The Dream of Scipio (18 page)

The times had strained even old friendships that would have endured easily had no pressure been exerted on them. The Great Depression had arrived, and with it had come hardship for many and worry for most. It had not greatly affected Julien; the modest fortune left to him by his father he had guarded with the utmost conservatism, and the residual provincialism that showed up in a profound suspicion of anything to do with high finance meant he had still had a comfortable addition to his salary every month to provide those luxuries that he now considered mere necessities.

Others had fared less well. Claude Bronsen’s business empire, he gathered from Julia, had been devastated; factories had closed, businesses dwindled, thousands he had employed had been dismissed forever. He was still rich, certainly, but not nearly as wealthy as when Julien first met him, and the reverses he had suffered galvanized him into a second youth. No sooner had a plant closed down in one place than he was laying plans to make the rest more efficient and profitable. Julien could imagine the fanaticism he brought to the task, for being more successful than others was part of his being, and he would labor at it until it was reestablished, no matter how difficult the bleak economic climate made his task.

“It’s like being an orphan,” Julia said in one of her letters. “I haven’t seen him for months. It is oddly liberating. And now that I know he’s coming back in a week or so I find myself apprehensive. I don’t know why; it’s not as if I will see him if he is in Paris any more than if he is in Milan. But I have decided to rent myself a little house by the sea for the summer. Somewhere in the Camargue, I think, where I will see no one, and be able to pretend there are no such people as fascists or communists, and no such things as depressions or gold standards, strikes or riots. I’d invite you, but I know you won’t come, and to be frank, I don’t want even you to disturb me. I have done no useful work for months and am dreadful company.”

Between Julien and Bernard there was an amity of relaxation; between Julien and Marcel, a friendship of interest. Both were loyal in their way; both believed fervently that the course they took was correct. Both Bernard the
résistant
and Marcel the collaborator were engaged—to borrow the lofty phrases of Manlius Hippomanes—in the business of salvation, and both were prepared to abandon humanity in order to achieve their aims. Both were, or became, accidental fanatics; circumstance brought out tendencies that otherwise would have remained hidden. That evening over the dinner that Julien had carefully crafted, from entrée to dessert, the first signs were there to be seen.

Bernard was amusing in a way that Marcel could not imitate, and did not wish to imitate. He was too serious; devoted to books and his religion. In place of skiing holidays, Marcel went, every year, to Lourdes, to help the sick and the poor and to bathe in a faith that was never shaken, and which Julien envied, remembering still the faint loss he felt when he was removed from his catechism lessons. He endured the sneers of Bernard with stoical fortitude as confirmation of his faith.

For Bernard was not only a freethinker, he was an ostentatious atheist, and took a perverse delight in insulting those with any religious sensibilities whatsoever. All were fools or cowards, often dangerously so, wedded to lost causes like the monarchy, believing in some lost idyll of order and rank that had never existed. A century and a half previously he would have sent people to the guillotine. A century and a half previously, Marcel would have been one of his victims.

Curiously, they were not dissimilar in appearance, although character obscured the resemblance so much that both would have been shocked at the idea that they looked alike. Both had fair hair, and both had green eyes. But, where Marcel cut his hair short and oiled and combed it so there was never a hair out of place, Bernard’s grew long, hanging just close enough to his collar to indicate a bohemian soul. Marcel’s eyes gazed steadily at whomever he was looking at, giving an impression of calm and consideration; Bernard’s never rested in one place for more than a few seconds. Even when studying Julia, he seemed to absorb her in fragments, while also examining the food, the way the waiter served, the diners at the other tables, all details Marcel scarcely noticed. But the greatest difference of all lay in their expressions: Marcel somber, always serious, often with a frown; Bernard always smiling, leaning forward into the conversation, managing to suggest fascination with whatever was being said.

