The Thibaults (32 page)

“All right, I’ll leave you to yourselves,” he said mischievously.

“Cunning little rascal!” Gregory shook his fist playfully at him.

But once he was left alone with Mme. de Fontanin, a glow of kindliness lit up the dry, sallow face, and his eyes grew tender.

“And now,” he said, “the time has come when I want to speak to your heart, my dear, and to your heart alone.” For a few moments he seemed abstracted from his surroundings, as if in prayer. Then with a nervous gesture he ran his fingers through his straggly black hair, pulled a chair towards him, and sat astride it. “I’ve seen him.” He watched the colour ebbing from Mme. de Fontanin’s face. “He asked me to come and see you. He is repentant, and I can’t tell you how unhappy.” Gregory kept his eyes fixed on hers as if he hoped the joy that glowed in them persistently might alleviate the distress he was imposing on her.

“So he’s in Paris?” she murmured, without thinking of what she was saying, for she knew Jerome had come in person, on Jenny’s birthday, two days before, to leave the camera with the concierge. Wherever he might be, never had he forgotten the birthday of any member of the family. “So you’ve seen him?” She spoke in a faraway voice and her face betrayed as yet no definite emotion. For months she had been thinking about him incessantly, but in so vague a manner that, now he was being spoken about, a curious lethargy had crept over her mind.

“Yes, he’s so unhappy,” the pastor repeated with insistence, “and overwhelmed with remorse. That wretched creature of his is still singing at the theatre, and he is thoroughly disgusted with it all; he wants never to see her again. He says life is impossible for him apart from his wife and children—and I believe he means it. He begs your forgiveness and will make any undertaking you desire, if only he can remain your husband. He implores you to abandon your intention of divorcing him. And I discerned on his face the look of the just man, of one who is fighting the good fight.”

She said nothing, but gazed pensively into the middle distance. There was a gentleness about her face, the soft, sensitive lips, full cheeks, and rather heavy chin, that seemed instinct with compassion; and Gregory thought she was in a forgiving mood.

“He tells me you are going to appear, both of you, before the judges,” he continued, “for the preliminary attempt at reconciliation and that only if that fails, the actual divorce proceedings will begin. So he now craves your forgiveness, for he has undergone a change of heart; I’m convinced of it. He says he is not the man he seems to be, that he’s better at heart than we imagine. And that, too, I believe. And he’s quite decided to work now, if he can find work. So, if only you’ll consent, he will live here with you; he’ll choose the better path, and atone for his misdeeds.”

He saw her lips trembling, a nervous tremor convulsing her chin. Then, with a quick, decisive jerk of her shoulders, she turned to him.

“No!”

Her voice was clear, emphatic, and in her gaze there was a sombre dignity, giving the impression that her mind was made up irrevocably. Gregory leaned back and closed his eyes; for a long while he did not speak.

When at last he spoke his voice was remote; all the warmth had gone out of it. “Look here!” he began. “I’m going to tell you a story, if you’ll let me, a story that is new to you. It’s about a man who was in love. I ask you: listen well. This man, while he was still quite young, was engaged to a poor girl who was so good and beautiful, so truly beloved of God, that he too loved her.” His eyes grew dark, intense. “Yes, he loved her with his whole soul… .” For a moment he seemed to have lost the thread; with an effort he continued, speaking more quickly: “And then, after their marriage, this is how things went. One day the man discovered that his wife did not love him only; she loved another man, their friend, who was welcome at their house and like a brother to them both. The unhappy husband took his wife away on a long journey, to help her to forget; and then he came to understand that now she would always love that other man, their friend, and himself no more. Thus life became a hell for both of them. He saw his wife suffering adultery in her body, then in her heart, and at last even in her soul, for she was becoming unjust and wicked. Yes,” he continued in a slow, sad voice, “they came to a terrible pass, those two poor people; she growing evil because of thwarted love, and he too growing evil because the Negative was rooted in their lives. Well, what did he do then, that man? He prayed. And he thought: ‘I love this woman, and I must shield her soul from evil.’ And then, with joy in his heart, he summoned his wife and his friend into his study and, setting before them the New Testament, he said: ‘In the sight of God I solemnly declare that you twain are joined in holy wedlock.’ All three were weeping. But then he said: ‘Have no fears; I am leaving you and never shall I return to spoil your happiness.’ ”

