The Counterfeiters (5 page)

“What time was it?” asks Bernard, more to show that he is taking an interest than because he wants to know.

“Three in the morning, I think. I got up and put my ear to the door. Vincent was talking to a woman. Or rather, it was she who was talking.”

“Then how did you know it was he? All the people who live in the flat must pass by your door.”

“And a horrid nuisance it is, too. The later it is, the more row they make. They care no more about the people who are asleep than … It was certainly he. I heard the woman calling him by his name. She kept saying … Oh, I can’t bear repeating it. It makes me sick.… ”

“Go on.”

“She kept saying: ‘Vincent, my love—my lover … Oh, don’t leave me!’ ”

“Did she say you to him and not
thou?”

“Yes; isn’t it odd?”

“Tell us some more.”

“ ‘You have no right to desert me now. What is to
become of me? Where am I to go? Say something to me! Oh, speak to me!’ … And she called him again by his name, and went on repeating: ‘My lover! My lover!’ And her voice became sadder and sadder and lower and lower. And then I heard a noise (they must have been standing on the stairs), a noise like something falling. I think she must have flung herself on her knees.”

“And didn’t he answer anything? Nothing at all?”

“He must have gone up the last steps; I heard the door of the flat shut. And after that, she stayed a long time quite near—almost up against my door. I heard her sobbing.”

“You should have opened the door.”

“I didn’t dare. Vincent would be furious if he thought I knew anything about his affairs. And then I was afraid it might embarrass her to be found crying. I don’t know what I could have said to her.”

Bernard had turned towards Olivier:

“In your place I should have opened.”

“Oh, you! You’re never afraid of anything. You do everything that comes into your head.”

“Is that a reproach?”

“Oh, no. It’s envy.”

“Have you any idea who the woman is?”

“How on earth should I know? Good-night.”

“I say, are you sure George hasn’t heard us?” whispers Bernard in Olivier’s ear. They listen a moment with bated breath.

“No,” Olivier goes on in his ordinary voice. “He’s asleep. And besides, he wouldn’t understand. Do you know what he asked Papa the other day …?”

At this, George can contain himself no longer. He sits up in his bed and breaks into his brother’s sentence.

“You ass!” he cries. “Didn’t you see I was doing it on purpose?… Good Lord, yes! I’ve heard every word you’ve been saying. But you needn’t excite yourselves.
I’ve known all about Vincent for ever so long. And now, my young friends, talk a little lower please, because I’m sleepy—or else hold your tongues.”

Olivier turns toward the wall. Bernard, who cannot sleep, looks out into the room. It seems bigger in the moonlight. As a matter of fact, he hardly knows it. Olivier was never there during the daytime; the few times that Bernard had been to see him, it was in the flat upstairs. But it was after school hours, when they came out of the
lycée
, that the two friends usually met. The moonlight has reached the foot of the bed in which George has at last gone to sleep; he has heard almost everything that his brother has said. He has matter for his dreams. Above George’s bed Bernard can just make out a little bookcase with two shelves full of schoolbooks. On a table near Olivier’s bed, he sees a larger-sized book; he puts out his hand and takes it to look at the title—
Tocqueville
; but as he is putting it back on the table, he drops it and the noise wakes Olivier up.

“Are you reading
Tocqueville
now?”

“Dubac lent it me.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s rather boring, but some of it’s very good.”

“I say, what are you doing to-morrow?”

To-morrow is Thursday and there is no school. Bernard thinks he may meet his friend somewhere. He does not mean to go back to the
lycée;
he thinks he can do without the last lectures and finish preparing for his examination by himself.

“To-morrow,” says Olivier, “I’m going to St. Lazare railway station at 11:30 to meet my Uncle Edouard, who is arriving from Le Havre, on his way from England. In the afternoon, I’m engaged to go to the Louvre with Dhurmer. The rest of the time I’ve got to work.”

“Your Uncle Edouard?”

“Yes. He’s a half brother of Mamma’s. He’s been away for six months and I hardly know him; but I like
him very much. He doesn’t know I’m going to meet him and I’m rather afraid I mayn’t recognize him. He’s not in the least like the rest of the family; he’s somebody quite out of the common.”

“What does he do?”