Julien’s later dilemma could be seen in microcosm at that dinner, indeed Julia did see it; she was more perceptive because she saw with fresh eyes. She noted without commenting how Bernard interrupted the other two ceaselessly; interpreted Marcel’s seriousness and the frivolity of Bernard’s replies. And she saw how Julien took upon himself the role of pacifier, steering the conversation this way and that, trying to avoid the pitfall of open argument. It was a mistake to invite both of them to sit together; they could not help battling for his sympathy and her interest, even though both knew that Bernard would win, if victory there was to be.

In other circumstances, Julia would not have been so determinedly polite; she had not the patience. Rather she would have encouraged a brawl, or at least permitted it; it would have been good for Marcel, at least, to lose control of himself so utterly. She also noted that although Bernard was the more genial, he was the more ruthless, prepared to use his quickness to impose all manner of tiny humiliations to win his point. Marcel doggedly plodded on, severely and seriously arguing in a straight line. “But really, you must see what I am saying.”

Bernard did, of course; saw it long before Marcel did, but that was of no concern. He did not argue from principle; he argued to win. His delight was in tripping the slower one up, of demonstrating his superiority in countless little ways. Julia saw also what Julien did not, that there was the seed of true hatred there, deep buried, one expressed in the barely concealed contempt, the other in the detestation that the slow must develop when the quick strive to humiliate them. Perhaps Julien was right after all; it was only the thin crust of civility that kept these more dangerous emotions in check.

Because Marcel was polite, and because Julia was beautiful, he refrained from discoursing on the malign influence of Jews in France; he never got to the point where belief could overwhelm courtesy. Rather he talked about art, which served as a more civil cloak for the same thing. In Marcel, the conventionality of his tastes matched the orthodoxy of his religion and the conservatism of his politics. Julia, and people like her, infuriated him.

“It is not a question of
understanding
,” he said at one stage during the dinner. “I am talking about responsibility. People like you have turned away from responsibility. Instead, you suit yourself.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Julia said.

“Artists should be servants. That is their glory. Either of kings or priests. You have broken that association and exist only for yourself. What was it that man said? Can’t remember which one. He painted some pictures in a church and the priest thanked him and said God would be pleased with such a gift. And he snorted and said, ‘Who cares about God? I’ve pleased myself.’ You are unrooted and egotistical, and you call it the search for beauty.”

No one at the table needed the meaning of the statement explained. Everyone knew what “unrooted” meant.

“I call it nothing of the sort,” Julia replied, not even considering getting angry, so foolish was the attack, dismissing the implications as not worth contesting. “I do not think I can please God—if there is one—if I do not satisfy myself. Am I supposed to give things which aren’t even good enough for me? I paint. Some think quite well, others think badly.”

“Why?”

“Because it pleases me. And it provides me with a small income which keeps me from feeling totally dependent on my father.”

“You might as well be a typist, then.”

“That wouldn’t please me.”

And here Bernard broke in. “She is misleading you, dear Marcel. Telling you lies to put you off the hunt. She is not saying why it pleases her.”

“It pleases me because when I am working well I am aware of nothing. Because when I have done something good I know it is good, and no one else’s opinion is of any consequence. And occasionally, not often, I do manage to do something good. What is more, I know I can do better. So I keep on trying.”

“What do you mean by ‘good’?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said impatiently. “Has anyone ever managed to say what it is? A catching of some idea. Reflecting it, pinning it down.”

“But it is rubbish, what you do. No technique, no skill. Just self-indulgent daubs on canvas. And the less people understand it, the happier you are. And you’re mistaken. I think people understand it all too well. That’s why they don’t buy it.”

Even his expression seemed stupid, for Marcel’s tendency to frown as he spoke gave the impression that thinking was an effort for him. It was a mistake; many people underestimated him, as Julien told her later. In both intelligence and determination he was a good match for Bernard.

“And you?” she asked.

“I don’t compete with either of them,” Julien said. But with a little smile that gave another answer. He did not feel he needed to.

“Personally, I’ve always found that the less people are interested in art, the stronger are their opinions about it,” said Bernard smoothly. “In my case, I would like actually to see some of your work before I pass judgment. If, that is, you won’t mind me denouncing you as a self-indulgent fraud the moment I clap eyes on the ridiculous rubbish you try to foist on the public.”

