Chapter XX: Edouard’s Journal 363 (2)

“To-morrow,” says Olivier, “I’m going to St. Lazare railway station at 11.30 to meet my Uncle Edouard, who is arriving from Le Havre, on his way from England. In the afternoon, I’m engaged to go to the Louvre with Dhurmer. The rest of the time I’ve got to work.”

“Your Uncle Edouard?”

“Yes. He’s a half brother of Mamma’s. He’s been away for six months and I hardly know him; but I like him very much. He doesn’t know I’m going to meet him and I’m rather afraid I mayn’t recognize him. He’s not in the least like the rest of the family; he’s somebody quite out of the common.”

“What does he do?”

“He writes. I’ve read nearly all his books; but he hasn’t published anything for a long time.”

“Novels?”

“Yes; kind of novels.”

“Why have you never told me about them?”

“Because you’d have wanted to read them; and if you hadn’t liked them....”

“Well, finish your sentence.”

“Well, I should have hated it. There!”

“What makes you say that he’s out of the common?”

“I don’t exactly know. I told you I hardly know him. It’s more of a presentiment. I feel that he’s interested in all sorts of things that don’t interest my parents and that there’s nothing that one couldn’t talk to him about. One day--it was just before he went away--he had been to lunch with us; all the time he was talking to Papa I felt he kept looking at me and it began to make me uncomfortable; I was going to leave the room--it was the dining-room--where we had stayed on after coffee, but then he began to question Papa about me, which made me more uncomfortable than ever; and suddenly Papa got up and went to fetch some verses I had written and which I had been idiotic enough to show him.”

“Verses of yours?”

“Yes; you know--that poem you said you thought was like _Le Balcon_. I knew it wasn’t any good--or hardly any--and I was furious with Papa for bringing it out. For a minute or two, while Papa was fetching the poem, we were alone together, Uncle Edouard and I, and I felt myself blushing horribly. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. I looked away--so did he, for that matter; he began by rolling a cigarette and lighting it and then to put me at my ease, no doubt, for he certainly saw I was blushing, he got up and went and looked out of the window. He was whistling. Then he suddenly said, ‘I feel far more embarrassed than you do, you know.’ But I think it was just kindness. At last Papa came back again; he handed my verses to Uncle Edouard, and he began to read them. I was in such a state that I think if he had paid me compliments, I should have insulted him. Evidently Papa expected him to--pay me compliments--and as my uncle said nothing, he asked him what he thought of them. But Uncle Edouard answered him, laughing, ‘I can’t speak to him comfortably about them before you.’ Then Papa laughed too and went out. And when we were alone again, he said he thought my verses were very bad, but I liked hearing him say so; and what I liked still more was that suddenly he put his finger down on two lines--the only two I cared for in the whole thing; he looked at me and said, ‘That’s good!’ Wasn’t it nice? And if you only knew the tone in which he said it! I could have hugged him. Then he said my mistake was to start from an idea, and that I didn’t allow myself to be guided sufficiently by the words. I didn’t understand very well at first; but I think I see now what he meant--and that he was right. I’ll explain it to you another time.”

“I understand now why you want to go and meet him.”

“Oh, all that’s nothing and I don’t know why I’ve told you about it. We said a great deal more to one another.”

“At 11.30 did you say? How do you know he’s coming by that train?”

“Because he wrote and told Mamma on a post-card; and then I looked it up in the time-table.”

“Will you have lunch with him?”

“Oh, no. I must be back here by twelve. I shall just have time to shake hands with him. But that’s enough for me.... Oh, one thing more before I go to sleep. When shall I see you again?”

“Not for some days. Not before I’ve got something fixed up.”

“All the same.... Couldn’t I help you somehow...?”

“You? Help me? No. It wouldn’t be fair play. I should feel as if I were cheating. Good-night.”

IV

VINCENT AND THE COMTE DE PASSAVANT

_Mon père était une bête, mais ma mère avait de l’esprit; elle était
quiétiste; c’était une petite femme douce qui me disait souvent: Mon
fils, vous serez damné. Mais cela ne lui faisait pas de peine._

FONTENELLE.

No, it was not to see his mistress that Vincent Molinier went out every evening. Quickly as he walks, let us follow him. He goes along the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, at the further end of which he lives, until he reaches the Rue Placide, which is its prolongation; then he turns down the Rue du Bac, where there are still a few belated passers-by. In the Rue de Babylone, he stops in front of a _porte-cochère_ which swings open to let him in. The Comte de Passavant lives here. If Vincent were not in the habit of coming often, he would enter this sumptuous mansion with a less confident air. The footman who comes to the door knows well enough how much timidity this feigned assurance hides. Vincent, with a touch of affectation, instead of handing him his hat, tosses it on to an arm-chair.

