But she disarmed him by saying “Your father had exactly that way of breathing in and blowing out like a dragon.” It took her some time to reach the aquarium: it took her half the length of the cigarette; but with a turn to the sea, the fish in it, and a transitional inquiry about the state of the car, she reached it.
“Yes,” he replied, “the aquarium was looking very well. There were sea horses.” He paused. “It will surprise you to learn that Madeleine was there too. Xavier was coming, but he was detained again, so I drove her over.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. And I was seen with her on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth as well; and I walked with her from the corner of the rue Pasteur as far as the wall on the evening of the twenty-seventh. I was alone with her from half-past nine on Wednesday . . .”
“That is not at all witty, Alain. Or at least if it is it does not appeal to my sense of humor. It is very clever and modern, no doubt . . .”
“No, my dear aunt,” said Alain, laughing, “you must not mind me. It is only that I cannot help wondering very much how it is that Côme can flaunt about all over the department in his car every week end with a different wench without anybody taking any notice, whereas if I am once seen talking to a young woman it is commented upon, reported, discussed; and if I walk five yards with her unaccompanied, well—”
“I do not know what you are talking about, Alain,” she said, “and I think we had better change the subject.”
She is still cross, reflected Alain: she never could bear being laughed at. However, I will make a handsome amend. And after a pause he said, “I think it will please you to know that I have come round to your way of thinking.”
She looked at him with the keenest interest, but she said nothing, and he continued, “As I was saying to the family this morning, I disapprove of Xavier’s idea, and I told him so.”
“I am so glad,” she said, quite thawed. “Do tell me what you said. Poor Xavier.”
“Yes, poor Xavier: that is true enough, my God. But nobody ever seems to have thought poor Madeleine . . .” He broke off, for Thérèsine was coming down the path again.
“It is Mme. d’Oultrera,” said the old maidservant. “She says the blue Virgin has got the moth.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” cried Aunt Margot. “Show her into the drawing room, Thérèsine. No, I left a bottle of brandy there. Beg her to step into the morning room, Thérèsine, and hurry, hurry. I shall have to go upstairs. Alain, my dear, do not move. Sit there in the cool with your nice cigarette and I will . . .” She hastened away.
“TELL ME WHAT YOU SAID.” Yes, that was what he intended to do: but it would be difficult, very difficult, to summarize, condense, report in the first person, and still convey something of the original. Not that it was particularly complex in this case, but there was always this difficulty of communication: the near-impossibility of conveying any but the most definite concepts, even to an attentive and sympathetic mind. Two and two make four; that, yes: but “I told him that I thought his conduct improper and he replied that he did not agree”—what did that convey? Or “It is a bronze of rather more than life-size, a nude lying on her back.” Or “It is a picture of mountains in rain and cloud: they are very steep and ragged and pine trees grow on their sides.” Or “The coda consists of a piu mosso version of the first subject, commencing pianissimo and working up to fortissimo.”
No: what one needed was a new method of communication altogether. For this kind of thing a film with a sound track would answer very well: he ran it through his mind.
SCENE: The first terrace of Xavier’s garden. Xavier and Alain are sitting in long wicker chairs, drinking Banyuls and eating little Spanish cakes. Enter from the left Dirty Côme and Renée: they are obviously ill at ease and they advance, mincing and scratching themselves, the whole length of the terrace. The first greetings are made. A silence.
RENEE: We have come to talk to you very seriously, Xavier.
COME: That’s right.
XAVIER: Listen to me, Côme, my friend: listen carefully.
(A silence.)
COME: What to?
XAVIER: Just listen; that is all. If you do that you will not provoke me. You do not wish to provoke me, do you, Côme?
COME (looking apprehensively at his wife): No.
RENEE: We chose today, Xavier, because we happened to hear that that woman was away.
XAVIER (aside, but audibly to Alain and probably to the others): Sour yellow beast. (To Renée) Your informant was mistaken. If you will wait a minute . . . (He rises.)
