Authors: Albert Cohen
*
By now, Sir John was chatting with Benedetti, with one hand placed firmly on his arm. The great man's touch made the bondsman thrill with infinite gratitude. Like Adrien Deume a few weeks previously, he walked like a fluttering virgin on the arm of the chief he loved, flustered by so much kindness and simplicity, proud and maidenly-modest, sanctified by the hand of the master, raising his eyes from time to time and casting a look of religious awe at his liege. For beneath his self-interested love for the lord of all lurked love of a different hue, a terrible, genuine and disinterested love, the abject love of power, the feminine worship of strength, a naked, animal reverence. But enough, more than enough, of this ghastly crew. I have seen my fill.
CHAPTER 27
Madame Deume sat in her room at her escritoire, where, warding off starvation with cruelly crunched cracknels, she was catching up with her correspondence. She had just appended her signature to a final letter, to married friends in Lausanne, and had closed with her favourite envoi, which ran: 'Home is where the hearth is. We both send our very best wishes.' (She had been using 'home is where the hearth is' ever since she had read it at the end of a letter from Madame Rampal. 'It's original,' she was wont to say, 'it's succinct, and it says what it means.' To which her husband invariably replied: 'It's a pwetty thought. Has a wing to it.')
Having duly licked the envelope, she took up her knitting while Monsieur Deume perched on a chair and placed his spirit-level on the top of the mirror-fronted wardrobe to see if it was sitting foursquare. Damnation, it wasn't straight! Quick, find a wedge to go under the left side! Stepping down off the chair, he rubbed his hands, only too happy to have something useful to do. Madame Deume, getting to a straight bit of her knitting which was easy to do, suddenly waxed conversational.
'What were you doing downstairs just now? You were gone for ages.'
'I was cleaning out the water-jug fwom yesterday. I managed to get wid of that nasty deposit with coarse salt and vinegar, and then I finished it off by swishing it wound and wound with my finely cwushed eggshells and a little water. You'll see, it's come up all bwight and shiny!'
'Honestly, dear, you'd make someone a wonderful wife,' she said with a condescending smile, and she gave her mouse of a spouse a little pat on the hand, then yawned. 'Wednesday already, how time flies, it doesn't seem like three days since we had the Kanakises here. The dinner went off terribly well, don't you think? The memory of it is pure gold?
'Oh quite, couldn't agwee more,' said Monsieur Deume, who was busily rummaging through his toolbox.
'And, don't forget, Madame Kanakis telephoned the very next morning to say she wouldn't have missed it for worlds, said it had been so nice meeting me, really a most proper person, thoroughly conversant with the rules of society, has them at the tips of her fingers, one senses immediately that she has a fine soul, I enjoyed her company immensely.'
'I'm sure you did,' said Monsieur Deume. (But he hadn't, at all: she was one of those forceful women, very superior, and besides she'd prattled on and on about music no one else had ever heard of. Ah, this looks like a useful wedge, just the right thickness.)
'And then Monsieur Kanakis. What a charming man, such manners, truly the
crème de la crème.
Did you notice him kiss my hand?'
'Yes I noticed,' said Monsieur Deume, who was now on his knees in front of the wardrobe.
'Such a lervely touch, one senses that he has an aura. Anyway, we managed to get shot of everything we ordered from Rossi's, though there's still some foie gras and caviare left.'
'Well done,' said Monsieur Deume, whose mind was entirely taken up by the effort of tapping his wooden wedge daintily home with a hammer.
Clambering back up on to the chair and putting his spirit-level on the top of the wardrobe, he noted that it now showed true. 'Spot on,' he murmured, and his eye lingered fondly on his initials which only last night he had etched in poker-work on the handle of his little hammer. He got down and put the spirit-level on the marble-topped bedside table. What the dickens! The bedside table wasn't plumb either! How had he gone on for all these years with a bedside table that was out of kilter? Especially since there could have been nasty accidents, you know, seeing that it was a bedside table. Quick, something to put under it. Wood was no good. Too thick.
'Antoinette, you wouldn't have a little bit of cardboard I could put under the leg of the bedside table? It's not stwaight.'
'Now you've gone and made me lose count,' she said, and she stopped knitting! 'You always start talking to me at the wrong moment, it's most disheartening. No, I don't have any bits of cardboard,' she said, to punish him.
