“His confidence.… If I were only sure I still had it. But no; I’ve lost it.… ”
The protest I attempted—without conviction—made her smile. She dropped her work and went on:
“For instance, I know he is in Paris. George met him this morning; he mentioned it casually, and I pretended not to hear, for I don’t like him to tell tales about his brother. But still I know it. Olivier hides things from me. When I see him again, he will think himself obliged to lie to me, and I shall pretend to believe him, as I pretend to believe his father every time he hides things from me.”
“It’s for fear of paining you.”
“He pains me a great deal more as it is. I am not intolerant. There are a number of little shortcomings that I tolerate, that I shut my eyes to.”
“Of whom are you talking now?”
“Oh! of the father as well as the sons.”
“When you pretend not to see them, you are lying too.”
“But what am I to do? It’s enough not to complain. I really can’t approve! No, I say to myself that, sooner or later, one loses hold, that the tenderest affection is helpless. More than that. It’s in the way; it’s a nuisance. I have come to the pitch of hiding my love itself.”
“Now you are talking of your sons.”
“Why do you say that? Do you mean that I can’t love Oscar any more? Sometimes I think so, but I think too that it’s for fear of suffering too much that I don’t love him more. And … Yes, I suppose you are right—in Olivier’s case, I prefer to suffer.”
“And Vincent?”
“A few years ago everything I now say of Olivier would have been true of Vincent.”
“My poor friend.… Soon you will be saying the same of George.”
“But one becomes resigned, slowly. And yet one didn’t ask so much of life. One learns to ask less … less and less.” Then she added softly: “And of oneself, more and more.”
“With ideas of that kind, one is almost a Christian,” said I, smiling in my turn.
“I sometimes think so too. But having them isn’t enough to make one a Christian.”
“Any more than being a Christian is enough to make one have them.”
“I have often thought—will you let me say so?—that in their father’s default, you might speak to the boys.”
“Vincent is not here.”
“It is too late for him. I am thinking of Olivier. It’s with you that I should have liked him to go away.”
At these words, which gave me the sudden imagination of what might have been if I had not so thoughtlessly listened to the appeal of passing adventure, a dreadful emotion wrung my heart, and at first I could find nothing to say; then, as the tears started to my eyes, and wishing to give some appearance of a motive to my disturbance:
“Too late, I fear, for him too,” I sighed.
Pauline seized my hand:
“How good you are!” she cried.
Embarrassed at seeing her thus mistake me, and unable to undeceive her, I could only turn aside the conversation from a subject which put me too ill at my ease.
“And George?” I asked.
“He makes me more anxious than the other two put together,” she answered. “I can’t say that with him I am losing my hold, for he has never been either confiding or obedient.”
She hesitated a few moments. It obviously cost her a great deal to say what follows.
“This summer something very serious happened,” she went on at last, “something it’s a little painful for me to speak to you about, especially as I am still not very sure.… A hundred-franc note disappeared from a cupboard in which I was in the habit of keeping my money. The fear of being wrong in my suspicions prevented me from bringing any accusation; the maid who waited on us at the hotel was a very young girl and seemed to me honest. I said I had lost the note before George; I might as well admit that my suspicions fell upon him. He didn’t appear disturbed; he didn’t blush.… I felt ashamed of having suspected him; I tried to persuade myself I had made a mistake. I did my accounts over again; unfortunately there was no possibility of a doubt—a hundred francs were missing. I shrank from questioning him, and finally I didn’t. The fear of seeing him add a lie to a theft kept me back. Was I wrong?… Yes, I reproach myself now for not having insisted; perhaps it was out of a fear that I should have to be too severe—or that I shouldn’t be severe enough. Once again, I played the part of a person who knows nothing, but with a very anxious heart, I assure you. I had let the time go by, and I said to myself it was too late and that the punishment would come too long after the fault. And how punish him? I did nothing; I reproach myself for it … but what could I have done?
“I had thought of sending him to England; I even wanted to ask your advice about it, but I didn’t know where you were.… At any rate, I didn’t hide my trouble from him—my anxiety; I think he must have felt it, for, you know, he has a good heart. I count more on his own conscience to reproach him than on anything I could have said. He won’t do it again, I feel certain. He used to go about with a very rich boy at the sea-side, and he was no doubt led on to spend money. No doubt I must have left the cupboard open; and I repeat, I’m not really sure it was he. There were a great many people coming and going in the hotel.… ”
I admired the ingenious way in which she put forward every possible consideration that might exonerate her child.
“I should have liked him to put the money back,” I said.
“I hoped he would. And when he didn’t, I thought it must be a proof of his innocence. And then I said to myself that he was afraid to.”
“Did you tell his father?”
She hesitated a few moments:
“No,” she said at last, “I prefer him to know nothing about it.”
No doubt she thought she heard a noise in the next room; she went to make sure there was no one there; then she sat down again beside me.
