The Bachelors (4 page)

M. de Coëtquidan's other activities were more humdrum. It was he who wielded the feather-duster, chopped the wood, lit the fire and did the cooking, for he had made himself so detested that no one would work for him. By increasing their wages, he might perhaps have kept his staff, but that would have meant surrender. Continually creating a desert around him, and persecuting the few who ventured into it, he reached a point where even the tradesmen refused to come up to the château. Nobody now called but the postman, who arrived panting and footsore, for M. de Coëtquidan had taken out a subscription to
Le Temps
with the sole intention of forcing this excellent man to walk sixteen kilometres daily from the post office to the château and back. Abandoned by the tradesmen, who were delighted to forgo his money at the thought of leaving him at death's door, M. de Coëtquidan lived on fruit from his orchard and biscuits and cakes which he had sent to him by the makers, and would have died of this régime had not Mme Angèle discovered it by chance and sent him a manservant, with enormous wages, who left forthwith because M. de Coëtquidan had given him orders and he only accepted requests. M. de Coëtquidan would have had to fall back on the biscuits if his other daughter, succumbing to the lure of martyrdom, had not come to live at Trenel. Food restored M. de Coëtquidan's faculties: he proceeded to paint a set of plates with the arms of all the provinces of France as they were in '89.

Eventually the old rogue had a stroke, and died after three days.

Five years later M. de Piagnes died, as a result of an accident in the arsenal at Lorient. Mme de Piagnes, a childless widow, went to live in Paris with her brother Octave, who had remained a bachelor. Meanwhile the Coantrés, still flanked by M. Élie who had also clung to his celibacy, had acquired a son and a daughter, Léon and Marie.

By 1890, nothing had changed in the Octave-Émilie partnership, but M. Octave was now head of something or other at the bank and was growing pompous. The Coantrés had had another daughter, Madeleine; Marie had died at the age of sixteen. Marriage had brought about one unfortunate transformation in M. de Coantré. His main occupation hitherto had been debauchery. A dutiful husband, he gave this up on marrying. But he had to keep himself occupied; his passionate interest in women had to be diverted into some other channel. So he busied himself by trying to increase his fortune on the stock exchange — in other words, in the time-honoured fashion of his kind, by ruining himself. By 1890, he was well on the way to bankruptcy.—

That year, Léon de Coantré went to do his military service at Toulouse. He had been a pampered child, who was made to keep his long curls until the age of seven, and then a brilliant pupil of the Jesuits, brilliant but temperamental and undisciplined. His mother spoiled him madly, from a mixture of love and weakness. His father spoiled him from inclination — the Coantrés were an easy-going race — and on principle. The fact was that M. de Coantré did not find it easy to stomach the presence in his home of such a disagreeable person as Élie de Coëtquidan, more and more unmarriageable; he had rather an aversion for the Coëtquidans. In spoiling his son he was protesting against the harsh theories of his father-in-law; too strict an upbringing, he claimed, automatically produces a reaction when the child grows up. What had become of old Coëtquidan's children? Angèle and Émilie had kept in marriage the same cowed demeanour as under their father's régime, and their social life had suffered from it. Élie simply did what he liked, and moreover (as we shall see) had turned out to be a non-starter.

Having passed his
baccalauréat,
Léon de Coantré started reading law. At his first year's examination, one of the examiners thought he remembered having met some de Coantrés as a young man. Without explaining to Léon the reason for his curiosity, he asked him a few questions about his family. Léon's reaction was worthy of the elder Coëtquidan. 'What's it to do with you?' he asked the august personage. He was promptly ploughed. The two years that followed until his military service, still reading law without either inclination or success, were as characteristically futile as the student years of most average Frenchmen.

He was a gifted youth, in a variety of ways. He excelled at writing Latin verse. He drew and painted agreeably, without ever having been taught. He could draw expressive harmonies from the piano, although his ignorance of music was such that he could scarcely identify a single note on the keyboard. He was interested in physics and mechanics and would shut himself up to carry out experiments. He was astonishingly clever with his hands, and could produce models of houses or boats, executed in such elaborate detail, with such taste, skill and technical ingenuity as to make them little works of art, good enough to be shown in an exhibition.

