The Counterfeiters (4 page)

“Oh, how cruel of you!… Oh! You have turned him out.… ”

A moment ago, he had resolved to speak to her without showing her Bernard’s letter; but at this unjust accusation, he holds it out:

“Here! Read this.”

“I can’t.”

“You
must
read it.”

He has forgotten his pain. He follows her with his eyes all through the letter, line by line. Just now when he was speaking, he could hardly keep back his tears; but now all emotion has left him; he watches his wife. What is she thinking? In the same plaintive voice, broken by the same sobs, she murmurs again:

“Oh! why did you tell him?… You shouldn’t have told him.”

“But you can see for yourself that I never told him anything. Read his letter more carefully.”

“I did read it.… But how did he find out? Who told him then?”

So
that
is what she is thinking!
Those
are the accents of her grief!

This sorrow should bring them together, but, alas! Profitendieu feels obscurely that their thoughts are travelling by divergent ways. And while she laments and accuses and recriminates, he endeavours to bend her unruly spirit and to bring her to a more pious frame of mind.

“This is the expiation,” he says.

He has risen, from an instinctive desire to dominate; he stands there before her upright—forgetful or regardless of his physical pain—and lays his hand gravely, tenderly, authoritatively on Marguerite’s shoulder. He is well aware that her repentance for what he chooses to consider a passing weakness, has never been more than half-hearted; he would like to tell her now that this sorrow, this trial, may serve to redeem her; but he can find no formula to satisfy him—none that he can hope she will listen to. Marguerite’s shoulder resists the gentle pressure of his hand. She knows so well that from every event of life—even the smallest—he invariably, intolerably, extracts, as with a forceps, some moral teaching—he interprets and twists everything to suit his own dogmas. He bends over her. This is what he would like to say:

“You see, my dear, no good thing can be born of sin. It was no use covering up your fault. Alas! I did what I could for the child. I treated him as my own. God shows us to-day that it was an error to try …”

But at the first sentence he stops.

No doubt she understands these words, heavy with meaning as they are; they have struck home to her heart, for though she had stopped crying some moments before, her sobs break out afresh, more violently than ever: then she bows herself, as though she were going to kneel before him, but he stoops over her and holds her up. What is it she is saying through her tears? He stoops his ear almost to her lips and hears:

“You see … You see … Oh! why did you forgive me? Oh! I shouldn’t have come back.”

He is almost obliged to divine her words. Then she stops. She too can say no more. How can she tell him that she feels imprisoned in this virtue which he exacts from her … that she is stifling … that it is not so
much her fault that she regrets now, as having repented of it? Profitendieu raises himself.

“My poor Marguerite,” he says with dignity and severity, “I am afraid you are a little stubborn to-night. It is late. We had better go to bed.”

He helps her up, leads her to her room, puts his lips to her forehead, then returns to his study and flings himself into an armchair. It is a curious thing that his liver attack has subsided—but he feels shattered. He sits with his head in his hands, too sad to cry.… He does not hear a knock at the door, but at the noise the door makes in opening, he raises his head—his son Charles!

“I came to say good-night to you.”

He comes up. He wants to convey to his father that he has understood everything. He would like to manifest his pity, his tenderness, his devotion, but—who would think it of an advocate?—he is extraordinarily awkward at expressing himself—or perhaps he becomes awkward precisely when his feelings are sincere. He kisses his father. The way in which he lays his head upon his shoulder, and leans and lingers there, convinces Profitendieu that his son has understood. He has understood so thoroughly that, raising his head a little, he asks in his usual clumsy fashion—but his heart is so anxious that he cannot refrain from asking:

“And Caloub?”

The question is absurd, for Caloub’s looks are as strikingly like his family’s as Bernard’s are different.

Profitendieu pats Charles on the shoulder:

“No, no; it’s all right. Only Bernard.”

Then Charles begins pompously:

“God has driven the intruder away …”

But Profitendieu stops him. He has no need of such words.

“Hush!”

