feel ill at ease by someone he really despises. It was to conceal his
shyness that he bluffed.”
“I call it stupid.”
“My dear fellow, everyone can’t be as intelligent as you are.”
“You said that last time, too.”
“What a memory!”
Olivier was determined to hold his ground.
“I try,” said he, “to forget your jokes. But last time you did at last
talk to me seriously. You said things I can’t forget.”
Armand’s eyes grew troubled. He went off into a forced laugh.
“Oh, old fellow, last time I talked to you as you wanted to be talked
to. You called for something in a minor key, so, in order to please
you, I played my lament, with a soul like a corkscrew and anguish à
la Pascal.... It can’t be helped, you know. I’m only sincere when I’m
cracking jokes.”
“You’ll never make me believe that you weren’t sincere when you talked
to me as you did that day. It’s now that you are playing a part.”
“Oh, simplicity! What a pure angelic soul you possess! As if we weren’t
all playing parts more or less sincerely and consciously. Life, my dear
fellow, is nothing but a comedy. But the difference between you and me
is that I know I am playing a part, whilst....”
“Whilst ...” repeated Olivier aggressively.
“Whilst my father, for instance, not to speak of you, is completely
taken in when he plays at being a pastor. Whatever I say or do, there’s
always one part of myself which stays behind, and watches the other
part compromise itself, which laughs at and hisses it, or applauds it.
When one is divided in that way, how is it possible to be sincere? I
have got to the point of ceasing to understand what the word means. It
can’t be helped; when I’m sad, I seem so grotesque to myself that it
makes me laugh; when I’m cheerful, I make such idiotic jokes that I
feel inclined to cry.”
“You make me feel inclined to cry too, my dear boy. I didn’t think you
were in such a bad way.”
Armand shrugged his shoulders and went on in a totally different tone
of voice:
“To console you, should you like to know the contents of our
first number? Well, there’s my _Nocturnal Vase_; four songs
by Cob-Lafleur; a dialogue by Jarry; some prose poems by young
Ghéridanisol, one of our boarders; and then _The Flat Iron_, a
vast essay in general criticism, in which the tendencies of the review
will be more or less definitely laid down. Several of us have combined
together to produce this _chef-d’œuvre_.”
Olivier, not knowing what to say, objected clumsily:
“No _chef-d’œuvre_ was ever produced by several people together.”
Armand burst out laughing:
“But, my dear fellow, I said it was a _chef-d’œuvre_ as a joke.
It isn’t a _chef-d’œuvre_; it isn’t anything at all. And, for
that matter, what does one mean by _chef-d’œuvre_? That’s just
what _The Flat Iron_ tries to get to the bottom of. There are
heaps of works one admires on faith, just because everyone else does,
and because no one so far has thought of saying--or dared to say--that
they were stupid. For instance, on the first page of this number, we
are going to give a reproduction of the _Monna Lisa_, with a pair
of moustaches stuck on to her face. You’ll see! The effect is simply
staggering.”
“Does that mean you consider the _Monna Lisa_ a stupidity?”
“Not at all, my dear fellow. (Though I don’t think it as marvellous as
all that.) You don’t understand me. The thing that’s stupid is people’s
admiration for it. It’s the habit they have got of speaking of what are
called _chefs-d’œuvre_ with bated breath. The object of _The
Flat Iron_ (it’s to be the name of the review too) is to make this
reverence appear grotesque--to discredit it.... Another good plan is
to hold up to the reader’s admiration something absolutely idiotic (my
_Nocturnal Vase_ for instance) by an author who is absolutely
senseless.”
“Does Passavant approve of all this?”
“He’s very much amused by it.”
“I see I did well to retire.”
“Retire!... Sooner or later, old man, willynilly, one always has to end
by retiring. This wise reflection naturally leads me to take my leave.”
“Stop a moment, you old clown.... What made you say just now that your
father played the part of pastor? Don’t you think he is in earnest?”
