The Thibaults (79 page)

A timid ring at the door-bell came as a welcome interruption. He put down his napkin and pricked up his ears, his hand resting on the tablecloth, ready to rise from his seat at a moment’s notice.

He heard a palaver in the hall, and women whispering. Then the door opened and, to his surprise, Léon showed two women into the room without more ado. They proved to be M. Thibault’s maids. At first, in the dim light, Antoine failed to recognize them; then it suddenly struck him that they had come to fetch him, and he jumped up so hastily that his chair toppled over behind him.

“No, sir, no!” they cried in the utmost confusion. “Please excuse us, sir. We thought we’d give less trouble if we came at this time.”

“Yes, I thought Father had died,” Antoine said to himself so calmly that he realized how well prepared he was for that to happen. The possibility that the phlebitis might have caused an embolism had crossed his mind immediately. When he thought of the lingering agony that such a development would have averted, he could not help feeling almost disappointed.

“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll go ahead with my dinner, as I’ve some more visits to make this evening.”

The two women remained standing.

Jeanne, their mother, had been M. Thibault’s cook for a quarter of a century. She was now past work, her legs were raddled with varicose veins, and she herself admitted that her place , was “on the shelf.” Now the old woman’s working days were done, her daughters installed her daily in an arm-chair facing the kitchen range, and there she spent her days, wielding an ineffectual poker. She still enjoyed a feeble illusion of responsibility, for she had a finger in every pie, occasionally whipped the mayonnaise, and plagued her daughters (both women in the thirties) with good advice from morn till night. Clotilde, the elder of the two, was a sturdy wench, devoted if somewhat disobliging, a chatterbox but a hard worker. She had been employed on a farm for many years and had retained a rough-and-ready manner and a racy vocabulary like her mother’s;’ she did the cooking. Adrienne, who had had a convent education and always been in service in town, was more refined than her elder sister; she had a weakness for dainty lingerie, sentimental ballads, a nosegay on her work-table, and “pretty services” on church-days.

Clotilde, as usual, did the talking.

“It’s on account of Mother we’ve come to see you, M. Antoine. It’s been hurting her something awful for the last few days, poor thing, and no mistake! There’s a big lump she has in front, on her right side. She can’t sleep of nights and when she goes to the bathroom, poor old soul, you can hear her whimpering like a child. But she’s plucky, Mother is; she never says a word. You might have a look at her, sir, without letting on what you’re about—eh, Adrienne?— and then you’re sure to see the great bulge she has there, under her apron.”

“Right you are!” said Antoine, taking out his note-book. “I’ll find some excuse for visiting the kitchen tomorrow.”

While her sister talked, Adrienne busied herself changing Antoine’s plate, moving the bread within his reach, and making herself generally useful at table—by force of habit. She had said nothing so far, but now she put a question in an unsteady voice.

“Do you think, sir, that it’s … it’s likely to be dangerous?”

A tumour which develops so quickly … Antoine reflected. And, an operation at her time of life—much too risky! He visualized with pitiless precision the course a case like the old woman’s might take: the huge proliferation of the neoplasm, its fatal progress, the gradual constriction of the organs, and—most horrible of all—the body’s slow decomposition; a death in life.

Lacking courage to meet her anxious gaze, which he could not have brought himself to answer with a lie, he looked askance, with knitted brows and lips set sulkily. Making an evasive gesture, he pushed his plate away from him. But just then fat Clotilde, who never could let a pause elapse without putting in a word, came opportunely to his rescue.

“Of course there’s no knowing it right away like that; M. Antoine must have a look at her first. But there’s one thing I can tell you: my poor husband’s mother, well, she died of a cold on her chest after going about for fifteen years and more with a lump just like that one in her stomach!”

A QUARTER of an hour later Antoine had made his way to B37 Rue de Verneuil and was entering a dark courtyard surrounded by a block of antiquated buildings. Room 3 was on the sixth story, the first door in a passage that reeked of gas.

Robert opened the door; he had a lamp in his hand.

“How’s your brother?”

“Quite well now, sir.”

The lamplight fell full on the boy’s eyes, cheerful and candid eyes, but with a glint of hardness in them, wise before their time; a childish face, tense with precocious energy.

Antoine smiled.

“Let’s have a look at him.”

Taking the lamp from the boy’s hand, Antoine held it aloft to get a better view of his surroundings. A round table spread with oilcloth took up most of the room. Robert had evidently been writing; a bulky ledger lay open between an uncorked ink-bottle and a pile of plates, on top of which reposed a hunk of bread and a couple of apples: a humble still-life. The room was tidy, almost comfortable. A kettle was singing on a little stove in front of the fireplace.

