by Terry Hale
This was not an illusion.
The day began to brighten, a gentle breeze from the northeast sprang up, stiffened, and, at the end of an inexpressibly tense half-an-hour, the clouds had been driven back beyond the horizon, the sun glittered over the rooftops, the sky turned blue and the air became warm; in short, never had such a glorious spring day started out so ominously.
Belissan, who instead of offering his thanks to God could only think of his shiny silk britches and his ratteen frock-coat, tucked his hat under his arm, combed his hair one last time, and in seven minutes flat was at the foot of the stairs, dressed to the nines, not a hair out of place, a veritable picture of resplendence.
Alas! What a terrible sight greeted his eyes! The pavements were like a mire, everywhere gutters were overflowing, and the streets were jammed with carriages and horses scurrying hither and thither.
Belissan resolutely decided to undertake the perilous journey which would reunite him with Catherine on tip-toe. He was no more than a few paces from where his idol lived when he was caught up in a sudden press of people caused by a groom in a green and orange livery who preceded a magnificent carriage drawn by no less than four bay horses – and what horses they were, the first two were Danish thorough-breds, a matter that can hardly have escaped Belissan’s attention since the unfortunate clerk, as if it had been preordained by fate, was towards the outside of the crowd of pedestrians such that the two mettlesome horses covered him a shower of the darkest, thickest and slimiest mud, entirely ruining his ratteen frock-coat and shiny silk britches.
The seigneur who happened to be passing was the Marquis de Beaumont; he was returning from Versailles and was on his way to visit the Duc de Luynes.
Belissan, who was striped like a tiger with mud, was speechless; but like the tiger he also turned red with anger and shook his fist at the magnificent carriage as he had shaken his fist earlier in the day at God, but he shook his fist mostly at the insolent footman bedecked in gold and silk perched on the rear of the vehicle, who almost split his sides with laughter.
From this moment, from this minute, from this second, Belissan swore an eternal hatred of God, the Marquis, carriages, footmen, and Danish horses, and proclaimed himself the equal of all men, grand seigneurs, lackeys and Danish horses.
He was perhaps about to give vent to a long and lively disquisition on the issue of social inequality when he remembered Catherine; postponing his anger until later, he inspected his stained clothes and sighed to himself:
‘When all is said and done, perhaps it is better to let the mud dry rather than risk rubbing it into the fabric; in any case, this will make Catherine feel sorry for me …’
And he continued on his way, his head throbbing with various notions about love and equality, happiness and hatred. Indeed, the head of Claude Belissan was a veritable cauldron; and when he entered the street on which his mistress lived it must have been smoking, so hot and effervescent were his ideas.
You can’t help feeling sorry for Claude Belissan – just imagine what he must have felt, all the emotions which must have run through him, when on turning the corner he saw the diabolical carriage which had plastered him with mud stationed outside Catherine’s door.
In fact, Catherine’s father was a perfumier-glover, at the sign of the Bonne-Foi, and his shop was almost next door to the residence of the Duc de Luynes.
Belissan let out a sigh of relief when he failed to see the insolent footman. He approached the door of the shop, cast a final look of despair over his soiled clothes, and went in.
But as he crossed the threshold he experienced every shade of the chromatic scale from white to violet; his eyes clouded over, blue flames flashed before him, his head began to spin, all he could do was slump convulsively against the counter, trapping the hand of the glover beneath him. The latter exclaimed:
‘Monsieur Belissan! Kindly watch what you are doing!’
But Belissan was incapable of watching what he was doing. On entering the shop, Belissan had caught sight of the glover’s pretty daughter helping the insolent footman, who really was a fine figure of a man, try on a pair of gloves. Worse still, Belissan had seen the footman squeeze Catherine’s hands, and she had smiled at him through her blushes.
And that was all he had seen.
But his mind was racing.
The clerk’s muscles contracted involuntarily, as if a red hot needle had been thrust into his brain, and he smashed his hand down on the counter.
At this sound, Catherine raised her head.
The handsome footman raised his head.