It is only recently that Vincent has taken to coming here. Robert de Passavant, who now calls himself his friend, is the friend of a great many people. I am not very sure how he and Vincent became acquainted. At the _lycée_, I expect--though Robert de Passavant is perceptibly older than Vincent; they had lost sight of each other for several years and then, quite lately, had met again one evening when, by some unusual chance, Olivier had gone with his brother to the theatre; during the _entr’acte_ Passavant had invited them both to take an ice with him; he had learnt that Vincent had just finished his last medical examinations and was undecided as to whether he should take a place as house physician in a hospital; science attracted him more than medicine, but the necessity of earning his living ... in short, Vincent accepted with pleasure the very remunerative offer Robert de Passavant had made him a little later of coming every evening, to attend his old father, who had lately undergone a very serious operation; it was a matter of bandages, of injections, of soundings--in fact, of whatever delicate services you please, which necessitate the ministrations of an expert hand.

But, added to this, the Vicomte had secret reasons for wishing a nearer acquaintance with Vincent; and Vincent had still others for consenting. Robert’s secret reason we shall try to discover later on. As for Vincent’s--it was this: he was urgently in need of money. When your heart is in the right place and a wholesome education has early instilled into you a sense of your responsibilities, you don’t get a woman with child, without feeling yourself more or less bound to her--especially when the woman has left her husband to follow you.

Up till then, Vincent had lived on the whole virtuously. His adventure with Laura appeared to him alternately, according to the moment of the day in which he thought of it, as either monstrous or perfectly natural. It very often suffices to add together a quantity of little facts which, taken separately, are very simple and very natural, to arrive at a sum which is monstrous. He said all this to himself over and over again as he walked along, but it didn’t get him out of his difficulties. No doubt, he had never thought of taking this woman permanently under his protection--of marrying her after a divorce, or of living with her without marrying; he was obliged to confess to himself that he had no very violent passion for her; but he knew she was in Paris without means of subsistence; he was the cause of her distress; at the very least he owed her that first precarious aid which he felt himself less and less able to give her--less to-day than yesterday. For last week he still possessed the five thousand francs which his mother had patiently and laboriously saved to give him a start in his profession; those five thousand francs would have sufficed, no doubt, to pay for his mistress’s confinement, for her stay in a nursing home, for the child’s first necessaries. To what demon’s advice then had he listened? What demon had hinted to him one evening that this sum which he had as good as given to Laura, which he had laid by for her, pledged to her--that this sum would be insufficient? No, it was not Robert de Passavant; Robert had never said anything of the kind; but his proposal to take Vincent with him to a gambling club fell out precisely the same evening. And Vincent had accepted.

The hell in question was a particularly treacherous one, inasmuch as the habitués were all people in society and the whole thing took place on a friendly footing. Robert introduced his friend Vincent to one and another. Vincent, who was taken unawares, was not able to play high that first evening. He had hardly anything on him and refused the notes which the Vicomte offered to advance him. But as he began by winning, he regretted not being able to stake more and promised to go back the next night.

“Everybody knows you now; there’s no need for me to come with you again,” said Robert.

These meetings took place at Pierre de Brouville’s, commonly known as Pedro. After this first evening Robert de Passavant had put his car at his friend’s disposal. Vincent used to look in about eleven o’clock, smoke a cigarette with Robert, and after chatting for ten minutes or so, go upstairs. His stay there was more or less lengthy according to the Count’s patience, temper or requirements; after this he drove in the car to Pedro’s in the Rue St. Florentin, whence about an hour later the car took him back--not actually to his own door, for he was afraid of attracting attention, but to the nearest corner.

The night before last, Laura Douviers, seated on the steps which led to the Moliniers’ flat, had waited for Vincent till three o’clock in the morning; it was not till then that he had come in. As a matter of fact, Vincent had not been at Pedro’s that night. Two days had gone by since he had lost every penny of the five thousand francs. He had informed Laura of this; he had written that he could do nothing more for her; that he advised her to go back to her husband or her father--to confess everything. But things had gone so far, that confession seemed impossible to Laura and she could not contemplate it with any sort of calm. Her lover’s objurgations merely aroused indignation in her--an indignation which only subsided to leave her a prey to despair. This was the state in which Vincent had found her. She had tried to keep him; he had torn himself from her grasp. Doubtless, he had to steel himself to do it, for he had a tender heart; but he was more of a pleasure-seeker than a lover and he had easily persuaded himself that duty itself demanded harshness. He had answered nothing to all her entreaties and lamentations, and as Olivier, who had heard them, told Bernard afterwards, when Vincent shut the door against her, she had sunk down on the steps and remained for a long time sobbing in the dark.

More than forty hours had gone by since that night. The day before, Vincent had not gone to Robert de Passavant’s, whose father seemed to be recovering; but that evening a telegram had summoned him. Robert wished to see him. When Vincent entered the room in which Robert usually sat--a room which he used as his study and smoking-room and which he had been at some pains to decorate and fit up in his own fashion--Robert carelessly held out his hand to him over his shoulder, without rising.

Robert is writing. He is sitting at a bureau littered with books. Facing him the French window which gives on to the garden, stands wide open in the moonlight. He speaks without turning round.

“Do you know what I am writing? But you won’t mention it, will you? You promise, eh?--a manifesto for the opening number of Dhurmer’s review. I shan’t sign it, of course--especially as I puff myself in it.... And then as it’ll certainly come out in the long run that I’m financing it, I don’t want it known too soon that I write for it. So mum’s the word! But it’s just occurred to me--didn’t you say that young brother of yours wrote? What’s his name again?”

“Olivier,” says Vincent.

