The Bachelors (20 page)

The sense of vast social injustice lent a note of pathos to the baron's words. In her gentle voice Mme Emilie observed:

'Yes, but you forget that Léon is not like everyone else.'

Time and again M. Octave had said that Léon was a halfwit. But his passion for contradicting his sister made him retort:

'Léon de Coantré is no more stupid than the rest of us. I don't know how he got that reputation. He's like all people of good family.'

There was a silence, broken at last by Mme Émilie.

'Ah! my poor Octave!' she concluded, as though it was M. Octave who was ready for the doss-house.

On 15 September M. Élie received a letter from his brother postmarked Fréville. This was the country house — some would have called it a château — which the baron had bought near Le Havre when, to the scandalized amazement of the family, his 'modernism' had made him sell the ancestral home on the death of old Coëtquidan. This letter had a distinct flavour of absurdity, having been typed by the baron himself, who liked to play with a typewriter — which he even took with him to the country — as his brother played with his cane, his stamps, etc. Only the concluding words, 'Your affectionate brother', and the signature were in handwriting. The whole thing was imitation American, which is to say that it was typical of present-day France, since for quite some time now the national genius has largely consisted in copying.

M. Octave informed his brother that he had gone to Fréville and would be back at the beginning of October. Both our heroes, though they said nothing, found this behaviour rather off-hand. At the approach of this historic day, 15 October, which was to alter their fate, they would have preferred to have M. Octave nearer at hand. However, they did not lose heart. Léon had another cause for anxiety, which was that his uncle showed no sign of preparing for the move. Several times he sounded him on the subject, but the old man answered, 'There's plenty of time,' or 'I've begun.' He had not begun at all, as Léon ascertained in the course of some thorough investigations in his uncle's room while he was out, investigations that never came to an end, now that he had given up buying cigarettes, without his stealing a few good pinches of tobacco from the game-bag.

On 2 October, M. Élie received another typescript from the baron, announcing quite simply that he felt 'a bit off-colour' and wouldn't be back until the beginning of November. He would meet them on the 2nd at his sister's grave. 'Have you found yourself a boarding-house? I hope to find you settled in when I get back.'

'He can go to blazes,' thought M. Élie. But he was on velvet. On the 15th, he would move into a hotel and send the bill to Octave when he arrived back. At the slightest demur, he would produce the Léa Meyer bogy. As for Léon, he was utterly crushed. Where was he to go between 15 October and 2. November? Why had M. Octave written to his brother and not to him? How selfish of him to go off like this, leaving them to shift for themselves! What a give-away it was! Perhaps he ought not to rely on Uncle Octave any more? He felt his heart beating, he gulped for air, and, suddenly aware of all his inner anguish, he realized what it must be like to fall ill from such a blow, what it must be like to die of it.

Next day — M. Octave, always sensitive to shades of distinction, had been anxious to underline the order of precedence — Léon received the same letter with slight variations: 'Have you found a job at last? What are you going to do on the 15th? Keep in touch.'

That morning Léon felt a tiny pain, something like the bite of an invisible insect, in his eye-lids and round about his eyes, the sort of pain that for days had never left him during the worst moments of the Lebeau affair. Another thing tormented him. Ten days before the date of departure, M. Élie had still not even begun to sort out the contents of his room. And Léon felt again the fear he had had when he first announced that they would have to leave Arago: the fear that M. Élie would quite simply refuse, saying 'I'm not going. So there!' This fear was all the greater because, when he asked him about his plans with his usual tact and deference, M. Élie remained vague. For a long time Léon hesitated to speak more firmly to his uncle. He had none of the determination which his mother sometimes showed as when, for example, driven to extremes in spite of her sweet temper, she seized Élie's squalid old straw hat which for years he had refused to replace, flung it on the ground and put her heel through it. 'There, now you'll have to buy a new one!' Finally Léon took it on himself to offer help M. Élie to pack, conjuring up a hair-raising picture of the old man's belongings being thrown out of the window on the morning of the 15th. He expected a refusal, and could have fallen on M. de Coëtquidan's neck when he accepted. It must be said, however, that the old man had been waiting for such an offer — partly out of laziness, partly because no one was as clumsy with his hands as he was, and partly because he was glad to see his nephew doing a menial job on his behalf.

