The Thibaults (34 page)

For M. Thibault, whom she thought she pitied from the bottom of her heart, she really felt an instinctive, unreasoning aversion. The taboo he had imposed on her son, her household, and herself seemed odious, unjust, and based on the least worthy motives. Not only did the grossness of M. Thibault’s appearance revolt her, but she could not forgive him for mistrusting the very things she valued most: her moral standard, her Protestantism. And she felt all the more warmly towards Antoine for having overridden his father’s injunction.

“What about you?” she asked with sudden apprehension. “Are you still a practising Catholic?”

When Antoine shook his head, her face lit up with a glow of pleasure.

“As a matter of fact, I kept it up for quite a long time,” he began. He found that Mme. de Fontanin’s company gave a fillip to his thoughts—and, still more certainly, to his tongue. She had a knack of listening with extreme attention that implied a high esteem of the person speaking to her, and always encouraged him to rise to the occasion, above his normal conversational level. “I kept up my religious observances, but I had no real piety. God was for me a sort of omniscient headmaster, whom it was best to humour by means of certain gestures and a certain line of conduct. I obeyed, but for the most part with a sense of boredom. I was a good pupil, you see, in everything; in religion like the rest. It’s hard for me to say now exactly how I came to lose my faith. When I found I’d lost it—that was only four or five years ago—I’d in any case already reached a stage of scientific knowledge that left little room for religious belief. I’m a positivist, you know,” he added, with a feeling of self-satisfaction; as a matter of fact he was expressing theories he made up as he went along, for so far he had had scant leisure or occasion to indulge in self-analysis.

“I don’t claim,” he continued, “that science explains everything, but it tells me what things are, and that’s enough for me. I find the
how
of things sufficiently interesting for me to dispense with the vain quest of the
why
. Besides,” he added hastily, in a lower voice, “isn’t it possible that between these two types of explanation there’s only a difference of degree?” He smiled, as if in self-excuse. “As for questions of morality, well, I hardly give them a thought. I hope I’m not shocking you! But you see, I love my work, I love life, I’m energetic, I like getting things done, and my experience has led me to believe that ‘Get on with your job!’ is a quite adequate rule of life. So far, in any case, I’ve never felt the slightest hesitation about what it was up to me to do.”

Mme. de Fontanin made no reply. She was not in the least vexed with Antoine for being so different from herself. But in her inmost heart she gave thanks all the more fervently to God for His constant presence in her life. To this awareness of divine protection she owed the joyful, never-failing confidence that radiated from her so unmistakably and with such efficacy that, though her life had been a sequence of disaster and her lot was far worse than that of most of those she met, she yet had that peculiar gift of being a source of courage, peace of mind, and contentment for all around her. Antoine at that moment was experiencing it; never in his father’s circle had he met anyone who inspired him with such veneration, around whom the atmosphere was so exalting, by reason of its purity. And he wanted to come nearer her, even at the expense of strict veracity.

“I’ve always felt drawn to Protestantism,” he averred, though actually he had never given it a thought till he met the Fontanins. “Your Reformation was a revolution on the religious plane, for it opened the door to ideas of spiritual freedom.”

She listened to him with growing appreciation. Young, ardent, chivalrous he seemed to her just now, and she was impressed by the vital energy of his expression, the furrow on his forehead that told of concentrated thought. And when he raised his head she had a childish delight in noting a peculiarity that increased the pensiveness of his expression; the upper eyelids were so narrow that they almost vanished under the heavy brows when he opened his eyes wide; at that moment his eyelashes and his eyebrows were all but indistinguishable.

A man with a forehead like that, she was thinking, could never stoop to an ignoble act. And suddenly it struck her that Antoine was the perfect prototype of a man worthy to be loved. She was still quivering with resentment against her husband. How different would have been a life united with someone of Antoine’s calibre! It was the first time she had compared another man with Jerome, the first time a definite regret had crossed her mind and she had been aware of feeling that another might have brought her happiness. It was only a fleeting impulse, strong but secret, that stirred her to the depths of her being; almost immediately she felt ashamed, and she got the better of it quickly enough. But the sense of bitterness that contrition and perhaps regret had left behind them was slower to dissipate.

