Had not Rose Gontran instinctively felt that?
Reclaimed by the shameful past, she was escaping the repulsive merchandising of prostitution by means of a perverse caprice that he knew full well to be only a temporary phase in her disordered existence. He had been too hasty in quitting Mariette; he should only have abandoned her at the moment when, provided with the accoutrements and engagements necessary to earn a lavish living, she was able to become the disinterested mistress of some devoted friend; she would then have been on the road that led to moral redemption. Instead of that, he had seized the first opportunity to leave her; he had taken Mariette off the street merely to return her to the alcove.
He had feared finding himself in a dubious situation—a paltry excuse born of egotistical self-regard. He was outside of all social conventions, free in his actions, the sole judge of their intrinsic value; it had been necessary to stay with her, to channel her excesses, so to speak. He would have continued to earn his living honestly, no compromise being able to draw in into enjoying a life of dishonorably sourced luxury. Rose Gontran, thanks to his aid, would have continued to deny Mariette’s crapulous camaraderie, and Nini Nichon, attracted by the fortune, would doubtless never have exploited debasing memories.
He had, in truth, a great and veritable excuse: that he was obliged to pursue a goal a thousand times more elevated, and could not attach himself any longer to Mariette’s fate; but he ought not to be astonished, given that, if he found her in a moral situation almost as despicable as that of old.
Did he not have a partial responsibility for that almost immediate return to her vomit? If she really had loved him, had she not demanded of intoxication, a poor counselor, the forgetfulness of his abandonment? Of all the vices of the past, drunkenness had remained the most tenacious; he had only been able to master it to a degree by dint of patience, supplications and cunning. The deadly habit had surely profited from his departure to recover all of its empire.
An item published a few days later in a morning newspaper confirmed him in that opinion:
One of our most talented café concert stars, Mademoiselle Rose Gontran, to be precise, came on stage last night in a state of unstable equilibrium, which the audience almost failed to find to its taste, but with a presence of mind as rare as it is precious in such a situation, the witty artiste immediately began singing to the tune from La Périchole;23 ‘”I’m a little drunk, a little drunk, but shh! You mustn’t tell. Shh!, etc.” Needless to say, the incident was concluded by laughter and applause.
Now he was sure of it; Rose Gontran was as much to be pitied as criticized. But what could he do about it? Had he not already devoted too much time and vital energy to her, stolen from the sole enterprise that was worthy of him? Had he not returned, in the measure of the possible, the fortuitous aid that she had once brought him? If he had not been able to redeem her, she was sheltered henceforth from hunger and official stigma, and if ever disgust for vice took hold in her, poverty would no longer rivet her to infamy.
It was thus, with the sophisms of his intellect, that he tried to dissimulate the anxieties of his heart, which, independently of his will, sought a thousand reasons to exculpate, or at least to excuse, Mariette. Certainly, he had never loved her, any more than he loved her today, in the true sense of the word; otherwise, he would not have hesitated for a single instant to sacrifice his dream to her, to consecrate all his life to her; and yet, a sheaf of sentiments, in which gratitude, perversity, pity and even curiosity flourished, still attracted him to her by a thousand memories.
He sensed, more vaguely, that another motive had played an important role in that kind of fascination, but that cause he could neither define nor divine.
It was in that situation of mind and heart that he approached Nini Nichon, encountered one day in the environs of the Trinité. The whore, initially surprised and annoyed, obstinately refused to recognize him, calling him a peasant and threatening to call the police.
Rose must still love me, he thought, since the wicked angel was afraid of me; she doubtless imagined that I wanted to take her back.
Not wanting either to see her or write to her, he found an indirect means of reminding her of him. Remembering that he had once written verses—what had he not done?—he sent her the words and music of a love song, “Chanson pour aimer,” the last quatrain of which was:
Since it is necessary that everything ends
Let us separate loving one another;
Our love will be the dream
That endures eternally.
involuntarily betraying the secrets of his heart.
That scarcely resembled the singer’s vulgar genre, but she sang it with all her heart and veritable tears and, as the influence of her friend had always been beneficial, the success it obtained proved to Rose Gontran that she had no need of coarse words and provocative gestures to conquer the applause of the public.
In the following days, the theatrical press carried numerous advertisements saying that Mademoiselle Rose Gontran keenly desired to reach an agreement with the author of Chanson pour aimer, Monsieur Charles Balin, for new creations of the same kind.
He knew what that meant, and did not respond.
A few weeks later he learned that the Star, departed on tour, was reaping profits and laurels on the great stages of Austria and Russia. He was simultaneously pained and satisfied; the slightest encounter might have reunited them, and the mere presence of Rose in Paris was sufficient to trouble his repose.
Several months went by; on emerging from the hospital he had found a modest employment with a large manufacturer of chemical and pharmaceutical products with which anterior purchases had created a connection for him.
That position presented considerable advantages. Not only did he earn a living, but he had a well-equipped laboratory at his disposal, and although his employer did not always see without displeasure one of his minor employees devoting himself to scientific research, the reliability of his analyses, the simplification of procedures and a few other exceptional services that he rendered caused it to be overlooked.
