D’Orminy got up and left.

  ‘Good,’ said Grandsailles to himself, ‘he’ll go and weep over all this, like a child, with Cécile Goudreau. But I’ve got to catch up with him before he starts smoking opium.’

  His teeth, dazzling white like gardenias, glistened in the moonlight, and he thought, ‘Perhaps I went a little too far, but I can soften it in my letter.’ He sat down at his desk and wrote at one stroke:

  ‘My dear Prince: I deeply regret my insolence of a while ago. Few people can doubt your moral courage and your patriotic devotion less than I. I was unjust, but when you learn how important it is for me to get to Malta, it will explain the state of my nerves better than my excuses. I expect you immediately. Time presses, and for this I invoke only the friendship of your

  Hervé de Grandsailles.’

  When the Prince of Orminy returned he coldly kissed the Count’s cheek and once more sat down. The latter was disconcerted for a moment, for in observing d’Orminy on the sly he clearly saw by his eyes that, contrary to his expectation, he had not been weeping. However, the Prince’s mood in spite of his attitude of reserve seemed as favourable as could be wished since it was he who immediately began to speak of Malta.

  ‘I don’t at all want to discourage you,’ he said, ‘but in order to succeed you will need the tacit or explicit permission of five countries; all must be and will be informed of your departure; all are more or less on a war footing if not actually at war; your mission must not be looked upon too unfavourably by any of them!’

  ‘Not only that,’ said Grandsailles, enjoying the complexity of the case, ‘my mission will require everyone’s collaboration…. Do you know what constitutes a statesman’s strength? It’s just the opposite of what people believe: instead of dividing further those who are already his enemies, he must unite them in some kind of collaboration. Two enemies whom you force to shake hands to come and attack you are defeated at the very outset, their collaboration will reduce them to impotence. But let’s stop, for today, losing ourselves in speculations on the theory of action,’ he concluded with a sigh.

  ‘I am merely listening to you and submitting to the severe principles of your political action,’ said d’Orminy indulgently.

  ‘Then will you take some notes? I shall dictate to you the line to be adopted with the various powers, and afterwards we shall see who are the individuals best qualified to communicate my aims to them, whether officially or confidentially.’

  D’Orminy unfolded a list which he had been fingering. ‘I’ll note everything on this list,’ he said. ‘Here – in the case of the British you’ll have to deal with the Board of Economic Warfare.’

  ‘You know that I am becoming pro-British and that they are the only ones who know it.’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ d’Orminy commented, and as Grandsailles eyed him dubiously he added. ‘You know that I feel exactly as you do about them.’

  ‘How will the British react to this?’

  ‘They’ll let the Americans have their own way,’ said the Prince.

  ‘And what American agency might be expected to intervene?’ asked Grandsailles.

  ‘The State Department, and the American observers in North Africa.’

  ‘Nothing could be simpler,’ said Grandsailles then. ‘America needs its observers in order to observe, and needs to observe in order to have its observers. So I’m going to provide them with a magnificent opportunity to observe and solve the Grandsailles case, a real test case by which they will be able to orient their future policies.’

  ‘If they are interested in observing, they’ll find nothing better than you,’ said d’Orminy.

  ‘The line for us to follow on this will offer no great difficulty,’ Grandsailles went on, pretending not to have heard. ‘Someone will have to undertake to announce the “secret” of my voyage to Malta in large, screaming headlines, as for a Broadway play,’ and as d’Orminy went through the motions of making note of this Grandsailles stopped him, saying. ‘Don’t put any of that down – just the word: “theatre”.’

  ‘Comedian,’ said d’Orminy.

  The way in which the Prince uttered this word gave Grandsailles a start. Then d’Orminy continued, bitter and detached; ‘You think that when you insulted me a while ago I didn’t understand you were purposely putting on a comedy to make sure of keeping me here till four o’clock so that I would start running errands the first thing in the morning to arrange your trip to Malta for you? I know you too well by now! And it’s a funny thing! No matter how hateful you make yourself, you still remain just as fascinating. You see, I’m not afraid to talk to you as your mistresses do. But you can’t treat me like one of your mistresses without running the risk of making me your enemy.’

