The Counterfeiters (35 page)

Justinien’s speech ended with a few heartfelt wishes for the prosperity of the new review and a few elegant compliments to its future editor—“the young and gifted
Molinier—the darling of the Muses, whose pure and lofty brow would not long have to wait for its crown of laurels.”

Oliver was standing near the door, so as to welcome his friends as soon as they should arrive. Justinien’s blatant compliments obviously embarrassed him, but he was obliged to respond to the little ovation which followed them.

The three new arrivals had dined too soberly to feel in tune with the rest of the assembly. In this sort of gathering, late comers understand ill—or only too well—the others’ excitement. They judge, when they have no business to judge, and exercise, even though involuntarily, a criticism which is without indulgence; this was the case at any rate with Edouard and Bernard. As for Sarah, in this milieu, everything was new to her; her one idea was to learn what she could, her one anxiety to be up to the mark.

Bernard knew no one. Olivier, who had taken him by the arm, wanted to introduce him to Passavant and des Brousses. He refused. Passavant, however, forced the situation by coming up to him and holding out a hand, which he could not in decency refuse:

“I have heard you spoken of so often that I feel as if I knew you already.”

“The same with me,” said Bernard in such a tone that Passavant’s amenity froze. He at once turned to Edouard.

Though often abroad travelling, and keeping, even when he was in Paris, a great deal to himself, Edouard was nevertheless acquainted with several of the guests and feeling perfectly at his ease. Little liked, but at the same time esteemed, by his
confrères
, he did not object to being thought proud, when, in reality, he was only distant. He was more willing to listen than to speak.

“From what your nephew said, I was hoping you would come to-night,” began Passavant in a gentle voice
that was almost a whisper. “I was delighted because …”

Edouard’s ironical look cut short the rest of his sentence. Skilful in the arts of pleasing and accustomed to please, Passavant, in order to shine, had need to feel himself confronted by a flattering mirror. He collected himself, however, for he was not the man to lose his self-possession for long or to let himself be easily snubbed. He raised his head, and his eyes were charged with insolence. If Edouard would not follow his lead with a good grace, he would find means to worst him.

“I was wanting to ask you …” he went on, as if he were continuing his first remark, “whether you had any news of your other nephew, Vincent? It was he who was my special friend.”

“No,” said Edouard dryly.

This “no” upset Passavant once more; he did not know whether to take it as a provocative contradiction, or as a simple answer to his question. His disturbance lasted only a second; it was Edouard who unintentionally restored him to his balance by adding almost at once:

“I have merely heard from his father that he was travelling with the Prince of Monaco.”

“Yes, I asked a lady, who is a friend of mine, to introduce him to the Prince. I was glad to hit upon this diversion to distract him a little from his unlucky affair with that Madame Douviers.… You know her, so Olivier told me. He was in danger of wrecking his whole life over it.”

Passavant handled disdain, contempt, condescension with marvellous skill; but he was satisfied with having won this bout and with keeping Edouard at sword’s length. Edouard indeed was racking his brains for some cutting answer. He was singularly lacking in presence of mind. That was no doubt the reason he
cared so little for society—he had none of the qualities which are necessary to shine in it. His eyebrows however began to look frowningly. Passavant was quick to notice; when anything disagreeable was coming to him, he sniffed it in the air, and veered about. Without even stopping to take breath, and with a sudden change of tone:

“But who is that delightful girl who is with you?” he asked smiling.

“It is Mademoiselle Sarah Vedel, the sister of the very lady you were mentioning—my friend Madame Douviers.”

In default of any better repartee, he sharpened the words “my friend” like an arrow—but an arrow which fell short, and Passavant, letting it lie, went on:

“It would be very kind of you to introduce me.”

He had said these last words and the sentence which preceded them loud enough for Sarah to hear, and as she turned towards them, Edouard was unable to escape:

“Sarah, the Comte de Passavant desires the honour of your acquaintance,” said he with a forced smile.

Passavant had sent for three fresh glasses, which he filled with kummel. They all four drank Olivier’s health. The bottle was almost empty, and as Sarah was astonished to see the crystals remaining at the bottom, Passavant tried to dislodge them with a straw. A strange kind of clown, with a befloured face, a black beady eye, and hair plastered down on his head like a skullcap, came up.

