“My friend,” said Morand, “we are fighting against violence; we condemn it as a crime. We did the right thing not to kill a man, whatever happens. But then, as I’ve said before, I believe Maurice’s to be a noble and honest heart.”
“Yes, but if this noble and honest heart is that of a republican fanatic, perhaps he himself would think it was a crime, if he has stumbled on something, not to sacrifice his honor on the altar of the nation, as they say.”
“But,” said Morand, “do you really think he knows something?”
“Ha! Just listen to him! He talks about secrets that will remain buried in his heart.”
“Those secrets are obviously those I confided in him about our contraband. He doesn’t know about any others.”
“Still,” said Morand, “that meeting in Auteuil, you don’t suppose he suspected something? You know he accompanied your wife?”
“I’m the one who told Geneviève to take him with her, to look after her.”
“Listen,” said Morand, “we’ll soon see if these suspicions are well founded. Our battalion’s on patrol at the Temple on the second of June—that is, in a week. You are the captain, Dixmer, and I’m the lieutenant. If your battalion or even our company receives a counterorder, like the Butte-de-Moulins battalion received the other day, when Santerre switched it with the Gravilliers battalion, it will mean they are onto us, and all that will be left for us to do will be to get out of Paris or die in combat. But if things go as planned …”
“We’re sunk just as surely,” replied Dixmer.
“How so?”
“Good Lord! Didn’t everything depend on the cooperation of this particular municipal officer? Wasn’t it he that was supposed to lead us straight to the Queen, albeit unwittingly? ”
“That’s true,” said Morand, crushed.
“So you see,” Dixmer continued gruffly, “we must get this young man back on board at any cost.”
“But what if he refuses, what if he fears he’s compromising himself?” said Morand.
“Listen,” said Dixmer. “I’ll have a word with Geneviève; she saw him last, she may know something.”
“Dixmer,” said Morand, “I can’t see you getting Geneviève involved in our plots; not that I fear any indiscretion on her part, good Lord, no! But the game we’re playing is a matter of life and death, and I would feel shame and pity, putting a woman’s head on the line here.”
“A woman’s head,” said Dixmer, “weighs as much as a man’s wherever cunning, candor, or beauty can do as much and sometimes more than brute force, power, and courage; Geneviève shares our convictions and our sympathies, Geneviève will share our fate.”
“Go ahead then, my friend,” said Morand. “I’ve said all I have to say. Go ahead: Geneviève is in all respects up to the mission you intend to give her, or rather that she has given herself. Martyrs are made of saints.”
And he held out his effeminate white hand to Dixmer, who pressed it between his own big hairy hands. Then Dixmer, cautioning Morand and company to be more vigilant than ever, went off to see Geneviève.
She was sitting at a table with her head down and her eye on her embroidery. She turned around at the sound of the door opening and acknowledged Dixmer.
“Ah, it’s you, my friend,” she said.
“Yes,” said Dixmer with a placid, beaming face. “I’ve just had a letter from our friend Maurice that I can’t make head or tail of. Here, you read it and tell me what you think.”
Geneviève reached out for the letter; despite her best efforts at self-control, she couldn’t stop from trembling as she took the letter and read.
Dixmer watched her, and sure enough, she scanned every line.
“Well?” he asked when she was done.
“Well, I think citizen Monsieur Maurice Lindey is an honest man,” answered Geneviève with the greatest possible composure, “and that there is nothing to fear from him.”
“Do you think he knows about the people you went to see in Auteuil?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t.”
“So why this sudden break? Did he seem to you colder or more emotional yesterday than usual?”
“No,” said Geneviève. “I think he was much the same.”
“Think carefully what you’re saying there, Geneviève, because, as you know, your answer will have serious consequences for all our plans.”
“Just a moment,” said Geneviève with an emotion that broke through all her efforts at maintaining a cool demeanor. “Just a moment …”
“All right!” said Dixmer with a slight contraction of the muscles of his face. “All right, try to remember everything, Geneviève.”
“Oh, yes,” the young woman collected herself. “Yes, I remember now: yesterday he was most morose. Monsieur Maurice is a bit of a tyrant when it comes to his friendships … and he sometimes sulks and stays away from us days on end.”
“So he’s just sulking?” asked Dixmer.
“Probably.”
“Geneviève, in our position, you understand, we can’t be content with probabilities. We need certainties.”
“Well then, my friend … I’m certain.”
“So this letter is just a pretext for not coming to the house anymore?”
“My friend, how can you expect me to tell you such things?”
“Tell me, Geneviève,” Dixmer went on. “I wouldn’t ask any other woman.”
“It is a pretext,” said Geneviève, eyes downcast.
“Ah!” said Dixmer.
Then, after a moment’s silence in which he frantically tried to suppress the beating of his heart with his hand, he pulled his hand out from his vest and placed it on the back of his wife’s chair.
“Do something for me, dear friend,” Dixmer said.
“What?” asked Geneviève, looking up, astonished.
“I don’t want there to be even the shadow of a doubt. Perhaps Maurice knows more about our secrets than we realize. What you think is a pretext may be more than that. Drop him a line.”