  Grandsailles did not answer, realizing by d’Orminy’s uncompromising tone that this time a quarrel might become irreparable. The Prince was immediately grateful to him for this.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘though you haven’t succeeded in deceiving me, you have at least succeeded in two things, one of which was what you wanted, and the other is a matter of indifference to you. The first – since you know that everything you wish must be realized – is to have won again my unconditional support for your plans; the second is that you have hurt me deeply…. How the smell of death has clung to me ever since I was a child!’

  Grandsailles put his hand on d’Orminy’s shoulder, and from the captain’s star on his sleeve a gold thread hung quivering. D’Orminy removed his hand, and in a changed tone of voice returned to the subject of the future mission to Malta.

  ‘With the Germans,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to deal with the armistice committee.’

  Grandsailles began to pace the cabin. ‘It’s simple with the Germans. They’ll have to speculate on the necessity of strengthening the Pétain government.’

  ‘And on the urgency of preventing an Arab revolt,’ d’Orminy added.

  ‘Yes, that’s very important. I believe I have at my disposal the means of fomenting a small Arab revolt that we can control. I’m seeing Broussillon, the communist professor, tomorrow evening….’

  ‘The Arabs won’t move yet,’ said d’Orminy.

  ‘I say, a “small revolt”. Broussillon has promised to provoke disorders in the Tunis markets the day I need them….’

  ‘But besides the Germans, we also have the French to contend with; in their case we have to deal with the embassy, and the North African authorities.’

  ‘You know,’ said Grandsailles, ‘it seems a paradox, but France is going to be the hardest. How am I going to convince them that I have to attend actively to the mission with which they have entrusted me in order to carry it out? That is in fact much too simple! And the Spaniards?’

  ‘I’ll take care of them,’ said the Prince, ‘I’m on the best of terms with them, and we have only to invoke a single word – “order”….’

  ‘So you see,’ said Grandsailles by way of summary, ‘we’re going to be able to present my mission in such a way that all the powers will in the last analysis be favourably disposed to it, while pretending to be not too well informed of my activities.’ He fell into a meditative silence, then said, ‘War, in the last analysis, is a state of things in which all parties are in agreement except that they fight, while peace is one in which they all disagree, but don’t fight. The two are merely different phases of political life. And what have I done with my comb? I must have left it at your house – I had it last night!’

  As he became progressively beset by difficulties, Grandsailles grew more and more capricious, like a pregnant woman, and now his repressed anger of a while ago in his conversation with the Prince seemed about to burst, judging by the hatred with which his eyes were injected.

  ‘I can endure anything,’ he continued in a rage, ‘I can get along without the most essential things, but I have to be able to part my hair in an absolutely straight line with a metal comb!’

  ‘A cold one,’ said d’Orminy, smiling at him as though he were a child having tantrums. Grandsailles calmed himself.

  ‘It’s true though,’ he added, ‘with my hair mathematically in place and my shoes polished twice a day – with those two rituals attended to, it’s as if all the stains of doubt and remorse are washed away and banished from my soul, and I feel myself again pure and worthy of communicating with action.’

  ‘And the worst of it is,’ said d’Orminy, getting up to retire, ‘that what you’re saying is true. Don’t forget that tomorrow morning I’m arranging your interview with your new victim – Monsieur Fouseret.’

  The following morning, while he began with a few telephone calls to lay the groundwork for his mission for Vichy, the Count of Grandsailles with equal zeal and no less actively was initiating the necessary subterranean negotiations that were to guarantee him the success of the second and chief objective of his trip to Malta: namely, that of plotting against Vichy, in pursuance of the revolutionary activity he had undertaken before leaving Paris, whose goal was to organize the future forces of resistance against the invader. Thus on the one hand he was trying to enhance his official prestige in the eyes of those who had confided this mission to him, bending every effort to crown it with a personal triumph; on the other hand, he was preparing to wage a merciless war against the very ones he was serving, thus betraying his hierarchical superiors, who had placed their confidence and their hope in his devotion. To succeed in his mission for Vichy, the Prince of Orminy’s personal and unconditional aid would be about all he needed. The Prince, whose political position was close to the centre, had in fact a great influence in the most diverse official spheres, and could consider all doors open to him. But in order to dominate the situation in his new rôle as apprentice-conspirator, it was indispensable for him to establish contact with the extremes, that is to say, with the royalists on the one hand and the communists on the other. How was he to win simultaneously the support of both? This had been his almost exclusive concern for the last two weeks.

