Malicroix

by Henri Bosco

  Moi

  Mal y croit qui tout n’y croit.

  I

  Who believes not all believes but ill.

  Terse pride, demanding faith. There was, at the heart of my desire, Malicroix and his mystery.

  Of Malicroix, however, who had haunted me for so long before I came to the island, nothing was left in me but the mental outline, the intangible silhouette. I no longer saw him with my own eyes as I once had in dreams: tall, thin, rapidly crossing the wasteland where I followed him in the gloaming. But I felt his presence, and if something of the man persisted, it was something imperceptible to the senses yet perceptible to the soul, a mysterious impression of his distant youth—his halcyon days, perhaps . . .

  In this way, hallucinating or reasoning, dreaming or drawing up my plans, I came up against a strange presence. Nameless within my hallucinations but endowed with a clear name whenever I had some composure. Named or not, visible or invisible, this presence was an inner responsibility. I felt its unfathomable weight and stillness. I do not know what one soul can do within another, once it has been established there; and I did not want to admit that Malicroix was there, between my feelings and my thoughts, as close to me as myself, and perhaps closer still. But I sensed a watchfulness dwelling within me. A serious, virile watchfulness, like what a man grants another man, and only a man. This watchfulness cast a shadow somewhere within me. At the same time, behind this shadow, a light radiated, like a gentle ring. It was not the severe, exacting vigilance that watched over me, but the purest expectation. As I contemplated it, another name slowly took shape within me, allied to a more tender presence, melodious and sweetly scented, fluid and clear. “I must,” I murmured to myself, “reach this alluring soul; but can I do so without Malicroix—without myself becoming Malicroix—who loved and was loved?” Already forgetting the advice proffered by Maître Dromiols, I was, it seems, unwittingly letting myself be invaded by illusions from that world of souls, whose dangerous inroads and deadly mirages he had foreseen. Yet these mirages enchanted and did not at all frighten me, for these souls had no faces and were not be found anywhere—nor was I when I thought of them; it was only the shifting lights and shadows within me that announced their arrival or departure.

  • • •

  I deliberated late into the night. My sleep was light. I woke with clarity and calm. It was November 26. I remember this precisely, for I checked my pocket calendar. It showed Saint Delphine.

  I could hear Balandran outside, chopping wood. In a steady rhythm, he would give four heavy blows of his ax, then he would pause. The fibers in the gash would crack, and the log would split.

  I went out around nine. I plunged under the trees. Although it was already the end of November and cool, winter had not yet begun. The recent storm had come from autumn’s fury. Yet autumn was already sinking below the astral horizon. It was a time of extreme balance between the seasons, a miraculous moment when the world was poised on a pure ridge. From there it seemed to cast a glance back at the aging autumn, still misty with its wild moods, to contemplate deadly winter from afar. Morning had slipped in on beams of light. The limpid air was resting. Nothing bitter in this freshness, but nothing sweet either. A wonderful stillness. The light itself, motionless and melted into air, created with it a fluid calm within which all things bathed. This luminous dust penetrated matter, dissolving its dull opacity and creating an immutable transparency in even the darkest objects. All the trees seemed to be glass and the whole island pure crystal, a sparkling prism. I wandered through this fairyland. Not one shadow doubled any shape. I felt as if I were seeing things before their creation, prior to their emergence, in the pure thought of the being who had conceived them.

  As I walked, I was surprised at the ease with which I transformed objects and acts—a tree, my walking—into intangible sensations. New gift, unknown to me until this day, and which, from time to time, kept me from fleshly contact with this rough and tender matter, aromatic or supple—whose taste I still had in my mouth, whose warmth I had on my skin, humanly. A power arose in me, at once wondrous and troubling, to use the real to build purely mental structures that spontaneously replaced the fresh, frank colors of life, which I had always grasped through my senses that savored them so much. I always enjoyed these tastes—the pleasures of my eyes, nose, and mouth—and it made me doubt myself to discover that the verdant scent of the world was so easily becoming a thought this morning; to wake myself up, I stroked the palm of my hand, there where the skin is softest.

