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By Root 906 0

had not in fact himself been directly involved, but which they, with the double expansiveness of lovers and of inverts, had related to him, and the result was the immediate arrest of both these gentlemen. But each of them suffered less perhaps at being arrested than at learning—what neither of them had known—that the other was his rival, and the judicial examination revealed that they had an enormous number of other obscure, quotidian rivals, picked up in the street. M. de Charlus and M. d’Argencourt were soon released. So was Morel, because the general’s letter to Saint-Loup was returned to him with the information: “Deceased, killed in action.” Out of respect for the dead man the general so arranged things that Morel was merely sent to the front. He conducted himself bravely there, survived every danger and returned, when the war was over, with the cross which M. de Charlus had in the past vainly solicited for him and which in this indirect fashion was procured for him by the death of Saint-Loup.

I have often thought since then, remembering the croix de guerre which went astray in Jupien’s establishment, that if Saint-Loup had lived, he could easily have got himself elected a deputy in the elections which followed the armistice, thanks to the scum of universal fatuousness which the war left in its wake and the halo which still adhered to military glory. For at that time, if the loss of a finger could abolish centuries of prejudice and allow a man of humble birth to make a brilliant marriage into an aristocratic family, the croix de guerre, even one won by sitting in an office, sufficed for a triumphal election to the Chamber of Deputies, if not to the Académie Française. The election of Saint-Loup, because of his “holy family,” would have caused M. Arthur Meyer to pour out floods of tears and ink. But perhaps he was too sincerely fond of the people to be good at winning their votes, although on account of his quarterings of nobility they would probably have forgiven him his democratic ideas. These he would no doubt have expounded with success before a Chamber composed of aviators. Certainly these heroes would have understood him, and a few other exceptionally intelligent and high-minded men. But thanks to the platitudinous mentality of the National Bloc, the old lags of politics who are invariably re-elected had also turned up again, and such of them as failed to enter a Chamber of aviators solicited, so that they might at least get into the Académie Française, the suffrages of the Marshals, of the President of the Republic, the President of the Chamber, etc. These men would have looked with less favour upon Saint-Loup than they did upon another of Jupien’s habitués, the deputy of Liberal Action, who was once more returned unopposed and who continued to wear the uniform of a territorial officer long after the war had been over. His election was hailed with joy by all the newspapers which had agreed to put his name forward, as well as by the noble and wealthy ladies who now dressed only in rags from feelings of propriety and from fear of taxes, while the gentlemen of the Bourse never stopped buying diamonds, not for their wives but because, having lost all confidence in the credit of any nation, they were seeking refuge in this tangible wealth and as a result sending up the price of De Beers by a thousand francs. All this tomfoolery was not exactly popular, but there was less disposition to blame the National Bloc when suddenly there appeared on the scene the victims of bolshevism, those Grand Duchesses in tatters whose husbands had been assassinated in carts, while their sons after being left to starve and then forced to work in the midst of abuse, had finally been thrown into wells and buried beneath stones because it was believed that they had the plague and might pass it on. Those of them who succeeded in escaping suddenly turned up in Paris.

* * *

The new sanatorium to which I withdrew was no more successful in curing me than the first one, and many years passed before I came away. During the train journey which