What, then?
The verdigris-stained handle turned slowly. Someone was about to come in. Who? One of the Germans? Lerne?
Emma.
Emma, who could only see an empty room. Perhaps one of the large damask curtains moved, as if trembling. She did not see it.
Barbe was standing behind her. The young woman said to her, in a soft voice: “Stay there and watch the garden. Do as you did the other day—that was good. As soon as the old man comes out of the laboratory, warn me by coughing.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about,” Barbe replied, visibly frightened. “He’s quite confident now, I tell you. We won’t see him again before dusk. As for Nicolas, that’s something else. He might turn up, you know.”
So the grey buildings were called the laboratory! That was the word that had caused the professor to gag the servant with a slap in the face. My knowledge was increasing…
“There’s no danger, I tell you,” Emma continued, in an exasperated tone. “Come on! Is this the first time?”
“Nicolas wasn’t here then…”
“Come on—do as you’re told!”
Reluctantly, Barbe went to stand guard.
Emma stood still for a few seconds, listening. Beautiful! Oh, as beautiful as the vampiric demon of luxury! And yet, she was only a silhouette in the luminous rectangle of the door, a motionless shadow…but as subtle as if she were moving, for Emma in repose always seemed to have paused in mid-dance, and even to be continuing the dance by means of some unknown black magic, so harmonious was the sight of her: the harmony of bayaderes who can mime nothing but love, unable to swing their hips, undulate, quiver or lean over, nor shake their tresses, nor sketch the slightest gesture, without one imagining them in sensuous ecstasy…
Life was seething within my body. An exaltation overwhelmed me, an omnipotent age-old passion. Emma! Her, in the madman’s room! All that paradise for that brute! The slut! I could have killed her!
Are you thinking that I didn’t know anything? That I was making gratuitous suppositions? You’re not familiar, then, with the impulsive gait and the crafty and avid attitude of those women who are coming to a man on the sly? Look: she had started walking again. Well? Was it necessary to look at her twice to guess what she was about to do? Everything about her was crying it out. Everything confessed that hope and that pathological need, which is already a pleasure. But I don’t want to describe that demonically-possessed body, nor translate its indecent language. Don’t expect me to fill out the shameful portrait of a lustful woman. For, sordid though it is to write, that is what she was. There are moments of perception so sharp that, under the influence of a vision or a domineering flavor, a man becomes a monster and is no longer anything else but a huge eye, or a mouth, and nothing more. Just as a man who hears an extraordinary piece of music can only see with his hearing, listening with his eyes, his nose and his entire being, so that enamored woman was no longer, in her entirety, anything but the radiation of sex, a minor function aggrandized and personified: Aphrodite herself.
And that drove me mad.
The pretty girl, hastening toward the ignoble scene, brushed my curtain with a swish of her skirt.
I barred her way.
She emitted a loud gasp of fear. I thought she was about to faint. Barbe’s eyes widened, and she fled in panic. Then, stupidly, I revealed the reason for what I had done. “Why are you going that way, to the madman’s room?” My voice, blank and artificial, was rough and halting. “Tell me! Why? Good God, tell me!”
I had flung myself upon her and I twisted her wrists. She moaned softly; her entire adorable body shuddered, as if a ripple had passed through it. I squeezed the soft, firm flesh of her arms as if to strangle two doves, and looked down into her agonized eyes. “Why? Tell me! Why?”
Did I have to be so candid? Addressed in that tone, she straightened up, looked me up and down, and challenged me.
“So what?” she said. “You know full well that Monsieur MacBell was my lover! Lerne as good as told you that in my presence, on the day of your arrival…”
“MacBell? That’s who the madman is?”
Emma made no reply, but her astonished expression informed me that I had made another mistake in disclosing my ignorance.
“Do I no longer have the right to love him?” she went on. “Do you, perchance, think you can forbid it?”
I pulled at her arms as if they were bell-cords. “Do you still love him?”
“More than ever, do you hear?”
“But he’s a brute beast!”