“He writes. I’ve read nearly all his books; but he hasn’t published anything for a long time.”

“Novels?”

“Yes; kind of novels.”

“Why have you never told me about them?”

“Because you’d have wanted to read them; and if you hadn’t liked them …”

“Well, finish your sentence.”

“Well, I should have hated it. There!”

“What makes you say that he’s out of the common?”

“I don’t exactly know. I told you I hardly know him. It’s more of a presentiment. I feel that he’s interested in all sorts of things that don’t interest my parents and that there’s nothing that one couldn’t talk to him about. One day—it was just before he went away—he had been to lunch with us; all the time he was talking to Papa I felt he kept looking at me and it began to make me uncomfortable; I was going to leave the room—it was the dining-room—where we had stayed on after coffee, but then he began to question Papa about me, which made me more uncomfortable than ever; and suddenly Papa got up and went to fetch some verses I had written and which I had been idiotic enough to show him.”

“Verses of yours?”

“Yes; you know—that poem you said you thought was like
Le Balcon
. I knew it wasn’t any good—or hardly any—and I was furious with Papa for bringing it out. For a minute or two, while Papa was fetching the poem, we were alone together, Uncle Edouard and I, and I felt myself blushing horribly. I couldn’t think of anything to
say to him. I looked away—so did he, for that matter; he began by rolling a cigarette and lighting it and then to put me at my ease, no doubt, for he certainly saw I was blushing, he got up and went and looked out of the window. He was whistling. Then he suddenly said, ‘I feel far more embarrassed than you do, you know.’ But I think it was just kindness. At last Papa came back again; he handed my verses to Uncle Edouard, and he began to read them. I was in such a state that I think if he had paid me compliments, I should have insulted him. Evidently Papa expected him to—pay me compliments—and as my uncle said nothing, he asked him what he thought of them. But Uncle Edouard answered him, laughing, ‘I can’t speak to him comfortably about them before you.’ Then Papa laughed too and went out. And when we were alone again, he said he thought my verses were very bad, but I liked hearing him say so; and what I liked still more was that suddenly he put his finger down on two lines—the only two I cared for in the whole thing; he looked at me and said, ‘That’s good!’ Wasn’t it nice? And if you only knew the tone in which he said it! I could have hugged him. Then he said my mistake was to start from an idea, and that I didn’t allow myself to be guided sufficiently by the words. I didn’t understand very well at first; but I think I see now what he meant—and that he was right. I’ll explain it to you another time.”

“I understand now why you want to go and meet him.”

“Oh, all that’s nothing and I don’t know why I’ve told you about it. We said a great deal more to one another.”

“At 11:30 did you say? How do you know he’s coming by that train?”

“Because he wrote and told Mamma on a post-card; and then I looked it up in the time-table.”

“Will you have lunch with him?”

“Oh, no. I must be back here by twelve. I shall just have time to shake hands with him. But that’s enough for me.… Oh, one thing more before I go to sleep. When shall I see you again?”

“Not for some days. Not before I’ve got something fixed up.”

“All the same … Couldn’t I help you somehow …?”

“You? Help me? No. It wouldn’t be fair play. I should feel as if I were cheating. Good-night.”

No, it was not to see his mistress that Vincent Molinier went out every evening. Quickly as he walks, let us follow him. He goes along the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, at the further end of which he lives, until he reaches the Rue Placide, which is its prolongation; then he turns down the Rue du Bac, where there are still a few belated passers-by. In the Rue de Babylone, he stops in front of a
porte-cochère
which swings open to let him in. The Comte de Passavant lives here. If Vincent were not in the habit of coming often, he would enter this sumptuous mansion with a less confident air. The footman who comes to the door knows well enough how much timidity this feigned assurance hides. Vincent, with a touch of affectation, instead of handing him his hat, tosses it onto an arm-chair.