In the army, where he became a sergeant, he made friends with a fellow-sergeant called Levier, whose father was foreman in, an engineering workshop. His horror of social constraints of any kind induced in him a fellow-feeling for the people, made him choose working-class youths as friends, sewing-girls and maidservants as mistresses: with them he did not have to stand on ceremony. Society people were his bugbears: he was physically incapable of conceiving a desire for a wellborn woman. Towards the end of his military service, Léon told Levier of a certain apparatus he had in mind for enlarging photographs, something much more advanced than the existing method. Levier was enthusiastic. In a few months they would be civilians. Why not go into partnership? Léon would produce the idea and the capital, Levier undertook to provide the materials.

All the family joined in. They had faith in Léon's genius: did he not compose at the piano without knowing the notes! And moreover, how splendid to see a young nobleman rolling up his sleeves, loving the workers, being progressive! Levier gave all the necessary guarantees and made a good impression. They saw big. It was no longer simply a question of exploiting an enlarger; they would also deal in cameras. One member of the family put twenty thousand francs into the business, another fifteen, another ten. Within two years it was bankrupt. Levier, who was a man of his word, had remained straight as long as Léon remained serious. As soon as Léon, incapable of application or method, and moreover obsessed by women, ceased to turn up and assumed the role of the titled amateur, Levier proceeded to take advantage of the situation — and it is true that Léon's ignorance and naivety in business matters would have tempted a saint. Then Léon announced that he could no longer work with Levier because his breath smelled, and one may guess how the family, whose financial feathers were falling like snowflakes in this storm, received such an argument. The enlargers cost the Coantrés eighty thousand francs, not counting their initial shareholdings, which Levier promised to pay back gradually. At this very moment M. de Coantré completed their ruin by his stock exchange speculations. As a result, he died. Mme de Coantré was left with sixty thousand francs' worth of debts.

Léon, impulsive as ever, wanted to kill himself. The Coëtquidans, furious with the Coantrés who had brought all this on their sister, naturally maintained that he was shamming. But he was found with his throat cut. His mother was frantic. Léon said to her, 'I think I'm going mad. I must give up everything at once, not think about anything, or I don't know what I mightn't be capable of. Give me five thousand francs and you won't hear of me for two years. I give you my word of honour that I won't ask for a penny for two years.' Mme de Coantré, who imagined him blowing his brains out if they did not yield at once to his every whim, gave him the five thousand francs.

He set off — not for California but for Chatenay (Seine), where he stayed two years. He took a room in a widow's house, and did nothing but potter around, shooting, fishing, doing odd jobs; out all day long; dressed like a tramp; chaste as a gelded cat (we shall see this metamorphosis in slow motion later on); happy as a king. Like the
kalenderi
of Sufism, his principal aim was to escape from custom and convention, and to avoid worries. Foolish and improvident over important things, he was the soul of wisdom and prudence as regards minor details. Noting down his smallest expense to the nearest sou, not once did he exceed by as much as five francs the monthly sum he could allow himself. Mme de Coantré went to see him once a month. Only twice in the two years did he accept the small sums which she offered him on each visit.

When the two years had elapsed, he returned home. What was to be done with him? Mme de Coantré thought of marrying him off; after all, he had a name. He made no objection. But he refused to move in society. He would only marry a bourgeois or a working-class girl, not an aristocrat. His toolbox never left him, and one day Mme de Coantré found him with a chisel removing the coronet and crest from all his personal silver. 'Kind hearts can do without coronets,' he said.

