Part + 

II + 

Saas-Fée + 

I + 

From Bernard to Olivier + 

My dear old Olivier, + 

First I must tell you that I’ve cut the bachot. I expect you understood as much when I didn’t turn up. I shall go in for it next October. An unparalleled opportunity to go travelling was offered me. I jumped at it and I’m not sorry I did. I had to make up my mind at once⁠—without taking time to reflect⁠—without even saying goodbye to you. Apropos, my travelling companion tells me to say how sorry he is he had to leave without seeing you again. For do you know who carried me off? You’ve guessed it already.⁠ ⁠… It was Edouard⁠—yes! that same uncle of yours, whom I met the very day he arrived in Paris, in rather extraordinary and sensational circumstances, which I’ll tell you about some day. But everything in this adventure is extraordinary, and when I think of it my head whirls. Even now, I can hardly believe it is true and that I am really here in Switzerland with Edouard and.⁠ ⁠… Well! I see I must tell you the whole story, but mind you tear my letter up and never breathe a word about it to a soul. + 

Just think, the poor woman your brother Vincent abandoned, the one you heard sobbing outside your door (I must say, it was idiotic of you not to open it) turns out to be a great friend of Edouard’s and moreover is actually a daughter of Vedel’s and a sister of your friend Armand’s. I oughtn’t to be writing you all this, because a woman’s honour is at stake, but I should burst if I didn’t tell someone.⁠ ⁠… So, once more, don’t breathe a word! You know that she married recently; perhaps you know that shortly after her marriage she fell ill and went for a cure to the South of France. That’s where she met Vincent⁠—in the sanatorium at Pau. Perhaps you know that, too. But what you don’t know is that there were consequences. Yes, old boy! She’s going to have a child and it’s your clumsy ass of a brother’s fault. She came back to Paris and didn’t dare show herself to her parents; still less go back to her husband. And then your brother, as you know, chucked her. I’ll spare you my comments; but I can tell you that Laura Douviers has not uttered a word against him, either of reproach or resentment. On the contrary, she says all she can think of to excuse his conduct. In a word, she’s a very fine woman, with a very beautiful nature. And another very fine person is Edouard. As she didn’t know what to do or where to go, he proposed taking her to Switzerland; and at the same time he proposed that I should go with them, because he didn’t care about travelling tête à tête, as he is only on terms of friendship with her. So off we started. It was all settled in a jiffy⁠—just time to pack one’s suitcase and for me to get a kit (for you know I left home without a thing). You can’t imagine how nice Edouard was about it; and what’s more he kept repeating all the time that it was I who was doing him a service. Yes, really, old boy, you were quite right, your uncle’s perfectly splendid. + 

The journey was rather troublesome, because Laura got very tired and her condition (she’s in her third month) necessitated a great deal of care; and the place where we had settled to go (it would be too long to explain why) is rather difficult to get at. Besides, Laura very often made things more complicated by refusing to take precautions; she had to be forced; she kept repeating that an accident was the best thing that could happen to her. You can imagine how we fussed over her. Oh, Olivier, how wonderful she is! I don’t feel the same as I did before I knew her, and there are thoughts which I no longer dare put into words and impulses which I check, because I should be ashamed not to be worthy of her. Yes, really, when one is with her, one feels forced, as it were, to think nobly. That doesn’t prevent the conversation between the three of us from being very free⁠—Laura isn’t at all prudish⁠—and we talk about anything; but I assure you that when I am with her, there are heaps of things I don’t feel inclined to scoff at any more and which seem to me now very serious. + 

You’ll be thinking I’m in love with her. Well, old boy, you aren’t far wrong. Crazy, isn’t it? Can you imagine me in love with a woman who is going to have a child, whom naturally I respect and wouldn’t venture to touch with my fingertip? Hardly on the road to becoming a rake, am I?⁠ ⁠… + 

When we reached Saas-Fé, after no end of difficulties (we had a carrying chair for Laura, as it’s impossible to get here by driving), we found there were only two rooms available in the hotel⁠—a big one with two beds, and a little one, which it was settled with the hotelkeeper should be for me⁠—for Laura passes as Edouard’s wife, so as to conceal her identity; but every night she sleeps in the little room and I join Edouard in his. Every morning there’s a regular business carrying things backwards and forwards, for the sake of the servants. Fortunately the two rooms communicate, so that makes it easier. + 

We’ve been here six days; I didn’t write to you sooner because I was rather in a state of bewilderment to begin with, and I had to get straight with myself. I am only just beginning to find my bearings. + 

Edouard and I have already done one or two little excursions in the mountains. Very amusing; but to tell the truth, I don’t much care for this country. Edouard doesn’t either. He says the scenery is “declamatory.” That’s exactly it. + 

The best thing about the place is the air⁠—virgin air, which purifies one’s lungs. And then we don’t want to leave Laura alone for too long at a time, for of course she can’t come with us. The company in the hotel is rather amusing. There are people of all sorts of nationalities. The person we see most of is a Polish woman doctor, who is spending the holidays here with her daughter and a little boy she is in charge of. In fact, it’s because of this little boy that we have come here. He’s got a kind of nervous illness, which the doctor is treating according to a new method. But what does the little fellow most good (he’s really a very attractive little thing) is that he’s madly in love with the doctor’s daughter, who is a year or two older than he and the prettiest creature I have ever seen in my life. They never leave each other from morning till night. And they are so charming together that no one ever thinks of chaffing them. + 

I haven’t worked much and not opened a book since I left; but I’ve thought a lot. Edouard’s conversation is extraordinarily interesting. He doesn’t speak to me much personally, though he pretends to treat me as his secretary; but I listen to him talking to the others; especially to Laura, with whom he likes discussing his ideas. You can’t imagine how much I learn by it. There are days when I say to myself that I ought to take notes; but I think I can remember it all. There are days when I long for you madly; I say to myself that it’s you who ought to be here; but I can’t be sorry for what’s happened to me, nor wish for anything to be different. At any rate, you may be sure that I never forget it’s thanks to you that I know Edouard and that it’s to you I owe my happiness. When you see me again, I think you’ll find me changed; I remain, nevertheless, and more faithfully and devotedly than ever + 

Bernard was much too spontaneous, too natural, too pure⁠—he knew too little of Olivier, to suspect the flood of hideous feelings his letter would raise in his friend’s heart⁠—a kind of tidal wave, in which pique, despair and rage were mingled. He felt himself supplanted in Bernard’s affection and in Edouard’s. The friendship of his two friends left no room for his. One sentence in particular of Bernard’s letter tortured him⁠—a sentence which Bernard would never have written had he imagined all that Olivier read into it: “In the same room,” he repeated to himself⁠—and the serpent of jealousy unrolled its abominable coils and writhed in his heart. “They sleep in the same room!” What did he not imagine? His mind filled with impure visions which he did not even try to banish. He was not jealous in particular either of Edouard or of Bernard; but of the two. He pictured each of them in turn or both simultaneously, and at the same time envied them. He received the letter one forenoon. “Ah! so that’s how it is⁠ ⁠…” he kept saying to himself all the rest of the day. That night the fiends of hell inhabited him. Early next morning he rushed off to Robert’s. The Comte de Passavant was waiting for him. + 

II + 

Edouard’s Journal: Little Boris + 

I have had no difficulty in finding little Boris. The day after our arrival, he appeared on the hotel terrace and began looking at the mountains through a telescope which stands outside, mounted on a swivel for the use of the tourists. I recognized him at once. A little girl, rather older than Boris, joined him after a short time. I was sitting near by in the drawing-room, of which the French window was standing open, and I did not lose a word of their conversation. Though I wanted very much to speak to him, I thought it more prudent to wait till I could make the acquaintance of the little girl’s mother⁠—a Polish woman doctor, who is in charge of Boris and keeps very careful watch over him. Little Bronja is an exquisite creature; she must be about fifteen. She wears her fair hair in two thick plaits, which reach to her waist; the expression of her eyes and the sound of her voice are more angelic than human. I write down the two children’s conversation: + 

“Boris, Mamma had rather we didn’t touch the telescope. Won’t you come for a walk?” + 

“Yes, I will. No, I won’t.” + 

The two contradictory sentences were uttered in the same breath. Bronja only answered the second: + 

“Why not?” + 

“Because it’s too hot, it’s too cold.” He had come away from the telescope. + 

“Oh, Boris, do be nice! You know Mamma would like us to go out. Where’s your hat?” + 

“Vibroskomenopatof. Blaf blaf.” + 

“What does that mean?” + 

“Nothing.” + 

“Then why do you say it?” + 

“So that you shouldn’t understand.” + 

“If it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t matter about not understanding it.” + 

“But if it did mean something, anyhow you wouldn’t be able to understand.” + 

“When one talks it’s in order to be understood.” + 

“Shall we play at making words in order to understand them only us?” + 

“First of all, try to speak good grammar.” + 

“My mamma can speak French, English, Romanian, Turkish, Polish, Italoscope, Perroquese and Xixitou.” + 

All this was said very fast, in a kind of lyrical ecstasy. Bronja began to laugh. + 

“Oh, Boris, why are you always saying things that aren’t true?” + 

“Why do you never believe what I say?” + 

“I believe it when it’s true.” + 

“How do you know when it’s true? I believed you the other day when you told me about the angels. I say, Bronja, do you think that, if I were to pray very hard, I should see them too?” + 

“Perhaps you’ll see them if you get out of the habit of telling lies, and if God wants to show them to you; but God won’t show them to you if you pray to him only for that. There are heaps of beautiful things we should see if we weren’t too naughty.” + 

“Bronja, you aren’t naughty; that’s why you can see the angels. I shall always be naughty.” + 

“Why don’t you try not to be? Shall we go to⁠—” some place whose name I didn’t know⁠—“and pray together to God and the Blessèd Virgin to help you not to be naughty?” + 

