The three inn-servants, in their night-attire, were asking for explanations in tragic sentences, accompanied by murderous threats. Not realizing what was taking place, they had attempted to escape by the Rue aux Navets, where they were shot at the moment they put their noses outside. They had only just time to slam and barricade the door. They had recognized the Vautrins’ voices; and fear now sent them tearing around like squirrels in a cage.
The whole troop once more gathered round the mayor and called upon him to get them out of their plight without delay. And they might all have flung themselves upon him, as they had upon the doctor, if the glow in the sky, which lighted up the whole of the inn-yard, had not suddenly faded, as though it had been blown out.
The noises outside had ceased. The alarm-bell stopped ringing. The terrible battering against the bar-room door was heard no longer. This instantaneous calm, the dark and peaceful night surprised everybody. They stood for some time without speaking, without shouting, not knowing what to think. At last, the mayor’s voice was heard saying:
“They have burnt a few trusses of straw to frighten us and they have gone away...”
Mme. Roubion thought and said:
“Perhaps the gendarmes have come...”
M. Roubion, following up his idea of getting rid of the whole crew, the primary cause of the tragedy, made a suggestion:
“There may be a way for all of us to get to the town-hall. We should be safe there. Come up with me to the hay-loft.”
They followed him, scrambling up a wooden staircase, with a greasy rope for a rail.
“Mind and don’t strike any matches!”
They were in utter darkness, groping and feeling for one another, stumbling at every step. At last, the hatch for hoisting the fodder was cautiously opened by Roubion; and a slice of the outer dusk, less black than that of the loft, stood out against the dense gloom inside. They had forgotten Dr. Honorat. No one knew what had become of him and nobody worried.
Roubion leant out of the hatch. He looked down at the lane that separated the inn from the town-hall, which was shrouded in darkness and gave no sign of life. Roubion — who saw nothing at all — said, in a low voice:
“I see the schoolmaster! He’s making signs that we can get down this way. Who’ll go first? The Vautrins will never imagine that we can get out here. And they will still be watching at the doors when we are far away.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said the mayor.
“Well, set them the example,” said Roubion. “There’s a rope and pulley: that’s all you want.”
The mayor declared that it was his duty to be the last to leave, like a captain on board his ship. But they explained to him that it was “not the same thing.” In fact, it was “just the contrary.” The first to leave was the first to take a risk. If he saved himself, then everybody was saved. He decided to venture, after fondly embracing Mme. Jules; and this was the road by which they all left the inn, men and women alike sliding down a rope. It formed the staple subject of conversation in the village for many a long day. Mme. Mûre had not practised this form of exercise for over sixty years; and I fear that it will leave her with a rick in her back for the rest of her life. To this day, when she speaks of it, she says, thinking of the Vautrins:
“There are men who behave worse than savages.” M. Roubion was the last to let himself down.
When the little band were all below, the mayor said: “And now to the town-hall, all of you!”
“Don’t make a noise,” Mme. Jules advised them.
But nobody dreamt of making a noise. They tried to get in by the back of the building, but they shouted to the schoolmaster in vain.
“He must have gone back to bed again,” thought M. Roubion, aloud.
They decided to go round and reach the municipal sanctuary through the square, unless they should see anything to arouse their suspicions on the road.
A silence quite as impressive as the recent uproar weighed heavily on the village; and they pressed against one another, holding their breaths and walking on tiptoe. And even now no one troubled to think what could have become of Dr. Honorat.
As they were about to enter the square, gliding along the walls and keeping in the shadow, suddenly, as though with one accord, they stopped. Not a cry did they utter, not a movement did they make, nothing that might betray them. What they saw in the circle of light cast by the lamp at the corner of the Rue Neuve had struck them dumb and powerless, as though by lightning. Élie and Siméon passed, dragging after them Dr. Honorat, with a gag in his mouth and his hands tied together. Behind them walked Hubert and little Zoé. Hubert carried a gun on his shoulder. Little Zoé carried two.
