by Paul Busson
An icy coldness crept under my cloak and made me shudder. The bell-handle at the inn was a small, yellow brass hand, a little, cold, dead hand.
Chapter Fourty
I crossed the French frontier in a post-chaise. We stopped at the first country town to feed the horses, and I entered the inn and ordered myself a dish of eggs.
Many people were sitting at the tables. Coachmen, peasants, traders, townspeople and workmen were discussing, with all their native vigour, the most recent events of the Revolution and the increasingly frequent use of the executioners. The neighbouring castle of a haughty and cruel viscount had just been stormed by the peasants, sacked, and set ablaze. Some of the men who were sitting drinking the heavy red wine openly boasted of their share in the exploit.
I heard how bestially the people had behaved in the viscount’s library and picture-gallery, how they had used as chamberpots and smashed old Sèvres porcelain, and I recalled Dr. Schlurich’s words warning me against studying a revolution on the spot. When an exceedingly ugly pockmarked lad bragged of how he had treated Bijou, the viscountess’s favourite dog - he had impaled the poor beast on a pike and carried it about alive and howling in agony for more than an hour, until at last it wriggled itself to death - I was seized by a passionate indignation against the two-legged brute. But then the recollection of another dog came to me, enveloping me like a black cloud - a dog whose loyal affection I had repaid by throwing a stone at it in a fit of rage.
No, I had no right to sit in judgement on him, even though I had only acted in a fit of passion, and he with diabolical deliberation. The racking thought rose in me that there were men evil by nature.
What was in store for this one?
Then, suddenly, in that village inn, I heard my own name called aloud. “Melchior Dronte!” sounded a horrid voice, “Melchior! Pretty Melchior!”
I was so startled and scared that I nearly dropped my glass of wine.
I looked in the direction of the voice, and beheld a dirty and ragged old drab of a woman sitting at one of the tables. Beside her stood a small box with coloured pieces of paper, and a wooden perch occupied by a parrot. His skin was blue-grey and wrinkled, and of his feathers he seemed to have retained nothing but the quills. His large head with rolling eyeballs was also wrinkled and quite bald. When the woman saw that my attention was on her she rose and hobbled up to me.
The smell of liquor sickened me as she opened her mouth and breathed into my face.
“Pretty young gentleman!” she croaked. “Apollonius will tell you your fortune."
Despite her miserable appearance, her dripping drunken nose and her dim eyes. I recognised her as the beautiful Laurette, and the monstrous bird as the Spanish Envoy's parrot. I recalled the fair features of Lorle the saddler’s daughter, and compared them to this horrid, lemur-like face. In spite of the fact that the hellish parrot had called me by name, no spark of memory arose in her ravaged face.
And in the squinting stare of the bird I saw such an infinity of hatred and malice that I was unable to get rid of a feeling of fear. The hideous old woman, who had once lain in my arms, young, rosy and innocent, looked at me now with drink-bleary eyes and repeated her invitation.
I slipped a coin into her sodden hand. She put it into her mouth a disgusting way. and craftily peered round to see that no one had noticed her receiving it.
“Sicut cadaver” sniggered the bird. “As a corpse - kiss her, pretty Melchior!״
I approached the bird and said, as if I were addressing a human being:
“May you be soon released, you poor soul.”
How was it I suddenly thought of the words I said? The parrot stared at me. All evil disappeared from his look and two large tears rolled down his beak, as I had seen them do once before.
“Misericordia,” he groaned. “Mercy...”
And then he quickly climbed down the short perch, thrust his beak into the heap of paper and pulled out a crimson slip which he held out to me.
I took the piece of paper from his beak, gave another gold coin to poor Laurette, and nodded kindly to her.
Not the faintest glimpse of recollection, however, could I now discern in her eyes. With her box, the perch and the crestfallen parrot she shuffled on to the next table. “O mon Dieu!” cried the parrot, and the despairing tone of his exclamation pierced me through bone and marrow.
