Chapter I: AM beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying (2)

“I knew I could count on you,” she said, holding out her hand with a look on her face of tender, resigned sadness, and yet a look that was smiling too, and more touching than beauty itself. “If you aren’t in too great a hurry, the best thing would be for you first to go up and pay grandfather a little visit, and then Mamma. If they heard you had been here without seeing them, they would be hurt. But keep a little time for me; I simply must speak to you. You will find me here; you see, I am superintending the maids’ work.”

Out of a kind of modesty, she never says “my work.” Rachel has effaced herself all her life and nothing could be more discreet, more retiring than her virtue. Abnegation is so natural to her, that not one of her family is grateful to her for her perpetual self-sacrifice. She has the most beautiful woman’s nature that I know.

I went up to the second floor to see old Azaïs. He hardly ever leaves his arm-chair nowadays. He made me sit down beside him and began talking about La Pérouse almost at once.

“It makes me feel anxious to know that he is living all alone, and I should like to persuade him to come and stay here. We are old friends, you know. I went to see him the other day. I am afraid he has been very much affected by his dear wife’s leaving him to go to Sainte Périne. His maid told me he hardly eats anything. I consider that as a rule we eat too much; but there should be moderation in all things and we should avoid excess in both directions. He thinks it useless to have things cooked only for him; but if he took his meals with us, seeing others eat would encourage him to do the same. Moreover, he would be with his charming little grandson, whom he would otherwise see very little of; for Rue Vavin is quite a long journey away from the Faubourg St. Honoré. And moreover, I shouldn’t much care to let the child go out by himself in Paris. I have known Anatole de La Pérouse for a long time. He was always eccentric. I don’t mean it as a reproach, but he is a little proud by nature, and perhaps he wouldn’t accept my hospitality without wishing to make some return. So I thought I might propose that he should take school preparation; it wouldn’t be tiring, and moreover it would have the advantage of distracting him, of taking him out of himself a little. He is a good mathematician, and if necessary he might give algebra and geometry lessons. Now that he has no pupils left, his furniture and his piano are of no use to him; he ought to give notice; and as coming here would save his rent, I thought we might agree on a little sum for his board and lodging, to put him more at his ease, so that he shouldn’t feel himself too much under an obligation to me. You ought to try and persuade him--and without much delay, for with his poor style of living, I am afraid he may soon become too enfeebled. Moreover, the boys are coming back in two days; so it would be a good thing to know how the matter stands and whether we may count on him--as he may count on us.”

I promised to speak to La Pérouse the following day. As if relieved, he went on at once:

“Oh! by the bye, what a good fellow your young protégé Bernard is! He has kindly offered to make himself useful to us; he spoke of taking preparation in the lower school; but I’m afraid he’s rather young himself and perhaps he might not be able to keep order. I talked to him for a long time and found him most attractive. He is the metal out of which the best Christians are forged. It is assuredly to be regretted that an unfortunate early education has turned aside his soul from the true path. He confessed that he was without faith; but the tone in which he said so filled me with hope. I replied that I trusted I should find in him all the qualities that go to the making of a good little Christian soldier, and that he ought to devote himself to the increase of those talents which God had vouchsafed to grant him. We read the parable together and I think the seed has not fallen on bad ground. He seemed moved by my words and promised to reflect on them.”

Bernard had already given me an account of this interview; I knew what he thought of it, so that I felt the conversation becoming a little painful. I had already got up to go, but old Azaïs, keeping the hand I held out to him in both his, went on:

“Oh! by the bye. I have seen our Laura. I know the dear child passed a whole delightful month with you in the mountains; it seems to have done her a great deal of good. I am happy to think she is with her husband once more; he must have been beginning to suffer from her long absence. It is regrettable that his work would not allow of his joining you.”

I was pulling away my hand to leave, more and more embarrassed, for I didn’t know what Laura might have said, but with a sudden commanding gesture he drew me towards him, and bending forward, whispered in my ear:

“Laura confided her hopes to me; but hush!... She prefers it not to be known yet. I mention it to you because I know that you are in the secret and because we are both discreet. The poor child was quite abashed when she told me and blushed deeply; she is so reserved. As she had gone down on her knees before me, we thanked God together for having, in His goodness, blessed their union.”

I think that Laura might have put off this confidence, which her condition doesn’t as yet necessitate. Had she consulted me, I should have told her to wait until she had seen Douviers before saying anything. Azaïs can’t see an inch in front of his nose, but the rest of the family will not be taken in so easily.

The old fellow went on to execute a few further variations on diverse pastoral themes; then he told me his daughter would be happy to see me and I went downstairs to the Vedels’ floor.

Just re-read the above. In speaking so of Azaïs, it is myself that I render odious. I am fully aware of it, and add these few lines for Bernard’s sake, in case his charming indiscretion leads him to poke his nose again into this note-book. He has only to go on frequenting him a little longer in order to understand what I mean. I like the old fellow very much, and “moreover,” as he says, I respect him; but when I am with him I have the greatest difficulty in containing myself; this doesn’t tend to make me enjoy his society.

