Chapter I: AM beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying (5)

The sun was shining; a keen air was scouring the trees of their last leaves; everything seemed limpid, bathed in azure. Edouard had not been out for three days. His heart was dilated by an immense joy; and even his whole being, like an opened, empty wrapping, seemed floating on a shoreless sea, a divine ocean of loving-kindness. Love and fine weather have this power of boundlessly enlarging our contours.

Edouard knew that he would want a taxi to bring back Olivier’s things; but he was in no hurry to take one; he enjoyed walking. The state of benevolence in which he felt himself towards the whole world, was no good preparation for facing Passavant. He told himself that he ought to execrate him; he went over in his mind all his grievances--but they had ceased to sting. This rival, whom only yesterday he had so detested, he could detest no longer--he had ousted him too completely. At any rate he could not detest him that morning. And as, on the other hand, he thought it prudent that no trace of this reversal of feeling should appear, for fear of its betraying his happiness, he would have gladly evaded the interview. And indeed, why the dickens was he going to it? He! Edouard! Going to the Rue de Babylone, to ask for Olivier’s things--on what pretext? He had undertaken the commission very thoughtlessly, he told himself, as he walked along; it would imply that Olivier had chosen to take up his abode with him--exactly what he wanted to conceal.... Too late, however, to draw back; Olivier had his promise. At any rate, he must be very cold with Passavant, very firm. A taxi went by and he hailed it.

Edouard knew Passavant ill. He was ignorant of one of the chief traits of his character. No one had ever succeeded in catching Passavant out; it was unbearable to him to be worsted. In order not to acknowledge his defeats to himself, he always affected to have desired his fate, and whatever happened to him, he pretended that that was what he wished. As soon as he understood that Olivier was escaping him, his one care was to dissemble his rage. Far from attempting to run after him, and risk being ridiculous, he forced himself to keep a stiff lip and shrug his shoulders. His emotions were never too violent to keep under control. Some people congratulate themselves on this, and refuse to acknowledge that they owe their mastery over themselves less to their force of character than to a certain poverty of temperament. I don’t allow myself to generalize; let us suppose that what I have said applies only to Passavant. He did not therefore find much difficulty in persuading himself that he had had enough of Olivier; that during these two summer months he had exhausted the charm of an adventure which ran the risk of encumbering his life; that, for the rest, he had exaggerated the boy’s beauty, his grace and his intellectual resources; that, indeed, it was high time he should open his eyes to the inconveniences of confiding the management of a review to anyone so young and inexperienced. Taking everything into consideration, Strouvilhou would serve his purpose far better (as regards the review, that is). He had written to him and appointed him to come and see him that very morning.

Let us add too that Passavant was mistaken as to the cause of Olivier’s desertion. He thought he had made him jealous by his attentions to Sarah; he was pleased with this idea which flattered his self-conceit; his vexation was soothed by it.

He was expecting Strouvilhou; and as he had given orders that he was to be let in at once, Edouard benefited by the instructions and was shown in to Passavant without being announced.

Passavant gave no signs of his surprise. Fortunately for him, the part he had to play was suited to his temperament and he was easily able to switch his mind on to it. As soon as Edouard had explained the motive of his visit:

“I’m delighted to hear what you say. Then really? You’re willing to look after him? It doesn’t put you out too much?... Olivier is a charming boy, but he was beginning to be terribly in my way here. I didn’t like to let him feel it--he’s so nice.... And I knew he didn’t want to go back to his parents.... Once one has left one’s parents, you know--.... Oh! but now I come to think of it, his mother is a half-sister of yours, isn’t she?... Or something of that kind? Olivier must have told me so, I expect. Then, nothing could be more natural than that he should stay with you. No one can possibly smile at it” (though he himself didn’t fail to do so as he said the words). “With me, you understand, it was rather more shady. In fact, that was one of the reasons that made me anxious for him to go.... Though I am by no means in the habit of minding public opinion. No; it was in his own interest rather....”

The conversation had not begun badly; but Passavant could not resist the pleasure of pouring a few drops of his poisonous perfidy on Edouard’s happiness. He always kept a supply on hand; one never knows what may happen.

Edouard felt his patience giving way. But he suddenly thought of Vincent; Passavant would probably have news of him. He had indeed determined not to answer Douviers, should he question him; but he thought it would be a good thing to be himself acquainted with the facts, in order the better to avoid his enquiries. It would strengthen his resistance. He seized this pretext as a diversion.

“Vincent has not written to me,” said Passavant; “but I have had a letter from Lady Griffith--you know--the successor--in which she speaks of him at length. See, here it is.... After all, I don’t know why you shouldn’t read it.”

He handed him the letter, and Edouard read:

25th August

My dear,[7]

The prince’s yacht is leaving Dakar without us. Who knows where we shall be when you get this letter which it is taking with it? Perhaps on the banks of the Casamance, where Vincent wants to botanize, and I to shoot. I don’t exactly know whether it is I who am carrying him off, or he me; or whether it isn’t rather that we have both of us fallen into the clutches of the demon of adventure. He was introduced to us by the demon of boredom, whose acquaintance we made on board ship.... _Ah, cher!_ one must live on a yacht to know what boredom is. In rough weather life is just bearable; one has one’s share of the vessel’s agitation. But after Teneriffe, not a breath; not a wrinkle on the sea.

