The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  Then, at last, it came to him, and he was profoundly startled. Yes, there had been a heavier fullness to her breasts, a richer outline to her figure. It was strange that he had not noticed all this before, he exclaimed to himself. How tragic, then, for the poor young creature! He wondered when— He recalled, with greater bafflement, that he had been in personal attendance upon Mr Bouchard for over six months. During that time, his patient had been very ill, completely bedridden.

  The doctor pulled himself up sharply, shook his head, grimly. One must not think these things. A physician, especially, must not think these things, and more especially, not of rich and powerful patrons I It could have happened! he exclaimed to himself. What other explanation is there? After all, he was not so terribly ill, in the beginning. Stranger things have happened! Why, there was that case of Mr Jonathan, who had been bedridden for two years with a failing heart, who had not been allowed to lift his head from the pillow. Yet, his wife had produced a fine bouncing baby two days after her husband had died. So, it was not inconceivable—

  CHAPTER XLII

  At two o’clock, Celeste, dressed in a black broadcloth suit and loose furs, and a small black hat with a gay red feather springing up from it, came in to tell Peter that she was taking his advice, and going for a drive. She had powdered and rouged her face, and painted her lips. She looked quite merry and composed. Peter gazed at her, sighed inwardly, and returned her kiss when she bent over him. The nurse smiled benignly.

  ‘Don’t hurry back,’ he said, pressing her gloved hand. ‘Are you driving, yourself?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like to be alone, in the country, darling. You are certain that you won’t need me?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he answered, with immense gaiety. ‘Miss Broder is here. She is going to read to me for a while. Then, later perhaps, I’ll sit up and do some writing. There is tomorrow’s broadcast, you know.’

  She gazed at him, and thought; He is surely better. He looks more rested. There is even some colour in his face.

  She kissed him again, and left the room. He listened acutely until he heard her drive away. Then he raised himself a little and watched her small red car going rapidly down the long driveway. At the bottom of the incline, it turned, wheeled away towards the valley, was lost among the greening trees and shrubbery. Then he fell back on his pillows again, and sighed, over and over. A grey shadow moved across his face, and his light-blue eyes sank deeply into their sockets.

  Miss Broder brought him his morning’s mail, sitting beside him and slitting open the letters, which she gave to him. He read listlessly, dropping the sheets from his hand, as if they were too heavy to hold.

  ‘Why, here is a foreign letter!’ she exclaimed. She peered at the stamp. ‘A French letter!’

  He lifted his head eagerly, and took the envelope from her hand, and scrutinized it. ‘It’s from Israel!’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard from him for two months. He’s so damned obstinate. I suppose this is in reply to my letter demanding that he get a visa and come here.’

  He tore at the envelope with eager trembling fingers, waving away Miss Broder’s offered assistance. A thin sheet of paper, covered with delicate blue writing, fell out. Peter began to read, his eyes leaping over the page:

  ‘My dearest, dearest friend,’ said the letter, ‘when you receive this, I shall no longer be in France. I shall be in Germany. I have heard that the German Government have taken two dear friends of mine into custody, as hostages against my return, for trial, they say, for heinous crimes against the Reich. My dear friends are innocent good people. One of them was a professor of physical science in the University of Berlin. Such a dear, kind old man, who had never harmed anyone, who had lived in some gigantic and mystical world of his own, in which he had moved with God. Unfortunately, his God has been unable to protect him, for he is a Jew. The other friend is the writer, Emil Meyer, who wrote those delightful, fantastic, semi-fairy-tales of ancient Teutonic gods. It appears that he had no right to weave his stories of those gods, for he, also, is a Jew. Both my friends are in Dachau. I have been promised that when I return, they shall be released. I do not know whether these promises will be kept, for there are no men in Germany any longer, but only mad beasts. However, it does not matter. No doubt, I shall be confined to Dachau, also, but there I shall see my dear friends, and comfort them, for the time that will remain to all of us.

  ‘I ought not to have left Germany. I ought not to have left my friends who suffered. There is an obligation upon mankind to suffer with its fellows, not to flee, not to desert them in their extremity. The agony of one is the agony of all.