“Olivier! Yes; I had forgotten. Don’t stay standing there like that! Sit down in that arm-chair. You’re not cold? Shall I shut the window?... It’s poetry he writes, isn’t it? He ought to bring me something to see. Of course, I don’t promise to take it.... But, all the same, I should be surprised if it were bad. He looks an intelligent boy. And then he’s obviously _au courant_. I should like to talk to him. Tell him to come and see me, eh? Mind, I count on it. A cigarette?” And he holds out his silver cigarette-case.

“With pleasure.”

“Now then, Vincent, listen to me. I must speak to you very seriously. You behaved like a child the other evening ... so did I, for that matter. I don’t say it was wrong of me to take you to Pedro’s, but I feel responsible, a little, for the money you’ve lost. I don’t know if that’s what’s meant by remorse, but, upon my word, it’s beginning to disturb my sleep and my digestion. And then, when I think of that unhappy woman you told me about.... But that’s another story. We won’t speak of that. It’s sacred. What I want to say is this--that I wish--yes, I’m absolutely determined to put at your disposal a sum of money equivalent to what you’ve lost. It was five thousand francs, wasn’t it? And you’re to risk it again. Once more, I repeat, I consider myself the cause of your losing this money--I owe it to you--there’s no need to thank me. You’ll pay me back if you win. If not--worse luck! We shall be quits. Go back to Pedro’s this evening, as if nothing had happened. The car will take you there; then it’ll come back here to take me to Lady Griffith’s, where I’ll ask you to join me later on. I count upon it, eh? The car will fetch you from Pedro’s.”

He opens a drawer and takes out five notes which he hands to Vincent.

“Be off with you, now.”

“But your father?”

“Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you: he died about....” He pulls out his watch and exclaims: “By Jove! how late it is! Nearly midnight.... You must make haste. Yes, about four hours ago.”

All this is said without any quickening of his voice, on the contrary with a kind of nonchalance.

“And aren’t you going to stay to....”

“To watch by the body?” interrupts Robert. “No, that’s my young brother’s business. He is up there with his old nurse, who was on better terms with the deceased than I was.”

Then as Vincent remains motionless, he goes on:

“Look here, my dear fellow, I don’t want to appear cynical, but I have a horror of reach-me-down sentiments. In my early days I cut out my filial love according to the pattern I had in my heart; but I soon saw that my measurements had been too ample, and I was obliged to take it in. The old man never in his life occasioned me anything but trouble and vexation and constraint. If he had any tenderness left, it was certainly not to me that he showed it. My first impulses of affection towards him, in the days before I knew how to behave, brought me nothing but snubs--and I learnt my lesson. You must have seen for yourself when you were attending him.... Did he ever thank you? Did you ever get the slightest look, the smallest smile from him? He always thought everything his due. Oh, he was what people call a _character_! I think he must have made my mother very unhappy, and yet he loved her--that is, if he ever really loved anyone. I think he made everyone who came near him suffer--his servants, his dogs, his horses, his mistresses; not his friends, for he had none. A general sigh of relief will go up at his death. He was, I believe, a man of great distinction in ‘his line,’ as people say; but I have never been able to discover what it was. He was very intelligent, undoubtedly. At heart, I had--I still have--a certain admiration for him--but as for making play with a handkerchief--as for wringing tears out ... no, thank you, I’m no longer child enough for that. Be off with you now! And join me in an hour’s time at Lilian’s. What! you’re not dressed? Absurd! What does it matter? But if it’ll make you more comfortable, I’ll promise not to change either. Agreed! Light a cigar before you go and send the car back quickly--it’ll fetch you again afterwards.”

He watched Vincent go out, shrugged his shoulders, then went into his dressing-room to change into his dress suit, which was ready laid out for him on a sofa.

In a room on the first floor, the old count is lying on his death-bed. Someone has placed a crucifix on his breast, but has omitted to fold his hands over it. A beard of some days’ growth softens the stubborn angle of his chin. Beneath his grey hair, which is brushed up _en brosse_, the wrinkles that line his forehead seem less deeply graven, as though they were relaxed. His eye is sunk beneath the arch of the brow and the shaggy growth of the eyebrow. I know that we shall never see him again, and that is the reason that I take a long look at him. Beside the head of the bed is an arm-chair, in which is seated the old nurse Séraphine. But she has risen. She goes up to a table where an old-fashioned lamp is dimly lighting the room; it needs turning up. A lamp-shade casts the light on to the book young Gontran is reading....

“You’re tired, Master Gontran. You had better go to bed.”

The glance that Gontran raises from his book to rest upon Séraphine is very gentle. His fair hair, a lock of which he pushes back from his forehead, waves loosely over his temples. He is fifteen years old, and his face, which is still almost girlish, expresses nothing as yet but tenderness and love.

“And you?” he says. “It is you who ought to go to bed, you poor old Fine. Last night, you were on your feet nearly the whole time.”

“Oh, I’m accustomed to sitting up. And besides I slept during the daytime--but you....”

“No, I’m all right. I don’t feel tired; and it does me good to stay here thinking and reading. I knew Papa so little; I think I should forget him altogether if I didn’t take a good look at him now. I will sit beside him till daylight. How long is it, Fine, since you came to us?”