_“... grand miroir_
_De mon désespoir.”_

And do you know what I have been engaged in doing ever since? In hating Vincent. Yes, my dear, love seemed too tasteless, so we have gone in for hating each other. In reality it began long before; really, as soon as we got on board; at first it was only irritation, a smouldering animosity, which didn’t prevent closer encounters. With the fine weather, it became ferocious. Oh! I know now what it is to feel passion for someone....

The letter went on for some time longer.

“I don’t need to read any further,” said Edouard, giving it back to Passavant. “When is he coming back?”

“Lady Griffith doesn’t speak of returning.”

Passavant was mortified that Edouard showed so little appetite for this letter. Since he had allowed him to read it, such a lack of curiosity must be considered as an affront. He enjoyed rejecting other people’s offers, but could not endure to have his own disdained. Lilian’s letter had filled him with delight. He had a certain affection for her and Vincent; and had even proved to his own satisfaction that he was capable of being kind to them and helpful; but as soon as one got on without it, his affection dwindled. That his two friends should not have set sail for perfect bliss when they left him, tempted him to think: “Serves them right!”

As for Edouard, his early morning felicity was too genuine for him not to be made uncomfortable by the picture of such outrageous feelings. It was quite unaffectedly that he gave the letter back.

Passavant felt it essential to recover the lead at once:

“Oh! I wanted to say too--you know that I had thought of making Olivier editor of a review. Of course there’s no further question of that.”

“Of course not,” rejoined Edouard, whom Passavant had unwittingly relieved of a considerable anxiety. He understood by Edouard’s tone that he had played into his hand, and without even giving himself the time to bite his lips:

“Olivier’s things are in the room he was occupying. You have a taxi, I suppose? I’ll have them brought down to you. By the bye, how is he?”

“Very well.”

Passavant had risen. Edouard did the same. They parted with the coldest of bows.

The Comte de Passavant had been terribly put out by Edouard’s visit. He heaved a sigh of relief when Strouvilhou came into the room.

Although Strouvilhou, on his side, was perfectly able to hold his own, Passavant felt at ease with him--or, to be more accurate, treated him in a free and easy manner. No doubt his opponent was by no means despicable, but he considered himself his match, and piqued himself on proving it.

“My dear Strouvilhou, take a seat,” said he, pushing an arm-chair towards him. “I am really glad to see you again.”

“Monsieur le Comte sent for me. Here I am entirely at his service.”

Strouvilhou liked affecting a kind of flunkey’s insolence with Passavant, but Passavant knew him of old.

“Let’s get to the point; it’s time to come out into the open. You’ve already tried your hand at a good many trades.... I thought to-day of proposing you an actual dictatorship--only in the realms of literature, let us hasten to add.”

“A pity!” Then, as Passavant held out his cigarette case: “If you’ll allow me, I prefer....”

“I’ll allow nothing of the kind. Your horrid contraband cigars make the room stink. I can’t understand how anyone can smoke such stuff.”

“Oh! I don’t pretend that I rave about them. But they’re a nuisance to one’s neighbours.”

“Playful as ever?”

“Not altogether an idiot, you know.”

And without replying directly to Passavant’s proposal, Strouvilhou thought proper to establish his positions; afterwards he would see. He went on:

“Philanthropy was never one of my strong points.”

“I know, I know,” said Passavant.

“Nor egoism either. That’s what you don’t know.... People want to make us believe that man’s single escape from egoism is a still more disgusting altruism! As for me, I maintain that if there’s anything more contemptible and more abject than a man, it’s a lot of men. No reasoning will ever persuade me that the addition of a number of sordid units can result in an enchanting total. I never happen to get into a tram or a train without hoping that a good old accident will reduce the whole pack of living garbage to a pulp; yes, good Lord! and myself into the bargain. I never enter a theatre without praying that the chandelier may come crashing down, or that a bomb may go off; and even if I had to be blown up too, I’d be only too glad to bring it along in my coat pocket--if I weren’t reserving myself for something better. You were saying?...”

“No, nothing; go on, I’m listening. You’re not one of those orators who need the stimulus of contradiction to keep them going.”

“The fact is, I thought I heard you offer me some of your incomparable port.”

Passavant smiled.

“Keep the bottle beside you,” he said, as he passed it to him. “Empty it if you like, but talk.”

