Some day, it was stipulated in our solemn agreement, I was to go up in the contraption, to an altitude of three hundred metres… Some Sunday… I’d be second in command… a different title… He told me that, I suppose, to make me mind my mending… The old buzzard was pretty sly under those shaggy eyebrows!… He looked at me out of his mean little eyes… I was on to his game… As a soft-soap artist he had no equal!… He was giving me a song and dance!… But we ate pretty well in the back room… I wasn’t too unhappy… Naturally he had to take me for a ride! Or he wouldn’t have been the boss!
At about four o’clock, when I was knee-deep in my sewing, he’d
look in.
“Ferdinand!” he’d say. “I’m closing up… If anybody comes… if anybody asks for me, tell them I stepped out five minutes ago. Anyway I’ll make it fast! I won’t be long!”
Putting two and two together, I knew where he was going. He’d run down to the Insurrection, the little bar at the corner of the Passage Villedo and the Rue Radziwill, for the racing results… That was the time they came out… He never told me anything definite… But I knew… When he had won, he came back whistling a maxixe… That wasn’t very often… When he’d lost, he’d chew on his quid and spit in all directions… He’d check up in Turf, his dope sheet, which he always left lying around… He’d mark his ponies with blue pencil… This was the first vice I detected in him.
* * *
If he wasn’t too eager to take me on, it was mostly on account of the horses… He was afraid I’d blab… go noising it around the neighbourhood that he played in Vincennes… that the subscribers would get wind of it. He told me so later… He lost stupendously… he wasn’t very lucky. Whether he tried a combination or bet with his eyes closed, he lost his money… Maisons, Saint-Cloud or Chantilly, it was always the same story… A bottomless pit… All the subscription money went into the “classics”!… And the dough he took in with the balloon was swallowed up in Auteuil… The Equine Race* was rolling in clover! Longchamp! La Porte! Arcueil-Cachan! Giddyup giddyup, and down the drain! I could see the cash drawer going down. There was no great mystery… Our petty cash was always running with the ponies!… Trotting! Limping! To win! To place! To come in fourth!… Simple or fancy, it made no difference!… He’d never get back when he went to see about those proofs! We ate beans to be able to shell out for the printer… My veal stew had to last all week, and we ate on our knees with a napkin in the back of the shop… It didn’t seem so very funny to me!… When he’d lost heavily, he didn’t explain, he never admitted it… But he’d get vindictive, touchy, aggressive with me… He’d abuse his power.
After a trial period of two months, he fully realized that I’d never be happy anywhere else… That the Génitron routine was right down my alley, that it suited me fine, that anywhere else or in any other racket I’d be impossible… That was my destiny… When he chanced to win, he’d never put anything back in the till, he got stingier than ever, like he was trying to get even. He’d have curry-combed a penny… Always sly and deceitful, worse than a dozen false bosoms… He told me such whoppers they’d stick in my craw at night… They were so steep, so crummy, so indigestible, I’d mull them over… They woke me up with a start. Sometimes he really overdid it… he’d dream up any damn thing… so as not to pay me… But when he came home from the provinces, when he’d put on a good show with his balloon and made a sensation… when they’d bowled him over with compliments… and the Enthusiast hadn’t split too many seams… there’d be an outburst of generosity… He’d spend like mad… He’d bring in piles of grub through the back door… whole baskets full… For a week we shovelled in so much we couldn’t chew any more… our suspenders were bursting… You had to make hay while the sun was shining, because soon there’d be famine!… The ragouts would begin again!… We’d stretch the stew… with pickles… with sardines… with little onions… And around towards rent time there’d be strictly bread soup, with or without potatoes… He at least was lucky, he’d be getting another meal in the evening with his old lady! He wouldn’t lose any weight… I wouldn’t get beans!
