French Decadent Tales (Oxford World's Classics)

by Unknown

  But he had never taken it easy, having never earned more than his monthly salary.

  His life had passed without event, without emotion, almost without hope. The capacity to dream, which we all carry within us, had scarcely developed within the banality of his ambitions.

  He was twenty-one when he had gone to work for Labuze & Co. He had never left.

  In 1856 his father died, and then he lost his mother in 1859. Since then he had moved lodgings once, in 1868, when his landlord raised the rent.

  Every day his alarm clock woke him, at six o’clock on the dot, its dreadful noise of a dragged chain making him jump out of bed.

  On two occasions this mechanism had gone wrong, in 1866 and 1874, but he never found out why. He would get dressed, make his bed, sweep his room, dust down his armchair and the top of his chest of drawers. All these chores took him an hour and a half.

  Then he would go out, buy a croissant at Lahure’s bakery—he had known eleven different owners, but it still went under the same name. Then he set off, eating his croissant as he went.

  His entire existence had in fact been spent in this dark office, which had never been repapered. He was a young man when he first went in, as assistant to Monsieur Brument, whom he had hoped to replace.

  He had replaced him, and he now expected nothing more.

  The great harvest of memories gathered by other men throughout their lifetimes, unpredictable events, sweet or tragic love affairs, eventful journeys, all the chances of a free existence, had completely passed him by.

  Days, weeks, months, seasons, years had all seemed identical. At the same time each day he would get up, leave the house, get to the office, have a break for lunch, leave the office, have supper, and go to bed, and nothing had ever interrupted the regular monotony of these repeated acts, facts, thoughts.

  In former times he would look at his fair moustache and his curly hair in the litttle round mirror left behind by his predecessor. Every evening now, before leaving, he contemplated his white moustache and his bald head in the same mirror. Forty years had gone by, long and swift, as empty as a day of melancholy, and as relentless as the hours of a sleepless night. Forty years of which nothing remained, not even a memory, not even a misfortune, since the death of his parents. Nothing.

  That particular day, Monsieur Leras stood for a moment at the street door, dazzled by the brilliance of the setting sun; and rather than go straight home, he thought he would take a little walk before supper, which was something he did about four or five times a year.

  He reached the big boulevards, which were packed with people walking under the greening trees. It was an evening in springtime, one of the first evenings of real warmth, the kind that infuses the heart with a lust for life.

  Monsieur Leras walked spryly on, like the elderly gent he was, with a twinkle in his eye, happy to be a part of this universal joy, promenading in the balmy air.

  He reached the Champs-Élysées and walked on, animated by the exhalations of youth that were carried on the breeze.

  The whole sky was aflame; and the Arc de Triomphe stood out starkly against the burning horizon like a giant in the middle of a fire. When he came level with the monstrous monument, the old bookkeeper felt a pang of hunger and went into a bistrot to get some supper.

  They gave him a pavement table, and he dined on leg of mutton, lettuce, and asparagus. It was the best dinner Monsieur Leras had had in a long time. He washed down his brie with a carafe of decent claret; then, unusually for him, he followed this with a small cup of coffee, and finished up with a glass of fine champagne.

  When he had paid he felt all light-hearted, skittish, a little flushed even. And he said to himself: ‘Well, this is an evening out! I shall walk on to the beginning of the Bois de Boulogne. It will do me good.’

  He set off again. An old song he had heard one of his lady neighbours sing kept running through his head:

  Quand le bois reverdit,

  Mon amoureux me dit:

  Viens respirer, ma belle,

  Sous la tonnelle.*

  He hummed this endlessly, starting over and over again. Darkness had fallen over Paris, it was a close night, with no wind. Monsieur Leras continued down the Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne, and watched the carriages go by. They came on, with their brilliant lamps, and for the space of a second he had a glimpse of a couple entwined, the woman in a light dress, the man in black.

