David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (38 page)

He stopped, and I thought I saw tears glistening in his eyes. I turned around to look at him more closely. I was right; from his cloudy eyes, the vacant eyes of a very old animal, a single tear-drop fell. I felt a mixture of scorn and pity.

Courilof, however, had taken some pornographic Japanese prints out of a locked cabinet, and they were all leaning towards him, laughing nervously, their hands shaking. A long time afterwards, they started talking about women. I watched Courilof. He was a different man, his eyes sparkling, his voice husky, his fingers trembling.

“There’s a new singer,” said the prince, “at the Villa Rode, a fifteen-year-old girl, still thin and plain, but with the most beautiful hair in the world, and her voice. Pieces of gold thrown against a crystal platter wouldn’t make such a pure, brilliant sound.”

“Villa Rode,” said Dahl.

He deliberately stopped himself, looked at Courilof, his eyes half closed.

“No one really knows how to sing any more, now that Marguerite Eduardovna has left!” said Dahl.

Courilof frowned and suddenly the excitement was gone from his face; he went pale, became anxious and sombre once more.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “let’s go out into the garden, shall we.”

ON
THE TERRACE
, I could hear Langenberg finishing a conversation he’d started with Dahl. “We should create a secret society with the purpose of exterminating all these damned socialists, revolutionaries, communists, free thinkers, and all the Jews, of course. We could recruit former thieves, common criminals, in exchange for sparing their lives. These revolutionary thugs deserve no more pity than mad dogs,” he said.

Courilof and the prince had stopped and were smiling as they listened to him talk.

“Damn it! My boy,” said the prince, “how you do go on. But we’re far from that point, unfortunately!”

They went down into the garden. Dahl, Langenberg, and the elderly Minister of Foreign Affairs soon left. Courilof and the prince were alone.

“How can you and I prevent ourselves from leaning towards the liberalism we’re reproached for at court?” I heard Courilof say. “When one hears such stupidity, it’s heart-breaking.”

The elderly prince stopped. He’d asked permission to put on his cap, for it was very hot for the season. He was standing in the middle of the path lined with white roses. I was walking behind them, but they took no notice of me. He carefully put on an English cap that had a large peak lined in green silk, pulled it down over his eyes, and said, in French, his voice deep and weary, “Sticks and stones.” He struck the ground sharply with his cane.

“I will never regret having been humane,” he said. “At my age especially, Valerian Alexandrovitch, you’ll see, it is a great consolation.”

He had long, pale hands; I can still picture them. I vividly imagined that morning in Poland when he’d launched the squadron into the little town square covered in blood and dead bodies.

At the time, I listened to him with ironic disbelief. Later on—
when I had taken their place—I understood there had not been an ounce of hypocrisy in what these men said. They simply had a short memory, as we all do.

They talked about the assassination attempts of the revolutionaries. They were sitting on a bench, at a place called the Rond Pont des Muses. I can still picture the yew trees trimmed into bizarre shapes, and the scent of the box trees. I had slipped behind the hedge. I was so close that I could have stretched out my hand and touched them. I listened to them speak with passionate curiosity.

“I’m often warned,” said the prince, “that assassinations are being planned, and people write to me or have me told: ‘Don’t go here, or there.’ I never listen to them. But I have to admit, when I’m at home at night, going to bed, knowing that the next day I have to go somewhere, I’m frightened. But as soon as I get into my car, it’s all right.”

“Well,” said Courilof, “I say my prayers every morning when I wake up. I take each new day as the last day of my life. When I get home in the evening, I thank God for having granted me one more day.”

He fell silent. He had spoken in the tone of banal solemnity that I knew so well, but his voice was shaking.