“You won’t do it,” he said, munching out each one of his syllables with an effort which was obviously assumed. “Pass me the bottle. I’ll smash it.”

He seized it, broke it with a blow against the window ledge, and presenting the bottom of the bottle to Sarah:

“With a few of these little sharp-edged polyhedra, the charming young lady will easily induce a perforation of her gizzard.”

“Who is that pierrot?” she asked Passavant, who had made her sit down and was sitting beside her.

“It’s Alfred Jarry, the author of
Ubu Roi
. The
Argonauts
have dubbed him a genius because the public have just damned his play. All the same, it’s the most interesting thing that’s been put on the stage for a long time.”

“I like
Ubu Roi
very much,” said Sarah, “and I’m delighted to see Jarry. I had heard he was always drunk.”

“I should think he must be to-night. I saw him drink two glasses of neat absinthe at dinner. He doesn’t seem any the worse for it. Won’t you have a cigarette? One has to smoke oneself so as not to be smothered by the other people’s smoke.”

He bent towards her to give her a light. She crunched a few of the crystals.

“Why! it’s nothing but sugar candy,” said she, a little disappointed. “I hoped it was going to be something strong.”

All the time she was talking to Passavant, she kept smiling at Bernard, who had stayed beside her. Her dancing eyes shone with an extraordinary brightness. Bernard, who had not been able to see her before because of the dark, was struck by her likeness to Laura. The same forehead, the same lips.… In her features, it is true, there breathed a less angelic grace, and her looks stirred he knew not what troubled depths in his heart. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he turned to Olivier:

“Introduce me to your friend Bercail.”

He had already met Bercail in the Luxembourg, but he had never spoken to him. Bercail was feeling rather out of it in this milieu into which Olivier had introduced
him, and which he was too timid not to find distasteful, and every time Olivier presented him as one of the chief contributors to the
Vanguard
, he blushed. The fact is, that the allegorical poem of which he had spoken to Olivier at the beginning of our story, was to appear on the first page of the new review, immediately after the manifesto.

“In the place I had kept for you,” said Olivier to Bernard. “I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s by far the best thing in the number. And so original!”

Olivier took more pleasure in praising his friends than in hearing himself praised. At Bernard’s approach, Bercail rose; he was holding his cup of coffee in his hand so awkwardly, that in his agitation he spilled half of it down his waistcoat. At that moment, Jarry’s mechanical voice was heard close at hand:

“Little Bercail will be poisoned. I’ve put poison in his cup.”

Bercail’s timidity amused Jarry, and he liked putting him out of countenance. But Bercail was not afraid of Jarry. He shrugged his shoulders and finished his coffee calmly.

“Who is that?” asked Bernard.

“What! Don’t you know the author of
Ubu Roi
?”

“Not possible!
That
Jarry? I took him for a servant.”

“Oh, all the same,” said Olivier, a little vexed, for he took a pride in his great men. “Look at him more carefully. Don’t you think he’s extraordinary?”

“He does all he can to appear so,” said Bernard, who only esteemed what was natural, and who nevertheless was full of consideration for
Ubu
.

Everything about Jarry, who was got up to look like the traditional circus clown, smacked of affectation—his way of talking in particular; several of the
Argonauts
did their utmost to imitate it, snapping out their syllables, inventing odd words, and oddly mangling others;
but it was only Jarry who could succeed in producing that toneless voice of his—a voice without warmth or intonation, or accent or emphasis.

“When one knows him, he is charming, really,” went on Olivier.

“I prefer not to know him. He looks ferocious.”

“Oh, that’s just the way he has. Passavant thinks that in reality he is the kindest of creatures. But he has drunk a terrible lot to-night; and not a drop of water, you may be sure—nor even of wine; nothing but absinthe and spirits. Passavant’s afraid he may do something eccentric.”

In spite of himself, Passavant’s name kept recurring to his lips, and all the more obstinately that he wanted to avoid it.