He tiptoed out. Returning in the same manner, he slipped a piece of card folded in two under one leg of the bedside table, which he then tested. The result was satisfactory. Disconcerted by his instant success and at a loss for what to do next, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood watching his wife, who had put her knitting to one side and was now savouring the small but comforting pleasure - known only to the already comfortable who do not have to worry about tomorrow - of cutting the pages, prior to perusal, of a work entitled
Inner Freedom,
a present from Madame Ventradour. She was looking forward with joy to making a start on it later, when she had a quiet moment this evening, especially seeing that dear Emmeline had told her that it was such a wholesome book, the sort that provided food for thought. Yes, tonight, when she was in bed, with her feet on a lervely hot-water bottle. Sensing that she had cooled down, he ventured to ask a question.
'Antoinette, what are we going to do about the Gwuyere that doesn't taste of anything?'
'Take it back to the grocer,' she said, and she went on cutting. 'I'm certainly not going to be left with a pound of tasteless Gruyere on my hands. And make him give you the money back, it's two seventy-five.'
'Yes, but he'll give me cwoss looks if I weturn it.'
'Perlease, Hippolyte, be a man for once.'
'Couldn't you take it?'
'No. I've got my stiffness again.' (Whenever she did not feel like working or preferred to leave some disagreeable chore to somebody else, she genuinely felt her right leg go stiff.)
'Well, couldn't we send the new girl who's starting tomowwow morning?'
'No. You can go,' she said, and she twiddled the little tuft of hairs which sprouted from the mole on her chin, then gave a sigh of relief. 'I must say, though, I'm very glad to be rid of poor Martha. With that back of hers, there's no telling where it could all have ended.'
'To be fwank, I'd wather have kept her on till she was better, and got the doctor to her and evewything.'
'But you must see that she would never have got well here. At such times it's up to one's family to rally round. She'll be able to take things easy and be looked after by her loved ones, who will shower her with care and be at her beck and call, poor dear. State of mind is tremendously important for a healthy body. If she is happy in her mind, her back will get better all the more quickly. And if she does have to have an operation, it's only right and proper that the family should bear their share of the responsibility. The annoying thing, though, is that we'll have to put up with this new daily until Mariette gets back. I must say I was not best pleased by Mariette's telegram. We agreed she could have heaps of time off, until the first of July, to look after that sister of hers. And when we wired her, what did we say? We asked her to come back three weeks before the date we'd agreed on account of this business of Martha and her back.'
Twoo, but she couldn't, because her sister's got pneumonia.'
'It's always the same with domestics. I see it as a lack of tact and loyalty. I mean to say, here's someone who is supposed to be devoted to Adrien's wife and for years and years was in the service of Mademoiselle Valérie d'Auble. I should have thought she'd have shown more consideration. Anyway, I wonder if her sister is really as ill as she makes out. The lower classes are such mollycoddles, they give in at the first sign of suffering. I've had bronchitis myself more than once, and I never made as much fuss.'
'Yes, but her sister's got double pneumonia.'
'Bronchitis and pneumonia are six of one and half a dozen of the other. But let's drop the subject. Such utter lack of principle is beyond me. Do let's talk about something else. Now, oh the business of Monsieur Solal's precious letter, the more I think about it the less gratifying it seems. In the first place, it was addressed to her, though I would have thought it more natural if he had written to me, but there it is. Besides, I don't care at all for the tone. Do you remember how it starts? Just apologies, and not even sincere apologies either,
though it would have been only good manners. And then "Perlease convey my apologies to all concerned" is a reference to you and me. He could at least have mentioned my name, seeing as how I spoke to him on the telephone. And then he talks about a sudden indisposition without saying what it was exactly. I find it all very offhand, I must say. What do you make of it?'
'The fact is,' said Monsieur Deume.
'And he sends his regrets, but he couldn't even go to the bother of saying they were heartfelt.'
'I'll
second that,' said Monsieur Deume.
'And he ends with plain good wishes, not best. I know she's young and so forth, but really! And the way he invites them to dinner, at his hotel, giving them just the one date, Friday the eighth of June at eight o'clock, which is the day after tomorrow. It's a case of take it or leave it. What do you think?'
'Well, I weckon he's a vewy important man and obviously . . .'
'I know all that,' she sighed. 'But even so, manners are manners. And why didn't he invite us too? Do you think that's correct?'
'Maybe he doesn't know we live with Didi.'
'He is perfectly aware that we do! Because I introduced myself over the telephone that evening, and I even said my husband and I or something of the sort. You mustn't think I mind in the least, first because I'm used to staying in the background, and second because in any case we won't be here the day after tomorrow, and third because I can well do without hotel cooking, thank you very much. But it's his manner I don't care for. Still, he did send his apologies, and so appearances have been kept up.'
'Besides, he's the chap who fixed Didi's pwomotion.'
