VI
The moral law which Descartes considered provisional, but to which he submitted in the meantime, until he had established the rules that should regulate his life and conduct hereafter, was the same law—its provisional powers indefinitely protracted—which governed Julius de Baraglioul.
But Julius’s temperament was not so intractable nor his intellect so commanding as to have given him hitherto much trouble in conforming to the proprieties. On the whole all that he demanded of life was his comfort—part of which consisted in his being successful as a man of letters. The failure of his last novel was the first experience of his life which had ever really galled him.
He had been not a little mortified at being refused admittance to his father; he would have been much more so if he had known who it was who had forestalled him. On his way back to the Rue de Verneuil, it was with less and less conviction that he repelled the importunate supposition which had assailed him as he went to visit Lafcadio in the morning. He too had juxtaposed facts and dates; he too was obliged to recognise in this strange conjunction something more than a mere coincidence. Lafcadio’s youthful grace, moreover, had captivated him, and though he suspected his father was going to cheat him of a portion of his patrimony for the sake of this bastard brother, he felt no ill will towards him; he was even expecting him this morning with a curiosity that was almost tender in its solicitude.
As for Lafcadio, shy of approach and reticent though he was, this rare opportunity of speaking tempted him—and also the pleasure of making Julius feel a little uncomfortable. For he had never taken even Protos very deeply into his confidence. And how far he had travelled since then! After all he did not dislike Julius—absurd and shadowy though he thought him. It amused him to know that they were brothers.
As he was on his way to Julius’s house, the morning after his visit, a somewhat curious adventure befell him.
Whether it was his liking for the roundabout that prompted him, or the inspiration of his guiding genius, or whether he wanted to quell a certain unruliness of body and mind, so as to be master of himself when he arrived at his brother’s—for whatever reason, Lafcadio took the longest way round; he had followed the Boulevard des Invalides, passed again by the scene of the fire, and was going down the Rue de Bellechasse.
“Thirty-four Rue de Verneuil,” he was saying to himself as he walked along, “four and three, seven—a lucky number.”
He was turning out of the Rue St. Dominique where it intersects the Boulevard St. Germain, when, on the other side of the road, he thought he saw and recognised the young girl, who, it must be confessed, had occupied his thoughts not a little since the day before. He immediately quickened his pace.... Sure enough, it was she! He caught her up at the end of the short Rue de Villersexel, but, reflecting that it would not be very like a Baraglioul to accost her, he contented himself with smiling, raising his hat a little and bowing discreetly; then, after passing her swiftly, he thought it highly expedient to drop into a tobacconist’s shop, while the young lady, who was again in front, turned down the Rue de l’Université.
When Lafcadio came out of the tobacconist’s and entered the same street in his turn, he looked right and left: the young girl had vanished.—Lafcadio, my friend, you are verging on the commonplace. If you are going to fall in love, do not count on my pen to paint the disturbance of your heart.... But no! the idea of beginning a pursuit was distasteful to him; and besides he did not want to be late for his appointment with Julius, and the roundabout way by which he had come allowed no time for further dawdling. Fortunately the Rue de Verneuil was near at hand, and the house in which Julius lived, at the first corner. Lafcadio tossed the Count’s name to the porter and darted upstairs.
In the meantime, Genevieve de Baraglioul, Count Julius’s elder daughter—for it was she, on her way back from the Hospital for Sick Children, where she went every morning—had been far more agitated than Lafcadio by this second meeting, and hurrying home as quickly as she could, she had entered the front door just as Lafcadio had turned into the street, and was already nearing the second floor, when the sound of rapid steps behind her made her look round; someone was coming upstairs more quickly than she; she stood aside to let the person pass, but when she recognized Lafcadio, who stopped, petrified, in front of her:
“Is it worthy of you,” she said in as angry a tone as she could muster, “to follow me like this?”