He repeated the conclusive experiments that overturned Dr. Albin’s theory and found new ones to support then, bringing a definitive precision to the mysterious formulae.
Intoxicated by those results—which, after months of discouragement and forced inactivity had affirmed his convictions—he thought, unfortunately, that he was ready to commence the struggle. A preliminary article published by the Revue des Sciences, in which the fashionable theory was seriously criticized, burst like a bomb.
The article was signed Charles Balin. An investigation of sorts was mounted. The druggist, told by numerous official acquaintances that he was suspected of having encouraged the attack, hastened to dismiss the audacious employee. He had nothing for which to reproach him, but by keeping him he would have risked losing the greater part of his clientele.
Similar companies not want to inherit such a dangerous auxiliary at any price, he found himself out on the street again, and fell back into tenebrous despair. Although he no longer had, as before, the immediate anxiety of lacking a loaf of bread, the rudeness and rapidity of the riposte, and the ostracism with which he felt himself immediately subjected, taught him brutally that he was not yet strong enough or sufficiently well-armed to go into the arena.
He set out once again in quest of employment. A veterinarian, the director of an animal boarding establishment, was in search of an aide accustomed to the manipulation of pharmaceutical products. On the advice of his former employer he applied for the post and was accepted.
There, things seemed at first to present themselves in a favorable light. His employer, a great gambler against fate, exceedingly fond of racecourses and beautiful women, spending his days in the weighing-room and his nights in fashionable cabarets, gladly delegated professional cares to his auxiliaries. As long as the employee was subordinate and only had to prepare drugs, all went well; unfortunately, he could not help displaying his surgical
and veterinary aptitudes, and the veterinarian, all the more delighted because he wanted to go to the races in Nice, immediately confided the administration of the hospital to him. That was the part of the establishment where sick inmates were placed, where poor tomcats were neutered, the ears of ratting dogs were cropped and bulldogs were deprived of their tails.
In spite of the irony of the situation and his repugnance for such work, the Chief of Service mastered his pride and set to work conscientiously. It was, after all, an excellent opportunity to experiment with the potency of certain antiseptics that he had recently discovered.
The most recalcitrant quinsies, coughs, galls and swine-fevers, and the most tenacious tapeworms could not rest his treatments. After a fortnight, the dogs had returned to their kennels, the cats, returned to old ladies’ laps, were purring by the fireside, and parrots reinstalled on their perches were once again delighting children great and small.
On his return, the veterinarian, amazed by that unexpected evacuation, could not master his ill humor.
“I had sixty boarders when I left!” he cried, with comical chagrin, “and now I have no more than ten. You’ve either sent them away without being cured or you haven’t followed my prescriptions.”
“I have, in fact, applied treatments that I thought better.”
“That, I can’t support in my establishment! By what right did you take that initiative? What qualifications guarantee you? You haven’t come from Alfort,24 I assume! In any case, I expect you to respect my instructions, and I’m dismissing you.” He muttered, inaudibly: “Go get hanged elsewhere. The health of an animal isn’t as precious as that of a man; we have the right to exploit the manias of people, almost all rich, who often threat their animals with more regard than their fellows. I’m a partisan of cures, since they ought to serve the good reputation of my establishment, but there’s no need to obtain them with such urgency!”
“Monsieur,” Charles Balin said to him, divining his thoughts, “I hold animals in no higher esteem than one ought to, but apart from the fact that any weak and suffering creature has a right to our pity, the most rudimentary honesty commanded me to act in that fashion. Your clients, via your intermediary, paid me to reestablish the health of their pets; I cured them as rapidly as I could, that’s all.”
“And you did well,” replied the businessman, coldly, “but your reasoning runs into the brutal logic of a fact: so long as I had animals to care for, I needed someone to carry out that task. No longer having any, I no longer need the special employee. That’s all, and goodnight.”
The director, freed from paying wages, went out laughing quietly.
Had he not avenged himself in his fashion for the repugnant role of clipper of canine ears and castrator of cats that necessity had forced upon him?
In the meantime, Rose Gontran, returned from Russia, had resumed performing at the Folies Nouvelles, and her success was increasing by the day when the newspapers announced a sudden indisposition on the singer’s part.
Observing that her name was still absent from the posters, he did not take long to become anxious, and ran to the Folies, where he was informed of the imminent return of the chanteuse. Nevertheless, he went to her domicile in the Rue de la Pépinière, where the Cerberus obstinately refused to unclench his teeth, and prevented him from going up. He had strict instructions not to give out and information and not to let anyone in.
Two or three days later, he learned from a theatrical newspaper that Rose Gontran, afflicted by a serious smallpox, would not be returned to the stage for a time as yet undetermined.
Smallpox! That was ugliness, despair, ruin for her, but he might perhaps be able to prevent her being disfigured. Determined to force all doors, he ran to the Rue de la Pépinière, where the concierge no longer tried to stop him and indicated the floor. He went up the stairs like a madman. The key was in the door; he went in without even thinking about knocking.
