“My kimono now, Marie.”
The chambermaid was waiting patiently behind her, gazing at the prints that decorated the walls of the sumptuous dressing-room. One of three rooms exclusively reserved for the Baronne, it presented a Japanese décor, full of objects collected in distant lands. Old engravings exhibited legendary grimaces, dazzling flowers and fantastic animals; there were precious items of pottery on sculpted shelves, and a panoply of weapons damascened in gold and enamel, all of a richness revealing the alert senses of the collector Sasoitsu. Even the bath was dominated by a porcelain scene in which a sunset behind a pine forest sparkled. Another, garnishing a huge wardrobe in which dresses hung, represented a battalion of carp in the waves, with the play of light over their scales. So many treasures, in the estimation of art-lovers—foremost among them Félix Vion, the financier’s associate, and a great friend of the household.
The soubrette tore herself away from her contemplation, and came to deck her mistress out in the demanded disguise. In truth, it was better than a banal kimono. It was one of the rutilant costumes that Betty Toxfellow had worn in Nirvana, the fantastic film set in Japan that had established her definitively as a queen of the screen. The fabric, gold lamé set against a blue and pink background, did not prevent the suggestion of a bosom made to tempt a sculptor’s chisel—to such an extent that the maidservant could not help saying: “How lovely Madame is! No one will put her in the shade tonight!”
Abrovici was about to reply that no one could ever put his employer in the shade when a discreet knock on the door announced the presence of the master of the house.
Authorized by his wife’s soft voice, Baron Tani Sasoitsu came in. Before approaching he paused on the threshold, to judge the effect that his costume was about to produce on the woman he adored. On her advice, he was wearing a reproduction of a print by Hishikawa Moronobu, the celebrated Japanese artist of the seventeenth-century. It was the modest costume of a rice-cutter at work, save for the blouse around the thorax, which was replaced by a clinging fabric, and the rather short robe was knotted at the waist.
As for the mask, which the Baron was holding in his hand, it represented the Laughing Man by the sculptor Démé-Joiman: a visage of truculent gaiety with a flat nose, a wrinkled forehead, louche eyes and a mouth filled with large teeth, from which hairs protruded crazily—an expression quite contrary to the one with which nature had endowed him, for the exotic financier had the soft regularity of occidental features, an aquiline nose, and a delicate mouth with perfect teeth. Only his slanted eyes and his slightly orange-tinted complexion revealed his Asiatic roots. He was brought even closer to the men of the North by an entirely Parisian education. The son of a Japanese ambassador, who had converted to Catholicism and had then been naturalized as a Frenchman when he had taken over the administration of the great bank, he had acquired precious friendships in his adoptive country.
“Put your mask on, Tani,” said Betty.
He did so, and she declared herself satisfied. It was his turn to study her. He did not hide his wonderment. What powerful memories!
He remembered the day when, having returned temporarily to Japan to complete a business deal concerning pyrites mines, he had, in the course of visiting the deposits, chanced to witness the staging of a scene from the film Nirvana, shot on location, of which Betty Toxfellow was the star. Not a great lover of the cinema, only being dragged along by friends, he had nevertheless admired the star in previous Parisian presentations. Like everyone else, he had been struck by her incomparable beauty, her dramatic expression, the grace of her poses and—something that was lacking in many of her peers—the naturalness of her acting: the fashion in which, so to speak, she “entered into the skin” of her characters.
He made enquiries about her life. He learned that in spite of her American surname, inherited from much-traveled ancestors, she had been born in Montmartre of French parents. Although her beauty had caused her to be chosen, as a replacement for a rival who had died in an accident, for a Buddhist role in the film, it might have derived, like herself, from a distant Japanese ancestor, whose imprint had resurfaced after several hybrid generations.
He recovered, therefore, that day, all the admiration she had engraved in his forty-year-old heart, previously insensible to feminine attractions. He had obtained an introduction to her, and issued many invitations to her, not hiding an enthusiasm that she greeted with an extreme reserve, which magnified her further in his eyes. Then, on the day when she was packing her bags to return to Hollywood, he had asked her to renounce her artistic career to become his wife.