I like his daughter, the pastoress, very much. Madame Vedel is like Lamartine’s Elvire--an elderly Elvire. Her conversation is not without charm. She has a frequent habit of leaving her sentences unfinished, which gives her reflections a kind of poetic vagueness. She reaches the infinite by way of the indeterminate and the indefinite. She expects from a future life all that is lacking to her in this one; this enables her to enlarge her hopes boundlessly. The very narrowness of her taking-off ground adds strength to her impetus. Seeing Vedel so rarely enables her to imagine that she loves him. The worthy man is incessantly on the go, in request on all sides, taken up by a hundred and one different ploys--sermons, congresses, visits to the sick, visits to the poor. He can only shake your hand in passing, but it is with all the greater cordiality.

“Too busy to talk to-day.”

“Never mind; we shall meet again in Heaven,” say I; but he hasn’t had time to hear me.

“Not a moment to himself,” sighs Madame Vedel. “If you only knew the things he gets put on his shoulders now that.... As people know that he never refuses anything, everyone.... When he comes home at night, he is sometimes so tired that I hardly dare speak to him for fear of.... He gives so much of himself to others that there’s nothing left for his own family.”

And while she was speaking I remembered some of Vedel’s home-comings at the time I was staying at the pension. I sometimes saw him take his head between his hands and pant aloud for a little respite. But even then I used to think he feared a respite even more than he longed for it, and that nothing more painful could have been accorded him than a little time in which to reflect.

“You’ll take a cup of tea, won’t you?” asked Madame Vedel, as a little maid brought in a loaded tray.

“There’s not enough sugar, Ma’am.”

“Haven’t I said that you must tell Miss Rachel about it? Quick!... Have you let the young gentlemen know tea’s ready?”

“Mr. Bernard and Mr. Boris have gone out.”

“Oh! And Mr. Armand?... Make haste.”

Then, without waiting for the maid to leave the room:

“The poor girl has just arrived from Strasburg. She has no.... She has to be told everything.... Well! What are you waiting for now?”

The maid-servant turned round like a serpent whose tail has been trodden on:

“The tutor’s downstairs; he wanted to come up. He says he won’t go till he’s been paid.”

Madame Vedel’s features assumed an air of tragic boredom:

“How many times must I repeat that I have nothing to do with settling accounts. Tell him to go to Miss Rachel. Go along.... Not a moment’s peace! What can Rachel be thinking of?”

“Aren’t we going to wait tea for her?”

“She never takes tea.... Oh! the beginning of term is a troublesome time for us. The tutors who apply ask exorbitant fees, or when their fees are possible, they themselves aren’t. Papa was not at all pleased with the last; he was a great deal too weak with him; and now he comes threatening. You heard what the maid said. All these people think of nothing but money.... As if there were nothing more important than that in the world.... In the mean time we don’t know how to replace him. Prosper always thinks one has nothing to do but to pray to God for everything to go right....”

The maid came back with the sugar.

“Have you told Mr. Armand?”

“Yes, Ma’am; he’s coming directly.”

“And Sarah?” I asked.

“She won’t be back for another two days. She’s staying with friends in England; with the parents of the girl you saw here before the holidays. They have been very kind, and I’m glad that Sarah was able to.... And Laura. I thought she was looking much better. The stay in Switzerland coming after the South has done her a great deal of good, and it was very kind of you to persuade her to it. It’s only poor Armand who hasn’t left Paris all the holidays.”

“And Rachel?”

“Yes, of course; Rachel too. She had a great many invitations, but she preferred to stop in Paris. And then Grandfather needed her. Besides one doesn’t always do what one wants in this life--as I am obliged to repeat to the children now and then. One must think of other people. Do you suppose I shouldn’t have enjoyed going away for a change to Switzerland too? And Prosper? When he travels, do you suppose it’s for his pleasure?... Armand, you know I don’t like you to come in here without a collar on,” she added, as she saw her son enter the room.

“My dear mother, you religiously taught me to attach no importance to my personal appearance,” said he, offering me his hand; “and with eminent _à propos_ too, as the wash doesn’t come home till Tuesday and all the rest of my collars are in rags.”

I remembered what Olivier had told me about his schoolfellow, and it seemed to me that he was right and that an expression of profound anxiety lay hidden beneath the spiteful irony he affected. Armand’s face had fined down; his nose was pinched; it curved hawk-like over lips which had grown thin and colourless. He went on:

“Have you informed your noble visitor that we have made several additions to our usual company of performers and engaged a few sensational stars for the opening of the winter season? The son of a distinguished senator and the Vicomte de Passavant, brother to the illustrious writer--without counting two recruits whom you know already, but who are all the more honourable on that account--Prince Boris and the Marquis de Profitendieu--besides some others whose titles and virtues remain to be discovered.”

“You see he hasn’t changed,” said the poor mother, smiling at these witticisms.

I was so terribly afraid that he would begin to talk about Laura that I cut short my visit and went downstairs as fast as I could to find Rachel.

She had turned up her sleeves to help in the arrangement of the class-room; but she hastily pulled them down again as she saw me come up.

