Chapter I: AM beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying (4)

The three new arrivals had dined too soberly to feel in tune with the rest of the assembly. In this sort of gathering, late comers understand ill--or only too well--the others’ excitement. They judge, when they have no business to judge, and exercise, even though involuntarily, a criticism which is without indulgence; this was the case at any rate with Edouard and Bernard. As for Sarah, in this milieu, everything was new to her; her one idea was to learn what she could, her one anxiety to be up to the mark.

Bernard knew no one. Olivier, who had taken him by the arm, wanted to introduce him to Passavant and des Brousses. He refused. Passavant, however, forced the situation by coming up to him and holding out a hand, which he could not in decency refuse:

“I have heard you spoken of so often that I feel as if I knew you already.”

“The same with me,” said Bernard in such a tone that Passavant’s amenity froze. He at once turned to Edouard.

Though often abroad travelling, and keeping, even when he was in Paris, a great deal to himself, Edouard was nevertheless acquainted with several of the guests and feeling perfectly at his ease. Little liked, but at the same time esteemed, by his _confrères_, he did not object to being thought proud, when, in reality, he was only distant. He was more willing to listen than to speak.

“From what your nephew said, I was hoping you would come to-night,” began Passavant in a gentle voice that was almost a whisper. “I was delighted because....”

Edouard’s ironical look cut short the rest of his sentence. Skilful in the arts of pleasing and accustomed to please, Passavant, in order to shine, had need to feel himself confronted by a flattering mirror. He collected himself, however, for he was not the man to lose his self-possession for long or to let himself be easily snubbed. He raised his head, and his eyes were charged with insolence. If Edouard would not follow his lead with a good grace, he would find means to worst him.

“I was wanting to ask you ...” he went on, as if he were continuing his first remark, “whether you had any news of your other nephew, Vincent? It was he who was my special friend.”

“No,” said Edouard dryly.

This “no” upset Passavant once more; he did not know whether to take it as a provocative contradiction, or as a simple answer to his question. His disturbance lasted only a second; it was Edouard who unintentionally restored him to his balance by adding almost at once:

“I have merely heard from his father that he was travelling with the Prince of Monaco.”

“Yes, I asked a lady, who is a friend of mine, to introduce him to the Prince. I was glad to hit upon this diversion to distract him a little from his unlucky affair with that Madame Douviers.... You know her, so Olivier told me. He was in danger of wrecking his whole life over it.”

Passavant handled disdain, contempt, condescension with marvellous skill; but he was satisfied with having won this bout and with keeping Edouard at sword’s length. Edouard indeed was racking his brains for some cutting answer. He was singularly lacking in presence of mind. That was no doubt the reason he cared so little for society--he had none of the qualities which are necessary to shine in it. His eyebrows however began to look frowningly. Passavant was quick to notice; when anything disagreeable was coming to him, he sniffed it in the air, and veered about. Without even stopping to take breath, and with a sudden change of tone:

“But who is that delightful girl who is with you?” he asked smiling.

“It is Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel, the sister of the very lady you were mentioning--my friend Madame Douviers.”

In default of any better repartee, he sharpened the words “my friend” like an arrow--but an arrow which fell short, and Passavant, letting it lie, went on:

“It would be very kind of you to introduce me.”

He had said these last words and the sentence which preceded them loud enough for Sarah to hear, and as she turned towards them, Edouard was unable to escape:

“Sarah, the Comte de Passavant desires the honour of your acquaintance,” said he with a forced smile.

Passavant had sent for three fresh glasses, which he filled with kummel. They all four drank Olivier’s health. The bottle was almost empty, and as Sarah was astonished to see the crystals remaining at the bottom, Passavant tried to dislodge them with a straw. A strange kind of clown, with a befloured face, a black beady eye, and hair plastered down on his head like a skull-cap, came up.

“You won’t do it,” he said, munching out each one of his syllables with an effort which was obviously assumed. “Pass me the bottle. I’ll smash it.”

He seized it, broke it with a blow against the window ledge, and presenting the bottom of the bottle to Sarah:

“With a few of these little sharp-edged polyhedra, the charming young lady will easily induce a perforation of her gizzard.”

“Who is that pierrot?” she asked Passavant, who had made her sit down and was sitting beside her.

“It’s Alfred Jarry, the author of _Ubu Roi_. The _Argonauts_ have dubbed him a genius because the public have just damned his play. All the same, it’s the most interesting thing that’s been put on the stage for a long time.”

“I like _Ubu Roi_ very much,” said Sarah, “and I’m delighted to see Jarry. I had heard he was always drunk.”

“I should think he must be to-night. I saw him drink two glasses of neat absinthe at dinner. He doesn’t seem any the worse for it. Won’t you have a cigarette? One has to smoke oneself so as not to be smothered by the other people’s smoke.”

He bent towards her to give her a light. She crunched a few of the crystals.

“Why! it’s nothing but sugar candy,” said she, a little disappointed. “I hoped it was going to be something strong.”

All the time she was talking to Passavant, she kept smiling at Bernard, who had stayed beside her. Her dancing eyes shone with an extraordinary brightness. Bernard, who had not been able to see her before because of the dark, was struck by her likeness to Laura. The same forehead, the same lips.... In her features, it is true, there breathed a less angelic grace, and her looks stirred he knew not what troubled depths in his heart. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he turned to Olivier:

“Introduce me to your friend Bercail.”