Chapter XII
BALAOO, AFTER ROLLING the Empress’ gown very tidily under his arm, sat down on the edge of the forest. The darkness was absolute; the last lights were extinguished in the windows of Saint-Martin-des-Bois. He sat and thought. He sincerely regretted his mishap with the distinguished visitor who had called to see him. Not that he suffered pangs at so unceremoniously and without previous warning killing one of the Human Race who had insulted him; but he feared that he had caused great pain to his dear little Madeleine. What a queer face she put on, when he was proudly dragging by the hind-legs that M. Herment de Meyrentin who would never make fun of him again! And what terrible eyes his kind master Coriolis had made at him! What desperate grimaces! What a business!...
No, on thinking it well over, he positively preferred not to go home that evening. And yet it was not that he did not want to be good. He knew quite well that, when he spent the night in the forest, Madeleine was sad all the following day, because it grieved her to think that he would never be anything more than a horrid wild beast. Ah, what would she say now that she knew that he had killed one of the Race? Balaoo scratched the short bristly hairs on the top of his head. O perplexity!...
It was to purchase his forgiveness and to secure a welcome at Madeleine’s hands that Balaoo had purloined the Empress’ gown just now. After hanging M. Herment de Meyrentin’s corpse, from the first tree in the forest on the Riom Road, in the dead man’s own necktie as was right and proper, Balaoo had been three times round the Coriolis estate, listening for a sound, a call. Ah, if he had suddenly heard Madeleine’s voice in the dark, calling him by the name which he bore in the Forest of Bandong— “Balaoo!...Balaoo!...Balaoo!” — how he would have flown to her! How gladly he would have returned at once to his human dwelling!...But no, he heard nothing. No one was calling him. Everything seemed dead in Coriolis’ house since he had killed that visitor, that M. Herment de Meyrentin, without a word of warning.
With bent back and hanging head, dragging his feet and carrying his hands in his pockets, Balaoo had entered the deserted village, wondering what he could do to atone for his offence, when he met the little frightened troop of needlewomen, with their galoshes and foot-warmers, going to the Black Sun under Roubion’s escort. He smiled, without exactly knowing why: perhaps because he recognized Mme. Mûre and Mme. Boche, on whom he had played many a practical joke in his time. He heard them talking about a wonderful dress, a dress of the kind that was only worn among the emperors of men, the dress of the Empress of Russia. Balaoo’s curiosity was roused. He wanted to see that “masterpiece of French industry.” He removed his shoes and tied them round his neck by the laces. He was quite comfortable now; and it only took an acrobatic leap or two over a couple of walls and a roof to bring him to the fan-light of that summer dining-room where Mme. Toussaint was spreading out the marvel. Balaoo made up his mind the moment he set eyes on it. The dress would suit Madeleine “to perfection.” And, at the first opportunity supplied by the absence of the needlewomen, he pushed open the fan-light, held on to the window by his hind-hands, took a swing; seized the coveted object with his fore-hands flying, leapt back through the fan-light and vanished over the roofs with the Empress’ gown.
He ran straight to the little door at the end of Coriolis’ garden, his own private door, and was on th
e point of ringing. But, suddenly, his hand, which was already on the bell-pull, rose and scratched the bristly hairs on the top of his head. He remembered the law, the lessons in the law which Madeleine had given him:
“One must always pay for things before taking them!”
And Balaoo had just taken something without paying for it; for, to Balaoo, stealing and taking meant the same thing; and the question of payment before taking possession was only a matter of politeness invented by the members of the Human Race, who refused to do anything like other races. And Madeleine would not be pleased. She would send him packing, with his Empress’ gown. And that would make two bothers instead of one. Sorrowfully, he moved away from the little door at the end of the garden and made for the open country.
