The Second Life of Doctor Albin

by Raoul Gineste

  In the Place du Château-d’Eau she sat down, in spite of the bad weather, on the terrace of a café, and demanded several glasses of brandy, which she drank one after another. She paid the bill and resumed her course.

  The air was damp, the sky heavy and low; drizzle was falling gently, the noise of fiacres and the din of the last omnibuses was muffled by the soft ground. Under the street-lights, surrounded by luminous haloes, the passers-by appeared as if behind a yellow net-curtain. Mariette, her hair almost undone, her make-up soaking, her shirts splashed with mud, looking like a drunken refugee from a brothel, marched straight ahead, her eyes haggard.

  A burly lout who, coming out of a pimps’ café in quest of good fortune, had seen her stop and drink the brandy, barred her passage with his arm, as if in jest, then offered her his arm and made gallant propositions.

  She looked at him, bewildered, her arms dangling, her mouth open.

  Fearing that he had not been understood, the man reiterated his suggestion, entering into precise details, alerted her to his habits and demands, and concluded by offering her money.

  “Ah! Yes, yes, I know what you mean,” she murmured. “It’s all the same to me. As you wish; it’s necessary.”

  “Come on then,” said the man. “We’ll get a hotel room.”

  She followed him momentarily; then, suddenly changing her mind, as if she were emerging from a frightful dream, she uttered a cry of anguish and fled at top speed.

  The stupefied lecher watched her disappear.

  Now, she knew where she was.

  She took the Rue Turbigo, followed the Boulevard Sebastopol, traversed the Place du Châtelet, found herself on the bridge, climbed the parapet with a rapid movement, and threw herself into the Seine.

  Chapter XXVII

  Resolved to head straight for the goal, Charles Balin, as soon as he arrived in London, set out in search of the shady establishment that had already been identified to him.

  The Monks Agency is not easy to find; no directory mentions it and some of the best-informed people have never heard of it.

  “I don’t know the Monks Agency,” the aged cab-driver told him, “but I know a bookseller of that name who does business.” He took the cab anyway, and it stopped in front of a shabby shop on Holborn Hill.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said to the individual who emerged from behind a barricade of old books. “I’m looking for a Monks Agency, and the similarity of the name caused me to suppose that you might be able to inform me.”

  “Perhaps,” replied the sales clerk. “I can tell by your accent that you’re French; what sort of agency are you talking about?”

  “One of those specializing in litigations and question of interest, which carry out research and procure certain documents.”

  “The boss does indeed do all that,” the employee interjected, “and we sometimes receive people who come in search of the Monks Agency.” He stressed the final word in a significant fashion.

  “In that case, I’d like to speak to Mr. Monks.”

  “He’s not here, Monsieur.”

  “When can I see him?”

  “I don’t know. If, however, you care to confide the subject of your visit, I can inform him of it tonight or tomorrow and ask him for an appointment.”

  Damn! thought the foreigner. That’s a lot of precautions; Monks the bookseller is evidently the man I want. Even so, he hesitated.

  “You can confide in me in complete security, Monsieur. I’ll admit that if you want to see Mr. Monks, that’s the only way that you can enter into communication with him.”

  “The Mr. Monks for whom I’m searching might, I’m told, be able to procure me certain papers I need.”

  “Who gave you that information?”

  “A solicitor passing through Paris: Mr. Clifford, if I remember rightly.”

  “Speak frankly: what do you want?”

  “Identity papers.”

  “That’s clear; come this way.”

  He was introduced into a back room, where Mr. Monks, a sort of leather bag surmounted by a small neckless head and furnished with arachnid limbs gestured to him to sit down.

  “You desire identity papers, I understand. What nationality? Real or false?”

  “French nationality and real; otherwise my papers won’t have any value.”

  “I can get you serious ones for five hundred pounds.”

  “Five hundred pounds!” murmured the client, with a grimace of disappointment. “My means don’t permit me, then, to carry my project forward.”

