“Yes, I know exactly why she told you that! But jealousy has nothing to do with it, and it is of no importance…but, as far as possible, I would still prefer you to be here when I am.”
All the same, Christine did not tell me why the Marchioness had said such things.
VIII
Where We Speak Of Gabriel
June 4th – If only I had could have expected that this would happen!
To begin with, it is good to be able to tell you that ‘my little adventure’ has led to a minor revolution in the neighbourhood. It was not without excitement that the Isle de Saint-Louis learned that Mademoiselle Norbert paid me frequent visits, and when it became known that I accompanied the watchmaker’s daughter to the house of the Marquis de Coulteray and that we spent hours together, unaccompanied, in his library (all thanks to the indiscretion of the old nightporter with the braided cap, custodian and watcher over the main portal), all the shops, from the Rue le Regrattier to the Pont Sully, and from the Anjou Wharf to the Béthune Quays, reverberated with speculation and rumours.
It was well known that I never went to mass; and when they saw me one Sunday, entering the cloisters of the church of Saint Louis, on the heels of the Norbert family, it was concluded that, evidently, I was a lost boy.
In the opinion of everyone, the ‘archduchess’, with her airs of grandeur, had ‘reduced me to nothingness!’ She had possessed me with a magical charm. I didn’t eat any more, I didn’t sleep any more, I didn’t speak any more.
In fact, all that I had done, on two or three occasions, was to neglect to answer some of Madame Langlois’ insidious questions: a grave mistake. I imagine that, at the same moment, the people in the back of Mademoiselle Barescat’s shop immediately ceased their labours so that they could hatch plans to save me from the malediction of ‘the Sorcerer’s family.’ To save me, a boy they thought of as being so quiet, so orderly and methodical, so punctual and always so polite to his cleaning lady!
Madame Langlois promised herself that she would prove to me that she still existed…and here’s how she made it happen.
Yesterday, towards the hour of eleven in the morning, I returned to my room, having left the Coulteray mansion, where Christine had not made an appearance, and her non-appearance had put me in the worst humour in the world. I was compelled to hold a prolonged conversation with the Marquis (who also seemed to be waiting for Christine), which did nothing to calm my impatience… I went inside – and there I found Madame Langlois, who seemed to be devoting a great deal of time to finishing housework that should have been done hours ago, which, tirelessly, she had commenced again.
I sensed, immediately, that this fine, upstanding lady had something to say to me. The manner with which she closed the door behind me, the way she planted her fists on her haunches and, finally, all of the obvious emotion that inflated her breast to the point of suffocation, declared to me that I was about to learn something new. I was not mistaken.
“Well, well, so it seems that your princess found it a little ‘ard to get going this morning..! You didn’t see her at your Marquis’s place this morning, did you?”
“I’m sorry, Madame Langlois, I beg your pardon… I think that it is Mademoiselle Norbert who troubles you… So let me tell you, once and for all, that she does what she pleases… and I would also have you know that what she may or may not do does not interest me in the slightest..! Good day, Madame Langlois, and remember me to Mademoiselle Barescat...”
The good woman first went crimson, then turned a dark shade of purple, bit nervously into her own lips, wrapped her shawl feverishly around her flat chest, and headed for the door… but just before she left she turned to me:
“I was only going to tell you that the handsome young man’s come back.”
I could not help but ask her:
“What handsome young man?”
“The handsome young man in the cloak, with them high boots on, and the hat with the buckle…”
I felt that everything was capsizing around me… I stuttered:
“Th… th… the one... who... who...”
“Yeah, you remember, the one I was tellin’ you about the other day at Mademoiselle Barescat’s… well, he’s come back, ain’t he!... The beautiful Gabriel has come back..! ”
I fixed a haggard eye on her.
It was almost impossible for me to hide my emotions, and old Mother Langlois thoroughly enjoyed the effect that this news produced.
“Aha! Aha, you don’t wanna try and throw me out now, do you..? That little girl wants him, see, with all her airs and graces... with all her airs and graces!”
I felt a longing to strangle that horrible woman. I had to restrain myself from going for her throat. By a prodigious effort of self-discipline on my part, I forced myself to say, in a voice that was almost natural, while I tried subtly to wipe away the sweat that dripped from my temples:
“You have surprised me there, Madame Langlois… I know that the young man has been unwell…”
“Oh, he’s certainly got the look of something that has been demolished… that’s for sure… but now the fine weather’s coming, and with the little girlie to look after him, he’ll soon be back to normal!”
“You’ve seen him going into Norbert’s place?”
“Going in? No, I ain’t seen no-one going in... Haven’t I already told you that no-one’s seen him going in, and no-one’s seen him coming out neither..? No-one knows for sure where he goes...they say that he’s hiding up there. Maybe he’s wanted by the police! I’ve always said: he’s sure to be a foreigner, dressed up like that…and if you think all that’s natural, I’ve got something else to tell you: three days ago, they dismissed me from their service...”
