The Lemon Table (14 page)

The death of his wife had brought a small legacy. Mme Amélie proposed that it might be both a prudent and a civic gesture for him to invest it in the building of the baths. The municipality, in order to excite interest, had devised a scheme based upon an Italian idea. The sum to be raised was divided into forty equal lots; each of the subscribers was obliged to be over forty years of age. Interest would be paid at the rate of two and a half per cent per annum, and upon the death of an investor the interest accruing to his share would be divided among the remaining subscribers. Simple mathematics led to a simple temptation: the last surviving investor would, from the thirty-ninth death until his own, enjoy an annual interest equal to the full sum of his original stake. The loans would terminate upon the death of the final subscriber, when the capital would be returned to the nominated heirs of the forty investors.

When Mme Amélie first mentioned the scheme to her husband, he was doubtful. “You do not think, my dear, that it might awaken my father’s old passion?”

“It can scarcely be called gambling when there is no possibility of losing.”

“That is surely what all gamblers constantly claim.”

Delacour approved his daughter-in-law’s suggestion, and followed the progress of the subscription keenly. As each new investor came forward, he entered the man’s name in a pocketbook, adding his date of birth and general remarks upon his health, appearance and genealogy. When a landowner fifteen years his senior joined the scheme, Delacour was merrier than at any time since the death of his wife. After a few weeks, the list was filled, whereupon he wrote to the other thirty-nine subscribers suggesting that since they had all, as it were, enlisted in the same regiment, they might choose to distinguish themselves by some sartorial mark, such as a ribbon in the coat. He also proposed that they institute a supper to be held annually for subscribers—he had almost written “survivors.”

Few looked favourably on either proposal; some did not even reply; but Delacour continued to view his fellow subscribers as comrades-in-arms. If he met one in the street he would salute him warmly, enquire about his health, and exchange a few general words, perhaps about cholera. With his friend Lagrange, who had also subscribed, he would pass long hours at the Café Anglais, playing actuary with the lives of the other thirty-eight.

The municipal baths had not yet been declared open when the first investor died. Jean-Etienne, at supper with his family, proposed a toast to the over-optimistic and now lamented septuagenarian. Later, he took out his pocketbook and made an entry, with a date, then drew a long black line underneath.

Mme Amélie commented to her husband on the high spirits of her father-in-law, which seemed to her inappropriate.

“Death in general is his friend,” Charles replied. “It is only his own death that should be considered his enemy.”

Mme Amélie briefly wondered if this was a philosophical truth or an empty platitude. She had an amiable nature, and worried little about her husband’s actual opinions. She was more concerned about the manner in which he delivered them, which was increasingly beginning to resemble that of his father.

Along with a large engraved certificate of subscription, investors also received the right to use the baths gratis “for the full period of investment.” Few were expected to do so, since those wealthy enough to subscribe were certainly wealthy enough to own a bathtub. But Delacour took to invoking his right first on a weekly, then on a daily basis. Some regarded this as an abuse of the municipality’s benevolence, but Delacour was unswayed. His days now followed a fixed pattern. He would rise early, eat a single fruit, drink two glasses of water, and walk for three hours. Then he would visit the baths, where he soon became familiar with the attendants; as a subscriber, he was allowed a special towel reserved for his use. Afterwards, he would make his way to the Café Anglais, where he would discuss matters of the day with his friend Lagrange. Matters of the day, in Delacour’s mind, rarely amounted to more than two: any foreseeable diminution of the subscribers’ list, and the lax application of various laws by the municipality. Thus it had, in his opinion, insufficiently advertised the scale of reward for the destruction of wolves: 25 francs for a she-wolf in cub, 18 francs for a she-wolf not in cub, 12 for a male wolf, 6 for a cub, the amounts to be payable within a week following verification of the evidence.

Lagrange, whose mind was of a contemplative rather than a theoretical cast, considered this complaint. “And yet I do not know of anyone,” he commented mildly, “who has observed a wolf in the last eighteen months.”

“The more reason why the populace should be prompted to vigilance.”

