The Bachelors (13 page)

Mlle de Bauret had refused the cup of coffee her uncle had offered her. 'No thanks! I don't want to be poisoned,' she had said to herself, for she had failed to penetrate the secret of the house, which was that although everyone dressed in rags there was no cheeseparing over food or heating, contrary to what happens among the common run of humanity, who invariably cut down on food as soon as they are threatened with a shortage of money. The coffee that was offered to Mlle de Bauret was in fact excellent. Her eyes travelled from the grimy pellet of breadcrumbs, which M. de Coëtquidan was feverishly rolling between his fingers, to the old man's face, and she produced an exaggerated version of that scowl of contempt at which young ladies always excel. She longed for M. Élie to realize that she despised him; but he was miles away, and, moreover, even if he had noticed, he would have been glad: to be despised by someone we ourselves despise is like nectar to us, for it justifies us in our own eyes. Mlle de Bauret's glance now wandered towards the genealogical tree, painted on parchment, which hung on the wall (the duly authenticated line of descent of the Coëtquidans since the year 1431, with the appropriate coats of arms) and the fine oak sideboard on which were engraved side by side the arms of the Coëtquidans and those of the du Couësnons (Alme de Coantré's maternal family), and seeing these splendours cheek by jowl with the cheap painted 'Breton' plates, fixed to the wall as though they were expensive porcelain, the copper pots worthy of the flea-market, and the carved wooden bear bought in a Swiss emporium and lacking the smallest artistic merit, the girl thought to herself that even if she was paid a 'tidy' sum to live in this house she could not have done so.

What with the war and the premature death of her parents, Mlle de Bauret had had no upbringing at all. But our age is such that nobody noticed, unless, like the old cousin, who could trace her descent in direct line at least as far back as Hildebrand, they found a lack of breeding 'such fun, don't you know'. The stupidity of children is invariably and without exception the result of the stupidity of grown-ups. Mlle de Bauret had a taste for literature and the arts, but her literary knowledge only began with the end of the nineteenth century — in other words it was non-existent. She saw and judged the world through the pet theories of a few fashionable authors: for example, she honestly believed that every man had been in love with his mother as a child, and if someone confessed to her that he had been tempted to push a stranger under a tram, she would say to him: 'You've been reading too much Gide' — at which her companion would stare at her blankly, having never even heard of the author of
Les Nourritures Terrestres.
She proclaimed a cinema clown called Charlie Chaplin a genius. When she lapsed into a reverie, she called it an 'interior monologue'. When M. de Coantré told her that Uncle Octave was reluctant to face reality, she translated it into her jargon thus: 'He is taking refuge in escapism.' And so on. This infantilism of mind gave her, at the age of twenty-five, the same sort of silliness as a sixteen-year-old who enters the class of philosophy and discovers the human mind and soul through the manuals of M. Paulin Malapert. In politics, needless to say, Mlle de Bauret had progressive ideas.

Mlle de Bauret's real failing, which was partly the failing of her age and partly that of the period in which she lived, was that she regarded novelty as synonymous with value. This is a sure sign of barbarism: in any society, it is always the people with the lowest intelligence who long to be 'in the swim'. Incapable of assessing anything by their own taste, culture and discrimination, they automatically judge a problem in accordance with the principle that what is new is true.

Let us, however, concede one good point to Aille de Bauret: although she was a great intellectual, she did not spell her Christian name 'Symohne'.

Thus equipped, the poor girl was an obvious prey for the charlatans of the pen and the palette. She mixed in that world, and as she was popular there because of her rather credulous nature, she turned it to good account and earned from it what she called, in her frightful jargon, her 'bread and butter'. With the vile tendency towards parasitism peculiar to her generation, both male and female, during those years, she lived six months of the year with the rich cousin in Brittany, and six months in Paris with up-to-date friends, the sort of people M. de Coantré, for all his filth and rags and for all his good nature, would have hesitated to shake hands with. In partnership with a young caricaturist, she launched a new drawing-room doll which was fashionable in 1922. She acted as a go-between in the fake antique business. She decorated studios, and from the beginning of 1924 had started to look for flats for her friends on condition that she herself would decorate them 'if the deal went through'. The whole thing is so vile that one hasn't the stomach to go on with it. Suffice it to say that for the past two years she had made forty thousand francs a year out of these various deals, which after all was something for a girl who had
nothing
to
her name. Although heterosexual, she had not married, because she had nothing; and she had even preserved her virginity — though it was hardly worth preserving.

