Homo-Deus

by Félicien Champsaur

  Dazzled, the old woman accepted on the spot.

  “So,” said Etienne. “Forest guards and gendarmes never come here?”

  “What would they come here for, since there’s only us here? The rocky ridge where we’re perched overlooks a stony valley, you see, only covered with brambles and thorn bushes, which is called the Lost Valley. The hill of verdant pines where we live, as if separated from the rest of the forest by that stony valley, is called the Lost Pines. To reach us, if they ever came, forest guards and gendarmes would have to traverse that rather bare valley, and we’d see them in plenty of time for you to go to earth in a grotto hidden by brushwood, which I’ll show you. But I repeat: no one ever comes to disturb us. We’re known in the region as the Savages of the Lost Pines. I’m La Sauvageonne.”

  “It’s agreed, then, Sauvageonne. And I’ll pay in advance.”

  “Henceforth, Monsieur, you’re at home. Use it as you wish.”

  “Are you a good walker?”

  “For sure. The donkey is capable of going to Puget and back in a day.”

  “Well then, this is what you’re going to do. You’ll leave tomorrow morning for Puget-Théniers, and bring me some provisions—a few bottles of wine, a liter of cognac—and newspapers from that day and the one before. You understand that if you bought that in Cambesure it would seem suspicious and might excite curiosity. In any case, even in Puget you must procure what I desire discreetly. As for the chickens and the pig, you’d do well, for fear of the same suspicions, to wait for my departure.”

  “You can be tranquil. I’ll be circumspect, and I’ll hide all that merchandise in César’s saddlebags—that’s our donkey.”

  Etienne Aubert smiled at the evocation of Thomas Keysar.

  “The expenditures you’re about to make are my responsibility, of course. My rent is in addition to all expenses.”

  The enthused Sauvageonne raised her arms: “Thank you, God, for this worthy man! Thank you!” Two or three “hee-haws” joined in chorus. She would have had herself cut into little pieces for her guest.

  With that, Sauvageonne improvised a bed, to the detriment of her own, in a redoubt, with a threadbare old Japanese mordoré tapestry that someone in Cannes had given to Jean Chrysostome. Etienne went to sleep there, this time, without having bad dreams, under a worn silk coverlet with a white and mauve pattern of wisteria flowers.

  XVII. Jean Chrysostome’s Flair

  The following morning, Sauvageonne, mounted on César, the little donkey, set out for Puget-Théniers. Left alone, Etienne occupied himself exploring the surroundings, congratulating himself on his luck. The hill of the Lost Pines, like a promontory of a higher mountain wooded with pines and fits, overlooked the valley of stones and bushes on one side, and on the other the torrent from which the two eremites drew their water. It ran a hundred meters from their cabin, and Jean Chrysostome had commenced the construction of a cistern.

  Etienne admired the initiative of the two poor devils, male and female, and envied them for having no other desires than a modest and vegetative life, sheltered from the great moral or immortal passions that often lead only to disappointment and misery. On reflection, however, Etienne decided that such a life was not worth living. To be both a spectator and actor in the human comedy flattered his vanity—of which the young man had not yet lost the taste.

  The murderer spent the day half in exploring and half philosophizing. Shortly before nightfall, Sauvageonne returned, with the donkey laden with food supplies. Etienne scanned the newspapers avidly, but his expectation was somewhat disappointed. He only found a short item included in the local news:

  The gendarmes and police launched on the heels of the parricide Etienne Aubert and his accomplice have completely lost trace of the criminals. They are assumed to have crossed into Italy after leaving their automobile on the road in the vicinity of Grasse to put the searchers off the track.

  That was all. Etienne felt humiliated not to have more importance. What did one have to do, then? Of Thomas Keysar there was no mention. Doubtless his cadaver, half-devoured by the ants, had not yet been discovered.

