“You remember: ‘I shed that very tear for thee. …’ ”
Olivier remembered Pascal’s words; he was even a little put out that his friend had not quoted them exactly. He could not refrain from correcting: “ ‘I shed that very drop of blood for thee. …’ ”
Armand’s emotion dropped at once. He shrugged his shoulders:
“What can we do? There are some who get through with more than enough and to spare. … Do you understand now what it is to feel that one is always ‘on the border line’? As for me, I shall always have one mark too little.”
He had begun to laugh again. Olivier thought that it was for fear of crying. He would have liked to speak in his turn, to tell Armand how much his words had moved him, and how he felt all the sickness of heart that lay beneath his exasperating irony. But the time for his rendezvous with Passavant was pressing him; he pulled out his watch.
“I must go now. Are you free this evening?”
“What for?”
“To come and meet me at the Taverne du Panthéon. The Argonauts are giving a dinner. You might look in afterwards. There’ll be a lot of fellows there—some of them more or less well known—and most of them rather drunk. Bernard Profitendieu has promised to come. It might be funny.”
“I’m not shaved,” said Armand a little crossly. “And then what should I do among a lot of celebrities? But, I say—why don’t you ask Sarah? She got back from England this very morning. I’m sure it would amuse her. Shall I invite her from you? Bernard could take her.”
“All right, old chap,” said Olivier.
VIII
The Argonauts’ Dinner
It had been agreed then that Bernard and Edouard, after having dined together, should pick up Sarah a little before ten o’clock. She had delightedly accepted the proposal passed on to her by Armand. At about half past nine, she had gone up to her bedroom, accompanied by her mother. She had to pass through her parents’ room in order to reach hers; but another door, which was supposed to be kept shut, led from Sarah’s room to Armand’s, which in its turn opened, as we have seen, on to the backstairs.
Sarah, in her mother’s presence, made as though she were going to bed, and asked to be left to go to sleep; but as soon as she was alone, she went up to her dressing table to put an added touch of brilliancy to her lips and cheeks. The toilette table had been placed in front of the closed door, but it was not too heavy for Sarah to lift noiselessly. She opened the door.
Sarah was afraid of meeting her brother, whose sarcasms she dreaded. Armand, it is true, encouraged her most audacious exploits; it was as though he took pleasure in them—but only with a kind of temporary indulgence, for it was to judge them later on with all the greater severity; so that Sarah wondered whether his complaisance itself was not calculated to play the censor’s game.
Armand’s room was empty. Sarah sat down on a little low chair and, as she was waiting, meditated. She cultivated a facile contempt for all the domestic virtues as a kind of preventive protest. The constraint of family life had intensified her energies and exasperated her instinct for revolt. During her stay in England, she had worked herself up into a white heat of courage. Like Miss Aberdeen, the English girl boarder, she was resolved to conquer her liberty, to grant herself every license, to dare all. She felt ready to affront scorn and blame on every side, capable of every defiance. In the advances she had made to Olivier, she had already triumphed over natural modesty and many an instinctive reluctance. The example of her two sisters had taught her her lesson; she looked upon Rachel’s pious resignation as the delusion of a dupe, and saw in Laura’s marriage nothing but a lugubrious barter with slavery as its upshot. The education she had received, that which she had given herself, that which she had taken, inclined her very little to what she called “conjugal piety.” She did not see in what particular the man she might marry could be her superior. Hadn’t she passed her examinations like a man? Hadn’t she her opinions and ideas on any and every subject? On the equality of the sexes in particular; and it even seemed to her that in the conduct of life, and consequently of business, and even, if need were, of politics, women often gave proof of more sense than many men. …
Steps on the staircase. She listened and then opened the door gently.
Bernard and Sarah had never met. There was no light in the passage. They could hardly distinguish each other in the dark.
“Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel?” whispered Bernard. She took his arm without more ado.
“Edouard is waiting for us at the corner of the street in a taxi. He didn’t want to get down for fear of meeting your parents. It didn’t matter for me; you know I am staying in the house.”
Bernard had been careful to leave the door into the street ajar, so as not to attract the porter’s attention. A few minutes later, the taxi deposited them all three in front of the Taverne du Panthéon. As Edouard was paying the taxi, they heard a clock strike ten.
Dinner was finished. The table had been cleared, but it was still covered with coffee-cups, bottles and glasses. Everyone was smoking and the atmosphere was stifling. Madame des Brousses, the wife of the editor of the Argonauts, called for fresh air in a strident voice, which rang out shrilly above the hum of general talk. Someone opened a window. But Justinien, who wanted to put in a speech, had it shut almost immediately “for acoustics’ sake.” He rose to his feet and struck on his glass with a spoon, but failed to attract anyone’s