And both of them in unison, on seeing Belissan so besplattered with mud, so dishevelled, so angry, so pale, so peculiar, so ferocious, burst out into a prolonged peal of laughter in which Catherine’s clear timbre mingled with the masculine, sonorous bass of the footman.
Belissan scowled furiously and gesticulated like a madman.
And the duet of laughter broke out again, louder than ever; only the dry, croaking laugh of the glover himself spoiled the harmony.
Belissan, no longer in control of himself, picked up a ruler and approached the footman menacingly; his wrist was seized in an instant by the large hand of the footman, and he heard the worthy glover exclaim: ‘Monsieur Belissan! What do you think you are doing? How dare you raise your fist to a member of the Marquis de Beaumont’s retinue, whose custom we hope to win. Is this how you seek to demonstrate your friendship?’
And Catherine added bitterly:
‘Just what do you mean by calling on people dressed like that!’
And the handsome footman added:
‘If it wasn’t for the fact that a young lady is present, I would throw you out into the street head first, as truly as my name is Almanzor, as truly as I am in the employment of his lordship the Marquis de Beaumont.’
‘Please forgive him this time, Monsieur Almanzor!’ pleaded Catherine with a sidelong glance at the handsome footman.
‘Kindly go and change your clothes, Monsieur Belissan. You will frighten our customers away,’ said the glover, hardly able to suppress his laughter.
‘There is a bath-house just along the street at No. 15,’ said Almanzor as he escorted Belissan to the door of the shop with exaggerated politeness.
The clerk, who felt as if he was in the grip of a terrible nightmare, did not say a word in reply, heard and saw nothing, made a bolt for it, and did not stop until he was in the Champs-Elysées.
And even then he only stopped because he bumped into a man who exclaimed:
‘Why, it’s Belissan!’
Belissan gathered his thoughts.
‘Who are you? Where am I? What do you want?’ he sighed.
‘It’s me, Lucien. You’re in the Champs-Elysées, you’ve got mud all over you. I want to say good-bye because I am on my way to Le Havre.’
‘You’re on your way to Le Havre? I shall go with you.’
‘But I leave today, this very instant!’
‘I shall leave today as well, this very instant!’
‘I take the coach, I go by ship!’
‘I too shall take the coach, the ship, whatever it takes to get out of Paris! But I must leave this beastly place; I shall go and live in the desert or on an island, anywhere where all men are equal and I am the equal of all men! Do you understand me, Lucien?’
‘No, but time is short. Are you really coming with me? What about clothes and underwear?’
‘I shall borrow yours, Lucien,’ replied Belissan with a touching sadness. ‘You will give me yours; all men are brothers.’
‘What will you do for money?’
‘I shall share yours, Lucien; all men are equal.’
‘You must be joking!’
‘He must be either mad or very ill,’ thought Lucien. ‘Either way, this little trip will do him good. I’ll take him with me.’
‘Adieu, Paris! Foul sewer!’ said the clerk contemptuously as he thrust himself into the coach.
And that was how Claude Belissan c
ame to leave Paris.
II
How the Kingdom of France was henceforth deprived of the presence of Claude Belissan
Captain Dufour, commander of the square-rigged three-master La Comtesse de Cérigny, required only another passenger or two to enable him to set sail from Le Havre for his destination. The first leg of his journey would take him to the South Seas where he would sell his merchandise; then he would charge his vessel at the Spice Islands, returning home via the Cape of Good Hope; in all, it was almost a round-the-world voyage.
One morning his cabin-boy announced there was a gentleman to see him.
‘What sort of gentleman, boy?’
‘A sickly-looking fellow in a tail coat.’
‘Show in the sickly-looking fellow.’
The sickly-looking fellow came in: it was Belissan.
‘I believe your vessel is due to depart any moment now, captain.’
‘Yes, I require only one more passenger. I hope that passenger will prove to be your good self,’ replied the captain with bonhomie.
‘It is quite possible,’ said Belissan, ‘provided you can set me down at an island.’
‘Which island did you have in mind?’
