North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  In Harras’s cupboard there was at least a three-year supply of tobacco … enough Navy Cut and Cravens for ten years … Lucides for six months … I could see us getting fat … those rotten schemers … the cripple, Kracht, Inge, etc. … had another think coming! … they thought they could wear us down … they’d forgotten about diplomacy … if you find a stopgap, you can wait … in our case, Harras’s supplies … people get bored with everything … even the most aggressive cocktails … but the weed? something else again! … practically more in demand than life! … what do people choose before the ax falls? rum? … tobacco? … the cigarette’s the winner … I could see that with our little gimmick we’d get along fine without coupons … except they’d get mean when they saw we were taking them for a ride … ferocious … high time to be figuring a way of getting out of there … before they pulled something on us … of course I had an idea … two three four of them … I’m not very smart but I’ve got my hunches … I’m not optimistic … I’ve been weighing the pros … and the cons … for months … without telling a soul … either Lili or Le Vig … we’d see … there at the moment I was wondering what they’d said … first in our tower niche and then up there at the heiress’s they’d done more than question the tables! … they’d eaten, very well in fact, I could see by the strawberry tarts, the pickled goose, sardines, and white bread that Lili had set aside for us … it seemed there’d been ten times more! …

  “And the Gypsy?”

  She’d used a special little table … the legs had moved … first one, then another …

  “What did it say?”

  “The same things!”

  That the two of us, Le Vig and me, would pass through flames and more flames! and then we’d be shut up in a big dark house … pitch-dark with bars.

  Flames was easy … you only had to look outside … any direction … and all those squadrons coming in from the east and north weren’t going to drop cookies on the landscape! … the way everything was jiggling, the walls, the tables, the floor, we could have predicted a thing or two ourselves! the secrets of the future! … that the Fortresses’ footballs would plow up all the best fields, plus the Nazis! and the landed gentry and the old maids and the Landrat with his bracelets and the anti-volunteer workers, and the bibels, that the whole lot would be visiting the clouds! … you only had to see the billows of smoke … ocher and black … that seemed to be coming straight at us … forests? … oil? … factories? … the planes took no precautions at all … like routine training flights … they flew through the night with all their lights blinking … they’d be sure to clobber Moorsburg when there were no more ruins left in Berlin … and turn the houses inside out! … the manor and everything else would be reduced to one very small crater … when the whole Greater Reich, motherfucking Prussia and Brandenburg were wiped out! … a very good reason for not letting the grass grow! … we didn’t need any Gypsy woman, if it was a woman, and her tables! … to tell us it was time to clear out … But spirits and cookies weren’t the whole story … Marie-Thérèse had told Lili to take anything she pleased from the old boy’s library … next door to her drawing room … I saw what Lili had taken … all Paul de Kock … all Murger … and serious stuff for me and Le Vig! … the Revue des Deux Mondes for the last seventy-five years … the Life of the Stars by Flammarion … the women had all helped to tote the books down, the Gypsy too, and arrange them in order by date and number, to make our tower room look a bit furnished and presentable … the funny part of it is that we had time to read it all! … novels, essays, criticism, speeches … I can therefore state, documentary evidence, that kings, deputies, and ministers have always, from decade to decade, spouted the same inanities … only very occasionally, here and there … a little surprise … something a little more … or less … idiotic … that novelists keep writing the same novels, a few cuckolds more or less, a bit more or less off-color, more or less fireworks, fags, poisons, and Brownings … all reinforced by a skein of solemn thoughts … Tallemant ° is all you need, he’s compact and gives you everything, money, crimes, and love … in less than three pages … and you can see that the critics, from magazine to magazine and century to century, put the same foot in their mouths and never stop being absolutely all wet … twittering over shit, the more abysmal it is the harder they jerk off … frantic, fervent, jaculant, panting! on their knees! … the magazines off the top shelves are always amazingly timely … always the same Suez Canal … always twenty imminent wars! … always the population increasing … after a while you’re so sure of what’s coming that you can’t read any more … you’re absolutely fed up …

