Part + 

III + 

Paris + 

When we are in possession of a few more local monographs⁠—then, and only then, by grouping their data, by minutely confronting and comparing them, we shall be able to reconsider the subject as a whole, and take a new and decisive step forward. To proceed otherwise, would be merely to start, armed with two or three rough and simple ideas, on a kind of rapid excursion. It would be, in most cases, to pass by everything that is particular, individual, irregular⁠—that is to say, everything, on the whole, that is most interesting. + 

Lucien Fèbvre: La Terre et L’Evolution Humaine + 

Sept. 22nd.⁠—Hot; bored. Have come back to Paris a week too soon. My eagerness always makes me respond before I am summoned. Curiosity rather than zeal; desire to anticipate. I have never been able to come to terms with my thirst. + 

Took Boris to see his grandfather. Sophroniska, who had been the day before to prepare him, tells me that Madame de La Pérouse has gone into the home. Heavens! What a relief! + 

I left the little boy on the landing, after ringing the bell, thinking it would be more discreet not to be present at the first meeting; I was afraid of the old fellow’s thanks. Questioned the boy later on, but could get nothing out of him. Sophroniska, when I saw her later, told me he had not said anything to her either. When she went to fetch him after an hour’s interval, as had been arranged, a maidservant opened the door; she found the old gentleman sitting in front of a game of draughts and the child sulking by himself in a corner at the other end of the room. + 

“It’s odd,” said La Pérouse, very much out of countenance, “he seemed to be amused, but all of a sudden he got tired of it. I am afraid he is a little wanting in patience.” + 

It was a mistake to leave them alone together too long. + 

Sept. 27th.⁠—This morning met Molinier under the arcades of the Odéon. Pauline and George are not coming back till the day after tomorrow. If Molinier, who has been by himself in Paris since yesterday, was as bored as I am, it’s no wonder that he seemed enchanted to see me. We went and sat down in the Luxembourg, till it should be time for lunch, and agreed to take it together. + 

Molinier, when he is with me, affects a rather jocose⁠—even, at times, a kind of rakish tone⁠—which he no doubt thinks the correct thing to please an artist. A desire too to show that he is still full of beans. + 

“At heart,” he declared, “I am a passionate man.” I understand that what he really meant was that he was a libidinous one. I smiled, as one would if one heard a woman declare she had very fine legs⁠—a smile which signifies “I never doubted it for a moment.” Until that day I had only seen the magistrate; the man at last threw aside his toga. + 

I waited till we were seated at table at Foyot’s before speaking to him of Olivier; I told him that I had recently had news of him through one of his schoolfellows, and that I had heard he was travelling in Corsica with the Comte de Passavant. + 

“Yes, he’s a friend of Vincent’s: he offered to take him with him. As Olivier had just passed his bachot rather brilliantly, his mother thought it would be hard to refuse him such a pleasure.⁠ ⁠… The Comte de Passavant is a writer. I expect you know him.” + 

I did not conceal that I had no great liking for either his books or his person. + 

“Amongst confrères one is sometimes apt to be a little severe in one’s judgments,” he retorted. “I tried to read his last novel; certain critics think very highly of it. I didn’t see much in it myself; but it’s not my line, you know.⁠ ⁠…” Then as I expressed my fear as to the influence Passavant might have over Olivier: + 

“In reality,” he added in his rather woolly way, “I personally didn’t approve of this expedition. But it’s no good not realizing that when they get to a certain age our children escape from our control. It’s in the nature of things and there’s nothing to be done. Pauline would like to go on hanging over them forever. She’s like all mothers. I sometimes say to her: ‘But you worry your sons to death. Leave them alone. It’s you who put things into their heads with all your questions.⁠ ⁠…’ For my part I consider it does no good to watch over them too long. The important thing is that a few good principles should be inculcated into them during their early education. The important thing above all is that they should come of a good stock. Heredity, my dear friend, heredity triumphs over everything. There are certain bad lots whom nothing can improve⁠—the predestined, we call them. Those must have a tight hand kept over them. But when one has to do with well-conditioned natures, one can let them go a bit easy.” + 

“But you were telling me,” I insisted, “that you didn’t approve of Olivier’s being carried off in this way.” + 

“Oh! approve⁠ ⁠… approve!” he said with his nose in his plate, “there’s no need for my approval. There are many households, you know⁠—and those the most united⁠—where it isn’t always the husband who settles things. But you aren’t married; such things don’t interest you.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Oh!” said I, laughing, “but I’m a novelist.” + 

“Then you have no doubt remarked that it isn’t always from weakness of character that a man allows himself to be led by his wife.” + 

“Yes,” I conceded by way of flattery, “there are strong and even dominating men whom one discovers to be of a lamblike docility in their married life.” + 

“And do you know why?” he went on. “Nine times out of ten, when the husband submits to his wife, it is because he has something to be forgiven him. A virtuous woman, my dear fellow, takes advantage of everything. If the man stoops for a second, there she is sitting on his shoulders. Oh! we poor husbands are sometimes greatly to be pitied. When we are young, our one wish is to have chaste wives, without a thought of how much their virtue is going to cost us.” + 

I gazed at Molinier, sitting there with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. The poor man little suspected how naturally his backbone fell into the stooping attitude of which he complained; he kept mopping his forehead, ate a great deal⁠—not like a gourmet, but like a glutton⁠—and seemed particularly to appreciate the old Burgundy which we had ordered. Happy to feel himself listened to, understood, and, no doubt he thought, approved, he overflowed in confessions. + 

“In my capacity as magistrate,” he continued, “I have known women who only lent themselves to their husbands against the grain of their heart and senses⁠ ⁠… and who yet are indignant when the poor wretch who has been repulsed, seeks his provender elsewhere.” + 

The magistrate had begun his sentence in the past; the husband finished it in the present, with an unmistakable allusion to himself. He added sententiously between two mouthfuls: + 

“Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn’t share them.” He drank a long draught of wine, then: “And this explains, my dear friend, how a husband loses the direction of his household.” + 

I understood, indeed⁠—it was clear under the apparent incoherence of his talk⁠—his desire to make the responsibility of his own shortcomings fall upon his wife’s virtue. Creatures as disjointed as this puppet, I said to myself, need every scrap of their egoism to bind together the disconnected elements of which they are formed. A moment’s self-forgetfulness, and they would fall to pieces. He was silent. I felt I must pour a few reflections over him, as one pours oil on an engine that has accomplished a bout of work; and to set him going again I remarked: + 

“Fortunately Pauline is intelligent.” + 

He prolonged his “ye-e-s” till it turned into a query; then: + 

“But still there are things she doesn’t understand. However intelligent a woman may be, you know.⁠ ⁠… Still, I must admit that in the circumstances I didn’t manage very cleverly. I began telling her about a little affair of mine at a time when I thought⁠—when I was absolutely convinced⁠—that it wouldn’t go any further. It did go further⁠ ⁠… and Pauline’s suspicions too. It was a mistake to put her on the ‘qui vive,’ as people say. I have been obliged to hide things from her⁠—to tell lies.⁠ ⁠… That’s what comes of not holding one’s tongue to begin with. It’s not my fault. I’m naturally confiding.⁠ ⁠… But Pauline’s jealousy is alarming. You can’t imagine how careful I have had to be.” + 

“Was it long ago?” I asked. + 

“Oh, it’s been going on for about five years now; and I flatter myself I had completely reassured her. But now the whole thing has to begin all over again. What do you think! When I got back home the day before yesterday.⁠ ⁠… Suppose we order another bottle of Pommard, eh?” + 

“Not for me, please.” + 

“Perhaps I could have a half bottle. I’ll go home and take a little nap after lunch. I feel this heat so.⁠ ⁠… Well, I was telling you that the day before yesterday, when I got back, I went to my writing desk to put some papers away. I pulled open the drawer where I had hidden⁠ ⁠… the person in question’s letters. Imagine my stupefaction, my dear fellow; the drawer was empty! Deuce take it! I see exactly what has happened; about a fortnight ago, Pauline came up to Paris with George, to go to the wedding of the daughter of one of my colleagues. I wasn’t able to attend it myself; I was away in Holland.⁠ ⁠… And besides, functions of that kind are women’s business. Well, there she was, with nothing to do, in an empty flat; under pretence of putting things straight⁠ ⁠… you know what women are like⁠—always rather curious⁠ ⁠… she began nosing about⁠ ⁠… oh! intending no ill⁠—I’m not blaming her. But Pauline has always had a perfect mania for tidying.⁠ ⁠… Well, what on earth am I to say to her, now that she’s got all the proofs? If only the silly little thing didn’t call me by my Christian name! Such a united couple! When I think what I’m in for!⁠ ⁠…” + 

The poor man stuck in the slough of his confidences. He dabbed his forehead⁠—fanned himself. I had drunk much less than he. The heart does not furnish compassion at command; I merely felt disgust for him. I could put up with him as the father of a family (though it was painful to me to think that he was Olivier’s father), as a respectable, honest, retired bourgeois; but as a man in love, I could only imagine him ridiculous. I was especially made uncomfortable by the clumsiness and triviality of his words, of his pantomime; neither his face nor his voice seemed suited to the feelings he expressed; it was like a double bass trying to produce the effects of an alto; his instrument brought out nothing but squeaks. + 

“You said that she had George with her.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes; she didn’t want to leave him at the seaside alone. But naturally in Paris he wasn’t in her pocket the whole time.⁠ ⁠… Why, my dear fellow, in twenty-six years of married life I have never had the smallest scene, the slightest altercation.⁠ ⁠… When I think of what’s in store for me!⁠ ⁠… for Pauline’s coming back in two days.⁠ ⁠… Oh! I say, let’s talk of something else. Well, what do you think of Vincent? The Prince of Monaco⁠—a cruise.⁠ ⁠… By Jove!⁠ ⁠… What! didn’t you know?⁠ ⁠… Yes; he has gone out in charge of soundings and deep-sea fishing near the Azores. Ah! there’s no need to be anxious about him, I assure you. He’ll make his way all right, without help from anyone.” + 

“His health?” + 

“Completely restored. With his intelligence, I think he is on the high road to becoming famous. The Comte de Passavant made no bones about saying that he considered him one of the most remarkable men he ever met. He even said ‘the most remarkable’⁠ ⁠… but one must make allowances for exaggeration.” + 

The meal was finished; he lit a cigar. + 

“May I ask you,” he went on, “who the friend is who gave you news of Olivier? I must tell you that I attach particular importance to the company my children keep. I consider that it’s a thing it’s impossible to pay too much attention to. My sons fortunately have a natural tendency to make friends with only the best people. Vincent, you see, with his prince; Olivier with the Comte de Passavant.⁠ ⁠… As for George, he has been going about at Houlgate with one of his schoolfellows⁠—a young Adamanti⁠—he’s to be at the Vedel-Azaïs school next term too; a boy in whom one can have complete confidence; his father is senator for Corsica. But just see how prudent one has to be! Olivier had a friend who seemed to belong to an excellent family⁠—a certain Bernard Profitendieu. I must tell you that old Profitendieu is a colleague of mine; a most distinguished man. I have particular esteem for him. But⁠ ⁠… (between ourselves)⁠ ⁠… it has just come to my knowledge that he is not the father of the boy who bears his name! What do you say to that?” + 

“Young Bernard Profitendieu is the very person who spoke to me about Olivier,” I said. + 

Molinier drew a few deep puffs from his cigar and raised his eyebrows very high, so that his forehead was covered with wrinkles: + 

“I had rather Olivier saw as little as possible of that young fellow. I have heard the most deplorable things about him⁠—not that I’m much astonished at that. We must admit that there’s no grounds for expecting any good from a boy who has been born in such unfortunate conditions. I don’t mean to say that a natural child mayn’t have great qualities⁠—and even virtues; but the fruit of lawlessness and insubordination must necessarily be tainted with the germs of anarchy. Yes, my dear friend, what was bound to happen has happened. Young Bernard has suddenly left the shelter of the family which he ought never to have entered. He has gone ‘to live his life,’ as Emile Augier says; live Heaven knows how or where. Poor Profitendieu, when he told me about this extravagant behaviour, seemed exceedingly upset about it. I made him understand that he ought not to take it so much to heart. In reality the boy’s departure puts everything to rights again.” + 

I protested that I knew Bernard well enough to vouch for his being a charming, well-behaved boy. (Needless to say I took good care not to mention the affair of the suitcase.) But Molinier only went on all the more vigorously. + 

“So! So! I see I must tell you more.” + 

Then, leaning forward and speaking in a whisper: + 

“My colleague Profitendieu has recently had to investigate an exceedingly shady and disagreeable affair, both on its own account and because of the scandalous consequences it may entail. It’s a preposterous story and one would be only too glad if one could disbelieve it.⁠ ⁠… Imagine, my dear fellow, a regular concern of organized prostitution, in fact of a⁠ ⁠… no, I don’t want to use bad words; let’s say a teashop, with this particularly scandalous feature, that its habitués are mostly, almost exclusively, very young schoolboys. I tell you it’s incredible. The children certainly don’t realize the gravity of their acts, for they hardly attempt to conceal themselves. It takes place when they come out of school. They take tea, they talk, they amuse themselves with the ladies; and the play is carried further in the rooms which adjoin the tea rooms. Of course not everyone is allowed in. One has to be introduced, initiated. Who stands the expense of these orgies? Who pays the rent? It wouldn’t have been very difficult to find out; but the investigations had to be conducted with extreme prudence, for fear of learning too much, of being carried further than one meant, of being forced to prosecute and compromise the respectable families whose children are suspected of being the principal clients of the affair. I did what I could therefore to moderate Profitendieu’s zeal. He charged into the business like a bull, without suspecting that with the first stroke of his horns⁠ ⁠… (oh! I’m sorry; I didn’t say it on purpose; ha! ha! ha! how funny! It came out quite unintentionally)⁠ ⁠… he ran the risk of sticking his own son. Fortunately the holidays broke everything up. The schoolboys were scattered and I hope the whole business will peter out, be hushed up after a warning or so and a few discreet penalties.” + 

“Are you quite sure Bernard Profitendieu was mixed up in it?” + 

“Not absolutely, but.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“What makes you think so?” + 

“First, the fact that he is a natural child. You don’t suppose that a boy of his age runs away from home without having touched the lowest depths?⁠ ⁠… And then I have an idea that Profitendieu was seized with some suspicions, for his zeal suddenly cooled down; more than that, he seemed to be backing out, and the last time I asked him how the affair was going on he seemed embarrassed: ‘I think, after all that nothing will come of it,’ he said and hastily changed the subject. Poor Profitendieu! I must say he doesn’t deserve it. He’s an honest man, and what’s rarer perhaps, a good fellow. By the way, his daughter has just married exceedingly well. I wasn’t able to go to the wedding because I was in Holland, but Pauline and George came back on purpose. Did I tell you that before? It’s time I went and had my nap.⁠ ⁠… What! really? You want to pay it all? No, no! You mustn’t. Bachelors⁠—old friends⁠—go shares.⁠ ⁠… No use? Well! well! Goodbye! Don’t forget that Pauline is coming back in two days. Come and see us. And don’t call me Molinier. Won’t you say Oscar?⁠ ⁠… I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time.” + 

This evening a note from Rachel, Laura’s sister: + 

“I have something very serious to say to you. Could you, without inconvenience, look in at the school tomorrow afternoon? It would be doing me a great service.” + 

If she had wanted to speak about Laura, she wouldn’t have waited so long. This is the first time she has written to me. + 

II + 

Edouard’s Journal: At the Vedels’ + 

Sept. 28th.⁠—I found Rachel standing at the door of the big classroom on the ground floor. Two servants were washing the boards. She herself had a servant’s apron on and was holding a duster in her hand. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Too busy to talk today.” + 

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

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

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

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

“There’s not enough sugar, Ma’am.” + 

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

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

“Oh! And Mr. Armand?⁠ ⁠… Make haste.” + 

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

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

The maidservant turned round like a serpent whose tail has been trodden on: + 

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

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

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

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

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

The maid came back with the sugar. + 

“Have you told Mr. Armand?” + 

“Yes, Ma’am; he’s coming directly.” + 

“And Sarah?” I asked. + 

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

“And Rachel?” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When do you want it?” + 

