Before yesterday’s sightseeing tour, and after, in the fleeting moments that they had alone, Denise had finally made it clear to Claude that if he dared to see Gisèle Jordan for so much as an hour, tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, in Copenhagen, it would mean an immediate separation and divorce. And more than that, Denise had warned her husband, knowing his main vulnerability, his bourgeois fear of disgrace, she would make the separation a public matter through the press before the final Nobel Award Ceremony.
Her threat had been delivered so passionately that Claude did not doubt her or attempt to conciliate her, as he had been doing, with vague promises of working out their problem in the future. He had vowed, invoked the name of the Lord, that there would be no assignation with his mannequin in Copenhagen.
Yet, sitting here now-they had not had time on yesterday’s tour to visit the place where they had been voted their chemistry prize, and Jacobsson had informally invited them over for this morning-Denise felt no relief from or security in her husband’s fervent promise. She wanted a guarantee. She could conceive of none. He had proved before she had discovered the affair, and again following it, that the flesh was weak. The arrival of his young mistress tomorrow, in a location only an hour or two away, would be a temptation.
Denise remembered the visit to Balenciaga, remembered the lithe ash-blonde with the high cheekbones and pouting lips and sensuous walk, and remembering this, she knew that Copenhagen might just as well be a room adjacent to their suite in the Grand Hotel of Stockholm. What bothered her was a hypothesis, with no scientific evidence to support it, that if her husband copulated with his mistress on this trip, in glamorous surroundings, their relationship would become permanent and unbreakable, and all Denise’s hopes would be in vain. Claude had given his word that this would not occur. Denise wanted not his word but a bond.
She became aware that Jacobsson’s conversation with Craig was almost at an end. Apparently, Craig had come around and was ready to conform to his schedule. Jacobsson was reminding him of the place of his lectures.
‘Do you recall the situation of the Swedish Academy, Mr. Craig?’ Jacobsson was asking. ‘There was a large auditorium-the Stock Exchange Hall-right before we went into the voting-room. Well, that is where you will be taken for both addresses. I am positive you will not regret it. Many of those students are promising writers, and all are tremendously appreciative of advice from a great author. As to your remaining schedule, I shall send you another copy of the programme for yourself. There are other events you will have to remember to attend. We do not wish to overwhelm our honoured guests, but you can understand the demand for their presence… Yes, any time, Mr. Craig. I am here to serve you. And thank you very much.’
For want of anything better to do, Denise Marceau had listened attentively to the last of Count Jacobsson’s telephone conversation. During the last of it, something creative had begun to arouse itself inside her head, something useful, something hopeful. The exact moment that Jacobsson’s receiver had clicked into place, Denise had been struck by an idea. Quite by accident, Craig’s call to Jacobsson had given Denise Marceau what she had sought since yesterday-the guarantee that would keep her husband apart from Gisèle Jordan, at least for the critical present.
Jacobsson had set the telephone to one side of his desk, and now he swivelled his chair towards the Marceaus.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘and I am grateful for your patience. I can sympathize with Mr. Craig. There are days when our programme does seem heavy.’
‘I do not find it so,’ said Denise quickly. ‘I feel that when one is abroad little more than a week, one owes it to oneself and one’s hosts to put every moment to use.’
‘I wish everyone was as-’ Jacobsson began to say.
‘As a matter of fact, Count Jacobsson,’ Denise hurried on, ‘I do not think my husband and I have enough to do here. I am sure Claude agrees with me-’
Taken unawares, Claude was too perplexed with her opinion to make any comment.
‘-and that was why I wanted to request a favour of you this morning,’ continued Denise to Jacobsson. ‘I should have brought it up the first day. Perhaps you will think it presumptuous.’
‘Anything, anything,’ said Jacobsson.
‘I notice by the programme, we have two unoccupied evenings in the next three days. There is the Hammarlund dinner tomorrow, and then the two free evenings. Also, there is one open afternoon. Claude and I would like something scheduled for those times. Nothing frivolous. Rather, appointments that would bring closer ties between us and your scientists in Scandinavia.’
Jacobsson clucked his approval. ‘Most admirable of you, Dr. Marceau. I had turned aside many invitations tendered to you for fear that you might be exhausted.’
‘Not at all,’ said Denise firmly. ‘We are eager to meet as many Swedish chemists and Nobel personnel as possible. You cannot keep us too busy.’
Dimly at first, and now clearly at last, Claude perceived his wife’s strategy. Since he had had no intention of seeing Gisèle in Copenhagen-it had seemed unnecessarily risky when he had considered it in bed last night-there was no reason for Denise to build this cage of activity around him. It was wearisome and foolish. ‘Denise,’ he said quietly, ‘are you not being over-ambitious? I want to participate as much as you do. But I will not have you tax yourself to the limit.’
Denise flashed her husband a hypocritical smile, and returned to Jacobsson. ‘Is he not considerate, Count? He has always been thus. It has made our collaboration possible.’
Jacobsson had tried to understand the nuances of the exchange between the couple, but without further information, he could not have full understanding, and so he gave the lady the benefit of the doubt. ‘I shall contact the Royal Institute of Technology,’ he said, ‘and the Institute of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at the University of Stockholm. They had been pressing for you to conduct a seminar. However’-he glanced at Claude Marceau’s weary face, and offered him a palliative-‘if you should have a change of heart, find the strain too much, I can always cancel the meetings I intend to arrange.’
‘We will not have a change of heart,’ said Denise firmly. ‘Inform us of our new schedule, and we will both comply.’ She opened her bag for a cigarette. ‘Enough of that. Before the telephone rang, you were speaking of the first chemistry award.’
‘Ah, yes, yes,’ said Jacobsson, relieved to be returned to a subject less controversial. ‘I was trying to brief you on the background of the chemistry award, before showing you the conference room where the Nobel Committee for Chemistry debated your candidacy this past year.’ He tilted back in his chair, his fingertips touching and hands making a pyramid on his chest. ‘As I was saying earlier, Alfred Nobel left one-fifth of the interest on his prize fund to the person or persons “who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement”. That was all the guidance that he gave us. In 1900, the Academy of Science sent letters to ten institutions and to three hundred well-known scientists in every corner of the world, inviting them to make nominations for the first Nobel Prize in chemistry. Out of this, only twenty nominations were made and of these, eleven suggested the name of one man-Jacobus Hendricus van’t Hoff, of the Netherlands, who had founded stereo-chemistry, as you know. He became the first chemistry laureate. Our choice was universally praised.’
Jacobsson was lost in thought a moment. ‘In those early years, we committed only one serious blunder in chemistry. We neglected the American, Professor Willard Gibbs of Yale University.’