“Yes. No; listen⁠—let’s take a stick; you shall hold one end and I the other. I will shut my eyes, and I promise not to open them until we get to the place.” + 

They walked away, and as they were going down the terrace steps I heard Boris again: + 

“Yes, no, not that end. Wait till I’ve wiped it.” + 

“Why?” + 

“I’ve touched it.” + 

Mme. Sophroniska came up to me as I was sitting alone, just finishing my early breakfast and wondering how I could enter into conversation with her. I was surprised to see that she was holding my last book in her hand; she asked me with the most affable smile whether it was the author whom she had the pleasure of speaking to; then she immediately launched upon a long appreciation of my book. Her judgment⁠—both praise and criticism⁠—seemed to me more intelligent than what I am accustomed to hearing, though her point of view is anything but literary. She told me she was almost exclusively interested in questions of psychology and in anything that may shed a new light on the human soul. “But how rare it is,” she added, “to find a poet, or dramatist or novelist, who is not satisfied with a ready-made psychology⁠—” the only kind, I told her, that satisfies their readers. + 

Little Boris has been confided to her for the holidays by his mother. I took care not to let her know my reasons for being interested in him. + 

“He is very delicate,” said Mme. Sophroniska. “His mother’s companionship is not at all good for him. She wanted to come to Saas-Fée with us, but I would only consent to look after the child on condition that she left him entirely to my care; otherwise it would be impossible to answer for his being cured. Just imagine,” she went on, “she keeps the poor little thing in a state of continual excitement⁠—the very thing to develop the worst kind of nervous troubles in him. She has been obliged to earn her living since his father’s death. She used to be a pianist and, I must say, a marvellous performer; but her playing was too subtle to please the ordinary public. She decided to take to singing at concerts, at casinos⁠—to go on the stage. She used to take Boris with her to her dressing-room; I believe the artificial atmosphere of the theatre greatly contributed to upset the child’s balance. His mother is very fond of him, but to tell the truth it is most desirable that he shouldn’t live with her.” + 

“What is the matter with him exactly?” I asked. + 

She began to laugh: + 

“Is it the name of his illness you want to know? Oh, you wouldn’t be much the wiser if I were to give you a fine scientific name for it.” + 

“Just tell me what he suffers from.” + 

“He suffers from a number of little troubles, tics, manias, which are the sign of what people call a ‘nervous child,’ and which are usually treated by rest, open air and hygiene. It is certain that a robust organism would not allow these disturbances to show themselves. But if debility favours them, it does not exactly cause them. I think their origin can always be traced to some early shock, brought about by a circumstance it is important to discover. The sufferer, as soon as he becomes conscious of this cause, is half cured. But this cause, more often than not, escapes his memory, as if it were concealing itself in the shadow of his illness; it is in this refuge that I look for it, so as to bring it out into the daylight⁠—into the field of vision, I mean. I believe that the look of a clear-sighted eye cleanses the mind, as a ray of light purifies infected water.” + 

I repeated to Sophroniska the conversation I had overheard the day before, from which it appeared to me that Boris was very far from being cured. + 

“It’s because I am far from knowing all that I need to know of Boris’s past. It’s only a short while ago that I began my treatment.” + 

“Of what does it consist?” + 

“Oh, simply in letting him talk. Every day I spend one or two hours with him. I question him, but very little. The important thing is to gain his confidence. I know a good many things already. I divine a good many others. But the child is still on the defensive; he is ashamed; if I insisted too strongly, tried to force his confidence too quickly, I should be going against the very thing I want to arrive at⁠—a complete surrender. It would set his back up. So long as I shall not have vanquished his reserve, his modesty.⁠ ⁠…” + 

An inquisition of this kind seemed to me so much in the nature of an assault that it was with difficulty I refrained from protesting; but my curiosity carried the day. + 

“Do you mean that you expect the child to make you any shameful revelations?” + 

It was she who protested. + 

“Oh, shameful? There’s no more shame in it than allowing oneself to be sounded. I need to know everything and particularly what is most carefully hidden. I must bring Boris to make a complete confession; until I can do that, I shall not be able to cure him.” + 

“You suspect then that he has a confession to make? Are you quite sure⁠—forgive me⁠—that you won’t yourself suggest what you want him to confess?” + 

“That is a preoccupation which must never leave me, and it is for that reason I work so slowly. I have seen clumsy magistrates who have unintentionally prompted a child to give evidence that was pure invention from beginning to end, and the child, under the pressure of the magistrate’s examination, tells lies in perfect good faith and makes people believe in entirely imaginary misdeeds. My part is to suggest nothing. Extraordinary patience is needed.” + 

“It seems to me that in such cases the value of the method depends upon the value of the operator.” + 

“I shouldn’t have dared say so. I assure you that after a little practice one gets extraordinarily clever at it; it’s a kind of divination⁠—intuition, if you prefer. However, one sometimes goes off on a wrong track; the important thing is not to persist in it. Do you know how all our conversations begin? Boris starts by telling me what he has dreamt the night before.” + 

“How do you know he doesn’t invent?” + 

“And even if he did invent!⁠ ⁠… All the inventions of a diseased imagination reveal something.” + 

She was silent for a moment or two, and then: “ ‘Invention,’ ‘diseased imagination’⁠ ⁠… no, no, that’s not it. Words betray one’s meaning. Boris dreams aloud in my presence. Every morning he consents to remain during one hour in that state of semi-somnolence in which the images which present themselves to us escape from the control of our reason. They no longer group and associate themselves according to ordinary logic, but according to unforeseen affinities; above all, they answer to a mysterious inward compulsion⁠—which is the very thing I want to discover; and the ramblings of this child are far more instructive than the most intelligent analysis of the most conscious of minds could be. Many things escape the reason, and a person who should attempt to understand life by merely using his reason would be like a man trying to take hold of a flame with the tongs. Nothing remains but a bit of charred wood, which immediately stops flaming.” + 

She was again silent and began to turn over the pages of my book. + 

“How very little you penetrate into the human soul!” she cried; then she laughed and added abruptly: + 

“Oh, I don’t mean you in particular; when I say you, I mean novelists in general. Most of your characters seem to be built on piles; they have neither foundations nor subsoil. I really think there’s more truth to be found in the poets; everything which is created by the intelligence alone is false. But now I am talking of what isn’t my business.⁠ ⁠… Do you know what puzzles me in Boris? I believe him to be exceedingly pure.” + 

“Why should that puzzle you?” + 

“Because I don’t know where to look for the source of the evil. Nine times out of ten a derangement like his has its origin in some sort of ugly secret.” + 

“Such a one exists in every one of us, perhaps,” said I, “but it doesn’t make us all ill, thank Heaven!” + 

At that Mme. Sophroniska rose; she had just seen Bronja pass by the window. + 

“Look!” said she, pointing her out to me; “there is Boris’s real doctor. She is looking for me; I must leave you; but I shall see you again, shan’t I?” + 

For that matter, I understand what Sophroniska reproaches the novel for not giving her; but in this case, certain reasons of art escape her⁠—higher reasons, which make me think that a good novelist will never be made out of a good naturalist. + 

I have introduced Laura to Mme. Sophroniska. They seem to take to each other, and I am glad of it. I have fewer scruples about keeping to myself when I know they are chatting together. I am sorry that Bernard has no companion of his own age; but at any rate the preparation for his examination keeps him occupied for several hours a day. I have been able to start work again on my novel. + 

III + 

Edouard Explains His Theory of the Novel + 

Notwithstanding first appearances, and though each of them did his best, Uncle Edouard and Bernard were only getting on together fairly well. Laura was not feeling satisfied, either. How should she be? Circumstances had forced her to assume a part for which she was not fitted; her respectability made her feel uncomfortable in it. Like those loving and docile creatures who make the most devoted wives, she had need of the proprieties to lean on, and felt herself without strength now that she was without the frame of her proper surroundings. Her situation as regards Edouard seemed to her more and more false every day. What she suffered from most and what she found unendurable, if she let her mind dwell on it, was the thought that she was living at the expense of this protector⁠—or rather that she was giving him nothing in exchange⁠—or more exactly, that Edouard asked nothing of her in exchange, while she herself felt ready to give him everything. “Benefits,” says Tacitus, through the mouth of Montaigne, “are only agreeable as long as one can repay them”; no doubt this is only true of noble souls, but without question Laura was one of these. She, who would have liked to give, was on the contrary continually receiving, and this irritated her against Edouard. Moreover when she went over the past in her mind, it seemed to her that Edouard had deluded her by awakening a love in her which she still felt strong within her and then by evading this love and leaving it without an object. Was not that the secret motive of her errors⁠—of her marriage with Douviers, to which she had resigned herself, to which Edouard had led her⁠—and then of her yielding so soon after to the solicitations of the springtime? For she must needs admit it to herself, in Vincent’s arms it was still Edouard that she sought. And as she could not understand her lover’s coldness, she accused herself of being responsible for it, and imagined that she might have vanquished him, had she had more beauty or more boldness; and as she could not succeed in hating him, it was herself she upbraided and depreciated, denying herself all value, and refusing to allow herself any reason for existing or the possession of any virtue. + 

Let us add further that this camping-out style of life, necessitated by the arrangement of the rooms, though it might seem amusing to her companions, hurt her delicacy in many sensitive places. And she could see no issue to the situation, which yet was one it would be difficult to prolong. + 

The only scrap of comfort and joy Laura was able to find in her present life, was by inventing for herself the duties of godmother or elder sister towards Bernard. The worship of a youth so charming touched her; the adoration he paid her prevented her from slipping down that slope of self-contempt and loathing which may lead even the most irresolute creature to the extremest resolutions. Bernard, every morning that he was not called off before daybreak by an expedition into the mountains (for he loved early rising), used to spend two good hours with her reading English. The examination he was going up for in October was a convenient excuse. + 

