The Thibaults (22 page)

Jacques heard the key turn twice in the lock and then a sound of receding steps, rope-soled shoes padding away along the corridor. Then he rolled into the middle of the bed, stretched his limbs, and lay on his back. His teeth were chattering. He had lost heart, and when he recalled the events of the day and his confessions, he had an access of fury quickly followed by a mood of utter misery. Glimpses rose before him of Paris, of Antoine and his home, of quarrels and work and parental discipline. Yes, he had made an irremediable blunder, he had made himself over to his enemies! “But what do they want of me? Why can’t they leave me alone?” He began to cry. Despairingly he tried to console himself with the thought that Antoine’s fantastic idea would come to nothing, that M. Thibault would put his foot down. And now he saw his father as a deliverer. Yes, of course nothing would come of it, they would end by leaving him in peace, by letting him stay here, in this haven of repose, of lethargy and loneliness.

Above his head, on the ceiling, the light from the night-lamp flickered, flickered… .

Yes, here was peace, peace and happiness.

ON THE ill-lit staircase Antoine met his father’s secretary, M. Chasle, coming down, slinking rat-like close along the wall. Seeing Antoine, he pulled up abruptly with a startled look.

“Ah, so it’s you?” He had picked up from his employer the trick of opening a conversation with this remark. Then he announced in a confidential whisper: “There’s bad news! The university group are backing the Dean of the Faculty of Letters for the vacant seat at the Institute; that’s fifteen votes lost at least; with those of the law members that makes twenty-five votes gone. Bad luck, isn’t it? Your father will tell you all about it.” He coughed. M. Chasle was always coughing, out of nervousness, but, believing himself to be a victim of chronic catarrh, sucked cough-lozenges all day. “I must fly now, or Mother will be getting anxious,” he went on, seeing that Antoine made no comment. He took out his watch, listened to it before looking at the time, turned up his collar, and went on down the stairs.

For seven years the little bespectacled man had been coming daily to work for M. Thibault, yet Antoine hardly knew him better now than on the first day. He spoke little, and always in. a low voice, and his conversation was a tissue of commonplaces, a thesaurus of catchwords. He was a creature of trivial habits and a model of punctuality, and he seemed to have a touching devotion for his mother, with whom he lived. His shoes always squeaked. His Christian name was Jules, but M. Thibault, mindful of his ‘own dignity, always addressed his secretary as “M. Chasle.” Antoine and Jacques had two nicknames for him: “Old Gumdrop” and the “Pest.”

Antoine went straight to his father’s study. He found him setting his papers in order before going to bed.

“Ah, so it’s you? Bad news!”

“I know,” Antoine said. “M. Chasle told me about it.”

With an irritated jerk of his head M. Thibault freed his chin from his collar; it always vexed him to find that what he was proposing to announce was known already. But just now Antoine was not inclined to pay attention to his father’s mood; his mind was full of the object of this interview, and he was unpleasantly conscious that a sort of paralysis was creeping over him. He decided for a frontal attack, before it was too late.

“I, too, have some bad news for you, I’m sorry to say. Jacques cannot stay at Crouy.” He took a deep breath, then went on at once: “I’ve just come back from there. I’ve seen him. I got him to talk frankly, and I’ve learned some abominable things. I want to talk to you about it. It’s up to you to get him out of the place as soon as possible.”

For some seconds M. Thibault did not move; his stupefaction was perceptible only in his voice.

“What’s that? You’ve been to Crouy? When? Why did you go there? You must be off your head. I insist on your explaining this conduct.”

Relieved though he was to have taken the obstacle in his first stride, Antoine was extremely ill at ease and incapable of speaking. There followed an oppressive silence. M. Thibault had opened his eyes; now they closed again slowly, reluctantly, it seemed. Then he sat down and set his fists on the desk.

“Explain yourself, my dear boy,” he said. He spoke each syllable with careful emphasis. “You say you have been to Crouy. When did you go?”

“Today.”

“With whom?”

“Alone.”

“Did they—let you in?”

“Naturally.”

“Did they let you see your brother?”

“I have spent the day with him. Alone with him.”

Antoine had a belligerent way of rapping out the last word of every phrase he spoke; it made M. Thibault angrier than ever, but also warned him to go warily with his son.