He had already met Bercail in the Luxembourg, but he had never spoken to him. Bercail was feeling rather out of it in this milieu into which Olivier had introduced him, and which he was too timid not to find distasteful, and every time Olivier presented him as one of the chief contributors to the _Vanguard_, he blushed. The fact is, that the allegorical poem of which he had spoken to Olivier at the beginning of our story, was to appear on the first page of the new review, immediately after the manifesto.

“In the place I had kept for you,” said Olivier to Bernard. “I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s by far the best thing in the number. And so original!”

Olivier took more pleasure in praising his friends than in hearing himself praised. At Bernard’s approach, Bercail rose; he was holding his cup of coffee in his hand so awkwardly, that in his agitation he spilled half of it down his waistcoat. At that moment, Jarry’s mechanical voice was heard close at hand:

“Little Bercail will be poisoned. I’ve put poison in his cup.”

Bercail’s timidity amused Jarry, and he liked putting him out of countenance. But Bercail was not afraid of Jarry. He shrugged his shoulders and finished his coffee calmly.

“Who is that?” asked Bernard.

“What! Don’t you know the author of _Ubu Roi_?”

“Not possible! _That_ Jarry? I took him for a servant.”

“Oh, all the same,” said Olivier, a little vexed, for he took a pride in his great men. “Look at him more carefully. Don’t you think he’s extraordinary?”

“He does all he can to appear so,” said Bernard, who only esteemed what was natural, and who nevertheless was full of consideration for _Ubu_.

Everything about Jarry, who was got up to look like the traditional circus clown, smacked of affectation--his way of talking in particular; several of the _Argonauts_ did their utmost to imitate it, snapping out their syllables, inventing odd words, and oddly mangling others; but it was only Jarry who could succeed in producing that toneless voice of his--a voice without warmth or intonation, or accent or emphasis.

“When one knows him, he is charming, really,” went on Olivier.

“I prefer not to know him. He looks ferocious.”

“Oh, that’s just the way he has. Passavant thinks that in reality he is the kindest of creatures. But he has drunk a terrible lot to-night; and not a drop of water, you may be sure--nor even of wine; nothing but absinthe and spirits. Passavant’s afraid he may do something eccentric.”

In spite of himself, Passavant’s name kept recurring to his lips, and all the more obstinately that he wanted to avoid it.

Exasperated at feeling so little able to control himself, and as if he were trying to escape from his own pursuit, he changed his ground:

“You should talk to Dhurmer a little. I’m afraid he bears me a deadly grudge for having stepped into his shoes at the _Vanguard_; but it really wasn’t my fault; I simply had to accept. You might try and make him see it and calm him down a bit. Pass.... I’m told he’s fearfully worked up against me.”

He had tripped, but this time he had not fallen.

“I hope he has taken his copy with him. I don’t like what he writes,” said Bercail; then turning to Bernard: “But, you, Monsieur Profitendieu, I thought that you....”

“Oh, please don’t call me Monsieur.... I know I’ve got a ridiculous mouthful of a name.... I mean to take a pseudonym, if I write.”

“Why haven’t you contributed anything?”

“Because I hadn’t anything ready.”

Olivier, leaving his two friends to talk together, went up to Edouard.

“How nice of you to come! I was longing to see you again. But I would rather have met you anywhere but here.... This afternoon, I went and rang at your door. Did they tell you? I was so sorry not to find you; if I had known where you were....”

He was quite pleased to be able to express himself so easily, remembering a time when his emotion in Edouard’s presence kept him dumb. This ease of his was due, alas! to his potations and to the banality of his words.

Edouard realized it sadly.

“I was at your mother’s.” (And for the first time he said “you” to Olivier instead of “thou.”)

“Were you?” said Olivier, who was in a state of consternation at Edouard’s style of address. He hesitated whether he should not tell him so.

“Is it in this milieu that you mean to live for the future?” asked Edouard, looking at him fixedly.

“Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

These words were said in so grave, so tender, so fraternal a tone.... Olivier felt his self-assurance tottering within him.

“You think I am wrong to frequent these people?”

“Not all of them, perhaps; but certainly some.”

Olivier took this as a direct allusion to Passavant, and in his inward sky a flash of blinding, painful light shot through the bank of clouds which ever since the morning had been thickening and darkening in his heart. He loved Bernard, he loved Edouard far too well to bear the loss of their esteem. Edouard’s presence exalted all that was best in him; Passavant’s all that was worst; he acknowledged it now; and indeed, had he not always known it? Had not his blindness as regards Passavant been deliberate? His gratitude for all that the count had done for him turned to loathing. With his whole soul, he cast him off. What he now saw put the finishing touch to his hatred.

Passavant, leaning towards Sarah, had passed his arm round her waist and was becoming more and more pressing. Aware of the unpleasant rumours which were rife concerning his relations with Olivier, he thought he would give them the lie. And to make his behaviour more public, he had determined to get Sarah to sit on his knees. Sarah had so far put up very little defence, but her eyes sought Bernard’s, and when they met them, her smile seemed to say:

“See how far a person may go with me!”