“It is extremely painful to me to have recourse to you,” she began, drawing me into a small room adjoining, which is used for private lessons. “I meant to apply to Felix Douviers--he asked me to; but now that I have seen Laura, I understand it’s impossible....”

She was very pale, and as she said these last words, her chin and lips quivered so convulsively that for some moments she was unable to speak. I looked away from her, in the fear of adding to her discomfort. She had shut the door and was leaning against it. I tried to take her hand, but she tore it away from between mine. At last she went on again in a voice that seemed strangled by the immensity of her effort:

“Can you lend me ten thousand francs? The term promises to be fairly good and I hope to be able to pay you back soon.”

“When do you want it?”

She made no answer.

“I happen to have a little over a thousand francs on me,” I went on. “I can complete the sum to-morrow morning--this evening, if necessary.”

“No; to-morrow will do. But if you can let me have a thousand francs at once without inconvenience....”

I took out my pocket-book and handed them to her.

“Would you like fourteen hundred?”

She lowered her head and uttered a “yes” so faint that I could hardly hear it, then she tottered to a school bench, dropped down on it, and with her elbows leaning on the desk in front of her, stayed for a few moments, her face hidden in her hands. I thought she was crying, but when I put my hand on her shoulder, she raised her head and I saw that her eyes were dry.

“Rachel,” I said, “don’t mind having had to ask me this; I am glad to be able to oblige you.”

She looked at me gravely:

“What is painful to me is to have to ask you not to mention it either to Grandfather or to Mamma. Since they gave the accounts of the school over to me, I have let them think that ... well, they don’t know. Don’t say anything, I beg you. Grandfather is old and Mamma takes so much trouble.”

“Rachel, it’s not your mother who takes trouble.... It’s you.”

“She _has_ taken trouble. She’s tired now. It’s my turn. I have nothing else to do.”

It was quite simply that she said these simple words. I felt no bitterness in her resignation--on the contrary, a kind of serenity.

“But don’t imagine that things are worse than they are. It’s just a difficult moment to tide over, because some of the creditors are getting impatient.”

“I heard the maid just now mention a tutor who was asking to be paid.”

“Yes; he came and had a very painful scene with Grandfather, which unfortunately I was unable to prevent. He’s a brutal, vulgar man. I must go and pay him.”

“Would you like me to do it for you?”

She hesitated a moment, trying in vain to force a smile.

“Thank you. No; I had better do it myself.... But come with me, will you? I’m rather frightened of him. If he sees you, he won’t dare say anything.”

The school courtyard is separated from the garden by two or three steps and a balustrade, against which the tutor was leaning with his elbows thrust behind him. He had on an enormous soft felt hat and was smoking a pipe. While Rachel was engaging him, Armand came up to me.

“Rachel has been bleeding you,” he said cynically. “You have come in the nick of time to save her from a horrid anxiety. It’s Alexander--my beast of a brother, who has been getting into debt again in the colonies. She wants to hide it from my parents. She has already given up half her ‘dot’ to make Laura’s a little larger; but this time all the rest of it has gone. She didn’t tell you anything about that, I bet. Her modesty exasperates me. It’s one of the most sinister jokes in this world below that every time anyone sacrifices himself for others, one may be perfectly certain he is worth more than they.... Just look at all she has done for Laura! And how she has rewarded her! The slut!...”

“Armand!” I cried indignantly. “You have no right to judge your sister.”

But he continued in a jerky, hissing voice:

“On the contrary, it’s because I am no better than she that I am able to judge her. I know all about it. Rachel doesn’t judge us. Rachel never judges anyone.... Yes, the slut! the slut!... I didn’t beat about the bush to tell her what I thought of her, I promise you. And you! To have covered it all up, to have protected it! You who knew!... Grandfather is as blind as a bat. Mamma tries all she can to understand nothing. As for Papa, he trusts in the Lord; it’s the most convenient thing to do. Whenever there’s a difficulty, he falls to praying and leaves Rachel to get out of it. All he asks is to remain in the dark. He rushes about like a lunatic; he’s hardly ever at home. I’m not surprised he finds it stifling here. As for me, it’s smothering me to death. He tries to stupefy himself, by Jove. In the mean time Mamma writes verses. Oh! I’m not blaming her; I write them myself. But at any rate, I know I’m nothing but a blackguard; and I’ve never pretended to be anything else. But, I say, isn’t it disgusting--Grandfather setting up to do the charitable by La Pérouse, because he’s in need of a tutor?...” Then, suddenly: “What’s that beast there daring to say to my sister? If he doesn’t take his hat off to her when he goes, I’ll black his bloody eyes for him....”

He darted towards the Bohemian, and I thought for a moment he was going to hit him. But at Armand’s approach, the man made a theatrical and ironical flourish with his hat and disappeared under the archway. At that moment the door into the street opened to let in the pastor. He was dressed in a frock coat, chimney-pot hat and black gloves, like a person on his way back from a christening or a wedding. The ex-tutor and he exchanged a ceremonious bow.

