Long Distance Life Part 16

There was a pitcher by the bed in her room. Richard filled the gla.s.s and brought it to her, and she took it, trembling, and put it to her lips.

"Should I call Madame Celestina?" he asked.

"No," she shook her head. And Christophe, so that Dolly could not see, made a more emphatic negation to Richard with a jerk of his head.

"Come lie down," Christophe said, helping her to her feet.

Richard waited silently at the door of the parlor until Christophe had returned.

"You're a marvel with women in distress, has anyone ever told you that?" Christophe asked.

"Monsieur, she is in bad pain."

"I know that," Christophe said. "I'll go for Celestina if it gets worse. She is not close with Celestina now."

Richard said nothing. He too had heard the story of Dolly's infamous return to the "quadroon b.a.l.l.s" the week after little Lisa died.

"But she is very ill, Monsieur," he said. He could feel nothing but compa.s.sion for the fragile woman who had clung to him all the way from the Cathedral. He could tell his mother about this. His mother would come. Celestina wouldn't stop his mother. Nothing would if Dolly was really ill. Richard's mother spent half her life visiting the sick, caring for the aged, her small Benevolent Society of women of color was her life outside the family, the only life she had. "Monsieur," he asked now. "Do you know what is wrong?"

This caught Christophe slightly off guard. He studied Richard's face. And Richard realized that Christophe did know what was wrong and that Christophe was a little surprised that Richard did not.

"It will pa.s.s," he said.

That evening, when the supper was finished, Richard sat with his mother on the rear gallery over the garden and told her the story of his meeting with Dolly Rose. When he came to the mention of Christophe in the house, he told this as delicately as he could. He repeated Dolly's conversation. His mother's face had stiffened at this mention of a man alone with a woman in her flat, but now her face became remarkably sad.

"She is ill, Maman," he said to try to explain why he had burdened her with this indelicate tale. "And there was only Christophe."

His mother sighed. She rose and put her hands on the railing as she looked down into the yard. "Mon fils," "Mon fils," she said, "Dolly can have no more children. She cannot carry them. I've heard this from Celestina before. Now it's happened again." she said, "Dolly can have no more children. She cannot carry them. I've heard this from Celestina before. Now it's happened again."

For a moment Richard felt no compa.s.sion when he heard this. It confused him. It was dreadful to think that she had lost a little baby just so soon after little Lisa's death, but it was dreadful to think that she had gone to the "quadroon b.a.l.l.s," too. It was dreadful to think of all the scandalous things that were said of her and the endless procession of men in her life. "Is it such a tragedy, Maman?" he asked gently.

"She was a good mother, Richard," Madame Suzette said. "She would have been a good mother till the day she died. You see, for a woman like Dolly that is everything. Men mean little. They come and go. Nothing of honor or dignity endures there. But the child, that is la famille la famille, that is all."

She took her place in the rocker beside him, straightening her skirts. "I'll call on her, of course, but there is nothing anyone can do."

Richard knew so little of bearing children and losing children that he naturally accepted this without a word. But he was strangely unsatisfied. He felt uncomfortable that he had told his mother this tale, uncomfortable that he had spoken so plainly of Christophe sleeping in Dolly's parlor, quite at home there when they had come in.

"You'll forgive me, Maman?" he whispered slowly, "for burdening you with all of this...this matter of Christophe..." his voice had deepened, trailing off.

"I know why you mentioned it, Richard," she said. She tilted her embroidery ring slightly toward the light from the window behind her.

Richard felt his cheeks burn. He tried to make out her face, but the light behind her illuminated only the loose fine hairs of her coif.

"You mentioned it because you wanted me to tell your father. You wanted your father to know that your teacher is courting Dolly Rose, and all of Antoine's vicious gossip about him is therefore a lie."

Richard was speechless. He should have known this could not be kept from his mother, no matter how rank and shocking it was. And if she was right, that he had told her this tale tonight to counter Antoine's gossip, he was amazed. He had not known it himself. But she knew it. She knew it all. She had witnessed Antoine's horrified expression at the supper table, observed those whispered sessions with Rudolphe behind closed doors, and Antoine's shock when this Paris Englishman whom he accused of the vilest, most appalling, and most mysterious proclivities had appeared in New Orleans at Christophe's door. But that Richard and his mother should speak of these things was out of the question. Richard and his father couldn't speak of them. And Rudolphe had only vaguely alluded to them to try to warn his son that Antoine was "losing his mind." "It's the dirt people talk in the Quartier Latin Quartier Latin in Paris," Rudolphe had waved it away, indignant. "Don't you listen to it, and don't you think of it. And above all, don't you repeat it for it could ruin young Christophe." in Paris," Rudolphe had waved it away, indignant. "Don't you listen to it, and don't you think of it. And above all, don't you repeat it for it could ruin young Christophe."

