Chapter XX: Edouard’s Journal 363 (5)

“Madame de La Pérouse is always reproaching me with it. She can’t understand that those are the only lessons that interest me; yes, the only lessons I really care about ... giving. I have taken to reflecting a great deal lately. Here! there’s something I should like to ask you. Why is it there is so little about old people in books?... I suppose it’s because old people aren’t able to write themselves and young ones don’t take any interest in them. No one’s interested in an old man.... And yet there are a great many curious things that might be said about them. For instance: there are certain acts in my past life which I’m only just beginning to understand. Yes, I’m just beginning to understand that they haven’t at all the meaning I attached to them in the old days when I did them.... I’ve only just begun to understand that I have been a dupe during the whole of my life. Madame de La Pérouse has fooled me; my son has fooled me; everybody has fooled me; God has fooled me....”

The evening was closing in. I could hardly make out my old master’s features; but suddenly the light of the street lamp flashed out and showed me his cheeks glittering with tears. I looked anxiously at first at an odd mark on his temple, like a dint, like a hole; but as he moved a little, the spot changed places and I saw that it was only a shadow cast by a knob of the balustrade. I put my hand on his scraggy arm; he shivered.

“You’ll catch cold,” I said. “Really, shan’t we light the fire?... Come along.”

“No, no; one must harden oneself.”

“What? Stoicism?”

“Yes, a little. It’s because my throat was delicate that I never would wear a scarf. I have always struggled with myself.”

“That’s all very well as long as one is victorious; but if one’s body gives way....”

“That would be the real victory.”

He let go my hand and went on: “I was afraid you would go away without coming to see me.”

“Go where?” I asked.

“I don’t know. You travel so much. There’s something I wanted to say to you.... I expect to be going away myself soon.”

“What! are you thinking of travelling?” I asked clumsily, pretending not to understand him, notwithstanding the mysterious solemnity of his voice. He shook his head.

“You know very well what I mean.... Yes, yes. I know it will soon be time. I am beginning to earn less than my keep; and I can’t endure it. There’s a certain point beyond which I have promised myself not to go.”

He spoke in an emotional tone which alarmed me.

“Do you think it is wrong? I have never been able to understand why it was forbidden by religion. I have reflected a great deal latterly. When I was young, I led a very austere life; I used to congratulate myself on my force of character every time I refused a solicitation in the street. I didn’t understand, that when I thought I was freeing myself, in reality I was becoming more and more the slave of my own pride. Every one of these triumphs over myself was another turn of the key in the door of my prison. That’s what I meant just now by saying that God had fooled me. He made me take my pride for virtue. He was laughing at me. It amuses him. I think he plays with us as a cat does with a mouse. He sends us temptations which he knows we shan’t be able to resist; but when we do resist he revenges himself still worse. Why does he hate us so? And why.... But I’m boring you with these old man’s questions.”

He took his head in his hands like a moping child and remained silent so long that I began to wonder whether he had not forgotten my presence. I sat motionless in front of him, afraid of disturbing his meditations. Notwithstanding the noise of the street which was so close, the calm of the little room seemed to me extraordinary, and notwithstanding the glimmer of the street lamp, which shed its fantastic light upon us from down below, like footlights at the theatre, the shadow on each side of the window seemed to broaden, and the darkness round us to thicken, as in icy weather the water of a quiet pool thickens into immobility--till my heart itself thickened into ice too. At last, shaking myself free from the clutch that held me, I breathed loudly and, preparatory to taking my leave, I asked out of politeness and in order to break the spell:

“How is Madame de La Pérouse?”

The old man seemed to wake up out of a dream. He repeated:

“Madame de La Pérouse...?” interrogatively, as if the words were syllables which had lost all meaning for him; then he suddenly leant towards me:

“Madame de La Pérouse is in a terrible state ... most painful to me.”

“What kind of state?” I asked.

“Oh, no kind,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as if there were nothing to explain. “She is completely out of her mind. She doesn’t know what to be up to next.”

I had long suspected that the old couple were in profound disagreement, but without any hope of knowing anything more definite.

“My poor friend,” I said pityingly, “and since when?”

He reflected a moment, as if he had not understood my question.

“Oh, for a long time ... ever since I’ve known her.” Then, correcting himself almost immediately: “No; in reality it was over my son’s bringing up that things went wrong.”

I made a gesture of surprise, for I had always thought that the La Pérouses had no children. He raised his head, which he had been holding in his hands, and went on more calmly:

“I never mentioned my son to you, eh?... Well, I’ll tell you everything. You must know all about it now. There’s no one else I can tell.... Yes, it was over my son’s bringing up. As you see, it’s a long time ago. The first years of our married life had been delightful. I was very pure when I married Madame de La Pérouse. I loved her with innocence ... yes, that’s the best word for it, and I refused to allow that she had any faults. But we hadn’t the same ideas about bringing up children. Every time that I wanted to reprove my son, Madame de La Pérouse took his side against me; according to her, he was to be allowed to do anything he liked. They were in league together against me. She taught him to lie.... When he was barely twenty he took a mistress. She was a pupil of mine--a Russian girl, with a great talent for music, to whom I was very much attached. Madame de La Pérouse knew all about it; but of course, as usual, everything was kept from me. And of course I didn’t notice she was going to have a baby. Not a thing--I tell you; I never suspected a thing. One fine day, I am informed that my pupil is unwell, that she won’t be able to come for some time. When I speak about going to see her, I am told that she has changed her address--that she is travelling.... It was not till long after that I learnt that she had gone to Poland for her confinement. My son joined her there.... They lived together for several years, but he died before marrying her.”