She made no answer. + 

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

“No; tomorrow will do. But if you can let me have a thousand francs at once without inconvenience.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I took out my pocketbook and handed them to her. + 

“Would you like fourteen hundred?” + 

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

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

She looked at me gravely: + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Would you like me to do it for you?” + 

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

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

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

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

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

But he continued in a jerky, hissing voice: + 

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

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

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

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

He kissed her on the forehead. + 

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

Then, holding out his hand to me: + 

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

III + 

Edouard’s Journal: Third Visit to La Pérouse + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Later. When the gentleman has gone.” + 

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

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

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

“Are you feverish?” I asked. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV + 

The First Day of the Term + 

The day was very hot. Through the open windows of the Vedels’ school could be seen the treetops of the Gardens, over which there still floated an immense, unexhausted store of summer. + 

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

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

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

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

George was still rocking. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That girl Praline has got run in.” + 

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

“Can one tell him?” + 

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

“She’s his tart.” Then to George: + 

“How do you know?” + 

“I met Germaine and she told me.” + 

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

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

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

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

That same evening Bernard went to see Edouard. + 

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

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

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

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

“And the other six?” + 

“ ‘As for me, I.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

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

“Some of them seem to me to have a fabricated personality.” + 

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

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

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

“Why?” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, dear! how lovely he is!” + 

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

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

“Pleased?” + 

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

‘Papillon du Parnasse, et semblable aux abeilles + 

A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles, + 

Je suis chose légère et vole à tout sujet, + 

Je vais de fleur en fleur et d’objet en objet.’ + 

How would you have done it?” + 

Olivier could not resist a desire to shine: + 

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

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

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

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

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

“France?⁠ ⁠…” Then, so as to disengage his responsibility⁠—for Bernard was decidedly not joking: + 

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

Bernard became almost aggressive: + 

“By Jove, I know well enough it isn’t you who think so. But, my dear fellow, it isn’t La Fontaine either. If he had only had that lightness, which, for that matter, he regretted and apologized for at the end of his life, he would never have been the artist we admire. That’s just what I said in my essay this morning, and I brought a great many quotations in support of my theory⁠—for you know I’ve a fairly good memory. But I soon left La Fontaine, and taking as my text the justification these lines might afford to a certain class of superficial minds, I just let myself go in a tirade against the spirit of carelessness, of flippancy, of irony, of what is called ‘French wit,’ which some people think is the spirit of France, and which sometimes gives us such a deplorable reputation among foreigners. I said that we ought not to consider all this as even the smile of France, but as her grimace; that the real spirit of France was a spirit of investigation, of logic, of devotedness, of patient thoroughness; and if La Fontaine had not been animated by that spirit, he might have written his tales, but never his fables nor the admirable epistle (I showed that I knew it) from which the lines we had to comment upon were taken. Yes, old boy, a violent attack⁠—perhaps I shall get ploughed for it. But I don’t care two straws; I had to say it.” + 

Olivier had not particularly meant what he had said just before. He had yielded to his desire to be brilliant and to bring out, as it were carelessly, a sentence which he thought would tremendously impress his friend. But now that Bernard took it in this way, there was nothing for him to do but to beat a retreat. But his great weakness lay in the fact that he was in much more need of Bernard’s affection than Bernard of his. Bernard’s speech had humiliated, mortified him. He was vexed with himself for having spoken too soon. It was too late now to go back on it⁠—to agree with Bernard, as he certainly would have done if he had let him speak first. But how could he have foreseen that Bernard, whom he remembered so scathingly subversive, would set up as a defender of feelings and ideas which Passavant had taught him could not be considered without a smile? But he really had no desire to smile now; he was ashamed. And as he could neither retract nor contradict Bernard, whose genuine emotion he couldn’t help respecting, his one idea was to protect himself⁠—to slip out of it. + 

“Oh! well, if you put that in your essay, it wasn’t against me that you were saying it.⁠ ⁠… I’m glad of that.” + 

He spoke as though he were vexed⁠—not at all in the tone he would have liked. + 

“But it is against you that I am saying it now,” retorted Bernard. + 

These words cut straight at Olivier’s heart. Bernard had certainly not said them with a hostile intention, but how else could they be taken? Olivier was silent. Between Bernard and him a gulf was yawning. He tried to think of some question to fling from one side of the gulf to the other which might reestablish the contact. He tried, without much hope of succeeding. “Doesn’t he understand how miserable I am?” he said to himself, and he grew more miserable still. He did not have to force back his tears, perhaps, but he said to himself that it was enough to make anyone cry. It was his own fault, too; his meeting with Bernard would have seemed less sad if he had looked forward to it with less joy. When two months before he had hurried off to meet Edouard, it had been the same thing. It would always be the same thing, he said to himself. He wanted to go away⁠—anywhere⁠—by himself⁠—to chuck Bernard⁠—to forget Passavant, Edouard.⁠ ⁠… An unexpected meeting suddenly interrupted these melancholy thoughts. + 

A few steps in front of them, going up the Boulevard Saint-Michel, along which he and Bernard were walking, Olivier caught sight of his young brother George. He seized Bernard’s arm, and, turning sharply on his heel, drew him hurriedly along with him. + 

“Do you think he saw us?⁠ ⁠… My people don’t know I’m back.” + 

Young George was not alone. Léon Ghéridanisol and Philippe Adamanti were with him. The conversation of the three boys was exceedingly animated; but George’s interest in it did not prevent him from keeping “his eyes skinned,” as he said. In order to listen to the children’s talk we will leave Olivier and Bernard for a moment; especially since our two friends have gone into a restaurant, and are for the moment more occupied in eating than in talking⁠—to Olivier’s great relief. + 

“Well then, you do it,” says Phiphi to George. + 

“Oh, he’s got the dithers! He’s got the dithers!” retorts George, putting what cold contempt he can into his voice, so as to goad Philippe to action. Then says Ghéridanisol with calm superiority: + 

“Look here, my lambs, if you aren’t game, you had better say so at once. I shan’t have any difficulty in finding fellows with a little more pluck than you. Here! Give it back!” + 

He turns to George, who is holding a small coin in his tight-shut hand. + 

“I’ll do it!” cries George, in a sudden burst of courage. “Won’t I just! Come on!” (They are opposite a tobacco shop.) + 

“No,” says Léon; “we’ll wait for you at the corner. Come along, Phiphi.” + 

A moment later George comes out of the shop; he has a packet of so-called “deluxe” cigarettes in his hand and offers them to his friends. + 

“Well?” asks Phiphi anxiously. + 

“Well, what?” replies George with an air of affected indifference, as if what he has just done has suddenly become so natural that it wasn’t worth mentioning. + 

But Philippe insists: + 

“Did you pass it?” + 

“Good Lord! Didn’t I?” + 

“And nobody said anything?” + 

George shrugged his shoulders: + 

“What on earth should they say?” + 

“And they gave you back the change?” + 

This time George doesn’t even deign to answer. But as Philippe, still a little sceptical and fearful, insists again: “Show us,” George pulls the money out of his pocket. Philippe counts⁠—the seven francs are there right enough. He feels inclined to ask: “Are you sure they aren’t false too?” But he refrains. + 

George had given one franc for the false coin. It had been agreed that the money should be divided between them. He holds out three francs to Ghéridanisol. As for Phiphi, he shan’t have a farthing; at the outside a cigarette; it’ll be a lesson to him. + 

Encouraged by this first success, Phiphi is now anxious to try for himself. He asks Léon to sell him another coin. But Léon considers Phiphi a muff, and in order to screw him up to the right pitch, he affects contempt for his former cowardice and pretends to hold back. He had only to make up his mind sooner; they could very well do without him. Besides which, Léon thinks it imprudent to risk another attempt so close upon the first. And then it’s too late now. His cousin Strouvilhou is expecting him to lunch. + 

Ghéridanisol is not such a duffer that he can’t pass his false coins by himself; but his big cousin’s instructions are that he is to get himself accomplices. He goes off now to give him an account of his successfully performed mission. + 

“The kids we want, you see, are those who come of good families, because then if rumours get about, their parents do all they can to stifle them.” (It is Cousin Strouvilhou who is talking in this way, while the two are having lunch together.) “Only with this system of selling the coins one by one, they get put into circulation too slowly. I’ve got fifty-two boxes containing twenty coins each, to dispose of. They must be sold for twenty francs a box; but not to anyone, you understand. The best thing would be to form an association to which no one should be admitted who didn’t furnish pledges. The kids must be made to compromise themselves, and hand over something or other which will give us a hold over their parents. Before letting them have the coins, they must be made to understand that⁠—oh! without frightening them. One must never frighten children. You told me Molinier’s father was a magistrate? Good. And Adamanti’s father?” + 

“A senator.” + 

“Better still. You’re old enough now to grasp that there’s no family without some skeleton or other in the cupboard, which the people concerned are terrified of having discovered. The kids must be set hunting; it’ll give them something to do. Family life as a rule is so boring! And then it’ll teach them to observe, to look about them. It’s quite simple. Those who contribute nothing will get nothing. When certain parents understand that they are in our hands, they’ll pay a high price for our silence. What the deuce! we have no intention of blackmailing them; we are honest folk. We merely want to have a hold on them. Their silence for ours. Let them keep silent and make other people keep silent, and then we’ll keep silent too. Here’s a health to them!” + 

Strouvilhou filled two glasses. They drank to each other. + 

“It’s a good⁠—it’s even an indispensable thing,” he went on, “to create ties of reciprocity between citizens; by so doing societies are solidly established. We all hold together, good Lord! We have a hold on the children, who have a hold on their parents, who have a hold on us. A perfect arrangement. Twig?” + 

Léon twigged admirably. He chuckled. + 

“That little George.⁠ ⁠…” he began. + 

“Well, what about him? That little George⁠ ⁠… ?” + 

“Molinier. I think he’s pretty well screwed up. He has laid his hands on some letters to his father from an Olympia chorus girl.” + 

“Have you seen them?” + 

“He showed them to me. I overheard him talking to Adamanti. I think they were pleased at my listening to them; at any rate they didn’t hide from me; I had already taken steps and treated them to a little entertainment in your style, to inspire them with confidence. George said to Phiphi (to give him a stunner): ‘My father’s got a mistress.’ Upon which, Phiphi, not to be outdone, answered: ‘My father’s got two.’ It was idiotic and really nothing to make a fuss about; but I went up to George and said: ‘How do you know?’ ‘I’ve seen some letters,’ he answered. I pretended I didn’t believe him and said: ‘Rubbish!’⁠ ⁠… Well, I went on at him, until at last he said he had got them with him; he pulled them out of a big letter-case and showed them to me.” + 

“Did you read them?” + 

“I didn’t have time to. I only saw they were all in the same handwriting; one of them began: ‘My darling old ducky.’ ” + 

“And signed?” + 

“ ‘Your little white mousie.’ I asked George how he had got hold of them. He grinned and pulled out of his trouser pocket an enormous bunch of keys.⁠ ⁠… To fit every drawer in the universe,’ said he.” + 

“And what did Master Phiphi say?” + 

“Nothing. I think he was jealous.” + 

“Would George give you the letters?” + 

“If necessary I’ll get him to. I don’t want to take them from him. He’ll give them if Phiphi joins in, too. They each of them egg the other on.” + 

“That’s what goes by the name of emulation. And you don’t see anyone else at the school?” + 

“I’ll look about.” + 

“One thing more I wanted to say.⁠ ⁠… I think there must be a little boy called Boris amongst the boarders. You’re to leave him alone”; he paused a moment and then added in a whisper: “for the moment.” + 

Olivier and Bernard are seated at a table in one of the Boulevard restaurants. Olivier’s unhappiness melts like hoarfrost in the warmth of his friend’s smile. Bernard avoids pronouncing Passavant’s name; Olivier feels it; a secret instinct warns him; but the name is on the tip of his tongue; he must speak, come what may. + 

“Yes; I didn’t let my people know we were coming back so soon. This evening the Argonauts are giving a dinner. Passavant particularly wants me to be present. He wishes our new review to be on good terms with its elder and not to set up as a rival.⁠ ⁠… You ought to come; and I tell you what⁠ ⁠… you ought to bring Edouard.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps not to dinner, because one’s got to be invited, but immediately after. It’s to be in the upstairs room of the Taverne du Panthéon. The principal members of the Argonaut staff will be there and a good many of our own Vanguard contributors. Our first number is nearly ready; but, I say, why didn’t you send me anything?” + 

“Because I hadn’t anything ready,” he answers rather curtly. + 

Olivier’s voice becomes almost imploring: + 

“I put your name down next to mine in the list of contents.⁠ ⁠… We could wait a little, if necessary⁠ ⁠… no matter what; anything.⁠ ⁠… You had almost promised.” + 

It grieves Bernard to hurt his friend; but he hardens himself: + 

“Look here, old boy, I had better tell you at once⁠—I’m afraid I shouldn’t hit it off with Passavant very well.” + 

“But it’s I who am the editor. He leaves me perfectly free.” + 

“And then I dislike the idea of sending you no matter what; I don’t want to write no matter what.” + 

“I said no matter what, because I knew that no matter what you wrote would be good⁠ ⁠… that it would never really be no matter what.” + 

He doesn’t know what to say. He is just floundering. If he cannot feel his friend beside him, all his interest in the review vanishes. It had been such a delightful dream, this of making their début together. + 

“And then, old fellow, if I’m beginning to know what I don’t want to do, I don’t know yet what I do want to do. I don’t even know whether I shall write.” + 

This declaration fills Olivier with consternation. But Bernard goes on: + 

“Nothing that I could write easily tempts me. It’s because I can turn my sentences easily that I have a detestation of well-turned sentences. Not that I like difficulty for its own sake; but I really do think that writers of the present time take things a bit too easy. I don’t know enough about other people’s lives to write a novel; and I haven’t yet had a life of my own. Poetry bores me. The alexandrine is worn threadbare; the vers libre is formless. The only poet who satisfies me nowadays is Rimbaud.” + 

“That’s exactly what I say in our manifesto.” + 

“Then it’s not worth while my repeating it. No, old boy; no; I don’t know whether I shall write. It sometimes seems to me that writing prevents one from living, and that one can express oneself better by acts than by words.” + 

“Works of art are acts that endure,” ventured Olivier timidly; but Bernard was not listening. + 

“That’s what I admire most of all in Rimbaud⁠—to have preferred life.” + 

“He made a mess of his own.” + 

“What do you know about it?” + 

“Oh! really, old boy!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“One can’t judge other people’s lives from the outside. But anyhow, let’s grant he was a failure; with ill-luck, poverty, illness to bear.⁠ ⁠… Even so, I envy him his life; yes, I envy it more⁠—even with its sordid ending⁠—more than the life of.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Bernard did not finish his sentence; on the point of naming an illustrious contemporary, he hesitated between too many of them. He shrugged his shoulders and went on: + 

“I have a confused feeling in myself of extraordinary aspirations, surgings, stirrings, incomprehensible agitations, which I don’t want to understand⁠—which I don’t even want to observe, for fear of preventing them. Not so long ago, I was constantly talking to myself. Now, even if I wanted to, I shouldn’t be able to. It was a mania that came to an end suddenly, without my even being aware of it. I think that this habit of soliloquizing⁠—of inward dialogue, as our professor used to call it⁠—necessitated a kind of division of the personality, which I ceased to be capable of, the day that I began to love someone else better than myself.” + 

“You mean Laura,” said Olivier. “Do you still love her as much as ever?” + 

“No,” said Bernard; “more than ever. I think it’s the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing; and that’s what distinguishes it from friendship.” + 