“I came the year before you were born, and you’re nearly sixteen.”

“Do you remember Mamma quite well?”

“Do I remember your Mamma? What a question! You might as well ask me if I remember my own name. To be sure, I remember your Mamma.”

“I remember her too--a little.... But not very well.... I was only five when she died. Used Papa to talk to her much?”

“It depended on his mood. Your Papa was never a one to talk much, and he didn’t care to be spoken to first. All the same in those days he was a little more talkative than he has been of late.... But there now! What’s past is past, and it’s better not to stir it up again. There’s One above who’s a better judge of these things than we are.”

“Do you really think that He concerns Himself about such things, dear Fine?”

“Why, if He doesn’t, who should then?”

Gontran puts his lips on Séraphine’s red, roughened hand. “You really ought to go to bed now. I promise to wake you as soon as it is light, and then I’ll take my turn to rest. Please!”

As soon as Séraphine has left him, Gontran falls upon his knees at the foot of the bed; he buries his head in the sheets, but he cannot succeed in weeping. No emotion stirs his heart; his eyes remain despairingly dry. Then he gets up and looks at the impassive face on the bed. At this solemn moment, he would like to have some rare, sublime experience--hear a message from the world beyond--send his thought flying into ethereal regions, inaccessible to mortal senses. But no! his thought remains obstinately grovelling on the earth; he looks at the dead man’s bloodless hands and wonders for how much longer the nails will go on growing. The sight of the unclasped hands grates on him. He would like to join them, to make them hold the crucifix. What a good idea! He thinks of Séraphine’s astonishment when she sees the dead hands folded together; the thought of Séraphine’s astonishment amuses him; and then he despises himself for being amused. Nevertheless he stoops over the bed. He seizes the arm which is farthest from him. The arm is stiff and will not bend. Gontran tries to force it, but the whole body moves with it. He seizes the other arm, which seems a little less rigid. Gontran almost succeeds in putting the hand in the proper place. He takes the crucifix and tries to slip it between the fingers and the thumb, but the contact of the cold flesh turns him sick. He thinks he is going to faint. He has a mind to call Séraphine back. He gives up everything--the crucifix, which drops aslant on the tumbled sheet, and the lifeless arm, which falls back again into its first position; then, through the depths of the funereal silence, he suddenly hears a rough and brutal “God damn!” which fills him with terror, as if someone else.... He turns round--but no! he is alone. It was from his own lips, from his own heart, that that resounding curse broke forth--his, who until to-day has never uttered an oath! Then he sits down and plunges again into his reading.

V

VINCENT MEETS PASSAVANT AT LADY GRIFFITH’S

_C’était une âme et un corps où n’entrait jamais l’aiguillon._

SAINTE-BEUVE.

LILIAN half sat up and put the tips of her fingers on Robert’s chestnut hair. “Take care, my dear. You are hardly thirty yet and you’re beginning to get thin on the top. Baldness wouldn’t be at all becoming to you. You take life too seriously.”

Robert raised his face and looked at her, smiling. “Not when I am with you, I assure you.”

“Did you tell Molinier to come?”

“Yes, as you asked me to.”

“And ... you lent him money?”

“Five thousand francs, as I told you ... and he’ll lose it, like the rest.”

“Why should he lose it?”

“He’s bound to. I saw him the first evening. He plays anyhow.”

“He’s had time to learn.... Will you make a bet that to-night he’ll win?”

“If you like.”

“Oh, please don’t take it as a penance. I like people to do what they do willingly.”

“Don’t be cross. Agreed then. If he wins, he’ll pay the money back to you. But if he loses, it’s you who’ll pay me. Is that all right?”

She pressed a bell.

“Bring a bottle of Tokay and three glasses, please.... And if he comes back with the five thousand and no more--he shall keep it, eh? If he neither loses nor wins....”

“That’s unheard of. It’s odd what an interest you take in him.”

“It’s odd that you don’t think him interesting.”

“You think him interesting because you’re in love with him.”

“Yes, my dear boy, that’s true. One doesn’t mind admitting that to _you_. But that’s not the reason he interests me. On the contrary--as a rule, when my head’s attracted, the rest of me turns cold.”

A servant came in with wine and glasses on a tray.

“First of all let’s seal our bet, and afterwards we’ll have another glass in honour of the winner.”

The servant poured out the wine and they drank to each other.

“Personally, I think your Vincent a bore.”

“Oh, ‘my Vincent’!... As if it hadn’t been you who brought him here! And then, I advise you not to go repeating everywhere that you think him a bore. Your reason for frequenting him would be too obvious.”

Robert turned a little to put his lips on Lilian’s bare foot; she drew it away quickly and covered it with her fan.

“Must I blush?” said he.

“It’s not worth while trying as far as I am concerned. You couldn’t succeed.”

She emptied her glass, and then:

“D’you know what, my dear friend? You have all the qualities of a man of letters--you are vain, hypocritical, fickle, selfish....”

“You are too flattering!”

“Yes; that’s all very charming--but you’ll never be a good novelist.”

“Because?”

“Because you don’t know how to listen.”

“It seems to me I’m listening admirably.”

“Pooh! _He_ isn’t a writer and he listens a great deal better. But when we are together, _I_ am the one to listen.”

