Complete Works of Anatole France

by Anatole France

  “Then,” said Garain, “according to you, he was not an intellectual genius. I am of your opinion.”

  “Surely,” continued Paul Vence, “he had enough genius to be brilliant in the civil and military arena of the world. But he had not speculative genius. That genius is another pair of sleeves, as Buffon says. We have a collection of his writings and speeches. His style has movement and imagination. And in this mass of thoughts one can not find a philosophic curiosity, not one expression of anxiety about the unknowable, not an expression of fear of the mystery which surrounds destiny. At Saint Helena, when he talks of God and of the soul, he seems to be a little fourteen-year-old school-boy. Thrown upon the world, his mind found itself fit for the world, and embraced it all. Nothing of that mind was lost in the infinite. Himself a poet, he knew only the poetry of action. He limited to the earth his powerful dream of life. In his terrible and touching naivete he believed that a man could be great, and neither time nor misfortune made him lose that idea. His youth, or rather his sublime adolescence, lasted as long as he lived, because life never brought him a real maturity. Such is the abnormal state of men of action. They live entirely in the present, and their genius concentrates on one point. The hours of their existence are not connected by a chain of grave and disinterested meditations. They succeed themselves in a series of acts. They lack interior life. This defect is particularly visible in Napoleon, who never lived within himself. From this is derived the frivolity of temperament which made him support easily the enormous load of his evils and of his faults. His mind was born anew every day. He had, more than any other person, a capacity for diversion. The first day that he saw the sun rise on his funereal rock at Saint Helena, he jumped from his bed, whistling a romantic air. It was the peace of a mind superior to fortune; it was the frivolity of a mind prompt in resurrection. He lived from the outside.”

  Garain, who did not like Paul Vence’s ingenious turn of wit and language, tried to hasten the conclusion:

  “In a word,” he said, “there was something of the monster in the man.”

  “There are no monsters,” replied Paul Vence; “and men who pass for monsters inspire horror. Napoleon was loved by an entire people. He had the power to win the love of men. The joy of his soldiers was to die for him.”

  Countess Martin would have wished Dechartre to give his opinion. But he excused himself with a sort of fright.

  “Do you know,” said Schmoll again, “the parable of the three rings, sublime inspiration of a Portuguese Jew.”

  Garain, while complimenting Paul Vence on his brilliant paradox, regretted that wit should be exercised at the expense of morality and justice.

  “One great principle,” he said, “is that men should be judged by their acts.”

  “And women?” asked Princess Seniavine, brusquely; “do you judge them by their acts? And how do you know what they do?”

  The sound of voices was mingled with the clear tintinabulation of silverware. A warm air bathed the room. The roses shed their leaves on the cloth. More ardent thoughts mounted to the brain.

  General Lariviere fell into dreams.

  “When public clamor has split my ears,” he said to his neighbor, “I shall go to live at Tours. I shall cultivate flowers.”

  He flattered himself on being a good gardener; his name had been given to a rose. This pleased him highly.

  Schmoll asked again if they knew the parable of the three rings.

  The Princess rallied the Deputy.

  “Then you do not know, Monsieur Garain, that one does the same things for very different reasons?”

  Montessuy said she was right.

  “It is very true, as you say, Madame, that actions prove nothing. This thought is striking in an episode in the life of Don Juan, which was known neither to Moliere nor to Mozart, but which is revealed in an English legend, a knowledge of which I owe to my friend James Russell Lowell of London. One learns from it that the great seducer lost his time with three women. One was a bourgeoise: she was in love with her husband; the other was a nun: she would not consent to violate her vows; the third, who had for a long time led a life of debauchery, had become ugly, and was a servant in a den. After what she had done, after what she had seen, love signified nothing to her. These three women behaved alike for very different reasons. An action proves nothing. It is the mass of actions, their weight, their sum total, which makes the value of the human being.”

  “Some of our actions,” said Madame Martin, “have our look, our face: they are our daughters. Others do not resemble us at all.”

  She rose and took the General’s arm.

  On the way to the drawing-room the Princess said:

  “Therese is right. Some actions do not express our real selves at all. They are like the things we do in nightmares.”

  The nymphs of the tapestries smiled vainly in their faded beauty at the guests, who did not see them.

  Madame Martin served the coffee with her young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom. She complimented Paul Vence on what he had said at the table.

  “You talked of Napoleon with a freedom of mind that is rare in the conversations I hear. I have noticed that children, when they are handsome, look, when they pout, like Napoleon at Waterloo. You have made me feel the profound reasons for this similarity.”

  Then, turning toward Dechartre:

  “Do you like Napoleon?”

  “Madame, I do not like the Revolution. And Napoleon is the Revolution in boots.”

  “Monsieur Dechartre, why did you not say this at dinner? But I see you prefer to be witty only in tete-a-tetes.”