'He gave him his due and no more. (To underscore her point, she voraciously resumed her knitting. She finished a row then scratched the inside of her ear with the free needle.) And as for that wife of Didi's, talk about a flash in the pan! All her fine resolutions have died a natural death, vanished in a puff of smoke! Saying she was running errands for him, pressing his trousers and so forth, all that's gone with the wind! She spent all yesterday afternoon sunbathing in the garden in full view of passers-by! Carrying on like that will hardly send our stock up with the neighbours! And I see that she hasn't even cut the pages of
Watch and Pray,
which I gave her to read! That's all the thanks I get for giving up my small room downstairs so that Madame could turn it into her sitting-room! Imagine, her own private sitting-room! And none of her usual sloth in the way she set about it! She bucked up her ideas and took no time at all to set up shop with all those awful old bits and pieces belonging to her aunt, I wouldn't have them if they were given! That ancient threadbare carpet! She even had her piano brought down! And brought down at Didi's expense, of course! And not answering when I asked her ever so naicely how she was, spiritually speaking. The conceited, impudent hussy! Haven't you got anything to say for yourself?'
The downstairs telephone rang. Only too grateful for the diversion, Monsieur Deume rushed off to answer it. He returned gasping for breath, for he had climbed the stairs three at a time, and said Madame Ventradour was on the line. Madame Deume hurried off.
As the door closed.behind her, he collapsed into an armchair. That phone call was providential. If it lasted any length of time, it would give her something else to think about and maybe she wouldn't go on any more to him about Ariane. No, he couldn't and wouldn't say nasty things about her just to keep Antoinette's hat straight. Not after Ariane had been so sweet to him yesterday when she'd got back just after that English chap had gone, she'd been a brick, taken charge, quick! hide the empty tins, hurry up! tidy up the kitchen, spit-spot! take a taxi to town and buy replacement tins and more bottles of the same Bordeaux! And she'd given him excellent advice about the letter, just say it had come and leave it at that. Fortunately Antoinette had got home late from Madame Gantet's. He'd have really caught it in the neck if she'd come back and found him and the Englishman there together up to their eyes in Bordeaux and cassoulet, singing their heads off! The Englishman was a very decent sort, though, and they'd had a merry time of it. They'd even embraced when it was time for him to go. Come to think of it, he'd never had a real friend in his life. He wouldn't have minded seeing him again, except that he was a lord and therefore several cuts above him. Well at least their tea party would be a memory to treasure. He blew his nose and stared into his handkerchief, folded it, and forced himself to think about something else. Yes, he'd buy a magnetic screwdriver, it would come in very handy. What on earth was she telling Madame Ventradour? Noiselessly he opened the door, leaned over the banister, and listened. 'What a pity, dear, you missed Jeanne Gantet's littel talk, she's such an intellectual person, never at a loss for words. She spoke to us about the link between science and religion, it involves all sorts of things one never normally thinks of, such as the telephone, for instance, which enables us to ask a friend with greater religious experience for spiritual support in some faith-shattering moral crisis, or again the railways, religious congresses could not be held without them! or the radio, which puts out such comforting programmes! We were all absolutely spellbound! It was definitely one in the eye for unbelievers who say that there aren't any links between science and religion! Anyway, I'm so pleased everything is going well for you. But I must tell you, dear, that we've been through thick and thin here these last few days! It never rained but it poured! First, the sink in the kitchen got blocked, pouring chemicals down didn't do the trick and in the end we had to call the plumber! And then Martha's gone, went the day before yesterday. I didn't catch that. Oh no, I didn't send her packing, she left of her own accord. You see she'd been having trouble with her back ever since she fell when trying to hang a picture, you know what these girls are like, always getting ideas into their heads, that's right, she was trying to hang quite a large picture the other evening while we were waiting for a supper- or rather dinner-guest, as a matter of fact it was the Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, a very dear friend of Adrien's. Martha, poor thing, could barely drag herself about, and naturally her work suffered as a result. So, feeling very sorry for her, I advised her to go home to her family for a rest, to return to the fold and get good and well again there. Besides, I had made it perfectly clear to her from the beginning that I was engaging her on a purely temporary basis, only until such time as Mariette came back. Not that she's any great loss. For a start, she was dreadfully clumsy in her work in spite of all the trouble I took to train her, and, since she'd never learned how to behave, I didn't get very far in my efforts to teach her naice manners. For example, she had this mania for knocking before entering the drawing-room. How many times did I point out in the kindest possible way that it's only on