The Second Life of Doctor Albin

by Raoul Gineste

  He found himself singularly at ease in that new situation; he had the bizarre impression that it was really his place and that he had never done anything else throughout his life.

  After a few days he had earned three francs and the theater and two francs fifty at the copyist’s. Half of that sum allowed him to live, the other was religiously set aside. His first priority was to recover his trunk.

  A month later, he found himself in possession of a fortune: ninety francs! He rapidly consecrated them to ridding himself of the odious check suit, buying a suit in black cheviot, a hat etc. He was just in time! The Châtelet, preparing its winter spectacle, had dismissed the supplementary personnel and Maître Lampe, perhaps confused by that transformation, which gave his subordinate an aristocratic allure, or vaguely aware of his superiority, had taken a dislike to him and was giving evidence of an angry humor. Raphael, familiar with the Lilliputian’s habits, warned his friend to employ his hours of liberty seeking other employment.

  As they were going past a music publisher’s shop one evening, Charles Balin stopped to look at the new publications.

  “Are you by chance a musician?” Raphael asked him.

  “Well, I was once an appreciated pianist.”

  “What!” exclaimed the young man, delightedly. “And you didn’t say anything? What were you thinking? You play the piano! But in your situation, that’s a veritable lifebelt! Quickly, follow me.”

  The young man immediately took him to a Montmartre dive whose accompanist he knew. The musician, an obliging fellow, sat Monsieur Charles down at the keyboard, made him decipher and then accompany two or three songs, asked him whether he had any notions of harmony, and seemed delighted with the trial.

  “My dear colleague,” he affirmed, “with the talent that you have, you can present yourself without dread anywhere. Here’s my card. Go to ***, the well-known lyrical agent; he’ll have you fixed up in no time.

  Charles Balin left, penetrated with gratitude for his young friend, whose fertile and resourceful mind had come so powerfully to his aid. He expressed his affectionate sentiments, but Raphael brushed his gratitude aside.

  “You’re not reasonable,” he proclaimed, laughing. “You could occupy a position a hundred times preferable to the one that renders us slaves of that malevolent dwarf, and you hide your talent. Why haven’t you thought of taking advantage of it?”

  “To tell you the truth, my lack of initiative is a subject of perpetual surprise to myself. Perhaps I’ve been stunned by the unexpected event that plunged me into poverty. But now, thanks to you, it seems to me that the veil will soon be torn.”

  The two friends had finally found a relatively well-paid position in the administration of a daily newspaper in the process of foundation. They still had a week before them, in which they set about doing four or five thousand addresses per day. The dwarf, outraged by that sudden augmentation, could not master his wrath.

  One could not do such a great number of addresses without carelessness; the handwriting was no longer legible; his porters had returned some of them, which they could not decipher; his clients had made him reproaches; quantity was only obtained at the expense of quality; who embraces too much grips poorly; everything comes to him who waits; the pitcher that goes oftenest to the well…the entire book of proverbs passed his lips. The two copyists, attained by an incurable deafness, continued to achieve a fabulous production.

  On the last Saturday in September, while Maître Lampe, who had just paid them, grumbling, indulged himself in hand-rubbings and lip-pursings preliminary to some insolent formula of dismissal, Charles Balin interrupted him just as he was about to open his mouth.

  “Permit me, Monsieur,” he said, “to recognize the welcome that you have been kind enough to give us, but having, along with Raphael, found a much more advantageous situation, we are in the fortunate necessity of quitting this studio—of which, believe me, we shall retain a tenacious memory.”

  “Good, good,” grunted the dwarf, full of rage. “Don’t play the clown with your priestly humbug and get out.” He had second thoughts. “Tell me, child,” he insinuated, addressing Raphael, “is it in the land of the Hebrews that you’ve found a place?”

  “The Jews are less hard than you are on the unfortunate,” replied the young man, sharply.

  “Especially those of Sodom,” sniggered the entrepreneur of copies.

