The Bachelors (9 page)

But gradually he had grown used to these journeys, and in particular the route to the boulevard Haussmann, where Uncle Octave and the solicitor lived, had become familiar. Nevertheless, since he was always afraid of arriving late and hence annoying the person he had come to see, and since, moreover, he had extravagant notions as to the distances which caused him such agonies, he continued to exaggerate to a ridiculous degree the time needed for his journeys. If he had an appointment at three, he would arrive at 2.15 (a notable improvement, this; six months earlier it would have been 1.30). In fact his early arrival had become part of the programme. There was a certain bench in front of Lebeau's office, and a certain café not far from his uncle's house, where he would sit, always at the same end of the bench or at the same café table. And he would wait until it was five minutes to three before getting up, feeling a childish pride if he managed to reach M. Octave's house or Bourdillon's office on the stroke of three and one or other of them welcomed him with some such phrase as: 'Well done! What punctuality!' Such a compliment would suffice to give him the self-confidence he so sorely needed when he met these gentlemen.

At half past two M. de Coantré went into Lebeau's office — and however low he had fallen socially, one could tell he was a real gentleman from the fact that he polished his boots on the edge of the luxurious stair-carpet on the way up.

He was received by an office boy who immediately said: 'But it wasn't today!' This pleased him; obviously he counted for something in the firm, since everyone knew about him and remembered the date of his appointment. He was on the point of confessing that he couldn't bear to wait when he pulled himself up in time to say 'Yes, but I happened to be passing'. He asked if he could see Bourdillon just for a moment; he was quite prepared to come back next day to talk at leisure. Bourdillon sent back a message asking him to wait.

M. de Coantré felt happy. Bourdillon and Uncle Octave were his two guardian angels — the saviours, the magicians whom he expected to clear up all his problems. He found Bourdillon rather awe-inspiring, because he had a big black beard (like Cacus, whom Hercules strangled, and who, we feel positive, must have had a fabulous beard).

A longish time went by. M. de Coantré sat in the hall, which was used as a waiting-room — this famous hall where all the Coëtquidans had sat in turn, M. Élie always keeping his hat on, even if the heat was stifling, for fear somebody might think he was being polite if he took it off. There was a hum of low voices which was punctuated by the high-pitched clatter of a typewriter and which suddenly increased in volume when the typing stopped. M. de Coantré threw surreptitious glances at one of the typists, a most agreeable young woman with a splendid moustache, for she was the daughter of a retired major from Périgord. Suddenly Bourdillon came out of his office, and the count leapt to his feet, thinking it was for him. But Bourdillon went past him, saying: 'One moment, please . ..'

'Just one word, Maître Bourdillon,' said Léon with an imploring look. 'Is it anything serious?'

'Of course not! It will sort itself out. So don't worry,' said Bourdillon in his deep, oily voice as he vanished into another room. M. de Coantré called him 'Maître' out of toadyism, knowing he had no right to the title. Even a de Coantré is not above such wiles.

M. de Coantré sat down again, somewhat relieved. 'It will all sort itself out' obviously meant some difficulty. But he had complete faith in old Bourdillon, that excellent man. The firm of Lebeau had been running the affairs of the Coëtquidans for half a century; it represented security, was almost part of the family. Of course, the firm's spokesman might bring him bad news, but they would never let him down.

Suddenly a furious old gentleman rushed out of Bourdillon's room. His sky-blue eyes, his hairy nose and his florid complexion all stamped him as a military man. He swooped on M. de Coantré with his eyes popping out of his head and shouted:

'Are you the plaintiff?'

'I don't think so . . .,' said M. de Coantré, getting up, as though he were addressing his superior officer, and turning his eyes towards the mustachioed young lady to ask her opinion on the matter. But the cavalry officer (for it was indeed one) veered away without waiting for a reply, and disappeared in the direction of the offices, leaving the count gaping.

Once more he waited, and at last Bourdillon called him into his office, an absolutely traditional office with bogus medieval windows, faded photographs of whiskered gentlemen — the founders of the firm — and a clock with a black marble base and a bronze figure on top, a weeping Niobe, lamenting her lost dividends.

