I have become accustomed to suffering, and that she never notices my suffering... but some day I will cry it out loud! I will not be able to control myself!...
My God! May that day be a long time in coming because, when it does, I am certain that it will be the end of everything...
Evidently..!
I have not seen the Marchioness for two days, not since she gave me the little collection of books and articles on the subject of ‘Brucolacs.’
I am delighted about that...
I feel sorry for her, but she wears me out!... I want her to leave me alone with my thoughts for a while, which are, at the moment, fixed exclusively on the triangle of Christine-Jacques-Gabriel...
I’m trying to disentangle the true face of Christine from the role she appears to be playing in this strange and bloody comedy, with its elements of burlesque and crime.
But I am unable to isolate a single line or contour.
Christine seems to me to be perfectly sweet to that Jacques, her fiancé, after all, but: she is equally as tender with that whatever-he-is-to-her, Gabriel.
Yes, what about Gabriel?...
And what is to become of me, when all this is over?
In this story of the heart, where do I fit in?... Well, I certainly think I have a part to play in it..! Ah, there are moments when I believe that I am part of it... oh, just a small part... but, still, I am not very hard to please... I don’t need many things! I imagine that I do count in this affair: that, for her, I am more than a mere spectator! ...
Is it just that my mind is wandering? A moment ago I wrote that she never notices anything...and that some day I shall cry it all out!... And then, what? What? ...
Then again, on reflection, how can I believe that an intelligent girl like Christine has noticed nothing, nothing at all, of the tragedy unfolding behind my ugly mask?
Well, I will have to concede that... But why does she have to carve the face of the other man in front of me..?
Idiot that you are..! How would she know that you know about the other man?
What does it matter?... A beautiful profile, being etched-out in front of a hideous one, isn’t that enough to make me think of screaming?...
What do you think, my friend? Perhaps she’ll listen if you scream!
In the end, it dawns on me that I am very sick... I dare not look forward to the end of this sickness...with great joy, I am poisoning myself!... I know that no cure is possible, and neither would I ask for one!... I return to the air that she breathes, and that she is willing to share with me, like an intoxicated addict to the source of his stupefaction... I am often the first to arrive, and I wait for her... I wait for her..!
I have not seen her today; this is all a bit too much!
But neither have I seen anybody else today!
I have decided to stay and watch from my little skylight this evening! If I do not see Gabriel, maybe I’ll see her! ... A strange thing... before I went out this morning, I noticed neither the watchmaker sitting by the window, nor the sawbones leaving the house... nor Christine. No-one has come out yet. But, at nine o’clock this evening, I noticed a stranger arriving...
I am certain that this is the first time that I have seen this strange-looking man, with stocky shoulders, the neck of a bulldog, and a sloping brow; he seemed to slide along the walls as if he was ashamed to be breathing the same air as everyone else. He wore a round cap on his head, with no peak, and a shapeless suit that looked like it had been cut from sackcloth.
Under his arm, he carried a large box that had been wrapped in leather... he had the look of an executioner’s assistant.
He must have been expected in Norbert’s house, because he did not have to knock at the door; they opened it for him at once, and closed it immediately behind him...
You can imagine how quickly I climbed up to my skylight!
They seemed to be extremely busy inside the house... I watched Christine cross the garden several times. She was wearing a large white apron, the kind a nurse would wear...
She was speaking in a low, abrupt tone of voice to her fiancé, who also wore a surgical apron.
Jacques looked as if he was comforting her, because she seemed to be highly agitated... they disappeared into the atelier on the right.
I could not see the stranger nor, for that matter, did I see old Norbert.
An hour passed, in the most profound silence; then a bright light could be seen through the slats in the shutters on the ground floor of the tower...
Suddenly, the same vortex of black cloud that I had seen belching from the chimney the other evening, which had spread over the Isle like a funeral shroud, appeared once more above the roof... and the same dreadful odour came to me, as I watched from my skylight.
There was no breeze that night. The heat was suffocating and that accursed stench, lingering around me, clinging to me, almost made me swoon in horror.
Then, suddenly, the shutters on the ground floor flew open and, in a blood-red light, among looming shadowy forms, that seemed hollowed-out as if forming part of one of Goya’s engravings, I witnessed a spectacle that I will never be able to forget.
The great stove on the right of the room, used in their experiments, seemed to be burning with the fires of the Inferno; on one side of the stove, next to a table covered with a white sheet, scraps of human remains were spread out; the stocky stranger was standing with an apron around his waste, his shirt half-open, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and his forearms covered with gore, as if he had plunged them into that bloody pile of entrails.
The prosector was bent over the stove, heating up some forceps with incandescent pincers that he examined from time to time.
