by Terry Hale
This would certainly have to be what is called, in the world of commerce, an ‘up-market’ product; but for the labouring classes (no question of neglecting them!) mighty laboratories could be annexed to these luxurious dispensaries whose sole object would be the mass production of perfume; this, of course, could be distilled from whatever remained unclaimed at the bottom of the communal burial pit; it would put the art of perfumery on a new footing, and make available yet more shoddy goods at bargain basement prices, well within the reach of all, especially as the raw materials would be not only plentiful but also cheap, costing no more than the wage bill for the chemists and those who exhumed the body.
Ah, how happy the lower-class womenfolk would be to buy whole tubs of pomades and blocks of soap manufactured from the essential oils of the proletariat!
And what better reminder, what fresher eternal memory, could one hope to achieve than these sublime emanations of the dead? At present, when one half of a loving couple dies, all the other can do is cherish their photograph and make a pilgrimage to their grave on All Saints’ Day. Thanks to the invention of ptomaine, it will be possible from now on to preserve the woman of cherished memory in the privacy of your own home, in your pocket even, in a volatile, mercurial state, to transform your beloved into a jar of smelling-salts, concentrate her into a juice, tip her in powder-form into an embroidered sachet bearing a heart-rending epigraph, and take a deep inhalation of her on bad days or perhaps just a sniff on more pleasant occasions, impregnated in your handkerchief.
On the subject of bodily reflexes, let’s not forget either that we might be able to dispense altogether with having to listen to the inevitable cry for help addressed to mother at the moment of defloration since the good lady herself may well be present at the occasion, disguised as a beauty spot or mixed up in the face powder evenly applied to her daughter’s breast, while the latter lies back in a swoon, clamouring for the assistance she knows perfectly well will not arrive.
Furthermore, with the progress of science, ptomaine, which is today a deadly poison, may one day be consumed without risk; so why not flavour certain dishes with it? Why not employ these fragrant essences just as we now use extracts of cinnamon, almonds, vanilla or cloves to enhance the taste of certain cakes? As with the cosmetics industry, this would open up new directions for the art of both the pastry-cook and the confectioner, directions which would be not only financially rewarding but also emotionally heart-warming.
And finally, ptomaine would certainly reaffirm and strengthen the noble ties of the family which have been progressively weakened during these disrespectful times. Families would be drawn cosily together in mutual affection during thrilling moments of solidarity. Ptomaine could conjure up, without fail and at just the right moment, the deceased’s life and so set an example to the children whose gluttony would fix such memories clearly in their minds.
It is the evening of the Day of the Dead. We are in a tiny dining room somewhere or other, furnished with a sideboard manufactured from some kind of lightly varnished wood with black borders. The lamp has been trimmed and a shade directs the light on to the table. The family is seated. The wife is a good mother; the father a clerk with some firm or bank; their son is still young, only recently over whooping-cough and childhood rashes. He has been momentarily calmed down by the threat of being deprived of pudding, and has at last agreed not to splash his soup with his spoon, and to eat up his meat with a slice of bread.
Motionlessly, he studies his parents who are contemplative and silent. The maid comes in, carrying a crème aux ptomaines. The very same morning, mother had respectfully taken from the mahogany Empire bureau with the trefoiled lock the crystal-stoppered phial containing the precious liquid extracted from grandfather’s decomposed internal organs. With an eye-dropper, she had herself carefully counted the aromatic drips which now perfume the dessert.
The boy’s eyes light up; but before he is served he must listen to an eulogy of the old man who has bequeathed him, besides certain physical traits, this posthumous taste of rose on which he is about to gorge himself.
‘Such an excellent fellow, Grandpa Jules! Sober, hardworking and prudent. He walked to Paris in his clogs and always managed to put a bit aside even when he was only earning a hundred francs a month. He wasn’t the sort of man to lend out his money without security and without interest. He was no fool! Business before pleasure! Cash down! And what respect he had for money and those who had it! Consequently, he died revered by his children, to whom he left investments befitting a family man, all in gilts!’
‘Can you remember Grandpa, my darling?’
‘Yum-yum! Grandpa!’ clamours the kid, who is smearing the ancestral cream all over his face and nose.
‘And Grandma? Can you remember her too, my pet?’
The child has to think for a moment. Every year a rice cake flavoured with the deceased’s corporeal essence is served to mark the anniversary of her death. She had always smelled of snuff when alive, but by some curious phenomenon, had exuded an aroma of orange-flower ever since her death.
‘Yum-yum! Grandma, too!’ rejoices the child.
‘Tell me, which do you like best? Grandpa or Grandma?’
Like all brats, who prefer what they haven’t got to whatever is placed before them, the boy longs for the far-off cake and admits that he liked Grandma best; but he nonetheless pushes out his plate towards the dish with Grandpa in it.
Fearful of an attack of filial indigestion, the prudent mother has the dessert removed.
What an utterly charming and touching family scene! thought Jacques, as he rubbed his eyes. And he wondered if, given his present mental state, he had not been dreaming, slumbering on his chair, with his face resting on the page of the scientific journal describing the discovery of ptomaine.
