Donovan allowed himself to be drawn. The doctor examined him thoroughly, but I noticed that the scar attracted his most careful attention. In my opinion, the rest of the inspection was merely a pretence intended to deflect my suspicions.
That wound! An incised diadem, half-hidden by the long hair; a wound extending around the head—what fall on what kind of floor could possibly have produced it?
“Excellent health,” my uncle pronounced. “You see, Nicolas, he was violent at first and scratched himself grievously…hmm…all over. In a fortnight, he won’t look so bad. He can be taken away.” The consultation was concluded. “Your feeling is that I should get rid of him as soon as possible, Nicolas?” he continued. “Give me your opinion—I value it highly.”
I congratulated him on his resolution, although so much kindness made me wary.
Lerne sighed. “You’re right. The world is so wicked! I’ll write straight away. Would you like to take my letter to the Post Office in Grey? It will be ready in ten minutes.”
My nerves relaxed. I had wondered, as I came back into the château, whether I would ever leave it again, and the demon of evil dreams sometimes gives me the madman’s room as a prison to this day. The ogre was definitely putting on a show of being paternal and benign. With my liberty at his disposal, being able to incarcerate me, he was sending me for a cross-country run, which I might decide to end by fleeing. Was it worth taking advantage of an opportunity so gladly conceded? Not being so stupid, I would not make use of it.
While Lerne wrote his letter to the MacBells I went for a stroll in the grounds—and I witnessed an incident there that was most strange, at least in the impression it made on me.
Dame Fortune, as you will have observed, was playing with me unrelentingly, jerking me back and forth like a marionette between tranquility and turbulence. This time, in order to upset me, she made use of the slightest pretext. Had my mind been calm, I would not have attributed a mysterious character to what might have been no more than a freak of nature, but the marvelous was in the air; I scented it everywhere, and one of Lerne’s observations was still ringing in my ears. Since the night of my arrival, there had been certain things outside that should not have been there.
Furthermore, what I saw in the grounds that day—which, I insist, would not have amazed everyone as they did me—seemed to me to be a lacuna in my documentation of the Lerne question, the cycle of his studies having, so to speak, been closed in that respect. It was quite indistinct. Thanks to its uncertain evidence, I even caught a glimpse of a solution to the whole set of problems—an abominable solution!—but my tumultuous and extravagant ideas were not sufficiently precise for self-expression. For the duration of a second, however, they acquired an unimaginable violence, and if I shrugged my shoulders after the short scene that gave birth to them, it must be admitted that it had scared me half to death. I shall describe it.
Having planned to employ my ten minutes in an investigation of the old shoe, I went along a path where the evening dew was already visible in the tall grass. The twilight was already beginning to darken in the wood. The chirping of the sparrows was becoming sparser. I think it was half past six. The bull bellowed. As I passed the pasture I only counted four animals—Pasiphae was no longer parading the demi-mourning of her variegated coat—but that was of no interest.
I was walking deliberately when a riot of hissing, mingled with little cries—a cluster of sharp squeals, if I might put it thus—brought me to a halt.
The grass was undulating.
I drew nearer without making a noise, craning my neck.
There was a duel in progress: one of the countless combats which make every pathway a sink of iniquity; a criminal battle in which one of the adversaries is condemned to perish in order that the other might be fed—the duel of a little bird and a snake.
The snake was a rather imposing viper, whose triangular skull bore a large black mark of the same shape. The bird…imagine a blackcap, with the rather significant difference that its head, unnaturally, was white: a variety, doubtless artificially bred, which I could describe less awkwardly if I were better versed in natural history.
The two champions were facing one another, one of them advancing toward the other. Imagine my surprise, though: it was the blackcap that was causing the snake to retreat. It was advancing jerkily, in abrupt and periodic little leaps, without fluttering its wings, with a hypnotic appearance; its staring eyes had the magnetizing gleam that shines in the eyes of a hunting dog. The viper was recoiling from it awkwardly, fascinated by the implacable gaze, while fear drew choked hissing sounds from it.
Damn! I said to myself. Has the world turned upside-down, or is my mind topsy-turvy?”
