That same evening Bernard went to see Edouard.
“Well? Did the first day go off all right?”
“Pretty well.” And then as he said no more:
“Master Bernard, if you are not in the humour to talk of your own accord, don’t expect me to pump you. There’s nothing I dislike so much. But allow me to remind you that you offered me your services and that I have a right to expect a few stories. …”
“What do you want to know?” rejoined Bernard, with no very good grace. “That old Azaïs made a solemn speech and exhorted the boys ‘to press forward in a common endeavour and with the impetuous ardour of youth …’? I remember those words because they occurred three times. Armand declares the old boy regularly puts them into all his pi-jaws. He and I were sitting on the last bench at the back of the classroom, watching the boys come into school—like Noah, watching the animals come into the Ark. There were every kind and sort—ruminants, pachiderms, molluscs and other invertebrates. When they began to talk to each other after the speech, Armand and I calculated that four sentences out of ten began with: ‘I bet you won’t. …’ ”
“And the other six?”
“ ‘As for me, I. …’ ”
“Not badly observed, I’m afraid. What else?”
“Some of them seem to me to have a fabricated personality.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Edouard.
“I am thinking particularly of a boy who sat beside young Passavant. (Passavant himself just seems to me a good boy.) His neighbour, whom I watched for a long time, appears to have adopted the ‘Ne quid nimis’ of the ancients as his rule of life. Doesn’t that strike you as an absurd device at his age? His clothes are meagre; his necktie exiguous; even his bootlaces are only just long enough to tie. In the course of a few moments, energies, and to repeat, like a refrain: ‘Let’s have no useless efforts!’ ”
“A plague upon the economical!” said Edouard. “In art they turn into the prolix.”
“Why?”
“Because they can’t bear to lose anything. What else? You have said nothing about Armand.”
“He’s an odd chap. To tell you the truth, I don’t much care for him. I don’t like contortionists. He’s by no means stupid; but he uses his intelligence for mere destruction; for that matter, it’s against himself that he’s the most ferocious; everything that’s good in him, that’s generous, or noble, or tender, he’s ashamed of. He ought to go in for sport—take the air. Being shut up indoors all day is turning him sour. He seems to like my company. I don’t avoid him; but I can’t get accustomed to his cast of mind.”
“Don’t you think that his sarcasm and his irony are the veil of excessive sensitiveness—and perhaps of great suffering? Olivier thinks so.”
“It may be. I have sometimes wondered. I don’t know him well enough to say yet. The rest of my reflections are not ripe. I must think them over. I’ll tell you about them—but later. This evening, forgive me if I leave you. I’ve got my examination in two days; and besides, I may as well own up to it … I’m feeling sad.”
V
Olivier Meets Bernard
Il ne faut prendre, si je ne me trompe, que la fleur de chaque objet. …
Fénelon
Olivier, who had returned to Paris the day before, arose that morning fresh and rested. The air was warm, the sky pure. When he went out, after his shave and his shower-bath, elegantly dressed, conscious of his strength, his youth, his beauty, Passavant was still sleeping.
Olivier hastened to the Sorbonne. This was the morning that Bernard had to go up for his examination. How did Olivier know that? But perhaps he didn’t know it. He was going to find out.
He quickened his step. He had not seen his friend since the night that Bernard came to take refuge in his room. What changes since then! Who knows whether he was not more anxious to show himself to his friend than to see him. A pity that Bernard cared so little about elegance. But it’s a taste that sometimes comes with affluence. Olivier knew that by experience, thanks to the Comte de Passavant.
Bernard was doing his written examination this morning. He wouldn’t be out before twelve. Olivier waited for him in the quadrangle. He recognized a few of his schoolfellows, shook a few hands. He felt slightly embarrassed by his clothes. He felt still more so when Bernard, free at last, came up to him in the quadrangle and exclaimed, with outstretched hand:
“Oh, dear! how lovely he is!”
Olivier, who had thought he would never blush again, blushed. He could not but feel the irony of these words, notwithstanding the cordiality of their tone. As for Bernard, he was still wearing the same suit he had on the evening of his flight. He had not been expecting to see Olivier. With his arm in his, he drew him along, questioning as they went. He felt a sudden shock of joy at seeing him. If at first he smiled a little at the refinement of his dress, it was with no malice; his heart was good; he was without bitterness.
“You’ll lunch with me, won’t you? Yes; I have got to go back at one thirty for Latin. This morning it was French.”
“Pleased?”
“I am, yes; but I don’t know whether the examiners will be. We had to discuss these lines from La Fontaine:
‘Papillon du Parnasse, et semblable aux abeilles
A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles,
Je suis chose légère et vole à tout sujet,
Je vais de fleur en fleur et d’objet en objet.’
How would you have done it?”
Olivier could not resist a desire to shine:
“I should have said that La Fontaine, in painting himself, had painted the portrait of the
