Once he told his chauffeur to drive to Puteaux, and in place of the straggling village where he was born, there was a mass of tall factory chimneys and warehouses; trams rattled over the bridge and the rough high road was a broad avenue with houses and shops on either side.
It was hideous, overgrown and cheap. A thousand workers poured from the factories, wagons and lorries thundered in the streets.
Neuilly was a vast district, part of Paris itself. Round and about, backwards and forwards, he told his chauffeur to drive the car, and wherever they went there was nothing of what had been. He might have been a stranger in a foreign land.
And he thought, startled by this suggestion: ‘I’m old, that’s what it is. I’m old. This has all grown up since, and has no business with me. It’s changed, it’s passed me by.’
The car turned into the new Avenue du Roule, and opposite the Eglise de St Pierre that he had not known they came suddenly upon a long line of stalls set up upon the pavement, and through the open window of the car was blown the cries and the smells that he knew, that would never be lost; cauliflower and leeks, and rich ripe cheese, cotton-stuffs and leather, the sound of many voices excited and shrill, the bustle of a crowd who jostled each other, girls without hats, old women with baskets on their arms, even a little sharp-eyed boy at the pavement’s edge who held a sprig of flowers in his hand and cried: ‘Cinq sous la botte - approchez-vous, messieurs, mesdames - cinq sous la botte.’ It was the market. The same as it had always been. Familiar, known, unchanged.
Julius Lévy tapped on the glass in front of him and the chauffeur drew up. Then he got out of the car and stood by one of the stalls, leaning on a stick, and he listened and breathed those scents and sounds that had not come to him for more than fifty years, the first things he had ever known, and he wanted to tell these people who sold in his place that he belonged here and was one of them.
He thought that they must surely recognise him as one of themselves, and it was strange to him that no one called in his ear or tapped him on the shoulder, no one whistled to him from that stall across the way, no one shouted: ‘Eh bien, c’est toi, mon vieux.’
Then he heard a fellow laugh at the stall by his side, and this was followed by a shrill titter from a woman who was wrapping a slab of cheese in greasy paper, and one of them made a joke about the old monsieur in the fur collar who seemed to be looking for a lavatory.
He hated them then, he hated their misunderstanding, their lack of recognition. He hated their denial of him. He wanted to shout at them: ‘You fools, you damned blind fools. I knew your trade before any of you were born. I’ve had everything in the world and you’ll never rise above your own dirty cheeses. You fools.’
He turned sharply away and the driver helped him into the car and settled the rug over his knees.
He lit a cigarette, his hands trembling.
‘I’ll show them,’ he was thinking. ‘I’ll show them.’ But the smell of the market was strong in his nostrils, and in his ear rang the old cry: ‘Approchez-vous, messieurs, mesdames, approchez-vous donc . . .’
It was after this visit to the market that he formed his project of building a house in Neuilly, a house that he would fill with treasures, a house like a palace. In his mind the idea was a defiance of the people of the market, and the answer to his own doubting fear. This palace would prove that he was right and they were wrong. He would live in his palace beyond price, and know that it was his, and he would think of them in their poor sordid hovels; and it would be a satisfaction to him, this thinking of them so inferior, so dulled.
The birth of this plan brought back to him some of his lost energy; he was almost well again, he forgot to be tired. Those people of the market had made him remember that he was Julius Lévy.
Julius Lévy - he was Julius Lévy. He was the richest man in England. Hadn’t he been that? Wasn’t he still? Surely he could have that name in France too. He could buy up anyone if he cared. He could own the whole of Paris; he could possess the world.
The fools around him, the poor blind fools. He would not be swayed by fashion or taste in the building of his palace. Everything should go into it, marble, glass and precious stones. One period jostling against another; one style mingled with the next. He had never cared for simplicity of form; now he could pile together everything of value that belonged to him, lump them, crowd them cheek against cheek like so many lots, and he would know that all of that had come because once he, too, had called: ‘Approchez-vous, messieurs, mesdames, approchez-vous.’ Only he had not been a little gutter-rat with his nose in the mud; he had risen because he was himself, a Lévy, a Jew.