In vain, his fervent friend Félix Vion, his associate in the direction of the bank, who had accompanied him on his voyage, informed in his turn, had painted a picture of the actress as an excessive woman of luxury, ignorant of the value of money, sacrificing enormous sums to ruinous whims. Ought not a prudent financier be fearful of allying himself with a wastrel? Tani had not wanted to hear it. He had argued that he was fortunate enough to be able to satisfy the caprices of a spendthrift wife without danger. Moreover, thanks to a few new business deals, he was about to become one of the richest capitalists in his adoptive country, the equal of the lords whose firms were resplendent in the heaven of wealth.
Thus it was that, after three months of hesitation, Betty Toxfellow had entered Parisian high society as Baronne Sasoitsu. She had only given her consent on condition of continuing to enjoy the services of the pitiable Abrovici. The comrade of the studio seemed, moreover, to have such a moderating influence over her that the Baron was glad of it.
“What do you desire my dear Tani?” asked Betty.
“First of all, to renew my adoration for you.”
“I know, I know…and?”
“To submit to you the speech that I intend to serve up at the end of the supper, to announce coram populo my foundation project. As it’s of capital interest to you, I’d like to have your advice about the speech.”
He unfolded a large sheet of paper in order to read from it. He expressed in warm terms his gratitude to his new homeland, his willingness to testify to it by taking from the fortune he had acquired there a sum large enough to create and maintain, on the model of the Cité Universitaire,17 a center in which a number of Japanese students would be gathered, boarded, maintained and fashioned as he had been, in French culture. In addition to the service that he would thus render to the studious youth of that distant land, his generosity would also have the fortunate effect of bringing closer two countries whose relationship was presently tense by virtue of a political divergence.
Betty was not unaware that her husband’s generous gesture would cost something in the region of fifty million, about half of what he would possess by liquidating his holdings in the Tokyo bank. Even though, in the case of the Baron’s death, as his only heir, she would be injured by the loss of that enormous capital, she had nevertheless lent her support to it wholeheartedly. But should such an important declaration be made in the course of a masked ball? Would it not be more opportune to make it on some more serious occasion, or simply by way of the press?
“I’m convinced, Tani, that your speech is excellent in every respect. Reflect however, as to whether this is the right moment? What will Paris think, on learning that you have taken advantage of our party to attempt to dissipate certain diplomatic difficulties by means of a gift of this sort? As you know, I share your generosity entirely. I have little notion of money, but I know that, with your aid, we shall have enough to live on, and even to ensure the future of those who serve us faithfully, Abrovici and Marie foremost among them. But all the same, this evening...”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said the Baron. “I’ll wait. Sacrifices of this sort gain, in any case, from remaining mute. Then again, there’s no urgency. I don’t think I’ll be rendering my soul any time soon. I’ll arrange the matter with my notary.” He folded up his piece of paper. “Once more, Betty, you advise me very sagely.”
The domestics had
listened to the large figures without seeming surprised. They had only reacted on hearing the promise of a future generosity. Abrovici expressed his contentment by means of a grimace that accentuated his ugliness; Marie thanked her mistress with the gaze of a stroked pet.
Another chambermaid arrived at that moment. She announced the arrival of Monsieur Félix Vion, desirous, as Madame la Baronne had asked him to do, of submitting his costume for her appreciation.
“Isn’t it you, Betty, who’ve chosen the disguise in question?” asked the Baron.
“Indeed—but I want to check that the costumer has conformed to my choice. You’ll laugh. Send Monsieur Vion in.”
After the time required to climb the staircase, the associate appeared. He took care to present himself in the full integrity of his transformation. Stopping on the threshold, he showed himself decked in the yellow robe of a warrior Shoki,18 with a false breastplate made of cardboard, but not burdened by overly cumbersome weapons. He exposed on top a savage mask, grimacing with hatred, with glowering eyes, shark’s teeth and a bushy beard. Commercially produced, such masks permitted the wearer to see and breathe through orifices placed in front of the eyes and the nose. A silk cord fixed it in position behind the head.
“Bravo, Félix!” Betty applauded. “You’ve struck exactly the right note. You’d be perfect if you could adopt a slightly more bellicose attitude. Stand up straight, my dear! It’s obvious that you haven’t been in the cinema. You lack something, however, to be complete. A warrior without a sword isn’t a warrior. Wait...”
She went to the panoply that grouped the preciously-ornamented ancient weapons. Among that trophy of helmets spears, pikes and sabers there were two identical daggers forming a pendant. She unhooked one of them, and spent some time admiring the double-edged and pointed blade, decorated with dragons all the way to the golden hilt-guard studded with precious stones
“Is it credible that this marvel has only been an instrument of death? It wouldn’t be amusing to receive a blow from this in the back, would it, Tani?”
“You’re going to embarrass Félix with it?”
“In order that he should have the appearance he needs. I want him to appear as a warrior about to do battle. Here, Félix, slip this weapon into your belt. When you leave, you only have to hand it to Abrovici, who’s in charge of the cloakroom.”
“The object is very valuable, Betty,” the Baron protested, feebly.
“You don’t think that Félix is going to steal it? Anyway, we still have another one.”
“Spoiled child!”
That slight conjugal collision summed them up perfectly: she authoritarian, he always ending up yielding to her caprices. To thank him, this time, she kissed his hand. Then she cocked an ear toward exterior sounds. The main gate of the house was heard to open, and klaxons were sounding in the avenue.
“People are arriving. It’s time to go down.”
Chapter II
It was only ten o’clock in the evening, but the singularity of the fête had already attracted a crowd. Private automobiles and the occasional taxi were coming under the porch, letting out their occupants, and then making a circuit of the courtyard that took them back to the Avenue de l’Alma. A majordomo in a regal blue coat and gold-braided trousers was presiding over the maneuvers. Outside, security guards kept curiosity-seekers at bay, scarce in any case because of the cold.
As soon as they entered the first vestibule, at ground level, the guests confided their coats and furs to the cloakroom, where Abrovici and Marie were busy. The ladies presented their latest coquetry to a huge mirror, adjusting their kimonos, patting their coiffure, dabbing a last dash of powder on their cheeks and accentuating their lips with a touch of red., while the gentlemen, once having signed their name in a register and having made sure of their masks, waited patiently for their companions to be ready to dazzle. Then the couples climbed the five steps leading to the hall, into which the drawing rooms opened.
It is important, in order to follow what happened that night, to know the exact disposition of the ground floor of the Sasoitsu house, entirely consecrated, it goes without saying, to the party. Firstly, communicating with the hall by a low door near the staircase that led to the upper floors, there was the library, which served the master of the house as a study. Then, similarly opening with two battens, there was the large drawing-room, with five windows overlooking the street. They were succeeded by a room almost as large, extending as far as an immense dining-room, the doors of which had been blocked that evening in order to erect a stage and also to set up a buffet. In total, four considerable spaces, in which an unusual luxury was displayed of furniture, works of art, trinkets and, in normal times, carpets, which had been removed in order to allow dancers to cavort, led by an orchestra on the stage. The guests knew, in addition, that they would witness, at about two o’clock in the morning, after supper, a ballet danced by a Japanese troop currently performing in Paris. They would be richly amused.
Standing at the door of the large drawing room, the Baron and Baronne Sasoitsu, he in his modest rice-cutter’s costume, she in her dazzling kimono from the film Nirvana, were welcoming the guests, whose names, as recorded in the register, a majordomo was whispering into their ears. Tani was unable to recognize them in their masks, and Betty was still too unfamiliar with Parisian high society to identify them to her husband by virtue of their wives. As soon as each incognito was revealed, exclamations, hand-kisses and warm protestations were exchanged, until other guests appeared for the manifestations to be renewed.
The Sasoitsus offered a thousand graces in this fashion to the Japanese ambassador, Prince Tai-Samo, clad in a heavy standard-bearer’s costume; his wife the princess, dressed in a dazzling embroidery of the Hojo court; and two frail attachés of the ambassador, Janai and Kobayasu, who were accompanying him. They melted into effusions before two academicians and a biologist, also a member of the Institut, dressed very differently than when making funeral speeches or for ceremonial occasions under the Cupola. They were succeeded by a former minister, writers, regulars in the latest salons about which people were talking, an aviation ace, a retired general, two dismissed prefects, reputed actors, a swashbuckler devoid of duels, journalists short of copy, and a sequence of socialites avid for receptions of this sort, promising themselves to boast about it the flowing day.
All those people had hired their costumes from theater suppliers; their companions were scarcely distinguishable except by the colors and designs of their bright kimonos. They formed a rather disparate assembly, which was nevertheless delightful to the eye. A hundred of them filed past, and, once they had been greeted, spread out into the drawing rooms admiring the splendor.
Soon, the arrivals thinned out. The staff had abandoned the door to go to the kitchen and the servants’ parlor, in order to help with the preparations for supper, which promised to be as Japanese as the party. The cloakroom was now under the sole guard of Abrovici. Tani and Betty were therefore just about to mingle with the guests when a new arrival retained them at their post.
For this one, the majordomo’s indication was superfluous. Although, contrary to instructions, he wore no mask, his face was one. It offered, under a completely bald head, a strange bone-structure with sunken orbits, in which a terrible intelligence glinted, ears pointed like a wolf’s, a sarcastic mouth prolonged by a beard so thick that it had to be gathered in curly hanks over the front of his chest: a mask indeed, which one might have thought prepared by nature to resemble the most impressive of the soirée.
No, they had no need to be told who he was, all the more so as his reputation as a scientific miracle-worker classified him even more than his physique. What had he not brought out of his clinic and his laboratory? A surgeon of prodigious skill, had he not once transformed a man into a woman? A fantastic physiologist, had he not give birth to a man from sea-water? An infernal biologist, had he not held Paris in the terror of frightful monsters, the famous macrobes, obtained from microbes transformed
by an appropriate culture medium?19
A creator akin to the One who reigns over the Universe!
As if to support what people might think of him, he had adopted the costume of Daikoku, the magician, the god of the fertility of the earth. Under his arm he bore the hammer—devoid of a sickle—significant of abundance.20
“Finally, here’s Professor Tornada!” the Baron exclaimed. “We were no longer expecting you, my great friend.”
“Am I late?”
“Almost,” said Betty, reproachfully.
“I was held up at the lab.”
“What are you making there now?”
“Something rather amusing.”
“May one know what it is?”
“One may not—but to you, however, I’ll confide that it’s a procedure for perfecting human beauty. Primarily, however, I mean moral beauty, which commands the other. As you are, dear Baronne, absolutely divine from both those points of view, I shall never have to propose to you that you have recourse to my rays.”
“Rays, now?”
One could expect anything from that brain in perpetual vibration—and also modest, tending to remain obscure, in spite of his improbable discoveries, avoiding official functions. People called him by the title “Professor,” although he had never informed anyone as to what it signified. Even for his surgery, of an inconceivable audacity, and a skill and rapidity without equal, he did not tolerate assistants; nurses were sufficient for him. Thus, his presence at the masquerade was astonishing. It had required, in order to convince him to come, the insistence of his intimate friend Félix Vion, the only man capable of influencing him, and the amity he had retained for the Sasoitsus since he had cared for Betty following a fracture.
“You’ve come without a mask, Doctor?”
“Am I not ugly enough by nature?”
“Your human beauty resides there,” said Betty, placing her finger on his cranium, “and that’s precisely why I would have liked you to hide your face. Anyway, you’re one of those whose disobedience one forgives.”
The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3) Page 14