  I’ve talked a lot about eats … don’t go taking me for a glutton! … not in the least! … but we’d been eating so little I was afraid we’d be too weak to move … it’s all very well to dream of doing a cross-country run! … but when your legs are giving out? … that happened a little later, in Denmark … after my time in stir … there they finished me, I aged a hundred years in two … the guards there are real technicians, they know their business … a hundred years in less than two …

  But there in Zornhof with my canes I was still able to walk more or less … after that prison I couldn’t … I’m not complaining … some people I see around, with cancer of the rectum and still a hundred percent active, agents of the Interior, high-geared head-breakers! … I could take a leaf from their book … and exasperate my public … “Good gracious! that’s blasphemy! isn’t that monster dead yet? …”

  Those people’s jittering impatience comes from not reading the Revue des Deux Mondes for the last hundred years … if they did, they’d realize that somebody else is on his way up … a thousand times worse in view of the historic trend! … a thousand times more hate-ridden, an abominable cockroach! …

  There in Zomhof, Brandenburg … we might have thought they’d shaken us up enough … don’t make me laugh! … they were still on the banderillas … the serious business came later … all the same, we felt we’d been through a thing or two in Montmartre, Sartrouville, La Rochelle, Bezons, Baden-Baden, and Berlin …

  Was I going to tell Lili what had happened at the farm? … Inge’s leap! … her jealous cripple! his fit! … the shotgun! … no! maybe later … she’s brought down a beautiful five-pronged candelabrum from upstairs, from the heiress’s … but there was only one candle … it didn’t give much light … but even so … they’d be sure to see the glow from the park …

  “Don’t you think so, Le Vig?”

  Just then, as though by prearrangement, a bugle blast from outside … must be Hjalmar! … nobody else has a bugle …

  “Le Vig, die candle!”

  We jump … we put it out … Le Vig snuffs it … somebody’s calling … they’re calling us … from the park…

  “Franzosen! … franzosen!”

  It’s us they want all right … let ‘em come up! … maybe it’s not Hjalmar … now he’s drumming! drrrrr! … it must be him! … he doesn’t want to come up? … he’s afraid? … okay, well go down … but not in the dark! … we’ll need the candle for the stairs … just too bad if they don’t like it …

  “Light her up again!”

  A very treacherous descent … even step by step … even with a candle …

  “Well tell the sap to come up … douse the glim!”

  I open the big door … it’s him all right, Hjalmar … with the pastor … what do they want?

  “Schlüssel! schlüssel!”

  He wants the key … what key? … he shows me the pastor’s wrist, the handcuff … what had I done with it? … I remember … right! … I’d put it in my pocket while the two of them were sleeping … but where’d I put it? … I shake myself … hard … I turn my pockets inside out … ah, here it is! … lucky! … I give it to him … I thought he was going to chain him up again … no! … a match … to take a look at their faces … it’s them all right! … the pastor has still got his panama and his apiculturist’s veil … Hjalmar’s got his shoulder bel
t, drum, bugle, and spiked helmet …

  “Nun gut! That does it!”

  He puts the key in his pocket … the handcuff and the chain … he’s going to lose them … in those rags … all holes …

  He reassures me …

  “Er braucht nicht! … he doesn’t need it!”

  He explains …

  “Er kommt mit? … he’s coming with me!”

  Good deal!

  And away they go … two three steps and they disappear … easy! … those woods were pure ink … the only light was upstairs in the clouds … a hundred searchlight beams and the reflection of more explosions … in the north … in the east … but in our park nothing … ink … two steps … three steps … you feel yourself turning to cotton, cottony night … you’re surprised to find that you’re still looking … for what? … you don’t remember … I hear the last words …

  “He doesn’t need it… he’s coming with me …”

  Hjalmar must have known where he was going with his bee poacher … the pastor in his veil … well, maybe he knew …

  “Komm mit!”

