He worked now feverishly, now haltingly, mumbling in his mustache, swearing from time to time. His crayon snapped at the canvas with a sort of uneasy haste of angry nervousness.
"Ah, shucks!" he cried out, pushing away the easel with a kick. … "I can do nothing but botch-work today! … The devil take me, one might think I was competing for a prize."
Moving back his chair he examined his sketch with a frigid air and muttered:
"Whenever women come here it's the same old story. … When they go away the women leave you the soul of a Boulanger in the pretty claws of a Henner. … Henner, do you understand? … Let's go out."
When we were at the end of the street:
"Are you coming to dine with me, Lirat?" I asked him.
"No," he replied in a dry tone, reaching out his hand.
And he walked away, stiff, formal, solemn, with the business air of a deputy who has just discussed the budget.
That evening I did not go out and remained at home to muse in solitude. Stretched on a sofa, with half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the heat, almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to bring to life things dead and to recall memories which escaped me. Five years had passed since the war—the war in which I began my apprenticeship in life by entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer. … Five years already! … Still it seemed like yesterday … the smoke, the fields covered with snow, stained with blood and ruins, these fields where, like ghosts, we wandered about piteously, worn out with fatigue. … Only five years! … And when I came back to the Priory, the house was empty, my father dead! … My letters had come to him only rarely, at long intervals and they had always been short, dry, written in haste on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate; only once had I poured out my heart to him, and this letter which should have brought him sweetness, hope and consolation he had not received! … Every morning, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate an hour before the arrival of the mailman and watch the turn of the road, a prey to mortal fear. Old wood cutters would pass on their way to the woods; my father used to question them:
"Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the mailman, by any chance?"
"Why no, Monsieur Mintié—it's a little early yet."
"Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late."
"That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be."
When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mailman he became pale, trembling with the fear of bad news. As the mailman approached, the heart of my father beat furiously, almost bursting.
"Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié."
"How is that! … No letters at all! You must be mistaken, my boy. Look … look again. … "
He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go through them again. …
"Nothing! … Why it's impossible!"
And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair heaving a sigh:
"Just think of it," he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk, "just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!"
During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in the army; the conversation was always the same.
"Well, have you heard from your boys."
"Why, no, M'sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from Jean?"
"I haven't either."
"That's very strange. How is it possible? … Can you explain it? … "
That they themselves did not get any letters only half surprised them, but that Mintié, the mayor, had not received any either, surprised them very much. Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to the confusing statements of the papers, they questioned old soldiers who told them their war experiences with the most extravagant and lavish details; at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with lighter hearts.
"Don't worry M'sieur Mayor. You'll see him back a colonel, sure."
"Colonel, colonel!" my father would say, shaking his head. … "I don't ask that much. … Just so he comes back! … "
One day—nobody knew how that happened—Saint-Michel found itself full of Prussian soldiers. The Priory was occupied. Long sabres were found in our old house. From this moment, my father became more ill than ever, he took fever and was confined to his bed, and in his delirium he repeated without end: "Put the horses to, Felix, put the horses to, for I want to go to Alençon to get some news of Jean!" He imagined himself starting out on the road. "Gid up, gid up, Bichette, gid up, come on! … We are going to have some news of Jean this evening. … Gid up, gid up, come on! … And my poor father gently breathed his last in the arms of the curé Blanchetière, surrounded by Felix and Marie who were sobbing! … After a six months' stay at the Priory, now sadder than ever, I was weary to death … Old Marie, accustomed to manage the house according to her own notions, was unbearable to me; in spite of her devotion, her whims exasperated me, and there always were long altercations in which I never had the last word. For my only company I had the good curé to whom nothing appealed as much as the profession of a notary. From morning till night he used to lecture to me thus:
"Your grandfather was a notary, so was your father, your uncles, your cousins, in fact your whole family. … You owe it to yourself, my dear child, not to desert your post. You shall be Mayor of Saint-Michel, you may even hope to replace your poor father at the general council, in a few years. … Why man alive, that's something! And then—take my word for it—times are going to be pretty hard for decent people who love the good Lord. … You see that rascal Lebecq, he is municipal counsellor. All he thinks of is how to rob and kill people, that brigand there. … We need at the head of our country a right-minded man to uphold religion and defend the principles of righteousness. … Paris, Paris! … Oh! these silly heads, those youngsters! … But will you please tell me what good you have accomplished at Paris? … Why, the very air there is infected! Look at big Mange, he comes from a good family, but that did not prevent him from coming back from Paris with a red cap on. Isn't that a pretty affair?"
And he would continue in this vein for hours, taking his snuff, evoking the vision of the red cap of big Mange which appeared to him more abominable than the horns of the devil.
What was there to do at Saint-Michel? There was no one to whom I could communicate my thoughts, my dreams; there was no outlet for the ardor of life where I could expend that intellectual energy, that passion for knowledge and for creative work which the war, in developing my muscles, in strengthening my body, had awakened in me, and which omnivorous reading overstimulated in me more and more every day. I realized that Paris alone, which formerly had frightened me so much, that Paris alone could furnish nourishment for ambitions, as yet indefinite, which spurred me on, and with the estate settled, and the library sold I left suddenly, leaving the Priory to the care of Felix and Marie. … And here I am back in Paris! …
What have I accomplished during these five years, to use the words of the curé? … Carried away by vague ardors, by confused enthusiasm which blended together some sort of a chimeric ideal with a kind of impracticable apostleship, how far did I get? … I am no longer the timid child whom the footmen, in the vestibule flooded with light, used to put to flight. If I have not acquired much self-assurance, I at least know how to behave in society without appearing too ridiculous. I pass pretty much unnoticed, a condition which is the best that could be wished for a man of my calibre who possesses none of the graces and qualities which are necessary to shine there.
Very often I ask myself: what am I doing here in this society to which I do not belong, where they respect only success however fraudulently obtained, only money, no matter from what filthy place it comes; where every spoken word acts as a wound inflicted on everything I love best and everything