“There are madmen who think they’re gods; he, from time to time, imagines that he’s a dog; perhaps his lunacy in the less serious. And then, after all…”
She smiled mysteriously. One might have sworn that she wanted to push me to the limit. That smile and her words had imposed a cruel vision on me. “Oh! Slut!”
I gripped the girl round the neck to strangle her, spitting insults in her face. She must have thought that she was a dead woman—and yet, though suffocated, she continued to smile…
It was me that it was mocking, that mouth which another man used at his whim! All my rage was concentrated upon it. Ha! I’d provide it with a fine accompaniment, her smile! It would be redder and moister, yes! My jaws had an urge to bite. I was worse than a madman! I understood every kind of madness, at that moment. I hurled myself upon those mocking lips—which would soon be bloody and torn, would they not? Ah! There! There! Our teeth clashed, and there was a kiss—similar, undoubtedly, to humankind’s first, long ago, in some cave or rude and primitive lakeside hut; less a caress than a blow, but a kiss all the same…
Then a voluptuous penetration unclenched my teeth, and the sequel to that savage kiss was so refined that it revealed in Emma not merely a considerable natural disposition to games of debauchery, but also a consummate experience.
This confusion of our selves suggested another, and appealed for it. That day, however, we were only to experience the most vulgar of preludes. I mean the distant carillon which, in a double descent, makes the springs of old sofas ring—to chime, I suppose, the shepherd’s hour.23
Barbe, simultaneously untimely and opportune, came running. She coughed as if her guts were splitting. “Monsieur is coming!”
Emma freed herself from my embrace. Lerne’s empery dominated her again. “Get away!” she said. “Hurry up! If he knew…you’d be done for…and me too, probably, this time! Oh, get out! Run, my little darling. Lerne’s capable of anything!” And I sensed that she was telling the truth, for her dear hands had grown cold, and were shivering in mine, and beneath my softly amorous lips, her mouth was babbling in terror.
Still moved by an imbecilic joy that multiplied my strength and agility tenfold, I scaled the trellis nimbly and leapt down on the other side of the wall.
I found my vehicle in its garage of verdure. My parcels were piled into it in a rush. I was blissfully happy. Emma would be mine! And what a mistress! A woman who had not recoiled from the duty of bringing a friend who had become repulsive the consolation of her visits, the treat of her agitated charms! But it was me that she wanted now, I was sure of it. Love MacBell? Get away! She had lied to rouse my passion. She merely pitied him…
With respect to that, though, how had madness taken hold of the Scotsman? And why was Lerne hiding him? My uncle had affirmed that he had left. Why was he keeping his Saint Bernard bitch locked up? Poor Nelly! I understood her dolor, at the window, and her rancor against the professor: a drama had unfolded before her, involving Emma, Lerne and MacBell, doubtless in the wake of their being caught in the act. What drama? I would soon know; one has no secrets from one’s lover, and I would become Emma’s. Come on! Everything was falling into place marvelously!
My joy generally manifests itself in the form of song. It was, if I’m not mistaken, a seguidilla that I hummed as I went along—whose gangling melody I interrupted abruptly, because the macabre memory of the old shoe had surged forth into my reverie, like the Red Deat
h in mid-ball.
Instantaneously, my mood darkened. The sun set in the depths of my thoughts; everything became black, suspect, menacing. An excessive reversal showed me the most sinister suppositions as certainties, and—even the image of the ardent Emma having been unable to resist that funereal light—I fell prey to fear of the unknown as I reached that château-madhouse and that garden-tomb, where the ghoul of vice was waiting for me between a madman and a cadaver.
VI. Nelly, the Saint Bernard Bitch
A few days went by without anything happening that was capable of satisfying my lust or my curiosity. Lerne—was he suspicious?—contrived things so that my time was fully employed.
In the mornings, he asked me to accompany him, one day on foot, another in the automobile. He spent these excursions treating some scientific matter or other, and in questioning me as if he really wanted to assess my aptitudes. In the automobile, we made long journeys. On foot, my uncle made a habit of taking the straight road leading toward Grey; he stopped continually in order to hold forth more easily, and never went further than the edge of the woods. Often, in mid-dissertation or at the very outset of a walk or a car-journey, Lerne decided to return unexpectedly, mistrustful of the individuals left behind at Fonval.
