The Bachelors (19 page)

M. Octave and Mme de Coantré were aware of this situation, because M. Élie had been unable to restrain himself from boasting about having a woman in his life. Mme de Coantré believed that Léa had been his mistress when he was a young man, but that this was no longer so. M. Octave, more experienced, was sceptical. Both were so convinced that there was no danger from this quarter that it had never occurred to Mme de Coantré on her death-bed to make her brother swear not to go and live with Léa; he would have sworn, and kept his word, being a man of principle. But, in fact, M. Élie had always been determined neither to live with Léa nor to leave her anything of importance after his death. So that when it was decided to move from Arago, he was careful not to tell her, for fear that she might pester him into moving into her flat, but waited to present her with a
fait accompli
when the solution he hoped for and confidently expected had been put into effect, in other words, when his brother gave him enough to live in a respectable boarding-house.

On the morning of the day he went to visit the baron, M. Élie made a scene at Arago. Since his slightest wish was anticipated there, he was normally fairly quiet and reserved his spleen for the outside world — for example, if he received a letter addressed to '27 boulevard Arago' instead of '27a'. Then, seeing him rave, one would have thought that the 'a' was a sort of nobiliary particle peculiar to addresses. On this occasion, the charwoman had thrown away the piece of soap on his wash-hand-stand. She claimed that there was practically none of it left, that one could almost see through it; he maintained that it would have lasted another week. He stormed and raged, though not without a secret fear; low enough to ensure that no one heard, he muttered that she had stolen the soap. This scene would have been more easily understood had it been known that M. Élie, determined to have it out with his brother that afternoon, was artificially working himself up into the necessary state of fury.

The baron, when his brother was announced, seized one of his jackets and a bottle of stain-remover. M. Élie came in to find him cleaning his jacket with a lugubrious air. M. Octave at once began to prophesy the certain loss of his case, and to complain, in addition, that he had just had a set-back on the Stock Exchange. This explained why he was already beginning to economize — for instance, by doing his own jacket instead of sending it to the cleaner.

All this was meant to explain, by way of anticipation and prevention, that he could not be counted on to make financial sacrifices. He did not take so much trouble with Léon. However, after a few exchanges, M. Élie complimented him on his youthful appearance, adding maliciously, 'Honestly! And with all your worries! . . .' which proved to M. Octave that he had wasted his time. (M. Octave pulls a wry face when his brother tells him he looks young, just as Léon pulls a wry face when his uncle tells him he looks well. What an extraordinary creature is man, always tempting Providence!)

M. Élie, who was in excellent form, did not beat about the bush.

'Well, what do I do on 15 October?'

'My dear chap, it is for me to ask you.'

'Non,
it's for me to ask you,' M. Élie rapped out with so prompt a fury that it was obvious that it had been prepared in advance. 'You told me people didn't starve when they had brothers. What are you going to do for me?'

M. Octave felt something of the same indignation as an Austrian general at the insolence of Napoleonic strategy. But he answered all the more gently:

'I am quite prepared to help you, Élie. Only I find it a little
unfair
[
In English in the original.
] when you could easily sort your problems out yourself.'

'Sorry, don't understand English. Explain.'

'You have nine thousand francs a year. By investing your capital in a life annuity, at your age you would triple your income.'

M. Élie's plan was simple: to force his brother to give him an allowance by threatening to go and live with Léa Meyer, or even marry her. These threats were only a means to an end; he was as determined not to put either of them into execution as he was convinced that Octave would give in at the first word. The solution proposed by his brother both flummoxed and attracted him. He said he did not know what a life annuity was, and M. Octave explained it to him at length. When he understood it he was distrustful. Such a source of riches frightened him because his brother had suggested it. He preferred his brother's money.

'What if the insurance company goes bankrupt?' he growled. 'What if there's a war or a revolution? Or the state takes over insurance? No, I won't play. Not such a fool.'

It was useless for M. Octave to explain how childish his reasons were; he was adamant. The more the baron recommended the life annuity, the more M. Élie dug his toes in, confirmed in his suspicions — 'He wants to do me down.' They argued for some time, then Élie said:

'Don't bother to go on. Throw three hundred thousand francs down the drain! If you don't want to give me enough to live decently on, I'm not worried about what to do. I know where to go.'