Richard, thunderstruck, had been all too willing to obey.

He sat stunned now, unable to look his mother in the eye.

"Don't worry, mon fils," mon fils," Madame Suzette went on in a hushed voice. "Your teacher is apparently quite enamored with Dolly Rose. That Dolly has reciprocated his affections is the reason that her G.o.dmother, Celestina, is so put out. Celestina!" she sighed. "Celestina was not so shocked as you might think that Dolly returned so soon to the 'quadroon b.a.l.l.s,' those women are so very practical!" She paused as though considering, and her voice was intimate, unusually candid as she went on. It was the voice reserved for other women when sewing together they confessed the vulgar facts of this world to one another with a weary shake of the head. "But a man of color courting the lovely Dolly, how is Celestina to abide that? Why the good Celestina and the good Dolly have never put anything into their coffee but the purest white milk." Madame Suzette went on in a hushed voice. "Your teacher is apparently quite enamored with Dolly Rose. That Dolly has reciprocated his affections is the reason that her G.o.dmother, Celestina, is so put out. Celestina!" she sighed. "Celestina was not so shocked as you might think that Dolly returned so soon to the 'quadroon b.a.l.l.s,' those women are so very practical!" She paused as though considering, and her voice was intimate, unusually candid as she went on. It was the voice reserved for other women when sewing together they confessed the vulgar facts of this world to one another with a weary shake of the head. "But a man of color courting the lovely Dolly, how is Celestina to abide that? Why the good Celestina and the good Dolly have never put anything into their coffee but the purest white milk."

Richard winced. His eyes were fixed on the shifting trees, and the sudden flicker of a star beyond which was as suddenly lost.

"It won't come to anything," Madame Suzette sighed. "Dolly is already being seen in the evenings by a white gentleman, and I trust your clever schoolteacher knows what to expect. They are all the same, those dear ladies, they and their mothers before them, and their grandmothers before they were born." She reached out to touch the back of her son's hand. Richard's fingers clasped hers, but otherwise he didn't move. "Celestina," she whispered, "and Dolly...and old Madame Elsie," and dropping her voice for emphasis, "and the proud Madame Cecile Ste. Marie."

Long after her hand had withdrawn from his he remained perfectly still. He was staring out over the darkened yard. Love her as he did, he could not tell her what he was thinking, he could not confide. She reminded him softly that his Vacquerie cousins were coming to dinner soon, lovely girls. Theirs was a family as old as her own, as respectable, older than the Famille Lermontant Famille Lermontant. He didn't speak. He was not there. He was standing in the grove behind Marie's house. He was holding Marie in his arms.

III.

IT WAS OVER FINALLY, the first day of cla.s.s. Marcel was the last to rise, and a knot of students still lingered with Christophe at the lectern, waiting their turn for a few words as Marcel went out of the room. He stood in the hallway on the new Aubusson carpet gazing through the door of that long back study where two of the oldest boys, colored planters' sons both, sat at the round table leafing through the papers and periodicals that Christophe had put there. This was the table where Christophe, Juliet, and Marcel had dined together every evening for a week. No one but Marcel knew that Christophe, his funds dangerously low, had stripped to the waist and gotten down on his knees to bring the polish up in the hardwood floor. Or that Marcel had cleaned and dusted the marble busts that gleamed in the shadowy shelves, or that the two of them together had put all those long rows of novels, cla.s.sics, poetry in order. Now this room would be open for all of their benefit until supper each day, the cla.s.s ending at four o'clock, and a copy of Nuits de Charlotte Nuits de Charlotte lay on the table, there were back issues of the Paris journals, stacks of the New York and the London lay on the table, there were back issues of the Paris journals, stacks of the New York and the London Times Times.

Marcel was tingling. And with something more painful than a twinge of jealousy he finally let go of Christophe at the lectern, surrounded by his eager students, and went out into the sunlit street. A group of the youngest, those twelve-and thirteen-year-old boys, were just heading home down the Rue Dauphine their loud laughter and animated talk in wild contrast to their demeanor only moments before. Richard was waiting for Marcel and when their eyes met they knew at once that they were in perfect triumphant agreement about the events of the day. They walked in silence toward the Ste. Marie gate.

