A Very Bold Leap Read Online Free PDF Page B

crumbling.
    “Not in so many words, no,” he replied, regaining his worried look. “Mostly he said it was luck. And that there’s not much you can do about luck, except work as hard as you can and hope with all your heart. He said that if writing novels was guaranteed to make a person a millionaire, there’d be a lot more novels out there. People would be chaining themselves to typewriters! Anyway, my view,” he added, once again choosing his words carefully, “is that if this writing thing doesn’t work out the way… that you would, well…”
    “Give up writing novels and do something else.”
    “Exactly! That’s what I thought. After all, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and it’s not like you to stick at something that will…”
    “… make me miserable …”
    “More or less,” Fernand acknowledged, somewhat disconcerted by the cold, ironic smile on Charles’s face.
    “Well, you’re absolutely right, Fernand. The day I realize that I’m a lousy writer and my books are a pile of boring tripe, I’ll throw my typewriter out the window and open a car wash, or something like that.”
    The two men regarded each other in silence, slightly embarrassed. Then they both raised their glasses at the same time and took a long drink.
    “You know, Charles,” the hardware-store owner couldn’t help adding, “if I didn’t consider you to be my own son, I mean my real son, I wouldn’t worry about you as much as I do. But you are my son, as much as Henri is. Even though I’ve known for some time now that you and Céline … that you’re …”
    “Sleeping together,” Charles finished, calmly insolent.
    “Whatever,” said Fernand, feeling more and more uncomfortable. “As you know, I’ve never tried to stand in your way, even though you’re both still minors.”
    “Thanks,” Charles said sarcastically. “Very kind of you.”
    “Don’t mention it. I’ve always thought that from about the age of fourteen or fifteen a child who’s been reasonably well brought up is able to judge for himself how he’s going to get through life, and that his parents are wasting their breath trying to … Am I right, Charles?” he asked suddenly, looking uneasily into the young man’s eyes.
    “I love Céline,” Charles replied simply, but in a firm and serious tone. Two red splotches appeared on his cheeks.
    “That’s what I wanted to hear… that takes a great weight off…. It makes me think you’d never do anything to hurt her. She’s my only daughter, after all, and you know how I feel about her. I wouldn’t want anyone to … you know, harm her.”
    “I love her,” Charles said again. “So stop worrying.”
    Fernand smiled noncommittally and patted Charles on the shoulder. Then he turned to a waiter who was passing behind him and ordered more beer.
    “Dear boy,” he sighed, “if parents could control what they worry about, the world would be a much better place…. Wait until you’re a father yourself, you’ll see what I mean.”
    He drummed his fingers on the table.
    “But you’ve told me you love her. That’s good enough for me. I can’t ask for more than that.”
    At that, Fernand’s former good spirits returned; with the help of the beer, his cheerfulness took on a joyful exuberance. Some people who knew himfrom the store came in, said hello to him, joked a bit, then sat down at the next table. A fat man with closely cropped hair and a military jaw, his shirt buttoned askew and tufts of grey hair poking through holes in his tattered undershirt, laughed uproariously, slapping his thighs and calling Fernand by his first name (although he was completely unknown), and addressed him as “Captain.” Before long the conversation came around to politics.
    A young professor, thin, angular, tightly wound, wearing a jacket and tie and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that made him look like a Protestant minister, began attacking the Lévesque government. In a reedy, whistling voice, he