  “Wretch!” exclaimed Charles Balin, beside himself at the enormity of the insult. He pounced on the copyist, took him by the collar and shook him like a rag. The other employees, utterly enchanted by the adventure, intervened for form’s sake.

  “Go fetch the police!” howled the little old man.

  Raphael dragged his defender away. “In the name of Heaven, let’s get out of here,” he murmured. “The man’s malevolent; he’ll make a complaint and have us arrested.”

  They walked for some time without saying anything. When they arrived on the quais they slowed down.

  “Could I support such an insult to you and to me?” exclaimed Charles Balin. “The wretch! I regret not having slapped him; his calumny is the greatest insult one can throw in a man’s face.”

  Raphael bowed his head. He was weeping.

  A dolorous suspicion crossed his companion’s mind. Nothing, however, in the bearing, the gaze or the appearance of the young man could authorize such a supposition. His slightly effeminate mannerisms could legitimately be attributed to his delicate health. He was a good judge; his medical functions and expertise had put him in the presence of vile degenerates who parodied amour. However, allusions and sniggers that he had overheard while they were appearing at the Châtelet, vague insinuations made one day when they were soliciting employment at one of the great Parisian hotels, Raphael’s profound sadness, and his inexplicable refusal to go to certain places suddenly came back to his mind. He took the young man by the arm and looked at him fixedly.

  “Well, yes, it’s true, or at least, it was true,” the unfortunate confessed. “At ten years old, left to myself, forced by poverty to suffer corrupt companionship and promiscuities, a wretched procurer drew me into the vice. I went into a shady establishment as an errand-boy, where I was skillfully delivered as pasture to ignoble lubricities. As soon as I was really capable of judging and understanding, I wanted to get out, to become an honest man, but in the ten years I’ve been struggling to erase the stain, all my efforts have been vain. Just as I think it’s disappeared, some passer-by, a stranger, perhaps a companion of hazard or debauchery darts a comment or a glance at me that kills me. You understand, now, why life becomes more odious to me every day, and why I want so much to die!”

  After a pause, he went on: “I sense, I know that it’s necessary for us to part forever. Don’t hold it against me too much for having hidden the odious, infamous truth from you; I had so much need for a little amity and esteem; I divined in you a mind so indulgent, so just, and so elevated that I put off the painful moment of confession for as long as I could—but if hazard and malevolence had not put you on the track, I swear to you that, considering it a duty, I would not have taken long to tell you my dire and lamentable story. You bear on your forehead the mark of some unusual adventure that separates you forever from other men; you’re the only one from whom I would dare demand aid and pardon.”

  “Wretch! Wretch!” murmured Charles Balin. “Raphael” he exclaimed, suddenly, “would you really like to become a man?”

  “Can you doubt it? Have I given you the slightest reason for suspicion in my conduct, my words or my actions?”

  “Then this is what you must do. You’ve told me that you have some savings and that you speak a little English. Flee these places where the past weighs so heavily upon your existence, where the streets know your shame and the roofs have sheltered your infamy; change your name and face. If someone seeks to recognize you, boldly spit in his face and tell him that he’s a liar. You’re not solely responsible for your corruption; society owes you a reparation, and your intell
igence will be able to attain it. Go to England, or America, or the end of the world, wherever you wish, but please don’t stay here for another moment. You deserve to live. Give me your hand; I hold your efforts in esteem, and it’s purely in your interests that I speak.”

  Raphael had wiped away his tears; his eyes where shining with resolution.

  “Thank you for your kind words,” he said. “It seems to me that they have suddenly cured the disease that was eating me away. Thanks you too for the lessons and advice that you’ve given me, the cares you’ve lavished on me, the friendship with which you’ve honored me. Thank you above all for that pardon, which rehabilitates and redeems me. I owe you everything: life, honor, perhaps glory. Tomorrow, I swear to you, I shall no longer be in Paris.”

  He watched him flee in the direction of his dwelling.

