“No. … So long as my garden isn’t trampled on.”
“There’s enough to be done elsewhere … en attendant. The moment is propitious. I know many a young man who is only waiting for the rallying cry; quite young ones. … Oh, yes, I know! That’s what you like; but I warn you they aren’t taking any. … I have often wondered by what miracle painting has gone so far ahead, and how it happens that literature has let itself be outdistanced. In painting today, just see how the ‘motif,’ as it used to be called, has fallen into discredit. A fine subject! It makes one laugh. Painters don’t even dare venture on a portrait unless they can be sure of avoiding every trace of resemblance. If we manage our affairs well, and leave me alone for that, I don’t ask for more than two years before a future poet will think himself dishonoured if anyone can understand a word of what he says. Yes, Monsieur le Comte, will you wager? All sense, all meaning will be considered anti-poetical. Illogicality shall be our guiding star. What a fine title for a review—The Scavengers!”
Passavant had listened without turning a hair.
“Do you count your young nephew among your acolytes?” he asked after a pause.
“Young Léon is one of the elect; he doesn’t let the flies settle on him, either. Really, it’s a pleasure teaching him. Last term he thought it would be a joke to cut out the swotters in his form and carry off all the prizes. Since he came back from the holidays he has let his work go to the deuce; I haven’t the least idea what he’s hatching; but I have every confidence in him, and I wouldn’t for the world interfere.”
“Will you bring him to see me?”
“Monsieur le Comte is joking, no doubt. … Well, then, this review?”
“We’ll see about it later. I must have time to let your plans mature in my mind. In the meantime, you might really find me a secretary. I’m not satisfied with the one I had.”
“I’ll send you little Cob-Lafleur tomorrow. I shall be seeing him this afternoon, and I make no doubt he’ll suit you.”
“Scavenger style?”
“A little.”
“Ex uno …”
“Oh, no; don’t judge them all from him. He is one of the moderate ones. Just right for you.”
Strouvilhou rose.
“Apropos,” said Passavant, “I haven’t given you my book, I think. I’m sorry not to have a first edition left. …”
“As I don’t mean to sell it, it isn’t of the slightest importance.”
“It’s only because the print’s better.”
“Oh! as I don’t mean to read it either. … Au revoir. And if the spirit moves you, I’m at your service. I wish you good morning.”
XIII
Edouard’s Journal: Douviers’ Profitendieu
Brought back Olivier’s things from Passavant’s. As soon as I got home, set to work on The Counterfeiters. My exaltation is calm and lucid. My joy is such as I have never known before. Wrote thirty pages without hesitation, without a single erasure. The whole drama, like a nocturnal landscape suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, emerges out of the darkness, very different from what I had been trying to invent. The books which I have hitherto written seem to me like the ornamental pools in public gardens—their contours are defined—perfect perhaps, but the water they contain is captive and lifeless. I wish it now to run freely, according to its bent, sometimes swift, sometimes slow; I choose not to foresee its windings.
X maintains that a good novelist, before he begins to write his book, ought to know how it is going to finish. As for me, who let mine flow where it will, I consider that life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination. “Might be continued”—these are the words with which I should like to finish my Counterfeiters.
Visit from Douviers. He is certainly an excellent fellow.
As I exaggerated my sympathy for him, I was obliged to submit to his effusions, which were rather embarrassing. All the time I was talking to him, I kept repeating to myself La Rochefoucauld’s words: “I am very little susceptible to pity; and should like not to be so at all. … I consider that one ought to content oneself with showing it and carefully refrain from feeling it.” And yet my sympathy was real, undeniable, and I was moved to tears. Truth to tell, my tears seemed to console him better than my words. I almost believe that he gave up being unhappy as soon as he saw me cry.
I was firmly resolved not to tell him the name of the seducer; but to my surprise he did not ask it. I think his jealousy dies down as soon as he no longer feels Laura’s eyes upon him. In any case, its energy had been somewhat diminished by the act of coming to see me.
There is something illogical in his case; he is indignant that the other man should have deserted Laura. I pointed out that if it had not been for his desertion, Laura would not have come back to him. He is resolved to love the child as if it were his own. Who knows whether he would ever have tasted the joys of paternity without the seducer? I took good care not to point this out to him, for at the recollection of his insufficiencies, his jealousy becomes more acute. But then it belongs to the domain of vanity and ceases to interest me.
That an Othello should be jealous is comprehensible; the image of his wife’s pleasure obsesses him. But when a Douviers becomes jealous it can only be because he imagines he ought to be.
And no doubt he nurses this passion from a secret need to give body to his somewhat unsubstantial personage. Happiness would be natural to him; but he has to admire himself