“Ah! Yes,” said the prince, in his inimitable way, “you believe in God…” He let out a weary little laugh. “Well, as for me,” he murmured, “I do my best to believe, but I swear I don’t know why. I get a certain personal satisfaction out of it, not a feeling of contentment at having fulfilled my obligations, Valerian Alex-androvitch, but the bitter satisfaction of seeing, once again, how very stupid people are. As for posterity and all that nonsense, I’m not interested. Think of how much noise they made over what happened to that anarchist Semenof! I spared him months of suffering, you know, the anguish and fear of being executed, and, at the same time, avoided a trial that would only have encouraged ideas in people we’d then have to fight. It was the same in Poland. Having the horses trample dead bodies couldn’t do them any more harm, you have to admit that, and inspiring terror did them good; it stopped the insurrection dead and so saved human lives. The more I see, the more value I place on human life … and less
on what they like to call ‘ideas,’ ” he continued as if in a dream. “In a word, I behaved rationally. And that is what people cannot forgive.”

“Well, I have faith in posterity,” murmured Courilof. “Russia will forget my enemies, but she will not forget me. It’s all very hard, very difficult,” he kept saying with a sigh. “They say you have to be capable of shedding blood, and it’s true.”

He stopped for a moment, then added quietly: “For a just cause.”

“I don’t believe in just causes much either,” sighed the prince. “But I’m a good deal older than you, it’s true; you still have illusions.”

“It’s hard; life is difficult,” the minister said again, sadly. He fell silent for a moment, then said quietly: “I have so many problems.”

I leaned forward even more. This was my first really dangerous move since I’d been in the minister’s house. But I was gripped by intense curiosity.

The prince gave a little cough, then turned and looked at Courilof. I could see the two of them, a few metres from me, through the break in the hedge. I held my breath.

Courilof began complaining: he was overworked, ill, surrounded by enemies who plotted against him.

“Why didn’t I listen to you? Why did I get married?” he said over and over again, bitterly. “A statesman must be invulnerable.
They
know,” he said, strongly stressing each word. “
They
know where it hurts the most, and every time I get ahead, that’s where
they
strike. My life has become a living hell. If you only knew what filth, what crass lies are told every day about my wife!”

“I know, my poor friend, I know,” the prince said softly.

“For Ina’s twentieth birthday,” Courilof continued, “I was planning to give a ball, as is our tradition. You know that Their Majesties have never set foot in my house since the day my wife died. Well, just imagine,” he exclaimed, his voice shaking, “that our sovereigns let it be known to me that if they were to attend the ball, it would be better if Marguerite Eduardovna were not there! And I was forced to smile, to take the insult in silence. It is inconceivable that a man in my position, who strikes fear into
the hearts of thousands of people, should be forced to bow before this crowd, this mass of lazy louts who make up the court. Ah! I’m tired of being in power! But I am fulfilling my obligation by remaining.” He said this several times, passionately.

“It is true that if Marguerite Eduardovna could leave Russia for a while…” the prince began.

“No,” said Courilof. “Personally, I would rather end it once and for all and leave as well. She is my wife before God. She bears my name. And anyway, why should they drag up the past? Do they even know what happened then? When they called her a ‘loose woman,’ they said it all. I’m not talking about love; I’m not talking about the early years; but as for the devotion she has shown me, the comfort, the help she has been to me for fourteen years, only I can be the judge ofthat. My life! My miserable life! My poor first wife, you know the lengths I went to care for her; no one, not even you, can know how much I have …”

He wanted to say “suffered,” but the word refused to cross his proud lips. He stood up taller, making a weary gesture with his hand. “She’s dead. Her poor soul is with God! But didn’t
I
have the right to rebuild my life as I saw fit? I can see now that the private life of a statesman belongs to the public, like his work. As soon as you try to keep a little piece of your life for yourself, that’s exactly where your enemies strike.”

“Margot,” the elderly prince said, as if in a dream. “Even today, though she’s older, less beautiful, she still has an inexplicable charm. Without a doubt, the same kind of charm we find in people whom we have greatly loved.”

“As for me,” said Courilof, sounding so sincere that I was struck by it, “I loved her long ago; you know how many mad things I did for her, but none ofthat compares with how I feel about her now. I am alone in life, Alexander Alexandrovitch, we are all alone. The higher our positions, the more complete our solitude. In her, God has given me a friend. I have many faults— man is but a mass of faults and misery—but I am loyal. I do not abandon my friends.”