Strouvilhou filled his glass, sat comfortably back in his big arm-chair and began:

“I don’t know if I’ve got what people call a hard heart; in my opinion, I’ve got too much indignation, too much disgust in my composition--not that I care. It is true that for a long time past I have repressed in that particular organ of mine everything which ran the risk of softening it. But I am not incapable of admiration, and of a sort of absurd devotion; for, in so far as I am a man, I despise and hate myself as much as I do my neighbours. I hear it repeated everywhere and constantly that literature, art and science work together in the long run for the good of mankind; and that’s enough to make me loathe them. But there’s nothing to prevent me from turning the proposition round, and then I breathe again. Yes, what for my part I like to imagine is, on the contrary, a servile humanity working towards the production of some cruel master-piece; a Bernard Palissy (how they have deaved us with that fellow!) burning his wife and children to get a varnish for a fine plate. I like turning problems round; I can’t help it, my mind is so constructed that they keep steadier when they are standing on their heads. And if I can’t endure the thought of a Christ sacrificing himself for the thankless salvation of all the frightful people I knock up against daily, I imagine with some satisfaction, and indeed a kind of serenity, the rotting of that vile mob in order to produce a Christ ... though, in reality, I should prefer something else; for all His teaching has only served to plunge us deeper into the mire. The trouble comes from the selfishness of the ferocious. Imagine what magnificent things an unselfish ferocity would produce! When we take care of the poor, the feeble, the rickety, the injured, we are making a great mistake; and that is why I hate religion--because it teaches us to. That deep peace, which philanthropists themselves pretend they derive from the contemplation of nature, and its fauna and flora, comes from this--that in the savage state, it is only robust creatures that flourish; all the rest is refuse and serves as manure. But people won’t see it; won’t admit it.”

“Yes, yes; I admit it willingly. Go on.”

“And tell me whether it isn’t shameful, wretched ... that men have done so much to get superb breeds of horses, cattle, poultry, cereals, flowers, and that they themselves are still seeking a relief for their sufferings in medicine, a palliative in charity, a consolation in religion, and oblivion in drink. What we ought to work at is the amelioration of the breed. But all selection implies the suppression of failures, and this is what our fool of a Christianized society cannot consent to. It will not even take upon itself to castrate degenerates--and those are the most prolific. What we want is not hospitals, but stud farms.”

“Upon my soul, Strouvilhou, I like you when you talk so.”

“I am afraid, Monsieur le Comte, that you have misunderstood me. You thought me a sceptic, and in reality I am an idealist, a mystic. Scepticism has never been any good. One knows for that matter where it leads--to tolerance! I consider sceptics people without imagination, without ideals--fools.... And I am not ignorant of all the delicacies, the sentimental subtleties which would be suppressed by the production of this robust humanity; but no one would be there to regret the delicacies, since the people capable of appreciating them would be suppressed too. Don’t make any mistake--I am not without what is called culture, and I know that certain among the Greeks had caught a glimpse of my ideal; at any rate, I like imagining it, and remembering that Coré, daughter of Ceres, went down to Hades full of pity for the shades; but that after she had become queen, and Pluto’s wife, Homer never calls her anything but ‘implacable Proserpine.’ See Odyssey, Bk. VI. ‘_Implacable_’--that’s what every man who pretends to be virtuous owes it to himself to be.”

“Glad to see you come back to literature--that is, if we may be said ever to have left it. Well then, virtuous Strouvilhou, I want to know whether you’ll consent to become the implacable editor of a review?”

“To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most. I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far as to doubt whether it can be anything else--at any rate until it has made a clean sweep of the past. We live upon nothing but feelings which have been taken for granted once for all and which the reader imagines he experiences, because he believes everything he sees in print; the author builds on this as he does on the conventions which he believes to be the foundations of his art. These feelings ring as false as counters, but they pass current. And as everyone knows that ‘bad money drives out good,’ a man who should offer the public real coins would seem to be defrauding us. In a world in which everyone cheats, it’s the honest man who passes for a charlatan. I give you fair warning--if I edit a review, it will be in order to prick bladders--in order to demonetize fine feelings, and those promissory notes which go by the name of _words_.”

“Upon my soul, I should very much like to know how you’ll set about it.”

“Let me alone and you’ll soon see.... I have often thought it over.”

“No one will understand what you’re after; no one will follow you.”

“Oh, come now! The cleverest young men of the present day are already on their guard against poetical inflation. They perfectly recognize a gas bag when they see one--even in the disguise of scientifically elaborate metre, and trimmed up with all the hackneyed effusions of high-sounding lyrical verse. One can always find hands for a work of destruction. Shall we found a school with no other object but to pull things down?... Would you be afraid?”

“No.... So long as my garden isn’t trampled on.”

“There’s enough to be done elsewhere ... _en attendant_. The moment is propitious. I know many a young man who is only waiting for the rallying cry; quite young ones.... Oh, yes, I know! That’s what you like; but I warn you they aren’t taking any.... I have often wondered by what miracle painting has gone so far ahead, and how it happens that literature has let itself be outdistanced. In painting to-day, just see how the ‘_motif_,’ as it used to be called, has fallen into discredit. _A fine subject!_ It makes one laugh. Painters don’t even dare venture on a portrait unless they can be sure of avoiding every trace of resemblance. If we manage our affairs well, and leave me alone for that, I don’t ask for more than two years before a future poet will think himself dishonoured if anyone can understand a word of what he says. Yes, Monsieur le Comte, will you wager? All sense, all meaning will be considered anti-poetical. Illogicality shall be our guiding star. What a fine title for a review--_The Scavengers!_”

Passavant had listened without turning a hair.