“He hardly knows how to speak.”

“That’s because you never stop talking yourself.”

“I know everything he’s going to say beforehand.”

“You think so? Do you know the story of his affair with that woman?”

“Oh! Love affairs! The dullest things in the world!”

“And then I like it when he talks about natural history.”

“Natural history is even duller than love affairs. Does he give you lectures then?”

“If I could only repeat what he says.... It’s thrilling, my dear friend. He tells me all sorts of things about the deep seas. I’ve always been particularly curious about creatures that live in the sea. You know that in America they make boats with glass let into the sides, so that you can go to the bottom of the sea and look all round you. They say that the sights are simply marvellous--live coral and ... and ... what do you call them?... madrepores, and sponges, and sea-weeds, and great shoals of fish. Vincent says that there are certain kinds of fish which die according as the water becomes more salt or less, and that there are others, on the contrary, which can live in any degree of salt water; and that they swim about on the edge of the currents, where the water becomes less salt, so as to prey on the others when their strength fails them. You ought to get him to talk to you about it.... I assure you it’s most curious. When he talks about things like that, he becomes extraordinary. You wouldn’t recognize him.... But you don’t know how to get him to talk.... It’s like when he tells me about his affair with Laura Douviers--yes, that’s her name.... Do you know how he got to know her?”

“Did he tell you?”

“People tell me everything. You know they do, you shocking creature!” And she stroked his face with the feathers of her closed fan.

“Did you suspect that he had been to see me every single day since the evening you first brought him?”

“Every day? No, really! I didn’t suspect that.”

“On the fourth, he couldn’t resist any longer; he came out with the whole thing. But on every day following, he kept adding details.”

“And it didn’t bore you? You’re a wonder!”

“I told you, my dear, that I love him.” And she seized his arm emphatically.

“And _he_ ... loves the other woman?”

Lilian laughed.

“He did love her. Oh, I had to pretend at first to be deeply interested in her. I even had to weep with him. And all the time I was horribly jealous. I’m not any more now. Just listen how it began. They were at Pau together in the same home--a sanatorium, where they had been sent because they were supposed to be tuberculous. In reality, they weren’t, either of them. But they thought they were very ill. They were strangers, and the first time they saw each other was on the terrace in the garden, where they were lying side by side on their deck chairs; and all round them were other patients, who spend the whole day lying out of doors in the sun to get cured. As they thought they were doomed to die an early death, they persuaded themselves that nothing they did would be of any consequence. He kept repeating all the time that they neither of them had more than a month to live--and it was the springtime. She was there all alone. Her husband is a little French professor in England. She left him to go to Pau. She had been married six months. He had to pinch and starve to send her there. He used to write to her every day. She’s a young woman of very good family--very well brought up--very reserved--very shy. But once there--I don’t exactly know what he can have said to her, but on the third day she confessed that though she lay with her husband and belonged to him, she did not know the meaning of the word pleasure.”

“And what did he say then?”

“He took her hand, as it hung down beside her chair, and pressed a long kiss upon it.”

“And when he told you that, what did _you_ say?”

“I? Oh, frightful! Only fancy! I went off into a _fou rire_. I couldn’t prevent myself, and once I had begun, I couldn’t stop.... It’s not so much what he said that made me laugh--it was the air of interest and consternation which I thought it necessary to take, in order to encourage him to go on. I was afraid of seeming too much amused. And then, in reality, it was all very beautiful and touching. You can’t imagine how moved he was when he told me about it. He had never spoken of it to anyone before. Of course his parents know nothing about it.”

“_You_ are the person who ought to write novels.”

“_Parbleu, mon cher_, if only I knew what language to write them in!... But what with Russian, English and French, I should never be able to choose.--Well, the following night he went to his new friend’s room and there taught her what her husband had never been able to teach--and I expect he made a very good master. Only as they were convinced that they had only a short time to live, they naturally took no precautions, and, naturally, after a little while, with the help of love, they both began to get much better. When she realized she was _enceinte_, they were in a terrible state. It was last month. It was beginning to get hot. Pau in the summer is intolerable. They came back to Paris together. Her husband thinks she is with her parents, who have a boarding school near the Luxembourg; but she didn’t dare to go to them. Her parents, on the other hand, think she is still in Pau; but it must all come out soon. Vincent swore at first not to abandon her; he proposed going away with her--anywhere--to America--to the Pacific. But they had no money. It was just at that moment that he met you and began to play.”

“He didn’t tell me any of all this.”

“Whatever happens, don’t let him know that I’ve told you.” She stopped and listened a moment.

“I thought I heard him.... He told me that, during the railway journey from Pau to Paris, he thought she was going mad. She had only just begun to realize she was going to have a child. She was sitting opposite him in the railway carriage; they were alone. She hadn’t spoken to him the whole morning; he had had to make all the arrangements for the journey by himself--she was absolutely inert--she seemed not to know what was going on. He took her hands, but she looked straight in front of her with haggard eyes, as if she didn’t see him, and her lips kept moving. He bent towards her. She was saying: ‘A lover! A lover! I’ve got a lover!’ She kept on repeating it in the same tone; and still the same word kept coming from her over and over again, as if it were the only one she remembered. I assure you, Robert, that when he told me that, I didn’t feel in the least inclined to laugh any more. I’ve never in my life heard anything more pathetic. But all the same, I felt that as he was speaking he was detaching himself more and more from the whole thing. It was as though his feeling were passing away in the same breath as his words; it was as though he were grateful to my emotion for coming to relay his own.”

