The Thibaults (39 page)

What could this be:
Fruits of the Earth?
He visited a series of booksellers that evening, only to find that they knew nothing of the book. Would “the man in the train” keep his secret to himself? A
harrowing existence
, Daniel repeated to himself,
rather than tranquillity
. Next morning he hastened to examine all the catalogues available in the arcades of the Odeon and, a few hours later, shut himself up in his room with his new acquisition.

The whole afternoon went to its perusal and he read it at one sitting. He left the house at nightfall. Never had his mind been in such ferment, uplifted by such splendid visions. He walked on and on, taking long strides—a conqueror’s progress. Night came on. He had been following the bank of the Seine and was very far from home. He dined off a roll and returned; the book lay on his table, awaiting him. Should he, or should he not …? Daniel dared not open it again. Finally he went to bed, but not to sleep. At last he capitulated and, wrapping a dressing-gown around him, slowly read the book once more, from beginning to end. He well knew that this was a momentous hour for him, that at the deepest levels of his consciousness a slow, mysterious process of gestation was at work. When with the dawn he turned, for the second time, the final page, he found that now he looked on life with new eyes.

“I have boldly laid my hands everywhere, and believed I had a right to every object of my desire… .

“Desires are profitable, and profitable the surfeiting of desires—for so they are increased.”

He realized how in a flash the burden that his upbringing had laid on him—the obsession of moral standards—had been lifted; the word “sin” had changed its meaning.

“We must act without considering whether the action is right or wrong; love, without troubling whether what we love is good or evil.”

Feelings to which hitherto he had yielded grudgingly, if at all, suddenly broke free and beckoned him on; in the brief period of a night the scale of moral values which from his earliest days had seemed immutable went up in flames. Next day he felt a man baptized anew. As, stage by stage, he repudiated everything he had hitherto held true beyond all question, a miracle of peace allayed the forces that, until now, had grappled with his soul.

Daniel spoke of his great discovery to none but Jacques, and to Jacques only after a long while. It was one of the bosom secrets of the friends; they diought of it as all but a religious mystery and alluded to it only in veiled terms. Nevertheless, for all Daniel’s zealotry, Jacques obstinately refused to be inoculated with his friend’s cult. And, in refusing to quench his thirst at this too heady spring, he saw himself making a stand against his instincts and gaining thus in strength and personal integrity. But he well knew the book gave

Daniel the
regime
, the “fruits of the earth,” that suited him, and Jacques’s resistance was accompanied by feelings of envy and despair.

“So you look on Ludwigson as one of nature’s freaks, eh?” Battaincourt was saying.

“Ludwigson, my dear Batt—” Daniel began explaining.

Jacques shrugged his shoulders and fell back behind his friends. The Ludwigson of whom they spoke—Daniel had just come back from a short stay at his place—had earned the reputation in the various centres where he had established himself of being one of the “smoothest” art-dealers in Europe, and had been for some time past a bone of contention between Jacques and his friend. Jacques could never stomach the notion that Daniel should, directly or indirectly—even to earn his living—take part in the schemes promoted by this dealer. But no one, not even Jacques, could ever boast of having dissuaded Daniel from any venture on which his heart was set. In the case of Ludwigson, the man’s intelligence and tireless activity (carried to a pitch that made insomnia a habit with him), the contempt for luxury and, up to a point, of money, too, evinced by this merchant-prince who found his life’s interest in adventuring and winning, the efficiency of this big business-man whose career evoked the picture of a fiery brand, shaken by the wind, smoky yet dazzling, too—everything about the man seemed wildly interesting to Daniel. In fact it was curiosity more than necessity that led him to agree to work for this modern buccaneer.

Jacques remembered the day when Daniel first confronted Ludwigson; two races, two cultures, met face to face. He had chanced to drop in at the studio which Daniel was sharing with some friends as impecunious as himself. Ludwigson entered without knocking, and countered Daniel’s indignant outburst with a smile; then brusquely, without making himself known or taking a chair, he drew a wallet from his pocket, with the gesture of a high-comedy actor tossing his purse to an underling, and offered “the gentleman present whose name is Fontanin” a salary of six hundred francs a month as from that day, for the next three years, provided that he, Ludwigson, proprietor of the Ludwigson Art Gallery and manager of Messrs. Ludwigson & Co., Art-Dealers, should have sole rights in all the works of art produced by M. Fontanin during this period, the said works to be signed in the artist’s hand and dated. Daniel, least industrious of artists, who had never exhibited or sold a single sketch, had never understood how Ludwigson had come to form so flattering an opinion of his talents as to justify the offer. In any case he was resolved to be sole arbiter of his output and well aware that, had he closed with the offer, he would have taken Ludwigson’s money only on furnishing month by month a sufficiency of pictures, ample to cover the salary proposed. But it was one of his pet theories that work should be performed joyfully, without constraint. So, to the stupefaction of his fellow-artists, he had shown Ludwigson the door with icy politeness, and, giving him no time to collect his wits, had made the dealer beat a retreat onto the landing as quickly as he had come.

