Free Fermina Marquez (1911) by Valery Larbaud Page A

by, that is all. There are also the Americas, Australia, the European colonies in Africa. But an administration which has governed half the Empire will surely be able to govern half the world. — At least you don't think what I'm saying is laughable?"
She was listening to him with no lack of interest.
"It's just that on the one or two occasions I have spoken about it, I have been made fun of. My guardian in Paris, one Sunday, first listened to me without saying anything, then advised me to read a novel by Flaubert, Bouvard et Pecuchet, in order to find 'my kind' of idea. I clearly understood from his tone that he meant this in jest, and I have no desire to read these modern books, written by authors who would perhaps be incapable of translating their own works into good Latin! . . . On another occasion, I wanted to explain my views to an old family friend, who struck me as more intelligent than the rest of the gathering. He started to laugh immediately and told me that he had run across many reactionaries in his life but never a man as reactionary as myself, and that it was not good for the son of an old republican to have such ideas. You see in the interior, or as we say, in the provinces, the children are obliged to have the same political opinions as their parents: if they don't, they are shown little regard. Ah! mademoiselle, you cannot imagine how backward the interior still is! Anyway, this man was laughing. So, to annoy him, I told him that I saw myself not so much as a Frenchman but as a Roman citizen. I had surmised correctly: that put him into a temper straight away. I had disturbed his pathetic grubs of ideas and they writhed about in his cramped skull. He was completely red. How small, how petty-minded he seemed to me; I had him in my hand; there he twitched like an insect being tormented. I saw in him not so much a man as a manufactured product, a machine which talks and thinks in the approved manner. Ah! If ever I felt superior to somebody else, it really was to that imbecile!"
"Oh! Mr Leniot, it isn't right to speak in such a manner!"
There was such a note of reproach in the girl's voice that Joanny fell silent, wholly discomposed. Up until that point, he had held forth with the unshakable self-assurance given by the certainty of commanding his listener's whole-hearted approval. Yet, which was quite the reverse, here she was remonstrating against what he had said, at the end of her patience. In short then, he had displeased her; and this was the worst thing which could have befallen him. He continued to speak but his heart was no longer in his words. Everything he was preparing to give brilliant expression to a moment before, suddenly appeared ludicrous, hollow and without interest. He embarked upon a digression and broached the subject of Roman virtues. He exalted poverty especially:
"Rome," he said, "is Need's eldest daughter: herein lies the secret of her power. The poets of the Augustan era were conscious of this themselves. Listen to what Horace says:
"Hunc . . . This word refers to Fabricius of whom he has just spoken.
Hunc et incomptis Curium capillh, Utilem hello tulit, et C ami Hum Saeva paupertas et avitus arto Cum lare fundus!
 
"Saeva paupertas: cruel destitution" . . .
Joanny was struck dumb; he had just read in the girl's eyes a thought which threw him into turmoil. These eyes seemed to say: "Does he mean to be insolent? Is he making fun of me?" Then he remembered that a lady to whom he had declaimed a passage from Tacitus one day, had said to him in an angry tone of voice: "If you want to insult me, just go ahead. I don't have any idea what you're talking about."
The call to evening prep parted them straight away. She did not hold out her hand to him . . .
Throughout the evening, Joanny felt a throbbing in his temples and his cheeks were on fire. He had displeased her. He had been ridiculous at first; and then odious! Ah! those long, idiotic and childish tirades: "Leo, Emperor of the West" and