“Friendship, too, can grow less,” said Olivier sadly. + 

“I think that the margins of friendship aren’t so wide.” + 

“I say⁠ ⁠… you won’t be angry if I ask you something?” + 

“Try.” + 

“I don’t want to make you angry.” + 

“If you keep your questions to yourself, you’ll make me more angry still.” + 

“I want to know whether you feel⁠ ⁠… desire for Laura.” + 

Bernard suddenly became very grave. + 

“If it weren’t you⁠ ⁠…” he began. “Well, old boy, it’s a curious thing that’s happened to me: ever since I have come to know her, all my desires have gone; I have none left at all. You remember in the old days how I used to be all fire and flame for twenty women at once whom I happened to pass by in the street (and that’s the very thing that prevented me from choosing any one of them); well, now it seems to me that I shall never be touched again by any other form of beauty than hers; that I shall never be able to love any other forehead than hers; her lips, her eyes. But what I feel for her is veneration; when I am with her every carnal thought seems an impiety. I think I was mistaken about myself, and that in reality I am very chaste by nature. Thanks to Laura, my instincts have been sublimated. I feel I have within me great unemployed forces. I should like to make them take up service. I envy the Carthusian who bends his pride to the rule of his order; the person to whom one says: ‘I count upon you.’ I envy the soldier.⁠ ⁠… Or rather, no; I envy no one; but the turbulence I feel within me oppresses me and my aspiration is to discipline it. It’s like steam inside me; it may whistle as it escapes (that’s poetry), put in motion wheels and pistons; or even burst the engine. Do you know the act which I sometimes think would express me best? It’s.⁠ ⁠… Oh! I know well enough I shan’t kill myself; but I understand Dmitri Karamazov perfectly when he asks his brother if he understands a person killing himself out of enthusiasm, out of sheer excess of life⁠ ⁠… just bursting.” + 

An extraordinary radiance shone from his whole being. How well he expressed himself! Olivier gazed at him in a kind of ecstasy. + 

“So do I,” he murmured timidly, “I understand killing oneself too; but it would be after having tasted a joy so great, that all one’s life to come would seem pale beside it; a joy so great, that it would make one feel: ‘I have had enough. I am content; never again shall I.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

But Bernard was not listening. He stopped. What was the use of talking to empty air? All his sky clouded over again. Bernard took out his watch: + 

“I must be off. Well then, this evening, you say?⁠ ⁠… What time?” + 

“Oh, I should think ten would be early enough. Will you come?” + 

“Yes. I’ll try to bring Edouard, too. But you know he doesn’t much care for Passavant; and literary gatherings bore him. It would only be to see you. I say, can’t we meet somewhere after my Latin paper?” Olivier did not immediately answer. He reflected with despair that he had promised to meet Passavant that afternoon at the printer’s to talk over the printing of the Vanguard. What would he not have given to be free? + 

“I should like to, but I’m engaged.” + 

No trace of his unhappiness was apparent; and Bernard answered: + 

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.” + 

And at that the two friends parted. + 

Olivier had said nothing to Bernard of all he had meant and hoped to say. He was afraid Bernard had taken a dislike to him. He took a dislike to himself. He, so gay, so smart that morning, walked now with lowered head. Passavant’s friendship, of which at first he had been so proud, began to be irksome to him; for he felt Bernard’s reprobation weighing upon it. Even if he were to meet his friend at the dinner that evening, he would be unable to speak to him in front of all those people. He would be unable to enjoy the dinner if they had not come to an understanding beforehand. And what an unfortunate idea his vanity had suggested to him of trying to get Uncle Edouard to come too! There, in the presence of Passavant, surrounded by elder men, by other writers, by the future contributors to the Vanguard, he would be obliged to show off. Edouard would misjudge him still more⁠—misjudge him no doubt irrevocably.⁠ ⁠… If only he could see him before this evening!⁠ ⁠… see him at once; he would fling his arms round his neck; he would cry perhaps; he would tell all his troubles.⁠ ⁠… From now till four o’clock, he has the time. Quick! a taxi. + 

He gives the address to the chauffeur. He reaches the door with a beating heart; he rings.⁠ ⁠… Edouard is out. + 

Poor Olivier! Instead of hiding from his parents, why did he not simply return home? He would have found his Uncle Edouard sitting with his mother. + 

VI + 

Edouard’s Journal: Madame Molinier + 

Those novelists deceive us who show the individual’s development without taking into account the pressure of surroundings. The forest fashions the tree. To each one how small a place is given! How many buds are atrophied! One shoots one’s branches where one can. The mystic bough is due more often than not to stifling. The only escape is upwards. I cannot understand how Pauline manages not to grow a mystic bough, nor what further pressure she needs. She has talked to me more intimately than ever before. I did not suspect, I confess, the amount of disillusionment and resignation she hides beneath the appearance of happiness. But I recognize that she would have had to have a very vulgar nature not to have been disappointed in Molinier. In my conversation with her the day before yesterday, I was able to gauge his limits. How in the world could Pauline have married him?⁠ ⁠… Alas! the most lamentable lack of all⁠—lack of character⁠—is a hidden one, to be revealed only by time and usage. + 

Pauline puts all her efforts into palliating Oscar’s insufficiencies and weaknesses, into hiding them from everyone; and especially from his children. Her utmost ingenuity is employed in enabling them to respect their father; and she is really hard put to it; but she does it in such a way that I myself was deceived. She speaks of her husband without contempt, but with a kind of indulgence which is expressive enough. She deplores his want of authority over the boys; and, as I expressed my regrets at Olivier’s being with Passavant, I understood that if it had depended on her, the trip to Corsica would not have taken place. + 

“I didn’t approve of it,” she said, “and to tell you the truth, I don’t much care about that Monsieur Passavant. But what could I do? When I see that I can’t prevent a thing, I prefer granting it with a good grace. As for Oscar, he always gives in; he gives in to me, too. But when I think it’s my duty to oppose any plan of the children’s⁠—stand out against them in any way, he never supports me in the least. On this occasion Vincent stepped in as well. After that, how could I oppose Olivier without risking the loss of his confidence? And it’s that I care about most.” + 

She was darning old socks⁠—the socks, I said to myself, which were no longer good enough for Olivier. She stopped to thread her needle, and then went on again in a lower voice, more confidingly and more sadly: + 

“His confidence.⁠ ⁠… If I were only sure I still had it. But no; I’ve lost it.⁠ ⁠…” + 

The protest I attempted⁠—without conviction⁠—made her smile. She dropped her work and went on: + 

“For instance, I know he is in Paris. George met him this morning; he mentioned it casually, and I pretended not to hear, for I don’t like him to tell tales about his brother. But still I know it. Olivier hides things from me. When I see him again, he will think himself obliged to lie to me, and I shall pretend to believe him, as I pretend to believe his father every time he hides things from me.” + 

“It’s for fear of paining you.” + 

“He pains me a great deal more as it is. I am not intolerant. There are a number of little shortcomings that I tolerate, that I shut my eyes to.” + 

“Of whom are you talking now?” + 

“Oh! of the father as well as the sons.” + 

“When you pretend not to see them, you are lying too.” + 

“But what am I to do? It’s enough not to complain. I really can’t approve! No, I say to myself that, sooner or later, one loses hold, that the tenderest affection is helpless. More than that. It’s in the way; it’s a nuisance. I have come to the pitch of hiding my love itself.” + 

“Now you are talking of your sons.” + 

“Why do you say that? Do you mean that I can’t love Oscar any more? Sometimes I think so, but I think too that it’s for fear of suffering too much that I don’t love him more. And.⁠ ⁠… Yes, I suppose you are right⁠—in Olivier’s case, I prefer to suffer.” + 

“And Vincent?” + 

“A few years ago everything I now say of Olivier would have been true of Vincent.” + 

“My poor friend.⁠ ⁠… Soon you will be saying the same of George.” + 

“But one becomes resigned, slowly. And yet one didn’t ask so much of life. One learns to ask less⁠ ⁠… less and less.” Then she added softly: “And of oneself, more and more.” + 

“With ideas of that kind, one is almost a Christian,” said I, smiling in my turn. + 

“I sometimes think so too. But having them isn’t enough to make one a Christian.” + 

“Any more than being a Christian is enough to make one have them.” + 

“I have often thought⁠—will you let me say so?⁠—that in their father’s default, you might speak to the boys.” + 

“Vincent is not here.” + 

“It is too late for him. I am thinking of Olivier. It’s with you that I should have liked him to go away.” + 

At these words, which gave me the sudden imagination of what might have been if I had not so thoughtlessly listened to the appeal of passing adventure, a dreadful emotion wrung my heart, and at first I could find nothing to say; then, as the tears started to my eyes, and wishing to give some appearance of a motive to my disturbance: + 

“Too late, I fear, for him too,” I sighed. + 

Pauline seized my hand: + 

“How good you are!” she cried. + 

Embarrassed at seeing her thus mistake me, and unable to undeceive her, I could only turn aside the conversation from a subject which put me too ill at my ease. + 

“And George?” I asked. + 

“He makes me more anxious than the other two put together,” she answered. “I can’t say that with him I am losing my hold, for he has never been either confiding or obedient.” + 

She hesitated a few moments. It obviously cost her a great deal to say what follows. + 

“This summer something very serious happened,” she went on at last, “something it’s a little painful for me to speak to you about, especially as I am still not very sure.⁠ ⁠… A hundred-franc note disappeared from a cupboard in which I was in the habit of keeping my money. The fear of being wrong in my suspicions prevented me from bringing any accusation; the maid who waited on us at the hotel was a very young girl and seemed to me honest. I said I had lost the note before George; I might as well admit that my suspicions fell upon him. He didn’t appear disturbed; he didn’t blush.⁠ ⁠… I felt ashamed of having suspected him; I tried to persuade myself I had made a mistake. I did my accounts over again; unfortunately there was no possibility of a doubt⁠—a hundred francs were missing. I shrank from questioning him, and finally I didn’t. The fear of seeing him add a lie to a theft kept me back. Was I wrong?⁠ ⁠… Yes, I reproach myself now for not having insisted; perhaps it was out of a fear that I should have to be too severe⁠—or that I shouldn’t be severe enough. Once again, I played the part of a person who knows nothing, but with a very anxious heart, I assure you. I had let the time go by, and I said to myself it was too late and that the punishment would come too long after the fault. And how punish him? I did nothing; I reproach myself for it⁠ ⁠… but what could I have done? + 

“I had thought of sending him to England; I even wanted to ask your advice about it, but I didn’t know where you were.⁠ ⁠… At any rate, I didn’t hide my trouble from him⁠—my anxiety; I think he must have felt it, for, you know, he has a good heart. I count more on his own conscience to reproach him than on anything I could have said. He won’t do it again, I feel certain. He used to go about with a very rich boy at the seaside, and he was no doubt led on to spend money. No doubt I must have left the cupboard open; and I repeat, I’m not really sure it was he. There were a great many people coming and going in the hotel.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I admired the ingenious way in which she put forward every possible consideration that might exonerate her child. + 

“I should have liked him to put the money back,” I said. + 

“I hoped he would. And when he didn’t, I thought it must be a proof of his innocence. And then I said to myself that he was afraid to.” + 

“Did you tell his father?” + 

She hesitated a few moments: + 

“No,” she said at last, “I prefer him to know nothing about it.” + 

No doubt she thought she heard a noise in the next room; she went to make sure there was no one there; then she sat down again beside me. + 

“Oscar told me you lunched together the other day. He was so loud in your praise, that I suppose what you chiefly did was to listen to him.” (She smiled sadly, as she said these words.) “If he confided in you, I have no desire not to respect his confidences⁠ ⁠… though in reality I know a great deal more about his private life than he imagines. But since I got back, I can’t understand what has come over him. He is so gentle⁠—I was almost going to say⁠—so humble.⁠ ⁠… It’s almost embarrassing. He goes on as if he were afraid of me. He needn’t be. For a long time past I’ve been aware that he has been carrying on.⁠ ⁠… I even know with whom. He thinks I know nothing about it and takes enormous pains to hide it; but his precautions are so obvious, that the more he hides, the more he gives himself away. Every time he goes out with an affectation of being busy, worried, anxious, I know that he is off to his pleasure. I feel inclined to say to him: ‘But, my dear friend, I’m not keeping you; are you afraid I’m jealous?’ I should laugh if I had the heart to. My only fear is that the children may notice something; he’s so careless⁠—so clumsy! Sometimes, without his suspecting it, I find myself forced to help him, as if I were playing his game. I assure you I end by being almost amused by it; I invent excuses for him; I put the letters he leaves lying about back in his coat pocket.” + 

“That’s just it,” I said; “he’s afraid you have discovered some letters.” + 

“Did he tell you so?” + 

“And that’s what’s making him so nervous.” + 

“Do you think I want to read them?” + 

A kind of wounded pride made her draw herself up. I was obliged to add: + 

“It’s not a question of the letters he may have mislaid inadvertently; but of some letters he had put in a drawer and which he says he can’t find. He thinks you have taken them.” + 

At these words, I saw Pauline turn pale, and the horrible suspicion which darted upon her, forced itself suddenly into my mind too. I regretted having spoken, but it was too late. She looked away from me and murmured: + 

“Would to Heaven it were I!” + 

She seemed overcome. + 

“What am I to do?” she repeated. “What am I to do?” Then raising her eyes to mine again: “You? Couldn’t you speak to him?” + 

Although she avoided, as I did, pronouncing George’s name, it was clear that she was thinking of him. + 

“I will try. I will think it over,” I said, rising. And as she accompanied me to the front door: + 

“Say nothing about it to Oscar, please. Let him go on suspecting me⁠—thinking what he thinks.⁠ ⁠… It is better so. Come and see me again.” + 

VII + 

Olivier and Armand + 

In the meantime Olivier, deeply disappointed at not having found his Uncle Edouard, and unable to bear his solitude, turned his thoughts towards Armand with a heart aching for friendship. He made his way to the Pension Vedel. + 

Armand received him in his bedroom. It was a small, narrow room, reached by the backstairs. Its window looked on to an inner courtyard, on to which the water-closets and kitchens of the next-door house opened also. The light came from a corrugated zinc reflector, which caught it from above and cast it down, pallid, leaden and dreary. The room was badly ventilated; an unpleasant odour pervaded it. + 

“But one gets accustomed to it,” said Armand. “My parents, you understand, keep the best rooms for the boarders who pay best. It’s only natural. I have given up the room I had last year to a Vicomte⁠—the brother of your illustrious friend Passavant. A princely room⁠—but under the observation of Rachel’s. There are heaps of rooms here, but not all of them are independent. For instance, poor Sarah, who came back from England this morning, is obliged to pass, either through our parents’ room (which doesn’t suit her at all) to get to her new abode, or else through mine, which, truth to tell, is really nothing but a dressing-room or box-room. At any rate, I have the advantage here of being able to go out and in as I please, without being spied upon by anyone. I prefer that to the attics, where the servants live. To tell the truth, I rather like being uncomfortably lodged; my father would call it the ‘love of maceration,’ and would explain that what is hurtful to the body leads to the salvation of the soul. For that matter, he has never been inside the place. He has other things to do, you understand, than worrying over his son’s habitat. My papa’s a wonderful fellow. He has by heart a number of consoling phrases for the principal events of life. It’s magnificent to hear him. A pity he never has any time for a little chat.⁠ ⁠… You’re looking at my picture gallery; one can enjoy it better in the morning. That is a colour print by a pupil of Paolo Ucelli’s⁠—for the use of veterinaries. In an admirable attempt at synthesis, the artist has concentrated on a single horse all the ills by means of which Providence chastens the equine soul; you observe the spirituality of the look.⁠ ⁠… That is a symbolical picture of the ages of life from the cradle to the grave. As a drawing, not much can be said for it; its chief value lies in its intention. Further on you will note with admiration the photograph of one of Titian’s courtesans, which I have put over my bed in order to give myself libidinous thoughts. That is the door into Sarah’s room.” + 

The almost sordid aspect of the place made a melancholy impression on Olivier; the bed was not made and the basin on the washstand was not emptied. + 

“Yes, I fix up my room myself,” said Armand, in response to his anxious look. “Here, you see, is my writing table. You have no idea how the atmosphere of the room inspires me.⁠ ⁠… ‘L’atmosphère d’un cher réduit.⁠ ⁠…’ I even owe it the idea of my last poem⁠—The Nocturnal Vase.” + 