  We wait till they’re gone … we look at the blackness … ah, the bugle! … one blast! … two blasts! … it’s Hjalmar … pretty far away … beyond the church …

  I didn’t see the two of them again until much later … on a certain occasion … I’ll tell you about it … with me the truth comes first! … the truth takes thinking … you’ll wait awhile …

  I see little Esther Loyola, with the whole world at her feet, begging her, imploring her, to deign to lie down in a holy chapel … Hollywood and its millions would do the rest … thirty-five superproductions …

  The business with the attics … pursuits over the roofs … cops all over the place … we went through it too … oh yes! but it didn’t get us anything! hell no! … neither a chapel nor fancy contracts …

  My racial brothers are domestics … Esther is one of those who give orders … they should have told me that in my cradle: “kid, you come of the flunkey race, be modest and very crawling, and above all don’t ask what goes on at the masters’ table!” I’d have got myself a desk job in ‘14 and kept my trap shut … except to say yes! yes! yes! …

  In ‘41 I’d have run away with the rest of them and “rein-listed” in the “army of heroes” …

  Once my somersault had succeeded and the historians had time to settle down … I wouldn’t have forgotten to send in a sweet little article every two weeks … “Ah, little Esther Loyola!” … I’d have had the Nobel Prize, I’d have been rich, everybody would have adored me, Mauriac, Cousteau, Rivarol, and Vichy-Brisson ° … “how proud we are to have such an adorer of Esther in France!” … my poor parents didn’t tell me when it was still time … in my cradle, on Rampe du Pont, Courbevoie …

  “Kid! not a word about certain things! Never!”

  If I’d taken a powder with everybody else, the rest of the flunkeys, and joined them twenty years later in shouting what a splendid victory! … they’d have given me a portfolio, the Nobel Prize, the Academy …

  I won’t press the point … a lot of people, even pretty patient ones, have said I gripe too much … okay, I’ll dry my tears! and quick, our Figaro! the news from Geneva, that pre-atomic conference … most encouraging, invigorating news … which gives us every assurance of spending a perfect vacation!

  Tell me what they ate and drank?”

  The Figaro-Vichy, literature and real estate, management corporation, tells us …

  Today’s conversation between M. Gromyko and M. Couve de Murville was resumed in the course of a luncheon given by the Soviet delegate. The luncheon lasted an hour and a half. The fare was excellent, the menu consisting of caviar, vol-au-vent, trout au champagne, veal chops and compote with kirsch, accompanied by vodka, Georgian wine, and Crimean champagne. It is officially reported that the conversation was “general,” the atmosphere cordial and relaxed …

  Naturally our international gourmets go on television stowing away these memorable menus, and their constituents get the idea, they go off to the seashore or the mountains with perfect peace of mind … faith! that’s the main thing! confidence and no memory! … what they ate so eozily in Geneva has already been digested and evacuated! …

  In another ten years the younger generation will think Pétain was a drugstore … “Colombey-les-Deus? ° a dirty pun … and Verdun a brand of pastis … “confidence, vacation, and no memory …” go tell them in Billancourt that they were bombed a bit … they’ll think you’re a nut … try and find the tiniest inscription or the most discreet bunch of flowers! …

  “So-and-so?… Madame So-and-so?”

  They should have taken shelter! you and your questions! … forget it! … anyway this so-called victim of the RAF was some kind of “collabo” … hanging around in the street on purpose! …

  The stinker must have been getting money from somebody! … the so-called victim! … from whom? … there are people who know … we’ll come back to it …

  The world hasn’t always been all tourists, helicopters, bathrooms, and “pinup” hostesses as it is today … hell, no! anybody who was in the Vardar, or anywhere else in the Balkans under the Karageorgeviches, long before Tito, or even under Stampar, ran into champion mosquitoes … giant typhus epidemics! plagues of every kind! … and felchers … anybody, I mean, who visited those provinces, valleys, and bazaars, but not as tourists, motorized baggage fodder, never satisfied, never stuffed enough, bloated with potent exotic drinks and highly seasoned goulashes, never finding enough plump little boys, or enough and juicy enough vaginas … the buses aren’t enormous enough, they haven’t enough fat bigmouths in, on, and around them …