“Do you count your young nephew among your acolytes?” he asked after a pause.

“Young Léon is one of the elect; he doesn’t let the flies settle on him, either. Really, it’s a pleasure teaching him. Last term he thought it would be a joke to cut out the swotters in his form and carry off all the prizes. Since he came back from the holidays he has let his work go to the deuce; I haven’t the least idea what he’s hatching; but I have every confidence in him, and I wouldn’t for the world interfere.”

“Will you bring him to see me?”

“Monsieur le Comte is joking, no doubt.... Well, then, this review?”

“We’ll see about it later. I must have time to let your plans mature in my mind. In the mean time, you might really find me a secretary. I’m not satisfied with the one I had.”

“I’ll send you little Cob-Lafleur to-morrow. I shall be seeing him this afternoon, and I make no doubt he’ll suit you.”

“Scavenger style?”

“A little.”

“_Ex uno_...”

“Oh, no; don’t judge them all from him. He is one of the moderate ones. Just right for you.”

Strouvilhou rose.

“A propos,” said Passavant, “I haven’t given you my book, I think. I’m sorry not to have a first edition left....”

“As I don’t mean to sell it, it isn’t of the slightest importance.”

“It’s only because the print’s better.”

“Oh! as I don’t mean to read it either.... _Au revoir._ And if the spirit moves you, I’m at your service. I wish you good morning.”

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: In English in the original.]

XIII

EDOUARD’S JOURNAL: DOUVIERS’ PROFITENDIEU

BROUGHT back Olivier’s things from Passavant’s. As soon as I got home, set to work on _The Counterfeiters_. My exaltation is calm and lucid. My joy is such as I have never known before. Wrote thirty pages without hesitation, without a single erasure. The whole drama, like a nocturnal landscape suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, emerges out of the darkness, very different from what I had been trying to invent. The books which I have hitherto written seem to me like the ornamental pools in public gardens--their contours are defined--perfect perhaps, but the water they contain is captive and lifeless. I wish it now to run freely, according to its bent, sometimes swift, sometimes slow; I choose not to foresee its windings.

X. maintains that a good novelist, before he begins to write his book, ought to know how it is going to finish. As for me, who let mine flow where it will, I consider that life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination. “Might be continued”--these are the words with which I should like to finish my _Counterfeiters_.

Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow.

As I exaggerated my sympathy for him, I was obliged to submit to his effusions, which were rather embarrassing. All the time I was talking to him, I kept repeating to myself La Rochefoucauld’s words: “I am very little susceptible to pity; and should like not to be so at all.... I consider that one ought to content oneself with showing it and carefully refrain from feeling it.” And yet my sympathy was real, undeniable, and I was moved to tears. Truth to tell, my tears seemed to console him better than my words. I almost believe that he gave up being unhappy as soon as he saw me cry.

I was firmly resolved not to tell him the name of the seducer; but to my surprise he did not ask it. I think his jealousy dies down as soon as he no longer feels Laura’s eyes upon him. In any case, its energy had been somewhat diminished by the act of coming to see me.

There is something illogical in his case; he is indignant that the other man should have deserted Laura. I pointed out that if it had not been for his desertion, Laura would not have come back to him. He is resolved to love the child as if it were his own. Who knows whether he would ever have tasted the joys of paternity without the seducer? I took good care not to point this out to him, for at the recollection of his insufficiencies, his jealousy becomes more acute. But then it belongs to the domain of vanity and ceases to interest me.

That an Othello should be jealous is comprehensible; the image of his wife’s pleasure obsesses him. But when a Douviers becomes jealous it can only be because he imagines he ought to be.

And no doubt he nurses this passion from a secret need to give body to his somewhat unsubstantial personage. Happiness would be natural to him; but he has to admire himself and he esteems only what is acquired, not what is natural. I did all I could therefore to persuade him that simple happiness was more meritorious than torments and very difficult to attain. I did not let him go till he was calm again.

Inconsistency. Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to.... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognize that they are artificially composed.

Not that I pretend that inconsistency is a sure indication of naturalness, for one often meets, especially among women, affected inconsistencies; and on the other hand, in some few instances, there is reason to admire what is known as _esprit de suite_; but, as a rule, such consecutiveness is obtained only by vain and obstinate perseverance, and at the expense of all naturalness. The more fundamentally generous an individual is, and the more fertile in possibilities, the more liable he is to change, and the less willing to allow his future to be decided by his past. The “_justum et tenacem propositi virum_,” who is held up to us as a model, more often than not offers a stony soil and is refractory to culture.

I have known some of yet another sort: these assiduously fabricate for themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not a moment’s relaxation. (I remember X., who refused to let me fill his glass with Montrachet 1904, saying: “I don’t like anything but Bordeaux.” As soon as I pretended it was a Bordeaux, he thought the Montrachet delectable.)

