The Thibaults (43 page)

An infantryman passed by; he held two Women by the waist and was laughingly teaching them how to change step. “Left, right! Not like that. Hop on your left foot! Left, right!” Laughter rang receding, long echoing along the silent house-fronts.

When they left the cabaret she thought he would slip his arm through hers at once. But Daniel so keenly relished joys deferred that he would postpone them almost to the breaking-point. She made the first move, startled by a distant flash of lightning.

“The storm’s not over yet. It’ll rain again.”

“And that will be delightful.” His voice was like a caress, charged with hidden meanings, rather too subtle for the girl, whom his aloofness disconcerted.

“You know, I can’t get it out of my head that I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

He smiled in the shadow, thankful that she kept to commonplace remarks. He was far from suspecting that she really thought she had met him before, and all but answered: “Nor can I,” by way of joining in the game; then, of course, they would fall to guessing when it had happened. But it amused him more to go on mystifying her by keeping silence.

“Why do they call you ‘Prophet’?” she asked, after a pause.

“Because my name is Daniel.”

“Daniel what …?”

He hesitated, reluctant to drop the defensive, even on a minor point. Still Rinette’s curiosity was so patently ingenuous that he felt it unfair to dupe her with a false name.

“Daniel de Fontanin.”

She did not reply, but gave a start of astonishment. She’s stumbled, he thought, and made as if to come to her aid; but she eluded him. That was enough to make him eager to coerce her and, going up to her, he tried to take her arm. Swerving nimbly aside, she kept beyond his reach; then suddenly she turned away, making for a side-street. Playing a game with me, he thought; well, I’ll join in! But it looked as if she were trying to escape him in earnest; she quickened her step till he could hardly keep his distance without breaking into a run. Their point-to-point along the deserted streets amused him. But, when she dived into a darker street that would have brought them back, by a roundabout way, to their starting-point, feeling rather tired, he made a third attempt to grasp her arm. She eluded him again.

“Don’t be so silly!” he cried angrily. “Stop now!”

But she fled all the faster, darting into patches of shadow and constantly swerving from one sidewalk to the other, as if she really meant to shake off his pursuit. All at once she broke into a run. With a few strides he drew level and brought her to bay before a door-porch. Then on her face he caught a look of terror that could not have been feigned.

“What’s the matter?”

She crouched in the dripping doorway, panting, staring up at him with haggard eyes. He thought for a moment. It was clear to him, though he could make nothing of it, that she had had some serious shock. He tried to draw her towards him; she recoiled in such panic haste that a flounce of her dress was torn.

“What on earth is the matter?” he asked again, moving back a pace. “Are you afraid of me? Or do you feel ill?”

A nervous shudder passed through her body; she could not utter a sound and never took her eyes off him.

It was all as much a mystery as ever, but now he took pity on her.

“Would you rather I left you?”

She nodded. Feeling slightly ridiculous, he repeated his question: “You mean it? You’d rather I went away?” He might have been soothing a lost child, such was the gentleness he put into his voice.

“Yes.” Her tone was almost brutal.

Obviously, he decided, this was no acting. He realized that any more insistence on his part would be unmannerly and, suddenly resigned to losing her, determined to take it like a sport.

“Have it your own way,” he said. “Only I can’t leave you stranded here in the middle of the night, in this doorway. We’ll hunt round for a taxi first, and then I’ll leave you… . Right?”

The lights of the Avenue de l’Opera were visible in the distance and they walked silently towards them. Quite soon an empty taxi came their way and, at a sign from Daniel, drew up beside the kerb. Rinette kept her eyes fixed on the ground. Daniel opened the door. Only when her foot was on the step did she turn towards him and look him in the face; it was as if something compelled her to survey him once again. With a forced smile he stood before her, bare-headed, doing his best to keep up the appearance of a friend who is bidding a casual goodbye. Once she was sure he would not try to accompany her, her features relaxed. She told the driver where to go. Then, turning to Daniel, she whispered an apology.

“I’m sorry, but tonight, M. Daniel, you must leave me. I’ll explain tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, with a bow. “But—where?”

“Oh, yes… . Where?” she repeated innocently. “At Mme. Juju’s, if you like. Yes, at her place. Three o’clock.”

“Right!”

He took her extended hand in his, and his lips lightly brushed the tips of her gloved fingers.

The taxi started.

