by Henri Bosco
I thought he would launch into an account of the event. But he did not. He must have wanted to arouse my curiosity. Yet I too kept silent. He resigned himself to resuming his tale:
“All the family’s misfortunes, Mr. de Mégremut, stem from that. Or so all the Malicroix believed, right up to the last one. Superstition, you will say. I grant you that. I am too realistic myself to succumb to such fancies. Still, the facts are troubling. Place yourself, Sir, at the beginning of the century. At that time, the Malicroix were rich, powerful. The Marquis Odéric lived at La Regrègue. It is the big house on the mainland; you can see it through the foliage on shore. Odéric lived there with his two sons, Julien and Cornélius, your own great-uncle. He also had a daughter, Héloïse de Malicroix. You descend from Héloïse, as you know, Sir, by Clémentine de Brochols, your late mother, wife of Mégremut. Not far from Odéric, his younger brother, Alexandre de Malicroix, lived in the Mas de l’Aubée—the Farmhouse of the Dawn. He was a widower with only one daughter, sixteen years old, named Delphine d’Or—Golden Delphine—because of her beautiful blond hair. No one was closer than these two brothers. They loved each other fiercely, and their pride in being Malicroix was so great that, apart from themselves and their family, they counted the rest of humanity as dust. They were just and forthright when called upon, but so haughty that neither their justice nor their forthrightness earned them the least sympathy. To tell the truth, everyone hated them. People here are strong and hardy. Still, simply the sight of a Malicroix made the most daring lower their eyes. Even their neighbors, the Rambards, known for their harshness, yielded to them. From this arose a covert hate. For three centuries, the Rambards passed it down from father to son.
“Now the Rambards were passionate about bulls, and they grazed very large herds along the riverbank. The Malicroix scorned the Rambards and hated their bulls. They, the most bellicose of men, had an aversion to these noble beasts. Out of spite (or so I imagine), they had gathered on their lands huge flocks of sheep, of which they were very proud. ‘Taurus, tellus,’ old Odéric would say scornfully—‘the Bull is but earth.’ ‘Aries, Ignis Coelestis!’ he would add proudly—‘the Ram is the fire of heaven.’ Words that all the Rambards stored in their wild hearts. Odéric knew but did not care. ‘Infidels! They worship the beast!’ he would say of them. Not without reason, perhaps, as you will see. For in the lowlands strange things were whispered about the Rambards: it was said that a white bull, the legendary bull, had been born among them, and they were hiding it. They had built a corral for it alone, on an island in a lagoon. And people imagined impious, abominable rites; for otherwise, why these mysteries—the corral, the lagoon, the Rambards’ furtive look when someone made a veiled allusion. Nothing good could come of it. Tongues wagged. Malice, folly, slander? Perhaps . . . I grant you . . .”
He slowly puffed up his chest, then declared, “And yet, Sir, the bull truly existed.”
Maître Dromiols stopped short and looked at me. His brown eyes and spectacles fastened onto my gaze. I was caught. My mind slowed, was paralyzed, and I almost lost touch with it; but just as it was slipping from me, it met an obstacle. A sort of pure, lofty will rose up within me to meet that still-warm mind and slowly return it to a spot between my eyes, where it began to live again, watchful and calm.