  On one side Grandsailles had feigned a vague interest in a royalist plot in order to obtain the confidence of Fouseret, a very active royalist and a man of talent who was trying to create in North Africa a policy of direct understanding with England and America. At the same time the Count had made contact with the communist professor. Broussillon, who reportedly had maintained contact with the thirty communist deputies imprisoned in Paris and who knew all the devious paths of illegality. When Grandsailles felt he had gained sufficient ascendancy over Fouseret and Broussillon, he decided to resort to the same tactic with them that he had used the previous day with d’Orminy: suddenly to lose his temper and break with them. More naive than the Prince, and wholly unfamiliar with the Count’s character, they would inevitably be taken in by his trick. Feeling that the moment for gaining his victims’ confidence was ripe, Grandsailles calculated with staggering precision and utter disingenuousness the moment when he would make a show of anger.

  ‘With Fouseret,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll get into a rage the first time he utters the words “à tantôt”; as for Broussillon, I’ll politely show him the door the moment he utters the word “sabotage”.’

  Everything happened exactly as Grandsailles had foreseen. After the fear of a possible denunciation had robbed them both of sleep the aim of his stratagem was simple: to provoke Fouseret and Broussillon to join forces, as they inevitably would, in a conspiracy against himself, their common enemy; then stop this conspiracy at the opportune moment by becoming reconciled with his two enemies who, being mutual enemies, would from then on be bound and gagged by their own commitments. Thus Fouseret would live in the fear of being subsequently betrayed by Broussillon, and Broussillon, likewise, of being betrayed by Fouseret. Knowing their common secret, he could keep them both attached to himself, could manipulate them at will, stimulating their passions, exciting their ambitions, and make them simultaneously his involuntary accomplices, harnessed to the Machiavellian chariot of his plans.

  ‘No, it’s not so smart as all that!’ said Grandsailles to himself, reflecting on his plan, ‘but that’s the way I’ve always managed to swim, and at the same time keep my clothes.’

  The Prince of Orminy had indeed spoken the truth: Grandsailles’ methods of political action scarcely differed from those he had so often used when confronted by the rivalry of his mistresses. Provoking a confidence of common jealousy and preferably even of hatred between two of them always assured his ascendancy over both. Fouseret and Broussillon were going to behave toward each other and toward him like two jealous mistresses! When Grandsailles felt that the union between Fouseret and Broussillon against himself was ripe he arranged to see the two of them separately the same day.

  One of the marines introduced Monsieur Fouseret into the Count’s cabin for the premeditated scene of reconciliation. Fouseret entered, bowed with respect and Grandsailles, getting up, gave him a military salute and gestured for him to sit down.

  Fouseret was one of those men with misplaced cheeks on whose irregular geographic contours a celluloid red reached down almost over the jaws, while the cheek-bones, to which this colour belonged, were very pale. The excitement of the moment had exaggerated the effect of this contrast even further, the purple-streaked blotches on his face standing out sharply, while the upper cheeks, from which all the blood had drained, were such a livid yellow that it was as though one saw right through to the bone. He was dressed in a white suit, with a blue shirt, and his hair was red. Just as one could tell that he was intelligent, quick and bold, by the three wrinkles, deep as converging arrows, pointed at the outer corners of his eyes from each temple, so his somewhat flattened face, as if pressed against a pane of glass, was marked by that stamp of symmetry which makes the facial morphology of those predestined to a violent death so characteristically unmistakable.