Olivier had come to see Armand with the intention of speaking about his review and asking him to contribute to it; he no longer dared to. But Armand’s own conversation was coming round to the subject. + 

“The Nocturnal Vase⁠—eh? What a magnificent title!⁠ ⁠… With this motto from Baudelaire: + 

‘Funereal vase, what tears awaitest thou?’ + 

—⁠Baudelaire + 

“I take up once more the ancient (and ever young) comparison of the potter creator, who fashions every human being as a vase destined to hold⁠—ah! what? And I compare myself in a lyrical outburst to the above-mentioned vase⁠—an idea which, as I was telling you, came to me as the natural result of breathing the odour of this chamber. I am particularly pleased with the opening line: + 

‘Whoe’er at forty boasts no hemorrhoids.⁠ ⁠…’ + 

I had first of all written, in order to reassure the reader, ‘Whoe’er at fifty⁠ ⁠…’ but I should have missed the assonance. As for ‘hemorrhoids,’ it is undoubtedly the finest word in the French language⁠—independently of its meaning,” he added with a saturnine laugh. + 

Olivier, a pain at his heart, kept silent. Armand went on: + 

“Needless to say, the night vase is particularly flattered when it receives a visit from a pot filled with aromatics like yourself.” + 

“And haven’t you written anything but that?” asked Olivier at last, desperately. + 

“I was going to offer my Nocturnal Vase to your great and glorious review, but from the tone in which you have just said ‘that,’ I see there isn’t much likelihood of its pleasing you. In such cases the poet always has the resource of arguing: ‘I don’t write to please,’ and of persuading himself that he has brought forth a masterpiece. But I cannot conceal from you that I consider my poem execrably bad. For that matter, I have so far only written the first line. And when I say ‘written,’ it’s a figure of speech, for I have this very moment composed it in your honour.⁠ ⁠… No, really? were you thinking of publishing something of mine? You actually desired my collaboration? You judged me, then, not incapable of writing something decent? Can you have discerned on my pale brow the revealing stigmata of genius? I know the light here is not very favourable for looking at oneself in the glass, but when⁠—like another Narcissus⁠—I gaze at my reflection, I can see nothing but the features of a failure. After all, perhaps it’s an effect of chiaroscuro.⁠ ⁠… No, my dear Olivier, no; I have done nothing this summer, and if you are counting on me for your review, you may go to blazes. But that’s enough about me.⁠ ⁠… Did all go well in Corsica? Did you enjoy your trip? Did it do you good? Did you rest after your labours? Did you.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Olivier could bear it no longer: + 

“Oh! do shut up, old boy. Stop playing the ass. If you imagine I think it’s funny.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And what about me?” cried Armand. “No, my dear fellow, no; all the same I’m not so stupid as all that. I’ve still intelligence enough to understand that everything I’ve been saying is idiotic.” + 

“Can’t you ever talk seriously?” + 

“Very well; we’ll talk seriously, since seriousness is the style you favour. Rachel, my eldest sister, is going blind. Her sight has been getting very bad lately. For the last two years, she hasn’t been able to read without glasses. I thought at first it would be all right if she were to change them. But it wasn’t. At my request, she went to see an oculist. It seems the sensitiveness of the retina is failing. You understand there are two very different things⁠—on the one hand, a defective power of accommodation of the crystalline, which can be remedied by glasses. But even after they have brought the visual image to the proper focus, that image may make an insufficient impression on the retina and be only dimly transmitted to the brain. Do I make myself clear? You hardly know Rachel, so don’t imagine that I am trying to arouse your pity for her. Then why am I telling you all this?⁠ ⁠… Because, reflecting on my own case, I became aware that not only images but ideas may strike the brain with more or less clearness. A person with a dull mind receives only confused perceptions; but for that very reason he cannot realize clearly that he is dull. He would only begin to suffer from his stupidity if he were conscious of it; and in order to be conscious of it, he would have to become intelligent. Now imagine for a moment such a monster⁠—an imbecile who is intelligent enough to understand that he is stupid.” + 

“Why, he would cease to be an imbecile.” + 

“No, my dear fellow; you may believe me, because as a matter of fact, I am that very imbecile.” + 

Olivier shrugged his shoulders. Armand went on: + 

“A real imbecile has no consciousness of any idea beyond his own. I am conscious of the beyond. But all the same I’m an imbecile, because I know that I shall never be able to attain that ‘beyond’!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But, old fellow,” said Olivier, in a burst of sympathy, “we are all made so that we might be better, and I think the greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers most from its own limitations.” + 

Armand shook off the hand that Olivier had placed affectionately on his arm. + 

“Others,” said he, “have the feeling of what they possess; I have only the feeling of what I lack. Lack of money, lack of strength, lack of intelligence, lack of love⁠—an everlasting deficit. I shall never be anything but below the mark.” + 

He went up to the toilette table, dipped a hairbrush in the dirty water in the basin and plastered his hair down in hideous fashion over his forehead. + 

“I told you I hadn’t written anything; but a few days ago, I did have an idea for an essay, which I should have called: ‘On Incapacity.’ But of course I was incapable of writing it. I should have said.⁠ ⁠… But I’m boring you.” + 

“No; go on; you bore me when you make jokes; you’re interesting me very much now.” + 

“I should have tried to find throughout nature the dividing line, below which nothing exists. An example will show you what I mean. The newspapers the other day had an account of a workman who was electrocuted. He was handling some live wires carelessly; the voltage was not very high; but it seems his body was in a state of perspiration. His death is attributed to the layer of humidity which enabled the current to envelop his body. If his body had been drier, the accident wouldn’t have taken place. But now let’s imagine the perspiration added drop by drop.⁠ ⁠… One more drop⁠—there you are!” + 

“I don’t understand,” said Olivier. + 

“Because my example is badly chosen. I always choose my examples badly. Here’s another: Six shipwrecked persons are picked up in a boat. They have been adrift for ten days in the storm. Three are dead; two are saved. The sixth is expiring. It was hoped he might be restored to life; but his organism had reached the extreme limit.” + 

“Yes, I understand,” said Olivier. “An hour sooner and he might have been saved.” + 

“An hour! How you go it! I am calculating the extremest point. It is possible. It is still possible.⁠ ⁠… It is no longer possible! My mind walks along that narrow ridge. That dividing line between existence and nonexistence is the one I keep trying to trace everywhere. The limit of resistance to⁠—well, for instance, to what my father would call temptation. One holds out; the cord on which the devil pulls is stretched to breaking.⁠ ⁠… A tiny bit more, the cord snaps⁠—one is damned. Do you understand now? A tiny bit less⁠—nonexistence. God would not have created the world. Nothing would have been. ‘The face of the world would have been changed,’ says Pascal. But it’s not enough for me to think⁠—‘if Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter.’ I insist. I ask: shorter, by how much? For it might have been a tiny bit shorter, mightn’t it?⁠ ⁠… Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap.⁠ ⁠… Natura non fecit saltus. What absurd rubbish! As for me, I am like the Arab in the desert who is dying of thirst. I am at that precise point, you see, when a drop of water might still save him⁠ ⁠… or a tear.⁠ ⁠…” + 

His voice trailed away; there had come into it a note of pathos which surprised Olivier and disturbed him. He went on more gently⁠—almost tenderly: + 

“You remember: ‘I shed that very tear for thee.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

Olivier remembered Pascal’s words; he was even a little put out that his friend had not quoted them exactly. He could not refrain from correcting: “ ‘I shed that very drop of blood for thee.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

Armand’s emotion dropped at once. He shrugged his shoulders: + 

“What can we do? There are some who get through with more than enough and to spare.⁠ ⁠… Do you understand now what it is to feel that one is always ‘on the border line’? As for me, I shall always have one mark too little.” + 

He had begun to laugh again. Olivier thought that it was for fear of crying. He would have liked to speak in his turn, to tell Armand how much his words had moved him, and how he felt all the sickness of heart that lay beneath his exasperating irony. But the time for his rendezvous with Passavant was pressing him; he pulled out his watch. + 

“I must go now. Are you free this evening?” + 

“What for?” + 

“To come and meet me at the Taverne du Panthéon. The Argonauts are giving a dinner. You might look in afterwards. There’ll be a lot of fellows there⁠—some of them more or less well known⁠—and most of them rather drunk. Bernard Profitendieu has promised to come. It might be funny.” + 

“I’m not shaved,” said Armand a little crossly. “And then what should I do among a lot of celebrities? But, I say⁠—why don’t you ask Sarah? She got back from England this very morning. I’m sure it would amuse her. Shall I invite her from you? Bernard could take her.” + 

“All right, old chap,” said Olivier. + 

VIII + 

The Argonauts’ Dinner + 

It had been agreed then that Bernard and Edouard, after having dined together, should pick up Sarah a little before ten o’clock. She had delightedly accepted the proposal passed on to her by Armand. At about half past nine, she had gone up to her bedroom, accompanied by her mother. She had to pass through her parents’ room in order to reach hers; but another door, which was supposed to be kept shut, led from Sarah’s room to Armand’s, which in its turn opened, as we have seen, on to the backstairs. + 

Sarah, in her mother’s presence, made as though she were going to bed, and asked to be left to go to sleep; but as soon as she was alone, she went up to her dressing table to put an added touch of brilliancy to her lips and cheeks. The toilette table had been placed in front of the closed door, but it was not too heavy for Sarah to lift noiselessly. She opened the door. + 

Sarah was afraid of meeting her brother, whose sarcasms she dreaded. Armand, it is true, encouraged her most audacious exploits; it was as though he took pleasure in them⁠—but only with a kind of temporary indulgence, for it was to judge them later on with all the greater severity; so that Sarah wondered whether his complaisance itself was not calculated to play the censor’s game. + 

Armand’s room was empty. Sarah sat down on a little low chair and, as she was waiting, meditated. She cultivated a facile contempt for all the domestic virtues as a kind of preventive protest. The constraint of family life had intensified her energies and exasperated her instinct for revolt. During her stay in England, she had worked herself up into a white heat of courage. Like Miss Aberdeen, the English girl boarder, she was resolved to conquer her liberty, to grant herself every license, to dare all. She felt ready to affront scorn and blame on every side, capable of every defiance. In the advances she had made to Olivier, she had already triumphed over natural modesty and many an instinctive reluctance. The example of her two sisters had taught her her lesson; she looked upon Rachel’s pious resignation as the delusion of a dupe, and saw in Laura’s marriage nothing but a lugubrious barter with slavery as its upshot. The education she had received, that which she had given herself, that which she had taken, inclined her very little to what she called “conjugal piety.” She did not see in what particular the man she might marry could be her superior. Hadn’t she passed her examinations like a man? Hadn’t she her opinions and ideas on any and every subject? On the equality of the sexes in particular; and it even seemed to her that in the conduct of life, and consequently of business, and even, if need were, of politics, women often gave proof of more sense than many men.⁠ ⁠… + 

Steps on the staircase. She listened and then opened the door gently. + 

Bernard and Sarah had never met. There was no light in the passage. They could hardly distinguish each other in the dark. + 

“Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel?” whispered Bernard. She took his arm without more ado. + 

“Edouard is waiting for us at the corner of the street in a taxi. He didn’t want to get down for fear of meeting your parents. It didn’t matter for me; you know I am staying in the house.” + 

Bernard had been careful to leave the door into the street ajar, so as not to attract the porter’s attention. A few minutes later, the taxi deposited them all three in front of the Taverne du Panthéon. As Edouard was paying the taxi, they heard a clock strike ten. + 

Dinner was finished. The table had been cleared, but it was still covered with coffee-cups, bottles and glasses. Everyone was smoking and the atmosphere was stifling. Madame des Brousses, the wife of the editor of the Argonauts, called for fresh air in a strident voice, which rang out shrilly above the hum of general talk. Someone opened a window. But Justinien, who wanted to put in a speech, had it shut almost immediately “for acoustics’ sake.” He rose to his feet and struck on his glass with a spoon, but failed to attract anyone’s attention. The editor of the Argonauts, whom people called the Président des Brousses, interposed, and having at last succeeded in obtaining a modicum of silence, Justinien’s voice gushed forth in a copious stream of dullness. A flood of metaphors covered the triteness of his ideas. He spoke with an emphasis which took the place of wit, and managed to ladle out to everyone in turn a handsome helping of grandiloquent flummery. At the first pause, and just as Edouard, Bernard and Sarah were making their entry, there was a loud burst of polite applause. Some of the company prolonged it, no doubt a little ironically, and as if hoping to put an end to the speech; but in vain⁠—Justinien started off afresh; nothing could daunt his eloquence. At that moment it was the Comte de Passavant whom he was bestrewing with the flowers of his rhetoric. He spoke of The Horizontal Bar as of another Iliad. Passavant’s health was drunk. Edouard had no glass, neither had Bernard nor Sarah, so that they were dispensed from joining in the toast. + 

Justinien’s speech ended with a few heartfelt wishes for the prosperity of the new review and a few elegant compliments to its future editor⁠—“the young and gifted Molinier⁠—the darling of the Muses, whose pure and lofty brow would not long have to wait for its crown of laurels.” + 

Olivier was standing near the door, so as to welcome his friends as soon as they should arrive. Justinien’s blatant compliments obviously embarrassed him, but he was obliged to respond to the little ovation which followed them. + 

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

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

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

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

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

“From what your nephew said, I was hoping you would come tonight,” began Passavant in a gentle voice that was almost a whisper. “I was delighted because.⁠ ⁠…” + 

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

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

“No,” said Edouard dryly. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I like Ubu Roi very much,” said Sarah, “and I’m delighted to see Jarry. I had heard he was always drunk.” + 

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

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

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

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

“Introduce me to your friend Bercail.” + 

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

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

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

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

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

“Who is that?” asked Bernard. + 

“What! Don’t you know the author of Ubu Roi?” + 

“Not possible! That Jarry? I took him for a servant.” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why haven’t you contributed anything?” + 

“Because I hadn’t anything ready.” + 

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

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

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

Edouard realized it sadly. + 

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

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

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

“Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.” + 

“Are you quite sure of that?” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“If only you had chosen.⁠ ⁠…” + 

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

“And now we’re going to ki‑kill little Bercail.” + 

Bercail turned round sharply: + 

“Just say that again out loud.” + 

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

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

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

Passavant said to Sarah very quickly: + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the meantime the President’s lady was indulging in a fit of hysterics. Her friends crowded round her. + 

“Idiotic to give people such a turn.” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Didn’t touch me!⁠ ⁠… Didn’t touch me!” + 

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

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

Edouard took him by the arm: + 

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

He led him away to a lavatory. + 

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

“Take me away!” + 

Edouard was extremely moved himself: + 

“Your parents?” he asked. + 

“They don’t know I’m back.” + 

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

“If I post it tonight it’ll get there tomorrow morning.” + 

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

My dear George, + 

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

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

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

“Let’s go,” she said, taking his arm. + 

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

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

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

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

IX + 

Olivier and Edouard + 

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

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

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

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

From a window in the classroom a few minutes later, he sees him go by, skirting the walls like a thief.⁠ ⁠… + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edouard had forgotten all about the duel. + 

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

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

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

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

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

And the servant had shut the door in his face. + 

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

“But say nothing about it to your parents.” + 

George was delighted to be let into a secret. + 

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

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

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

They went into it. + 

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

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

“I was expecting you.” + 

“I’ll go away if I tire you.” + 

“Stay.” + 

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

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

“You’ll come back tomorrow?” + 

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

“Did you ever know such an idiot?” + 

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

“No, no; I’ll explain later.” + 

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

My dear friend, + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?” + 

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

“Isn’t that exactly what the word ‘enthusiasm’ means?” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Goodness no! What for?” + 

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

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

“Vincent?⁠ ⁠… Passavant must know.” + 

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

XI + 

Edouard’s Journal: Pauline + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These words filled me with confusion. + 