‘Any island, captain, I am not particular – provided that it is wild and deserted; and provided that I shall not encounter there any lords, footmen, Danish horses or girls who break their promises. An island,’ Belissan continued in an increasingly excited manner, ‘where equality is proclaimed as a fundamental right; a wild and deserted island where I can experience at my leisure the greatest gift granted to mankind; an island where…’
‘If I may interrupt you for a moment,’ said Captain Dufour, who was by now firmly convinced that he was dealing with a lunatic, ‘are you quite serious about this?’
‘Do I look as if I am splitting my side with laughter,’ mumbled Belissan.
‘Then I regret to inform you, sir, that it is impossible for me to take charge of you. I am destined for Callao, in the South Seas, then I return via the Indian Ocean. Wait a second though, you wouldn’t want to be disembarked at Tahiti by any chance, would you? We could easily set you ashore there.’
Tahiti! The latest discovery of Bougainville,1 the Cytherea of the New World! Yes, yes! Set me ashore at Tahiti – that generous and youthful nation! I won’t find a single footman or a marquis or a Danish horse on the entire island; my existence will be as pure and calm as a mountain stream; sun, flowers, enough trees for everyone, nature in its most primitive and goodly expression, without social differences; we shall all be brothers and sisters. Yes, let it be Tahiti! I renounce my European citizenship: corrupted, stunted by civilisation, I will return to my natural state, the state on which I pride myself. I have fallen as low as civilisation; I will raise myself to a state of savagery!’ (At this point Belissan struck a classical pose. He stood on tip-toe in a futile attempt to make himself seem taller, and sought in vain to drape his ratteen frock-coat about himself like a toga.) ‘Tahiti! There will be no God there to enjoy the malicious satisfaction of frustrating men’s schemes; no kings; no vile courtesans devouring the labour of the people; no stupid shop signs, none of these ridiculous clothes which classify and determine your position in the social hierarchy … O Tahiti! O Voltaire! O D’Alembert! O Diderot! Philosophers, all! Eternal light of nations! Tahiti is where you belong! All you philanthropists who dream of peace and the universal family, Tahiti is the place for us! There we can live as one great family!’
Belissan’s philanthropic discourse took such a furious and frenetic turn at this point that M. Dufour was obliged to restrain him about the waist and call his cabin-boy.
The cabin-boy came running, and together they managed to calm Belissan who now only cried out feebly by fits and starts: ‘Tahiti! Tahiti!’
Captain Dufour reflected carefully whether he should allow Claude Belissan, who was quite mad in his estimation, on board his ship. However, knowing that Belissan would pay for his passage at the full rate, he eventually gave his consent.
Claude left France without informing his aged uncle, selling the little he had in the knowledge that on Tahiti money would be of absolutely no use whatsoever.
The ship was ready to cast off; and when the purser demanded the occupation of each of the passengers in order to inscribe it in the register, Belissan quite took his breath away by replying majestically:
‘Man!!!’
‘Man?’ queried the purser, springing from his seat.
‘Man,’ repeated Belissan.
‘What do you mean, “man”?’ asked the astonished purser. ‘What sort of man? What title of man?’
‘Pure and simply: man,’ screamed Claude, who had turned blue with rage. ‘Man of nature, if you prefer. That really sums everything up, doesn’t it?’ he went on with a bitter smile, shrugging his shoulders in pity. ‘What title of man, indeed! Because everyone has to have a title, however ludicrous. Yours is an ignoble job. There are still kings on their thrones, giants of creation! As for me, I am a savage. I have been degraded and abased by a selfish and degenerate society, the corrupting influence of civilisation. Do you understand?’ Having declaimed all this without a pause, Belissan turned his back on the respectable figure of the purser.
‘He is out of his head,’ said the latter, who had already been warned of Belissan’s peculiarity. Then, finding his place in the register, he wrote:
‘Claude Belissan, self-proclaimed man of nature, but travelling to the island of Tahiti for commercial reasons.’
The three-masted Comtesse de Cérigny left Le Havre on 13 June, 1789.
