Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  I have had to resign myself to the truly horrible, persecuting nature of that wallpaper, though I’ll never get used to it. I had to resign myself to many other disagreeable things too. The house was very badly kept by old Madame Cébron, who was an excellent person, but a complete slattern. Her cleaning-rags were left all over the place; a vile odour of burnt fat rose from the kitchen to the rooms on the first floor and was as offensive to my nose as the wallpaper was to my eyes. One day, I caught the old woman washing something in the coffee-pot: it was a pair of stockings she had been wearing for the past month. These are details that must seem insignifibent and vulgar, and the only reason I mention them here is because, for two years, I have been aware of myself only through the incessant sense of revulsion they provoked and the despondency and disgust they reflected back at me. Leaving aside the effect of the wallpaper and the petty daily irritations of the household, my response to those vulgar pieces of furniture was, admittedly, mean-spirited. I felt disoriented, ashamed, as if I had been used to living in some magnificent palace.

  School, and the conversations I had had there with rich schoolfellows, had revealed to me elegant ways of life that I could vividly imagine and which it pained me not to possess myself. Of course, I did nothing but stagnate in boredom. This inaction, combined with the depressing influence of the brown paper with the yellow flowers, stifled any impulse towards action and thought, and encouraged strange day-dreams. I often thought about Father de Kern, without indignation and sometimes with pleasure, lingering over certain memories, the very ones which made me the most ashamed and the most distressed. Eventually, I would get excited and indulge in shameful solitary acts, mindlessly lost in savage, animal pleasure. I experienced days, whole weeks – for I noticed that this effect came in waves – which I sacrificed entirely to this empty obscenity. Afterwards, I would be overwhelmed by melancholy, self-disgust and terrible remorse. My life was spent in satisfying furious desires and then regretting having done so, and the whole business made me extremely tired.

  What astonished me was my father’s behaviour towards me. He never addressed a remark to me, never enquired as to what I had been doing or, if I had come in late, where I had been. It was as if I no longer existed for him. In the evening, after supper, he unfolded his newspaper, which he had already read twice, and began to re-read it. For my part, I said good night to him and left the room. That was it. We never spoke. I was frustrated by this silent, indifferent attitude, irritated with him and unhappy with myself. It is true I never did anything to try and alter the situation. If he had a guest for dinner – which happened only rarely – and that person, out of a guest’s natural politeness, asked after me, my father would reply evasively, with a sort of laconic benevolence which I found very wounding. Once someone asked him: ‘Well now, what are we to do with this young man?’ and my father said: ‘When I am gone, he’ll have enough to live on without ever lifting a finger, won’t he?’ I nearly wept. The only occasion when my father felt obliged to address me directly was almost comical. Someone gave me a puppy. I brought it home, triumphant, pleased to have a companion; then my father, who was strolling in the garden, spotted it.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked me.

  ‘A dog, Papa.’

  ‘I don’t want any dogs in my house. I don’t like animals.’

  This was true: he did not like animals or flowers. So I had to give the dog back.

  Madame Lecautel was the only person I enjoyed seeing. What is more, she took an interest in me, showing me an almost maternal affection, which was like a balm to me and gave me a little self-esteem. Once, she made it clear to me that I could not continue in this state of degrading laziness and strongly advised me to go back to school and complete my studies. But I refused with such vehemence and horror that she did not mention it again. Then she decided that I should go into business and learn my father’s trade. The idea did not appeal to me at all. However, I felt I should bow to Madame Lecautel’s wishes. I mentioned it to my father and, immediately, but without any sign either of pleasure or displeasure, he took me to his successor and said: ‘I’ve brought you an apprentice.’ The shop has not changed. It is still painted green. The window offers the same display of symmetrically arranged objects; the interior contains the same pots and pans. At the back of the shop is the same glazed door opening onto the same back room, which, in turn, opens onto the same yard, enclosed by the same sweating walls. My father’s successor is called François Trinberd. He is a small, unctuous man, devout and clean-shaven, or rather, ill-shaven like the monks at the school, whose hesitant, timid manner he also shares. He is a beadle too and highly regarded in the town. He combines his main job as ironmonger with the sleazier and more lucrative one of short-term money-lender. François Trincard said to me: ‘Well now, being in business is a fine occupation!’ and made me work in the yard setting up some rusty, old fencing which he had acquired from a demolition site. I spent a week sorting out this ironwork, sometimes assisted by Madame Trinberd, a fat woman with greedy lips and shiny cheeks, who looked at me, laughing oddly. I could not help thinking: ‘If my classmates in Vannes could see me now …’ The idea made me blush. My father came over to the shop regularly every day at two o’clock. He would sit down and chat with Trincard about various matters. I would go off somewhere and keep my distance from him. He seemed not to see me and did not ask after my progress in the art of sorting out scrap iron. One day when my ‘boss’ was out, his wife called me into the back room. She beckoned me close and asked me briskly:

  ‘Is it true, my little Sébastien, that you were caught with another lad in school?’