  “The least French, English and German papers,” said the fake bookseller, “sell for that price; if they include aristocratic titles or scientific diplomas I charge extra, but I have cheaper ones. The Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch and Danish are four hundred pounds, Russian, Austrian, Swiss and Belgian three hundred. For a hundred I can furnish Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, as many as you wish. All the rest—American, Asiatic, African, Oceanian—vary between thirty and fifty pounds. I’m talking, of course, about authentic documents; if you wish to equip yourself with false papers, they’re cheaper—much cheaper—and between the two of us, Monsieur, the false ones are often better than the real ones. It depends on the usage you want to make of them.”

  “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you needlessly,” the visor stammered. “I hadn’t expected such high prices.”

  “Well, Monsieur, people who want to change their identity always have serious reasons for doing so; they’re usually notaries or bankers on the run, former keepers of public houses, relatives of people condemned to death, executioners…in brief, people who want to escape dishonor and who, for some reason, have broken with the past. Those people don’t care about the price, especially when they’re certain of not being cheated. Now, the Monks Agency never leads its clients into error.” With a little pointed laugh, he added: “It devotes itself to its dishonest operations with scrupulous honesty.”

  “The reasons I have...”

  “Don’t concern me,” the businessman interrupted. “The identity papers I sell cost me dear. Even though I’ve taken my precautions—I’m not a merchant of old papers for nothing—I risk, in making that traffic, having disagreeable encounters with the law, so it’s reasonable that I obtain some profit.”

  Charles Balin apologized again and left. The six or seven thousand francs he possessed, which had not only to serve him to obtain documents but also to support him and take his examinations, were scarcely in rapport with the demands of the Monks Agency.

  He dismissed the cab and was going back to his hotel on foot when the bookseller’s clerk caught up with him in the street.

  “I know that you didn’t make a deal with the boss,” the individual said. “Would you find some good advice worth two or three pounds?”

  “If the advice you have to give me is worth the fee, I’m good judge and an honest man; I’ll recognize your service.”

  “I’ll trust in your honesty. My idea is practical, excellent and realizable in a short time. You want authentic identity papers: go to New York and have yourself naturalized as a Yankee. With the directions I give you, and a few papers I’ll provide, which will cost you another two or three pounds—let’s say five in all—it can be very easily done.”

  Time was pressing; he was afraid of being anticipated by another; above all, he could not see how he was going to get the 12,500 francs Mr. Monks was demanding. What did nationality matter, after all? Science and Art have no fatherland. He accepted the plan. Instead of going to Liège or Pisa, he would obtain his diploma from a university in the New World.

  A fortnight later, Pierre Iblan, a chemist of Cuban origin, arrived in New York, went on to Philadelphia, registered at the university and requested naturalization. Antedated letters from Dr. Albin recommending him warmly to former correspondents immediately won him the eager support of several professors.

  A few months later, the Cuban chemist, having become a Yankee citizen and received a doctorate, took the steamer, disemb
arked at Le Havre and returned to Paris.

  The new individual who, under that further anagram of Albin, was about to go in pursuit of glory, no longer had more than a distant resemblance to his previous incarnations. The slightly darkened complexion, the narrow beard running beneath the chin, the long near-white hair, the simultaneously grave and bold manner and the exotic air he had about him allowed Dr. Iblan to go anywhere without running any risk of being unmasked.

  A sufficient knowledge of the English and Spanish languages completed the illusion. He astonished himself with a transformation so complete, and began to wonder whether his aptitudes as an actor might have been one of the principal results of his past success.

  A method for the fabrication of artificial ivory sold in the United States had brought him a few thousand francs. He rented a small apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, decorated the main room artistically with furniture and ornaments bought at the Hôtel Drouot,25 and rapidly entered into communication with the American Legation. Then he solicited and obtained the favor of sitting the examinations for a French doctorate. He had no more to do than present himself before the Faculty.

