
He paused. I got up and went to let down a portière, for fear the
charwoman, who is very inquisitive, and who was, I knew, in the next
room, should overhear. Profitendieu approved me with a smile.
“In my capacity as _juge d’instruction_, I have an affair on my
hands which is causing me extreme embarrassment. Your young nephew has
already been mixed up in a most compromising manner in a ... this is
quite between ourselves, I beg ... in a somewhat scandalous adventure.
I am willing to believe, considering his extreme youth, that he was
taken by surprise, owing to his simplicity--his innocence; but I
may say that it has required some skill on my part to ... ahem ...
circumscribe this affair, without injuring the interests of justice.
In the face of a second breach--of quite another kind, I hasten to
add--I cannot answer for it that young George will get off so easily.
I even doubt whether it is in the boy’s own interest to _try_ to
get him off, notwithstanding all my desire as a friend to spare your
brother-in-law such a scandal. Nevertheless I _will_ try; but
I have officers, you understand, who are zealous, and whom I am not
always able to restrain. Or, if you prefer it, I am still able to keep
them in hand to-day, but to-morrow I shall be unable to. And I thought
you might speak to your young nephew and warn him of the risk he is
running.”
Profitendieu’s visit (I might as well admit it) had at first alarmed
me horribly; but as soon as I understood that he had come neither as an
enemy nor as a judge, I began to be amused. I was a great deal more so
when he went on:
“For some time past a certain number of counterfeit coins have been put
into circulation. So far I am informed. But I have not yet succeeded
in discovering their origin. I know, however, that young George--quite
innocently, I am willing to believe--is one of those who circulate
them. A few young boys of your nephew’s age are lending themselves to
this shameful traffic. I don’t doubt that their simplicity is being
abused and that these foolish children are tools in the hands of one
or two unscrupulous elders. We should have had no difficulty in taking
up the younger delinquents and making them confess the origin of the
coins; but I am only too well aware that after a certain point a case
escapes our control, so to speak; that is to say, we cannot go back on
the police court proceedings, and we sometimes find ourselves forced
to become acquainted with things we should prefer to ignore. Upon this
occasion, I have no doubt I shall discover the real culprits without
having recourse to the minors’ evidence. I have given orders therefore
not to alarm them. But my orders are only provisional. I don’t want
your nephew to force me to countermand them. He had better be told that
the authorities’ eyes are open. It wouldn’t be a bad thing indeed to
frighten him a little; he is on a downward course....”
I declared I would do my best to warn him, but Profitendieu seemed
not to hear me. His eyes became vague. He repeated twice: “on what is
called a downward course,” and then was silent.
I do not know how long his silence lasted. Without his having to
formulate his thoughts, I seemed to see them forming in his mind, and
before he spoke, I already heard his words:
“I am a father myself, sir....”
Everything he had been saying disappeared; there was nothing left
between us but Bernard. The rest was only a pretext; it was to talk of
him that he had come.