Mlle de Bauret's feelings towards 'Gog and Magog' corresponded to the feelings each of them bore towards her: animosity for M. de Coëtquidan, affection for M. de Coantré. Her relations with Uncle Élie were stiffly polite. With Uncle Léon she had established herself, when still quite small, on a footing of familiarity that was ever so slightly patronizing but which he found agreeable. Though he was terrified of boys, as we have seen, the genius of the race overcame his fears when it came to a little girl. He was fond of his niece, whom he called 'Pinpin'. He had been surprised to find her disinterested in connexion with the estate, oblivious of the fact that this girl, who cared nothing about the money she might receive when it came from the family, would have had the lawyers in action over five hundred francs which one of her 'clients' was disputing.

While the two men drank their coffee, M. de Coantré gave his niece the latest news about the estate. In the meantime M. de Coëtquidan kept his nose in his cup, refusing even to look at his great-niece, so much did she stir up his fury and bile. At length M. de Coantré led the girl into the drawing-room, where seven packing-cases or trunks were stacked together, and said triumphantly:

'And there are eleven more upstairs!'

'What!' cried Simone, pulling a long face. 'I'm going to feel the draught all right.'

'What do you mean?'

'The bill from the repository, of course! It's going to cost me three thousand a year.'

M. de Coantré was silent. Such cries from the heart, or rather from the purse, were not at all what he had expected. Mlle de Bauret went on:

'Thank you, dear Uncle. In giving me your share you have made, as the papers say, a splendid gesture. But why the devil didn't you wait until you saw me before packing it all up? I'm sure half the contents of every one of these cases is not worth keeping.'

(Mlle de Bauret's rudeness makes one shudder.)

'But I warned you. I wrote and told you that I was starting to pack.'

'Well, you see, I can't read long letters.'

(On reflection, one wonders whether Mlle de Bauret's rudeness makes anyone shudder; probably nobody notices she is being rude.)

'Naturally,' she went on, 'there's no question of undoing it all. You've gone to enormous trouble. . . .'

She also was going to enormous trouble, to be amiable — for she was under the impression that she was extremely amiable. The effort she was making completely altered her appearance.

She hoped Léon would say: 'But of course I can take everything out. It's no trouble.'

What he actually said was:

'I've made lists of all the main items in each case, with the number of the case opposite each item. So if you want anything you can find it at once.'

'Oh, but I have everything I need at Cousin Martha's.'

(Well, now, yes or no,
does
Mlle de Bauret's rudeness make one shudder?)

She looked at the cases, and was burning to say: 'I don't want to give you all that work. I shall bring along an odd-job man and we'll sort it all out.' But she could not; the thought of the poor man seeing all his handiwork turned upside down, when he had taken so much trouble, and was giving it all to her so generously... no, it was out of the question, she would sooner pay the three thousand francs. As for M. de Coantré, he sensed his niece's secret wish. But he felt that his complaisance had gone far enough. She could have the cases opened if she could bring herself to do so;
he
would have nothing more to do with them.

Eventually, with the speed of decision she showed in all 'practical' matters, she decided to put all the cases not in a repository but in a garage which she would hire for a month. She would go there with someone, sort the stuff out, and send three-quarters of this bric-à-brac to the saleroom. But what a lot of bother, which could so easily have been avoided if this old idiot had had a ha'p'orth of common sense!

They were standing in the hall, at the foot of the staircase, and she was getting ready to leave, when there descended from the first floor, raucous and violent, as though amplified by a megaphone, one of those noises men make with their mouths after a heavy meal. (The extreme fastidiousness of the postwar Frenchman prevents us from giving this noise its proper name.) Mlle de Bauret drew herself up and, in an undertone, flung at Uncle Élie by way of retaliation the name of a domestic animal, a name that is usually taken in bad part.