  • • •

  I did not venture far from the house. The etherealness of the countryside, the overrefinement of the air, this too pure calm, created a strange drunkenness whose throbbing I found unbearable. Everything within me quivered—flesh, blood, nerves, mind, soul. The whir of my whole life blew so gently at the tip of all my senses that I could not move forward without risking vertigo. At every step I took, objects staggered around me or shattered within me like delicate glass. I returned home reeling. I must have swallowed too much air and too much light. I heard Balandran leaving. Where was he going? I called. But did I really call him? Balandran—or whoever it was—did not answer. After a while, the dog barked in the distance, at the southern end of the island. Brisk, joyful bark. He was moving away; soon the sound became so faint it seemed to be coming from the other shore. Then he was silent.

  I went back into the house. Three letters had been placed on the table. I recognized the handwriting right away. The first envelope, yellow, square, solemn, bore Uncle Mathieu’s seal; the second was from Aunt Philomène, whose foolish, fond strokes I recognized; the third, from Inès, my little cousin, who writes with a reed and hopes to enter a convent.

  Without hesitation, I unsealed Aunt Philomène’s envelope. Aunt Philomène was saying, “My child, you’re killing us with anxiety . . .”

  I was expecting that. I, the most peaceful of men, have always killed them with anxiety. For a moment I was peeved; then I took up Uncle Mathieu’s letter.

  Uncle Mathieu was saying, “Martial, you’re not being reasonable . . .”

  I rejected Uncle Mathieu and reached my hand out to Inès.

  Inès was saying, “Like everyone, I pine for you . . .”

  Unanimity.

  I looked at the dates of the three letters. All three, written the day after my departure.

  And so I felt ridiculous. And I was. As were they. We were all ridiculous, all of us, some thirty or forty Mégremuts—men, women, and girls; old, young, and adolescent. All softened by a trifle, frightened by a trifle, saddened by a trifle, fatigued by a trifle. All—they as well as I—cosseted, pampered, spoiled: the young by the old, the old by the young. All cozy, sealed up, cherished—with our well-heated and well-aired homes, half in sunlight, half in shade; our warm greenhouses; our soothing books; our kindly portraits of smiling grandmothers and great-grandmothers; our unstained family records, without a bastard, without even a good misalliance; and finally our peaceful careers: attorneys and notaires for the most part, or else small shopkeepers, modest clerics (including even a canon), but certainly not a bishop, much less a monk, a sailor, a soldier. Calm and honest women, brimming with goodness; calm and honest men, mouths full of common sense. All joined, one to another, linked, bound by the most honorable tastes, thoughts, and feelings—tastes, thoughts, and feelings instantly communicable and communicated. Let Aunt Philomène feel something, and in an instant the entire family is overcome, even as far as the great-great-cousins. Likeable people, moreover, unpretentious, sensible, generous, trustworthy friends. Loved by all and always ready to lend a hand. The Mégremuts, the gentlest clan on earth—and yet, among themselves, the most demanding. “I am not,” I told myself, “a Mégremut.” And I shoved the three letters away. I shoved them poorly, which is to say, violently. Inès’s letter fell. A little ashamed, I picked it up. The least important of the three, no doubt. I glanced at it. “Your fireweed,” little Inès wrote,

  does not seem to be taking well. I
watered the Delphinium. It is a beautiful blue. We’ve kindled the fire in the greenhouse, and it’s so pleasant I go there every morning to read my Spiritual Calendar. In the afternoon Aunt Philomène knits there. And so your plants are never alone. I embrace you tenderly. Your little cousin, Inès.

