The Thibaults (17 page)

“Alas, doctor,” he said, “it’s in these cells we have to lodge our ‘hard cases.’ The boys, I mean, who come to us too late to be re-educated; I’m afraid there’s little to be said for them. Some boys have vice in the blood—don’t you agree? Well, there’s nothing for it but to shut them up by themselves at night.”

Antoine pressed his face to the bars and peered into the gloom of one of the cells. He could just make out an unmade pallet bed and walls covered with obscene drawings and inscriptions. Instinctively he drew back.

“Don’t look, it’s too distressing,” the superintendent sighed, drawing him away. “Here you have the central corridor where the watchman on duty patrols all night. The light isn’t put out here, and he doesn’t go to bed. Though they’re securely locked up, the little rascals would be quite capable of giving us a lot of trouble, take my word for it!” He shook his head mournfully, then suddenly started laughing; his slotted eyes grew narrower still and all trace of compunction had left his face. “Yes,” he added with an air of naivete, “it takes all sorts to make a world, you know.”

Antoine was so much interested in what he saw that he had forgotten most of the questions he had prepared in advance. One, however, he remembered now.

“How do you punish them? I’d like to see your punishment cells.”

M. Faîsme stepped back a pace, his eyes wide open, flapping his hands in consternation.

“Come, come, doctor, what do you take us for? This isn’t a convict prison. Punishment cells, indeed! We haven’t any, thank God! For one thing, the Founder would never tolerate such methods.”

Silenced and baffled, Antoine had to endure the irony that twinkled in the little narrow eyes, whose lashes flickered humorously behind the glasses. He was beginning to End the role he had assumed—of scrutiny and suspicion—rather irksome. Nothing he had seen encouraged him to maintain his attitude of hostility. Moreover, he had a feeling that the superintendent might have guessed the invidious motive that had brought him to Crouy. Still it was hard to know, so genuine seemed the little man’s simplicity despite the occasional flashes of mockery that glinted in the corners of his eyes.

He stopped laughing, came up to Antoine, and put his hand on his arm.

“You were joking, weren’t you? You know as well as I do what comes of overdoing discipline; it leads to rebellion or, what is still worse, hypocrisy. Our Founder made a fine speech on the subject at the Paris Congress, in the year of the Great Exhibition.”

He had lowered his voice and there was a look of special understanding on his face as he gazed at the young man, a look implying that he and Antoine belonged to an élite, capable of discussing such educational problems without falling into the errors of the common herd. Antoine felt flattered, and his favourable impressions grew stronger.

“It’s true that in the courtyard, just as in a military barracks, there’s a small shed that the architect described on his plan as ‘punishment cells.’ ”

“Yes?”

“But we only use it for storing coal and potatoes. What’s the use of punishment cells? You get so much more by persuasion.”

“Really?”

With a subtle smile the superintendent placed his hand on Antoine’s arm.

“Let’s get it clear,” he said. “What I call ‘persuasion,’ I prefer to tell you right away, is the deprivation of certain items of the daily diet. Our young folk are always greedy. That’s only natural at their age, isn’t it? Dry bread, doctor, has a persuasive power you’d never suspect; only you must know how to use it—it’s essential not to isolate the boy whom we’re trying to reform. That, by the way, shows you how little the solitary cell enters into our method. No, it’s in a corner of the dining-hall that the youngster eats his hunk of stale bread, at noon, when the best meal of the day is served, with the smell of a nice steaming dish of stew in his nostrils and with all the others tucking it away under his eyes. That’s our method, and it never fails. At that age they thin down in no time; in a fortnight or three weeks I’ve broken in even the most stubborn cases. Persuasion—there’s nothing like it!” His eyes were round with satisfaction. “And never have I had to take other measures; I’ve never lifted a finger against any of the young folk in my charge.”

His face was shining with pride and benevolence. He really seemed to love his youthful miscreants, even the toughest.

They went down the stairs again. M. Faîsme took out his watch.

“To finish up, let me show you a truly edifying spectacle. You’ll tell the Founder, I hope, and I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear about it.”

They crossed the garden and entered the chapel. M. Faîsme sprinkled holy water. Antoine saw the backs of some sixty boys in grey overalls, kneeling in strict alignment on the stone floor, motionless. Four of the staff, stalwart figures in blue uniforms with red braid, marched up and down the aisle, keeping their eyes fixed on the boys. Attended by two acolytes, the priest at the altar was just concluding the service.