“You make me out better than I am.” + 

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

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

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

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

“No⁠—not yet.” + 

Pauline’s brow grew suddenly sombre. + 

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

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

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

Her voice trembled. I took her hand. + 

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

She made an effort to recover herself. + 

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

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

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

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

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

“Anything new about the letters?” + 

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

“He was expecting an explanation.” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The review?”⁠—Bercail is in charge of it. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He did not let me leave him till morning. + 

XII + 

Edouard and Then Strouvilhou Visit Passavant + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He handed him the letter, and Edouard read: + 

My dear, + 

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

“… grand miroir + 

De mon désespoir.” + 

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

The letter went on for some time longer. + 

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

“Lady Griffith doesn’t speak of returning.” + 

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

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

Passavant felt it essential to recover the lead at once: + 

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

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

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

“Very well.” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Playful as ever?” + 

“Not altogether an idiot, you know.” + 

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

“Philanthropy was never one of my strong points.” + 

“I know, I know,” said Passavant. + 

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

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

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

Passavant smiled. + 

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

Strouvilhou filled his glass, sat comfortably back in his big armchair and began: + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passavant had listened without turning a hair. + 

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

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

“Will you bring him to see me?” + 

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

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

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

“Scavenger style?” + 

“A little.” + 

“Ex uno⁠ ⁠…” + 

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

Strouvilhou rose. + 

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

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

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

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

XIII + 

Edouard’s Journal: Douviers’ Profitendieu + 

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

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

Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My breath, my life comes to me from him⁠—through him. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am a father myself, sir.⁠ ⁠…” + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was unable to finish. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

XIV + 

Bernard and the Angel + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The time has come to do your accounts.” + 

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

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

“Teach me; guide me,” said Bernard. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you think I ought to sign?” + 

“Yes,” said the angel, “certainly⁠—if you have doubts of yourself.” + 

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

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

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

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

“It is with you I will wrestle. This evening. Do you agree⁠ ⁠… ?” + 

“Yes,” said Bernard. + 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XV + 

Bernard Visits Edouard + 

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

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

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

“Why are you leaving the Vedels’?” + 

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

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

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

Bernard, however, kept silent. + 

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

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

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

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

“Call it by any name you please⁠—pride, presumption, conceit⁠ ⁠… it’s a feeling you won’t succeed in cheapening in my eyes. But at the present moment, what I should like to know is this⁠—is it necessary to fix one’s eyes on a goal in order to guide oneself in life?” + 

“Explain.” + 

“I wrestled over it all last night. What am I to do with the strength I feel I possess? To what use am I to put it? How am I to get out of myself the best that’s in me? Is it by aiming at a goal? But how choose such a goal? How know what it is before reaching it?” + 

“To live without a goal, is to give oneself up to chance.” + 

“I am afraid you don’t understand. When Columbus discovered America did he know towards what he was sailing? His goal was to go ahead, straight in front of him. Himself was his goal, impelling him to go ahead.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I have often thought,” interrupted Edouard, “that in art, and particularly in literature, the only people who count are those who launch out on to unknown seas. One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. But our writers are afraid of the open; they are mere coasters.” + 

“Yesterday, when I came out from my examination,” Bernard said, without hearing him, “some demon or other urged me into a hall where there was a public meeting going on. The talk was all about national honour, devotion to one’s country, and a whole lot of things that made my heart beat. I came within an ace of signing a paper by which I pledged myself on my honour to devote my energies to the service of a cause, which certainly seemed to me a fine and noble one.” + 

“I am glad you didn’t sign, but what prevented you?” + 

“No doubt some secret instinct.⁠ ⁠…” Bernard reflected a few moments, and then added, laughing: “I think it was chiefly the looks of the audience⁠—starting with my brother, whom I recognized among them. It seemed to me all the young men I saw there, were animated by the best of sentiments, and that they were doing quite right to abdicate their initiative (for it wouldn’t have led them far) and their judgment (for it was inadequate) and their independence of mind (for it was stillborn). I said to myself too, that it was a good thing for the country to count among its citizens a large number of these well-intentioned individuals with subservient wills, but that my will would never be of that kind. It was then that I began to ask myself how to establish a rule, since I did not accept life without a rule and yet would not accept a rule from anyone else.” + 

“The answer seems to me simple: to find the rule in oneself; to have for goal the development of oneself.” + 

“Yes⁠ ⁠… that, as a matter of fact, is what I said to myself. But I wasn’t much further on. If I were certain of preferring what is best in myself, I might develop that rather than the rest. But I can’t even find out what is best in myself.⁠ ⁠… I wrestled over it all night, I tell you. Towards morning I was so tired that I thought of enlisting⁠—before I was called up.” + 

“Running away from the question doesn’t solve it.” + 

“That’s what I said to myself, and that even if I put the question off now, it would come up again more seriously than ever after my service. So I came to ask you your advice.” + 

“I have none to give you. You can only find counsel in yourself; you can only learn how you ought to live by living.” + 

“And if I live badly, whilst I’m waiting to decide how to live?” + 

“That in itself will teach you. It’s a good thing to follow one’s inclination, provided it leads up hill.” + 

“Are you joking?⁠ ⁠… No; I think I understand you, and I accept your formula. But while I am developing myself, as you say, I shall have to earn my living. What do you say to an alluring advertisement in the papers: ‘Young man of great promise requires a job. Could be employed in any capacity?’ ” + 

Edouard laughed. + 

“No job is so difficult to find as any job. Better be a little more explicit.” + 

“Perhaps one of the innumerable little wheels in the organization of a big newspaper would do? Oh! I’d accept any post however subordinate⁠—proofreader⁠—printer’s devil⁠—anything. I need so little.” + 

He spoke with hesitation. In reality, it was a secretaryship he wanted; but he did not dare say so to Edouard, because of their mutual dissatisfaction with each other on this score. After all, it wasn’t his, Bernard’s, fault, that this trial of theirs had failed so lamentably. + 

“I might perhaps,” said Edouard, “get you into the Grand Journal; I know the editor.⁠ ⁠…” + 

While Bernard and Edouard were conversing in this manner, Sarah was having an extremely painful explanation with Rachel. Sarah had suddenly understood that Rachel’s remonstrances were the cause of Bernard’s abrupt departure; and she was indignant with her sister, who, she said, was a killjoy. She had no right to impose upon others a virtue which her example was enough to render odious. + 

Rachel, who was terribly upset by these accusations, for she had always sacrificed herself, turned very white, and protested with trembling lips: + 

“I can’t let you go to perdition.” + 

But Sarah sobbed and cried out: + 

“I don’t believe in your heaven. I don’t want to be saved.” + 

She decided on the spot to return to England, where she would go and stay with her friend. For, after all, she was free and claimed the right to live in any way she pleased. This melancholy quarrel left Rachel shattered. + 

XVI + 

Edouard Warns George + 

Edouard took care to arrive at the pension before the boys came in. He had not seen La Pérouse since the beginning of the term and it was to him that he wanted to speak first. The old music master carried out his new duties as well as he could⁠—that is to say, very badly. He had at first tried to make himself liked, but he had no authority; the boys took advantage of him; his indulgence passed for weakness, and they began to take strange liberties. La Pérouse tried to be severe, but too late; his exhortations, his threats, his reprimands finally set the boys against him. If he raised his voice, they laughed; if he thumped his fist resoundingly on his desk, they shrieked in pretended terror; they mimicked him; they called him by absurd nicknames; caricatures of him circulated from bench to bench; he⁠—so kind and courteous⁠—was portrayed armed with a pistol (the pistol which Ghéridanisol, George and Phiphi had found one day in the course of an indiscreet investigation of his room), ferociously massacring the boys; or else on his knees before them, with hands clasped, imploring, as he had done at first, for “a little quiet, for pity’s sake.” He was like a poor old stag at bay among a savage pack of hounds. Edouard knew nothing of all this. + 

La Pérouse received me in a small classroom on the ground floor, which I recognized as the most uncomfortable one in the school. Its only furniture consisted of four benches attached to four desks, a blackboard and a straw chair, on which La Pérouse forced me to sit down, while he screwed himself up slantwise on to one of the benches, after vain endeavours to get his long legs under the desk. + 

“No, no. I’m perfectly comfortable, I assure you,” he declared, while the tone of his voice and the expression of his face said: + 

“I am horribly uncomfortable, and I hope it’s obvious; but I prefer to be so; and the more uncomfortable I am, the less you will hear me complain.” + 

I tried to make a joke, but could not succeed in getting him to smile. His manner was ceremonious and stiff, as if he wished to keep me at a distance and imply: “I owe it to you that I am here.” + 

At the same time he declared himself perfectly satisfied with everything, though all the while eluding my questions and seeming vexed at my insisting. I asked him, however, where his room was. + 

“Rather too far from the kitchen,” he suddenly exclaimed; and as I expressed my astonishment: “Sometimes during the night, I want something to eat⁠ ⁠… when I can’t sleep.” + 

I was near him; I came nearer still and put my hand gently on his arm. He went on in a more natural tone: + 

“I must tell you that I sleep very badly. When I do go to sleep, I never lose the feeling that I am asleep. That’s not proper sleep, is it? A person who is properly asleep, doesn’t feel that he is asleep. When he wakes up, he just knows that he has been asleep.” + 

Then, leaning towards me, he went on with a kind of finicky insistence: + 

“Sometimes I’m inclined to think that it’s an illusion and that, all the same, I am properly asleep, when I think I’m not asleep. But the proof that I’m not properly asleep is that if I want to open my eyes, I open them. As a rule, I don’t want to. You understand, don’t you, that there’s no object in it? What’s the use of proving to myself that I’m not asleep? I always go on hoping that I shall go to sleep by persuading myself that I’m asleep already.⁠ ⁠…” + 

He bent still nearer and went on in a whisper: + 

“And then there’s something that disturbs me. Don’t tell anyone.⁠ ⁠… I haven’t complained, because there’s nothing to do about it; and if a thing can’t be altered, there’s no good complaining, is there?⁠ ⁠… Well, just imagine, in the wall, right against my bed and exactly on a level with my head, there’s something that makes a noise.” + 

He had grown excited as he spoke. I suggested that he should take me to his room. + 

“Yes! Yes!” he said getting up suddenly. “You might be able to tell me what it is⁠ ⁠… I can’t succeed in making out. Come along.” + 

We went up two stories and then down a longish passage. I had never been into that part of the house before. + 

La Pérouse’s room looked on to the street. It was small but decent. On the bedside table, I noticed, next a prayer book, the case of pistols, which he had insisted on taking with him. He seized me by the arm, and pushing aside the bed a little: + 

“There! Now!⁠ ⁠… Put your ear to the wall.⁠ ⁠… Can you hear it?” + 

I listened for a long time with the greatest attention. But notwithstanding the best will in the world, I could not succeed in hearing anything. La Pérouse grew vexed. Just then a van drove by, shaking the house and making the windows rattle. + 

“At this time of day,” I said, in the hopes of pacifying him, “the little noise that irritates you is drowned by the noise of the street.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Drowned for you, because you can’t distinguish it from the other noises,” he exclaimed with vehemence. “As for me, I hear it all the same. In spite of everything, I go on hearing it. Sometimes I am so exasperated by it that I make up my mind to speak to Azaïs or to the landlord.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I don’t suppose I shall get it to stop.⁠ ⁠… But, at any rate, I should like to know what it is.” + 

He seemed to reflect for a few moments, then went on: “It sounds something like a nibbling. I’ve done everything I can think of not to hear it. I pull my bed away from the wall. I put cotton wool in my ears. I hang my watch (you see, I’ve put a little nail there) just at the place where the pipe (I suppose) passes, so that its ticking may prevent my hearing the other noise.⁠ ⁠… But then it’s even more fatiguing, because I have to make an effort to distinguish it. Absurd, isn’t it? But I really prefer to hear it without any disguise, since I know it’s there all the same.⁠ ⁠… Oh! I oughtn’t to talk to you in this way. You see, I’m nothing but an old man now.” + 

He sat down on the edge of the bed, and stayed for some time, as though sunk in a kind of dull misery. The sinister degradation of age is not so much attacking La Pérouse’s intelligence as the innermost depths of his nature. The worm lodges itself in the fruit’s core, I thought, as I saw him give way to his childish despair, and remembered him as he used to be, so firm⁠—so proud. I tried to rouse him by speaking of Boris. + 

“Yes, his room is near mine,” said he, raising his head. “I’ll show it to you. Come along.” + 

He preceded me along the passage and opened a neighbouring door. + 

“The other bed you see there is young Bernard Profitendieu’s.” (I judged it useless to tell him that Bernard had left that very day, and would not be coming back to sleep in it.) He went on: “Boris likes having him as a companion and I think he gets on with him. But, you know, he doesn’t talk to me much. He’s very reserved.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid the child is rather unfeeling.” + 

He said this so sadly that I took upon myself to protest and to say that I could answer for his grandson’s warmheartedness. + 

“In that case, he might show it a little more,” went on La Pérouse. + 

“For instance, in the mornings, when he goes off to the lycée with the others, I lean out of my window to see him go by. He knows I do.⁠ ⁠… Well, he never turns round.” + 

I wanted to explain to him that no doubt Boris was afraid of making a spectacle of himself before his schoolfellows and dreaded being laughed at; but at that moment a clamour arose from the courtyard below. + 

La Pérouse seized me by the arm and, in an altered, agitated voice: + 

“Listen! Listen!” he cried, “they are coming in.” + 

I looked at him. He had begun to tremble all over. + 

“Do the little wretches frighten you?” I asked. + 

“No, no,” he said in some confusion; “how could you think such a thing?⁠ ⁠…” Then, very quickly: “I must go down. Recreation only lasts a few minutes and you know I take preparation. Goodbye. Goodbye.” + 

He darted into the passage, without even shaking my hand. A moment later I heard him stumbling downstairs. I stayed for a few moments to listen, as I had no wish to go past the boys. I could hear them shouting, laughing and singing. Then a bell rang and silence was abruptly restored. + 

I went to see Azaïs and obtained permission for George to leave school in order to come and speak to me. He soon joined me in the same small room in which La Pérouse had received me a little while before. + 

As soon as he was in my presence, George thought fit to assume a jocular air. It was his way of concealing his embarrassment. But I wouldn’t swear that he was the more embarrassed of the two. He was on the defensive; for no doubt he expected to be sermonized. He seemed trying as hastily as possible to lay hold of anything he could use as a weapon against me, for, before I had opened my mouth, he enquired after Olivier, in such a bantering tone of voice, that I should have had the greatest pleasure in boxing his ears. He was in a position to score off me. His ironical eyes, the mocking curl of his lips all seemed to say: “I’m not afraid of you, you know.” I at once lost all my self-assurance and my one anxiety was to conceal the fact. The speech I had prepared suddenly struck me as inappropriate. I had not the prestige necessary to play the censor. At bottom, George amused me too much. + 

“I have not come to scold you,” I said at last; “I only want to warn you.” (And, in spite of myself, my whole face was smiling.) + 

“Tell me first whether it’s Mamma who has sent you?” + 

“Yes and no. I have spoken about you to your mother; but that was some days ago. Yesterday I had a very important conversation about you with a very important person, whom you don’t know. He came to see me on purpose to talk about you. A juge d’instruction. It’s from him I’ve come. Do you know what a juge d’instruction is?” + 

George had turned suddenly pale, and no doubt his heart had stopped beating for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders, it is true, but his voice trembled a little: + 

“Oh! all right! Out with it! What did old Profitendieu say?” + 

The youngster’s coolness took me aback. No doubt it would have been simpler to go straight to the point; but going straight to the point is a thing particularly foreign to my nature, whose irresistible bent is towards moving obliquely. In order to explain my conduct, which, though it afterwards appeared absurd to me, was quite spontaneous at the time, I must say that my last conversation with Pauline had greatly exercised me. I had immediately inserted the reflections it had suggested to me into my novel, putting them into the form of a dialogue, which exactly fitted in with certain of my characters. It very rarely happens that I make direct use of what occurs to me in real life, but for once I was able to take advantage of this affair of George’s; it was as though my book had been waiting for it, it came in so pat; I hardly had to alter one or two details. + 

