Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘Will you do me the pleasure of dining with us?’ Maître Prioré asked, intrigued by Antoine’s Olympian indifference. ‘I mean, with my bookkeeper and myself. And Monsieur as well, of course.’

Jean was not often addressed as ‘Monsieur’, and he looked up at the person who had just disturbed his game.

‘I’ll take you back after dinner,’ Antoine said.

Jean accepted. The auctioneer asked to see a menu and the head waiter. He wanted sole. He had come to Dieppe to eat sole. But before deciding whether he would have them au gratin or meunière , he needed to see them. A lavish choice was presented to him, because they were all very different sizes.

‘Do you have a preference?’ the auctioneer asked for form’s sake, believing that Antoine did not give a damn, as he did not about everything else.

‘Yes. Small. Two hundred and fifty grams at the most, because I like them meunière .’

‘Well all right, meunière you shall have if you like, but have this big fat one instead. It’s truly only here that they have such enormous ones.’

‘No, they’re like that at Oléron too,’ Antoine said, ‘but so fat that they only taste good au gratin , with the skin on. Small ones you skin, they have a more delicate taste. Medium size, you stuff them, which I’m not wild about. I don’t like shallots or peeled shrimps. The stuffing kills the flavour of the fish. Naturally I exclude anything prepared with tomatoes or mushrooms, which is for people who are tired of life, and that’s not the way I feel at all, nor you, I sincerely hope.’

‘No, obviously not. Well then, let’s follow your advice.’

The bookkeeper protested mildly. He wanted a salad with some ham. No one listened to him. On the choice of wine Antoine was equally categorical: there would be no wine. The patron kept a few bottles of a personal reserve of sparkling cider, which survived the summer thanks to a cool and remarkably well-insulated cellar.

‘I’m completely in your hands!’ Maître Prioré said. ‘You’re a true epicure.’

‘Sometimes, though more and more rarely. When I travel, I’m happy with saucisson and red wine.’

‘You travel a good deal for your business, I imagine.’

‘I get around. It’s not exactly business, which I understand nothing about and wish to understand nothing about. Besides, you wouldn’t be here this evening if I had known how to look after myself.’

‘You haven’t even asked me how much the sale this afternoon amounted to.’

‘No, I haven’t, and yet the cheque you’ll hand over represents all that I have left …’

Abandoning his sole, which he had been clumsily picking at, the bookkeeper made a grab for his black ledger, on the bench beside him.

‘We have plenty of time,’ Antoine said.

The auctioneer gestured irritably at his bookkeeper. Antoine du Courseau surprised him, and he was extremely curious to know who this man really was, so untroubled at his separation from his fortune. He tried politics.

‘The Front Populaire has ruined France in the space of three months.’

‘Do you think so?’ Antoine asked, pouring himself some cider. ‘I don’t. Money’s being redistributed, that’s all, and I generally think that’s a good thing.’

‘People tell me that the strikes in the armaments industry have driven any number of small companies to the wall.’

‘We’re anachronisms. Others will come and take our place.’

‘Even so, you won’t deny that if things continue as they are, we’ll soon start losing the will to work, even for our children’s sake. Thanks to my father’s hard work I’ve been able to acquire my position, and if I’m not mistaken your own company was founded by your father.’

‘I didn’t manage to hang on to what he left me. He took a lot of trouble for nothing.’

‘A great shame for your own son! Isn’t that right, young man?’

‘I’m not Monsieur du Courseau’s son,’ Jean said.

Maître Prioré began to feel uncomfortable. Plain speaking and platitudes generally worked much better than this. He had aimed too low, thinking he was dealing with an unsophisticated Norman ruined by his own stupidity, and discovered that beneath his provincial appearance Antoine concealed a profound well of contempt. The auctioneer was annoyed, and could not see how to backtrack easily and show that he was the kind of man he felt himself to be (and in reality was, with a slight self-over-estimation that was normal in his smooth-tongued profession): a connoisseur of dependable taste, possibly the best expert he knew in English furniture, and a great collector of enamels. It is always difficult to switch from one tone to another when one has made a mistake. Flight is usually the only way out. There is nothing like it for leaving your mistakes behind. They decay, forgotten and alone.

‘Shall we meet tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Is that really necessary? I’d intended to make an early start. I’d like to be at Saint-Tropez in time for dinner.’

‘In which case you’ve no time to lose: it’s 1100 kilometres.’

‘Oh, I can do that in ten hours.’

‘In an Alfa Romeo, I’m guessing?’

‘Absolutely not. A 57S.’

‘A Bugatti?’

‘Who ever told you a 57S was anything other than a Bugatti?’

‘Yes, you’re right of course, forgive me. Which model?’

‘The Atalante.’

The intelligent, cultured auctioneer, at ease with everyone and in every situation, crumbled. He could be criticised for his taste, his collections or his reading matter, but not for his car. He would rather have been cheated on, arrested for a breach of trust, or molested by a meharist in the middle of the desert than bested in his choice of wheels.

‘You’re still loyal to Bugatti!’ he said, with a twisted grin. ‘He’s been finished for four or five years.’

‘Is that so? I wasn’t aware of that. Let’s see, we’re 1936 now: that would mean that Bugatti hasn’t won anything since 1932.’

‘Very minor races, Monsieur.’

‘Achille Varzi made Tazio Nuvolari look pretty foolish in the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix.’

‘An unfortunate mechanical problem!’

‘Oh yes … at the gasometer bend he took the lead from under his nose like no other driver could have done with any other car.’

‘Then Nuvolari overtook him on the hill up to the Casino—’

‘And over-revved his car and sent it up in flames. He had to finish the last lap pushing it. And name me another constructor who has won the Targa Florio five times in a row. Last year the first continental car to win the Brooklands 500 was Earl Howe’s Bugatti. Apart from that, and this year’s ACF Grand Prix, Bugatti is definitely washed-up as a constructor.’

‘That isn’t at all what I was trying to say, my dear Monsieur, but Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Mercedes and Auto-Union are winning everything else.’

‘All of Italy, all of Germany are behind those makes. Bugatti races alone. He’s nothing short of a genius, and in France geniuses are condemned to isolation. But tomorrow I’ll be happy to take you on. Dieppe to Saint-Tropez. Eight o’clock start. The first to arrive wins the bet, as much as you like.’

‘Sadly tomorrow’s impossible. What about Sunday?’

‘I’m not going to sit languishing here from now till Sunday. A thousand regrets! But speak to me no more of Alfa Romeos. It annoys me. Good evening to you, Maître.’

There was nothing superior in his tone, he was just weary. The auctioneer became bad-tempered.

‘You think you know everything!’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Antoine said. ‘Nobody knows anything. I’m simply saying that you don’t compare a Rolls-Royce to a bicycle.’