When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old.

Olivier has asked me what I am working at. I let myself be carried away into talking of my book, and even--he seemed so much interested--into reading him the pages I had just written. I was afraid of what he would say, knowing how sweeping young people’s judgments are and how difficult they find it to admit another point of view from their own. But the few remarks which he diffidently offered, seemed to me most judicious, and I immediately turned them to account.

My breath, my life comes to me from him--through him.

He is still anxious about the review he was going to edit, and particularly about the story which he wrote at Passavant’s request and which he now repudiates. I told him that Passavant’s new arrangements will necessitate the re-casting of the first number; he will be able to get his MS. back.

Just received a very unexpected visit from _M. le juge d’instruction_ Profitendieu. He was mopping his forehead and breathing heavily, not so much, it seemed to me, from having come up my six flights of stairs, as from embarrassment. He kept his hat in his hand and did not sit down till I pressed him to. He is a handsome man, with a fine figure and considerable presence.

“I think you are President Molinier’s brother-in-law,” he said. “It is about his son George that I have taken the liberty of coming to see you. I feel sure you will excuse a step which at first sight may seem indiscreet, but which the affection and esteem I have for my colleague will, I hope, sufficiently explain.”

He paused. I got up and went to let down a portière, for fear the charwoman, who is very inquisitive, and who was, I knew, in the next room, should overhear. Profitendieu approved me with a smile.

“In my capacity as _juge d’instruction_, I have an affair on my hands which is causing me extreme embarrassment. Your young nephew has already been mixed up in a most compromising manner in a ... this is quite between ourselves, I beg ... in a somewhat scandalous adventure. I am willing to believe, considering his extreme youth, that he was taken by surprise, owing to his simplicity--his innocence; but I may say that it has required some skill on my part to ... ahem ... circumscribe this affair, without injuring the interests of justice. In the face of a second breach--of quite another kind, I hasten to add--I cannot answer for it that young George will get off so easily. I even doubt whether it is in the boy’s own interest to _try_ to get him off, notwithstanding all my desire as a friend to spare your brother-in-law such a scandal. Nevertheless I _will_ try; but I have officers, you understand, who are zealous, and whom I am not always able to restrain. Or, if you prefer it, I am still able to keep them in hand to-day, but to-morrow I shall be unable to. And I thought you might speak to your young nephew and warn him of the risk he is running.”

Profitendieu’s visit (I might as well admit it) had at first alarmed me horribly; but as soon as I understood that he had come neither as an enemy nor as a judge, I began to be amused. I was a great deal more so when he went on:

“For some time past a certain number of counterfeit coins have been put into circulation. So far I am informed. But I have not yet succeeded in discovering their origin. I know, however, that young George--quite innocently, I am willing to believe--is one of those who circulate them. A few young boys of your nephew’s age are lending themselves to this shameful traffic. I don’t doubt that their simplicity is being abused and that these foolish children are tools in the hands of one or two unscrupulous elders. We should have had no difficulty in taking up the younger delinquents and making them confess the origin of the coins; but I am only too well aware that after a certain point a case escapes our control, so to speak; that is to say, we cannot go back on the police court proceedings, and we sometimes find ourselves forced to become acquainted with things we should prefer to ignore. Upon this occasion, I have no doubt I shall discover the real culprits without having recourse to the minors’ evidence. I have given orders therefore not to alarm them. But my orders are only provisional. I don’t want your nephew to force me to countermand them. He had better be told that the authorities’ eyes are open. It wouldn’t be a bad thing indeed to frighten him a little; he is on a downward course....”

I declared I would do my best to warn him, but Profitendieu seemed not to hear me. His eyes became vague. He repeated twice: “on what is called a downward course,” and then was silent.

I do not know how long his silence lasted. Without his having to formulate his thoughts, I seemed to see them forming in his mind, and before he spoke, I already heard his words:

“I am a father myself, sir....”

Everything he had been saying disappeared; there was nothing left between us but Bernard. The rest was only a pretext; it was to talk of him that he had come.

If effusions make me feel uncomfortable, if exaggerated feelings irritate me, nothing, on the contrary, could have been more calculated to touch me than this restrained emotion. He kept it back as best he could, but with so great an effort that his lips and hands trembled. He was unable to continue. He suddenly hid his face in his hands, and the upper part of his body was shaken with sobs:

“You see,” he stammered, “you see how miserable a child can make us.”

What was the good of pretending? Extremely moved myself, “If Bernard were to see you,” I cried, “his heart would melt; I can vouch for it.”

At the same time I felt in rather an awkward situation. Bernard had hardly ever mentioned his father to me. I had morally accepted his having left his family, ready as I am to consider such desertions natural, and disposed to see in them nothing but what will be to the child’s greatest advantage. In Bernard’s case, there was the additional factor of his bastardy.... But here was his false father discovering feelings which were all the stronger, no doubt, that they were beyond control, and all the more sincere that they were in no way obligatory. In the face of this love, this grief, I was forced to ask myself whether Bernard had done right to leave. I had no longer the heart to approve him.