RENEE (disconcerted but flouncing): Oh indeed. No, don’t trouble yourself, Xavier. I think we had better go now. Côme. Good-by, Alain.
(Exeunt)
XAVIER: That got rid of them quick enough.
ALAIN: Poor Côme was in a muck sweat.
XAVIER: Poor devils. It is enough to make you wish each of them a dose of rat poison out of charity, seeing them together.
ALAIN: You are in a very good humor today, Xavier.
XAVIER: Yes. This divorce is getting along very well; faster than I had expected. It is nearly at the top of the list.
ALAIN: That is all you are waiting for, is it?
XAVIER: That is the essential. I must say that in my experience I have rarely seen such a simple, straightforward case—nothing to go wrong, no hidden snags, nothing to prevent a clear and immediate decision. Yet I am afraid of it: I know that nothing can go wrong, but I invent flaws in the legal presentation of the case and worry about them until I have got the papers again to reassure myself. I was on tenterhooks all through the formal attempt at reconciliation—I imagined a hundred ghastly accidents. But of course he was not even represented.
(A pause.)
ALAIN: I cannot help feeling—you will not mind my saying so—that you have a somewhat one-sided view of marriage. Or rather, of this marriage.
XAVIER: One-sided? I do not think I understand you.
ALAIN: By one-sided I mean selfish.
XAVIER: Selfish? Upon my word, Alain . . . I propose giving the material advantages of a marriage that any family in the whole province would welcome gladly, any family, the d’Oultreras or anyone. I say nothing of the care with which I would surround her, nor the affection. Consider the material side alone—you do not have to have half your experience of the world to appreciate the importance of it. Think of the position I can give. That sounds conceited, even a little absurd: but if you take it in relation to Saint-Féliu it is less so. Think of what I can do for her family. No, I intend to give all I can—give with both hands, and give spiritually as well as materially. That is not very selfish, I think?
ALAIN: That is not really what I was thinking of. Though in passing I may say that the position you would have to give would be very much less considerable after such a marriage than before it.
XAVIER: What a familiar sound that has.
ALAIN: I dare say it has. And I will say this, too, Xavier, that I do speak from interested motives, at least to some extent, and I do speak with something of the family’s voice. I am not joking in the least when I say that all the Roig blood in me curdles, and rightly, when I hear you talking of giving with both hands—giving more than you have a right to give. I mean it in sober earnest, Xavier, when I say that you have a greater duty to the family than you realize. I say this to clear my conscience; for I know you hardly believe it.
XAVIER: You are right: I do not think you are fundamentally interested in money or property.
ALAIN (shrugging): Well— When I say one-sided I mean that you seem to take Madeleine’s inclination and consent very much for granted, and her subsequent happiness. Have you reflected enough, I wonder, on the fact that you are at least middle-aged, and that neither you nor I could be called a beauty?
XAVIER: I do not take her inclination or consent for granted at all, Alain: believe me, they have caused me more thought and trepidation than ever they cause half your romantic lovers. But even if I had done so, I still think th
at her subsequent happiness would be secure. I am middle-aged, I agree. But that is not without its advantages: for one thing, I am no longer afraid of clichés, and I can say, and believe, that this is the sort of marriage in which love will come afterward. I do not pretend that she is passionately in love with me: of course she is not, and it would be very unsuitable if she were. But I think I may say, without being too fatuously complacent, that she has a sincere friendship for me, a real liking; and that is the best foundation for a marriage.
ALAIN: It is not very romantic.
