Chapter 8: The Transparent Curtain of Time

“In laying down his Cogito ergo sum as the
only certainty, and in considering the world’s
existence as problematical, Descartes found
the essential departing point of all philosophy.”
Schopenhauer: The World as Idea.

Entragues rose early and penholder in hand, turning over his papers while he drank tea and smoked cigarettes, he began the day.

Monsieur Dubois, through an administrative memorandum, had the goodness to inform him about his affairs. There had been postal supplications and telegraphic pardons. Madame du Boys was returning. The envelope contained the letter and the copy of the dispatch. Entragues appreciated this attention which would permit him to follow, without fatigue, the developments of the oratorio.

The letter, dated from Geneva, was a reply. The secretary, among indistinct phrases, had doubtless let fall the seed of hope, for Madame du Boys seemed to accept at the same time that she implored. Though standing on her dignity, she was not displeased with this rope flung in the midst of her muddled situation. She joyfully clutched it, with the naïve and vainglorious pleasure of being able to say: “It is he who is taking the first step! How anxious he is to have me! Ah! the poor man, I do not want to make him suffer any more.” This could be read all around the pages, on all the margins, even on the envelope, which had been addressed with a poised hand. Too, there flowered a boredom from this international paper: “I enjoy myself more even in Paris, by the side of a stupid and solemn husband, than on the banks of Lake Geneva, where I am alone with my maid from nine in the morning till six at night—without counting the days when business delays Monsieur le comte—and where, to fall asleep, I drink, in the Revue des Treize Cantons, lymphatic emanations on the course of life and the meaning of death!”

“P. S. Say that I am passing a season in Switzerland for my health.”

She arrives, lets fall her little bundles, opens her arms, and Monsieur Dubois, very agitated, falls into them.

“Ah! my poor friend, so I find you again! What trials!”

She has pardoned.

Monsieur Dubois dries his eyes, not knowing what to say; his flown discourse leaves him speechless.

Bending towards one of the little parcels which she lifts, Madame du Boys, serpentine and coy, murmurs:

“I have thought of you, dear one, I bring you a box of cigars.”

Entragues was greatly amused by this unforseen denouement. He was just finishing the draught of a sketch when the bell rang; it was a letter with a handwriting unknown to him. The wording was brief:

“Monsieur d’Entragues is expected this evening to give a commentary on his Dream. Only auditors: the four walls and Sixtine Magne.”

Two joyful tidings already, and it was not yet midday. It was only at this hour that his scanty correspondence was brought him, for the precious mornings could not be troubled by the intrusion of the external problematical world. Even amid a quite feverish contentment, he did not regret the instructions he had given once for all; Sixtine’s letter came at a moment when he could think at leisure and without remorse. His pleasure was manifested by a vivacity of movement altogether juvenile; a semblance of adolescence surged from his precocious maturity. Though he generally was incapable of giving a clear account of his impressions, he felt himself rejuvenated, and this astonished him. He walked about with lively quick movements.