“Where’s Jacques?” Antoine whispered.

The superintendent pointed to the gallery beneath which they were standing and tip-toed back towards the porch.

“That’s where your brother always sits,” he said as soon as they were outside. “He’s alone there; that’s to say, only the young man who looks after him is with him. By the way, you might tell your father that a new servant, the man we spoke to him about, has been allotted to Jacques. He took up the post a week ago. Léon, the man whom Jacques had before, was getting too old for the job, and we’ve detailed him to supervise a workroom. The new man’s a young Lorrainer, a very, very decent fellow. He’s just ended his military service; used to be the colonel’s orderly, and his references were excellent. It’ll be less boring for your brother on his walks, don’t you think so? Good heavens, here I am chattering away to you and the boys are coming out of the chapel.”

The dog began to bark furiously. M. Faîsme reduced it to silence, adjusted his glasses, and took his stand in the centre of the big quadrangle.

Both leaves of the chapel-door had been thrown open and, three by three, with the attendants beside them, the boys were filing out, keeping perfect step, like soldiers on parade. All were bare-headed and wearing rope-soled shoes, which gave them the noiseless step of gymnasts; their overalls were clean and held in at the waist by leather belts, the buckles of which flashed in the sun. The oldest were seventeen or eighteen, the youngest ten or eleven. Most had pale complexions, downcast eyes, and a look of calm quite out of keeping with their age. But Antoine, though he scrutinized them with the utmost attention, could not detect a single questionable glance, not one unsavoury smile, nor even any trace of sullenness. Those boys did not look “hard cases,” and, he could but own to himself, they did not look like oppressed victims either.

When the little procession had vanished into the building and the sound of muffled footsteps on the wooden stairs had died away, he turned to M. Faîsme, who seemed to be waiting for his comment on the scene.

“An excellent turn-out,” he said.

The little man said nothing, but gently rubbed one plump palm against the other, as if he were soaping them, while his eyes, sparkling with pride behind the glasses, conveyed his silent gratitude.

At last, when the quadrangle was quite empty, Jacques appeared outside the sunlit porch.

At first Antoine wondered if it was really he. He had changed so greatly, grown so much taller, that Antoine all but failed to recognize him. He was not wearing uniform but a lounge suit, a felt hat, and an overcoat thrown over his shoulders. He was followed by a fair-haired, thick-set young man of about twenty, who was not wearing the official uniform. They came down the steps together. Neither seemed to have noticed Antoine and the superintendent. Jacques was walking composedly, his eyes fixed on the ground, and it was not till he was within a few yards of M. Faîsme that, raising his head, he stopped, displayed astonishment, and briskly took off his hat. His demeanour was completely natural, yet Antoine had a suspicion that his surprise was simulated. Jacques’s expression remained calm and, though he was smiling, did not seem to convey any real pleasure. Antoine held out his hand; his pleasure, too, was feigned.

“Well, this is a nice surprise, Jacques, isn’t it?” the superintendent exclaimed. “But I’m going to scold you, my dear boy. You should put on your overcoat properly. It’s chilly up in the gallery and you might catch cold.”

Jacques had turned away from his brother as soon as he heard M. Faîsme speak and was looking the superintendent in the face with a respectful, remarkably attentive expression, as if he were trying to grasp some underlying meaning that the words might be intended to convey. Then promptly, without answering, he slipped the overcoat on.

“By Jove!” Antoine sounded almost startled. “It’s amazing how you’ve shot up.” He could not take his eyes off his brother, trying to analyse the complete change that had come over the boy’s demeanour, face, and general appearance, and his surprise hampered his spontaneity.

“Would you like to stay outside for a bit?” the superintendent amiably suggested. “It’s such a nice day, isn’t it? Jacques can take you to his room when you’ve done a few turns round the garden.”

Antoine hesitated. His eyes were asking his brother: “What about it?”

Jacques made no sign. Antoine took it to mean that he would rather not stay where he was, in full view of the reformatory windows.

“No,” he said, and turned to Jacques again. “We’ll be better in your room, won’t we?”

“As you like,” the superintendent smiled. “But first of all I want to show you one more thing; you really must have a look at all our boarders, while you’re about it. Come along, Jacques.”

