Welcome to Créon, she says to Sébastien.
19
Immediately upon his arrival, he was installed in a wooden lodge, a kind of chalet, which Balthazar’s father Louis de Créon, who died of consumption in 1739, while still in his twenties, had built at the far end of the grounds in order to devote himself undisturbed to the art of the miniature.
The lodge, covered in Virginia creeper and wisteria, consists of two rooms: a bedroom and a study, whose walls are hung with miniatures. They do not depict faces, but apparently idyllic country scenes; only when examined closely do they reveal certain disquieting details: a pond tinged with purple, a hanged man swinging from a branch, an animal choked by a snare, a road obstructed by a mass of fallen rocks, a cutlass driven into a tree trunk. At the foot of the desk are heaps of little canvas bags filled with simples. The hearth is constantly aglow, as there is always some concoction simmering in a pot. The bucolic lair has been transformed into an apothecary’s dispensary. Sébastien tests his preparations on the Créons and their servants. Most of the time, the results are convincing. Which gives credence to Balthazar’s prediction that sooner or later his friend will becomes the king’s doctor. He visits him every day. In the evening, they dine in the chateau, in the company of Anne de Créon. Yesterday, a place was laid for Saint-Polgues, who was passing through on his way to Paris. The conversation was of ancestors and court intrigues. Glittering, uncontroversial chatter, until all at once the Princesse declared that the authority she had once had over her son was on the wane. That cast a chill over the table. They parted soon afterwards. And Sébastien went back to Louis de Créon’s miniatures.
20
He has seen the Virginia creeper turn brown, then lose its leaves, he has seen the rain become a daily occurrence, turning the trees and the sand and the flower banks blue or grey, depending on the time of day, he has seen autumn and winter. He has now spent four months in his wooden lodge.
Balthazar always walks him back after dinner. They sit by the fire. There are evenings when Créon says little. A man who keeps silent may touch the emotions. It was during one of the first of these intimate, almost silent sessions that Sébastien discovered how carnal silence may be. Thanks to Créon’s silence, he learns to savor the waiting, to imagine what tomorrow will be like, to be silent himself, the better to dream of what is and what will be, of all the possibilities gathered on a threshold still invisible but anticipated. But Créon always takes his leave, always long after midnight. And then the silence that surrounds Sébastien is quite strange, the silence of absence, a silence that drives away sleep. It is possible to lose oneself in it, as in all things.
And tomorrow becomes today.
Balthazar knocks at the door of the chalet a little earlier each afternoon. One of these past days, he declared himself a tutor. He wants Sébastien to learn to read and write, to learn to count, to memorize thankless facts. He teaches him grammar and a smattering of Latin. The pupil is gifted, Balthazar convinces himself; the pupil sometimes expresses his disappointment at some rule or theorem. Is that all it is? he says in surprise. When they go for a walk in the grounds, it is Sébastien’s turn to give a name to things and to reveal the daily life of plants and animals. Here is a shrike and here is an oriole, there is the bellflower, there the starflower. It is not unusual for them to venture beyond the gates. With Sébastien, it is impossible to get lost.
Four months, six months, a year.
21
Much to Anne de Créon’s displeasure, Balthazar seems to be in no hurry to go back to Versailles. He has been sent for. The King has informed him, through Saint-Polgues, that he is getting impatient. But Balthazar delays his departure. He has even written a brief missive to his monarch, explaining that a strange wasting disease has confined him to his bed. The tone was expeditious, to say the least. It was not well received. He is lying, they say in Versailles, he is handsome and witty but he is a liar. They begin to suspect him of plotting a rebellion, or indulging in some scandalous pleasure, or practicing alchemy. He is a buggerer, they whisper to the King, one who obtains his gold from dark sources. The rumors reach the chateau, the Princesse grows anxious, Balthazar answers his mother’s warnings with these words: I am here and they are there. He shrugs, he idles and daydreams, sometimes he even neglects Sébastien and his future. Another day dawns, another night gathers, but he forgets even the passing of time, he forgets that he belongs to this world.
22
God, how commonplace it is to have enemies, how commonplace is naivety, and hatred, and narrow-mindedness, and cowardice, and jealousy, and cunning, and death too, of course, death that comes and goes, a great walker, and madness, and fear, and infatuation. As for love, that is much less commonplace, less than death anyway, but death comes and goes, it is there, it will arise, a distinct event, clearly demarcated, unadorned, death is not a fable. Oh God, how commonplace also are the wind and the rain, the snow, the elements, everything in fact, they too come and go, they come and go but they are not death, not always, they are not its messengers, not always.
And let us not neglect men. Most are insignificant, except them, these two lovers Balthazar de Créon and Sébastien Faure, they are not insignificant, they cannot be, here they are: magnificent.
23
An incurable sodomite, they say of Créon.
Terrible stories circulate about him, at Court, in the countryside, and no doubt in the chateau too.
They surround him like an aura.
Terrifying, but untouchable.
