The Counterfeiters (39 page)

As for Edouard, his early morning felicity was too genuine for him not to be made uncomfortable by the picture of such outrageous feelings. It was quite unaffectedly that he gave the letter back.

Passavant felt it essential to recover the lead at once:

“Oh! I wanted to say too—you know that I had thought of making Olivier editor of a review. Of course there’s no further question of that.”

“Of course not,” rejoined Edouard, whom Passavant had unwittingly relieved of a considerable anxiety. He understood by Edouard’s tone that he had played into his hand, and without even giving himself the time to bite his lips:

“Olivier’s things are in the room he was occupying. You have a taxi, I suppose? I’ll have them brought down to you. By the bye, how is he?”

“Very well.”

Passavant had risen. Edouard did the same. They parted with the coldest of bows.

The Comte de Passavant had been terribly put out by Edouard’s visit. He heaved a sigh of relief when Strouvilhou came into the room.

Although Strouvilhou, on his side, was perfectly able to hold his own, Passavant felt at ease with him—or, to be more accurate, treated him in a free and easy manner. No doubt his opponent was by no means despicable, but he considered himself his match, and piqued himself on proving it.

“My dear Strouvilhou, take a seat,” said he, pushing an armchair towards him. “I am really glad to see you again.”

“Monsieur le Comte sent for me. Here I am entirely at his service.”

Strouvilhou liked affecting a kind of flunkey’s insolence with Passavant, but Passavant knew him of old.

“Let’s get to the point; it’s time to come out into the open. You’ve already tried your hand at a good many trades.… I thought to-day of proposing you an actual dictatorship—only in the realms of literature, let us hasten to add.”

“A pity!” Then, as Passavant held out his cigarette case: “If you’ll allow me, I prefer …”

“I’ll allow nothing of the kind. Your horrid contraband cigars make the room stink. I can’t understand how anyone can smoke such stuff.”

“Oh! I don’t pretend that I rave about them. But they’re a nuisance to one’s neighbours.”

“Playful as ever?”

“Not altogether an idiot, you know.”

And without replying directly to Passavant’s proposal, Strouvilhou thought proper to establish his positions; afterwards he would see. He went on:

“Philanthropy was never one of my strong points.”

“I know, I know,” said Passavant.

“Nor egoism either. That’s what you don’t know.… People want to make us believe that man’s single escape from egoism is a still more disgusting altruism! As for me, I maintain that if there’s anything more contemptible and more abject than a man, it’s a lot of men. No reasoning will ever persuade me that the addition of a number of sordid units can result in an enchanting total. I never happen to get into a tram or a train without hoping that a good old accident will reduce the whole pack of living garbage to a pulp; yes, good Lord! and myself into the bargain. I never enter a theatre without praying that the chandelier may come crashing down, or that a bomb may go off; and even if I had to be blown up too, I’d be only too glad to bring it along in my coat pocket—if I weren’t reserving myself for something better. You were saying? …”

“No, nothing; go on, I’m listening. You’re not one of those orators who need the stimulus of contradiction to keep them going.”

“The fact is, I thought I heard you offer me some of your incomparable port.”

Passavant smiled.

“Keep the bottle beside you,” he said, as he passed it to him. “Empty it if you like, but talk.”

Strouvilhou filled his glass, sat comfortably back in his big arm-chair and began:

