The Wing

by Jean Richepin

  Subsequently, similar actions had been shared with other witnesses—and they, observers more clear-sighted than Gasguin, had noted the characteristic fact, doubtless unique, of that special gaze, whose flash, simultaneously proud and voluptuous, caused Yvernaux, for instance, to say: “That flash Pallas Athena had in her sea-blue eyes—but Aphrodite Kypris also had it in her violet eyes.”

  Of the nature of that gaze, so rare and complex, Aunt Line, in her simplicity, was not unaware, for at times, abruptly, she had said to Geneviève: “What are you busy grasping, then?”

  That was because she had just seen Idalie’s luminous, perverse, seductive, profound, enveloping gaze appear, while her darling was thinking. It was because she had, indeed, seen a victory being “grasped” in the cattelinette’s leumerottes. It was because she was able to recognize, with her magical virtues, l’iau vert’ dins l’or d’chès gleus solel.

  And it was with those leumerottes, no doubt, those eyes of an amorous amazon, attacking and taming the mystery as Idalie had once attacked and tamed another mystery, it was as a cattelinette that Geneviève, the old maid of twenty-five, had won her father’s glory by the communication, one after another—always he as the writer, always she alone as the inventor—of two further papers, catalogued as follows in the Bulletin des Societés Scientifiques under the rubric Communications à l’Académie des Sciences:

  117. “Note on the transmission of force by means of telluric currents,” by M. Thibaud Gasguin, Ph.D.

  117a. “Comment on the deflection of cathode rays by a magnet, in response to an experiment by and the conclusions of M. Lénard,” by the same.48

  XXV

  You will certainly not have forgotten the sensation that Thibaud Gasguin’s three successive communications to the Académie des Science caused, a decade ago. The uproar surpassed the usual limits of the restricted and cultivated audience whose élite minds keep up to date, as one says, with the flow of scientific news. It was propagated as far as the broad lay public, which perceived its echoes and took an interest in them, as evidenced by the memories recalled at the beginning of this story, which the reporter Sextius Costecalde had retained so freshly after nine years. Like Costecalde himself, the broader public retained, at least in memory, the confused but still noisy buzz of the press coverage stirred up and alimented by the three communications.

  As for the specialist society impassioned by these lofty questions, it had been, as is well-known, positively bowled over by the adventure of the petty professor, unknown the day before and famous two days later. The Revue Anglaise, and then the Revue Allemande, which had been the first to take notice of the first paper, set the spark to the powder-keg of enthusiasm by associating Gasguin’s name with those of Branly, Marconi, Sir William Preece and Van Beschem,49 but the lively debates unleashed by the second, and even more so by the third, had been decisive for the arrival of the newcomer.

  You will doubtless remember, in fact, that in consequence of polemics, and thus in the full glare of publicity, Gasguin had found himself at odds with illustrious adversaries, and defended by no-less-illustrious adherents. Thanks to the irresistible arguments with which Geneviève had furnished him and a very ingenious method of exposition—which is to say, of combat—of which he was the real strategist, he had been the victor in a tourney in which the other participants, for or against, had included Dr. Gustave le Bon, the Liégeois physicist de Heen, Becquerel and a member of the Institut.50 It was the consecration of his worth, and the formal recognition of his dazzling glory.

  As one can imagine, Yvernaux, an old student—though already a doctor—still in the vicinity of the Sorbonne when he was not at the Sorbonne itself, had not been the last person alerted to the matter. As soon as the first effervescence was excited by the articles in the foreign journals with regard to the first communication, it was necessary for him to proclaim his eulogy. He had written to his dear Gasguin immediately, to congratulate him—and his letter, very sincere, began with this call to put out the flags:

  “I always told you, my old brother, that you too would make your mark!”