  Count Martin-Belleme escorted the men to the smoking-room. Paul Vence alone remained with the women. Princess Seniavine asked him if he had finished his novel, and what was the subject of it. It was a study in which he tried to reach the truth through a series of plausible conditions.

  “Thus,” he said, “the novel acquires a moral force which history, in its heavy frivolity, never had.”

  She inquired whether the book was written for women. He said it was not.

  “You are wrong, Monsieur Vence, not to write for women. A superior man can do nothing else for them.”

  He wished to know what gave her that idea.

  “Because I see that all the intelligent women love fools.”

  “Who bore them.”

  “Certainly! But superior men would weary them more. They would have more resources to employ in boring them. But tell me the subject of your novel.”

  “Do you insist?”

  “Oh, I insist upon nothing.”

  “Well, I will tell you. It is a study of popular manners; the history of a young workman, sober and chaste, as handsome as a girl, with the mind of a virgin, a sensitive soul. He is a carver, and works well. At night, near his mother, whom he loves, he studies, he reads books. In his mind, simple and receptive, ideas lodge themselves like bullets in a wall. He has no desires. He has neither the passions nor the vices that attach us to life. He is solitary and pure. Endowed with strong virtues, he becomes conceited. He lives among miserable people. He sees suffering. He has devotion without humanity. He has that sort of cold charity which is called altruism. He is not human because he is not sensual.”

  “Oh! One must be sensual to be human?”

  “Certainly, Madame. True pity, like tenderness, comes from the heart. He is not intelligent enough to doubt. He believes what he has read. And he has read that to establish universal happiness society must be destroyed. Thirst for martyrdom devours him. One morning, having kissed his mother, he goes out; he watches for the socialist deputy of his district, sees him, throws himself on him, and buries a poniard in his breast. Long live anarchy! He is arrested, measured, photographed, questioned, judged, condemned to death, and guillotined. That is my novel.”

  “It is not very amusing,” said the Princess; “but that is not your fault. Your anarchists are as timid and moderate as other Frenchmen. The Russians have more audacity and more imaginati
on.”

  Countess Martin asked Paul Vence whether he knew a silent, timid-looking man among the guests. Her husband had invited him. She knew nothing of him, not even his name. Paul Vence could only say that he was a senator. He had seen him one day by chance in the Luxembourg, in the gallery that served as a library.

  “I went there to look at the cupola, where Delacroix has painted, in a wood of bluish myrtles, heroes and sages of antiquity. That gentleman was there, with the same wretched and pitiful air. His coat was damp and he was warming himself. He was talking with old colleagues and saying, while rubbing his hands: ‘The proof that the Republic is the best of governments is that in 1871 it could kill in a week sixty thousand insurgents without becoming unpopular. After such a repression any other regime would have been impossible.’”

  “He is a very wicked man,” said Madame Martin. “And to think that I was pitying him!”

  Madame Garain, her chin softly dropped on her chest, slept in the peace of her housewifely mind, and dreamed of her vegetable garden on the banks of the Loire, where singing-societies came to serenade her.

  Joseph Schmoll and General Lariviere came out of the smoking-room. The General took a seat between Princess Seniavine and Madame Martin.

  “I met this morning, in the park, Baronne Warburg, mounted on a magnificent horse. She said, ‘General, how do you manage to have such fine horses?’ I replied: Madame, to have fine horses, you must be either very wealthy or very clever.’”

  He was so well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice.

  Paul Vence came near Countess Martin:

  “I know that senator’s name: it is Lyer. He is the vice-president of a political society, and author of a book entitled, The Crime of December Second.”

  The General continued:

  “The weather was horrible. I went into a hut and found Le Menil there. I was in a bad humor. He was making fun of me, I saw, because I sought shelter. He imagines that because I am a general I must like wind and snow. He said that he liked bad weather, and that he was to go foxhunting with friends next week.”

  There was a pause; the General continued:

  “I wish him much joy, but I don’t envy him. Foxhunting is not agreeable.”

  “But it is useful,” said Montessuy.

  The General shrugged his shoulders.

  “Foxes are dangerous for chicken-coops in the spring when the fowls have to feed their families.”

  “Foxes are sly poachers, who do less harm to farmers than to hunters. I know something of this.”

  Therese was not listening to the Princess, who was talking to her. She was thinking:

  “He did not tell me that he was going away!”

  “Of what are you thinking, dear?” inquired the Princess.

  “Of nothing interesting,” Therese replied.

  CHAPTER IV. THE END OF A DREAM

  In the little shadowy room, where sound was deadened by curtains, portieres, cushions, bearskins, and carpets from the Orient, the firelight shone on glittering swords hanging among the faded favors of the cotillons of three winters. The rosewood chiffonier was surmounted by a silver cup, a prize from some sporting club. On a porcelain plaque, in the centre of the table, stood a crystal vase which held branches of white lilacs; and lights palpitated in the warm shadows. Therese and Robert, their eyes accustomed to obscurity, moved easily among these familiar objects. He lighted a cigarette while she arranged her hair, standing before the mirror, in a corner so dim she could hardly see herself. She took pins from the little Bohemian glass cup standing on the table, where she had kept it for three years. He looked at her, passing her light fingers quickly through the gold ripples of her hair, while her face, hardened and bronzed by the shadow, took on a mysterious expression. She did not speak.