“And ... she? did you ever see her again?”

He seemed to be butting with his head against some obstacle:

“I couldn’t forgive her for deceiving me. Madame de La Pérouse still corresponds with her. When I learnt she was in great poverty, I sent her some money for the child’s sake. But Madame de La Pérouse knows nothing about that. No more does she ... she doesn’t know the money came from me.”

“And your grandson?”

A strange smile flitted over his face; he got up.

“Wait a moment. I’ll show you his photograph.” And again he trotted quickly out of the room, poking his head out in front of him. When he came back, his fingers trembled as he looked for the picture in a large letter-case. He held it towards me and, bending forward, whispered in a low voice:

“I took it from Madame de La Pérouse without her noticing. She thinks she has lost it.”

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Thirteen. He looks older, doesn’t he? He is very delicate.”

His eyes filled with tears once more; he held out his hand for the photograph, as if he were anxious to get it back again as quickly as possible. I leant forward to look at it in the dim light of the street lamp; I thought the child was like him; I recognized old La Pérouse’s high, prominent forehead and dreamy eyes. I thought I should please him by saying so; he protested:

“No, no; it’s my brother he’s like--a brother I lost....”

The child was oddly dressed in a Russian embroidered blouse.

“Where does he live?”

“How can I tell?” cried La Pérouse, in a kind of despair. “They keep everything from me, I tell you.”

He had taken the photograph, and after having looked at it a moment, he put it back in the letter-case, which he slipped into his pocket.

“When his mother comes to Paris, she only sees Madame de La Pérouse; if I question her, she always answers: ‘You had better ask her yourself.’ She says that, but at heart she would hate me to see her. She has always been jealous. She has always tried to take away everything I care for.... Little Boris is being educated in Poland--at Warsaw, I believe. But he often travels with his mother.” Then, in great excitement: “Oh, would you have thought it possible to love someone one has never seen?... Well, this child is what I care for most in the world.... And he doesn’t know!”

His words were broken by great sobs. He rose from his chair and threw himself--fell almost--into my arms. I would have done anything to give him some comfort--but what could I do? I got up, for I felt his poor shrunken form slipping to the ground and I thought he was going to fall on his knees. I held him up, embraced him, rocked him like a child. He mastered himself. Madame de La Pérouse was calling in the next room.

“She’s coming.... You don’t want to see her, do you?... Besides, she’s stone deaf. Go quickly.” And as he saw me out on to the landing:

“Don’t be too long without coming again.” (There was entreaty in his voice.) “Good-bye; good-bye.”

_Nov. 9th._--There is a kind of tragedy, it seems to me, which has hitherto almost entirely eluded literature. The novel has dealt with the contrariness of fate, good or evil fortune, social relationships, the conflicts of passions and of characters--but not with the very essence of man’s being.

And yet, the whole effect of Christianity was to transfer the drama on to the moral plane. But properly speaking there are no Christian novels. There are novels whose purpose is edification; but that has nothing to do with what I mean. Moral tragedy--the tragedy, for instance, which gives such terrific meaning to the Gospel text: “If the salt have lost his flavour wherewith shall it be salted?”--that is the tragedy with which I am concerned.

_Nov. 10th._--Olivier’s examination is coming on shortly. Pauline wants him to try for the _École Normale_ afterwards. His career is all mapped out.... If only he had no parents, no connections! I would have made him my secretary. But the thought of me never occurs to him; he has not even noticed my interest in him, and I should embarrass him if I showed it. It is because I don’t want to embarrass him that I affect a kind of indifference in his presence, a kind of detachment. It is only when he does not see me that I dare look my full at him. Sometimes I follow him in the street without his knowing it. Yesterday I was walking behind him in this way, when he turned suddenly round before I had time to hide.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” I asked him.

“Oh, nowhere particular. I always seem most in a hurry when I have nothing to do.”

We took a few steps together, but without finding anything to say to each other. He was certainly put out at having been met.

_Nov. 12th._--He has parents, an elder brother, school friends.... I keep repeating this to myself all day long--and that there is no room for me. I should no doubt be able to make up anything that might be lacking to him, but nothing is. He needs nothing; and if his sweetness delights me, there is nothing in it that allows me for a moment to deceive myself.... Oh, foolish words, which I write in spite of myself and which discover the duplicity of my heart.... I am leaving for London to-morrow. I have suddenly made up my mind to go away. It is time.

To go away because one is too anxious to stay!... A certain love of the arduous--a horror of indulgence (towards oneself, I mean) is perhaps the part of my Puritan up-bringing which I find it hardest to free myself from.

Yesterday, at Smith’s, bought a copy-book (English already) in which to continue my diary. I will write nothing more in this one. A new copy-book!...

Ah! if it were myself I could leave behind!

