And so, despite the solemnity of the surroundings, many women smiled at Hubert. He didn't see them. His mother's words had thrust him into a state of profound shock from which he still hadn't emerged. Philippe's death was tearing him apart. He had returned to that terrible state of mind he felt when France was falling, before the desperate and vain battle of Moulins. "If we were all the same," he thought, looking over the congregation, "if we were all pigs and dogs, then it might be understandable. But saints like Philippe, why are they sent here? If it's to save us, to make up for our sins, it's like offering a pearl in exchange for a bag of stones."
The people around him, his family, his friends, aroused a feeling of shame and rage within him. He had seen them on the road, them and people like them: he recalled the cars full of officers running away with their beautiful yellow trunks and their painted women, civil servants abandoning their posts, panic-stricken politicians dropping files of secret papers along the road, young girls, who had diligently wept the day the armistice was signed, being comforted in the arms of the Germans. "And to think that no one will know, that there will be such a conspiracy of lies that all this will be transformed into yet another glorious page in the history of France. We'll do everything we can to find acts of devotion and heroism for the official records. Good God! To see what I've seen! Closed doors where you knock in vain to get a glass of water and refugees who pillaged houses; everywhere, everywhere you look, chaos, cowardice, vanity and ignorance! What a wonderful race we are!"
Meanwhile, he was absently following the service, his heart so heavy and hard that it caused him physical pain. Several times he sighed gruffly, which worried his mother. She turned towards him, her eyes shining with tears through her black veil. "Are you in pain?" she whispered.
"No, Mother," he replied, looking at her so coldly that he reproached himself for it, but he couldn't help it.
He judged his family with bitterness and a painful harshness. His grievances whirled around in his mind in the form of brief, violent images, without him being able to express them clearly: his father calling the Republic "this decaying regime…" but that same evening, twenty-four places set for dinner at their apartment, with their most beautiful tablecloths, wonderful foie gras and expensive wines, all in honour of a former minister who might be re-elected and might therefore be useful to Monsieur Péricand (God, his mother's tight little mouth saying, "Oh, my dear Minister…"); their cars full to bursting with fine linen and silver caught up among the refugees, and his mother, pointing to women and children forced to walk with just a few bits of clothing wrapped up in a piece of cloth, saying, "Do you see how good our Lord Jesus is? Just think, we could be those unfortunate wretches!" Hypocrites, frauds!
And what about him? What was he doing here? His heart full of disgust and hatred, he was just pretending to pray for Philippe. But Philippe was… My God! Philippe, my beloved brother! He whispered these words and, as if they had some divine power to console, his painful heart relented. Warm tears flooded down his cheeks. Thoughts of kindness, forgiveness, ran through him. They did not come from within him but from beyond, as if some friend had leaned down to whisper in his ear, "A family that produced Philippe can't be all bad. You're being too harsh. You've only seen things from the outside, you can't look into their souls. Evil is visible, it burns, it smugly displays itself for all to see. There is only One who can count the sacrifices, who can measure all the blood and tears."
He looked at the marble plaque engraved with the names of those who had died in the war… the last war. Among them were some Craquants and Péricands-uncles, cousins he'd never known, children barely older than he, killed at the Somme, Flanders, Verdun, killed twice since they had died in vain. Little by little, out of this chaos of contradictory feelings, was born a strange, bitter feeling of peace. He had gained valuable experience, knowledge; no longer in an abstract, bookish way, but in his heart, which had beat so wildly, in his hands which had been torn to shreds trying to defend the bridge at Moulins, in his lips which had kissed a woman while the Germans celebrated their victory. Danger, courage, fear, love: now he knew the real meaning of these words… Yes, even love… He felt better now, stronger, and very confident. He would never see the world through anyone else's eyes again. But more than that, anything he might love and believe from now on would come from himself, and no one else. Slowly, he put his hands together, lowered his head and, finally, prayed.
The Mass was over. Outside the cathedral he was surrounded by people wanting to kiss him and congratulate his mother.
"And he still has those lovely cheeks," the women all said, "after all he's been through… He's hardly lost any weight, he hasn't changed at all. Dear little Hubert…"
27
Gabriel Corte and Florence arrived at the Grand Hotel at seven o'clock in the morning. Collapsing with exhaustion, they looked around fearfully, as if they expected, once through the revolving doors, to plunge back into the nightmare of an incoherent world, with refugees sleeping on the cream carpets of the writing room, a hotel manager who didn't recognise them and refused to give them a room, no hot water for a bath and bombs falling in the lobby. But, thank God, this Queen of French spas had remained intact and the feverish, noisy activity at the lake was simply the way it always was. All the staff were in place. Despite the manager's insistence that they were short of everything, the coffee was delicious, the cocktails were mixed with crushed ice and the taps poured out as much water as you liked, cold and boiling hot. At first everyone had been worried: the unfriendly attitude of England made them fear that the blockade would remain in place, thus depriving them of fresh supplies of whisky, but they had a large quantity in stock. They could wait.
As soon as they set foot on the marble floor of the lobby, Gabriel and Florence felt they had been reborn. Everything was calm. You could barely hear the distant whirring of the great lifts. Through the open bay windows, misty, shimmering rainbows created by the hotel's water sprinklers hovered over the lawns. They were recognised and surrounded. The manager of the Grand Hotel, where they had stayed every year for twenty years, raised his arms to heaven and told them it was all over; they had glimpsed the bottom of the abyss, but now they had to try to restore some sense of duty and nobility in the people. Then he confided in them that they were expecting members of the government to arrive at any moment (their suites had been reserved the previous day), and that the ambassador of Bolivia was having to sleep on a billiard table. However, for him, Gabriel Corte, he would always manage to find something (more or less the same words he had used as a newly promoted deputy manager of the Normandy Hotel in Deauville at the height of the racing season).
Corte wearily passed his hand over his painful forehead. "My good man, you could put a mattress in the lavatory if you had to!"
All around him, everything was taking place in an appropriately discreet manner. There were no more women giving birth in a ditch, no more lost children, no more bridges blown up with such ill-calculated amounts of dynamite that they demolished the houses nearby. Here, windows were politely closed to keep out draughts, doors were opened for him, he felt plush carpets beneath his feet.
"Do you have all your luggage? You didn't lose anything? What luck! People have been arriving without pyjamas, without even a toothbrush. There was one unfortunate gentleman who arrived with no clothes on. He was wounded in an explosion and made the entire journey from Tours completely naked, with only a blanket round him."
"Well, I nearly lost my manuscripts," said Corte.