So he started to build his palace, and every morning his car would take him from the Hôtel Crillon to the site he had chosen by the Porte de Madrid, and he would drive across the broad Avenue de Neuilly past the market stalls with the old familiar clatter and smell, watching them from the window of his car, his arm through the strap-hold, a smile on his lips.
This daily vision of the market affected him in many ways. It was as though the indifference of these people reacted as a slap in the face, quickening his blood. He took their attitude as a challenge. They would not recognise his superiority. If it was thus with the peasants who sold in the market, it would be the same with the rest of the world.They would imagine Julius Lévy was a broken man, that he was growing old. He would show them that this was false. He began to take stock of his appearance, those sagging lines, those pouches beneath his eyes, and the paunch in his belly. He had a masseuse visit him daily at the Crillon and waited anxiously for the result to be obtained from the strong, slender hands that worked upon him. He wore a belt-supporter, he visited a clinic and sat for violet-ray treatment. He endeavoured to diet, to restrain his desire for rich food. This was difficult; food had become important to him.
He dressed extravagantly, eager for that admiration that had been his for so long and which might soon be lost to him; and because he possessed no discernment nor valuation in this, his appearance was overdone. He was no longer distinguished; he looked flashy - vulgar. An old fellow, a flower in his buttonhole, with waiters laughing at him behind their hands.
The building of the house in Neuilly and his settling in Paris caused much discussion and excitement. He was still a public figure of great importance, whose wealth was fabulous. Once it became known that he was to live permanently in Paris invitations and introductions were showered upon him; he was asked everywhere, all classes of society wished to receive him. They wanted a share of his money, his personality mattered little to them; and he, accustomed for so many years to adulation, flattery and praise, began to go about once more, to dine, to sup, to receptions, attending these functions without any real interest or desire to mingle socially with his fellow creatures, but acting from a motive of self-pride. He feared if he did not go people would say he was old, he was finished.
Julius Lévy - finished - burnt out.
They must not say that.
So he dressed himself with greater care; he tightened his corset belt, he suffered silently for an hour under the probing fingers of his masseuse.
He rested during the day so that he should not become too tired in the evening. This new, hateful sensation of fatigue never before experienced, now always at hand, waiting around the corner. It would come upon him sometimes when he was dining out or standing at some reception, an overmastering clutch of sleepiness wrapping his brain like a blanket; and he would fight against it, knowing that it would dull his brain, make him rusty, make him unable to continue a conversation with his usual intelligence.
It would swamp him, blunt his brilliance and fine perception, and he would not be Julius Lévy any more, but any old fellow who had dined too well and wanted his bed. An old fellow - a bore.
He must try to keep his mind from wandering; he must show these people that he was still himself. So he would talk, he would discuss some topic of the day, endeavouring to hold the conversation as he had always done, and for all their go
od manners and their tact, a light of instinct within him would warn him that he could not hold people as he had done.Their smiles were false, their eyes looked past him.
Then he would check himself, he would pretend to fumble with his food, and for all his instinct he could not tell himself where his mistake had been, he could not see where his words had failed, but he knew that something within him was not the same; something was blunted, was lost to him.
Fellows chatted amongst themselves, they did not ask his opinion. He told himself that this was a new generation growing up, indifferent, rude. They were fools.
And women - women had greatly changed. Their manners were atrocious, they only thought of themselves. They did not bother to listen, they made excuses to disappear, they would get up and go off dancing with some fellow. He did not dance these days; he would find himself sitting watching the dancing with some intolerable old bore of a chaperone aunt, and he would wonder why he was there, sitting so stiffly with a flower in his buttonhole, smothering a yawn, thinking of his bed.
