“What is it?”
“I beg you to be patient.”
“But of course, I’m bound to be! I’ll be stoical.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“No stamping about, no shouting if I’m late, or inundating police stations with phone calls.”
“All right.”
“No behaving like a compass that’s lost its bearings.”
“Very well.”
“No losing me in the street and walking miles in front of me, hunched up like a racing cyclist.”
“OK.”
“No lighting the fire just to make toast.”
“Agreed.”
“No getting angry when the starter doesn’t work.”
“It goes without saying.”
“No smashing up things when they don’t give way.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone would think it was a business agreement.”
Hedwige burst out laughing.
“No, a peace treaty and a pact… for months, dear Pierre, I’m going to be lethargic, a slowcoach, frequently disheartened, clumsy and shapeless. You’ll have to give me credit…”
“Unlimited credit!”
“You’re going to try to live properly, by which I mean respect the present moment. In that way, we’ll manage to…”
“It’s not me who’s speaking in the future, this time, it’s you. You’ll see, Hedwige, I am curable, I’m going to start all over again, I’m going to slow down, I’ll dawdle; you’ll be amazed. Come and sit beside me.”
“Suppose we go down first of all? I’m feeling a bit cold.”
They sat side by side on the sofa. Wanting to be useful, Pierre threw some coal into the fireplace, lay flat on his tummy to use the bellows, and was obliged to open the windows wide to get rid of the smoke. They felt even colder, but gradually everything improved. Hedwige snuggled up. Pierre jumped up and down, buzzed about and made a lot of noise.
“What’s happened to us is wonderful! I was so nervous just now, so far from realizing what awaited me, Hedwige, that I haven’t thanked you properly. My dearest one! What variety there is in our marriage! No one day is like another. It’s like a mad canter through life. I’m totally overwhelmed with happiness!”
“Don’t stride about the flat like that, Pierre, or I’m going to feel ill.”
“Already? It’s even sweeter cherishing plans than it is cherishing a woman. Let’s see: if it’s a girl, we’ll call her Laurentine… or Micheline…”
“Still this need to act quickly!”
“… or Gervaise.”
“And if it’s a boy?”
“I’ll call him Rustique,” said Pierre immediately. “I like Rustique.”
“How ghastly!”
The lunch hour had long passed and they were still musing about the future, mortgaging it. Pierre was talking nonsense and daydreaming, while Hedwige was, even now, having some difficulty in trying to follow him.
At two o’clock, they felt hungry. Pierre rang Prunier’s, interspersing his order with his plans.
“Hello! Passy 17–87?… Where will you give birth?… Could you send me a lobster?… I’ll be the one who rocks it in the cradle.”
“At least wait until you have rung off. Prunier’s are likely to send you a pair of baby-scales.”
“Will you let me cradle it?”
“Oh no! You would demolish it!”
“We shall have a nickel-plated pram with mudguards. I shall push it myself.”
“You’d race with it.”
“Wait for me. I’m going down to get some champagne from the cellar. I’ll be back up in a jiffy.”
Pierre opened the door abruptly without bothering to close it, leapt down two flights of stairs and came back up again.
“Hedwige, I love you.”
Once again, he was out of the room. Once again, the stairs could be heard creaking beneath his weight. He retraced his steps and, taking Hedwige by the wrists, said:
“All I have to give you is my time: it’s entirely yours.”
Returning from the cellar, he seized Hedwige, he made her dance, he lifted her into the air, he ripped her blouse and messed up her hair. He hummed “Blanche-Neige” and sang “Les Dragons de Villars” at the top of his voice, while at the same time juggling with the plates and laying the tablecloth, making jerky and comic movements, as they do in the music halls.
“Hedwige,” he said solemnly, brandishing a large loaf of bread, “you have given me what I want most in the world!”
“A child?”
“Better than that, some prospects.”
CHAPTER XVIII
ONE MORNING, on waking, Pierre received a letter from Doctor Regencrantz:
Monsieur Velocipedist,
The last time I saw you, I informed of you of my imminent departure for Palestine. I was only waiting for a visa for Honduras. Honduras refused me one. Your regulations having forbidden me to practise medicine in France, in order to earn my living, I joined a woollen broker’s firm in Roubaix. Since then, I have been hopping from one job to another, as the hamadryad jumps from branch to branch, but like it I am sure of reaching the end of the forest.
For the time being, I am up to my neck in marmalade during the daytime, and at night I continue my scientific work in France’s third largest city, which is Bordeaux. What made me choose this city is that I know the Korean consul there, who has hopes of obtaining a Korean visa for me so that I can leave your beautiful country. I shall arrive in Paris a week on Saturday in order to put my affairs in order with your administrative authorities. May I call in to see you… if you are not rushing around too much? I have often thought of you. Have you displayed any fine symptoms of overexcitement recently? I wish you much happiness, by which I mean the quickest thing in the world, which is the Idea.
With my sincere good wishes, Monsieur Velocipedist.
Regencrantz.
PS The fakirs, who are motionless by definition, chose as a yardstick for the greatest speed imaginable the Idea, which they call mano-java. Mano-java goes around the planet far more quickly than the Hertzian wave: that is why I hope you go faster than the mano-java. R
“That good old Regencrantz!” said Pierre aloud.
“What?” Hedwige, still sleepy, murmured lazily. She turned her head towards her husband without opening her eyes. She was prolonging that moment of bliss when, like those goddesses in tapestries supported by cupids, she was hovering in the sky borne on the interwoven arms of all those whom she loved: Mamicha, Pierre, Angélique, Fromentine.
How happy she had been during the past fortnight! How delightful Pierre had become! How those momentarily closed hearts at Saint-Germain had reopened for her, the ungrateful but repentant daughter who had thought she could lead her life without motherly help… A mother wise and good, an omniscient mother, Mamicha had smoothed out everything, resolved everything. One night was all she needed. Having arrived the previous day, exhausted, disappointed and drained, Hedwige had set off again the next morning fortified and equipped once more with that surprising sense of security she felt when she was with her mother; it even seemed that, from a distance, Bonne had exerted her magical effect on Pierre, for he was transformed.
“What?” said Hedwige once more, without moving, so that she did not have to wake up completely.
Pierre handed Regencrantz’s letter to her.
“I’ll invite him to lunch,” he said.
“Who?”
“Regencrantz. He’s a Jewish doctor.”
“Did he look after you?”
“No, but I interest him.”
“Then he’s the one who needs to be looked after,” said Hedwige, making a charming expression.