however, a repentant letter arrived from the latter, in which he declared, in a baroque style, that he had acted in a moment of delirium and distress caused by the sudden death of his father, humbly begged his stepmother’s pardon, and begged her to apologize to the master of the house for him. If Tullie demanded it, he would go away for a time, leaving the administration of the farm to her. In that case, he would ask the notary, before the testamentary dispositions made by the deceased were effected, for an advance on his inheritance of a few thousand francs.
* * * *
The prolonged sojourn of Tullie Moneuse at the Villa Dyonisos caused a great deal of talk, but the mixture of admiration and dead inspired by the “big brains” confined the rustic suggestions to the ironic and jesting form handed down from folktales to our own day. Besides which, the Paris newspapers and local rags were full of a frontier incident that might set France and Germany at odds again, and the apprehension of such a catastrophe deflected minds from everything else. On the same day that Tullie was due to return to the farm at Les Arges, Ségétan was summoned to Paris by the Minister of War.
Immediately received by the minister, the latter made him party to the political anxieties that were sending an alarm to the technical services and the general staff, and asked him where he was with his work on the disruption of the engines of aircraft in flight by means of waves. The scientist replied that he had, indeed, studied the subject at one time, and carried out a few experiments, with results that were worse than uncertain. At that moment his attention had been distracted by the problem of waves of duration, which now absorbed him completely.
“I know,” said the minister. “I’ve read several articles on that subject in the papers. It’s doubtless of more interesting, but it’s a less immediate interest. Would it not be possible for you, my dear Master, in view of the circumstances, to return to your previous love—the disruption of engines at a distance? You’d be doing your country a great service. Of course, we’d put all the necessary means and personnel at your disposal, with the most absolute secrecy guaranteed.”
“I’d like to, Monsieur le Ministre, but the disruption of determined research in favor of other research is one of the most difficult mental exercises there is. The spirit of investigation, when it’s involved in the genesis of some X—or, more precisely, an ensemble of Xs—adopts by the same token a certain method, a certain atmosphere, a certain color. To abandon them for another method, another atmosphere and another aspect is almost impossible.”
The minister, who was not stupid, sighed. “I suspected as much. What can I say? Do your best, my dear Master. I hope that, once again, we’ll avoid war—but the more often the pitcher goes to the well.…”
As he climbed back into his automobile, the scientist only saw, with regard to the first problem—that of the aircraft—a closed horizon, but with regard to the second, the waves of time, an open horizon.
When he was about thirty, he had believed, as Ramon Lull9 once had, in discovery determined by means of a skillful and balanced play of the mathematical and the qualitative; now he saw that as a chimera, analogous to that of the possession of free will. Linked to his wife by secret bonds, discovery was even more fugitive than womankind.
When he got back to Avenillon, his house, deprived of Tullie, seemed to him to be dreadfully empty. It was still light. He decided to go and ask Dévonet whether he could have supper at his house, a comfortable dwelling at the entrance to the village, not far from Bénalep’s.
When he went in, the brunette Mélanie was alone, reading Baudelaire. She was wearing a quilted jacket in green silk, as depicted in a painting by Vermeer, a white skirt, and she was making silver slippers dance at the end of her slender feet. Although her figure was charming, and even utterly desirable, he had not thus far experienced the slightest excitement on contact with her, even though everything about him attracted the young woman.
He told her about his trip to Paris, his meeting with the minister, and the latter’s proposal. She put on a semblance of listening, but was asking herself, all the time: Why that Tullie, and not me?
That caused her to interrupt him with a question. “She’s gone back to Arges, then?”
“Undoubtedly,” her astonished interlocutor replied. “You know, she’s a extraordinary person, a farmer’s wife with hands as white as one ever sees. I suspect that she’s the natural daughter of a Neapolitan aristocrat.”
“How the devil did Père Calvat unearth her?”
“Pure hazard, she tells me. She had to settle some business at a bank in Blois. So had he. They met there and struck up a conversation. She was alone, with no money, melancholy, doubtless disillusioned with regard to love, friendship and everything else. She was beautiful. He desired her. It was a rather banal adventure, save for the disproportion of age and education.”
“Today it’s the stepson who’s conquered her, if popular rumor can be trusted.”
“It’s possible, but she’s worth more than that. She has an absolutely original nature. She never says anything banal, and although I believe she’s as capable of lying as you are, she’s often brutally frank. She also sings like a bird, and carries you away to the land of dreams that way.”
The contained distress of the jealous Mélanie had reached its peak when her husband came back, carrying a basket full of wild strawberries.
When he learned that their guest would be dining with them, Dévonet’s consular face expressed a frank pleasure. “Phone Bénalep and ask him to come, darling. We’ll have chicken à la crême—and as I passed by, I saw a magnificent gâteau in the patissier’s window.”
Soon, the three sorcerers were united around a good and genuine country soup with herbs and a base of potato purée, the recipe for which Caroline, the cook at the Villa Dyonisos, had passed on to the Dévonets’ housemaid. Two chilled bottles of Saint-Martin-le-Beau, from a good year, seemed to have come up from the cellar of their own accord, followed by two bottles of Bourgeuil, for the guests were thirsty.
Ségétan was famished. The prospect of meeting up the next day—in the proper sense of meeting up—with Tullie, alone at the farm of Les Arges, was putting him in a excellent humor, when Bénalep, tucking the corner of his embroidered napkin into his collar, said: “Some singular phenomena have been occurring here in the village, and also in Brancheville and five kilometers away in Quatrebois, for some time. Two young women and one older one, and then a farmer, recently showed me dermatitis of an unknown variety on their wrists and legs. I sent them to see Dévonet—didn’t I, old man?—who was amazed. At Les Arges, livestock have died suddenly of an illness that the veterinarian declares to be inexplicable. No other outbreak in the region. But that’s not all. The children in the schools in Avenillon and Brancheville have given evidence this year of a precocity that amazes their headmaster, to such a point that he’s been obliged to triple the prizes and citations. In that regard he’s counting on you, as usual, to buy the books.”
“The dermatitis,” Dévonet added, “was analogous to that provoked by solar radiation, but of a more exfoliated variety. I took a small sample from one of them, and I’m in the process of examining it. There’s something else: the number of births, between here and Châteaudun, has doubled, and according to the gendarmerie’s statistics, the number of homicides and brawls has doubled too. Some of the peasants are convinced that it’s connected with your experiments and waves, but others make fun of then. Among the former, Père Calvat’s son has been mentioned.”
“That was bound to happen,” said Ségétan, laughing. “But you, Félix, who are trying to understand