It cannot be said that his secretarial duties took up much of his time. They were ill-defined. When Bernard undertook them he imagined himself already seated at a desk, writing from Edouard’s dictation, or copying out his manuscripts. Now Edouard never dictated, and his manuscripts, such as they were, remained at the bottom of his trunk; Bernard was free every hour of the day; but it only lay with Edouard to make more calls upon Bernard, who was most anxious to have his zeal made use of, so that Bernard was not particularly distressed by his want of occupation, or by the feeling that he was not earning his living⁠—which, thanks to Edouard’s munificence, was a very comfortable one. He was quite determined not to let himself be embarrassed by scruples. He believed, I dare not say in Providence, but at any rate in his star, and that a certain amount of happiness was due to him, as the air is to the lungs which breathe it; Edouard was its dispenser in the same way as the sacred orator, according to Bossuet, is the dispenser of divine wisdom. Moreover Bernard considered the present state of affairs as merely temporary, and was convinced that some day he would be able to acquit his debt, as soon as he could bring to the mint the uncoined riches whose abundance he felt in his heart. What vexed him more was that Edouard made no demand upon certain gifts which he felt within himself and which it seemed to him Edouard lacked. “He doesn’t know how to make use of me,” thought Bernard, who thereupon checked his self-conceit and wisely added: “Worse luck!” + 

But then what was the reason of this uncomfortable feeling between Edouard and Bernard? Bernard seems to me to be one of those people who find their self-assurance in opposition. He could not endure that Edouard should have any ascendancy over him and, rather than yield to his influence, rebelled against it. Edouard, who never dreamed of coercing him, was alternately vexed and grieved to feel him so restive and so constantly on the alert to defend⁠—or, at any rate, to protect⁠—himself. He came to the pitch of doubting whether he had not committed an act of folly in taking away with him these two beings, whom he seemed only to have united in order that they should league together against him. Incapable of penetrating Laura’s secret sentiments, he took her reserve and her reticence for coldness. It would have made him exceedingly uncomfortable if he had been able to see more clearly; and Laura understood this; so that her unrequited love spent all its strength in keeping hidden and silent. + 

Teatime found them as a rule all assembled in the big sitting-room; it often happened that, at their invitation, Mme. Sophroniska joined them, generally on the days when Boris and Bronja were out walking. She left them very free in spite of their youthfulness; she had perfect confidence in Bronja and knew that she was very prudent, especially with Boris, who was always particularly amenable with her. The country was quite safe; for of course there was no question of their adventuring on to the mountains, or even of their climbing the rocks near the hotel. One day when the two children had obtained leave to go to the foot of the glacier, on condition they did not leave the road, Mme. Sophroniska, who had been invited to tea, was emboldened, with Bernard’s and Laura’s encouragement, to beg Edouard to tell them about his next novel⁠—that is, if he had no objection. + 

“None at all; but I can’t tell you its story.” + 

And yet he seemed almost to lose his temper when Laura asked him (evidently a tactless question) what the book would be like? + 

“Nothing!” he exclaimed; then, immediately and as if he had only been waiting for this provocation: “What is the use of doing over again what other people have done already, or what I myself have done already, or what other people might do?” + 

Edouard had no sooner uttered these words than he felt how improper, how outrageous and how absurd they were; at any rate they seemed to him improper and absurd; or he was afraid that this was how they would strike Bernard. + 

Edouard was very sensitive. As soon as he began talking of his work, and especially when other people made him talk of it, he seemed to lose his head. + 

He had the most perfect contempt for the usual fatuity of authors; he snuffed out his own as well as he could; but he was not unwilling to seek a reinforcement of his modesty in other people’s consideration; if this consideration failed him, modesty immediately went by the board. He attached extreme importance to Bernard’s esteem. Was it with a view to conquering this that, when Bernard was with him, he set his Pegasus prancing? It was the worst way possible. Edouard knew it; he said so to himself over and over again; but in spite of all his resolutions, as soon as he was in Bernard’s company, he behaved quite differently from what he wished, and spoke in a manner which immediately appeared absurd to him (and which indeed was so). This might almost make one suppose that he loved Bernard?⁠ ⁠… No; I think not. But a little vanity is quite as effectual in making us pose as a great deal of love. + 

“Is it because the novel, of all literary genres, is the freest, the most lawless,” held forth Edouard, “… is it for that very reason, for fear of that very liberty (the artists who are always sighing after liberty are often the most bewildered when they get it), that the novel has always clung to reality with such timidity? And I am not speaking only of the French novel. It is the same with the English novel; and the Russian novel, for all its throwing off of constraints, is a slave to resemblance. The only progress it looks to is to get still nearer to nature. The novel has never known that ‘formidable erosion of contours,’ as Nietzsche calls it; that deliberate avoidance of life, which gave style to the works of the Greek dramatists, for instance, or to the tragedies of the French 17th century. Is there anything more perfectly and deeply human than these works? But that’s just it⁠—they are human only in their depths; they don’t pride themselves on appearing so⁠—or, at any rate, on appearing real. They remain works of art.” + 

Edouard had got up, and, for fear of seeming to give a lecture, began to pour out the tea as he spoke; then he moved up and down, then squeezed a lemon into his cup, but, nevertheless, continued speaking: + 

“Because Balzac was a genius, and because every genius seems to bring to his art a final and conclusive solution, it has been decreed that the proper function of the novel is to rival the état-civil. Balzac constructed his work; he never claimed to codify the novel; his article on Stendhal proves it. Rival the état-civil! As if there weren’t enough fools and boors in the world as it is! What have I to do with the état-civil? L’état c’est moi! I, the artist; civil or not, my work doesn’t pretend to rival anything.” + 

Edouard, who was getting excited⁠—a little factitiously, perhaps⁠—sat down. He affected not to look at Bernard; but it was for him that he was speaking. If he had been alone with him, he would not have been able to say a word; he was grateful to the two women for setting him on. + 

“Sometimes it seems to me there is nothing in all literature I admire so much as, for instance, the discussion between Mithridate and his two sons in Racine; it’s a scene in which the characters speak in a way we know perfectly well no father and no sons could ever have spoken in, and yet (I ought to say for that very reason) it’s a scene in which all fathers and all sons can see themselves. By localizing and specifying one restricts. It is true that there is no psychological truth unless it be particular; but on the other hand there is no art unless it be general. The whole problem lies just in that⁠—how to express the general by the particular⁠—how to make the particular express the general. May I light my pipe?” + 

“Do, do,” said Sophroniska. + 

“Well, I should like a novel which should be at the same time as true and as far from reality, as particular and at the same time as general, as human and as fictitious as Athalie, or Tartuffe or Cinna.” + 

“And⁠ ⁠… the subject of this novel?” + 

“It hasn’t got one,” answered Edouard brusquely, “and perhaps that’s the most astonishing thing about it. My novel hasn’t got a subject. Yes, I know, it sounds stupid. Let’s say, if you prefer it, it hasn’t got one subject⁠ ⁠… ‘a slice of life,’ the naturalist school said. The great defect of that school is that it always cuts its slice in the same direction; in time, lengthwise. Why not in breadth? Or in depth? As for me I should like not to cut at all. Please understand; I should like to put everything into my novel. I don’t want any cut of the scissors to limit its substance at one point rather than at another. For more than a year now that I have been working at it, nothing happens to me that I don’t put into it⁠—everything I see, everything I know, everything that other people’s lives and my own teach me.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And the whole thing stylized into art?” said Sophroniska, feigning the most lively attention, but no doubt a little ironically. Laura could not suppress a smile. Edouard shrugged his shoulders slightly and went on: + 

“And even that isn’t what I want to do. What I want is to represent reality on the one hand, and on the other that effort to stylize it into art of which I have just been speaking.” + 

“My poor dear friend, you will make your readers die of boredom,” said Laura; as she could no longer hide her smile, she had made up her mind to laugh outright. + 

“Not at all. In order to arrive at this effect⁠—do you follow me?⁠—I invent the character of a novelist, whom I make my central figure; and the subject of the book, if you must have one, is just that very struggle between what reality offers him and what he himself desires to make of it.” + 

“Yes, yes; I’m beginning to see,” said Sophroniska politely, though Laura’s laugh was very near conquering her. “But you know it’s always dangerous to represent intellectuals in novels. The public is bored by them; one only manages to make them say absurdities and they give an air of abstraction to everything they touch.” + 

“And then I see exactly what will happen,” cried Laura; “in this novelist of yours you won’t be able to help painting yourself.” + 

She had lately adopted in talking to Edouard a jeering tone which astonished herself and upset Edouard all the more that he saw a reflection of it in Bernard’s mocking eyes. Edouard protested: + 

“No, no. I shall take care to make him very disagreeable.” + 

Laura was fairly started. + 

“That’s just it; everybody will recognize you,” she said, bursting into such hearty laughter that the others were caught by its infection. + 

“And is the plan of the book made up?” enquired Sophroniska, trying to regain her seriousness. + 

“Of course not.” + 

“What do you mean? Of course not!” + 

“You ought to understand that it’s essentially out of the question for a book of this kind to have a plan. Everything would be falsified if anything were settled beforehand. I wait for reality to dictate to me.” + 

“But I thought you wanted to abandon reality.” + 

“My novelist wants to abandon it; but I shall continually bring him back to it. In fact that will be the subject; the struggle between the facts presented by reality and the ideal reality.” + 

The illogical nature of his remarks was flagrant⁠—painfully obvious to everyone. It was clear that Edouard housed in his brain two incompatible requirements and that he was wearing himself out in the desire to reconcile them. + 

