“Meanwhile I was trying to ascertain whether she had sustained any injury from her fall and I found none. Buquet was giving her sugared eau des carmes. ‘Come, my love,’ he was saying, ‘gather yourself together! Who was it you saw? What do you say?’ She turned white again. ‘ Oh! I saw him, him, Marcel.’ ‘She saw Géraud! that is odd,’ cried Buquet. ‘Yes, I saw him,’ she resumed gravely: ‘he looked at me without speaking, like that.’ And she assumed a haggard look. Buquet turned towards me wonderingly. ‘Don’t be anxious,’ I replied, ‘such illusions are not serious, they may proceed from indigestion. We will consider the matter at leisure. For the moment we may put it on one side. At La Charité I know a patient suffering from gastric disease who used to see cats under all the furniture.’
“In a few minutes Madame Buquet having completely recovered, her husband took out his watch and said: ‘If you think that the theatre will not do her any harm, Laboullée, it is time we started. I will tell Sophie to go for a cab.’ Adrienne quickly put on her hat. ‘Paul! Paul! Doctor! do listen: let us go to Monsieur Géraud’s first. I am anxious, more anxious than I can tell you.’
“‘You are mad!’ cried Buquet. ‘Whatever do you imagine is wrong with Géraud? We saw him yesterday in perfect health.’
“She gave me a look so imploring that the burning intensity of it went straight to my heart. ‘Laboullée, my friend, let us go at once to Monsieur Géraud’s.’
“I could not refuse her, she asked so entreatingly. Paul was grumbling: he wanted to see the first act. I said to him: ‘We had better go to Geraud’s, it will not take us far out of our way.’ The cab was waiting for us. I called to the driver: ‘5 Rue du Louvre. And as quick as you can.’
“Géraud lived at number 5 Rue du Louvre, not far from his bank, in a little three-roomed flat filled with neckties. They were the good fellow’s weakness. Barely had we stopped at the door when Buquet leaped from the cab and looking in at the porter’s lodge, asked: ‘How is Monsieur Géraud?’ The concierge replied: ‘Monsieur Géraud returned at five o’clock and took his letters. He has not gone out since. If you want to see him, it is the back staircase, on the fourth floor, to the right.’ But Buquet was already at the cab door, crying: ‘Géraud is at home. You see, my love, how absurd you were. To the Comédie Française, driver.’ Then Adrienne almost threw herself out of the cab. ‘Paul, I implore you, go up to Géraud’s. See him. See him, you must.’
“‘Go up four flights!’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Adrienne you will make us miss the play. Really, when a woman once gets an idea into her head. …’
“I remained alone in the cab with Madame Buquet, and I saw her eyes turned towards the house door and gleaming in the darkness. At length Paul returned: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I rang three times and without an answer. After all, my love, he must have had his reasons for not wishing to be disturbed. He may be with a woman. There would be nothing astonishing in that.’ Adrienne’s look became so tragic, that I myself felt anxious. When I came to think of it, it was unnatural for Géraud, who never dined at home, to remain up there from five o’clock in the afternoon until half-past seven. ‘Wait here for me,’ I said to Monsieur and Madame Buquet, ‘I will go and speak to the concierge.’ The woman also thought it strange that Géraud should not have gone out to dinner as usual. It was she who waited on the fourth-floor tenant, so she had the key of the flat. She took it down from the rack and offered to go up with me. When we had reached the landing, she opened the door, and from the vestibule called three or four times: ‘Monsieur Géraud!’ Receiving no reply, she ventured to enter the first room which was the bedroom. Again she called: ‘Monsieur Géraud! Monsieur Géraud!’ No reply. It was quite dark. We had no matches. ‘There must be a box of Swedish matches on the table de nuit,’ the woman said, beginning to tremble and afraid to move. I began to feel on the table and my fingers came in contact with a sticky substance. ‘There is no mistake about that,’ I thought, ‘It is blood.’
“When at length we had lit a candle, we saw Géraud stretched on his bed, with a wound in his head. His arm was hanging down on to the carpet where his revolver had fallen. A letter stained with blood was open on the table. It was in his handwriting and addressed to Monsieur and Madame Buquet. It began thus: ‘My dear friends, you have been the charm and joy of my life.’ It went on to tell them of his resolve to die without clearly explaining for what reason, but he hinted that financial embarrassment was the cause of his suicide. I perceived that death had taken place about an hour ago. So that he had killed himself at the very moment when Madame Buquet had seen him in the glass.
“Now is not this just what I was telling you, a perfectly authentic case of second sight, or to use a more exact term an instance of that curious psychical synchronism which science is studying to-day with a zeal which far surpasses its success.”
“It may be something quite different,” I replied. “Are you quite sure that there was nothing between Marcel Géraud and Madame Buquet?”
“Why?… I never noticed anything. And after all, what would that prove? …”
THE INTAGLIO
I HAD come to him at noon by invitation. We lunched in the dining-room long as a church nave, a veritable treasure-house filled with the ancient gold and silver work he has collected. I found him not exactly sad but meditative. His conversation now and again suggested the light and graceful turn of his wit. An occasional word revealed the rare delicacy of his artistic tastes and his passion for sport, by no means allayed by a terrible fall from his horse which had split his head open. But constantly the flow of his ideas was checked as if they had been barred by some obstacle.
