Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Let’s leave the women,” he said. “Madeleine is going to change her dress.”

  But Patrice kicked at the suggestion:

  “Look here, uncle, you must admit that I have always done what you wanted; but let me look at my dear Madeleine in her bridal dress for a few minutes longer. It will be the brightest memory of my life.”

  Coriolis grunted a few words which Patrice did not catch; but he dared not, thwart the young man; and Madeleine kept on her beautiful white dress and her wreath of orange-blossoms for the wedding-breakfast.

  Patrice sat beside his young wife:

  “She’s so pretty, one could eat her, uncle!” he said.

  “Eat your radishes, in the meantime!” growled Coriolis to his lovelorn solicitor’s clerk of a nephew, while Gertrude, who was in a melting mood, shed tears.

  An unspeakable feeling of peace, tranquillity and calm was shed by that deserted corner of the embankment and that out-of-date, neglected restaurant. After all the tribulations of that memorable morning, Patrice felt entitled to give a sigh of relief. He sighed with happiness over Madeleine’s hand, which he raised to his lips, and he was beginning to express the delight which so sweet a moment gave him, when the waiter brought in “the shell-fish.”

  While handing round the oysters, he informed the gentlemen that there was some one asking for them downstairs who seemed very eager to see them.

  Coriolis rose, looking very pale:

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” said the waiter, with a gesture which obviously meant that the person’s identity was a matter of supreme indifference to him.

  “But...but is it a man? A woman?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  “It’s Zoé!” cried Madeleine, in a great state of excitement.

  “Send her up! Send her up at once!” said Coriolis.

  And, when the waiter had gone, the father and daughter exchanged anxious glances that worried Patrice more than he could say.

  “What can have happened since we went out?” thought Gertrude, aloud. “She must have her reasons for coming.”

  Then Zoé made her entrance. She was bare-headed; her hair had come undone; and she tried in vain, with a feverish movement, to twist and put it up again. Her face expressed the most intense anguish; the dark rims round her eyes told of some great sorrow; and the corners of her mouth trembled.

  “Goodness gracious, what’s the matter?” asked Coriolis, Madeleine and Gertrude, in one breath.

  “He’s looking for you”

  “What!”

  “He’s escaped!...He knows everything!...He ran out of the house like a madman!...Take care!...He is capable of anything!...”

  And Zoé, panting and exhausted, dropped into Gertrude’s lap.

  “But who, who?” shouted Patrice, failing to understand the terror of those around him.

  “Who? Noël, if you want to know! Noël!” roared Coriolis, who was holding his head between his hands, as though he were afraid of its dropping off.

  “But perhaps he will come here,” said Gertrude.

  “Let us fly.”

  “But where, papa? Where are we to fly to?” moaned Madeleine. “It would be. better not to go down to the street, if he is on our track.”

  “He has lost the track,” gasped Zoé, who was stifling, but who dared not ask Gertrude to loosen her stays before Patrice.

  “Aha, he has lost the track!” cried Coriolis. “But hasn’t he followed you? Are you quite sure of that?”

  “I followed him...I took a cab...Oh, it’s awful, awful!’...He’s quite mad!...”

  “But mad about what?” asked Patrice, whose irritation was reaching its height.

  “Mad on Madeleine, if you insist on knowing!...Yes, he is madly in love with your wife...He writes poetry to her...Now are you satisfied?”

  “And are you all in such a state because a gentleman chooses to write poetry to Madeleine? Let the fellow come here; and I’ll talk to him: a pretty thing, indeed!”

  And Patrice showed his fists. Coriolis’ shrugged his shoulders and Gertrude shook her sad and obstinate old pate:

  “Poor Noël, he will never get over it!” she said. Patrice could have torn her eyes from their sockets:

  “But what do we care about Noël?” he kept on exclaiming in his fury, bewildered by this inexplicable bomb which had burst in the midst of his new-born happiness.

