The Eternal Flame

by Michel Corday

  He resolved to badger Chérance again, hard. Although he disapproved on the Sandler group’s method of intimidation, the American alliance appeared to him to be more necessary than ever, in the direction of the future. More than ever, he was convinced that such a union would instantly calm the troubles and the crisis.

  He took Laronce back to Paris by car, pausing momentarily at the Bonjour. No fresh news had come in. He left for Boulogne—but Chérance’s private secretary told him that the boss had just been summoned urgently to the Ministry of the Interior by the President of the Council, Feuillard. As the financier had declared that he would call in at home immediately after the meeting, François decided to wait for him. He sat down in the large drawing-room into which he had come for the first time two years earlier, full of confidence and joy.

  There was no doubt that in the Minister’s mind, Sidereal Energy was at least partly responsible for the troubles in the North; that explained the abrupt summoning of Chérance. But what did the government want?

  François had met Feuillard in Pierre Contal’s house at Passy. He had been painfully surprised by his mocking cynicism, his affectation of taking nothing seriously—neither people nor ideas. He was typical of those parliamentarians whose souls have been withered by politics; in their hearts only two sentiments remained alive: the fear of the opposition and the passion of power. Pierre Contal said of Feuillard: “I don’t like him. He’s scornful of humankind, without sadness.”

  Chérance came back at midday. He seemed furious. Striding through the large drawing-room, he tore off his gloves and threw them aside.

  “You know about the riots in the North?”

  “Yes,” said François. “From Laronce, this morning.”

  It was those troubles that had caused Feuillard to lose his head. He was trembling before the threat of a parliamentary challenge. He was talking about revoking licenses, suspending the manufacture of the Starter, which, by reducing sales of coal, seemed responsible for the riots. He was invoking the national interest, reasons of State. He had gone so far as to cite the example of absinthe, which had been suppressed by decree. Later, perhaps, production might be resumed, at a prudent rate, in measured doses.

  “Oh, I defended myself well,” said Chérance. “I told Feuillard for coal what I’d told Sandler for oil. We’re not suppressing the exploitation of coal mines. There too, the work can continue until the exhaustion of the seams, utilizing the by-products. You know what they are better than I do. Tar, increasingly necessary for maintaining the roads; benzene, naphtha, and above all aniline and its entire spectrum of dyes... Anyway, the decline of coal had begun before the invention of the Starter. Hydroelectric power was gradually replacing coal. It was a film in slow motion. We’ve only accelerated the process.”

  Violently, he went on: “Besides which, these riots are artificial. They’ll stop as soon as the agitators fomenting them have left the scene. The big oil men are in the wings. They’re trying to draw the government into their game with this maneuver. They’re making their bite felt. Feuillard, in spite of his gross cynicism and his leaden trickery, doesn’t dare admit that openly in my presence. He can’t—but there’s no doubt about it. It’s still the same campaign, continuing patiently. It’s a matter of reducing us by threats, forcing us to throw in the sponge, leading us to an alliance—but I haven’t given in. I won’t surrender.”

  “Why?” said François. “I’ve come to see you this morning to beg you once again to sign the treaty of alliance. You agreed yourself just now that it would calm the troubles immediately—and I’m sure, in spite of my ignorance, that it would also resolve the financial crisis. It’s so logical, so necessary. Of course Sandler’s method is deplorable. I understand that we’ll appear to be giving in to the threat. That’s annoying—but it would have come to this if we’d reached an understanding at the beginning. Furthermore, there are precedents. Look, just now, while waiting for you, I thought of an example. When electricity replaced gas for lighting, conflicts of the same kind burst forth. Well, in a number of cities, the old company and the new one merged...”

  “Yes, and in many others they remained rivals. No, no—it’s blackmail. I won’t give in to it. That’s what I told Feuillard; I repeat it to you.”