From this conversation, which was somewhat fatiguing to follow, all I retain is that he had just sent a couple of white peacocks to his chateau of Raray and that without any special reason he had for three weeks been neglecting his friends, forsaking even the most intimate, Monsieur and Madame N.
It was plain enough to me that he had not asked me to come and listen to confidences such as those. While we were taking our coffee, I asked him what it was he had to tell me. He looked at me rather surprised:
“Had I anything to tell you?”
“Dame! You wrote: ‘Come and lunch tomorrow. I want to talk to you.’”
As he was silent I took the letter from my pocket and showed it to him. The address was in his attractive running hand, somewhat irregular. On the envelope there was a seal in violet wax.
He passed his hand over his forehead.
“I remember. Be so kind as to go to Féral’s, he will show you a study by Romney; a young woman; golden hair the reflection of which gilds her cheeks and forehead. . . . Pupils dark blue, giving a bluish tinge to the whole eye. . . . The warm freshness of her complexion. . . . It is delicious. And an arm like gold-beater’s skin. However, look at it and see if. . . .”
He paused. And with his hand on the door handle:
“Wait for me. I will put on my coat and we will go out together.’”
Left alone in the dining-room, I went to the window, and, more attentively than before, examined the seal of violet wax. It bore the imprint of an antique intaglio, representing a satyr raising the veil of a nymph who was asleep at the foot of a pillar, under a laurel-tree. During the best Roman period the subject was a favourite one with painters and with engravers of precious stones. This representation appeared to me excellent. The purity of the style, the perfect feeling for form, the harmonious grouping, converted this scene no longer than one’s finger-nail, into a composition vast and imposing.
I was under the spell when my friend appeared through the half-open door.
“Come, let’s be off,” he said.
He had his hat on and seemed to be in a hurry to go out.
I congratulated him on his seal.
“I was not aware that you possessed this beautiful gem.”
He replied that he had not had it long, only about six weeks. It was a find. He took it from the finger on which he wore it set i
n a ring, and put it in my hand.
It is well known that stones engraved in this fine classic style are generally cornelians. I was somewhat surprised therefore to see a dull gem, of a dark violet. “What!” I cried, “an amethyst.”
“Yes, a melancholy stone and unlucky. Do you think it is a genuine antique?”
He called for a magnifying glass. And now I was better able to admire the carving of the intaglio. It was obviously a masterpiece of Greek glyptography dating from the early Empire. Among all the precious stones in the Museum at Naples I had never seen anything more beautiful. With the glass it was possible to distinguish on the pillar an emblem often found on monuments dedicated to some subject of the Bacchic cycle. I pointed it out to him.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. The gem was in an open setting. It occurred to me to examine the reverse; and I was very surprised to find thereon an inscription of a clumsy crudity dating evidently from a period much less remote than that of the intaglio. In a measure these signs resembled the engraving on those Abraxas stones so familiar to antiquaries. In spite of my inexperience I believed them to be magic signs. That was also my friend’s opinion.
“It is thought,” he said, “to be a cabalistic formula, imprecations taken from a Greek poet …”
“Which poet?”
“I am not very well up in them.”
“Theocritus.”
“Theocritus perhaps.”
Through the glass I could make out distinctly a group of four letters:
K H P H
“That doesn’t spell a name,” said my friend.
“I pointed out to him that in Greek it is the equivalent of:
K E R E
And I gave him back the stone. He looked at it long in a dazed manner and then put it on to his finger.
“Come,” he said briskly. “Come.”
“Where are you going?”
“Towards the Madeleine. And you?”
“I? Where am I going? Parbleu! I am going to Gaulot’s to see a horse which he refuses to buy until I have looked at it. For, as you know, I am an authority on horses and something of a veterinary surgeon to boot. I may describe myself also as a furniture broker, an upholsterer, an architect, a gardener, and if need be a stock-jobber. Ah! my friend if only I had the energy I would cut out all the Jews.”
We went out into the faubourg; and, as we walked my friend assumed a gait very different from his habitual nonchalance. His pace soon became so rapid that I had difficulty in keeping up with him. In front of us was a woman rather well dressed. He called my attention to her.
“Her back is round, and she is heavy of figure. But look at her ankle. I am sure the leg is charming. Have you not noticed that the build of horses, of women, and of all fine animals is very much the same? Coarse and large in the fleshy parts, their limbs become thin towards the joints, where they display the fineness of the bones. Look at that woman; above her waist she is not worth a glance. But her limbs! How free, how powerful! How well balanced the movement of her walk! And how fine the leg just above the ankle! And the thigh I am sure is nervously supple and really beautiful.”
Then he added with that acquired wisdom which he was ever ready to communicate:
“You must not ask everything from one woman; you must take beauty where you find it. It is deucedly rare, is beauty!”
Whereupon, through a mysterious association of ideas, he raised his left hand and looked at his intaglio. I said to him:
“Then have you abandoned your little armorial tree and taken as your crest that marvellous Bacchante?”
