The Thibaults (117 page)

THE OSCAR THIBAULT FOUNDATON

Then only he remembered that the illustrious founder was no more, that the ruts in the drive had been made by the carriages of the funeral procession, that it was for his father’s sake he had made the pilgrimage to this place. With a sense of relief at being able to turn his back on these forbidding precincts, he turned and walked in the direction of the two big evergreens flanking the cemetery gate. Usually closed, tonight the iron gate stood open. Wheel-marks showed the path to take. Jacques moved mechanically towards a mound of wreaths wilting in the cold and looking more like a refuse dump than a spread of flowers.

In front of the grave a large bunch of Parma violets, their stems wrapped in tissue-paper, lay all alone upon the snow; presumably it had been placed there after the other flowers.

“That’s curious!” Jacques mused, but gave no further thought to the coincidence.

And suddenly, bending above the fresh-turned soil, he had a vision of the dead body lying beneath the sodden turf—exactly as he had seen it at that tragic, ludicrous instant when the undertaker, after a courteous gesture for the family, had drawn the winding-sheet over the face that death had changed already.

“ ‘Then clinkety and clankety, Along the lanes we’ll go!’ ” Like a bright gash of pain, the foolish jingle rang across his mind; a lump came to his throat.

Ever since he had left Lausanne, he had let himself be hustled blindly on, hour after hour, by the sheer force of events. Now, suddenly, there welled up in his heart a long-forgotten, puerile, inordinate affection, as irrational as irrefutable, bitter with a sense of self-reproach and shame. Now at last he understood why he had come here. He remembered his fits of anger, the moods of scorn and hatred, and the lust for vengeance that had slowly poisoned all his youth. Trivial details that had passed out of memory sped back, like boomerangs, to wound him on the raw. And, for a while, all grievances discarded, restored to filial instinct, he wept on his father’s grave. For a brief while he was one of the two persons, unknown to each other, who on natural impulse, keeping aloof from the official rites, had felt a need to come that day and pay the dead the tribute of their grief; one of the only two beings on earth who had sincerely wept for M. Thibault.

But he was too well schooled in facing facts squarely not to see almost at once that such sorrow and grief were overdone. He was perfectly aware that, could his father come back to life, he would loathe and shun him as before. And yet he lingered beside the grave, yielding to a mood of vague sentimentality. He regretted—he knew not what; perhaps what might have been. He even let his imagination picture for a moment an affectionate, generous, understanding father, so as to have the thrill of regretting that he had not been the devoted son such a father merited.

Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he turned and left the graveyard.

The village seemed a little more animated now. Windows were lighting up. The peasants were coming back, their day’s work over.

To avoid passing the houses, he took the road going to Moulin-Neuf, instead of that which led directly to the station, and was almost at once in open country.

He was no longer alone. Something persistent and insidious as an odour had dogged his steps and clung about him, creeping into his each successive thought. It moved beside him in the silence of the plain, across the haze of broken lights that glimmered on the snow and the air grown milder in a brief lull of the gale. Unresisting, he surrendered himself to death’s obsession; indeed there was an almost sensual thrill in the vividness with which he now perceived the vanity of life, the futility of all endeavour. What was the use of striving? What was there to hope for? All life is vain, unprofitable. For once we realize death’s meaning, nothing, nothing whatever is worth the effort.

He felt that what lay deepest in him was being undermined. Gone was all ambition, all desire to be a leader, to achieve an aim in life. And now it seemed to him that never could he shake off that haunting presence, never regain any sort of peace of mind. He had lost even the impulse to believe that, short as is life’s span, a man may yet find time to put something of himself out of the destroyer’s reach; that sometimes it is given him to raise a fragment of his dream above the flood that sweeps him down, so that something authentically his may remain floating on the waters that have closed over his head.

He walked straight ahead with rapid, jerky strides like a fugitive hugging to his breast some fragile last possession. Ah, to escape from everything! Not only from the hydra-headed social organism; not only from family and friends and love; not only from himself and from the tyrannies of atavism and habit—but to be rid of something latent and inherent in himself, that absurd vital instinct which makes the sorriest wrecks of humanity still cling to life. Once again, as the supreme and logical solution, the idea of a voluntary eclipse, this time for good and all—of suicide-—hovered in his mind. And suddenly there rose before him the serene beauty of his dead father’s face.