But I did not give a direct account of this affair (I mean his stealing). I merely showed it⁠—with its consequences⁠—by glimpses, in the course of conversations. I had put down some of these in a notebook, which I had at that very moment in my pocket. On the contrary, the story of the false coins, as related by Profitendieu, did not seem to me capable of being turned to account. And no doubt that is why, instead of making immediately for this particular point, which was the main object of my visit, I tacked about. + 

“I first want you to read these few lines,” I said. “You will see why.” And I held him out my notebook, which I had opened at the page I thought might interest him. + 

I repeat it⁠—this behaviour of mine now seems to me absurd. But in my novel, it is precisely by a similar reading that I thought of giving the youngest of my heroes a warning. I wanted to know what George’s reaction would be; I hoped it might instruct me⁠ ⁠… and even as to the value of what I had written. + 

I transcribe the passage in question: + 

There was a whole obscure region in the boy’s character which attracted Audibert’s affectionate curiosity. It was not enough for him to know that young Eudolfe had committed thefts; he would have liked Eudolfe to tell him what had made him begin, and what he had felt on the occasion of his first theft. But the boy, even if he had been willing to confide in him, would no doubt have been incapable of explaining. And Audibert did not dare question him, for fear of inducing him to tell lies in self-defence. + 

One evening when Audibert was dining with Hildebrant, he spoke to him about Eudolfe⁠—without naming him and altering the circumstances so that Hildebrant should not recognize him. + 

“Have you ever observed,” said Hildebrant, “that the most decisive actions of our life⁠—I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future⁠—are, more often than not, unconsidered?” + 

“I easily believe it,” replied Audibert. “Like a train into which one jumps without thinking, and without asking oneself where it is going. And more often than not, one does not even realize that the train is carrying one off, till it is too late to get down.” + 

“But perhaps the boy you are talking of has no wish to get down?” + 

“Not so far, doubtless. For the moment he is being carried along unresisting. The scenery amuses him, and he cares very little where he is going.” + 

“Do you mean to talk morals to him?” + 

“No indeed! It would be useless. He has been overdosed with morals till he is sick.” + 

“Why did he steal?” + 

“I don’t exactly know. Certainly not from real need. But to get certain advantages⁠—not to be outdone by his wealthier companions⁠—Heaven knows what all! Innate propensity⁠—sheer pleasure of stealing.” + 

“That’s the worst.” + 

“Of course! Because he’ll begin again.” + 

“Is he intelligent?” + 

“I thought for a long time that he was less so than his brothers. But I wonder now whether I wasn’t mistaken, and whether my unfavourable impression was not caused by the fact that he does not as yet understand what his capabilities are. His curiosity has gone off the tracks⁠—or rather, it is still in the embryonic state⁠—still at the stage of indiscretion.” + 

“Will you speak to him?” + 

“I propose making him put in the scales, on the one hand the little profit his thefts bring him, and on the other what his dishonesty loses him: the confidence of his friends and relations, their esteem, mine amongst others⁠ ⁠… things which can’t be measured and the value of which can be calculated only by the enormousness of the effort needed later to regain them. There are men who have spent their whole lives over it. I shall tell him, what he is still too young to realize⁠—that henceforth if anything doubtful or unpleasant happens in his neighbourhood, it will always be laid to his door. He may find himself accused wrongfully of serious misdeeds and be unable to defend himself. His past actions point to him. He is marked. And lastly what I should like to say.⁠ ⁠… But I am afraid of his protestations.” + 

“You would like to say?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“That what he has done has created a precedent, and that if some resolution is required for a first theft, for the ensuing ones nothing is needed but to drift with the current. All that follows is mere laisser aller.⁠ ⁠… What I should like to say is, that a first movement, which one makes almost without thinking, often begins to trace a line which irrevocably draws our figure, and which our after effort will never be able to efface. I should like⁠ ⁠… but no, I shan’t know how to speak to him.” + 

“Why don’t you write down our conversation of this evening? You could give it him to read.” + 

“That’s an idea,” said Audibert. “Why not?” + 

I did not take my eyes off George while he was reading; but his face showed no signs of what he was thinking. + 

“Am I to go on?” he asked, preparing to turn the page. + 

“There’s no need. The conversation ends there.” + 

“A great pity.” + 

He gave me back the notebook, and in a tone of voice that was almost playful: + 

“I should have liked to know what Eudolfe says when he has read the notebook.” + 

“Exactly. I want to know myself.” + 

“Eudolfe is a ridiculous name. Couldn’t you have christened him something else?” + 

“It’s of no importance.” + 

“Nor what he answers either. And what becomes of him afterwards?” + 

“I don’t know yet. It depends upon you. We shall see.” + 

“Then if I understand right, I am to help you go on with your book. No, really, you must admit that.⁠ ⁠…” + 

He stopped as if he had some difficulty in expressing his ideas. + 

“That what?” I said to encourage him. + 

“You must admit that you’d be pretty well sold,” he went on, “if Eudolfe.⁠ ⁠…” + 

He stopped again. I thought I understood what he meant and finished his sentence for him: + 

“If he became an honest boy?⁠ ⁠… No, my dear.” And suddenly the tears rose to my eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder. But he shook it off: + 

“For after all, if he hadn’t been a thief, you wouldn’t have written all that.” + 

It was only then that I understood my mistake. In reality, George was flattered at having occupied my thoughts for so long. He felt interesting. I had forgotten Profitendieu; it was George who reminded me of him. + 

“And what did your juge d’instruction say to you?” + 

“He commissioned me to warn you that he knew you were circulating false coins.⁠ ⁠…” + 

George changed colour again. He understood denials would be useless, but he muttered indistinctly: + 

“I’m not the only one.” + 

“… and that if you and your pals don’t stop your traffickings at once, he’ll be obliged to arrest you.” + 

George had begun by turning very pale. Now his cheeks were burning. He stared fixedly in front of him and his knitted brows drew two deep wrinkles on his forehead. + 

“Goodbye,” I said, holding out my hand. “I advise you to warn your companions as well. As for you, you won’t be offered a second chance.” + 

He shook my hand silently and left the room without looking round. + 

On rereading the pages of The Counterfeiters which I showed George, I thought them on the whole rather bad. I transcribe them as George read them, but all this chapter must be rewritten. It would be better decidedly to speak to the child. I must discover how to touch him. Certainly, at the point he has reached, it would be difficult to bring Eudolfe (George is right; I must change his name) back into the path of honesty. But I mean to bring him back; and whatever George may think, this is what is most interesting, because it is most difficult. (Here am I reasoning like Douviers!) Let us leave realistic novelists to deal with the stories of those who drift. + 

As soon as he got back to the classroom, George told his two friends of Edouard’s warnings. Everything his uncle had said about his pilferings slipped off the child’s mind, without causing him the slightest emotion; but, when it came to the false coins, which ran the risk of getting them into trouble, he saw the importance of getting rid of them as quickly as possible. Each of the three boys had on him a certain number which he intended disposing of the next free afternoon. Ghéridanisol collected them and hurried off to throw them down the drains. That same evening he warned Strouvilhou, who immediately took his precautions. + 

XVII + 

Armand and Olivier + 

That same evening, while Edouard was talking to his nephew George, Olivier, after Bernard had left him, received a visit from Armand. + 

Armand Vedel was unrecognizable; shaved, smiling, carrying his head high; he was dressed in a new suit, which was rather too smart and looked perhaps a trifle ridiculous; he felt it and showed that he felt it. + 

“I should have come to see you before, but I’ve had so much to do lately!⁠ ⁠… Do you know that I’ve actually become Passavant’s secretary? or, if you prefer it, the editor of his new review. I won’t ask you to contribute, because Passavant seems rather worked up against you. Besides the review is decidedly going more and more to the left. That’s the reason it has begun by dropping Bercail and his pastorals.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I’m sorry for the review,” said Olivier. + 

“And that’s why, on the other hand, it has accepted my Nocturnal Vase, which, by the by, is, without your permission, to be dedicated to you.” + 

“I’m sorry for me.” + 

“Passavant even wished my work of genius to open the first number; but my natural modesty, which was severely tried by his encomiums, was opposed to this. If I were not afraid of fatiguing a convalescent’s ears, I would give you an account of my first interview with the illustrious author of The Horizontal Bar, whom I had only known up till then through you.” + 

“I have nothing better to do than to listen.” + 

“You don’t mind smoke?” + 

“I’ll smoke myself to show you.” + 

“I must tell you,” began Armand, lighting a cigarette, “that your desertion left our beloved Count somewhat in a fix. Let it be said, without flattery, that it isn’t easy to replace such a bundle of gifts, virtues, qualities as are united in your.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Get on,” interrupted Olivier, exasperated by this heavy-footed irony. + 

“Well, to get on, Passavant wanted a secretary. He happened to know a certain Strouvilhou, whom I happen to know myself, because he is the uncle of a certain individual in the school, who happened to know Jean Cob-Lafleur, whom you know.” + 

“Whom I don’t know,” said Olivier. + 

“Well, my boy, you ought to know him. He’s an extraordinary fellow; a kind of faded, wrinkled, painted baby, who lives on cocktails and writes charming verses when he’s drunk. You’ll see some in our first number. So Strouvilhou had the brilliant idea of sending him to Passavant, to take your place. You can imagine his entry into the Rue de Babylone mansion. I must tell you that Cob-Lafleur’s clothes are covered with stains; that he has flowing flaxen locks, which fall upon his shoulders; and that he looks as if he hadn’t washed for a week. Passavant, who always wants to be master of the situation, declares that he took a great fancy to Cob-Lafleur. Cob-Lafleur has a gentle, smiling, timid way with him. When he chooses he can look like Banville’s Gringoire. In a word, Passavant was taken by him and was on the point of engaging him. I must tell you that Lafleur hasn’t got a penny piece.⁠ ⁠… So he gets up to take leave:⁠—‘Before leaving, Monsieur le Comte, I think it’s only right to inform you that I have a few faults.’⁠—‘Which of us has not?’⁠—‘And a few vices. I smoke opium.’⁠—‘Is that all?’ says Passavant, who isn’t to be put off by a little thing of that kind; ‘I’ve got some excellent stuff to offer you.’⁠—‘Yes, but when I smoke it, I completely lose every notion of spelling.’ Passavant took this for a joke, forced a laugh and held out his hand. Lafleur goes on:⁠—‘And then I take hashish.’⁠—‘I have sometimes taken it myself,’ says Passavant.⁠—‘Yes, but when I am under the influence of hashish, I can’t keep from stealing.’ Passavant began to see then that he was being made a fool of; and Lafleur, who was set going by now, rattled on, impulsively:⁠—‘And besides, I drink ether; and then I tear everything to bits⁠—I smash everything I can lay my hands on,’ and he seizes a glass vase and makes as if he were going to throw it into the fire. Passavant just had time to snatch it out of his hands.⁠—‘Much obliged to you for warning me.’ ” + 

“And he chucked him out?” + 

“Yes; and watched out of the window to see Lafleur didn’t drop a bomb into the cellar as he left.” + 

“But why did Lafleur behave so? From what you say, he was really in need of the place.” + 

“All the same, my dear fellow, you must admit that there are people who feel impelled to act against their interest. And then, if you want to know, Lafleur⁠ ⁠… well, Passavant’s luxury disgusted him⁠—his elegance, his amiable manners, his condescension, his affectation of superiority. Yes; it turned his stomach. And I add that I perfectly understand him.⁠ ⁠… At bottom, your Passavant makes one’s gorge rise.” + 

“Why do you say ‘your Passavant’? You know quite well that I’ve given him up. And then why have you accepted his place, if you think him so disgusting?” + 

“For the very reason that I like things that disgust me⁠ ⁠… to start with my own delightful⁠—or disgusting⁠—self. And then, in reality, Cob-Lafleur suffers from shyness; he wouldn’t have said any of all that if he hadn’t felt ill at ease.” + 

“Oh! come now!” + 

“Certainly. He was ill at ease, and he was furious at being made to feel ill at ease by someone he really despises. It was to conceal his shyness that he bluffed.” + 

“I call it stupid.” + 

“My dear fellow, everyone can’t be as intelligent as you are.” + 

“You said that last time, too.” + 

“What a memory!” + 

Olivier was determined to hold his ground. + 

“I try,” said he, “to forget your jokes. But last time you did at last talk to me seriously. You said things I can’t forget.” + 

Armand’s eyes grew troubled. He went off into a forced laugh. + 

“Oh, old fellow, last time I talked to you as you wanted to be talked to. You called for something in a minor key, so, in order to please you, I played my lament, with a soul like a corkscrew and anguish à la Pascal.⁠ ⁠… It can’t be helped, you know. I’m only sincere when I’m cracking jokes.” + 

“You’ll never make me believe that you weren’t sincere when you talked to me as you did that day. It’s now that you are playing a part.” + 

“Oh, simplicity! What a pure angelic soul you possess! As if we weren’t all playing parts more or less sincerely and consciously. Life, my dear fellow, is nothing but a comedy. But the difference between you and me is that I know I am playing a part, whilst.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Whilst⁠ ⁠…” repeated Olivier aggressively. + 

“Whilst my father, for instance, not to speak of you, is completely taken in when he plays at being a pastor. Whatever I say or do, there’s always one part of myself which stays behind, and watches the other part compromise itself, which laughs at and hisses it, or applauds it. When one is divided in that way, how is it possible to be sincere? I have got to the point of ceasing to understand what the word means. It can’t be helped; when I’m sad, I seem so grotesque to myself that it makes me laugh; when I’m cheerful, I make such idiotic jokes that I feel inclined to cry.” + 

“You make me feel inclined to cry too, my dear boy. I didn’t think you were in such a bad way.” + 

Armand shrugged his shoulders and went on in a totally different tone of voice: + 

“To console you, should you like to know the contents of our first number? Well, there’s my Nocturnal Vase; four songs by Cob-Lafleur; a dialogue by Jarry; some prose poems by young Ghéridanisol, one of our boarders; and then The Flat Iron, a vast essay in general criticism, in which the tendencies of the review will be more or less definitely laid down. Several of us have combined together to produce this chef d’oeuvre.” + 

Olivier, not knowing what to say, objected clumsily: + 

“No chef d’oeuvre was ever produced by several people together.” + 

Armand burst out laughing: + 

“But, my dear fellow, I said it was a chef d’oeuvre as a joke. It isn’t a chef d’oeuvre; it isn’t anything at all. And, for that matter, what does one mean by chef d’oeuvre? That’s just what The Flat Iron tries to get to the bottom of. There are heaps of works one admires on faith, just because everyone else does, and because no one so far has thought of saying⁠—or dared to say⁠—that they were stupid. For instance, on the first page of this number, we are going to give a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, with a pair of moustaches stuck on to her face. You’ll see! The effect is simply staggering.” + 

“Does that mean you consider the Mona Lisa a stupidity?” + 

“Not at all, my dear fellow. (Though I don’t think it as marvellous as all that.) You don’t understand me. The thing that’s stupid is people’s admiration for it. It’s the habit they have got of speaking of what are called ‘chefs-d’oeuvre’ with bated breath. The object of The Flat Iron (it’s to be the name of the review too) is to make this reverence appear grotesque⁠—to discredit it.⁠ ⁠… Another good plan is to hold up to the reader’s admiration something absolutely idiotic (my Nocturnal Vase for instance) by an author who is absolutely senseless.” + 

“Does Passavant approve of all this?” + 

“He’s very much amused by it.” + 

“I see I did well to retire.” + 

“Retire!⁠ ⁠… Sooner or later, old man, willy-nilly, one always has to end by retiring. This wise reflection naturally leads me to take my leave.” + 

“Stop a moment, you old clown.⁠ ⁠… What made you say just now that your father played the part of pastor? Don’t you think he is in earnest?” + 