“Me?” gasped Geneviève, flinching.
“Yes, you; tell him it was you who opened the letter and that you’d like an explanation. He will come, you will question him, and that way you’ll be able to make an informed guess as to what it’s all about.”
“Oh, no, never!” cried Geneviève. “I can’t do what you ask of me and I won’t.”
“Dear Geneviève, when interests as powerful as those which rest on us are at stake, how can you recoil before puny considerations of pride?”
“I’ve given you my opinion of Maurice, monsieur,” Geneviève replied. “He is honest, he is chivalrous, but he is changeable, and I do not wish to suffer any other servitude than that imposed upon me by my husband.”
This statement was made so calmly and so firmly that Dixmer realized it would be useless to insist, at least for the moment. He did not say another word, looked at Geneviève without seeming to see her, wiped his hand across his clammy brow, and left.
Morand was waiting impatiently for him, and Dixmer gave him a blow-by-blow description of what had just been said.
“Fine,” said Morand, “let’s be content with that and put it out of our minds. Rather than cause the slightest hint of worry to your wife, rather than wound Geneviève’s pride in any way, I would renounce …”
Dixmer laid his hand on his shoulder.
“You are mad, monsieur,” he said staring straight into his eyes. “Either that or you don’t mean a word you say.”
“Dixmer! Do you think …”
“I think, Knight, that you are no freer than I am to allow yourself to get carried away by your feelings. Neither you nor I nor Geneviève belong to ourselves, Morand. We are objects called upon to defend a principle, and principles rest on objects, which they crush.”
Morand shuddered and kept his silence, a silence that was pensive and painful. They circled the garden a few times without exchanging a single word before Dixmer took his leave.
“I ha
ve a few orders to give,” he said in a perfectly calm voice. “I’ll be off, Monsieur Morand.”
Morand gave Dixmer his hand and watched him recede.
“Poor Dixmer,” he said to himself. “I’m afraid that out of all of us, he is the one who stands to lose the most.”
Dixmer did in fact go back to his workshop, issue a few orders, go over his newspapers again, order a distribution of bread and slops to the poor in that section of Paris, and then return home, get out of his work gear, and put on his Sunday best.
An hour later, Maurice was interrupted in the middle of his reading and public speaking practice by the voice of his officieux, who leaned toward his ear and whispered, “Citizen Lindey, there is someone with something very important to say to you, or so he says at least, waiting for you at your place.”
Maurice swiftly returned home and was flabbergasted to find Dixmer settled in comfortably, leafing through the papers. On the way back he had questioned his servant the whole time, but the man had never met the master tanner and could hardly offer any enlightenment.
On seeing Dixmer, Maurice stopped dead in the doorway, coloring uncontrollably. Dixmer shot up and held out his hand, smiling.
“What’s gotten into you? Why did you write me that nonsense?” he asked the young man. “In all truth, it was a bit below the belt, my dear Maurice. Me, lukewarm—a false patriot, you say? Come, come. You can’t repeat such accusations to my face, can you? Why don’t you just admit that you were trying to pick a fight with me.”
“I’ll admit whatever you like, my dear Dixmer, for you’ve always treated me like a gentleman; but that doesn’t mean my mind is not made up. My decision is irrevocable.…”
“But why?” asked Dixmer. “On your own admission you have nothing to reproach us with, yet you’re still determined to turn your back on us?”
“Dear Dixmer, please believe that to act as I do, to deprive myself of a friend like you, I must have pretty good reasons.”
“Yes, but whatever they are,” Dixmer continued, affecting a smile, “these reasons are not the ones you wrote to me. The ones you wrote to me are just an excuse.”
Maurice reflected for a moment.
“Listen, Dixmer,” he said, “we are living in an age when any letter expressing doubt can and should worry you. I realize it does not behoove a man of honor to leave you laboring under the weight of such anxiety. So, yes, Dixmer, the reasons I gave you were just an excuse.”
This admission, which should have cleared the businessman’s brow, on the contrary seemed to darken it.
“Well then, what’s the real motive?” said Dixmer.
“I can’t tell you. But if you knew what it was, you’d approve, I’m sure.”
Dixmer pressed him.
“Do you really want to know?” asked Maurice. “
Yes,” Dixmer replied.
“All right,” said Maurice, who felt a certain relief in approximating the truth. “The reason is that you have a wife who is young and beautiful, and the chastity of this young and beautiful woman, however well established it is, has not stopped people from misinterpreting my visits to your home.”
Dixmer paled slightly.
“Really?” he said. “Well then, my dear Maurice, the husband should thank you for the wrong you do the friend.”
“You realize that I’m not silly enough to think my presence could possibly be dangerous for your peace of mind or that of your wife, but it could set malicious tongues wagging, and you know very well the more absurd calumny is the more readily it is believed.”
“You child!” scoffed Dixmer, shrugging his shoulders.
“Scoff at me as much as you like,” Maurice replied, “but from afar we won’t be any less good friends, for we won’t have anything to hold against each other; whereas close up, on the other hand …”
“Go on, close up?”
“Things could have ended up going sour.”
“Maurice, do you really think that I could think …?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” said the young man.
