“What’s that?”
“The Americans have terrible difficulty with the French accent. I don’t know why, but I have noticed that it is so. Sometimes an American will learn French, and we listen hard, because we realize they are speaking our language, but we can’t understand what they’re saying.” He shrugged. “It’s a pity.” Then he’d grinned. “But don’t worry, mon vieux. If you do your homework with the language, I personally will take care of your pronunciation.”
Manners dictated that Madame Blanchard, who spoke little English, should put de Cygne on her right and Frank on her left. But Fox the Englishman was on the other side of him. De Cygne spoke a little English. On the other side of de Cygne was Marie. Jules Blanchard took the other end of the table, with his sister, Éloïse, on his right and his daughter-in-law on his left.
The conversation was general, with Fox quietly supplying translations when they were needed. And since Hadley was the guest from abroad, the whole table demanded, in the most friendly way, to know all about him.
Where was he from? his hostess asked. He explained that he’d been brought up in several places because his father was a professor and had moved around several universities before retiring recently to Connecticut.
“A professor of what?” asked Aunt Éloïse.
“Of Latin.”
“Your family were always academic?” she asked hopefully.
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “My grandfather made a pretty good fortune in the dry goods business, but my father liked to study, so he followed an academic career.”
“Dry goods, you say?” Gérard Blanchard asked from down the table. “Wholesale or retail?”
“Both.”
“So, your family is like ours,” Gérard said with approval. “Solid.”
Aunt Éloïse looked faintly irritated, but Frank smiled.
“We like to think so,” he answered cheerfully.
Aunt Éloïse wanted to know what had caused him to study art, and he explained that his mother was a talented musician and artist.
“I went to a small university called Union College, pretty much in the area where the Hudson River School of painters found their inspiration,” he explained. “Scenery of amazing grandeur. That as much as anything got me started.” He suddenly turned to look up the table to Marc. “You told me Americans have difficulty pronouncing French, Marc. So let’s see how you get on in American. My university is in a little city on the Mohawk River called Schenectady. Who here can pronounce that?”
After everyone at the table had tried, he shook his head.
“Fox got pretty close, but he’s English. The rest of you: nowhere near!”
His French hosts seemed to enjoy this very much. There were cries of genial protest: “It’s impossible. It cannot be done.”
“But why did you come to France, Monsieur Hadley?” Marie ventured, a little shyly.
“Impressionists, mademoiselle. The French Impressionists became all the rage in America, and so every ambitious young painter in the United States wants to come to France now. I guess I’m just one of a tribe.”
“It’s true,” Marc informed them. “Soon I believe there will be more American Impressionists in France than French ones. But I’ve seen Hadley’s work, and he has a lot of talent.”
“You study and paint, Monsieur Hadley,” de Cygne remarked, “yet you look to me like a man who enjoys outdoor pursuits as well.”
Frank smiled.
“To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after I left Union College, so I went west for a year and worked on a ranch. Loved it. Big open spaces, and I like physical work. By the end of it, though, I was sure I wanted to study painting.”
“So you ride?”
“I do.”
“Western?”
“I use an English saddle in New England, but I like to ride western. You ride?”
“I am in a cavalry regiment, monsieur. So, yes. As for the western saddle, ever since Buffalo Bill was here, everyone wants to try it.”
From the far end of the table, Jules Blanchard gently intervened.
“Monsieur de Cygne is too modest to say it,” he said, “but I happen to know from his father that he almost made the elite Cadre Noir team. That means, Hadley, that he’s one of the best horsemen in France.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the aristocrat, but Hadley could see that he didn’t mind the compliment. He noticed that Marie was impressed, as well.
It seemed to Hadley that he’d provided quite a useful diversion from whatever Marc and his father had been quarreling about. Everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood.
But now Gérard had a question.
“Tell me, Monsieur Hadley, if you fail to make a career as a painter, what will you do then? Will you work?”
“Ah non!” cried Aunt Éloïse. “Assez, Gérard. Enough.”
Hadley laughed.
“I see you like to get to the point,” he said good-humoredly. “And it’s a fair question. My father’s been generous, and I’m going to give it all I’ve got for a few years. But if I can’t really achieve anything, then I think I’ll go into business. And I believe I know what business I’d like to get into.”
“Dry goods?”
“No. Motor cars. I think they have a huge future. Just in the last year or two, Ford in America, Benz in Germany, Peugeot in France, have all started turning from steam cars to the internal combustion engine. I believe that’s going to be a very exciting business.”
Gérard seemed impressed. De Cygne looked thoughtful.
“I know one or two rich men who want motor cars,” the aristocrat remarked, “as a rich man’s toy, of course. But you think in America it will go further than that?”
“Not yet awhile. But within a generation, I suspect so. And not just in America. All over the world.”
This thought silenced the whole table for a moment. But Jules Blanchard was looking at Hadley with particular approval, and thinking that this was just the friend that Marc needed to give him some balance and steadiness.
Fox had contented himself with offering instant translations so far, but now he entered the conversation. He was an interesting-looking fellow, Frank thought. Nearly as tall as himself, but more sparely built and with the quiet face of a professional man.
