Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Anyway my mother was perfectly well aware, she had to admit it with tears in her eyes, that the taste for lovely things was dying out … you couldn’t buck the stream … it was stupid to even try and fight, you were just wearing yourself out for nothing … Rich people had lost all their refinement … all their delicacy … their appreciation for fine work, for handmade articles … all they had left was a depraved infatuation with machine-made junk, embroideries that unravel, that melt and peel when you wash them … Why insist on making beautiful things? … That’s what the ladies wanted. Flashy stuff … gingerbread … horrors … rubbish from the bargain counter… Fine lace was a thing of the past … What was the use of fighting? … My mother had had to give in to the contagion … She’d filled the whole place with this cheap junk … real crap … in less than a month … That was a safe bet! … The window was full of it … To see every curtain rod and shelf in the place full of this trash, miles of it, didn’t just make her unhappy, it gave her a real bellyache … But it was no use arguing … The Jews two steps away from us, on the corner of the rue des Jeûneurs, piled up enormous pieces of the same, the whole shop front was thrown open, and the counters were buried under the stuff like at the fair, by the bobbin, by the rod, by the pound!

  It was a real comedown for anybody who had known the real stuff … my mother was overcome with shame at having to compete with such garbage … But she had no choice … She’d have preferred to abandon this line altogether and get along as best she could with other things, with her little pieces of furniture for instance, her marqueterie, her poudreuses, her kidney-shaped tables, her cabinets, or even the gewgaws people put in glass cases, the knickknacks, the little pieces of pottery, and even the Dutch globes that leave next to no profit and are so heavy to carry … But she wasn’t strong enough … it was too hard with her bad leg … running all over Paris, she could never have carried a bigger load … It couldn’t be done. But that’s what you had to do if you wanted to find bargains. And hang around the auction rooms pointing like a hound dog for hours on end … And what about the store? … The two didn’t go together … Our doctor, Dr. Capron from the Marché Saint-Honoré, had been to see us twice on account of her leg … He’d made himself very clear … He’d ordered her to take a complete rest … to stop running up and down stairs, loaded like three dozen mules … to give up the housework … even the cooking … He hadn’t pulled any punches … He’d told her in so many words that if she kept overdoing it … he’d warned her … she’d get a real abscess inside the knee, he even showed her the place … From the continual strain the upper and lower part of her leg had gone stiff … they were riveted together … joint and all, they were frozen into a single bone. It looked like a stick with ridges running all along … They weren’t muscles … When she moved her foot, they pulled on it like ropes … You could see them straining … It gave her excruciating pain … a terrible cramp. Especially in the evening when she was through, when she came home from running around … She showed me when we were alone … She put on hot compresses … She was careful not to let my father see her … She’d finally noticed what a temper it put him in to have her limping along behind him …

  Since we were all alone again … and I was in the shop, waiting … she took advantage of the opportunity to repeat … very gently, very affectionately, but with absolute conviction, that it was really my fault if things were going so badly … on top of all their other troubles in the shop and the office … My conduct, all my misdeeds at Gorloge’s and at Berlope’s had hit them so hard they’d never get over it … They were still stunned … Of course they weren’t angry with me … they didn’t hold it against me … Let bygones be bygones … But at least I ought to realize what a state I’d put them in … My father was so shattered he couldn’t control his nerves … He started up in the middle of the night … He woke up with nightmares … He’d pace back and forth for hours …

  As for her, I had only to look at her leg … It was the worst of calamities … It was worse than a serious sickness, than typhoid or erysipelas … Again she repeated all her recommendations in the most affectionate tone … that I should try to be more reasonable with my new bosses … more settled in my ways, more courageous, persevering, grateful, scrupulous, obliging … to stop being scatterbrained, negligent, lazy … to try to have my heart in the right place … Yes, that’s the main thing, the heart! … to remember always, and never forget, that they’d deprived themselves of everything, that they’d both of them worked their fingers to the bone for me ever since I was born … and now, only recently, sending me to England! … that if, by ill luck, I were to commit any more horrible crimes … well, it would be the end … my father wouldn’t be able to take it … poor man, he’d be through. He’d come down with neurasthenia, he’d have to leave his office … For her part … if she had to go through any more agonies … over my conduct … it would affect her leg … there’d be one abscess after another and in the end they’d have to amputate … That’s what Capron had said.