  A sequence of monotonous days followed. To relieve the boredom of watching April give a new dress to the mountain and the forest, from morning till dusk, he was able to modify the terrain in order to divert water from the torrent into the cistern and establish and overflow for the excess. At the same time he observed that physical labor, in the salubrious open air, brought about alterations in his person. His hair and beard grew, graying prematurely, salt-and-pepper fashion. His face was tanned by the sun. His hands and arms gained a coloration and calluses from the difficult labor. The elegant city-dweller had disappeared.

  Thus, when Jean Chrysostome returned from his tour a fortnight later, he found a guest who was not excessively out of keeping with the household. Sauvageonne explained to her man the good fortune that the presence of the refugee represented to them; Jean immediately sympathized with a man who was doubtless a victim of social conventions, while dreaming about the advantages that the situation might have for the couple. The few hundred francs provided by Etienne sufficed to awaken the knife-grinder’s ambition; while making a pact with his guest, he judged that in time the other might have recourse to him, and that might be the moment to obtain a round sum.

  He was not mistaken.

  After the five months of spring and summer in that solitude. Etienne judged that he was sufficiently unrecognizable. His violent soldierly instincts had reawakened. What had become of Aline? She must be embellishing, with her brunette beauty and the originality of her long black hair, the Villa Bellarosa, its garden by the edge of the sea and the neighborhood of Théoule. And in that five-month chastity, hard to maintain for an ardent young man, he reached the point of no longer being able to resist the desire to embrace the woman who, for him, in that retreat where summer conspired with lust, represented all women.

  Jean Chrysostome, at his ease thanks to the liberality of his guest, had augmented the comforts of the hermitage; he had extended it in order to establish a room for Etienne. By calcinating a kind of friable limestone, he had obtained a species of plaster which, mixed with clay, was sufficient to maintain hard stone. The thatch roof had been renewed and the cistern, completed, was full. Finally, in an enclosure, twenty chickens and six rabbits brought a variety to the diet, and two little pigs were grunting in a sty constructed for them.

  In addition to taking part in all this progress, Etienne Aubert became an observer in order to distract himself like the shepherds who, while guarding their flocks, look around them, interesting themselves in the smallest creatures, which they study and to which they become familiar, in the course of a silent and motionless observation. He learned many curious things about the life of insects, bees, wasps, lizards and spiders. He became interested in herbs and trees.

  One evening, when the sky was reddened by the flames of one of the frequent fires that are ignited no one knows how in the forests of the Estérel, Saint-Raphaël aux Trayas, and all the way to Théoule, Etienne said to Jean Chrysostome: “Instead of so many pines and firs, which catch fire like matches, why not import here a tree from New Caledonia, the niaouli, the bark of which is said to be incombustible.74 That bark, composed of the superimposition of extremely thin leaves, presents when cut a book of three or four hundred pages separated from one another by an infinitesimal layer of air, continuing a marvelous insulation. The soil and climate of the Côte d’Azur would suit the niaouli. Why not acclimate it, as has been done for the eucalyptus that comes from Australia? That tree, gracious in bearing, would add its picturesque element to the Mediterranean landscape.”

  Jean Chrysostome nodded his head, thinking that a man as learned as that must have extraordinary motives for being reduced to retiring to this verdant desert. Without replying to the idea of importing the niaouli, the knife-grinder followed his own train of thought.

  “Boss”—that was what he called Etienne—“I wouldn’t like you to take me f
or an imbecile. Don’t protest...it’s fine. You said to me the other day, when we weren’t talking about it, that you were bored, and proposed that we both leave to make a tour of the shores of the Big Blue. At the time when you arrived here, the gendarmes were searching for a criminal from Paris, and I have good reasons for supposing that you’re the man they were searching for. I haven’t denounced you. For one thing, it wasn’t in my interest; for another, I have a weakness for all those at odds or in difficulties with the social order. You could have stayed here indefinitely without anything to fear from me. But I’ve thought about what you asked me the other evening, about leaving together. That means that you want to go back to common life, and that you need me. I’ve become your accomplice, and in consequence, am running certain risks, for which it’s only just that I should be proportionately remunerated.”