  And when, caught off guard by this unexpected question, I blushed and did not answer, she went on:

  ‘So it’s true then? Well, that’s very naughty. You little rascal!’

  I saw her breast heave like the swell of a wave and felt her thick lips fasten on mine in an avid kiss, this kiss accompanied by a brazen, groping gesture.

  ‘Let me go!’ I said feebly.

  In fact, I would have liked to continue, but for some reason I extribeted myself from her embrace and fled.

  That is how I came to quit commerce.

  My father showed neither surprise nor anger. Madame Lecautel gave me a long lecture but, eager to find me a proper occupation, persuaded me to ‘try my hand’ at being a notary, since business did not seem to suit me. I mentioned it to my father, who, just as he had done with the ironmonger, took me to the notary, this time saying: ‘I’ve brought you a clerk.’ The notary, Monsieur Champier, was a very cheerful man, fond of jokes, who spent almost his entire day standing on his doorstep, whistling humorous songs and greeting passers-by. All he ever did was initial documents and sign certificates; so he initialed and signed as he whistled. He often went to Paris where, he said, he had important business. As for his office, he left all the administration of that to his principal clerk. He welcomed me jovially: ‘Well now, being a notary is a fine occupation!’ he said and, whistling, led me into his office, where I spent a month copying out lists.

  Madame Champier often visited the office. She was small, withered and dark, her skin coarse and swarthy, and she had large, moist eyes and an unhappy, distracted air.

  ‘You have such lovely handwriting, Monsieur Sébastien,’ she used to say, sighing and languorous. ‘I’d love you to copy out this poem for me …’

  And into the little notebook she had brought I would copy poems by Madame Tastu and Hégésippe Moreau.

  When she came to collect my efforts, she would say with a groan:

  ‘Poor young man! Such a sensitive soul! And he died so young! Thank you, Monsieur Sébastien.’

  One day, when her husband had gone off to Paris on his important business, Madame Champier sent for me. She was dressed in a blue peignoir, which fitted very loosely and floated about her; the smell of newly-applied perfume wafted in the air. Just as the ironmonger’s wife had done, she drew me to her and asked:

  ‘Is it true, Sébastien, t
hat you were caught at school with another boy?’

  I had no time to recover from the confusion into which this question still plunged me.

  ‘That is very naughty,’ she sighed, ‘very naughty. You young rascal …’

  And I was obliged to leave the notary’s office in exactly the same way as I had left the ironmonger’s.

  Madame Lecautel was annoyed by my behaviour and took no further interest in my career. Life went on as before, with its heavy, stuffy, stifling atmosphere, hideously overshadowed by the brown wallpaper with the yellow flowers.

  3rd January

  What has happened in my life since that already distant time? What have I become? What point have I reached? To other people I seem the same: sad, gentle and docile. I come and go as before. However, some notable changes have Laken place in me and, I am convinced, I suffer from mental disorders which are deeply significant. But, before confessing them, I must say a few words about my father.

  I now know the reason for his attitude to me, an attitude which he has always taken, and which means that, living under the same roof, seeing each other every day, we are nevertheless complete strangers to one another, as if we had never met. This is the reason. I was a stimulus to my father’s vanity, the promise of social elevation, the impersonal summation of his incoherent dreams and peculiar ambitions. I did not exist in myself; it was he who existed or rather re-existed through me. He did not love me; he loved himself in me. Strange as it may seem, I am sure that by sending me to school, my father, in all good faith, felt that he was going there himself; he imagined it was him receiving the benefits of an education which in his mind ought to lead to the highest positions in the land. From the day when it became clear that nothing of what he had dreamed for himself (not for me) could be realised, I resumed the role that in reality I had always held, that is, I no longer existed for him at all. Now he has started to see me only at more or less fixed times, and he thinks that is quite normal. But I am nothing in his life, no more than the milestone opposite our house, no more than the gilded cockerel on the church steeple, or the least of the inanimate objects he sees about him every day. Clearly, I have less importance in his mind than the cherry tree in the garden which supplies him with red, succulent cherries every year. Dare I admit it? This situation does not cause me any pain at all, which is strange, to say the least, and I have come to find it perfect, convenient and would not have it otherwise. It means that I do not have to make conversation or pretend filial sentiments towards him which I do not feel. Sometimes, at table, as I look at his poor, narrow skull, his smooth, flat forehead and those empty eyes, empty of thought and empty of love, I think sadly: ‘What would we have to say to one another anyway? It’s better like this.’ However, I cannot help feeling a little pity for him. He has been ill recently and that did touch me.

