‘You know, you can get French wine in this drugstore,’ Lambert said cheerfully. ‘Tonight we’ll eat as well as a German prisoner-of-war.’
‘Do you resent the fact that the Yanks feed their prisoners well?’
‘No, not especially. But as for the average Frenchman who’s living on air – it makes him sick. It’s just that the whole thing stinks – the way they handle the Fritzes, including the Nazis, with such consideration, and the way they treat the concentration camp prisoners.’
‘I’d like to know if it’s true that they’re keeping the French Red Cross from going into the camps,’ Henri said.
‘That’s the first thing I intend to look into,’ Lambert replied.
‘We’re not very hot on America these days,’ Henri said as he filled his plate with tinned meat and noodles.
‘And there’s no good reason to be!’ Lambert knitted his brow. ‘It’s just too bad it makes Lachaume so damned happy.’
‘I was thinking about that as I was walking over here,’ Henri said. ‘You say a word against the Communist Party, and you’re playing into the hands of the reactionaries! You criticize Washington, and you’re a Communist. Unless they suspect you of being a fifth columnist.’
‘Fortunately, two truths balance each other out,’ Lambert said.
Henri shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t count on that too much. So you remember how at the Christmas party we were saying we shouldn’t allow L’Espoir to become regimented? Well, that’s a whole lot easier said than done.’
‘It’s just a question of speaking as our consciences dictate!’ Lambert said.
‘Did you ever stop to think what that means?’ Henri asked. ‘Every morning I tell a hundred thousand people how they ought to think. And what do I guide myself by? The voice of my conscience!’ He poured himself a glass of wine. ‘It’s a gigantic swindle!’
Lambert smiled. ‘Show me a journalist who’s more scrupulous than you,’ he said affectionately. ‘You personally open every telegram, you keep your eyes on everything.’
‘I always try to be honest,’ Henri said. ‘But that’s the trouble; it doesn’t give me the time to really study the things I talk about.’
‘Nonsense! Your readers are more than happy with what you give them,’ Lambert said. ‘I know a hell of a lot of students who swear by L’Espoir.’
‘That only makes me feel more guilty!’ Henri replied.
Lambert gave him a worried look. ‘You’re not going to start studying statistics all day long, I hope.’
‘That’s just what I ought to do.’ There was a brief silence and then suddenly Henri decided the moment had come to unburden himself. ‘I brought back your stories,’ he said. He smiled at Lambert. ‘It’s funny, you’ve had lots of interesting experiences, you’ve lived them hard, and I’ve often been fascinated hearing you tell about them. Your articles are always full of meat. And yet in these stories nothing seems to happen. I’ve been wondering why.’
‘You don’t think they’re any good, do you?’ Lambert said. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I warned you.’
‘The trouble is you haven’t put anything of yourself into them,’ Henri said.
Lambert hesitated. ‘The things that really affect me wouldn’t be interesting to anyone else.’
Henri smiled. ‘But it’s all too obvious that the ones you do talk about don’t affect you at all. You get the feeling that you wrote these stories as if you were writing a hundred lines for punishment.’
‘I never really did believe I had any talent,’ Lambert said.
The forced smile which Lambert somehow managed only confirmed Henri’s feeling that these stories were actually very important to him. ‘Who’s talented and who isn’t?’ he said. ‘It’s hard to say what that really means. No, you simply made a mistake in picking subjects that mean so little to you. That’s all. Next time try putting more of yourself into your writing.’
‘I wouldn’t know how,’ Lambert said. He laughed. ‘I’m the perfect example of the poor little intellectual who’s utterly incapable of ever being creative.’
‘Don’t be an ass!’ Henri said. ‘These stories don’t prove a thing. It’s natural to miss the target the first time.’
Lambert shook his head. ‘I know myself. I’ll never accomplish anything worth while. And an intellectual who accomplishes nothing is pretty pitiful.’
‘You’ll do something if you’re really determined to. And besides, being an intellectual is no disgrace!’
‘It’s nothing much to be proud of either,’ Lambert replied.
‘Well, I’m one, and you seem to have a pretty high opinion of me.’
‘With you, it’s different,’ Lambert said.
‘Not at all. I’m an intellectual, period. And it annoys hell out of me when they make that word an insult.’
He sought Lambert’s eyes, but Lambert was looking obstinately at his plate. ‘I wonder what I’ll do when the war’s over,’ he said.
‘You don’t want to stay in journalism?’
‘Being a war correspondent is more or less defensible. But a “peace” correspondent – I can’t see it,’ Lambert said, adding spiritedly, ‘Yes, it’s well worth it, being the kind of journalist you are; it’s a real adventure. But being an editor, even with L’Espoir, wouldn’t mean anything to me unless I had to earn my living by it. On the other hand, living off my income would give me a bad conscience.’ He hesitated and then continued, ‘My mother left me too damned much money; no matter what, I’ll have a bad conscience.’
‘And so does everyone else,’ Henri said.
‘But everything you have, you earn. There’s no question about that.’
‘No one ever has a perfectly clear conscience,’ Henri said. ‘For example, it’s utterly childish for me to be eating here when I refuse to go to black-market restaurants. All of us have our little tricks. Dubreuilh pretends to look upon money as a natural element. He has a hell of a lot of it, but he does nothing to earn it, never refuses anyone a loan, and leaves it up to Anne to manage it. And as for Anne, she puts her mind at rest by not considering it as her own; she tells herself she’s spending it for her husband and her daughter, making a comfortable life for them which she, by chance, happens to profit from. The thing that helps me is that I have a devil of a time balancing my budget; it gives me the feeling that I don’t have anything to spare. But that’s just another way of cheating, too.’
‘Still there’s a difference.’
Henri shook his head. ‘When conditions are unfair, you can’t very well live a blameless life. And that’s the real reason for going into politics – to try to change conditions.’
‘I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t give away that money’, Lambert said. ‘But what good would that do?’ He hesitated. ‘Besides, I have to admit that the prospect of being poor frightens me.’
‘Why don’t you try to use it effectively?’
‘That’s