XAVIER: So much the better. She had enough of romance with that young swine Cortade. As you say, I am no beauty: well, he was, and what did it amount to? People who live together no longer see one another after a year or two. I think that all this talk of good looks is very much overdone, and I am sure that most of the current notions about romantic love are so much twaddle, piffle, flim-flam. You know as well as I do that ‘romance’ is a recent invention, a leisured invention, and that it hardly touched the lower classes at all until the coming of the cinema and these appalling magazines, ‘books,’ for the semi-literate. Our fathers and grandfathers married out of prudence and good sense: it answered admirably well. And even now, you know how and why nearly all peasants marry. No, no; the tinselly nonsense has hardly any relation to what is really felt: mutual interest and subsequent good-liking are infinitely more important. I tell you, Alain, I am deeply convinced that one grain of genuine affection is worth all your poetry and Saturday-evening raptures. Furthermore, I will say this: for ninety-nine people out of a hundred it hardly matters at all whom they marry. Providing the man has a reasonably pleasant character and an adequate income, one is as good as another. You make the mistake, I think, that so many sentimental people make: you attribute too much personality to individuals, much too much importance to those few little traits that make one man superficially different from the next. Perhaps it is a natural reaction from your impersonal, objective work.
However, that is entirely beside the point, as I must obviously except myself from what I believe to be the general rule. Yet it would hold for practically every marriage I have ever seen.
ALAIN: I dare say you are right. But we are not discussing a female philosopher, are we? If the world in general supposes that it is starving for what it calls romance, it will be very unhappy if it cannot get it, whether it exists for the majority or not. It is asking rather much of a young woman to see these matters through the eyes of a middle-aged lawyer.
XAVIER: She has a most uncommon amount of strong good sense: and one does not always have to count experience in years.
ALAIN: There is still a considerable difference in age.
XAVIER: How you do harp on it, Alain. Though upon my word I cannot see any vast discrepancy: I never have been able to. After all, think of Jean Marty. Théophile Fabre. Abdon Ostalrich. Françoise Delmas married a man older than her father. They are all perfectly happy marriages.
(A pause.)
ALAIN: Old Fifine used to terrify me when I was a little boy by telling me that I should be put to the new tower.
XAVIER: Well?
ALAIN: It was a new tower that she said was going to be started very soon.
XAVIER: Well?
ALAIN: You know the story of the towers?
XAVIER: I know it as well as you do. And let me tell you, Alain, that I very much object to being parabled at: it presupposes a gulf between the understanding of the teller of the parable and that of the hearer, and in this case the supposition is as unjustified as it is offensive.
ALAIN: I had not thought I was being so obvious. But there is a reason for parables that you may have overlooked: they are a refuge for those who wish to say something disagreeable but who lack the right or the moral courage to do it. I was going to remind you of the hideous legend (if it is a legend) of a child having been built in alive to insure the firm standing of each of the original towers of the wall. I would then have mentioned the tales of bell-casting: a maiden thrown into the liquid metal so that the bell should have a clear cry. Then I should have said that I felt very deeply indeed that a strong tower or a well-toned bell had no right to existence on those terms.
XAVIER: Well?
ALAIN: And if I had said it with all the convincing power that profound sincerity is supposed to give, you might have agreed that a parable has another advantage, that of being more moving than a direct harangue.
XAVIER: Well?
ALAIN: That is all.
(A long silence.)
XAVIER: A parable can have its uses, no doubt: but for our purposes it is too indefinite. Your meaning, for example, is by no means clear.
ALAIN: Tell me, Xavier, in all this do you suppose that your first motive is to give happiness, or do you suppose that it is to possess an object on which to exercise and develop your power of affection?
XAVIER: Where is the distinction?
ALAIN: Put it like this: is it your intention to marry her willy-nilly, and make her happy whether she likes it or not? If you do, if you mean to use your force of character and position, her present situation and her family’s pressure, to oblige her to marry you from obedience and weariness, so that you will be able to begin your experiment—
XAVIER: It is not an experiment. If only you had understood me thoroughly you would see that there is nothing experimental about it.