  It was one long procession of lovers, driving out under the burning starry sky. They kept on coming. Couples kept passing by, deeply reclined in their carriages, silent, pressed to one another, lost in the hallucination and the excitement of desire, in the thrill of the next embrace. The warm shadow seemed full of kisses that fluttered and flew. There was a tender softness about the air which made it even more stifling. All these clasping couples, all these people drunk with the same anticipation, the same thought, generated something feverish around them. All these cabs, filled with caresses, left a subtle and troubling aura in their wake.

  Monsieur Leras, now rather weary from walking, sat down on a bench to watch the procession of love carriages go by. Almost instantly, a woman came up and sat next to him.

  ‘Hallo, little man,’ she said.

  He said nothing. She went on:

  ‘Come on, a little love don’t do no harm, my darling! I’m nice, you’ll see.’

  He answered:

  ‘You are mistaken, Madame.’

  She took his arm:

  ‘Come on, don’t be a silly, listen to me…’

  He stood up and moved away, feeling very uncomfortable.

  Fifty yards on, another woman accosted him:

  ‘Will you come and sit by me a moment, pretty boy?’

  He replied: ‘Why do you do this kind of work?’

  She stood foursquare in front of him and said, in an altered voice that sounded harsh and crude:

  ‘Jesus, don’t go thinking it’s what I always wanted!’

  Then he enquired, in a gentle voice:

  ‘So what is it drives you to do it?’

  She groaned: ‘Got to live, ain’t I!’

  And she moved off, singing to herself.

  Monsieur Leras felt bewildered. More women came up to him, calling and beckoning.

  He felt that something black, something wretched, was unfurling over his head.

  He sat down again on a bench. The carriages kept on coming.

  ‘I should never have come here,’ he thought. ‘Here I am, feeling all strange and upset now!’

  And he started thinking about all the love, whether passionate or venal, and all the kisses, bought or freely given, that was being paraded in front of him.

  Love! He scarcely knew anything about it! He had only ever had two or three women in his life, that had come his way by chance, and by surprise; his purse had never stretched to anything more. And then he started to think about the life he had led, so different from that of others, his shadowy, dreary, boring, empty life.

  Some beings really do have no luck. And as if a thick veil had been torn away, he saw now the wretchedness, the infinite, monotonous wretchedness of his existence: past, present and to come. His latter days identical to his first, with nothing to look forward to, nothing to look back on, nothing around him, nothing anywhere.

  The procession of open carriages kept on coming. And he was presented, as each passed by, with a glimpse of a silent, embracing couple. It seemed to him that the whole of humanity was passing before his eyes, drunk on pleasure, happiness, joy. And he was alone watching it all, entirely alone. He would still be alone tomorrow, always alone, more alone than anyone could possibly be.

  He rose, took a few steps, and then almost collapsed onto the next bench along, suddenly exhausted, as if he had been walking for miles.

  What was he looking forward to? What was he hoping for? Nothing. He thought how good it must be, when one is old, to return home to a house full of grandchildren. Growing old is softened when one is surrounded by the beings th
at owe you life, who love you and caress you, and who lisp the sweet and sentimental nothings which make the heart swell and spread balm on every hurt.

  Then he thought of his own empty room, his little room all clean and forlorn, where no one ever came except for him. And he felt almost strangled by a wave of despair. His room seemed more woeful even than his little office.

  Nobody ever came; nobody ever spoke. It was dead, mute, no human voice ever sounded there. Walls seem to take on something of the qualities of the people who live within them, something of their attitude, their countenance, their words. Houses lived in by happy families are gayer than those lived in by the wretched. His room was empty of memories, like his life. And the thought of returning, all alone, to that room, of lying down in that bed, and of repeating the movements and the chores that were identical every evening, appalled him. As if to put more distance between himself and that sinister room, and to put off the moment when he would have to go back to it, he got up, and finding himself alongside the first path that led into the forest proper, he started down it, and then walked into a copse, where he sat down on the grass…

  Around him, above him, coming from every direction, he heard a muffled, immense, and ceaseless sound, made of numberless different noises, a dull sound, both near and far, a huge throb of life: it was the very breath of Paris, inhaling and exhaling like one colossal being.