He organizes saturnalia that end in murders, they say.
He is one of the damned.
And as rich as Croesus.
Tall stories, sighs Créon.
He is an ogre, they say.
A tall story, fairy tales, but what is his story?
Who are you, Balthazar de Créon? the local prelate is tempted to ask him.
Nobody can touch him here, on his own lands, he tells his mother.
Anguish is buried deep in his being, silent as yet, but prodigious. It finds expression in an irrepressible need for tenderness. More even than that: in the need to express his desire for Sébastien.
The man they think of as an ogre is a virgin.
24
These days, visitors to the Créon chateau are shown, in what was once the Princesse’s salon—no fire in the hearth, no lighted candles—a series of five tapestries depicting the intellectual exchanges between a Greek philosopher and his disciple. Balthazar and Sébastien were the models for these tapestries. The figures do not look at you, they seem absorbed in their own feverish complicity. If you visit this room, which is known as the Lovers’ Salon, you will not linger for long. You will feel unwelcome. You will fall silent, and to them your silence is a noise from the outside world. Approach this tapestry, or that one, and when you are close you will become aware of whispers, the rustle of fabrics. You will hear the vows they make each other. It is impossible to take down these tapestries, so it is said. They are in urgent need of restoration, they are a sorry sight, but, so you have been told, it is impossible to take them off the walls. The walls and the tapestries have become one. In ten years, perhaps even earlier, they will fall to pieces, they will be nothing but rags, they will disappear. We will have to rely on photographs for an idea of how those lovers looked. They will vanish, they will be at peace. There will be no farewell.
Miniatures are on display in one of the chateau’s boudoirs. Some carry a signature—Louis de Créon—others are unsigned.
The grounds cover a mere tenth of their original area. As for the wooden house, nothing remains of it, and nobody is even sure where exactly it stood. Was it there, where the big pond surrounded by gorse bushes now lies? Or there, on that area of lawn? Or there, where they have built an arbor?
But what are these whispers, this rustle of fabric? The lovers?
25
May the fire and the hate spare us, Anne de Créon writes to her cousin.
The rumors about her son are sprea
ding. From Paris, she is sent lampoons in which he is slandered, branded a seducer of pretty boys, a werewolf, a vampire.
Balthazar shrugs. He is not the kind of person to laugh.
False testimonies are fabricated.
What is true and what is false? Anne wonders.
The Princesse de Créon has a son, and her son is a monster.
Whenever she tries to warn Balthazar, he sends her back to her needlework, sends the titled gossips of Versailles back to their hunts and their balls.
He says: I’m going for a walk. In a wooden lodge is a young man. What they feel for one another has a name.
But what is the world coming to? Anne laments.
Who is untouchable? And who isn’t?
She writes less and less frequently to her cousin.
Self-questioning, anxiety, presentiments, a faraway look in her eyes. She is suddenly aware of what quicksand is, and fear, and a gathering storm. Tomorrow is no longer just another day.
26
Madame,” Balthazar said to her once, “Madame, you are my father’s wife, and you are no more allowed to weep than he was. But I, Madame, cannot hold back my tears. They flow sometimes, they are mine, they are precious to me. Why suppress them? I am sure I am like no one else. Not you, in any case, nor my father. Whose son am I, Madame? Tell me that.”
What has she passed on to her son?
What does a mother pass on?
She has no idea, no, she has no idea.
Be quiet, she told him.
27
That Balthazar is a sodomite is something she will never get over.
That he is a murderer is something she cannot believe.
That he must end up at the stake makes her love for him all the stronger.
28
They are equals, that is what Balthazar tells his mother, loud and clear. He and Sébastien. One is not the shadow of the other.
He is a sorcerer, Anne de Créon tells herself, this Sébastien is a sorcerer. An exceptional purveyor of narcotics, expectorant syrups, powders to banish ulcers and tumors. Young Faure successfully treats every one of her colds, every one of her fevers. Since he arrived, she has had no aches and pains, she has stopped being obsessed with her own body, she has been in rude health. Now Anne de Créon’s one fear is that her son’s life will end in flames. But she tries to put her mind at rest: Our young sorcerer will surely come up with a remedy that confers immortality. She clings to the hope that neither time nor man will have any hold over Balthazar, or her, or them, the Créons. There are evenings when Sébastien nods off beside her, in the salon, his thigh against hers. While he dozes, she has the impression that she is moving in pure water, floating in an indestructible, shimmering, reassuringly tangible universe. Sébastien has become part of her life.
29
He cannot stand her. Often during the week, very early in the morning, she sends for him. He has to cross the grounds, climb some steps, must shut himself up in a room with drawn curtains. She is not fully dressed when she receives him. She does not think of him as a man. But he is her present and her future. How much progress has he made with the potion that will guarantee them immortality? He laughs, then says, excitedly: This drug perhaps, and hands her a flask. She drinks the concoction, she knows he is deceiving her, she sends him back to his stills. After leaving her he walks along a corridor, climbs a staircase, knocks at a door.
