Balaoo, who had been under an anæsthetic during the operations, listened to all this with a very casual interest.
“And I have succeeded in producing the necessary parallel position of a quadrumane’s vocal cords. Open your mouth, Balaoo.”
Balaoo opened a terrible wide mouth, which Coriolis at once turned back under the lamp, and asked himself when on earth this awful torture was coming to an end.
“Look, my dear sir, look...there...you can still see the scars...”
“It’s astounding, it’s astounding!...And he now talks like a man...But has he also retained the power of emitting the animal sounds which he used to?”
“Yes, but it takes him a greater effort than it did. Speak as you used to, Balaoo.”
Balaoo, by way of revenge and of joking, began to speak as he used to in the old days, but as he used to when he was angry, that is to say, when his voice could be heard for a mile around:
“Goek! Goek! Goek!...Ha! Ha! Ha! Hâââ!...Hâââ!...Hâââ!... Goek! Goek!...”
The magistrate, Coriolis and Madeleine put their fingers to their ears and made violent signs to Balaoo that that was enough. He ceased; but Coriolis explained what he wanted:
“Talk as you used to, but not so loud. We can’t hear ourselves speak.”
Thereupon Balaoo “talked” as he used to, but mezzo voce, while Coriolis expatiated on the virtues of the pithecanthrope’s throat:
“You see,” he said, to Meyrentin, “how the capacious membranous pouch, situated beneath the throat and communicating with the vocal organ, with the laryngeal ventricle, swells. Look at it: it swells and swells and swells! The louder he speaks and shouts, the more it swells; and then it resumes its normal shape when he stops.”
“Goek! Goek! Goek!” said Balaoo, more and more embarassed by the singularly persistent gaze of the man who sent thieves to prison.
“And what does ‘Goek’ mean?” asked M. de Meyrentin.
“It means, ‘Go away,’” said Balaoo, who was not without a sense of humour.
“Why,” observed M. de Meyrentin, “it’s almost like the German ‘Geh weg!’”
Balaoo did not know German and declined to pursue the subject; and M. de Meyrentin stayed on.
Balaoo heaved a sigh: he had never suffered so much in all his life. A hand took his tenderly. Oh, Madeleine! And Balaoo’s heart began to thump inside his breast. Ah! M. de Meyrentin was getting up. Did he mean to go, this time?...Did he?...Yes, yes, at last!...He offered Coriolis “all his congratulations”...like an ass, like an ass!...He seemed to be fairly laughing at Balaoo and to be planning something which Balaoo couldn’t make out: one must always be careful with those people who send thieves to prison...And it was foolish in any case, of M. Herment de Meyrentin to appear to make little of Balaoo, for this business might turn out badly too!
The magistrate said, with icy deliberation:
“All my congratulations, my dear sir. You have made a man-child. What with science and your scalpel, you equal the Creator!”
Coriolis thought that he was exaggerating and told him as much. M. de Meyrentin confessed that he was exaggerating. With an insolent glance at Balaoo:
“Yes,” he granted, “it’s true. The Creator made them handsomer.”
He uttered this in front of Madeleine. Balaoo, at first, choked. His astonishment paralyzed him, stupefied him. Coriolis, seeing the pain which his visitor had given to his pupil, to the child of his creating, tried to speak a word of comfort:
“Yes, the Creator has made handsomer men,” he said, “but none gentler, better, more loving, or more faithful. This one has amply rewarded his old master for all the trouble which he gave him at first; for I admit that it was difficult, during the early years, to make him forget his games in the Forest of Bandong. But now he is absolutely, as I contend and am prepared to prove, a member of the human race.”
At this speech, which ought to have touched him, M. Herment de Meyrentin grinned like a fool and, pointing to the torn overcoat and trousers, said:
“Humph! He still indulges in a little prank at times!”
Balaoo could have wept, but he controlled his tears in the presence of a stranger. And kind Dr. Coriolis gave the magistrate his answer:
“I have known men’s children who were not more than seventeen years old and whose parents would have been thankful if they had spent their time climbing the trees after apples and tearing the seats of their trousers in the process. It is not for me to advise you, my dear sir, to consult the records of the criminal courts. You know as well as I do how some men’s children employ themselves at seventeen, with knife in hand!”