ALAIN: I insist that it is an experiment. It is not a previously worked out chemical operation, nor an arithmetical sum; of course it is uncertain, and of course it is an experiment. You are trying to buy a human being as your guinea pig, and paying for it with influence and position: it is a thing you have no right to do to a human being. You have no right to do it, and if possible even less right than none, because the experiment is certain to fail. No: let me have my say. I repeat, certain to fail. Do not think I am unsympathetic, Xavier, I am not that. I cannot tell you how moved I was when—how very much I feel for your shocking predicament. But I am absolutely certain that this is the wrong solution. You have mistaken yourself. You are undergoing a flare-up of your sexual appetite and you want the physical possession of a young and very beautiful woman: you will not admit it consciously, and you have rationalized it into this more acceptable form. There is nothing in the world easier than being deceived by one’s body. I do not say that your state is not a dreadful one: what I say is that this is the wrong solution. I will propose one, though you will neither believe me nor consider it. You should go to that miserable, wretched building the other side of Port-Vendres and come away with one of their abandoned children. A little girl orphan, not a boy. You could give it a home; you could give it everything, and upon my honor I would not say a word if you were to leave it every last sou you possess and every scrap of land. You could give it everything: and if in a matter of days you did not start to love it, I know nothing whatever of human nature.
XAVIER (coldly): You are very eloquent, my friend, but all that you say is based on the assumption that I am wholly repulsive to Madeleine. If you are mistaken in that, do you not see that your entire rhetorical structure collapses? Or am I to take it that you are better informed upon the subject of her feelings than I am?
ALAIN: No. I am only more objective, that is all.
XAVIER: Then I am to understand that you have no authority for your remarks other than your own unaided powers of observation?
ALAIN: Xavier, if you are going to adopt that high and mighty legal tone we might as well talk about something else. I never did like it and I will not stand it now. You are not cross-examining a hostile witness.
XAVIER: Am I not?
CURTAIN
“. . . so I suggested that he should adopt an orphan and bring it up.”
“And what did he reply to that?”
“He did not make any direct reply. He suddenly appeared to be seized with the idea that I had been commissioned to tell him that Madeleine could not bear the idea—perhaps by Madeleine. Or perhaps it was that he thought that I was
taking altogether too much interest in her. I don’t know. But the conversation came to a stop, and I was very glad that I was engaged to dine with the Gaudériques that evening; the atmosphere was uncomfortable, to say the least.”
“So Xavier is jealous. Dear me, that makes everything much worse.”
“I suppose he is: I would have thought he had more sense. It was unfortunate that I had promised to run Madeleine into Perpignan in the car the next morning.”
“Of course, she is a very, very attractive creature.”
“Isn’t she, though?”
“Alain, it would be dreadful if in trying to rescue Xavier from this trap you were to fall into it yourself.”
“Dear aunt. Dear aunt. Sometimes I wonder . . . I talk to you on occasion for an hour or more on end, believing that you follow me at each stage, and then at the end I find that I might have been talking Cambodian. You can still speak of my trying to rescue Xavier from a trap . . . Really, Aunt Margot, I thought you had more penetration.”
“It comes to much the same thing in the end, does it not? Do not be cross, Alain.”
“I am not cross. Only sometimes I despair.”
“So Xavier is quite wrong in being jealous?”
“Of course he is. I wish I could make it clear that it is as absurd for him to think of being jealous of me as it is for you to talk about Madeleine trying to entrap him, or to entrap anybody else.”
“You quite bewilder me, Alain, talking so vehemently. Be a little calmer, if you please. We are not a political meeting.”
“What I wish to make abundantly clear is the fact that what I said to Xavier represents my true feelings on the matter: it was not a series of diplomatic lies designed to detach him from a designing hussy, nor to rescue him from a trap, as you put it. The only thing that was not completely true was my toning down of Madeleine’s aversion and my omission of a good deal more that I could and should have said. I should have said that after a great deal of thought I had come to the conclusion that the marriage would be disastrous, not only because it would not answer Xavier’s expectations, but—what is more important—because it would be complete and utter misery for the girl.”