30
He has reached Balthazar’s apartments. He slips a note under the door. One line, no more than that, the name of a place.
The Vauclair Meadow.
Or the Vulcain Grove.
Or the Marcy Clearing.
Or the road to Les Guerdes.
The meeting is arranged. Balthazar has not missed a single one.
31
They stroll beneath the branches, beside a hedge, they cross an area of grazing land.
Sébastien neglects his studies and his inventions.
When their walk is over, there is the chalet, there is the room, there is the bed.
It is now a week since they threw their chastity to the winds.
One day, at the sight of a certain stake, Sébastien will begin to recite, in a low voice, that same sweet litany: The Vauclair Meadow, the Vulcain Grove, the Marcy Clearing, the road to Les Guerdes. An inaudible prayer over the inferno.
32
They are lovers. That is all they want to be. They are at the beginning of their story. Love and passion indistinguishable one from the other.
Yes, he neglects his test tubes and his cauldron.
To paint. He wants to be a painter. But how to depict what dazzles you? So paint a bestiary, paint skies.
Paint the night, the wind, the rain, the stars. And paint the day—blue and gold sometimes.
He asks Balthazar for brushes and pigments.
33
Gently but firmly, Balthazar makes his handsome lover see reason.
He must not desert his laboratory.
Sébastien promises.
He refrains from judging his lover’s refusal. For that would mean entering a dangerous area: What does their love consist of? Can one be disappointed and still love?
To paint the night—black with a few streaks of silver.
To grind colors, and then paint.
He decides against repeating his request. And now, whether through weakness or timidity, an obsession takes hold.
To say, “I love you,” and feel as if you are dangling over an abyss.
34
He is yielding, he will yield, he has thought it over.
You will be a painter. Like my father.
An austere, reserved man, a hermit, a good man, what more is there to say about him, what more to add, how strange not to be able to describe him more fully.
You will be a painter.
To surrender, to yield to the other’s desire, to avoid creating a rift between them, and to think of his father: such a thing has never happened to him before.
35
You gossip. You curse. And then you kill. That is the cruel logic.
What is the exact definition of an abyss, of tragedy, of hell? Anne de Créon writes in her diary.
Since Balthazar refuses to go to Versailles and scotch the rumors, she will go herself.
One morning in November 1751, Anne de Créon climbs into her coach. She will precede her son to Court. She will keep her eyes and ears open, she will judge for herself how much hate there is for her child.
Farewell, make sure you join me soon.
For the first time, the thought of Versailles fills her with panic. Its gardens, its stables, its salons, its bedrooms—a trap, a nightmare, darkness.
36
She has gone, but she lurks, something of her remains. He has never thought so much about her. Absent, she is suddenly real.
Be suspicious of everyone, give up Sébastien, come to Versailles, be my son again, she said to him, shortly before leaving. He fulminates against her voice still echoing around him, endlessly prattling unseen, working hard to turn him away from his love, giving him absurd advice, a fount of common sense and good behavior. He becomes irritable, he is like a caged animal. What to do? He suddenly realizes how much danger he is in. It is possible that he will drag Sébastien down with him, inevitably, he realizes that now. Is he irresponsible? Perhaps. But how to resist certain visions, they will be together, they will experience the flames together.
37
The wall clock in the dark red salon sounds the hours.
One hour ties itself to the one that precedes it, and another hooks on to the one that follows it, all with a genuinely glacial indifference.
Yes, it chills the blood.
And so time passes, time spent brooding on grim thoughts.
How many hours does one have to be alive before one can speak of a life?
It is now two years since Balthazar de Créon last set foot on the smallest step of the slightest staircase in Versailles. He is no longer the same as he was t
hen. He is still a prince, but a prince in whom love has been sealed.
Is it really necessary to go all the way to Paris, to Versailles? In her missives, which are filled with information about Versailles and the King, Anne de Créon maintains that it is, with even more energy and pertinence than when she was queen on her lands.
Cut through this heap of nonsense they are saying about you! React! Beg an audience with the King! Do what needs to be done. Am I to believe what they say about you? Think of me, think of your name, think of your dead, do not despise them, do not abandon them.
He writes to her to say that he will go to Versailles. In a week, he and Sébastien will be on the roads. Is she satisfied now?
38
The coach with its high wheels, its well oiled axles, its restored gilt, is like a large insect. It is weighed down with chests and trunks. In a casket are three miniatures wrapped in velvet. These works show promise.
Skulls, a statue, a hat on a bench; corn, a horse, someone—a peasant or a vagabond; a basin, a flight of cranes, an avenue, a tree like no known species. To Sébastien’s taste, they ought to be made darker, transforming noon to twilight.
Don’t spare the horses, coachman!
The roads are in such a pitiful state, they are constantly thrown against one another.
Balthazar keeps trying to caress his lover, Sébastien’s only thoughts are for palette, brushes and paint pots.
Lovers (9781609459192) Page 2