  In Papa’s case it was even more tragic on account of his temperament, his sensibility … He ought to take a rest, right away and for several months, what he needed was a long vacation in a quiet place, away from it all, in the country … That’s what Capron had recommended … He’d examined his heart very carefully … it beat like a triphammer … Sometimes it even missed a beat … The two of them … Capron and Papa … were exactly the same age, forty-two years and six months … He’d even added that a man is even more delicate than a woman when the “menopause” sets in … that he should take a thousand precautions … His advice came at the wrong time … Right then my father was knocking himself out more than ever … You could hear him typing up on the fourth floor, the machine was an enormous contraption with a keyboard the size of a factory … When he’d been typing a long time, the clickety click of the keys buzzed in his ears a good part of the night … It kept him awake. He took mustard footbaths. That brought some of the blood down from his brain.

  I began to realize that my mother would always regard me as an unfeeling child, a selfish monster, a little brute, capricious, scatterbrained … They had tried everything, done everything they could … it was really no use. There’d never be any help for my disastrous, innate, incorrigible propensities … She could only face the facts, my father had been perfectly right … During my absence their griping had got even worse, it had settled into a groove … They were so busy with their troubles they couldn’t even bear the sound of my footsteps. My father made horrible faces every time I came upstairs.

  The business with the lousy boleros had been the last straw … and the typewriter was driving him crazy, he’d never be able to work it … He spent hours making copies … He banged it like he was deaf … he ruined whole pages … Either he’d hit too hard or not hard enough … The little bell was ringing all the time … From my bed … I was right near him … I saw him struggling … missing the keys … getting tangled up in the connecting rods … He wasn’t cut out for it … He’d get up all in a sweat … He’d reel off the most terrible blasphemies … At the office Monsieur Lernpreinte was still rubbing it in, persecuting him from morning to night. Obviously he was just looking for a pretext … “Those downstrokes … those curlicues … they take you all day. Ah, my poor friend! Take a look at your colleagues. They were done hours ago. You’re a calligraphier, monsieur! You ought to set yourself up in business …” They really had it in for him … He began to look for another job … He saw he was on the skids … He went to see former associates … He knew an assistant cashier in a rival company … The Connivance Fire Insurance Company. They’d as good as promised him a tryout in January … But there he’d have to type … He went at it every night after his deliveries.

  It was an antique contraption, absolutely unbreakable, specially made for rental, the bell rang at every comma. He’d hammer away frantically under the transom from suppertime to midnight.

  My mother came up for a moment after
she’d done the dishes, she propped up her leg on a chair and put on compresses … She couldn’t chat, it bothered my father … We were dying of the heat … The beginning of summer was torrid that year.

  It was a bad time to be looking for a job … Business was quiet just before the slack season. We put out a few feelers … We made inquiries here and there … with some agents we knew … They had no prospects to offer. There wouldn’t be much doing until after summer vacation … not even in the foreign shops.

  In a way it was lucky I had nothing to do, because I hadn’t any clothes … they’d definitely have to outfit me before I could start making my rounds … But it wasn’t going to be easy … The main trouble was lack of money … I’d simply have to wait till September for the shoes and the overcoat … I was mighty glad of the reprieve … It gave me time to breathe before trotting out my English … There’d be hell to pay when they began to catch on … Well, it wouldn’t be right away … I had only one shirt to my name … I wore one of my father’s … They decided they’d order a jacket and two pair of pants all at once … But not until next month … At the moment it couldn’t be done … There was barely enough for grub and even that was touch and go … The rent came due on the eighth and they were behind with the gas … Not to mention taxes and Papa’s typewriter … We were really in the soup … There were writs all over the place … all over the furniture, violet ones, red ones, and blue ones …

  So I had a little respite. I couldn’t go calling on prospective bosses in a threadbare suit, patched, frayed, with the sleeves only halfway down my arm … It was out of the question! Especially in novelties and haberdashery, where they all dress up like fashion plates.