Delacour next denounced the lack of stringency and frequency with which wine was tested for adulteration. By Article 38 of the law of 19th July 1791, still applicable, a fine of up to 1,000 francs, and imprisonment for a period of up to one year, might be imposed upon those who mixed litharge, fish glue, extract of Campeche wood, or other noxious substances, with the wine they sold.

“You drink only water,” Lagrange pointed out. He raised his own glass and peered at the wine within. “Besides, if our host were to embark on such practices, it might very happily reduce the list of subscribers.”

“I do not intend to win in such a fashion.”

Lagrange was disturbed by the harshness of his friend’s tone. “Win,” he repeated. “You can only win, if you call it winning, by my death.”

“That I shall regret,” said Delacour, evidently unable to conceive of an alternative outcome.

After the Café Anglais, Delacour would return home and read works on physiology and diet. Twenty minutes before supper he would cut himself a fresh slice of tree bark. While others ate their life-shortening concoctions, he would expatiate upon general threats to health and the lamentable impediments to human immortality.

These impediments gradually reduced the original list of forty subscribers. With each death, Delacour’s good cheer increased, and so did the strictness of his regimen. Exercise, diet, sleep; regularity, temperance, study. One work of physiology indicated, with veiled phrasing and a sudden burst of Latin, that a reliable mark of health in the human male was the frequency with which he engaged in sexual connection. Both total abstinence and excessive indulgence were potentially harmful, although not as harmful as certain practices associated with abstinence. But a moderate frequency—for example, exactly once per week—was deemed to be salutary.

Delacour, convinced of this practical necessity, rendered up excuses to his dead wife, and entered into an arrangement with a maid at the baths, whom he visited once a week. She was grateful for the money he left, and once he had discouraged displays of affection, he looked forward to their exchange. He decided that when the thirty-ninth subscriber died, he would give her a hundred francs, or perhaps a little less, in recognition of her life-prolonging services.

More investors died; Delacour entered their terminal dates in his pocketbook and smilingly toasted their departures. On one such evening Mme Amélie, after retiring, said to her husband, “What is the reason for living if it is only to outlive others?”

“Each of us must find his own reason,” Charles replied. “That is his.”

“But do you not find it strange that what seems to afford him most joy nowadays is the death of his fellow men? He takes no customary pleasure in life. His days are ordered as if in obedience to the strictest duty—and yet, duty to what, duty to whom?”

“The subscription was your proposal, my dear.”

“I did not foresee, when I proposed it, the effect it might have upon his character.”

“My father’s character,” replied Charles sternly, “is unchanged. He is an old man now, and a widower. Naturally his pleasures are diminished and his interests have altered somewhat. Yet he applies the same vigour of mind and the same logic to what interests him now as he did to what interested him before. His character has not changed,” Charles repeated, as if his father were being charged with senility.

André Lagrange, had he been asked, would have agreed with Mme Amélie. Once a voluptuary, Delacour had become an ascetic; once an advocate of toleration, Delacour had developed a severity towards other mortals. Seated at the Café Anglais, Lagrange listened to a peroration concerning the inadequate enforcement of the eighteen articles governing the cultivation of tobacco. Then there was a silence, a sip of water was taken, and Delacour continued, “Every man should have three lives. This is my third.”

Bachelorhood, marriage, widowerhood, Lagrange supposed. Or perhaps gambling, gourmandism, the tontine. But Lagrange had been contemplative for long enough to recognize that men were often provoked to universal statement by some everyday event whose significance was being exaggerated.

“And her name?” he asked.

“It is strange,” said Delacour, “how, as life proceeds, the dominant sentiments may change. When I was young I respected the priest, I honoured my family, I was full of ambition. As for the passions of the heart, I discovered, when I met the woman who was to become my wife, how a long prologue of love leads finally, with the sanction and approval of society, to those carnal delights which we hold so dear. Now that I have grown older, I am less persuaded that the priest can show us the best way to God, my family often exasperates me, and I have no ambition left.”

“That is because you have acquired a certain wealth and a certain philosophy.”

“No, it is more that I judge mind and character rather than social rank. The curé is a pleasant companion but a theological fool; my son is honest but tedious. Observe that I do not claim virtue for this change in my understanding. It is merely something that has happened to me.”

“And carnal delight?”