But Passavant was afraid of overdoing it; he was lacking in experience.

“If I can only get her to drink a little more, I’ll risk it,” he said to himself, putting out his free hand towards a bottle of curaçao.

Olivier, who was watching him, was beforehand with him; he snatched up the bottle, simply to prevent Passavant from getting it; but as soon as he took hold of it, it seemed to him that the liqueur would restore him a little of his courage--the courage he felt failing within him--the courage he needed to utter, loud enough for Edouard to hear, the complaint that was trembling on his lips:

“If only you had chosen....”

Olivier filled his glass and emptied it at a draught. Just at that moment, he heard Jarry, who was moving about from group to group, say in a half-whisper, as he passed behind Bercail:

“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail.”

Bercail turned round sharply:

“Just say that again out loud.”

Jarry had already moved away. He waited until he had got round the table and then repeated in a falsetto voice:

“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail”; then, taking out of his pocket a large pistol, with which the _Argonauts_ had often seen him playing about, he raised it to his shoulder.

Jarry had acquired the reputation of being a good shot. Protests were heard. In the drunken state in which he now was, people were not very sure that he would confine himself to play-acting. But little Bercail was determined to show he was not afraid; he got on to a chair, and with his arms folded behind his back, took up a Napoleonic attitude. He was just a little ridiculous and some tittering was heard, but it was at once drowned by applause.

Passavant said to Sarah very quickly:

“It may end unpleasantly. He’s completely drunk. Get under the table.”

Des Brousses tried to catch hold of Jarry, but he shook him off and got on to a chair in his turn (Bernard noticed he was wearing patent leather pumps). Standing there straight opposite Bercail, he stretched out his arm and took aim.

“Put the light out! Put the light out!” cried des Brousses.

Edouard, who was still standing by the door, turned the switch.

Sarah had risen in obedience to Passavant’s injunction; and as soon as it was dark, she pressed up against Bernard, to pull him under the table with her.

The shot went off. The pistol was only loaded with a blank cartridge. But a cry of pain was heard. It came from Justinien, who had been hit in the eye by the wad.

And, when the light was turned on again, there, to everyone’s admiration, stood Bercail, still on his chair in the same attitude, motionless and barely a shade paler.

In the mean time the President’s lady was indulging in a fit of hysterics. Her friends crowded round her.

“Idiotic to give people such a turn.”

As there was no water on the table, Jarry, who had climbed down from his pedestal, dipped a handkerchief in brandy to rub her temples with, by way of apology.

Bernard had stayed only a second under the table, just long enough to feel Sarah’s two burning lips crushed voluptuously against his. Olivier had followed them; out of friendship, out of jealousy.... That horrible feeling which he knew so well, of being out of it, was exacerbated by his being drunk. When, in his turn, he came out from underneath the table, his head was swimming. He heard Dhurmer exclaim:

“Look at Molinier! He’s as funky as a girl!”

It was too much. Olivier, hardly knowing what he was doing, darted towards Dhurmer with his hand raised. He seemed to be moving in a dream. Dhurmer dodged the blow. As in a dream, Olivier’s hand met nothing but empty air.

The confusion became general, and while some of the guests were fussing over the President’s lady, who was still gesticulating wildly and uttering shrill little yelps as she did so, others crowded round Dhurmer, who called out: “He didn’t touch me! He didn’t touch me!” ... and others round Olivier, who, with a scarlet face, wanted to rush at him again, and was with great difficulty restrained.

Touched or not, Dhurmer must consider that he had had his ears boxed; so Justinien, as he dabbed his eye, endeavoured to make him understand. It was a question of dignity. But Dhurmer was not in the least inclined to receive lessons in dignity from Justinien. He kept on repeating obstinately:

“Didn’t touch me!... Didn’t touch me!”

“Can’t you leave him alone?” said des Brousses. “One can’t force a fellow to fight if he doesn’t want to.”

Olivier, however, declared in a loud voice, that if Dhurmer wasn’t satisfied, he was ready to box his ears again; and, determined to force a duel, asked Bernard and Bercail to be his seconds. Neither of them knew anything about so-called “affairs of honour”; but Olivier didn’t dare apply to Edouard. His neck-tie had come undone; his hair had fallen over his forehead, which was dank with sweat; his hands trembled convulsively.

Edouard took him by the arm:

“Come and bathe your face a little. You look like a lunatic.”

He led him away to a lavatory.

As soon as he was out of the room, Olivier understood how drunk he was. When he had felt Edouard’s hand laid upon his arm, he thought he was going to faint, and let himself be led away unresisting. Of all that Edouard had said to him, he only understood that he had called him “thou.” As a storm-cloud bursts into rain, he felt his heart suddenly dissolve in tears. A damp towel which Edouard put to his forehead brought him finally to his sober senses again. What had happened? He was vaguely conscious of having behaved like a child, like a brute. He felt himself ridiculous, abject.... Then, quivering with distress and tenderness, he flung himself towards Edouard, pressed up against him and sobbed out:

“Take me away!”

Edouard was extremely moved himself:

“Your parents?” he asked.

“They don’t know I’m back.”

As they were going through the café downstairs on the way out, Olivier said to his companion that he had a line to write.

“If I post it to-night it’ll get there to-morrow morning.”