He used to pass the time speculating on the relationships between people. That girl with the legs and curly hair dancing with that boy: were they lovers? What would they do? Would she be cold, would she be lovable? He would imagine the intimacy between them and the imagining of it gave him an old tingling sensation that was pleasant, that stirred him. He would like to hide in a room behind a curtain and watch those two.
His mind would ramble on, going over the picture, adding a piece here, a piece there, and part of him would seem near to sleep so that his head would nod, the room become hazy about him, and he would be startled suddenly by a voice in his ear: ‘Good evening, Sir Julius . . .’ And ‘H’m - who - what?’ he would mutter, coming to with a shock, stifling that yawn, and: ‘Oh! how do you do? Very pleased to see you’; thinking to himself: ‘Who the devil’s this?’
Then the rest of the interminable evening until he was back at the Crillon again, his stays off, his clothes flung from him, lying between the cool comfort of sheets, a hot-water bottle at his feet, and he would think that sleep was the only desirable thing remaining in the world; sleep, and food, and drink. He could not keep strictly to the diet recommended by his doctor, it required too great an effort.
Food was a pleasure, he would not go without this pleasure.
Soon the one interest he had when he went out to a party was that of wondering what he would be given to eat. The men and women about him seemed poor lifeless things compared to the food on his plate and the wine in his glass. Food filled him with some measure of content.
While he ate he need not bother to talk and to impress people. It made him too tired, this business of conversation and impressing people. He would watch the courses appear, his eyes intent, scarce listening to the claptrap of his neighbour that buzzed in his ear, giving no reply to the man opposite who questioned him on the causes of the inflation of the franc. Something was going to be served with a rich sauce; it smelt good, it would taste better, no doubt. He asked the waiter for more sauce, and he mashed it up with the meat, turning his fork over and over. ‘The inflation of the franc, my friend,’ he began, loading his mouth, ‘is due, of course to - to . . .’ And he hesitated, pondering the matter, then continued some lengthy rambling, off the point, muddled and confused, his questioner already bored and talking to some woman. Julius Lévy lay down his fork, glancing about him to see where the servant had gone with the sauce, and he was aware of a warm full sensation, the only sensation that mattered now. He stifled the wind that rose in his throat, and reached out a hand for his glass. Over the rim he noticed a young woman watching him; she was lovely, very fair. He smiled at her, raising his eyebrows. He would talk to her afterwards. She was lovely, his type. Women still looked his way, then. They knew, they could always tell. He went on smiling to himself, picturing some scene between them. He would show her things; he would make her feel she was alive.
He lifted his glass to her, he nodded, then he looked over his shoulder for the servant. ‘Bring me some more sauce,’ he said.
And the girl said to the man at her side: ‘Who is that old Jew guzzling at his food? He keeps staring at me.’
‘That’s Julius Lévy, one of the richest men in the world. They say he’s an insufferable bore.’
‘Look,’ she said, ‘he’s got a splodge of sauce on his chin.’
Julius heard every word they said. He felt something seize at his heart, as though a hand was touching him there, twisting and turning it about. A wave of colour mounted in his face, up to his temples, at the back of his neck, in the roots of his hair. He pretended to go on smiling, to go on mashing his food into a soup. But the sauce burnt his tongue, it drew the water in his eyes. He lay down his fork, he crumbled a piece of bread with his hand.
He felt very old suddenly - very tired.
Originally Julius Lévy had intended to entertain in his palace at Neuilly. He had had visions of great dinner parties, the huge rooms filled with men and women. And he the centre of the crowd, smiling to himself, aware of their envy.
Now he decided that he did not want any of that, something had made him change his mind. A snatch of conversation overheard at a dinner, words not intended to reach his ears, they had sunk deeply into his mind. He would not forget them. He despised these people, he hated their little vacuous brains, their futile wandering train of thought. They would like to see him make himself ridiculous, they would grovel at his feet for an introduction to his house, and they would criticise, they would snigger behind his back. He was determined, therefore, that they should not have this pleasure. He would live alone in his palace, with no one but his personal servants, and the rest of the world would be shut outside, would struggle vainly for admittance.