XIV

BERNARD AND LAURA

_Il arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie, d’où il faut être
un peu fou pour se bien tirer._

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

IT WAS with Laura’s letter, which Edouard had inserted into his journal, that Bernard’s reading came to an end. The truth flashed upon him; it was impossible to doubt that the woman whose words rang so beseechingly in this letter was the same despairing creature of whom Olivier had told him the night before--Vincent Molinier’s discarded mistress. And it became suddenly evident to Bernard that, thanks to this two-fold confidence, Olivier’s, and Edouard’s in his journal, he was as yet the only one to know the two sides of the intrigue. It was an advantage he could not keep long; he must play his cards quickly and skilfully. He made up his mind at once. Without forgetting, for that matter, any of the other things he had read, Bernard now fixed his attention upon Laura.

“This morning I was still uncertain as to what I ought to do; now I have no longer any doubt,” he said to himself, as he darted out of the room. “The imperative, as they say, is categorical. I must save Laura. It was not perhaps my duty to take the suit-case, but having taken it, I have certainly found in the suit-case a lively sense of my duty. The important thing is to come upon Laura before Edouard can get to her; to introduce myself and offer my services in such a way that she cannot take me for a swindler. The rest will be easy. At this moment I have enough in my pocket-book to come to the rescue of misfortune as magnificently as the most generous and the most compassionate of Edouards. The only thing which bothers me is how to do it. For Laura is a Vedel, and though she is about to become a mother in defiance of the code, she is no doubt a sensitive creature. I imagine her the kind of woman who stands on her dignity and flings her contempt in your face, as she tears up the bank-notes you offer her--with benevolence, but in too flimsy an envelope. How shall I present the notes? How shall I present _myself_? That’s the rub! As soon as one leaves the high road of legality, in what a tangle one finds oneself! I really am rather young to mix myself up in an intrigue as stiff as this. But, hang it all, youth’s my strong point. Let’s invent a candid confession--a touching and interesting story. The trouble is that it’s got to do for Edouard as well; the same one--and without giving myself away. Oh! I shall think of something. Let’s trust to the inspiration of the moment....”

He had reached the address given by Laura, in the Rue de Beaune. The hotel was exceedingly modest, but clean and respectable looking. Following the porter’s directions, he went up three floors. Outside the door of No. 16 he stopped, tried to prepare his entry, to find some words; he could think of nothing; then he made a dash for it and knocked. A gentle, sister-like voice, with, he thought, a touch of fear in it, answered:

“Come in!”

Laura was very simply dressed, all in black; she looked as if she were in mourning. During the few days she had been in Paris, she had been vaguely waiting for something or somebody to get her out of her straits. She had taken the wrong road, not a doubt of it; she felt completely lost. She had the unfortunate habit of counting on the event rather than on herself. She was not without virtue, but now that she had been abandoned she felt that all her strength had left her. At Bernard’s entrance, she raised one hand to her face, like someone who keeps back a cry or shades his eyes from too bright a light. She was standing, and took a step backwards; then, finding herself close to the window, with her other hand she caught hold of the curtain.

Bernard stopped, waiting for her to question him; but she too waited for him to speak. He looked at her; with a beating heart, he tried in vain to smile.

“Excuse me, Madame,” he said at last, “for disturbing you in this manner. Edouard X., whom I believe you know, arrived in Paris this morning. I have something urgent to say to him; I thought you might be able to give me his address and ... forgive me for coming so unceremoniously to ask for it.”

Had Bernard not been so young, Laura would doubtless have been frightened. But he was still a child, with eyes so frank, so clear a brow, so timid a bearing, a voice so ill-assured, that fear yielded to curiosity, to interest, to that irresistible sympathy which a simple and beautiful being always arouses. Bernard’s voice gathered a little courage as he spoke.

“But I don’t know his address,” said Laura. “If he is in Paris, he will come to see me without delay, I hope. Tell me who you are. I will tell him.”

“Now’s the moment to risk everything,” thought Bernard. Something wild flashed across his eyes. He looked Laura steadily in the face.

“Who I am?... Olivier Molinier’s friend....” He hesitated, still uncertain; but seeing her turn pale at this name, he ventured further: “Olivier, Vincent’s brother--the brother of your lover, who has so vilely abandoned you....”

He had to stop. Laura was tottering. Her two hands, flung backwards, were anxiously searching for some support. But what upset Bernard more than anything was the moan she gave--a kind of wail which was scarcely human, more like that of some hunted, wounded animal (and the sportsman, suddenly filled with shame, feels himself an executioner); so odd a cry it was, so different from anything that Bernard expected, that he shuddered. He understood all of a sudden that this was a matter of real life, of veritable pain, and everything he had felt up till that moment seemed to him mere show and pretence. An emotion surged up in him so unfamiliar that he was unable to master it. It rose to his throat.... What! is he sobbing? Is it possible?... He, Bernard!... He rushes forward to hold her up, and kneels before her, and murmurs through his sobs:

“Oh, forgive me ... forgive; I have hurt you.... I knew that you were in difficulties, and ... I wanted to help you.”

But Laura, gasping for breath, felt that she was fainting. She cast round with her eyes for somewhere to sit down. Bernard, whose gaze was fixed upon her, understood her look. He sprang towards a small arm-chair at the foot of the bed, with a rapid movement pushed it towards her, and she dropped heavily into it.

