I must talk to my dear Olivier, and make certain of a perch—at any rate a temporary one. Olivier, my friend, the time has come for me to put your good-fellowship to the test, and for you to show your mettle. The fine thing about our friendship so far has been that we have never made any use of one another. Pooh! it can’t be unpleasant to ask a favour that’s amusing to grant. The tiresome thing is that Olivier won’t be alone. Never mind! I shall have to take him aside. I want to appal him by my calm. It’s when things are most extraordinary that I feel most at home.”

The street where Bernard Profitendieu had lived until then was quite close to the Luxembourg Gardens. There, in the path that overlooks the Medici fountains, some of his schoolfellows were in the habit of meeting every Wednesday afternoon, between four and six. The talk was of art, philosophy, sport, politics and literature. Bernard walked to the gardens quickly, but as soon as he caught sight of Olivier Molinier through the railings, he slackened his pace. The gathering that day was more numerous than usual—because of the fine weather, no doubt. Some of the boys who were there were newcomers, whom Bernard had never seen before. Every one of them, as soon as he was in company with the others, lost his naturalness and began to act a part.

Olivier blushed when he saw Bernard coming up. He left the side of a young woman to whom he had been talking and walked away a little abruptly. Bernard was his most intimate friend, so that he took great pains not to show that he liked being with him; sometimes he would even pretend not to see him.

Before joining him, Bernard had to run the gauntlet of several groups and, as he himself affected not to be looking for Olivier, he lingered among the others.

Four of his schoolfellows were surrounding a little fellow with a beard and a pince-nez, who was perceptibly older than the rest. This was Dhurmer. He was holding a book and addressing one boy in particular, though at the same time he was obviously delighted that the others were listening.

“I can’t help it,” he was saying, “I’ve got as far as page thirty without coming across a single colour or a single word that makes a picture. He speaks of a woman and I don’t know whether her dress was red or blue. As far as I’m concerned, if there are no colours, it’s useless, I can see nothing.” And feeling that the less he was taken in earnest, the more he must exaggerate, he repeated: “—absolutely nothing!”

Bernard stopped attending; he thought it would be ill-mannered to walk away too quickly, but he began to listen to some others who were quarrelling behind him and who had been joined by Olivier after he had left the young woman; one of them was sitting on a bench, reading L’Action Française.

Amongst all these youths how grave Olivier Molinier looks! And yet he was one of the youngest. His face, his expression, which are still almost a child’s, reveal a mind older than his years. He blushes easily. There is something tender about him. But however gracious his manners, some kind of secret reserve, some kind of sensitive delicacy, keeps his schoolfellows at a distance. This is a grief to him. But for Bernard, it would be a greater grief still.

Molinier, like Bernard, had stayed a minute or two with each of the groups—out of a wish to be agreeable, not that anything he heard interested him. He leant over the reader’s shoulder, and Bernard, without turning round, heard him say:

“You shouldn’t read the papers—they’ll give you apoplexy.”

The other replied tartly: “As for you, the very name of Maurras makes you turn green.”

A third boy asked, deridingly: “Do Maurras’s articles amuse you?”

And the first answered: “They bore me bloody well stiff, but I think he’s right.”

Then a fourth, whose voice Bernard didn’t recognize: “Unless a thing bores you, you think there’s no depth in it.”

“You seem to think that one’s only got to be stupid to be funny.”

“Come along,” whispered Bernard, suddenly seizing Olivier by the arm and drawing him aside. “Answer quickly. I’m in a hurry. You told me you didn’t sleep on the same floor as your parents?”

“I’ve shown you the door of my room.