  Poor child! he thought. Placed in normal conditions, with his intelligence, his natural distinction and his extreme sensibility, he might have aspired to anything.

  Then he glimpsed the dubious situation that that acquaintance had created for him. He had had a keen amity for the young man; they had lived side by side; that promiscuity might be interpreted in a malevolent fashion.

  Were all the events of his new existence, even the simplest and most innocent, to serve to accentuate his fall? It was thanks to Mariette, and thanks to Raphael, that he had begun to emerge from oblivion; was it fated that all aid, all assistance, would come to him from an impure source? Could the man who had put himself outside society no longer be accepted, except by those whom society had cast out? Why was it necessary for his projects to be thwarted by the repugnances of old? Struck by the marvelous aptitudes of his young friend, penetrated with gratitude for the services he had never ceased to render him, he had resolved to educate him, to arm him for the struggle, to make a precious auxiliary of him who would have aided him in his task, and now an imperious necessity had separated them!

  A storm that was building extended its heavy shroud of cloud over Paris. A long rumble of thunder resounded in the air. He lifted a menacing fist toward the sky; it seemed to him that Destiny was laughing at his vain efforts.

  Chapter XV

  Charles Balin had not forgotten Mariette, or the debt of honor contracted in her regard. If he had been slow in acquitting it, it was because he wanted to do it in a good and generous fashion; he estimated that an initial settlement of a hundred and fifty or two hundred francs, at least, was necessary. On the other hand, putting all sentimentality aside and sure of his intentions, he had told himself that before thinking about that largesse, he ought to be in a reasonable situation to make it.

  His new position was infinitely preferable to the miserable employment he had recently occupied. He earned a hundred and fifty francs a month, the work was easy—he sent the paper to subscribers after having wrapped it—the conditions were agreeable and his relationship with his employer imprinted with urbanity. In addition, the lyrical agent to whom the Montmartre musician had recommended him had found him a few odd jobs and, finally, had sent him as an accompanist to a modest café concert in the Montparnasse quarter. That was another four francs a day to augment his budget.

  After the martyrdom of the Béguinard school and the annoying eccentricities of the entrepreneur of copies, and above all after the apprehensions of his black distress, he experienced the joy of navigators who, having been tossed by interminable tempests, deprived of food and fresh water, end up landing on an enchanted island. A month of calm and repose, a more abundant and healthier nourishment, concerns of toilette whose privation had been very painful for him, soon rendered him a measure of composure. Numerous resources, of which that situation was the larva, of which the kind of torpor into which he had suddenly been suddenly plunged had prevented him from thinking, presented themselves to his mind. His bibliographical knowledge would permit him to earn a few sous dealing in books; he could undertake scientific or literary research for authors, orchestrate songs for the artistes he accompanied, etc., etc...

  Did he not have the decent attire and the few advances indispensable to attempt approaches successfully? He hastened to rent a mansard in the Rue Vavin, buy a few items of furniture on easy terms, and on the eighth on November 18**, a little more than six months after Dr. Albin’s funeral, Charles Balin lay down for the first time in a bed that was really his own.

  It was a great and veritable joy, rapidly shadowed by bitter reflections. The fine success had arrived, after many privations, of sleeping in a narrow iron-framed bed for which he had not yet finished paying. How far away he was from his goal! He had scarcely had time to think about it vaguely; would he ever contrive to attain it?

  He turned his attention backwards. A letter that had arrived a few days before from London had informed him that Raphael, employed by a major commercial company, was about to depart for India.

  And Mariette? It was time to think about her. He could see her again with his head held high. But was he not going to find her still in the company of the accursed waiter? What did it matter? He had to fulfill the obligations that the pity of the prostitutes had created, and it was all the more urgent because his job as an accompanist in a low-level café concert might put him in the presence of one of them any day. He therefore put aside savings with that objective, and, soon finding himself in a position to do things honorably, set out in search of the poor registered prostitute.