Antoine went up to the high-pitched mahogany bedstead at the far end of the room.

“Asleep, were you?”

“Oh, no, sir!”

The little boy, who had obviously wakened with a start, was propping himself on his unbandaged arm, wide-eyed and smiling fearlessly.

His pulse was regular. Antoine placed on the bedside table the box of gauze which he had brought, and began to take off the bandage.

“What’s that you’re boiling on the stove?”

“Just water.” Robert laughed. “We were going to have something hot to drink; the concierge gave me some lime-flowers to flavour it.” Suddenly his eyelashes began to quiver. “Won’t you have some, sir? With sugar. Do try it, sir! It’s awfully nice like that!”

“No, thanks, really.” Antoine was amused by the boy’s eagerness. “What I want is a little boiled water for washing his arm. Just pour some into a clean plate. Right. Now we must wait for it to cool off.” He sat down and looked at the children, who were beaming at him as if they had known him all their lives. Yes, he thought, they look decent little lads—but can one ever be really sure? He turned to the older boy.

“How is it that two kids like you come to be living here on your own?”

The boy’s eyelashes fluttered and he made a vague gesture, as if to say: “Beggars can’t be choosers!”

“What about your father and mother?”

“Oh, they …!” Robert’s tone implied that such a question really harked back much too far into the past. “We used to live with Auntie.” He pointed to the big bed with a meditative air. “She died there in the middle of the night; on the tenth of August it was, over a year ago. And an awfully bad time we had after that, eh, Eddie? Luckily we were on the soft side of the concierge and she didn’t say anything to the old landlord, so we didn’t have to leave.”

“How about the rent?”

“It’s paid.”

“Who pays it?”

“We do.”

“Where does the money come from?”

“Why, what d’you think? We earn it. I do, that is to say. He, you see—well, that’s where the shoe pinches. Got to find him another job. He’s at Brault’s—do you know the shop?—in Grenelle; he’s their errand-boy. Forty francs a month, all told. Rotten pay, isn’t it? Why, you’ve only got to figure out what he costs in shoe-leather!”

He paused, all eyes for Antoine, who had just removed the bandage. The abscess showed little suppuration, the swelling of the arm had gone down, and the wound looked healthy.

“And how about you?” asked Antoine, as he dipped the dressing in the water.

“Me?”

“Well, you earn your living somehow, don’t you?”

“Me …?” Robert repeated in a dawdling voice that suddenly slapped out like a flag in the wind. “You bet I do! I know a trick or two, what’s more!”

Antoine glanced up in some surprise and his eyes met a look, keen as a razor-blade, a rather disconcerting look, on the high-strung, resolute little face.

The boy asked nothing better than to talk. How to earn one’s living—that was the theme of themes, the only one that counted, the dominant of all his thoughts since ever he began to think. He started with a rush, eager to pour out everything, to unload all his secrets.

“When Auntie died I was only making sixty francs a month as a copyist. Now that I attend the courts as well, my pay’s a hundred and twenty francs. Then M. Lamy, the head clerk, fired the office-cleaner—the man who shines the floor each morning—and gave me his job. A lazy old fellow he was, too; never cleaned the floor except there’d been a rainy day, and then only in front of the window where the mud shows. They did well out of the change, you bet! I get another ninety-five francs for that, and it’s fine sport polishing the floor every morning, just like roller-skating!” He gave a little whistle. “But that’s not all. I’ve got some other little grafts.”

He paused, waiting for Antoine to look again in his direction; then, at a glance, he seemed to sum his man up once for all. Favourable though the judgment was, he evidently thought it best to lead off with a word of warning.

“I don’t mind telling you, as I know it’s safe with you. But you mustn’t ever let on you know about it, eh?” He began to speak more loudly, warming up to his subject as he went on. “You know Mme. Jollin, the concierge at No. 3 in front of your place? Well—but mum’s the word, don’t forget!—well, the old dame makes cigarettes on the q.t. Say, I wonder if you’d care to …? No? They’re Ai smokes, you know—mild and not too tight-packed. Dirt cheap, too. I’ll bring you some to sample. Anyhow, it seems it’s a hell of a business if you get copped making cigarettes to sell like that. So she needs someone to take round the packages and collect the cash, someone who knows his way around. That’s my job; after office-hours, from six to eight, I go my rounds, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. She gives me lunch every day except Sundays for my trouble. And a mighty good cook she is, I’ll say that for her. Just think what I save! Not to mention that the customers—they’re all of them real sports—nearly always slip a nice little tip into my hand, a franc or fifty centimes, it’s a matter of luck. Anyhow every little helps, as they say, and we don’t do too badly.”