At this moment there occurred a grotesque incident which I hesitate to relate, but it was decisive of Laura’s and Bernard’s relationship, by unexpectedly relieving them of their embarrassment. I shall therefore not attempt to embellish the scene by any artifices.

For the price which Laura paid for her room (I mean, which the hotel-keeper asked her) one could not have expected the furniture to be elegant, but one might have hoped it would be solid. Now the small arm-chair, which Bernard pushed towards Laura, was somewhat unsteady on its feet; that is to say, it had a great propensity to fold back one of its legs, as a bird does under its wing--which is natural enough in a bird, but unusual and regrettable in an arm-chair; this one, moreover, hid its infirmity as best it could beneath a thick fringe. Laura was well acquainted with her arm-chair, and knew that it must be handled with extreme precaution; but in her agitation she forgot this and only remembered it when she felt the chair giving way beneath her. She suddenly gave a little cry--quite different from the long moan she had uttered just before, slipped to one side, and a moment later found herself sitting on the floor, between the arms of Bernard, who had hurried to the rescue. Bashful, but amused, he had been obliged to put one knee on the ground. Laura’s face therefore happened to be quite close to his; he watched her blush. She made an effort to get up; he helped her.

“You’ve not hurt yourself?”

“No; thanks to you. This arm-chair is ridiculous; it has been mended once already.... I think if the leg is put quite straight, it will hold.”

“I’ll arrange it,” said Bernard. “There!... Will you try it?” Then, thinking better of it: “No; allow me. It would be safer for me to try it first. Look! It’s all right now. I can move my legs” (which he did, laughing). Then, as he rose: “Sit down now, and if you’ll allow me to stay a moment or two longer, I’ll take this chair. I’ll sit near you, so that I shall be able to prevent you from falling. Don’t be frightened.... I wish I could do more for you.”

There was so much ardour in his voice, so much reserve in his manners, and in his movements so much grace, that Laura could not forbear a smile.

“You haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Bernard.”

“Yes. But your family name?”

“I have no family.”

“Well, your parents’ name.”

“I have no parents. That is, I am what the child you are expecting will be--a bastard.”

The smile vanished from Laura’s face; she was outraged by this insistent determination to force an entrance into her intimacy and to violate the secret of her life.

“But how do you know?... Who told you?... You have no right to know....”

Bernard was launched now; he spoke loudly and boldly:

“I know both what my friend Olivier knows and what your friend Edouard knows. Only each of them as yet knows only half your secret. I am probably the only person besides yourself to know the whole of it.... So you see,” he added more gently, “it’s essential that I should be your friend.”

“Oh, how can people be so indiscreet?” murmured Laura sadly. “But ... if you haven’t seen Edouard, he can’t have spoken to you. Has he written to you?... Is it he who has sent you?”...

Bernard had given himself away; he had spoken too quickly and had not been able to resist bragging a little. He shook his head. Laura’s face grew still darker. At that moment a knock was heard at the door.

Whether they will or no, a link is created between two creatures who experience a common emotion. Bernard felt himself trapped; Laura was vexed at being surprised in company. They looked at each other like two accomplices. Another knock was heard. Both together said:

“Come in.”

For some minutes Edouard had been listening outside the door, astonished at hearing voices in Laura’s room. Bernard’s last sentences had explained everything. He could not doubt their meaning; he could not doubt that the speaker was the stealer of his suit-case. His mind was immediately made up. For Edouard is one of those beings whose faculties, which seem benumbed in the ordinary routine of daily life, spring into activity at the call of the unexpected. He opened the door therefore, but remained on the threshold, smiling and looking alternately at Laura and Bernard, who had both risen.

“Allow me, my dear Laura,” said he, with a gesture as though to put off any effusions till later. “I must first say a word or two to this gentleman, if he will be so good as to step into the passage for a moment.”

His smile became more ironical when Bernard joined him.

“I thought I should find you here.”

Bernard understood that the game was up. There was nothing for him to do but to put a bold face on it, which he did with the feeling that he was playing his last card:

“I hoped I should meet you.”

“In the first place--if you haven’t done so already (for I’ll do you the credit of believing that that is what you came for), you will go downstairs to the bureau and settle Madame Douviers’ bill with the money you found in my suit-case and which you must have on you. Don’t come up again for ten minutes.”

All this was said gravely but with nothing comminatory in the tone. In the mean time Bernard had recovered his self-possession.

“I did in fact come for that. You are not wrong. And I am beginning to think that _I_ was not wrong either.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That you really are the person I hoped you would be.”

Edouard was trying in vain to look severe. He was immensely entertained. He made a kind of slight mocking bow:

“Much obliged. It remains to be seen whether I shall be able to return the compliment. I suppose, since you are here, that you have read my papers?”

Bernard, who had endured without flinching the brunt of Edouard’s gaze, smiled in his turn with boldness, amusement, impertinence; and bowing low, “Don’t doubt it,” he said. “I am here to serve you.”

Then, quick as an elf, he darted downstairs.

When Edouard went back into the room, Laura was sobbing. He went up to her. She put her forehead down on his shoulder. Any manifestation of emotion embarrassed him almost unbearably. He found himself gently patting her on the back as one does a choking child:

“My poor Laura,” said he; “come, come, be sensible.”