  He said to her:

  “You are not cross now, my dear?”

  And, as he insisted upon having an answer, she said:

  “What do you wish me to say, my friend? I can only repeat what I said at first. I think it strange that I have to learn of your projects from General Lariviere.”

  He knew very well that she had not forgiven him; that she had remained cold and reserved toward him. But he affected to think that she only pouted.

  “My dear, I have explained it to you. I have told you that when I met Lariviere I had just received a letter from Caumont, recalling my promise to hunt the fox in his woods, and I replied by return post. I meant to tell you about it to-day. I am sorry that General Lariviere told you first, but there was no significance in that.”

  Her arms were lifted like the handles of a vase. She turned toward him a glance from her tranquil eyes, which he did not understand.

  “Then you are going?”

  “Next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. I shall be away only ten days at most.”

  She put on her sealskin toque, ornamented with a branch of holly.

  “Is it something that you can not postpone?”

  “Oh, yes. Fox-skins would not be worth anything in a month. Moreover, Caumont has invited good friends of mine, who would regret my absence.”

  Fixing her toque on her head with a long pin, she frowned.

  “Is fox-hunting interesting?”

  “Oh, yes, very. The fox has stratagems that one must fathom. The intelligence of that animal is really marvellous. I have observed at night a fox hunting a rabbit. He had organized a real hunt. I assure you it is not easy to dislodge a fox. Caumont has an excellent cellar. I do not care for it, but it is generally appreciated. I will bring you half a dozen skins.”

  “What do you wish me to do with them?”

  “Oh, you can make rugs of them.”

  “And you will be hunting eight days?”

  “Not all the time. I shall visit my aunt, who expects me. Last year at this time there was a delightful reunion at her house. She had with her her two daughters and her three nieces with their husbands. All five women are pretty, gay, charming, and irreproachable. I shall probably find them at the beginning of next month, assembled for my aunt’s birthday, and I shall remain there two days.”

  “My friend, stay as long as it may please you. I should be inconsolable if you shortened on my account a sojourn which is so agreeable.”

  “But you, Therese?”

  “I, my friend? I can take care of myself.”

  The fire was languishing. The shadows were deepening between them. She said, in a dreamy tone:

  “It is true, however, that it is never prudent to leave a woman alone.”

  He went near her, trying to see her eyes in the darkness. He took her hand.

  “You love me?” he said.

  “Oh, I assure you that I do not love another but—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. I am thinking — I am thinking that we are separated all through the summer; that in winter you live with your parents and your friends half the time; and that, if we are to see so little of each other, it is better not to see each other at all.”

  He lighted the candelabra. His frank, hard face was illuminated. He looked at her with a confidence that came less from the conceit common to all lovers than from his natural lack of dignity. He believed in her through force of education and simplicity of intelligence.

  “Therese, I love you, and you love me, I know. Why do you torment me? Sometimes you are painfully harsh.”

  She shook her little head brusquely.

  “What will you have? I am harsh and obstinate. It is in the blood. I take it from my father. You know Joinville; you have seen the castle, the ceilings, the tapestries, the gardens, the park, the hunting-grounds, you have said that none better were in France; but you have not seen my father’s workshop — a white wooden table and a mahogany bureau. Everything about me has its origin there. On that table my father made figures for forty years; at first in a little room, then in the apartment where I was born. We were not very wealthy then. I am a parvenu’s daughter, or a conqueror’s daughter, it’s all the sa
me. We are people of material interests. My father wanted to earn money, to possess what he could buy — that is, everything. I wish to earn and keep — what? I do not know — the happiness that I have — or that I have not. I have my own way of being exacting. I long for dreams and illusions. Oh, I know very well that all this is not worth the trouble that a woman takes in giving herself to a man; but it is a trouble that is worth something, because my trouble is myself, my life. I like to enjoy what I like, or think what I like. I do not wish to lose. I am like papa: I demand what is due to me. And then—”

  She lowered her voice:

  “And then, I have — impulses! Now, my dear, I bore you. What will you have? You shouldn’t have loved me.”

  This language, to which she had accustomed him, often spoiled his pleasure. But it did not alarm him. He was sensitive to all that she did, but not at all to what she said; and he attached no importance to a woman’s words. Talking little himself, he could not imagine that often words are the same as actions.

  Although he loved her, or, rather, because he loved her with strength and confidence, he thought it his duty to resist her whims, which he judged absurd. Whenever he played the master, he succeeded with her; and, naively, he always ended by playing it.

  “You know very well, Therese, that I wish to do nothing except to be agreeable to you. Don’t be capricious with me.”