The Counterfeiters (19 page)

“Are the pickles,” interrupted Robert,
¹
who always referred everything back to himself, and only took an interest in that part of a theory which he could turn to account.

“Most of them are ferocious,” added Vincent gravely.

“I told you it was better than any novel!” cried Lilian, ecstatically.

Vincent seemed transfigured—indifferent to the impression he was making. He was extraordinarily grave and went on in a lower tone as if he were talking to himself:

“The most astonishing discovery of recent times—at
any rate the one that has taught me most—is the discovery of the photogenic apparatus of deep-sea creatures.”

“Oh, tell us about it!” cried Lilian, letting her cigarette go out and her ice melt on her plate.

“You know, no doubt, that the light of day does not reach very far down into the sea. Its depths are dark … huge gulfs, which for a long time were thought to be uninhabited; then people began dragging them, and quantities of strange animals were brought up from these infernal regions—animals that were blind, it was thought. What use would the sense of sight be in the dark? Evidently they had no eyes; they wouldn’t, they couldn’t have eyes. Nevertheless, on examination it was found to people’s amazement that some of them
had
eyes; that they almost all had eyes, and sometimes antennæ of extraordinary sensibility into the bargain. Still people doubted and wondered: why eyes with no means of seeing? Eyes that are sensitive—but sensitive to what?… And at last it was discovered that each of these animals which people at first insisted were creatures of darkness, gives forth and projects before and around it its
own
light. Each of them shines, illuminates, irradiates. When they were brought up from the depths at night and turned out on to the ship’s deck, the darkness blazed. Moving, many-coloured fires, glowing, vibrating, changing—revolving beacon-lamps—sparkling of stars and jewels—a spectacle, say those who saw it, of unparalleled splendour.”

Vincent stopped. No one spoke for a long time.

“Let’s go home,” said Lilian suddenly; “I’m cold.”

Lady Lilian took her seat beside the chauffeur, so as to be sheltered by the glass screen. The two men at the back of the open carriage carried on their own conversation. Robert had hardly spoken during the whole
of the dinner; he had listened to Vincent talking; now it was his turn.

“Fish like us, my dear boy, perish in calm waters,” said he to begin with, giving his friend a thump on the shoulder. He allowed himself a few familiarities with Vincent, but would not have suffered him to reciprocate them; for that matter, Vincent was not disposed to. “Do you know, I think you’re simply splendid! What a lecturer you’d make! Upon my word, you ought to quit doctoring. I really can’t see you prescribing laxatives and having no company but the sick. A chair of comparative biology, or something of that sort is what you want.”

“Yes,” said Vincent, “I have sometimes thought so.”

“Lilian ought to be able to manage it. She could get her friend the Prince of Monaco to interest himself in your researches. It’s his line, I believe. I must speak to her about it.”

“She has suggested it already.”

“Oh, so I see there’s no possibility of doing you a service,” said he, pretending to be vexed. “Just as I wanted to ask you one for myself, too.”

“It’s your turn to be in my debt. You think I’ve got a very short memory.”

“What? You’re still thinking of that five thousand francs? But you’ve paid it back, my dear fellow. You owe me nothing at all now—except a little friendship, perhaps.” He added these words in a voice that was almost tender, and with one hand on Vincent’s arm. “I want to appeal to it now.”

“I am listening,” said Vincent.

But at that, Passavant immediately protested, as if the impatience were Vincent’s, and not his own:

“Goodness me! What a hurry you’re in! Between this and Paris there’s time enough surely.”

Passavant was particularly skilful in the art of fathering his own words—and anything else he preferred to
disown—on other people. He made a feint of dropping his subject, like an angler who, for fear of startling his trout, makes a long cast with his bait and then draws it in again by imperceptible degrees.

“A propos, thank you for sending me your brother. I was afraid you had forgotten.”