“Make that basilisk of yours keep his peace, you old bone-sack,” cried a coachman in a blue smock, who was sitting at the table. “We can’t hear ourselves speak. We aren’t all aristocrats here, to enjoy such foolery.”
“Why don’t you wring the dirty corn-eater’s neck, Blaise?” cried a white-dusted miller’s apprentice. “And if you happen to get an aristocrat under your thumb. I’ll be glad to help you!” he said in a half-whisper, casting a side glance towards me.
The old woman hobbled away from the table in a fright and cowered down trembling in a corner.
I took no further notice of the company, who appeared to indulge mostly in boasting, and no doubt were not all of them so bad as they pretended to be. Quietly I sipped my wine. I had to wait there until the new postilion would come to tell me that I might proceed on my journey.
On the table I laid the red slip of paper I had received from the parrot, and though I told myself that this sort of thing could not possibly have any significance, I did not ignore the fact that Apollonius had picked it out especially for me. Therefore I decided that it must be seriously examined.
All it contained was a line of astrological signs and beneath, in poor type, the words: “You have great danger ahead and you are powerless to escape it. A violent change will come over you, but fear nothing. It will be but a preliminary to a new existence.”
The message was exactly what such pennyworth prophecies usually are - equivocal and vague, the sort of thing animals pull out of a little pile in this fashion; and yet the little slip of paper made a considerable impression on me.
Much as I was affected by the lot of Laurette - the lot of so many yielding and careless girls and women - I felt a thrill of still greater compassion for the soul that I knew to be atoning for nameless sins in the body of a wretched, slowly decaying bird.
I was heartily glad to see the postilion come in. He was a young French lad wearing the three-coloured cockade. After accepting a glass at one or two of the tables he announced to me politely that he was ready to proceed with the journey.
As I left the room I heard scornful laughter and words of abuse. With an effort I remained perfectly calm, excusing these people’s unreasoning bitterness by the injustice they had been forced to put up with during so many generations.
I was glad when we drove away. I was oppressed, though, by many heavy thoughts. There was Lorle, whom I had last seen in Vienna surrounded by luxury and splendour, and now she was a miserable and downtrodden, half-witted hag: there was the uncanny encounter with the parrot Apollonius - a damned soul making atonement; there was my painful realisation that blind hatred and lust of vengeance were inevitable features of a great national upheaval; and all these things afflicted me heavily and half I repented having undertaken so dangerous and exhausting a journey. But at the same time I felt an inevitable necessity driving me on. From the depths of my consciousness came the desire to go ahead in the fulfilment of my destiny.
Nor did the conversation in which my postilion engaged me brighten my thoughts very much. He told me that he could see I was a gentleman, and in spite of all the silly talk about Liberty and Equality it was refreshing, he said, to meet one. Every day he had men of the lowest classes for his passengers, and they talked big, and seemed to pride themselves on their bad manners. All the same he would suggest to me that the further we went the more it would be necessary to behave like a wolf among the wolves, and in particular not to keep apart from the company at the inns, as I had lately done. Nothing irritated the rabble more than silent contempt, to which these otherwise thick-skinned fellows were particularly sensitive.
The policy I ought to follow was to lay aside my pride, and mix and jostle with every brother and swine. So far only the most hated and notorious oppressors of the common people had come to grief, and those who had escaped with their bare lives might think themselves fortunate. But there were signs, he thought, that the common people would soon turn against the whole of the gentry and all who were their intellectual superiors as well, for these were regarded as friends of the old order. This or that individual gentleman might be just and honest, he may have been a genuine friend of the poor and of the oppressed, he may even have undergone persecution for their sake; but the savage mob, frenzied with blood, would make no distinction.
He continued. The people are usually light-hearted and good-natured, he said, but in times like these jailbirds and all the scum rise to the surface, and the only thing they desire is to fill their pockets, to go drinking, whoring, revelling and killing. Most of the leaders of the Revolution were well-intentioned men, but others had also been pushed into prominence, men who thought all means fair and who kindled the low instincts of the rabble in order to become its favourites. A man of my standing, said the postilion, would do better to remain in safety at home, instead of coming into a country where there was neither order, justice nor security. I would soon find, he said, that a limited measure of Freedom was like an invigorating glass of good wine, but that mad indulgence in it was like senseless and raving drunkenness.
This way of talking astonished me in a postilion. Looking at him, however, I found that his features and bearing marked him as one of the educated classes. So I asked him how was it that a man of his breeding could find no better work than that of a post-boy.
He smiled. “Don’t trouble about it!” he answered. “I modestly dived out of sight at the right time, and now I look on like a philosopher at what I cannot help. In such times the man who sticks his head too high can easily lose it, and as I have only one in my possession I am rather careful about it, and on my guard... Excuse me, sir, but the road is so bad hereabouts that I must give it all my attention.”
With these words he turned away and seemed to take no more notice of anything except the reins and horses. But even his easy way of holding the reins - a sure sign of long practice - and the gentlemanly assurance of his movements betrayed the society to which he had been born.
At the entrance of a town we were held up by a strong band of armed peasantry who asserted that they had been entrusted with the safety of the road. One of them caught hold of the bridle, while two others approached the carriage with loaded muskets.
But the postilion, as to whose genteel and educated manners I had just made up my mind, spat into his hands in the most vulgar way, shouting at them in the lowest local dialect:
“You dung-beetles, you set of lice, how dare you stop a Commissaire of the Republic? May I be damned if I don’t get you under Dr. Guillotin’s machine, you thieves and stinking brutes! Get yourselves away, or by the claws of the devil I’ll beg the citizen Commissaire to take down your names in his note-book.”
They gave way at once, doffing their hats and crying:
“Vive la Liberté!”
Our carriage rolled on, the postilion laughing quietly to himself.
“What was it you said about the machine of Dr. Guillotin?” I asked him.
“Oh, haven’t you heard about it? Well, imagine that you are laid down on a plank between two beams. Over you hangs a heavy, sharp blade with an oblique edge, which falls and severs head from trunk as tidily as if it were cutting a cabbage head from its stalk. It is carted about through the country, this little machine of old Guillotin,”
All at once I fell a tepid, sweetish taste in my mouth. It made me almost sick. It was the air of the country that tasted so. It tasted of blood.
And suddenly benumbed I recalled those words of Mlle. Köckering’s, that yelling cry of hers: “A blade hanging - falling - "
In the town that we were entering a church bell sounded, deep and threatening. Death - Death - Death - Death...
But my fear disappeared as quickly as it had come.
“Non omnis mortar,” I said to myself.
“Not all of me shall die!”
Chapter Fourty One
I stood at the gateway of my lodging in Paris and looked down the street.
The murmur of a crowd was drawing nearer. Shrill whistles and cries were heard - and laughter
A group of soldiers came along with shouldered arms. They wore dirty trousers, striped red and white, and crumpled hats with new cockades, and their hair flowed untidily. Every uniform seemed different. Two barefoot urchins ran before the marching men as drummers. On one of the drums I recognised the half-obliterated badge of Esterhazy’s regiment.
A vast crowd of men, women and children followed behind the soldiers. Well-dressed women were mingled with ragged girls of the town, murderous-looking fellows and the lowest rabble. In the middle of the crowd heaved and lumbered a high-wheeled cart, in which six men were seated. The first I caught sight of -
God all merciful!
The cart halted as the procession came to a stop... I saw distinctly.
The first man I saw was Dr. Postremo!
A shudder of fear shook me. There he was, sitting in the front row, hands bound behind his back. His ugly ape’s head, white with age, but still black-browed, sat deep on his shoulders. Mortal fear lurked in his eyes: his mouth had fallen wide open.
Doctor Postremo!...
“Samson won’t find it easy to deal with the hunchback,” someone laughed.
“They’ll find a way to cut off his pumpkin,” said another. “What, old chap? Don’t you think so, old tortoise?”
Postremo made a dreadful grimace, shut his mouth, ground his jaws, and then spat into the face of the man who had jeered at him.
There was a peal of laughter.
“Bravo! well aimed, hunchback!”
Two soldiers hustled away the enraged one whose face had been horribly bespattered and was trying to get at the cart.
At the Italian’s side a venerable old priest in a torn cassock was sitting. Behind him was a severe-looking man in a blue coat embroidered with silver, and then a haggard lady who was moving her lips in prayer. The hindmost plank of the cart was occupied by a former officer of the Flanders regiment and a young man in a morning suit who was smiling with an air of indifference and contempt. I saw the officer of the Flanders regiment angrily bite his lips and say something to his neighbour, but he only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
The next moment the cart moved on, clattering and jerking, and the crowd raised a wild song, unfamiliar to me, that filled the street with its sounds. Even the soldiers stuck their short pipes into their great hats and joined enthusiastically in the chorus.
Driven on by an irresistible force, I followed with the crowd behind the executioner’s chariot, where the wretch was sitting whose Satanic skill had robbed my miserable life of all its happiness. I felt no resentment against him, though the sight of him reminded me of the greatest pain of my life. It seemed to me now that he had been only a tool in the hands of some inexplicable power which had carried out everything as it was predestined. The dreadful end he was now approaching did not appear to me in the light of a deserved retribution; I thought of it as the deliverance of his poor, evil soul from the fetters of a deformed body. At the same time I felt myself dominated by an inexplicable feeling - the same feeling that was impelling all those excited people - the dreadful and irresistible desire to be present at a frightful operation, which in these times of uncertainty and death without doubt would very soon threaten many of those moving about freely today.
Suddenly the Revolution, which I had so much desired to study on the spot, appeared to me as something unspeakably sinister and terrible. It was as if savage beasts, creatures of the lowest description who gloated over the sufferings of others, had been let loose among human beings; as if the demons of the abyss had united to exterminate those who had till lately bridle
d and governed them. No longer could I believe that the flushed, wild-eyed, distorted faces of those around me belonged to humanity. And when I looked at the young nobleman and the officer on the hindmost plank of the cart, I felt the same cold wave radiating from the victims. They were evil at heart to the very last. It was obvious that the people in the street were to them no more than the stones of the pavement, or the dirt on the cart wheels, or the half-starved cur that was barking and worrying the horses.
And yet for all my despair and the burning compassion that almost made my heart stop beating, I clearly saw that the basic fault of these two men was clearly embodied in their last moments. They despised the people - God’s creatures as themselves - and even now, in their last few hours before death, they despised them because they were unwashed, uneducated, sweating and lousy. The two doomed gentlemen did not realise that it was their own callousness that had made the people what they were, a herd of half-beasts who had at length risen against the cruel whip of poverty and exclusion. They were symbols of a caste that had kept their fellow men from rising to the heights of a civilised life.
Again and again they had driven the miserable people into their kennels and recesses, forced them to slave for their lords, and in their shallow talk ridiculed them. And, when they finally exhausted the immense riches accumulated by robbing the people, they actually hoarded the com of the fields in locked barns, to sell it with usurer’s interest as the days of famine arrived. They forced a torturing bit between the teeth of those they had driven to despair.
And now an infuriated rage and pain had sprung the people’s bonds, the slow-witted rabble was possessed with a fierce will: the will to destroy the haughty, the torturers and the contemners, to tear them to pieces, to trample them down, to obliterate them for ever from the face of the earth. Anyone who could read the faces of the people aright might see in these ignorant and bewildered features that if the power which now lay shattered had been used with a little more kindness, if it had been coupled with a little wise forethought and a little humaneness, it could have endured and made possible a bloodless and peaceful transition towards a juster distribution of wealth. But, alas! it was as if all these kings, dukes, counts and governors of every degree had been prompted by a perverse curiosity to test how long it was possible to torture a submissive people before they would rise against the burden of their pain.