  “How much do you want?” asked Etienne. “Fix the sum clearly.”

  “Well, I thought that…five thousand francs...”

  “You shall have ten, my friend. But it’s necessary that I can count on your aid.”

  “Accepted…except, Boss, for a further crime...”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a matter of killing, but of having a woman in Théoule, of finding a way of getting into her room, of having her no matter what the cost, even by force, and escaping thereafter to Italy... The image of that woman tortures me every night. I love her furiously. I want her, and can’t live without having possessed her...”

  “All right, that’s agreed. Since it’s tormenting you so much, we’ll leave. When, Boss?”

  “Tomorrow. I can’t think of anything but Her. I have on my person, ready, ten thousand-franc bills, for you to consent to my folly.”

  Joyfully, Jean Chrysostome, pretending to accompany himself on the guitar, started singing:

  O Magali, my beloved aunt.

  Listen to a song of the dawn

  On the tambourine and violin...

  XVIII. The Knife-Grinder

  During those five months, nothing significant had happened at the Bellarosa. After having saved little Antoine by his perspicacity, Fabio Canti felt that Madame Aubert’s affectionate sympathy for him was augmented by a profound gratitude. Might it become love? He, the pampered artist weary of feminine adventures, was attracted to her, the young and lovely widow who was a meritorious housewife with a repertoire of forty dishes. A wife conquers a husband via the heart, but keeps him via the stomach, and that great artist, long given to dissolute tastes, wanted a bourgeois companion. At any rate, he had not revealed that intimate project to Madame Aubert; he had promised himself only to talk to her about it when her mourning was concluded—and sometimes, the hardened bachelor trembled before that sentimental settlement date, and thought about recoiling.

  Fabio Canti had returned to Paris at the end of March, but the little feminine colony had decided, on the amiable solicitations of Madame Desambez, to remain in Théoule, Madame Ossola with Simone and Robert, Madame Aubert with Ulette and baby Antoine. That decision had given joy to the children, who got along admirably, and they filled the villa from morning to evening with the enchantment of laughter, the turbulent intoxication of life and gaiety.

  The summer had passed in that fashion. The gardens of the Bellarosa justified the villa’s name; it was, beneath the blue sky, facing the blue sea shining in the sunlight, from which a refreshing breeze blew incessantly across a fairyland of roses.

  And from the fifteenth of August to the fifteenth of September, Louis Lafon, the new quasi-boss of the factory on the Quasi de Javel and the Rue des Entrepeneurs in Grenelle, had accepted with his wife the invitation made in Paris by Madame Aubert and renewed by Madame Desambez.

  On the ninth of September, a few days before the end of that vacation, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, Lafon was sitting in a wicker armchair on the shady terrace, allowing himself to drift blissfully in a wellbeing that was new to him. Madame Desambez and her guests, among them Fabio Canti, returned for the Provençal wine harvest, had gone by automobile to Valbone, for a tasting at the home of the Maire and notary, Maître Bermond, while watching the young men and women picking the clusters of grapes from the vines and actively filling the baskets. Lafon, slightly fatigued by an excursion made the previous day, had requested permission to rest.

  He had heard the sound of a slightly cracked bell ringing on the road, and then the repeated cry of a familiar voice that made him shudder: “Sharpening knives and scissors! Here’s the knife-grinder! Knives and scissors!”

  Shortly thereafter, at the entrance door, the concierge replied to a graying and bearded man: “We usually give our sharpening to Jean Chrysostome.”

  “It’s him that I’m working with. He’s installed his grindstone down below, near the stream. Would you like me to go make enquiries in the kitchen?”

  Louis Lafon told himself that he knew that voice.

  “I’ll telephone the servants’ parlor. Come into the garden.”

  From his position, Louis Lafon had a good view of the entrance door, but could not be seen, masked by a giant screen of red roses. The concierge had gone back into his lodge, and the knife-grinder came forward, darting investigative glances around, especially at the habitation, along the rosy pathway that led to the villa. Louis Lafon watched him.