“Oscar told me you lunched together the other day. He was so loud in your praise, that I suppose what you chiefly did was to listen to him.” (She smiled sadly, as she said these words.) “If he confided in you, I have no desire not to respect his confidences … though in reality I know a great deal more about his private life than he imagines. But since I got back, I can’t understand what has come over him. He is so gentle—I was almost going to say—so humble.… It’s almost embarrassing. He goes on as if he were afraid of me. He needn’t be. For a long time past I’ve been aware that he has been carrying on.… I even know with whom. He thinks I know nothing about it and takes enormous pains to hide it; but his precautions are so obvious, that the more he hides, the more he gives himself away. Every time he goes out with an affectation of being busy, worried, anxious, I know that he is off to his pleasure. I feel inclined to say to him: ‘But, my dear friend, I’m not keeping you; are you afraid I’m jealous?’ I should laugh if I had the heart to. My only fear is that the children may notice something; he’s so careless—so clumsy! Sometimes, without his suspecting it, I find myself forced to help him, as if I were playing his game. I assure you I end by being almost amused by it; I invent excuses for him; I put the letters he leaves lying about back in his coat pocket.”
“That’s just it,” I said; “he’s afraid you have discovered some letters.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“And that’s what’s making him so nervous.”
“Do you think I want to read them?”
A kind of wounded pride made her draw herself up. I was obliged to add:
“It’s not a question of the letters he may have mislaid inadvertently; but of some letters he had put in a drawer and which he says he can’t find. He thinks you have taken them.”
At these words, I saw Pauline turn pale, and the horrible suspicion which darted upon her, forced itself suddenly into my mind too. I regretted having spoken, but it was too late. She looked away from me and murmured:
“Would to Heaven it were I!”
She seemed overcome.
&
nbsp; “What am I to do?” she repeated. “What am I to do?” Then raising her eyes to mine again: “You? Couldn’t you speak to him?”
Although she avoided, as I did, pronouncing George’s name, it was clear that she was thinking of him.
“I will try. I will think it over,” I said, rising. And as she accompanied me to the front door:
“Say nothing about it to Oscar, please. Let him go on suspecting me—thinking what he thinks.… It is better so. Come and see me again.”
VII : Olivier and Armand
In the mean time Olivier, deeply disappointed at not having found his Uncle Edouard, and unable to bear his solitude, turned his thoughts towards Armand with a heart aching for friendship. He made his way to the Pension Vedel.
Armand received him in his bedroom. It was a small, narrow room, reached by the backstairs. Its window looked on to an inner courtyard, on to which the water-closets and kitchens of the next-door house opened also. The light came from a corrugated zinc reflector, which caught it from above and cast it down, pallid, leaden and dreary. The room was badly ventilated; an unpleasant odour pervaded it.
“But one gets accustomed to it,” said Armand. “My parents, you understand, keep the best rooms for the boarders who pay best. It’s only natural. I have given up the room I had last year to a Vicomte—the brother of your illustrious friend Passavant. A princely room—but under the observation of Rachel’s. There are heaps of rooms here, but not all of them are independent. For instance, poor Sarah, who came back from England this morning, is obliged to pass, either through our parents’ room (which doesn’t suit her at all) to get to her new abode, or else through mine, which, truth to tell, is really nothing but a dressing-room or box-room. At any rate, I have the advantage here of being able to go out and in as I please, without being spied upon by anyone. I prefer that to the attics, where the servants live. To tell the truth, I rather like being uncomfortably lodged; my father would call it the ‘love of maceration,’ and would explain that what is hurtful to the body leads to the salvation of the soul. For that matter, he has never been inside the place. He has other things to do, you understand, than worrying over his son’s habitat. My papa’s a wonderful fellow. He has by heart a number of consoling phrases for the principal events of life. It’s magnificent to hear him. A pity he never has any time for a little chat.… You’re looking at my picture gallery; one can enjoy it better in the morning. That is a colour print by a pupil of Paolo Ucelli’s—for the use of veterinarios. In an admirable attempt at synthesis, the artist has concentrated on a single horse all the ills by means of which Providence chastens the equine soul; you observe the spirituality of the look.… That is a symbolical picture of the ages of life from the cradle to the grave. As a drawing, not much can be said for it; its chief value lies in its intention. Further on you will note with admiration the photograph of one of Titian’s courtesans, which I have put over my bed in order to give myself libidinous thoughts. That is the door into Sarah’s room.”
The almost sordid aspect of the place made a melancholy impression on Olivier; the bed was not made and the basin on the wash-stand was not emptied.
“Yes, I fix up my room myself,” said Armand, in response to his anxious look. “Here, you see, is my writing table. You have no idea how the atmosphere of the room inspires me.… ‘L’atmosphère d’un cher réduit.…’ I even owe it the idea of my last poem—The Nocturnal Vase.”
Olivier had come to see Armand with the intention of speaking about his review and asking him to contribute to it; he no longer dared to. But Armand’s own conversation was coming round to the subject.
“The Nocturnal Vase—eh? What a magnificent title!… With this motto from Baudelaire:
‘Funereal vase, what tears awaitest thou?’ 1
BAUDELAIRE.