In the role of suitor, he anticipated Tristan Bernard's Triplepatte.
{1}
His poor mother wore herself out trying to arrange interviews, with the help of the family. Everyone would at last be brought together, after enormous pains, and Léon would fail to turn up. That was how he was: smart people made him see red. And then having to
dress,
what torture! and be
on time,
what agony! With all this there were flashes of disinterestedness and pride which leave one hesitating whether to praise or blame. Negotiations have reached an advanced stage with a rich family called Duruel. Léon discovers that these people, who were to be found under D in last year's
Tout-Paris,
are under R in this year's. Hey presto! In vain does Mme de Coantré try to persuade him that 'It's a good thing for families to try to improve themselves'. He intimates that all is over; for him, these people have been judged and found wanting. A big industrialist family, one of those whose names are known the world over, are not averse to the idea of offering him their daughter. Interview. Mademoiselle is wearing lipstick. The hermit of Chatenay launches into a tirade against young women who paint their faces. Imagine this monster in the society of today: a man without a job who is not ambitious, a poor man who does not care for money! Surely he must be devout enough to go into a monastery! Far from it. And what place is there for a man who is in the world but has no ambition and dislikes money? Ambition and greed are the two legs of the worldly man; he who is without them is a legless cripple in the crowd. But we, dear reader, we raise our hat to this cripple.

This matrimonial farce lasted three years. After his two years of solitude and chastity, it would have needed a great deal of tact to reconcile Léon with society. Instead, his family did their utmost to put him off it for ever. Out of stupidity. They showed kindness, even great kindness, considering the memories Léon had left behind him. But there it is, they were stupid people. Whatever you might think of him, Léon was a creature apart. The family treated him as though he were an elegant young charmer. We shall refrain from passing judgement on the methods by which marriages are ordinarily made in France in the social class which concerns us here. Leon saw it all, and found it repulsive. Eventually he announced that he would only marry a woman he liked, in a country church, with no ceremony, no invitations, no presents; he even wanted to do without witnesses. Mme de Coantré threw in her hand.

During these three years, Léon de Coantré lived with his mother. There was no question of his working. Mme de Coantré was afraid he might slit his throat if she breathed a word on the subject. Clearly, he had had a brilliant idea when he had slit his throat or pretended to. This new life under his mother's wing, with all expenses paid, as carefree as a little boy, was much to his taste. He asked for nothing better than to continue with it. He did so for twenty years.

Opinion was hard on him. To have wasted his talents, to have been partly responsible for his mother's destitution, and now, still young and healthy, to be sponging on her, although she found it difficult to make ends meet!

Opinion was too hard on him, for this reason. Mme de Coantré, finding herself a widow and in an extremely devitalized position both materially and morally — and, moreover, deprived of her daughter who had just married (satisfactorily enough) an engineer called M. de Bauret — had left her mansion in the rue de Lisbonne and moved into a small house in the boulevard Arago. There was a garden there, and Léon devoted himself to this garden. Brown corduroys, old worn-out shoes, blue apron, no collar — it was Chatenay all over again! Soon he took on other jobs, such as looking after the stove, fetching the coal from the cellar, painting walls, even polishing floors. It will be said that he did it because he enjoyed doing it. He did. In this life of his, completely devoid of thought, worry, and social responsibility, he was happy. In spite of being a nobleman, a count, the head of the house of Coantré, in spite of having excelled at Latin verses, painted and made music without having learnt, and invented a photographic enlarger, his true vocation was to be a common labourer. But the fact remains that the services he rendered were of a kind that, had he not been there, would have had to be paid for. When Mme de Coantré had made quite sure that it was not another fad of his, that it was going to last, she got rid of her housemaid and kept only the cook and a charwoman.

For twenty years, almost literally, M. de Coantré never left the house in the boulevard Arago. New Year visits and funerals of close relations (he did not go to weddings) were his only contacts with the outside world. Not once, in twenty years, did he go out after dinner. There were some years when, in the entire twelve months, he did not go through the garden gate more than five times. Notwithstanding his mother's mute supplications, he never went to do his Easter duties; though if you had said a word against religion in front of him he would have scratched your eyes out. To avoid having to comb his hair, he had it practically shorn off; in order to avoid having to shave, he let his beard grow. He wore his shirts (workmen's khaki shirts) for a fortnight. There came a time when he no longer used soap except on Sundays; the rest of the week he simply gave his face a wipe with a wet towel — which at any rate is in a great tradition.