“Oh! what can you think of me?” cried Lafcadio. “I’m afraid you’ll not believe me when I say that I didn’t see you coming into this house—that I’m extremely astonished to meet you here. Isn’t this where Count Julius de Baraglioul lives?”
“What?” said Genevieve, blushing; “can you be the new secretary my father is expecting? Monsieur Lafcadio Wlou ... you have such a peculiar name, I don’t know how to pronounce it.” And as Lafcadio, blushing in his turn, bowed, she went on:
“Since I’ve met you, may I ask you as a favour not to speak to my parents about yesterday’s adventure, which I don’t think would be at all to their taste; and particularly not to say anything about my purse, which I told them I had lost.”
“I was going to ask you myself to say nothing about the absurd part you saw me play in the business. I’m like your parents; I don’t at all understand it or approve of it. You must have taken me for a Newfoundland. I couldn’t restrain myself. Forgive me. I have much to learn.... But I shall learn in time, I promise you.... Will you give me your hand?”
Genevieve de Baraglioul, who did not own to herself that she thought Lafcadio very handsome, did not own to Lafcadio that, far from thinking him ridiculous, she had set him up as the image of a hero. She held out her hand to him and he raised it impetuously to his lips; then smiling simply, she begged him to go down a few steps and wait till she had gone in and shut the door before ringing in his turn, so that they might not be seen together; and he was to take special care not to show that they had ever met before.
A few minutes later Lafcadio was ushered into the novelist’s study.
Julius’s welcome was kindly and encouraging; Julius, however, was a blunderer; the young man immediately assumed the defensive.
“I must begin by warning you, M. le Comte, that I can’t abide either gratitude or debts; and whatever you may do for me, you will never be able to make me feel that I am under any obligation to you.”
Julius in his turn was nettled.
“I am not trying to buy you, Monsieur Wluiki,” he began loftily.... Then, both realising that to continue in this way would mean burning their boats, they pulled themselves up short. After a moment’s silence Lafcadio began in a more conciliatory manner:
“What work was it that you thought of giving me?”
Julius made an evasive answer, excusing himself that his MS. was not quite ready yet; and besides it would be no bad thing for them to begin by getting better acquainted with each other.
“You must admit, M. de Baraglioul,” said Lafcadio pleasantly, “that you have lost no time in beginning that without me, and that you did me the honour yesterday of examining a certain pocket-book of mine....”
Julius lost countenance and answered in some confusion: “I admit that I did.” And then he went on with dignity: “I apologise. If the thing were to occur again....”
“It will not occur again. I have burnt the pocket-book.”
Julius’s features expressed grief.
“If I were still angry I shouldn’t mention it. Forgive my manner when I came in just now,” went on Lafcadio, determined to send his thrust home. “All the same I should like very much to know whether you read a scrap of letter as well, that happened to be in the pocket-book?”
Julius had not read any scrap of letter, for the very good reason that he had not found any; but he took the opportunity of protesting his discretion. It amused Lafcadio to show his amusement.
“I partly revenged myself yesterday on your new book.”
“It is not at all likely to interest you,” Julius hastened to say.
“Oh, I didn’t read the whole of it. I must confess I am not very fond of reading. In reality the only book I ever enjoyed was Robinson Crusoe.... Oh, yes! Aladdin too.... That must do for me in your opinion.”
Julius raised his hand gently.
“I merely pity you. You deprive yourself of great joys.”
“I have others.”
“Perhaps not of such sterling quality.”
“Oh, you may be sure of that!” and Lafcadio’s laugh was decidedly impertinent.
“You will suffer for it some day,” returned Julius, a little ruffled by this disrespectful gibing.
“When it will be too late,” Lafcadio finished the sentence with affected gravity; then he asked abruptly: “Does it really amuse you very much to write?”
Julius drew himself up.
“I don’t write for the sake of amusement,” he answered nobly. “The joy that I feel in writing is superior to any that I might find in living. Moreover, the one is not incompatible with the other.”