  “Go on,” said the concierge. “They’re waiting for you.”

  Louis Lafon had a presentiment that he ought to hide, and went back into the drawing room.

  The knife-grinder arrived at the kitchen, where the cook was chatting to Madeleine.

  “You have something to sharpen?”

  “What! You’re not John Chrysostome.”

  “Yes, Mademoiselle—I’m his associate.”

  “Business must be good, then?”

  “One can’t complain.”

  “There: I have a chopper and all my kitchen knives to be whetted. Do you know, Madelon, whether the ladies have scissors to be sharpened?”

  At that name the knife-grinder had turned to look at the old maidservant, who was staring at him intently. I know those eyes, she thought. But she replied: “Take those for now. When you bring them back, we’ll see if there’s anything else.”

  The knife-grinder took the chopper and the knives, and left.

  As soon as he was gone, Louis Lafon, who was listening behind the door, came into the kitchen. “Did you recognize him, Madeleine? For me, that’s Etienne Aubert.”

  “Yes, it’s his eyes and his voice. But that beard and gray hair?”

  “There are good reasons for that. If Etienne’s coming here, it can only be with evil intentions.” He turned to the cook, while Madeleine became tremulous: “Listen, Mariette, the man you’ve just seen is Madame Aubert’s stepson. When he brings back the cutlery, it’s probable that he’ll want to make you talk. It’s necessary to treat him politely. You see, my beauty, it’s necessary for us to take advantage of the fact that the wretch is delivering himself, to finish this once and for all. Tell him that there are only ladies and children at the Bellarosa, and no other man than the concierge. Is that understood? Above all, be confident and don’t show any hostility.”

  “Indeed! May my future husband be cuckolded if I don’t roll the brigand over! A man who killed his father! What does he want now?”

  When Etienne brought back the reconditioned knives he asked: “Well, have the ladies given you their scissors?”

  “Here’s three pairs, and tell Jean Chrystostome to be careful with them. It’s for my boss and her goddaughter, Madame Aubert.”

  “Is that the pretty lady that I saw at a second floor window?”

  “No, Madame Aubert has a complete apartment on the first floor—a bedroom at the corner of the villa, to the right, a small drawing room and a bathroom. The children sleep on the second, with old Madelon.”

  “You doubtless have a lot of staff?”

  “No, just Madeleine and me. The ladies do their own housekeeping. There’s only one man in the entire property, the c
oncierge. If the locality weren’t honest, we’d have the right to be anxious.”

  “Oh, you seem to me to be a strong woman.”

  “Certainly. Men don’t frighten me.” And, jogging his elbow and laughing, she put him out of the door, saying: “Look after the scissors, my lad!”

  A quarter of an hour later, the knife-grinder brought back the scissors, well-honed, received his payment for the whole consignment, and drew away, darting one last glance at the façade and the window at the corner of the first floor.

  XIX. What Now?

  After dining at Mère Maréchal’s down-at-heel eatery, on good soup, an omelet and a piece of cheese, having paid for their meal and an accommodation in advance, because they had said that they were leaving at dawn, Jean Chrysostome and his representative installed themselves in their hostess’ barn, of which they had been granted sole use.

  “Here we are,” said one of them. “I, at least, have arrived where I need to be. You’re going to come with me tonight to help me climb over the wall of the Bellarosa. After that, you’re free.”

  “As you wish. I don’t know what you want to accomplish. Nevertheless, it might be that you’ll fail, and in that case, I might still be useful to you. I’ll continue my tour, taking the route that the Luron follows—a stream like the one we’ve crossed several times in recent days, the Loup, which descends from Grasse to Cagnes. More modest than the Loup, the Luron swells up terribly, even so, when there’s a storm, and I believe that we’re going to have a bad one. Look at those dark clouds, Boss, coming from the south and heaping up, invading the entire sky.”

  “It’s ideal weather for what I want,” said Etienne, giving Jean Chrysotome a hand to get his grindstone out.