Julia laughed; Bernard had sapped the implicit violence from the conversation and forced Marcel into awareness of his offensiveness. He had not the slightest intention of looking at her pictures; it was something in which he had absolutely no interest. He was curious about her, mainly because he picked up Julien’s fascination and would have tried to capture her for himself had he suspected for a moment it was possible. But even he— generally insensitive on such matters—could grasp that there was something perfectly untouchable about her. And Julien realized he had been outwitted—he should have intervened, not Bernard.

“I am always happy to show anyone who is interested,” she said.

“Splendid. Next week, perhaps. Now, if you don’t mind, I will finish the story of my extraordinary skill on the ski slopes.”

After the meal, Julien walked her home. “I’m sorry about all that,” he said. “My mistake. I imagined a jolly dinner with everybody getting on tremendously well. I hope at least you don’t take Marcel seriously.”

They were crossing the Seine and paused to look along the dark cavern of the river to where the towers of the Conciergerie could be seen against the lights of the city. “I’m used to people like him. And I don’t suppose he will ever do me any harm. If you disagree with him about the way I am sapping the vitality of the French race, you could always say so, you know.”

He snorted. “I have. But it’s a complete waste of time; he will rabbit on about discipline and order. I sometimes think he should have gone to Rome, not me. Then he could have seen the new society in the making. He would have had a lovely time singing the praises of Mussolini. Although I don’t think he could ever bring himself to march around in a black shirt. He would find it too ostentatious. Besides, his abstract beliefs have never to my knowledge got in the way of perfect kindness when dealing with individuals. He is a good man. It may surprise you to hear it now you’ve spent an evening in his company, but he is.”

“And Bernard isn’t?”

He thought about it; she had picked up a parallel he had never bothered to consider. “No. He isn’t. He has many fine qualities—he’s intelligent, funny, dynamic, capable of good advice if he doesn’t have a personal stake in the outcome. But he is not a kind man. He has no time for people, and doesn’t understand them. He loves the working class, but the workers revolt him. Marcel, in contrast, likes the workers but loathes the working class.”

“And these are your friends?”

“I’m afraid so. If I confined myself to friends who were perfect I’d only be left with you.”

She gave him a push. “Stupid thing to say,” she said, and began walking once more.

“I mean it,” he said, catching up with her and walking alongside her, close but not touching. “I put up with their imperfections, and they put up with mine.”

“And what are yours?”

“Mine? Oh, dear, where can I start? Pride, excessive caution, unwillingness to take risks, a general disdain for humanity masquerading as humanism. An inability to love what can be loved, and a fascination with what cannot be.”

He stopped, and she laughed. “You’re letting yourself off very lightly this evening, if that’s all you can come up with.”

“I know you could do better. That’s the trouble.” He paused, sensing the atmosphere, and retreated once more. “Anyway, all three of us have many faults. Unfortunately they cannot manage to tolerate each other in the same way that they put up with me. It was a mistake to have invited them both. I should have just gone out with you.”

“Why?”

He completed his withdrawal. “It would have been cheaper. Did you see how much both of them ate?”

 
 
 
 
FOR FELIX, the elevation of Manlius was an attack on his family. Moreover, he knew perfectly well that the election—presented here in mimicry of the bishop’s own version—was only partially true. While a holy man might be pressed to become a cleric by a grateful village or rustic town converted through his influence, or under the impact of a miracle wrought before their very eyes, a town as old and as sophisticated as Vaison was not to be overwhelmed in such a fashion.

Manlius and his family had undoubtedly worked hard at securing the position, setting up contacts long before the previous bishop had died, dropping hints about his availability, laying out policies to be pursued should the prize become his. What he had offered was unclear. His wealth was certainly a factor. His estates were large enough to build the walls and man them should the need arise, and few doubted that soon it would. His granaries could feed all the poor and still have enough left over for others. His influence across Gaul and into Italy might be of use if help was needed—although whether anyone had any help to give was a matter for debate.