  Alas, no one bothered about Patrice! Not knowing what decision to take, after cautiously closing the doors and windows, the others feverishly questioned Zoé, who, in short, abrupt sentences, broken by sobs, told so fantastic a story that Patrice wondered if he was not dreaming that he had found his way into a lunatic asylum where the words which you hear spoken have no sense even to those who utter them. “I expect,” sighed Zoé, “that he was pretending to be dead-drunk for two days on purpose, so as to be left alone: he was up so quick this morning, suddenly, and so soon dressed. And the noise he made: bang, bang! A kick at the cupboard! A kick at the chest of drawers! Kicks everywhere! Bang, bang, bang! A kick at the door when I asked him, from outside, what the matter was. He answered that man-women disgusted him and that Patti Palang Kaing had forbidden him to marry a man-woman, but that the laws of the Forest of Bandong did not forbid M. Noël from attending so fine a ceremony, as long as his honour was not at stake! ‘O rot, rot, rot!’ was all he said. And that it was no use my dressing in Paris fashions, that I should never be as nice-looking as a female monkey in the huts on the swamps! However, the worst was that he kept on going to the window, while he dressed — I peeped through the key-hole and saw him moving about — as though he were watching for something in the street...Oh, some one must have told him...and yet it seems hardly possible!...What comforted me was that you had already started...He went back to the looking-glass and knotted his tie quite three times over, saying unpleasant things to me, all the while, through the door...Then, when he wanted to put his boots on his shoe-hands, he was seized with a fury that made me shake on the landing where I stood...I heard him gnash his teeth and fling his boots all over the room...Oh, I was sorry that we did not follow our first plan!...But he deceived us by pretending to be dead-drunk...Yes, I ought to have taken him at once to the Jardin d’Acclimation.(*) He knows nobody and forgets everything when he is at the Jardin d’Acclimation. We would have lunched there quietly, he and I together, and I would have invited the giraffe.”

  (*) The Jardin d’Acclimatation, which Zoé calls “the Jardin d’Acclimation,” is the Zoological Garden on the north side of the Seine, in the Bois de Boulogne; the Jardin des Plantes is the Zoological Garden on the south side. — TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

  “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon,” said Patrice, venturing to interrupt, “but I don’t quite under...”

  “Hold your tongue and listen!” shouted Coriolis.

  Coriolis was walking up and down the room, kicking the furniture as angrily as M. Noël had done. He turned to Zoé:

  “But, after all, what was the matter with him? He could not suspect...”

  “Nonsense!” said Zoé. “If he had not suspected something, would he have made such a row? He threw a pair of boots into the street. I asked him what was the matter. He answered, in an awful voice, which I shall not forget, if I live to be a hundred, ‘Don’t you smell orange-blossom?’...I could have dropped! I smelt nothing on that storey...no one of the Race could have...and then it was long since Madeleine had run down, ever so fast, and gone out...Well, he, with his nose from the Forest of Bandong, smelt the orange-blossom through the floors, the stairs, the doors and the walls!...”

  “Excuse me, uncle,” Patrice interrupted again, “excuse me if...”

  But Patrice was unable to continue. Coriolus had made a rush at Gertrude and was shaking the charms and trinkets which she wore round her neck, over her puce dress, until the young man and Madeleine had to interfere to save that old friend of the family from being nearly throttled. Uncle Coriolis could not forgive the s
ervant for rousing M. Noël’s scent with a flower which would not have smelt at all, if Gertrude had not taken it into her head to present Madeleine with a wreath of real blossoms. At last, Patrice triumphantly took Gertrude in his arms. She promptly renewed her expressions of pity for M. Noël; and the bridegroom as promptly dropped her in a chair, where she sat, a poor, moaning thing.