  My father was so preoccupied with his typing exercises and his dread of being fired from Coccinelle that even at supper he was deep in thought. He’d lost interest in me. He’d made up his mind about me once and for all … the idea was firmly anchored in his dome that I was villainy incarnate … a hopeless blockhead … and that was that … that I had no part in the worries, the anxieties of noble individuals … I wasn’t the kind that would carry my suffering around with me in my flesh like a knife … And keep turning it as long as I lived … Far from it … And jerk the handle … And stick it in deeper! To heighten the pain … And bellow and broadcast every new step forward in my suffering! Of course not. And turn into a fakir in the Passage! Side by side with them! Sure, something miraculous, something people could worship! Something more and more perfect! That’s it. A thousand times more anxious, more harassed, more miserable! … The saint engendered by hard work and family thrift … Sure, why not? More muddleheaded … Sure … A hundred times thriftier! Glory be! Something that had never been seen in the Passage or anywhere else … In the whole world … Christ! The child marvel … the marvel of all France … the wonder of wonders! But nothing like that could be expected of me … I had a depraved nature … It was inexplicable … There wasn’t a speck or straw of honor in me … I was rotten through and through … repulsive, degenerate! I was unfeeling. I had no future … I was as dry as a salt herring … I was a hard-hearted debauchee … a dungheap … full of sullen rancor … I was life’s disillusionment … I was grief itself. And I ate my lunch and supper there, not to mention my morning coffee … They did their Duty! I was their cross on earth! … I’d never have a conscience! … I was nothing but a bundle of debased instincts and a hollow that devoured my family’s sorry pittance and all their sacrifices. In a way I was a vampire … It was no use thinking about it …

  In the Passage des Bérésinas, in all the shopwindows, a lot of changes had taken place while I was gone … They were going in for the “modern style” with lilac and orange tints … Convolvulus and iris were all the rage … They climbed up the windows … done up into carved molding … Two perfume stores and a gramophone shop opened … There were still the same pictures outside our theater, the Plush Barn … the same posters in the stage entrance … They were still playing Miss Helyett and still with the same tenor—Pitaluga … He had a heavenly voice; every Sunday he bowled over his female admirers in the Elevation at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires … For twelve months every shop in the Passage was talking about the way this Pitaluga sang “Minuit Chrétien” at Saint-Eustache on Christmas … Every year he was more swooning, more wonderful, more supernatural …

  There was talk of installing electricity in all the shops in the Passage. Then they’d get rid of the gas that started whistling at four o’clock in the afternoon from three hundred and twenty jets … it stank so bad in that confined space (added to the urine from the dogs, which were getting to be more and more plentiful) that along about seven o’clock some of the lady customers began to feel faint. There was even talk of tearing us down completely, of dismantling the whole gallery! Of removing our big glass roof and building a street eighty feet wide right where we were living … My oh my! But the rumors weren’t very serious, actually it was poppycock, prison gossip. We were prisoners in a glass cage and prisoners we’d always be … Forever and regardless … No getting around it … The law of the jungle …

  Once in a while the poor bastards got crazy ideas … fantastic fairy tales passed from mouth to mouth as they were standing outside their shops, especially in hot weather … Like bubbles oozing out of their brains … before the September storms. They’d dreamed up harebrained schemes, monumental rackets, all they could think of was big deals, wild swindles … Nightmares … they saw themselves expropriated, persecuted by the State! They worked themselves up, they went completely off their rockers, they were absolutely crackers, maddened with hokum. Ordinarily so pale, they went crimson …