“Have you got on far with it?” asked Sophroniska politely. + 

“It depends on what you mean by far. To tell the truth, of the actual book not a line has been written. But I have worked at it a great deal. I think of it every day and incessantly. I work at it in a very odd manner, as I’ll tell you. Day by day in a notebook, I note the state of the novel in my mind; yes, it’s a kind of diary that I keep as one might do of a child.⁠ ⁠… That is to say, that instead of contenting myself with resolving each difficulty as it presents itself (and every work of art is only the sum or the product of the solutions of a quantity of small difficulties), I set forth each of these difficulties and study it. My notebook contains, as it were, a running criticism of my novel⁠—or rather of the novel in general. Just think how interesting such a notebook kept by Dickens or Balzac would be; if we had the diary of the Education Sentimentale or of The Brothers Karamazov!⁠—the story of the work⁠—of its gestation! How thrilling it would be⁠ ⁠… more interesting than the work itself.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Edouard vaguely hoped that someone would ask him to read these notes. But not one of the three showed the slightest curiosity. Instead: + 

“My poor friend,” said Laura, with a touch of sadness, “it’s quite clear that you’ll never write this novel of yours.” + 

“Well, let me tell you,” cried Edouard impetuously, “that I don’t care. Yes, if I don’t succeed in writing the book, it’ll be because the history of the book will have interested me more than the book itself⁠—taken the book’s place; and it’ll be a very good thing.” + 

“Aren’t you afraid, when you abandon reality in this way, of losing yourself in regions of deadly abstraction and of making a novel about ideas instead of about human beings?” asked Sophroniska kindly. + 

“And even so!” cried Edouard with redoubled energy. “Must we condemn the novel of ideas because of the groping and stumbling of the incapable people who have tried their hands at it? Up till now we have been given nothing but novels with a purpose parading as novels of ideas. But that’s not it at all, as you may imagine. Ideas⁠ ⁠… ideas, I must confess, interest me more than men⁠—interest me more than anything. They live; they fight; they perish like men. Of course it may be said that our only knowledge of them is through men, just as our only knowledge of the wind is through the reeds that it bends; but all the same the wind is of more importance than the reeds.” + 

“The wind exists independently of the reed,” ventured Bernard. His intervention made Edouard, who had long been waiting for it, start afresh with renewed spirit: + 

“Yes, I know; ideas exist only because of men; but that’s what’s so pathetic; they live at their expense.” + 

Bernard had listened to all this with great attention; he was full of scepticism and very near taking Edouard for a mere dreamer; but during the last few moments he had been touched by his eloquence and had felt his mind waver in its breath; “But,” thought Bernard, “the reed lifts its head again as soon as the wind has passed.” He remembered what he had been taught at school⁠—that man is swayed by his passions and not by ideas. In the meantime Edouard was going on: + 

“What I should like to do is something like the art of fugue writing. And I can’t see why what was possible in music should be impossible in literature.⁠ ⁠…” + 

To which Sophroniska rejoined that music is a mathematical art, and moreover that Bach, by dealing only with figures and by banishing all pathos and all humanity, had achieved an abstract chef d’oeuvre of boredom, a kind of astronomical temple, open only to the few rare initiated. Edouard at once protested that, for his part, he thought the temple admirable, and considered it the apex and crowning point of all Bach’s career. + 

“After which,” added Laura, “people were cured of the fugue for a long time to come. Human emotion, when it could no longer inhabit it, sought a dwelling place elsewhere.” + 

The discussion tailed off in an unprofitable argument. Bernard, who until then had kept silent, but who was beginning to fidget on his chair, at last could bear it no longer; with extreme, even exaggerated deference, as was his habit whenever he spoke to Edouard, but with a kind of sprightliness, which seemed to make a jest of his deference: + 

“Forgive me, sir,” said he, “for knowing the title of your book, since I learnt it through my own indiscretion⁠—which however you have been kind enough to pass over. But the title seemed to me to announce a story.” + 

“Oh, tell us what the title is!” said Laura. + 

“Certainly, my dear Laura, if you wish it.⁠ ⁠… But I warn you that I may possibly change it. I am afraid it’s rather deceptive.⁠ ⁠… Well, tell it them, Bernard.” + 

“May I?⁠ ⁠… The Counterfeiters,” said Bernard. “But now you tell us⁠—who are these Counterfeiters?” + 

“Oh dear! I don’t know,” said Edouard. + 

Bernard and Laura looked at each other and then looked at Sophroniska. There was a long sigh; I think it was drawn by Laura. + 

In reality, Edouard had in the first place been thinking of certain of his fellow novelists when he began to think of The Counterfeiters, and in particular of the Comte de Passavant. But this attribution had been considerably widened; according as the wind blew from Rome or from elsewhere, his heroes became in turn either priests or freemasons. If he allowed his mind to follow its bent, it soon tumbled headlong into abstractions, where it was as comfortable as a fish in water. Ideas of exchange, of depreciation, of inflation, etc., gradually invaded his book (like the theory of clothes in Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus) and usurped the place of the characters. As it was impossible for Edouard to speak of this, he kept silent in the most awkward manner, and his silence, which seemed like an admission of penury, began to make the other three very uncomfortable. + 

“Has it ever happened to you to hold a counterfeit coin in your hands?” he asked at last. + 

“Yes,” said Bernard; but the two women’s “No” drowned his voice. + 

“Well, imagine a false ten-franc gold piece. In reality it’s not worth two sous. But it will be worth ten francs as long as no one recognizes it to be false. So if I start from the idea that.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But why start from an idea?” interrupted Bernard impatiently. “If you were to start from a fact and make a good exposition of it, the idea would come of its own accord to inhabit it. If I were writing The Counterfeiters I should begin by showing the counterfeit coin⁠—the little ten-franc piece you were speaking of just now.” + 

So saying, he pulled out of his pocket a small coin, which he flung on to the table. + 

“Just hear how true it rings. Almost the same sound as the real one. One would swear it was gold. I was taken in by it this morning, just as the grocer who passed it on to me had been taken in himself, he told me. It isn’t quite the same weight, I think; but it has the brightness and the sound of a real piece; it is coated with gold, so that, all the same, it is worth a little more than two sous; but it’s made of glass. It’ll wear transparent. No; don’t rub it; you’ll spoil it. One can almost see through it, as it is.” + 

Edouard had seized it and was considering it with the utmost curiosity. + 

“But where did the grocer get it from?” + 

“He didn’t know. He thinks he has had it in his drawer some days. He amused himself by passing it off on me to see whether I should be taken in. Upon my word, I was just going to accept it! But as he’s an honest man, he undeceived me; then he let me have it for five francs. He wanted to keep it to show to what he calls ‘amateurs.’ I thought there couldn’t be a better one than the author of The Counterfeiters; and it was to show you that I took it. But now that you have examined it, give it back to me! I’m sorry that the reality doesn’t interest you.” + 

“Yes, it does”; said Edouard, “but it disturbs me too.” + 

“That’s a pity,” rejoined Bernard. + 

Tuesday evening.⁠—Sophroniska, Bernard and Laura have been questioning me about my novel. Why did I let myself go to speak of it? I said nothing but stupidities. Interrupted fortunately by the return of the two children. They were red and out of breath, as if they had been running. As soon as she came in, Bronja fell into her mother’s arms; I thought she was going to burst into sobs. + 

“Mamma!” she cried, “do scold Boris. He wanted to undress and lie down in the snow without any clothes on.” + 

Sophroniska looked at Boris, who was standing in the doorway, his head down, his eyes with a look in them of almost hatred; she seemed not to notice the little boy’s strange expression, but with admirable calm: + 

“Listen, Boris,” she said. “That’s a thing you mustn’t do in the evening. If you like we’ll go there tomorrow morning; first of all you must begin with bare feet.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She was gently stroking her daughter’s forehead; but the little girl suddenly fell on the ground and began rolling about in convulsions. It was rather alarming. Sophroniska lifted her and laid her on the sofa. Boris stood motionless, watching the scene with a dazed, bewildered expression. + 

Sophroniska’s methods of education seem to me excellent in theory, but perhaps she miscalculates the children’s powers of resistance. + 

“You behave,” said I, when I was alone with her a little later (after the evening meal I had gone to enquire after Bronja, who was too unwell to come downstairs), “as if good were always sure to triumph over evil.” + 

“It is true,” she said, “I firmly believe that good must triumph. I have confidence.” + 

“And yet, through excess of confidence you might make a mistake.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Every time I have made a mistake, it has been because my confidence was not great enough. Today, when I allowed the children to go out, I couldn’t help showing them I was a little uneasy. They felt it. All the rest followed from that.” + 

She had taken my hand. + 

“You don’t seem to believe in the virtue of convictions.⁠ ⁠… I mean in their power as an active principle.” + 

“You are right,” I said laughing. “I am not a mystic.” + 

“Well, as for me,” she cried in an admirable burst of enthusiasm, “I believe with my whole soul that without mysticism nothing great, nothing fine can be accomplished in this world.” + 

Discovered the name of Victor Strouvilhou in the visitors’ book. From what the hotelkeeper says, he must have left Saas-Fée two days before our arrival, after staying here nearly a month. I should have been curious to see him again. No doubt Sophroniska talked to him. I must ask her about him. + 

IV + 

Bernard and Laura + 

“I wanted to ask you, Laura,” said Bernard, “whether you think there exists anything in this world that mayn’t become a subject of doubt.⁠ ⁠… So much so, that I wonder whether one couldn’t take doubt itself as a starting point; for that, at any rate, will never fail us. I may doubt the reality of everything, but not the reality of my doubt. I should like.⁠ ⁠… Forgive me if I express myself pedantically⁠—I am not pedantic by nature, but I have just left the lycée, and you have no idea what a stamp is impressed on the mind by the philosophical training of our last year; I will get rid of it I promise you.” + 

“Why this parenthesis? You would like⁠ ⁠… ?” + 

“I should like to write a story of a person who starts by listening to everyone, who consults everyone like Panurge, before deciding to do anything; after having discovered that the opinions of all these people are contradictory in every point, he makes up his mind to consult no one but himself, and thereupon becomes a person of great capacity.” + 