They would picture the beauty of the place they did not know, and they would imagine him there living like some emperor, with ways and tastes superior to the common herd of men, a strange figure of secrecy, exciting wonder, awe perhaps, looked upon as someone apart from the rest of mankind - like a god. There would be a dark veil of mystery about him that no one should ever break.
Thus when his palace was ready to receive him Julius Lévy entered upon a new way of living, an existence that once he would have believed impossible and fantastic; suspicious of everyone and resentful of criticism, he shut himself up within the walls of his incredible mansion, fast keeping to his plan of solitude unnatural to him and appalling at first in its stark novelty, and then accepting it as a refuge and screen hiding him from the curious sceptical eyes of the world he had grown to hate.
This last phase was like a play to him, in which he, the leading actor, played the lone, important part.
He was Julius Lévy, the great Julius Lévy who had chosen to retire from the world, and the things he did and the way he lived should be an everlasting subject of enquiry, so he thought, a ceaseless, feverish discussion on the lips of the people without. It pleased him to picture their envy. They would tell each other stories of his wealth and lament upon the pitiful insecurity of their own luckless lives dependent on the morrow.
There would be a slackening of conduct for him now, he realised. No need to groan under the hands of his masseuse, no longer must he wear that restraining corset, nor watch his diet. He would be able to let himself go and no one would know. He was able to act as he pleased. With the wealth of the world in his hands and possessing no ties, he told himself that he held greater liberty than any man alive. He was free. Few people could boast such freedom as was his. And the world could chitter if it liked how fallen he must be, how sunk, how lost, how prematurely aged, how battered of intellect; but they would have no proof.
The laugh was on his side.
He gave himself up entirely to his imagination. Little by little the fear came to him that his wealth might depreciate in value. For all he knew secret forces were at work to rob him of his possessions. Trickery was afoot, his agents were bribed, thieves probed among his papers. He trusted no one, he knew his world too we
ll. His very servants were false maybe, waiting their chance, covering their schemes with feigned attempt at service. Rigorously he began to cut expenses. He curtailed his staff to a minimum, he supervised accounts himself. In this way he was able to control every centime that went out of the house. He checked each item paid.The experience was of absorbing interest to him; it was like returning to the work of long ago.
He understood these things.
‘What is this?’ he would say, tapping a bill with a pencil. ‘Why the sending of all this linen to the blanchisseuse. Can’t we wash the necessary things here? I gave no orders for my bed linen to be changed so frequently. We must see that it lasts longer.’ And then frowning, spreading out his hands: ‘So many francs a week for kindling-wood is monstrous. Isn’t the Bois itself across the road? Why doesn’t the gardener gather faggots free? In that way there will be nothing to pay.’
He moved about his house peering through keyholes, listening on landings, bursting without warning suddenly into the kitchen quarters, expecting to find his servants discussing him. He was loathed and feared, and he knew it and he did not care. It mattered little to him if they all deserted him one by one; it would mean less to dole out in weekly wages.
It was profoundly irritating to him when the franc was stabilised. Hitherto his agents had been able to gamble effectively on the exchange. It had been his favourite old game of something for nothing.
Apart from the control of his household Julius Lévy lived mostly in a world of dreams. He had no company but his own thoughts, and he fell into the habit of talking to himself aloud. His mind ran in channels varied and intermingled, carrying him back to the past mostly, some sixty years or more. It was hard for him to realise that he was older now than Jean Blançard, that Paul Lévy when he died had been his junior by over thirty years.The fact of this left him perplexed, it muddled his pictures. He would see himself as a boy of ten dressed in a little blue cloak and clogs on his feet, stamping along the cobbled streets to the bridge across the Seine. The memory of those early days was vivid now, it was as though a curtain had risen from part of his mind, showing him these scenes painted in bright colours. The intervening time was swept away. Once more he wanted to hear music, once more he wanted the unreality of dreams.