“My revered father has so arranged his life that he hasn’t the right
now--or even the power--not to be in earnest. Yes, it’s his profession
to be in earnest. He’s a professor of earnestness. He inculcates faith;
it’s his _raison d’être_; it’s the rôle he has chosen and he must
go through with it to the very end. But as for knowing what goes on in
what he calls his ‘inner consciousness’ ... it would be indiscreet to
enquire. And I don’t think he ever enquires himself. He manages in
such a way that he never has time to. He has crammed his life full of
a lot of obligations which would lose all meaning if his conviction
failed; so that in a manner they necessitate his conviction and at the
same time keep it going. He imagines he believes, because he continues
to act as if he did. If his faith failed, my dear fellow, why, it
would be a catastrophic collapse! And reflect, that at the same time
my family would cease to have anything to live on. That’s a fact that
must be taken into consideration, old boy. Papa’s faith is our means of
subsistence. So that to come and ask me if Papa’s faith is genuine, is
not, you must admit, a very tactful proceeding on your part.”
“I thought you lived chiefly on what the school brings in.”
“Yes; there’s some truth in that. But that’s not very tactful
either--to cut me short in my lyrical flights.”
“And you then? Don’t you believe in anything?” asked Olivier sadly, for
he was fond of Armand, and his ugliness pained him.
“_Jubes renovare dolorem_.... You seem to forget, my dear friend,
that my parents wanted to make a pastor of me. They nourished me on
pious precepts--fed me up with them, if I may say so.... But finally
they were obliged to recognize that I hadn’t the vocation. It’s a pity.
I might have made a first-class preacher. But my vocation was to write
_The Nocturnal Vase_.”
“You poor old thing! If you knew how sorry I am for you!”
“You have always had what my father calls ‘a heart of gold’ .... I
won’t trespass on it any longer.”
He took up his hat. He had almost left the room, when he suddenly
turned round:
“You haven’t asked after Sarah?”
“Because you could tell me nothing that I haven’t heard from Bernard.”
“Did he tell you that he had left the pension?”
“He told me that your sister Rachel had requested him to leave.”
Armand had one hand on the door handle; with his walking-stick in the
other, he pushed up the portière. The stick went into a hole in the
portière and made it bigger.
“Account for it how you will,” said he, and his face became very grave.
“Rachel is, I believe, the only person in the world I love and respect.
I respect her because she is virtuous. And I always behave in such
a way as to offend her virtue. As for Bernard and Sarah, she had no
suspicions. It was I who told her the whole thing.... And the oculist
said she wasn’t to cry! It’s comic!”
“Am I to think you sincere now?”
“Yes, I think the most sincere thing about me is a horror--a hatred of
everything people call Virtue. Don’t try to understand. You have no
idea what a Puritan bringing-up can do to one. It leaves one with an
incurable resentment in one’s heart ... to judge by myself,” he added,
with a jarring laugh.
He put down his hat and went up to the window. “Just look here; on the
inside of my lip?”
He stooped towards Olivier and lifted up his lip with his finger.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Yes, you can; there; in the corner.”
Olivier saw a whitish spot near the corner. A little uneasily: “It’s a
gum-boil,” he said to reassure Armand.
But Armand shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t talk nonsense--such a serious fellow as you! A gum-boil’s soft
and it goes away. This is hard and gets larger every week. And it gives
me a kind of bad taste in my mouth.”
“Have you had it long?”
“It’s more than a month since I first noticed it. But as the
_chef-d’œuvre_ says: ‘_Mon mal vient de plus loin_....’”
“Well, old boy, if you’re anxious about it, you had better consult a
doctor.”
“You don’t suppose I needed your advice for that.”
“What did he say?”
“I didn’t need your advice to say to myself that I ought to consult a
doctor. But all the same, I didn’t consult one, because if it’s what I
think, I prefer not to know it.”
“It’s idiotic.”
“Isn’t it stupid? But so human, my friend, so human....”
“The idiotic thing is not to be treated for it.”
“So that when one _is_ treated, one can always say: ‘Too late!’
That’s what Cob-Lafleur expresses so well in one of his poems which
you’ll see in the review:
_‘Il faut se rendre à l’évidence;_
_Car, dans ce bas monde, la danse_
_Précède souvent la chanson.’”_
“One can make literature out of anything.”
“Just so; out of anything. But, dear friend, it’s not so easy as all
that. Well, good-bye.... Oh! there’s one thing more I wanted to tell
you. I’ve heard from Alexandre.... Yes, you know--my eldest brother,
who ran away to Africa. He began by coming to grief over his business
and running through all the money Rachel sent him. He’s settled now on
the banks of the Casamance; and he has written to say that things are
doing well and that he’ll soon be able to pay everything back.”
“What kind of a business?”
“Heaven knows! Rubber, ivory, Negroes perhaps ... a lot of odds and
ends.... He has asked me to go out to him.”