“The master’s right,” thought Balaoo. “I have never struck anyone with a knife. That’s all very well for men-children, who have no strength in their hands.”
“In your part of the country, M. Coriolis,” said the magistrate, in a tone of voice that made Balaoo look asquint, “people don’t use the knife in committing murder. They strangle their victim. Their fingers are all they want.”
Balaoo blinked his eyes and thought:
“What made him say that, I wonder?”
Corlolis, pointing to Balaoo’s hand, observed:
“There’s a hand that wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“You insist upon that fly of yours,” thought Balaoo, timidly, with lowered eyes, for he was an admirable dissembler, “but I, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, would not at all mind strangling this distinguished visitor!”
M. Herment de Meyrentin, remembering that his illustrious cousin in the Academy had always combated the Darwinian theory with rather antiquated arguments about the impossibility of indefinite reproduction among mixed species, refused to leave without a Parthian shot to give Coriolis something to think about. What right had the imprudent doctor to let loose the evil instincts of the Forest of Bandong upon civilized human society? Well, he would be punished for it before supper by the arrest of his pithecanthrope, whom M. de Meyrentin fully intended to come back and fetch with his posse of gendarmes. And, in his finest, throatiest voice, the magistrate let fly:
“I congratulate you, my dear sir. All you now have to do is” — here de Meyrentin’s features widened into an infamous smile— “to get him married. He will soon have attained the legal age. I hope that you are already thinking of the young lady whom he will lead to the altar. Mlle. Madeleine will be bridesm...”
M. Herment de Meyrentin was unable to finish either his smile or his sentence, for he felt round his throat the grip of two clutches contracting with a force that was positively alarming to a member of the Human Race who still hoped to spend many a year upon this earth, utterign foolish and unseemly words. He gurgled, he struggled, he choked! Balaoo squeezed and squeezed. Coriolis and Madeleine uttered yells of terror and hung on to Balaoo to make him let go. Coriolis seized a poker and rained blows with it upon Balaoo. The blows sounded as though they were striking a drum; but Balaoo felt nothing. Madeleine wept and sobbed and prayed and raved; but Balaoo heard nothing. He squeezed!
And he did not stop squeezing until M. Herment de Meyrentin stopped struggling. That would teach the gentleman to think that Balaoo, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, was not handsome and to make fun of him in front of marriageable girls! A nice thing the gentleman had done for himself: he was dead!
Dead was M. le Juge d’Instruction Herment de Meyrentin, first cousin of the illustrious Professor Herbert de Meyrentin, member of the Institute, secretary of the moral and political science section! A whole family cast into mourning! A most distinguished family! That was all that remained of that mighty exemplar of human power, an examining-magistrate! A rag, a doll broken over a pithecanthrope’s arm!
Balaoo flung that offal to the ground. He was astounded to see kind Dr. Coriolis glue his ear to the thing’s chest. There were some people who didn’t mind what they touched! But where was his little sister Madeleine? Balaoo looked round for her and discovered her standing flat against the wall, with her mouth wide open and her eyes glit
tering with fright.
“It’s clear to me,” thought the pithecanthrope, “that I’ve made a blunder here. They don’t look a bit pleased!”
Coriolis rose to his feet as pale as death:
“Wretch!” he raved. “What have you done? You have murdered your guest!”
