The Clock of the Centuries

by Albert Robida

  Montarcy was pressed for time, but he stayed to hear the complaints of a young man to whom the secretary to the editorial board had just handed back an unacceptable manuscript. The young man protested vigorously, seemingly furious.

  “That little chap,” whispered Palluel, “is an old celebrity, the most prolific propagator of these literary maladies—debilitating colds or fully-fledged fevers—of which our critic was speaking: 60 naturalist novels, 60 volumes of social pathology! Anyone who absorbed them all in one go wouldn’t be cured by reading The Three Musketeers 2000 times over! Today, having returned, like everyone else, to his beginnings, the ex-naturalist submits sentimental verses to the Journal des Demoiselles and sickly-sweet novelettes in which, entirely involuntarily, he occasionally slips in reminiscences of his old works, which would cause a veteran of the African wars to blush, among all the prettiness and insipidity.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  A Few Returns, Happy and Unhappy

  While all this was going on, the worthy and placid Houquetot had called, as had become his habit, to bring his friend Robert up to date with the uninterrupted series of embarrassments and annoyances he was suffering because of his terrible father. He found Robert rather anxious too, very happy on the one hand on account of some good news he had recently received, but very irritated on the other by certain less satisfying events.

  “Has something have happened here, then?” Houquetot asked, interrupting his confidences, having observed Robert’s preoccupation.

  “A great deal! But tell me, how are things with you?”

  “Nothing new—nothing fundamentally out of the ordinary…”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Well, my father is getting younger every day—younger than ever!”

  “Naturally—so are we!”

  “Much more than us! We’re growing younger normally, but he’s truly getting ahead of himself! He’s more passionate, more dandified, more the officer in the Restoration’s black musketeers than ever! And that’s not without its inconveniences. He gets indignant at being obliged to be stingy, and swears that he’s going to sow blood and fire among the bankers who involved him in certain financial operations in 1840 or thereabouts, fruitful for some, disastrous for others. He frequents fashionable fencing schools and the Café Anglais… which means that we have to eat dry bread 20 days a month… .”

  “Damnable!”

  “He dreams of acquiring a cabriolet by the month, and a tiger, and searches high and low for liberal money-lenders…”

  “Diabolical!”

  “That’s not all! In his heyday, it seems, around 1828, he had an adventure that caused a huge scandal in Dijon—something extremely serious! A lady of the best society, the wife of a councilor at the Royal Court was horribly compromised by him. Did I say compromised? He abducted her!”

  “What of it? 1828 is still a long way off.”

  “I repeat that he’s racing ahead in a disastrous fashion. This adventure, the scandal of 1828, is running through his head. He’s absolutely determined to return to Dijon to cut off the councilor’s ears, and those of a number of other people mixed up in the affair, and to abduct the councilor’s wife all over again!”

  “Is the poor woman in this world?”

  “So I’m informed, yes; once again she is the edification of the faithful swains of her parish—a different one, of course, from that of 1828—and she’s 60 years old! When I told my father that, he had a blue fit and strictly forbade me to meddle in things that don’t concern me. I dread that he might set out for Dijon at any moment. And now, what’s new with you?”

  “This: finally my grandfather will no longer be alone in life!”

  “You mean he’s getting married?”

  “He’s no longer a widower, at least. He’s received a letter from my grandmother, returned to the home of other grandchildren in the distant provinces, near Laval, and I’m going to fetch her…”

  “Very good. I’m delighted—my compliments.”

  “We’re all very happy, me especially. I never knew her, the nice grandmother of whom I heard so much talk in my childhood. As for my grandfather, he’s almost dancing with joy, and is trying to remember the songs sung at his wedding in 1826. I leave tomorrow morning; the railway no longer goes as far as Laval, so I’ll have to take the coach the rest of the way.”

  “The railway no longer goes that far?”

  “No, the main line stops well short, and the smaller lines have long been abandoned. Steam no longer appeals: it exposes us to so many inconveniences, not to speak of the dangers, just to save a little time. But that’s not all—there’s some news that’s not so pleasant.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Complications! Old relatives, cousins or something, have arrived…”

  “From the provinces?” Houquetot asked.

  “And from further away, my dear friend—much further away! The new life sometimes throws us into singular family complications, I must say! On the one hand, my grandmother returns to another family, and on the other, totally forgotten cousins fall into our arms… You’ll see them soon; I’ll introduce you to them…”

  The Laforcades were just finishing dinner; they were still in the dining-room. Berthe, the father and the grandfather were there, Palluel and three gentlemen, the inconvenient cousins, all three of whom answered to the name of Jollyvat: François Jollyvat; Jollyvat from Paris; and Jollyvat from Tours—one short, thin and quite young; one short and flabby, by virtue of lost obesity; and the third short, fat and ruddy-faced. They were in the process of elucidating the question of parentage in order to calculate the exact degree of their relationship. It was rather complicated; while sorting it out, the newcomers were calling everyone ‘cousin,’ including Palluel, who might have had some vague entitlement to it, and—as soon as they caught sight of him—Houquetot.

