The Thibaults

by Roger Martin Du Gard

  Indeed, just then he seemed to have achieved a certain poise. He was sitting aslant, in what seemed to be a frequent attitude of his, with his head bent to one side, the side on which was the unruly lock—as if his brows were overburdened by the mass of hair. His right shoulder was thrust forward. All the upper portion of his body seemed buttressed by his right arm, with its hand solidly planted on his thigh. His left elbow rested lightly on the table and the fingers of the left hand were toying with the bread-crumbs on the cloth. It was a man’s hand now, sinewy, expressive.

  He was thinking over what he had just said. “Yes, these people are restful.” There was a note of gratitude in his voice. “Obviously, that stolidity of theirs is only on the surface. There are passions in the air here, as in other countries. But, you see, emotions which, day in, day out, are so well kept in hand aren’t very dangerous. Not so contagious, I mean.” Suddenly he flushed, and added in a low voice: “For in these last three years, you know …”

  He paused, flicked back the lock of hair with a quick gesture, and shifted his position.

  Antoine did not stir, but swept his eyes over his brother’s downcast face. In his look there was a tacit invitation; at last, perhaps, Jacques was going to say something about himself.

  Deliberately Jacques changed the subject, rising from the table.

  “It’s still pouring,” he said. “But we’d better be getting back, hadn’t we?”

  As they were leaving the restaurant, a passing cyclist jumped off his machine and ran up to Jacques.

  “Have you seen anyone from over there?” he panted, without a word of greeting. The mountaineer’s cape which he was wresting from the wind, with his arms locked tightly over his chest, was drenched.

  “No,” Jacques replied, without betraying any sign of surprise. “Let’s go in there,” he added, pointing to a building, the street-door of which stood open. Antoine, out of discretion, lingered behind; Jacques, however, turned and called to him. Still, when they were together in the doorway, he made no introductions.

  With a toss of his head the cyclist jerked back the hood covering his eyes. He was a man in the thirties and, despite the somewhat abrupt way in which he had accosted them, his expression was mild, almost over-affable. His face was reddened by the biting wind, and across it ran a streak of livid white, the trace of an old scar that, half closing his right eye, slanted up across the eyebrow and disappeared under his hat-brim.

  “They’re always falling foul of me,” he said in an excited tone, paying no heed to Antoine’s presence. “And I don’t deserve that, do I now?” He seemed to attach particular importance to Jacques’s verdict. Jacques made a calming gesture. “Why do they go on like that? They say it was done by paid agents. Why blame me? Anyhow, now they’ve cleared out, they know they won’t be informed against.”

  “Their scheme can’t work out,” Jacques said decisively, after a moment’s thought. “It’s a choice of two things, either , . .”

  “Yes, yes,” the man broke in, with a fervour, a thankfulness, that came as a surprise. “Yes, that’s exactly it! Only we must mind the political papers don’t upset the apple cart before we’re ready.”

  “Sabakin will be off the moment he scents trouble,” Jacques replied, lowering his voice. “So will Bisson, you’ll see.”

  “Bisson? Well, possibly.”

  “But—how about those revolvers?”

  “Oh, that’s easily accounted for. Her former lover bought them at Basel, when a gunsmith’s shop was sold out after the owner’s death.”

  “Look here, Rayer,” Jacques said. “You mustn’t count on me for the present; I can’t do any writing from here for some time to come. Go and see Richardley. Get him to hand over the papers to you. Tell him you’re acting for me. If he needs a signature, he can ring up MacLair. Got it?”

  Rayer clasped Jacques’s hand without replying.

  “What about Loute?” Jacques asked, still holding Rayer’s hand.

  Rayer dropped his eyes. “I can’t do anything about it,” he replied with a timid laugh. Then, looking up, he muttered ragefully: “No, I can’t do a thing. I love her.”

  Jacques dropped Rayer’s hand, was silent for a moment, then said gruffly: “And where’s it all going to land you, the two of you?”

  Rayer sighed. “It was such a terribly hard birth, she’ll never get over it; anyhow, never well enough to do any work.”

  “Do you know what she said to me?” Jacques broke in. “ ‘If I had an ounce of pluck, there’d be a way out, sure enough.’ ”

  “There you are! That’s how it is, and I can’t do a thing, not a thing about it!”