Seated at a table in the café he wrote as follows:

My dear George,

Yes, this letter is from me, and it’s to ask you to do something for me. I don’t suppose it’s news to you to hear I am back in Paris, for I think you saw me this morning near the Sorbonne. I was staying with the Comte de Passavant (Rue de Babylone); my things are still there. For reasons it would be too long to explain and which wouldn’t interest you, I prefer not to go back to him. You are the only person I can ask to go and fetch them away--my things, I mean. You’ll do this for me, won’t you? I’ll remember it when it’s your turn. There’s a locked trunk. As for the things in the room, put them yourself into my suit-case, and bring the lot to Uncle Edouard’s. I’ll pay for the taxi. To-morrow’s Sunday fortunately; you’ll be able to do it as soon as you get this line. I can count upon you, can’t I?

Your affectionate brother
OLIVIER

P.S.--I know you’re sharp enough and you’ll be able to manage all right. But mind, that if you have any direct dealings with Passavant, you are to be very distant with him.

Those who had not heard Dhurmer’s insulting words could not understand the reason of Olivier’s sudden assault. He seemed to have lost his head. If he had kept cool, Bernard would have approved him; he didn’t like Dhurmer; but he had to admit that Olivier had behaved like a madman and put himself entirely in the wrong. It pained Bernard to hear him judged severely. He went up to Bercail and made an appointment with him. However absurd the affair was, they were both anxious to conduct it correctly. They agreed to go and call on their client at nine o’clock the next morning.

When his two friends had gone, Bernard had neither reason nor inclination to stay. He looked round the room in search of Sarah and his heart swelled with a kind of rage to see her sitting on Passavant’s knee. They both seemed drunk; Sarah, however, rose when she saw Bernard coming up.

“Let’s go,” she said, taking his arm.

She wanted to walk home. It was not far. They spoke not a word on the way. At the pension all the lights were out. Fearful of attracting attention, they groped their way to the backstairs, and there struck matches. Armand was waiting for them. When he heard them coming upstairs, he went out on to the landing with a lamp in his hand.

“Take the lamp,” said he to Bernard. “Light Sarah; there’s no candle in her room ... and give me your matches so that I can light mine.” Bernard accompanied Sarah into the inner room. They were no sooner inside than Armand, leaning over from behind them, blew the lamp out at a single breath, then, with a chuckle:

“Good-night!” said he. “But don’t make a row. The parents are sleeping next door.”

Then, suddenly stepping back, he shut the door on them; and bolted it.

IX

OLIVIER AND EDOUARD

ARMAND has lain down in his clothes. He knows he will not be able to sleep. He waits for the night to come to an end. He meditates. He listens. The house is resting, the town, the whole of nature; not a sound.

As soon as a faint light, cast down by the reflector from the narrow strip of sky above, enables him to distinguish once more the hideous squalor of his room, he rises. He goes towards the door which he bolted the night before; opens it gently....

The curtains of Sarah’s room are not drawn. The rising dawn whitens the window pane. Armand goes up to the bed where his sister and Bernard are resting. A sheet half hides them as they lie with limbs entwined. How beautiful they are! Armand gazes at them and gazes. He would like to be their sleep, their kisses. At first he smiles, then, at the foot of the bed, among the coverings they have flung aside, he suddenly kneels down. To what god can he be praying thus with folded hands? An unspeakable emotion shakes him. His lips are trembling ... he rises....

But on the threshold of the door, he turns. He wants to wake Bernard so that he may gain his own room before anyone in the house is awake. At the slight noise Armand makes, Bernard opens his eyes. Armand hurries away, leaving the door open. He leaves his room, goes downstairs; he will hide no matter where; his presence would embarrass Bernard; he does not want to meet him.

From a window in the class-room a few minutes later, he sees him go by, skirting the walls like a thief....

Bernard has not slept much. But that night he has tasted a forgetfulness more restful than sleep--the exaltation at once and the annihilation of self. Strange to himself, ethereal, buoyant, calm and tense as a god, he glides into another day. He has left Sarah still asleep--disengaged himself furtively from her arms. What! without one more kiss? without a last lover’s look? without a supreme embrace? Is it through insensibility that he leaves her in this way? I cannot tell. He cannot tell himself. He tries not to think; it is a difficult task to incorporate this unprecedented night with all the preceding nights of his history. No; it is an appendix, an annex, which can find no place in the body of the book--a book where the story of his life will continue, surely, will take up the thread again, as if nothing had happened.

He goes upstairs to the room he shares with little Boris. What a child! He is fast asleep. Bernard undoes his bed, rumples the bed-clothes, so as to give it the look of having been slept in. He sluices himself with water. But the sight of Boris takes him back to Saas-Fée. He recalls what Laura once said to him there: “I can only accept from you the devotion which you offer me. The rest will have its exigences and will have to be satisfied elsewhere.” This sentence had revolted him. He seems to hear it again. He had ceased to think of it, but this morning his memory is extraordinarily active. His mind works in spite of himself with marvellous alacrity. Bernard thrusts aside Laura’s image, tries to smother these recollections; and, to prevent himself from thinking, he seizes a lesson book and forces himself to read for his examination. But the room is stifling. He goes down to work in the garden. He would like to go out into the street, walk, run, get into the open, breathe the fresh air. He watches the street door; as soon as the porter opens it, he makes off.

