I was going to see my friend Simon Radevin once more, whom I had not had
a sight of for fifteen years. Formerly he used to be my most intimate
friend, and I used to spend long, quiet and happy evenings with him; he
was one of those men to whom one tells one's most intimate affairs of
the heart, for whom one finds, when conversing tranquilly, rare, clever,
ingenious and refined thoughts, which excite the mind and put it at its
ease.
For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, traveled,
thought and dreamt together; had liked the same things with the same
liking, had admired the same books, comprehended the same works,
shivered with the same sensations, and very often laughed at the same
individuals, whom we understood completely, by merely exchanging a
glance.
Then he married; quite unexpectedly he married a little girl from the
provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How ever could
that little, thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands, her light,
vacant eyes, and her clear silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred
thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever
young fellow? Can anyone understand these things? No doubt he had hoped
for happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of
a good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all that in the
transparent looks of that school girl with light hair.
He had not dreamt of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man
grows tired as soon as he has comprehended the stupid reality, unless
indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing more
whatever.
What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, witty, light
hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor through
provincial life? A man can change a great deal in the course of fifteen
years!
* * * * *
The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage,
a stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to
me with open arms, exclaiming: "George!" I embraced him, but I had not
recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: "By Jove! You have not
grown thin!" And he replied with a laugh: "What did you expect? Good
living, a good table and good nights! Eating and sleeping, that is my
existence!"
I looked at him closely, trying to find the features I held so dear in
that broad face. His eyes alone had not altered, but I no longer saw the
same looks in them, and I said to myself: "If the looks be the
reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are not what they used
to be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well."
Yet his eyes were bright, full of pleasure and friendship, but they had
not that clear, intelligent expression, which expresses as much as words
do, the value of the mind. Suddenly he said to me: "Here are my two
eldest children." A girl of fourteen, who was almost a woman, and a boy
of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a _Lycée_, came forward in a
hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice: "Are they
yours?" "Of course they are," he replied laughing. "How many have you?"
"Five! There are three more indoors."
He said that in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I
felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt for this
vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species, who spent his nights
in his country house in making children.
I got into a carriage, which he drove himself, and we set off through
the town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town, where nothing was moving in the
streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there
a shopkeeper standing at his door took off his hat, and Simon returned
his salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew
all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was
thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream
of all who have buried themselves in the provinces.
We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden,
which had some pretensions to being a park, and stopped in front of a
turretted house, which tried to pass for a château.
"That is my den," Simon said, so that he might be complimented on it,
and I replied that it was delightful.
A lady appeared on the steps, dressed up for a visitor, her hair done
for a visitor, and with phrases ready prepared for a visitor. She was no
longer the light haired, insipid girl I had seen in church fifteen years
previously, but a stout lady in curls and flounces, one of those ladies
without any fixed age, without intellect, without any of those things
which constitute a woman. In short, she was a mother, a stout,
commonplace mother, the human layer and brood mare, that machine of
flesh which procreates without any other mental preoccupation, except
her children and her housekeeping book.
She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged
according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen
before a mayor, and I said: "Ah! ah! so these are the others?" And
Simon, who was radiant with pleasure, named them: "Jean, Sophie and
Gontran."
The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in and in the depths of an
easy-chair I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.
Madame Radevin came forward and said: "This is my grandfather,
Monsieur; he is eighty-seven." And then she shouted into the shaking old
man's ears: "This is a friend of Simon's, papa." The old gentleman tried
to say "good day" to me, and he muttered: "Oua, oua, oua," and waved his
hand, and I took a seat, saying: "You are very kind, Monsieur."
Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: "So! You have made
grandpapa's acquaintance. He is priceless, is that old man; he is the
delight of the children, and he is so greedy that he almost kills
himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were
allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. He likes
all the sweets as if they were so many girls. You have never seen
anything funnier; you will see it presently."
I was then shown to my room to change my dress for dinner, and hearing
a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all
the children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no
doubt.
My windows looked out onto a plain, bare, interminable plain, an ocean
of grass, of wheat, and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising
ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be
leading in that house.
A bell rang; it was for dinner, and so I went downstairs. Madame Radevin
took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we went into the dining-room. A
footman wheeled in the old man's armchair, who gave a greedy and curious
look at the dessert, as he with difficulty turned his shaking head from
one dish to the other.
Simon rubbed his hands: "You will be amused," he said; and all the
children understood that I was going to be indulged with the sight of
their greedy grandfather, and they began to laugh accordingly, while
their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making
a speaking trumpet of his hands, shouted at the old man: "This evening
there is sweet rice cream," and the wrinkled face of the grandfather
brightened, and he trembled more violently all over, showing that he had
understood and was very pleased. The dinner began.
"Just look!" Simon whispered. The grandfather did not like the soup, and
he refused to eat it; but he was made to, on account of his health, and
the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old man blew
energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, which was thus scattered
like a stream of water onto the table and over his neighbors. The
children shook with delight at the spectacle, while their father, who
was also amused, said: "Is not the old man funny?"
During the whole meal, they were all taken up solely with him. He
devoured the dishes which were put on the table, with his eyes, and he
tried to seize them and pull them to himself with his trembling hands.
They put them almost within his reach, to see his useless efforts, his
trembling clutches at them, the piteous appeal of his whole nature, of
his eyes, of his mouth and of his nose as he smelt them, and he
slobbered onto his table napkin with eagerness, while uttering
inarticulate grunts. And the whole family was highly amused at this
horrible and grotesque scene.
Then they put a tiny morsel onto his plate, which he ate with feverish
gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when
the rice-cream was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with
greediness, and Gontran called out to him: "You have eaten too much
already; you will have no more." And they pretended not to give him any.
Then he began to cry; he cried and trembled more violently than ever,
while all the children laughed. At last, however, they gave him his
helping, a very small piece; and as he ate the first mouthful of the
pudding, he made a comical and greedy noise in his throat, and a
movement with his neck like ducks do when they swallow too large a
morsel, and then, when he had done, he began to stamp his feet, so as to
get more.
I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and I
interposed on his behalf: "Please, will you not give him a little more
rice?" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat
too much, it might harm him, at his age."
I held my tongue, and thought over these words. Oh! ethics! Oh! logic!
Oh! wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining
pleasure out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with
it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his
life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a
hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the
spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family.
There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He
had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last
solace constantly, until he died?
After playing cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed; I
was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! I sat at my window, but I heard
nothing but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the
distance. No doubt the bird was singing thus in a low voice during the
night, and to lull his mate, who was sleeping on her eggs.
And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to
myself, snoring by the side of his ugly wife.