Vincent made a gesture and Robert went on:

“Have you seen him since?… Not had time, eh?… Then it’s odd you shouldn’t have asked me yet how the interview went off. At bottom, you don’t in the least care. You don’t take the faintest interest in your brother. What Olivier thinks and feels, what he is, what he wants to be, never concerns you in the least.… ”

“Reproaching me?” asked Vincent.

“Upon my soul, yes. I can’t understand—I can’t swallow your indifference. When you were ill at Pau, it might pass; you could only think of yourself; selfishness was part of the cure. But now … What! you have growing up beside you a young nature quivering with life, a budding intelligence, full of promise, only waiting for a word of advice, of encouragement.… ”

He forgot as he spoke that he too had a brother.

Vincent, however, was no fool; the very exaggeration of this attack showed him that it was not sincere and that his companion’s indignation was merely brought forward to pave the way for something else. He waited in silence. But Robert stopped short suddenly; he had just surprised in the glimmer of Vincent’s cigarette a curious curl of his lip, which he took for irony; now there was nothing in the world he was more afraid of than being laughed at. And yet, was it really that which made him change his tone? I wonder whether the sudden intuition of a kind of connivance between Vincent and himself … He assumed an air of perfect naturalness and started again in the tone of “there’s no need of any pretence with you”:

“Well, I had a most delightful conversation with young Olivier. I like the boy exceedingly.”

Passavant tried to catch Vincent’s expression (the night was not very dark); but he was looking fixedly in front of him.

“And now, my dear Molinier, the service I wished to ask you …”

But, here again, he felt the need of marking time, something like an actor who drops his part for a moment with the assurance that he has his audience well in hand, and wishes to prove that he has, both to himself and to them. He bent forward therefore to Lilian, and speaking in a loud voice as if to accentuate the confidential character of what he had been saying, and of what he was going to say:

“Are you sure, dear lady, that you aren’t catching cold? We have a rug here that’s doing nothing.… ”

Then, without waiting for an answer, he sank back into the corner of the carriage beside Vincent, and lowering his voice once more:

“This is what it is. I want to take your brother away with me this summer. Yes; I tell you so frankly; what’s the use of beating about the bush between us two?… I haven’t the honour of being acquainted with your parents and of course they wouldn’t allow Olivier to come away with me unless you were to intervene on my behalf. No doubt you’ll find a way of disposing them in my favour. You know what they’re like, I suppose, and you’ll be able to get round them. You’ll do this for me, won’t you?”

He waited a moment, and then, as Vincent kept silent, went on:

“Look here, Vincent … I’m leaving Paris soon … I don’t know for where as yet. I absolutely must have a secretary.… You know I’m founding a review. I have spoken about it to Olivier. He seems to me to
have all the necessary qualities.… But I don’t want to look at it merely from my own selfish point of view: I also think that this will be an opportunity for him to show all his qualities. I have offered him the place of editor.… Editor of a review at his age!… You must admit that it’s unusual.”

“So very unusual, that I’m afraid my parents may be rather alarmed by it,” said Vincent at last, turning his eyes on him and looking at him fixedly.

“Yes; you’re no doubt right. Perhaps it would be better not to mention that. You might just put forward the interest and advantage it would be for him to go travelling with me, eh? Your parents must understand that at his age one wants to see the world a bit. At any rate, you’ll arrange it with me, won’t you?”

He took a breath, lighted another cigarette, and went on without changing his tone:

“And since you’re going to be so nice, I’ll try and do something for you. I think I can put you on to a thing which promises to turn out quite exceptionally.… A friend of mine in the highest banking circles is keeping it open for a few privileged persons. But please don’t mention it; not a word to Lilian. In any case I can only dispose of a very limited number of shares; I can’t offer them both to her and you … Your last night’s fifty thousand francs? …”

“I have already disposed of them,” answered Vincent rather shortly, for he remembered Lilian’s warning.

“All right, all right.… ” rejoined Robert quickly, as though he were a little piqued; “I’m not insisting.” Then with the air of saying: “I can’t be offended with you,” he added: “If you change your mind, send me word at once … because after five o’clock to-morrow evening, it’ll be too late.”