'It was for
you
that he did that, take my word for it,' said M. de Coantré. 'He has even worse habits, but not that particular one. Obviously he wanted to prove to you that in spite of your youth and elegance and money he is not in the least impressed and has no intention of putting himself out for you. Don't pay any attention; he's a pathetic creature. Come into the garden a minute, I have something to tell you. And if we stay here he'll start again. It will be a bombardment.'

When they were outside, seated on the iron chairs which were so rusty they might have spent a thousand years at the bottom of the sea, M. de Coantré said:

'My little Pinpin, I can't remember whether I told you that although I'm supposed to be keeping the furniture in my room for myself, I intended to give you my piano.'

'I don't know whether you told me, but pianos, you know, for me …'

'Good, I'm glad, because I'm afraid I must tell you I haven't any money left. I have two hundred francs to take me to the end of the month, when your Uncle Élie pays his rent. So I thought I might sell the piano. I'm sure I can get at least two hundred and fifty francs for it. Only, as I intended to give it to you, I wanted to ask your permission first, because if you would like to have the piano, I don't want to deprive you of it.'

'Do you think I play those contraptions? No, but really, can you imagine me doing my scales? As a matter of fact, if I were dictator my first edict would be: "Anyone found in possession of a piano, grand or upright, will be shot." So keep your contraption, and get as much money as you can out of it.'

'Ah! Pinpin, you're a good girl. Do you realize that you've just made me a present of two hundred and fifty francs? Because after all, you could have told me you played the piano, and accepted it simply in order to sell it…'

'Two hundred and fifty francs ... that means two hundred and forty-nine raspberry ices,' Mlle de Bauret said dreamily, and added after a pause, 'and one vanilla.'

'I realize you're making a big sacrifice,' her uncle said, half joking, half serious. He took her hand and squeezed it hard in the way people do when they want to show tbat this is a handshake full of meaning, having nothing in common with ordinary handshakes. He was astonished at the almost preternatural softness of this girlish hand, and wondered whether it would be proper to prolong this pleasure. But she withdrew her hand.

'Are you really as hard up as that?' she asked. 'How is it possible?'

He gave her a short summary of his financial situation.

'If you ever need anything ... You know I'm earning a bit of money now . . .'

M. de Coantré's eyes moistened.

'I would never have believed that I could reach the point of borrowing money from my niece,' he said. 'Anyhow, yes, I promise that if ever I find myself absolutely at the end of my tether — but only then — I shall turn to you .. .'

Concentric wrinkles formed round his mouth, and for a second or two his lips shrank inwards slightly, as happens with very very old people.

'It's hard, you know ...' he murmured.

She turned her head away, then got up, and they went towards the garden gate. He muttered to her:

'Take a look at your Uncle Élie's window without letting on...'

She looked, and saw the old man watching them from behind the half-closed blind. When she raised her eyes, he withdrew into the room.

'I should be delighted to escort you some of the way,' said the count, 'but dressed as I am,' he pointed to his clothes, which were shabby and full of holes, 'I would disgrace you.'

'What difference does it make!' she said with complete sincerity. And she picked a thread from his jacket. Ah, women!

'No, no...'

'But anyway, why are you in rags? You must admit you like it.'

'It's true,' he said, passing from emotion to cheerfulness like a child, 'it's true I feel more at ease in these old togs. When I'm wearing clean clothes I don't feel myself. ..'

'It would be a pity if you weren't yourself,' she said with veiled insolence, but laughingly and without malice.

'Do write to me, then,' her uncle said. 'Of course I don't ask you to write to an old fool like me for fun. But you might at least answer. Whatever I write to you about, even an important piece of information I need for Lebeau, you never answer.'

'I can't write letters. I happen to be made that way,' she replied with the same serious air she had shown earlier when she said: 'I can't read long letters.'