“Indeed,” Charles approved, mechanically.
There was then a terrible moment of disturbance and nausea, because of the immense effort those two hearts had to make to repress the explosion of their joy.
With common accord, Charles and Rita tacitly made a decision not to pronounce a word relating to their love. The slightest spark would have lit a fearful fire. They would therefore only speak about the enterprise that might soon permit them to let that passion, so painfully contained, off the bridle. And there again, as with Madame Christiani, there was no question of anything but searching for the truth and bringing about the triumph of justice. They seemed to interest themselves solely in the two old enemies, César and Fabius, and no longer to know that, beyond the ancient drama that it was necessary to clarify, it was their own destiny that they had to discover.
All a-tremble with a delightful fever whose assaults it was constantly necessary for them to overcome, they regulated the march to be followed with banal and cool phrases, avoiding meeting one another’s eyes, devoured by the desire to look at one another recklessly and eternally.
“The best thing,” Rita said, “is to approach my father with perfect frankness and clarity. He’s a taciturn and surly character, but his conscience and his integrity are irreproachable. When he knows that a means is being offered to him to review the case against his ancestor, be certain that he won’t hesitate for an instant.”
“Should I ask to see him?”
“No—oh no!”
“Should I write to him, then?”
“It’s preferable for someone else to write—your lawyer, for example. All this must remain, until the end, very cold and inexpressive. It’s the best way to avoid any discord.”
“Very well,” said Charles. “What about the portraits.”
“Ask him for them by way of the same intermediary, who must take responsibility for returning them intact.”
“Are there many?”
“I know of three, no more. One portrait in oils, very large, showing the upper body. Another, smaller portrait in pastels. And a miniature—or, rather, two similar miniatures, painted by the same artist. One of them is hanging in the drawing-room; the other is in my bedroom. I’ve brought you that one. Look, here it is. Examine it at your leisure, but don’t keep it; I want to take it back. We have to take every precaution and it’s absolutely necessary that no one suspects me of any connivance with you.”
“You’ve had an excellent idea,” said Charles. “From now on, it might perhaps be useful to me to know what your ancestor looks like.”
“I can’t assure you that this miniature is the better resemblance of the two….”
Charles brought the little oval frame of waxed wood, equipped with a golden thread, into the light of a casement. The colors of Fabius Ortofieri’s portrait were still vivid. The miniature was only vaguely reminiscent of the lithograph with which Charles was familiar. It depicted a robust man of mature years, with blue eyes and a dark complexion, and indeterminate nose and a mouth opening in a slightly pinched smile. His hair formed a forelock and was brushed forward over his temples. Short side-whiskers of the sort known as “rabbit’s-feet” striped his cheeks. The gentleman wore a white cravat wound several times around, a wide-open white waistcoat and a black frock-coat whose buttonhole was ornamented with a sky-blue ribbon with a red border.
“The July medal, isn’t it?” said Rita.
“Exactly—and that tells us that the miniature must have been painted after 1830. It follows that Fabius Ortofieri must have looked very much the same in 1835.”
“The big portrait is from 1834,” said Rita, “and the pastel was painted during the trial, in prison.”
“The same cut of the beard?”
“Always. The face entirely shaven, except for the side-whiskers.”
“May I ask a question?” breathed Madame Le Tourneur, in a precious and faint voice. “What’s the July medal?”
“A cross awarded by Louis-Philippe,” Charles replied, “as a national recompense to all the citizens who distinguished themselves during the three July days and who, in consequence, put him on the throne.”
“They gave away a lot of them, I believe?” said Rita.
“Yes. A few too many, it must be said. One finds all sorts of individuals among rabble-rousers, and the July cross isn’t always worn worthily.”
He continued looking at the miniature attentively, in order to commit it firmly to memory and to be able to recognize Fabius if the luminite gave him an unexpected opportunity. When he had done that he returned the object to the young woman—and the moment had come for them to separate.
Madame Le Tourneur sensed that they were so desolate at that necessity that she hastened to go in quest herself of a tray laden with small bottles and cakes that was fully prepared in the dining-room. Charles and Rita, however, made the same fearful movement at the same time. The sight of the tray and the prospect of the snack transformed the atmosphere of the meeting dangerously. It was about to lose its impersonal character. A lukewarm intimacy would be created, which would, as always, escape from the carafe of port or the fuming teapot. Charles immediately understood the peril and the impropriety. He pleaded the urgent necessity of talking to his notary that same day and excused himself for not being able to stay longer.
Rita’s hand was so cold and so tremulous that he was desperate to abandon it.
“Whenever you have something to say,” Geneviève declared, “you can always return here.” She elongated her stride as she showed Charles out; he seemed to be fleeing, and did not reply.
“Pardon me,” he said. “The notary, you see…”
“I understand perfectly,” she said, softly, letting her voice descend in pitch from syllable to syllable.
Rita opened the window to watch him go.
The results of this clandestine conversation did not take long to manifest themselves. Two days later, in fact, Charles received a telephone call from the notary.