III
Why Claude Belissan, man, sought the company of a calf, and what resulted from their encounter
A month after embarking on La Comtesse de Cérigny, Claude Belissan was already blind in one eye; six weeks later he had lost two molars and an incisor; four months later he had three ribs broken as the ship rounded Cape Horn; in short, the day on which they docked at Callao did not come a moment too soon for him: had the crossing taken any longer, Claude Belissan, the equal of all men, would have been dismantled piece by piece.
The various accidents which had befallen the young man all resulted from his philosophical and philanthropical tendencies, his desire for the common good, his horror of social inequalities, and his dream of universal perfectionment.
First, catching sight of a thick-set sailor whipping a cabin-boy who had not stowed away the foresails quickly enough, Belissan had shouted:
‘Horror! Let nature tremble! Here is a brother who beats his brother! Sailor, this cabin-boy is your brother and your equal. Sailor, leave this cabin-boy in peace!’
And the sailor, chewing his quid unconcernedly, replied squarely to Claude, without letting go of his cabin-boy:
‘Bourgeois, this cabin-boy is no equal of mine, given that he is a cabin-boy while I am an able seaman; given that he is no more than a child while I have reached manhood; given that he stows away the sails badly while I stow them away well. When he becomes a seaman, he will whip cabin-boys in his turn. Now, bourgeois, I have promised him fifteen of the cat and I am only on the seventh. This will remind him of his station.’
‘Let me tell you at once that I am not a bourgeois, but plainly and simply a man, and as man to man I tell you that you will not mistreat this child any further and that you will let go of him, for he is brother to both of us. Tyrant! Despot! Cannibal!’ shouted Belissan, as he tried to pull the cabin-boy from his grasp. ‘Enough I tell you! We are equals, and as your equal I order you to finish what you are about – I mean not to finish what you are about!’
‘Bourgeois,’ replied the sailor stoically, ‘we are not equals because I am of the sea and you are of the land; nor are you an officer; nor…’
At this, Belissan rushed at him:
‘Very well,’ said the sailor, ‘since we are equals, try this punch for size and render me its equal…’
Belissan, as we know, was not capable of rendering its equal, and was blinded in on
e eye.
Another day, Belissan abused the captain who, during a storm, had kept his crew on deck. Claude bluffed and blustered that the honest seamen were under no obligation to lift a finger; indeed, that they had every right to let the vessel flounder. Tired of the sound of the little man’s voice, they gagged him and threw him in the hold. But as Claude resisted this development, he left his teeth behind him.
The immediate consequence of this accident was that Claude was overtaken by a bout of misanthropy of the severest and most disdainful variety. Claude began to hate the entire human race. ‘What is the cause of your beastly degradation,’ he shouted with a high-pitched whistle caused by the loss of his incisor, ‘what is the cause of your beastly degradation! It is civilisation which is the cause of it, civilisation and the bestial influence of aristocrats, kings, priests, footmen and Danish horses! It is civilisation which has ruined everything! How right they were, all those brilliant philosophers, who believed that the only way to regenerate society was a return to natural law, the state of nature! How right they were! That is where true happiness lies! I will offer all the insults and sufferings I have received, my eye and my three teeth, as a sacrifice to nature. Tahiti! Tahiti! That is where I shall find paradise, because this must be hell right now! And if I make use of such ridiculous expressions as paradise and hell,’ he added, in a tone of disgust, as an afterthought, ‘it only because I know no others.’ Then Belissan had an idea.
Belissan said to himself: ‘This ship is a fragment, a fraction, a portion of society. What is there to prevent me from humiliating the whole of society as represented by this fragment! Let me crush it under my feet and trample on it – by showing them all that I prefer to live with a simple animal, a savage and thoughtless animal, rather than maintaining the corrupt and degrading relations I enjoy with the ship’s company for a moment longer.’
And to the immense mortification of this society of which he was so contemptuous, Belissan elected to take up residence in the depths of the hold where a calf destined to feed the crew had been stowed. He lived with this calf, talked with this calf, ate with this calf, disported himself with this calf, and sometimes he would triumphantly shout to himself, as he rolled around in the animal’s dung: ‘Society! Have I shamed you enough now! How do you blush and weep now!’