From going hungry I began to wise up too… I operated with the subscriptions… The business didn’t have any regular receipts… only expenses… He knocked himself out with his bookkeeping… He had to show his wife the books. Her supervision exasperated him… It put him into a vile temper… He’d sweat for hours… Nothing but loops and zeroes…
All the same there was one department where he never cheated me, never disappointed me, never once bluffed me or let me down! I’m referring to my scientific education. On that score he never weakened, never hesitated a second!… He always came through!… As long as I listened to him, he was always happy, delighted, overjoyed… He was always ready to give me an hour, two hours and more, sometimes he’d spend whole days explaining something or other… Anything that can be understood, solved, communicated, in connection with the direction of the winds, the movements of the moon, the functioning of heating installations, the ripening of cucumbers, the reflections of the rainbow… Yes! Teaching was really a consuming passion with him. He’d have liked to teach me everything in the world and from time to time play a mean trick on me! He couldn’t help it… in either case! I used to think it all over in the back room, while mending his contraption… That was his nature, he was a man who had to work off his energy… He had to throw himself wholeheartedly in one direction or another, he never did things by halves. He wasn’t boring! No, you could never accuse him of that! What I’d really have liked to do was to visit his home some day… He often spoke to me of his old lady, but he never let me see her. She never came to the office. She didn’t care for the Génitron. She must have had her reasons.
* * *
When my mother was perfectly sure I was all set, that I wasn’t going to pick up and leave, that I had a steady job with this des Pereires, she came over to the Palais-Royal in person, to bring me some underwear… It was really a pretext… she wanted to look around, to see what the place was like… She was as curious as a titmouse, she always wanted to see, to find out about everything… What was the Génitron like? And my lodgings? Was I getting enough to eat?
It wasn’t very far from her shop to our place… No more than fifteen minutes’ walk… Even so, she was groaning with fatigue when she got there… She was completely wiped out… I saw her in the distance… from the end of the Galerie. I was talking with a subscriber. She was leaning on the shop windows, resting without letting on… every twenty metres she’d stop… She looked awfully thin, and besides she’d gone sallow, her eyelids and cheeks had shrivelled, she was all wrinkled around the eyes. She really looked sick… She gave me my socks, my drawers and my big handkerchiefs, and then right away she started talking about Papa, though I hadn’t asked… He’d feel the effects of my assault to his dying day, she sobbed. Twice already they’d brought him home from the office in a cab… He could hardly stand up… He had fainting spells all the time… He sent word that he gladly forgave me, but that he didn’t want to see me again… not for a long time… not before my military service… until my looks and mentality had changed completely… when I got back from the army…
Courtial des Pereires was just coming back from a stroll, probably to the Insurrection. Maybe he hadn’t dropped as much as usual… in any case he was extremely polite all of a sudden, as charming and friendly as he could be… “delighted to meet her”… And about me? Reassuring! Right away he set out to charm my mother, he asked her upstairs for a chat… in his private office… on the “Tunisian” mezzanine… She had difficulty in following him… It was a horrible corkscrew staircase and to make matters worse it was littered with piles of rubbish and papers that made you skid. He was mighty proud of his “Tunisian office”. He wanted to show it to everybody. It was a devastating layout in the hyper-poky style, with “Alcazar” cabinets… You couldn’t conceive of anything crummier… And then the Moorish coffee pot, the Morocc
an ottomans, the fringed shaggy carpet that stored up a whole ton of dust all by itself… Nothing had ever been done about it… not even the slightest attempt at cleaning… Anyway the heaps of printed matter, the mountains, the cataracts of proof, of type, of newsprint lying around would have mocked any effort… Actually, there’s no denying it, it would have been dangerous… To come around troubling the equilibrium would be taking a big risk… The only way was to leave it perfectly intact, to move things as little as possible… Better still, I soon found out, was to toss on new layers of litter as you went along. That gave the surface a certain freshness… a kind of gloss.