Just then Jenny and Jacques came in, and their appearance effectively laid the phantoms of her troubled mind. She made a welcoming gesture and called them up to her at once, lest they should think their presence was unwanted. At the first glance she felt that something had happened between them. … It had.

Immediately after taking the photograph of Nicole and Jacques, Daniel proposed to find out forthwith whether it had been a success. That morning he had promised Jenny and his cousin to teach them how to develop, and they had made all the necessary preparations in an empty cupboard, at the end of a passage, which Daniel had formerly used as a dark-room. The space in it was so cramped that it was practically impossible for more than two to be in it at the same time. Daniel had adroitly managed to get Nicole to go in first; then, running up to Jenny, had laid a hand trembling with excitement on her shoulder and whispered:

“You stay with Jacques!”

She had cast him a shrewd, disapproving glance. Yet she had obeyed, such was her brother’s influence over her, so irresistible his manner of demanding—not only in so many words but by the sheer effrontery of his gaze and the vehemence of his demeanour— that his wishes should be complied with then and there.

While the brief scene between brother and sister was in progress, Jacques had stayed in the background, examining the contents of a glass cabinet in the drawing-room. Jenny persuaded herself, as she went to join him, that he could not have noticed Daniel’s manoeuvre. With a little pout she asked him:

“How about you? Do you go in for photography?”

“No.”

The almost imperceptible embarrassment with which he replied made her realize that she should not have asked the question. It came back to her that he had only recently been released from some sort of institution in which he had been to all intents and purposes a prisoner. Following an association of ideas, and by way of making conversation, she put another question:

“You haven’t seen Daniel for quite a long time, have you?”

Jacques lowered his eyes.

“No. Not for a very long time. Not since …! Why, it’s over a year.”

A shadow flitted across her face. Her second attempt had been hardly more successful than her first. He would think she was trying to remind him of the Marseille episode. So much the worse for him! She had never approved of that adventure, and in her eyes he alone was responsible for it. From the start, unconsciously, she had been disliking Jacques. When she saw him that afternoon, at tea-time, she had been unable to help recalling the injury he had done her family, and from the moment she set eyes on him had felt an unqualified repugnance. For one thing, she found him ugly, vulgar even; his big head and uncouth features, his jaw, chapped lips, protuberant ears, and red hair bunched up over his forehead—all displeased her. She could hardly forgive Daniel his attachment to such a friend, though her jealousy prompted her to be more glad than otherwise to discover that the only being who dared to contest with her the first place in her brother’s heart was so unattractive.

She had taken the little dog on her lap and was stroking it absent-mindedly. Jacques was still staring at the floor; he, too, was thinking of the escapade to Marseille, of the memorable night when he first had crossed this threshold.

“Do you find him much changed?” she asked, to break the silence.

“Not at all,” he said, then hastily corrected himself. “No, that’s wrong; he has changed quite a lot.”

His keen regard for truth impressed her, and for a moment she found him less distasteful. Perhaps Jacques was conscious of this fleeting change of mood, for he stopped thinking about Daniel. Looking at Jenny, he began to wonder what she was like. And suddenly he had a brief glimpse into her character, a revelation that he found he could not put into words, though he had guessed the nervous instability, the cross-currents of intense emotion, behind those features seemingly expressive, yet so reticent, and the eyes which, for all their animation, kept their secret. It struck him that he would like to know her better, gain access to that fast-shut heart—even, perhaps, become the friend of this young girl. And for a while his fancy toyed delightfully with the thought that he might come to love her. All his troubled past was out of mind, and now it seemed to him that never again could he be unhappy.

