He approached, slightly emotional, because he had decided to speak to her very seriously. The décor incited him to do that. The two of them were alone, in a frantically wild nature, far from the noises of the timid life that they hated; it seemed to Marc that the moment was fatal, and complicit.
“My greatest fortune, Jeanne, is to be in your company.”
“Yes, we’re good comrades; we like one another all the better because the hours we spend together don’t lack originality—but even so, Marc, a handsome man like you can’t be content with the pleasures of science...”
“Indeed, Jeanne, there are very sweet pleasures, intoxications of which I dream. But it’s not with anyone but you that I can form the divine project of letting my heart sing its delight...”
“You aren’t paying court to me, I hope, Marc?”
“No, Jeanne, I’m too honest, and my love is so great that I have no hesitation in telling you that I want you for my wife.”
“You?”
“Yes, Jeanne; I adore you.”
She linked her hands, which dropped the nenuphars, whose white corollas spread out over the grass, and she looked at Vanel with an indefinable gaze. “My poor friend! Then you, too, in spite of all your intelligence, your admirable determination, your misanthropy and your emancipation, have fallen into the miserable error in which the others are so grotesque? My poor Marc!”
There was such a nuance of scorn in her pity that Vanel was offended by it. He became almost vehement.
“I love you! Yes, I love you as no one else has ever loved you, as I myself have never loved. Jeanne, don’t you sense all the difference there is between my sentiment and that of Georges Garnier, for example? So, I’ve lived on the margins of an imbecile humankind that I abhor, traveling the world, along barbaric peoples and refined civilizations; I’ve bent my body and my will to the harshest sacrifices; I’ve studied hermetic souls, penetrated inviolable secrets; in sum, I’ve raised myself up by means of a heroic life to fabulous discoveries, to be the equal of a god—only to hear myself treated by you today as if I were a naïve student confessing his inexplicable disturbance to his cousin. What annoys me, Jeanne, is not that you don’t accept my love, but that you’re scornful of it.”
She was slightly nonplussed, and vaguely understood the magnitude of the sentiment that possessed Marc Vanel.
“What do you expect?” she said. “It’s not my fault. Can I make you a response any different from the one I made Georges Garnier? And he, poor fellow, had a tender lyricism that didn’t lack beauty.”
“I shall prove to you that you could not know love before my arrival. The others were too far from you, unworthy of your superb intelligence, your genius, for you to be able to make a misalliance with any other them. I, on the other hand, am your equal, at least—and I can be your master.”
He had planted himself squarely in front of her, and was so handsome at that decisive moment that she was impressed—but she did not lower her gaze before his.
“No one, you understand, will dominate me. And even if I were to listen to you, if I really thought—as, in fact, I do think—that you’re worthy of my love, where could it lead us?”
“To the most beautiful passion that has ever plunged two beings into intoxicating voluptuousness.”
“There you are. So, no matter in what form it’s expressed, and no matter what man proffers the avowal, whether he be a god or a manual laborer, the end to be attained is a bestial act? Marc, you talk like the others. Well, I don’t understand that language. What do you want? I appreciate your intelligence, your knowledge; I’m your best friend. You interest me, and I’d gladly spend my life by your side—but the idea of you and me behaving like a cook and a valet…no, Marc, I beg you; allow me to laugh!”
Homo-Deus drew nearer to her and took her wrists. “Don’t laugh. If I wanted to do you harm, if the whim took me to possess you in that manner, no one, not even you, could prevent me from doing so.”
She shuddered, for she suddenly had the certainty that he was not boasting. And then, without her being aware of it, the young woman’s instinctive modesty awoke within her. The threat of a wild desire so close to her flesh caused her to shudder, and for the first time, she was conscious of a danger.
“What do you want me to say?” he said, her voice trembling.
“If I wanted to…yes, if I wanted to, tonight…every night…I could be in your room and I would see you naked, in spite of your forbidding it, in spite of you. If I wanted to, I could wait for the moment when you fell asleep, and then...”
She recoiled instinctively.
“Ah!” he said. “You’re no longer so proud. But don’t worry. If I only desired a brief pleasure savored on your marble flesh, it would already be done.”
“You’re lying!”
“Do you think so? Do you recall, Jeanne, the desire that you expressed one evening, in the belvedere, to have a bouquet such as no man had ever offered you. Before the day was out, I offered you that bouquet.”
“The dead man,” she stammered. “Yes, I remember; how did you do that?”
“Having found him on a bench, I picked him up in order to bring him to you.”
“To bring him to me? But he came by himself! Oh, Marc, I’m afraid of understanding. You’ve discovered that? You have the faculty of making yourself invisible?”
“Yes, at will. Do you understand now the frightful power that makes me the master of destinies of souls, of intimacies, of the most impenetrable secrets? Do you understand, Jeanne? Do you appreciate my love, now? Have no fear: I won’t abuse that power with you. It gives me the possibility of delivering your body to my instincts; it doesn’t give me that of possessing your soul, your brain, your thought, your genius—and it’s with all that that I’m in love. Oh, Jeanne, divine Jeanne, if I ever I have you, consenting, in an embrace in which your flesh vibrates with your heart and mind, that would be an embrace that would make us lovers worthy to command the universe.”
She lowered her head. “Forgive me. Am I abnormal, a creature of a race different from the race in which lovers are recruited? I don’t know—but for me, whatever you say, amour is an inferior act. I regard it as a function of the specimens whose mores I study, and the act doesn’t interest me any more than the frisson of a microbe. In addition, it’s a malady, since one dies therein, and it’s a weakness, a degrading state, since those who experience it lose their reason. Marc, shall we not talk any more about that ignoble contact?”
He sensed, then, the inanity of a speech that she would endure with annoyance. He looked at her dolorously and said, his voice suddenly changed and sad; “Remember, Jeanne, that Amour is stronger than we are. You’ve gravely offended it. One day, perhaps, it might take its revenge.”
No, Marc. You speak of Amour as if it were a god, having a power of action over beings, a god that avenges himself if one resists enslavement to him. But science proves to me that amour is a function, the obsession that all beings have for the reproduction of their species. I’m not a little white goose, my friend. If I haven’t yet submitted to the sensation, it’s because I haven’t yet had the desire, or rather the curiosity to study it. For even then, I wouldn’t be in love, but merely a student, and in that case, your role would be almost ridiculous. Come to your senses, Marc. We’re anomalies, people like us; we only belong to humanity in an intellectual sense. Let’s leave it its animality. There remains the voluptuous sensation you mentioned just now; I know one of those of which I make use sometimes; it contents me, and doesn’t have the dirty aspect of the sexual act.”
Marc was astonished. That young woman, who spoke without hypocritical prudishness, was overturning all his ideas. Once again the idea of a brutal possession crossed his mind, but that would be the rupture of a relationship that was full of charm for his intellect.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, “from your point of view.”
“It’s the only one that interests me. Look, I’ll make you a promise. The day whe
n love sings to me, I promise that it will be you…that I choose. But what a stupid topic of conversation! Let’s go inside.”
Pensively, Jeanne and Marc went into the Red Nest together. Dr. Fortin saw them coming in and went to meet them.
“Well, Master,” Vanel asked, “how is your resuscitated man?”
“He’s coming along marvelously. He remembered his name three days ago, and the circumstances in which he was killed. Curiously, enough, though, he refuses to say a word about that, even to his intimate friend Georges Garnier. And that’s not the most singular aspect of the struggle of those two intelligences put in common...but I’m expressing that badly; it’s nothing, in sum, but Georges’ intellect augmented by Julien’s memory.”
“I don’t know any more about the drama you’ve asked me to clarify, and about which your man refuses to enlighten you, than what I’m about to tell you: Julien de Vandeuevre was the lover of Madame Vauclin, the wife of the socialist député...”
“Sophie,” said Jeanne. “An old school friend.”
“Well, she accommodates her lovers poorly.”
“We’ll return this one to her in excellent condition. Georges’ cerebral cells are renewing and making good progress; in a little while, I’ll return his soul to him. As for Vandeuvre, the cure being complete, I’m no longer interested in him.”
“I’ll continue my report,” said Vanel. “It concurs perfectly with the investigation that you’ve already carried out. That pretty woman, for reasons that aren’t absolutely clear to me, either because she’s frightfully desirous of shining in Parisian society or because she’s subject to the domination of a ferociously ambitious husband—in any case, that amorous creature—after having enticed the young man into her home one evening, lent her hand to the crime committed by her husband. Vauclin, who is as strong as a bull, bent Vandeuvre, who was lying on his back, over the edge of the bed and broke the vertebrae in his neck. Afterwards, he carried the cadaver to a bench on the Avenue Henri-Martin, and must then have gone to the young man’s domicile, where the greater, liquid part of an inheritance of four million was.”
“That Sophie!” murmured Jeanne. “Already, at school, she troubled us with her intelligence of evil and her strange perversities.
“The unfortunate Julien de Vandeuvre must love her a great deal, since, now that he’s out of danger, he refuses to say her name for fear of compromising her.”
“The imbecile!” said Jeanne. “I’ll wager that if we set him at liberty, his first concern would be to see her again, in order to throw himself at her feet and renew his oaths of tenderness.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Marc, “and it might even be interesting for us to attempt the experiment. If we favored that folly instead of preventing it, don’t you think that the spectacle might be piquant, for those of us who know the truth?”
Dr. Fortin smiled. “Vanel, you’re diabolical. To put the resuscitated victim in the presence of the murderers would, indeed by sensational. I won’t oppose the project. I’d find it repugnant to inform the agents of the law of what we know, but that refined chastisement doesn’t displease me. What do you think, Jeanne?”
“You’d be confounded by the result of that confrontation. It isn’t a victim that you’d be bringing face to face with a criminal, but a man in love, who, instead of chastisement, would talk about caresses. Yes, I’d like to attempt the experiment, to show Marc what love makes of a man, to what miserable submissions and shameful baseness it constrains him.”
“You misunderstand the sentiments of the fellow, Jeanne,” protested Marc. “He’s a hero!”
“He’s an idiot! An idiot!”
With that peremptory declaration, they went down into the basement. Lying on a chaise-lounge, a pale, thin young socialite was resting with his eyes open.
“Well, Monsieur de Vandeuvre,” said Jeanne, “how are you today?”
“Very well.” It was the soul of Georges Garnier that was replying, through Julien de Vandeuvre’s body. “But are you going to leave me in the skin of this imbecile for much longer? This condition is increasingly uncomfortable for me; it seems that another individuality is mingled with mine, that I have memories that aren’t my own. I have thoughts that are in combat with mine, with my tastes. I feel narrowly confined in this fellow’s skin. He’s a socialite, an idler. His love for that whore is stupid. She had me murdered; I have the proof of it now, but I only ask to excuse her. After all, perhaps her husband forced her and…sacred thunder, that’s what I still think with his mind! Oh, Jeanne, Jeanne, give me back my skin, my garment!”
Everyone burst out laughing.
“Come on, Georges, a little more patience. My cerebral culture is going well enough; it’s justifying my presumptions. It isn’t necessary to leave you in Julien de Vandeuvre’s brain. He has enough brain now to continue his previous life. As you can sense, my dear Georges, your intellectual fluid has revivified Vandeuvre’s. A few more days and I’ll return you to yourself.”
“Hurry up, Jeanne, hurry up! I’m afraid, afraid of going mad, me or the other...me or the other; I no longer know!”
The three witnesses of his emotion looked at one another in a singular fashion, and then went away. Just as they were leaving the laboratory, Vanel perceived Frédéric, in the process of spoon-feeding a lamentable individual who was slumped against the wall, supported by straps passed under his armpits.
“Poor Garnier!” said Marc.
He stopped to contemplate the young doctor. He was bleak and dejected, his eyes staring, his lower lip slack. Frédéric had fastened a bib around his neck and was cramming him with white pap, as he would have done for a little child.
The domestic turned to Marc. “He’s no trouble. Except when he’s hungry, he’s as good as gold. But every time he needs nourishment, he wails terribly.”
Jeanne had drawn closer. She smiled as she pointed to the poor fellow.
“Another victim of amour! Georges Garnier makes a fine pair with the other, Vandeuvre, the idiot who’s dreaming of getting himself murdered for a second time. So, Marc, these lamentable victims don’t cure you? All the same, what if you resemble them one day—you, a god!”
She burst out laughing.
“You have no compassion,” he said. “When will you restore life to poor Garnier?”
“Don’t worry—soon. The artificial cells have finally decided to reproduce. Within a month. Georges’ brain will be normal again.”
“And his father?”
“He thinks he’s still traveling. He cursed us a little, because he accused me of being the cause of the abrupt expatriation, but it will all work out.”
Upstairs, at the door, she extended her hands to Marc. “Adieu, Marc,” she said. “Remain yourself, my friend, remain a good comrade and don’t look at me any longer as a possible satisfaction for your carnal frenzy. Be my brother, Marc, my brother in intelligence, in knowledge.
He did know how to respond, but as he went away he traversed the wild garden, where the blooming flowers of spring were growing, full of vigorous sap, and he murmured; “Nature and life ordain amour, however.”
Around them, in the branches and the leaves of the park, a sylph, borne by the wind, caressed Marc Vanel’s temples, beating the chamade there, whispering in his ears that the genius of the species, the pressure of germination, commanded that amour in everything that breathes—from the insects to the birds, from the small minnows of the streams to the whales, from the brutes to those who, among humans, are gods.
V. A Social Soirée
The Hôtel de Virmile, situated at the extremity of the Rue de Varenne, was certainly one of the most alluring of town houses. A high wall with an arched reinforcement framed the enormous door of sculpted oak, ornamented by superb heavy bronze knockers, a marvel of casting; above it were the Virmile arms, a hand holding a sword: Vir, brave, miles, soldier.
Once through the entrance one found oneself in an immense paved courtyard, with the porter’s lodge to the left; a
t the back stood the house, in the pure Louis XIV style, behind which was a garden that extended all the way to the Rue de Grenelle.
That evening, there was an extraordinary reception, and the elite of Parisian society was crowded into the vast drawing rooms. There was a time—that of Madames de Sévigné and Deffand, and later, that of Madames Geoffrin and Louise Ancelot—when the nobility of name and the nobility of letters had gathered there quite naturally, forming circles of sparkling and durable conversation around those charmers; but today, when the need to change location, in automobiles and airplanes, is making itself increasingly felt, by virtue of a kind of madness, or rather vertigo, of speed, what is the point of the life of the hearth, conversation both intimate and critical, in which the works of the day are judged? That difficult problem, however, Hélène de Virmile had solved, and very much in the swing of things, she had been able to make her salon a covered walk in which all notability was proud to be counted.
That Marquise had been born Hélène Fortin; by virtue of her grace, her intelligence and a dowry of a few millions, she had married the Marquis de Virmile. Royalists rallied to the Empire, the Virmiles had remained on the good side of favor; in the same way, Christian Virmile, a former servant of the Empire, had become a senator under the Republic. In the Senate he played a rather unobtrusive role, just sufficient not to be forgotten. He had had the good fortune, in marrying Hélène Fortin, to encounter a woman capable of maintaining his rank with marvelous tact. Thanks to his wife, he was able, very gently, to detach himself from intrigues, to devote himself to his taste for the sporting life and leave the direction of political matters to the Marquise—for the latter, by virtue of her tradition, launched herself into the opposition and for that reason attracted to her salon all the notabilities of nationalism. A certain number of illustrious litterateurs, a trifle indispensible, mingled there in the hope of finding an outlet, or at least maintaining the awareness of their names.
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