Maître Dromiols turned his head and went on. “It was in June. Odéric, his two sons, and his brother had formed a fox-hunting party. Delphine, who was following the hunt, strayed from it. She did not like these violent pastimes. She was thought to be a dreamer, somewhat shy, a great lover of solitude. An exquisite, strange creature—everyone adored her. But everyone knew her tastes, and no one worried that she had left the hunt. Meanwhile she rode on horseback through the Woods of the Dawn. Soon she reached one of her favorite spots. It’s called Les Eaux de Repentance—the Waters of Repentance. In that spot, the river’s current slows, and within a cove, a beach of very soft silt slopes down toward shallow waters of the greatest purity. Willows and gray aspens shade this little-known beach, and thickets of gorse and viburnum hide it, so that you slip into a half mystery, sheltered from all glances, far from other people. Delphine went there sometimes to bathe. It was a hot day, and so she undressed and entered the water. Now, during these late afternoons, the river water, warmed by the day’s heat and rendered silky by the shore, gives the body such delicious pleasures that you linger there completely without care. Your whole being surrenders to the waves. You swim less than you float, and time passes. I have occasionally bathed at Repentance and I have often forgotten the hour when I should have left, as Delphine did that day. Night was falling when, from the other side of the gorse that hid the river from her sight, she suddenly heard a loud splashing. She wanted to flee but had no time. Her clothes were scattered on the bank. Completely naked, she slid into the gorse and waited. Soon the swimmer appeared. Thrusting the current aside with his massive chest, towering above the water from his nape to his loins, the most colossal bull was approaching shore. Snorting, he slowly stepped onto the beach and sniffed the air. Oh wonder! He was white as snow. It was the bull of the Rambards, the legendary beast! Tempted by the river and his fiery summer instinct, he must have escaped from his corral and set off across the watery meadows, following the scent of some wild female. Rippling with muscles, his body brimmed with savage strength. As he pawed the mud, he panted, with such a fierce look that Delphine, gripped by fear, could not keep from whimpering. At that, his withers leading, his head down, the bull charged into the gorse. She fled. She was a strong, smart girl. Leaping, zigzagging, she knew how to avoid a clash; but, naked, she feared being torn by the bushes. Her feet were bloodied. She cried out. Old Odéric heard her and came running. What he saw struck him with horror. Delphine had slipped and fallen to her knees. In a cloud of dust, at full speed, the beast was bearing down on her. Odéric fired. He fired well. The bull, struck in the heart, collapsed. Already, the others were arriving. They carried Delphine, at a gallop, to La Regrègue. Odéric had the bull thrown into the river. It washed up on the other shore, near the ferry landing. At that spot is an old calvary, a painted wooden crucifix with a life-size Christ. The ferryman, Mathias—called Matefeu—a Rambard, found the beast the next day and speared it. The Rambards dug a hole beneath the cross and buried it by night. A month later, we learned that Cornélius and Delphine de Malicroix were engaged.”
Maître Dromiols clasped his two large hands over his stomach, caught his breath, and continued. “They were married toward the end of July, at La Regrègue. That very evening, they were to leave for a long voyage. They had made wonderful plans. Odéric had lent them his coupé and his two most elegant trotters. The carriage reached the ferry landing at nine in the evening, beneath a full moon. It was so calm on the river you could hear robins singing on the other shore. Horses, carriage, travelers—they all boarded. A solid, wide ferry; a competent, robust ferryman. Everything was going well. This Mathias, although a Rambard, had an excellent reputation. The ferry pulled away from shore and the two newlyweds sat in the prow to look at the river.”
Maître Dromiols unclasped his hands and placed them on his knees, then bent his head. “Here, Mr. Cornélius, who told me the story, would fall into some confusion. For what, in fact, happened? . . . He heard a cry, lost his balance, and fell into the water, knocked partially unconscious by the ferry’s steel cable, which had broken away from the boat’s planking. Courageous and strong as he was, he rose to the surface with one kick and began to swim furiously toward the boat carried away by the current. Swept up by the river, very rapid in that spot, the boat was headed straight toward the Ranc, that rock you may have seen at the tip of the island. It is a deadly spot, where the depths draw down their prey. Whoever slips there never returns. The boat broke up against it. Shouts were heard. Cornélius thought he saw a man swimming. He reached the rock and dove three times, his strength failing. To no avail. The current cast him back ashore, where he fainted. The coupé and the drowned horses were fished out. But they
never again found the ferryman, nor Delphine.”
Returning his hands on his stomach, Maître Dromiols observed a moment of silence. Then, his voice impersonal again, he concluded: “One after another, the same year, old Odéric and his brother, Alexandre, died of grief. Cornélius left. Adventure, war, distant countries—a desperate life. Julien, who, alas, Sir, chased women, was brutally murdered one night two years later as he returned to La Regrègue. A great blow to the family. He was the eldest. Cornélius stayed away for thirty years. We received nothing but brief bits of news. He was not interested in his property. There were creditors. It was necessary to sell, to sell. We saved La Regrègue, the island, the name—the spiritual goods. Is that not what counts? At last, one fine day—it will be twenty-five years this spring—without giving any notice, Cornélius returned. He found nothing but poverty. But enough was left for him to live freely and to die at home. From the day of his arrival, he set himself up on this wild island. Understandably, La Regrègue remained shut. He never returned to it. All the same, he went ashore frequently and, like a sensible man, busied himself with his flock. On horseback, he wandered at will along the riverbank. He was often seen near the landing where the ferry once left for the other shore. A solitary spot since the wreck—the boat destroyed, the ferryman gone, the passage across the water abandoned. Then, one day, some laborers came from Arles. They stretched a cable, brought a boat, and an old ferryman established himself there. You may have seen him from afar, crossing the river, usually when night is falling, always alone, like a river Shadow. He is very old. He is called ‘Le Grelu.’