“Tut!” thought Balaoo. “Why do they get into such a state? What worries them is the corpse, I can see that! And I expect they are afraid of the commissary of police, who always arrives when you hurt a member of the Human Race. For instance, you can murder my friend Huon, the great old bachelor wild-boar, who was nicely killed with a stab in the heart in the presence of everybody, and nobody to say a word against it, or my friend Dhol; the big old lusty wolf, whom they riddled with bullets because he ate a six-months’ baby that hadn’t yet learnt to say ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ but you’ve no right to strangle one of the Human Race, just like that, with your hands. It’s the law. All right! All right! I’ll take away the corpse; and no one will be any the wiser. I’ll hang this one too: that will be a good trick!” So thinking, Balaoo took M. Herment de Meyrentin’s big, flabby body by the hind legs and dragged it to the door. Coriolis tried to stop him, but Balaoo shouted, “Goek! Goek!” in so loud a voice that Coriolis soon saw there was nothing to be done with the pithecanthrope at such a moment. Balaoo was all on edge, excited, glorying in his terrible work. He wouldn’t hurt a fly; but, for all that, Dr. Coriolis realized that it would be unadvisable to part him from his prey, which the pithecanthrope was dragging behind him with a pride as conscious as that of a Roman general carrying the spolia opima in his triumph. Oh, what a lofty brow was Balaoo’s and how well fitted to wear the laurel-crown! There is a Roman general in every monkey!...And bang! One good kick with his shoe-hand to the door; and it opened wide to let the procession through.
Madeleine was powerless to stir a limb and Coriolis was still shaking like a poltroon when Balaoo, with his burden, solemnly made his way under the branches of the neighbouring forest.
Chapter X
THERE WAS TO be a gathering that evening at Mme. Roubion’s, at the Black Sun; for, since the Three Brothers had been arrested and the streets become safe, or nearly so, at night, people in the village had once more taken to sitting up. At nine o’clock, Mme. Mûre, a little old woman in a cap who lived at the third house in the road leading to the station, slipped her embroidery-case into her hand-basket, together with some poppy-heads, of which she proposed to crush and eat the seeds in the course of the evening, and lastly a few walnuts, of which she knew Mlle. Franchet to be inordinately fond. Now Mme. Mûre and Mlle. Franchet had not been on speaking terms for five years past; and it would be a treat for Mme. Mûre to see Mlle. Franchet watch the others feast on Mme. Mûre’s walnuts.
Having filled her basket, Mme. Mûre cautiously opened her door. The church-clock struck the hour. More doors opened in the direction of the Cours National. Other little old women poked out their caps in the moonlight, hesitating to cross the threshold, having lost the habit of leaving the house after supper. True, people were nearly easy now that those horrid brothers Vautrin were comfortably stowed away in prison and about to pay their debt to society; but, all the same, it was impossible to throw prudence to the winds from one day to the next.
Ohoo! Ohoo! Shadows on the road, swinging lanterns as they went: it was M. Roubion and his inn-servants to summon the embroiderers to sit up with the Empress of Russia’s gown.
The little doors opened wider: the little white caps ventured forth, hand-basket on one arm, foot-warmer hanging from the other. Oh, they knew better, in this harsh weather, than to go out without their warming-stools, the coals in which, for years and years, had scorched the skin of their legs to such good purpose that many of them, no doubt, had nothing but a pair of burnt sticks to show under their skirts.
Ohoo! Ohoo! They pattered and clattered along, after carefully locking their doors. It was the last evening which they were to spend on the Tsarina’s gown; and they would not have missed it for the empire of All the Russias. Two hours’ work and it would be done; the contractor was coming to Saint-Martin next morning to fetch the dress. At least, so Mother Toussaint, the forewoman who had arranged with the contractor, said — the old gossip! — perhaps to stimulate their zeal.
The procession went flapping and clapping down the Rue Neuve. Shutters were flung back against the walls as it passed. More than one would have loved to be invited to go and see the Empress’gown and not all who had been long in bed were yet asleep.
Big Roubion increased his pace. No one wanted to loiter. They trotted and trotted. It was cold; and the women had lowered their hoods over their caps; and their shoulders shivered, in spite of all, less with cold than with fear, at the thought of the Three Brothers, who loomed large in the shadows of the night.