“Oh, let me cry a little; it does me good.”

“All the same we’ve got to consider what you are to do.”

“What is there I _can_ do? Where can I go? To whom can I speak?”

“Your parents....”

“You know what they are. It would plunge them in despair. And they did everything they could to make me happy.”

“Douviers?...”

“I shall never dare face him again. He is so good. You mustn’t think I don’t love him.... If you only knew.... If you only knew.... Oh, say you don’t despise me too much.”

“On the contrary, my dear; on the contrary. How can you imagine such a thing?” And he began patting her on the back again.

“Yes; I don’t feel ashamed any more, when I am with you.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I can’t remember. I have only been living in the hopes that you would come. There were times when I thought I couldn’t bear it. I feel now as if I couldn’t stay here another day.”

Her sobs redoubled and she almost screamed out, though in a choking voice:

“Take me away! Take me away!”

Edouard felt more and more uncomfortable.

“Now Laura.... You must be calm. That ... that ... I don’t even know his name....”

“Bernard,” murmured Laura.

“Bernard will be back in a moment. Come now; pull yourself together. He mustn’t see you in this state. Courage! We’ll think of something, I promise you. Come, come! Dry your eyes. Crying does no good. Look at yourself in the glass. Your face is all swollen. You must bathe it. When I see you crying I can’t think of anything.... There! Here he is! I can hear him.”

He went to the door and opened it to let in Bernard, while Laura, with her back turned at the dressing-table, set about restoring a semblance of calm to her features.

“And now, sir, may I ask when I shall be allowed to get possession of my belongings again?”

He looked Bernard full in the face as he spoke, with the same ironical smile on his lips as before.

“As soon as you please, sir; but at the same time, I feel obliged to confess that I shall certainly feel the loss of your belongings a good deal more than you do. I am sure you would understand if you only knew my story. But I’ll just say this, that since this morning I am without a roof, without a family and with nothing better to do than throw myself into the river, if I hadn’t met you. I followed you this morning for a long time while you were talking to my friend Olivier. He has spoken to me about you such a lot! I should have liked to go up to you. I was casting about for some excuse to do so, by hook or by crook.... When you threw your luggage ticket away, I blessed my stars. Oh, don’t take me for a thief. If I lifted your suit-case, it was more than anything so as to get into touch with you.”

Bernard brought all this out almost in a single breath. An extraordinary animation fired his words and features--as though they were aflame with kindness. Edouard, to judge by his smile, thought him charming.

“And now...?” asked he.

Bernard understood that he was gaining ground.

“And now, weren’t you in need of a secretary? I can’t believe I should fill the post badly--it would be with such joy.”

This time Edouard laughed outright. Laura watched them both with amusement.

“Ho! Ho!... We must think about that. Come and see me to-morrow at the same time, and here--if Madame Douviers will allow it--for I have a great many things to settle with her too. You’re staying at a hotel, I suppose? Oh, I don’t want to know where. It doesn’t matter in the least. Till to-morrow.”

He held out his hand.

“Sir, before I leave you,” said Bernard, “will you allow me to remind you that there is a poor old music-master, called La Pérouse, I think, who is living in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and who would be made very happy by a visit from you?”

“Upon my word, that’s not a bad beginning. You have a very fair notion of your future duties.”

“Then.... Really? You consent?”

“We’ll see about it to-morrow. Good-bye.”

Edouard, after having stayed a few moments longer with Laura, went to the Moliniers’. He hoped to see Olivier again; he wanted to speak to him about Bernard. He saw only Pauline, though he stayed on and on in desperation.

Olivier, that very afternoon, yielding to the pressing invitation passed on to him by his brother, had gone to visit the author of _The Horizontal Bar_, the Comte de Passavant.

XV

OLIVIER VISITS THE COMTE DE PASSAVANT

“I WAS afraid your brother hadn’t delivered my message,” said Robert on seeing Olivier come into the room.

“Am I late?” he asked, coming forward timidly and almost on tip-toe. He had kept his hat in his hand and Robert took it from him.

“Put that down. Make yourself comfortable. Here, in this arm-chair, I think you’ll be all right. Not late at all, to judge by the clock. But my wish to see you went faster than the time. Do you smoke?”

“No, thank you,” said Olivier, waving aside the cigarette case, which the Comte de Passavant held out to him. He refused out of shyness, though he was really longing to try one of the slender, amber-scented cigarettes (Russian, no doubt,) which lay ranged in the proffered case.

“Yes, I’m glad you were able to come. I was afraid you might be too much taken up with your examination. When is it?”

“The written is in ten days. But I’m not working much. I think I’m ready and I’m more afraid of being fagged when I go up.”

“Still, I suppose you’d refuse to undertake any other occupation just now?”

“No ... if it isn’t too absorbing, that is.”

“I’ll tell you why I asked you to come. First, for the pleasure of seeing you again. The other night in the foyer, during the _entr’acte_, we were just getting into a talk. I was exceedingly interested by what you said. I expect you don’t remember?”

“Oh yes, I do,” said Olivier, who was under the impression he had said nothing but stupidities.

“But to-day I have something special to say to you.... I think you know an individual of the Hebrew persuasion, called Dhurmer? Isn’t he one of your schoolfellows?”