Jacques followed M. Faîsme, who, his arms extended, laughing like a schoolboy playing a practical joke, was shepherding Antoine towards a shelter built against the wall of the porter’s lodge. There were a dozen little rabbit-hutches. M. Falsme, it seemed, had a passion for small-stock raising.

“This litter was born last Monday,” he explained gleefully, “and look, they’re opening their eyes already, dear little things. In this hutch are my buck-rabbits. Have a good look at this one, doctor; he’s a real ‘hard case.’ ” He plunged his arm into a hutch and hauled out by the ears a big silver Champagne, kicking violently.

There was a ring of boyish merriment in his laugh; it seemed impossible to think ill of the little man. Then Antoine remembered the dormitory above and its hutches barred with iron.

The plaintive smile of a misunderstood man came to M. Faîsme’s face. “Good heavens,” he said, “here I am chattering away, and I can see you’re only listening out of pure politeness, eh? I’ll take you as far as Jacques’s door, and leave you. Come, Jacques, show us the way.”

Jacques went in front. Antoine overtook him and put a hand on his shoulder. He was trying vainly to conjure up a picture of the small, nervous, weakly, short-legged urchin he had gone to retrieve at Marseille less than a year before.

“Why, you’re as tall as I am!”

From the shoulder his hand moved up to the boy’s neck. It was as thin and frail as the neck of a bird. Indeed all the boy’s limbs seemed to have outgrown their strength, to be extraordinarily fragile. The elongated wrists protruded from the sleeves, the trousers left his ankles almost unclad, and there was a stiffness, an awkwardness in his way of walking, paradoxically combined with a certain adolescent suppleness, that was quite new to Antoine.

The rooms reserved for the special inmates were in an annex to the administrative offices and could be approached only through them. Five identical rooms gave onto a corridor the walls of which were painted yellow. M. Faîsme explained that as Jacques was the only “special” and the other rooms were unoccupied, the young man who looked after him slept in one, while the others were used as storerooms.

“And here’s our prisoner’s cell,” he said, giving Jacques a playful tap with his plump finger; the boy smiled and drew back to let him enter.

Antoine inspected the room with eager curiosity. It might have been a bedroom in some small, unpretentious, but pleasantly appointed hotel. The wallpaper had a floral pattern and there was a fair amount of light, though it came only from above through two fanlights of frosted glass criss-crossed by iron bars. They were immediately beneath the ceiling and, the room being lofty, nearly ten feet above the floor. Sunlight did not enter, but the room was warmed, not to say overheated, by the heating-plant of the establishment. The furniture consisted of a pitchpine wardrobe, two cane chairs, and a black table covered with an array of books and dictionaries. The little bed was smooth and trim as a billiard-table, and had been freshly laid with clean sheets. The wash-basin stood on a clean cloth and there were several immaculate towels on the towel-rail.

A minute inspection of the room gave the final blow to Antoine’s preconceived ideas about the institution. Everything he had seen during the past hour had been the exact opposite of what he had expected. Jacques was effectively segregated from the other boys and treated with every consideration; the superintendent was a good fellow, as unlike the warden of a prison as one could well imagine. In fact, all M. Thibault had said was true. Obstinate though he was, Antoine was being forced to retract his suspicions one by one.

He caught M. Faîsme’s gaze intent on him.

“Well, I must say you’re pretty comfortable here,” he remarked, rather abruptly, turning to Jacques.

Jacques made no reply. He was taking off his hat and coat, which the servant took from him and hung up on the pegs.

“Your brother has just said that you seem comfortable here,” the superintendent repeated.

Jacques swung round, with a polite, good-mannered air his brother had never seen him assume before. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Very comfortable indeed.”

“No, don’t let us exaggerate,” M. Faismc smiled. “It’s all very primitive really; we only insist it shall be clean. In any case, it’s Arthur we must compliment,” he added, turning to the servant. “That bed does you credit, my lad!”

Arthur’s face lit up. Antoine, who was watching him, found himself making a friendly gesture towards the young man. He had a bullet head, pale eyes, and smooth features, and there was something frank and forthright in his smile and gaze. He had stayed beside the door and was tugging at his moustache, which seemed almost colourless against his sun-tanned cheeks.