  There was a blue Delphinium blossom in the envelope. I put it back in. Irritated, yes, but a little moved. I saw the scene—my laboratory, my greenhouse, my private corner. And Aunt Philomène sitting there, knitting in front of the fireweed that “does not seem to be taking well,” across from poor Inès, assiduously reading her Calendar, page 38, month of November, children loved by God: “Let us pray, my soul, for the souls that are about to sin.” How I had read it during my own childhood, this Spiritual Calendar! To this day I knew it all by heart. They had tenderly instilled it into me. Tenderly, like everything they instilled in that household, with indelible gentleness. Their strength lay just there, in that gentleness that wore everything away—an affectionate caress, but always in the same spot, pressed each day a little more firmly, yet never too much. At bottom, an unfailing, impersonal will, an undaunted, dogged devotion.

  A secret spirit of domination and blameless tyranny dwelt at the heart of the Mégremuts. Faced with danger or great emotion, their modest courage, unequal to violent assaults, reluctantly retreated, step by step, with an implacable patience that made them at first look weak. Yet they yielded nothing—or only gestures, sighs, words, perhaps a few complaints. The reed bent but always sprang back. And I? I wondered . . . I saw Dromiols again . . . perhaps I too was a Mégremut.

  I unsealed my uncle’s letter.

  “Do not be unsettled,” it was saying. “I think you may fall into strange difficulties, perhaps even dangers. In that case, my dear Martial, stall, but without breaking things off. At the slightest signal, I will join you.” Strong words, in short, but immediately tempered by hints about Aunt Philomène’s suffering. “She is in agony about you. You are her life’s breath. Take your time, my little Martial, but don’t linger. We worry.”

  He too embraced me, like a Mégremut, with both arms. As I read his words, I thought I could feel his warm breast. He raised me. And I love him. I was moved.

  I faced Aunt Philomène after all. An eight-page letter. Eight pages of reproaches. Within each reproach a kiss. In each kiss a piece of advice. And all sorts of advice: for the liver, the throat, neuralgia, cold feet. She had put her whole soul into that letter. And in closing, these words: “Martial, don’t be heartless.”

  “I must go back to the Mégremuts,” I thought. “There’s no longer anything for me to do here. They’ve made me look ridiculous.”

  The Mégremuts are sensitive to ridicule. Excessively. And so am I.

  Still, once formulated, this observation itself seemed ridiculous. Its absurdity struck me. I was alone. For a man alone, there can be no ridicule. Yet all the same I was uncomfortable; my existence had grown awkward. No more exaltation. My abnormal lucidity had disappeared. In its stead, a clear, everyday intelligence reduced me to my prosaic dimensions. But—strange to say—the beings and things among which I lived kept their redoubtable nature. Under their intact grandeur, I, suddenly shrunk, looked like a dwarf. Hence my confusion. The Mégremuts had risen up. They had said to me: “Mégremut, be reasonable. You have nothing in common with a Malicroix. Mégremut you have been, Mégremut you are, and Mégremut you shall be. We know you. What’s the use of seeking anything else? It’s not so bad to be tender. Tenderness has its virtues, Martial. Don’t play at being wild. You are a hothouse plant, a friend of fruits and flowers, a scholar. You were born to weigh the seed of Colycanthus or Adonis on tiny scales. When you are a little older, you will marry your cousin Inès. She is simple and patient. Your children will look like you. And if you have a girl, as is probable, she will read the Spiritual Calendar, like her mother.”