  I have slept a great deal, but it is a brutalising, torpid sleep. My vice, at first unleashed in irregular bouts, eventually settled and became a kind of normal bodily function for me. Then I read a great deal, with no particular plan, no selection, no method, all sorts of books, mainly novels and poetry. But the books which I could obtain here and there, borrowed at random, soon no longer sufficed. There was a void at their centre which left me completely unsatisfied and they often contained some sentimental or corrupting lie which angered me. Of course I was and still am very sensitive to beauty of form, but beneath the form, however beautiful, I demanded the substance of an idea, an explanation for my uncertainties, my ignorance, my embryonic feelings of revolt. I looked for some clear meaning in life and nature. It was impossible for me to get hold of any books containing anything like this, though I felt they must exist somewhere. It was equally impossible for me to meet anyone else, any individual in whom I might confide my urgent desire for self-instruction and self-knowledge. This lack of an intellectual companion is definitely what was most painful to me and what I missed most. So much so that each day I am learning to measure the extent of my ignorance by the multiplicity of the mysteries surrounding me, which increase with each passing day. I contemplate in vain the buds burgeoning on the tips of the branches, follow for days on end the work of ants and bees, but, in the end, who will explain to me how the buds burst into leaf and change into fruit, or which universal law of harmony those sublime artists, bees and ants obey? In effect, I am no farther forward than I was at school, and my inner torments are increasing. Barely noticed by me and almost unconsciously, a dull, continuous chaos reigns in my mind, making me think about many different things, without appreciable results; rebellion has broken out in me, setting everything I learned against what I see, battling against the prejudices engendered by my education. A vain rebellion, alas, and unproductive too. Often the prejudices are the stronger and prevail over certain ideas which I know to be generous and just. I cannot conceive, in however confused a manner, of a moral system for the universe, free of all hypocrisies or religious, political, legal and social barbarities, without being instantly gripped by the same religious and social terrors inculcated in me at school. However brief the time I spent there, however apparently impervious I thought I was to that depressing and servile education, relying on my innate instinct for justice and pity, its terrors and slavery have soaked into my brain and poisoned my soul. They have made me too cowardly to think for myself. I cannot even imagine a form of art outside classical convention without immediately wondering: ‘Is that a sin?’ As for priests, they make me shudder. I can feel the deceit in what they preach, the deceit of the consolations they offer, the deceit behind the mad, implacable God they serve; I feel that priests are only here in society in order to keep man steeped in his intellectual filth and to create out of the enslaved multitudes a flock of brute idiots and cowards. Nevertheless, the imprint left on my heart is so ineradicable that I have often asked myself: ‘If I were dying, what would I do?’ and despite the protests of logic, I reply: ‘I would call a priest.’

  This morning I went to see Joseph Larroque, one of my friends from the local school. He is dying from a disease of the lungs. Last year, the terrible illness carried off his elder sister. His parents are labourers, poor, lazy and devout, who live off the parish. The father is a lay brother and hopes to become a sacristan. The priest takes an interest in him. He arranged for Joseph to enter the seminary, first as a junior, then as a senior, but the poor boy was unable to continue because of his illness. He came back home and took to his bed. I go to keep him company sometimes. He lies in a small room, which is dark, dirty and evil-smelling. He is not aware of his condition and keeps talking of going back to the seminary soon. His parents are distraught because they had been nursing special hopes. They had planned their old age around him: their son’s presbytery, a pretty house with a large garden. The mother would have looked after the house and the father would have tended the garden. Now it is all slipping out of their grasp. Though the room is very cold, it has no fire. Now that their son has been condemned to die, his mother sells the wood sent for him, and his father gets drunk every night on the bottles of tonic wine which a charitable organisation sends for the patient. Today, Joseph was sad and in low spirits.

  ‘It’s no good, no good,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve got an itch, here, right inside my lungs.’

  His eyes burn with fever; his face is gaunt, horribly white; his chest wheezes, convulsed by coughing. In the room next door, his mother paces up and down and sighs.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I tell him, ‘You’re getting better.’

  ‘No,’ Joseph insists, ‘I really am very ill. I’m finished. Yesterday I heard my mother say so – that I’m finished.’

  I comfort him as best I can. The priest comes in at that moment. He is a fat fellow, solidly built, bursting with rowdy, noisy health.

  ‘Ah, it’s no good, no good,’ murmurs Joseph to the priest.

  The fellow responds with a huge laugh:

  ‘Trickster! You want us to feel sorry for you and bring you treats!’

  ‘No, really, honestly …’<
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  ‘Get away with you. In a week you’ll be on your feet. And shall I tell you what we’ll do? Well, we’ll go and have a rabbit supper with the priest in Goulonges. Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  The poor devil’s face lights up all of a sudden. He stops thinking about his illness. He says feebly:

  ‘Yes, rabbit, we’ll eat rabbit.’

  ‘And we’ll drink cider … some of his vintage cider.’

  ‘Yes, yes, some of his vintage cider.’

  He brightened up, filled with hope. Then the two of them, Joseph coughing and the priest laughing, began to talk about amusing episodes they remembered from the seminary.

  I left with a heavy heart. This was a young man who was about to die. He was not completely brutish nor ignorant, he had read books and been to school. He must have had feelings and dreams. However poor, vulgar and unformed he was, he must have had some ideals. He was going to die and was in despair over it. But the mere promise of eating rabbit gave him the will to live.

  How sad. What was sadder still is that it had to be so. There was no more effective or adequate hope to feed their mutual aspirations. This troubled me all day.