“Make use of me, if you think I can be of any use,” I said, “if you think that I ought to speak to him. He has a good heart.”

“I know. I know.... Yes, you can do a great deal. I know he was with you this summer. My police work is well done.... I know too that he is going up for his _viva voce_ this very day. I chose the moment I knew he would be at the Sorbonne to come and see you. I was afraid of meeting him.”

For some minutes, my emotion had been dwindling, for I had just noticed that the verb “to know” figured in nearly all his sentences. I immediately became less interested in what he was saying than in this trick of speech, which was perhaps professional.

He told me also that he “knew” that Bernard had passed his written examination brilliantly. An obliging examiner, who happened to be a friend of his, had enabled him to see his son’s French essay, which it appears was most remarkable. He spoke of Bernard with a kind of restrained admiration, which made me wonder whether after all he did not believe he was really his father.

“Heavens!” added he, “whatever you do, don’t tell him what I have just been saying. He is so proud by nature, so easily offended!... If he suspected that ever since he left I have never ceased thinking of him, following him.... But all the same, you can tell him that you have seen me.” (He breathed painfully after each sentence.) “You can tell him, what no one else can, that I am not angry with him”; then with a voice that grew fainter: “that I have never ceased to love him ... like a son. Yes, I know that you know.... You can tell him too ...” and without looking at me, with difficulty, in a state of extreme confusion “that his mother left me ... yes, for good, this summer; and that if he ... would come back, I....”

He was unable to finish.

When a big, strong, matter-of-fact man, who has made his way in life and is firmly established in his career, suddenly throws aside all decorum and pours out his heart before a stranger, he affords him (in this case it was I) a most singular spectacle. I was able once more to verify, as I have often done before, that I am more easily moved by the effusions of an outsider than by those of a familiar acquaintance. (Will examine into the reason of this another time.)

Profitendieu did not conceal that he had at first been prejudiced against me, not having understood, and still not understanding, why Bernard had left his home to join me. This was what had prevented him from coming to see me in the first place. I did not dare tell him the story of the suit-case, and merely spoke of his son’s friendship for Olivier, which had quickly led to our becoming intimate in our turn.

“These young men,” went on Profitendieu, “start off in life without knowing to what they are exposed. No doubt their ignorance of danger makes their strength. But we who know, we, their fathers, tremble for them. Our solicitude irritates them, and the best thing is to let them see it as little as possible. I know that it is sometimes very troublesome and clumsy. Rather than incessantly repeat to a child that fire burns, let us consent to his burning his fingers. Experience is a better instructor than advice. I always allowed Bernard the greatest possible liberty--so much so, that he fancied, I grieve to say, that I was indifferent to him. I am afraid that was his mistake and the reason of his running away. Even then, I thought it was better to let him be; though I kept a watch on him all the time without his suspecting it. Thank God, I had the means!” (Evidently the organization of his police was Profitendieu’s special pride--this was the third time he had alluded to it.) “I thought I must take care not to belittle the risks of his initiative in the boy’s eyes. Shall I own to you that his rebellious conduct, notwithstanding the pain it gave me, has only made me fonder of him than ever? It seemed to me a proof of courage, of valour....”

Now that he felt himself on confidential terms, the worthy man would have gone on for ever. I tried to bring the conversation back to what interested me more and, cutting him short, asked him if he had ever seen one of the counterfeit coins of which he had spoken. I was curious to know whether they were like the little glass piece which Bernard had shown us. I had no sooner mentioned this, than Profitendieu’s whole countenance changed; his eyelids half closed and a curious light burned in his eyes; crow’s feet appeared upon his temples, his lips tightened, his features were all drawn upwards in his effort at attention. There was no further question of anything that had passed before. The judge ousted the father and nothing existed for him but his profession. He pressed me with questions, took notes and spoke of sending a police officer to Saas-Fée to take the names of the visitors in the hotel books.

“Though in all likelihood,” he added, “the coin you saw was given to the grocer by an adventurer who was merely passing through the place.”

To which I replied that Saas-Fée was at the further end of an _impasse_ and that it was not easy to go there and back from it in the same day. He appeared particularly pleased with this piece of information, and after having thanked me warmly, left me, with an absorbed, delighted look on his face, and without having once recurred either to George or to Bernard.

XIV

BERNARD AND THE ANGEL

BERNARD was to experience that morning that for a nature as generous as his, there is no greater joy than to rejoice another being. This joy was denied him. He had just heard that he had passed his examination with honours, but finding no one near to whom he could communicate it, the news lost all its savour. Bernard knew well enough that the person who would have been most pleased to hear it, was his father. He even hesitated a moment whether he would not go there and then and tell him; but pride held him back. Edouard? Olivier? It was really giving too much importance to a certificate. He had passed his _baccalauréat_. Nothing to make a fuss about! It was now that the difficulties would begin.

