Olivier, in the meantime, was slowly coming back to life. Edouard sat beside his couch. He gazed at the shut book of his face, baffled by its riddle. Why? Why? One may act thoughtlessly at night in the heat of intoxication, but the resolutions of early morning carry with them their full weight of virtue. He gave up trying to understand, until at last the moment should come when Olivier would be able to speak. Until that moment came he would not leave him. He had taken one of his hands in his and concentrated his interrogation, his thoughts, his whole life into that contact. At last it seemed to him that he felt Olivier’s hand responding feebly to his clasp. … Then he bent down, and set his lips on the forehead, where an immense and mysterious suffering had drawn its lines.
A ring was heard at the door. Edouard rose to open it. It was Bernard and Lucien Bercail. Edouard kept them in the hall and told them what had happened; then, taking Bernard aside, he asked if he knew whether Olivier was subject to attacks of giddiness, to fits of any kind? … Bernard suddenly remembered their conversation of the day before, and, in particular, some words of Olivier’s which he had hardly listened to at the time, but which came back to him now, as distinctly as if he heard them over again.
“It was I who began to speak of suicide,” said he to Edouard. “I asked him if he understood a person’s killing himself out of mere excess of life, ‘out of enthusiasm,’ as Dmitri Karamazov says. I was absorbed in my thought and at the time I paid no attention to anything but my own words; but I remember now what he answered.”
“What did he answer?” insisted Edouard, for Bernard stopped as though he were reluctant to say anything more.
“That he understood killing oneself, but only after having reached such heights of joy, that anything afterwards must be a descent.”
They both looked at each other and added nothing further. Light was beginning to dawn on them. Edouard at last turned away his eyes; and Bernard was angry with himself for having spoken. They went up to Bercail.
“The tiresome thing is,” said he, “that people may think he has tried to kill himself in order to avoid fighting.”
Edouard had forgotten all about the duel.
“Behave as if nothing had happened,” said he. “Go and find Dhurmer, and ask him to tell you who his seconds are. It is to them that you must explain matters, if the idiotic business doesn’t settle itself. Dhurmer didn’t seem particularly keen.”
“We will tell him nothing,” said Lucien, “and leave him all the shame of retreating. For he will shuffle out of it, I’m certain.”
Bernard asked if he might see Olivier. But Edouard thought he had better be kept quiet.
Bernard and Lucien were just leaving, when young George arrived. He came from Passavant’s, but had not been able to get hold of his brother’s things.
“Monsieur le Comte is not at home,” he had been told. “He has left no orders.”
And the servant had shut the door in his face.
A certain gravity in Edouard’s tone, in the bearing of the two others, alarmed George. He scented something out of the way—made enquiries. Edouard was obliged to tell him.
“But say nothing about it to your parents.”
George was delighted to be let into a secret.
“A fellow can hold his tongue,” said he. And as he had nothing to do that morning, he proposed to accompany Bernard and Lucien on their way to Dhurmer’s.
After his three visitors had left him, Edouard called the charwoman. Next to his own room was a spare room, which he told her to get ready, so that Olivier might be put into it. Then he went noiselessly back to the studio. Olivier was resting. Edouard sat down again beside him. He had taken a book, but he soon threw it aside without having opened it, and watched his friend sleeping.
X
Olivier’s Convalescence
Rien n’est simple de ce qui s’offre à l’âme; et l’âme ne s’offre jamais simple à aucun sujet.
Pascal
“I think he will be glad to see you,” said Edouard to Bernard next morning. “He asked me this morning if you hadn’t come yesterday. He must have heard your voice, at the time when I thought he was unconscious. … He keeps his eyes shut, but he doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t speak. He often puts his hand to his forehead, as if it were aching. Whenever I speak to him he frowns; but if I go away, he calls me back and makes me sit beside him. … No, he isn’t in the studio. I have put him in the spare room next to mine, so that I can receive visitors without disturbing him.”
They went into it.
“I’ve come to enquire after you,” said Bernard very softly.
Olivier’s features brightened at the sound of his friend’s voice. It was almost a smile already.
“I was expecting you.”
“I’ll go away if I tire you.”
“Stay.”
But as he said the word, Olivier put his finger on his lips. He didn’t want to be spoken to. Bernard, who was going up for his viva voce in three days’ time, never moved without carrying in his pocket one of those manuals which contain a concentrated elixir of the bitter stuff which is the subject matter of examinations. He sat down beside his bed and plunged into his reading. Olivier, his face
