Read The Tenth Man for Free Online Page A

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 traveller stepping off the liner at a foreign port for luncheon sums up a nation’s character for ever 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,’ Lenôtre 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 Lenôtre 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 Lenôtre 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.

5
    HE NEVER REALLY expected an offer: hysteria and not hope had dictated his behaviour, and now it took him a long moment to realize that he was not being mocked. He repeated, ‘Everything I’ve got.’ The hysteria peeled off like a scab and left the sense of shame.
    ‘Don’t laugh at him,’ Lenôtre said.
    ‘I’m not laughing. I tell you I’ll buy.’
    There was a long pause as though no one knew what to do next. How does one hand over everything one possesses? They watched him as though they expected him to empty his pockets. Chavel said, ‘You’ll take my place?’
    ‘I’ll take your place.’
    Krogh said impatiently, ‘What’ll be the good of his money then?’
    ‘I can make a will, can’t I?’
    Voisin suddenly took the unlighted cigarette out of his mouth and dashed it to the floor. He exclaimed, ‘I don’t like all this fuss. Why can’t things go natural? We can’t buy
our
lives, Lenôtre and me. Why should he?’
    Lenôtre said, ‘Calm yourself, Monsieur Voisin.’
    ‘It’s not fair,’ Voisin said.
    Voisin’s feeling was obviously shared by most of the men in the cell: they had been patient with Chavel’s hysteria—after all it’s no joke to be a dying man and you couldn’t expect a gentleman to behave quite like other people: that class were all, when you came down to it, a bit soft perhaps: but this that was happening now was different. As Voisin said, it wasn’t fair. Only Lenôtre took it calmly: he had spent a lifetime in business and he had watched from his stool many a business deal concluded in which the best man did not win.
    Janvier interrupted, ‘Fair?’ he said. ‘Why isn’t it fair to let me do what I want? You’d all be rich men if you could, but you haven’t the spunk. I see my chance and I take it. Fair, of course it’s fair. I’m going to die a rich man and anyone who thinks it isn’t fair can rot.’ The peas rolled again on the pan as he coughed. He quelled all opposition: already he had the manner of one who owned half the world: their standards were shifting like great weights—the man who had been rich was already halfway to being one of themselves and Janvier’s head was already lost in the mists and obscurity of wealth. He commanded sharply, ‘Come here. Sit down here.’ And Chavel obeyed, moving a little bent under the shame of his