  ‘Do not sorrow for me, my dear friend. Be glad. I am an old man, and I cannot live and look upon the things which are done in these days. Be glad that I have died. Let me quote to you the words of Faust:

  ‘Eh bien! puisque la mort me fuit,

  Pourquoi n’irais-je pas vers elle?

  Salut! O mon dernier matin!

  J’arrive sans terreur au terme du voyage;

  Et je suis, avec ce breuvage,

  Le seul maître de mon destin!’

  Miss Broder, who had been watching her patient with that smug and loving kindness almost exclusively reserved for the rich, was acutely alarmed at the ghastly greyness which suddenly appeared on Peter’s face. His features became pinched, his pale lips blue. The alarm of the nurse was greatly increased when Peter looked at her with a dazed and empty expression, the paper slipping from his hand to the bed. Yet, when she bent over him, he said, very quietly:

  ‘Miss Broder, I’d like to be alone a little while, if you please.’

  ‘Are you ill, Mr Bouchard?’ she asked, anxiously, her warm hand reaching out to touch his forehead. But he moved his head away from her, and repeated, very gently: ‘Please. I’d like to be alone.’

  She left him, then, demurring, with long backward glances of anxiety. She closed the door behind her, but stood by it. Finally, she went to telephone for the physician.

  Peter watched his nurse leave him. Then, as the door closed, he lifted Baron Opperheim’s letter and read it again, every word, slowly and carefully. At last, his hand dropped; the letter fluttered to the floor.

  Peter turned his head and looked at the bright May sunlight streaming in through the windows, touching the rug, the posts of the bed, the side of a chest of drawers, the gay backs of books in a small bookcase near the fireplace. He looked at the intense warm blue of the sky, and the pattern of green leaves that flickered against the windows. Everything was silent except for the swift rustling of the trees, the drowsy whirring of a grass-cutter on the wide lawns about the house.

  He felt no pain in his heart. He felt only a complete deadness, a complete and heavy desolation that was like the crushing weight of great stones upon him. Under that weight he could not breathe nor move. Sorrow was too small a word for what he was enduring. It was as if the last frail hope, the last little peace, had gone from him forever, leaving him face to face at last with the heart-breaking and speechless agony of eternity. ‘Hail! O my last morning! I arrive without terror at the end of my voyage!’ Faust had said, and Israel had quoted him. ‘I am, with this draught, the sole master of my destiny;’

  But Peter could feel none of the nobility and grandeur of the words. He felt only the dread waste, the fearful and useless anguish, the immortal hopelessness.

  All at once he could not endure it. He raised himself on his pillows and cried out furiously, and in dying agony, to the sunlight, to the immeasurable blue sky: ‘Israel! Israel!’

  His body strained in repudiating hatred against the sky and the sun, against the God who had lifted no hand to prevent the tragedy of all the ages. Vast chaos tumbled before his dimming eye. Vast mountains rose into tumultuous being, collapsed into red mist; thousands of brilliant fragments exploded before his vision. He lost all sensation of integration; he was a spark of burning malediction whirled about in heaving and limitless space, a spark that lamented and cursed and implored in a wild gale of impreca
tion and dying despair.

  Somehow, in that immense confusion he felt the taste of hot salt in his mouth which increased to a choking flood. He felt himself falling through emptiness, down into a huge darkness filled with pain.

  He opened his eyes slowly, as if heavy stones lay on the lids. The sunlight still streamed into the room. There was no sensation in his body. He was only feeble consciousness.

  Then he became aware that Annette was sitting beside him, holding his hand. Her bright fine hair was a halo of soft light about her tear-stained face. He saw her through a haze. Beyond her were diffused shapes. He was not curious about them, though vaguely he understood that they were two of his brothers: the grey and frigid Francis, with the ice-blue eyes, the little dark Jean. Emile, ‘the bloated black rat.’ and Armand, and Christopher, Celeste’s brothers, were there, also, and Agnes, Emile’s wife. Beyond the door, waiting and concerned, was Estelle, Francis’ wife, and Alexa, the poor fat stupid wife of Jean, and other relatives, and several friends.