Screening his eyes with his hand, Gregory added in a low voice:

“Ah, my dear, what a noble reward God made that man, in the memory of that great sacrifice, his love-offering!” He raised his head. “And the man did as he had said; he gave away all his money to them, for he had great riches and she was the poorest of the poor. He made a long journey, to the other side of the world, and I know that now, seventeen years later, he is still quite alone and all but penniless, earning his daily bread as I do, as a humble worker for the Christian Healers.”

Mme. de Fontanin gazed at him, deeply moved.

“But wait!” His voice grew suddenly shrill, excited. “Let me tell you now the end of the story.” His features were working with emotion, his arms were resting on the back of the chair on which he sat astride, with the emaciated fingers feverishly interlocked. “That poor man thought he was bequeathing happiness to those two people, and taking away with him all the evil that had marred their lives. But God moves in a mysterious way and it was of them that Evil took possession. They mocked at him. They betrayed the Spirit. They accepted his sacrifice with crocodile tears, but in their hearts they scoffed. They told lies about him to their mutual friends. They showed his letters round. They even used against him his act of generosity, calling it ‘connivance,’ and went so far as to say he had left his wife without a penny, deserted her to run away to another woman’s arms, in Europe. Yes, they said all that. And they brought a judgment of divorce against him.”

He dropped his eyes for a moment, and an odd noise that sounded almost like a chuckle came from his throat. Then he rose and very carefully put back his chair in the place from which he had taken it. All signs of grief had left his face.

“Well,” he said, bending over the motionless form of Mme. de Fontanin, “such is love, and so incumbent on us is forgiveness that if at this very instant that dear, faithless woman appeared beside me, saying: ‘James, I have come back to live again under your roof. You shall be once more my abject slave, and when I feel inclined, I’ll make a mock of you again’—well, even if she said all that, I’d reply: ‘Come, take all the little I possess. I thank God for your return. And I shall strive so ardently to be truly good in your eyes, that you, too, will become good; for Evil does not exist.’ Yes, it’s the truth, dear, if ever my Dolly comes back to me, asking me to give her shelter, that’s how I shall deal by her. But I shan’t say: ‘Dolly, I forgive you,’ but only:. ‘Christ watch over you!’ And so my words will not come back empty, because Good is the power, the only power, capable of holding in check the Negative.” Folding his arms, he fell silent, nursing his pointed chin in the hollow of his hand. At last he spoke again, in the sing-song intonation of the professional preacher. “And you, Mme. de Fontanin, should go and do likewise. For you love this man with your heart’s love, and Love is Righteousness. Christ has said: ‘Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ”

She shook her head sadly.

“You don’t know him, James,” she said in a low voice. “The very air’s unbreatheable beside him. Everywhere he brings evil. He would only destroy all our happiness again—and contaminate the children.”

“When Christ touched the leper’s sore with His hand, the hand of Christ was not infected, but the leper was cleansed.”

“You say I love him—no, that isn’t true! I know him too well now. I know what his promises are worth. I’ve forgiven him far too often.”

“When Peter asked Our Lord how often he should forgive his brother, saying: ‘Till seven times?’ Jesus answered: ‘I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.’ ”

“I tell you, James, you don’t know him.”

“Who has the right to think: ‘I know my brother’? Christ said: ‘I judge no man.’ And I, Gregory, I say to you: if a man leads a life of sin without being vexed and sore at heart, that is because there is still blindness in his soul. But one who weeps because he has lapsed into a sinful life, verily his eyes are open , to the light of truth. I tell you he is stricken with remorse and his face was. the face of a just man.”