  His resistance had become stronger since he had repelled this new assault. He was no longer solely possessed by the spirit of domination. He was also stiffened and hardened by pride. He was very red in the face, his veins swollen. He was stubborn to the point of apoplexy and sclerosis.

  François understood that he was unshakable. One does not try to bend a statue. Frustrated by his impotence, he sensed that he would harm his cause by persisting. He left in despair.

  Marianne was watching for him on the threshold of the house at Bellevue. She was beginning to worry. It was long past their usual lunch time. She had fed the children in order to send them for a walk during the sunlit hours of the brief winter day.

  François confessed that he was incapable of taking any nourishment. Weight down by weariness, he let himself fall into an armchair. Marianne sat down beside him. He took her hand and pressed it to his forehead.

  “I’m in distress, Marianne.”

  He talked. He had had other moments of doubt, as on the day when he had meditated all alone in his car, behind the Madeleine, after having seen the ferocious commentaries on the explosion at Bellevue. He had doubted at Briolle before the Terra proofs, having heard the gutter press calling him a madman. He was in doubt today because he was, in sum, about to provoke bankruptcies, suicides, perhaps mass murder. What immeasurable irony! He, who had wanted a better life and happiness for human beings, was perhaps about to cause their blood to be shed! With every passing hour, he dreaded hearing news of conflict between the unemployed and the soldiers. He could only glimpse one way out, one glimmer of salvation: the reasonable alliance that would calm everything down. But the prideful ambition of one man barred that road to him.…

  He wanted to seek forgetfulness in work. He headed toward his laboratory. As he crossed the vestibule he avoided looking at the gigantic globe. He turned away from it, as if by virtue of remorse.

  The Earth…he had wanted to envelop it in an atmosphere of wellbeing, to ensure it a life of eternally-increasing happiness. And by his doing, it was suffering a fit of panic. Perhaps it would be soiled by civil war. It seemed to him that, if he placed his hand on that globe, he would feel it as hot and feverish as the forehead of a sick person. And he feared that if he looked at it, he would see bloodstains.

  He resumed his most recent research: a supremely hard, supremely light alloy that would permit the construction of a flying machine he called the Hybrid. It was, in effect, a fusion of the dirigible and the airplane, where the two conceptions met. Equipped with chambers that would be evacuated, it would be as light as a soap-bubble; it would not be able to fall, and would not be able to burn. It would avoid two risks: that of burning and that of crashing. Its realization would give an incredible boost to aerial navigation.

  But he could not work. He was apprehensive of hearing about the conflict he dreaded, from a telephone call, the radio or a visitor. Dusk was falling rapidly. A sound of footsteps resonated in the vestibule.

  The open bay framed a silhouette: Marianne...

  She was radiant with joy. Her face was shining in the half-light.

  “There,” she said. “I’ve been to ask Papa for the manuscript of Génie antique. He was keeping it for me. I’ve given it to Chérance, on condition that he cable Sandler. It’s done. We have peace.”

  Never had the “silent darling” made such a long speech in a single breath. François hugged her to his broad chest, as if he wanted to fuse her with himself. Then, arms linked, welded together at the shoulder and the hip, they went out of the laboratory—but this time as they went through the vestibule, François enveloped the globe of the world with a gaze shining with tenderness and hope.

  PINK SKY

  PART ONE

 
Chapter I

  (A Tuesday in May 1960)

  “To the Élysée.”

  On emerging from his Ministry, the Justice Minister. Pierre Arnage, gave that order swiftly to his chauffeur, who was holding the car door. Scarcely had he sat down than the Minister reread Marilène’s letter. He still wanted to doubt it. Everything was descending upon him at the same time. His mistress was pregnant. And war was threatening to break out...

  He searched through the pages for the most significant phrases: My dear Pierre, last month’s fears have been confirmed... Now, it’s almost certain... I knew the sacrifice that I was accepting, the risks I was running, in giving myself to you... I was, and still am, so proud of you... How could I not love a little being born of you…? My fate is in your hands... Whatever you decide, I shall not complain...