For four hours they had sat still among the cla.s.s of twenty, gripped by Christophe's opening address. Not a hand had stirred unnecessarily, there was no whispering in the back row, no flutter of pages, no idle and irritating sharpening of quills. No one shuffled his feet, or gazed out the window. In fact the air was so different from that of the schools they had known that they were at a loss to explain how they and all those around them might have been transformed into adults over night.

The fact was that in one day they had been graduated from the uneven discipline of an elementary schoolroom to the serious atmosphere of the university cla.s.s. And it was Christophe's tone and bearing which had brought about this transformation. They had known from the very first words spoken by him that he expected them to behave as young men.

"You will be responsible for all that I say in this room," he had explained, his eyes moving with complete command from one eager face to another, "you will each keep a notebook for each subject of study, writing in it as you wish to record for yourselves the lectures of each day. At any time I may ask to see these notebooks, and when I do I expect to find evidence there that you have profited by the time spent here.

"The texts for general history and the physical sciences are on your desk, as well as your Latin Grammar and your Greek. And as you can see on the blackboard behind me, there is the schedule of your a.s.signments for the summer which you will copy at the end of this day's cla.s.s."

Never had they been instructed so directly and never had they been spoken to as if they themselves might take some responsibility for what they were going to learn.

But it was only the beginning. They were soon told that during the hours spent here they would be regarded as serious scholars no matter where they were to go afterward, or what they were to do. Whether they went on to the university, or to work in some profession or trade did not matter. They were to devote themselves with equal fervor to all the subjects taught here so that when they eventually left this small academy they would be educated men.

Marcel, his eyes lowered shyly, had been swelling with pride. Christophe spoke with an easy perfection, his sentences as crisp and articulate as if all had been prepared in advance, and yet it flowed as if spontaneous, the voice so natural and eager in its inflections that it kept them riveted to his neat and commanding person as he paced slowly back and forth at the front of the room.

Again and again he paused at the perfect moment, his eyes engaging their eyes, and went on to elaborate in the same thoughtful manner on this or that point that might not be so clear.

His speech was slower than usual, an excitement for the task at hand emanated from him, along with the same muted power that Marcel had felt all along.

And only Marcel knew of the torment Christophe had endured that week, the endless frustrations, the long visits of the Englishman, Michael Larson-Roberts who would come upon them in the midst of their work in the sweltering heat and disparage the school without even speaking a single word. Marcel despised this man.

Yet there was something utterly compelling about him. That was the trouble. He would stride into the dusty townhouse, its long corridors echoing with the sound of hammers, his dove-gray clothing immaculate as though he had been miraculously conveyed above the muddy quagmire of the streets to this spot, and stepping with exaggerated care through dirt and broken boards, he would take up some lonesome position in the corner of the empty cla.s.sroom, a Paris paper spread out before his bowed head, and there read in deafening silence as all around him paled, became confused, as if the angle of the world at large were the angle of his narrow green eyes. Christophe couldn't work when he was there. His power over Christophe was monstrous. He caused Christophe's power to go dim.

And in one long afternoon at Madame Lelaud's Marcel had been curled over his sketchbook, drawing all manner of ugly things, as the two men argued furiously in English, Michael Larson-Roberts. .h.i.tting Christophe with one ripe sally after another, such as "You're vain, that's what you are, vain and frightened of the critics, frightened of your talents, frightened to go on risking that talent in the world. This isn't the world, this place, this is self-immolation, don't preach that rot to me about a school for your race, you don't believe in your race, you don't believe in anything but art, and even in that you don't believe enough or you wouldn't have turned your back on it..."

"You say that to me because you believe in nothing!" Christophe came back at him through clenched teeth, "you think you've stripped me of the faith in simple things, the faith that sustains every human being, because you you have no such faith and never have had. Don't talk to me about art, what do you really know about art, have you ever written anything, painted anything, understood anything! If you had, you'd know that everything I wrote was trash. It was written for effect, that's why it was written, there was no pa.s.sion to it, no soul. I tell you what I do here has a soul to it! Somewhere during one of those long binges I woke up to see the difference between us. I understand art and you don't and I can't abide bad art whereas you have never known what that was, yes, you, for all your sophistication, your education, your taste! You don't know!" have no such faith and never have had. Don't talk to me about art, what do you really know about art, have you ever written anything, painted anything, understood anything! If you had, you'd know that everything I wrote was trash. It was written for effect, that's why it was written, there was no pa.s.sion to it, no soul. I tell you what I do here has a soul to it! Somewhere during one of those long binges I woke up to see the difference between us. I understand art and you don't and I can't abide bad art whereas you have never known what that was, yes, you, for all your sophistication, your education, your taste! You don't know!"