He let his eyes rove round the room, and linger now and then on Jenny; in his gaze there were both curiosity and a shyness which prevented him from noticing how reserved her attitude was, how much she was on the defensive. Suddenly, by an inevitable flash-back of emotion, the picture of Lisbeth rose before him—but a Lisbeth who had dwindled now into a little, insignificant domestic creature, of no account. For the first time he realized the childishness of his romantic scheme of marrying Lisbeth. But—what then? He was appalled at the void that of a sudden loomed up in his life, a void that at all costs he must fill. In Jenny, obviously, he might find the friend he needed, but …

Her voice took him from his reverie, with a start.

“… at a school?”

He caught only the tail-end of the phrase.

“Sorry! I didn’t catch … What were you saying?”

“I asked if you were going to school just now.”

“Not yet.” His voice betrayed his discomfiture. “I’m very behindhand with my studies, you know. I’m working with private coaches, friends of my brother.” Then, in all innocence, he added: “And you?”

She was offended by his putting a direct question to her and the too familiar glance that accompanied it.

“I don’t go to school,” she answered curtly. “I have a governess.”

With his next observation he made another blunder.

“Of course, for a girl, it doesn’t matter really.”

She bridled.

“That’s what you think. But it’s not Mother’s view, or Daniel’s.”

Now there was no mistaking her hostility. He realized too late his clumsiness and tried to retrieve the situation by a remark which he imagined amiable.

“What I mean is, a girl always knows enough to get along with.”

He saw that he was sinking in deeper; he could not control his thoughts or words. That damned reformatory! It had made an idiot of him! He reddened, and the sudden rush of blood to his head seemed to complete his befuddlement. The only issue he could see now was to give vent to his anger. For a moment he groped vainly for some stinging retort; then, throwing discretion to the winds, he blurted out in the vulgar, bantering tone his father often used:

“The principal thing isn’t taught in schools; it’s character.”

She had herself well under control, and did not flinch. But just then the dog yawned noisily and she exclaimed:

“Oh, you nasty little creature! What disgusting manners!” Her voice was trembling with rage. “What disgusting manners!” she repeated, with a shrill, rancorous insistence. Then she put the dog down, rose, and walked out onto the balcony.

Five slow minutes passed, five minutes of intolerable silence. Jacques had not moved from his chair; he felt as if he were suffocating. From the dining-room came the sound of alternating voices: Mme. de Fontanin’s and Antoine’s. Jenny was leaning on the balcony rail, with her back to him, humming one of her piano exercises and beating time with her foot as if to emphasize her truculent contempt. She had made up her mind to tell her brother all about it, and get him to drop this vulgar, ill-bred friend of his. At that moment she hated Jacques. Glancing furtively into the room, she saw him sitting there, flushed but on his dignity. She felt even surer of herself and set her mind to finding some new remark to hurt him.

“Come along, Puce! I’m off!”

Leaving the balcony, she walked past him as if he were not there and calmly proceeded to the dining-room.

Jacques was terrified at the thought that if he stayed behind he would never find a way of getting up and going. So he rose, and followed her at a distance. Mme. de Fontanin’s affectionate welcome changed his resentment into melancholy.

“So your brother’s deserted you?” she said to her daughter.

“Oh, I asked Daniel to develop my films right away,” she explained, but without meeting her mother’s eye. “He won’t be long now.”

She had a shrewd suspicion that Jacques had not been taken in; and this complicity that circumstances had forced on them intensified their mutual dislike. Inexorably Jacques wrote her down a liar, and disapproved of her readiness to shield her brother. She guessed his feelings and her pride was wounded; she carefully refrained from looking in his direction.

Smiling, Mme. de Fontanin motioned them towards the sofa.

“I see my little patient has grown famously,” Antoine remarked.

Jacques said nothing, and kept his eyes bent upon the floor. He was foundering in an abyss of hopelessness; never would he recover his former self! Conscious at once of his weakness and his brutality, he felt profoundly sick at heart; every impulse had him at its mercy, he was a puppet in the hands of implacable fatality.

He heard Mme. de Fontanin asking him a question: “Are you fond of music?”

He pretended not to understand, tears were filling his eyes, and he bent quickly down, as if to tie a shoelace. He heard Antoine answering on his behalf. His ears were buzzing and he felt like death. Was Jenny looking? he wondered.