He reaches the Luxembourg with his book, and sits down on a bench. He spins his thoughts like silk; but how fragile! If he pulls it, the thread breaks. As soon as he tries to work, indiscreet memories wander obtrusively between his book and him; and not the memories of the keenest moments of his joy, but ridiculous, trifling little details--so many thorns, which catch and scratch and mortify his vanity. Another time he will show himself less of a novice.

About nine o’clock, he gets up to go and fetch Lucien Bercail. Together they make their way to Edouard’s.

Edouard lived at Passy on the top floor of an apartment house. His room opened on to a vast studio. When, in the early dawn, Olivier had risen, Edouard at first had felt no anxiety.

“I’m going to lie down a little on the sofa,” Olivier had said. And as Edouard was afraid he might catch cold, he had told Olivier to take some blankets with him. A little later, Edouard in his turn had risen. He had certainly been asleep without being aware of it, for he was astonished to find that it was now broad daylight. He wanted to see whether Olivier was comfortable; he wanted to see him again; and perhaps an obscure presentiment guided him....

The studio was empty. The blankets were lying at the foot of the couch unfolded. A horrible smell of gas gave him the alarm. Opening out of the studio, there was a little room which served as a bath-room. The smell no doubt came from there. He ran to the door; but at first was unable to push it open; there was some obstacle--it was Olivier’s body, sunk in a heap beside the bath, undressed, icy, livid and horribly soiled with vomiting.

Edouard turned off the gas which was coming from the jet. What had happened? An accident? A stroke?... He could not believe it. The bath was empty. He took the dying boy in his arms, carried him into the studio, laid him on the carpet, in front of the wide open window. On his knees, stooping tenderly, he put his ear to his chest. Olivier was still breathing, but faintly. Then Edouard, desperately, set all his ingenuity to work to rekindle the little spark of life so near extinction; he moved the limp arms rhythmically up and down, pressed the flanks, rubbed the thorax, tried everything he had heard should be done in a case of suffocation, in despair that he could not do everything at once. Olivier’s eyes remained shut. Edouard raised his eyelids with his fingers, but they dropped at once over lifeless eyes. But yet his heart was beating. He searched in vain for brandy, for smelling salts. He heated some water, washed the upper part of the body and the face. Then he laid this inanimate body on the couch and covered it with blankets. He wanted to send for a doctor, but was afraid to absent himself. A charwoman was in the habit of coming every morning to do the house-work; but not before nine o’clock. As soon as he heard her, he sent her off at once to fetch the nearest doctor; then he called her back, fearing he might be exposed to an enquiry.

Olivier, in the mean time, was slowly coming back to life. Edouard sat beside his couch. He gazed at the shut book of his face, baffled by its riddle. Why? Why? One may act thoughtlessly at night in the heat of intoxication, but the resolutions of early morning carry with them their full weight of virtue. He gave up trying to understand, until at last the moment should come when Olivier would be able to speak. Until that moment came he would not leave him. He had taken one of his hands in his and concentrated his interrogation, his thoughts, his whole life into that contact. At last it seemed to him that he felt Olivier’s hand responding feebly to his clasp.... Then he bent down, and set his lips on the forehead, where an immense and mysterious suffering had drawn its lines.

A ring was heard at the door. Edouard rose to open it. It was Bernard and Lucien Bercail. Edouard kept them in the hall and told them what had happened; then, taking Bernard aside, he asked if he knew whether Olivier was subject to attacks of giddiness, to fits of any kind?... Bernard suddenly remembered their conversation of the day before, and, in particular, some words of Olivier’s which he had hardly listened to at the time, but which came back to him now, as distinctly as if he heard them over again.

“It was I who began to speak of suicide,” said he to Edouard. “I asked him if he understood a person’s killing himself out of mere excess of life, ‘out of enthusiasm,’ as Dmitri Karamazof says. I was absorbed in my thought and at the time I paid no attention to anything but my own words; but I remember now what he answered.”

“What did he answer?” insisted Edouard, for Bernard stopped as though he were reluctant to say anything more.

“That he understood killing oneself, but only after having reached such heights of joy, that anything afterwards must be a descent.”

They both looked at each other and added nothing further. Light was beginning to dawn on them. Edouard at last turned away his eyes; and Bernard was angry with himself for having spoken. They went up to Bercail.

“The tiresome thing is,” said he, “that people may think he has tried to kill himself in order to avoid fighting.”

Edouard had forgotten all about the duel.

“Behave as if nothing had happened,” said he. “Go and find Dhurmer, and ask him to tell you who his seconds are. It is to them that you must explain matters, if the idiotic business doesn’t settle itself. Dhurmer didn’t seem particularly keen.”

“We will tell him nothing,” said Lucien, “and leave him all the shame of retreating. For he will shuffle out of it, I’m certain.”

Bernard asked if he might see Olivier. But Edouard thought he had better be kept quiet.

Bernard and Lucien were just leaving, when young George arrived. He came from Passavant’s, but had not been able to get hold of his brother’s things.

“Monsieur le Comte is not at home,” he had been told. “He has left no orders.”

And the servant had shut the door in his face.