I heard them talking… Courtial told her frankly that he had discerned in me a real aptitude for the kind of journalism that was just what the Génitron needed… reporting!… Technical investigation!… Scientific research!… Objective criticism… that I was sure to get ahead… that she could go home with an easy mind and sleep soundly… that the future was already smiling on me… it would all be mine as soon as I’d acquired all the essential knowledge. It was a matter of simple routine and patience… He’d gradually teach me all I needed… But all that took time!… Ah yes, he had no use for haste! Thoughtless precipitation!… No use trying to force matters!… To go too fast! That would be idiotic waste! Anyway, according to his song and dance, I displayed a keen desire for education!… Moreover, I was learning to be clever with my hands. I did the little jobs that came my way to perfection… I was managing very nicely… I was getting to be as nimble as a monkey! Eager! Intelligent! Hard-working! Discreet! In short, a dream! He went on and on… It was the first time in her life that my poor mama had heard anybody speak of me in such glowing colours… She couldn’t get over it… At the end of the interview, as she was leaving, he insisted on her taking a whole book of subscription blanks to distribute at random among her connections and acquaintances… She promised to do anything he pleased… She gaped at him in bewilderment… Courtial had no shirt on, only his varnished shirt front over his flannel vest, but the vest always went way up over his collar… he took an extra-large size, it formed a kind of ruff, and of course it was completely filthy… In winter he wore two of them, one on top of the other… In the summer, even during hot spells, he wore his long frock coat, his lacquered collar down a little lower, no socks, and he brought out his boater. He took meticulous care of it… It was a unique item, a real masterpiece of the sombrero type, a gift from South America, a rare weave! Impossible to match… In short, it was priceless!… From the first of June to the fifteenth of September he kept it on his head. He hardly ever took it off… except for some extra-special reason… He was sure somebody’d steal it!… That was his biggest worry on Sundays, before going up in his balloon… But there was no help for it, he had to exchange it for his cap, the tall one with the braid… That was part of his uniform… He entrusted his treasure to me… But the moment he’d touched the ground, the moment he’d rolled like a rabbit into the muck and come bouncing over the furrows, that was his first cry: “Hey, my panama! Ferdinand! My panama, damn it!…”
My mother noticed the thickness of the flannel vest right off and the fine quality of the prize hat… He let her feel the weave, to give her an idea… For quite some time she was lost in admiration, exclaiming: “Oh! Ttt! Oh! Ttt!… Ah, monsieur, I can see that. It’s the kind of straw they don’t make any more!” She was in ecstasy!…
All this restored my mother’s confidence… a good omen… She was particularly fond of flannel vests… they indicated solidity of character, she’d never gone wrong. After fond farewells, she gradually started on her way… For the first time in her life and mine I think she was a little less worried about my future and my fate.
* * *
It was perfectly true that I threw myself into my work!… From morning to night I had no chance to loaf… In addition to my cargoes of printed matter, I had the Enthusiast in the cellar, the endless mending, and our pigeons that I had to look after two or three times a day… Those critters lived all week in the maid’s room on the sixth floor, under the eaves… They cooed like mad… They never felt gloomy. Their working day was Sunday, they’d be taken out in a basket for a ride in the balloon… At two or three hundred metres Courtial would raise the lid… They’d be released… with “messages”!… They’d all fly straight home… to the Palais-Royal!… The window’d be left open for them… They never dawdled on the way, they didn’t care for the country, they didn’t like to bum around… They flew back automatically… They loved their attic and their roo-coo-crooing. That’s all they wanted. It never stopped… They were always home before us. I’ve never known pigeons less enthusiastic about travelling, so enamoured of peace and quiet… And I left their windows wide open… It never occurred to them to take a turn around the garden… to go calling on the sparrows… or the fat grey cooers gallivanting on the lawns… around the fountains… and once in a while on the statues! On Desmoulins!… Or old Vic!…* Dropping their beauty marks!… Not at all! They kept to themselves… they were perfectly happy in their attic, they left it only under duress, when they were tossed into their basket… They were pretty expensive though, on account of the grain… It takes quantities, pigeons eat a lot. They’re pigs! You wouldn’t expect it!… It’s on account of their high body temperature, normally forty-two and a few tenths… I swept up their droppings carefully… I made several little piles along the wall and I let them dry… That made up some for their food… It was excellent fertilizer… When I had a whole sackful, about twice a month, Courtial took it away, he used it in his garden… in Montretout on the hill… where he had his tony villa and his experimental garden… there’s no better manure…
I got along fine with the pigeons, they reminded me a little of Jongkind… I taught them tricks… Naturally after they got to know me, they ate out of my hand… But I did a lot better than that, I got them to perch on a broomstick, all twelve of them at once… I even managed to carry them down to the shop… and back up again without their moving, without a single one of them deciding to fly away… They were really sedentary. When it came time to throw them in the basket and push off, they got terribly sad. They didn’t coo at all. They hid their heads in their feathers. They hated it.