Then suddenly a gust of anger swept over Daniel. He was just mastering it when he observed the girl’s white shoulders leaning from the window and saw her bid the driver stop.

In a few strides he had caught up the taxi, the door of which Rinette had opened. He saw her huddled together at the far end of the seat, her eyes staring into the darkness. He read their meaning and sprang in beside her; when he took her in his arms, she crushed her lips to his and now he knew it was no fear or weakness that moved her to surrender, but that she freely gave herself. She was sobbing, sobbing desperately, and murmured broken phrases:

“I want … I want …”

Daniel was dumbfounded by the words that followed:

“I want … to have … a child by you!”

“Same address, sir?” the taxi-driver inquired.

AFTER leaving Jacques and his friends Antoine had the taxi take him to Passy, where he had “a pneumonia case” to visit; thence to his father’s residence in the Rue de l’Université, where for the past five years he and his brother had shared the ground-floor flat between them. Lolling in the car that took him homewards, a cigarette between his lips, he decided that his little patient was certainly on the mend, that his day’s work was over, and that he was feeling in excellent spirits.

Yesterday, he mused, I wasn’t too pleased with myself. As a rule, when expectoration ceases so abruptly …
Pulsus bonus, urina bona, sed cega’ moritur
. The essential now is to prevent endocarditis. His mother’s still a pretty woman. Paris is looking pretty, too, this evening.

As the car sped by, his eyes searched the green shadows of the Trocadero and he swung round to follow with his gaze a couple turning up a lonely pathway. The Eiffel Tower, the statues on the bridges and the Seine were flushed with rosy light.
In my heart tra-la-la
… The engine purred a ground-bass to his voice.
In my heart … sleeps
, he suddenly added. Got it!
In my heart sleeps la-la-la.
Provoking not to be able to remember the words. Now what the devil sleeps in anybody’s heart? The beast in all of us, he thought, smiling to himself. And again his wandering thoughts veered to the prospect of a festive evening at Packmell’s. Some girl, perhaps …? He felt glad to be alive, borne on an undercurrent of desire. Throwing away the cigarette, he crossed his legs and drew a deep breath of air, to which the rapid motion of the taxi lent an illusive coolness. Let’s hope Belin didn’t forget the cupping-glasses for that child. We’ll save the poor kid—what’s more, without an operation. I’d love to see the look on Loiselle’s face. Those surgeons! They’re all the rage but—what are they? Mere acrobats. As old man Black used to say: “If I had three sons, I’d say to the least gifted one: ‘Go in for midwifery!’; to the most sporting: ‘The lancet for you, my boy!’; but, to the cleverest, I’d say: ‘Be a general practitioner, treat lots of patients, and try to better your knowledge every day.’ ” A joyous mood swept over him again; he felt each sinew tense with deep-set joy. “I’ve played my cards well,” he murmured under his breath.

When he reached home, the open door of Jacques’s room reminded him that his brother had passed his examination, a success that crowned his five years’ vigilance and careful handling of the boy. How well I remember, he mused, the evening when I met Favery in the Rue des Ecoles and the idea of urging Jacques to join the Ecole Normale first came to me! The Square Monge was white with snow. A bit cooler than this! he sighed. Zestfully he foresaw his body under the cool, clear water, and tossed his garments hither and thither with childish impatience.

He felt a new man when he turned off the shower and, thinking of Packmell’s, whistled merrily. He accorded but a minor role in his life to “the girls,” as he called them; and none to sentimental love. Easy come, easy go, was his method, and he prided himself on its matter-of-factness. Moreover, certain nights excepted, he held aloof from “that sort of thing”—not for discipline’s sake or through physical indifference, but because “that sort of thing” belonged to a scheme of life in which the line he had decided once for all to take had no part. He had a feeling that such preoccupations were fit for weaklings, whereas he was a “strong man.”

There was a ring at the bell. He glanced at the clock; if it came to that, he would have time to visit a patient before joining the others at Packmell’s.

“Who’s there?” he called through the door.

“It’s I, M. Antoine.”

He recognized M. Chasle’s voice and opened the door. During M. Thibault’s absence at Maisons-Laffitte his secretary continued to work in the Rue de l’Université.

“Ah, there you are!” murmured M. Chasle vaguely. Abashed by the vision of Antoine in his shorts, he looked aside, muttering: “What?” with an interrogative grimace. “I see you’re dressing,” he added almost immediately, one finger uplifted, as though he had just solved an enigma. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

“I have to be off in twenty-five minutes,” Antoine made haste to inform him.