Old Norbert and Christine, who stood closer to the window, were leaning (one on either side) over a dissecting table upon which Gabriel had been laid out – though, from where I watched, I could only get a brief glimpse of his forehead and his lifeless eyes.
The rest of his face had disappeared vaguely under white bandages, which masked his nose and mouth. Norbert and Christine obscured my view of the rest of the body and, from my little observatory, I only had an imperfect view of a surgical procedure that must have been exceptional to behold...
I repeat, exceptional to behold: for although Gabriel, evidently, appeared to be unconscious, it did not prevent him from raising his torso from the operating table repeatedly, in a kind of convulsive and violent spasm, before falling back in between the watchmaker and his daughter, who held his hands and arms and returned them to their original position.
Three times, those incandescent pincers accomplished their work!
What kind of work ?
It was not simple a question of branding his flesh, or anything remotely approaching this, contrary to what we might think.
It was on the body’s insides that they worked. I could hear a crackling, sizzling sound from my window.
Then Jacques threw the forceps away to one side and, in the company of the man with the red arms, remained there, leaning over Gabriel, for a time that seemed an infinity to me.
Christine stood with her back turned towards me; but I could easily imagine, from the way she was positioned, that she was holding the patient’s wrist – she never stopped taking his pulse, an essential precaution to take during an operation that seemed to prolong itself beyond all ordinary limits...
At last, the operator and his assistant stood up.
They were covered in blood from head to foot, a terrifying sight to behold.
Jacques threw his little tools, made from surgical steel, instruments of mutilation and salvation, onto the table where I had not long ago seen the human remains – which I could no longer see, and which had to be burning in the laboratory’s stove, because that dreadful stench still lingered...
Then, distinctly, I heard Jacques say:
“That’s enough for the time being. We need to clean up all this blood... and now for the serum, the serum, the serum!” At which point, Christine turned
and went to shut the windows.
She wore an expression that seemed quite reassured, and a kind of delight seemed to radiate from her beautiful, serene face.
It was in vain that I searched her adorable features for a trace of the emotion that must have, physically, at the very least, caused her stomach to rise during those moments of horror... but nothing of the kind was obvious..!
She had seemed so full of nervous agitation in the garden a few moments ago, now she showed that she had a surgeon’s heart, as she assisted during an operation upon which the life of her lover depended; furthermore, she assisted in this drama of scalpels and red-hot pincers like a professional nurse.
Ah, hers is a nature in a state of equilibrium!
She is a ‘well-balanced’ woman as they say in Parisian slang these days, I speak from the moral point of view as well as the physical standpoint!
And I am sure that she will finish this adventure, which is nothing less than a murder, with a smile!
She will still love Gabriel, she will still marry Jacques; and old Norbert, living happily with his daughter and the two men that will ensure the satisfaction of this charming child, will return to the tranquillity of his square wheels.
And I..! And I..?
Now I find myself following the man with the red forearms and the bovine neck, who has just come out. Maybe, through him, I will finally come to know who (or what) Gabriel is!
He still carries the box, covered with leather of an indistinct colour, that he had tucked under his arm when he made his first appearance.
He begins to walk back towards the city, and I wait until he has crossed the bridge before following him over. Now he is passing in front of the morgue; his head hangs in a timid and shamefaced manner, in spite of his heavy and solid footsteps.
It is a beautiful night; there are no more than a few families roaming around the square of Notre Dame. He crosses the Seine, turns into the dark passage of the rue de Bernardins, which leads him out onto the boulevard Saint-Germain; he slips along the walls of Saint Nicholas du Chardonnet and bears left into the rue Saint-Victor.
He goes into a wine merchant’s shop and, as soon as he appears at its threshold, I hear several voices saluting him with the words: “Well, well, well! If it isn’t old Skullface!” The wine merchant’s shop serves food... a few of the clientele are sitting down for supper... these are almost certainly regular customers... my entrance might cause a sensation... I am not dressed with any elegance. Bah, they’ll take me for a student of medicine newly installed in the quarter! The main thing is that I do not want to lose sight of my friend ‘old Skullface’.
For his part, he does not respond to this sinister sobriquet, and goes to sit down at a table in the corner.
I can see all that is going on in there through the front door, which opens into the tepid night.
I make my entrance and the group of people at supper falls silent. All of a sudden, a voice says:
“How’re you doing, old pal?”
And I hear suppressed laughter... I’m used to that... I pay no attention to it: otherwise my life would be nothing but one long fist-fight. It is not my relative lack of elegance that has caused this sensation; it is, naturally, my ugliness. Of this, there can be no doubt:
“Hey, Charlot, your wife’s looking for a new lover, isn’t she?”