“I don’t know if I’ve got what people call a hard heart; in my opinion, I’ve got too much indignation, too much disgust in my composition—not that I care. It is true that for a long time past I have repressed in that particular organ of mine everything which ran the risk of softening it. But I am not incapable of admiration, and of a sort of absurd devotion; for, in so far as I am a man, I despise and hate myself as much as I do my neighbours. I hear it repeated everywhere and constantly
that literature, art and science work together in the long run for the good of mankind; and that’s enough to make me loathe them. But there’s nothing to prevent me from turning the proposition round, and then I breathe again. Yes, what for my part I like to imagine is, on the contrary, a servile humanity working towards the production of some cruel master-piece; a Bernard Palissy (how they have deaved us with that fellow!) burning his wife and children to get a varnish for a fine plate. I like turning problems round; I can’t help it, my mind is so constructed that they keep steadier when they are standing on their heads. And if I can’t endure the thought of a Christ sacrificing himself for the thankless salvation of all the frightful people I knock up against daily, I imagine with some satisfaction, and indeed a kind of serenity, the rotting of that vile mob in order to produce a Christ … though, in reality, I should prefer something else; for all His teaching has only served to plunge us deeper into the mire. The trouble comes from the selfishness of the ferocious. Imagine what magnificent things an unselfish ferocity would produce! When we take care of the poor, the feeble, the rickety, the injured, we are making a great mistake; and that is why I hate religion—because it teaches us to. That deep peace, which philanthropists themselves pretend they derive from the contemplation of nature, and its fauna and flora, comes from this—that in the savage state, it is only robust creatures that flourish; all the rest is refuse and serves as manure. But people won’t see it; won’t admit it.”

“Yes, yes; I admit it willingly. Go on.”

“And tell me whether it isn’t shameful, wretched … that men have done so much to get superb breeds of horses, cattle, poultry, cereals, flowers, and that they themselves are still seeking a relief for their sufferings in medicine, a palliative in charity, a consolation in religion, and oblivion in drink. What we ought to work at is the
amelioration of the breed. But all selection implies the suppression of failures, and this is what our fool of a Christianized society cannot consent to. It will not even take upon itself to castrate degenerates—and those are the most prolific. What we want is not hospitals, but stud farms.”

“Upon my soul, Strouvilhou, I like you when you talk so.”

“I am afraid, Monsieur le Comte, that you have misunderstood me. You thought me a sceptic, and in reality I am an idealist, a mystic. Scepticism has never been any good. One knows for that matter where it leads—to tolerance! I consider sceptics people without imagination, without ideals—fools.… And I am not ignorant of all the delicacies, the sentimental subtleties which would be suppressed by the production of this robust humanity; but no one would be there to regret the delicacies, since the people capable of appreciating them would be suppressed too. Don’t make any mistake—I am not without what is called culture, and I know that certain among the Greeks had caught a glimpse of my ideal; at any rate, I like imagining it, and remembering that Coré, daughter of Ceres, went down to Hades full of pity for the shades; but that after she had become queen, and Pluto’s wife, Homer never calls her anything but ‘implacable Proserpine.’ See Odyssey, Bk. VI.
‘Implacable’
—that’s what every man who pretends to be virtuous owes it to himself to be.”

“Glad to see you come back to literature—that is, if we may be said ever to have left it. Well then, virtuous Strouvilhou, I want to know whether you’ll consent to become the implacable editor of a review?”

“To tell the truth, my dear count, I must own that of all nauseating human emanations, literature is one of those which disgust me most. I can see nothing in it but compromise and flattery. And I go so far as to doubt whether it can be anything else—at any rate until it
has made a clean sweep of the past. We live upon nothing but feelings which have been taken for granted once for all and which the reader imagines he experiences, because he believes everything he sees in print; the author builds on this as he does on the conventions which he believes to be the foundations of his art. These feelings ring as false as counters, but they pass current. And as everyone knows that ‘bad money drives out good,’ a man who should offer the public real coins would seem to be defrauding us. In a world in which everyone cheats, it’s the honest man who passes for a charlatan. I give you fair warning—if I edit a review, it will be in order to prick bladders—in order to demonetize fine feelings, and those promissary notes which go by the name of
words.”

“Upon my soul, I should very much like to know how you’ll set about it.”

“Let me alone and you’ll soon see … I have often thought it over.”

“No one will understand what you’re after; no one will follow you.”

“Oh, come now! The cleverest young men of the present day are already on their guard against poetical inflation. They perfectly recognize a gas bag when they see one—even in the disguise of scientifically elaborate metre, and trimmed up with all the hackneyed effusions of high-sounding lyrical verse. One can always find hands for a work of destruction. Shall we found a school with no other object but to pull things down?… Would you be afraid?”