“I have just this moment left him.”

“Ah! You see a good deal of each other?”

“Yes. We met at the Louvre to-day to talk about a review of which he is to be the editor.”

Robert burst into a loud, affected laugh.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! the editor!... He’s in a deuce of a hurry.... Did he really say that to you?”

“He has been talking to me about it for ever so long.”

“Yes. I have been thinking of it for some time past. The other day I asked him casually whether he’d agree to read over the manuscripts with me; that’s what he at once called becoming editor--not even sub-editor; I didn’t contradict him and he immediately.... Just like him, isn’t it? What a fellow! He wants taking down a peg or two.... Don’t you really smoke?”

“After all, I think I will,” said Olivier, this time accepting. “Thank you.”

“Well, allow me to say, Olivier ... you don’t mind my calling you Olivier, do you? I really can’t say Monsieur; you’re too young, and I’m too intimate with your brother Vincent to call you Molinier. Well then, Olivier, allow me to say that I have infinitely more confidence in your taste than in Mr. Solomon Dhurmer’s. Now would you consent to taking the literary direction? Under me a little, of course--at first, at any rate. But I prefer not to have my name on the cover. I’ll tell you why later.... Perhaps you’d take a glass of port wine, eh? I’ve got some that’s quite good.”

He stretched out his hand to a kind of little side-board that stood near and took up a bottle of wine and two glasses, which he filled.

“Well! What do you think?”

“Yes, indeed; first-rate.”

“I wasn’t talking of the port,” protested Robert, laughing; “but of what I was saying just now.”

Olivier had pretended not to understand. He was afraid of accepting too quickly and of showing his joy too obviously. He blushed a little and stammered with confusion:

“My examination wouldn’t....”

“You have just told me that you weren’t giving much time to it,” interrupted Robert. “And besides, the review won’t come out yet awhile. I am wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to put off launching it till after the holidays. But in any case I had to sound you. We must get several numbers ready before October and we ought to see each other a great deal this summer so as to talk things over. What are you going to do these holidays?”

“I don’t know exactly. My people will probably be going to Normandy. They always do in the summer.”

“And you will have to go with them?... Couldn’t you let yourself be unhitched for a bit?...”

“My mother would never consent.”

“I’m dining to-night with your brother. May I speak to him about it?”

“Oh, Vincent won’t be with us.” Then, realizing that this sentence was no answer to the question, he added: “Besides, it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Well, but if we find a good reason to give Mamma?”

Olivier did not answer. He loved his mother tenderly and the mocking tone in which Robert alluded to her displeased him. Robert understood that he had gone too far.

“So you appreciate my port,” he said by way of diversion. “Have another glass?”

“No, no, thank you; but it’s excellent.”

“Yes, I was struck by the ripeness and sureness of your judgment the other night. Do you mean to go in for criticism?”

“No.”

“Poetry?... I know you write poetry.”

Olivier blushed again.

“Yes, your brother has betrayed you. And no doubt you know other young men who would be ready to contribute. This review must become a rallying ground for the younger generation. That’s its _raison d’être_. I should like you to help me draw up a kind of prospectus, a manifesto, which would just give a sketch of the new tendencies without defining them too precisely. We’ll talk it over later on. We must make a choice of two or three telling epithets; they mustn’t be neologisms; no old words that are thoroughly hackneyed; we’ll fill them with a brand new meaning and make the public swallow them. After Flaubert there was ‘cadenced and rhythmic’; after Leconte de Lisle, ‘hieratic and definitive’.... Oh! what would you say to ‘vital,’ eh?... ‘Unconscious and vital’.... No?... ‘Elementary, unconscious and vital’?”

“I think we might find something better still,” Olivier took courage to say, smiling, though without seeming to approve much.

“Come, another glass of port....”

“Not quite full, please.”

“You see, the great weakness of the symbolist school is that it brought nothing but an æsthetic with it; all the other great schools brought with them, besides their new styles, a new ethic, new tables, a new way of looking at things, of understanding love, of behaving oneself in life. As for the symbolist, it’s perfectly simple; he didn’t behave himself at all in life; he didn’t attempt to understand it; he denied its existence; he turned his back on it. Absurd, don’t you think? They were a set of people without greed--without appetites even. Not like us ... eh?”

Olivier had finished his second glass of port and his second cigarette. Reclining in his comfortable arm-chair, with his eyes half shut, he said nothing, but signified his assent by slightly nodding his head from time to time. At this moment a ring was heard, and almost immediately afterwards a servant entered with a card which he presented to Robert. Robert took the card, glanced at it and put it on his writing desk beside him.

“Very well. Ask him to wait a moment.” The servant went out. “Look here, my dear boy, I like you very much and I think we shall get on very well together. But somebody has just come whom I absolutely must see and he wants to speak to me alone.”

Olivier had risen.

“I’ll show you out by the garden, if you’ll allow me.... Ah! whilst I think of it. Would you care to have my new book? I’ve got a copy here, on hand-made paper....”

“I haven’t waited for that to read it,” said Olivier, who didn’t much care for Passavant’s book, and tried his best to be amiable without being fulsome.