“My revered father has so arranged his life that he hasn’t the right now⁠—or even the power⁠—not to be in earnest. Yes, it’s his profession to be in earnest. He’s a professor of earnestness. He inculcates faith; it’s his raison d’être; it’s the role he has chosen and he must go through with it to the very end. But as for knowing what goes on in what he calls his ‘inner consciousness’⁠ ⁠… it would be indiscreet to enquire. And I don’t think he ever enquires himself. He manages in such a way that he never has time to. He has crammed his life full of a lot of obligations which would lose all meaning if his conviction failed; so that in a manner they necessitate his conviction and at the same time keep it going. He imagines he believes, because he continues to act as if he did. If his faith failed, my dear fellow, why, it would be a catastrophic collapse! And reflect, that at the same time my family would cease to have anything to live on. That’s a fact that must be taken into consideration, old boy. Papa’s faith is our means of subsistence. So that to come and ask me if Papa’s faith is genuine, is not, you must admit, a very tactful proceeding on your part.” + 

“I thought you lived chiefly on what the school brings in.” + 

“Yes; there’s some truth in that. But that’s not very tactful either⁠—to cut me short in my lyrical flights.” + 

“And you then? Don’t you believe in anything?” asked Olivier sadly, for he was fond of Armand, and his ugliness pained him. + 

“Jubes renovare dolorem.⁠ ⁠… You seem to forget, my dear friend, that my parents wanted to make a pastor of me. They nourished me on pious precepts⁠—fed me up with them, if I may say so.⁠ ⁠… But finally they were obliged to recognize that I hadn’t the vocation. It’s a pity. I might have made a first-class preacher. But my vocation was to write The Nocturnal Vase.” + 

“You poor old thing! If you knew how sorry I am for you!” + 

“You have always had what my father calls ‘a heart of gold’.⁠ ⁠… I won’t trespass on it any longer.” + 

He took up his hat. He had almost left the room, when he suddenly turned round: + 

“You haven’t asked after Sarah?” + 

“Because you could tell me nothing that I haven’t heard from Bernard.” + 

“Did he tell you that he had left the pension?” + 

“He told me that your sister Rachel had requested him to leave.” + 

Armand had one hand on the door handle; with his walking-stick in the other, he pushed up the portière. The stick went into a hole in the portière and made it bigger. + 

“Account for it how you will,” said he, and his face became very grave. “Rachel is, I believe, the only person in the world I love and respect. I respect her because she is virtuous. And I always behave in such a way as to offend her virtue. As for Bernard and Sarah, she had no suspicions. It was I who told her the whole thing.⁠ ⁠… And the oculist said she wasn’t to cry! It’s comic!” + 

“Am I to think you sincere now?” + 

“Yes, I think the most sincere thing about me is a horror⁠—a hatred of everything people call ‘Virtue.’ Don’t try to understand. You have no idea what a Puritan bringing-up can do to one. It leaves one with an incurable resentment in one’s heart⁠ ⁠… to judge by myself,” he added, with a jarring laugh. + 

He put down his hat and went up to the window. “Just look here; on the inside of my lip?” + 

He stooped towards Olivier and lifted up his lip with his finger. + 

“I can’t see anything.” + 

“Yes, you can; there; in the corner.” + 

Olivier saw a whitish spot near the corner. A little uneasily: “It’s a gumboil,” he said to reassure Armand. + 

But Armand shrugged his shoulders. + 

“Don’t talk nonsense⁠—such a serious fellow as you! A gumboil’s soft and it goes away. This is hard and gets larger every week. And it gives me a kind of bad taste in my mouth.” + 

“Have you had it long?” + 

“It’s more than a month since I first noticed it. But as the chef d’oeuvre says: ‘Mon mal vient de plus loin.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

“Well, old boy, if you’re anxious about it, you had better consult a doctor.” + 

“You don’t suppose I needed your advice for that.” + 

“What did he say?” + 

“I didn’t need your advice to say to myself that I ought to consult a doctor. But all the same, I didn’t consult one, because if it’s what I think, I prefer not to know it.” + 

“It’s idiotic.” + 

“Isn’t it stupid? But so human, my friend, so human.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“The idiotic thing is not to be treated for it.” + 

“So that when one is treated, one can always say: ‘Too late!’ That’s what Cob-Lafleur expresses so well in one of his poems which you’ll see in the review: + 

‘Il faut se rendre à l’évidence; + 

Car, dans ce bas monde, la danse + 

Précède souvent la chanson.’ ” + 

“One can make literature out of anything.” + 

“Just so; out of anything. But, dear friend, it’s not so easy as all that. Well, goodbye.⁠ ⁠… Oh! there’s one thing more I wanted to tell you. I’ve heard from Alexandre.⁠ ⁠… Yes, you know⁠—my eldest brother, who ran away to Africa. He began by coming to grief over his business and running through all the money Rachel sent him. He’s settled now on the banks of the Casamance; and he has written to say that things are doing well and that he’ll soon be able to pay everything back.” + 

“What kind of a business?” + 

“Heaven knows! Rubber, ivory, Negroes perhaps⁠ ⁠… a lot of odds and ends.⁠ ⁠… He has asked me to go out to him.” + 

“Will you go?” + 

“I would tomorrow, if it weren’t for my military service. Alexandre is a kind of donkey, something in my style. I think I should get on with him very well.⁠ ⁠… Here! would you like to see? I’ve got his letter with me.” + 

He took an envelope out of his pocket, and several sheets of notepaper out of the envelope; he chose one, and held it out to Olivier. + 

“There’s no need to read it all. Begin here.” + 

Olivier read: + 

“For the last fortnight, I have been living in company with a singular individual whom I have taken into my hut. The sun of these parts seems to have touched him in the upper story. I thought at first it was delirium, but there’s no doubt it’s just plain madness. This curious young man is about thirty years old, tall, strong, good-looking, and certainly ‘a gentleman,’ to judge from his manners, his language, and his hands, which are too delicate ever to have done any rough work. The strange thing about him is that he thinks himself possessed by the devil⁠—or rather, as far as I can make out, he thinks he is the devil. He must have had some odd adventure or other, for when he is dreaming or half dozing, a state into which he often falls (and then he talks to himself as if I weren’t there) he continually speaks of hands being cut off, and as at those times he gets extremely excited and rolls his eyes in an alarming manner, I take care that there shall be no weapons within reach. The rest of the time, he is a good fellow and an agreeable companion⁠—which I appreciate, as you can imagine, after months of solitude. Besides which, he is of great assistance to me in my work. He never speaks of his past life, so that I can’t succeed in discovering who he can be. He is particularly interested in plants and insects, and sometimes in his talk shows signs of being remarkably well educated. He seems to like staying with me and doesn’t speak of leaving; I have decided to let him stay as long as he likes. I was wanting a help; all things considered, he has come just in the nick of time. + 

“A hideous Negro who came up the Casamance with him, and to whom I have talked a little, speaks of a woman who was with him, and who, I gather, must have been drowned in the river one day when their boat upset. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that my companion had had a finger in the accident. In this country, if one wants to get rid of anyone, there is a great choice of means, and no one ever asks a question. If one day I learn anything more, I’ll write it to you⁠—or rather I’ll tell you about it when you come out. Yes, I know, there’s your service.⁠ ⁠… Well, I’ll wait. For you may be sure that if ever you want to see me again, you will have to make up your mind to come out. As for me, I want to come back less and less. I lead a life here which I like and which suits me down to the ground. My business is flourishing, and that badge of civilization⁠—the starched collar⁠—appears to me a straight waistcoat which I shall never be able to endure again. + 

“I enclose a money order which you can do what you like with. The last was for Rachel. Keep this for yourself.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“The rest isn’t interesting,” said Armand. + 

Olivier gave the letter back without saying anything. It never occurred to him that the murderer it spoke of was his brother. Vincent had given no news of himself for a long time; his parents thought he was in America. To tell the truth, Olivier did not trouble much about him. + 

XVIII + 

“The Strong Men” + 

It was only a month later that Boris heard of Bronja’s death from Madame Sophroniska, who came to see him at the pension. Since his friend’s last sad letter, Boris had been without news. Madame Sophroniska came into Madame Vedel’s drawing-room one day when he was sitting there, as was his habit during recreation hour, and as she was in deep mourning, he understood everything before she said a word. They were alone in the room. Sophroniska took Boris in her arms and they cried together. She could only repeat: “My poor little thing.⁠ ⁠… My poor little thing⁠ ⁠…” as if Boris was the person to be pitied, and as though she had forgotten her own maternal grief in the presence of the immense grief of the little boy. + 

Madame Vedel, who had been told of Madame Sophroniska’s arrival, came in, and Boris, still convulsed with sobs, drew aside to let the two ladies talk to each other. He would have liked them not to speak of Bronja. Madame Vedel, who had not known her, spoke of her as she would of any ordinary child. Even the questions which she asked seemed to Boris tactless and commonplace. He would have liked Sophroniska not to answer them and it hurt him to see her exhibiting her grief. He folded his away and hid it like a treasure. + 

It was certainly of him that Bronja was thinking when, a few days before her death, she said to her mother: + 

“Do tell me, Mamma.⁠ ⁠… What is meant exactly by an ‘idyll’?” + 

These words pierced Boris’s heart and he would have liked to be the only one to hear them. + 

Madame Vedel offered her guest tea. There was some for Boris, too; he swallowed it hastily as recreation was finishing; then he said goodbye to Sophroniska, who was leaving next day for Poland on business. + 

The whole world seemed a desert to him. His mother was too far away and always absent; his grandfather too old; even Bernard, with whom he was beginning to feel at home, had gone away.⁠ ⁠… His was a tender soul; he had need of someone at whose feet he could lay his nobility, his purity, as an offering. He was not proud enough to take pleasure in pride. He had loved Bronja too much to be able to hope that he would ever again find that reason for loving which he had lost in her. Without her, how could he believe in the angels he longed to see? Heaven itself was emptied. + 

Boris went back to the schoolroom as one might cast oneself into hell. No doubt he might have made a friend of Gontran de Passavant; Gontran is a good, kind boy, and they are both exactly the same age; but nothing distracts him from his work. There is not much harm in Philippe Adamanti either; he would be quite willing to be fond of Boris; but he is under Ghéridanisol’s thumb to such an extent that he does not dare have a single feeling of his own; he follows Ghéridanisol’s lead, and Ghéridanisol is always quickening his pace; and Ghéridanisol cannot endure Boris. His musical voice, his grace, his girlish look⁠—everything about him exasperates him. The very sight of Boris seems to inspire him with that instinctive aversion which, in a herd, makes the strong fall ruthlessly upon the weak. It may be that he has listened to his cousin’s teaching and that his hatred is somewhat theoretical, for in his mind it assumes the shape of reprobation. He finds reasons for being proud of his hatred. He realizes and is amused by Boris’s sensitiveness to this contempt of his, and pretends to be plotting with George and Phiphi, merely in order to see Boris’s eyes grow wide with a kind of anxious interrogation. + 

“Oh, how inquisitive the fellow is!” says George then. “Shall we tell him?” + 

“Not worth while. He wouldn’t understand.” + 

“He wouldn’t understand.” “He wouldn’t dare.” “He wouldn’t know how.” They are constantly casting these phrases at him. He suffers horribly from being kept out of things. He cannot understand, indeed, why they give him the humiliating nickname of “Wanting”; and is indignant when he understands. What would not he give to be able to prove that he is not such a coward as they think. + 

“I cannot endure Boris,” said Ghéridanisol one day to Strouvilhou. “Why did you tell me to let him alone? He doesn’t want to be let alone as much as all that. He is always looking in my direction.⁠ ⁠… The other day he made us all split with laughter because he thought that a woman togged out in her bearskin meant wearing her furs. George jeered at him, and when at last Boris took it in I thought he was going to howl.” + 

Then Ghéridanisol pressed his cousin with questions and finally Strouvilhou gave him Boris’s talisman and explained its use. + 

A few days later, when Boris went into the schoolroom, he saw this paper, whose existence he had almost forgotten, lying on his desk. He had put it out of his mind with everything else that related to the “magic” of his early childhood, of which he was now ashamed. He did not at first recognize it, for Ghéridanisol had taken pains to frame the words of the incantation + 

“Gas⁠ ⁠… telephone⁠ ⁠… one hundred thousand roubles.” + 

with a large red and black border adorned with obscene little imps, who, it must be owned, were not at all badly drawn. This decoration gave the paper a fantastic⁠—an infernal appearance, thought Ghéridanisol⁠—which he calculated would be likely to upset Boris. + 

Perhaps it was done in play, but it succeeded beyond all expectation. Boris blushed crimson, said nothing, looked right and left, and failed to see Ghéridanisol, who was watching him from behind the door. Boris had no reason to suspect him, and could not understand how the talisman came to be there; it was as though it had fallen from heaven⁠—or rather, risen up from hell. Boris was old enough to shrug his shoulders, no doubt, at these schoolboy bedevilments; but they stirred troubled waters. Boris took the talisman and slipped it into his pocket. All the rest of the day, the recollection of his “magic” practices haunted him. He struggled until evening with unholy solicitations and then, as there was no longer anything to support him in his struggle, he fell. + 

He felt that he was going to his ruin, sinking further and further away from Heaven; but he took pleasure in so falling⁠—found in his very fall itself the stuff of his enjoyment. + 

And yet, in spite of his misery, in the depths of his dereliction, he kept such stores of tenderness, his companions’ contempt caused him suffering so keen, that he would have dared anything, however dangerous, however foolhardy, for the sake of a little consideration. + 

An opportunity soon offered. + 

After they had been obliged to give up their traffic in false coins, Ghéridanisol, George and Phiphi did not long remain unoccupied. The ridiculous pranks with which they amused themselves for the first few days were merely stopgaps. Ghéridanisol’s imagination soon invented something with more stuff to it. + 

The chief point about “The Brotherhood of Strong Men” at first consisted in the pleasure of keeping Boris out of it. But it soon occurred to Ghéridanisol that it would be far more perversely effective to let him in; he could be brought in this way to enter into engagements, by means of which he might gradually be led on to the performance of some monstrous act. From that moment Ghéridanisol was possessed by this idea; and as often happens in all kinds of enterprises, he thought much less of the object itself, than of how to bring it about; this seems trifling, but is perhaps the explanation of a considerable number of crimes. For that matter Ghéridanisol was ferocious; but he felt it prudent to hide his ferocity, at any rate from Phiphi. There was nothing cruel about Phiphi; he was convinced up to the last minute that the whole thing was nothing but a joke. + 

Every brotherhood must have its motto. Ghéridanisol, who had his idea, proposed: “The strong man cares nothing for life.” The motto was adopted and attributed to Cicero. George proposed that, as a sign of fellowship, they should tattoo it on their right arms; but Phiphi, who was afraid of being hurt, declared that good tattooers could only be found in seaports. Besides which, Ghéridanisol objected that tattooing would leave an indelible mark which might be inconvenient later on. After all, the sign of fellowship was not an absolute necessity; the members would content themselves with taking a solemn vow. + 

At the moment of starting the traffic in false coins, there had been talk of pledges, and it was on this occasion that George had produced his father’s letters. But this idea had dropped. Such children as these, very fortunately, have not much consistency. As a matter of fact, they settled practically nothing, either as to “conditions of membership” or as to “necessary qualifications.” What was the use, when it was taken for granted that all three of them were “in it,” and that Boris was “out of it”? On the other hand they decreed that “the person who flinched should be considered as a traitor, and forever excluded from the brotherhood.” Ghéridanisol, who had determined to make Boris come in, laid great stress upon this point. + 

It had to be admitted that without Boris the game would have been dull and the virtue of the brotherhood without an object. George was better qualified to circumvent him than Ghéridanisol, who risked arousing his suspicions; as for Phiphi, he was not artful enough and had a dislike to compromising himself. + 

And in all this abominable story, what perhaps seems to me the most monstrous, is this comedy of friendship which George went through. He pretended to be seized with a sudden affection for Boris; until then, he had seemed never so much as to have set eyes on him. And I even wonder whether he was not himself influenced by his own acting, and whether the feelings he feigned were not on the point of becoming sincere⁠—whether they did not actually become sincere as soon as Boris responded to them. George drew near him with an appearance of tenderness; in obedience to Ghéridanisol, he began to talk to him.⁠ ⁠… And, at the first words, Boris, who was panting for a little esteem and love, was conquered. + 