It is only recently that Vincent has taken to coming here. Robert de Passavant, who now calls himself his friend, is the friend of a great many people. I am not very sure how he and Vincent became acquainted. At the
lycée
, I expect—though Robert de Passavant is perceptibly older than Vincent; they had lost sight of each other for several years and then, quite lately, had met
again one evening when, by some unusual chance, Olivier had gone with his brother to the theatre; during the
entr’acte
Passavant had invited them both to take an ice with him; he had learnt that Vincent had just finished his last medical examinations and was undecided as to whether he should take a place as house physician in a hospital; science attracted him more than medicine, but the necessity of earning his living … in short, Vincent accepted with pleasure the very remunerative offer Robert de Passavant had made him a little later of coming every evening, to attend his old father, who had lately undergone a very serious operation; it was a matter of bandages, of injections, of soundings—in fact, of whatever delicate services you please, which necessitate the ministrations of an expert hand.

But, added to this, the Vicomte had secret reasons for wishing a nearer acquaintance with Vincent; and Vincent had still others for consenting. Robert’s secret reason we shall try to discover later on. As for Vincent’s—it was this: he was urgently in need of money. When your heart is in the right place and a wholesome education has early instilled into you a sense of your responsibilities, you don’t get a woman with child, without feeling yourself more or less bound to her—especially when the woman has left her husband to follow you.

Up till then, Vincent had lived on the whole virtuously. His adventure with Laura appeared to him alternately, according to the moment of the day in which he thought of it, as either monstrous or perfectly natural. It very often suffices to add together a quantity of little facts which, taken separately, are very simple and very natural, to arrive at a sum which is monstrous. He said all this to himself over and over again as he walked along, but it didn’t get him out of his difficulties. No doubt, he had never thought of taking this woman permanently under his protection—of marrying her after a divorce, or of living with her without marrying; he was
obliged to confess to himself that he had no very violent passion for her; but he knew she was in Paris without means of subsistence; he was the cause of her distress; at the very least he owed her that first precarious aid which he felt himself less and less able to give her—less to-day than yesterday. For last week he still possessed the five thousand francs which his mother had patiently and laboriously saved to give him a start in his profession; those five thousand francs would have sufficed, no doubt, to pay for his mistress’s confinement, for her stay in a nursing home, for the child’s first necessaries. To what demon’s advice then had he listened? What demon had hinted to him one evening that this sum which he had as good as given to Laura, which he had laid by for her, pledged to her—that this sum would be insufficient? No, it was not Robert de Passavant; Robert had never said anything of the kind; but his proposal to take Vincent with him to a gambling club fell out precisely the same evening. And Vincent had accepted.

The hell in question was a particularly treacherous one, inasmuch as the habitués were all people in society and the whole thing took place on a friendly footing. Robert introduced his friend Vincent to one and another. Vincent, who was taken unawares, was not able to play high that first evening. He had hardly anything on him and refused the notes which the Vicomte offered to advance him. But as he began by winning, he regretted not being able to stake more and promised to go back the next night.

“Everybody knows you now; there’s no need for me to come with you again,” said Robert.

These meetings took place at Pierre de Brouville’s, commonly known as Pedro. After this first evening Robert de Passavant had put his car at his friend’s disposal. Vincent used to look in about eleven o’clock, smoke a cigarette with Robert, and after chatting for ten minutes or so, go upstairs. His stay there was more or less lengthy
according to the Count’s patience, temper or requirements; after this he drove in the car to Pedro’s in the Rue St. Florentin, whence about an hour later the car took him back—not actually to his own door, for he was afraid of attracting attention, but to the nearest corner.

The night before last, Laura Douviers, seated on the steps which led to the Moliniers’ flat, had waited for Vincent till three o’clock in the morning; it was not till then that he had come in. As a matter of fact, Vincent had not been at Pedro’s that night. Two days had gone by since he had lost every penny of the five thousand francs. He had informed Laura of this; he had written that he could do nothing more for her; that he advised her to go back to her husband or her father—to confess everything. But things had gone so far, that confession seemed impossible to Laura and she could not contemplate it with any sort of calm. Her lover’s objurgations merely aroused indignation in her—an indignation which only subsided to leave her a prey to despair. This was the state in which Vincent had found her. She had tried to keep him; he had torn himself from her grasp. Doubtless, he had to steel himself to do it, for he had a tender heart; but he was more of a pleasure-seeker than a lover and he had easily persuaded himself that duty itself demanded harshness. He had answered nothing to all her entreaties and lamentations, and as Olivier, who had heard them, told Bernard afterwards, when Vincent shut the door against her, she had sunk down on the steps and remained for a long time sobbing in the dark.