  Before going to bed, they’d pass around fantastic estimates, wild memoranda showing the staggering, but absolutely indispensable sums they’d demand if anybody mentioned moving. My oh my! By God, the authorities were in for a little trouble if they tried to turn them out … The Council of State didn’t know what resistance meant! Don’t you worry! And the chancellery and the whole damn government! … They’d shit in their pants. They’d see who they were talking to! Oh ho! And the Hall of Writs and Records … The whole rotten gang and then some! By my grandmother’s crabs! The sparks would fly … It wasn’t going to be any pushover, hell, no … Over their dead bodies … they’d lock themselves up in their rooms! In the end they’d have to disembowel the whole Bank of France to build them new shops … exactly the same! to the milligram! to two decimals! That’s what we’re asking, or the deal is off! We won’t budge! Now you know the score! That’s our last word! … Well, in a pinch they’d accept a settlement … A big one … They wouldn’t say no … They might agree … But it’s got to be on the level … An income for life! A nice juicy one, guaranteed to the hilt by the Bank of France, to be spent any way they pleased! They’d go fishing! For ninety years if they felt like it! And nightclubs day and night! And that wouldn’t be the end of it! They’d have royalties and claims and country houses and other indemnities besides … astronomical … incalculable!

  Well then? It was all a question of guts! The whole thing was perfectly simple, no use arguing … Stand up for your rights, don’t weaken … That was their point of view … It was the heat, the terrible atmosphere, the electricity in the air … That way at least they weren’t shouting at each other … They all got together on their “claims” … Everybody was in agreement … They were all hypnotized on the future … Everybody was hoping to be evicted.

  All the neighbors in the Passage were flabbergasted at the dimensions I had assumed … I was getting to be a big bruiser. I’d almost doubled in bulk … That would cost even more when we went to the Deserving Classes for my outfit … I tried on my father’s clothes They burst at the shoulders, I couldn’t even get into his pants. I needed everything new. I’d just have to wait …

  On her way home from her errands Madame Béruse, the glovemaker, dropped in just to see how [ looked: “His mother can be proud of him,” she finally concluded. “His stay abroad has done him good.” S
he repeated that wherever she went. The others came in too to form an opinion of their own. The old caretaker of the Passage, Gaston the hunchback, who picked up all the gossip, found me changed, but in his opinion I was thinner. They couldn’t really agree, everybody had his own idea. In addition, they wanted to know all about England. They asked me for details about how the Engleesh lived over there … I spent all my time in the shop, waiting for them to clothe me. Visios, the sailor, the one with the pipes, Charonne, the gilder, Madame Isard from the dry-cleaning shop, they all wanted to know what we ate at my school in Rochester. Especially about the vegetables. Was it really true they ate them raw, or hardly cooked? And the beer and the water? If I’d had whiskey? If the women had big teeth … kind of like horses? And what about their feet? A lot of applesauce. And their tits? Did they have any? All this with a lot of snide remarks and scandalized looks.

  But what they really wanted was for me to say something in English. They were just dying to hear me, they didn’t care if they understood or not … the effect was what they wanted … to hear me talk a little … My mother didn’t make too much of a fuss, but all the same it would have made her mighty proud to have me display my talents … put all those busybodies in their place …

  All I knew was: “River … water … no trouble … no fear” and maybe two or three more things … It really didn’t amount to much. Anyway I didn’t feel like it … I wasn’t in the mood … It made my mother miserable to see I was just as stubborn as ever. I wasn’t worthy of all their sacrifices. The neighbors were vexed too, they began to make long faces, they thought I was acting like a pigheaded mule … “He hasn’t changed a bit,” said Gaston, the hunchback. “He’ll never change … he’s still the same as when he used to piss on my gates … I could never make him stop.”