Delacour sighed and shook his head. “When I was a young man, in my army years, before meeting my late wife, I naturally accommodated myself with the sort of women who made themselves available. Nothing in those experiences of my youth advised me of the possibility that carnal delight might lead to feelings of love. I imagined—no, I was sure—that it was always the other way round.”

“And her name?”

“The swarming of bees,” replied Delacour. “As you know, the law is clear. So long as the owner follows his bees as they swarm, he has the right to reclaim and take possession of them again. But if he has failed to follow them, then the proprietor of the ground on which they alight has legal title to them. Or, take the case of rabbits. Those rabbits which pass from one warren to another become the property of the man on whose land the second warren is situated, unless this proprietor has enticed them thither by means of fraud or artifice. As with pigeons and doves. If they fly to common land, they belong to whomsoever may kill them. If they fly to another dovecote, they belong to the owner of that dovecote, provided again that he has not enticed them thither by fraud or artifice.”

“You have quite lost me.” Lagrange looked on benignly, familiar with such perambulations from his friend.

“I mean that we make such certainties as we can. But who can foresee when the bees might swarm? Who can foresee whither the dove might fly, or when the rabbit might tire of its warren?”

“And her name?”

“Jeanne. She is a maid at the baths.”

“Jeanne who is a maid at the baths?” Everyone knew Lagrange for a mild man. Now he stood up quickly, kicking his chair backwards. The noise reminded Delacour of his army days, of sudden challenges and broken furniture.

“You know her?”

“Jeanne who is a maid at the baths? Yes. And you must renounce her.”

Delacour did not understand. That is to say, he understood the words but not their motive or purpose. “Who can foresee whither the dove might fly?” he repeated, pleased with this formulation.

Lagrange was leaning over him, knuckles on the table, almost trembling, it seemed. Delacour had never seen his friend so serious, or so angry. “In the name of our friendship you must renounce her,” he repeated.

“You have not been listening.” Delacour leaned back in his chair, away from his friend’s face. “At the start it was simply a matter of hygiene. I insisted on the girl’s docility. I wanted no caresses in return—I discouraged them. I paid her little attention. And yet, in spite of all this, I have come to love her. Who can foresee—”

“I have been listening, and in the name of our friendship, I insist.”

Delacour considered the request. No, it was a demand, not a request. He was suddenly back at the card table, faced by an opponent who for no evident reason had raised his bid tenfold. At such moments, assessing the inexpressive fan in his opponent’s hands, Delacour had always relied on instinct, not calculation.

“No,” he replied quietly, as if laying down a small trump.

Lagrange left.

Delacour sipped his glass of water and calmly reviewed the possibilities. He reduced them to two: disapproval or jealousy. He ruled out disapproval: Lagrange had always been an observer of human behaviour, not a moralist who condemned its vagaries. So it must be jealousy. Of the girl herself, or of what she represented and proved: health, longevity, victory? Truly, the subscription was driving men to strange behaviour. It had made Lagrange over-excited, and he had gone off like a swarm of bees. Well, Delacour would not follow him. Let him land wherever he chose.

Delacour continued with his daily routine. He did not mention Lagrange’s defection to anyone, and constantly expected him to reappear at the café. He missed their discussions, or at least Lagrange’s attentive presence; but gradually he resigned himself to the loss. He began to visit Jeanne more frequently. She did not question this, and listened as he talked of legal matters she rarely understood. Having previously been warned against impertinent expressions of affection, she remained quiet and tractable, while not failing to notice that his caresses had become gentler. One day she informed him that she was with child.

“Twenty-five francs,” he replied automatically. She protested that she was not asking for money. He apologized—his mind had been elsewhere—and asked if she was confident the child was his. On hearing her assurance—or, more exactly, the tone of her assurance, which had none of the vehemence of mendacity—he offered to have the baby placed with a wet-nurse and to provide an allowance for it. He kept to himself the surprising love he had come to feel for Jeanne. To his mind, it was not really her affair; it concerned him, not her, and he also felt that were he to express what he felt, it might depart, or become complicated in a way that he did not desire. He let her understand that she could rely upon him; that was enough. Otherwise, he enjoyed his love as a private matter. It had been a mistake telling Lagrange; doubtless it would be a mistake telling anyone else.