“I don’t know how you would say it in Russian or English, but I assure you that, in French, you do it exceedingly well.”

“Thanks. I’m aware of it.--It was after that, that he began to talk to me about natural history; and I tried to persuade him that it would be monstrous to sacrifice his career to his love.”

“In other words, you advised him to sacrifice his love. And is it your intention to take the place of that love?”

Lilian remained silent.

“This time, I think it really is he,” went on Robert, rising. “Quick! one word before he comes in. My father died this evening.”

“Ah!” she said simply.

“You haven’t a fancy to become Comtesse de Passavant, have you?”

At this Lilian flung herself back with a burst of laughter.

“Oh, oh, my dear friend! The fact is I have a vague recollection that I’ve mislaid a husband somewhere or other in England. What! I never told you?”

“Not that I remember.”

“You might have guessed it; as a rule a Lady’s accompanied by a Lord.”

The Comte de Passavant, who had never had much faith in the authenticity of his friend’s title, smiled. She went on: “Is it to cloak your own life, that you’ve taken it into your head to propose such a thing to me? No, my dear friend, no. Let’s stay as we are. Friends, eh?” And she held out her hand, which he kissed.

“Ah! Ah! I thought as much,” cried Vincent, as he came into the room. “The traitor! He has dressed!”

“Yes, I had promised not to change, so as to keep him in countenance,” said Robert. “I’m sorry, my dear fellow, but I suddenly remembered I was in mourning.”

Vincent held his head high. An air of triumph and of joy breathed from his whole person. At his arrival, Lilian had sprung to her feet. She looked him up and down for a moment, then rushed joyously at Robert and began belabouring his back with her fists, jumping, dancing and exclaiming as she did so. (Lilian irritates me rather when she puts on this affectation of childishness.)

“He has lost his bet! He has lost his bet!”

“What bet?” asked Vincent.

“He had bet that you would lose your money again to-night. Tell us! Quickly! You’ve won. How much?”

“I have had the extraordinary courage--and virtue--to leave off at fifty thousand and come away.”

Lilian gave a roar of delight.

“Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” she cried. Then she flung her arms round Vincent’s neck. From head to foot, he felt her glowing, lissom body, with its strange perfume of sandal-wood, pressed against his own; and Lilian kissed him on the forehead, on the cheeks, on the lips. Vincent staggered and freed himself. He took a bundle of bank-notes out of his pocket.

“Here! take back what you advanced me,” he said, holding out five of them to Robert.

“No,” answered Robert. “It is to Lady Lilian that you owe them now.” And he handed her the notes, which she flung on to the divan. She was panting. She went out on the terrace to breathe. It was that ambiguous hour when night is drawing to an end, and the devil casts up his accounts. Outside not a sound was to be heard. Vincent had seated himself on the divan. Lilian turned towards him:

“And now, what do you mean to do?” she asked; and for the first time she called him “thou.”

He put his head between his hands and said with a kind of sob:

“I don’t know.”

Lilian went up to him and put her hand on his forehead; he raised it and his eyes were dry and burning.

“In the mean time, we’ll drink each other’s health,” said she, and she filled the three glasses with Tokay. After they had drunk:

“Now you must go. It’s late and I’m tired out.” She accompanied them into the antechamber and then, as Robert went out first, she slipped a little metal object into Vincent’s hand. “Go out with him,” she whispered, “and come back in a quarter of an hour.”

In the antechamber a footman was dozing. She shook him by the arm.

“Light these gentlemen downstairs,” she said.

The staircase was dark. It would have been a simple matter, no doubt, to make use of electric light, but she made it a point that her visitors should always be shown out by a servant.

The footman lighted the candles in a big candelabra, which he held high above him and preceded Robert and Vincent downstairs. Robert’s car was waiting outside the door, which the footman shut behind them.

“I think I shall walk home. I need a little exercise to steady my nerves,” said Vincent, as the other opened the door of the motor and signed to him to get in.

“Don’t you really want me to take you home?” And Robert suddenly seized Vincent’s left hand, which he was holding shut. “Open your hand! Come! Show us what you’ve got there!”

Vincent was simpleton enough to be afraid of Robert’s jealousy. He blushed as he loosened his fingers and a little key fell on to the pavement. Robert picked it up at once, looked at it and gave it back to Vincent with a laugh.

“Ho! Ho!” he said and shrugged his shoulders. Then as he was getting into his car, he turned back to Vincent, who was standing there looking a little foolish:

“It’s Thursday morning. Tell your brother that I expect him this afternoon at four o’clock.” And he shut the door of the carriage quickly without giving Vincent time to answer.

The car went off. Vincent walked a few paces along the quay, crossed the Seine, and went on till he reached the part of the Tuileries which lies outside the railings; going up to the little fountain, he soaked his handkerchief in the water and pressed it on to his forehead and his temples. Then, slowly, he walked back towards Lilian’s house. There let us leave him, while the devil watches him with amusement as he noiselessly slips the little key into the keyhole....

