Chapitre 18: Chapter XVIII
Richard was breathing deeply. His neck and face felt hot even though he had since long left the heated discussion with Mr Magloire and his attachés. His palms were sweating. There was some overwhelming pressure beating down on him, and Richard had trouble organising his thoughts. He had not often the feeling that he was an outsider when it came to James and Mathi. But when he did, his anger would spark like a match to a candle.
Richard paused, mouth working to form words silently. Mathilda let out a breath of air as if conversing with Richard required too great an effort. She then tensed.
"It's of no matter."
Feeling confused, and perhaps even a flicker of anger on Mr Aldouin's part, Richard regarded her. Mathilda kept looking at him, seeing him but not seeing him, and he shifted his weight from leg to the other. Her gaze was uncomfortable, because he did not know what he looked like to her, a man or a child, a wretch or a friend. He was all of them, and none of them, and sometimes it was exhausting to be nothing.
With a final scoff, Mathi ventured inside. James picked up a conversation about his early morning foray and the routine paperwork and old Mr Moreau' indignation about his caprices at work without looking at him. Then there fell a tense silence.
Richard folded his evening jacket closer around himself. He felt unsure of everything at once. James was the most puzzling. Ever since James had started working his friend was somehow both more and less refined than ever. Richard enjoyed their time together, but often it left him confused if he ever really knew James. Or Mathi, for that matter. He craved their friendship, yet constantly worried if he read it all wrong, if the friendship he trusted was ever real.
The silence grated at Richard's patience, he shifted in his place, stretched his legs enough to bump his toes into James's. When that got no response, Richard huffed and lifted his eyes up at his friend. James was looking at the gardens below them, probably trying to make out the rare shapes moving in the dark. Richard wondered what would happen if he were to scoot over and playfully push him over.
But Richard saw no point in dragging the night out any further, though he fidgeted nervously all the same, waiting for James to speak. Judging by the tightening around James's eyes and mouth, he was not in a very talkative mood either. Richard took a step back.
"Look," he said, hugging his arms around himself. "I might go home."
James nodded, wearily. Then almost apologetically. "You need a lift?"
"I'll take a hansom."
"Alright."
"Alright." Another moment, then he tipped his head, leaving James to his thoughts. He exempted several who came up to him in greeting but by this point Richard thought he should just pilfer a bottle from a footman and get himself back to the apartment and forget all about this whole dreadful evening. Tomorrow morning he would have another chat with his father and spend the day forgetting said chat.
There was so much loud music and laughter and dancing that Richard almost wanted to join despite himself. It was infectious. The decadent fun, this ability to party without fear of consequence. Richard saw the appeal. Had often enough done it himself. The evening itself was wonderful, but there was doubt beginning to take root in the back of Richard's mind. This evening, this event, as so many others had been in the past months, was just a reprieve: a respite of drunken stupor, something positive to cling to before the next round of reality would hit him.
Richard had to squeeze his way through the sheer amount of people that were enjoying themselves. It felt weird to be the only one there not partying. It was the same feeling he got when he regarded the faces of the audience during a performance. It felt weird, as if part from an entirely different world. Richard felt superior, somehow. He heard the piano being played, discordant, off-key, and longed to see who it was.
In the music room, Richard eluded Mathi, who was now engaged in a conversation with two gentlemen. Richard was not at all happy. Mathilda's initial disregard towards Vale was still bothering Richard and so he ignored her, saying he was on his way to get a drink. Mathilda then asked Richard how long his childhood friend would be staying.
"I don't know." He said, truthfully.
"I'm very sorry to see you go about with people like him, Richard," she said, smiling at her acquaintances as if she had been talking of him a great deal in the past two minutes. Richard thought them instantly unpleasant. Mathi regarded him through half-lidded eyes and laughed, gaily, as if she had read his mind. Richard then exalted a smile and bowed, taking himself away from the scene as fast as possible. How 'kind' she was. Richard clenched his teeth and thought he might very well deserve that drink.
Alienating all thoughts and comments that had infuriated him, Richard found himself a silent spot by the windows. Mathi was drunk. She did not mean it so. Her face then morphed into that of Mr Magloire, laughing and mocking; amidst his colleagues who upheld much the same attitude. It was nothing. They did not know him. They had no reason to belittle him so; they were just chauvinistic old men. Paris was a city of slanders: everyone told tales here.