  No doubt was possible: a child was going to be born.

  He was married; she was not. He was entering an era of inextricable difficulties—and at the very moment when the European Union was breaking into two hostile blocs.

  Parliament had still been on Easter break. The Minister’s life was peaceful, Suddenly, that absurd schism had split the continent. The Head of State, on holiday at Chambord, had returned to Paris by airplane, immediately summoning the Council. Pierre Arnage had been obliged to leave his estate at Briolle at dawn—and, on calling in at the Ministry, where she was accustomed to write to him, he had found that distressing letter, which Marilène had sent from Geneva.

  The automobile went under the porch of the Presidential Palace, went around the sandy courtyard and stopped at the perron. Arnage climbed the steps briskly. Directly in front of him, in the half-light of the spacious vestibule, stood a mirror framed by verdure, extending from floor to ceiling. He saw his silhouette, rather short but lithe and loose-limbed. His black hair, brushed backwards, helmeted his forceful forehead and thin face, proud and hollow-cheeked. At forty-seven, he looked no older than thirty. But what good were all those advantages? On seeing himself so seductive, he felt his misfortune all the more keenly.

  All his colleagues had preceded him. They were spread out in sparse groups, as animated as those in the wings of a theater on the evening of a dress rehearsal, in the Salon de Cléopâtre and the Salon du Conseil. He was still shaking hands when the Head of State appeared. The Council immediately went into session.

  For nearly a hundred years the Republic had alternately chosen a southern President who was always smiling and a northerner who never smiled. Succeeding one another with the same astronomical regularity as day and night, they took turns in leading the country as if in a farandole or as if in an unreal procession. The current President, the austere Crépin, belonged to the funereal genre. One might have thought that his hard features, with long wrinkles, were sculpted in gray stone. Already, he resembled his bust. Sadly, he recalled the events of the previous day.

  The European Union, constructed with so much difficulty, on such fragile bases, was crumbling. At the Assembly in Lausanne, the socialist States had proposed the abolition of wage labor. They had won the vote, but the capitalist States had refused to submit to a sentence they considered to be abusive, while their adversaries, proclaiming their right, seemed determined to impose it by force if necessary.

  The prime minister, Martory, criticized these declarations. Conscientious, handsome and nonchalant, he was the ornament of the Council. He was its representative of the sum of elegance and Atticism. He recalled that the situation was not new. A century before, in 1861, the American States had similarly come into conflict with one another. The North had demanded the abolition of slavery; the South had refused. The War of Secession had followed. In reality, one side had wanted protectionism, the other free trade. Today, in demanding the abolition of wage labor, the socialist States were trying to break down the capitalist barrier that hemmed them in, and to impose their regime on the rest of Europe for the convenience of their transactions. In a tone of indolent skepticism, he recognized that in all wars, people pushed for material conquests under idealistic colors.

  Pierre Arnage, who had similar pretentions to eloquence, judged those arguments superfluous. He reproved them by ceasing to listen to them. Distractedly, he doodled on the pieces of notepaper with the Presidential heading spread out in front of him. He traces capital Ms, for Marilène. For two years, that had been his superstitious and affectionate habit at the Ministerial Council.

  He had known Marilène for two years. At that time, he had just taken on Public Education in a new Ministry. Dormier, a clerk at the Society of Nations, had recommended his daughter to him, and he had taken her on to his staff. One day, when he had to unveil the statue of a local dignitary in Grenoble, he had taken the young woman with him, because she had made the notes for his speech. She had helped him to write it on the journey. Then, when the ceremony was over, they had taken a short trip into the mountains near La Grave, by way of recompense.

  At one time, they had got out of the car. It was June; one felt close to the sky and the sun. The ardent and perfumed air was trembling on the Alpine pastures. Knee-deep in the thick grass, they had run gaily down the slopes amid a warm odor of incense and honey. He had understood that she admired his power, his prestige and his oratorical gifts. And he had discovered in Marilène a new face, a winged, scintillating grace. She surged forth before his eyes like an apparition, the fairy of the florid mountain...

