Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

“It can’t be about me you are pulling that long face!” He found, when he turned, that Valentin was lying in the same position; but his eyes were open, and he was even trying to smile. It was with a very slender strength that he returned the pressure of Newman’s hand. “I have been watching you for a quarter of an hour,” Valentin went on; “you have been looking as black as thunder. You are greatly disgusted with me, I see. Well, of course! So am I!”

“Oh, I shall not scold you,” said Newman. “I feel too badly. And how are you getting on?”

“Oh, I’m getting off! They have quite settled that; haven’t they?”

“That’s for you to settle; you can get well if you try,” said Newman, with resolute cheerfulness.

“My dear fellow, how can I try? Trying is violent exercise, and that sort of thing isn’t in order for a man with a hole in his side as big as your hat, that begins to bleed if he moves a hair’s-breadth. I knew you would come,” he continued; “I knew I should wake up and find you here; so I’m not surprised. But last night I was very impatient. I didn’t see how I could keep still until you came. It was a matter of keeping still, just like this; as still as a mummy in his case. You talk about trying; I tried that! Well, here I am yet — these twenty hours. It seems like twenty days.” Bellegarde talked slowly and feebly, but distinctly enough. It was visible, however, that he was in extreme pain, and at last he closed his eyes. Newman begged him to remain silent and spare himself; the doctor had left urgent orders. “Oh,” said Valentin, “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow — to-morrow”— and he paused again. “No, not to-morrow, perhaps, but today. I can’t eat and drink, but I can talk. What’s to be gained, at this pass, by renun — renunciation? I mustn’t use such big words. I was always a chatterer; Lord, how I have talked in my day!”

“That’s a reason for keeping quiet now,” said Newman. “We know how well you talk, you know.”

But Valentin, without heeding him, went on in the same weak, dying drawl. “I wanted to see you because you have seen my sister. Does she know — will she come?”

Newman was embarrassed. “Yes, by this time she must know.”

“Didn’t you tell her?” Valentin asked. And then, in a moment, “Didn’t you bring me any message from her?” His eyes rested upon Newman’s with a certain soft keenness.

“I didn’t see her after I got your telegram,” said Newman. “I wrote to her.”

“And she sent you no answer?”

Newman was obliged to reply that Madame de Cintre had left Paris. “She went yesterday to Fleurieres.”

“Yesterday — to Fleurieres? Why did she go to Fleurieres? What day is this? What day was yesterday? Ah, then I shan’t see her,” said Valentin, sadly. “Fleurieres is too far!” And then he closed his eyes again. Newman sat silent, summoning pious invention to his aid, but he was relieved at finding that Valentin was apparently too weak to reason or to be curious. Bellegarde, however, presently went on. “And my mother — and my brother — will they come? Are they at Fleurieres?”

“They were in Paris, but I didn’t see them, either,” Newman answered. “If they received your telegram in time, they will have started this morning. Otherwise they will be obliged to wait for the night-express, and they will arrive at the same hour as I did.”

“They won’t thank me — they won’t thank me,” Valentin murmured. “They will pass an atrocious night, and Urbain doesn’t like the early morning air. I don’t remember ever in my life to have seen him before noon — before breakfast. No one ever saw him. We don’t know how he is then. Perhaps he’s different. Who knows? Posterity, perhaps, will know. That’s the time he works, in his cabinet, at the history of the Princesses. But I had to send for them — hadn’t I? And then I want to see my mother sit there where you sit, and say good-by to her. Perhaps, after all, I don’t know her, and she will have some surprise for me. Don’t think you know her yet, yourself; perhaps she may surprise YOU. But if I can’t see Claire, I don’t care for anything. I have been thinking of it — and in my dreams, too. Why did she go to Fleurieres to-day? She never told me. What has happened? Ah, she ought to have guessed I was here — this way. It is the first time in her life she ever disappointed me. Poor Claire!”

“You know we are not man and wife quite yet — your sister and I,” said Newman. “She doesn’t yet account to me for all her actions.” And, after a fashion, he smiled.

Valentin looked at him a moment. “Have you quarreled?”

“Never, never, never!” Newman exclaimed.

“How happily you say that!” said Valentin. “You are going to be happy — VA!” In answer to this stroke of irony, none the less powerful for being so unconscious, all poor Newman could do was to give a helpless and transparent stare. Valentin continued to fix him with his own rather over-bright gaze, and presently he said, “But something is the matter with you. I watched you just now; you haven’t a bridegroom’s face.”

“My dear fellow,” said Newman, “how can I show YOU a bridegroom’s face? If you think I enjoy seeing you lie there and not being able to help you”—

“Why, you are just the man to be cheerful; don’t forfeit your rights! I’m a proof of your wisdom. When was a man ever gloomy when he could say, ‘I told you so?’ You told me so, you know. You did what you could about it. You said some very good things; I have thought them over. But, my dear friend, I was right, all the same. This is the regular way.”

“I didn’t do what I ought,” said Newman. “I ought to have done something else.”

“For instance?”

“Oh, something or other. I ought to have treated you as a small boy.”

“Well, I’m a very small boy, now,” said Valentin. “I’m rather less than an infant. An infant is helpless, but it’s generally voted promising. I’m not promising, eh? Society can’t lose a less valuable member.”

Newman was strongly moved. He got up and turned his back upon his friend and walked away to the window, where he stood looking out, but only vaguely seeing. “No, I don’t like the look of your back,” Valentin continued. “I have always been an observer of backs; yours is quite out of sorts.”

Newman returned to his bedside and begged him to be quiet. “Be quiet and get well,” he said. “That’s what you must do. Get well and help me.”

“I told you you were in trouble! How can I help you?” Valentin asked.

“I’ll let you know when you are better. You were always curious; there is something to get well for!” Newman answered, with resolute animation.

Valentin closed his eyes and lay a long time without speaking. He seemed even to have fallen asleep. But at the end of half an hour he began to talk again. “I am rather sorry about that place in the bank. Who knows but what I might have become another Rothschild? But I wasn’t meant for a banker; bankers are not so easy to kill. Don’t you think I have been very easy to kill? It’s not like a serious man. It’s really very mortifying. It’s like telling your hostess you must go, when you count upon her begging you to stay, and then finding she does no such thing. ‘Really — so soon? You’ve only just come!’ Life doesn’t make me any such polite little speech.”

Newman for some time said nothing, but at last he broke out. “It’s a bad case — it’s a bad case — it’s the worst case I ever met. I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but I can’t help it. I’ve seen men dying before — and I’ve seen men shot. But it always seemed more natural; they were not so clever as you. Damnation — damnation! You might have done something better than this. It’s about the meanest winding-up of a man’s affairs that I can imagine!”