Strouvilhou filled two glasses. They drank to each other.
“It’s a good—it’s even an indispensable thing,” he went on, “to create ties of reciprocity between citizens; by so doing societies are solidly established. We all hold together, good Lord! We have a hold on the children, who have a hold on their parents, who have a hold on us. A perfect arrangement. Twig?”
Léon twigged admirably. He chuckled.
“That little George. …” he began.
“Well, what about him? That little George … ?”
“Molinier. I think he’s pretty well screwed up. He has laid his hands on some letters to his father from an Olympia chorus girl.”
“Have you seen them?”
“He showed them to me. I overheard him talking to Adamanti. I think they were pleased at my listening to them; at any rate they didn’t hide from me; I had already taken steps and treated them to a little entertainment in your style, to inspire them with confidence. George said to Phiphi (to give him a stunner): ‘My father’s got a mistress.’ Upon which, Phiphi, not to be outdone, answered: ‘My father’s got two.’ It was idiotic and really nothing to make a fuss about; but I went up to George and said: ‘How do you know?’ ‘I’ve seen some letters,’ he answered. I pretended I didn’t believe him and said: ‘Rubbish!’ … Well, I went on at him, until at last he said he had got them with him; he pulled them out of a big letter-case and showed them to me.”
“Did you read them?”
“I didn’t have time to. I only saw they were all in the same handwriting; one of them began: ‘My darling old ducky.’ ”
“And signed?”
“ ‘Your little white mousie.’ I asked George how he had got hold of them. He grinned and pulled out of his trouser pocket an enormous bunch of keys. … To fit every drawer in the universe,’ said he.”
“And what did Master Phiphi say?”
“Nothing. I think he was jealous.”
“Would George give you the letters?”
“If necessary I’ll get him to. I don’t want to take them from him. He’ll give them if Phiphi joins in, too. They each of them egg the other on.”
“That’s what goes by the name of emulation. And you don’t see anyone else at the school?”
“I’ll look about.”
“One thing more I wanted to say. … I think there must be a little boy called Boris amongst the boarders. You’re to leave him alone”; he paused a moment and then added in a whisper: “for the moment.”
Olivier and Bernard are seated at a table in one of the Boulevard restaurants. Olivier’s unhappiness melts like hoarfrost in the warmth of his friend’s smile. Bernard avoids pronouncing Passavant’s name; Olivier feels it; a secret instinct warns him; but the name is on the tip of his tongue; he must speak, come what may.
“Yes; I didn’t let my people know we were coming back so soon. This evening the Argonauts are giving a dinner. Passavant particularly wants me to be present. He wishes our new review to be on good terms with its elder and not to set up as a rival. … You ought to come; and I tell you what … you ought to bring Edouard. … Perhaps not to dinner, because one’s got to be invited, but immediately after. It’s to be in the upstairs room of the Taverne du Panthéon. The principal members of the Argonaut staff will be there and a good many of our own Vanguard contributors. Our first number is nearly ready; but, I say, why didn’t you send me anything?”
“Because I hadn’t anything ready,” he answers rather curtly.
Olivier’s voice becomes almost imploring:
“I put your name down next to mine in the list of contents. … We could wait a little, if necessary … no matter what; anything. … You had almost promised.”
It grieves Bernard to hurt his friend; but he hardens himself:
“Look here, old boy, I had better tell you at once—I’m afraid I shouldn’t hit it off with Passavant very well.”
“But it’s I who am the editor. He leaves me perfectly free.”
“And then I dislike the idea of sending you no matter what; I don’t want to write no matter what.”
“I said no matter what, because I knew that no matter what you wrote would be good … that it would never really be no matter what.”
He doesn’t know what to say. He is just floundering. If he cannot feel his friend beside him, all his interest in the review vanishes. It had been such a delightful dream, this of making their début together.
“And then, old fellow, if I’m beginning to know what I don’t want to do, I don’t know yet what I do want to do. I don’t even know whether I shall write.”
This declaration fills Olivier with consternation. But Bernard goes on:
“Nothing that I could write easily tempts me. It’s because I can turn my sentences easily that I have a detestation of well-turned sentences. Not that I like difficulty for its own sake; but I really do think that writers of the present time take things a bit too easy. I don’t know enough about other people’s lives to write a novel; and I haven’t yet had a life of my own. Poetry bores me. The alexandrine is worn threadbare; the vers libre is formless. The only poet who satisfies me nowadays is Rimbaud.”
“That’s exactly what I say in our manifesto.”
“Then it’s not worth while my repeating it. No, old boy; no; I don’t know whether I shall write. It sometimes seems to me that writing prevents one from living, and that one can express oneself better by acts than by words.”
“Works of art are acts that endure,” ventured Olivier timidly; but Bernard was not listening.
“That’s what I admire most of all in Rimbaud—to have preferred life.”
“He made a mess of his own.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Oh! really, old boy! …”
“One can’t judge other people’s lives from the outside.