In the Sorbonne quadrangle, he saw one of his schoolfellows, who had also been successful; but he had drawn apart from the others and was crying. The poor boy was in mourning. Bernard knew that he had just lost his mother. A great wave of sympathy drove him towards the orphan; then a feeling of absurd shyness made him pass on. The other boy, who had seen him come up and then go by, was ashamed of his tears; he esteemed Bernard and was hurt by what he took for contempt.

Bernard went into the Luxembourg gardens. He sat down on a bench in the same part of the gardens where he had gone to meet Olivier the evening he had sought shelter with him. The air was almost warm and the blue sky laughed down at him through the branches of the great trees, already stripped of their leaves. One could not believe that winter was really on the way; the cooing birds themselves were deceived. But Bernard did not look at the gardens; he saw the ocean of life spread out before him. People say there are paths on the sea, but they are not traced and Bernard did not know which one was his.

He had been meditating for some moments, when he saw coming towards him--gliding on so light a foot that one felt it might have rested on the waves--an angel. Bernard had never seen any angels, but he had not a moment’s doubt, and when the angel said: “Come!” he rose obediently and followed him. He was not more astonished than he would have been in a dream. He tried to remember afterwards if the angel had taken him by the hand; but in reality they did not touch each other and even kept a little apart. They returned together to the quadrangle where Bernard had left the orphan, firmly resolved to speak to him; but the quadrangle was empty.

Bernard walked, with the angel by his side, towards the church of the Sorbonne, into which the angel passed first--into which Bernard had never been before. Other angels were going to and fro in this place; but Bernard had not the eyes that were needed to see them. An unfamiliar peace enfolded him. The angel went up to the high altar, and Bernard, when he saw him kneel down, knelt down beside him. He did not believe in any god, so that he could not pray, but his heart was filled with a lover’s longing for dedication, for sacrifice; he offered himself. His emotion was so confused that no word could have expressed it; but suddenly the organ’s song arose.

“You offered yourself in the same way to Laura,” said the angel; and Bernard felt the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Come, follow me.”

As the angel drew him along, Bernard almost knocked up against one of his old schoolfellows, who had also just passed his _viva voce_. Bernard considered him a dunce and was astonished that he had got through. The dunce did not notice Bernard, who saw him slip some money for a candle into the beadle’s hand. Bernard shrugged his shoulders and went out.

When he found himself in the street again, he saw that the angel had left him. He went into a tobacco shop--the very same in which George, a week before, had risked his first false coin. He had passed a great many more since then. Bernard bought a packet of cigarettes and smoked. Why had the angel gone? Had Bernard and he then nothing to say to each other?... Noon struck. Bernard was hungry. Should he go back to the pension? Should he join Olivier and share with him Edouard’s lunch?... He made sure that he had enough money in his pocket and went into a restaurant. As he was finishing his lunch, a soft voice murmured in his ear:

“The time has come to do your accounts.”

Bernard turned his head. The angel was again beside him.

“You will have to make up your mind,” he said. “You have been living at haphazard. Do you mean to let chance dispose of your life? You want to be of service--but what do you wish to serve? That is the question.”

“Teach me; guide me,” said Bernard.

The angel led Bernard into a hall full of people. At the bottom of the hall was a platform and on the platform a table covered with a dark red cloth. A man, who was still young, was seated behind the table and was speaking.

“It is a very great folly,” he was saying, “to imagine that there is anything we can discover. What have we that we have not received? It is the duty of each one of us to understand while we are still young, that we derive from the past, that we are bound to this past by every kind of obligation, and that the whole of our future is marked out by it.”

When he had finished developing this theme, another orator took his place; he began by approving the former and then raised his voice against the presumption of the man who thinks he can live without a doctrine, or guide himself by his own lights.

“A doctrine has been bequeathed us,” he said. “It has already traversed many centuries. It is assuredly the best--the only one. The duty of each one of us is to prove this truth. It has been handed down to us by our masters. It is our country’s and every time she repudiates it, she has to pay for her error dearly. No one can be a good Frenchman without holding it, nor succeed in anything good without conforming to it.”

To this second orator succeeded a third, who thanked the other two for having so ably traced what he called the theory of their programme; then he set forth that this programme consisted in nothing less than the regeneration of France, which was to be brought about by the united efforts of each single member of their party. He himself, he declared, was a man of action; he affirmed that the end and proof of every theory is in its practice, and that the duty of every good Frenchman is to be a combatant.

“But, alas!” he added, “how many isolated efforts are wasted! Our country would be far greater, our activity would be far more wide-spread, all that is best in us would be brought forward, if every effort were co-ordinated, if every act contributed to the glory of law and order, if everyone were willing to serve in the ranks.”

And while he was speaking, a number of young men went round the audience, distributing printed forms of membership, which had only to be signed.

“You wanted to offer yourself,” said the angel then. “What are you waiting for?”