But that was not the end of it. Ludwigson returned to the attack, but with more tactful strategy, and some months later a business connexion had been established between’ the dealer and Daniel-somewhat to the latter’s amusement. Ludwigson was the editor of a sumptuous art magazine appearing in three languages; he asked Daniel to select the French articles for publication. The young man’s character had pleased him from the start and he was impressed by the excellence of Daniel’s taste. The work was far froip boring and Daniel devoted his spare time to it. Very soon he had complete charge of the French section of the magazine. Ludwigson, always lavish in his personal expenditures, made a point of engaging few but carefully selected associates, giving them a free hand, and paying for their work on a generous scale. Daniel, though he had laid no claim to it, was soon being paid the same salary as the English and German collaborators. As he had to earn his living, he preferred an avocation wholly independent of his artistic career. Moreover, some of his drawings (Ludwigson arranged a private show for him) had already made good with certain connoisseurs. The advantages he derived from his association with the picture-dealer enabled him not only to contribute to the welfare of his mother and sister, but to lead the easy life he liked, without being tied down to any rigid task or encroaching on the hours of freedom essential to his true calling.

Jacques caught up his friends at the Boulevard Saint-Germain crossing.

“… the priceless experience,” Daniel was saying, “of being introduced to the dowager Mme. Ludwigson.”

“Why, I never dreamt that Ludwigson of yours had ever had a mother!” Jacques observed, by way of joining in the conversation.

“Nor did I,” Daniel concurred. “And what a mother! Try and imagine—no, only a sketch would do her justice. I’ve done several, but not from life, worse luck! Imagine a mummy tricked out by some clown to do a circus turn. An old Egyptian Jew, at least a hundred years old, bloated with gout and natural fat, reeking of fried onions, who wears mittens, has pet names for her footmen, calls her son
bambino
, lives on bread soused in red wine, and passes the unwary visitor a tobacco-jar-“

“So the old lady fancies a pipe?” Battaincourt broke in.

“No, it contains—snuff! The old creature’s always dribbling black powder on the mass of diamonds with which Ludwigson’s thought fit—why, God alone knows—to plaster her dewlaps.” A quaint analogy struck him and he paused to find words for it. “Like the lanterns they post round a house that’s being pulled down.”

Jacques grinned; he was always taken by Daniel’s flow of spirits.

“And what did he want to get out of you when he revealed the skeleton in his cupboard?”

“You’ve guessed it! He has a new scheme up his sleeve. Wonderful chap he is!”

“Wonderful, yes; because he’s so damned rich. If he were poor he’d be no better than a——”

Daniel cut him short.

“Leave it at that, if you don’t mind. I like him. And he’s hit on a sound idea: a series of monographs,
Great Masters in Their Paintings
. That’s his long suit: lavishly illustrated handbooks at astounding prices.”

Jacques listened no longer; he felt peevish, out of spirits. Over-tired, perhaps, after the day’s emotions. Or was it vexation at having been let in for this evening’s jaunt, when he so longed for solitude? Or just the chafing of the collar on his neck?

Battaincourt slipped between the two friends. He was waiting for a chance of asking them to act as witnesses at his wedding. For months past, by night and by day, that event had loomed large in his thoughts and under the fever of his desire his bloodless features were visibly wasting away. Now, at last, he had not long to wait. The period set by law to the parental veto had just run out and, that very morning, the date of his wedding had been fixed. In two weeks’ time … The thought of it brought the blood to his cheeks; he turned away to hide his blush, took off his hat, and mopped his forehead.

“Don’t move!” cried Daniel. “It’s fantastic how, in profile, you’re the living image of a deer—
d
, double
e, r,
 of course!” And indeed Battaincourt had a long nose which almost joined his lip, arched nostrils, round eyes, and, just then, a wisp of towy hair, matted with sweat, that curled up into a little tapering horn above his forehead.

Battaincourt replaced his hat mournfully and let his eyes roam across the Place du Carrousel and Trajan’s Arch towards the Tuileries Gardens, where the dust glowed red.

Poor little belling deer, Daniel mused. Who’d have believed him capable of such a passion? There he goes, a traitor to all his principles, quarrelling with his people, and all for that woman! A widow, fourteen years his senior, a shop-soiled widow—attractive, I grant, but shop-soiled. He smiled inwardly, remembering the afternoon last autumn when Simon had badgered him into meeting the fascinating widow—and the sequel of their meeting, a week later… . Well, anyhow, he could honestly say he had done his utmost to restrain Battaincourt from that act of folly. But he was at grips with blind instinct and, since he deferred to passion wherever he encountered it, he had confined himself to steering clear of the lady in question and watching the developments of his friend’s matrimonial venture from a safe distance. ,

“For a conquering hero you look pretty glum,” observed Battaincourt, who, aggrieved by Daniel’s mockery, hoped for amends from Jacques.