“We shall have rest, Uncle Vanya, We shall have rest.”

Then his attention was caught, involuntarily, by the rumble of farm-carts coming towards him; he could see their lamps swaying as they jolted on the ruts, and hear the shouts and laughter of the drivers. He could not face the thought of meeting people. Without a moment’s hesitation he jumped the snow-filled ditch bordering the road, stumbled across a ploughed field frozen hard as iron, came on a little wood, and plunged into its darkness. Viciously the thorny undergrowth lashed his face; frozen leaves crackled underfoot. He had deliberately thrust his hands into his pockets, finding a curious relish in the stinging blows across his cheeks, as in a frenzy of escape he forced his way through the dense underbrush. He had no notion where he was going; his one idea was to escape from men, from their ways and highways—from everything.

There was no more than a narrow strip of woodland and he was soon across it. Again he saw in front of him the white plain, ribboned by a road, glimmering under the black sky and, straight ahead, looming upon the skyline, the reformatory, with a row of lighted windows along the floors reserved for class-rooms and the workshops. As he gazed at it a fantastic daydream, vivid as a cinema film, took form in his imagination: he saw himself climbing the low wall of the shed, scrambling up the roof to the storeroom window, breaking the pane, and flinging in a wisp of blazing straw. The pile of spare beds and bedding flared up like a torch; in a trice the fire had spread through the office building to his old cell, devouring everything in it —his bed, table, blackboard, chair, all went up in flames.

He ran his fingers over his scratched cheeks. With a rush of bitterness he realized his impotence—the folly of such dreams.

Resolutely he turned his back on the reformatory, on the graveyard, on his past, and began walking rapidly towards the station.

He had missed the five-forty by a few minutes. There was nothing for it but to wait for the slow train at seven. The waiting-room was like an ice-box and smelled intolerably musty.

For a long while he paced the empty platform, with his cheeks smarting. In his pocket he gripped the crumpled letter from Daniel; he had vowed to himself not to look at it again.

A lamp with a reflector faced the station clock; he went up to it, and, leaning against the wall, fished the crumpled sheets out of his pocket.

My dear Jacques,

Antoine’s letter reached me yesterday evening, and I couldn’t sleep a wink. If somehow I could have managed to make a dash to you last night, and see you for just five minutes large as life, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take the risk and climb the barrack wall; yes, I’d have done anything to see my oldest, dearest friend again. In these N.C.O.’s lodgings which I share with two other snoring stalwarts, all through the night I stared up at the whitewashed ceiling green with moonlight, and I watched a pageant of our boyhood streaming past—all those wonderful hours we spent together, you and I, at school, and afterwards. You’re like a second self to me, Jacques, old pal; I can’t imagine how I got on all these years without my second self! And you can be sure—never for a moment did I doubt your friendship. I’ve just got back from morning drill, and I’m writing to you at once, though I’ve only Antoine’s little note to go on, without even stopping to wonder how you’ll take this letter from me, without yet knowing for what earthly reason you maintained for those long years that silence of the grave. How I missed you during those years, and how I miss you now! Most of all, perhaps, I missed you before I was called up for service, when I was at home. Have you any idea of what you meant to me? I wonder. That energy you inspired in me, all the fine things that were latent in me as possibilities only—and which you brought out. Without you, without your friendship, I could never have …

Jacques’s hands were trembling as he held the crumpled pages near his eyes; in the dim light, across a mist of tears, he could hardly decipher the affectionate words.

Just above his head an electric bell, piercing as an auger, was shrilling incessantly.

That’s something I don’t suppose you ever suspected; in those days I was too vain to admit it, especially to you. And then, when I learned you’d vanished, I simply couldn’t imagine what had happened, couldn’t believe my ears. I was terribly distressed—most of all by the mystery surrounding it all. Perhaps some day I’ll understand. But in my worst moments of anxiety—even of resentment—never once did the idea enter my head, that (assuming you were alive) your feelings for me had changed. And now too, as you see, I don’t feel any doubt about them… .

