Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [85]
VAINQUEURS NOUS LES VAINQUEURS. I started from my seat. I looked again at the notice which said PRIX GONCOURT. There could be no doubt about it. I paid my bill and went and stood by the window, while under my eyes the message was repeated ten, a hundred, five hundred times. Jean Pierre Breteuil NOUS LES VAINQUEURS. The mountain of books rose slowly in front of me; there was not one dissentient voice. It rose to a peak. The last book was put in place on the very top, and then the shop assistants came crowding out to see how it looked from the front. The name and the title swam before my eyes, and I turned away. It was only then that it struck me as shocking that my predominant emotion was distress. It was a distress, too, which went so deep that I was at first at a loss to understand it. I walked at random trying to sort the matter out. I was of course very surprised to find Jean Pierre in the role of a Goncourt winner. The Goncourt jury, that constellation of glorious names, might sometimes err, but they would never make a crass or fantastic mistake. That their coronation of Jean Pierre represented a moment of sheer insanity was a theory which I could set aside. I had not read the book. The alternative remained open, and the more I reflected the more it appeared to be the only alternative, that Jean Pierre had at last written a good novel. I stood still in the middle of the pavement. Why was this absolutely unbearable? Why should it matter to me so much that Jean Pierre had pulled it off? I went to a caf�nd ordered cognac. To say that I was jealous was to put it too simply. I felt an indignant horror as at some monstrous reversal of the order of nature: as a man might feel if his favourite opinion was suddenly controverted in detail by a chimpanzee. I had classed Jean Pierre once and for all. That he should secretly have been changing his spots, secretly improving his style, ennobling his thought, purifying his emotions: all this was really too bad. In my imagination I was already lending the book every possible virtue, and the more I did so the more I felt a mingled rage and distress which drove every other idea from my mind. I ordered another cognac. Jean Pierre had no right to turn himself surreptitiously into a good writer. I felt that I had been the victim of an imposture, a swindle. For years I had worked for this man, using my knowledge and sensibility to turn his junk into the sweet English tongue; and now, without warning me, he sets up shop as a good writer. I pictured Jean Pierre with his plump hands and his short grey hair. How could I introduce into this picture, which I had known so well for so long, the notion of a good novelist? It wrenched me, like the changing of a fundamental category. A man whom I had taken on as a business partner had turned out to be a rival in love. One thing was plain. Since it was now impossible to treat with Jean Pierre cynically it was impossible to treat with him at all. Why should I waste time transcribing his writings instead of producing my own? I would never translate Nous Les Vainqueurs. Never, never, never. It was striking ten before I remembered Madge. I took a taxi to her hotel, and as I went my rage was curdling inside me and turning into a sort of rash vigour, which hardened my sinews and lifted my head. I did not slink into the Hotel Prince de Cl�s as I would normally have done. I strode in, making receptionists and porters cower. They did not need to affect to ignore, for I think they truly did not see, the leather patches on my elbows, such is the power of the human eye when it darts forth its fire. I commanded to be led to Madge; and in a moment or two I was at her door. The door opened, and I saw Madge reclining on a chaise-longue in an attitude which she had clearly taken up some time ago in expectation of my arrival. The door was closed softly behind me as behind a prince. I looked down at Madge; and it came to me that I was more pleased to see her than I had ever been before. Under my look her dignity dissolved, and I could see unfolded in her face how deeply