Exasperated at feeling so little able to control himself, and as if he were trying to escape from his own pursuit, he changed his ground:

“You should talk to Dhurmer a little. I’m afraid he bears me a deadly grudge for having stepped into his shoes at the
Vanguard;
but it really wasn’t my fault; I simply had to accept. You might try and make him see it and calm him down a bit. Pass … I’m told he’s fearfully worked up against me.”

He had tripped, but this time he had not fallen.

“I hope he has taken his copy with him. I don’t like what he writes,” said Bercail; then turning to Bernard: “But, you, Monsieur Profitendieu, I thought that you …”

“Oh, please don’t call me Monsieur … I know I’ve got a ridiculous mouthful of a name … I mean to take a pseudonym, if I write.”

“Why haven’t you contributed anything?”

“Because I hadn’t anything ready.”

Olivier, leaving his two friends to talk together, went up to Edouard.

“How nice of you to come! I was longing to see you
again. But I would rather have met you anywhere but here.… This afternoon, I went and rang at your door. Did they tell you? I was so sorry not to find you; if I had known where you were …”

He was quite pleased to be able to express himself so easily, remembering a time when his emotion in Edouard’s presence kept him dumb. This ease of his was due, alas! to his potations and to the banality of his words.

Edouard realized it sadly.

“I was at your mother’s.” (And for the first time he said “you” to Olivier instead of “thou.”)

“Were you?” said Olivier, who was in a state of consternation at Edouard’s style of address. He hesitated whether he should not tell him so.

“Is it in this milieu that you mean to live for the future?” asked Edouard, looking at him fixedly.

“Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

These words were said in so grave, so tender, so fraternal a tone … Olivier felt his self-assurance tottering within him.

“You think I am wrong to frequent these people?”

“Not all of them, perhaps; but certainly some.”

Olivier took this as a direct allusion to Passavant, and in his inward sky a flash of blinding, painful light shot through the bank of clouds which ever since the morning had been thickening and darkening in his heart. He loved Bernard, he loved Edouard far too well to bear the loss of their esteem. Edouard’s presence exalted all that was best in him; Passavant’s all that was worst; he acknowledged it now; and indeed, had he not always known it? Had not his blindness as regards Passavant been deliberate? His gratitude for all that the count had done for him turned to loathing. With his whole soul, he cast him off. What he now saw put the finishing touch to his hatred.

Passavant, leaning towards Sarah, had passed his arm round her waist and was becoming more and more pressing. Aware of the unpleasant rumors which were rife concerning his relations with Olivier, he thought he would give them the lie. And to make his behaviour more public, he had determined to get Sarah to sit on his knees. Sarah had so far put up very little defence, but her eyes sought Bernard’s, and when they met them, her smile seemed to say:

“See how far a person may go with me!”

But Passavant was afraid of overdoing it; he was lacking in experience.

“If I can only get her to drink a little more, I’ll risk it,” he said to himself, putting out his free hand towards a bottle of curaçao.

Olivier, who was watching him, was beforehand with him; he snatched up the bottle, simply to prevent Passavant from getting it; but as soon as he took hold of it, it seemed to him that the liqueur would restore him a little of his courage—the courage he felt failing within him—the courage he needed to utter, loud enough for Edouard to hear, the complaint that was trembling on his lips:

“If only you had chosen …”

Olivier filled his glass and emptied it at a draught. Just at that moment, he heard Jarry, who was moving about from group to group, say in a half-whisper, as he passed behind Bercail:

“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail.”

Bercail turned round sharply:

“Just say that again out loud.”

Jarry had already moved away. He waited until he had got round the table and then repeated in a falsetto voice:

“And now we’re going to ki-kill little Bercail”; then, taking out of his pocket a large pistol, with which the
Argonauts
had often seen him playing about, he raised it to his shoulder.

Jarry had acquired the reputation of being a good shot. Protests were heard. In the drunken state in which he now was, people were not very sure that he would confine himself to play-acting. But little Bercail was determined to show he was not afraid; he got on to a chair, and with his arms folded behind his back, took up a Napoleonic attitude. He was just a little ridiculous and some tittering was heard, but it was at once drowned by applause.