“Don’t you realize that he wanted to fail?” Daniel suggested. He was surprised by the pensive look in Jacques’s eyes and, approaching him, laid his hand on his shoulder, murmuring with a smile: “… ‘for each thing has a special and a different value.’ ”

The words sufficed to bring back the whole passage—Daniel used often to repeat it—to Jacques’s mind:

“Woe betide you if you say your happiness is dead because you had not dreamt it would take that shape! … Your dream of tomorrow is a delight—but tomorrow has a delight of its own—and nothing, fortunately, is like the dream we have dreamt of it, for each thing has a special and a different value.”

Jacques smiled.

“Give me a cigarette.”

He tried to shake off his lethargy, for Daniel’s sake.
Your dream of tomorrow is a delight
… . And indeed he seemed to feel delight, as yet evasive, hovering round him. Tomorrow? Ah, to awake and see, across his open window, the sun rise level with the tree-tops! Tomorrow: Maisons-Laffitte, and the cool shadows of the woods!

NOTHING in the sleepy street near the Paris Opera, nothing except a file of cars drawn up along the kerb called the attention of passers-by to an anonymous cabaret with close-drawn blinds. A page swung round the revolving-doors to let them through and Daniel made way for Jacques and Battaincourt to pass, as though he were receiving them at his own house.

Some discreet exclamations greeted Daniel’s arrival. Few of the patrons of the place knew his real name; to everyone he was the “Prophet.” Just now the cabaret was rather empty. Behind the bar, in the alcove whence a slender spiral staircase, painted white and edged with gold to match the panelling of the room, led up to Mme. Packmell’s quarters on the next floor, a piano, violin, and ‘cello were playing the hits of the season. The tables had been pushed back against the grey plush settles that flanked the walls and a few couples were dancing a boston on the purple carpet under the last gleams of the sunset filtering through the lace curtains. Close under the ceiling fan-blades droned monotonously, fluttering the pendants of the chandeliers, green foliage of palms, and lifting trailing clouds of muslin about the dancing couples.

Jacques, always swept off his feet by a first glimpse of new surroundings, meekly followed Daniel to a table from which the two rooms could be observed in vista. A group of girls in the further room had pounced on Battaincourt and he had already begun to dance.

“You always need screwing up to the point,” Daniel said. “Now that you are here, I’m sure you’ll like it. Now, own up, isn’t it a homy, cheery little dive?”

“Order a cocktail for me,” Jacques broke in on his encomium. “You know the sort—with milk, red-currant juice, and lemon-peel in it.”

Young women in white dresses served the customers; they were known as the “nurses.”

“Shall I give you a little ‘Who’s Who’ of some of these people?” Daniel asked, changing his seat and coming to sit by Jacques. “That fair woman over there, in blue, to begin with—she’s the boss. ‘Mother Packmell,’ we call her, though, as you see, she’s still quite a fetching wench! She’s here, there, and everywhere all night long, with the same old smile on her face, amongst her bright young things—rather like a fashionable dressmaker showing off her mannequins. See that dark chap over there who’s saying ‘How do you do?’ to her? Now he’s talking to a pale little kid, the girl who was dancing with Battaincourt just now—no, nearer us; that’s Paule, the fair young girl who looks like an angel—a slightly, ever so slightly tarnished angel. Look, what’s that queer-looking dope she’s swilling now? Might be green curafao. The chap who’s standing, talking to her, is Nivolsky, the painter, quite a fine fellow in his way; a knave and a liar, but for all that chivalrous as a knight of old! Whenever he turns up late for an appointment he says he’s just been fighting a duel, and, for the moment, genuinely believes it. He borrows money right and left and is always broke, but he has talent; he pays his bills with pictures. This is his system, in a nutshell: he spends the summer in the country and paints a strip of road on a canvas fifty yards long—complete with trees, farm-carts, cyclists, a sunset and so on; then, in the winter he retails his road in driblets proportioned to the money owed and his creditor’s standing. He says he’s Russian and owner of heaven knows how many ‘souls.’ So, you see, during the Russo-Japanese war, everyone was pulling his leg for staying in Montmartre and indulging in tap-room patriotism. Know what he did? He cleared out, vanished for a year, and returned only after the fall of Port Arthur, bringing with him a sheaf of war-photos; his pockets bulged with them. ‘Just observe, old man,’ he’d say, ‘this battery in action. Do you see that big rock at the back? And just behind the rock the business end of a rifle? Well, old man, I was behind that rifle.’ The trouble was that he brought back several crates of sketches, too, and during the next two years he always paid his debts with landscapes of Sicily. Hallo! He’s caught on that I’m talking about him; he’s flattered. Watch, and you’ll see him go through his paces!”