“But why did you write to me, Maurice, instead of telling me in person?”
“Well, precisely to avoid what is happening between us right now.”
“So are you annoyed, Maurice, that I think enough of you to come and ask for an explanation?”
“No! Just the opposite,” cried Maurice, “and I’m more than happy, I can tell you, to have seen you again one last time before giving up ever seeing you again.”
“Ever seeing you again, citizen! But we are so very fond of you,” said Dixmer, seizing the young man’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
Maurice flinched.
“Morand,” continued Dixmer, well aware Maurice was trying to disguise a tremor, “Morand said to me again this morning: ‘Do everything you can to bring back our dear Maurice.’ ”
“Ah, monsieur!” said the young man, scowling and pulling back his hand, “I wouldn’t have thought I was so high up on citizen Morand’s list of friends.”
“You doubt it?” asked Dixmer.
“I neither believe it or doubt it, I have no reason to question myself on the subject at all; whenever I went to your place, Dixmer, I went only for you and your wife, not for citizen Morand.”
“You don’t know him, Maurice,” said Dixmer. “Morand is a beautiful soul.”
“I’m sure he is,” said Maurice with a bitter little smile.
“Now, let’s get back to the purpose of my visit.”
Maurice inclined his head to signal that Dixmer could go ahead; he himself had nothing further to say.
“So you’re saying tongues have been wagging?”
“Yes, citizen,” said Maurice.
“All right, then let’s speak frankly. Why would you take any notice of the idle gossip of busybodies who have nothing better to do? Come, Maurice, don’t you have a clear conscience and doesn’t Geneviève have her honesty?”
“I’m younger than you,” said Maurice, who was starting to marvel at the man’s insistence. “And perhaps I’m a little more thin-skinned. This is why I say that the reputation of a woman like Geneviève should not be the subject of even the idle gossip of busybodies who have nothing better to do. Allow me therefore, dear Dixmer, to persist in my initial resolution.”
“Come,” said Dixmer, “since we seem to be going in for confessions, confess something else.”
“What?” asked Maurice, going red. “What do you want me to confess?”
“That it is neither politics nor talk about how often you’re at my place that has made you decide to drop us.”
“What is it, then?”
“The secret you’ve discovered.”
“What secret?” Maurice asked with a naïve curiosity that reassured the tanner.
“That contraband business you stumbled onto the very night we met in such a memorable way. You’ve never forgiven me for being involved in fraud, and you accuse me of being a bad republican because I use English products in my tannery.”
“My dear Dixmer,” said Maurice, “I swear to you that I completely forgot, whenever I went to your place, that I was in the home of a black marketeer.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You don’t have any other motive, then, for abandoning the place other than what you’ve said?”
“On my honor.”
“Well then, Maurice,” said Dixmer, getting up and shaking the young man’s hand, “I hope you’ll think it over and go back on this resolution of yours that hurts us all so much.”
Maurice inclined his head without answering—which amounted to a final rejection. Dixmer left in despair at having failed in his bid to win back a man whom certain circumstances rendered not only useful but quite indispensable.
It was high time he left, for Maurice was torn by a thousand contradictory emotions. Since Dixmer begged him to come back, Geneviève might be able to forgive him. So why did he feel despair? In his place Lorin would most certainly have
a host of aphorisms to pluck from his favorite authors. But there was Geneviève’s letter, that formal dismissal which he’d carried with him to the section and learned by heart along with the note he’d received from her the day after he’d rescued her from the hands of those brutes who were roughing her up. But more than anything else, there was the young man’s stubborn jealousy over the detested Morand, the initial cause of his break with Geneviève.
And so Maurice remained intransigent in his resolution. But it must be said that being deprived of his daily visit to the old rue Saint-Jacques left a huge hole in his life. And when first the hour struck when he would normally have set off toward the Saint-Victor neighborhood, he fell into a profound melancholy, and from that moment went through all the stages of waiting in vain and regret.
Every morning he woke expecting to find a letter from Dixmer, and he finally admitted to himself that although he had resisted the man’s insistence face-to-face he would yield to a letter; every day he went out in the hope of running into Geneviève, his head full of opening lines he’d rehearsed in case it happened. Every evening, he came home in the hope of finding the messenger who had unwittingly one morning brought him pain, pain that had since become his eternal companion.
Often enough, too, in his hours of despair, this force of nature flared up and raged at the idea of suffering such torture without inflicting any back on the man responsible, since the primary cause of all his woes was Morand. Then he thought about going and picking a fight with Morand. But Dixmer’s partner was so frail, so inoffensive, that to insult or provoke him would be an act of cowardice coming from a colossus like Maurice.
Naturally Lorin had come to pull his friend out of the doldrums, though Maurice was stubbornly remaining mum, without, however, denying that he was down. Lorin had done everything he could, in practice and in theory, to bring back to the fold of the nation a heart aching all over with another love. But though the situation was serious, though in any other frame of mind Maurice would have thrown himself body and soul into the political whirlwind, even the crisis in public life was unable to goad our young republican into resuming the original activism that had made him a hero of the fourteenth of July and the tenth of August.
The Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 13