Young Tellheim is brilliant and pleasant, a rare mixture, Lilstein is fascinated by Tellheim who is only a few years older than he is yet people treat him as if he had already won a Nobel Prize, and Tellheim likes Lilstein a lot, his passion for willing the future lives of others.
He finds Lilstein’s ideas simple but attractive, he promises himself he will read Marx more carefully, just now he doesn’t have all that much time, I’m busy with the structure of the atom, I correspond with Monsieur Nils Bohr, but as soon as he has a moment Tellheim will read the book Lilstein has lent him on the State and the Revolution, he told Lilstein for me communist society is like a large laboratory full of free people.
Lilstein and Tellheim promise to meet up again this summer in Berlin, at the swimming baths, a young Christian philosopher, Moncel, hogs the conversation, science is like a clearing in the dark forest of mystery, man is continually widening the circle which borders the clearing, but at the same time, and by virtue of his efforts, he finds himself in contact with the shadow of the Unknown on a growing number of points.
‘Max,’ asks Madame de Valréas without a glance at Moncel, ‘which do you prefer? The loaves of bread or the guns of the armoured train?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer:
‘Max, be good, why don’t you too tell us a story about relativity?’ Max can no longer bear such drawing-room small talk, right now he’d much rather be at the Six Days, with his friends from the professional cycle track, Grassin, Boucheron, Wambat, the smell of embrocation, ether, dirty bunks, greasy food and ladies’ perfume, last year Wambat had told him: ‘the Six Days slims down me arse.’
Max will also miss the France v. England game, he remains polite, smiling and diffident.
‘Tellheim tells it so much better than I, Baroness.’
‘No! It’s your turn, you annoying man, otherwise I shall wave my wand and turn you into a toad.’
‘Once there was a flock of sheep which…’
‘Max! I know all about this flock of sheep and the artillery fire during the war, you told me all about it last year and it has nothing to do with relativity.’
Madame de Valréas thrusts her palm out in Max’s direction, long fingers spread like a spider’s legs.
‘But Baroness, there was indeed a flock of sheep, but not during the war, no guns, a flock, a hyena, and as much relativity as you could wish for, the hyena prowls round the flock, gruesome creature, the sheep poke fun at the hyena, it comes closer, coat stiff as a long-handled scrubbing brush, it growls, shows its teeth, stinking breath, the rams lower their horns, it backs away, the sheep sing in time “oh the lying beast he’s in love”, the hyena goes looking elsewhere, finds the corpse of an old wolf, enough there to eat for several days, and it gives the hyena an idea, it puts the wolf’s skin on its back and runs back to settle the score with the sheep, panic in the flock, look out! a wolf!’
Hearing shouts people gather round, it’s Max, the French newspaper man, he’s so funny, he’s telling a story about a hyena disguised as a wolf.
Max turns his back to the fireplace, not the one in the library but the one in the bar, an avant-garde fireplace, it is situated in the middle of the room, a concrete bowl three metres across under a circular hood made of brushed steel, a metal used for the manufacture of aeroplanes, with a fire-guard in the form of a fine steel-mesh curtain which hangs down from the hood and encircles the bowl, more a large brazier than a fireplace, it looks very fine but you cannot lean on it like Chateaubriand and hold forth, you are no longer in the centre of the picture, there are little centres everywhere at three hundred and sixty degrees around the brazier, adjacent circles, and people move from one to the next, the circles grow smaller or get bigger according to the relative interest generated.
Max always wants to have the biggest circle, he cries, watch out! a wolf! the sheep flee in a panic, a young ram cries chief it’s not a wolf, chief, listen to me, that’s no wolf, that’s a hyena laughing, it’s only a hyena disguised as a wolf, chief, no need to run away, it’ll make the ewes’ milk curdle, just a hyena, you deal with this with a quick flick of the horns, he starts to slow down, the chief bawls him out, Max also takes the part of the chief, he pumps his arms like a runner, run, imbecile, but chief, run I tell you, everyone knows it’s a hyena but they don’t mind in the least, because in the meantime the wolves will leave us alone, but chief the wolves also know it’s only a hyena, exactly, lad, they hate hyenas, the hyena is pretending, we’re pretending, everyone’s happy, and at the same time we are practising running away for such time as we are confronted by a real wolf, but chief I could settle this hyena’s hash for him, a solid thrust with my horns, I’ll teach him what we sheep have got under our coats, all right go ahead, the hyena will also teach you something, Max turns towards the logs burning in the hearth:
‘I’ve yet to find the right range, my nostalgic voice, do you think it’s better with a traditional fireplace with fire-dogs, mantel, shelf and embossed back-plate? But it’s amusing, being able to look through this steel curtain, I can see the ladies on the other side, through the flames.’
‘You can also see the gentlemen, Max.’
‘True, but I’m more interested in the ladies, with the old style of fireplace, you looked at the flames in the company of a lady.’
‘Now, Max, finish the story!’
‘To hear is to obey, Baroness: Go to it, says the chief ram to the young ram, the hyena will teach you that there are a lot worse things than hyenas disguised as wolves, idiot! And worst of all is the sheep who thinks he’s only disguised as a sheep!’
An embarrassed silence falls upon the listeners, all eyes turn to Madame de Valréas, her ruffled feathers.
‘Max, I fail to see how that story has anything whatsoever to do with relativity.’
A Pole moves to the front, shoulders sideways on:
‘It is very clear to me, the story is a symptom.’
‘Well if it’s a symptom, that obviously changes everything,’ says Madame de Valréas.
She scrutinises the Pole very closely, then moves away from the fireplace.
‘No, wait a moment, Baroness.’
The Pole is afraid he has offended Madame de Valréas, his voice is a mixture of entreaty aimed at her and resentment intended for Max:
‘It is truly a symptom, a symptom of moral relativism, the rationalist cowardice in which Europe has been mired since the eighteenth century, the generalised relativisation of values against which Max does not flinch under the Pole’s scrutiny and interrupts using his grandest manner:
‘I am not at all surprised that you do not care for the boastful sheep, since your country is entirely governed by…’
‘Please, gentlemen, this is a friendly gathering,’ sighs Madame de Valréas.
She takes them both by the hand.
The Pole smiles, kisses the hand of the Baroness, this man Max is exactly what I was told he would be like, he’s been ordered to undermine the reputation of our newly regenerated Poland, he loses his temper the moment anyone denounces moral relativism, he is a Franco-Bolshevik agent, a godless spy, who scoffs at all values, Max smiles at Madame de Valréas, the Baroness places Max’s hand in the hand of the Pole, she is happy, people tell her amusing stories, there is a clash of ideas but people shake hands, this is the greatest week of her life, she is surrounded by French, Germans, Italians, English, Luxembourgers, Poles, two Scots in kilts, socialists, almost every nationality in Europe, pacifists, a general, agrarians, free-marketeers, federalists and nationalists, a Buddhist, suffragettes, Christians, Marxists, colonialists and conservatives, adolescents and emancipators, dignified matrons, Luddites, a physicist, economists and steel-men, there are no communists in the strict sense but some intellectuals here agree with what is happening in Moscow, and Madame de Valréas herself invited them, must get them to speak, must know what’s going on in Moscow, otherwise their revolution will come here and put the wind up our body politic.