“You ass!” he cries. “Didn’t you see I was doing it on purpose? … Good Lord, yes! I’ve heard every word you’ve been saying. But you needn’t excite yourselves. I’ve known all about Vincent for ever so long. And now, my young friends, talk a little lower please, because I’m sleepy—or else hold your tongues.”
Olivier turns toward the wall. Bernard, who cannot sleep, looks out into the room. It seems bigger in the moonlight. As a matter of fact, he hardly knows it. Olivier was never there during the daytime; the few times that Bernard had been to see him, it was in the flat upstairs. But it was after school hours, when they came out of the lycée, that the two friends usually met. The moonlight has reached the foot of the bed in which George has at last gone to sleep; he has heard almost everything that his brother has said. He has matter for his dreams. Above George’s bed Bernard can just make out a little bookcase with two shelves full of schoolbooks. On a table near Olivier’s bed, he sees a larger sized book; he puts out his hand and takes it to look at the title—Tocqueville; but as he is putting it back on the table, he drops it and the noise wakes Olivier up.
“Are you reading Tocqueville now?”
“Dulac lent it me.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s rather boring, but some of it’s very good.”
“I say, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Tomorrow is Thursday and there is no school. Bernard thinks he may meet his friend somewhere. He does not mean to go back to the lycée; he thinks he can do without the last lectures and finish preparing for his examination by himself.
“Tomorrow,” says Olivier, “I’m going to St. Lazare railway station at 11:30 to meet my Uncle Edouard, who is arriving from Le Havre, on his way from England. In the afternoon, I’m engaged to go to the Louvre with Dhurmer. The rest of the time I’ve got to work.”
“Your Uncle Edouard?”
“Yes. He’s a half brother of Mamma’s. He’s been away for six months and I hardly know him; but I like him very much. He doesn’t know I’m going to meet him and I’m rather afraid I mayn’t recognize him. He’s not in the least like the rest of the family; he’s somebody quite out of the common.”
“What does he do?”
“He writes. I’ve read nearly all his books; but he hasn’t published anything for a long time.”
“Novels?”
“Yes; kind of novels.”
“Why have you never told me about them?”
“Because you’d have wanted to read them; and if you hadn’t liked them. …”
“Well, finish your sentence.”
“Well, I should have hated it. There!”
“What makes you say that he’s out of the common?”
“I don’t exactly know. I told you I hardly know him. It’s more of a presentiment. I feel that he’s interested in all sorts of things that don’t interest my parents and that there’s nothing that one couldn’t talk to him about. One day—it was just before he went away—he had been to lunch with us; all the time he was talking to Papa I felt he kept looking at me and it began to make me uncomfortable; I was going to leave the room—it was the dining-room—where we had stayed on after coffee, but then he began to question Papa about me, which made me more uncomfortable than ever; and suddenly Papa got up and went to fetch some verses I had written and which I had been idiotic enough to show him.”
“Verses of yours?”
“Yes; you know—that poem you said you thought was like Le Balcon. I knew it wasn’t any good—or hardly any—and I was furious with Papa for bringing it out. For a minute or two, while Papa was fetching the poem, we were alone together, Uncle Edouard and I, and I felt myself blushing horribly. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. I looked away—so did he, for that matter; he began by rolling a cigarette and lighting it and then to put me at my ease, no doubt, for he certainly saw I was blushing, he got up and went and looked out of the window. He was whistling. Then he suddenly said, ‘I feel far more embarrassed than you do, you know.’ But I think it was just kindness. At last Papa came back again; he handed my verses to Uncle Edouard, and he began to read them. I was in such a state that I think if he had paid me compliments, I should have insulted him. Evidently Papa expected him to—pay me compliments—and as my uncle said nothing, he asked him what he thought of them. But Uncle Edouard answered him, laughing, ‘I can’t speak to him comfortably about them before you.’ Then Papa laughed too and went out. And when we were alone again, he said he thought my verses were very bad, but I liked hearing him say so; and what I liked still more was that suddenly he put his finger down on two lines—the only two I cared for in the whole thing; he looked at me and said, ‘That’s good!’ Wasn’t it nice? And if you only knew the tone in which he said it! I could have hugged him. Then he said my mistake was to start from an idea, and that I didn’t allow myself to be guided sufficiently by the words. I didn’t understand very well at first; but I think I see now what he meant—and that he was right. I’ll explain it to you another time.”
“I understand now why you want to go and meet him.”
“Oh, all that’s nothing and I don’t know why I’ve told you about it. We said a great deal more to one another.”
“At 11:30 did you say? How do you know he’s coming by that train?”
“Because he wrote and told Mamma on a postcard; and then I looked it up in the timetable.”
“Will you