  “What about Schneebach?”

  The man made an angry gesture, and a gleam of hatred kindled in his eyes.

  Jacques’s fingers closed tightly on Rayer’s arm.

  “Where will all that land you, Rayer?” he repeated sternly.

  The other man gave an impatient jerk of his shoulders. Jacques withdrew his hand. There was a pause, then Rayer raised his right arm with a certain solemnity.

  “For us, as for them, death is waiting round the corner—and that’s all there is to it,” he said in a low voice. Then added with a little soundless laugh, as if what he was going to say was childishly self-evident: “Otherwise the living would be the dead, and the dead alive!”

  Gripping his bicycle by the seat, he swung it up with one arm. The scar across his face turned an angry red. Then he drew the hood of his cape over his face, like a cowl, and held out his hand.

  “Thanks. I’ll see Richardley. You’re damned decent, Baulthy, one of the best.” He sounded cheerful, sure of himself again. “Yes, just meeting you almost reconciles me with the world—with men and books, even the newspapers. Au revoir.”

  Though he had not the least idea what it was all about, Antoine had not missed a word of the conversation. From the start he had been struck by the attitude of the man who had just left them. He was obviously a good deal older than Jacques, yet treated him with the affectionate deference usually shown to seniors. But what had most impressed, indeed dumbfounded, him during the interview was the change in Jacques’s appearance; not only had the wrinkles left his forehead, not only was no trace of sulkiness left, but he gave an impression of ripened wisdom and even authority. For Antoine it was a revelation. For some minutes he had had a glimpse of an entirely unknown Jacques, of whose existence he had never had an inkling—yet this undoubtedly was the real Jacques for all the world, the Jacques of today.

  Rayer had mounted his bicycle, and, without troubling to bid Antoine goodbye, rode off between two sudden spurts of mud.

  IX

  THE two brothers moved on; Jacques did not volunteer the slightest comment on this meeting. In any case, the wind which forced its way under their clothes and seemed bent especially on playing havoc with Antoine’s umbrella, made any attempt at conversation almost hopeless.

  Just when things were at their worst, however, as they came out into the Place de la Riponne—a spacious esplanade where all the winds of heaven seemed to be running riot—Jacques, impervious to the pelting rain, suddenly slackened his pace and asked:

  “Tell me, when we were at the restaurant just now, what led you to mention England?”

  Antoine was conscious of an aggressive intent behind the question. Ill at ease, he mumbled a few vague words which were swept away by the wind.

  “What did you say …?” Jacques had not caught a single word. He had drawn closer and was walking crab-wise, thrusting his shoulder forward like a prow breasting the wind-stream. The questioning look he bent upon his brother was so insistent that Antoine, brought to bay, scrupled to tell a lie.

  “Well—er—on account of the red roses, you know,” he confessed.

  The tone in which he spoke was rougher than he had intended it to be. Again the memory of Giuseppe and Annetta’s passion had forced itself upon his thoughts; he seemed to see her stumbling, falling upon the grass, and the attendant horde of visions, o
nly too familiar now, yet unbearable as ever, surged through his imagination. Annoyed and irritable, raging against each gust of wind that buffeted him, he swore aloud and angrily shut his umbrella.

  Dumbfounded, Jacques had come to a sudden halt; he was evidently far from expecting such an answer. Then, biting his lips, he took a few steps without saying a word… . How often had he not already lamented that moment of incredible sentimentality, and regretted the sending of that basket of roses, bought abroad through an obliging friend—an incriminating message, proclaiming to all and sundry: “I am alive and my thoughts are with you”—at the very time when he wished to be looked upon as dead and buried, by all his family! But it had at least been possible for him, until now, to believe that his rash act had been kept a profound secret. Such in-discreetness on the part of Gise, unexpected and incomprehensible as it was for him, provoked him beyond measure. Nor could he now restrain his bitterness.

  “You’ve missed your calling,” he sneered. “You were born to be a detective!”

  Annoyed by the tone in which he was addressed, Antoine flared up.

  “Look here,” he replied; “when a man’s so keen on keeping his private life a secret, he should not flaunt it publicly in the pages of a magazine.”