'Well, M'sieu de Coantré,' said Bourdillon with his common accent which endeared him to Léon because he sensed the man of the people, 'We'll never see the end of this business!'

But he said it with such a genial air that it was almost on a jocular note (as who should say: 'It's such a hopeless muddle that it's really rather a joke'), so that Léon asked: 'Well, what's the trouble now?' and added: 'I shudder at the thought. You terrify me!' Knowing how inept he was in such matters, he had taken to joking about it to Bourdillon — 'I'm a child in all this. It's double Dutch to me. They can do what they like with me' — with the object of suggesting that he was not such a child as all that since he laughed about it. He believed that the reaction to someone who says 'You know, I'm an awful fool,' or words to that effect, must be to think: 'Aha, my man! I know what you're up to.' M. de Coantré would have given a great deal (if such an expression can be applied to him) to know that it was suggested behind his back that he feigned ignorance to achieve his ends. But it is extremely doubtful that anyone ever expressed such an opinion.

Bourdillon leafed through the file of de Coantré's estate, which literally swarmed with counts and countesses, barons and viscounts, mostly with the words 'Profession: none' written opposite their names.
'Provision: none
would be more like it,' M. de Coantré, who liked his little joke, had said one day. There were pages covered with figures, with geometric doodles pencilled in the margins. There were eleven yellow folios in which Mme de Coantré eleven times acknowledged that she owed eleven separate sums to M. Antoni; there were papers on which, beside receipt-stamps that were exactly the colour of lice, M. de Coantré renounced one thing after another, and it was splendid to see his lordly signature (a 'real grandee' nonchalantly 'scratching the parchment') at the foot of these documents in which invariably he was dispossessing himself, as though he were in fact signing a peace treaty which was to bring him the duchies of Lorraine and Brabant.

Bourdillon took a letter out of the file. M. de Coantré pulled down his shirt-cuffs, which were two centimetres too short.

'Do you know someone called Defraisse?'

'Yes,' said the count, his face falling. 'But the Defraisse business was over long ago.'

'Well, he doesn't seem to think so. He's claiming five thousand francs.'

'And . . . he's justified in doing so?'

'Everything suggests that he is.'

M. de Coantré swallowed his saliva. Along the upper surface of his thighs something began to quiver.

'But it's diabolical! Life's hardly worth living under the constant threat of these bombshells. Five thousand francs!'

What could have been clearer in his head than the sum which would soon be his all? Had he not repeated it often enough? And yet, now, try as he might, he could not remember it. He searched among his papers, but failed to find the one on which the operative figures were recorded.

'Looking for something?'

'Yes, I want to know how much I had left before the Defraisse claim. You must have the figure, since it was you who gave it to me.'

Bourdillon consulted the file again.

'Here we are, this must be it. " Remainder: eleven thousand." Yes, that's it. You had eleven thousand francs left. I remember now, that was the figure we arrived at the other day.'

'How much will the fees come to? Two thousand?'

'Oh, no!' the big man heartily exclaimed. 'We're not going to fleece you. I should think a thousand will see you through. More or less.'

M. de Coantré brightened a little. Sometimes, after all, there was some good news! Some people, at least, were honest! The lawyers would take a thousand francs, but it might have been two thousand or two thousand five hundred; he would have had to pay up. Instead of which, here was a thousand francs 'recovered' in an instant!

'Well,' said Bourdillon, 'what would you like me to do? Of course, I'll have this Defraisse round first of all to check his claim. But afterwards, we can either keep him waiting or settle at once . . .'

At this point the office boy half-opened the door and called Bourdillon, who went out.

As soon as he had gone, M. de Coantré rummaged through the papers he had brought. And since he was alone, and nobody was looking at him. and he had no need to hurry, and therefore did not lose his head, or only half lost it, he immediately found the note with his accounts on it. And he read the following, which was underlined:
Once Lebeau has been paid off, I shall have six thousand francs left.

'When Bourdillon comes back we'll be examining this question of paying Defraisse, and if I hadn't found this note, everything would have turned on my having eleven thousand when in fact it's six! As if it was the same thing to pay out five thousand francs when you have eleven as when you have six! And to think that I put my trust in this man!'