“It’s the idea of an old man,” said Laura. + 

“I am more mature than you think. A few days ago I began to keep a notebook, like Edouard; I write down an opinion on the right hand page, whenever I can write the opposite opinion, facing it, on the left hand page. For instance, the other evening Sophroniska told us that she made Bronja and Boris sleep with their windows open. Everything she said in support of this regime seemed to us perfectly reasonable and convincing, didn’t it? Well, yesterday in the smoking-room, I heard that German professor who has just arrived maintain the contrary theory, which seemed to me, I must admit, more reasonable still and better grounded. The important thing during sleep, said he, is to restrict as much as possible all expenditure and the traffic of exchanges in which life consists⁠—carburation, he called it; it is only then that sleep becomes really restorative. He gave as example the birds who sleep with their heads under their wings, and the animals who snuggle down when they go to sleep, so as to be hardly able to breathe at all; in the same way, he said, the races that are nearest to nature, the peasants who are least cultivated, stuff themselves up at night in little closets; and Arabs, who are forced to sleep in the open, at any rate cover their faces up with the hood of their burnous. But to return to Sophroniska and the two children she is bringing up, I come round to thinking she is not wrong after all, and that what is good for others would be harmful for these two, because, if I understand rightly, they have the germs of tubercle in them. In short, I said to myself.⁠ ⁠… But I’m boring you.” + 

“Never mind about that. You said to yourself⁠ ⁠… ?” + 

“I’ve forgotten.” + 

“Now, now, that’s naughty. You mustn’t be ashamed of your thoughts.” + 

“I said to myself that nothing is good for everyone, but only relatively to some people; that nothing is true for everyone, but only relatively to the person who believes it is; that there is no method and no theory which can be applied indifferently to all alike; that if, in order to act, we must make a choice, at any rate we are free to choose; and that if we aren’t free to choose, the thing is simpler still; the belief that becomes truth for me (not absolutely, no doubt, but relatively to me) is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action. For I can’t prevent myself from doubting, and at the same time I loathe indecision. The soft and comfortable pillow Montaigne talks of, is not for my head, for I’m not sleepy yet and I don’t want to rest. It’s a long way that leads from what I thought I was to what perhaps I really am. I am afraid sometimes that I got up too early in the morning.” + 

“Afraid?” + 

“No; I’m afraid of nothing. But, d’you know, I have already changed a great deal; that is, my mind’s landscape is not at all what it was the day I left home; since then I have met you. As soon as I did that I stopped putting my freedom first. Perhaps you haven’t realized that I am at your service.” + 

“What do you mean by that?” + 

“Oh, you know quite well. Why do you want to make me say it? Do you expect a declaration?⁠ ⁠… No, no; please don’t cloud your smile, or I shall catch cold.” + 

“Come now, my dear boy, you are not going to pretend that you are beginning to love me.” + 

“Oh, I’m not beginning,” said Bernard. “It’s you who are beginning to feel it, perhaps; but you can’t prevent me.” + 

“It was so delightful for me not to have to be on my guard with you. And now, if I’ve got to treat you like inflammable matter and not dare go near you without taking precautions.⁠ ⁠… But think of the deformed, swollen creature I shall soon be. The mere look of me will be enough to cure you.” + 

“Yes, if it were only your looks that I loved. And then, in the first place, I’m not ill; or if it is being ill to love you, I prefer not to be cured.” + 

He said all this gravely, almost sadly; he looked at her more tenderly than ever Edouard had done, or Douviers, but so respectfully that she could not take umbrage. She was holding an English book they had been reading, on her lap, and was turning over its pages absently; she seemed not to be listening, so that Bernard went on without too much embarrassment: + 

“I used to imagine love as something volcanic⁠—at all events the love I was destined to feel. Yes; I really thought I should only be able to love in a savage, devastating way, à la Byron. How ill I knew myself! It was you, Laura, who taught me to know myself; so different from what I thought I was! I was playing the part of a dreadful person and making desperate efforts to resemble him. When I think of the letter I wrote my supposed father before I left home, I feel very much ashamed, I assure you. I took myself for a rebel, an outlaw, who tramples underfoot everything that opposes his desire; and now here I find that when I am with you I have no desires. I longed for liberty as the supreme good, and no sooner was I free, than I bowed myself to your.⁠ ⁠… Oh, if you only knew how maddening it is to have in one’s head quantities of phrases from great authors, which come irresistibly to one’s lips when one wants to express a sincere feeling. This feeling of mine is so new to me that I haven’t yet been able to invent a language for it. Let’s say it isn’t love, since you dislike that word; let’s call it devotion. It’s as though this liberty which seemed to me so infinite, had had limits set to it by your laws. It’s as though all the turbulent and unformed things that were stirring within me, were dancing an harmonious round, with you for their centre. If one of my thoughts happens to stray from you, I leave it.⁠ ⁠… Laura, I don’t ask you to love me⁠—I’m nothing but a schoolboy; I’m not worth your notice; but everything I want to do now is in order to deserve your⁠ ⁠… (oh! the word is frightful!)⁠ ⁠… your esteem.⁠ ⁠…” + 

He had gone down on his knees before her, and though she had at first drawn her chair away a little, Bernard’s forehead was on her dress, and his arms thrown back behind him, in sign of adoration; but when he felt Laura’s hand laid upon his forehead, he seized the hand and pressed his lips to it. + 

“What a child you are, Bernard! I am not free, either,” she said, taking away her hand. “Here! Read this.” + 

She took from her bodice a crumpled piece of paper, which she held out to Bernard. + 

Bernard saw the signature first of all. As he feared, it was Felix Douviers’. One moment he kept the letter in his hand without reading it; he raised his eyes to look at Laura. She was crying. Then Bernard felt one more bond burst in his heart⁠—one of the secret ties which bind each one of us to himself, to his selfish past. Then he read: + 

My beloved Laura, + 

In the name of the little child who is to be born, and whom I swear to love as if I were its father, I beseech you to come back. Don’t think that any reproaches will meet you here. Don’t blame yourself too much⁠—that is what hurts me most. Don’t delay. My whole soul awaits you, adores you, is laid humbly at your feet. + 

Bernard was sitting on the floor in front of Laura, but it was without looking at her that he asked: + 

“When did you get this?” + 

“This morning.” + 

“I thought he knew nothing about it. Did you write and tell him?” + 

“Yes; I told him everything.” + 

“Does Edouard know this?” + 

“He knows nothing about it.” + 

Bernard remained silent a little while with downcast head; then turning towards her once more: + 

“And⁠ ⁠… what do you mean to do now?” + 

“Do you really ask?⁠ ⁠… Return to him. It is with him that my place is⁠—with him that I ought to live. You know it.” + 

“Yes,” said Bernard. + 

There was a very long silence. Bernard broke it: + 

“Do you believe one can love someone else’s child as much as one’s own, really?” + 

“I don’t know if I believe it, but I hope it.” + 

“For my part, I believe one can. And, on the contrary, I don’t believe in what people call so foolishly ‘the blood speaking.’ I believe this idea that the blood speaks is a mere myth. I have read somewhere that among certain tribes of South Sea Islanders, it is the custom to adopt other people’s children, and that these adopted children are often preferred to the others. The book said⁠—I remember it quite well⁠—‘made more of.’ Do you know what I think now?⁠ ⁠… I think that my supposed father, who stood in my father’s place, never said or did anything that could let it be suspected that I was not his real son; that in writing to him as I did, that I had always felt the difference, I was lying; that, on the contrary, he showed a kind of predilection for me, which I felt perfectly, so that my ingratitude towards him was all the more abominable; and that I behaved very ill to him. Laura, my friend, I should like to ask you.⁠ ⁠… Do you think I ought to beg his pardon and go back to him?” + 

“No,” said Laura. + 

“Why not? Since you are going back to Douviers?” + 

“You were telling me just now, that what was true for one is not true for another. I feel I am weak; you are strong. Monsieur Profitendieu may love you; but from what you have told me, you are not of the kind to understand each other.⁠ ⁠… Or, at any rate, wait a little. Don’t go back to him worsted. Do you want to know what I really think?⁠—that it is for me and not for him that you are proposing it⁠—to get what you called ‘my esteem.’ You will only get it, Bernard, if I feel you are not seeking for it. I can only care for you as you are naturally. Leave repentance to me. It is not for you, Bernard.” + 

“I almost get to like my name when I hear it on your lips. Do you know what my chief horror was at home? The luxury. So much comfort, so many facilities.⁠ ⁠… I felt myself becoming an anarchist. Now, on the contrary, I think I’m veering toward conservatism. I realized that the other day because of the indignation that seized me when I heard the tourist at the frontier speak of his pleasure in cheating the customs. ‘Robbing the State is robbing no one,’ he said. My feeling of antagonism made me suddenly understand what the State was. And I began to have an affection for it, simply because it was being injured. I had never thought about it before. ‘The State is nothing but a convention,’ he said, too. What a fine thing a convention would be that rested on the bona fides of every individual!⁠ ⁠… if only there were nothing but honest folk. Why, if anyone were to ask me today what virtue I considered the finest, I should answer without hesitation⁠—honesty. Oh, Laura! I should like all my life long, at the very smallest shock, to ring true, with a pure, authentic sound. Nearly all the people I have known ring false. To be worth exactly what one seems to be worth⁠—not to try to seem to be worth more.⁠ ⁠… One wants to deceive people, and one is so much occupied with seeming, that one ends by not knowing what one really is.⁠ ⁠… Forgive me for talking like this. They are my last night’s reflections.” + 

“You were thinking of the little coin you showed us yesterday. When I go away.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She could not finish her sentence; the tears rose to her eyes and in the effort she made to keep them back, Bernard saw her lips tremble. + 