  Stung to the quick, Jacques shouted in his face:

  “Really! Do you mean to say it was my story that informed you of my sending those flowers?”

  Antoine was no longer master of himself.

  “No,” he replied, with feigned composure, and added in a biting voice, spacing the syllables: “But, anyhow, it did enable me to appreciate the full meaning of the gift.”

  Having launched this retort, he forged ahead in the teeth of the wind.

  But, immediately, the feeling of having blundered past recall came over him so overpoweringly that it took his breath away. Just a few words too many and everything was in jeopardy: he would now lose Jacques once for all… . Why had he suddenly lost control of himself, given way to that outburst of temper? Because Gise was concerned, most likely. And what was to be done now? Have it out with Jacques, apologize to him? Probably it was too late. Well, he could only try; he was prepared to make all possible amends.

  He was about to turn to his brother and as affectionately as possible admit he was in the wrong, when suddenly he felt Jacques lay hold of his arm and cling to him with all his might: an impassioned, utterly unexpected hug, a rough, brotherly embrace, doing away in one second not only with the acid remarks that had passed between them, but also with the whole of the three long silent years they had spent apart from each other. Then a broken voice faltered, close to Antoine’s ear.

  “Why, Antoine, what can you have imagined? Did you really suppose that Gise … that I …? You thought that possible? You must be dreaming!”

  They gazed deep into each other’s eyes. Jacques’s were sorrowful now, and younger-looking; and over his cheeks offended modesty sent a wave of indignation to mingle with his sorrow. To Antoine it came as an all-healing revelation. Joyfully he pressed his brother’s arm against his side. Had he really suspected the two young people? He could no longer tell. He thought of Gise with intense emotion; and a sense of relief, of deliverance, of splendid happiness, came over him. At last he had found his long-lost brother.

  Jacques remained silent. A flood of painful memories had come back to him: that evening at Maisons-Laffitte, when he had discovered both the love of Gise and the unconquerable physical attraction she awoke in him—that brief, shrinking kiss, snatched in the dark under the lime-trees, the girl’s romantic gesture as she strewed rose-petals over the spot where that shy token of love had passed between them.

  Antoine, too, was silent. He would have liked to say something, but he felt tongue-tied and self-conscious. He did, however, attempt by a pressure of his arm to convey to Jacques some such message as: “Yes, I’ve been a damned fool—and how glad it makes me!” His brother reciprocated the pressure. And they understood each other better, that way, than by the spoken word.

  They walked on, arm in arm, under the rain. The over-affectionate, unduly prolonged contact was making both of them uncomfortable, but neither dared to be the first to break away. Then, as they came under cover of a wall that screened them from the wind, Antoine put up his umbrella again; thus it seemed as though they had drawn together for the shelter it afforded.

  They reached the boarding-house without having spoken another word. But just outside the door, Antoine stopped short, unlinked his arm, and observed in a natural voice:

  “Jacques, you surely have lots of things to attend to here. I’d better leave you, hadn’t I? I’ll take a stroll round the town.”

  “In this sort of weather?” Jacques asked. He was smiling, but Antoine had caught a fleeting hesitation. As a matter of fact, both dreaded spending the long afternoon together. “No,” he added, “I’ve two or three letters to write, a twenty minutes’ job, and perhaps a business call to pay before five. That’s all.” The prospect seemed to cast a gloom upon his features. With an effort he drew himself up. “Till then I’m quite free. Let’s go upstairs.”

  While they were away, the room had been tidied up. There was a roaring fire in the stove. They helped each other off with their overcoats, hung them up to dry before the fire.

  One of the windows had remained open. Antoine stepped over to it. Among the multitude of roofs sloping down to the lake a pinnacled tower rose high aloft, its tall spire coated with verdigris and gleaming under the rain. He pointed to it.

  “That’s Saint Francis’s Church,” Jacques said. “Can you make out the time?”

  On one side of the steeple glowed a red-and-gold clock-face.

  “A quarter past two.”

  “Lucky fellow! My eyesight’s grown very bad. And I simply can’t get used to wearing glasses, on account of my headaches.”