  Until then, the constant preoccupations, daily obligations and overwork, without causing him to forget Rose Gontran, had prevented him from making any serious search for her. He had heard vaguely about the failure of her attempted comeback, knew that her former domicile as uninhabited, and that was all. Now that he was completely reinstalled her and had no more to do than wait for the moment to subject himself to his proofs he was in haste to relocate his lover, determined to watch over her covertly and come to her aid if necessary.

  People in the theatrical profession and the press were unable to give him any information about the present situation of the actress; even the man who had been her lover was completely ignorant as to what had become of her—but they told him all the details of the fatal evening and the abominable machination of which the unfortunate artiste had been the victim.

  Then he had funereal presentiments; involuntarily, the statement that Rose had pronounce so resolutely on the day when he had promise not to abandon her—“If you hadn’t said that, I’d have thrown myself in the river”—returned incessantly to his mind. He knew her violent character, her nervousness, so easy to excite, and her energetic will. He trembled to acquire some sad certainty. Failure combined with abandonment might have driven her to any extreme.

  If, however, one way or another, Rose Gontran were dead, the fact would be surely known—but the Seine does not surrender all of its cadavers, and how many people who had had their moment of celebrity die abandoned and forgotten in obscure mansards? Enquiry agencies could not furnish him with any information.

  He went to the Gaité-Belleville.

  “Since the night when Rose Gontran left us flat,” the director replied, “I haven’t heard any mention of her. She must surely have regretted that impulsive action. A vile cabal had, it’s true, been mounted against her, but the performance might have ended turning to her honor. She lacked composure authorized advice. I did what I could; unfortunately, I could speak any louder than my rights as director, and she closed my mouth by compensating me generously for the expenses I’d made.”

  “She had no one to look out for her? A husband, a lover?”

  “There was the young playwright, but the fellow was the first to lose his head. In any case, he appeared to have no influence over her, and Mademoiselle Gontran, so far as I could judge, wasn’t easy to manage.”

  He had already been assured that Rose had left their former domicile shortly after his departure. Supposing, nevertheless, that she might have left some indication there, and have reason in any case to recover the furniture and books he had abandoned in the Rue Lepic, he furnished himself with an authorization from his relative Charles Balin, and presented himself to the concierge. She, embarrassed by the apartment and glad to be paid, did not raise the slightest objection.

  He took the keys, ran up the stairs and opened the door. Nothing had changed, but on the table, very visible, a letter addressed to Monsieur Charles Balin immediately struck his gaze. He tore open the envelope, trembling with emotion, and read the words, effaced her and there by tears:

  Wicked man who makes me weep so much, I’ll wait for you forever; don’t forget your promise. Poor Mariette.

  Poor Mariette, indeed! What could have become of her?

  He wiped his eyes, because he was weeping too, and went back downstairs.

  “So you’ve never heard any further mention of Madame Balin?” he asked the concierge again.

  “Neither Monsieur nor Madame.” She had second thoughts. “Yes, a man came several times to ask whether they still lived here and where they’d gone. Without being a witch, I’m sure that he was a cop.”

  He gave her a coin, told her that he would send removal men the next day, and left.

  The concierge called him back.

  “Oh, Monsieur, there’s one thing I forgot to tell you. When the lady left, I asked her whether she was coming back. She said: ‘It’s only the dead who don’t come back.’”

  A sudden chill traversed his heart.

  Bah! It was a manner of speaking; he could not draw any conclusion from a popular saying.

  Perhaps Mariette had obtained some engagement elsewhere? It was not admissible that she had been reclaimed by her past.

  He went so far as to wander in the vicinity of the Faubourg Montmartre and was accosted by old Lucie, whose offers he declined, but to whom he gave some money, under the pretext that he had known her a long time ago and had already encountered hr on his first voyage to Paris with someone named…wait a moment...

  The American made a semblance of searching his memory.

  “Nini Nichon, a big aggressive blonde, I’ll wager.”

  “No.”

  “Valentine, then…a pullet from Le Mans? Jeanne Gambier? Fanny Béquille?”