“This, Sir, is the whole story. Cornélius is dead. You are here. I thought it my duty to inform you. Now you know the Malicroix. It is up to you to deliberate and decide. Everything is clear.” He was silent.
I asked him, “And the Rambards? Are there still Rambards?”
“Yes. But we have crushed them. They are ruined, Sir.”
He looked at me. I understood. He added, “Cowherds, ordinary cowherds, that is what they have become. It has not made them good. You will see for yourself. They often poach on your land . . .”
I did not react.
He noticed, then said, “It is very late. With your permission, Sir, Uncle Rat will prepare my bed in this room, the only place in this house where a person can sleep with decency. Do not be concerned. I am a very quiet sleeper, and my travel kit is arranged so that my sleep will not at all disturb that of my host, or so I hope. Uncle Rat, my things!”
• • •
The door to the storeroom opened quietly. Balandran and Uncle Rat appeared, bearing the travel kit promised by Maître Dromiols. Quickly and silently, they set up a camp bed. Sheets, a light down blanket, a mat, a night table, and a glass nightlight created a domestic nook at one end of the room that had nothing in common with the rest of the house. It was truly the airborne chamber of the enormous enchanter Dromiols. He stood with his back to the fire, gazing with satisfaction at the creation of this little realm fully consecrated to his sleep.
Uncle Rat carefully lit the nightlight. Next, to hide the bed, he and Balandran put up a large six-paneled screen, painted from top to bottom.
“Sir,” Maître Dromiols addressed me, “here you can contemplate the adventures of the wily Odysseus. One side is rose-colored, the other blue. On the rose side, Nausicaa, Calypso, the swineherd Eumaeus, the return to Ithaca, and the slaughter of the vile suitors. On the blue side, Circe and the sea, the ships, the stars. You will see the rose side from your bed, Sir. It is charming. As for me, I have kept the blue. I like the blue; it helps my sleep and gives me wonderful dreams. May you have a good night, Mr. de Mégremut!”
He disappeared behind his canvas screen. Balandran shut himself up in the storeroom. Uncle Rat remained beside his master.
The Maître began to speak.
“My boots, Uncle Rat. My cap. My nightshirt.”
Uncle Rat took the boots, handed the cap, offered the nightshirt.
The Maître then asked, “And my tisane? Is it warm enough? Have you added orange-flower water?”
Maître Dromiols drank his tisane. He finished it, cleared his throat, blew some congestion from his nose, and said, “Uncle Rat, the prayers. It is time.”
Uncle Rat immediately began in his nasal voice, “Jube, Domne, benedicere . . .”
“Noctem quietam,” responded Maître Dromiols, “et finem perfectum concedat nobis Dominus omnipotens. Amen.”
For several minutes, they prayed.
Then I heard the bed creaking.
“Uncle Rat, tuck in my feet.”
Uncle Rat tucked in his feet. Maître Dromiols, satisfied at last, sighed lengthily and uttered one word: “Pax!”
“Pax,” murmured timid Uncle Rat, a faint echo.
He withdrew on tiptoe and seemed to float as he crossed the room; then, like a Shadow, he vanished into the storeroom through a crack in the door.
I was alone in front of my bed.
I could see, above the screen, the golden glow of the nightlight. A vast breathing was the only sign of that huge man already sinking into sleep as he dreamt of Circe, wily Odysseus’s ship, and stars rising over the sea. Air was peacefully entering the sleeper’s huge chest, where it did its work, then peacefully exited. The scent of orange-flower water rose from the small flask where the nighttime tisane was cooling. From time to time, outside the house, an unknown creature whimpered, very quietly, by the river.
• • •
I was entirely still. All my sensations—the glow, the breath, the fragrance, and the quiet animal cry—etched a sparkling design within me. I perceived them clearly, and their presence was so real that at times it seemed uncanny. This is not, I told myself, how real things touch us. My awareness of the scene in front of me was so vivid it became hallucinatory. I saw what I saw. Ordinarily, we remain apart from what we see, even when it is most concrete; all our human thickness—warm, fluid, alive—comes between us and trembles.
And myself as well, I also saw myself.
I was standing near the bed. I needed to sleep; yet in order to sleep, I had to undress, to lift the sheet, to stretch out, to lay my abnormally clear-sighted head on the pillow, to close my eyes. Simple actions that suddenly seemed unearthly. I wondered whether they were possible. And soon I even convinced myself they were not.