“Yes, of course, Madame Langlois, but if they have dismissed you, how do you know all of this?”
“How do I know?... How do I know?... When Old Mother Langlois wants to know something, she pokes around the Tour Pointue [5], as you well know... It’s just as I told you... And I know what I’m talking about... When they showed me the door, I just said to meself, ‘that ain’t going to get you into Paradise!’ I’ve got to tell you that I’ve noticed that there’s a skylight at the top of your attic... through it you can see everything that’s going on over there. I’ve often thought of it... So this morning, I went up there and I saw the sawbones running off to his lectures like he does every morning. Then along comes old man Norbert... Then I waited for a while to watch Christine going over to her Marquis’s place at her usual hour... the fact that she hides herself there most of the time now is no secret to anyone, nor is it a secret that you go there, too (no offence meant!)... But I waited and first the minutes, then the hours, went by: no sign of Christine..! I says to meself ‘now what could she be up to in there, all on her own, unless she’s showing a new cleaning lady what to do?’ And I had to have a look!
“In short, I climbed all the way up your little ladder, until I got into the attic… There I was, at the skylight… And what could I see?... That Christine and the handsome young man canoodling together… They were takin’ a gentle turn around the garden… she had him by the arm and was talking to him, Gabriel this… and Gabriel that..!
“As for him, he didn’t look as dandy as the first time I seen him… he held hisself so stiff and upright that it looked like he’d swallowed a broom handle… he looked a bit bushwhacked, to be honest… and she spoke to him like you do to cheer up someone who’s sick… they went to sit under the tree… then he just let himself flop into the wooden armchair… and then she… well! And then she embraced him!”
“If he is a relative…” said I, in a blank tone… “there is nothing at all untoward about that!”
“Oh, but she didn’t hold him like a relative, you know! And you should’ve seen how she looked at him!”
“Come, come, Madame Langlois, there’s no call for such spiteful talk. Mademoiselle Norbert is a respectable girl and her conduct is above reproach.”
“Ooh! I like that, I
really do! I like that, above reproach! Be that as it may, betcha she never told you that, while you were expecting to see her up in the Marquis’s place, she’d been properly looking after the relative in question, in her own home, a relative that no-one, neither Eve nor Adam, knows!”
“She’ll probably tell me about it all this afternoon! And don’t worry about a thing, Madame Langlois; I will hurry over to you at once to explain, because I can see that one can hide nothing from you!”
“I think you’re after something, Monsieur Masson!...”
“After something..? And what might that be, my dear lady? Now, tell me, did they remain out there in the garden for long?”
“No, no more than a half hour… She picked herself up first and said to him: ‘Quick! Let’s go back inside! Papa will be home soon!’
“Ooh, he’s really quite obedient..! Sure, she does what she wants with men, that girl does… she leans forward… she takes him by the hand, and she leads him towards the atelier, around to the right… You know how the door to Monsieur Jacques’ laboratory opens on that side… in the little alleyway, facing the wall… They went in through there…I kept watching them… she comes out of the atelier after about fifteen minutes… and she goes to lock everything up there in the workshop... what strange lives these people lead..!”
“What makes you say that?... If the young man is sick, as you have said… he is merely lodging in the home of someone who cares for him… and if he is family, after all…”
“Ooh! I’m saying nothing...he’s part of the family, all right!” At this point, and so I could be under no illusion about the object of her allusion, Madame Langlois added:
“And when you think that she calls herself engaged..! It’s been a great pleasure, Monsieur Masson! By the way, you couldn’t lend me a few sous to buy some of that Belgian stove polish, could you?”
And then she left, in triumph…
So, Gabriel is not dead! Very well, for Christine’s sake, all’s well…
I have to conclude, using old Mother Langlois’ expression, that this young man had simply been demolished… and it’s the care of Christine and Jacques Cotentin that must have saved him.
The same night as the affair took place, the prosector must have reassured Christine and old Norbert over the consequences of the fit of rage that had seen the watchmaker hurl himself, as if insane, upon his mysterious guest.
It was not a corpse that they brought down on the evening of the next day, wrapped in a blanket, but merely a patient, a demolished man, who had to have his wounds dressed in Christine’s room, before being moved, as soon as he could be moved, to the lair of the prosector, where he remains..!
As for me… I must obviously have imagined a number of things… I had even breathed in some kind of odour..!
The mind travels quickly along such an evil path… This is not the first time that I have noticed, since… Henriette Havard… and all the others… all the others who never came back… that I am inclined to see all kinds of tragedies everywhere… although, more often than not, they are no more than comedies…
All that I had come to understand did not illuminate the shadows that surrounded the peculiar personage called Gabriel, nor did it explain exactly what he was doing in the cabinet, nor how he had come to be in the Norbert household, nor the attitude of the family towards him… But at least Christine, who I had seen to remain so calm throughout the tragedy, no longer appeared to me as an inexplicable monster, like a doll without a heart and without pity, like a frigid statue of beauty (that I adored nonetheless), but whom I still could not think about, in the moments when I was not transfixed under the spell of her beautiful eyes, without wrenching, heartbreaking horror!