This time, they laugh out loud.
It is only Charlot, the landlord, that retains any of his dignity.
He asks me what he can get for me...
I had not yet eaten... I don’t know how I live... I don’t know if I’m hungry, I don’t know if I will be able to eat... I order what old Skullface is having: a piece of gruyère, some bread, and a bottle of beer.
The ‘merry diners’ try, several times, to engage my mark in conversation.
“Now then, old Skullface, how’s... business?”
Finally, old Skullface ends up getting annoyed, folds his evening newspaper, which he had been reading while he ate, eyes his interlocutor from head to foot, as if evaluating the structure of his skeleton at its proper price; then, in a soft voice that contrasts with his uncouth and savage appearance, says:
“In my line of business, old pal, your carcass wouldn’t fetch ten francs, even at today’s low exchange rate!”
There is no doubt that old Skullface is an assistant at the medical school, or something like that.
“Calm down, Baptiste,” says the other man, rising to his feet, “we’re only having a little joke!”
I wait until Baptiste has left... and, from listening to the conversation of the ‘merry diners,’ I learn that they, too, are employed by the hospitals along the Left Bank; and that Baptiste is a bit of a grumpy bear who never cracks jokes. It appears that he was once a market gardener who was ruined by hail-storms and bad debts and that Monsieur Jacques Cotentin (they always speak of Jacques Cotentin in tones of the highest reverence) had secured for him some ‘practical work,’ and then employed him as his assistant in his own special research: it is he who acquires the anatomical parts that the prosector needs for his private experiments...
The Medical School had granted the prosector permission to conduct certain experiments, at certain unsociable hours, in a small building in which Jacques Cotentin and old Skullface would lock themselves away. All of this was against regulations... but no-one complained... Jacques Cotentin was allowed to do anything! So, I suppose it means that this Jacques Cotentin really is a genius, doesn’t it..?
XIII
A Mysterious Wound
25th June. – No, I will not ask Baptiste (old Skullface), whose address I do not yet know, exactly who (or what) Gabriel is. I will not ask him about that, or anything else, for that matter! For a start, there’s a chance that he doesn’t know and, even if he did, I doubt that he would tell me anything!
This man must be devoted to Jacques Cotentin, body and soul; otherwise why would someone who does not want an assistant allow him to assist in operations where he only offers the basic services of a common workman?
The thought of Jacques Cotentin’s ordinary, mediocre face (you already know that it is not interesting enough to be described as ugly) has suddenly begun to assume immense proportions. I have decided to read some of the articles that he publishes, from time to time, in the New Review of Anatomy and Human Physiology. They are widely believed to be quite remarkable.
They display a high level of audacity, a bold pleasure in asserting views that overturn all the old theories. In other times, I have no doubt that the old school would have been shaken to its foundations. But, these days, the unknown is our passion. The war has passed through us, and has left us digging a chasm between the past and the future or, if you prefer, attempting to fill one in.
I have an article in my hands on the subject of “the Degradation of Energy in the Living Being,” where, apropos the interesting theories of Bernard Brunhes [8], I read the following phrases – the last one of which startles me:
“In a thermodynamics of conjugate variables, one might encounter bodies that amplify themselves in a certain sense, where classical thermodynamics would declare them to be in a state of equilibrium or transformed into their reverse... A system could, in a process of isothermal transformation, provide itself with a power source which would be greater than its loss of useful energy. PERPETUAL MOTION IS NO LONGER IMPOSSIBLE.”
At the end of his work on viscosity, M. Duhem [9], I am also told, writes that theories of friction and false chemical equilibrium have made no stronger claim... and we find ourselves facing von Helmholtz’s [10] hypothesis realized, the hypothesis of a possible restoration of the utilizable energy available in a living organism..!
In other words, death has been vanquished!
Perpetual motion in future..!
So, it is the same idea that animates both the old watchmaker and the young prosector, the first from the mechanical point of view, the second from the physiological.
Ah, of this there can be no doubt! The
life in those two brains must be intense, behind the same walls that I prowl along as I wait for Christine... and which separates two strange dramas to which I have not yet discovered the key...
In the meantime, I unlock the small door which opens into the garden of the Coulterays, which is where I find myself next. The Marquis let me have the key without argument, although I was not there when she asked him for it... He gave it to me, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, with the words:
“Now you can come and go as you please!... Make yourself at home.”
This happened yesterday... I am to give the key to Christine today... But it is now five in the evening, and she has not yet arrived... She has made herself scarce for a few days, I imagine that Gabriel must be calling for her to nurse him...
The Bloody Doll Page 10