“I take up once more the ancient (and ever young) comparison of the potter creator, who fashions every human being as a vase destined to hold—ah! what? And I compare myself in a lyrical outburst to the above-mentioned vase—an idea which, as I was telling you, came to me as the natural result of breathing the odour of this chamber. I am particularly pleased with the opening line:
‘Whoe’er at forty boasts no hemorrhoids …’
I had first of all written, in order to reassure the reader, ‘Whoe’er at fifty …’ but I should have missed the assonance. As for ‘hemorrhoids,’ it is undoubtedly the finest word in the French language—independently of its meaning,” he added with a saturnine laugh.
Olivier, a pain at his heart, kept silent. Armand went on:
“Needless to say, the night vase is particularly flattered when it receives a visit from a pot filled with aromatics like yourself.”
“And haven’t you written anything but that?” asked Olivier at last, desperately.
“I was going to offer my Nocturnal Vase to your great and glorious review, but from the tone in which you have just said ‘that,’ I see there isn’t much likelihood of its pleasing you. In such cases the poet always has the resource of arguing: ‘I don’t write to please,’ and of persuading himself that he has brought forth a masterpiece. But I cannot conceal from you that I consider my poem execrably bad. For that matter, I have so far only written the first line. And when I say written, it’s a figure of speech, for I have this very moment composed it in your honour.… No, really? were you thinking of publishing something of mine? You actually desired my collaboration? You judged me, then, not incapable of writing something decent? Can you have discerned on my pale brow the revealing stigmata of genius? I know the light here is not very favourable for looking at oneself in the glass, but when—like another Narcissus—I gaze at my reflection, I can see nothing but the features of a failure. After all, perhaps it’s an effect of chiaroscuro.… No, my dear Olivier, no; I have done nothing this summer, and if you are counting on me for your review, you may go to blazes. But that’s enough about me.… Did all go well in Corsica? Did you enjoy your trip? Did it do you good? Did you rest after your labours? Did you …”
Olivier could bear it no longer:
“Oh! do shut up, old boy. Stop playing the ass. If you imagine I think it’s funny …”
“And what about me?” cried Armand. “No, my dear fellow, no; all the same I’m not so stupid as all that. I’ve still intelligence enough to understand that everything I’ve been saying is idiotic.”
“Can’t you ever talk seriously?”
“Very well; we’ll talk seriously, since seriousness is the style you favour. Rachel, my eldest sister, is going blind. Her sight has been getting very bad lately. For the last two years, she hasn’t been able to read without glasses. I thought at first it would be all right if she were to change them. But it wasn’t. At my request, she went to see an oculist. It seems the sensitiveness of the retina is failing. You understand there are two very different things—on the one hand, a defective power of accommodation of the crystalline, which can be remedied by glasses. But even after they have brought the visual image to the proper focus, that image may make an insufficient impression on the retina and be only dimly transmitted to the brain. Do I make myself clear? You hardly know Rachel, so don’t imagine that I am trying to arouse your pity for her. Then why am I telling you all this?… Because, reflecting on my own case, I became aware that not only images but ideas may strike the brain with more or less clearness. A person with a dull mind receives only confused perceptions; but for that very reason he cannot realize clearly that he is dull. He would only begin to suffer from his stupidity if he were conscious of it; and in order to be conscious of it, he would have to become intelligent. Now imagine for a moment such a monster—an imbecile who is intelligent enough to understand that he is stupid.”
“Why, he would cease to be an imbecile.”
“No, my dear fellow; you may believe me, because as a matter of fact, I am that very imbecile.”
Olivier shrugged his shoulders. Armand went on:
“A real imbecile has no consciousness of any ide
a beyond his own. I am conscious of the beyond. But all the same I’m an imbecile, because I know that I shall never be able to attain that ‘beyond’ !…”
“But, old fellow,” said Olivier, in a burst of sympathy, “we are all made so that we might be better, and I think the greatest intelligence is precisely the one that suffers most from its own limitations.”
Armand shook off the hand that Olivier had placed affectionately on his arm.
“Others,” said he, “have the feeling of what they possess; I have only the feeling of what I lack. Lack of money, lack of strength, lack of intelligence, lack of love—an everlasting deficit. I shall never be anything but below the mark.”
He went up to the toilette table, dipped a hairbrush in the dirty water in the basin and plastered his hair down in hideous fashion over his forehead.
“I told you I hadn’t written anything; but a few days ago, I did have an idea for an essay, which I should have called: On Incapacity. But of course I was incapable of writing it. I should have said … But I’m boring you.”
“No; go on; you bore me when you make jokes; you’re interesting me very much now.”
“I should have tried to find throughout nature the dividing line, below which nothing exists. An example will show you what I mean. The newspapers the other day had an account of a workman who was electrocuted. He was handling some live wires carelessly; the voltage was not very high; but it seems his body was in a state of perspiration. His death is attributed to the layer of humidity which enabled the current to envelop his body. If his body had been drier, the accident wouldn’t have taken place. But now let’s imagine the perspiration added drop by drop.… One more drop—there you are!”
“I don’t understand,” said Olivier.
“Because my example is badly chosen. I always choose my examples badly. Here’s another: Six shipwrecked persons are picked up in a boat. They have been adrift for ten days in the storm. Three are dead; two are saved. The sixth is expiring. It was hoped he might be restored to life; but his organism had reached the extreme limit.”