The Tenth Man

4

LENOTRE SAID, “COME OVER HERE, MONSIEUR CHAVEL, AND sit down with us.” It was as if he were inviting Chavel to come up higher, to the best table at a public dinner.

“No,” Chavel said, “no.” He threw the slip upon the ground and cried, “I never consented to the draw. You can’t make me die for the rest of you…”

They watched him with astonishment but without enmity. He was a gentleman. They didn’t judge him by their own standards: he belonged to an unaccountable class and they didn’t at first even attach the idea of cowardice to his actions.

Krogh said, “Sit down and rest. There’s nothing to worry about any more.”

“You can’t,” Chavel said. “It’s nonsense. The Germans won’t accept me. I’m a man of property.”

Lenotre said, “Don’t take on now, Monsieur Chavel. If it’s not this time it’s another…”

“You can’t make me,” Chavel repeated.

“It’s not we who’ll make you,” Krogh said.

“Listen,” Chavel implored them. He held out the slip of paper and they all watched him with compassionate curiosity. “I’ll give a hundred thousand francs to anyone who’ll take this.”

He was beside himself-almost literally beside himself. It was as if some hidden calmness in him stood apart and heard his absurd proposition and watched his body take up shameful attitudes of fear and pleading. It was as if the calm Chavel whispered with ironic amusement, “A grand show. Lay it on a bit thicker. You ought to have been an actor, old man. You never know. It’s a chance.”

He took little rapid steps from one man to another, showing each man the bit of paper as if he were an attendant at an auction. “A hundred thousand francs,” he implored, and they watched him with a kind of shocked pity: he was the only rich man among them and this was a unique situation. They had no means of comparison and assumed that this was a characteristic of his class, just as a traveler stepping off the liner at a foreign port for luncheon sums up a nation’s character forever in the wily businessman who happens to share the table with him.

“A hundred thousand francs,” he pleaded, and the calm shameless Chavel at his side whispered, “You are getting monotonous. Why haggle? Why not offer them everything you possess?”

“Calm yourself, Monsieur Chavel,” Lenotre said.

“Just think a moment-no one is going to give his life for money he’ll never enjoy.”

“I’ll give you everything I’ve got,” Chavel said, his voice breaking with despair, “money, land, everything, St. Jean de Brinac…”

Voisin said impatiently, “None of us want to die, Monsieur Chavel,” and Lenotre repeated with what seemed to the hysterical Chavel shocking self-righteousness, “Calm yourself, Monsieur Chavel.”

Chavel’s voice suddenly gave out. “Everything,” he said.

They were becoming impatient with him at last. Tolerance is a question of patience, and patience is a question of nerves, and their nerves were strained. “Sit down,” Krogh rapped at him, “and shut your mouth.” Even then Lenotre made a friendly space for him, patting the floor at his side.

“Over,” the calm Chavel whispered, “over. You weren’t good enough. You’ve got to think up something else…”

A voice said, “Tell me more. Maybe I’ll buy.” It was Janvier.