“No!” roared Camus.
“Do you mean that I am not free to say what I think?”
“You are not free, you have no right to say such things,” cried the exasperated Camus. “Your country has claims on you, and your family first of all. They ought to shut you up.”
He insisted that the letter should be written that very moment, but Clerambault simply turned his back on him. So he left, banging the door after him, and vowing that he would never set foot there again, that all was over between them.
After this poor Clerambault had to submit to a string of questions from his wife who, without knowing what he had done, lamented his imprudence and asked with tears: “Why, why he had not kept silent? Had they not trouble enough? What was this mania he had for talking? And particularly for talking differently from other people?”
While this was going on, Rosine came back from an errand, and Clerambault appealed to her, telling her in a confused manner of the painful scene that had just taken place, and begging her to sit down there by his table and let him read the article to her. Without even taking off her hat and gloves, Rosine did sit down near him, and listened sensibly, sweetly, and when he had done, kissed him and said:
“Yes, I think it’s fine—but, dear Papa, why did you do it?” Clerambault was completely taken aback.
“What? You ask why I did it? Don’t you think it is right?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I believe it must be right since you say so. … But perhaps it was not necessary to write it. …”
“Not necessary? But if it is right, it must be necessary.”
“But if it makes such a fuss!”
“That is no reason against it.”
“But why stir people up?”
“Look here, my little girl, you think as I do about this, do you not?”
“Yes, Papa, I suppose so. …”
“You only suppose? … Come now, you detest the war, as I do, and wish it were over; everything that I wrote there I have said to you, and you agreed. …”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Then you think I am right?”
“Yes, Papa.” She put her arms around his neck, “but we don’t have to write everything that we think.”
Clerambault, much depressed, tried to explain what seemed so evident to him. Rosine listened, and answered quietly, but it was clear that she did not understand. When he had finished, she kissed him again and said:
“I have told you what I think, Papa, but it is not for me to judge. You know much better than I.”
With that she went into her room, smiling at her father, and not in the least suspecting that she had just taken away from him his greatest support.
This abusive attack was not the only one, for when the bell was once tied on the cat it never ceased to ring. However, the noise would have been drowned in the general tumult, if it had not been for a persistent voice which led the chorus of malignity against Clerambault.
Unhappily it was the voice of one of his oldest friends, the author Octave Bertin; for they had been schoolfellows at the Lycée Henri IV. Bertin, a little Parisian, quick-witted, elegant, and precocious, had welcomed the awkward enthusiastic advances of the overgrown youth fresh from the country—ungainly in body and mind, his clothes always too short for his long legs and arms, a mixture of innocence, simplicity, ignorance, and bad taste, always emphatic, with overflowing spirits, yet capable of the most original sallies, and striking images. None of this had escaped the sharp malicious eye of young Bertin; neither Clerambault’s absurdities nor the treasures of his mind, and after thinking him over he had decided to make a friend of him. Clerambault’s unfeigned admiration had something to do with this decision. For several years they shared the superabundance of their youthful ideas. Both dreamed of being artists; they read their literary attempts to each other, and engaged in interminable discussions, in which Bertin always had the upper hand. He was apt to be first in everything. Clerambault never thought of contesting his superiority; he was much more likely to use his fists to convince anyone who denied it. He stood in open-mouthed admiration before his brilliant friend, who won all the University prizes without seeming to work for them, and whom his teachers thought destined to the highest honours—official and academic, of course.
Bertin was of the same mind as his teachers; he was in haste to succeed, and believed that the fruit of triumph has more flavour when one’s teeth are young enough to bite into it. He had scarcely left the University when he found means to publish in a great Parisian review a series of essays which immediately brought him to the notice of the general public. And without pausing to take breath, he produced one after another a novel in the style of d’Annunzio, a comedy in Rostand’s vein, a book on love, another on reforms in the Constitution, a study of Modernism, a monograph on Sarah Bernhardt, and, finally, the “Dialogues of the Living.” The sarcastic but measured spirit of this last work obtained for him the position of column writer on one of the leading dailies. Having thus entered journalism he stayed in the profession, and became one of the ornaments of the Paris of Letters, while Clerambault’s name was still unknown. The latter had been slow in gaining the mastery over his inward resources, and was so occupied in struggles with himself that he had no time for the conquest of the public. His first works, which were published with difficulty, were not read by more than a dozen people. It is only fair to Bertin to say that he was one of the dozen, and that he appreciated Clerambault’s talents. He was even ready to say so, when opportunity served, and as long as Clerambault was unknown, he took pleasure in defending him. It is true