Then I made the mistake, in order to witness the outcome, of getting too close—which modified it. The blackcap noticed me and took flight; as its enemy slid into the grass, the wake of its escape ran through it in zigzags.
The ridiculous and excessive anguish that had gripped me was already dissipating. I scolded myself roundly. I’m seeing things…it’s a matter of maternal affection, that’s all. The heroic little animal is defending its nest and its eggs. The fortitude of mothers is incalculable...that’s it, damn it! That’s it! What else could it be? No, I’m being silly. What else could it be?
“Halloooo!” My uncle was hailing me. I retraced my steps—but the incident bothered me. In spite of my attempt to convince myself that it was perfectly ordinary, I didn’t mention it to Lerne.
The professor had an engaging manner, though: the cheerful appearance of a man who has just made a big decision and found himself quite pleased about it. He was standing at the château’s main door, his missive in his hand, contemplating the boot-scraper with interest.
My presence having failed to interrupt his ecstasy, I thought it only polite to study the boot-scraper as well. It was a sharp blade sealed in the wall, which dynasties of shoes had hollowed out, curving it like a billhook, almost a sickle, by the force of their scraping. I presumed that the meditative Lerne was gazing at the blade without seeing it. Indeed, he seemed to wake up abruptly. “Well, Nicolas, here’s the letter. Forgive me for putting you to the trouble.”
“Oh, I’m used to it, uncle. Automobilists are messengers, whether they like it or not. Gladly assuming that they’re ready to drive for no reason at all, many a lady asks them, many a time, to drive for a purpose…and to carry quantities of extremely urgent and very heavy parcels. It’s a tax levied on our sport….”
“Come on—you’re a good lad. Go—dusk is falling.”
I took the letter: the heart-rending letter that would make MacBell’s madness known in Scotland; the benevolent letter that would separate Emma from her degraded lover.
Sir George MacBell
12 Trafalgar Street
Glasgow
Scotland
The handwriting of the address gave me pause for thought. Only a few vestiges of the former cursive rendered it recognizable and still revealed Lerne’s pen. The majority of the characters, the emphases, the punctuation and the general appearance denoted a “graphic intelligence” diametrically opposed to that of old. Graphology is never wrong; its conclusions are infallible. The author of that script had changed out of all recognition.
Now, in his youth, my uncle had exhibited all the virtues. What vices, therefore, were presently absent in him? And how he must hate me, having once loved me so much!
IX. The Ambush
MacBell’s father came to fetch him without delay, accompanied by his other son.
Since Lerne had written to him, nothing new had occurred at Fonval. The mystery dragged on, and dispositions against my person had been multiplied. Emma no longer came downstairs; I heard her, from the small drawing-room, devoting herself to her futile pastimes in the room with the mannequins, repeatedly clicking her heels on the ceiling.
My nights were sleepless. The idea of Lerne and Emma together, one a sadist and the other compliant, tormented my insomnia. Jealousy ten
ds to enrich the imagination; it made me see scenes of unbearable ingenuity. I certainly promised myself to act them out for my own pleasure as soon as I was able to do so, but I was haunted by the obsessive vision of Lerne as the master of my mistress, savoring the bloodshed of his tortures and sating his desires with sophistications that redoubled their succulence.
Once, I tried to go out for a walk in the cool night air, as far as the edge of the wild part of the grounds, and thus to tire myself out like a hard-worked animal—but the doors on the ground floor were locked. Lerne was keeping me confined!
The imprudence that I had committed in revealing my discovery of MacBell to him had, however, had no other apparent consequence than a recrudescence of his amity. During our walks, which became more frequent, he seemed increasingly pleased with my society, endeavoring to ameliorate the rigor of my closely-observed life and retain me at Fonval, whether in genuine preparation for an association or to avoid the risks of an escape.
His precautions annoyed me. This was a period when, without it seeming that I was being closely watched, I was watched more closely than before. My days were filled against my will. Impatience was gnawing at me. While sounding the depths of my love and those of the mystery—both of which were prohibited—I hardly noticed that if, in practice, love called to me in the form of an inaccessible pretty woman, the mystery that attracted me just as imperiously was represented primarily by a no-less-approachable old shoe—grotesque alternatives!