  No one had so much as touched the oysters. And, at Madeleine’s request, while Coriolis continued to kick at the walls — without disturbing the neighbours, for that once famous, but now neglected little restaurant had no other customers but themselves — Zoé resumed her narrative in the face of the bewildered Patrice:

  “So he must have smelt the wreath of orange-blossoms through the door. Then he opened the door. I never saw him look so pale in my life. ‘It’s a scent,’ he said, ‘which people wear on their wedding-day. I have read that in men’s books. Is anyone in the house being married to-day?’ I must have been very much upset, for he stared at me with a sad smile and said, ‘Poor Zoé, you’re looking none too well yourself!’ And he went downstairs, pushing me gently out of his way and lifting his nose in the air to sniff the orange-blossom. He went straight to the drawing-room, where Madeleine had sat waiting for Patrice. When he came out again, his face was terrible to see. He had the strength to ask me a few questions with his trembling lips: where was Madeleine? I said that she had gone out. Then he wanted to know about M. Patrice and you, sir. I did not know what to answer and was making up a story, saying you would all be home soon, when he put on his terrible Bandong gong-voice: ‘The scent of orange-blossoms is what people wear at monsieur le maire’s!’ he said. And, with that; he rushed down the stairs and into the street and I after him...At first, he was rather at a loss. He hunted for the scent, without finding it. It was not on the pavement. He sniffed the air in every direction. At last, he walked round the house, went up the lane and picked up the scent near the side-door...He took no notice of me at all, did not hear a word I said to him...He was soon out of the lane and I had the greatest difficulty in following him. He went along at a mad rate, with his nose still in the air, pushing against the people, the horses, the carriages and even stopping the omnibuses...I saw him, from the distance, go into the town-hall and come out again almost at once...Knowing that you were going to take a cab at the town-hall, I said to myself, ‘Perhaps he’ll lose the scent-because of the cab...’”

  “I beg your pardon,” Patrice broke in once more, “I beg your pardon. I know the smell of orange-blossom is very strong, but I can’t understand...”

  “That’ll do!” shouted his uncle. “You will never understand anything...Go on, Zoé....He left the town-hall...”

  “Yes, he left the town-hall and, still with his nose in the air, still knocking up against the people in the street, he went to the church...From there, he took the road that seemed to lead here...This time, I caught him up and tried to speak to him. He threw me at the foot of a wall, like a bundle of washing, and started running, running, running...I jumped into a cab, meaning to come and warn you in time, if I could, when I saw him, at the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, go straight ahead, instead of turning down the street that leads to this place...I thought I must find out where he was going...He ran along the boulevard, ran on, with his nose in the air, jostling people aside, and, without a moment’s hesitation, walked into a very ‘swagger’ lunching place, the Restaurant de Mouilly, I believe...’What does he mean to do there?’ said I to myself...Suddenly, I understood: there was a whole row of landaus, with a wedding brougham, drawn up along the pavement!...On leaving the town-hall and the church Noël had smelt another wreath of orange-blossoms, had pitched upon another wedding-party!...What he did to them I do not know...I heard them screaming like mad...I saw people rush to the windows and shout for help as if the house was on fire...And that’s all I can tell you...I came on here...You are safe, for the moment...But the poor fellow is out of his senses...I never saw him like it before...trembling from head to foot and rolling his eyes...Oh, how they must have ‘caught it’ at the other wedding!”

  Thus spoke pretty little Zoé, in her despair; and, when she had done, she gave free play to her tears. “If only nothing happens to him...at that wedding party!” muttered Coriolis, stopping his perambulations for a minute.

  Patrice bent over Madeleine, who appeared to be sadly and silently pursuing some distant thought:

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “I think as papa does: if only nothing happens to him at that wedding-party!”

  And so there was no thought, no care, in that room, for anyone except the wild lunatic who had crossed the path of Patrice’ happiness like a dangerous beast!

  “It’s too bad!” he protested.

  Zoé interrupted him:

  “I don’t think you need fear anything on that score; you know it’s impossible to catch him...He comes and goes and disappears as he pleases!...No, I am much more afraid that, when he discovers his mistake, he will go back to the town-hall and the church and find the real scent. If he keeps cool, he can do anything with his nose!”

  “What do you mean, he can do anything with his nose?” yelled Patrice, struggling against the state of stupefaction into which Zoé’s queer speeches were beginning to plunge him.

  Zoé stared at him in amazement: why, didn’t he know yet?

  Patrice read both grief and mischief in her eyes.

  “Ah,” she said, without replying to his astonished outburst, “we none of us look like people at a wedding, considering that this is a wedding-day!...The best thing you could do would be to take the first train and not to wait until the evening. That’s my advice to you!”