I felt as if the house had abruptly closed in on itself. It had grown smaller, confined to the strange boundaries of the encampment at the heart of the room. They had left me outside, shivering, exposed to the wind, in the middle of the night.
This strange sensation did not relieve my anxiety about the actions I had yet to perform. I could not quite resolve to do them, and so I stretched out, fully clothed, on the wool blanket, which I wrapped around myself to keep out the cold and damp.
As soon as I lay down, I sought sleep. Ordinarily, one seizes sleep beneath one’s eyes and holds it there with the weight of heavy eyelids; but it was of no use to apply this weight to my pupils. Sleep did not come. Between my pupils and my sleep, a gaze slipped in. A lucid gaze, tense, suffused to the core with cruel clarity. It tore my thoughts and feelings from me with a shining precision that mesmerized me. It was the same earlier, when I stood with eyes open and concrete objects possessed me and made me hallucinate. The sharpness of these sensations soon grew so strong I began to suffer from a kind of pure insomnia. Not a normal state of wakefulness, in which confusion alternates with mental effort and is prolonged. I felt as if I had fallen prey to a dry lucidity. A hypervigilance refused to surrender any shadow to self-forgetfulness, and I remained painfully aware of everything.
And so, that night, I did not dream. I listened, I reflected. The evening had gone on deep into the night, and I was very tired. Still, the long, abundant, diverse, strange talk of Maître Dromiols had not clouded my mind. What he had told me remained vividly present. I could read his plan. More than the details, the sharp outline was evident. They wanted to keep me from this place. For reasons I had
yet to discover, my presence here disturbed Maître Dromiols. He could barely hide it. I saw the means he had contrived to make me leave. They seemed the inventions of an imaginative but also sensible and subtle man. Still, they did not trouble me. It was he, Dromiols, and he alone, who troubled me. And with a trouble both clear and vague. For while it emanated from the visible, with clear causes and effects, something invisible also came to me and descended into my darkest depths.
All that I had seen, heard, and understood of Dromiols made him seem redoubtable. His power, calculation, and patient tenacity crushed me from on high. I judged him to be much stronger than I was, in every respect. He was a kind of monster. Although this wounded my pride, I could summon no enthusiasm for the struggles ahead. Still, troubled as I was by him, I was not afraid. There is only a thin line between trouble and fear, but there is a line. It is there if you can see the cause of your trouble. But another kind of trouble, undefinable, also exists. I felt it, and I sensed that the danger came from there. It was nothing but a muffled apprehension, a vague anxiety, something painful and unplaceable, like an unformed emotion that painfully prowls through you, seeking its still-nascent shape. I sensed this vague feeling slowly prowling through me now, and—although I could not grasp its image—I suspected it drew life from the presence of a Dromiols other than the one of spoken words. Most likely the one of silenced words. And, more deeply still, the one of words that could not be spoken.
• • •
At two in the morning, he began to dream out loud.
At first his breathing intensified, then a hoarse sound announced an imminent voice, a faint bellow, still locked against the spirits of the deep.
A sigh half opened a door—the first—to their hidden pressure, and a faint wave of sound, barely shaken from the soul, revealed the still-distant dream. A murmur came from it. Hearing it across the vast expanse of sleep, my whole self crossed the boundaries of the senses and ventured into its own dream world, where, finding nothing but obscure forebodings, it drifted. Still, I was waiting. But the secret shapes that haunted the sleeper were slow to shatter the silence. I suspected that, before unveiling those still-free forms, he sought, even in his sleep, to capture them, to control their fluid outlines, to impose on them some rational order. His deep nature perhaps demanded that he premeditate his dreams. I suspected he maintained his logical habit even in this incoherent world, and I was prepared to hear some carefully chosen, even eloquent sentences emerge from this second life. He probably did think them, but he delivered only scraps. The sigh was followed by a groan, and then he spoke. He spoke the name “Cornélius” with a sneer, a sneer that made me shudder with fear. He grew restless on his camp bed. I thought he was about to rise. Yet he was still asleep, and suddenly a dull voice emerged from him. His usual voice was recognizable, but without the reverberation of its solemn tones. Twice he uttered the word “sheep” with a sort of cold irony, and then he was silent. Afterward, his breathing gradually grew calmer, deep and steady again. I waited in vain. He made no further revelations. And, numbed by my wait, I lost my lucidity and slipped unawares into a deep sleep that blotted me out.