A certain gravity in Edouard’s tone, in the bearing of the two others, alarmed George. He scented something out of the way--made enquiries. Edouard was obliged to tell him.

“But say nothing about it to your parents.”

George was delighted to be let into a secret.

“A fellow can hold his tongue,” said he. And as he had nothing to do that morning, he proposed to accompany Bernard and Lucien on their way to Dhurmer’s.

After his three visitors had left him, Edouard called the charwoman. Next to his own room was a spare room, which he told her to get ready, so that Olivier might be put into it. Then he went noiselessly back to the studio. Olivier was resting. Edouard sat down again beside him. He had taken a book, but he soon threw it aside without having opened it, and watched his friend sleeping.

X

OLIVIER’S CONVALESCENCE

_Rien n’est simple de ce qui s’offre à l’âme; et l’âme ne s’offre
jamais simple à aucun sujet_.

PASCAL

“I THINK he will be glad to see you,” said Edouard to Bernard next morning. “He asked me this morning if you hadn’t come yesterday. He must have heard your voice, at the time when I thought he was unconscious.... He keeps his eyes shut, but he doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t speak. He often puts his hand to his forehead, as if it were aching. Whenever I speak to him he frowns; but if I go away, he calls me back and makes me sit beside him.... No, he isn’t in the studio. I have put him in the spare room next to mine, so that I can receive visitors without disturbing him.”

They went into it.

“I’ve come to enquire after you,” said Bernard very softly.

Olivier’s features brightened at the sound of his friend’s voice. It was almost a smile already.

“I was expecting you.”

“I’ll go away if I tire you.”

“Stay.”

But as he said the word, Olivier put his finger on his lips. He didn’t want to be spoken to. Bernard, who was going up for his _viva voce_ in three days’ time, never moved without carrying in his pocket one of those manuals which contain a concentrated elixir of the bitter stuff which is the subject matter of examinations. He sat down beside his bed and plunged into his reading. Olivier, his face turned to the wall, seemed to be asleep. Edouard had gone to his own room, which communicated with Olivier’s; the door between them had been left open, and from time to time he appeared at it. Every two hours he made Olivier drink a glass of milk, but only since that morning. During the whole of the preceding day, the patient had been unable to take any food.

A long time went by. Bernard rose to go. Olivier turned round, held out his hand, and with an attempt at a smile:

“You’ll come back to-morrow?”

At the last moment he called him back, signed to him to stoop down, as if he were afraid of not making himself heard, and whispered:

“Did you ever know such an idiot?”

Then, as though to forestall Bernard’s protest, put his finger again to his lips.

“No, no; I’ll explain later.”

The next morning Edouard received a letter from Laura, when Bernard came, he gave it to him to read:

My dear friend,

I am writing to you in a great hurry to try and prevent an absurd disaster. You will help me, I am sure, if only this letter reaches you in time.

Felix has just left for Paris, with the intention of going to see you. His idea is to get from you the explanation which I refuse to give him; he wants you to tell him the name of the person, whom he wishes to challenge. I have done all I can to stop him, but nothing has any effect and all I say merely serves to make him more determined. You are the only person who will perhaps be able to dissuade him. He has confidence in you and will, I hope, listen to you. Remember that he has never in his life held a pistol or a foil in his hands. The idea that he may risk his life for my sake is intolerable to me; but--I hardly dare own it--I am really more afraid of his covering himself with ridicule.

Since I got back, Felix has been all that is attentive and tender and kind; but I cannot bring myself to show more love for him than I feel. He suffers from this; and I believe it is his desire to force my esteem, my admiration, that is making him take this step, which will no doubt appear to you unconsidered, but of which he thinks day and night, and which, since my return, has become an _idée fixe_ with him. He has certainly forgiven me; but he bears ... a mortal grudge.

Please, I beg of you, welcome him as affectionately as you would welcome myself; no proof of your friendship could touch me more. Forgive me for not having written to you sooner to tell you once more how grateful I am for all the care and kindness you lavished on me during our stay in Switzerland. The recollection of that time keeps me warm and helps me to bear my life.

Your ever anxious and ever confident friend

LAURA

“What do you mean to do?” asked Bernard, as he gave the letter back.

“What _can_ I do?” replied Edouard, slightly irritated, not so much by Bernard’s question, as by the fact that he had already put it to himself. “If he comes, I will receive him to the best of my abilities. If he asks my advice, I will give him the best I can; and try to persuade him that the most sensible thing he can do is to keep quiet. People like poor Douviers are always wrong to put themselves forward. You’d think the same if you knew him, believe me. Laura, on the other hand, was cut out for a leading rôle. Each of us assumes the drama that suits his measure, and is allotted his share of tragedy. What can we do about it? Laura’s drama is to have married a super. There’s no help for that.”

“And Douviers’ drama is to have married someone who will always be his superior, do what he may,” rejoined Bernard.

“Do what he may ...” echoed Edouard, “--and do what Laura may. The admirable thing is that Laura, out of regret for her fault, out of repentance, wanted to humble herself before him; but he immediately prostrated himself lower still; so that all that each of them did merely served to make _him_ smaller and _her_ greater.”

“I pity him very much,” said Bernard. “But why won’t you allow that he too may become greater by prostrating himself?”