Rachel and Armand came towards me; when Vedel joined them:

“It’s all arranged,” said Rachel to her father.

He kissed her on the forehead.

“Didn’t I tell you so, my child? God never abandons those who put their trust in Him.”

Then, holding out his hand to me:

“Going already?... Well, we shall see you again one of these days, shan’t we?”

III

EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: THIRD VISIT TO LA PÉROUSE

_Sept. 29th._--Visit to La Pérouse. The maid hesitated before letting me in. “Monsieur won’t see anyone.” I insisted so much that at last she showed me into the drawing-room. The shutters were shut; in the semi-obscurity I could hardly make out my old master, as he sat huddled up in a straight-backed arm-chair. He did not rise. He held out a limp hand, without looking at me, and let it fall again as soon as I had pressed it. I sat down beside him, so that I could see him only in profile. His features were hard and unbending. By moments his lips moved, but he said nothing. I actually doubted whether he recognized me. The clock struck four; then, as though he too were moved by clock-work, he slowly turned his head.

“Why,” he asked, and his voice was solemn and loud, but as toneless as though it came from beyond the grave, “why did they let you in? I told the maid to say if anyone came, that Monsieur de La Pérouse was dead.”

I was greatly distressed, not so much by these absurd words, as by their tone--a declamatory tone, unspeakably affected, to which I was unaccustomed in my old master--so natural with me, as a rule--so confiding.

“The girl didn’t want to tell a falsehood,” I said at last. “Don’t scold her for having let me in. I am happy to see you.”

He repeated stolidly: “Monsieur de La Pérouse is dead,” and then plunged back into silence. I had a moment’s ill temper and got up, meaning to leave, and put off till another day the task of finding a clue to this melancholy piece of acting. But at that moment the maid came back; she was carrying a cup of smoking chocolate:

“Make a little effort, sir; you haven’t tasted anything all day.”

La Pérouse made an impatient gesture, like an actor whose effect has been spoilt by a clumsy super.

“Later. When the gentleman has gone.”

But the maid had no sooner shut the door, when:

“Be kind, my dear friend. Get me a glass of water--plain water. I’m dying of thirst.”

I found a water bottle and a glass in the dining-room. He filled the glass, emptied it at a draught and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his old alpaca coat.

“Are you feverish?” I asked.

The words brought him back to the remembrance of the part he was playing.

“Monsieur de La Pérouse is not feverish. He is not anything. On Wednesday evening Monsieur de La Pérouse ceased to live.” I wondered whether it would not be best to humour him.

“Wasn’t Wednesday the very day little Boris came to see you?”

He turned his head towards me; a smile, the ghost of the one he used to have at Boris’s name, lighted up his features, and at last consenting to abandon his rôle:

“My friend,” he said, “I can at any rate talk to you about it. That Wednesday was the last day I had left.” Then he went on in a lower voice: “The very last day, in fact, which I had allowed myself before ... putting an end to everything.”

It was with extreme pain that I heard La Pérouse revert to this sinister topic. I realized that I had never taken seriously what he had said about it before, for I had allowed it to slip from my memory; and now I reproached myself. Now I remembered everything clearly, but I was astonished, for he had at first mentioned a more distant date, and as I reminded him of this, he confessed, in a voice that had become natural again, and even a little ironical, that he had deceived me as to the date, in the fear that I should try and prevent him, or hasten my return from abroad; but that he had gone on his knees several nights running to pray God to allow him to see Boris before dying.

“And I had even agreed with Him,” added he, “that if needs were, I should delay my departure for a few days ... because of the assurance you had given me that you would bring him back with you, do you remember?”

I had taken his hand; it was icy and I chafed it between mine. He continued in a monotonous voice:

“Then when I saw that you weren’t going to wait till the end of the holidays before coming back, and that I should be able to see the boy without putting off my departure, I thought ... it seemed to me that God had heard my prayer. I thought that He approved me. Yes, I thought that. I didn’t understand at first that He was laughing at me, as usual.”

He took his hand from between mine and went on in a more animated voice:

“So it was on Wednesday evening that I had resolved to put an end to myself; and it was on Wednesday afternoon that you brought me Boris. I must admit that I did not feel the joy I had looked forward to on seeing him. I thought it over afterwards. Evidently I had no right to expect that the child would be glad to see me. His mother has never talked to him about me.

He stopped; his lips trembled and I thought he was going to cry.

“Boris asks no better than to love you,” I ventured, “but give him time to know you.”

“After the boy had left me,” went on La Pérouse, without having heard me, “when I found myself alone again in the evening (for you know that Madame de La Pérouse is no longer here), I said to myself: ‘The moment has come! Now for it!’ You must know that my brother--the one I lost--left me a pair of pistols, which I always keep beside me, in a case, by my bedside. I went then to fetch the case. I sat down in an arm-chair; there, just as I am now. I loaded one of the pistols....”

He turned towards me and abruptly, brutally, repeated, as if I had doubted his word:

“Yes, I did load it. You can see for yourself. It still is loaded. What happened? I can’t succeed in understanding. I put the pistol to my forehead. I held it for a long time against my temple. And I didn’t fire. I couldn’t.... At the last moment--it’s shameful ... I hadn’t the courage to fire.”