So there he stood, on the edge of the forest, with the Empress’ gown under his arm. Hearing a noise in the distance, from the Rue Neuve, he said to himself that they must have discovered his theft and that Mme. Boche and Mme. Mûre were rousing the whole village in order to tell the story of that strange event...Unless, indeed, it was some one in the neighbourhood who, coming home by the Riom Road, had bumped up against the distinguished cqrpse of the distinguished visitor whom he had strung up by his necktie on the first branch of the first tree on the left of the road. If so, M. Jules had been told by this time and the man who played the drum would be harnessing his cart to go and fetch the commissary of police, as they always did when there were dead people hanging at the end of a rope...Unless, again, they had learnt that Élie, Siméon and Hubert — with his, Balaoo’s, assistance; but no one would ever know that! — had escaped from Riom prison, a thing which would certainly annoy the members of the Race, for the Three Brothers were feared by everybody.
Ah, Balaoo had done some pretty work that day! It was a red letter day in his life. He ought to have been well pleased with himself...But no, he was not: since Madeleine was unhappy, Balaoo was sad.
However, he could not remain all night on the edge of the forest, whining like a baby, and it was not healthy to sleep in the open air; so he got up to go to his home in the forest, his little set of chambers in the Big Beech in the Pierrefeu clearing.
It was a very dense forest, which had never been disfigured except by the necessary high-roads running from town to town. Apart from these gashes, which are inevitable in the forests of the Human Race, there were no carriage-roads, good, bad or indifferent: merely a few small foot-paths used by poachers and animals; and even then you had to know where to find them! And those woods went on for ever in the direction of the rising sun. Oh, there was plenty of room to walk about, even for a Balaoo who had known the Forest of Bandong! True, all that tangle of hornbeams, ashes, big oaks and big beeches; all that collection of thousands of pine trees standing bolt upright; all that which went to make up the Black Woods was but a shift for Balaoo, “as who should say a park.” And, when one of his friends in the underwood, such as As the fox, for instance, put on side about the thick yoke-elm where his hole was, Balaoo had great fun telling him stories of the giant creepers of the tropics, roaring with laughter as he did so.
Thus, last time that the other came to look him up at the Big Beech, Balaoo spoke out pretty freely:
“As, you’re just a new-born baby. If you had seen, as I have, the flowers of the cocoanut-trees and the trees with three feet,(*) in which we build our huts above the thick water of the swamps; and if you had seen the wall of giant creepers, strung from tree to tree, which, for a hundred thousand years, have kept the members of the Human Race from penetrating to our village, you would never again dare mention your hole of a house protected by the yoke-elm of Saint-Martin-des-Bois...That As,” thought Balaoo to himself, “who puts on such a lot of side in Europe, would bring a smile to the lips of an elephant at home.” And he added, aloud, “Besides, you see, just look at this: when anyone wants to enter my Forest of Bandong, he has to make a hole in it, like a tunnel. It’s quite unlike the forests over here.”
(*) The mangroves. — AUTHOR’S NOTE.
As did not insist, knowing that he would not get the better of Balaoo, remembering the proverb:
“A traveller may lie with authority.”
As understood all that Balaoo said to him, because the pithecanthrope took care, when talking to animals, to drop the language of men which he had learnt from Coriolis and Madeleine. He never waited to be asked, but always, very amiably, put himself on an equality with them, as between beast and beast, and communication was at once restored between animal instincts. This, however, did not prevent him from preserving his human dignity and even thinking his human thoughts, while expressing himself to the others in the usual terms employed by the animal race. And he acted in this way even with General Captain, who spoke men’s words without understanding them and understood only animals’ words.
General Captain was the parrot he had stolen from Mlle. Franchet and carried as a slave to his hut in the forest, to serve as his hall-porter. Balaoo had the greatest contempt for General Captain, being of opinion that there was nothing sillier for an animal than to insist on talking men’s words when he does not understand what they mean.
Thus thought Balaoo in the dense forest, as he walked, without a road and without compass or matches, through the dark, moonless night to his hut in the Big Beech, which might be described as his bachelor’s chambers. Thus thought Balaoo, his heart heavy with his misdeeds, carrying the Empress’ gown, done up in a neat parcel, under his arm.