“Will you go?”
“I would to-morrow, if it weren’t for my military service. Alexandre is
a kind of donkey, something in my style. I think I should get on with
him very well.... Here! would you like to see? I’ve got his letter with
me.”
He took an envelope out of his pocket, and several sheets of note-paper
out of the envelope; he chose one, and held it out to Olivier.
“There’s no need to read it all. Begin here.”
Olivier read:
“For the last fortnight, I have been living in company with a singular
individual whom I have taken into my hut. The sun of these parts seems
to have touched him in the upper story. I thought at first it was
delirium, but there’s no doubt it’s just plain madness. This curious
young man is about thirty years old, tall, strong, good-looking, and
certainly ‘a gentleman,’ to judge from his manners, his language, and
his hands, which are too delicate ever to have done any rough work.
The strange thing about him is that he thinks himself possessed by the
devil--or rather, as far as I can make out, he thinks he _is_ the
devil. He must have had some odd adventure or other, for when he is
dreaming or half dozing, a state into which he often falls (and then
he talks to himself as if I weren’t there) he continually speaks of
hands being cut off, and as at those times he gets extremely excited
and rolls his eyes in an alarming manner, I take care that there shall
be no weapons within reach. The rest of the time, he is a good fellow
and an agreeable companion--which I appreciate, as you can imagine,
after months of solitude. Besides which, he is of great assistance
to me in my work. He never speaks of his past life, so that I can’t
succeed in discovering who he can be. He is particularly interested
in plants and insects, and sometimes in his talk shows signs of being
remarkably well educated. He seems to like staying with me and doesn’t
speak of leaving; I have decided to let him stay as long as he likes.
I was wanting a help; all things considered, he has come just in the
nick of time.
“A hideous Negro who came up the Casamance with him, and to whom I
have talked a little, speaks of a woman who was with him, and who,
I gather, must have been drowned in the river one day when their
boat upset. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that my companion had
had a finger in the accident. In this country, if one wants to get
rid of anyone, there is a great choice of means, and no one ever
asks a question. If one day I learn anything more, I’ll write it to
you--or rather I’ll tell you about it when you come out. Yes, I know,
there’s your service.... Well, I’ll wait. For you may be sure that
if ever you want to see me again, you will have to make up your mind
to come out. As for me, I want to come back less and less. I lead
a life here which I like and which suits me down to the ground. My
business is flourishing, and that badge of civilization--the starched
collar--appears to me a straight waistcoat which I shall never be able
to endure again.
“I enclose a money order which you can do what you like with. The last
was for Rachel. Keep this for yourself....”
“The rest isn’t interesting,” said Armand.
Olivier gave the letter back without saying anything. It never occurred
to him that the murderer it spoke of was his brother. Vincent had given
no news of himself for a long time; his parents thought he was in
America. To tell the truth, Olivier did not trouble much about him.
XVIII
“THE STRONG MEN”
IT WAS only a month later that Boris heard of Bronja’s death from
Madame Sophroniska, who came to see him at the pension. Since his
friend’s last sad letter, Boris had been without news. Madame
Sophroniska came into Madame Vedel’s drawing-room one day when he was
sitting there, as was his habit during recreation hour, and as she was
in deep mourning, he understood everything before she said a word. They
were alone in the room. Sophroniska took Boris in her arms and they
cried together. She could only repeat: “My poor little thing.... My
poor little thing ...” as if Boris was the person to be pitied, and as
though she had forgotten her own maternal grief in the presence of the
immense grief of the little boy.
Madame Vedel, who had been told of Madame Sophroniska’s arrival, came
in, and Boris, still convulsed with sobs, drew aside to let the two
ladies talk to each other. He would have liked them not to speak of
Bronja. Madame Vedel, who had not known her, spoke of her as she would
of any ordinary child. Even the questions which she asked seemed to
Boris tactless and commonplace. He would have liked Sophroniska not to
answer them and it hurt him to see her exhibiting her grief. He folded
his away and hid it like a treasure.
It was certainly of him that Bronja was thinking when, a few days
before her death, she said to her mother:
“Do tell me, Mamma.... What is meant exactly by an _idyll_?”
These words pierced Boris’s heart and he would have liked to be the
only one to hear them.
Madame Vedel offered her guest tea. There was some for Boris, too;
he swallowed it hastily as recreation was finishing; then he said
good-bye to Sophroniska, who was leaving next day for Poland on
business.