  The sun, already high, was pouring a flood of light over the Bois de Boulogne. A few cabs were out, and exuberant riders were beginning to arrive.

  There was a couple walking slowly up an empty path. Suddenly the young woman raised her eyes, saw something brown in the branches; she lifted her hand, startled and alarmed:

  ‘Look… what is that?’

  Then, with a cry, she collapsed into the arms of her companion, who had to stretch her out on the ground.

  The foresters, rapidly alerted, came and took down an old man who was hanged from a branch by his braces.

  The hour of death was established as the evening of the day before. Papers found on the body revealed that the man was a bookkeeper with Labuze & Co., name of Leras.

  The cause of death was recorded as suicide, without discoverable motive. Possibly a sudden attack of madness?

  The Tresses

  THE walls of the cell were whitewashed and bare. One narrow window, with bars, placed high up so as to be out of reach, lit the pale and sinister little room. The lunatic, sitting on a straw chair, stared at us unblinkingly, his gaze haunted and vague. He was extremely thin, with sunken cheeks, and his hair was almost white, and would be so entirely in a few months. His clothes hung too large on his withered limbs, his sunken chest, his cavernous stomach. One could sense that the man was ravaged, and eaten out by his thoughts, or by a Thought, like a worm-eaten fruit. His Madness was there, lodged inside his head, obstinate, persecuting, all-devouring. Little by little, it was eating out his body. This invisible, impalpable, ungraspable, insubstantial Idea was eating the flesh, drinking the blood, draining the life.

  What a mystery he was, this man killed by a Dream! He was possessed, and it was pitiful and terrifying to behold. What kind of strange, dreadful, lethal dream was it, that made such deep wrinkles, which moved unceasingly over his forehead?

  The doctor confided to me: ‘He has frightening accesses of rage; he is one of the strangest lunatics I have ever come across. He’s in the grip of a kind of macabre, erotic passion. Something like necrophilia. In fact we have his diary, which shows quite clearly the onset of his mental illness. You can almost feel his madness. If it’s of any interest, I can let you read it.’ I followed the doctor into his surgery, and he gave me the wretched man’s diary. ‘Read it,’ he said, ‘and tell me what you think.’

  This is what the notebook contained:

  Up to the age of thirty-two I lived quite peacefully, and free of love. Life to me seemed very simple, very good, and very straightforward. I was wealthy. I enjoyed so many different things, that I couldn’t feel passion for any particular one of them. It was good to be alive! I woke gladly every morning, ready to do things that gave me pleasure, and I went to bed satisfied, in the hopes of a peaceful morrow and an untroubled future.

  I had had a few mistresses, but never felt my heart maddened by desire or my soul bruised by love, after possession. It is a good way to live. It is better to love, but more terrible. Those who love in the usual way must feel ardent happiness, though less than mine, perhaps, since love came to find me in the most incredible fashion.

  As a rich man, I collected furniture and antiques; I would often think of the strangers’ hands that had stroked these things, the eyes that had admired them, the hearts that had loved them—for we do love things! Sometimes I would spend hours and hours contemplating a little watch from the last century. It was so moving, and pretty, with its goldwork and enamel. And it worked, as it had worked on the day it was purchased by a woman, delighted to own such a gem. Since the last century it had never stopped ticking, or living its mechanical life. Who was the first to have worn it against her breast, where it lay amidst the warmth of her satins, the heart of the watch beating against the heart of the woman? What warm hand had held it, what fingers had turned it over and over, and then wiped off the china shepherds, misted for a second by the contact with warm skin? What eyes had watched the flowery dial, waiting for the cherished hour to arrive?

  How I should like to have known her, the woman that had chosen an object so exquisite and so rare! She is dead! I am haunted by a desire for these dead women, and from a distance, I love them for having loved!—All their tenderness fills my heart with regret, for it cannot come again. The beauty of those smiles, those first caresses, and all the hopes that went with them! All that should last forever!