  That “too,” of course, emphasized that he, Blaise Yvernaux, had had made his mark a long time ago. Even so, to be fair, the cry was emitted by a good and worthy heart, without envy. For his own mark, Yvernaux had made not merely long before, but always, in his own imagination—and no further, alas! He was still expecting—in the peasant sense of “waiting for”—the public to bow down before that mark. In Gasguin’s mark, by contrast, which as well and truly within his victorious grasp, the voice of the public had faith, no less than the acknowledgement of the communication—with a slightly dry but nevertheless laudatory note—by the Académie des Sciences.

  And it was good of Yvernaux to have no sentiment of base jealousy, neither with regard to the enthusiasm of the pubic, nor the acquiescence of the official “bigwigs”—whom, as we know, he did not like at all. He had, one suspects, taken advantage of the slightly haughty tone of the praise to mock the arrogance of those Messieurs, and that had only rendered more sincere his surge of joyous admiration for the success of his friend, his “old brother.”

  The proof that the excellent fellow harbored no stingy reservations or rancor is that his joy, and his admiration too were redoubled by the second communication, and they knew no bounds during the charivari led by the third. He was even one of those who led that charivari, at a hot pace, without sparing their trouble, their zeal, their combative fury, their eloquence or—most of all—their lungs. No one else was seen and heard more frequently in the corridors, the courts and the peristyles of the Sorbonne, the Collège de France and the École de Médicine, and in the student cafés frequented by the creators of “buzz.” He perorated in favor of “the unknown petty professor” to the detriment of the “green palmed bonzes” and organized student processions in which, according to traditional rites and rhythms, Thibaud Gasguin’s adversaries were booed and jeered.

  And how could his enthusiasm and fervor or the glorification of his friend not have been absolutely sincere? In good faith, without seeking it, and in all conscience, pure and loyal, did he not sense a certain apotheosis of his own in the apotheosis of his old brother? With what profound and beautiful effusions of the heart he boasted of their age-old friendship, so faithful on both sides! What authentic tears rose up from that emotional heart to eyes rapt as if in ecstasy, as he said, in a tremulous voice:

  “The first time that I had the frisson, the slight clenching of the throat, the fluttering eyelids with large tears beneath, at the presentiment, delightful and frightening at the same time, of his genius...”

  For he believed, with iron-hard firmness now, in Gasguin’s genius. And what is even more extraordinary—and yet quite human, and perfectly natural—is that he believed that he had always believed in it, and as firmly. If someone had, at that moment, reminded him about his former opinions regarding Gasguin’s manifest mediocrity, he would have been ashamed of it and indignant about it, as something foreign to him.

  In reality, in his current ingenuous worship, with increasing sincerity, his good faith becoming a rolling snowball by autosuggestion, he had succeeded in confusing the present Gasguin with the past Geneviève. He attributed to the former what he would once have lent to the latter.

  With regard to his abandoned goddaughter, whom he had not seen for ten years, he retained the disillusionment that she had caused him then. He did not know the present Geneviève. But as he had had the certainty that the Geneviève of yore, before the black hole, had been a genius, in order not to give the lie to that certainty, he found this explanation by way of excuse:

  “Idiot that I was, but without being one! There was, indeed, genius in the house, but her father, and I, because of him, thought the genius was in Geneviève. In fact, it was Thibaud, by virtue of parental modesty, who transposed into her what was only in him. And I, incompetently, came to believe...”

  Thus he duped himself, to the point that he wanted to rewrit
e his “Note on the Theory of Division” to make it a new argument, no longer in favor of “Innate Sciences” but to the advantage of another thesis. Thus far, however, he did not know what.

  In spite of everything, and even in spite of the complete redirection of his admiration, he had not failed to conserve, deep down, nor occasionally to bring out, a memory of affection for Geneviève. He also mingled it, without any valid reason now, with a sort of pride—perhaps because she was the daughter of a man of genus; and he similarly affirmed that he was a man of genius himself, saying with an involuntary catch in his voice of whose utterly comical character he was unaware:

  “Yes, the daughter of that genius…ahem!”—a little cough here, and the catch in question—“is my goddaughter.”

  Those were the sentiments in which Gasguin and Geneviève had found Yvernaux when they had returned to Paris, the author of the three famous communications having been summoned to a chair in the capital, then furnished with an École laboratory in the Rue Ulm. From the very first day, their mutual affection had resumed contact, their old familial intimacy resolidified.

  Without any “posing” on Gasguin’s part, Yvernaux had observed with a veritable joy—but not without a certain mockery in the sidelong glances of Aunt Line, he noted. And similarly, although larded in a more discreet, almost genteel fashion, he had sensed quite sharply a hint of mockery—yes, definitely mockery—in certain glances and smiles addressed to him mischievously and slyly by Geneviève.

  Very quickly, being quick on the uptake, he had found they key to those equivocal subvocalizations, rather wounding in intent, which seemed to say, with a slightly angry irony on Aunt Line’s part and a affectionate pity on his goddaughter’s: “Not very smart, our Yvernaux!”

  And, indeed, a few conversations, free philosophical flights into the open skies of science, between the father, the daughter and himself, had sufficed for him to discover the true measurement of the respective values attributable to the professor and the inventor. After two or three banal reflections by Gasguin on the soaring ideas of Geneviève, he had jumped, and then fallen flat, his entire being extended toward the surprising sheltered truth.

  But it was simply too fine! He dared not believe in such a prize, at first. He had observed patiently. A few further conversations of the same sort had gradually convinced him. Piece by piece, he demolished within himself the legend he had constructed regarding the father and the daughter, following the success of the paper, with the image of Geneviève luxuriant in body but fallow in mind. On the ruins of that legend—recognized as absurd and imbecilic—the ancient picture had taken shape again, of Geneviève the child prodigy astonishing her father, the scientist, and her godfather, the “thinker,” renewing the exploits of precocity of the formidable Pascal, furnishing the Treatise on the Innate Sciences with that extraordinary Note on the theory of division, and finally...

  No, in fact, I’m not very smart, Yvernaux said to himself, pointedly. And my goddaughter was quite right to look at me pityingly, with her genteel smile, which accused me all the same of being slightly stupid. And as for Aunt Line, for the mockery with which her whiplash gaze stings me, I’ll gladly kiss her old wrinkled prune of a mug for that.

  And one day, he did exactly what he said, unthinkingly. Taking advantage of a moment alone with the old woman, he threw his arms around her, and after kissing her on both cheeks, he exclaimed: “Yes, there! I’m nothing but a birdbrain. It’s over now, though. I understand. I’ve got it. I know everything.”

  After which, both having tears in their eyes, they had embraced again.

  At that precise moment, Gasguin came in, his expression proud, his manner triumphant. Amiable, to be sure, at the same time, still without “posing,” Yvernaux observed, but nevertheless—how could he help observing as well?—with the air of already being the bust of Thibaud Gasguin. There and then, Yvernaux had the desire to shout at him, even more in his face, if possible, almost with an intention of insult: “Yes, you hear, I know everything.”

  Which single little three-word phrase meant all the seething anger, protest, truth and revolt against a false god, and faith in the real divinity, that was in the presently-exasperated, volcanic soul of an Yvernaux ready to do anything to proclaim his absolute certainty regarding the nullity of Gasguin and the sublimity of Geneviève. For he did, indeed “know” now, as if he had witnessed from first to last the history of the ten secret years, that Geneviève alone had genius, and that the ideas in the papers were hers, flowers of her brain, perhaps gathered into a bouquet, at the most—and how!—by that mediocre and vulgar “scientific market-gardener” Gasguin.

  And in his “I know everything” Yvernaux would have spit that out, and afterwards, what an eruption of lava in outrage! He could feel it rumbling inside him, and the ardent, sulfurous syllables were already setting fire to his lips...

  But behind the father came the daughter. And between Geneviève and Aunt Line a fulgurant glance was exchanged, charged with thoughts that met in that fulguration—and from the electric and magnetic spark thus produced sprang a shock that caused Yvernaux to quiver all the way to the core of his being, paralyzing him.

  All that was instantaneous. For Gasguin, without having perceived any of it, had only had time, still showing of the “good side” of his bust, but benevolent, to see the embrace that was still in train when he arrived—and it was jokingly, in that regard, that he said, gaily:

  “What’s this, then? Are you going to ask me for Aunt Aline’s hand in marriage? God damn me! You were embracing. Just look at them, Geneviève—like cats being stroked. They were embracing, I tell you.”

  Yvernaux, increasingly paralyzed by Geneviève’s gaze alone, now, was only paying attention to that imperious gaze commanding him to keep quiet. He understood that she had understood—and he was firmly resolved to obey. But what could he do? How could he respond to the old imbecile’s joke?

  Fortunately, Aunt Line got him out of the embarrassment, catching the ball on the volley. “It was me who kissed him, amon!” she exclaimed. “Why? Because he told me that you’re a great man.”

  “Dear me!” said Gasguin, amiably. “If everyone kissed him to whom he said that, he wouldn’t have enough cheeks to go round. It seems that in the Latin Quarter they call him my apparitor, and at the Polytechnique, my tangent.”

  Yvernaux stood up straight. Geneviève restored his relaxed posture with a glance, no longer harshly imperious this time, but which caused Aunt Line to mutter clandestinely between her gums: “Ah! The mongrel cattelinette! There’s Idalie’s leumerottes!”

  And while the old woman dragged Thibaud into the next room—on the pretext that he had to change in order not to fall ill, being soaked by rain—Yvernaux trembled with profound emotion at being left alone with his goddaughter, hardly daring to look at her. Before she followed her father, he would have liked to greet her with the words that were swelling is heart to bursting point—“It’s you who are the genius, you, you!”—but he could not say them, for Geneviève’s gaze willed that he should not pronounce them, at least on this occasion. That gaze ordered him not to humiliate Gasguin, even in his absence, by the affirmation of the secret, condemned to remain a family secret between the four of them.

  And when she went out, in her turn, her godfather simply said to her: “Don’t worry. I’ll still be his apparitor and his tangent.” Then, emphasizing every syllable, albeit in a low voice, he added: “I won’t say anything—that’s understood.”

  XXVI

  That first experiment having been carried out, and triumphantly, of her power to paralyze Yvernaux’s will, and then to direct him hypnotically, Geneviève had had no need to give him any longer explanation regarding the mystery of the collaboration between her father and her. Another, in her place, would have left it there, her vanity being flattered by it—but Geneviève had no vanity.

  Taking honest account of all that she owed, in sum, to the instruction of her master and the strategy of the translator
of her ideas in the art of explaining them and defending them, she judged it equitable to inform her godfather of all that. She would have blushed with shame and remorse to leave him with the overly scornful and hence false opinion that he had of Gasguin.

  The poor man’s present infatuation, entirely natural in any species of parvenu—which he was, in reality—his naïve pride, his bust-like attitude, all were owed, at that moment, to the fuss being made in the press, trumpeting his name and his cause, with the enormous exaggerations of interviews, flatteries and, even more, to the attacks of envious colleagues, and the very intoxication of the struggles in which he had confronted public opinion alone. The sagacious Yvernaux was too good a psychologist, in spite of his lyricism, and too much a Parisian, although exclusively of the Left Bank to be unable to explain and excuse these effects, whose causes were obvious to him.

  With a few clever insinuations, Geneviève, in the presence of her godfather, had put her father on guard against the dangers of success, against the traps hidden among the flowers of excessive compliments. Yvernaux, understanding immediately, without any prior agreement, had tuned his instrument in the same key. In order to awaken the suspicious Thiérachian asleep in the new drunkenness of vainglory, Aunt Line, always vibrating in harmony with her darling, had talked to him about people who, according to the local assaying, knew how to tickle the goose’s belly in order to steal the down more easily. And under these various pressures, the sage Gasguin had soon become the modest Gasguin once again.

  It was then that the resolution had been made, in a family council fulfilling the function of a council of war, to hide away, as it were, from the joys of triumph, only to savor them privately, without ostentation, shunning publicity.