He also organized the use of my afternoons. Sometimes, sent to fetch something from the town or the village, or forced to go out alone to undertake some designated excursion, I had to fill the gas-tank or put on my boots without delay. Lerne watched me leave, and in the evening, posted on the doorstep, he demanded an account of my day. According to the circumstances, I had to render an account of a message or describe a location. Now, it’s true that my uncle was unfamiliar with the majority of the locations to be described, but I couldn’t tell which ones; in those circumstances, any resort to bluff would have been perilous. So I conscientiously beat the forest and the countryside from dawn to dusk.
I would much rather, however, have got closer to Emma’s room! By counting the number of shuttered and unshuttered windows, I had calculated its location within the topography of the château, which I knew in detail. The entire left wing remained constantly closed. As for the right wing, quotidian life utilized its ground floor. Of the six upper rooms, only three remained open: mine, in the forward part, and, at the other end, Aunt Lidivine’s room, opening on to the central corridor and connecting with Lerne’s. Emma, therefore, could only have succeeded my aunt in her own bed or be sharing my uncle’s. The latter hypothesis set me beside myself, and I was impatient, in order to test it, that I might be left alone to check it out in a few strides: one push of a door, and I would know what I was dealing with.
But the professor was on the lookout.
Under the thumb of his pitiless tyranny, I only saw Mademoiselle Bourdichet at meals. We both affected a detached attitude. I had audacity enough to look at her, but I dared not speak to her. She persisted in the most absolute mutism, to such an extent, that for want of her conversation, I was forced to estimate her condition by her manner.
I admit that, gross as the human means of alimentation by means of dead animals and withered plants might be, there are two kinds of female eaters. She willingly picked up a chicken-bone or a cutlet in her fingers, and every time she put it down, it seemed to me that I heard her say “my little darling” in her proletarian accent. But I ask you, how close is civility to libertinage, and what has the table in common with the bed-alcove?
Between Emma and myself, Lerne fidgeted. He reduced pieces of bread to crumbs and tapped his fork. Muffled fits of wrath brought his fists down on the tablecloth, or made the glass and china rattle.
One day, by mistake, my foot made contact with his. The doctor suspected that innocent foot of stupidity, credited it with telegraphic intentions, and, mistakenly convinced that he had detected some pedestrian madrigal via the toe, immediately decided that Mademoiselle Bourdichet was unwell, and would take her meals in her room in future.
Immediately, two passions took possession of my thoughts, in the form of a double need to engender pain or pleasure in someone else: hatred of Lerne, and love of Emma. And I resolved to do my utmost to satisfy both of them.
On that same day, my uncle told me point-blank that he wanted to take me to Nanthel on the following day, where he had business to attend to. I glimpsed an opportunity to escape his surveillance. That following day, a Sunday, Grey was holding its annual festival. I thought I might take advantage of it.
“With pleasure, uncle,” I replied. We’ll leave early, in case of a possible breakdown.”
“I’d prefer to take the car to Grey, and get the train to Nanthel there…that will be the safest way to make the journey…”
That suited me admirably.
“As you wish, uncle.”
“The train leaves Grey at 8 a.m. We’ll come back on the 5:15 p.m.; there isn’t an earlier one.”
As we arrived in the village we heard a muted sound of voices intermittently punctuated by the lowing of cattle. A horse whinnied, and sheep were bleating nearby. I had some difficulty clearing a path across Grey-l’Abbaye’s main square, which was transformed into a fairground, already thronged by a placid and slow-moving crowd.
Cattle for sale were penned in the gaps between the shooting-galleries and other paltry stalls; coarse hands were testing the weight of their udders, parting the jaws in which their age could be read during a yawn, and sliding hands along their muscles to judge their vigor. In full view of everyone, a young girl was quite unselfconsciously verifying the sex of a rabbit held in her lap. Horse-dealers were bragging. Between two rows of meek peasants, grooms were trotting massive Percherons and heavy work-horses. A fusillade of stock-whips sounded on the horses’ rumps. The first drunkard of the day tripped up while calling me “citizen.”