  “But yes,” said Jollyvat from Paris, “the wife of Monsieur Laforcade the grandfather was, I believe, the aunt of my uncle, who is therefore the nephew of Monsieur Laforcade grandfather, and, in consequence, the first cousin…”

  “I beg your pardon,” said grandfather Laforcade, “my wife, I think, was the aunt in the Breton fashion, which is to say, merely a cousin…”

  “You’re making an error of one degree…”

  “Permit me—you’ll see…”

  “So, my dear cousins,” said Jollyvat from Tours to Robert and Houquetot, in a low voice, “you don’t know your cousin François Jollyvat?”

  “Not at all! Not even by name!”

  “Alas, I knew him too well at one time: an old egotist, an arid heart, and an old rogue to boot! How does he strike you now? What do you make of him?”

  “He seems rather pitiful… His doleful expression…”

  “Merely crestfallen, and with good reason! I’ll tell you why he has such a lamentable air about him! He was a selfish old fellow who, all his life, went to great lengths to care for his plump, rubicund person, and have others care for it! I’ve followed his career—I know him! Fleeing responsibilities, anything that might inconvenience or hold him back, he was very wary of founding a family. Marry—no way! A confirmed bachelor, François Jollyvat. He preferred to lead a long and merry boy’s life. Up with joy! We’re not the sort to court melancholy, are we? No cares, no children whose health might give us anxieties and would have to be brought up, directed towards a career, found a place, established…no worries, all our resources applied to the satisfaction of our appetites or our whims. That’s my estimable cousin François Jollyvat. Yes, but now he’s paying for all that!”

  “That’s true,” said Robert. “Today, he’s alone.”

  “If it were only that! There’s something else. At 50, the despicable old fellow appeared to discover a lively interest in the family. He had nephews, and long-neglected cousins. All of a sudden, he became the most affectionate uncle in the world, and nephews, nieces, cousins, happy with the change, after having been long disdained, competed in pampering him, so
the second part of his life, which had threatened to be rather somber, as is usual for aged bachelors, was, on the contrary, as rosy as he could have wished. The rascal! He knew how to talk up his fortune, passing for a miser who had amassed a fortune, dangling his glittering inheritance before his nephews’ eyes. The nephews fought one another with little favors and flatteries, cosseting him for more than 25 years, until the last minute—but then…”

  “Then?”

  “Bang! Catastrophe! It was tidy, the inheritance so hard earned. The succession was opened up; the fat inheritance arrived—and there was Monsieur the notary! Collapse! In his fifties, the good uncle had nearly run through all his wealth, and had invested the little that remained in an annuity. He had obtained all the caresses, the favors, the attention, the consideration and the pampering by fraud!”

  “And now?”

  “Now, imagine how inconvenient the backward progression of the New Era must be for him! Here he is, back among the nephews of whom he made such fools! You can imagine the welcome he received—the worthy uncle, the nice old gentleman uncle with the inheritance, the excellent old relative, was welcomed more than coldly; the entire family is now in revolt against the old fraud. He’s only looking to begin again, to be pampered as before, but by others! Come on, dear Uncle Parasite, do us the honor of making fools of us all over again! Mind your health, you horrible old skinflint! Pray take this armchair, these little cushions, go on, let yourself be coddled, industrious uncle! Old lunatic! In brief, a horrible existence. Expiation! He complains, he moans, but what good does it do? He fell into my arms to ask me for help and advice; I told him to be patient and I beg you to talk to him in the same fashion. He must resign himself to it, after all, and it’s only twenty five years of annoyance and wear—then he’ll be 50 again, as before…”

  While Jollyvat from Tours was slipping these confidences softly into Robert’s ear, François Jollyvat, the old bachelor newly emerged into the New Era, now a victim, disabled and disoriented, was telling the tale of his woes to father Laforcade in his own fashion, railing against everyone, ornamenting it with a few revelations regarding Jollyvat from Paris.

  “Oh, Monsieur, nephews who were, in sum, rather vulgar, scarcely elevated in situation or mind, in whom a man of good education like myself, having seen the world, was generous enough to take an interest—dastards whom I attempted to raise up to my own level! Scoundrels with no hearts and no shame! And I was naïve enough to think their affection disinterested, for I believed that, Monsieur, I was naïve enough to believe it! But what do you think of cousin Jollyvat from Paris? I thought he was in a very different position! I was very surprised…”

  “When I knew him, in 1865 or 66,” said father Laforcade, “he was a rich merchant, a stout gentleman, very successful, very solid, and rather disdainful of his relatives…”

  “It’s said that he was a skillful player, whose enrichment was due much more to knowing how to exploit profitable relationships to the full and take advantage of circumstances than to his own intrinsic worth, which is—take it from me, I knew him!—nothing. He was a vain man, puffed up with his own importance and the merit he attributed to himself, because everything he did then was successful—but there’s one who’ll gain nothing from the New Era! See how annoyed he is as he goes backwards, retracing the route he followed before, utterly humiliated by his decline and deflation, returning modestly to the petty origins he concealed so well: to the humble shop where he once served two ounces of pepper and half a dozen candles—for he’s back in the little shop now, although he hasn’t admitted it to you…”

  “Bah! I’ll give him my custom—it’s the least I can do!”