Everything seemed deserted; the cupboard doors were open, the drawers agape; clothing and lingerie was trailing everywhere; one might have thought that the apartment had been burgled.
He called out. A thin old woman appeared on the threshold of a doorway and, without letting go of the bottle of warm wine she was holding in her hand, half drunk, told him that the poor lady was very ill; the doctor had said that she would not recover.
He entered the bedroom that the megaera indicated to him with a finger, distraught. He had arrived too late! Rose Gontran, covered with horrible pustules, her face torn, her body lacerated, was writhing on the bearskin that served as a bedside rug. He picked her up and quickly replaced her in the bed.
Poor Rose, prey to delirium, had not recognized him.
“Is this how you look after the invalids confided to your care!” he shouted, seized by a violent anger.
The mercenary started stammering excuses; she had only left for a minute; the lady must have fallen while she was preparing the warm wine that she had been advised to take to preserve her from the infection; for sure she would not have taken long to perceive the accident and put her back in bed.
Mad with dolor, he sat down momentarily on the bed and took Rose’s pulse; the unfortunate woman continued to ramble. He prescribed a potion and, not trusting the unsteady drunkard, ran to fetch it himself, returning a few minutes later.
“Why are you here on your own?” he demanded of the nurse.
“Well, Monsieur,” the old woman replied, “there are maladies that scare people, not everyone wants to care for them. Me, although they say you can’t catch it twice, I only agreed to do it to please the concierge, a friend of my poor late husband, and because he promised me a good fee. With that, I’m afraid of being robbed. Who’ll pay me if she dies?”
“Shut up, you old fool—she can hear you. Has Mademoiselle Rose no servants, or friends, then?”
“Oh, friends—they’re fine ones, her friends. In the early days, there was a fat blonde and a maid, sluts who didn’t dare go into the room once and gave orders to the concierge not to let anyone in. The good-for-nothings spent their time plying bezique, as if nothing were happening, while the sick woman was moaning to break your heart! Yesterday evening the doctor said that she might well not recover, and might not even last the night; then they quickly parceled up linen and all kinds of things that were theirs—so they told me—because they lived together; they left in a cab, telling me they’d come back this morning, and I can see that they’ve done a flit. They’re a dirty lot, all the same.”
Charles Balin spent the night with the invalid and strove, as much as he could, to attenuate the ravages of the disease.
In the morning, Rose had a long sleep, after which she seemed to be emerging from a bad dream. Her eyelids were swollen; her closed eyes could not see anything.
“Nini,” she murmured.
“Rose…Mariette,” he replied, in a sift voice.
She shuddered and uttered a cry. “Charles! Charles! I recognize you, I know it’s you! I no longer want to die! Save me!”
He could not help shedding tears, and took the hands that was groping, searching for him—but she snatched it away swiftly.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “You’ll catch my disease. It’s catching—the doctor said so…”
From that moment on, the poor young woman gradually improved. She asked where Nini and the maid were; the old nurse told her about their departure.
“It’s all over for me,” she repeated, with resignation.
Two days later she was out of danger, but Charles Balin wondered fearfully whether she would survive her despair, when she saw the hideous traces that the disease had left on her face.
As if she divined his concern, she sighed: “I’m going to be very ugly now, aren’t I?”
He tried to attenuate the truth and console her,
“Oh, I know, I sense that I’ll be disfigured. The doctor who cared for me took precautions, but one night, I woke up with a start; I was afraid; I called out but no one came. I tried
to get up, but I fell on the floor, and I can’t remember anything more.” Sadly, she added: “Why didn’t you come sooner?”
He bowed his head and said nothing.
“Oh, I don’t hold it against you. If I only had the hope of seeing you in future,” she implored, “perhaps I’d still be happy. I’d resent this illness less, which has brought you to close to me again. I could even console myself for being hideous; you taught me resignation. I wasn’t pretty before, now I’ll be frightful!”
He promised to do everything for her that he could.
The convalescence made good progress. Soon, Rose was able to get up. The first time she looked in a mirror she uttered a scream of horror and nearly fainted.
He had, however prepared her with all kinds of circumspection for that despairing contemplation; it was necessary, besides, that she should not trust that first impression; the wounds, still poorly scarred, made her a thousand times uglier than she would be; the skin would resume its natural color in time; the inequalities would disappear.
“It’s over, completely over,” she replied, sobbing. “Adieu, beautiful dreams; I’ll never set foot on a stage again.”
That day, which he had put off as long as he could be keeping Rose in bed under countless pretexts, was for her a source of profound dolor. Rendered suspicious by the inhuman abandonment of Nini and her maid, she wanted to insect her cupboards. Her money, her jewels, all the objects of any value and a part of her clothing and lingerie had disappeared.
“The wretch!” she murmured, desolate. “The punishment is greater than I expected. Ugly and ruined—it’s too much, all at once.”
Again she dissolved in tears.
He tried to make her accept her disappointments philosophically.
The Second Life of Doctor Albin Page 23