Vincent’s admiration for the Comte de Passavant had become much greater since he had ceased to take him seriously.

Two o’clock
. Lost my suit-case. Serves me right. There was nothing in it I cared about but my journal. But I cared about that too much. In reality, very much amused by the adventure. All the same, I should like to have my papers back again. Who will read them?… Perhaps now that I have lost them, I exaggerate their importance. The book I have lost came to an end with my journey to England. When I was over there, I used another one, which I shall give up writing in, now that I am back in France. I shall take good care not to lose this one, in which I am writing now. It is my pocket-mirror. I cannot feel that anything that happens to me has any real existence until I see it reflected here. But since my return I seem to be walking in a dream. What a miserable uphill affair my conversation with Olivier was! And I had been looking forward to it with such joy.… I hope it has left him as ill-satisfied as it has me—as ill-satisfied with himself as with me. I was no more able to talk than to get him to talk. Oh, how difficult the slightest word is, when it involves the whole assent of the whole being! When the heart comes into play, it numbs and paralyses the brain.

Seven o’clock
. Found my suit-case; or at any rate the person who took it. The fact that he is Olivier’s most intimate friend makes a link between us which it rests only with me to tighten. The danger is that anything unexpected amuses me so intensely that I lose sight of my goal.

Seen Laura. My desire to oblige people becomes more acute if there is a difficulty to be encountered, if a struggle has to be waged with convention, banality and custom.

Visit to old La Pérouse. It was Madame de La Pérouse who opened the door to me. I have not seen her for more than two years; she recognized me, however, at once. (I don’t suppose they have many visitors.) She herself for that matter is very little changed; but (is it because I have a prejudice against her?) I thought her features harder, her expression sourer, her smile falser than ever.

“I am afraid Monsieur de La Pérouse is in no state to receive you,” said she at once, with the obvious desire of getting me to herself; then, taking advantage of her deafness in order to answer before I had questioned her:

“No, no; you’re not disturbing me in the least. Do come in.”

She showed me into the room where La Pérouse gives his music lessons, the two windows of which look on to the courtyard. And as soon as she had got me safely inside:

“I am particularly glad to have a word with you alone. Monsieur de La Pérouse—I know what an old and faithful friend of his you are—is in a state which causes me great anxiety. Couldn’t you persuade him to take more care of himself? He listens to you; as for me, I might as well talk to the winds.”

And thereupon she entered upon an endless series of recriminations: the old gentleman refuses to take care of himself, simply in order to annoy her; he does everything he oughtn’t to do and nothing that he ought; he goes out in all weathers and will never consent to put on a muffler; he refuses to eat at meals—“Monsieur isn’t hungry”—and nothing she can contrive tempts his appetite; but at night, he gets up and turns the kitchen upside down, cooking himself some mess or other.

I have no doubt the old lady didn’t invent anything; I could make out from her tale that it was her interpretation alone which gave an offensive meaning to the most innocent little facts and that reality had cast a monstrous shadow on the walls of her narrow brain. But does not her old husband on his side misinterpret all his wife’s attentions? She thinks herself a martyr, while he takes her for a torturer. As for judging them, understanding them, I give it up; or rather, as always happens, the better I understand them, the more tempered my judgment of them becomes. But this remains—that here are two beings tied to each other for life and causing each other abominable suffering. I have often noticed with married couples how intolerably irritating the slightest protuberance of character in the one may be to the other, because in the course of life in common it continually rubs up against the same place. And if the rub is reciprocal, married life is nothing but a hell.

Beneath her smoothly parted black wig, which makes the features of her chalky face look harder still, with her long black mittens, from which protrude little claw-like fingers, Madame de la Pérouse has the appearance of a harpy.

“He accuses me of spying on him,” she continued. “He has always needed a great deal of sleep; but at night he makes a show of going to bed, and then when he thinks I am fast asleep, he gets up again; he muddles about among his old papers, and sometimes stays up till morning reading his late brother’s letters and crying over them. And he wants me to bear it all without a word!”