“Hello! Monsieur Ortofieri’s reply reached me this morning, my dear Monsieur. I hope that you will be satisfied. Everything is proceeding as you wish, and Monsieur Ortofieri’s letter is couched in the most exquisitely polite terms. He could not do otherwise, of course. As is only natural, Monsieur Ortofieri will not involve himself personally. The portraits will be confided to his delegate, who will present himself at your home directly. Monsieur Ortofieri has chosen this representative with a tact that you will doubtless appreciate. He preferred an acquaintance that you have in common to a business associate unknown to you. It is a certain Monsieur Luc de Certeuil, who is, it appears, your friend and lives in your building—a particularly fortunate circumstance…hello? Hello? Are you there?”
“Yes,” said Charles. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”
Luc de Certeuil advanced toward Charles, his hand extended. His tread upon the drawing-room carpet was self-assured, and he accentuated his habitual stance—which consisted of further increasing his considerable height by throwing out his chest and raising his head, with a false familiarity. There is always an exaggeration in that sort of perpetual heartiness; one suspects it of being overly calculated, imposed by the soul on an actor on a body whose natural pose it is not. Luc gave the impression of mistrusting his body, of dreading that it might collapse at any moment, that he might lose an inch of stature or thoracial circumference.
Today, more than ever, he seemed not so much upstanding as hauling himself up, not so much tall as puffed up. His arm was excessively extended, the hand opened with a frankness that was too studied, but it was not uninteresting to see so thankless a face wearing so flattering an expression. That face and that expression were not in accord. The face was square, provided with powerful jaws, poorly illuminated by strangely colorless eyes; the short, large nose was reminiscent of the sinister muzzle of a hyena; the whole ensemble was pale and already fatigued, but the whole ensemble, carefully managed, powdered and perfumed, had never been displeasing to any woman.
The wavy hair, combed back to reveal a broad and solid forehead, was a luxuriously well-groomed mane. A kind of manufactured superiority emanated from this individual, whose ugliness because it was virile, arrogant and athletic, made women say: “He’s handsome”—while a few men said the same, because of the fellow’s robust commanding appearance, his decisive manner and his affected friendliness.
Charles, on his guard, perplexed and malcontent, watched this tall and exceedingly affable gentleman coming toward him in his mother’s drawing-room, wearing an archangelic expression on an essentially demonic face, attempting to spread throughout his being the light of the most elevated sentiments and the purest of intentions.
“My dear friend,” Luc said, “I’ve come to place myself entirely at your disposition. Your notary has telephoned you, hasn’t he? You know, therefore, that Monsieur Ortofieri has done me the honor of…”
“If you are agreeable,” Charles said, promptly, “we shall maintain silence regarding the mandate that you have been given by Monsieur Ortofieri. My mother, with whose opinions you are familiar, will only recant her prejudice in his regard if proof is produced of the innocence of old Fabius. I will take responsibility for telling my mother that I have selected you of my own accord to be my delegate to the banker, by reason of the relationship that you have with him—for if she knew that you were his representative, I fear that she would give you a frosty reception.”
He had, indeed, understood that Madame Christiani would be incapable of going beyond the concessions that she had made to him. It was one thing to have convinced her to admit the involvement of the Ortofieris via an intermediate in an operation to be carried out under her roof, but to have her accept that the person granted that authority was Luc de Certeuil, whom she abominated, was something else entirely.
“As you wish,” Luc replied. “I pray that you will see in me a friend disposed to do what is necessary in all conscience, without any other preoccupation than to fulfill impartially the mandate that he has entrusted to me. I understand that the situation is exceedingly delicate. I have not forgotten anything of the conversation we had the other day in Saint-Trojan, in the course of which we both, I believe, matched one another in frankness. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, admitted Charles, flagrantly insulted but replying with moderate softness nevertheless.
Luc continued, without emphasis: “I leave you to imagine how surprise I was when Monsieur Ortofieri brought me up to date with what’s happening and ended up asking me to represent him with respect to you. My first impulse was to decline the honor, for reasons that you know—but I saw that it was impossible for me to refuse without revealing those very reasons, and it seemed to me that a gentleman did not have that right. I hope that you will approve.”
Charles endured a few painful moments. The other was profiting from the circumstances to put on a show of chivalrous spirit, taking his stand on the terrain of generosity and elegance. Rather than approval, it was thanks of which he was in search, and to refuse them seemed impossible. However, his intervention in the counter-enquiry had something paradoxical and unsustainable about it, since—as he was not unaware—the result of the observations might ruin his most cherished hopes. On the other hand, was he telling the truth? Might he not have learned about the adventure of the luminite from the gossip that was running through the building from top to bottom? Had the concierge been any more discreet with him than anyone else? Might it not be him who had spontaneously offered the banker his collaboration when the latter had acquainted him with the contents of the notary’s letter? Who could tell whether Luc de Certeuil might not have anticipated the letter by reporting to Monsieur Ortofieri the rumor that was making the rounds of the tenants in the Rue de Tournon? Charles’s suspicions stopped there, however. He was intuitively certain that Rita’s suitor would not have said anything to anyone that might harm the young woman in any fashion whatsoever. Rita would never have forgiven him for that, and it would have the immediate ruination of Luc’s chances.
