“On the other hand, matter does admirably without mind.”
“Oh, ho! we don’t know about that!” said Edouard, laughing.
Bernard was very much amused to hear him talk in this way. As a rule Edouard was more reserved. The mood he was in today came from Olivier’s presence. Bernard understood it.
“He is talking to me as he would like already to be talking to him,” thought he. “It is Olivier who ought to be his secretary. As soon as Olivier is well again, I shall retire. My place is not here.”
He thought this without bitterness, entirely taken up as he now was by Sarah, with whom he had spent the preceding night and whom he was to see that night too.
“We’ve left Douviers a long way behind,” he said, laughing in his turn. “Will you tell him about Vincent?”
“Goodness no! What for?”
“Don’t you think it’s poisoning Douviers’ life not to know whom to suspect?”
“Perhaps you are right. But you must say that to Laura. I couldn’t tell him without betraying her. … Besides I don’t even know where he is.”
“Vincent? … Passavant must know.”
A ring at the door interrupted them. Madame Molinier had come to enquire for her son. Edouard joined her in the studio.
XI
Edouard’s Journal: Pauline
Visit from Pauline. I was a little puzzled how to let her know, and yet I could not keep her in ignorance of her son’s illness. I thought it useless to say anything about the incomprehensible attempt at suicide and spoke simply of a violent liver attack, which, as a matter of fact, remains the clearest result of the proceedings.
“I am reassured already by knowing Olivier is with you,” said Pauline. “I shouldn’t nurse him better myself, for I feel that you love him as much as I do.”
As she said these last words, she looked at me with an odd insistence. Did I imagine the meaning she seemed to put in her look? I was feeling what one is accustomed to call “a bad conscience” as regards Pauline, and was only able to stammer out something incoherent. I must also say that, sur-saturated as I have been with emotion for the last two days, I had entirely lost command of myself; my confusion must have been very apparent, for she added:
“Your blush is eloquent! … My poor dear friend, don’t expect reproaches from me. I should reproach you if you didn’t love him. … Can I see him?”
I took her in to Olivier. Bernard had left the room as he heard us coming.
“How beautiful he is!” she murmured, bending over the bed. Then, turning towards me: “You will kiss him from me. I am afraid of waking him.”
Pauline is decidedly an extraordinary woman. And today is not the first time that I have begun to think so. But I could not have hoped that she would push comprehension so far. And yet it seemed to me that behind the cordiality of her words and the pleasantness she put into her voice, I could distinguish a touch of constraint (perhaps because of the effort I myself made to hide my embarrassment); and I remembered a sentence of our last conversation—a sentence which seemed to me full of wisdom even then, when I was not interested in finding it so: “I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan’t be able to prevent.” Evidently Pauline was striving after good grace; and, as if in response to my secret thoughts, she went on again, as soon as we were back in the studio:
“By not being shocked just now, I am afraid it is I who have shocked you. There are certain liberties of thought of which men would like to keep the monopoly. And yet I can’t pretend to have more reprobation for you than I feel. Life has not left me ignorant. I know what a precarious thing boys’ purity is, even when it has the appearance of being most intact. And besides, I don’t think that the youths who are chastest turn into the best husbands—nor even, unfortunately, the most faithful!” she added, smiling sadly. “And then their father’s example made me wish other virtues for my sons. But I am afraid of their taking to debauchery or to degrading liaisons. Olivier is easily led astray. You will have it at heart to keep him straight. I think you will be able to do him good. It only rests with you. …”
These words filled me with confusion.
“You make me out better than I am.”
That is all I could find to say, in the stupidest, stiffest way. She went on with exquisite delicacy:
“It is Olivier who will make you better. With love’s help what can one not obtain from oneself?”
“Does Oscar know he is with me?” I asked, to put a little air between us.
“He does not even know he is in Paris. I told you that he pays very little attention to his sons. That is why I counted on you to speak to George. Have you done so?”
“No—not yet.”
Pauline’s brow grew suddenly sombre.
“I am becoming more and more anxious. He has an air of assurance, which seems to me a combination of recklessness, cynicism, presumption. He works well. His masters are pleased with him; my anxiety has nothing to lay hold of. …”
Then all of a sudden, throwing aside her calm and speaking with an excitement such that I barely recognized her:
“Do you realize what my life is?” she exclaimed. “I have restricted my happiness; year by year, I have been obliged to narrow it down; one by one, I have curtailed my hopes. I have given in; I have tolerated; I have pretended not to understand, not to see. … But all the same, one clings to something, however small; and when even that fails one! … In the evening he comes and works beside me under the lamp; when sometimes he