The whole world seemed a desert to him. His mother was too far away
and always absent; his grandfather too old; even Bernard, with whom
he was beginning to feel at home, had gone away.... His was a tender
soul; he had need of someone at whose feet he could lay his nobility,
his purity, as an offering. He was not proud enough to take pleasure
in pride. He had loved Bronja too much to be able to hope that he
would ever again find that reason for loving which he had lost in her.
Without her, how could he believe in the angels he longed to see?
Heaven itself was emptied.
Boris went back to the schoolroom as one might cast oneself into
hell. No doubt he might have made a friend of Gontran de Passavant;
Gontran is a good, kind boy, and they are both exactly the same age;
but nothing distracts him from his work. There is not much harm
in Philippe Adamanti either; he would be quite willing to be fond
of Boris; but he is under Ghéridanisol’s thumb to such an extent
that he does not dare have a single feeling of his own; he follows
Ghéridanisol’s lead, and Ghéridanisol is always quickening his pace;
and Ghéridanisol cannot endure Boris. His musical voice, his grace, his
girlish look--everything about him exasperates him. The very sight of
Boris seems to inspire him with that instinctive aversion which, in a
herd, makes the strong fall ruthlessly upon the weak. It may be that he
has listened to his cousin’s teaching and that his hatred is somewhat
theoretical, for in his mind it assumes the shape of reprobation. He
finds reasons for being proud of his hatred. He realizes and is amused
by Boris’s sensitiveness to this contempt of his, and pretends to be
plotting with George and Phiphi, merely in order to see Boris’s eyes
grow wide with a kind of anxious interrogation.
“Oh, how inquisitive the fellow is!” says George then. “Shall we tell
him?”
“Not worth while. He wouldn’t understand.”
“He wouldn’t understand.” “He wouldn’t dare.” “He wouldn’t know how.”
They are constantly casting these phrases at him. He suffers horribly
from being kept out of things. He cannot understand, indeed, why they
give him the humiliating nick-name of “Wanting”; and is indignant when
he understands. What would not he give to be able to prove that he is
not such a coward as they think.
“I cannot endure Boris,” said Ghéridanisol one day to Strouvilhou. “Why
did you tell me to let him alone? He doesn’t want to be let alone as
much as all that. He is always looking in my direction.... The other
day he made us all split with laughter because he thought that a woman
togged out in her bearskin meant wearing her furs. George jeered at
him, and when at last Boris took it in I thought he was going to howl.”
Then Ghéridanisol pressed his cousin with questions and finally
Strouvilhou gave him Boris’s _talisman_ and explained its use.
A few days later, when Boris went into the schoolroom, he saw this
paper, whose existence he had almost forgotten, lying on his desk. He
had put it out of his mind with everything else that related to the
“magic” of his early childhood, of which he was now ashamed. He did not
at first recognize it, for Ghéridanisol had taken pains to frame the
words of the incantation
“GAS ... TELEPHONE ... ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND
ROUBLES.”
with a large red and black border adorned with obscene little imps,
who, it must be owned, were not at all badly drawn. This decoration
gave the paper a fantastic--an infernal appearance, thought
Ghéridanisol--which he calculated would be likely to upset Boris.
Perhaps it was done in play, but it succeeded beyond all expectation.
Boris blushed crimson, said nothing, looked right and left, and
failed to see Ghéridanisol, who was watching him from behind the
door. Boris had no reason to suspect him, and could not understand
how the talisman came to be there; it was as though it had fallen
from heaven--or rather, risen up from hell. Boris was old enough to
shrug his shoulders, no doubt, at these schoolboy bedevilments; but
they stirred troubled waters. Boris took the talisman and slipped it
into his pocket. All the rest of the day, the recollection of his
“magic” practices haunted him. He struggled until evening with unholy
solicitations and then, as there was no longer anything to support him
in his struggle, he fell.
He felt that he was going to his ruin, sinking further and further away
from Heaven; but he took pleasure in so falling--found in his very fall
itself the stuff of his enjoyment.
And yet, in spite of his misery, in the depths of his dereliction,
he kept such stores of tenderness, his companions’ contempt caused
him suffering so keen, that he would have dared anything, however
dangerous, however foolhardy, for the sake of a little consideration.
An opportunity soon offered.