  “But why, why, why? I want something to eat!” protested Patrice, “I want to eat in peace and quiet! Don’t you want to eat in peace and quiet, Madeleine? It’s no reason, because a maniac...”

  He did not finish his sentence.

  “There he is!” cried Zoé, who was leaning out of the window.

  Oh, what a flight!...Coriolis dragged or rather carried in his arms the fainting Madeleine. Gertrude hustled Patrice, pushing him in front of her, digging at him with her fists. At the corner of a little staircase which Coriolis seemed to know of old, he turned and, tearing the fatal wreath of orange-blossoms from Madeleine’s forehead, in spite of Patrice’ yapping expostulations, flung it to Zoé:

  “Here, stay here, you, and stop him! Lock him in!”

  And, roughly thrusting Zoé back, he shoved the rest of the band down the well of the little staircase.

  Meanwhile, M. Noël, with quivering nostrils, was climbing the main staircase of the once-famous little restaurant. Patrice and Madeleine, accompanied by Coriolis and Gertrude, arrived at the Gare d’Austerlitz in time to see the Auvergne express steam out of the station. The next was a slow train, stopping at every suburb on the line. Patrice declared that his wife and he would go by it. He was eager to leave Paris, to be alone with Madeleine and question her and get rid of all the horrible thoughts that oppressed his heart.

  Then, suddenly, Madeleine, who had not spoken a word since their headlong departure from the restaurant, closed her eyes and fell in a dead faint on the platform.

  An indescribable confusion and excitement ensued. Madeleine was still wearing her wedding-dress. The sight of this bride swooning at a railway-station attracted all the passengers and emptied the trains that stood waiting to start. The guards and stokers left their posts, the porters dropped their loads, the waiters came running out of the refreshment-room. Above the stir of the crowd rose Gertrude’s yells and the angry shouts of Coriolis, who distributed kicks all round.

  Soon the rumour ran that a girl had been married against her will and poisoned herself, there, before everybody, on the railway-platform, rather than accompany her husband. Men glared at Patrice, who, in his white tie, was obviously the bridegroom, as though they could have murdered him.

  Fortunately, Madeleine opened her eyes and gazed at the young man with a
look of fond affection which con tained as it were an entreaty that he would pardon her for the outrageous wedding-day which they had given him. And Madeleine’s lips also parted to emit a word that gave poor Patrice the shudders:

  “Home!”

  “Yes,” growled Coriolis, who was as red in the face as his daughter was pale and who seemed threatened with an apoplectic stroke, “let’s go home: I can’t let you leave in this state of weakness.”

  “My poor young lady!. My poor young lady!” whined Gertrude. “It’ll be the death of her...Indeed it’ll be the death of her...and of him too!”

  At these words, Patrice, who knew to whom that cry of pity referred, lost control of himself and, going up to Gertrude from behind, bit with all his teeth and all his might through the sleeve of puce-coloured silk that covered the tough arm of the old friend of the family. Gertrude howled with pain. Patrice assumed an air of innocence and begged her to moderate her grief. As far as he was concerned, he said, he objected to Madeleine’s returning home. Thereupon, the crowd all went for him, threatened to do for him, treated him as a savage and loudly pitied the young and charming girl who had been “sacrificed to such a brute!”

  A lady gave Madeleine her smelling-salts; a gentleman who declared himself to be a doctor stooped down to unlace her stays. Patrice made up his mind to die like a hero. Snatching his wife in his arms, he rushed through the crowd and out of the station. He had the luck to find a taxi and put Madeleine into it amid a chorus of execrations.

  “Where to?” asked the driver.

  “Down the Auvergne Road!” shouted Patrice. But Coriolis, running up, ordered: “Rue de Jussieu!”

  And he called Patrice’ attention to Madeleine, who had closed her eyes again.

  Gertrude, before taking her seat, gave a last word of warning:

  “Rue de Jussieu?...But suppose he’s there, sir?”

  To which Coriolis replied:

  “If he is, you know there’s no one like Madeleine to bring him to his senses.”

  And Madeleine’s lips opened once more:

  “Yes, he will listen to me.”