Well, we must go on. All this that I have been saying is only to put a little air between the pages of this journal. Now that Bernard has got his breath back again, we will return to it. He dives once more into its pages.
XIII
Edouard’s Journal: First Visit to La Pérouse
On tire peu de service des vieillards.
Vauvenargues
Nov. 8th.—Old Monsieur and Madame de la Pérouse have changed houses again. Their new apartment, which I had never seen so far, is an entresol in the part of the Faubourg St. Honoré which makes a little recess before it cuts across the Boulevard Haussmann. I rang the bell. La Pérouse opened the door. He was in his shirt sleeves and was wearing a sort of yellowish whitish nightcap on his head, which I finally made out to be an old stocking (Madame de La Pérouse’s no doubt) tied in a knot, so that the foot dangled on his cheek like a tassel. He was holding a bent poker in his hand. I had evidently caught him at some domestic job, and as he seemed rather confused:
“Would you like me to come back later?” I asked.
“No, no. … Come in here.” And he pushed me into a long, narrow room with two windows looking on to the street, just on a level with the street lamp. “I was expecting a pupil at this very moment” (it was six o’clock); “but she has telegraphed to say she can’t come. I am so glad to see you.”
He laid his poker down on a small table, and, as though apologizing for his appearance:
“Madame de La Pérouse’s maidservant has let the stove go out. She only comes in the morning; I’ve been obliged to empty it.”
“Shall I help you light it?”
“No, no; it’s dirty work. … Will you excuse me while I go and put my coat on?”
He trotted out of the room and came back almost immediately dressed in an alpaca coat, with its buttons torn off, its elbows in holes, and its general appearance so threadbare, that one wouldn’t have dared give it to a beggar. We sat down.
“You think I’m changed, don’t you?”
I wanted to protest, but could hardly find anything to say, I was so painfully affected by the harassed expression of his face, which had once been so beautiful. He went on:
“Yes, I’ve grown very old lately. I’m beginning to lose my memory. When I want to go over one of Bach’s fugues, I am obliged to refer to the book. …”
“There are many young people who would be glad to have a memory like yours.”
He replied with a shrug: “Oh, it’s not only my memory that’s failing. For instance, I think I still walk pretty quickly; but all the same everybody in the street passes me.”
“Oh,” said I, “people walk much quicker nowadays.”
“Yes, don’t they? … It’s the same with my lessons—my pupils think that my teaching keeps them back; they want to go quicker than I do. I’m losing them. … Everyone’s in a hurry nowadays.”
He added in a whisper so low that I could hardly hear him: “I’ve scarcely any left.”
I felt that he was in such great distress that I didn’t dare question him.
“Madame de La Pérouse won’t understand. She says I don’t set about it in the right way—that I don’t do anything to keep them and still less to get new ones.”
“The pupil you were expecting just now. …” I asked awkwardly.
“Oh, she! I’m preparing her for the Conservatoire. She comes here to practise every day.”
“Which means she doesn’t pay you.”
“Madame de La Pérouse is always reproaching me with it. She can’t understand that those are the only lessons that interest me; yes, the only lessons I really care about … giving. I have taken to reflecting a great deal lately. Here! there’s something I should like to ask you. Why is it there is so little about old people in books? … I suppose it’s because old people aren’t able to write themselves and young ones don’t take any interest in them. No one’s interested in an old man. … And yet there are a great many curious things that might be said about them. For instance: there are certain acts in my past life which I’m only just beginning to understand. Yes, I’m just beginning to understand that they haven’t at all the meaning I attached to them in the old days when I did them. … I’ve only just begun to understand that I have been a dupe during the whole of my life. Madame de La Pérouse has fooled me; my son has fooled me; everybody has fooled me; God has fooled me. …”
The evening was closing in. I could hardly make out my old master’s features; but suddenly the light of the street lamp flashed out and showed me his cheeks glittering with tears. I looked anxiously at first at an odd mark on his temple, like a dint, like a hole; but as he moved a little, the spot changed places and I saw that it was only a