“You don’t know everything, James. Ask him what he did when that woman had to run away to Belgium because her creditors were after her. It was another man that she ran away with, but he left all to follow them, he threw away every vestige of self-respect. For two months he worked as a ticket-taker in the theatre where she was singing. The way he behaved was simply revolting. Yes, revolting! She went on living with her violinist; Jerome put up with everything, he used to dine with them, to play duets with his mistress’s lover! ‘The face of a just man’! No, you’ve no idea what he’s really like. Today he’s in Paris, he’s repentant, and tells you he has left that woman, and doesn’t want to see her again. Tell me, why should he be paying off her debts—if it isn’t that he wants to get her to come back to him? Yes, he’s settling with Noémie’s creditors one by one, and that’s the reason why he is in Paris now. And the money he’s using for it is—mine and the children’s. Listen! Do you know what he did’ three weeks ago? He mortgaged our place at Maisons-Laffitte, just to raise twenty-five thousand francs for one of Noémie’s creditors who was pressing her for payment.”

She looked down; there was more to tell, but she left it unsaid. She was recalling that meeting at the notary’s to which she had been summoned and to which she had gone, suspecting nothing, to find Jerome waiting for her at the door. He needed her power of attorney for the mortgage, as the property was hers by inheritance. He had thrown himself on her mercy, professing to be penniless and on the brink of suicide; there, in the public street, he had dramatically turned out his empty pockets. She had given way almost without a struggle, and had followed him to the lawyer’s office, to put an end to the scene he was making in the street—and also because she, too, was short of money and he had promised to give her a few thousand francs out of the proceeds of the mortgage. She had to have the money to tide over the next six months, pending the settlement that would take place after the divorce.

“I tell you again, James, you don’t know him. He assures you that everything is changed, and he wants to come back to live with us. Supposing I tell you that the day before yesterday, when he came here to leave his birthday present for Jenny, downstairs with the concierge, he had his cab stop only a few yards from our door, and that there was someone with him in the cab!” She shuddered; a picture had risen before her of the little workgirl in black she had seen crying on a bench beside the Seine. She stood up. “That’s the sort of man he is!” she cried. “He’s so dead to every sense of decency that he brings with him some woman or other, his latest mistress, when he calls to leave a birthday present for his daughter. And you say I still love him—that’s untrue, absolutely untrue!” She was pale with resentment; at that moment she seemed genuinely to hate him.

Gregory gazed at her severely.

“The truth is not in you,” he said. “Even in thought, should we return evil for evil? Spirit is everything. The material world is subject to the spiritual. Has not Christ said—?” The barking of the dog cut him short. “That must be your damned bearded doctor man!” he muttered, scowling.

He hurried back to his chair and sat down.

The door opened and Antoine entered, followed by Jacques and Daniel.

Antoine came in with a firm, decided step, now that he had accepted all the consequences this visit might entail. The light from the open windows fell full on his face; his hair and beard formed zones of shadow and all the sunlight seemed concentrated on the pale rectangle of his forehead, lending him an air of high intellectuality. And, though he was of medium height, at that moment he seemed tall. As Mme. de Fontanin watched him coming towards her, her instinctive liking for the young man took a new lease of life. While he was bowing and she was holding out both hands to him in affectionate welcome, he was annoyed to notice Pastor Gregory in the background. The pastor, without moving, gave him a curt nod.

Jacques, who was standing at some distance from the others, was examining with interest Mme. de Fontanin’s eccentric-looking visitor, while Gregory, astride his chair, his chin propped on his folded arms, his nose as red as ever, and lips set in an uncouth, incomprehensible grin, watched the young folks good-humouredly. When Mme. de Fontanin went up to Jacques, there was such affection in her look that he suddenly recalled that evening when she had held him weeping in her arms. She, too, was remembering it, as she exclaimed: “Why, he’s such a big boy now that I hardly dare to—!” and promptly kissed him, with a laugh that had in it a touch of coquetry. “But of course I’m a mamma, and you’re the next thing to a brother to my Daniel.” She turned to Gregory, who had just risen and was about to take his leave. “You’re not going yet, James, I hope?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve got to go now.” He shook hands energetically with the two brothers, then went up to her.

“Just one more word,” Mme. de Fontanin said, as they were leaving the room together. “Answer me quite frankly, please. After what I’ve told you, do you still think that Jerome should be allowed to return to live amongst us?” Her eyes were full of anxious questioning. “Weigh your answer well, James. If you say to me: ‘Forgivel’ I will forgive.”