  “Your headaches!” Antoine exclaimed, closing the window. He turned round abruptly. His look of professional interrogation made Jacques smile.

  “Why, yes, doctor. I had a spell of fearful headaches and I haven’t quite got over them.”

  “What kind of headaches?”

  “A throbbing there.”

  “Is it always on the left side?”

  “No.”

  “Any dizziness? Any trouble with your eyes?”

  “It’s nothing, really.” Jacques was beginning to be embarrassed by his brother’s questions. “I’m much better, now.”

  “Better, be damned!” Antoine was not to be put off so easily. “Look here, I’ll have to give you a thorough going-over… . Your digestion, for one thing, how’s it working?”

  Though he had obviously no intention of starting the going-over at once, he unconsciously came a step nearer Jacques, who could not help drawing back slightly. He was no longer used to having people fuss over him. The slightest attention seemed an encroachment on his independence. Almost at once, however, he began to remonstrate with himself. Indeed, his brother’s concern had left behind it a comforting sensation, as though a gentle warmth had been breathed upon some secret fibre of his being that had long lain atrophied, inert.

  “You never used to have any trouble of that kind in the old days,” Antoine remarked. “How did it start?”

  Jacques, who was sorry to have shrunk back as he had, did his best to answer, to explain things more clearly. But dare he tell the truth?

  “It came on after some kind of illness; quite a sudden attack, it was—perhaps it was the flu, or it may have been a touch of malaria. … I was in the hospital about four weeks.”

  “In the hospital? Where?”

  “At … Gabès.”

  “At Gabès? That’s in Tunisia, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I was delirious, it appears. For months afterwards I had frightful pains in my head.”

  Antoine made no reply, but he was obviously saying to himself: “What an idea, when one has a comfortable home of one’s own in Paris, and is the brother of a doctor, to run the risk of dying like a dog
in an African hospital!”

  “What saved me,” Jacques went on, hoping to turn the conversation into a different channel, “was fear. The fear of dying in that furnace-heat. I thought of Italy the way a shipwrecked sailor, on his raft, must think of land, of wells and running streams. … I had only one idea in my head: dead or alive to get on board the steamer, to escape to Naples.”

  Naples… . Antoine’s thoughts reverted to Lunadoro, to Sybil, to Giuseppe’s boating-trips in the Bay.

  “Why Naples?” he ventured to ask.

  Jacques flushed. He seemed to be struggling to say something by way of explanation; then his steel-blue eyes grew hard.

  Antoine hastened to break the silence.

  “What you needed, to my mind, was just rest, but in some bracing climate.”

  “To Naples, first,” Jacques repeated. Obviously he had not been listening. “I had a letter of introduction to a man in the Consulate. You see, it’s easier to get a postponement of one’s military service when one is abroad.” He straightened his shoulders. “And, besides, I’d rather have been reported as a deserter than go back to France to be cooped up in their barracks!”

  Antoine gave no sign of disapproval. He changed the subject.

  “But had you—had you the money for your fares?”

  “What a question! That’s you all over!”

  He started walking up and down the room with his hands in his pockets.

  “I was never very long without money, just enough to get along on, I mean. At first, of course, out there, I had to turn my hand to anything that cropped up.”

  He flushed again, and looked away. “Oh, that was for only a few days. You manage pretty soon, you know.”

  “But what on earth did you do?”

  “Well, for instance, I used to give French lessons in an industrial training school. Then proofreading, at night, for the Courrier Tunisien and the Paris-Tunis. It often came in handy, my being able to write Italian as fluently as French. Fairly soon they began to publish articles of mine. Then I was given the press summary to do for a weekly, and the news items, all the odd jobs, in fact. And after that, as soon as I was able to manage it, I got a reporter’s job.” His eyes sparkled. “That was something like a job, and if only my health had held up, I’d still be at it. What a life! I remember, one day, at Viterbo … Look here, please sit down. No, personally I’d rather go on walking. I was sent to Viterbo, as no one else dared to go there, for that fantastic Camorra case—you remember that, I suppose? In March 1911, it was. What an experience! I put up with some Neapolitans. A regular den of thieves, I must say. During the night of the thirteenth they all decamped. When the police turned up, I was sound asleep, alone in the house. I had to …”