“That’s more than enough. Look here, doctor.” He put down his hat and, taking off his glasses, opened his eyes wide. “Don’t you see anything?”

“Where?”

“In my eye?”

“Which eye?”

“This one.”

“Keep still. No, I can’t see anything at all. You got it in a draught, perhaps?”

“Yes, it must be that. Thank you. I’d opened both windows.” He coughed shortly and replaced his spectacles. “Thanks. You’ve set my mind at rest. That was all; a draught. An airy nothing. Hee! Hee!” He tittered to himself before continuing. “You see, I haven’t taken up much of your time.” But, instead of reaching for his hat, he perched himself on the arm of a chair and mopped his forehead.

“It’s hot,” Antoine observed.

“Terribly.” M. Chasle knitted his brows with a knowing air. “Thunder about, that’s sure. It’s hard on people who’re bound to keep moving, people who have got steps to take… .”

Antoine, who was lacing up his shoes, glanced at him inquiringly.

“ ‘Steps to take’?”

“Well, in heat like this! In offices, in police-stations, why, it’s stifling! So one just puts it off to another day.” He wagged his head with an air of kindly commiseration.

Antoine could make nothing of the rigmarole.

“By the way,” said M. Chasle, “I have often wanted to ask you about it; do you know the Superannuates’ Home?”

“ ‘Superannuates’ …?”

“Yes. For old people; not incurables. A rest-home at Point-du-Jour; the best air in France. By the by, while we’re on that topic, there’s something else I’d like your opinion about, M. Antoine. You’ve never chanced to find a five-franc piece which had been forgotten?”

“ ‘Forgotten’? How? In a pocket?”

“No. In a garden. In the street, so to say.”

Antoine stood up, trousers in hand, and stared at M. Chasle. One can’t be a moment with the old blighter, he said to himself, without beginning to feel like a mental case. With an effort he pulled his wits together.

“I don’t quite follow your question.” He spoke with careful gravity.

“It’s like this. Suppose somebody happens to lose something. Well, someone else may happen to find it, the thing that was lost, I mean, eh?”

“Quite.”

“Now supposing it happened to be you who found the thing, what would you do with it?”

“I’d try to discover the owner.”

“Yes, of course. But supposing the party wasn’t there any more?”

“Where?”

“In the garden, in the street, for instance.”

“Well, I’d take the—the thing to the police-station.”

M. Chasle smiled knowingly.

“But, if it was money? What then? A five-franc piece? We all know what would become of it at the police-station.”

“Do you imagine the police would keep the money?”

“To be sure!”

“Not a bit of it, M. Chasle. To begin with, there are the formalities, papers to sign. Look here! Once when I was with a friend in a cab I found a baby’s rattle, quite a pretty little thing really, ivory and silver-gilt. Well, at the police-station they took our names—my friend’s name, the cabby’s, our addresses, and the cab number; we had to sign a form and they gave us an official receipt. That’s news to you, eh? What’s more, my friend was notified a year later that, as no one had appeared to claim the rattle, he could come and get it.”

“Why?”

“That’s the law; if lost property is not claimed, the finder is entitled to keep it, after a year and a day.”

“A year and a day? The finder?”

“That’s so.”

M. Chasle shrugged his shoulders.

“A rattle, maybe. But supposing it were a note—a fifty-franc note, for instance?”

“Exactly the same thing.”

“I don’t believe it, M. Antoine.”

“But I’m positive, M. Chasle.”

The grey-haired dwarf perched on the chair stared at the young man over his spectacles. Then, averting his eyes, he coughed behind his hand.

“I asked you that—it’s about my mother.”

“Has your mother found some money?”

“What?” ejaculated M. Chasle, wriggling on the chair-arm. His cheeks were crimson and for a moment his face betrayed an agony of doubt. But almost immediately a subtle smile crept over his lips. “Of course not. I was speaking of the Home.” Then, as Antoine began to slip on his coat, he leapt down from the chair to help him pass his arms through the sleeves. “A passage of arms,” he tittered. Then, taking advantage of his position at Antoine’s back, he continued quickly, speaking into his ear: “The dreadful thing, you see, is that they want nine thousand francs. With the extras, ten thousand francs all told. And
payable in advance
, what’s more; it’s written down. And then, if anyone wants to leave, eh?”