  That is how the Mégremuts were speaking. And they themselves were speaking within me. Ever since my arrival on the island I had been subject to fits of common sense; it was I who addressed myself in order to reason with myself. But now I was ousted from the conversation. Reduced to the role of auditor, I had to listen to the Mégremuts who had set themselves up inside me, and who, forgotten for a while, were now taking their revenge. They were knocking me down. They were knocking me down with love. And I defended myself poorly against this affection—at once tender, honest, and humiliating. They were saying: “You are nothing, but we love you. That’s what counts.” At least there was something gentle and reassuring. I could feel all that is Mégremut within me leaning toward these secret intimacies. And I have a great deal of Mégremut within me. At every moment their blood speaks to me; at the least emotion, it quickens and throbs. I can hear its gentle murmur at the very tips of my smallest veins. Never has good-natured, stay-at-home tenderness and nonchalance—the legacy of a blood opposed to action—shown such deep-rooted vigor, such overpowering strength. In every part of my soul, a Mégremut waits in readiness—a Mégremut placed there by the clan to welcome me with love, to take me in their arms, to gently stop me, to bring me back to reason in the name of so many aged Mégremut grandfathers and grandmothers who, in the next world, worry about the follies I might commit in this one. The family spirit haunts me, usually without my knowing it, which makes it even more redoubtable. I bathe in and breathe a Mégremut air. It is as a Mégremut that I drink, eat, sleep, love, think, act, dream. I would be them and not myself were it not for that tiny, entrenched, irreducible something—three drops of Malicroix blood. I had always felt them present, gliding through the Mégremut blood without mingling with it. For the Mégremuts had never been able to engulf those drops, to reduce them, make them weaken, disappear. And now it had taken nothing more than these three commonplace, affectionate letters to dissipate the Malicroix blood. I could no longer find it anywhere within me; deprived of that grain of wildness, I was anxious to leave, so small, poor, and weak did I feel in the face of this absurd solitude whose baseless grandeur remained intact. And yet, I was suffering.

  At this sign I might have seen a shred of Malicroix within my mediocre misery; but I was not thinking about that. I was thinking only of the ten days that still remained of my stay on the island. I needed to get through them with as little pain as possible.

  • • •

  I looked, first, for Balandran. But Balandran, apart from mealtimes, was invisible. Yet he always appeared at the exact hour, served me, answered tersely, left. He was never the first to speak. When he came in, he greeted me with his usual, grumbled concession to the required respect. If I did not question him, the meal went by in silence. If I did question him, he became impersonal, laconic. He served me well —a nourishing meal, always this precise correctness. Nothing in his actions suggested a household weakening. One might even say he had grown stricter. I no longer saw a hint of the ineffable, coarse intimacy he had once bestowed on this severe house. No more pipe in front of the fire. Bréquillet, banished from the room, hardly dared, poor thing, to sit on the threshold of the storeroom. We gazed at each other.

  Balandran seemed sad. Under his increased gruffness and unpleasant taciturnity, he seemed to be nursing a wound. Prickly and naturally withdrawn, he sometimes made a hesitating, almost pained gesture. He suppressed it immediately. Often his eyes glittered. But they glittered in empty space. He avoided my eyes, glancing over the usual objects without being drawn in; still, he saw everything. Out of duty, and perhaps also distrust, he never lost sight of a thing. Yet his attention was not focused outward; it was fixed somewhere within himself, upon a thought. Balandran was a man of thought—thoughts few in number, slow, but patiently held, prudently weighed, rarely spoken. At times, I felt his hostility; at others, his sorrow, perhaps his scorn. It was this scorn that he hid the most deeply. But I sensed it. I could not hold it against him, for I scorned myself as well; and although—like a good Mégremut—I moderated my feelings so as not to torment myself, I felt, despite everything, a secret shame at betrayin
g myself.

  Not knowing what to do and not having any particular plan, I tried walking. Without energy. Weary, I could no longer venture far from this sad house. What was the use of going out, seeing the river again, roaming through the island?

  I opened the little desk and found some paper. I wrote to Uncle Mathieu to say I would be returning soon. There were no envelopes, but I found a stick of wax and a seal. Golden wax, bronze seal. I folded my letter, warmed the wax, stamped the seal. To my surprise, it was not the Malicroix coat of arms that appeared; instead, in an elegant oval, a laurel bough crowned by a shooting star. Around it, this inscription:

  Aurea Delphina—Delphica Puella

  Delphine d’Or—Maiden of Delphi

  I replaced wax and seal in the drawer, closed the desk, put the letter on the table in plain sight, and went to take a few steps near Balandran’s hut. I returned fifteen minutes later. The letter was gone.

  • • •