He had grown animated while speaking. His eye was livelier and his cheeks faintly flushed. He looked at me, nodding his head.

“How do you explain that? A thing I had resolved on; a thing I hadn’t ceased thinking of for months.... Perhaps that’s the very reason. Perhaps I had exhausted all my courage in thought beforehand.”

“As before Boris’s arrival, you had exhausted the joy of seeing him,” said I; but he continued:

“I stayed a long time with the pistol to my temple. My finger was on the trigger. I pressed it a little; but not hard enough. I said to myself: ‘In another moment I shall press harder and it will go off.’ I felt the cold of the metal and I said to myself: ‘In another moment I shall not feel anything. But before that I shall hear a terrible noise.’... Just think! So near to one’s ear!... That’s the chief thing that prevented me--the fear of the noise.... It’s absurd, for as soon as one’s dead.... Yes, but I hope for death as a sleep; and a detonation doesn’t send one to sleep--it wakes one up.... Yes; certainly that was what I was afraid of. I was afraid that instead of going to sleep I should suddenly wake up.”

He seemed to be collecting himself, and for some moments his lips again moved without making a sound.

“I only said all that to myself,” he went on, “afterwards. In reality, the reason I didn’t kill myself is that I wasn’t free. I say now that I was afraid; but no; it wasn’t that. Something completely foreign to my will held me back. As if God didn’t want to let me go. Imagine a marionette who should want to leave the stage before the end of the play.... Halt! You’re wanted for the _finale_. Ah! Ah! you thought you would be able to go off whenever you liked!... I understood that what we call our will is merely the threads which work the marionette, and which God pulls. Don’t you see? Well, I’ll explain. For instance, I say to myself: ‘Now I’m going to raise my right arm’; and I raise it.” (And he did raise it.) “But it’s because the string had already been pulled which made me think and say: ‘I’m going to raise my right arm.’... And the proof that I’m not free is that if it had been my left arm that I had had to raise, I should have said to you: ‘Now I’m going to raise my left arm.’... No; I see you don’t understand.... You are not free to understand.... Oh! I realize now that God is playing with us. It amuses him to let us think that what he makes us do is what we wanted to do. That’s his horrible game.... Do you think I’m going mad? A propos--Madame de La Pérouse ... you know she has gone into a home?... Well, what do you think? She is convinced that it’s a lunatic asylum and that I have had her shut up to get rid of her--that I am passing her off for mad.... You must grant that it’s rather a curious thing that the first passer-by in the street would understand one better than the woman one has given one’s life to.... At first I went to see her every day. But as soon as she caught sight of me, she used to call out: ‘Ah! there you are again! come to spy on me!...’ I had to give up my visits, as they only irritated her. How can you expect one to care about life, when one’s of no good to anyone?”

His voice was stifled by sobs. He dropped his head and I thought he was going to relapse again into his dejection. But with a sudden start:

“Do you know what she did before she left? She broke open my drawer and burnt all my late brother’s letters. She has always been jealous of my brother; especially since he died. She used to make scenes when she found me reading his letters at night. She used to cry out: ‘Ah! you wanted me to go to bed! You do things on the sly!’ Or else: ‘You had far better go to bed and sleep. You’re tiring your eyes.’ One would have said she was full of attentions; but I know her; it was jealousy. She didn’t want to leave me alone with him.”

“Because she loved you. There’s no jealousy without love.”

“Well, you must allow it’s a melancholy business when love, instead of making the happiness of life, becomes its calamity.... That’s no doubt the way God loves us.”

He had become excited while he was speaking and all of a sudden he exclaimed:

“I’m hungry. When I want to eat, that servant always brings me chocolate. I suppose Madame de La Pérouse must have told her that I never took anything else. It would be very kind of you to go to the kitchen ... the second door on the right in the passage ... and see whether there aren’t any eggs. I think she told me there were some....”

“Would you like her to get you a poached egg?”

“I think I could eat two. Will you be so kind? I can’t make myself understood.”

“My dear friend,” said I when I came back, “your eggs will be ready in a moment. If you’ll allow me I’ll stay and see you eat them; yes; it will be a pleasure. I was very much distressed just now to hear you say that you were of no good to anyone. You seem to forget your grandson. Your friend, Monsieur Azaïs, proposes that you should go and live with him, at the school. He commissioned me to tell you so. He thinks that now that Madame de La Pérouse is no longer here, there’s nothing to keep you.”

I expected some resistance, but he hardly enquired the conditions of the new existence which was offered him.

“Though I didn’t kill myself, I am none the less dead. Here or there, it doesn’t matter to me. You can take me away.”

It was settled I should come and fetch him the next day but one; and that before then I should put at his disposal two trunks, for him to pack his clothes in and anything else he might want to take with him.

“And besides,” I added, “as you will keep this apartment on till the expiration of your lease, you will always be able to come and fetch anything you need.”

The maid brought in the eggs, which he devoured hungrily. I ordered dinner for him, greatly relieved to see that nature at last was getting the upper hand.

