He could be accused of coldness, of indifference; he did not mind because all that concerned him was this haste that had until now spoilt love for him. Only Hedwige mattered; he was concerned purely for her, he cared for her alone, and he wanted to be good and humane with her. If she moved too slowly for him, he would wait for her; if he succeeded in taking her in hand, in urging her on without rushing her, he would raise her to his own speed, but by degrees. By taking her time, nature managed to transform reptiles into creatures that flew. Without risking Hedwige stumbling, he would teach her to fly. The plundering of a besieged body, the conquering caresses, the honourable wounds are a thing and a pleasure of the moment, but when what is at stake is an entire lifetime, one must set one’s watch by eternity.
Hedwige was waiting: it was certainly her turn. She watched respectfully, with all her solicitous strength, this future that she was embarking upon, this moment that society and novels trumpeted, one that she had not craved and which had crept up on her unawares. A new life was beginning for her under the gaze of this man who was a stranger, a gentle savage and a person of such terrible rapidity who would descend on her in a torrent and, with masterly precision and elemental ardour, sweep her away to goodness knows where.
Her heart beating behind the white partition, she was waiting and it seemed a long time to her, as long as boredom, toothache, insomnia and all those machines that whiled away the hours. Why did lightning not strike? “I should like it to be all over already,” she thought.
One evening, she tiptoed into Pierre’s bedroom to watch him sleeping, hoping that his stillness would betray him and reveal the secret of his strength or his weakness. The mystery of a person asleep behind that closed door seemed deeper to her than ever and it frightened her. She watched him curled up into a ball, his thumbs tucked into the palms of his hands like a small child, tangled up in his sheets, no longer knocking anything down as he passed, no longer whirling around except in dreams from which she was excluded. For the first time ever, she wondered who Pierre was and why he loved her, and she realized that what she had exchanged with him were vows, not secrets, and rings that were merely bands and not keys.
Since she was straightforward and direct, she put the question to him first thing the following morning:
“Who are you, Pierre?”
He opened his eyes in astonishment; we are always surprised when others are not satisfied with the image we present to them.
“I am the person I am to be,” he said, laughing.
But Hedwige was frowning and peering at him searchingly.
“Do you realize that I know nothing at all about you, your parents, your friends, your past life, your family history, your character?”
“I have neither parents nor friends; my character is as easy to fathom as the nose on my face, and I’ve forgotten my past because you were not part of it; in any case everything to do with yesterday bores me, I’ve only ever written one sonnet and that was in praise of tomorrow.”
“Oh Pierre,” said Hedwige, “you’re not taking me seriously!”
She looked so upset that he relented immediately.
“Well, I do have one friend, an old pal named Placide who knows me so well that he fell out with me; but we made up later. He even sent me a beautiful silver and crocodile sponge bag for my wedding. I’ll bring him to meet you for lunch. You can ask him all the questions you please. Pretend to make some unpleasant remarks, the normal number of treacherous things that figure in what’s called ‘a perceptive friendship’, and you’ll learn more about me than I know myself.”
“I need Roustoutzeff’s book on Animal Style in South Russia and China (Princeton, 1926); it should be there; could you find it for me, dear Placide, while I finish this monograph?”
“I’ll come and help you,” said Hedwige.
They had finished lunch and were taking coffee in Pierre’s study.
“A monograph?” asked Placide.
“Yes,” said Pierre, “and it would actually be of interest to both of you. I’m writing something about the cloister, which after all I owe in part to both of you. It’s come from the United States.”
Placide and Hedwige were on their knees, picking up large volumes, knocking down stacks of books and arranging them any old how.
“Ah! Here it is,” said Hedwige, laying her hands on the copy and, extremely pleased with herself, taking it to Pierre.
“Thank you, my love,” answered Pierre distractedly, for he was already stuck into Gourhan’s Bestiary of Chinese Bronze. “It’s been superseded.”
“Ah, now that’s typical of your husband,” exclaimed Placide. “‘Superseded’. It’s one of his favourite expressions. He asks you for something, you go to great lengths to find it and then when you give it to him, he’s already found something better. I can’t recall one single occasion when I’ve been able to do a favour for him in time. ‘Superseded’,” he repeated, shrugging his shoulders. “I know some people who mean a lot to you and who say: it’s been surpassed. But your way of going farther back is to go farther away.”
“Yes, it’s true,” said Hedwige, “he’s marvellous. He’s a magician.”
“I don’t share that view,” Placide replied. “He’s fairly successful, but not in his chosen career. He was made to be an office runner, a motorcycle delivery man, an arbitrager, a screenwriter, a switchboard operator, anything you like, but not a collector of period objects. Period pieces have true values and true values pay no heed to haste. ‘Time does not respect what is done without it.’ You can be sure that objects like this, which have endured for three thousand years, have been created gradually.”
He showed Hedwige a shapeless block of mouldy stone, a lump of excavated jade depicting a wild boar.
“Is that a period piece?” asked Hedwige, intrigued. “It doesn’t look like a work of art.”
“You don’t have to have taste to recognize the art of the Middle Ages,” replied Pierre, who had finished writing and was stretched out on his sofa, blowing the smoke from his cigar up to the ceiling. “But I must respond to Placide… in actual fact, a primitive work of art represents countless hours of work and that is what makes it priceless for me. I think of the ordinary man who has put his heart and his strength into it, of the woman, of the family who have sacrificed their eyes to embroider that chasuble or this shroud. But please believe me when I say that those people worked quickly, the time element was not wasted. It’s just that their sense of speed was not ours. A fine piece of material, of gold or silverware, it’s the equivalent of a thousand ploughed and sowed fields, of more than a hundred forests that have been cleared, it accounts for more hardship and time expended than the longest illness. And what wretched tools they used! When I contemplate a piece of ivory or enamelware, it’s as if I were reaching out my hand to all those who made it, owned it and sold it again and again over the centuries: I can hear them, they speak to me. The initial shock you get from a work of art is a psychic one, next comes the technical examination, the patina, the holes caused by woodworm, and other absurdities. The first thing a work of art does is yell at you from afar that it has lived. It projects its own aura before it.”
Placide gave an ironic smile:
“I was a student at the École des Chartes. I have a magnifying glass for an eye and always will have. But in your case, we know you have a hawk’s eye assisted by the sensibility of a clairvoyant.”
“It’s simply that I don’t have the guts to go round in circles, as you all do, without becoming seasick. For you, life is a cycle; for me it’s a flat spiral, Goethe’s spiral; you don’t get out of it by turning back; the backwards gallop is a false revolution, a curators’ revolution; you have to run speedily to the end of each period in order to rise higher. In France (a land that was quick once), we have become prolix and apathetic; the day we rediscover our traditional pace, in a new Middle Ages period, we shall produce more Princesses de Clèves and Manon Lescauts, we shall discover Molières who will churn out their plays, Pascals who will dash off their pamphlets. It’s not through eighteen-volume novels by Madame de Charrière that France will make her mark on posterity, it’s through small portable bombs such as Candide or Atala.”