“You are a child no longer.” The way he said this gave the impression he had just inferred Antoine’s age from the sound of his voice. “You must understand the unsuitability of acting thus, behind my back. Had you any particular reason for going to Crouy without telling me? Did your brother write to you to come?”

“No. I had suddenly become anxious about him, that’s all.”

“Anxious? In what way?”

“About everything, about the whole system, about the effects of the life Jacques has been subjected to for nine months.”

“Really, my dear fellow, you—you surprise me.” He hesitated. The measured terms he was deliberately employing were belied by the large, tightly clenched hands and the furious way he jerked his head forward at each pause. “This mistrust of your father is …”

“Anybody can make mistakes,” Antoine broke in. “And I can prove what I say.”

“Prove it?”

“Listen, Father, it’s no use losing your temper. I suppose we both desire the same thing—Jacques’s welfare. When you know the state of moral decay I found him in, I’m sure you will be the first to decide that he must leave the reformatory at the earliest possible moment.”

“That I will not!”

Antoine tried not to hear the sneering laugh which accompanied the remark.

“You will, Father.”

“I tell you I will not!”

“Father, when you’ve heard …”

“Do you, by any chance, take me for a fool? Do you suppose I’ve had to wait for you to go and look round Crouy to learn how things are done there? I’d have you know that for over ten years I’ve been making a thorough inspection of the place every month and followed it up by a written report. No new step is taken there without being first discussed by the committee whose president I am. Now are you satisfied?”

“Father, what I saw there …”

“That’s enough. Your brother may have poisoned your mind with all the lies he pleases; you’re easy game. But you’ll find I’m not so easy to hoodwink.”

“Jacques didn’t breathe a word of complaint.”

M. Thibault seemed thunderstruck.

“Then, why on earth …?” he asked, raising his voice a little.

“Quite the contrary,” Antoine continued, “and that’s the alarming thing. He told me he didn’t worry; in fact he said he was happy, that he likes being there.” Provoked by his father’s chuckle of self-satisfaction, Antoine added in a cutting tone: “The poor boy has such memories of family life that even prison life strikes him as more agreeable.”

The insult missed its mark.

“Very well,” M. Thibault retorted, “then everything’s as it should be; we’re at one on that. What more do you want?”

As he was feeling less sure now of Jacque’s release, Antoine judged it wiser not to repeat to M. Thibault all the boy had told him. He resolved to keep to generalities and withhold his detailed complaints.

“I’m going to tell you the whole truth,” he began, gazing intently at his father. “I admit that I’d suspected ill-treatment, privation, solitary confinement, and so forth. Now I know. Happily there is nothing of that sort at Crouy. Jacques is not suffering physically, I grant, but in his mind, his morals—and that’s far worse. You’re being deceived when they tell you that isolation is doing him good. The remedy is far more dangerous than the disease. His days are passed in the most degrading sloth. As for his tutor, the less said the better; the truth is that Jacques does no work, and it’s already obvious that his brain is growing incapable of the least effort. To prolong the treatment, believe me, will be to compromise his future irreparably. He is sinking into such a state of indifference to everything, and his mental flabbiness is such, that in another month or two he’ll be too far gone, it will be too late to bring him back to mental health.”

Antoine’s eyes had never left his father’s face as he was speaking. He seemed to be concentrating the utmost impact of his gaze on the stolid face, trying to force from it some gleam of acquiescence. M. Thibault, withdrawn into himself, preserved a massive immobility; he brought to mind one of those pachyderms whose strength remains hidden so long as they are at-rest, and he had the elephant’s large, flat ears and, now and then, his cunning eye. Antoine’s harangue had reassured him. There had been some incipient scandals at the reformatory, certain attendants had had to be dismissed without the reasons for their departure being bruited abroad, and M. Thibault had for a moment feared that Antoine’s revelations were of this order. Now he breathed freely again.