Bernard took one of the papers which were handed him; it began with these words: “I solemnly pledge myself to....” He read it, then looked at the angel and saw that he was smiling; then he looked at the meeting and recognized among the young men present, the schoolfellow whom he had seen just before in the church, burning a candle in gratitude for having passed his examination; and suddenly, further on, he caught sight of his eldest brother, whom he had not seen since he had left home. Bernard did not like him and was a little jealous of the consideration with which their father seemed to treat him. He crumpled the paper nervously in his hand.

“Do you think I ought to sign?”

“Yes,” said the angel, “certainly--if you have doubts of yourself.”

“I doubt no longer,” said Bernard, flinging the paper from him.

In the mean time the orator was still speaking. When Bernard began to listen to him again, he was teaching an infallible method for never making a mistake, which was to give up ever forming a judgment for oneself and always to defer to the judgments of one’s superiors.

“And who are these superiors?” asked Bernard; and suddenly a great indignation seized him.

“If you went on to the platform,” he said to the angel, “and grappled with him, you would be sure to throw him....”

“It is with _you_ I will wrestle. This evening. Do you agree...?”

“Yes,” said Bernard.

They went out. They reached the boulevards. The crowds that were thronging them seemed entirely composed of rich people; each of them seemed sure of himself, indifferent to the others, but anxious.

“Is that the image of happiness?” asked Bernard, who felt the tears rising in his heart.

Then the angel took Bernard into the poor quarters of the town, whose wretchedness Bernard had never suspected. Evening was falling. They wandered for a long time among tall, sordid houses, inhabited by disease, prostitution, shame, crime and hunger. It was only then that Bernard took the angel’s hand, and the angel turned aside to weep.

Bernard did not dine that evening; and when he went back to the pension he did not attempt to join Sarah, as he had done the other evenings, but went straight upstairs to the room he shared with Boris.

Boris was already in bed but not asleep. He was re-reading, by the light of his candle, the letter he had received that very morning from Bronja.

“I am afraid,” wrote his friend, “that I shall never see you again. I caught cold when we got back to Poland. I have a cough; and though the doctor hides it from me, I feel I cannot live much longer.”

When he heard Bernard coming up, Boris hid the letter under his pillow, and blew the candle out hurriedly.

Bernard came in in the dark. The angel was with him, but, although the night was not very dark, Boris saw only Bernard.

“Are you asleep?” asked Bernard in a whisper. And as Boris did not answer, he concluded he was sleeping.

“Then, now,” said Bernard to the angel, “we’ll have it out.”

And all that night, until the breaking of the day, they wrestled.

Boris dimly perceived that Bernard was struggling. He thought it was his way of praying and took care not to disturb him. And yet he would have liked to speak to him, for his unhappiness was very great. He got up and knelt down at the foot of his bed. He would have liked to pray, but he could only sob:

“Oh, Bronja! You who can see angels, you who were to have opened my eyes, you are leaving me! Without you, Bronja, what will become of me? What will become of me?”

Bernard and the angel were too busy to hear him. They wrestled together till daybreak. The angel departed without either of them having vanquished the other.

When, a little later, Bernard himself left the room, he met Rachel in the passage.

“I want to speak to you,” she said. Her voice was so sad that Bernard understood at once what it was she had to say to him. He answered nothing, bowed his head, and in his great pity for Rachel suddenly began to hate Sarah and to loathe the pleasure he took with her.

XV

BERNARD VISITS EDOUARD

ABOUT ten o’clock, Bernard turned up at Edouard’s with a hand bag which was sufficient to contain the few clothes and books that he possessed. He had taken leave of Azaïs and of Madame Vedel, but had not attempted to see Sarah.

Bernard was grave. His struggle with the angel had matured him. He no longer resembled the careless youth who had stolen the suit-case and who thought that all that is needed in this world is to be daring. He was beginning to understand that boldness is often achieved at the expense of other people’s happiness.

“I have come to ask for shelter,” said he to Edouard. “Here I am again without a roof.”

“Why are you leaving the Vedels’?”

“For private reasons ... forgive me for not telling you.”

Edouard had observed Bernard and Sarah on the evening of the dinner enough to guess at the meaning of this silence.

“All right,” he said smiling. “The couch in my studio is at your service. But I must first tell you that your father came to see me yesterday.” And he repeated the part of their conversation which he thought likely to touch him. “It is not in my house that you ought to spend the night, but in his. He is expecting you.”

Bernard, however, kept silent.

“I will think about it,” he said at last. “Allow me in the mean time to leave my things here. May I see Olivier?”

“The weather is so fine, that I advised him to go out. I wanted to go with him, for he is still very weak, but he wouldn’t let me. But it’s more than an hour since he left and he will be back soon. You had better wait for him.... But I’ve just thought.... Your examination?”

“I’ve passed; but it’s of no importance; the important thing is to know what I’m to do now. Do you know the chief reason that prevents me from going back to my father’s? It’s because I don’t want to take his money. You’ll think me absurd to fling away such an opportunity; but I made a vow that I would make my way without it. I feel I must prove to myself that I am a man of my word--someone I can count on.”

“It strikes me as pride more than anything else.”