  At the Hôtel de la Dordogne et du Calvados he was told that Mariette had left the house four months before.

  “She must still be in the country,” the clerk told him in a mocking tone. He was not sufficiently acquainted with argot to understand the precise significance of the words.

  Apart from the furnished lodging-house there were two places where he might find her: the Brasserie de l’Avenir or the corner of the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. He went back down toward the grand boulevards. It was Saturday; his Sunday morning was free, he could be up late without being inconvenienced.

  He wandered the sidewalks that had witnessed his rude ordeal with the sensation of wellbeing that a convalescent experiences who has just escaped death. The street was more animated than usual; the cafes, wine merchants, patisseries and charcuteries were overflowing with clients. Bands of partygoers were coming back noisily from Montmartre, while artistes and journalists, their tasks accomplished, were returning to the heights at a rapid pace. Newsvendors were deafening the passers-by, trying to get rid of their last few copies, while the street-vendors, having become hoarse, had run out of patter.

  A hubbub suddenly rose up. Idlers and curious passers-by ran toward a brawl, where two women thrown out of an establishment were tearing at one another’s hair, to the great joy of the coachmen stationed outside the doors. Other whores were coming and going, running after belated pedestrians and grabbing the arms of night-prowlers. He recognized one of them and went over to her.

  Lucie Pognon, enticed by the sight of the well-dressed man with the distinguished air and gray beard, who was coming toward her of his own accord, whispered the most seductive promises.

  “You don’t recognize me, then?” said the unknown man.

  “Wait a minute—yes, I think so! You’ve been with me before! Oh, the old rogue, it’s you who...”

  He interrupted her swiftly. “”That’s not it. I’m the man to whom you were obliging enough to lend assistance over there on the bench, about three and a half months ago.”

  “Impossible!” cried the stupefied prostitute. “In fact, I recognize you now. There’s a surprise! How well-dressed you are, and how good you look! You’ve made a fortune, then?”

  “Not yet, but I’m in a less precarious situation, and if you’ll permit me, Mademoiselle, to offer you a little present in memory of the service you rendered me, I’d be very obliged to you.” He slipped a louis into her hand.

  “Twenty francs,” observed the whore, overjoyed. “Twenty bullets for the ten sours I put in the kitty—one can say that that was money well-invested. That’s mar
velous. Well, Mariette was right, you’re a worthy, honest man.

  “You weren’t alone that evening in coming to my aid.”

  “No, there was also Nini Nichon.”

  “Is she here?”

  “Hey Nini! Where’s Nichon?”

  Without exactly being a sylphide, the enormous blonde had rapidity.

  “Here I am. What is it? Does Monsieur want two women all to himself? Judge and you’ll know—with me there’s no robbery. No tricks, you can see that, I bought them at Bon-Marché. ‘We have them for all tastes, in metal wire, in rubber.’”

  “You’re drunk again,” Lucie interrupted, dryly. “You obviously don’t recognize Monsieur.”

  “Yes, I recognize him,” said the stout Nichon, without even looking. “He’s the Monsieur from the other night who...”

  The tall Lucie put her hand over her mouth. “No blather, you stupid lummox, and look hard—he’s a mate. I’ll bet you a glass you don’t recognize him. Ah, you see, you’re flummoxed.” She whispered a few words in her ear.

  “My God, it’s true!” exclaimed Nini Nichon. “Who’d have thought it? But he’s up and running now, damn it!”

  Charles Balin, in a hurry to cut the conversation short, slipped another louis into the hand of the buxom chatterbox with the same politeness. She squealed in delighted surprise, hid in the corner of a coaching entrance, lifted up her skirt and hastily stuffed the gold coin into her stocking.

  “Now,” he said, “I’d like to see Mariette.”

  “Mariette!” interjected the two women. “You don’t know, then?”

  He had a sentiment of anxiety whose violence surprised him.

  “I don’t know anything,” he murmured. “Has something happened to her?”