“So they say,” replied Lafcadio. Then abruptly raising his voice, which he had dropped as though inadvertently: “Do you know what it is I dislike about writing?—All the scratchings out and touchings up that are necessary.”
“Do you think there are no corrections in life too?” asked Julius, beginning to prick up his ears.
“You misunderstand me. In life one corrects oneself—one improves oneself—so people say; but one can’t correct what one does. It’s the power of revising that makes writing such a colourless affair—such a....” (He left his sentence unfinished.) “Yes! that’s what seems to me so fine about life. It’s like fresco-painting—erasures aren’t allowed.”
“Would there be much to erase in your life?”
“No ... not much so far.... And as one can’t....”
Lafcadio was silent a moment, and then: “All the same, it was because I wanted to make an erasure that I flung my pocket-book into the fire!... Too late—as you see! You must admit, however, that you didn’t understand what it was all about.”
No! Julius would never admit that.
“Will you allow me a few questions?” he said, by way of answer.
Lafcadio rose to his feet so abruptly that Julius thought he was going to make off on the spot; but he only went up to the window and, raising the muslin curtain:
“Is this garden yours?” he asked.
“M. de Baraglioul, I have hitherto allowed no one to pry in the smallest degree into my life,” went on Lafcadio without turning round. Then, as he walked back towards Julius, who had begun to take him for nothing more than a schoolboy: “But to-day is a red-letter day; for once in my life I will give myself a holiday. Put your questions—I undertake to answer them all.... Oh! let me tell you first that I have turned away that young baggage who showed you into my room yesterday.”
Julius thought it proper to put on an air of concern.
“Because of me? Really....”
“Pooh! I had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her for some time past.”
“Were you ... m ... m ... living with her?” asked Julius, rather awkwardly.
“Yes; for health’s sake.... But as little as possible, and in memory of a friend of mine whose mistress she had been.”
“Monsieur Protos, perhaps?” ventured Julius, who was now firmly determined to stifle his indignation—his disgust—his reprobation—and to show—on this first occasion—no more of his astonishment than was necessary to make his rejoinders sufficiently lively.
“Yes, Protos,” replied Lafcadio, brimming over with laughter. “Would you like to know about Protos?”
“To know something of your friends would be perhaps a step towards knowing you.”
“He was an Italian of the name of.... My word, I’ve forgotten, and it’s of no consequence. The other boys—even the masters—never called him anything but Protos from the day he unexpectedly carried off a first for Greek composition.”
“I don’t remember ever having been first myself,” said Julius, to encourage confidence, “but, like you, I have always wanted to be friends with those who were. So Protos ...?”
“Oh! it was because of a bet he made. Before that, though he was among the elder boys, he had always been one of the last of the class—whilst I was one of the youngest—not that I worked any the better for that. Protos showed the greatest contempt for everything the masters taught us; but one day, when one of the fellows who was good at book-learning and whom he detested, said to him: ‘It’s all very fine to despise what you can’t do’ (or something to that effect), Protos got his back up, worked hard for a fortnight and to such purpose that at the next Greek composition class he went up over the other fellows’ heads and took the first place to the utter amazement of us all—of them all, I should say. As for me, I had too high an opinion of Protos to be much astonished. When he said to me: ‘I’ll show them it’s not so difficult as all that,’ I believed him.”
“If I understand you rightly, Protos influenced you not a little?”
“Perhaps. At any rate he rather overawed me. As a matter of fact, however, I never had but one single intimate conversation with him—but that seemed to me so cogent that the very next day I ran away from school, where I was beginning to droop like a plant in a cellar, and made my way on foot to Baden, where my mother was living at that time with my uncle, the Marquis de Gesvres.... But we are beginning by the end. You would certainly question me very badly. Just let me tell you my own story as it comes. You will learn more in that way than you would ever dream of asking me—more, very likely, than you will care to learn.... No, thank you, I prefer my own,” said he, taking out his case and throwing away the cigarette which Julius had offered him when he first came in and which he had allowed to go out while he was talking.