The Counterfeiters (43 page)

But I did not give a direct account of this affair (I mean his stealing). I merely showed it—with its consequences—by glimpses, in the course of conversations. I had put down some of these in a note-book, which I had at that very moment in my pocket. On the contrary, the story of the false coins, as related by Profitendieu, did not seem to me capable of being turned to account. And no doubt that is why, instead of making immediately for this particular point, which was the main object of my visit, I tacked about.

“I first want you to read these few lines,” I said. “You will see why.” And I held him out my note-book, which I had opened at the page I thought might interest him.

I repeat it—this behaviour of mine now seems to me absurd. But in my novel, it is precisely by a similar reading that I thought of giving the youngest of my heroes a warning. I wanted to know what George’s reaction would be; I hoped it might instruct me … and even as to the value of what I had written.

I transcribe the passage in question:

There was a whole obscure region in the boy’s character which attracted Audibert’s affectionate curiosity. It was not enough for him to know that young Eudolfe had committed thefts; he would have liked
Eudolfe to tell him what had made him begin, and what he had felt on the occasion of his first theft. But the boy, even if he had been willing to confide in him, would no doubt have been incapable of explaining. And Audibert did not dare question him, for fear of inducing him to tell lies in self-defence.

One evening when Audibert was dining with Hildebrant, he spoke to him about Eudolfe—without naming him and altering the circumstances so that Hildebrant should not recognize him.

“Have you ever observed,” said Hildebrant, “that the most decisive actions of our life—I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future—are, more often than not, unconsidered?”

“I easily believe it,” replied Audibert. “Like a train into which one jumps without thinking, and without asking oneself where it is going. And more often than not, one does not even realize that the train is carrying one off, till it is too late to get down.”

“But perhaps the boy you are talking of has no wish to get down?”

“Not so far, doubtless. For the moment he is being carried along unresisting. The scenery amuses him, and he cares very little where he is going.”

“Do you mean to talk morals to him?”

“No indeed! It would be useless. He has been overdosed with morals till he is sick.”

“Why did he steal?”

“I don’t exactly know. Certainly not from real need. But to get certain advantages—not to be outdone by his wealthier companions—Heaven knows what all! Innate propensity—sheer pleasure of stealing.”

“That’s the worst.”

“Of course! Because he’ll begin again.”

“Is he intelligent?”

“I thought for a long time that he was less so than his brothers. But I wonder now whether I wasn’t mistaken,
and whether my unfavourable impression was not caused by the fact that he does not as yet understand what his capabilities are. His curiosity has gone off the tracks—or rather, it is still in the embryonic state—still at the stage of indiscretion.”

“Will you speak to him?”

“I propose making him put in the scales, on the one hand the little profit his thefts bring him, and on the other what his dishonesty loses him: the confidence of his friends and relations, their esteem, mine amongst others … things which can’t be measured and the value of which can be calculated only by the enormousness of the effort needed later to regain them. There are men who have spent their whole lives over it. I shall tell him, what he is still too young to realize—that henceforth if anything doubtful or unpleasant happens in his neighbourhood, it will always be laid to his door. He may find himself accused wrongfully of serious misdeeds and be unable to defend himself. His past actions point to him. He is marked. And lastly what I should like to say … But I am afraid of his protestations.”

“You would like to say? …”

“That what he has done has created a precedent, and that if some resolution is required for a first theft, for the ensuing ones nothing is needed but to drift with the current. All that follows is mere
laisser aller.…
What I should like to say is, that a first movement, which one makes almost without thinking, often begins to trace a line which irrevocably draws our figure, and which our after effort will never be able to efface. I should like … but no, I shan’t know how to speak to him.”

“Why don’t you write down our conversation of this evening? You could give it him to read.”

“That’s an idea,” said Audibert. “Why not?”

I did not take my eyes off George while he was reading; but his face showed no signs of what he was thinking.

“Am I to go on?” he asked, preparing to turn the page.

“There’s no need. The conversation ends there.”

“A great pity.”

He gave me back the note-book, and in a tone of voice that was almost playful:

“I should have liked to know what Eudolfe says when he has read the note-book.”

“Exactly. I want to know myself.”

“Eudolfe is a ridiculous name. Couldn’t you have christened him something else?”

“It’s of no importance.”

“Nor what he answers either. And what becomes of him afterwards?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends upon you. We shall see.”

“Then if I understand right, I am to help you go on with your book. No, really, you must admit that …”

He stopped as if he had some difficulty in expressing his ideas.

“That what?” I said to encourage him.

“You must admit that you’d be pretty well sold,” he went on, “if Eudolfe …”

He stopped again. I thought I understood what he meant and finished his sentence for him:

“If he became an honest boy?… No, my dear.” And suddenly the tears rose to my eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder. But he shook it off:

“For after all, if he hadn’t been a thief, you wouldn’t have written all that.”

It was only then that I understood my mistake. In reality, George was flattered at having occupied my thoughts for so long. He felt interesting. I had forgotten Profitendieu; it was George who reminded me of him.

“And what did your
juge d’instruction
say to you?”

“He commissioned me to warn you that he knew you were circulating false coins.… ”

George changed colour again. He understood denials would be useless, but he muttered indistinctly:

“I’m not the only one.”

“… and that if you and your pals don’t stop your traffickings at once, he’ll be obliged to arrest you.”

George had begun by turning very pale. Now his cheeks were burning. He stared fixedly in front of him and his knitted brows drew two deep wrinkles on his forehead.

“Good-bye,” I said, holding out my hand. “I advise you to warn your companions as well. As for you, you won’t be offered a second chance.”

He shook my hand silently and left the room without looking round.