Meanwhile, the only course to take, for the time being, was to bow to necessity, however annoying it seemed. It was necessary to accept, while feigning a smile, that an enemy should enter the citadel, at the cost of his observing everything and involving himself in everything. There could be no question of sending Monsieur Ortofieri’s ambassador away, and his declarations had to be accepted as honest and truthful. There was a game to be played in which bluff would be indispensable. An unprecedented vigilance was obligatory. That complicated matters awkwardly, but what he could do? Nothing, other than submit, while keeping his eyes open and his spine flexible.
“My dear Certeuil,” Charles said, shaking his hand. “I can’t tell you that I like the situation very much—but I’m sure that you don’t like it any more than I do. Through you, I offer my compliments to the man whose delegate you are and, in the assurance of the sentiments that you have just expressed, I thank you and say: be welcome.”
“I thank you in my turn,” said Luc—and he put such perfect politeness into that sentence that Charles wondered, momentarily, whether the man in front of him might not be utterly dutiful, and entirely sincere. “These are the portraits you asked for.”
Luc was, in fact, leaning on a large flat rectangle, parceled up with string. He unwrapped the light packaging and the four portraits of Fabius appeared, just as Rita had described them: the oil-painting, the pastel made in the prison and the two miniatures—which proved that Monsieur Ortofieri had asked his daughter for the loan of hers. A specimen of the lithograph previously mentioned was added to them.
At first, Charles experienced a certain satisfaction. He had wondered whether Luc de Certeuil had brought authentic portraits of Fabius Ortofieri. Trickery in this respect would have been very audacious, but the order of the day was to be watchful, and the password was “mistrust.” Then, the improvised examining magistrate, reassured as to the authenticity of the portraits, felt a most unexpected disappointment—which a collector of old portraits would surely have foreseen.
The portraits bore no strict resemblance to one another; even the two miniatures, the works of a single artist and made simultaneously, were slightly different. There were, to be sure, in sum, four images of a correct, robust blue-eyed man with a swarthy face encased by “rabbit’s-feet”—but, knowing one of the images, would one have recognized Fabius straight away in any of the others? Everyone who possesses ancestral portraits knows very well what we mean; even photographs do not always produce analogous impressions that make us see the same person within changing features.
“Let’s hope that we won’t require absolute precision,” Charles said.
“Oh,” said Luc, “the individual is strongly stereotypical. He doesn’t recall any face out of all those I’ve seen in the world since I came into it.”
“He obviously has character,” said Charles, moving his gaze from the oil to the pastel and from the pastel to the miniatures. “That doesn’t mean that we won’t have to compensate, as far as is possible, for the inadequacy of the evidence. The dossier of the affair gives us very little. In 1835, there were none of the admirable means of identification that the law now has at its disposal. You won’t find the slightest description of the accused in the file. We don’t even know whether Fabius was tall or short.”
As he finished speaking, Charles looked at Luc de Certeuil. He saw that he was inattentive—not indifferent, as one might have presumed, but exhibiting a state of mind quite distinct from interest, and even more so from detachment. He seemed to be dominated by a profound astonishment. He gave the impression—without being able to hide it—of returning in amazement from an idea that had occurred to him, a conviction that he had acquired. Readable in his eyes was something like: “Was all that true, then? It’s not a stratagem? Is it possible?”
“Would you like to see the luminite?” Charles asked him, smiling.
“Is that what you call the extraordinary thing that…in essence, conserves the past?”
&n
bsp; “That slows down light,” Charles corrected. “It comes to the same thing, but it’s more exact.”
“Amazing!”
“No. Luminite exists, as mirrors, prisms and lenses exist, as water exists and all the other substances that affect the direction, intensity or speed of light. It exists like the air, through which sounds travel far more slowly than through the ground. It exists as naturally as your monocle and your eye. There has never been anything simpler, anything more logical. What would be illogical would be that it did not exist somewhere.”
“Yes,” said Luc. “All the same, it’s startling!”
“Like everything that emerges unexpectedly. After an hour, there’ll only be one thing that will still astonish you, and that’s having been astonished. My plates of luminite, my poor Certeuil, no longer have any effect on me in themselves. It’s like my phonograph, my telephone, my telegraph apparatus, which no longer hold any more interest for me than the use I might make of them.”
He thought he saw a doubt floating in Luc’s eyes: the idea, almost immediately effaced, of a possible subterfuge.
“Let’s go, then,” decided the historian.
The plates had been taken into a sort of studio illuminated by a large bay window, equipped with everything necessary for the eventual operation. Bertrand Valois and Colomba were conversing tenderly in the studio.
Luc had not expected to find Mademoiselle Christiani and her fiancé there, but on reflection, he told himself that he had, as required, informed Charles of the time when his visit was to be expected, and understood from then on that he would only ever be allowed to get close to the luminite in the presence of other people, who would be as polite as they were vigilant. He asked nonetheless, while expressing his admiration and uttering exclamations of delight, to examine all the faces of the plates. Charles hastened to authorize him to do so—and paid great attention to the facilitation of his task by maintaining a firm grip on the object of his curiosity. Accidents can so easily happen!
The Master of Light Page 18