“Then you are going away, Laura⁠ ⁠…” he went on sadly. “I am afraid that when I no longer feel you near me, I shall be worth nothing at all⁠—or hardly anything.⁠ ⁠… But, tell me⁠—I should like to ask you⁠ ⁠… would you be going away⁠—would you have made this confession, if Edouard⁠ ⁠… I don’t know how to say it⁠ ⁠…” (and as Laura blushed), “if Edouard had been worth more? Oh, don’t protest. I know so well what you think of him.” + 

“You say that, because yesterday you caught me smiling at what he said; you immediately jumped to the conclusion that we were judging him in the same way. But it’s not so. Don’t deceive yourself. In reality I don’t know what I think of him. He is never the same for long together. He is attached to nothing, but nothing is more attractive than his elusiveness. He is perpetually forming, unforming, reforming himself. One thinks one has grasped him.⁠ ⁠… Proteus! He takes the shape of what he loves, and oneself must love him to understand him.” + 

“You love him. Oh, Laura! it’s not of Douviers I feel jealous, nor of Vincent; it’s of Edouard.” + 

“Why jealous? I love Douviers; I love Edouard, but differently. If I am to love you, it must be with yet another love.” + 

“Laura, Laura, you don’t love Douviers. You feel affection for him, pity, esteem; but that’s not love. I think the secret of your sadness (for you are sad, Laura) is that life has divided you; love has only consented to take you, incomplete; you distribute among several what you would have liked to give to one only. As for me, I feel I am indivisible; I can only give the whole of myself.” + 

“You are too young to speak so. You cannot tell yet whether life will not ‘divide’ you too, as you call it. I can only accept from you the⁠ ⁠… devotion which you offer me. The rest will have its exigencies and will have to be satisfied elsewhere.” + 

“Can it be true? Do you want to disgust me beforehand with myself and with life, too?” + 

“You know nothing of life. Everything is before you. Do you know what my mistake was? To think there was nothing more for me. It was when I thought, alas! that there was nothing more for me, that I let myself go. I lived that last spring at Pau as if I were never to see another⁠—as if nothing mattered any more. I can tell you now, Bernard, now that I’ve been punished for it⁠—Never despair of life!” + 

Of what use is it to speak so to a young creature full of fire? And indeed Laura was hardly speaking to Bernard. Touched by his sympathy, and almost in spite of herself, she was thinking aloud in his presence. She was unapt at feigning, unapt at self-control. As she had yielded a moment ago to the impulsive feeling which carried her away whenever she thought of Edouard, and which betrayed her love for him, so now she had given way to a certain tendency to sermonize, which she had no doubt inherited from her father. But Bernard had a horror of recommendations and advice, even if they should come from Laura; his smile told her as much and she went on more calmly: + 

“Are you thinking of keeping on as Edouard’s secretary when you go back to Paris?” + 

“Yes, if he is willing to employ me; but he gives me nothing to do. Do you know what would amuse me? To write that book of his with him; for he’ll never write it alone; you told him so yesterday. That method of working he described to us seemed to me absurd. A good novel gets itself written more naively than that. And first of all, one must believe in one’s own story⁠—don’t you think so⁠—and tell it quite simply? I thought at one time I might help him. If he had wanted a detective, I might perhaps have done the job. He could have worked on the facts that my police work would have furnished him.⁠ ⁠… But with an idea-monger there’s nothing doing. When I’m with him, I feel that I have the soul of a reporter. If he sticks to his mistaken ways, I shall work on my own account. I must earn my living. I shall offer my services to a newspaper. Between times I shall write verses.” + 

“For when you are with reporters, you’ll certainly feel yourself the soul of a poet.” + 

“Oh! don’t laugh at me. I know I’m ridiculous. Don’t rub it in too much.” + 

“Stay with Edouard; you’ll help him; and let him help you. He is very good.” + 

The luncheon bell rang. Bernard rose. Laura took his hand: + 

“Just one thing⁠—that little coin you showed us yesterday⁠ ⁠… in remembrance of you, when I go away”⁠—she pulled herself together and this time was able to finish her sentence⁠—“would you give it me?” + 

“Here it is,” said Bernard, “take it.” + 

I am beginning to catch sight of what I might call the “deep-lying subject” of my book. It is⁠—it will be⁠—no doubt, the rivalry between the real world and the representation of it which we make to ourselves. The manner in which the world of appearances imposes itself upon us, and the manner in which we try to impose on the outside world our own interpretation⁠—this is the drama of our lives. The resistance of facts invites us to transport our ideal construction into the realm of dreams, of hope, of belief in a future life, which is fed by all the disappointments and disillusions of our present one. Realists start from facts⁠—fit their ideas to suit the facts. Bernard is a realist. I am afraid we shall never understand each other. + 

How could I agree when Sophroniska told me I had nothing of the mystic in me? I am quite ready to recognize, as she does, that without mysticism man can achieve nothing great. But is it not precisely my mysticism which Laura incriminates when I speak of my book?⁠ ⁠… Well, let them settle the argument as they please. + 

Sophroniska has been speaking to me again about Boris, from whom she thinks she has succeeded in obtaining a full confession. The poor child has not got the smallest covert, the smallest tuft left in him, where he can take shelter from the doctor’s scrutiny. He has been driven into the open. Sophroniska takes to bits the innermost wheels of his mental organism and spreads them out in the broad daylight, like a watchmaker cleaning the works of a clock. If after that he does not keep good time, it’s a hopeless job. This is what Sophroniska told me: + 

When Boris was about nine years old, he was sent to school at Warsaw. He there made friends with a schoolfellow one or two years older than himself⁠—one Baptistin Kraft, who initiated him into certain clandestine practices, which the children in their ignorance and astonishment believed to be “magic.” This is the name they bestowed upon their vice, from having heard or read that magic enables one in some mysterious way to gain possession of what one wishes for, that it gives unlimited powers and so forth.⁠ ⁠… They believed in all good faith that they had discovered a secret which made up for real absence by illusory presence, and they freely put themselves in a state of hallucination and ecstasy, gloating over an empty void, which their heated imagination, stimulated by their desire for pleasure, filled to overflowing with marvels. Needless to say, Sophroniska did not make use of these terms; I should have liked her to repeat exactly what Boris said, but she declares she only succeeded in making out the above⁠—though she certified its accuracy⁠—through a tangle of pretences, reticence and vagueness. + 

“I have at last found out the explanation of something I have been trying to discover for a long time past,” she added, “⁠—of a bit of parchment which Boris used always to wear hanging round his neck in a little sachet, along with the religious medallions his mother forces him to wear. There were six words on it, written in capital letters in a childish, painstaking hand⁠—six words whose meaning he never would tell me. + 

“Gas⁠ ⁠… telephone⁠ ⁠… one hundred thousand roubles.” + 

“ ‘But it means nothing⁠—it’s magic,’ he used always to answer whenever I pressed him. That was all I could get out of him. I know now that these enigmatic words are in young Baptistin’s handwriting⁠—the grand master and professor of magic⁠—and that these six words were the boys’ formula of incantation⁠—the ‘Open Sesame’ of the shameful Paradise, into which their pleasure plunged them. Boris called this bit of parchment, his talisman. I had great difficulty in persuading him to let me see it and still greater in persuading him to give it up (it was at the beginning of our stay here); for I wanted him to give it up, as I know now that he had already given up his bad habits. I had hopes that the tics and manias from which he suffers would disappear with the talisman. But he clung to it and his illness clung to it as to a last refuge.” + 

“But you said he had already given up his bad habits.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“His nervous illness only began after that. It arose no doubt from the constraint Boris was obliged to exercise in order to get free from them. I have just learnt from him that his mother caught him one day in the act of ‘doing magic,’ as he says. Why did she never tell me?⁠ ⁠… out of false shame?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And no doubt because she knew he was cured.” + 

“Absurd!⁠ ⁠… And that is why I have been in the dark so long. I told you that I thought Boris was perfectly pure.” + 

“You even told me that you were embarrassed by it.” + 

“You see how right I was!⁠ ⁠… The mother ought to have warned me. Boris would be cured already if I had known this from the beginning.” + 

“You said these troubles only began later on.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I said they arose as a protestation. His mother, I imagine, scolded, begged, preached. Then his father died. Boris was convinced that this was the punishment of these secret practices he had been told were so wicked; he held himself responsible for his father’s death; he thought himself criminal, damned. He took fright; and it was then that his weakly organism, like a tracked animal, invented all these little subterfuges, by means of which he works off his secret sense of guilt, and which are so many avowals.” + 

“If I understand you rightly, you think it would have been less prejudicial to Boris if he had gone quietly on with his ‘magic’?” + 

“I think he might have been cured without being frightened. The change of life which was made necessary by his father’s death would have been enough, no doubt, to distract his attention, and when they left Warsaw he would have been removed from his friend’s influence. No good result is to be arrived at by terror. Once I knew the facts, I talked the whole thing over with him, and made him ashamed of having preferred the possession of imaginary goods to the real goods which are, I told him, the reward of effort. Far from attempting to blacken his vice, I represented it to him simply as one of the forms of laziness; and I really believe it is⁠—the most subtle⁠—the most perfidious.” + 

These words brought back to my mind some lines of La Rochefoucauld, which I thought I should like to show her, and, though I might have quoted them by heart, I went to fetch the little book of Maxims, without which I never travel. I read her the following: + 

“Of all the passions, the one about which we ourselves know least is laziness, the fiercest and the most evil of them all, though its violence goes unperceived and the havoc it causes lies hidden.⁠ ⁠… The repose of laziness has a secret charm for the soul, suddenly suspending its most ardent pursuits and most obstinate resolutions. To give, in fine, some idea of this passion, it should be said that laziness is like a state of beatitude, in which the soul is consoled for all its losses, and which stands in lieu to it of all its possessions.” + 

“Do you mean to say,” said Sophroniska then, “that La Rochefoucauld was hinting at what we have been speaking of, when he wrote that?” + 