bedroom doors a correctly brought-up person knocks before entering! And tacdess! Would you believe that one day I found her crying her eyes out, so naturally I asked what was the matter and even held her hand to encourage her to speak up for herself, and can you imagine what she told me? She had the impudence to say she was homesick for her cows! Of course, I forgave her with all my heart, for I never lost sight of the fact that she came of humble stock. But I do hope that the serious talks I had with her will prove a blessing on her, the poor littel thing was religiously quite backward. Anyhow, I did my level best to raise her spiritual consciousness, especially by praying with her, yes I did! We'll have someone else as of tomorrow, she doesn't seem anything to write home about and she'll be mornings only, seeing as how she does somewhere else in the afternoons. But in view of the fact of how difficult it is finding domestics nowadays we should be grateful for whatever God sends us in the way of servants, even if the quality leaves much to be desired. Naturally, as soon as poor Martha decided to go off and get well wherever it was she came from, I wired reply-paid to Mariette, who is if you recall in Paris and is in any case due to resume her duties here on July the first, asking her in the Hght of events to come back and start work with immediate effect. We received a telegram saying she couldn't come seeing as how her sister, who is a concierge, has come down with double pneumonia, and that she won't be in a position to return before the beginning of July. Really, it's always the same with servants. We are at their absolute mercy. But, dear, there I go, prattling on, and I haven't yet told you the big news! You won't believe it, but we're off to Brussels the day after tomorrow! Relations of mine, the van Offels, of the Chateau van Offel, have sent for me urgendy! Yes, I got a letter by the midday post yesterday from dear Elise van Offel, that is the younger Madame van Offel, literally begging for my help! Her mother-in-law has had a stroke, one side is completely paralysed, and they've taken her in because she was in such a bad way. But Wilhelmine van Offel, that's Madame van Offel the elder, the one who's been struck down, can't get on with any of the nurses and has been positively clamouring for me, seeing as how I once looked after her many years ago. Heeding only the promptings of my heart, I was naturally prepared to drop everything and go to her at once, taking Hippolyte with me, of course, he can't do without me, but there weren't any sleepers until the day after tomorrow. When I travel overnight I always take a sleeper, it's a firm family principle. So we booked both of us on the Friday-night train nineteen francs forty-five, excuse me nineteen forty-five, a quarter to eight that is. It will get us into Brussels at ten to nine on Saturday morning, God willing and barring accidents, which can always happen. We'll probably be away for three months, or perhaps a bit less, depending on how her condition develops, for at best, or so the doctor says, the poor dear will be promoted to glory by the beginning of August at the very latest. There's no knowing how it will all turn out, it's in the hands of the Almighty, to whom all things are known. Be that as it may, I cannot leave dear Elise in the lurch, incidentally her maiden name was van der Meulen, the family was very big in refining. Oh yes, naturally there'll be a nurse, I'll be there principally to provide spiritual comfort but also to tell the nurse what to do. I'll put the time to good use, though, I'll catch up with my knitting and shall make a point of getting on with some more socks for my husband, who goes through them at a terrible rate, I can't think how he manages it. Sorry? No, no. What I do is the heel first, then I knit the feet in two parts up to the place where you decrease. I knit up two pieces of the right length because, do you see, the instep doesn't get much wear, so when the sole needs replacing all I have to do is a new underside and decreases, that way I save both time and wool. But tell me, dear, I've just had a thought, I'd love to see you before we caviare, sorry, slip of the tongue, I meant to say before we leave here. We'd be ever so perleased if you were able to come to lunching tomorrow, Thursday. Thursday's no good for you? Well perhaps Friday, then, the day we leave? You have a lunching engagement? Well in that case there's nothing for it: you'll have to come on here for an early supper. You can? Wonderful, I'm delighted. But listen, dear, do come early so that we can squeeze in a good heart-to-heart. Now let's see, our train goes at nineteen forty-five, which is a quarter to eight. Would you like to come at four? We'll sit down to table at half past five sharp, so it will have to be high tea, in the circumstances you won't mind taking pot luck. I'll see you on Friday then, dear, I'm so looking forward to it, and thanks again for your useful tip about using pillowcases for delicate things, I've already
tried it and it protects them wonderfully! I'll pass on good wishes from Hippolyte, who is right beside me making signs that I'm to give you his best. I'd have passed on my Adrien's too if he'd been here, but it's wicked to tell untruths, isn't it dear? Let's just say that if he had been here he would certainly have wanted me to convey his very best to you. But I must let you get on, dear. I'll see you at four the day after tomorrow, I'm so looking forward to it, and in the meantime I send you a joyful smile!'