We went on. In the semi-silence of the market, the inn was already resounding, but no brawling had broken out as yet. The church-bells were ringing a prelude to the mass and a small white wooden kiosk in the center of the square, decorated with foliage, promised that the municipal band would soon add its simplistic racket to the hubbub of the festival.
We stopped in front of the station. That was the moment at which I intended to make my move.
“Need I escort you during all your peregrinations in Nanthel, Uncle?”
“Certainly not. Why?”
“In that case, Uncle, having an aversion to cafes, taverns and public houses, I beg you to leave me here, where I can wait for you just as well as in a brasserie in Nanthel.”
“But you’re under no obligation to…”
“To begin with, Grey’s festival is seductive. I’d like to observe a gathering of this sort for a while longer; the customs of a people are vividly revealed there, and I feel the spirit of an ethnologist within me today…”
“You’re joking—or it’s a silly whim.”
“Secondly, Uncle, to whom can I entrust my motor car? The innkeeper? The alcoholic landlord of some dive full of drunken boors? You don’t think I’m going to leave a 25,000 franc car exposed to the clowning of a whole village on the spree for nine hours, do you? No—I’d like to keep watch on the automobile myself!”
My uncle was not convinced of my sincerity. He wanted to thwart any stratagem that I might have concocted in order to get back to Fonval, either by automobile or on a borrowed bicycle, with the intention of returning to Grey by 5:14 p.m. And that was exactly what I had planned to do. The accursed scientist nearly ruined everything.
“You’re right,” he said, coldly. He got down and, amid the flood of passers-by in their Sunday best, lifted the hood and inspected the engine carefully. I felt ill at ease.
My uncle took out his knife, dismantled the carburetor, and stuck some of its parts into his pocket. In the meantime, he said to me: “That’s your vehicle immobilized. As you might make yourself scarce by another means, though, I’ll give you something to do. On my return, you’ll show me the complete carburetor, refitted with parts you’ve manufactured. The blacksmith hasn’
t closed his forge; he’ll lend you an anvil and a vice—but he’s a poor fool, unable to assist you. That will keep you amused until 5:14 p.m…”
Seeing that I made no objection, he went on in a self-conscious tone: “Forgive me, Nicolas, and be assured that all this has no purpose other than to guarantee your future and safeguard the secret of our work. Goodbye.”
The train bore him away.
I had let him go without any sign of disapproval, and without feeling any. Being not much of a mechanic, detesting grease and bruises on my hands, and constrained by my uncle’s demand to deprive myself of a chauffeur, I had brought numerous spare parts in the trunk, including an entire carburetor ready to be fitted. Ignorance had served me better than the skill of a professional would have done. I set to work without delay, anxious about the inhabitants of Fonval, left to their own devices.
A short time afterwards, having parked the motor car in a copse, I climbed over the wall into the grounds. I would have gone straight up to Emma’s room if a lugubrious barking had not resounded from the direction of the grey buildings.
The laboratory…Nelly…
The singular circumstance of a dog being kept in a laboratory made me hesitate between the tug of the mystery and the attraction of Emma. This time, the instinct of self-preservation awakened by the unknown, and the danger that one always associates with it, was bound to hold sway. I headed for the grey buildings. In any case, the Germans would certainly be there; their presence would prevent me from staying long. It was, therefore, a mere matter of stealing a few minutes from the commerce of gallantry; reason only triumphs feebly.
As I went past the Yellow Room I listened at the shutters, in order to assure myself that MacBell was alone. He was—which swelled my heart with an immense and vile satisfaction.
A few silver-white clouds were floating in a raw sky. The wind was blowing from Grey-l’Abbaye through the gorge, carrying the monotonous sound of the bells to my ears. They were endlessly repeating the same three notes, thus executing the carillon from L’Arlésienne.24 I felt cheerful, and whistled the profane orchestral melody to that holy accompaniment—a combination inherently reminiscent of a modern statue on a Gothic plinth. Lerne’s absence was a definite relief to my perpetual constraint; I was able to indulge in idle whims and my mind surrendered itself to the most unreflective digressions…
Doctor Lerne Page 16