  At that time, under the Karageorgeviches, the whole public health system hinged on the felchers … Same as next summer’s weather comes from Greenland … the big epidemics, the real ones, much more effective than any war, even atomic, came from rats … it was the felchers who gave the alert, according to the direction and magnitude of the migrations of belly-up rat corpses … the felchers investigated every market, bazaar, and temple with their “prospecting hooks” and alarmed or reassured Europe …

  A backward glance or two … Karageorgevich, Stampar, epidemics …

  Here now Roger ° drops in on me … my good friend … I have no illusions … kind of a felcher’s visit … to see if my belly’s up or down … if I’m losing hair … if my tongue’s hanging out … if I pant more … or less than last week … While I’m on the subject, the winter has been hard on us … not on Achille, oh no! … just watch Achille at the age of eighty getting out of his car, with a groom, and a carnation in his buttonhole … a youngster! what do I look like beside him? jitters! jeremiads and podagra! … naturally Achille has never worked … from the cradle on, not a stitch … just shifted from tit to tit … giving orders, raking it in … that’s all! … the A-1 recipe for long life … don’t stir a finger, enjoy yourself, and despise! … all the statistics prove it! …

  About-face! and shut up! … it so happens that rather studious by nature, having lived a bit and knowing how many friends I have, including Achille, I’m kind of slow about-passing on … I’ve got my reasons … if I can’t make up my mind, if s because it gripes me to end my days working instead of doing nothing like Achille … Not that I’m jealous of his amours … hell no! … or of his billions … but it’s a damn stinking shame to end in harness! …

  Ain’t it lovely to be doing nothing!

  When everybody’s busy all around!

  tara! tara!

  Not only lovely, it’s a passport to long life with or without specs! … put Kroukrou … or Colonel Mee-mee, or Eisenhower to work in a mine, they’d have been dead long ago! … they wouldn’t make speeches, they wouldn’t arbitrate any more … while as it is, between blahblahs and gala luncheons, they’re headed straight for the Larousse … big long articles! … three … four pages! … and the funerals they’ll have! brass bands, little girls, and flower shows!
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  I tell Roger what I’m thinking, he doesn’t contradict me, he knows from his own experience that when you’re not on the right side, when you’re not a lazy, pimping grafter … even the strict minimum is a rough proposition … especially with the years … when you get to a certain age … especially for me … with my worldwide reputation as a “unique monster”! … that’s the price of humanity! it exists only when it feels virtuous, pure, and amiable, guilty at most of too kind a heart … for not having had you strung up and quartered when the time was ripe … guilty of your existence! … oh, they may get another chance! … the Stern and Righteous Men could reopen my case! … they’ve taken everything away from me, only my neck is left! … much too much! … as they bellow at me far and near! … from all extremes and the middle, Rivarol … l’Huma … I’ve brought about a sacred union of pukes … obstinate clinician that I am, this meticulous, muted, or blaring hatred I find around me strikes me as just a bit imperialistic … a conspiracy! … just an impression …

  Roger is a fine man, all friendliness, elegance of heart and mind … subtle, sensitive … amber! … as a felcher, far from wanting to kill the rat, he does everything in his power to help him out … you can imagine that such solicitude is taken amiss in high places, that tongues wag … plenty! … in editorial offices, lodges, radio stations, sacristies and ultra-something bookstores … and my unprincipled felcher hasn’t seen the end of it! … the tomtom of hate, that’s me! touch it and it throbs! see them wriggle! and leg it! cocks aloft! and squirt!

  Roger has come to chew the fat and to tell me about my latest failures … Castle to Castle isn’t selling at all … they haven’t even printed 30,000 copies! … when So-and-so and Co. are on their fifth to seventh hundred thousand … and more printings … and selling like hotcakes! at railroad stations and literary luncheons, cocktail parties and boudoirs … what can I do, with this conspiracy against me? The Compact Review of Boredom, Achille’s house organ, refuses to publish a single line, even gratis … to give you an idea of my situation! … I represent decay, as the greatest writers of the day … right, center, left, the torches of the universal conscience, Cousteau, Rivarol, Jacob, Sartre, Mme. Lafente,° and Larengon, and a hundred more … a hundred more in America, Italy, Japan … have so magnificently written and demonstrated …