After they had been obliged to give up their traffic in false coins,
Ghéridanisol, George and Phiphi did not long remain unoccupied. The
ridiculous pranks with which they amused themselves for the first few
days were merely stop-gaps. Ghéridanisol’s imagination soon invented
something with more stuff to it.
The chief point about _The Brotherhood of Strong Men_ at
first consisted in the pleasure of keeping Boris out of it. But it
soon occurred to Ghéridanisol that it would be far more perversely
effective to let him in; he could be brought in this way to enter
into engagements, by means of which he might gradually be led on to
the performance of some monstrous act. From that moment Ghéridanisol
was possessed by this idea; and as often happens in all kinds of
enterprises, he thought much less of the object itself, than of how to
bring it about; this seems trifling, but is perhaps the explanation
of a considerable number of crimes. For that matter Ghéridanisol was
ferocious; but he felt it prudent to hide his ferocity, at any rate
from Phiphi. There was nothing cruel about Phiphi; he was convinced up
to the last minute that the whole thing was nothing but a joke.
Every brotherhood must have its motto. Ghéridanisol, who had his idea,
proposed: “_The strong man cares nothing for life._” The motto
was adopted and attributed to Cicero. George proposed that, as a sign
of fellowship, they should tattoo it on their right arms; but Phiphi,
who was afraid of being hurt, declared that good tattooers could only
be found in sea-ports. Besides which, Ghéridanisol objected that
tattooing would leave an indelible mark which might be inconvenient
later on. After all, the sign of fellowship was not an absolute
necessity; the members would content themselves with taking a solemn
vow.
At the moment of starting the traffic in false coins, there had been
talk of pledges, and it was on this occasion that George had produced
his father’s letters. But this idea had dropped. Such children as
these, very fortunately, have not much consistency. As a matter of
fact, they settled practically nothing, either as to “conditions of
membership” or as to “necessary qualifications.” What was the use, when
it was taken for granted that all three of them were “in it,” and that
Boris was “out of it”? On the other hand they decreed that “the person
who flinched should be considered as a traitor, and forever excluded
from the brotherhood.” Ghéridanisol, who had determined to make Boris
come in, laid great stress upon this point.
It had to be admitted that without Boris the game would have been dull
and the virtue of the brotherhood without an object. George was better
qualified to circumvent him than Ghéridanisol, who risked arousing his
suspicions; as for Phiphi, he was not artful enough and had a dislike
to compromising himself.
And in all this abominable story, what perhaps seems to me the most
monstrous, is this comedy of friendship which George went through.
He pretended to be seized with a sudden affection for Boris; until
then, he had seemed never so much as to have set eyes on him. And I
even wonder whether he was not himself influenced by his own acting,
and whether the feelings he feigned were not on the point of becoming
sincere--whether they did not actually become sincere as soon as
Boris responded to them. George drew near him with an appearance of
tenderness; in obedience to Ghéridanisol, he began to talk to him....
And, at the first words, Boris, who was panting for a little esteem and
love, was conquered.
Then Ghéridanisol elaborated his plan, and disclosed it to Phiphi and
George. His idea was to invent a “test” to which the member on whom
the lot fell should be submitted; and in order to set Phiphi at ease,
he let it be understood that things would be arranged in such a manner
that the lot would be sure to fall on Boris. The object of the test
would be to put his courage to the proof.
The exact nature of the test, Ghéridanisol did not at once divulge. He
was afraid that Phiphi would offer some resistance.
And, in fact, when Ghéridanisol a little later began to insinuate that
old La Pérouse’s pistol would come in handy, “No, no!” he cried, “I
won’t agree to that.”
“What an ass you are! It’s only a joke,” retorted George, who was
already persuaded.
“And then, you know,” added Ghéri, “if you want to play the fool, you
have only got to say so. Nobody wants you.”
Ghéridanisol knew that this argument always told with Phiphi; and as he
had prepared the paper on which each member of the brotherhood was to
sign his name, he went on: “Only you must say so at once; because once
you’ve signed, it’ll be too late.”
“All right. Don’t be in a rage,” said Phiphi. “Pass me the paper.” And
he signed.
“As for me, old chap, I’d be delighted,” said George, with his arm
fondly wound round Boris’s neck; “it’s Ghéridanisol who won’t have you.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s afraid. He says you’ll funk.”
“What does he know about it?”
“That you’ll wriggle out of it at the first test.”
“We shall see.”
“Would you really dare to draw lots?”
“Wouldn’t I!”
“But do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”