The Counterfeiters

The Counterfeiters Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: The Counterfeiters Read Online Free PDF
Author: André Gide
flattered by the admiration which these words betrayed, but he shrugged his shoulders once more. Olivier took hold of his hand and asked very gravely and anxiously:
    “But why are you leaving?”
    “That, my dear fellow, is a family matter. I can’t tell you.” And in order not to seem too serious he amused himself by trying to jerk off with the tip of his shoe the slipper that Olivier was swinging on his bare toes—for they were sitting down now on the side of the bed. There! Off it goes!
    “Then where do you mean to live?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And how?”
    “That remains to be seen.”
    “Have you any money?”
    “Enough for breakfast to-morrow.”
    “And after that?”
    “After that I shall look about me. Oh, I’m sure to find something. You’ll see. I’ll let you know.”
    Olivier admires his friend with immense fervour. He knows him to be resolute; but he cannot help doubting; when he is at the end of his resources, and feeling, as soon he must, the pressure of want, won’t he be obliged to go back? Bernard reassures him—he will do anything in the world rather than return to his people.And as he repeats several times over more and more savagely—“anything in the world!”—Olivier’s heart is stabbed with a pang of terror. He wants to speak but dares not. At last with downcast head and unsteady voice, he begins:
    “Bernard, all the same, you’re not thinking of …” but he stops. His friend raises his eyes and, though he cannot see him very distinctly, perceives his confusion.
    “Of what?” he asks. “What do you mean? Tell me. Of stealing?”
    Olivier shakes his head. No, that’s not it! Suddenly he bursts into tears and clasping Bernard convulsively in his arms:
    “Promise me that you won’t …”
    Bernard kisses him, then pushes him away laughing. He has understood.
    “Oh! yes! I promise … But all the same you must admit it would be the easiest way out.” But Olivier feels reassured; he knows that these last words are an affectation of cynicism.
    “Your exam?”
    “Yes; that’s rather a bore. I don’t want to be ploughed. I think I’m ready all right. It’s more a question of feeling fit on the day. I must manage to get something fixed up very quickly. It’s touch and go; but I
shall
manage. You’ll see.”
    They sit for a moment in silence. The second slipper has fallen.
    Then Bernard: “You’ll catch cold. Get back into bed.”
    “No;
you
must get into bed.”
    “You’re joking. Come along! quick!” and he forces Olivier to get into the bed which he has already lain down in and which is all tumbled.
    “But you? Where are
you
going to sleep?”
    “Anywhere. On the floor. In a corner. I must get accustomed to roughing it.”
    “No. Look here! I want to tell you something, but I shan’t be able to unless I feel you close to me. Get into my bed.” And when Bernard, after undressing himself in a twinkling, has got in beside him:
    “You know … what I told you the other day … well, it’s come off. I went.”
    There was no need to say more for Bernard to understand. He pressed up against his friend.
    “Well! it’s disgusting … horrible … Afterwards I wanted to spit—to be sick—to tear my skin off—to kill myself.”
    “You’re exaggerating.”
    “To kill
her
.”
    “Who was it? You haven’t been imprudent, have you?”
    “No; it’s some creature Dhurmer knows. He introduced me. It was her talk that was the most loathsome. She never once stopped jabbering. And oh! the deadly stupidity of it! Why can’t people hold their tongues at such moments, I wonder? I should have liked to strangle her—to gag her.”
    “Poor old Olivier! You didn’t think that Dhurmer could get hold of anybody but an idiot, did you? Was she pretty, anyway?”
    “D’you suppose I looked at her?”
    “You’re a donkey! You’re a darling!… Let’s go to sleep.… But … did you bring it off all right?”
    “God! That’s the most disgusting
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