That elasticated garbage served as a basis for all the hypotheses I constructed by night, in the hope of calming jealousy with curiosity. It constituted, in fact, the sole clearly-determined goal at which my indiscretion might be aimed. I had taken note that the tool-shed was in the vicinity of the clearing; that was convenient for unearthing the boot…and the remains, if necessary. Under the yoke of his affection, however, Lerne kept me away from it mercilessly, along with the greenhouse, the laboratory, Emma and everything else.
I yearned with all my heart, therefore, for some event, some new fact that, by disturbing our modus vivendi, would permit me to evade the vigilance of my guardians: a trip to Nanthel on Lerne’s part, or an accident, if necessary, no matter what, of which I might take advantage.
That windfall was the arrival of the MacBells, father and son.
My uncle, forewarned by telegram, told me about it with an explosion of delight. Why was he so pleased? Seriously, had I cast light on the danger of keeping the invalid Donovan without his family’s knowledge? I found it damnably difficult to believe that—but then again, Lerne’s laughter, though sincere, seemed to have something nasty about it, and might well originate from some evil plan.
At any rate, I followed the professor’s example in cheering up, and without any imposture, for I had good reason to do so.
They arrived one morning in a brake hired in Grey and driven by Karl. They resembled one another closely, and they both resembled the Donovan of the photograph. They were stiff, pale and impassive.
Lerne, perfectly at ease, introduced me. They shook my hand coldly, keeping their gloves on. One might have thought that they had put gloves on their feelings. Introduced into the small drawing-room, they sat down without a word. The three assistants were there. Lerne made a long speech in English, abundantly illustrated with demonstrative gestures, and singularly emotional. At one point, he imitated the backward fall of a person who has slipped. Thanking the two men by the arm thereafter, he led them to the château’s central door facing the grounds. We followed him. There, he showed them the billhook-shaped boot-scraper and repeated his mime. Undoubtedly, he was explaining that Donovan had injured himself by falling backwards, and that his head had struck the curved blade.
That was, of course, a novelty!
We went back to the drawing-room. My uncle completed his speech, wiping his eyes, and the three Germans attempted to sniffle, to indicate a valiantly-repressed need to weep. The MacBells did not bat an eyelash. They gave no hint of grief or impatience.
Finally, Johann and Wilhelm, having absented themselves on an order from Lerne, brought Donovan. He was clean-shaven, with his hair pomaded and parted to one side, looking like a fashionable young aristocrat, even though his worn traveling costume was coming apart at the buttons and his overly narrow collar was reddening his plump good-natured face. His greasy hair almost hid the scar.
At the sight of his father and brother, the madman’s eyes became radiant with intelligent happiness, and his smile lit up his previously-apathetic features with affectionate kindness. I thought he had recovered his reason…but he knelt down at his relatives’ feet and began licking their hands and barking inarticulately. His brother could not get anything out of him but that. His father was similarly frustrated. After that, the MacBells got ready to take their leave of Lerne.
My uncle spoke to them. I understood that they were declining an invitation to stay, at least for lunch. The other did not insist at all, and everyone went out.
Wilhelm put Donovan’s suitcase on to the seat of the carriage.
“Nicolas,” Lerne said to me, “I’ll go with these gentlemen to the station. You stay here with Johann and Wilhelm. Karl and I will come back on foot.” He added in a cheerful tone: “I entrust the house to you!” And he gave me a brisk handshake.
Was my uncle making fun of me? A fine sovereignty, under the authority of two watchers!
They got into the brake, Karl and the trunk in front, Lerne and the lunatic facing the lucid MacBells in rear.
The gate was already open when Donovan suddenly stood up, with a terrified expression, as if he could hear Death sharpening his scythe; a long howl, recognizable to us, went up from the laboratory. The madman pointed in that direction and replied to Nelly with a prolonged bestial screech, the horror of which made us grow pale. We waited for it to end, as if for deliverance.