Often the rifts of English were too fast for Marcel to comprehend or lapsed into phrases so informal and violent he didn't catch them at all. But never had he seen a man attempt to exert such force over another, while that other resisted so bitterly though falling again and again into stammers and at last a sullen silence which seemed the only really successful resistance he could accomplish. Was it perhaps that they argued like a father and son???

No, more truly priest and sinner. For there was something violently religious about the Englishman, something desperately dogmatic about his p.r.o.nouncements. Christophe was being lost as a soul is lost, Christophe was d.a.m.ning himself, and this cesspool of a city around him with its sullen slaves and wary gens de couleur gens de couleur was h.e.l.l. was h.e.l.l.

"It's a dangerous thing to really love someone," Christophe had said finally after a half hour's silence at the dirty little table, his back to the wall, staring at Michael Larson-Roberts, "it's a dangerous thing to be young and malleable and let that someone give you a consummate vision of the world."

"I never meant to give you a consummate vision of the world," the Englishman said, barely moving his lips. Marcel had never seen him so spent. "I meant to give you an education, that was all."

"...because all your life after that, the vision haunts you," Christophe went on. "You'll hear that deprecating and defining voice in your ears saying, 'this isn't what I taught you to value, this isn't what I taught you to respect'..."

"And what are you going to teach those precious little coffee-colored bourgeoisie of yours in that cla.s.sroom?" the Englishman had asked with a sudden flush of anger.

"To think for themselves!" Christophe said. "I'm twenty-three years old and I'd never once thought for myself until I got on that boat for New Orleans!"

The Englishman's bright eyes held his steadily as he brought up a clutch of bills from his pocket and dropping them on the table, he said, "You do this to wound me, Chris. And you've succeeded, but you could have been a great writer, you could have done anything you wanted with your talent. Wounding me is a pathetic accomplishment in comparison!" And rising he left.

Christophe was furious and impotent in his fury as he watched the Englishman disappear through the crowd at the door.

But after a long while of sipping his beer slowly and moving his lips now and then as though communing with himself he said to Marcel wearily in French, "Forgive me for all this arguing in a language you don't understand."

"But Christophe," Marcel said in English, "You are a great writer, isn't that true?"

"Marcel, I just know this, that if I hadn't gotten out of Paris and the Quartier Latin Quartier Latin when I did, I would have died. If I am destined to be a great writer, all I need is pen and paper and the solitude occasionally of my own room. Now come on, let's get out of here." when I did, I would have died. If I am destined to be a great writer, all I need is pen and paper and the solitude occasionally of my own room. Now come on, let's get out of here."

His stride had been swift then. His hand was firm and casual on Marcel's shoulder as he led Marcel, quite to his surprise, down the Rue Dumaine to meet Madame Dolly Rose.

They drank coffee with her in the shade of her patio. She was shamelessly dressed in a yellow sprigged muslin though it was only three weeks since the death of her little daughter, and an equally shameless piano music carried out of the windows of her flat. But she was pale, had dark shadows under her eyes, and her hands shook. She laughed sometimes with a forced gaiety and teased Marcel about his blond hair. She called him "Blue Eyes" while Christophe smiled serenely, and she spiked their coffee with brandy which she drank herself, desperately and l.u.s.tily as a man, without effect.

A lovely woman, delicate of feature and voice, she could speak the patois one minute and her usual Parisian French the next, laughing in sudden frantic but alluring spurts as she reminded him of the characters of the streets in their childhood, the old chimney sweeper who had threatened them with his broom when he had caught Dolly and Christophe marching behind him, mimicking his gestures and his sing-song voice. "Well, Blue Eyes!" she had said once when she caught Marcel watching her. She had kissed him on the cheek. "Women," he thought with an uncomfortable shift in his chair. But he beamed at her. And did not like to see her lapse suddenly into silence. Christophe was content here. He clasped his hands behind his neck, and when the music within had stopped, looked up with interest to see that strange tattered black slave coming down the steps, that painfully thin boy who had brought his key chain from Dolly's house weeks before. Dolly called him Bubbles, gave him small coins now for his dinner and sent him off. "Well, I finally bought him outright," she said. "But he just runs away." He had been cheap, and tuned pianos perfectly, but never brought the money back to her; it had been a failure, buying him, she ought to sell him to the fields.