'Where will you go?' the baron asked, vaguely uneasy.

'Women are better than men. There are women who for twenty-five years . . .'

'Élie, you wouldn't do that!'

'Why not?'

Need we go into all the details of their discussion, and M. Élie's bilious grievances? ('Who will ever know? Does anyone know I exist! The family! . . . I'm supposed to take the opinion of the family into account, when I've never meant anything to them! ') It was a classic scene; the familiar phrases come flocking to one's pen. M. Octave was beaten in advance. His brother! An old Jewish whore! His anxiety was now concentrated on the question: how much is he going to fleece me of? M. Élie asked for ten thousand a year. He already had nine; with nineteen thousand he could live 'without disgracing the family'. The baron breathed again, not without a pang. Élie might have asked double. But what was to prevent him from raising his price tomorrow? He offered eight thousand, which Élie accepted.

'Not a word of this to Léon de Coantré, you understand?' said the baron. His brother gave a snigger: 'I should think not!'

M. Octave, who hated gushing, nevertheless thought his brother's thanks a bit curt.

Having obtained what he wanted, M. Élie, glowing with contentment, had a violent desire to smoke (the cigarette on coming out of Mlle G's flat...). His brother had a phobia about tobacco, or rather had developed one out of affectation, and M. Élie never smoked in his house. But this time, to smoke there was like putting his foot on the chest of his fallen adversary.

'Can I smoke?' he asked. The blow struck home. An hour earlier M. Octave would have answered: 'Can't you wait until you're outside?' But now his brother had the whip hand over him and knew it, and wanted to show that he knew it; this little smoking episode was the first visible sign that the situation was reversed.

'If it's absolutely necessary,' said the baron with a grimace.

M. Élie gave a grin. 'Yes, it is absolutely necessary.'

Naturally there was no ash-tray. M. Octave had to fold a sheet of paper, into which his brother dropped his cigarette ash. Some of it fell on the carpet. The expression on M. Octave's face on seeing the smoke in his room
(his
room! . . .) and the ash on his carpet
(his
carpet! . . .) was worthy of the theatre. But when M. Élie, having thrown away his cigarette, proceeded to light another one out of bravado, M. Octave reached the zenith of martyrdom and M. Élie the nadir of despicable enjoyment. 'This is what the future will be like,' the baron said to himself. 'At least I'm being warned in good time.'

The baron also noticed the sarcastic look on M. Élie's face as he glanced at a small six-pound dumb-bell lying in a corner of the room, which M. Octave used to lift three or four times every morning. Sensing that his brother despised him, he did not react. And still M. Élie, for a variety of reasons (he enjoyed teasing Octave ... he did not know how to leave ... he was making a point of not leaving too soon after getting what he wanted) did not budge. Determined to talk about something or other, he talked about himself. Nevertheless silences crept in, when he could think of nothing to say, even about himself. 'Now's the time!' M. Octave thought to himself, meaning, 'to show him the door'; but he did not dare. And he was too proud to go and tell Papon to announce a visitor. Chum up with the servants against a Coëtquidan — never! Under the strain of all that was happening to him, M. Octave was overcome with a sort of torpor, and agonizing drowsiness, like a man falling asleep on horseback at dawn. In the depths of his somnolence, only one feeling still remained alive: a desire to eat some excellent muscat grapes which had been sent to him and were now in his cupboard. But he thought his brother might turn sour again — 'You're a lucky one, you are! They look after you all right!' — and preferred to forgo his grapes. His lethargy was so overwhelming that he reached the point of no longer trying to hide it. He yawned. M. Élie began to yawn too, but he did not go. It went on like this for an hour and a half: these two men, one incapable of leaving, the other incapable of making him leave; between them, silence gradually encroaching; and behind them, their sordid bargain.

M. Élie left at last. For a long time, sitting in his armchair, the baron kept that beautiful, grave expression — presenting, almost, the illusion of thoughtfulness — which men get when they have just lost money. Then he sighed. Newfoundland dogs often have a little moisture oozing from the corner of their eyes, as though they were crying. What makes Newfoundland dogs cry? The knowledge that they have been fooled.