Lerne, his eyes forceful and his speech gruff, snapped: “Vorwärts! Karl! Vorwärts!” And he shoved his pupil down on the seat, unceremoniously.
The carriage moved off. The madman, moving closer to his brother, looked at him in a distraught fashion, seemingly in the grip of an incomprehensible misery.
The frightful unknown gripped me again. It was all around, getting closer and closer; this time, I had felt it touch me.
In the distance, the howling redoubled. Then, in the moving brake, MacBell senior exclaimed: “Hey! What about Nelly! Where’s Nelly?”
“Alas,” my uncle replied, “Nelly’s dead.”
“Poor Nelly!” said MacBell senior.
Duffer as I was, I knew enough English to translate this elementary text-book dialogue. Lerne’s lie made me indignant—how dare he claim that Nelly was dead, that that voice was not hers? What a mockery! Oh, why did I not shout to those phlegmatic individuals: “Halt! You’re being swindled! There’s something terrible about this!”
Yes, but what? I didn’t know. The MacBell’s would have taken me for another lunatic…
Meanwhile, the hired nag was trotting toward the gate, where Barbe was standing, ready to close it again. Donovan had sat down again. Facing him, the MacBells retained their measured dignity, but as the carriage turned into the gateway I saw the paternal back bend suddenly, shivering more than was warranted by the jolting of the cobblestones…
The ancient and creaky halves of the gate came together.
I’m sure that the brother would not have been much longer in breaking into sobs.
Johann and Wilhelm went away.
Were they relieving me of their company? I trailed them alongside the pasture, as far as the laboratory. Nelly persisted in her lamentation; they probably wanted to force her to shut up. Indeed, she fell silent as soon as the assistants went into the courtyard. In spite of my fears, instead of coming back to the château to shut me in, the odd couple, having lit cigars, shamelessly made preparations for an apparent siesta. Through an open window of their lodgings, I saw them in their shirtsleeves, smoking like chimneys in their swaying rocking-chairs.
When I was sure of their intention—without wondering whether they were acting in defiance of Lerne’s instructions or with his permission, and a thousand leagues from thinking that in displaying themselves at the window they might be carrying out his orders to the letter—I went to the tool-shed.
Soon, I was digging up the soil around the old shoe—or, as I was now able to say, around the foot.
Toes upwards, it extended from the bottom of a crater in which the marks of Donovan’s nails were still visible among other, more ancient signs of scraping. Except that the latter, made by powerful clawed feet, testified that the first digger had been a dog of large stature—presumably Nelly, at the time when she had wandered the grounds in total liberty.
A leg was attached to the foot, superficially covered in earth. I clung to the possibility that it might be anatomical debris, but without conviction.
A hairy torso followed the leg. An entire cadaver, scantily clad, in a very poor state. It had been buried slantwise; the head, lower than the feet, was still embedded. It was with a quivering spade that I uncovered the chin, the near-blue side-whiskers, then a thick moustache, and finally the face…
I now knew the fate of all the individuals grouped in the photograph. Otto Klotz lay before me, half-exhumed, with the top of his head in the soil. I identified him without hesitation; there was no need to disinter him completely. On the contrary, it would be better to fill in the hole, in order to leave no evidence of the escapade.
Suddenly, though, I took up the pick-axe again, frantically, and resumed hollowing out the ground beside the dead man. A rounded bone emerged therefrom, like a venomous mushroom, its apophysis blanched and already spongy. Oh! Were there…other graves here?
I dug…and I dug…I was feverish. White spots fluttered before my eyes and, a Pentecost to my maddened retina, it seemed to me that it was snowing tongues of fire…
I dug…and I dug…and I discovered an entire cemetery blossoming in the soil—an animal cemetery, thank God! Some were skeletons, others still had their fur or feathers, shriveled or purulent: guinea-pigs, dogs, goats, sometimes whole, sometimes reduced to mere fragments, the rest of which had fed the dog-pack; a horse’s leg—my dear Biribi, it was hers!—and, beneath a freshly shifted layer of earth, butcher’s offal packed up in a varicolored skin: Pasiphae’s hide.
Doctor Lerne Page 20