Free Cloudless May by Storm Jameson Page B

the sun, came to an end in her. She felt an impulse to take the train and look at the towns where she had been starved as a child; she would show them that compared with her they were helpless. And, too, there she had been young.
    One of these days, she thought, Émile and I will be living in Paris.

Chapter 9
    Rienne finished the letter he was writing to his sister, and placed it at the side of his desk, for his orderly. The man would look here and nowhere else. He knew Rienne’s habits—for the matter of that, they had not changed since the Poly-technique, where he taught himself to keep on two shelves all he possessed. He picked up the book he was reading: a bound copy of
Servitude et grandeur militaires.
Absurd to say that he was reading it; he had read it only once, the first time, when he was a cadet. Since then he listened to Vigny as an older experienced friend, they were together in the last war. He saw toit that Vigny shared all his tastes, for simple classical music, Anjou wine, black honey. Thanks to Vigny, he had never fallen into the error of hoping to be rewarded for making courage his profession: since it was his duty to kill men, he killed, but he never pretended to be their judge.
    After a minute, he put the book away on its shelf, took up his tunic and was fastening it when Bergeot came in. They dined together at least one evening a week.
    â€œI’m late.”
    â€œYou’re always late,” Rienne said. “You were late every time I bought tickets for a play. The whole time we were in Paris together, when you were at the Law School, I never saw a first act——”
    â€œAnd you always said it must have been the best,” Bergeot grinned. He sat on the edge of the bed, amused and alert. As always, his friend’s monastic room roused in him an impulse the rest of his life cancelled. Why not give up everything, the distractions, the frightful nuisance of other people? With miserly care he could live on the interest from his savings. He could write—he had always wanted to. . . . And Marguerite? . . . His impulse mocked him. You living out of sight! Without excitements, ambition, notice. You a poor scholar! He rushed back head-first into the appalling confusion of his life.
    â€œWhere shall we go?” Rienne asked.
    â€œWe always go to Buran’s. Don’t you like it?”
    It vexed Rienne to have to explain that he no longer felt comfortable in the Hôtel Buran, where none of the prohibitions were obeyed, and you could order anything you liked. The orders, he knew nothing about it, might be silly, but they were orders. Outside the hotel they were enforced: a workman could not sit drinking brandy every day of the week.
    â€œVery well.” When they were crossing the courtyard he said, as if it had just struck him, “Why not go to Marie’s for once? She needs the money.”
    Bergeot shrugged his shoulders. “If you like.”
    It was still airlessly hot; the evening had stretched itself along the Loire, without finding there any freshness. They sauntered. “I have something to ask you,” Rienne said. “You know the internment camp at Geulin——”
    Bergeot made a wry face. “Too well. The medical officerreported this week that sixteen more of the men have died. Influenza. I ask you—in this weather! I asked him why he didn’t inoculate the rest, but it seems there’s no serum, or none to spare. Well, they must die. I can’t save them.”
    â€œThere’s one man I want to save, an ex-Imperial officer called Uhland. Joachim von Uhland. Mathieu vouches for him. I want you to get him out.”
    An ironical look crossed Bergeot’s face. “Louis? Why doesn’t he come to me himself?”
    â€œYou know as well as I do. He can’t bring himself to ask favours.”
    â€œHe asked you. . . . No, no, let him ask.”
    Rienne smiled. “When are you going to forgive him