“No.… So long as my garden isn’t trampled on.”

“There’s enough to be done elsewhere … 
en attendant
. The moment is propitious. I know many a young man who is only waiting for the rallying cry; quite young ones.… Oh, yes, I know! That’s what you like; but I warn you they aren’t taking any.… I have often wondered by what miracle painting has gone
so far ahead, and how it happens that literature has let itself be outdistanced. In painting to-day, just see how the
‘motif,’
as it used to be called, has fallen into discredit.
A fine subject!
It makes one laugh. Painters don’t even dare venture on a portrait unless they can be sure of avoiding every trace of resemblance. If we manage our affairs well, and leave me alone for that, I don’t ask for more than two years before a future poet will think himself dishonoured if anyone can understand a word of what he says. Yes, Monsieur le Comte, will you wager? All sense, all meaning will be considered anti-poetical. Illogicality shall be our guiding star. What a fine title for a review—
The Scavengers
!”

Passavant had listened without turning a hair.

“Do you count your young nephew among your acolytes?” he asked after a pause.

“Young Léon is one of the elect; he doesn’t let the flies settle on him, either. Really, it’s a pleasure teaching him. Last term he thought it would be a joke to cut out the swotters in his form and carry off all the prizes. Since he came back from the holidays he has let his work go to the deuce; I haven’t the least idea what he’s hatching; but I have every confidence in him, and I wouldn’t for the world interfere.”

“Will you bring him to see me?”

“Monsieur le Comte is joking, no doubt.… Well, then, this review?”

“We’ll see about it later. I must have time to let your plans mature in my mind. In the mean time, you might really find me a secretary. I’m not satisfied with the one I had.”

“I’ll send you little Cob-Lafleur to-morrow. I shall be seeing him this afternoon, and I make no doubt he’ll suit you.”

“Scavenger style?”

“A little.”

“Ex uno …”

“Oh, no; don’t judge them all from him. He is one of the moderate ones. Just right for you.”

Strouvilhou rose.

“A propos,” said Passavant, “I haven’t given you my book, I think. I’m sorry not to have a first edition left.… ”

“As I don’t mean to sell it, it isn’t of the slightest importance.”

“It’s only because the print’s better.”

“Oh! as I don’t mean to read it either … 
Au revoir
. And if the spirit moves you, I’m at your service. I wish you good morning.”

Brought back Olivier’s things from Passavant’s. As soon as I got home, set to work on
The Counterfeiters
. My exaltation is calm and lucid. My joy is such as I have never known before. Wrote thirty pages without hesitation, without a single erasure. The whole drama, like a nocturnal landscape suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, emerges out of the darkness, very different from what I had been trying to invent. The books which I have hitherto written seem to me like the ornamental pools in public gardens—their contours are defined—perfect perhaps, but the water they contain is captive and lifeless. I wish it now to run freely, according to its bent, sometimes swift, sometimes slow; I choose not to foresee its windings.

X. maintains that a good novelist, before he begins to write his book, ought to know how it is going to finish. As for me, who let mine flow where it will, I consider that life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination. “Might be continued”—these are the words with which I should like to finish my
Counterfeiters
.

Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow.

As I exaggerated my sympathy for him, I was obliged to submit to his effusions, which were rather embarrassing. All the time I was talking to him, I kept repeating to myself La Rochefoucauld’s words: “I am very little
susceptible to pity; and should like not to be so at all … I consider that one ought to content oneself with showing it and carefully refrain from feeling it.” And yet my sympathy was real, undeniable, and I was moved to tears. Truth to tell, my tears seemed to console him better than my words. I almost believe that he gave up being unhappy as soon as he saw me cry.

I was firmly resolved not to tell him the name of the seducer; but to my surprise he did not ask it. I think his jealousy dies down as soon as he no longer feels Laura’s eyes upon him. In any case, its energy had been somewhat diminished by the act of coming to see me.