  “No,” the foreigner replied, to each name on the list. “It’s true that it was four or five years ago,” he added, to put her on the track. “You probably don’t remember.”

  “Four or five years…Mariette, perhaps?”

  “Mariette—that was her name, Mariette! I’d like to see her again.”

  “Well, old chap, if you’re waiting for Mariette to lose your innocence, you’ll wait a long time. You’d do better to come with me.”

  “She’s dead, then?”

  “No one knows! She was in the theater; no one has seen her since the night when she had a fiasco. A chap named Émile said later that she must have gone to the provinces or abroad with her old mec.”

  “Oh…she had, what did you say?”

  “An old mec, a mysterious old fellow, a lost dog, a former curé, a fellow who had ups and downs, a thief, perhaps a murderer—so Émile says, for I have nothing to reproach him for myself; he even gave me twenty bullets one day for nothing.”

  He did not want to know any more, and, ashamed of the investigation, which he had thought necessary, he resolved not to take his research any further.

  Poor Mariette! He was almost certain now that, yielding to some crazy excitation, she had found repose and oblivion in death.

  A long and dolorous sadness invaded him. An instinctive hallucination nailed him to the sidewalk, haggard. He saw Rose, maddened, coming out of the theater at a run, going down the streets and boulevards without drawing breath; he saw her nervous clenched hands hanging on to the hard stone parapet; he heard the muffled splash of the body that the Seine, the consoler of the desperate, had hastened to swallow.

  He shook himself to chase away the nightmare; he had the painful impression that he had suddenly grown several years older.

  Had he loved her, then? Did he love her still, to experience such cruel suffering?

  It was impossible for him to reply.

  He walked straight ahead, and found himself in the Place de l’Opéra.

  It was the night of a première; municipal guardsmen enveloped in their dark
mantles, their helmets dazzling in the glare of the electric lights, astride their large horses, were stationed hieratically on the edges of the large square. The spectacle had just finished; the steps of the monumental peristyle were packed with people, gentlemen in suits covered fur-lined overcoats; officers in dress uniform; warmly wrapped ladies their shoulders wrapped in marten or ermine, their faces hidden beneath silk capelines or lace mantillas.

  Carriages were arriving slowly in single file, turning away and disappearing rapidly in all directions. Once, he too had been among that elite; his love of music had caused him to follow these artistic events passionately.

  He was at the corner of the boulevard, outside the Café de la Paix; suddenly, he recognized his old coachman, traveling rapidly and extracting his vehicle from the curious crowd. In the coupé, which had almost brushed him, an involuntary glance showed him the woman who had long been his neglected wife, with whom he had spent an almost indifferent life, amorously enlaced by Dr. Larmezan’s left arm.

  A stupid and incomprehensible surge of indignation gripped him; the familiar attitude of Dr. Larmezan seemed to him to be grossly revolting. Tremulously, he watched the vehicle race away at the gallop. One might have thought that he had suffered an outrage.

  The impression, it is true, was as brief as the apparition. “Am I going mad?” he murmured, almost immediately. “Only a moment ago, the memory of Mariette, the near-certainty of having lost her gave me a profoundly cruel pain, and now, the rapid vision of the woman who was legally and honestly my wife, with whom I lived for such a long time almost without waiting to love her, almost without wanting to know her, disturbs me and seems to engender a ridiculous sentiment of jealousy. It’s absurd! I must be losing my mind. Why has that wall of glass reflected, so to speak, the regret of the other?”

  The cold made him shiver, and he resumed walking. Now he was thinking, as he went through the same places, of that calvary of begging when his hunger, as heavy as a cross, had weighed so heavily upon his shoulders. He told himself that alongside him, perhaps, there were human beings whom his relative prosperity was already preventing him from recognizing, submissive to the same anguish. He examined the passers-by with eyes in which pity was mingled with fear. The providential memory of Mariette came back to haunt him, and now he saw her, hooked on to some laundry-boat jetty, icy, decomposed, her orbits empty: a human rag doing a danse macabre in the eddies of the rapid current.