A voice from high up in the air disturbed his meditations:
“Hullo, Polly!”
“The idiot!” said Balaoo, aloud, shrugging his shoulders.
The voice at once continued, in the dark trees:
“Well I never! Did you ever? What next? What next? What next?”
“Stop playing the fool, General Captain!” commanded the pithecanthrope, in a rough, animal voice, employing animal sounds that produced an immediate effect.
General Captain ceased pretending to be a man and, from his perch on a branch so high that none of us could have seen it from below, even had it been daylight and even had we had Balaoo’s eyes, he humbly bade his master welcome, like the humble porter-parrot that he was and in the parrot tongue, which Balaoo understood quite well, for almost all animals understand one another’s language.
Balaoo gave a grunt or two and asked how it was that the parrot was not asleep, at that time of night. General Captain replied that he was awoke by a great light shining over the village:
“You can’t see it from below,” the bird-porter explained to the pithecanthrope, “but I can see it clearly. The sky is quite red, a glorious, bright red, as when the sun rises in my country.”
Balaoo grinned, for he knew General Captain’s high-flown pretensions. The bird, who lied like a lawyer or a dentist, used to declare that he had seen as many countries as Balaoo himself, though he was unable to name them. As a matter fact, he was only able to brag from hearing a Brazilian parakeet describe his equatorial feats of prowess at the Marseilles bird-fancier’s where General Captain had been landed as a youngster. Balaoo always shut him up by saying:
“Oh, drop it! I have known parrots in the Forest of Bandong. They were not a yellowy-green like you, but had bright-red wings and bright-blue heads and gold round their necks. You don’t even know; General Captain, how the parrot-mothers of the Forest of Bandong get the gold into their little one’s necks. Why, old chap, it’s by feeding them on the yolks of eggs! There’s nothing like yolk of egg to make you gold in the neck. That’s the way they produce canary-yellow in the Forest of Bandong, General Captain!”
Whereupon the general would make no reply, because everybody knew that he was not fed on the yolks of eggs at Mlle. Franchet’s.
For the moment, Balaoo climbed the tree, feeling uneasy at what the parrot had told him about the fire. The Big Beech in the Pierrefeu clearing was at least three hundred years old. It was a world, a nature, a universe in itself. It was the finest tree in the forest, stood nearl
y a hundred and sixty feet high and was over six feet in diameter. Balaoo took the greatest pride in it, although he never omitted to tell any of his forest friends who congratulated him upon it that the tree was nothing compared with those in the Forest of Bandong and that his father and mother, before slinging their house in the mangroves in the swamps, had begun, when they were quite young, by living in a eucalyptus-tree which was over fifteen hundred feet high — so he said — and thirty feet in diameter. However, he consented to be satisfied with his tree, for he liked its smooth, clean bark, its silky branches, its polished leaves, which looked so shiny after the rain; and he ate its fruit. But he took care to throw away the rind, nature, whose voice was always whispering in his ear, having told him that it contained the worst of poisons, the one that gives epilepsy and makes you look like a tipsy man.
Balaoo, when he moved in, had driven all the animals from the tree, excepting the little birds, whose nests he respected with the greatest care. But he had sent a family of crows about their business, with such honours as were due to them; for their croaking deafened him and disturbed his midday slumbers. The crows thought themselves quite safe up there, on the top floor, where they sat and laughed at men; but they were nicely caught, one fine spring afternoon, when they saw a man come walking up the trunk as easily as up a staircase, who, after greeting them with a stately wave of his straw hat in his right hand, with his left sent the clumsy tangle of twigs and branches which that wretched family dignified with the sweet name of nest flying right across the tree-tops.
As I said, Balaoo kept the little birds with him, in his tree. This was not from any excess of sentiment, but because he loved a good omelette, a fact of which the little birds became aware, in course of time, and left him, for all his consideration in not driving them away.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 299