“I give you a great deal of trouble,” he kept repeating. “You are very kind.”

I should have liked him to hand over his pistols to me, and I told him he had no use for them now; but he would not consent to part with them.

“There’s nothing to fear. What I didn’t do that day, I know I shall never be able to do. But they are the only remembrances I have left of my brother--and I need them too to remind me that I am nothing but a plaything in God’s hands.”

IV

THE FIRST DAY OF THE TERM

THE day was very hot. Through the open windows of the Vedels’ school could be seen the tree-tops of the Gardens, over which there still floated an immense, unexhausted store of summer.

The first day of the term was an opportunity old Azaïs never missed of making a speech. He stood at the foot of the master’s desk, upright and facing the boys, as is proper. At the desk sat old La Pérouse. He had risen as the boys came in; but Azaïs, with a friendly gesture, signed to him to sit down again. His anxious eyes had gone straight to Boris, and this look of his embarrassed Boris all the more because Azaïs, in the speech in which he introduced the new master to his pupils, thought fit to allude to his relationship to one of them. La Pérouse, in the mean time was distressed at receiving no answering look from Boris--indifference, he thought, coldness.

“Oh!” thought Boris, “if only he would leave me alone! If only he wouldn’t make me ‘an object’!” His schoolfellows terrified him. On coming out of the _lycée_, he had had to join them, and as he walked with them from the _lycée_ to the Vedels’, he had listened to their talk. He would have liked to fall in with it, for he had great need of sympathy, but he was of too fastidious and sensitive a nature, and he could not overcome his repugnance; the words froze on his lips; he reproached himself for his foolishness and tried hard not to let it show; tried hard even to laugh, so as not to be scoffed at; but it was no good; he looked like a girl among the others, and realized it sorrowfully.

They had broken up into groups almost immediately. A certain Léon Ghéridanisol was a central figure and was already beginning to take the lead. Rather older than the others, and more advanced in his studies, of a dark complexion, with black hair and black eyes, Ghéridanisol was neither very tall nor particularly strong--but he had what is called “_lip_.” Really infernal lip! Even young George Molinier admitted that Ghéridanisol had “made him sit up”; “and you know, it takes a good deal to make me sit up!” Hadn’t he seen him that very morning, with his own eyes, go up to a young woman who was carrying a child in her arms:

“Is that kid yours, Madam?” (This with a low bow.) “It’s jolly ugly, I must say. But don’t worry. It won’t live.”

George was still rocking.

“No? Honour bright?” said Philippe Adamanti, his friend, when George told him the story.

This piece of insolence filled them with rapture; impossible to imagine anything funnier. A stale enough joke. Léon had learnt it from his cousin Strouvilhou, but that was no business of George’s.

At school, Molinier and Adamanti got leave to sit on the same bench as Ghéridanisol--the fifth, so as not to be too near the usher. Molinier had Adamanti on his left hand and Ghéridanisol (Ghéri for short) on his right; at the end of the bench sat Boris. Behind him was Passavant.

Gontran de Passavant’s life has been a sad one since his father’s death--not that it had been very lively before it. He had long ago understood that he could expect no sympathy from his brother, no support. He had spent his holidays in Brittany, where his old nurse, the faithful Séraphine, had taken him to stay with her people. All his qualities are folded inwards; he devotes himself to his work. A secret desire spurs him on to prove to his brother that he is worth more than he. It is by his own choice that he is at school; out of a wish too not to go on living with his brother in the big house in the Rue de Babylone, which has nothing but melancholy recollections for him. Séraphine has taken a lodging in Paris so as not to leave him alone; she is able to do this with the little pension specially left her by the late Count’s will and served her by his two sons. Gontran has one of her rooms, and it is here that he spends his free time. He has furnished it to his own taste. He takes two meals a week with Séraphine; she looks after him and sees that he wants for nothing. When he is with her, Gontran chatters freely enough, though he can speak to her of hardly any of the things he has most at heart. At school he keeps his independence; he listens absent-mindedly to his schoolfellows’ nonsense, and often refuses to join in their games. He prefers reading to any but out-of-door games. He likes sports--all kinds of sports--but preferably those that are solitary. For he is proud and will not associate with everyone. On Sundays, according to the season, he skates or swims, or boats, or takes immense walks in the country. He has repugnances and does not try to overcome them; nor does he try to widen his mind so much as to strengthen it. He is perhaps not so simple as he thinks--as he tries to make himself become; we have seen him at his father’s death-bed; but he does not like mysteries and whenever he is unlike himself, he is disgusted. If he succeeds in remaining at the top of his class, it is through application, not through facility. Boris would find a protector in him, if he were only to look towards him, but it is his neighbour George who attracts him. As for George, he has eyes for no one but Ghéri, who has eyes for no one.

George had some important news to communicate to Philippe Adamanti, which he had judged it more prudent not to write.

That morning he had arrived at the _lycée_ doors a quarter of an hour before the opening and had waited for him in vain. It was while he was waiting that he had heard Léon Ghéridanisol apostrophize the young woman so brilliantly, after which incident the two urchins had entered into conversation and had discovered to George’s great joy that they were going to be schoolfellows.