Did Passavant detect in his tone a certain tincture of disdain? He went on quickly: “Oh, you needn’t say anything about it. If you were to tell me you liked it, I should be obliged to doubt either your taste or your sincerity. No; no one knows better than I do what’s lacking in the book. I wrote it much too quickly. To tell the truth, the whole time I was writing it I was thinking of my next one. Ah! that one is a different matter. I care about that one. Yes, I care about it exceedingly. You’ll see; you’ll see.... I’m so very sorry, but you really must leave me now.... Unless.... No, no; we don’t know each other well enough yet, and your people are certainly expecting you back for dinner. Well, good-bye; au revoir. I’ll write your name in the book; allow me.”

He had risen; he went up to his writing desk. While he was stooping to write, Olivier stepped forward and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the card which the servant had just brought in:

VICTOR STROUVILHOU

The name meant nothing to him.

Passavant handed Olivier the copy of _The Horizontal Bar_, and as Olivier was preparing to read the inscription:

“Look at it later,” said Passavant, slipping the book under his arm.

It was not till he was in the street that Olivier read the manuscript motto with which the Comte de Passavant had adorned the first page and which he had culled out of the book itself:

_“Prithee, Orlando, a few steps further. I am not perfectly sure that I dare altogether take your meaning.”_

Underneath which he had added:

To OLIVIER MOLINIER
from his presumptive friend
COMTE ROBERT DE PASSAVANT

An ambiguous motto, which made Olivier wonder, but which after all he was perfectly free to interpret as he pleased.

Olivier got home just after Edouard had left, weary of waiting.

XVI

VINCENT AND LILIAN

VINCENT’S education, which had been materialistic in tendency, prevented him from believing in the supernatural--which gave the demon an immense advantage. The demon never made a frontal attack upon Vincent; he approached him crookedly and furtively. One of his cleverest manœuvres consists in presenting us our defeats as if they were victories. What inclined Vincent to consider his behaviour to Laura as a victory of his will over his affections, was that, being naturally kind-hearted, he had been obliged to force himself, to steel himself to be hard to her.

Upon a closer examination of the evolution of Vincent’s character in this intrigue, I discover various stages, which I will point out for the reader’s edification:

1st.--The period of good motives. Probity. Conscientious need of repairing a wrong action. In actual fact: the moral obligation of devoting to Laura the money which his parents had laboriously saved to meet the initial expenses of his career. Is this not self-sacrifice? Is this motive not respectable, generous, charitable?

2nd.--The period of uneasiness. Scruples. Is not the fear that this sum may be insufficient, the first step towards yielding, when the demon dangles before Vincent’s eyes the possibility of increasing it?

3rd.--Constancy and fortitude. Need after the loss of this sum to feel himself “above adversity.” It is this “fortitude” which enables him to confess his loss at cards to Laura; and which enables him by the same occasion to break with her.

4th.--Renunciation of good motives, regarded as a cheat, in the light of the new ethic which Vincent finds himself obliged to invent in order to legitimize his conduct; for he continues to be a moral being, and the devil will only get the better of him by furnishing him with reasons for self-approval. Theory of immanence, of totality in the moment; of gratuitous, immediate and motiveless joy.

5th.--Intoxication of the winner. Contempt of the reserve in hand. Supremacy.

After which the demon has won the game.

After which the being who believes himself freest is nothing but a tool at his service. The demon will never rest now till Vincent has sold his brother to that creature of perdition--Passavant.

And yet Vincent is not bad. All this, do what he will, leaves him unsatisfied, uncomfortable. Let us add a few words more:

The name “_exoticism_” is, I believe, given to those of Maia’s iridescent folds which make the soul feel itself a stranger, which deprive it of points of contact. There are some whose virtue would resist, but that the devil, before attacking it, transplants them. No doubt, if Vincent and Laura had not been under other skies, far from their parents, from their past memories, from all that maintained them in consistency with themselves, she would not have yielded to him, nor he attempted to seduce her. No doubt it seemed to them out there that their act did not enter into the reckoning.... A great deal more might be said; but the above is enough as it is to explain Vincent to us better.

With Lilian too he felt himself in a foreign land.

“Don’t laugh at me, Lilian,” he said to her that same evening. “I know that you won’t understand, and yet I have to speak to you as if you would, for I’m unable now to get you out of my mind.”

Lilian was lying on the low divan, and he, half reclining at her feet, let his head rest, lover-like, on his mistress’s knees, while she, lover-like, caressed it.

“The thing that was on my mind this morning was ... yes, I think it was fear. Can you keep serious for a moment? Can you try to understand me so far as to forget for a moment--not what you believe, for you believe in nothing--but just that very fact that you believe in nothing? I didn’t believe in anything either; I believed that I didn’t believe in anything--not in anything but ourselves, in you, in me, in what I am when I am with you, in what, thanks to you, I am going to become....”

“Robert will be here at seven,” interrupted Lilian. “I don’t want to hurry you; but if you don’t get on a little quicker, he’ll interrupt you just at the very moment you are beginning to get interesting. I don’t suppose you’ll want to go on when he’s here. It’s odd that you should think it necessary to take so many precautions to-day. You remind me of a blind man, who has first to feel every spot with his stick, before he puts his foot on it. And yet you can see I’m keeping quite serious. Why haven’t you more confidence?”