"You don't mean that," Christophe scoffed. "Sell him to the fields."

"But he was not the one playing the piano, was he?" Marcel asked.

"He can play anything," Dolly said. "That is, when he's here."

"Buy him a decent coat, some shoes..." Christophe said.

"And then I'd never see him!" Dolly snapped. "You buy him a decent coat!" She was suddenly crestfallen and distant. But Christophe had leaned across the table and given her a slow gentle kiss as Marcel took a bit of a walk about the yard.

And after that Christophe had hired the slave, Bubbles, to help him with his work at the house, and given him an old serviceable suit of clothes. That got him into decent houses again with his tuning wrenches, and the day before the school had opened he had tuned the spinet in the Lermontant parlor and played an eerie song for Marcel and Richard, his fingers like spiders on the keys as he rocked back and forth on the stool, his eyes closed, humming along with the obscure melodies through clenched teeth. And he had not run away.

But these bits and pieces of Christophe's life which Marcel witnessed before the school began were but the tip of the iceberg. Much had gone on behind closed doors. Rumors had rippled through Marcel's small world that Christophe took to spending late nights with the Englishman after that quarrel at Madame Lelaud's, that he was wined and dined in the Englishman's suite at the St. Charles Hotel with the slaves dismissed before he took his place at a table set for two in the privacy of the Englishman's room. And Dolly Rose had had Christophe often as a guest in the afternoons, even walking out with him around the Place d'Armes, while everyone knew that she was receiving a white military officer in the hours after dark.

And just when all had expected that man to take up informal residence with Dolly (he was refurbishing the flat), she had broken off this connection violently, and gone dancing again at the "quadroon b.a.l.l.s." All this frightened Marcel, he would have preferred for Christophe not to be seen so much there. Dolly caused trouble for men, men were dead on account of Dolly-of course up until now, they had all been white-yet it fascinated Marcel that Christophe was obviously quite pleasing to the demanding Dolly, and Dolly was pleasing enough to Christophe.

Meantime Juliet had been in a rage. Only Christophe's threat to "throw everything up" if she did not show some courtesy to Michael Larson-Roberts had succeeded in calming her. If she remembered her little boudoir encounter with Marcel she did not show it; her son was now the man in her life. And the very night before the school opened, there had been another fight in the townhouse, complete once more with the breaking of gla.s.s. Lisette had told Marcel at dawn, when he was dressed and ready hours before, that Juliet had disappeared around midnight and had still not come home.

"Oh, you don't know that, that's foolishness," he had answered sharply. "You were sound asleep at midnight yourself."

"I might have been but there's lots of others who were awake!" she said knowingly. "I tell you if that fancy schoolteacher doesn't get that woman in hand..."

"I won't listen to this!" Marcel had stormed, playing the master, "Take that tray out of here and go!" It was foolish to argue with her. She knew everything, it was true, and lying down for a while, as neatly dressed and still as a corpse on his bed, he thought to himself, maybe some day she'll know something that I want to know. Lisette was warm to him even if downright disrespectful, but her face could be as sullen and unreadable as that of any other slave when she chose.

But as soon as he had entered the new cla.s.sroom, first to arrive, one glance at Christophe's drawn face had told him this must be true. The teacher was spiffily dressed for the first day, sporting a new silk tie, and a rich beige vest beneath his chocolate brown coat. But he looked debonair and half-dead.

"Have you seen my mother?" he had asked in a whisper. And then before the others had begun to arrive, he vanished to the rooms upstairs.

The Englishman had pa.s.sed the front windows at seven-forty-five A.M. A.M., a bent figure, hands clasped behind his back as usual, clearly recognizable even through the half-open shutters, but he had not stopped.