“Because he lacks the lyrical spirit,” said Edouard irrefutably.

“What _do_ you mean?”

“He never forgets himself in what he feels, so that he never feels anything great. Don’t push me too hard. I have my own ideas; but they don’t lend themselves to the yard measure, and I don’t care to measure them. Paul-Ambroise is in the habit of saying that he refuses to take count of anything that can’t be put down in figures; I think he is playing on the words ‘take count’; for if that were the case, we should be obliged to leave God out of ‘the account.’ That of course is where he is tending and what he desires.... Well, for instance, I think I call _lyrical_ the state of the man who consents to be vanquished by God.”

“Isn’t that exactly what the word _enthusiasm_ means?”

“And perhaps the word _inspiration_. Yes, that is just what I mean: Douviers is a being who is incapable of inspiration. I admit that Paul-Ambroise is right when he considers inspiration as one of the most harmful things in art; and I am willing to believe that one can only be an artist on condition of mastering the lyrical state; but in order to master it, one must first of all experience it.”

“Don’t you think that this state of divine visitation can be physiologically explained by....”

“Much good that will do!” interrupted Edouard. “Such considerations as that, even if they are true, only embarrass fools. No doubt there is no mystical movement that has not its corresponding material manifestation. What then? Mind, in order to bear its witness, cannot do without matter. Hence the mystery of the incarnation.”

“On the other hand, matter does admirably without mind.”

“Oh, ho! we don’t know about that!” said Edouard, laughing.

Bernard was very much amused to hear him talk in this way. As a rule Edouard was more reserved. The mood he was in to-day came from Olivier’s presence. Bernard understood it.

“He is talking to me as he would like already to be talking to him,” thought he. “It is Olivier who ought to be his secretary. As soon as Olivier is well again, I shall retire. My place is not here.”

He thought this without bitterness, entirely taken up as he now was by Sarah, with whom he had spent the preceding night and whom he was to see that night too.

“We’ve left Douviers a long way behind,” he said, laughing in his turn. “Will you tell him about Vincent?”

“Goodness no! What for?”

“Don’t you think it’s poisoning Douviers’ life not to know whom to suspect?”

“Perhaps you are right. But you must say that to Laura. I couldn’t tell him without betraying her.... Besides I don’t even know where he is.”

“Vincent?... Passavant must know.”

A ring at the door interrupted them. Madame Molinier had come to enquire for her son. Edouard joined her in the studio.

XI

EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: PAULINE

VISIT from Pauline. I was a little puzzled how to let her know, and yet I could not keep her in ignorance of her son’s illness. I thought it useless to say anything about the incomprehensible attempt at suicide and spoke simply of a violent liver attack, which, as a matter of fact, remains the clearest result of the proceedings.

“I am reassured already by knowing Olivier is with you,” said Pauline. “I shouldn’t nurse him better myself, for I feel that you love him as much as I do.”

As she said these last words, she looked at me with an odd insistence. Did I imagine the meaning she seemed to put in her look? I was feeling what one is accustomed to call “a bad conscience” as regards Pauline, and was only able to stammer out something incoherent. I must also say that, sur-saturated as I have been with emotion for the last two days, I had entirely lost command of myself; my confusion must have been very apparent, for she added:

“Your blush is eloquent!... My poor dear friend, don’t expect reproaches from me. I should reproach you if you didn’t love him.... Can I see him?”

I took her in to Olivier. Bernard had left the room as he heard us coming.

“How beautiful he is!” she murmured, bending over the bed. Then, turning towards me: “You will kiss him from me. I am afraid of waking him.”

Pauline is decidedly an extraordinary woman. And to-day is not the first time that I have begun to think so. But I could not have hoped that she would push comprehension so far. And yet it seemed to me that behind the cordiality of her words and the pleasantness she put into her voice, I could distinguish a touch of constraint (perhaps because of the effort I myself made to hide my embarrassment); and I remembered a sentence of our last conversation--a sentence which seemed to me full of wisdom even then, when I was not interested in finding it so: “I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan’t be able to prevent.” Evidently Pauline was striving after good grace; and, as if in response to my secret thoughts, she went on again, as soon as we were back in the studio:

“By not being shocked just now, I am afraid it is I who have shocked you. There are certain liberties of thought of which men would like to keep the monopoly. And yet I can’t pretend to have more reprobation for you than I feel. Life has not left me ignorant. I know what a precarious thing boys’ purity is, even when it has the appearance of being most intact. And besides, I don’t think that the youths who are chastest turn into the best husbands--nor even, unfortunately, the most faithful!” she added, smiling sadly. “And then their father’s example made me wish other virtues for my sons. But I am afraid of their taking to debauchery or to degrading liaisons. Olivier is easily led astray. You will have it at heart to keep him straight. I think you will be able to do him good. It only rests with you....”

These words filled me with confusion.

“You make me out better than I am.”

That is all I could find to say, in the stupidest, stiffest way. She went on with exquisite delicacy:

“It is Olivier who will make you better. With love’s help what can one not obtain from oneself?”

“Does Oscar know he is with me?” I asked, to put a little air between us.

“He does not even know he is in Paris. I told you that he pays very little attention to his sons. That is why I counted on you to speak to George. Have you done so?”

“No--not yet.”