  Whole nights have I wept, over these women, who were so beautiful, so tender, and so gentle, and whose arms opened to receive a kiss, and who are dead! The kiss itself is immortal! It is passed on, from lip to lip, from century to century, from age to age.—Men receive it, they return it, and they die.

  I am drawn to the past, while the present terrifies me, since ahead lies only death. I yearn for everything done, I weep for those who are gone; I want to halt time in its tracks. But on it flows, it passes, and is passed, and every second a piece of me is gnawed away, in preparation for the void ahead. And I shall never live again.

  Adieu! ladies of yesteryear, ladies that I love.

  But I am not to be pitied. For I have found the one I was waiting for, and together we have tasted unbelievable joys.

  One sunny morning I was strolling through Paris, high-spirited and light of step, looking through shop windows with the vague interest of the flâneur.* Suddenly I spotted in the window of an antique-seller’s an Italian piece from the seventeenth century. It was very fine, and very rare. I attributed it to Vitelli, a Venetian craftsman who was famous at the time.

  Then I walked on.

  But for some reason the memory of this piece haunted me, so much so that I turned back. I stopped in front of the shop to have another look. I felt it was tempting me on.

  Temptation is a strange thing! You look at an object, and little by little it seduces you, disturbs and invades you, much as a woman’s face can. Its charm enters into you, a strange charm that comes from its form, its colour, and the way it looks; you already love it, you desire it, you must have it. You are invaded by the need to possess, a mild, almost shy need to begin with, but one that grows, until it is fierce and overweening.

  And shopkeepers seem able to read that gleam in the eye, and note the secret, growing desire it betrays.

  I bought the desk and had it taken home immediately. I placed it in my bedroom.

  How I pity those who know nothing of that honeymoon period, spent between a collector and his latest find! You caress it with eye and hand; as if it were living flesh; you keep passing close to it and it remains in your thoughts, wherever you are, and whatever you do. The sweet thought of it goes with you, out walking or in c
ompany. And the first thing you do on getting home, before even removing your hat and gloves, is to go and look at it with a lover’s tenderness.

  I truly did adore this desk. For eight days I could not stop myself from opening its drawers and little doors; I kept handling it, delightedly, enjoying the full extent of possession.

  One evening, as I was testing the thickness of a wooden panel, I realized there must be a secret place behind it. It set my heart beating, and I spent the night trying without success to find the secret mechanism.

  But I did succeed the next morning, by inserting a blade into the woodwork. A panel slid back, and there I saw, lying on black velvet, a wonderful mane of hair!

  Yes, a whole mane of woman’s hair, a thick plait of reddish-blonde tresses, which must have been cut off at the scalp. It was bound together with a golden ribbon.

  I stood aghast, moved and trembling. An almost imperceptible scent, so old it seemed to be the ghost of a scent, rose from the mysterious drawer with its singular relic.

  I took hold of it gently, religiously almost, and drew it forth from its hiding-place. Instantly it unfurled, a thick, light, supple golden stream that reached to the floor, shining like a comet’s tail.

  A strange emotion seized me: what did this mean? When? How? Why had the hair been hidden in the desk? What affair, what tragedy, lay concealed in this relic?

  Who had cut the hair? A lover on the day of separation? Or was it a husband’s act of vengeance? Or did she to whom the hair belonged shear it off herself, in a moment of desperation?

  Did she hide this treasure, like a love-token left for the living, on the day she entered the nunnery? Or did the beauty die young, and did her lover take this from her before the coffin was nailed up, as the sole thing not destined to rot, the sole thing he could still love and caress, and smother with kisses in the spasms of his grief?

  And was it not strange to think that her hair had lain there all this time, while nothing at all remained of her body?

  It ran through my fingers, and tickled my skin, with a peculiar caressing feel, a caress from the dead. My heart dilated with tenderness, and I was close to tears.