“Ah! Yes, the beech, the fau of Du Fau. In Poitou, under Louis XVI, my great grandfather was what was then called a nobleman, that is he was an ennobled commoner. Later he joined a revolutionary club at Poitiers and acquired national property, which procures for me to-day, in a society of Jews and Americans, the friendship of princes and the rank of an aristocrat. Why did I forsake the fau of the Du Fau? Why? It was worth almost as much as the chêne of Duchesne de la Sicotière. And I have exchanged it for a bacchante, a barren laurel and an emblematical stone.”
Just as with ironical emphasis he was uttering these words, we reached the house of his friend Gaulot; but Du Fau passed the two copper knockers representing Neptune, gleaming on the door like bath taps.
“I thought you were so eager to go and see Gaulot?”
He appeared not to hear me and quickened his step. He continued breathlessly as far as the Rue Matignon, down which he turned. Then suddenly he stopped in front of a tall, melancholy, five-storied house. In silence he looked anxiously at the flat stucco façade with its numerous windows.
“Are you going to be there long?” I asked him. “Do you know that Madame Cère lives in this house?”
I knew that name would annoy him. Madame Cère was a woman whose artificial beauty, well-known venality and obvious stupidity he had always detested. Old and of neglected appearance she was suspected of being a shop-lifter and appropriating lace. But in a weak almost plaintive voice, he replied:
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it. Look at those windows on the second story and those hideous curtains with red leopards.”
He shook his head.
“But certainly Madame Cère lives there. At this very moment she is probably behind one of those red leopards.”
He seemed as if he would like to call on her. I expressed my surprise.
“Once you could not tolerate her. That was when every one considered her beautiful and ornamental; when she inspired fatal passion and tragic love you used to say: ‘If it were only for the coarseness of her skin the woman would fill me with insurmountable disgust. But besides she is flat-chested and big-jointed.’ Now, when all her charms have faded, have you succeeded in discovering one of those little points of beauty, with which as you were saying just now, we ought to be contented? What do you make of the fineness of her ankle and the nobility of her heart? A tall gawky woman without bust or hips, who, as she entered a salon, cast a sweeping gaze round the room, and by this simple trick attracted a crowd of those vain and imbecile creatures who ruin themselves for women devoid of natural charms.”
I paused, rather ashamed of having spoken thus of a woman. But this woman had given such abundant proof of her revolting malice, that I could not resist the feeling of repugnance she inspired. In truth I should not have expressed myself thus, had I not been convinced of her falseness and her evil disposition. Moreover I had the satisfaction of perceiving that Du Fau had not heard a single word of what I had said.
He began to talk as if to himself.
“Whether I call on her or not it is all the same. For six weeks I have visited nowhere without meeting her. Houses, which I have not entered for many years, I now return to, why I know not! Queer houses too!”
Unable to comprehend the lure which drew him, I left him there, standing in front of the open door. That Du Fau, who had loathed Madame Cère when she was beautiful, that he, who had repulsed her advances when she was in her prime, should seek her now that she was old and a victim of drugs, must result from a deterioration which I had not expected in my friend. Such an uncommon vagary I should have declared impossible if in the obscure domain of sensual pathology one could ever be sure of anything.
A month later, I left Paris without an opportunity of again meeting Paul Du Fau. After spending a few days in Brittany, I went to stay with my cousin B —— at Trouville. Her children were there with her. The first week of my visit to the Chalet des Alcyons was spent in giving lessons in water-colours to my nieces, in teaching my nephews to fence and in hearing my cousin play Wagner.
On Sunday morning I went with the family as far as the church, and while they were at mass I wandered about the town. Walking along the beach road lined with toy stalls and curiosity shops, I saw in front of me Madame Cère. Languid, solitary and forlorn, she was going down to the bathing-huts. The dragging of her feet suggested that her shoes were down at heel. Her frock, torn and
crumpled, seemed to be dropping off her body. For one moment she looked round. Her hollow vacant eyes and her hanging lip positively alarmed me. While the women cast sidelong glances at her, she went on her way dismal and indifferent.
Obviously the poor woman was poisoned with morphia. At the end of the street she stopped before the shop window of Madame Guillot, and, with her long thin hand, began to feel the laces. Her eager glance at that moment reminded me of the tattle that circulated about her in the big shops. The stout Madame Guillot, who was showing out some customers, appeared at the door. And Madame Cère, putting down the lace, resumed her dreary walk to the beach.
“You haven’t bought anything for a long time! What a bad customer you are!” cried Madame Guillot as she saw me. Come, look at some buckles and fans which the young ladies, your nieces, thought very pretty. How good looking they grow, the young ladies!”
Then she looked at the disappearing form of Madame Cère and shook her head as if to say:
“Isn’t it unfortunate? Eh?”
I had to buy some paste buckles for my nieces. While my purchase was being wrapped up, through the shop window I saw Du Fau going down to the beach. He was walking very quickly with an anxious air. In the manner of agitated persons, he was biting his nails, which enabled me to observe that he wore the amethyst on his finger.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 362