He paused. From his tone Antoine could guess the look of pride that sparkled in his eyes, but he purposely refrained from looking up.

Robert, now he was started, rattled on cheerfully.

“When the kid comes back in the evening, he’s dog-tired, so we have our grub here; soup, or eggs, or a hunk of cheese, it don’t take long anyhow. That’s much better than going round the lunch-counters, eh, Eddie? Now and then, like tonight, I spend the evening writing up headings for the cashier. They’re nice—aren’t they?—big, fat round-hand titles like that; why, I could write ‘em just for the fun of it. At the office they …”

“Hand me the safety-pins, will you?” Antoine broke in, feigning indifference to the boy’s chatter; he was afraid of giving the youngster a taste for showing off. Inwardly, however, he saiti to himself: “These kids are worth keeping an eye on!”

The dressing had been renewed, the arm was back in its sling. Antoine glanced at his watch.

“I’ll look in once again tomorrow, about noon. After that you can come to my place. You’ll be fit to go back to work on Friday or Saturday, I guess.”

After a moment’s silence the little boy stammered: “Th … thank you, sir.” His voice was just breaking and he jerked the words out with such incongruous emphasis, they cut so quaintly through the silence, that Robert burst out laughing. There was an unnatural shrillness in his laugh, which gave a sudden indication of the state of nervous tension in which the high-strung little fellow always lived.

Antoine took twenty francs from his purse.

“To help you through the week, young fellows.”

Robert recoiled as if he had been stung; frowning, he looked up at Antoine.

“No, sir, no! We couldn’t think of it. Didn’t I tell you we have all we need?” Then, to convince Antoine, who, in haste to be off, was beginning to insist, he launched his Parthian shot: ’ ”Do you know how much we’ve saved, just us two? A nice little nest-egg— guess! Seventeen hundred of the best! Yes, sir. Haven’t we, Eddie?” Then suddenly his voice dropped to a whisper like the villain’s in a melodrama. “Not to mention a heap more that will be rollin’ in, if my little scheme comes off!”

Such eagerness was in his eyes that Antoine’s curiosity was whetted and he halted on the threshold.

“Yes, quite a new dodge. It’s like this… . Bassou—he’s a clerk in our office—has a brother who is a salesman for wine, olive-oil and so forth. Here’s the idea! On my way back from the courts in the afternoon—that’s nobody’s business, eh?—I drop in at all the taverns, grocers’, wine-merchants’, and show them my stuff. I haven’t got the patter off yet—but that’ll come with practice. Anyhow, I’ve placed quite a lot of kegs this last week. Forty-four francs’ rake-off. And Bassou says that, if I’m fly …”

Antoine chuckled as he hurried down the six flights of stairs. Yes, they’d quite won his heart, the youngsters, and he’d do anything for them. “All the same,” he added to himself, “I’d better watch out and see they don’t become
too
‘fly’!”

IT WAS raining; Antoine took a taxi. As he neared the Faubourg Saint-Honore his cheerfulness evaporated and a frown settled on his brows.

“If only it were all over!” he said to himself as, for the third time that day, he gloomily climbed the three flights of stairs. When he reached the door of the Hequéts’ flat he fancied for a moment that his wish had been fulfilled. The maid who opened the door looked at him in a peculiar manner and stepped forward hastily to whisper something in his ear. But it was only a private message from Mme. Hequét that she imparted; her mistress wanted Antoine to see her first, before going to the child.

There was no eluding it. The light was on in Nicole’s room; the door stood open. As he entered he saw her head lying on the pillow. He walked up to the bedside. She did not stir. She had obviously dozed off, and it would have been brutal to disturb her. In repose she looked much younger, care-free, now that sleep had smoothed away the lines of grief and weariness. Antoine gazed at her, holding his breath, afraid to move; it startled him to read upon those features, whence sorrow had withdrawn itself only so short a while ago, this all so sudden ecstasy, so keen a longing for oblivion and happiness. The pearly lustre of her closed eyelids, fringed with finespun, tenuous strands of gold, her languid grace and air of unconcern—all the naked, self-revealing beauty of the face before him made his senses tingle. How fascinating, too, the drooping curve of her mouth and the half-parted lips that now in their repose seemed to express only relief and hopefulness! “Why,” Antoine asked himself, “why should the face of any young being seen asleep appeal to us so strongly? What instinct lies behind the thrill, the almost sensual thrill of pity it evokes in every one of us?”