  Since then, he had kept her with him when he transferred from Public Education to Justice. She had taken up residence in one of those charming little villas that had flowered amid the verdure at Billancourt when the automobile factories had been removed fifty kilometers from Paris. It was there that he met her. A month before, however, she had been obliged to leave for Geneva, in order to spend the holidays with her father.

  Meanwhile, Ducros, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had taken the floor. He was a gnome with a huge gray head. His bulbous eyes were juxtaposed with his pince-nez. He worked relentlessly, but his mole-like labor risked causing the world to collapse. He read diplomatic dispatches. They were murky and labyrinthine, in accordance with to the immemorial habit. They emanated from men stuck in the past, hostile to their own time, disdainful of the masses. With their index-fingers on their noses they continued to hatch ruses and plots behind closed doors, while all around them great currents of covetousness surged through the air, charged with lightning.

  The table of ministers needed the truth; they were being served a plateful of petty tricks. Arnage shrugged his shoulders. He listened without comprehending. Gradually, he retreated into himself. He found his torment there.

  Oh, if only one could put a stop to the development of pregnancy...what a relief, what a brightening of the horizon…did inoffensive remedies exist? He had heard talk of powders, tisanes—but the names escaped him. One thinks one that knows something, but when one examines it at close range, one realizes that one does not. Besides, such medicines weren’t always effective. There remained brutal abortion. But he would be an accomplice. He would be breaking the law—and he could not forget, after all, that he was the Minister of Justice. Finally, such interventions were not without risk. The mere thought of exposing Marilène to suffering, to danger, was intolerable. He started in revolt, as if pricked by a lancet.

  The Council was now listening to Barbier, the Minister of National Defense. He was one of those civilians who, utterly confused by commanding generals, became more militant than the military men. They go through life in battle-dress and helmet, hackles raised and cheeks inflated like a bugler’s. Passing prudishly over the resources of electric, chemical and microbial warfare, Barbier read reassuring statistics prepared by his bureaucrats. Listening to them, one had the impression of watching an interminable parade, hearing the cadenced march of men and horses, the rumble of armored cars and heavy artillery, beneath a sky black with aircraft. The procession was never-ending.

  Again, Arnage’s attention buckled. His gaze paused on the young face of Queen Victoria—for the
portraits of all the sovereigns who had been the guests of the Élysée ornamented the Salle du Conseil. The sight of the feminine face reminded him of his distress. If he renounced the abortion, only one course of action remained: divorce, in order to marry Marilène...

  Divorce? But what right did he have to punish Annette, his wife? She had never done anything wrong. Quite the contrary. Evidently, her humor had deteriorated with age, but had he not contributed to its souring by his own frivolity? She had never ceased to be a god wife. She had never given him any but sage advice. What attentive cares she lavished on him at the first sign of illness! And when he had been beaten in elections, in the trough of that unlucky streak from which he had thought he would never recover, how much courage and confidence she had given him...

  He went back to earlier memories, to the spring of their marriage. He recovered the sharp scent of new furniture, and the fresh and fragrant perfume of Annette’s trousseau. Those two odors had been the scent of their first home, the scent of their youth.

  But he tore himself out of the past in order to throw himself into the discussion. The tedious explanations were finished. Everyone had said his bit. Some wanted to submit it to the Society of Nations. Others doubted its means. Some were calculating the impediments that the trades unions and pacifist leagues would inflict of mobilization. Singularly enough, although war had been illegal for more than thirty years, the ministers still admitted it. They did not identify it as murder. They resigned themselves more easily to that scourge manufactured by human beings than to the scourges unleashed by nature. One might have thought that the sovereigns—the Franz-Josefs and the Victor-Emmanuels—whose portraits ornamented the walls and who had revered war as an institution were still presiding over the assembly.