Had to stop. Some tiresome routine work came along. I’ve taken refuge in a corner of the canteen, though it’s out of bounds at this hour. I don’t suppose you’ve the faintest notion what it’s like, this world of barracks and parades I was pitchforked into thirteen months ago… . But I’m not writing to you to describe a conscript’s life!

The appalling thing, you know, is this feeling that one’s lost touch; I don’t know how or what to write to you. Of course you can guess the swarm of questions at the tip of my pen! … But what’s the use? Still, I do hope you won’t mind answering one of them, because it’s something I have so terribly at heart. It’s this: Am I going to see you again? Is the nightmare over, and have you really come back to us? Or—will you be taking wing again? Look here, Jacques, as I’m pretty sure you’ll read this letter anyhow, and as it may be the only chance I’ll have of getting in touch with you, please listen to this appeal! I’m prepared to understand and to put up with everything you choose, but I beg you, whatever your future plans may be, don’t vanish again so utterly from my life. I need you. If you only knew how proud I am of you, the great things I expect of you, and all that my pride in you can mean to me! Yes, I’m ready to accept all your terms. If you insist on my not knowing your address, on there being no exchange between us, on my never writing—even if you tell me not to pass on to anybody, not even to poor old Antoine, the news I get from you—well, I agree to everything, I pledge myself blindly to obey. Only, please do send me a line now and then, just to show you are alive and sometimes think of me. I’m sorry for those last words—take them as struck out—for I know, I’m certain that you think of me. (That, too, I’ve never doubted. Never did it cross my mind that, were you alive, you had ceased thinking about me, about our friendship.)

I can’t get my ideas straight; I just jot down whatever comes into my head. But that doesn’t matter; just to write to you is such a relief after that appalling silence!

I ought to tell you about myself, so that, when you think of me, you can think of me as I am now, and not only as I was when you left us. Perhaps Antoine will tell you. He knows me quite well; we saw a lot of each other after you went away. But I don’t know where to begin. There’s so much slack to take up, you see; it seems almost hopeless. And then— after all, you know the way I’m built; I keep moving, I live for the
here
and
now,
I can’t look back. This military service cut across my work just when it seemed that I was getting a glimpse of really vital things about myself and about my art—the very things I’d been groping for all my life. Still, I don’t regret anything; this experience of army life is something new and very thrilling. It’s a great test and a great experience, especially now that I’ve men under my command. But it’s idiotic talking to you about that today.

The one thing that really worries me is having been away from Mother for a year. Especially as I know this separation weighs terribly on both of them. I’m sorry to have to tell you Jenny’s health is not all it might be; in fact, we’ve been quite alarmed about it on several occasions. By “we” I mean, really,
I
, for you know how Mother is, she never will believe that things can turn out badly. Still, even Mother has had to recognize that, during these last years, Jenny has found the winters in Paris rather trying; both of them left for the South of France a month ago. They’re staying in a sort of convalescent home where, if it can be fixed up, Jenny will be under treatment till the spring. Poor things, they have more than their share of troubles and anxieties! My father hasn’t changed—the less said about him the better. He’s in Austria now, but as usual up to his neck in complications.

Dear old pal, it’s suddenly come back to me—about
your
father. I’d meant to start this letter with a reference to his death. But somehow I hardly know how to talk to you about your bereavement. Still, when I think of what your feelings must have been, I sympathize most sincerely. For I’m almost certain it must have given you a terrible shock.

I’ve got to stop now. It’s late, and I want to get this letter to the officer in charge of mail. I hope it reaches you safely, and promptly. Now there’s one thing more. I’ve got to write it to you, old pal—on the off chance! Personally I can’t get to Paris; I’m tied up here, with not a hope of getting leave. But Lunéville’s only five hours away from Paris. I’m in their good graces here; the Colonel’s set me to doing some decorative panels in the office—naturally! So I’m pretty free. They’ll give me the day off, if you … No, I don’t even want to dream of such a thing! As I said, I’m ready to accept and to understand
everything
, with no less love for my one true friend, my friend for life.