  The doctor was there, also, and the nurse. But Peter saw no one clearly but Annette. As he looked at her, she smiled sweetly, pressed his hand, and bent towards him. ‘My dear,’ she said, softly. ‘It’s Annette.’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered. He looked at her, and there was a sudden sharp intensity in his eyes.

  ‘We’re looking for Celeste,’ said Annette, tightening her hold on his hand. ‘She’ll be found soon.’

  But he still looked at her with that brightening intensity which appeared under the glazing of his eyes.

  He felt no pain now, not even sorrow, not even despair. He was only supremely aware.

  He gazed at Annette, and saw, with sudden profound knowledge, and here was another like himself, vulnerable, gentle, compassionate, and despised. The last strong flowing of his spirit went out to her in recognition and brotherhood. And she gazed back at him, her blue eyes widening and deepening, welling and flowing, with understanding of his recognition. She moved even closer to him; she bent over him. They communicated in silence, in sorrow, and tenderness.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Annette. ‘Yes, my dear.’

  She touched his cold sunken cheek with her lips. Tears ran over her cheeks. When she could see him again, she saw that he was smiling at her.

  His eyelids were so heavy. I will sleep a little, he thought. It surprised him, vaguely, that there was no sensation in his flesh.

  The darkness behind his eyelids was soft and thick, yet full of waiting life, like the hour before dawn. He gave himself up to the darkness. A strange comfort was creeping all through him, the sweetest of consolations, as if a friend had smiled and spoken. He heard a voice, faint as from a distance, but strong and clear. It called his name. He tried to answer, and he heard his own voice echoing back to himself in the night as from a thousand resounding places. He was suddenly frightened, filled with horror. Then the call came again, nearer, stronger, reassuring. There was the dimnest light visible now, the sound of approaching footsteps. Someone, in the dimness, which was now a silvery haze, took his hand, held it firmly and warmly, and he felt the presence of someone beloved.

  He knew, now. He was flooded with light and joy and peace. He clutched the hand that held his own. He felt himself moving through space, peering through the shining haze at the face of his friend. ‘Israel,’ he said.

  From far behind him in the darkness he had left he heard the sound of weeping. He hesitated, drew back from the drawing power of his friend’s hand. The weeping lacerated his heart.

  ‘Come,’ said his friend, urgently. ‘Come. The morning is here.’

  CHAPTER XLIII

  Cornell Hawkins looked long and thoughtfully at his visitor. So, this was the most formidable and the most terrible of the Bouchards, this strong stocky man with the light-grey crest of vital hair sweeping up from his broad and brutal forehead, and the pale implacable eyes which were as opaque as polished stone: Mr Hawkins had long wished that he might see this man in the flesh; he had had much curiosity about him. That wide and heavy face rarely appeared in newspapers, and rarely was there a mention of his personal life. He had moved obscurely and invisibly, as the gods move, only their portent sensed, only the vaguest of gigantic shadows thrown on the vast horizon of events.

  In his turn, Henri Bouchard regarded Mr Hawkins with equal curiosity, hidden and unperturbed. But he thought: I wonder how much the poor wretch has told him, about me, about the family? From his first look at Mr Hawkins, he knew that here was a man it would be useless to attempt to cross-examine, however dexterously it was done. Henri knew his New Englanders, their classic reserve, their cold aristocracy, their restraint and icy subtlety. Any question, no matter how delicate, would be met with frosty evasiveness, or rebuking silence. For this, then, Henri admired Mr Hawkins, and his face brightened faintly with friendly interest. Above all things, he admired that aristocracy of spirit which the other man personified, an aristocracy which was never venal, never small or mean, never malicious or petty.

  ‘Of course, I knew that Peter was very ill,’ said Mr Hawkins, in a low and reflective voice. ‘He told me, once, that he couldn’t live very long. But one never knows. I’ve seen many people live to a hearty old age, always “dying,” and making last wills and testaments, and summoning relatives to their deathbeds. I—I had hoped that might be the case with Peter.’

  He smiled slightly, but his expression was sad.