* * *
Two more months passed… Little by little Courtial gained confidence in me. He was convinced that we were made to get along… I had a lot of advantages, I wasn’t very particular about food or pay or working hours… I never complained!… As long as I was free in the evening, as long as nobody bothered me after seven o’clock, I felt I was well off…
From the moment he lit out for his train, I was the one and only boss of the shop and paper… I got rid of the inventors… I soft-soaped them… then I started out on a cruise, often heading for the shipping office on the Rue Rambuteau, pulling the cart loaded with copies of the rag. At the beginning of the week I had to bring back proofs, the types and plates and engravings. What with the pigeons, the Enthusiast and a million other odds and ends, there was never any let-up… He dropped everything and pushed off for the sticks. He had urgent work out there, so he said. Hm! Neo-agriculture!… He said it with a straight face… but I was convinced it was hokum… Sometimes he forgot to come back, he’d stay out for two or three days… that didn’t worry me… I’d take a little rest, I needed it… I’d feed the pigeons up in the attic, then I’d paste up a sign in the middle of the shop window: “Closed for the day”… I’d go and take it easy on a bench, under the trees nearby… From there I watched the joint, the people coming and going… I saw them in the distance, always the same gang of dopes, the same lunatics, the same haggard faces, the old crowd of bellyachers, the disgruntled subscribers… They bumped into the sign, they massacred the door handle, they beat it… That was fine with me.
When his nibs came back from his spree, he had a weird look… He eyed me curiously to see if I suspected anything…
“I was detained,” he said. “The experiment wasn�
��t quite perfected… I thought I’d never be finished!…”
“Ah! That’s too bad,” I said. “I hope you made out all right in the end…”
Little by little, he filled me in, he told me a little more each day, he gave me all the details about the beginnings of his racket… There were some pretty wild stories, gimmicks that could end you in the cemetery! How it had started, the ups and downs, the risky dodges, the shady little deals… He told me the whole story, which was pretty strange when you think of his rotten character, his innumerable suspicions and all his calamities and hard luck… He wasn’t the complaining kind… But the troubles and messes he’d been through were unbelievable!… It was no rest cure monkeying around with inventors!… Don’t get the wrong slant!… Oh no! Some of those boys were real savages, absolutely diabolical… they’d go off like dynamite if they felt they’d been taken… And naturally you can’t hope to please everybody! The devil and his brother-in-law! That would be too sweet. I knew something about that myself… In that connection he gave me an example of malice that was really hair-raising… The lengths people will go to…
In 1884 he’d got an order from Beaupoil and Brandon on the Quai des Ursulines, the publishers of Epoch, for a textbook intended for the second programme of the Preliminary Schools… A concise work, of course, but carefully executed, elementary but compact! Specially condensed… The Home Astronomer, the little book was entitled, with the subtitle: Gravitation Explained to the Whole Family. So he goes to work… He dives right in… he might have contented himself with delivering a brief work on the specified date, a rushed job full of inept borrowings from foreign periodicals… slapdash, corrupt, garbled quotations, and in three shakes of a lamb’s tail constructed a new cosmogony a thousand times lousier than all the other miniature handbooks, full of mistakes and absolutely senseless… Utterly useless!… As everyone knew, that wasn’t Courtial’s way of doing things. He was conscientious! His chief concern when he sat down to a piece of work was to get tangible results… He wanted his reader to form his own ideas in person, by his own observations… about the most essential aspects of the work… the stars and gravitation… to discover the laws for himself… He wanted to force the always indolent reader to do real laboratory work and not just cajole him with flattering flimflam… He’d appended a little set of instructions: how to build a “family telescope”… A few squares of cardboard provided the darkroom… a few cheap mirrors… an ordinary lens… a few lengths of pliable wire… a cardboard packing tube… By strictly following the instructions you could do it for seventeen francs, seventy-two (reckoned to the centime)… for that price (in addition to the exciting and instructive work) you could obtain in your own home, not only a direct view of the principal constellations, but also photographs of most of the large stars of our zenith… “All sidereal observations made available to the family”… that was his formula… As soon as the booklet came out, more than twenty-five thousand readers started without a moment’s delay to build the thing, the marvellous miniature photo-sidereal device…
Death on Credit Page 40