On re-reading the pages of
The Counterfeiters
which I showed George, I thought them on the whole rather bad. I transcribe them as George read them, but all this chapter must be rewritten. It would be better decidedly to speak to the child. I must discover how to touch him. Certainly, at the point he has reached, it would be difficult to bring Eudolfe (George is right; I must change his name) back into the path of honesty. But I mean to bring him back; and whatever George may think, this is what is most interesting, because it is most difficult. (Here am I reasoning like Douviers!) Let us leave realistic novelists to deal with the stories of those who drift.

As soon as he got back to the class-room, George told his two friends of Edouard’s warnings. Everything his uncle had said about his pilferings slipped off the child’s mind, without causing him the slightest emotion; but, when it came to the false coins, which ran the risk of getting them into trouble, he saw the importance of getting rid of them as quickly as possible. Each of the
three boys had on him a certain number which he intended disposing of the next free afternoon. Ghéridanisol collected them and hurried off to throw them down the drains. That same evening he warned Strouvilhou, who immediately took his precautions.

That same evening, while Edouard was talking to his nephew George, Olivier, after Bernard had left him, received a visit from Armand.

Armand Vedel was unrecognizable; shaved, smiling, carrying his head high; he was dressed in a new suit, which was rather too smart and looked perhaps a trifle ridiculous; he felt it and showed that he felt it.

“I should have come to see you before, but I’ve had so much to do lately!… Do you know that I’ve actually become Passavant’s secretary? or, if you prefer it, the editor of his new review. I won’t ask you to contribute, because Passavant seems rather worked up against you. Besides, the review is decidedly going more and more to the left. That’s the reason it has begun by dropping Bercail and his pastorals.… ”

“I’m sorry for the review,” said Olivier.

“And that’s why, on the other hand, it has accepted my
Nocturnal Vase
, which, by the bye, is, without your permission, to be dedicated to you.”

“I’m sorry for me.”

“Passavant even wished my work of genius to open the first number; but my natural modesty, which was severely tried by his encomiums, was opposed to this. If I were not afraid of fatiguing a convalescent’s ears, I would give you an account of my first interview with the illustrious author of
The Horizontal Bar
, whom I had only known up till then through you.”

“I have nothing better to do than to listen.”

“You don’t mind smoke?”

“I’ll smoke myself to show you.”

“I must tell you,” began Armand, lighting a cigarette, “that your desertion left our beloved Count somewhat in a fix. Let it be said, without flattery, that it isn’t easy to replace such a bundle of gifts, virtues, qualities as are united in your …”

“Get on,” interrupted Olivier, exasperated by this heavy-footed irony.

“Well, to get on, Passavant wanted a secretary. He happened to know a certain Strouvilhou, whom I happen to know myself, because he is the uncle of a certain individual in the school, who happened to know Jean Cob-Lafleur, whom you know.”

“Whom I don’t know,” said Olivier.

“Well, my boy, you ought to know him. He’s an extraordinary fellow; a kind of faded, wrinkled, painted baby, who lives on cocktails and writes charming verses when he’s drunk. You’ll see some in our first number. So Strouvilhou had the brilliant idea of sending him to Passavant, to take your place. You can imagine his entry into the Rue de Babylone mansion. I must tell you that Cob-Lafleur’s clothes are covered with stains; that he has flowing flaxen locks, which fall upon his shoulders; and that he looks as if he hadn’t washed for a week. Passavant, who always wants to be master of the situation, declares that he took a great fancy to Cob-Lafleur. Cob-Lafleur has a gentle, smiling, timid way with him. When he chooses he can look like Banville’s Gringoire. In a word, Passavant was taken by him and was on the point of engaging him. I must tell you that Lafleur hasn’t got a penny piece.… So he gets up to take leave:—‘Before leaving, Monsieur le Comte, I think it’s only right to inform you that I have a few faults.’—‘Which of us has not?’—‘And a few vices. I smoke opium.’—‘Is that all?’ says Passavant, who isn’t to be put off by a little thing of that kind; ‘I’ve got some
excellent stuff to offer you.’—‘Yes, but when I smoke it, I completely lose every notion of spelling.’ Passavant took this for a joke, forced a laugh and held out his hand. Lafleur goes on:—‘And then I take hasheesh.’—‘I have sometimes taken it myself,’ says Passavant.—‘Yes, but when I am under the influence of hasheesh, I can’t keep from stealing.’ Passavant began to see then that he was being made a fool of; and Lafleur, who was set going by now, rattled on, impulsively:—‘And besides, I drink ether; and then I tear everything to bits—I smash everything I can lay my hands on,’ and he seizes a glass vase and makes as if he were going to throw it into the fire. Passavant just had time to snatch it out of his hands.—‘Much obliged to you for warning me.’ ”

“And he chucked him out?”

“Yes; and watched out of the window to see Lafleur didn’t drop a bomb into the cellar as he left.”

“But why did Lafleur behave so? From what you say, he was really in need of the place.”

“All the same, my dear fellow, you must admit that there are people who feel impelled to act against their interest. And then, if you want to know, Lafleur … well, Passavant’s luxury disgusted him—his elegance, his amiable manners, his condescension, his affectation of superiority. Yes; it turned his stomach. And I add that I perfectly understand him.… At bottom, your Passavant makes one’s gorge rise.”

“Why do you say ‘your Passavant’? You know quite well that I’ve given him up. And then why have you accepted his place, if you think him so disgusting?”

“For the very reason that I like things that disgust me … to start with my own delightful—or disgusting—self. And then, in reality, Cob-Lafleur suffers from shyness; he wouldn’t have said any of all that if he hadn’t felt ill at ease.”