“The great change in transport that we’re about to see in Paris,” he informed Hadley, “is the Métro. They won’t start tunneling until late this year—the French are years behind the Americans and the English, I’m afraid, but the plans are very extensive. Now it’s happening, the whole network may come very fast.”
“And don’t forget the designs for the entrances and exits,” Marc added. “The plans are for the most lovely Art Nouveau metalwork. It’s going to be elegant.”
The main course had arrived. And it was a triumph. Bœuf en croûte, made to perfection. A tenderloin of beef, a thick layer of rich foie gras around it and the whole encased in a puff pastry. The aroma alone was sumptuous. Even de Cygne was impressed.
“Madame,” he said to his hostess, with feeling, “you have a wonderful cook.”
As Roland looked around the table, he had to confess that this meal with the Blanchard family hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. True, they weren’t his sort of people. The apartment was not to his taste, and as for the Art Nouveau dining room they were so proud of, it seemed vulgar to him, simply because it was new.
But his father had been right. He should meet different sorts of people. The Blanchard sons might not be his style, and their aunt seemed too intellectual, but Jules Blanchard was a sensible man. As for the other guests, he liked Hadley. These Americans had a naturalness that was pleasing. Fox was that most British invention, the English gentleman, who had a code of manners that nobody could complain about—and he was certainly behaving very nicely by acting as interpreter.
That left Marie and her mother.
He’d been watching Madame Blanchard since the start of the meal. She was
a pleasant-looking woman, a little thicker in the waist now than when she’d been a young woman, no doubt, but with her regular features and blue eyes, she looked somewhat younger than her years. Any middle-aged man with a wife like that might count himself lucky.
She had, of course, a cook and servants to prepare and serve the meal, but he could see from the way that she glanced at each dish, and observed the servants at their work that she was completely the mistress of her household. She knew exactly how everything had been prepared. If there’d been a single fork out of place, she’d have indicated the fact to one of the servants with the faintest nod, and the error would have been instantly corrected.
He discovered that she and her husband were second cousins—just as half the aristocrats he knew had married their relations—and it was evident from things she let fall that her own parents had been no poorer than her husband’s. In short, without needing to assert herself in the least, Madame Blanchard was a woman who was completely sure of herself and comfortable with who she was. He respected that.
And as he observed Marie, it occurred to him that one day she would be just like her mother. She was a little quiet, but then she had been strictly brought up. So much the better. He learned from her mother that she and Marie had both been to Mass that morning, and that they went every Sunday. The girl was a good Catholic. He approved of that too.
She was pretty. He wondered what it might be like to awaken passion in her. Very pleasant indeed, he would guess.
And it suddenly occurred to Roland, who had hardly known what it was to have a mother and a normal family life himself, that this delightful comfort could be his if he were to marry this girl.
Was it breaking the code? Would it be letting the family down if he married into the bourgeoisie? Certainly he’d never imagined himself doing such a thing. What would his friends say? Perhaps not so much, if she were rich. What would his father say? He suspected that his father might have maneuvered him into attending this lunch for precisely this purpose. I must ask him, he thought.
Just then, Marie asked whether Hadley intended to travel in France, and what places he meant to visit.
Everyone had a piece of advice to offer. Hadley explained that he was hoping that by the early summer his French might have improved a good deal, but that the weather hardly invited going anywhere outside Paris just yet.
“You could go to Versailles,” de Cygne suggested. “Much of what one sees is indoors. And it’s only a short journey by train.”
“Is it open this time of year?” asked Jules.
“I could arrange a private visit,” de Cygne offered, which impressed everybody.
“You should accept at once, Hadley,” Jules told him.
“If you and Marc would like it, I could conduct you myself,” de Cygne continued. “My family has some connection with the place. Perhaps Mademoiselle Marie would like to accompany us.”
Marie glanced at her mother, who nodded and looked at her husband.
“Certainly,” said Jules. With her brother there, the outing was entirely respectable. Indeed, it was a charming way for de Cygne to reciprocate for the lunch. And if the aristocrat liked to see more of his daughter … well and good.
“Have you room for a translator?” Fox inquired.
“Certainly,” answered de Cygne. He didn’t want to take too obvious an interest in the girl just yet. The polite Englishman would be excellent additional cover.
So it was all agreed, and a date set for the following Saturday.
It was a pity therefore that a minute or two later, in all innocence, Frank Hadley should have chosen to ask de Cygne: “What exactly is the business with this army officer that the newspapers seem to be so excited about?”
Roland de Cygne began very carefully. He assumed that this solid Catholic family would feel as he did, but it was wise to be cautious.
He explained briefly how Dreyfus had been tried for treason and found guilty. How another officer, Esterhazy, had subsequently been investigated, but had been cleared. Not everyone, he explained, was convinced, but there the matter had rested until, this week, a well-known novelist named Zola had written an open letter to the president of France that made serious allegations of a conspiracy to cover up the truth.