On coming out of the _lycée_, George and Phiphi had at last succeeded in meeting. They walked to the Pension Azaïs in company with the other boys, but a little apart, so as to be able to talk freely.

“You had better hide that thing,” George had begun, pointing to the yellow rosette which Phiphi was still sporting in his buttonhole.

“Why?” asked Philippe, noticing that George was no longer wearing his.

“You run the risk of getting collared. I wanted to tell you before school, my boy; why didn’t you turn up earlier? I was waiting outside the doors to warn you.”

“But I didn’t know,” Phiphi had answered.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” George repeated, mimicking him. “You might have guessed that there would be things to tell you when I didn’t see you again at Houlgate.”

The perpetual aim and object of these two boys is to get the better of each other. His father’s situation and fortune give Philippe certain advantages, but George is greatly superior in audacity and cynicism. Phiphi has to make an effort to keep up with him. He isn’t a bad boy; but lacking in back bone.

“Well then, out with your things!” he had said.

Léon Ghéridanisol, who had come up, was listening to them. George was not ill pleased that he should overhear him; if Ghéri had filled him with admiration just now, George had a little surprise in store for Ghéri; he therefore answered Phiphi quite calmly:

“That girl Praline has got run in.”

“Praline!” cried Phiphi, thunderstruck by George’s coolness. And Léon showed signs of being interested. Phiphi said to George:

“Can one tell him?”

“As you please,” said George, shrugging his shoulders. Then Phiphi, pointing to George:

“She’s his tart.” Then to George:

“How do you know?”

“I met Germaine and she told me.”

And he went on to tell Phiphi how, when he had come up to Paris a fortnight before, he had wanted to visit the apartment which the procureur Molinier had once called “the scene of the orgies,” and had found the doors closed; that a little later as he was strolling about the neighbourhood, he had met Germaine (Phiphi’s tart) and she had given him the news: the place had been raided by the police at the beginning of the holidays. What neither the women nor the boys knew, was that Profitendieu had taken good care to wait before taking this action until the younger delinquents should have left Paris, so that their parents might be spared the scandal of their being caught.

“Oh, Lord!...” repeated Phiphi without comments. “Oh Lord!...” It had been a narrow squeak, thought he, for George and him.

“Makes your marrow freeze, eh?” said George, with a grin. He considered it perfectly useless to confess--especially before Ghéridanisol, that he had himself been terrified.

From the dialogue here recorded, these children might be thought more depraved than they actually are. I feel convinced that it is chiefly to show off that they talk in this way. There is a good deal of bravado in their case. No matter: Ghéridanisol is listening to them. He listens and leads them on. His cousin Strouvilhou will be greatly amused when he reports the conversation to him this evening.

That same evening Bernard went to see Edouard.

“Well? Did the first day go off all right?”

“Pretty well.” And then as he said no more:

“Master Bernard, if you are not in the humour to talk of your own accord, don’t expect me to pump you. There’s nothing I dislike so much. But allow me to remind you that you offered me your services and that I have a right to expect a few stories....”

“What do you want to know?” rejoined Bernard, with no very good grace. “That old Azaïs made a solemn speech and exhorted the boys ‘to press forward in a common endeavour and with the impetuous ardour of youth...’? I remember those words because they occurred three times. Armand declares the old boy regularly puts them into all his pi-jaws. He and I were sitting on the last bench at the back of the class-room, watching the boys come into school--like Noah, watching the animals come into the Ark. There were every kind and sort--ruminants, pachiderms, molluscs and other invertebrates. When they began to talk to each other after the speech, Armand and I calculated that four sentences out of ten began with: ‘I bet you won’t....’”

“And the other six?”

“‘As for me, _I_....’”

“Not badly observed, I’m afraid. What else?”

“Some of them seem to me to have a _fabricated_ personality.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Edouard.

“I am thinking particularly of a boy who sat beside young Passavant. (Passavant himself just seems to me a good boy.) His neighbour, whom I watched for a long time, appears to have adopted the ‘_Ne quid nimis_’ of the ancients as his rule of life. Doesn’t that strike you as an absurd device at his age? His clothes are meagre; his neck-tie exiguous; even his bootlaces are only just long enough to tie. In the course of a few moments, energies, and to repeat, like a refrain: ‘Let’s have no useless efforts!’”

“A plague upon the economical!” said Edouard. “In art they turn into the prolix.”

“Why?”

“Because they can’t bear to lose anything. What else? You have said nothing about Armand.”

“He’s an odd chap. To tell you the truth, I don’t much care for him. I don’t like contortionists. He’s by no means stupid; but he uses his intelligence for mere destruction; for that matter, it’s against himself that he’s the most ferocious; everything that’s good in him, that’s generous, or noble, or tender, he’s ashamed of. He ought to go in for sport--take the air. Being shut up indoors all day is turning him sour. He seems to like my company. I don’t avoid him; but I can’t get accustomed to his cast of mind.”