Léon certainly needed to roll up his sleeves! The whole room was in an appalling state. The charwoman had orders to touch nothing in it, because if the slightest thing was moved, and he could not find it at once, M. de Coëtquidan flew into a rage. The result of this was that there was so much dust that the old man's handkerchief was always black and his sticky black hands left marks on everything he touched. Here and there on the floor the dust had formed into bits of fluff, which danced around whenever the door was opened, much to M. Élie's amusement. Cheap fag-ends and little piles of cigarette ash lay scattered about all over the place — the disgusting traces which the male leaves behind him. The sheets, too, were full of cigarette burns. Anywhere else but at home, M. de Coëtquidan would have preferred to sleep on the naked floor rather than lay his head on a pillow-case as greasy as his own — which was greasy to the point of transparency. But if he ever happened to be struck by the smell of his own filth, he adored it because it was something that belonged to him. Even in the height of summer, the window was never open for more than an hour or two, because 'open windows are an American fad' (an allusion to M. Octave, who, on principle, lived in a perpetual draught), so that the sickly smell of eau-de-Cologne and glycerine pervaded the whole of his part of the house.

M. Élie pleaded rheumatic pains as an excuse for not helping Léon, who spent three days sorting out his uncle's belongings and packing them in four trunks.

M. Élie sat in his armchair handing out instructions. 'I say, if you've nothing better to do, you might amuse yourself by giving these togs a going over with.. ..'

'Amuse yourself' was a gem, for the job consisted in spraying the 'togs' with an anti-moth solution, an hour and a half's work, plus an hour for brushing them. They were clothes which the old man could no longer wear, not because he thought they were too soiled but because he had developed a paunch since the Armistice(no more rationing!). Two or three tailors had refused to make the prodigious alterations M. Élie demanded, but he could not make up his mind either to sell the clothes at the ridiculous price he would have been offered for them or to give them away, because it broke his heart to give. Overflowing from the crowded wardrobe, they lay piled several feet high on chairs, awaiting the Day of Judgement, covered with a white layer of dust against which the moth-stains showed whiter still. While Léon toiled away, M. Élie from time to time made as if to lend a hand, but immediately gripped his back with a groan of pain. When the old man's room had been transformed into a miraculous void occupied solely by trunks and furniture, Léon turned to him beaming and said, 'Thank you, uncle, for lending yourself to this irksome job with such good grace. And thank you especially for letting me rummage like that among your belongings. You have shown a trust in me that I deeply appreciate. You know, I may not appear to be very demonstrative, but I
feel things.
. . .' And M. de Coantré sincerely meant all this.

He also offered to find lodgings for his uncle, and went round the neighbouring boarding-houses asking prices. M. Élie threw the cards he brought back into the waste-paper basket, and finally told him that his brother and sister had promised to look after him. He intended to go to a hotel until their return. This was also Léon's intention. But when Léon noticed by chance a placard advertising a double furnished room with a loft, they decided to save money by moving in there until the baron settled their future.

Two days before the move a scene took place which, though irrelevant to our narrative, is enjoyable to relate.

Characteristically, M. de Coantré had made it a point of honour to hand over the property in a state of perfect cleanliness. Two days before their departure he was still raking and weeding when, through the garden gate giving on to the boulevard, there entered an old lady of distinguished appearance, who came up to him and asked:

'Is Count de Coantré at home?'

'No, madame, he is out of Paris at present,' said Léon. It was not the first time that, dressed as he was, a visitor had taken him for the gardener or an odd-job man, and it amused him enormously.

'Oh, how annoying!' said the old lady in a high, fluting voice and an accent that was too good to be true — a voice and accent which alone would have betrayed her as a member of the highest society.

She asked when M. de Coantré would be back. But now she was scrutinizing Léon with a black and beady eye. He thought he had been spotted, and, in his good-natured way, could not help smiling. At which she said:

'But. . . but. . . surely it's . . .'