It is at this same hour that Laura, his yesterday’s mistress, is at last dropping off to sleep in her gloomy little hotel room, after having long wept, long bemoaned herself. On the deck of the ship which is bringing him back to France, Edouard, in the first light of the dawn, is re-reading her letter--the plaintive letter in which she appeals for help. The gentle shores of his native land are already in sight, though scarcely visible through the morning mist to any but a practised eye. Not a cloud is in the heavens, where the glance of God will soon be smiling. The horizon is already lifting a rosy eyelid. How hot it is going to be in Paris! It is time to return to Bernard. Here he is, just awaking in Olivier’s bed.

VI

BERNARD AWAKENS

_We are all bastards;_
_And that most venerable man which I_
_Did call my father, was I know not where_
_When I was stamped._

SHAKESPEARE: _Cymbeline_.

BERNARD has had an absurd dream. He doesn’t remember his dream. He doesn’t try to remember his dream, but to get out of it. He returns to the world of reality to feel Olivier’s body pressing heavily against him. Whilst they were asleep (or at any rate while Bernard was asleep) his friend had come close up to him--and, for that matter, the bed was too narrow to allow of much distance; he had turned over; he is sleeping on his side now and Bernard feels Olivier’s warm breath tickling his neck. Bernard has nothing on but his short day-shirt; one of Olivier’s arms is flung across him, weighing oppressively and indiscreetly on his flesh. For a moment Bernard is not sure that Olivier is really asleep. He frees himself gently. He gets up without waking Olivier, dresses and then lies down again on the bed. It is still too early to be going. Four o’clock. The night is only just beginning to dwindle. One more hour of rest, one more hour for gathering strength to start the coming day valiantly. But there is no more sleep for him. Bernard stares at the glimmering window pane, at the grey walls of the little room, at the iron bedstead where George is tossing in his dreams.

“In a moment,” he says to himself, “I shall be setting out to meet my fate. Adventure! What a splendid word! The _advent_ of destiny! All the surprising unknown that awaits me! I don’t know if everyone is like me, but as soon as I am awake, I like despising the people who are asleep. Olivier, my friend, I shall go off without waiting for your good-bye. Up! valorous Bernard! The time has come!”

He rubs his face with the corner of a towel dipped in water, brushes his hair, puts on his shoes and leaves the room noiselessly. Out at last!

Ah! the morning air that has not yet been breathed, how life-giving it seems to body and soul! Bernard follows the railings of the Luxembourg Gardens, goes down the Rue Bonaparte, reaches the Quays, crosses the Seine. He thinks of the new rule of life which he has only lately formulated: “If _I_ don’t do it, who will? If I don’t do it at once, when shall I?” He thinks: “Great things to do!” He feels that he is going towards them. “Great things!” he repeats to himself, as he walks along. If only he knew what they were!... In the mean time he knows that he is hungry; here he is at the Halles. He has eight sous in his pocket--not a sou more! He goes into a public house and takes a roll and coffee, standing at the bar. Price six sous. He has two sous left; he gallantly leaves one on the counter and holds out the other to a ragamuffin who is grubbing in a dustbin. Charity? Swagger? What does it matter? He feels as happy as a king. He has nothing left--and the whole world is his!

“I expect anything and everything from Providence,” thinks he. “If only it sets a handsome helping of roast beef before me at lunch time, I shall be willing to strike a bargain”--for last night he had gone without his dinner. The sun has risen long ago. Bernard is back again on the quays now. He feels all lightness. When he runs he feels as though he were flying. His thoughts leap through his brain with delicious ease. He thinks:

“The difficulty in life is to take the same thing seriously for long at a time. For instance, my mother’s love for the person I used to call my father--I believed in it for fifteen years. I still believed in it yesterday. _She_ wasn’t able to take her love seriously, either. I wonder whether I despise her or esteem her the more for having made her son a bastard.... But in reality, I don’t wonder as much as all that. The feelings one has for one’s progenitors are among the things that it’s better not go into too deeply. As for Mr. Cuckold, it’s perfectly simple--for as far back as I can remember, I’ve always hated him; I must admit now that I didn’t deserve much credit for it--and that’s the only thing I regret. To think that if I hadn’t broken open that drawer I might have gone on all my life believing that I harboured unnatural feelings in my breast towards a father! What a relief to know!... All the same I didn’t exactly break open the drawer; I never even thought of opening it.... And there were extenuating circumstances: first of all I was horribly bored that day. And that curiosity of mine--that ‘fatal curiosity’ as Fénelon calls it, it’s certainly the surest thing I’ve inherited from my real father, for the Profitendieus haven’t an ounce of it in their composition. I have never met anyone less curious than the gentleman who is my mother’s husband--unless perhaps it’s the children he has produced. I must think about them later on--after I have dined.... To lift up a marble slab off the top of a table and to see a drawer underneath is really not the same thing as picking a lock. I’m not a burglar. It might happen to anyone to lift the marble slab off a table. Theseus must have been about my age when he lifted the stone. The difficulty in the case of a table is the clock as a rule.... I shouldn’t have dreamt of lifting the marble slab off the table if I hadn’t wanted to mend the clock.... What doesn’t happen to everyone is to find arms underneath--or guilty love-letters. Pooh! The important thing was that I should learn the facts. It isn’t everyone who can indulge in the luxury of a ghost to reveal them, like Hamlet. Hamlet! It’s curious how one’s point of view changes according as one is the off-spring of crime or legitimacy. I’ll think about that later on--after I have dined.... Was it wrong of me to read those letters!... No, I should be feeling remorseful! And if I hadn’t read the letters, I should have had to go on living in ignorance and falsehood and submission. Oh, for a draught of air! Oh, for the open sea! ‘Bernard! Bernard, that green youth of yours ...’ as Bossuet says. Seat your youth on that bench, Bernard. What a beautiful morning! There really are days when the sun seems to be kissing the earth. If I could get rid of myself for a little, there’s not a doubt but I should write poetry.”