Then Ghéridanisol elaborated his plan, and disclosed it to Phiphi and George. His idea was to invent a “test” to which the member on whom the lot fell should be submitted; and in order to set Phiphi at ease, he let it be understood that things would be arranged in such a manner that the lot would be sure to fall on Boris. The object of the test would be to put his courage to the proof. + 

The exact nature of the test, Ghéridanisol did not at once divulge. He was afraid that Phiphi would offer some resistance. + 

And, in fact, when Ghéridanisol a little later began to insinuate that old La Pérouse’s pistol would come in handy, “No, no!” he cried, “I won’t agree to that.” + 

“What an ass you are! It’s only a joke,” retorted George, who was already persuaded. + 

“And then, you know,” added Ghéri, “if you want to play the fool, you have only got to say so. Nobody wants you.” + 

Ghéridanisol knew that this argument always told with Phiphi; and as he had prepared the paper on which each member of the brotherhood was to sign his name, he went on: “Only you must say so at once; because once you’ve signed, it’ll be too late.” + 

“All right. Don’t be in a rage,” said Phiphi. “Pass me the paper.” And he signed. + 

“As for me, old chap, I’d be delighted,” said George, with his arm fondly wound round Boris’s neck; “it’s Ghéridanisol who won’t have you.” + 

“Why not?” + 

“Because he’s afraid. He says you’ll funk.” + 

“What does he know about it?” + 

“That you’ll wriggle out of it at the first test.” + 

“We shall see.” + 

“Would you really dare to draw lots?” + 

“Wouldn’t I!” + 

“But do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?” + 

Boris didn’t know, but he wanted to. Then George explained. “The strong man cares nothing for life.” It remained to be seen. + 

Boris felt a great swimming in his head; but he nerved himself and, hiding his agitation, “Is it true you’ve signed?” he asked. + 

“Here! You can see for yourself.” And George held out the paper, so that Boris could read the three names on it. + 

“Have you⁠ ⁠…” he began timidly. + 

“Have we what?⁠ ⁠…” interrupted George, so brutally that Boris did not dare go on. What he wanted to ask, as George perfectly understood, was whether the others had bound themselves likewise, and whether one could be sure that they wouldn’t funk either. + 

“No, nothing,” said he; but from that moment he began to doubt them; he began to suspect they were saving themselves and not playing fair. “Well and good!” thought he then; “what do I care if they funk? I’ll show them that I’ve got more pluck than they have.” Then, looking George straight in the eyes: “Tell Ghéri he can count on me.” + 

“Then you’ll sign?” + 

Oh! there was no need now⁠—he had given his word. He said simply: “As you please.” And, in a large painstaking hand, he inscribed his name on the accursed paper, underneath the signatures of the three Strong Men. + 

George brought the paper back in triumph to the two others. They agreed that Boris had behaved very pluckily. They took counsel together. + 

Of course, the pistol wouldn’t be loaded! For that matter there were no cartridges. Phiphi still had fears, because he had heard it said that sometimes a too violent emotion is sufficient in itself to cause death. His father, he declared, knew of a case when a pretence execution.⁠ ⁠… But George shut him up: + 

“Your father’s a dago!” + 

No, Ghéridanisol would not load the pistol. There was no need to. The cartridge which La Pérouse had one day put into it, La Pérouse had not taken out. This is what Ghéridanisol had made sure of, though he took good care not to tell the others. + 

They put the names in a hat; four little pieces of paper all alike, and folded in the same manner. Ghéridanisol, who was “to draw,” had taken care to write Boris’s name a second time on a fifth, which he kept in his hand; and, as though by chance, his was the name to come out. Boris suspected they were cheating; but he said nothing. What was the use of protesting? He knew that he was lost. He would not have lifted a finger to defend himself; and even if the lot had fallen on one of the others, he would have offered to take his place⁠—so great was his despair. + 

“Poor old boy! you’ve no luck,” George thought it his duty to say. The tone of his voice rang so false, that Boris looked at him sadly. + 

“It was bound to happen,” he said. + 

After that, it was agreed there should be a rehearsal. But as there was a risk of being caught, they settled not to make use of the pistol. They would only take it out of its case at the last moment, for the real performance. Every care must be taken not to give the alarm. + 

On that day, therefore, they contented themselves with fixing the hour, and the place, which they marked on the floor with a bit of chalk. It was in the classroom, on the right hand of the master’s desk, in a recess, formed by a disused door, which had formerly opened on to the entrance hall. As for the hour, it was to be during preparation. It was to take place in front of all the other boys; it would make them sit up. + 

They went through the rehearsal when the room was empty, the three conspirators being the only witnesses. But in reality there was not much point in this rehearsal. They simply established the fact that, from Boris’s seat to the spot marked with chalk, there were exactly twelve paces. + 

“If you aren’t in a panic, you’ll not take one more,” said George. + 

“I shan’t be in a panic,” said Boris, who was outraged by this incessant doubt. The little boy’s firmness began to impress the other three. Phiphi considered they ought to stop at that. But Ghéridanisol was determined to carry on the joke to the very end. + 

“Well! tomorrow,” he said, with a peculiar smile, which just curled the corner of his lip. + 

“Suppose we kissed him!” cried Phiphi, enthusiastically. He was thinking of the accolade of the knights of old; and he suddenly flung his arms round Boris’s neck. It was all Boris could do to keep back his tears when Phiphi planted two hearty, childish kisses on his cheeks. Neither George nor Ghéri followed Phiphi’s example; George thought his behaviour rather unmanly. As for Ghéri, what the devil did he care!⁠ ⁠… + 

XIX + 

Boris + 

The next afternoon, the bell assembled all the boys in the classroom. + 

Boris, Ghéridanisol, George and Philippe were seated on the same bench. Ghéridanisol pulled out his watch and put it down between Boris and him. The hands marked five thirty-five. Preparation began at five o’clock and lasted till six. Five minutes to six was the moment fixed upon for Boris to put an end to himself, just before the boys dispersed; it was better so; it would be easier to escape immediately after. And soon Ghéridanisol said to Boris, in a half whisper, and without looking at him, which gave his words, he considered, a more fatal ring: + 

“Old boy, you’ve only got a quarter of an hour more.” + 

Boris remembered a storybook he had read long ago, in which, when the robbers were on the point of putting a woman to death, they told her to say her prayers, so as to convince her she must get ready to die. As a foreigner who, on arriving at the frontier of the country he is leaving, prepares his papers, so Boris searched his heart and head for prayers, and could find none; but he was at once so tired and so overstrung, that he did not trouble much. He tried to think, but could not. The pistol weighed in his pocket; he had no need to put his hand on it to feel it there. + 

“Only ten minutes more.” + 

George, sitting on Ghéridanisol’s left, watched the scene out of the corner of his eye, pretending all the while not to see. He was working feverishly. The class had never been so quiet. La Pérouse hardly knew his young rascals and for the first time was able to breathe. Philippe, however, was not at ease; Ghéridanisol frightened him; he was not very confident the game mightn’t turn out badly; his heart was bursting; it hurt him, and every now and then he heard himself heave a deep sigh. At last, he could bear it no longer, and tearing a half sheet of paper out of his copybook (he was preparing an examination, but the lines danced before his eyes, and the facts and dates in his head) scribbled on it very quickly: “Are you quite sure the pistol isn’t loaded?”; then gave the note to George, who passed it to Ghéri. But Ghéri, after he had read it, raised his shoulders, without even glancing at Phiphi; then, screwing the note up into a ball, sent it rolling with a flick of his finger till it landed on the very spot which had been marked with chalk. After which, satisfied with the excellence of his aim, he smiled. This smile, which began by being deliberate, remained fixed till the end of the scene; it seemed to have been imprinted on his features. + 

“Five minutes more.” + 

He said it almost aloud. Even Philippe heard. He was overwhelmed by a sickening and intolerable anxiety, and though the hour was just coming to an end, he feigned an urgent need to leave the room⁠—or was perhaps seized with perfectly genuine colic. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers, as boys do when they want to ask permission from the master; then, without waiting for La Pérouse to answer, he darted from his bench. In order to reach the door he had to pass in front of the master’s desk; he almost ran, tottering as he did so. + 

Almost immediately after Philippe had left the room, Boris rose in his turn. Young Passavant, who was sitting behind him, working diligently, raised his eyes. He told Séraphine afterwards that Boris was frightfully pale; but that is what is always said on these occasions. As a matter of fact, he stopped looking almost at once and plunged again into his work. He reproached himself for it bitterly later. If he had understood what was going on, he would certainly have been able to prevent it; so he said afterwards, weeping. But he had no suspicions. + 

So Boris stepped forward to the appointed place; he walked slowly, like an automaton⁠—or rather like a somnambulist. He had grasped the pistol in his right hand, but still kept it in the pocket of his coat; he took it out only at the last moment. The fatal place was, as I have said, in the recess made by a disused door on the right of the master’s desk, so that the master could only see it by leaning forward. + 

La Pérouse leant forward. And at first he did not understand what his grandson was doing, though the strange solemnity of his actions was of a nature to alarm him. Speaking as loudly and as authoritatively as he could, he began: + 

“Master Boris, kindly return at once to your.⁠ ⁠…” + 

But he suddenly recognized the pistol: Boris had just raised it to his temple. La Pérouse understood and immediately turned icy cold as if the blood were freezing in his veins. He tried to rise and run towards Boris⁠—stop him⁠—call to him.⁠ ⁠… A kind of hoarse rattle came from his throat; he remained rooted to the spot, paralytic, shaken by a violent trembling. + 

The shot went off. Boris did not drop at once. The body stayed upright for a moment, as though caught in the corner of the recess; then the head, falling on to the shoulder, bore it down; it collapsed. + 

When the police made their enquiry a little later, they were astonished not to find the pistol near Boris’s body⁠—near the place, I mean, where he fell, for the little corpse was carried away almost immediately and laid upon a bed. In the confusion which followed, while Ghéridanisol had remained in his place, George had leapt over his bench and succeeded in making away with the weapon, without anyone’s noticing him; while the others were bending over Boris, he had first of all pushed it backwards with his foot, seized it with a rapid movement, hidden it under his coat, and then surreptitiously passed it to Ghéridanisol. Everyone’s attention being fixed on a single point, no one noticed Ghéridanisol either, and he was able to run unperceived to La Pérouse’s room and put the pistol back in the place from which he had taken it. When, in the course of a later investigation, the police discovered the pistol in its case, it might have seemed doubtful whether it had ever left it, or whether Boris had used it, had Ghéridanisol only remembered to remove the empty cartridge. He certainly lost his head a little⁠—a passing weakness, for which, I regret to say, he reproached himself far more than for the crime itself. And yet it was this weakness which saved him. For when he came down and mixed with the others, at the sight of Boris’s dead body being carried away, he was seized with a fit of trembling, which was obvious to everyone⁠—a kind of nervous attack⁠—which Madame Vedel and Rachel, who had hurried to the spot, mistook for a sign of excessive emotion. One prefers to suppose anything, rather than the inhumanity of so young a creature; and when Ghéridanisol protested his innocence, he was believed. Phiphi’s little note, which George had passed him and which he had flicked away with his finger, was found later under a bench and also contributed to help him. True, he remained guilty, as did George and Phiphi, of having lent himself to a cruel game, but he would not have done so, he declared, if he had thought the weapon was loaded. George was the only one who remained convinced of his entire responsibility. + 

George was not so corrupted but that his admiration for Ghéridanisol yielded at last to horror. When he reached home that evening, he flung himself into his mother’s arms; and Pauline had a burst of gratitude to God, who by means of this dreadful tragedy had brought her son back to her. + 

XX + 

Edouard’s Journal + 

Without exactly pretending to explain anything, I should not like to put forward any fact which was not accounted for by a sufficiency of motive. And for that reason I shall not make use of little Boris’s suicide for my Counterfeiters; I have too much difficulty in understanding it. And then, I dislike police court items. There is something peremptory, irrefutable, brutal, outrageously real about them.⁠ ⁠… I accept reality coming as a proof in support of my thought, but not as preceding it. It displeases me to be surprised. Boris’s suicide seems to me an indecency, for I was not expecting it. + 

A little cowardice enters into every suicide, notwithstanding La Pérouse, who no doubt thinks his grandson was more courageous than he. If the child could have foreseen the disaster which his dreadful action has brought upon the Vedels, there would be no excuse for him. Azaïs has been obliged to break up the school⁠—for the time being, he says; but Rachel is afraid of ruin. Four families have already removed their children. I have not been able to dissuade Pauline from taking George away, so that she may keep him at home with her; especially as the boy has been profoundly shaken by his schoolfellow’s death, and seems inclined to reform. What repercussions this calamity has had! Even Olivier is touched by it. Armand, notwithstanding his cynical airs, feels such anxiety at the ruin which is threatening his family, that he has offered to devote the time that Passavant leaves him, to working in the school, for old La Pérouse has become manifestly incapable of doing what is required of him. + 

I dreaded seeing him again. It was in his little bedroom on the second floor of the pension, that he received me. He took me by the arm at once, and with a mysterious, almost a smiling air, which greatly surprised me, for I was expecting tears: + 

“That noise,” he said, “you know⁠ ⁠… the noise I told you about the other day.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Well?” + 

“It has stopped⁠—finished. I don’t hear it any more, however much I listen.” + 

As one humours a child, “I wager,” said I, “that now you regret it.” + 

“Oh! no; no.⁠ ⁠… It’s such a rest. I am so much in need of silence. Do you know what I’ve been thinking? That in this life we can’t know what real silence is. Even our blood makes a kind of continual noise; we don’t notice it, because we have become accustomed to it ever since our childhood.⁠ ⁠… But I think there are things in life which we can’t succeed in hearing⁠—harmonies⁠ ⁠… because this noise drowns them. Yes, I think it’s only after our death that we shall really be able to hear.” + 

“You told me you didn’t believe.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“In the immortality of the soul? Did I tell you that?⁠ ⁠… Yes; I suppose I did. But I don’t believe the contrary either, you know.” + 

And as I was silent, he went on, nodding his head and with a sententious air: + 

“Have you noticed that in this world God always keeps silent? It’s only the devil who speaks. Or at least, at least⁠ ⁠…” he went on, “… however carefully we listen, it’s only the devil we can succeed in hearing. We have not the ears to hear the voice of God. The word of God! Have you ever wondered what it is like?⁠ ⁠… Oh! I don’t mean the word that has been transferred into human language.⁠ ⁠… You remember the Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ I have often thought that the word of God was the whole of creation. But the devil seized hold of it. His noise drowns the voice of God. Oh! tell me, don’t you think that all the same it’s God who will end by having the last word?⁠ ⁠… And if, after death, time no longer exists, if we enter at once into Eternity, do you think we shall be able to hear God then⁠ ⁠… directly?” + 

A kind of transport began to shake him, as if he were going to fall down in convulsions, and he was suddenly seized by a fit of sobbing. + 

“No, no!” he cried, confusedly; “the devil and God are one and the same; they work together. We try to believe that everything bad on earth comes from the devil, but it’s because, if we didn’t, we should never find strength to forgive God. He plays with us like a cat, tormenting a mouse.⁠ ⁠… And then afterwards he wants us to be grateful to him as well. Grateful for what? for what?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Then, leaning towards me: + 

“Do you know the most horrible thing of all that he has done?⁠ ⁠… Sacrificed his own son to save us. His son! his son!⁠ ⁠… Cruelty! that’s the principal attribute of God.” + 

He flung himself on his bed and turned his face to the wall. For a few moments a spasmodic shudder ran through him; then, as he seemed to have fallen asleep, I left him. + 

He had not said a word to me about Boris; but I thought that in this mystical despair was to be seen the expression of a grief too blinding to be looked at steadfastly. + 

I hear from Olivier that Bernard has gone back to his father’s; and, indeed, it was the best thing he could do. When he learnt, from a chance meeting with Caloub, that the old judge was not well, Bernard followed the impulse of his heart. We shall meet tomorrow evening, for Profitendieu has invited me to dinner with Molinier, Pauline and the two boys. I feel very curious to know Caloub. + 