“As far as I know,” he concluded, “Zola has no special knowledge or standing in the matter, whatever he may say. And it may be that the government will prosecute him. But we shall see.”
“And you may be sure, Hadley,” Marc added, “that the army is not happy either. Would that be fair?” he asked de Cygne.
“Certainly,” de Cygne answered straightforwardly. “Most, I think all, of my fellow officers feel that the army has been insulted by Zola. I do not suppose,” he continued, turning to Hadley, “that the army of the United States would be happy if they were publicly accused of injustice and dishonesty.”
From down the table, Jules Blanchard moved quickly to avert any trouble.
“You understand, Hadley, that cases like this arise from time to time in every country. What is unfortunate is that Zola chose such an inflammatory way to approach the subject. But I have no doubt”—he looked around the table firmly to make his message quite clear—“that calmness and wisdom will soon prevail.”
And now his wife showed that she, too, could command the situation when she chose.
“I am very disappointed that no one has tried the fruit flan.” She nodded to the servant who was holding it to move forward. “Monsieur de Cygne, you will not insult my flan I hope.”
“It looks delicious, madame.” Roland took his cue at once, and accepted a slice.
“I know you have been at your château on the Loire,” she continued firmly. “Do tell us about it. Is it of great age?”
Fox, also ready to help, immediately asked Gérard a question about his business.
But it wasn’t enough.
“All that you say is true, Monsieur de Cygne.” Aunt Éloïse was speaking. “But you have not mentioned the matter that is central to Zola’s accusation. Namely, that Dreyfus is a Jew.” Hadley saw Jules Blanchard put his hand on his sister’s wrist. But it did no good. “It’s true, Jules,” she cried. “Everybody knows it.”
No one spoke. Roland had no wish to respond, but it seemed he couldn’t avoid it.
“Dreyfus was not on trial for his religion, madame, but for passing secret information to a foreign power. He is suffering on Devil’s Island. If he is innocent, then I am sorry for it. But no one has proved that it is so. That is the truth, pure and simple. What I resent in this business hardly concerns Dreyfus himself, guilty or not. It is Zola that I resent. Because he seeks to undermine the reputation and the honor of the army. And the army together with the Church are the two institutions in France which are above reproach. I say this not as an aristocrat, nor even as an officer and a Catholic, but as a soldier, a Christian and a patriot.”
Gérard Blanchard gave a murmur of approval. So did his wife. Jules too nodded, out of respect and good manners, at the least.
“Do you make any distinction between a Jew and a Christian?” Aunt Éloïse asked quietly.
“Certainly, madame. They follow different faiths.”
“And you think that Zola should be in jail as well?”
“It would not worry me if he were.”
“In America,” said Aunt Éloïse to Hadley, “you have free speech. Your constitution guarantees it. Despite the Revolution, it seems that we in France do not, and I am ashamed of my country.”
Hadley said nothing. But Roland did.
“I am sorry that you are ashamed of France, madame,” he said icily. “Perhaps you and Captain Dreyfus and Zola could find some other country, more to your liking.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary to elevate all this to a question of principle,” remarked Gérard. “I don’t know if Zola had broken the law or not by writing his letter. If he has, then that’s for the courts to decide. And if there’s no crime, then they won’t. That’s all. It’s
not so serious.”
For once, Gérard was actually trying to be helpful. It didn’t do him any good.
“My dear Gérard, you run a business very well, I’m sure,” said Aunt Éloïse irritably, “but I have known you all your life, and you wouldn’t know a moral principle if it came up and smacked you in the face.”
“And you, Tante Éloïse, live in a little world of your own,” Gérard retorted furiously. “May I remind you that it was our family’s wholesale business that made the money that allows you to sit around all day reading books and thinking yourself superior to the rest of us.”
“This has nothing to do with Dreyfus,” said Aunt Éloïse coldly.
“Well, I’m with Monsieur de Cygne anyway,” said Gérard. “I don’t say all Jews are traitors, but this is a Christian country, so they can’t feel the same as we do. That’s all.”
And now, to avoid any more bloodshed before the situation got completely out of hand, Jules Blanchard put his foot down. To be precise, he rapped on the table and stood up, because it was the only way of getting their undivided attention, and then he made a little speech.
It was a good speech. And it proved in the months and years ahead to be more prescient than he could have guessed.
“Monsieur de Cygne, Hadley, Fox and my dear family. This is my house, and for myself and my wife, I demand that this discussion end. Completely. But there is something more to say.
“Today, we have very nearly quarreled. We have not quarreled”—he looked at Gérard and Éloïse sternly—“but we have nearly done so. And let us be grateful that from this we have learned an important lesson. For if the people here—who are all kind, and well mannered—can come so close to blows, then I wonder what will happen when other, less well-disposed people discuss this difficult subject.
“Three days ago, when I read Zola’s letter, I confess that I was surprised and shocked. But I did not understand the effect it would have upon people. Now I believe that this letter is going to create a great chasm in our French society. It may tear us apart. And whatever the rights or wrongs of the matter, I regret the destruction of good relations between honest people.
Paris: The Novel Page 38