“Possibly; but I don’t think so. Our classical authors have a right to all the interpretations they allow of. That is why they are so rich. Their precision is all the more admirable in that it does not claim to be exclusive.” + 

I asked her to show me this wonderful talisman of Boris’s. She told me it was no longer in her possession, as she had given it to a person who was interested in Boris and who had asked her for it as a souvenir. “A certain M. Strouvilhou, whom I met here some time before your arrival.” + 

I told Sophroniska then, that I had seen the name in the visitors’ book, and that as I had formerly known a Strouvilhou, I was curious to learn whether it was the same. From the description she gave of him it was impossible to doubt it. But she could tell me nothing that satisfied my curiosity. I merely learnt that he was very polite, very attentive, that he seemed to her exceedingly intelligent, but a little lazy, “if I dare still use the word,” she added, laughing. In my turn I told her all I knew of Strouvilhou, and that led me to speak of the boarding school where we had first met, of Laura’s parents (she too had been confiding in her), and finally of old La Pérouse, of his relationship with Boris, and of the promise I had made him to bring the child back to Paris. As Sophroniska had previously said that it was not desirable Boris should live with his mother, “Why don’t you send him to Azaïs’s school?” I asked. In suggesting this, I was thinking especially of his grandfather’s immense joy at having him so near, and staying with friends where he could see him whenever he liked. Sophroniska said she would think it over; extremely interested by everything I told her. + 

Sophroniska goes on repeating that little Boris is cured⁠—a cure which is supposed to corroborate her method; but I am afraid she is anticipating a little. Of course I don’t want to set my opinion against hers, and I admit that his tics, his way of contradicting himself, his hesitations of speech have almost entirely disappeared; but, to my mind, the malady has simply taken refuge in some deeper recess of his being, as though to escape the doctor’s inquisitorial glance, and now it is his soul itself which is the seat of mischief. Just as onanism was succeeded by nervous movements, so these movements have given place to some strange undefinable, invisible state of terror. Sophroniska, it is true, is uneasy at seeing Boris, following upon Bronja’s lead, fling himself into a sort of puerile mysticism; she is too intelligent not to understand that this new “beatitude” which Boris is now seeking, is not very different after all from the one he at first provoked by artifice, and that though it may be less wasteful, less ruinous to the organism, it turns him aside quite as much from effort and realization. But when I say this she replies that creatures like Boris and Bronja cannot do without some idealistic food, and that if they were deprived of it, they would succumb⁠—Bronja to despair, and Boris to a vulgar materialism; she thinks she has no right to destroy the children’s confidence, and though she thinks their belief is untrue, she must needs see in it a sublimation of low instincts, a higher postulation, an incitement, a safeguard, a whatnot.⁠ ⁠… Without herself believing in the dogmas of the Church, she believes in the efficacy of faith. She speaks with emotion of the two children’s piety, of how they read the Apocalypse together, of their fervour, their talk with angels, their white-robed souls. Like all women, she is full of contradictions. But she was right⁠—I am decidedly not a mystic⁠ ⁠… any more than I am lazy. I rely on the atmosphere of Azaïs’s school to turn Boris into a worker; to cure him in a word of seeking after imaginary goods. That is where his salvation lies. Sophroniska, I think, is coming round to the idea of confiding him to my care; but she will no doubt accompany him to Paris so as to be able to settle him into the school herself, and so reassure his mother, whose consent she makes sure of obtaining. + 

Dear Old Fellow⁠— + 

I must first tell you that I have passed my bachot all right. But that’s of no importance. A unique opportunity came in my way of travelling for a bit. I was still hesitating; but after reading your letter, I jumped at it. My mother made some objections at first; but Vincent soon got over them. He has been nicer than I could have hoped. I cannot believe that in the circumstances you allude to, he can have behaved like a cad. At our age, we have an unfortunate tendency to judge people severely and condemn them without appeal. Many actions appear to us reprehensible⁠—odious even⁠—simply because we don’t enter sufficiently into their motives. Vincent didn’t⁠ ⁠… but this would take too long and I have too many things to say to you. + 

You must know that the writer of this letter is no less a person than the editor-in-chief of the new review, The Vanguard. After some reflection I agreed to take up this responsible position, as Comte Robert de Passavant considered I should fill it worthily. It is he who is financing the review, though he doesn’t care about its being known just yet, and my name is to figure alone on the cover. We shall come out in October; try to send me something for the first number; I should be heartbroken if your name didn’t adorn the first list of contents alongside of mine. Passavant would like the first number to contain something rather shocking and spicy, for he thinks the most appalling thing that can be said against a new review is that it is mealymouthed. I’m inclined to agree with him. We discuss it a great deal. He has asked me to write the thing in question and has provided me with a rather risky subject for a short story; it worries me a little because of my mother, who may be hurt by it. But it can’t be helped. As Passavant says, the younger one is, the less compromising the scandal. + 

I am writing this from Vizzavone. Vizzavone is a little place halfway up one of the highest mountains in Corsica, buried in a thick forest. The hotel in which we are staying is some way off the village and is used by tourists as a starting place for their excursions. We have been here only a few days. We began by staying in an inn not far from the beautiful bay of Porto, where we bathed every morning; it is absolutely deserted and one can spend the whole day without a stitch on one. It was marvellous; but the weather turned too hot and we had to go up to the mountains. + 

Passavant is a delightful companion; he isn’t at all stuck up about his title; he likes me to call him Robert; and the name he has invented for me is Olive⁠—isn’t it charming? He does all he can to make me forget his age and I assure you he does. My mother was rather alarmed at the idea of my going away with him, for she hardly knows him at all. I hesitated at first for fear of distressing her. Before your letter came I had almost given it up. Vincent persuaded her, however, and your letter suddenly gave me courage. We spent the last days before starting in doing a round of shops. Passavant is so generous that he is always wanting to give me things and I had to stop him all the time. But he thought my wretched rags frightful; shirts, ties, socks⁠—nothing I had pleased him; he kept repeating that if we were to spend some time together, it would be too painful to him not to see me properly dressed⁠—that is to say, as he likes. Naturally everything we bought was sent to his house, for fear of making my mother uncomfortable. He himself is exquisitely elegant; but above all his taste is very good, and a great many things which I used to think quite bearable now seem odious to me. You can’t imagine how amusing he was in the shops. He is really very witty. I should like to give you an idea of it. One day, we were at Brentano’s, where he was having a fountain pen mended. There was a huge Englishman just behind him who wanted to be served before his turn, and as Robert pushed him away rather roughly, he began to jabber something or other in his lingo; Robert turned round very calmly and said: + 

“It’s not a bit of use. I don’t understand English.” + 

The Englishman was in a rage and answered back in the purest French: + 

“Then you ought to.” + 

To which Robert answered with a polite smile: + 

“I told you it wasn’t a bit of use.” + 

The Englishman was boiling over, but he hadn’t another word to say. It was killing. + 

Another day we were at the Olympia. During the entr’acte we were in the promenade with a lot of prostitutes walking round. Two of them⁠—rather decayed looking creatures⁠—accosted him: + 

“Stand us a glass of beer, dearie?” + 

We sat down at a table with them. + 

“Waiter! A glass of beer for these ladies.” + 

“And for you and the young gentleman, sir?” + 

“Oh, for us? We’ll take champagne,” he said carelessly. He ordered a bottle of Moët, and we blew it all to ourselves. You should have seen the poor things’ faces!⁠ ⁠… I think he has a loathing for prostitutes. He confided to me that he has never been inside a brothel, and gave me to understand that he would be very angry with me if I ever went. So you see he’s perfectly all right in spite of his airs and his cynical talk⁠—as, for instance, when he says he calls it a “dull day” if he hasn’t met at least five people before lunch, with whom he wants to go to bed. (I must tell you by the way, that I haven’t tried again⁠ ⁠… you know what.) + 

He has a particularly odd and amusing way of moralizing. The other day he said to me: + 

“You see, my dear boy, the important thing in life is not to step on to the downward path. One thing leads on to another and one never can tell how it will end. For instance, I once knew a very worthy young man who was engaged to marry my cook’s daughter. One night he chanced to go into a small jeweller’s shop; he killed the owner; then he robbed; after that he dissembled. You see where it leads. The last time I saw him he had taken to lying. So do be careful.” + 

“He’s like that the whole time. So there’s no chance of being bored. We left with the idea of getting through a lot of work, but so far we’ve done nothing but bathe, dry in the sun and talk. He has extremely original ideas and opinions about everything. I am trying to persuade him all I can to write about some new theories he has on deep-sea fishes and what he calls their ‘private lights,’ which enables them to do without the light of the sun⁠—which he compares to grace and revelation. Told baldly like that it doesn’t sound anything, but I assure you that when he talks about it, it’s as interesting as a novel. People don’t know that he’s extremely well up in natural history; but he kind of prides himself on hiding his knowledge⁠—what he calls his ‘secret jewels.’ He says it’s only snobs who like showing off all their possessions⁠—especially if they’re imitation. + 

He knows admirably well how to make use of ideas, images, people, things; that is, he gets something out of everything. He says the great art of life is not so much to enjoy things as to make the most of them. + 

I have written a few verses, but I don’t care enough about them to send them to you. + 

Goodbye, old boy. Till October. You will find me changed, too. Every day I get a little more self-confidence. I am glad to hear you are in Switzerland, but you see that I have no cause to envy you. + 

Bernard held this letter out to Edouard, who read it without showing any sign of the feelings that agitated him. + 

Everything that Olivier said of Robert with such complacency filled him with indignation and put the final touch to his detestation. What hurt him more than anything was that Olivier had not even mentioned him in his letter and seemed to have forgotten him. He tried in vain to decipher three lines of postscript, which had been heavily inked over and which had run as follows: + 

“Tell Uncle E. that I think of him constantly; that I cannot forgive him for having chucked me and that my heart has been mortally wounded.” + 