Then when the room was filled and waiting, Christophe had made his swift entrance right on the hour, face radiant, and there began this exciting day for all of them which went without a mishap or a dull moment until the stroke of twelve. One half hour before they were to be dismissed, early on this first day, he had begun their Greek instruction with a short and moving recitation of a verse in translation and then in the original tongue. Marcel had never heard cla.s.sical Greek recited; he could not read a syllable of it. But listening to this beautiful and impa.s.sioned speech, he had felt the heart of the poem as one feels it with music. Above the blackboard between the two front windows there hung an engraving of a Greek theater carved into the deep side of a hill. The audience sat in flowing robes; a lone figure stood in the center of the field below. Listening he had been transported to that place, and he was full to the brim at last when the noon Angelus had rung. He had bowed his head. A sudden burst of applause rang from the back of the room. It was those older boys, the colored planters' sons, who had thought to do it. Christophe smiled gratefully, demurring, and let them go.

Only one aspect of all this had disappointed Marcel. And that was his jealousy of all these students who were encountering his teacher for the first time. There had been no sign to him that he was special, that he was Christophe's friend. Of course he hadn't expected it. He knew that he was to be treated as anyone else. Yet it hurt him and he was angry with himself for it and did not want this to show on his face. He thought he might hang about, offering perhaps to look for Juliet. But what if he were brushed off, Christophe after all was so very busy. He wasn't really worried about Juliet besides. He felt an anger with her that grew out of this week's long intimacy of working together in the schoolrooms, dining together at the little round table, easy with one another in their pride and their exhaustion, as she called him "cher" "cher" always, and sometimes rubbed the top of his head. It was too mean to have run off on this all-important night. He was certain she was all right. always, and sometimes rubbed the top of his head. It was too mean to have run off on this all-important night. He was certain she was all right.

"Well I hope Antoine hears of today's proceedings," Marcel said to Richard with spirit. "I hope he hears that Christophe is the most brilliant teacher since Socrates, and the school is going to be a success."

Richard shrugged. They had just reached the Ste. Marie gate. "The h.e.l.l with Antoine," he whispered.

"Come on, let's go to my room."

Richard was reluctant. He had refused Marcel's invitations several times this week, and at first Marcel had not noticed this, but it was very clear that again Richard did not wish to accept.

"What's the matter with you?" Marcel pressed. He was so elated, he wanted to share this with Richard. And not to worry about the Englishman or Juliet. They could talk about the cla.s.s, mull it over, make it endure.

But Richard struck an unusual pose. He lowered the bundle of books in his arm, straightened up to his full height of six feet and six inches and with his right hand behind his back made Marcel a civil bow. "I must speak with you, Marcel," he said, "on an important matter, now, in your room."

"Well, perfect!" Marcel said. "I just invited you, didn't I?"

Richard hesitated. Then he nodded. "Yes, you did. However it would have been better..." he stopped. He was embarra.s.sed. "It would have been better had I come to call. Nevertheless, may I speak to you? It's a pressing matter. May I speak to you now?"

Marcel was beginning to laugh. Then his face became somber. "Just so long as it isn't about Anna Bella," he murmured. "About my going to see her."

"No," Richard shook his head. "Because I a.s.sume and justly so that you went to see her. You're a gentleman. You wouldn't ignore her request."

A momentary anger flashed in Marcel's eye. He opened the gate and led the way back the alley to the garconniere garconniere.

Pulling off his newer, stiffer boots at once, he settled on the bed as he selected an older pair, and gestured for Richard to take the chair at the desk. He was quite surprised to see that Richard merely stood in the door. Richard had set his books down, but his hands were clasped behind his back and he was staring at Marcel.

"Richard," Marcel said calmly "I will go to see her in my own good time."

A faint shadow of pain pa.s.sed over Richard's face. "Make it soon, Marcel," he said.

"Is this all you think about? Anna Bella? I know Anna Bella better than you do." Marcel could feel his face reddening. He thrust the discarded boots aside and strode heavily to the back of the room, sitting on the windowsill against the close trees, his back to the frame, his knee crooked, one foot on the sill before him. "No one has to tell me when to see Anna Bella," he said coldly.

Richard remained motionless, his demeanor utterly formal. "Have you seen her?" he asked, his voice so low that the question was almost inaudible.

Marcel turned his head. He looked down into the bracken, into the drifts of ivy hanging from the oaks. "Let's talk about school, Richard, it's going to be rough," he said.

When Richard didn't answer, he went on.

"Those boys, Dumanoir and the other one from the country, do you realize they've both studied in France for a year. Dumanoir was at the Lycee Louis le-Grand..."

"They told everyone that four times," Richard murmured. "Let us settle this...about Anna Bella. Because it is not the subject of this call. I must talk to you about something else."