But what if they were not? — A voice remarked. What if he was all they had said. All they thought of him. And that would be all they ever thought of him. Then what? Richard breathed and forced himself to calm, eyes closed, mortification washing through him as he compared himself against all of those expectations that they had had of him — and came up woefully short.
"Richard? Do you play?"
Richard blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
Mr Rousseau stood next to him with his habitual good humour, had been standing there for god knows how long. He pointed to the dealer at the table, abreast the piano, who was shuffling the deck. "Would you like in on this next hand, dear fellow? Blinds are fifty and a hundred."
"Oh, I better not," Richard said. He shifted his weight and Mr Rousseau regarded him curiously. There was a fondness there, in the creases of his brow, in the laugh lines near his lips.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course." Richard laughed, mentally reprimanding himself.
"Look at them, Richard," Mr Rousseau gestured, "all respectable people who believe in respectability. They're so tedious aren't they. Have you met Abiosah yet?"
"Who?"
"Abiosah. The man from Senegal."
"No." he shook his head, slightly confused.
"Part of the delegation, I believe. They're asking for more autonomy," Mr Rousseau frowned gravely, "begging, really. On their knees. Dreadful happenings. Dreadful happenings."
"Yes. Dreadful—" Richard trailed off, at a loss for words, and worried the sides of his hair, then the cuffs of his coat jacket; a nervous tic he rarely had. Mr Rousseau looked him over once more:
"I saw you talking to Mr Magloire earlier. Things got a little heated there, didn't they?"
"Ah— yes. No. No, not really. It was a small difference of opinion. But it seems like the matter was a lot more complicated than I initially thought it to be—"
Mr Rousseau let out a massive puff of air from his generous torso and stroked his bushy eyebrows in something that resembled mourning contemplation.
"No. It wasn't," he ultimately decided, and regarded the room pensively. "When people start using big, incomprehensible words, my dear fellow, it means they are afraid that you'd be able to undermine their argument if you were to understand them," he smiled at Richard before he looked back to the bobbing crowd, "the more eloquent the language, the more they want to distract you from the fact that they're unsure of the accuracy of their own argument. A learned man will be able to present his plea in a way that most understand. You'd think a man like Magloire to be educated, but, as it appears, he is no less arrogant than other self-important academics," Mr Rousseau smiled wanly as he nodded in greeting to a man Richard did not know, "you'll recognise them easily, my dear fellow. They'll have an opinion they desperately want to be true and they'll claim to have all the answers. In my experience, educated people can say they don't know, or accept the possibility they might be wrong."
"Then I don't know much educated people."
"I've had the pleasure of encountering some," he tilted his head, "and it always saddened me that when being fair to myself— about myself, I could not count myself among them." Another wan smile split his countenance, although his eyes brimmed with gaiety.
"I could admit to the possibility that I'm wrong."
Amusement laced Mr Rousseau's voice: "many think they do, my dear fellow."
Richard shrugged. He was getting distracted again.
"Don't expect any recognition or respect for it; your ease to admit you might be wrong will be seen by some as their win. They'll see the fact that you entertain the possibility, as you declaring your own opinion to be wrong."
"But what if I were wrong?"
"That is another matter altogether. Entertaining the possibility that you might be wrong is a mindset that allows open-mindedness while remaining, in theory, by your own opinion. Admitting that you are wrong when realising you are wrong, is a politeness that only the well-mannered have. It's much alike politics, my dear fellow. People would rather be thought of as right than be effective," Mr Rousseau ducked his head to lit up his cigar, "but I dislike talking of politics," he pocketed his lighter, "it is a subject not worth talking of nowadays. And yet it is the only subject talked of."
"Surely you don't mean that uncle."
"Politics is the only subject I won't take seriously. Dear Mr Martin's ruining the country."
It was as if Mr Rousseau's voice came from behind a glass wall. Richard felt nauseous. Several times he flattened his waistcoat at his sides and crossed and uncrossed his arms, and when he glanced at his pocket-watch, he saw that more than half an hour had passed since his decision to go home.
The gesture had not gone unnoticed.
"Am I boring you, dear fellow?"
"Please forgive me, uncle." Richard knew he should have been patient, but he couldn't. It felt as if ants were crowding his hands up into his sleeves and the drove of people was suffocating him. He smiled and bid Mr Rousseau goodnight.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone