Devil's Score: A Tale of decadent omen….

by Edouard Jourdan

  Everything spoke of Johan absent. Negative Johans were sitting on all the seats, leaning on all the chimneys, standing everywhere! The empty home was populated by non-Johans!

  He offered this home the luxurious poverty of our most modern interior, and it must be confessed that it sadly contributed to a solitary soul being more abandoned there.

  But Katarina did not intend to relapse into pessimism. To avoid thinking so much, she activated her preparations; and when her bath was lukewarm, she turned the hot water tap decisively, as if it were the very source of melancholy.

  We find her an hour later at her small Director office.

  She has just slipped five hundred-franc notes and a business card "with the expression of all her gratitude," and writes on the envelope the name of the doctor-major.

  But the bell of the door sounds twice.

  She no longer thought that the servants had gone upstairs. She has to open herself.

  - Eight fifteen. It must be the mail. She opens.

  A gentleman greets her with ease, graciously surprised to perceive, in the place of a valet, this pretty woman; and in a tone of the last gallant:

  - Mr. Johan Bansberg, madam? ...

  He pronounces "Madame" in a mundane smile.

  - He ... He's not here, sir.

  - Oh! so, forgive me, ma'am. Mr. Johan Bansberg had asked me to come this morning early. He must, he told me, return to the night ... My apologies, Madam, I'll iron!

  - But who do I have the honor ...

  - I'm the agent of the Oriental company ...

  - Ah! ... that's ... it does not tell me much ...

  - I'm coming for insurance ...

  - Insurance ...

  - The insurance of Mr. Johan Bansberg's hands ...

  - Hands…

  Katarina is as pale as stone. Around her, everything seems to swing, lean, bow, and the floor of the antechamber rocks beneath her feet like a ship's deck in heavy weather.

  Bansberg's hands! ...

  3 – SPIRITISM

  An unintelligible murmur:

  - I will write to you, sir. Thank you…

  The insurance agent slips away, rather bewildered; and Katarina, prostrate against the closed door, remains there without moving, fixing a point she does not see.

  She remembers with amazement ... A whole world of frightful possibilities is discovered ... Yes, the great artists are assured, now. The dancers have their feet secured, the pianists their hands ...

  Johan's hands were to be insured today, each for five hundred thousand francs!

  And maybe it's too late! In what state are they? Let's see, an effort! Ah, yes: slashed, lacerated ... broken maybe! She did not see well. It was so little, those hands, when it came to life itself! ...

  But art, for Johan, his art, is not half of his life! Is not that all his fortune? ... Ah! his hands, his beautiful white hands, fine, supple, so quick and so nervous, his virtuous hands, the two fairy dancers of the keyboard, dispensers of joy, glory and abundance! ... Ah! if he is to remain mutilated, rather than struck in this way, would it not be better, a hundred times, for him to be blind like so many musicians! be deaf, if need be, like Beethoven or Smetana! ... but his hands! No, no, not that! He would die of it! You must not!

  She throws herself on the phone:

  - Dr Petiot! ... I mean Kléber 17-23!

  A time elapses. We went to get the surgeon there, in the white mansion ...

  - Who asks me!

  - It's me, master: Mrs. Bansberg. I forgot to tell you ... Hands ... My husband ... It's Johan Bansberg, the pianist. So, hands, doctor, save them! You have to save them at all costs, you understand! … How is he?

  We answer very calmly:

  "Monsieur Bansberg, little Madame, is neither better nor worse. He supported the first intervention well. Always unconscious. What dominates our business is that the wounded can face the operation of tomorrow. For the moment, it is, if I may say so, impregnated with serums. It is a flower cut in a vase full of water. A flower that has to be replanted. We are here. The contusion in the brain is the catch. The rest is secondary, including the hands. I can only assure you that one thing is that everything will be done with what is feasible, and that I will use all my power to save the artist with the man.

  "Your room is waiting for you. Farewell, little Madame. And courage!

  A mysterious force, the darkness that carries us all to specify our pain, pushes her towards the living room.

  There, the grand piano sleeps its sleep of black water, in a silence reminiscent of the silence of a siren.

  This piano, this silence, nothing can more cruelly materialize the anxiety of Katarina. And the living room itself is not the place that would soothe him. Not only because of its white and black color, which is funerary. Not only because of the palms that line the walls of

  artistic trophies, and which now speak aloud of cemetery. But because, too, of its luxury.

  What does this luxury mean? To Johan's life, to his talent. At his hands. God! If he were to die, Katarina would make fun of all the luxuries in the world! But he will live. It must. And if his hands betray him, if his talent disappears, how will he, he, of this luxury to which he is accustomed henceforth? that luxury that suits him so well, that he surrounds himself so naturally? Could he deprive himself? Could he, without despair, resume the poor life of old? ...

  Katarina is leaning on the piano. She dives into it like in a taciturn lake where the past would emulate its shores ...

  She sees Johan entering, on a winter's day, in the little shop of mother Doret, the street vendor Monsieur Leduc, the good aunt of Katarina ...

  This winter day, Katarina is seventeen years old. She came out of high school the year before, bachelor, orphan. Aunt Doret, her poor mother's sister, took her home. What will Katarina become? We do not know. In the meantime, she puts pieces of music in boxes.

  And now, on this winter day, this young man enters the shop. He is thin and badly dressed, looks not rich, but happy all the same. He asks, for hire, the Arabesques of Debussy. The aunt came out, by chance. We talk ... They suddenly loved each other, for life. Johan came back every day. The aunt saw what he was doing. The marriage was decided like that. And that's when things got complicated.

  Johan, at that time, attended the Conservatoire classes. It was the year of his first prize. For three years he had sent the notary to walk, and had left the paternal study where M. Edgar Bansberg was preparing him to take his succession with dignity. The vocation of the artist had won everything. But the terrible old man did not forgive. He had cut off his son's food, and refused to see him again. Yes, for three years poor Johan lived miserably, thanks to the subsidies which his old friend, M. de Varmand, slipped to him without the knowledge of the notary. The latter, throwing the handle after the ax, had sold his study. He occupied himself only with occultism, with M. de Varmand! ... Good M. de Varmand! Excellent "Marquis"! How he had gone to great lengths to relieve Father Bansberg and try to obtain his consent to the marriage! But nothing had softened the fierce original, and we had passed from him with sadness ...

  What a man like this old man, this widower with a crooked nose, who could have been the grandfather of his son! ... Katarina sees her hawk's head at the bottom of the dark mirror. He stands there as he showed himself to her when he wanted to receive them after the first prize. These laurels softened him. Pressed by M. de Varmand, he grudgingly admitted that Johan could become "someone". He did not deny that Katarina was honest. But he received them coldly, in spite of everything. And since then, we only see him from time to time, when we make him these cold visits that terrorize his daughter-in-law several days in advance ...

  Yet, God knows that Johan has become "someone"! A lightning fame put her in the front row, overnight. Without help, that of his masters, without sponsors of any kind, without cabotinage, without exoticism, he found himself in the light of triumph, elbow to elbow with the best! Suddenly we literally jumped on him. Overabundance fills them
with his possessions ...

  "Abundance" would at least be the true word, if Johan were not what he is: an artist, enamored of beautiful objects, charitable to prodigality, carefree of savings, hostile to all foresight ... he wins just goes home. His chest is only a reservoir from which gold, born from his hands, constantly rolls towards the suppliers and the poor. How many of his hands stop sprouting the magic Fortune, what will he be left with? These art furniture, these signed wall hangings, these unique vases - and bills to pay.

  And to think that indigence would be nothing, compared to the despair of the artist deprived of his dexterity! ...

  Ah! If such misfortune should happen, it is then that Father Bansberg would triumph in his turn! ... What sneer will he not welcome the announcement of the accident! Because he'll learn it, if it's not already done ...

  Is it not essential for Katarina to go to his house, in his person? Obviously. He must be informed, give him without delay news of his son ... Small chore on great sorrow.

  Katarina sadly contemplates the scene of compromised happiness.

  She holds the envelope for the medical officer, which is not yet closed. For a moment, she hesitates, picks up one of the five bills, thinks for a few seconds, then puts it back in the envelope, and hides, saying with a gesture of defiance:

  - We will see! Until then, stay chic! Here she is, a little travel bag in her hand.

  The weather is gloomy, it is drizzling, and the streets are muddy. Will she ask for a taxi, by phone?

  She looks at the beautiful scenery, the piano, the envelope, and goes out on foot.

  Never did Katarina go alone to Father Bansberg. She accompanied Johan there; there are their relations. This time, even more than usual, she apprehends

  The approach of the old man, grumpy and maniacal.

  The former notary lives nearby, Rue d'Assas, a small mansion embedded in the vice of two large houses of report, and he abandons the second floor at

  "Marquis" of Varmand.

  M. de Varmand, Marquis for laughter and painter for real, is his inseparable. Katarina has never quite understood whether the gentleman is as passionate about spiritualism as the notary. He has so much interest, he who is poor, to flatter the fool of his friend! The fact remains that the old companions live, thus superimposed, in good intelligence, one accepting with a smile the tyranny of the other, "the two spiritualists", as they are called in the neighborhood.

  And Katarina trots under his umbrella, elegant, rhythmic and light, a nice step from Paris.

  The doorbell makes a noise of the other century.

  The shutters on the ground floor are closed. On the second floor, M. de Varmand's studio exposes its large bay window to rain.

  We open. We open, rather. It's Valentin, the valet.

  He shows his sexagenarian face, which smallpox riddled with small holes like a battlefield seen by plane. M. de Varmand, who likes to joke, claims that Valentin is the work of a pointillist god, and does not fail to estimate it, less for an extraction so artistic than for sufficient virtues.

  On the other hand, it does not take in any way Mrs. Valentine, Charlotte, whose pale head has just appeared behind that of her husband. This one, it is always necessary that it stuffs its nose everywhere. Nothing happens here that does not include his figure. And what a figure! By which apprentice Modeled creator! No form, no color: an awkward and plaster draft, an effacement that would make one think that one has suddenly become short-sighted, and that one sees things only through a fog.

  In a few words, Katarina said her misfortune, on the steps, to the rain, the ancillary couple obstructing the entrance.

  Valentine is speechless. But Charlotte makes poorly greased sounds:

  - Sir is not visible, Madam. It falls well, well, for sure! But, you see, he has a meeting this morning. An extraordinary meeting, Mrs Johan. Look at the louvers in the living room: they are closed. It's sure to start. Three mediums came ...

  Today, occultism, of which Katarina usually laughs, suddenly seems to him formidable and truly mysterious. Yet what agitates her first was indignation.

  - But finally, his son! cries she.

  - Shut up! Charlotte hisses. Do not make so much noise, who knows what would happen ... The devil could take us away!

  - His son! repeat the young woman muted. Charlotte raises her colorless eyes to the heavens

  - There is no son who holds, Mrs Johan, you know well: with Monsieur, there is no son. Is That spiritism!

  Alas! Katarina knows, indeed, that in the sense of Father Bansberg, a turntable is worthier of interest than Johan! But she cannot defend herself from a movement of hatred towards this disgusting creature who has always excited the father against the son, seeking only to extract from his master the most liberality possible, from hand to hand, inter vivos or by will.

  The maid came in front of Valentin. We see his hands, which look like man's feet; and from her pedestrian hands, she keeps patting her hips, astonished and sorry to never find them at the rendezvous.

  Valentin then said timidly, regarding the shrew a consultative eye:

  "You know, Monsieur de Varmand has not come down yet ... could Mrs. Johan perhaps see him? ...

  - Perhaps…

  Katarina is preparing to enter. But Charlotte has ogled her boots that have a little mud; and making his body a hideous obstacle:

  "Go through the corridor," she said. That way, sir will not hear you.

  The "corridor" is the long dark corridor of the neighboring building. This building belongs to Father Bansberg, and to allow the Marquis de Varmand to have a special entrance, he had a door opened. From there, a staircase goes directly to the second floor of the mansion.

  - Is! Katarina said.

  What offends her, what puts her out of her mind, is not to be treated in this way. It's people's indifference to Johan. Is it possible that there are indifferent people today, when this delicious being is between life and death!

  And she feels embarrassed, to think that she will be in front of M. de Varmand, perpetual singer, who will know nothing yet and who will have his good smile of bald and facetious Napoleon III ...

  How sweet he is, M. de Varmand! He is not gay. Not cheerful at all.

  It is planted as a term.

  What! Song point? No smile? ... Eh! it is this diary which he keeps and which carries in headline: The disaster of Saint Maur.

  - You already know! What a misfortune, say!

  - What! What? the Marquis fears.

  - You have not read the newspaper? The disaster of Saint Maur ...

  - Well! my dear little? … No. I was going to read. What do you have, Lord? ...

  That's still to tell. There are some who would find a relief, even a kind of pleasure, to trace thus, all the time, better and better, the dramatic adventure. But Katarina, how far she is!

  - Sit down, my child.

  The story is started. But the storyteller can do, the strangeness of this workshop always cuts her breath. She will never get used to the macabre dance of this skeleton that rattles with rattling every time you move the door. Never again does this thing, which she discovers when she turns to sit down, has moved her likewise, moved to fright.

  4 – SOUL PAINTER

  It must be known: M. de Varmand, in his youth, had given his master Ronnat the best hopes. But by the age of twenty-five, the new trends in painting had led him into a dangerous path.

  Thirsty for originality, in love with the mysterious splendors of light and color, the young man had become in a few months what our fathers (the fools!) Named a decadent.

  Farewell, reasonable and lucrative portraits! Farewell, life almost bourgeois, the workshop severe and well stocked! Farewell, petty dreams (what he said!) Of honorary rewards, official commissions, or even an Institute?

  His parents, the crazy believer, were sorry.

  They were wrong, in the sense that their fortune being round, their son could live on his rents while waiting to produce revolutionary masterpieces (do we
ever know?).

  They were right, in this other sense, that, as soon as they died, M. de Varmand hastened to defenestrate the money with so much activity, that he was soon left alone and almost naked, having only his art and a friend.

  His art, to be minted, was not worth much. At that time, art lovers dared not venture, nor did the merchants.

  But the friend had value. It was the notary Edgar Bansberg, rich man and bizarre heart, infatuated with this painter, his "Marquis", for his joyous humor, his disinterestedness, his bold ideas, and especially for this inclination that inclined them both to study. from beyond.