The Prisoner Of His Own Masterpiece
Edmund Haraucourt
Oh! Such hell when I discovered that she had been deceiving me! Such hell when I finally held in my hands the proof that I had been looking for, waiting for, longing for in direct proportion to the hurt that I knew it would cause me. That’s just how I am, and I think most men are like me: we can’t bear not to know, even if life will never be the same afterwards; and the more harm it will do us, the more we have to know.
I’m a violent fellow, and I don’t try to disguise it. All my friends have born the brunt. I’ve fallen out with plenty of people that I really liked, and ruined my chances in the world a dozen times over. I’m sorry enough for these acts of violence after the event, but I do and say things without being able to hold them in, and without really trying to. It’s the demon in me struggling to get out, as the ancient philosophers would have put it; or the beast in me waking up, as they say nowadays. At such times, I’m like an animal. I have a furious temper, and the worst of it is that instead of wearing itself out, the longer it goes on, the madder I become, I am unable to look at a problem in my head from all angles, it seems to spin round and round, like the wooden horses on a carousel, always faster and faster, until the whole roundabout goes out of control and disintegrates.
I can assure you that life hasn’t always been much fun for my wife! Perhaps that’s why she decided to deceive me? Anyway, I won’t deny that I have my faults. It doesn’t much matter now in any case. I was jealous. I was too in love with her. She was extremely beautiful, I worshipped her body. I would like to have died from my relentless love of her. Whenever we had a quarrel – which was every week – and I was on the point of raising my fist to strike her, all she had to do was to laugh, show her white teeth set in their rosy gums, and my hands would unclench to grab her, twist her, pull her over; my kisses would press against her teeth, and my fury would dissolve into ecstasy.
I think that amused her.
Because she played with me, driving me frantic quite consciously, I believe, just for the fun of seeing me like that and putting herself in danger, for the perverse pleasure of being frightened and immersing herself in an electric atmospher
e, to stimulate her own nerves by provoking mine, to feel more alive, experience stronger sensations, and to prepare that moment when my rage and her laughter would meet in kisses.
Then one day, she grew bored.
To tell the truth, we weren’t made for each other. We each loved in a different way. Because she did love me, I’m quite certain of that. What woman could resist the contagious intensity of such love? She loved me in her own way, which wasn’t mine, but which was no better than mine. What she loved in me was her own pride at being stronger than my rage, she loved the certainty of victory, the all-powerfulness of her laugh, her continual superiority; what she admired in my love was herself, proud to give so much, and vaguely annoyed at receiving so little in return. For no other purpose except to laugh and to dominate, she gave herself gaily, passionately: once round the dance floor, once round the heart.
One evening, she changed partner.
Did she intend to destroy me or herself? That’s the rub! Like every woman, she thought that I hadn’t suspected anything. For a long while she was right perhaps, and I didn’t suspect. But the day it dawned on me, the day my suspicions were aroused, the dance changed pace! Think of a waltz ending with The Race to the Abyss …
First, I realised from her appearance that something new had happened. But what? Berthe had changed, my love for her no longer even amused her. Why? She suddenly seemed to fall into a state of depression. How come? I’m no dummy, but I am jealous. I probably discovered the truth straight away. I’m exaggerating a bit when I say that I discovered it: I just guessed it. I wasn’t really certain and I didn’t have any proof, just a feeling verging on a conviction which became stronger every day.
You might imagine that Berthe was totally unaware of my suspicions. But someone like me doesn’t hide anything, isn’t capable of it, and I didn’t even try to cover it up; you can read my thoughts from my face: she knew I was spying on her, but she still went on enjoying herself as before. My touchiness, my searching looks, those unexpected returns home, my silences, the interrogations which made me turn pale, so pale that I could feel it, and made my heart nearly burst, all acted as a continual warning, but she treated it all as just a game.
‘You’ll never catch me out, Nicolas …’
A new game, an entertaining novelty! She played her role of childish innocence; and I played mine of tragic lover. She didn’t understand the danger, or rather, she understood just enough to know what was needed to liven up the game. She never guessed that the stakes were life and death because she was never afraid, never flinched when I stared her straight in the eye.
How many times did I try to read into the back of her eyes, but it was like stirring up the mud at the bottom of a pond with a stick, and I saw only cloudy water. I crushed her body under my own, and with my hands behind her neck, I squeezed her bony little head covered in hair between my fingers, as if to make the truth spurt forth, from the sockets of her eyeballs. Ah! The black holes revealing nothing! The bony little envelope guards its secret: you hold the truth, there in the palm of your hand, you can weigh it and press it against yourself, or crack the fragile casket which encloses it simply by squeezing; but the truth itself, that you will never set eyes on.
Berthe would laugh:
‘How funny you are …’
Her laugh coursed through me, cooling my mouth, and clouding my eyes and, while I sobbed under her kisses, they were mocking me.