'Yes, madame, I am Léon de Coantré. But you see what I'm doing, and the clothes I'm wearing. That is why my first impulse. . .'

'I recognized you by your eyes! You have the eyes of the Coantrés!' cried the old lady in a voice like a fog-horn (for the true society woman is a creature of extremes: either she emits the most tenuous whispers, or she utters the most excruciating bellows). 'I am the Marquise de Vauthiers-Béthancourt, an old friend of your dear mama. Probably you do not know me; I live almost all the time in my little cottage in Sologne (it was in fact a magnificent historical château). And yet, the times I've been to see your dear mama here! (She had been once, fifteen years before.) And I also knew your dear papa — such a charming man. .. .'

Léon, having established that it was indeed him that Mme de Vauthiers wanted to see, offered the old lady one of the rusty garden chairs, and sat down beside her, his blue apron only half concealing his old, patched corduroys and his feet scarcely touching the ground, so stubby was he.

'Yes,' said Mme de Vauthiers, 'it was you I was after. I am Vice-President of the Royalist Ladies of the nth
arrondissement.
We decided we ought to get our men to rally round, and I thought of you, remembering that your dear papa was a staunch supporter of the White Carnation. And as I had to come to this neighbourhood today .. . But now I'm afraid I may have been mistaken. You must find society repellent.'

With the utmost simplicity, Léon gave her an outline of his tastes and of the life he had led for the past twenty years. He put all the delicacy at his command into saying 'After the war, Mama didn't have a sou,' returning to it again and again. Mme de Vauthier's mind was wandering a thousand miles away, but her face expressed a passionate interest and attention, as though it were her own son describing the life he had led during a long absence. Her black eyes were aflame, and when Léon had finished, she cried out in a voice so piercing and loud that people driving past along the boulevard must have heard every word:

'Ah, my dear sir. you have chosen the better part. A simple, healthy life, far away from the cares of our accursed civilization, amid natural surroundings and family affections. What a perfect place for a rest-cure! Such a charming house! And so tastefully adorned!' She eyed three drooping ivy plants. 'One might be a hundred miles from Paris. I've always longed to have a real country house in the middle of Paris, but this dog's life of mine has decided otherwise. I have to live in that frightful boulevard Latour-Maubourg.' ('Dog's life' was not bad from a person with an income of eight hundred thousand francs a year and never a care in the world. But Mme de Yauthiers always said precisely what convention dictated, and it is the convention — in every social milieu — to say that our world is a vale of tears, which, God knows, it is very far from being. In addition to this, assuming that Léon was unhappy, Mme de Vauthiers wanted out of courtesy to have him believe that she was unhappy too.)

'Your dear mama was really spoilt, having this ravishing retreat [Mme de Vauthiers would have described the
Critique of Pure Reason
as 'ravishing '] and your tender care to protect her old age. The last time I saw her she was telling me you were the consolation of her life . . .'

M. de Coantré felt if he were in a hammock being rocked by this ancient blue-veined hand — such a charming hand! Though dressed like a tramp, and despite his phobia for visitors, he had no desire to see Mme de Vauthiers go, and felt a stab of regret when she rose. Besides, he was always a little distressed when anyone — however boring — said good-bye to him first, surprised that the person did not take more pleasure in his company.

'How delighted I am, my dear sir, to have been able to get to know you a little! And if you only knew what a comfort it is to me to see a man of our world with enough character to keep away from the grimaces of the salons, from all those stupid society people!' (We have already seen M. Octave, Mme Émilie and Mme Angèle putting on the record entitled
Stupidity of Social People.
It is a sort of password among society people to say that society people are stupid. In fact, society people are like the rest of us.) 'I shall say no more about my plan for the Royalist committee. It would be a
crime
to divert you from a life which is true and satisfying. I shall not say good-bye, but "au revoir". I am just off to Sologne' (the marquise was always just off to Sologne, which was an excuse for dodging anything which bored her) 'but when I come back, it would be so nice if you could come to lunch at my house one day. My daughter would be so happy to meet you!'