There was a full gathering at Mme. Roubion’s for the last evening with the Empress’gown. The embroiderers worked in the large summer dining-room, which was used for the commercial travellers in the fine season, but closed in winter. The wonderful gown lay spread at full length on the leaves of the dining-table; and each of the needlewomen took her seat. Two of them made the eyelets, another the raised spots, another finished a rosette, another worked at the scalloped edges and two assistant hands, working side by side, sewed on some old lace. Mme. Toussaint, that old gossip, supervised everything and worried everybody. Mme. Roubion, with her enormous head resting on her capacious bosom, had eyes for none but her guests. After the bar-room was closed, monsieur le maire arrived, accompanied by Mme. Jules, his spouse; M. Sagnier, the notary, and madame, who possessed such beautiful false pearls; and M. Valentin, the chemist, and madame, who was the only lady in the neighbourhood that used make-up — and such a lot of it! — and who was also the only lady that could boast of having had an adventure, last autumn, at the manoevres, with a cavalry-officer. All these fine folk had come to admire “the masterpiece of French industry” before its departure for the Russian court.
Now this dress, which, at any other time, would have kept twenty talkative women wagging their tongues for an hour, left the ladies very indifferent in ten minutes or even less. To begin with, they thought it too simple in its immaculate splendour. It was an all-white dress, of embroidered cloth, and Saint-Martin-des-Bois could not picture the Empress of Russia other than adorned like a reliquary and swathed from head to foot in gold, precious stones and silver lace. Mme. Jules considered it hardly even a dress for the seaside. The embroiderers could have boxed her ears; and Mme. Toussaint, the old gossip, felt that she would like to scratch her eyes out. The ladies gradually left the summer dining-room to join their husbands in the bar-room, where they found the gentlemen sitting round the fire, cracking a bottle of old wine and discussing the Vautrin case. Oh, how that case had been discussed since the arrest! But it was apperently always new; and, now that “they” were going to be guillotined and that there was no longer any reason to fear them, people were almost proud of having been so afraid. Nevertheless, no one was willing to admit his terrors. On the contrary, each vied with the other in trying to show that it was he who had “handed over the Vautrins to the public vengeance.” Through the half-open door, the embroiders, who also thought of nothing but the Three Brothers, heard the chemist and the notary each boasting of his courage at the trial, where they had smashed the ruffians with their evidence. True, by that time, the verdict against them was certain, because they had been captured red-handed: the gendarmes had appeared in the road at the moment when Élie, Siméon and Hubert were taking Bazin the process-server’s money-bags from him, after stunning him with that little pat on the head of which he died. However, it must be admitted that, in order that this verdict might be far-reaching and allow none of the three prisoners to escape, M. Sagnier and M. Valentin had taken advantage of the Bazin murder to saddle the Vautrins with all the suspicious matters that had distressed the district for the past ten years.
The chemist and the notary each enlarged upon the merits of th
e civic heroism displayed by himself at a time when no one else seemed to retain a proper sense of his duty; monsieur le maire knew what was meant!
All this self-sufficiency and self-conceit ended by annoying the people present, down to the needlewomen in their work-room; and even Mme. Mûre coughed as she swallowed her poppy seeds. As for Mlle. Franchet, that worthy could not keep from chuckling and spluttering into the bowl of mulled wine which Mme. Roubion had brought her, with a word of warning not to stain the Empress of Russia’s gown. They knew and everybody knew that those two who were now posing as dare-devils had been very meek and mild indeed while the Vautrins were about.
Had the needlewomen been in monsieur le maire’s place, they would soon have made them put a stopper on their loquacity. The same thought occurred to monsieur le maire himself. It was not a very happy thought, however; for, when he reproached the gentle men, not without a touch of irritation, with having waited so long to accuse men of whose crimes they were cognizant, he was told, in reply, that, “but for the fortunate incident of the murder of the process-server, where the Vautrins were caught red-handed, there would have been every reason to pity decent people who were so ill-advised as to inform against such powerful election-agents as the brothers Vautrin.”
The mayor bit his lips and Mme. Jules, his spouse, made a sign to him not to go on embittering the conversation. Nevertheless, he retorted that he was not the only one to be elected to the municipal council with the Vautrins’ aid. His two subordinates protested loudly and called Heaven to witness that they had had no finger in that pie and that, at any rate, they had never been mixed up in the dirty jerrymandering of the general elections; and they didn’t mind saying so; and, if anyone chose to take offence, that was his affair.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 296