Back from his nocturnal escapade, M. de Coantré had explained at Arago that on arriving home at midnight he had discovered that his key was missing. Not wanting to wake M. Élie by ringing, he had spent the night at a hotel. This went down beautifully. Innocents are good liars.

The escapade remained in his memory as something he was glad to have experienced, as long as that was the end of it for ever; it was one of those trials which become blessings if one can speak of them in the past tense. He had had nothing, but was satisfied as if he had had what he had sought. He had no regrets.

August passed uneventfully. Léon went on packing, gardening, sleeping. He watched his money dwindling in his drawer, like a man watching a gauge showing the amount of oxygen in his room, but he watched it fairly calmly. Indeed, the prospect of soon being reduced to nothing at all produced something of that secret euphoria which extreme circumstances provoke in certain people, provided always that Brother Ass, the body, does not feel itself in danger. When he was reduced to
nothing
they would be forced to look after him, they wouldn't leave a Coantré in the gutter. Quite shamelessly he was relying on their pity, staking everything on it. He could see himself quite happily begging from people. For ten years he had heard his mother sigh, 'Oh, to be able to live in a hotel! No more servants! No more meals to order!' For him, the prospect of total destitution seemed as inviting as the prospect of prison or hospital seems to some poor devils: no more decisions to be taken, no more responsibilities.

He no longer received any mail, not even replies to letters he had written. He saw in front of him, as one sees a physical object, this simple fact: that he counted for nothing. And the people with whom he counted for nothing did not even know one another, had exchanged no secret password. It really was something
in him
that made them feel like this.

The baron spent the month of August at a watering-place. On 1 September he returned home, and Léon courted him with renewed zeal, keeping him informed and asking his advice about everything, snorting with excitement when he repeated to him that on 15 October he would be as naked as St John the Baptist. M. Octave floated on a cloud of optimistic generalities: to expect the worst is a policy contradicted by the facts, etc., etc. From which Léon inferred that his uncle had there and then decided to come to his rescue.

The truth was quite otherwise. The baron had indeed made a decision, the decision to help his brother, and was now under the impression that for the time being the family was catered for. But what, it may be asked, was he waiting for in regard to his nephew? Well, he was waiting for it to be too late.

He was immovable. Often he would deny Léon's plight, telling himself, for example, that he remembered Léon saying, 'I can carry on like this until 1 August' and so he would triumphantly exclaim: 'Well, it's now 10 September, and the little beggar's still alive! With highly strung people it's always the same. Nothing but words!' At Vichy, he had received a letter from Léon on writing-paper engraved with a count's coronet. It was clear from the yellowish tint of the paper that it was an old sheet, fifteen or twenty years old, which Léon had dug out, and his using it was surely a sign of economy. Nevertheless, this coronet was the chemical particle that sufficed to disintegrate any remote inclinations M. Octave might have had to do something for his nephew. He turned to his sister:

'He hasn't a bean, yet he uses embossed writing-paper! A coronet! In the first place, the Coantrés' title would need to be pretty closely examined — if one attached any importance to such tomfooleries.
I
don't even have my address printed on my writing-paper, I write it myself. And I'm expected to make him an allowance for life .... Léon de Coantré has nothing to do, nothing to worry about: he'll bury us all. Ah yes! these people who have no money certainly know how to get their own back — by bothering those who have. Just because my brother and my nephew have ruined their lives by their idleness and their eccentricity and incompetence, I, who have worked like a slave and done something with mine by the sweat of my brow, I'm supposed to deprive myself for them! I shouldn't be taking this holiday!' Mme Émilie gave a groan. 'Yes, yes! The minute I come to Vichy, thanks to the money I've earned honestly, while they
can't
go, I'm made to feel guilty. The family! What's the use of a family? Simply to ask you for money, that's all. "Family feeling" — I've never heard anyone use the expression except when they wanted to get some money out of me for some creature who isn't worth the slightest interest. The exploitation of the rich by the poor; there's an unmentionable disease for you! It's always everything for the poor! When three-quarters of the poor are only poor because they ask for it!'