“Do you think that’s news to me, my dear boy?” he asked with an air of jocular good humour. “All you’ve been saying does credit to your kindness of heart; but permit me to say that these questions of reformatory treatment are extremely complex, and in this field one does not become an expert overnight. Trust my experience, and the opinions of those who are versed in these subjects. You talk of your brother’s—what do you call it?—’mental flabbiness.’ But that’s all to the good. You know what Jacques was like. Don’t you realize that is the only way to crush out such evil propensities as his—by breaking down his will? For by gradually weakening the will-power of a depraved boy, you sap his evil instincts and, in the end, eradicate them. Now, consider the facts. Isn’t your brother completely changed? His fits of rage have ceased; he’s disciplined, polite to all who come in contact with him. You yourself admit that he has come to like the order and routine of his new life. Well, really, shouldn’t we be proud of getting such good results within less than a year?”

He was teasing out the tip of his beard between his puffy fingers as he spoke; when he had finished, he-cast a side-glance at his son. That booming voice and majestic delivery lent an appearance of force to his least words, and Antoine was so accustomed to letting himself be impressed by his father that in his heart he weakened. But now his pride led M. Thibault to commit a blunder.

“Now that I come to think of it,” he said, “I wonder why I’m taking so much trouble to defend the propriety of a step which is not being, and will not be, reconsidered. I’m doing what I consider I ought to do, after taking careful thought, and I do not have to render an account to anyone. Get that into your head, my boy!”

Antoine made a gesture of indignation.

“That’s not the way to silence me, Father! I tell you once more, Jacques must not remain at Crouy.”

M. Thibault again emitted a harsh, sarcastic laugh. Antoine made an effort to keep his self-control.

“No, Father, it would be a crime to leave Jacques there. There are sterling qualities in him which must not be allowed to run to seed. And, let me tell you, Father, you’ve often been mistaken about his character; he irritates you and you don’t see his …”

“What don’t I see? It’s only since he’s gone that we’ve had any peace at home. Isn’t that true? Very well, when he’s reformed, we shall see about having him back. Not before!” His fist rose as if he were about to bring it down upon the table with a crash, but he merely opened his hand and laid his palm flat on the desk. His wrath was still smouldering. Antoine made no effort to restrain his own.

“I tell you, Father,” he shouted, “Jacques shall not stay at Crouy! I’ll see to that!”

“Really now!” M. Thibault sounded frankly amused. “Really! Aren’t you, perhaps, a little inclined to forget that you’re not the master here?”

“No, I’m not forgetting it. That’s why I ask you—what you intend to do.”

“To do?” M. Thibault repeated the words slowly, with a frosty smile. For a moment his eyebrows lifted. “There’s no doubt about what I mean to do: to give M. Faîsme a good dressing-down for admitting you without my authorization, and to forbid you ever again to set foot in Crouy.”

Antoine folded his arms.

“So that’s all they mean,” he said, “your pamphlets, your speeches, all your noble sentiments. They come in handy for public meetings, but when a boy’s mind is being wrecked, your own son’s mind, it’s all the same to you. All you want is a quiet life at home, with no worries— and to hell with all the rest!”

“You young ruffian!” M. Thibault shouted, rising to his feet. “Yes. I’d seen it coming. I’ve known for quite a while what to expect of you. Yes, I’ve noticed them—the remarks you sometimes let fall at table and the books you read, your favourite newspapers. I’ve seen your slackness in performing your religious duties. One thing leads to another; when religious principles go, moral anarchy sets in and, finally, rebellion against all proper authority.”

Antoine made a contemptuous gesture.

“Don’t let’s confuse the issues. We’re talking about the boy, and it’s urgent. Father, promise me that Jacques …”

“I forbid you to speak to me again about him. Not another word. Now have I made myself clear enough?”

Their eyes met, challenging.

“So that’s your last word, is it?”

“Get out!”

“Ah, Father, you don’t know me!” There was defiance in Antoine’s laugh. “I swear to you I’ll get Jacques out of that damned jail! And that I’ll stop at nothing!”

A bulky, menacing form, M. Thibault advanced towards his son, his under-jaw protruding.

“Get out!”

Antoine had opened the door. Turning on the threshold, he faced his father and said in a low, resolute tone:

“At nothing, do you hear? Even if I have to start a campaign, a new one, in my ‘favourite newspapers’!”

EARLY next morning, after a sleepless night, Antoine was waiting in a vestry of the Archbishop’s Palace for the Abbé Vécard to finish his mass. It was essential that the priest should know the whole story, and somehow intervene; that was now Jacques’s only chance.