M. de Coantré was a pathetic creature, but one who was prone to fits of violence because he was incapable of controlling his nerves. When Bourdillon came back, it was in a highly intemperate tone that he addressed him:

'Well, M. Bourdillon! It isn't eleven thousand, it's six thousand francs I've got left. I found the paper. Eleven thousand and six thousand may be all the same to you, but not to me. . . .'

And he threw the paper on the table.

What did Bourdillon think about it? Did he think: the slave turns into the master? His face betrayed nothing. He read the note and said after a moment:

'Yes, it's six thousand. Actually I'd been thinking eleven thousand was rather a lot. Now the question is, what are we going to do about Defraisse?'

How calmly Bourdillon went on with the discussion! He seemed to find it perfectly natural to have made a mistake, and on an essential point! The effrontery with which he claimed to have thought eleven thousand francs 'rather a lot ', when in fact he had said quite confidently: 'I remember, that was the figure we arrived at the other day!' For M. de Coantré everything was collapsing at once; he was being robbed once again, and he could no longer put his faith in his guardian angel. He took a deep breath, as if the air he inhaled might calm his nerves, which he could feel pulsating inside him. At this moment, a man of about thirty, elegant but dissipated-looking, came into the office without knocking and began chatting to the chief clerk. After a minute or two Bourdillon said to the newcomer: 'But. . . you don't know M. de Coantré? M. de Coantré. Maître Lebeau.'

Lebeau! This limp young man, round-shouldered, cadaverous, with his long undergraduate's hair falling down over his temples, and his look of sloppy depravity! M. de Coantré had never seen him before, since he dealt personally only with his smarter clients. The first time Léon had seen Bourdillon, he had addressed him as Maître Lebeau: the majestic beard could only mean the boss. And this time he had mistaken Lebeau for a new kind of clerk! He remembered having heard at Arago that 'the young Lebeau had succeeded his father, but to have guessed that this lounge lizard was the grand panjandrum. . . . To think that his fate was in such hands! Lebeau, a rake, and Bourdillon, whom he had just caught red-handed making a blatantly frivolous mistake.

Lebeau greeted him and said:

'Well now, what's happening about this estate?'

M. de Coantré, furious with Bourdillon and full of antipathy for Lebeau, answered crossly:

'What's happening is that M. Bourdillon tells me five minutes ago that I've got eleven thousand francs left when in fact it's six thousand. And now the question is how to pay Defraisse.'

Having said his say, he pulled down his cuffs. After this revelation, he thought Bourdillon would 'get a rap over the knuckles'. But Lebeau merely turned towards the chief clerk with an inquiring look which clearly meant 'What's all this! He's a queer fish, this client of yours. . . .'

Needless to say, Lebeau knew, nothing, or next to nothing, about the Coantré estate. In fact he knew very little about any of the firm's affairs. His role in the office was that of all incompetent bosses: it consisted in complicating matters by poking his nose into everything in order to show he was the boss.

Bourdillon outlined the situation for him. Lebeau appeared to be listening attentively, with his head bowed, but in fact his eyes were fixed most of the time on the documents which the office boy had just given him, and which he read while the chief clerk was speaking to him. The trick did not escape M. de Coantré. But his temper had subsided, and as always happened with him, the result was a feeling of helplessness. It was all too much for him — the ill-concealed indifference of Lebeau and Bourdillon, the sudden blow which reduced his entire fortune to two thousand francs. And still these cuffs refused to show themselves! He would have felt much more self-confident if his cuffs had been visible.

'Well, then,' said Lebeau when he realized that Bourdillon had stopped talking. 'What does it come down to? It comes down to the fact that all the assets are going to be eaten up. You would have done better to renounce the estate.'

'I'm not the sort of man who renounces his mother's estate. And my niece Mlle de Bauret, to her credit, was in complete agreement with me.'

'Still, there are times when ..

Lebeau and Bourdillon exchanged a knowing smile.

The toneless voice of a typist could be heard reading out a document for someone to check, and sometimes, when a door was opened, a piping voice with sharp consonants (the voice of a Catholic lecturer) dictating:'.... that the termination is an established fact..