Father and son have no more to say to each other.
Let us leave them. It is nearly eleven o’clock. Let us leave Madame Profitendieu in her room, seated on a small, straight, uncomfortable chair. She is not crying; she is not thinking. She too would like to run away. But she will not. When she was with her lover—Bernard’s father (we need not concern ourselves with him)—she said to herself: “No, no; try as I may I shall never be anything but an honest woman.” She was afraid of liberty, of crime, of ease—so that after ten days, she returned repentant to her home. Her parents were right when they said to her: “You never know your own mind.” Let us leave her. Cécile is already asleep. Caloub is gazing in despair at his candle; it will never last long enough for him to finish the story-book, with which he is distracting himself from thoughts of Bernard. I should be curious to know what Antoine can have told his friend the cook. But it is impossible to listen to everything. This is the hour appointed for Bernard to go to Olivier. I am not sure where he dined that evening—or even whether he dined at all. He has passed the porter’s room without hindrance; he gropes his way stealthily up the stairs.…

Olivier had got into bed to receive his mother, who was in the habit of coming every evening to kiss her two younger sons good-night before they went to sleep. He might have got up and dressed again to receive Bernard, but he was still uncertain whether he would come and was afraid of doing anything to rouse his younger brother’s suspicions. George as a rule went to sleep early and woke up late; perhaps he would never notice that anything unusual was going on. When he heard a gentle scratching outside, Olivier sprang from his bed, thrust his feet hastily into his bedroom slippers, and ran to open the door. He did not light a candle; the moon gave light enough; there was no need for any other. Olivier hugged Bernard in his arms:

“How I was longing for you! I couldn’t believe you would really come,” said Olivier, and in the dimness he saw Bernard shrug his shoulders. “Do your parents know you are not sleeping at home to-night?”

Bernard looked straight in front of him into the dark.

“You think I ought to have asked their leave, eh?”

His tone of voice was so coldly ironical that Olivier at once felt the absurdity of his question. He had not yet grasped that Bernard had left “for good”; he thought
that he only meant to sleep out that one night and was a little perplexed as to the reason of this escapade. He began to question: When did Bernard think of going home?—Never!

Light began to dawn on Olivier. He was very anxious to be equal to the occasion and not to be surprised at anything; nevertheless an exclamation broke from him:

“What a tremendous decision!”

Bernard was by no means unwilling to astonish his friend a little; he was particularly flattered by the admiration which these words betrayed, but he shrugged his shoulders once more. Olivier took hold of his hand and asked very gravely and anxiously:

“But why are you leaving?”

“That, my dear fellow, is a family matter. I can’t tell you.” And in order not to seem too serious he amused himself by trying to jerk off with the tip of his shoe the slipper that Olivier was swinging on his bare toes—for they were sitting down now on the side of the bed. There! Off it goes!

“Then where do you mean to live?”

“I don’t know.”

“And how?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Have you any money?”

“Enough for breakfast to-morrow.”

“And after that?”

“After that I shall look about me. Oh, I’m sure to find something. You’ll see. I’ll let you know.”

Olivier admires his friend with immense fervour. He knows him to be resolute; but he cannot help doubting; when he is at the end of his resources, and feeling, as soon he must, the pressure of want, won’t he be obliged to go back? Bernard reassures him—he will do anything in the world rather than return to his people.
And as he repeats several times over more and more savagely—“anything in the world!”—Olivier’s heart is stabbed with a pang of terror. He wants to speak but dares not. At last with downcast head and unsteady voice, he begins:

“Bernard, all the same, you’re not thinking of …” but he stops. His friend raises his eyes and, though he cannot see him very distinctly, perceives his confusion.

“Of what?” he asks. “What do you mean? Tell me. Of stealing?”

Olivier shakes his head. No, that’s not it! Suddenly he bursts into tears and clasping Bernard convulsively in his arms:

“Promise me that you won’t …”

Bernard kisses him, then pushes him away laughing. He has understood.

“Oh! yes! I promise … But all the same you must admit it would be the easiest way out.” But Olivier feels reassured; he knows that these last words are an affectation of cynicism.

“Your exam?”