“Ever since I’ve known you, my confidence has become extraordinary,” went on Vincent. “I’m capable of great things, I feel it; and you see that everything I do turns out successful. But that’s exactly what terrifies me. No; be quiet.... All day long I’ve kept thinking of what you told me this morning about the wreck of the _Bourgogne_, and of the people who wanted to get into the boat having their hands cut off. It seems to me that something wants to get into my boat--I’m using your image, so that you may understand me--something that I want to prevent getting in....”

“And you want me to help you drown it.... You old coward!”

He went on without looking at her:

“Something I keep off, but whose voice I hear ... a voice you have never heard, that I listened to in my childhood....”

“And what does your voice say? You don’t dare tell me. I’m not surprised. I bet there’s a dash of the catechism in it, isn’t there?”

“Oh, Lilian, try to understand; the only way for me to get rid of these thoughts is to tell them to you. If you laugh at them, I shall keep them to myself and they’ll poison me.”

“Tell away then,” said she with an air of resignation. Then, as he kept silent and hid his face like a child in Lilian’s skirts: “Well, what are you waiting for?”

She seized him by the hair and forced him to raise his head:

“Upon my word, he’s really taking it seriously! Just look at him! He’s quite pale. Now, listen to me, my dear boy; if you mean to behave like a child, it’s not my affair at all. One must have the strength of one’s convictions. And, besides, you know I don’t like people who cheat. When you try on the sly to pull things into your boat which oughtn’t to be there, you’re cheating. I’m willing to play the game with you, but it must be above board; and I warn you my object is to make you succeed. I think you’re capable of becoming somebody important--really important; I feel great intelligence in you, and great strength. I want to help you. There are quite enough women who spoil the careers of the men they fall in love with; I want to do the contrary. You’ve already told me you wanted to give up doctoring in order to work at science and that you were sorry you hadn’t enough money.... Now you have just won fifty thousand francs, which isn’t bad to begin with. But you must promise me not to play any more. I’ll put as much money as is necessary at your disposition, on condition that if people say you are being kept, you’ll be strong-minded enough to shrug your shoulders.”

Vincent had risen. He went up to the window. Lilian went on:

“To begin with, I think one might as well finish up with Laura and send her the five thousand francs you promised her. Now that you’ve got the money, why don’t you keep your word? I don’t like it at all. I detest caddishness. You don’t know how to cut hands off decently. When that’s done, we’ll go and spend the summer where it’ll be most profitable for your work.... You mentioned Roskoff; personally, I should prefer Monaco, because I know the Prince, and he might take us for a cruise and perhaps give you a job in his laboratory.”

Vincent kept silent. He felt disinclined to say to Lilian (he only told her later) that before coming to see her, he had gone to the hotel, where Laura had waited for him in such despair. Anxious to be at last quit of his debt, he had slipped the notes, on which she no longer counted, into an envelope. He had entrusted the envelope to a waiter, and then waited in the hall until he should hear it had been delivered to her personally. A few moments later the waiter had come downstairs bringing with him the envelope, across which Laura had written:

“_Too late._”

Lilian rang and asked for her cloak. When the maid had left the room:

“Oh, I wanted to say to you, before Robert arrives, that if he proposes an investment for your fifty thousand francs--be careful. He is very rich, but he is always in want of money. There! look and see. I think I hear his horn. He’s half an hour before the time; but so much the better.... For all we were saying!...”

“I’m early,” said Robert as he came into the room, “because I thought it would be amusing to go and dine at Versailles. Do you agree?”

“No,” said Lady Griffith; “the fountains bore me. I had rather go to Rambouillet; there’s time. We shan’t have such a good dinner, but we shall be able to talk more easily. I want Vincent to tell you his fish stories. He knows some marvellous ones. I don’t know if what he says is true, but it’s more amusing than the best novel in the world.”

“That’s not perhaps what a novelist will think,” said Vincent.

Robert de Passavant held an evening paper in his hand:

“D’you know that Brugnard has just been made assistant-secretary at the Ministry of Justice? Now’s the moment to get your father decorated,” said he, turning to Vincent. Vincent shrugged his shoulders.

“My dear Vincent,” went on Passavant, “allow me to say that you’ll very much offend him by not asking this little favour--which he’ll be so delighted to refuse.”

“Suppose you were to start by asking it for yourself,” Vincent replied.

Robert made an affected little grimace:

“No; for my part, my vanity consists in never blushing--not even in my buttonhole.” Then, turning to Lilian:

“Do you know it’s rare nowadays to find a man who has reached forty without either the syph or the legion of honour?”

Lilian smiled and shrugged her shoulders:

“For the sake of a _bon-mot_ he actually consents to make himself out older than he is! I say, is it a quotation from your next book? It’ll be tasty.... Go on downstairs. I’ll get my cloak and follow you.”

“I thought you had given up seeing him,” said Vincent to Robert on the staircase.

“Who? Brugnard?”

“You said he was so stupid....”

“My dear friend,” replied Passavant, pausing on a step and holding up Molinier, for he saw Lady Griffith coming and wanted her to hear: “you must know there’s not a single one of my friends whom I’ve known a certain time, that hasn’t given me unmistakable proofs of imbecility. I assure you that Brugnard resisted the test longer than a great many others.”

“Than I, perhaps?” asked Vincent.