Pauline’s brow grew suddenly sombre.

“I am becoming more and more anxious. He has an air of assurance, which seems to me a combination of recklessness, cynicism, presumption. He works well. His masters are pleased with him; my anxiety has nothing to lay hold of....”

Then all of a sudden, throwing aside her calm and speaking with an excitement such that I barely recognized her:

“Do you realize what my life is?” she exclaimed. “I have restricted my happiness; year by year, I have been obliged to narrow it down; one by one, I have curtailed my hopes. I have given in; I have tolerated; I have pretended not to understand, not to see.... But all the same, one clings to something, however small; and when even that fails one!... In the evening he comes and works beside me under the lamp; when sometimes he raises his head from his book, it isn’t affection that I see in his look--it’s defiance. I haven’t deserved it.... Sometimes it seems to me suddenly that all my love for him is turned to hatred; and I wish that I had never had any children.”

Her voice trembled. I took her hand.

“Olivier will repay you, I vouch for it.”

She made an effort to recover herself.

“Yes, I am mad to speak so; as if I hadn’t three sons. When I think of one, I forget the others.... You’ll think me very unreasonable, but there are really moments when reason isn’t enough.”

“And yet what I admire most about you is your reasonableness,” said I baldly, in the hopes of calming her. “The other day, you talked about Oscar so wisely....”

Pauline drew herself up abruptly. She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s always when a woman appears most resigned that she seems the most reasonable,” she cried, almost vindictively.

This reflection irritated me, by reason of its very justice. In order not to show it, I asked:

“Anything new about the letters?”

“New? New?... What on earth that’s new can happen between Oscar and me?”

“He was expecting an explanation.”

“So was I. I was expecting an explanation. All one’s life long one expects explanations.”

“Well, but,” I continued, rather annoyed, “Oscar felt that he was in a false situation.”

“But, my dear friend, you know well enough that nothing lasts more eternally than a false situation. It’s the business of you novelists to try to solve them. In real life nothing is solved; everything continues. We remain in our uncertainty; and we _shall_ remain to the very end without knowing what to make of things. In the mean time life goes on and on, the same as ever. And one gets resigned to that too; as one does to everything else ... as one does to everything. Well, well, good-bye.”

I was painfully affected by a new note in the sound of her voice, which I had never heard before; a kind of aggressiveness, which forced me to think (not at the actual moment, perhaps, but when I recalled our conversation) that Pauline accepted my relations with Olivier much less easily than she said; less easily than all the rest. I am willing to believe that she does not exactly reprobate them, that from some points of view she is glad of them, as she lets me understand; but, perhaps without owning it to herself, she is none the less jealous of them.

This is the only explanation I can discover for her sudden outburst of revolt, so soon after, and on a subject which, on the whole, she had much less at heart. It was as though by granting me at first what cost her more, she had exhausted her whole stock of benignity and suddenly found herself with none left. Hence her intemperate, her almost extravagant language, which must have astonished her herself, when she came to recall it, and in which her jealousy unconsciously betrayed itself.

In reality, I ask myself, what can be the state of mind of a woman who is not resigned? An “honest woman,” I mean.... As if what is called “honesty” in woman did not always imply resignation!

This evening Olivier is perceptibly better. But returning life brings anxiety along with it. I reassure him by every device in my power.

“His duel?”--Dhurmer has run away into the country. One really can’t run after him.

“The review?”--Bercail is in charge of it.

“The things he had left at Passavant’s?”--This is the thorniest point. I had to admit that George had been unable to get possession of them; but I have promised to go and fetch them myself to-morrow. He is afraid, from what I can gather, that Passavant may keep them as a hostage; inadmissable for a single moment!

Yesterday, I was sitting up late in the studio, after having written this, when I heard Olivier call me. In a moment I was by his side.

“I should have come myself, only I was too weak,” he said. “I tried to get up, but when I stand, my head turns round and I was afraid of falling. No, no, I’m not feeling worse; on the contrary. But I had to speak to you.

“You must promise me something.... Never to try and find out why I wanted to kill myself the other night. I don’t think I know myself. I can’t remember. Even if I tried to tell you, upon my honour, I shouldn’t be able to.... But you mustn’t think that it’s because of anything mysterious in my life, anything you don’t know about.” Then, in a whisper: “And don’t imagine either that it was because I was ashamed....”

Although we were in the dark, he hid his face in my shoulder.

“Or if I am ashamed, it is of the dinner the other evening; of being drunk, of losing my temper, of crying; and of this summer ... and of having waited for you so badly.”

Then he protested that none of all that was part of him any more; that it was all that that he had wanted to kill--that he had killed--that he had wiped out of his life.

I felt, in his very agitation, how weak he still was, and rocked him in my arms, like a child, without saying anything. He was in need of rest; his silence made me hope he was asleep; but at last I heard him murmur:

“When I am with you, I am too happy to sleep.”

He did not let me leave him till morning.

XII

EDOUARD AND THEN STROUVILHOU VISIT PASSAVANT

BERNARD arrived early that morning. Olivier was still asleep. As on the preceding days, Bernard settled himself down at his friend’s bedside with a book, which allowed Edouard to go off guard, in order to call on the Comte de Passavant, as he had promised. At such an early hour he was sure to be in.