“Don’t you think that his sarcasm and his irony are the veil of excessive sensitiveness--and perhaps of great suffering? Olivier thinks so.”

“It may be. I have sometimes wondered. I don’t know him well enough to say yet. The rest of my reflections are not ripe. I must think them over. I’ll tell you about them--but later. This evening, forgive me if I leave you. I’ve got my examination in two days; and besides, I may as well own up to it ... I’m feeling sad.”

V

OLIVIER MEETS BERNARD

_Il ne faut prendre, si je ne me trompe, que la fleur de chaque
objet_....

FÉNELON.

OLIVIER, who had returned to Paris the day before, arose that morning fresh and rested. The air was warm, the sky pure. When he went out, after his shave and his shower-bath, elegantly dressed, conscious of his strength, his youth, his beauty, Passavant was still sleeping.

Olivier hastened to the Sorbonne. This was the morning that Bernard had to go up for his examination. How did Olivier know that? But perhaps he didn’t know it. He was going to find out.

He quickened his step. He had not seen his friend since the night that Bernard came to take refuge in his room. What changes since then! Who knows whether he was not more anxious to show himself to his friend than to see him. A pity that Bernard cared so little about elegance. But it’s a taste that sometimes comes with affluence. Olivier knew that by experience, thanks to the Comte de Passavant.

Bernard was doing his written examination this morning. He wouldn’t be out before twelve. Olivier waited for him in the quadrangle. He recognized a few of his schoolfellows, shook a few hands. He felt slightly embarrassed by his clothes. He felt still more so when Bernard, free at last, came up to him in the quadrangle and exclaimed, with outstretched hand:

“Oh, dear! how lovely he is!”

Olivier, who _had_ thought he would never blush again, blushed. He could not but feel the irony of these words, notwithstanding the cordiality of their tone. As for Bernard, he was still wearing the same suit he had on the evening of his flight. He had not been expecting to see Olivier. With his arm in his, he drew him along, questioning as they went. He felt a sudden shock of joy at seeing him. If at first he smiled a little at the refinement of his dress, it was with no malice; his heart was good; he was without bitterness.

“You’ll lunch with me, won’t you? Yes; I have got to go back at one thirty for Latin. This morning it was French.”

“Pleased?”

“_I_ am, yes; but I don’t know whether the examiners will be. We had to discuss these lines from La Fontaine:

‘_Papillon du Parnasse, et semblable aux abeilles_
_A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles,_
_Je suis chose légère et vole à tout sujet,_
_Je vais de fleur en fleur et d’objet en objet._’

How would you have done it?”

Olivier could not resist a desire to shine:

“I should have said that La Fontaine, in painting himself, had painted the portrait of the artist--of the man who consents to take merely the outside of things, their surface, their bloom. Then I should have contrasted with that the portrait of the scholar, the seeker, the man who goes deep into things, and I should have shown that while the scholar seeks, the artist finds; that the man who goes deep, gets stuck, the man who gets stuck, gets sunk--up to his eyes and over them; that the truth is the appearance of things, that their secret is their form and that what is deepest in man is his skin.”

This last phrase Olivier had stolen from Passavant, who himself had gathered it from the lips of Paul-Ambroise, as he was discoursing one day in a lady’s drawing-room. Everything that was not printed was fish for Passavant’s net; what he called “ideas in the air”--that is to say--other people’s.

Something or other in Olivier’s tone showed Bernard that this phrase was not his own. Olivier’s voice did not seem at home in it. Bernard was on the point of asking: “Whose?” But besides not wishing to hurt his friend, he was afraid of hearing Passavant’s name, which up till now had not been pronounced. Bernard contented himself with giving his friend a searching look; and Olivier, for the second time, blushed.

Bernard’s surprise at hearing the sentimental Olivier give voice to ideas which were entirely different from those which he had once known him to have, immediately gave place to violent indignation; he was overwhelmed by something as sudden and surprising and irresistible as a cyclone. And it was not precisely against the ideas themselves that he was angry--though they struck him as absurd. And even perhaps, after all, they were not as absurd as all that. In his collection of contradictory opinions, he might have written them down on the page facing his own. Had they been genuinely Olivier’s ideas, he would not have been angry either with him or with them; but he felt there was someone hidden behind them; it was with Passavant that he was angry.

“It’s with ideas like those that France is being poisoned!” he cried in a muffled, vehement voice. He took a high stand. He wished to outsoar Passavant. And he was himself surprised at what he said--as if his words had preceded his thoughts; and yet it was these very thoughts he had developed that morning in his essay; but he felt shamefaced at expressing what he called “fine sentiments,” particularly when he was talking to Olivier. As soon as they were put into words, they seemed to him less sincere. So that Olivier had never heard his friend speak of the interests of “France”; it was his turn to be surprised. He opened his eyes wide, without even thinking of smiling. Was it really Bernard? He repeated stupidly:

“France?...” Then, so as to disengage his responsibility--for Bernard was decidedly not joking:

“But, old boy, it isn’t _I_ who think so, it’s La Fontaine.”

Bernard became almost aggressive: