“But doesn’t our mind, Madame, like poets—Musset, for example, Gérard de Nerval and Verlaine, who said:
Here are flowers, leaves and branches
And there is my heart, which only beats for you.
“And what about Baudelaire? Balzac? Anatole France?”
“You’re choosing poorly, Fabio, my friend. Musset, too often drunk on absinthe, recounted and made money out of his affair with George Sand, who also marketed her adventures; Gérard de Nerval finished up hanging himself; and your Baudelaire died syphilitic and aphasic in Honfleur—all after disorderly lives. Verlaine, doubtless delightful, a Socratic vagabond, wandered drunkenly from prison to the hospital—and so many others; I’d rather admire them by reading them.”
“But what about Balzac? And Anatole France?”
“Balzac? Forty to fifty tons of coal, in which one finds diamonds. A genius, but he lived in his chimera, incessantly harassed by creditors, hiding in his domiciles under the baroque name of an old lady. And on the very night of his death, that genius was deceived by the woman whom he had married because he thought she was rich, in the room next door to the one where the illustrious cadaver lay, with the sculptor Préault. Another artist, who boasted about that dirty trick, as Sainte-Beuve once did with regard to his friend Victor Hugo. All those celebrated men are picturesque, like Villon, La Fontaine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau; I admire them, I repeat—but that’s all.
“Anatole France, a hypocritical satyr, extraordinarily intelligent, destructive without seeming to be, of all moral beliefs and boundaries, pillaged ideas and even sentences from old books, which he sharpened and honed, which he presented and resold in a work of his own in which every perfidious thought and phrase flowed, clear as spring water. Sick and tired of being a reader at Lemerre’s, he became the third wheel in the opulent house of a multimillionaire couple; and that clever faun with the face of a horse recounts, by order of their hostess who still furnishes not the water but the yacht for his voyages to the Orient, and recites in that academic salon, stories in that he modulates over and over, threaded with anecdotes, continually improved to the point of perfection, like an actor skilled in monologue.48
“Anatole France excuses himself to Lucien Guitry that he begs over a magnificent lunch at the lady’s home, with a plaintive smile: ‘But there are also the expenses...’ And that parasitic aristocrat, a lover of Medieval and religious antiquities, is also a revolutionary, a nihilist. I astonish you, Fabio, a young woman behind the times, not at all of the twentieth century. And if I express myself thus, my dear master, in regard to men who are justly glorious, what do you expect me to think about all those in this inferno of art and mind to which you have brought me, wanting to be my Virgil, who are merely extravagant fetuses, a mass of pretentions, vices, the dung-heap of the capital?”
“Then a writer or an artist of merit, if he loved you, would have to renounce all hope of marrying you?”
The adorable woman with the face of a Madonna pretended not to understand, and without taking the polite hint, said: “The wife of Alfred de Musset or Baudelaire? Of Rousseau or the worthy Le Fontaine? Why plunge so far into the past, with my outdated principles? Of Verlaine? Why not Felicien Champsaur, then? What horror! And why are you listening to me like that, and looking at me with that anxious expression?” She laughed. “Oh, heaven preserve me from such misfortune, marriage to an artist—and preserve my daughter, too! Yes, my dear friends.”
“So be it,” said the Commissaire de Police, who was also something of a poet.
Meanwhile, on the first floor, without occupying themselves with the cost of living, the ever-accelerating depreciation of the franc or the blue peril,49 enlaced couples were whirling, in close company, scarcely brushing the carpet of the dance floor, but brushing one another in flight. Grave and sensual tangos, frisky one-steps and voluptuous foxtrots with infinite variations, crazy disarticulated shimmies, plastic intoxications and illusory spins—feminine couples here and there leaping up, supple, as if plastered with the makeup of dreams and the ideal, forgetful, for the moment, to all the fantasies of life, as ephemeral as the minutes, impelled, twirling lightly, swayed and caressed by the music, submissive to the laws of rhythm, in successive images of amour.
And the Earth itself is dancing, transporting through space all our wisdom and all our folly, dancing—so minuscule that it must be invisible from Sirius and a multitude of Suns—transported in the universal dance of millions of beings.
V. The Temptation of Macbeth and Barsac
In the detached house on the Quai de Javel, Etienne Aubert occupied two rooms on the ground floor, with a bathroom fitted with a shower. It was the siren of the factory that woke him up at seven o’clock in the morning. He had gone to bed late and slept badly. Sleep? It was necessary not to think of it any longer; the machines were commencing their racket. He leapt out of bed in a rather bad mood, and with a slight headache. He took a shower and felt better. He got dressed and then, ready to go out but out of sorts, let himself collapse into an armchair, and started thinking. Keysar’s words rang in his ears:
“It’s necessary to want it.”
What did the accursed sorcerer mean by that? And the attacks against the old, so clear and so just, at the Café de la Rotonde?
“Death to the old!” They’re the ones who wanted the war to get rid of the young men. We need the government of the young, and to kill the old, who are cluttering everything up, in our turn...
To want it? That’s not the same as being able to do it…if the desire were sufficient, humanity would be decimated again by murderers taking no risks...
If I were the master of the factory, it’s certain that things would work here very differently, but I’m not, and my father is still too young to retire from business. And I, in spite of my red ribbon, am only an accessory here—the boss’s son, as they say. A scamp, for many of them who knew me as a child, and regard my father as a demigod. The scamp is a man now, formed completely by the war, with an immeasurable Napoleonic soul. What can a man expect after fifty?
Yes, to want it, like Macbeth. But I’m alone, there’s no wife to push me. Claude Barsac, the arriviste, acted alone though. What idea has that miserable Thomas Keysar, with the chamber-pot forename,50 put into my head? Kill the old? Fair enough—all the young want that. But one’s father? That’s frightful.
Come on, they’re no longer of out era, those classical tragedies, those family murders only acceptable for ancient Greek theater. And yet, we’ve only just emerged from an immense tragedy with innumerable acts. How many fathers of families, heads of households, factory owners, industrialists, sons and sons-in-law perished in that war? But that was war. Well, it’s still war, in peace-time, where the war goes on, perhaps more pitilessly, no longer giving, in the struggle for money, succor to the wounded, the vanquished...
It was war then, the hazard of shells, the accident, the accident that might strike at any moment, when one least expects it. What a thunderbolt! If my father were the victim of an accident, I’d be the master of the factory, without having done anything for it, from one day to the next...
Someone knocked on the door: a servant.
“Monsieur Etienne, Monsieur Aubert asks you to call in at his office.”
“All right. I’m on my way.”
Etienne rose to his feet, extracted from his meditations. He felt exhausted, more mentally than physically.
A few minutes later, he went into his father’s office.
“Well, Etienne, how are you this morning? I know you went to bed late, so you’ve scarcely slept. Amuse yourself, my boy, but look after your health.”
“I didn’t know that I was monitored so closely. I’m no longer a kid, though.”
“Don’t criticize the interest I take in you, my friend! You’re annoyed with me. It’s a matter of chance. It’s Baptisin who, when I asked him to go, replied without my asking him: ‘Monsieur Etienne might be still asleep; he came home at about three o’clock last nig
ht,’ You can see that there was no ill intention on either side.”
“Then it’s me who should apologize. I do so humbly.”
“You don’t sound sincere, my son. Anyway, let’s pass on. I have serious things to tell you. Sit down.”
“I’m ready to hear them.”
Antoine Aubert hesitated momentarily, and then made his decision.
“This is it, my son. You’re now a man. You fought in the war so magnificently that your conduct was rewarded with a red ribbon, which I only obtained after twenty years of work. You know what life is like; you understand all its necessities. I’m nearing fifty, but I’m solid enough; my health is good. You must understand that my home, in spite of your presence, seems a trifle empty. I would have been able to live and to die alone, as I have done since the death of your mother, whom I loved passionately—but time effaces everything, sadnesses and joys alike, and I’ve met a woman...”
“In brief,” said Etienne, “you’re thinking of giving me a stepmother?”
Aubert frowned. Patience was not his dominant virtue, and his son’s aggressive attitude irritated him.
“That’s right. The widowed Madame Jousselin would be an excellent mother for you.”
“Madame Jousselin? I’ve never heard mention of her.”
“Etienne, please be polite with the woman I’ve chosen.”
“What have I to do with it? You’re remarrying. That’s your right. I have no more to do with that than your factory. I’m a zero”—he glanced toward his red ribbon—“and merely have to bow down to it.”
The father went pale and lowered his head. “It’s painful to have to explain, to excuse myself. You doubt my affection, because you’ve been parted from me for a long time. The demands of business have forced that upon me. Then again, you were better cared for in your mother’s sister’s house in Touraine than you would have been here in the factory on the Quasi de Javel. I kept you with me, when you left the Lycée, for as long as I could—but the war took you away from me as an adolescent when our relationship might have become closer, as good comrades.
“When you returned, especially because of that red ribbon you earned, I had the intention of putting you in my place, running the factory, with Coutan, but you both came back with authoritarian ideas that are untimely. Today, my lad, the workers have a solidarity; to strike one is to strike them all. They’ve understood that work, like capital, is a force. In numbers, they use that, and sometimes abuse it; that’s why I’ve decided to attach to me, to my factory, the elite workers that I’ve been able to gather, by enabling them to profit, with me, from the rewards of our enterprise.
“Coutan doesn’t want to understand that, and I’ve decided to separate myself from him, paying him four million. Do you feel capable of replacing Sixte? You’ll take care of the external affairs, having no more contact than him with the workers, which will avoid dangerous frictions. You won’t be putting in any money, but you’re my son, and you’ll benefit from the same advantages as Sixte. Does that suit you?”
Etienne was forced to admit that his father was acting nobly with him. For sixty seconds he sensed that the old man loved him, and was striving to get closer to him, and was sincerely moved.
“I’ll do as you wish, Papa, and I thank you for your wisdom and generosity. I’ll try to be worthy of it.”
“Well said, my son. The two of us will do good work.”
“Then it’s settled, Papa? You’re breaking with Coutan.”
“Yes. I’ve seen his wife, and Josette will persuade him to agree.”
“I dined with them yesterday evening. They talked about it. I think it’s done.”
“And I thought I was telling you something new!” exclaimed Aubert, cheerfully.
“All the same, I didn’t expect to succeed Coutan, and I believe I’ll be as artful in the job as he was. I’ll even say that the war will be useful to me, from that point of view, for I’ve made connections in the Artillery and the Air Force; I’ll find it easy to obtain orders.”
“So much the better! You’ll have an equal share in the profits.”
“And you still have the intention of involving the workers?”
“If I’ve delayed so long, it’s because of Coutan, who didn’t want to see my point of view.”
“Me neither. Since the war, the workers have been living better than the poor rentiers, and they still want to lay down the law to us.”
“What do you expect? The worker is no longer the beast of burden of old. He can count and compare. There are six hundred in our employ who make a good enough living, but they’re not unaware that the two bosses make five or six hundred thousand a year. It’s the labor of six hundred men that procures that profit for two. The balance isn’t equitable. Let’s say that I accord them a third of the profits; they’ll be satisfied, and I’ll still make as much because, having an interest in it, they’ll put more care into their work and consequently produce more. They’ll have the stimulation of competition and find improvements, even inventions like Lafon’s, whose triple-socket connecting rod is a marvel. While having the appearance of posing as a philanthropic socialist, I won’t lost anything.”
“Why have you made me an engineer, then?”
“Although education produces engineers for us, manual know-how gives us, from time to time, workmen of genius, who, having the practical knowledge of their métier, immediately envisage the practical applications of what they find.”
“You’re right, up to a point—but all these concessions to the workers excite them to further demands, augmenting their ambition to be masters. What will become of the bosses then—of us? Anyway, there’s no point arguing.”
“Yes, let’s argue. I’d like you to share my ideas. You’re called to succeed me, and I’d like to leave in your hands the means of continuing my work. Fortunately, I’ll be able to last long enough to see your mind evolve, and recognize, by virtue of the prosperity of the factory, the justice of my anticipations.”
“I hope so,” said Etienne, getting to his feet. “When do I start?”
“As soon as I’ve paid off the Coutans.”
Etienne shook his father’s hand and withdrew. Having gone back to his apartment he recapitulated what his father had just proposed to him. Although glad to be associated with the enterprise, he perceived that he would not be its master, that he would not be able to satisfy his hatred and disgust for the workers, that he would not have any opportunity to put his theories of mastering the common herd into application for a long time. Thomas Keysar’s sentence began hammering his brain: “It’s necessary to want it.”
To want what? His father’s death. The old man wanted to marry again. At fifty, he might still have children. Then it would be necessary to share. He clenched his fists angrily.
Oh, zut! Let’s go out. Movement and air will do me good.
He was walking aimlessly when he saw the railings and verdure of the Jardin du Luxembourg. He looked at his watch. Eleven-thirty.
“Well, I’m close to Thomas’ place. If I bought him lunch, I’d be welcome.”
VI. Flirtation with Crime
Thomas Keysar lived in a rather bizarre ground-floor apartment in the Rue Joseph-Barre. It was a transformed sculptor’s studio. After a little antechamber there was a vast studio with a sufficiently high ceiling that it had been possible to erect, at the back, a closet that would serve as a bedroom for a man of letters. Having had a job for some years while at the Colonial Ministry, he had been able, by virtue of intrigues and clever manipulations, to persuade his protectors to pay for its decoration, on the occasion of a colonial exhibition, of which he had also taken advantage to procure, for his own account, planks, mats, curtains and rugs—all for three hundred francs, which he had never paid.
With the planks he had constructed a three-step platform, on which he had perched a rather pitiful mattress, but the platform was covered with moquette, and the mattress with the freshest of silks from the same lot. A large packing crate too
k the place of a table. He had fabricated stools and painted them violet. A few planks attached to the wall formed bookshelves, which he garnished and degarnished as he went along with the books sent to him as review copies by authors and editors, as the literary critic of an unimportant daily and an avant-garde periodical devoted to the arts—the Canard Sans Nom, in which Thomas had published a famous series of vitriolic portraits, Les Morts de Demain. The volumes brought in a franc each from a neighborhood bookshop, and in view of the quantity of novels that were published, that commerce paid to some extent for the criticism and articles he provided free of charge.
The rug and mats tastefully distributed on the floor, and a few unframed pictures by Cubist painters on the walls, made it quite pleasant. Although he possessed nothing of real value, the ensemble was agreeable to the eye.
Thomas Keysar, like Etienne Aubert, had got home late—even later than the son of the factory owner—because he had gone to prowl around Les Halles, where he met up with an intermittent mistress, who was as hard up as he was. Fortunately, he went three times a week to the residence of Dr. Jaworski on the Boulevard Malesherbes, near the Parc Monceau, who rejuvenated and prolonged human life, regenerating the human organism by giving injections of young and vigorous blood to old people. Thomas Keysar was a blood donor.
The doctor extracted blood from his arm into a glass ampoule, and then immediately injected it into the arm of the person, of either sex, who was in the process of being rejuvenated. The quantity of blood removed was insignificant, less than needed for an analysis—for a Wassermann reaction, for instance—and it was a fifty franc bill every time for the donor. Thomas Keysar had earned fifty francs that way the day before, before going to dinner with the Coutans. He did not tell anyone about his traffic in human blood, appearing to live on his poorly-remunerated pen, and not compromising his dignity as a magician and litterateur.
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