  ‘Had we known that you and he were such friends, we’d have invited you to the funeral,’ said Henri. ‘But we thought the relationship between you was purely that of author and publisher. And publishers aren’t very often friends with their authors, are they?’

  ‘No,’ replied Mr Hawkins. His smile was a little grim, as he thought of some of his authors. He thought also he might like to attend the funeral of some of them, provided, of course, they had first delivered one or two last lucrative manuscripts to be published posthumously. He saw some of them now, in his mind’s eye. Miserable, conceited and exigent wretches! Who ever had invented the legend that authors moved dreamily far beyond the realm of ugly finance? Someone, evidently smarting from recent encounters with authors, had remarked that the average author could outwit and outbargain the longest beard in a Levantine bazaar. Mr Hawkins had met only one or two great authors in his life, and they had been kind and modest men, without affectation or pose or greed. But the average author, who only considered himself great, was a noxious species with a peculiarly penetrating and demanding voice, an enormous vanity, and deliberately affecting much temperament. Or he was sometimes a fat and untidy beast, with a lofty expression, a taste for bars and rowdy women. These were bad enough, thought Mr Hawkins. They were exceeded in unpleasantness only by women authors.

  He said: ‘Peter and I were very good friends.’ And again, his expression was sad. ‘Where is he buried?’

  ‘In the family plot, in Windsor. Near his mother. His father, you know, died on the Lusitania. There is only a memorial to him. Peter was very fond of his father.’

  ‘I know. Peter told me about him.’ Mr Hawkins looked beyond Henri. The early June sky was grey, thick with rainclouds, but between some of their folds a faint radiance was streaming in long wide bars.

  Now there was silence in the office. Mr Hawkins had some idea of what had brought Henri Bouchard to him, but he had no intention of making the approach easier for this inexorable man.

  Henri was laying an envelope on Mr Hawkins’ desk. ‘We found this letter, addressed to you, among Peter’s effects,’ he said. ‘I’d have brought it sooner, but I was named the executor of Peter’s estate, and there were some matters to attend to.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bouchard. But you could have sent it, you know.’ Mr Hawkins touched the envelope, gently.

  ‘Yes. But I wanted to talk to you about Peter’s book,’ said

  Henri, after a slight pause. ‘I understand it is to be released next week?’

  Mr Hawkins nodded. He watched Henri acutely. ‘I saw the proofs,’ continued
Henri. He smiled indulgently. ‘He has a lot of excellent information there, from sound—sources. But he writes melodramatically.’

  Mr Hawkins’ eyes became reserved and withdrawn. ‘There’s a fallacy, you know,’ he said, drily, ‘that a thing is only true when it is dry and hard like a mouldy crust. When all the life has evaporated from it. And, perversely, if a thing is colourful and strong and vehement, the tendency is to believe it is fiction. Why? Are only dead dull things true, and the living and bright, lies?’

  ‘You approve, then, of his flamboyant style?’ Henri’s glance was somewhat derisive.

  Mr Hawkins was annoyed. ‘I never could see that it was necessary to dress truth up in grave-clothes,’ he said. ‘I might even say that the dead things are not true. If they were true, they would still live. And truth, like a beautiful woman, deserves colour and passion.’

  Now Henri’s smile was also derisive. But Mr Hawkins suddenly saw that this was a pose. He said, abruptly: ‘We have all the intention in the world of giving this book, The Fateful Lightning, every chance to succeed. That is what you want to know, isn’t it, Mr Bouchard?’

  Henri was surprised at this penetration. Like all men of his kind, he underestimated the intelligence and perception of other men. He said: ‘Yes. That’s what I wanted to know. I want that book to succeed, Mr Hawkins. I want it to have all the publicity it can get. I want it to be widely, persistently, advertised. I want every newspaper to carry large and striking advertisements, every day, for months. Perhaps for years.’

  Mr Hawkins was silent. He waited. Deliberately, then, Henri brought out his cheque-book. Mr Hawkins still waited, watched while Henri took out his pen and slowly uncapped it. Mr Hawkins began to smile.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, quietly.