Everything’s going very well! So very well..! That’s it…it’s just that Gabriel’s still alive and she loves him..!
Ah, how my lips burned when I saw her again this afternoon..! I was on the verge of saying: “So, is Gabriel feeling better, then?” But I held my tongue on the edge of that abyss… For I felt clearly that the name ‘Gabriel’ was something I did not have the right to utter… it’s her secret...her heart’s little secret, as they say in romantic fictions. It’s her romantic fiction… and, as for me, I’m on the outside of her romance…I am not in her heart… I am only somewhere by her side… If I want to stay close to her, I’ll have to try to forget about Gabriel..!
She is all joy…. That explains the radiance of her demeanour these last few days…Gabriel is better; Gabriel goes out into the garden on her arm…
Try to forget about Gabriel..! Alas, I can think of almost nothing else! Fortunately, it is at that moment that I replay the memory of the tragedy that I witnessed, with a certain brutality added…
We were together, Christine and I, in the little room that has been placed our disposal at the end of the library, when we noticed the Marchioness arrive in a state of agitation that was pitiful to see… Sing-Sing came bounding after her… She whispered, as if breathing her last breath:
“Chase this vile little beast away!...”
I drove Sing-Sing away, he did not protest…
“What has he done to you, milady?” I asked… “You ought to complain to the Marquis.” She smiled an imitation smile.
“Sing-Sing does nothing but follow me everywhere I go, but there is nothing about that that the Marquis needs to be told…”
She was trembling abnormally, it was uncomfortable to watch. She turned towards Christine:
“I beg of you,” she pleaded, “please protect me! You have influence with the Marquis; tell him that he must leave me in peace… how my poor mind is leading me astray… and in the end, that doctor will drive me quite insane…”
“Which doctor?” I asked.
At that moment, the door to our workshop swung open and the bronze caryatid appeared in the aperture. The Indian Hercules stooped with bowed head and shoulders, as if they supported the weight of the whole house. Then he said:
“My Lord the Marquis begs milady the Marchioness to return to her room, where the doctor is waiting.”
I looked at the poor woman; her teeth were chattering… Rodin, for his gates of Hell, could not have invented a figure in which the terror of what is about to happen could be hollowed out any more cruelly with wrinkles… Ravished by horror, she turned to look at us in her despair… In truth, I did not know what all this was about, and I was ignorant of how I should act... But all of my pity went out to this wounded bird who was searching for a refuge…
With great sadness in her voice, Christine spoke to her:
“Go to him, milady, you know it’s for the sake of your health!”
She half-opened her drained, bloodless lips, but the words would not come… She was trembling more and more… She looked at me through those immense, glassy eyes of hers…
“My God!” I whispered, “my God!”
I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
Sangor repeated his message once again… with his shoulders bending down even further, as if they were buckling under the weight of the entire building as it collapsed... and the more he hunched his body, the more formidable it appeared to be, with all its dense musculature. Finally, when it seemed as if this scene would never come to an end, the giant moved, still hunched over, and stretched a huge arm out towards the Marchioness. She stood up at the same moment, a statue of horror, for a second time facing this giant statue of power, before the pair of them disappeared and faint sounds of Sing-Sing’s laughter could be heard behind the door as it closed. What I had just seen unnerved me. Certainly, if Christine had not seemed so calm about the whole thing, I would have intervened. Instead, I just watched and she said nothing.
“But you!” I heard myself cry out, “you know what they’re going to do to her! What’s all this terror about? Who is this doctor of whom the mere mention seems to drain the very life from her?”
“Without the doctor, she would already be dead!” answered Christine. “When you see her again, eight day
s from now, you will hardly recognize her! Today, she is no more than a shadow! She has no strength… she has no colour! You will be amazed when you see her going about like a new woman, full of vitality and all the charms of youth.”
“So who is this man that can accomplish such a miraculous feat?”
“He is a Hindustani doctor of medicine, who has a very grand reputation in England, and who often comes to Paris, where he also has a surgery on the Avenue Jena… Oh, he’s very well known..! You must have heard of him… Doctor Saib Khan.”
“Yes, I believe I have… Wasn’t a photograph of him printed recently in the Royal Magazine? ...”
“Yes, that was him!...”
“And what exactly does he prescribe for her?”
“Oh, only the most natural ingredients in the world… serums… made from meat juices…”
“So why do they need to send for Dr. Saib Khan, someone who terrifies her, just to get her to take a little serum of meat juice? You have to admit, Christine, that this is becoming more and more incomprehensible…”
The Bloody Doll Page 7