“Be careful of Dahl,” said the prince. “He wants your post, and in my opinion, they are only waiting for you to make a false move to give it to him. And Dahl was a former colleague of yours
at the ministry. Who else would set us up if not our colleagues? Why don’t you marry off your daughter to his imbecile of a son? A rich dowry would appease him. He only wants power for the money it will bring.”

Courilof hesitated. “Ina is disgusted by the very idea of such a marriage,” he said. “And in any case, I’m afraid it wouldn’t solve anything. Dahl is one of those insatiable dogs who not only eat the meat off the bone, but the bone as well.”

“You’ve heard, haven’t you,” asked the prince, “about his latest masterpiece? You know that the pet subject at court for some time now is
Russia for the Russians.
In order to get a contract for the railways, for example, you have to have a name that ends in
of.
The baron dug up a poor little penniless prince from somewhere or other who has a traditional name. He’s using it to get contracts for mines or railways that he then sells on to Jews or Germans, after taking a fair commission for himself. Two thousand roubles for the prince, and presto! Amusing, don’t you think?”

“Every now and again I am staggered by the extraordinary greed of these people,” said Courilof. “An ordinary man has the right to be greedy, because he knows that otherwise he would starve to death. But these people who have everything—money, friends in high places, property—they never have enough! I just don’t understand it.”

“Each of us has his weaknesses. Human nature is incomprehensible. One cannot even say with certainty whether a man is good or evil, stupid or intelligent. There does not exist a good man who has not at some time in his life committed a cruel act, nor an evil man who has not done good, nor an intelligent man who has never been foolish, nor a fool who has never acted intelligently! Still, that’s what gives life its diversity, its surprises. I find that idea rather amusing.”

They had stood up as they talked and walked away from the Rond Pont. I waited for a while and then left as well.

THEY
STAYED IN
the garden for the rest of the day, along with Vania, Courilof’s son, who listened to them, looking bored.

“For him,” said the minister, “life will be better.”

I could hear everything they said; their words carried through the calm summer air.

“We’re going through difficult times, but if public opinion were only on our side, I am convinced that we would get back on our feet.”

“As for me,” said Courilof, “you could never know how much it comforts me when people are sympathetic towards me. Society is weary of flirting with the idea of a revolution. I think we have ten or twelve hard years ahead. But the future is marvellous.”

“My dear boy …” the prince murmured, sounding sceptical. But he said no more.

Courilof, lost in thought, caressed his son’s hair. The boy yawned furtively, nervously, but he couldn’t stop his entire body from trembling, a sign of the instinctive repugnance that children feel when touched by elderly hands.

I imagined Courilof’s secret thoughts very well. “Her Imperial Highness seems distressed by the birth of Grand Duchess Anastasia,” he said, as if speaking them out loud. “This fourth disappointment is difficult. Their Majesties are still young, it’s true…”

There was a long silence. Then the prince shook the ash off his cigarette.

“Yesterday I saw His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Michael,” he said, pouting. “He really is the spitting image of his noble father.”

Both of them were now looking at the little boy and smiling,
as if, through him, they could see the shape of the future: the Emperor dying without an heir; his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, succeeding him on the throne, an era of peace and happiness for Russia. At least, that’s what I was sure Courilof was thinking. The prince’s thoughts were more difficult to work out… Yes, I remember that day very well indeed.

Finally the prince remembered me and called me over to ask for a remedy for his painful chronic cough. I pointed to his cigarette and told him he should stop smoking.

He began to laugh.

“Youth always goes to extremes. You can take away a man’s life, but not his passions.”

He had a precise way of speaking and a brilliantly dry way of expressing himself. I suggested he take a sedative. He agreed, thanking me. I left. I remained in my room for a long time, musing and wonderingwhose dreams and speculations about the future—ours or theirs—were fair. I was extremely sad and tired, but filled with feelings of blissful savagery, feelings that surprised even me.

When I returned to the garden, it was late and dusk was falling, the sort of dusk you get in springtime. The sky was clear and brilliant, like deep, transparent, rose crystal. At moments like these, the Iles were truly beautiful. The little lagoons formed by the water, between two strips of land, shimmered faintly and reflected the sky.