  “Ah, the new life! There are some of us who find it rather bitter.”

  “Yes,” said the third Jollyvat, the thin Jollyvat from Tours, who had heard these last words and who drew closer. “Who are you talking about? I’m undergoing a cruel experience at present!”

  “You’re complaining about growing younger,” said Palluel, “and reliving your best years?”

  “I’m certainly not complaining about growing younger—I’ve welcomed the backward progression just like everyone else, but there are delicate circumstances and difficult phases…”

  “What do you expect? For so many advantages, it’s well worth enduring a few petty inconveniences!”

  “It’s precisely to get away from one of those unpleasantnesses that you see me so far from my house in Tours, accompanying cousin François Jollyvat, while my business might be in jeopardy. The fact is, I’ve been married twice!”

  “That’s better than not at all,” said father Laforcade. “Look at cousin François.”

  “And my first wife recently returned!”

  “What about the second?”

  “Oh, the second, naturally, returned to her family. But what an unfortunate event—happy, I mean to say, but happy and deplorable at the same time, to see my first wife return…”

  “Did she make you unhappy?”

  “Not at all—she was charming! She adored me and I idolized her.”

  “Then I don’t understand your distress.”

  “It’s just that I swore to her that I’d never remarry, to live alone with her memory, forever remaining an inconsolable widow for whom the Earth no longer had any Sun, or roses, or joy, or… And I returned to the foot of altar after three…”

  “After three years?”

  “No, after three months! My first wife was charming, as I said, but a trifle excitable—and very jealous. Horribly jealous! The scenes have already started, but she doesn’t know everything yet, and when she finds out who my second wife was—one of her friends, alas, whom she is astonished not to have seen as yet—there’s bound to be attacks of nerves, fainting fits, rages, fingernails splayed…

  “It’s in the hope that the explanations might be made during my absence that I ran away like a coward; I don’t want to go back until she’s had time to calm down…”

  “Bah! Gather your courage in both hands and weather the scene. You’ll be tranquil afterwards.”

  Jollyvat from Tours shook his head sadly. “I’ve had months to think it over, Monsieur. We adore one another, but I’ll never have another quiet meal. We’ll recover our former happiness, but punctuated by reproaches and fits of anger! The storm will break over every meal; I’m inevitably bound for a life of indigestion and stomach-ache!”

  In the meantime, father and grandfather Laforcade were trying to make Jollyvat the old rogue understand that there was nothing for him to do but resign himself to the situation and try, along with Jollyvat from Paris, to hurry back as rapidly as possible to his sad hearth.

  François Jollyvat raised painful objections in a tearful voice; he was in no hurry to go home, and attempted with all possible reticence to obtain information regarding his relations and their marriages. There were it seemed, in this degenerate world, no more worthy nephews and cousins disposed to heap attention and tenderness upon him? Alas, alas, what a sad return to life!

  “Come on, come on!” said Palluel, trying to make a joke of it in order to come to the aid of the Laforcades. “Accept it as a penance, and a penance thoroughly deserved; admit, worthy François Jollyvat, that you were a little too fond of your comforts before, and the various advantages of the bachelor life! We joyful celibates have to resign ourselves to inconveniences in our old age! Each to his own: you have to go back to your peevish nephews; Monsieur Jollyvat from Tours has to go back to have his eyes scratched out by the first Madame Jolllyvat. Everyone must pay for his little mistakes—in this transformed world you see, everything sorts itself out in a very just and moral fashion!”

  “Boo hoo!” moaned the joyful celibate.

  “Heu heu!” spluttered Jollyvat from Tours.

  “And what an agreeable transformation!” Palluel went on. “Old, ugly, morose—I’m talking about myself, Monsieur François Jollyvat—old, ugly and morose, as I say, peevish, bad-tempered and disagreeable, I shall gradually an
d gently become passable, bearable and almost amiable and finally charming! And you will do the same! Isn’t poor Monsieur Jollyvat from Tours only a few fingernail-scratches away from being a happy man? He will be adored again! I know other husbands less likely to rejoice in recovering that ‘past felicity, which can never return again’ in the new life.”

  Jollyvat from Paris sighed dolorously.

  “You too?” said Palluel. “Well despite your lamentations and your sighs, marriage in the new form still seems to me to have advantages over all the different forms attempted in the old life, since the earliest civilizations in the remotest depths of antiquity. It’s necessary to recognize, gentlemen, that the institution has now arrived at its most perfect form: the most appropriate to realize all the benefits that one is entitled to expect from it and to give the spouses every guarantee of happiness! Think of all the torments that our ancestors endured on reaching marriageable age, of the family turmoil, of the understandable anxieties of mothers, of the preoccupations of fathers, of all the serious questions that had then to be asked! Marriage was a lottery! How would he and she fare within it? Would he be favored by fortune? Would she, under the protection of the gods, draw a lucky number or a merely passable one in that terrible game of chance?