“Yes; that’s rather a bore. I don’t want to be ploughed. I think I’m ready all right. It’s more a question of feeling fit on the day. I must manage to get something fixed up very quickly. It’s touch and go; but I
shall
manage. You’ll see.”

They sit for a moment in silence. The second slipper has fallen.

Then Bernard: “You’ll catch cold. Get back into bed.”

“No;
you
must get into bed.”

“You’re joking. Come along! quick!” and he forces Olivier to get into the bed which he has already lain down in and which is all tumbled.

“But you? Where are
you
going to sleep?”

“Anywhere. On the floor. In a corner. I must get accustomed to roughing it.”

“No. Look here! I want to tell you something, but I shan’t be able to unless I feel you close to me. Get into my bed.” And when Bernard, after undressing himself in a twinkling, has got in beside him:

“You know … what I told you the other day … well, it’s come off. I went.”

There was no need to say more for Bernard to understand. He pressed up against his friend.

“Well! it’s disgusting … horrible … Afterwards I wanted to spit—to be sick—to tear my skin off—to kill myself.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“To kill
her
.”

“Who was it? You haven’t been imprudent, have you?”

“No; it’s some creature Dhurmer knows. He introduced me. It was her talk that was the most loathsome. She never once stopped jabbering. And oh! the deadly stupidity of it! Why can’t people hold their tongues at such moments, I wonder? I should have liked to strangle her—to gag her.”

“Poor old Olivier! You didn’t think that Dhurmer could get hold of anybody but an idiot, did you? Was she pretty, anyway?”

“D’you suppose I looked at her?”

“You’re a donkey! You’re a darling!… Let’s go to sleep.… But … did you bring it off all right?”

“God! That’s the most disgusting thing about it. I was able to, in spite of everything … just as if I’d desired her.”

“Well, it’s magnificent, my dear boy.”

“Oh, shut up! If that’s what they call love—I’m fed up with it.”

“What a baby you are!”

“What would
you
have been, pray?”

“Oh, you know, I’m not particularly keen; as I’ve
told you before, I’m biding my time. In cold blood, like that, it doesn’t appeal to me. All the same if I—”

“If you …?”

“If she … Nothing! Let’s go to sleep.”

And abruptly he turns his back, drawing a little away so as not to touch Olivier’s body, which he feels uncomfortably warm. But Olivier, after a moment’s silence, begins again:

“I say, do you think Barrès will get in?”

“Heavens! does that worry you?”

“I don’t care a damn! I say, just listen to this a minute.” He presses on Bernard’s shoulder, so as to make him turn round—“My brother has got a mistress.”

“George?”

The youngster, who is pretending to be asleep, but who has been listening with all his might in the dark, holds his breath when he hears his name.

“You’re crazy. I mean Vincent.” (Vincent is a few years older than Olivier and has just finished his medical training.)

“Did he tell you?”

“No. I found out without his suspecting. My parents know nothing about it.”

“What would they say if they knew?”

“I don’t know. Mamma would be in despair. Papa would say he must break it off or else marry her.”

“Of course. A worthy bourgeois can’t understand how one can be worthy in any other fashion than his own. How did you find out?”

“Well, for some time past Vincent has been going out at night after my parents have gone to bed. He goes downstairs as quietly as he can, but I recognize his step in the street. Last week—Tuesday, I think, the night was so hot I couldn’t stop in bed. I went to the window to get a breath of fresh air. I heard the door downstairs open and shut, so I leant out and, as he was passing
under a lamp post, I recognized Vincent. It was past midnight. That was the first time—I mean the first time I noticed anything. But since then, I can’t help listening—oh! without meaning to—and nearly every night I hear him go out. He’s got a latchkey and our parents have arranged our old room—George’s and mine—as a consulting room for him when he has any patients. His room is by itself on the left of the entrance; the rest of our rooms are on the right. He can go out and come in without anyone knowing. As a rule I don’t hear him come in, but the day before yesterday—Monday night—I don’t know what was the matter with me—I was thinking of Dhurmer’s scheme for a review … I couldn’t go to sleep. I heard voices on the stairs. I thought it was Vincent.”