  Fouseret’s scrutinizing and perspicacious air caused Grandsailles to be intimidated for a moment or two and put him on his guard. He said to himself, ‘Let’s be careful – he is a bird of prey!’ This obliged him to make an effort, to surpass himself, and his handling of the situation was in truth masterful. First the Count sat down again, pressing his hands hard against his eyelids, then wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, he let his now haggard gaze roam over the horizon through the half-open door.

  ‘I have been thinking things over,’ said Grandsailles. ‘I believe in your loyalty. After our last interview I could have had you arrested. Though I have not done this, your plans nevertheless continue to depend on my discretion, on which you have no reason to count. After our scene you might have tried to get rid of me, to plot against me. I have proof that you refrained from doing this. Otherwise you would not be here.’ He smiled, then continued, ‘Now you have nothing more to fear – on the contrary. France’s situation has become aggravated, and I have had to revise certain legal notions which have been rooted in my mind for centuries.’ At this point he uttered a sigh and said, as if painfully wrenching this confession from himself, ‘Well, let me put it in this way: I don’t approve, but neither do I any longer condemn political acts of violence!’ As he said this he held out his hand to Fouseret. The latter accepted it, pressing his lips tightly together, and when he parted them they were white as a sheet of paper. ‘France,’ he said dramatically, ‘will always be grateful to you for this.’

  Grandsailles continued now in a calmer and more distant tone, ‘I shall never participate directly in plots of this kind, however…. But I shall know how to shut my eyes to everything.’ Then he suddenly assumed the tone of one who gives orders. ‘In exchange I need you to accompany me to Malta. You will travel with me in the capacity of secretary. In the meantime you must obtain the secret support of your party for certain negotiations with the British. Tomorrow you will be informed of the time of our departure.’ Fouseret had become glued to the wall, as if overwhelmed by the avalanche of the Count’s demands, which he felt he could not refuse….

  ‘I have a panicky horror of flying…. It’s pathological with me!’ Fouseret pleaded, his forehead beaded with perspiration.

  ‘Let’s not go into questions of personal taste. You may not like to fly, but you also know that I for my part have no consuming urge to crawl over the more or less criminal terrain of political assassination.’

  ‘So much for the King’s mail!’ said Grandsailles to himself on seeing Fouseret depart at last, his white suit standing out against the blue sky, his two rigid arms held out a little from his body, symmetrically… like a heraldic fleur-de-lis.

  Toward the end of the afternoon of the same day the cloud-covered sky turned scarlet. ‘Red sky – rain or wind,’ the canoness had said, bringing the Count a steaming cup of very thick chocolate. Grandsailles, who was waiting for Broussillon, burned his tongue on the boiling chocolate, and the falling of the barometer indicating the approaching storm made him press his fist hard against his cheek to control the pricking sensation in his old scar.

  At exactly the appointed hour, Broussillon was admitted by the marine. He rushed straight over to the Count, fell dramatically on his knees, and with tears in his eyes begged him to intervene in behalf of two communist students who had just been sentenced to death.

  Broussillon was one of those shady characters who are to be found on the fringe of every revolutionary movement. Undisciplined, unscrupulous, vindictive, an irrepressible anarchist at heart, he had become isolated from the membership of the party and had long been on the verge of expulsion. Having lost all standing with the leadership he had become the rallying point of a dissident group, and he maintained a shadow of authority only by virtue of the confusion of the times. If he had been able so easily to misrepresent himself to Grandsailles as a responsible communist it was because Broussillon was the very incarnation of all his aristocrat’s preconceptions.

  Broussillon had a large, slightly monstrous head all full of bumps like a sack of potatoes. His weather-beaten skin was woven of coarse epidermis and his deep pores looked as though they were enlarged under a magnifying glass; the hair on his head, as well as the hard, greyish hairs of his beard, his moustache, his nose and his ears, grew rampant, and it was exactly as if the potatoes with which this face seemed to be filled were suddenly bristling with hard brush-hairs, and these hairs stuck out through the thick sack of his skin in all directions. Very delicate gold-rimmed glasses, and hands that were even more delicate, almost feminine, corrected his simian and hirsute appearance, imparting to him a servile, almost decadent character that betrayed every intellectual vice.