Of course, she was playing on my suspicions and gained a pleasure from them that my simple ignorance would never have provided. My love no longer bored her now she was aware of my anguish at her sharing her body with another, and the shame I felt. When, with tremulous lips and hands, I explored her for signs of another’s mouth and hands, she seemed to divine my thoughts, and she would lie outstretched, offering to my gaze the perfect whiteness of her body as if to say: ‘Go on! Search as much as you please! Cuckoo … But you won’t find anything!’
She would laugh at my trembling caresses.
She never objected, never defended herself, and anyone else would have believed that this careless impregnability hid only innocence; towards the end, I could even have believed it myself, so great was my need to love and to keep her! But no sooner did she see my trust begin to assuage my doubts than she would revive them all with her dripping laugh, as if mockingly to repeat:
‘Perhaps, yes; perhaps, no. What’s the good of looking, you’ll never find the answer.’
Or again:
‘What’s the good of looking? Even if you found the answer, you’d never be capable of leaving me!’
She would kiss me delectably, driving me wilder and wilder, and her burnt almond breath would taunt me:
‘Tell me, could you give all this up? Tell me, could you?’
Not while I was still alive, and that’s a fact; and I knew it as well as her. But Berthe never considered the fact that you can die, and that once you are dead you don’t care about anything. She should have thought of that, rather than reassuring herself that while I might still be able to bear the torture of not being sure, a man such as myself would never be able to put up with the certainty, and that we would both of us have to die: her, so that no-one would ever touch her flesh again; me, so that I wouldn’t have to live without possessing her body.
She didn’t think of that! That’s why she’s dead!
The day of reckoning came, and brought death in its wake. The knowledge that death was unavoidable, indispensable even, came to me in a second. I never hesitated. There was no choice left to make: when it’s impossible to go on living, you die.
What a strange animal man is, though: a sort of calmness came over me as soon as I had realized. For a moment, it was a shock, a bit like being hit on your skull by a rock, with all the accompanying dizziness and flashing blue, orange, green and pink lights surrounded by black nothingness. Then, almost immediately, a profound feeling of serenity invaded my whole being. Perhaps I can make myself clearer if I compare this state to that of a bulb of mercury? Body and soul: I was a round, opaque mass, and with every step or thought the flat level rose and fell with scarcely …
This sense of calmness, you see, resembled a deliverance, a conviction that I had done with everything and that we were already dead. All the arrangements for our suicide took care of themselves and, apart from a few gestures on my part, everything organized, prepared and decided itself without me having to reach any decisions of my own.
Exceptions? For example, not to say anything to Berthe, to possess her one last time and, in the middle of the consummation, to explain everything to her and see that laugh disappear from her lips once and for all! Then, to die together painlessly in one last embrace. There are vegetal poisons which can induce such a death: they have the effect of immediately paralysing all muscular movements; the muscles, the heart along with the rest, seize up; life stops; the circuit is broken: and you go out like an electric light.
I shan’t bore you with all the ruses that were needed to get hold of the poison: just to say that the drop of death was encased in a tiny, fragile glass phial.
Nor shall I linger over the other preparations. So as to die in peace, I took Berthe to our holiday villa, which was sure to be deserted at this time of year and where I knew nobody would intrude on our final hour.
As the hour approached, my courage nearly failed. It was evening: my beloved was already undressing, with all the graceful movements I knew so well, and held so dear, beside the bed in which she would stretch out her beautiful body in that last repose: she smiled wickedly towards her tomb. My anger evaporated in a flash, and an overwhelming sense of pity held me in its sway before all this beauty which would in a moment cease to exist.
I had to go out and breathe in a little fresh night air to regain my composure.
At last, I went in again and up to the bedroom.
Berthe was in bed. On seeing how pallid and serious I looked, her pretty white teeth broke out into a laugh:
‘What a long face, da
rling!’
How she laughed – for the last time! Her lovely head, on the pillow, was framed by dishevelled hair tumbling toward her naked shoulders: my absence had been put to good purpose, to arrange the scene to her advantage, and she called to me flirtatiously:
‘That’s right … Laugh at me, darling … Look at me … Come here!’
She held out two plump arms to me and wiggled her fingers with an air of impatience, coaxing and voluptuous, as if to overwhelm my senses with her body. But I resisted, so as to let her live a while longer and to contemplate her for a few moments before …
At last, I went to sit on the edge of the bed and she drew me down by the neck; but I turned my lips away and struggled against my desire; she always welcomed a challenge to her ability at overcoming my will: her laughing mouth sought mine; her last laugh, warm and damp …
I couldn’t have resisted much longer. As soon as our lips touched, the thought came flooding back to me of the other man who had partaken of that kiss! A kiss which could exist no longer now that it wasn’t mine alone: Angrily, I threw back the sheets so as to contemplate the adorable monument to my former love, my defunct happiness, to feast my eyes on it as I left this world.
I remember muttering at one point: ‘Berthe … I know …’
Her eyelids were closed and she didn’t bother to open them, but she smiled, and I went on almost immediately: I whispered the name of the other man, and the street in which they met.