These lines were the only sincere ones in a letter which had been written for show and inspired by pique. Olivier had crossed them out. + 

Edouard gave the horrible letter back to Bernard without breathing a word; without breathing a word, Bernard took it. I have said before that they didn’t speak to each other much⁠—a kind of strange, inexplicable constraint weighed upon them when they were alone together. (I confess I don’t like the word “inexplicable” and use it only because I am momentarily at a loss.) But that evening, when they were alone in their room and getting ready to go to bed, Bernard, with a great effort and the words sticking in his throat a little, asked: + 

“I suppose Laura has shown you Douviers’ letter?” + 

“I never doubted that Douviers would take it properly,” said Edouard, getting into bed. “He’s an excellent fellow⁠—a little weak, perhaps, but still excellent. He’ll adore the child, I’m sure. And it’ll certainly be more robust than if it were his own. For he doesn’t strike me as being much of a Hercules.” + 

Bernard was much too fond of Laura not to be shocked by Edouard’s cool way of talking; but he did not let it be seen. + 

“So!” went on Edouard, putting out his candle, “I am glad to see that after all there is to be a satisfactory ending to this affair, which at one time seemed as if it could only lead to despair. Anybody may make a false start; the important thing is not to persist in.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Evidently,” interrupted Bernard, who wanted to change the subject. + 

“I must confess, Bernard, that I am afraid I have made one with you.” + 

“A false start?” + 

“Yes; I’m afraid so. In spite of all the affection I have for you, I have been thinking for the last few days that we aren’t the sort to understand each other and that⁠ ⁠…” (he hesitated a few seconds to find his words) “… staying with me longer would set you on the wrong track.” + 

Bernard had been thinking the same till Edouard spoke; but Edouard could certainly have said nothing more likely to bring Bernard back. The instinct of contradiction carried the day and he protested. + 

“You don’t know me yet, and I don’t know myself. You haven’t put me to the test. If you have no complaint against me, mayn’t I ask you to wait a little longer? I admit that we aren’t at all like each other: but my idea was precisely that it was better for each of us that we shouldn’t be too much alike. I think that if I can help you, it’ll be above all by being different and by the new things I may be able to bring you. If I am wrong, it will be always time enough to tell me so. I am not the kind of person to complain or recriminate. See here⁠—this is what I propose⁠—it may be idiotic.⁠ ⁠… Little Boris, I understand, is to go to the Vedel-Azaïs school. Wasn’t Sophroniska telling you that she was afraid he would feel a little lost there? Supposing I were to go there myself, with a recommendation from Laura; couldn’t I get some kind of place⁠—under-master⁠—usher⁠—something or other? I have got to earn my living. I shouldn’t ask much⁠—just my board and lodging.⁠ ⁠… Sophroniska seems to trust me and I get on very well with Boris. I would look after him, help him, tutor him, be his friend and protector. But at the same time I should remain at your disposition, work for you in the intervals and be at hand at your smallest sign. Tell me what you say to that?” + 

And as if to give “that” greater weight, he added: + 

“I have been thinking of it for the last two days.” + 

Which wasn’t true. If he hadn’t invented it on the spur of the moment, he would have already spoken to Laura about it. But what was true, and what he didn’t say, was that ever since his indiscreet reading of Edouard’s journal, and since his meeting with Laura, his thoughts often turned to the Vedels’ boarding school; he wanted to know Armand, Olivier’s friend, of whom he never spoke; he wanted still more to know Sarah, the younger sister; but his curiosity remained a secret one; out of consideration for Laura, he did not even own it to himself. + 

Edouard said nothing; and yet Bernard’s plan in so far as it provided him with a domicile, pleased him. He didn’t at all care for the idea of taking him in himself. Bernard blew out his candle, and then went on: + 

“Don’t think that I didn’t understand what you said about your book and about the conflict you imagine between brute reality and.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I don’t imagine it,” said Edouard, “it exists.” + 

“But for that very reason, wouldn’t it be a good thing if I were to beat in a few facts for you, so as to give you something to fight with? I could do your observing for you.” + 

Edouard had a suspicion that he was laughing at him a little. The truth is he felt humiliated by Bernard. He expressed himself too well.⁠ ⁠… + 

“We’ll think it over,” said Edouard. + 

A long time went by. Bernard tried in vain to sleep. Olivier’s letter kept tormenting him. Finally, unable to hold out any longer, and hearing Edouard tossing in his bed, he murmured: + 

“If you aren’t asleep, I should like to ask you one thing more.⁠ ⁠… What do you think of the Comte de Passavant?” + 

“I should think you could pretty well imagine,” said Edouard. Then, after a moment: “And you?” + 

“I?” said Bernard savagely, “… I could kill him.” + 

VII + 

The Author Reviews His Characters + 

The traveller, having reached the top of the hill, sits down and looks about him before continuing his journey, which henceforward lies all downhill. He seeks to distinguish in the darkness⁠—for night is falling⁠—where the winding path he has chosen is leading him. So the undiscerning author stops awhile to regain his breath, and wonders with some anxiety where his tale will take him. + 

I am afraid that Edouard, in confiding little Boris to Azaïs’s care, is committing an imprudence. Every creature acts according to his own law and Edouard’s leads him to constant experimentalizing. He has a kind heart, no doubt, but for the sake of others I should prefer to see him act out of self-interest; for the generosity which impels him is often merely the accompaniment of a curiosity which is liable to turn into cruelty. He knows Azaïs’s school; he knows the poisonous air that reigns in it, under the stifling cover of morality and religion. He knows Boris⁠—how tender he is⁠—how fragile. He ought to foresee the rubs to which he is exposing him. But he refuses to consider anything but the protection, the help, the support, which old Azaïs’s austerity will afford the little boy’s precarious purity. To what sophisms does he not lend an ear? They must be the promptings of the devil, for if they came from anyone else, he would not listen to them. + 

Edouard has irritated me more than once (when he speaks of Douviers, for instance)⁠—enraged me even; I hope I haven’t shown it too much; but now I may be allowed to say so. His behaviour to Laura⁠—at times so generous⁠—has at times seemed to me revolting. + 

What I dislike about Edouard are the reasons he gives himself. Why does he try and persuade himself that he is conspiring for Boris’s good? Does the torrent which drowns a child pretend that it is giving him drink?⁠ ⁠… I do not deny that there are actions in the world that are noble, generous and even disinterested; I only say that there often lies hidden behind the good motive a devil who is clever enough to find his profit in the very thing one thought one was wresting from him. + 

Let us make use of this summer season which disperses our characters to examine them at leisure. And besides, we have reached that middle point of our story, when its pace seems to slacken, in order to gather a new impetus and rush on again with swifter speed to its end. Bernard is assuredly much too young to take direction of an intrigue. He is convinced he will be able to guard Boris; but the very utmost he will be able to do is to observe him. We have already seen Bernard change; passions may come which will modify him still more. I find in a notebook a sentence or two in which I have written down what I thought of him some time ago: + 

“I ought to have been mistrustful of behaviour as excessive as Bernard’s at the beginning of his story. It seems to me, to judge by his subsequent state, that this behaviour exhausted all his reserves of anarchy, which would no doubt have been kept replenished if he had continued to vegetate, as is fitting, in the midst of his family’s oppression. And from that time onwards his life was, so to speak, a reaction and a protest against this original action. The habit he had formed of rebellion and opposition incited him to rebel against his very rebellion. Without a doubt not one of my heroes has disappointed me more than he, for perhaps there was not one who had given me greater hopes. Perhaps he gave way too early to his own bent.” + 

But this does not seem very true to me any longer. I think we ought to allow him a little more credit. There is a great deal of generosity in him; virility too and strength; he is capable of indignation. He enjoys hearing himself talk a little too much; but it’s a fact that he talks well. I mistrust feelings that find their expression too quickly. He is very good at his studies, but new feelings do not easily fill forms that have been learnt by heart. A little invention would make him stammer. He has already read too much, remembered too much, and learnt a great deal more from books than from life. + 

I cannot console myself for the turn of chance which made him take Olivier’s place beside Edouard. Events fell out badly. It was Olivier that Edouard loved. With what care he would have ripened him! With what lover-like respect he would have guided, supported, raised him to his own level! Passavant will ruin him to a certainty. Nothing could be more pernicious for him than to be enveloped in so unscrupulous an atmosphere. I had hoped that Olivier would have defended himself a little better; but his is a tender nature and sensitive to flattery. Everything goes to his head. Moreover I seem to gather from certain accents in his letter to Bernard that he is a little vain. Sensuality, pique, vanity⁠—to what does not all this lay him open? When Edouard finds him again, I very much fear it will be too late. But he is still young and one has the right to hope. + 

Passavant⁠ ⁠… ? best not speak of him, I think. Nothing spreads more ruin or receives more applause than men of his stamp⁠—unless it be women like Lady Griffith. At the beginning, I must confess, she rather took me in. But I soon recognized my mistake. People like her are cut out of a cloth which has no thickness. America exports a great many of them, but is not the only country to breed them. Fortune, intelligence, beauty⁠—they seem to possess everything, except a soul. Vincent, we may be sure, will soon find it out. No past weighs upon them⁠—no constraint; they have neither laws, nor masters, nor scruples; by their freedom and spontaneity, they make the novelist’s despair; he can get nothing from them but worthless reactions. I hope not to see Lady Griffith again for a long time to come. I am sorry she has carried off Vincent, who interested me more, but who becomes commonplace by frequenting her. Rolling in her wake, he loses his angles. It’s a pity; he had rather fine ones. + 

If it ever happens to me to invent another story, I shall allow only well-tempered characters to inhabit it⁠—characters that life, instead of blunting, sharpens. Laura, Douviers, La Pérouse, Azaïs⁠ ⁠… what is to be done with such people as these? It was not I who sought them out; while following Bernard and Olivier I found them in my path. So much the worse for me; henceforth it is my duty to attend them. + 