And as he lay stretched on the bench, he got rid of himself so effectually that he fell asleep.

VII

LILIAN AND VINCENT

THE sun, already high in the heavens, caresses Vincent’s bare foot on the wide bed, where he is lying beside Lilian. She sits up and looks at him, not knowing that he is awake, and is astonished to see a look of anxiety on his face.

It is possible that Lady Griffith loved Vincent; but what she loved in him was success. Vincent was tall, handsome, slim, but he did not know how to hold himself, how to sit down or get up. He had an expressive face, but he did his hair badly. Above all she admired the boldness and robustness of his intellect; he was certainly highly educated, but she thought him uncultivated. With the instinct of a mistress and a mother, she hung over this big boy of hers and made it her task to form him. He was her creation--her statue. She taught him to polish his nails, to part his hair on one side instead of brushing it back, so that his brow, when it was half hidden by a stray lock, looked all the whiter and loftier. And then instead of the modest little ready-made bows he used to wear, she gave him really becoming neck-ties. Decidedly Lady Griffith loved Vincent; but she could not put up with him when he was silent or “moody,” as she called it.

She gently passes a finger over Vincent’s forehead, as though to efface a wrinkle--those two deep vertical furrows which start from his eyebrows, and give his face a look almost of suffering.

“If you are going to bring me regrets, anxieties, remorse,” she murmurs, as she leans over him, “it would be better never to come back.”

Vincent shuts his eyes as though to shut out too bright a light. The jubilation in Lilian’s face dazzles him.

“You must treat this as if it were a mosque--take your shoes off before you come in, so as not to bring in any mud from the outside. Do you suppose I don’t know what you are thinking of?” Then, as Vincent tries to put his hand on her mouth, she defends herself with the grace of a naughty child.

“No! Let me speak to you seriously. I have reflected a great deal about what you said the other day. People always think that women aren’t capable of reflection, but you know, it depends upon the woman.... That thing you said the other day about the products of cross breeding ... and that it isn’t by crossing that one gets satisfactory results so much as by selection.... Have I remembered your lesson, eh? Well, this morning I think you have bred a monster--a perfectly ridiculous creature--you’ll never rear it! A cross between a bacchante and the Holy Ghost! Haven’t you now?... You’re disgusted with yourself for having chucked Laura. I can tell it from the lines on your forehead. If you want to go back to her, say so at once and leave me; I shall have been mistaken in you and I shan’t mind in the least. But if you mean to stay with me, then get rid of that funereal countenance. You remind me of certain English people--the more emancipated their opinions, the more they cling to their morality; so that there are no severer Puritans than their free-thinkers.... You think I’m heartless? You’re wrong. I understand perfectly that you are sorry for Laura. But then, what are you doing here?”

Then, as Vincent turned his head away:

“Look here! You must go to the bath-room now and try and wash your regrets off in the shower-bath. I shall ring for breakfast, eh? And when you come back, I’ll explain something that you don’t seem to understand.”

He had got up. She sprang after him.

“Don’t dress just yet. In the cupboard on the right hand side of the bath, you’ll find a collection of burnouses and haiks and pyjamas. Take anything you like.”

Vincent appeared twenty minutes later dressed in a pistachio coloured silk jellabah.

“Oh, wait a minute--wait! Let me arrange you!” cried Lilian in delight. She pulled out of an oriental chest two wide purple scarves; wound the darker of the two as a sash round Vincent’s waist, and the other as a turban round his head.

“My thoughts are always the same colour as my clothes,” she said. (She had put on crimson and silver lamé pyjamas.) “I remember once, when I was quite a little girl at San Francisco, I was put into black because a sister of my mother’s had died--an old aunt whom I had never seen. I cried the whole day long. I was terribly, terribly sad; I thought that I was very unhappy and that I was grieving deeply for my aunt’s death--all because I was in black. Nowadays, if men are more serious than women, it’s because their clothes are darker. I’ll wager that your thoughts are quite different from what they were a little while ago. Sit down there on the bed; and when you’ve drunk a glass of vodka and a cup of tea and eaten two or three sandwiches, I’ll tell you a story. Say when I’m to begin....”

She settled down on the rug beside the bed, crouching between Vincent’s legs like an Egyptian statue, with her chin resting on her knees. When she had eaten and drunk, she began: