The Apes of Wrath

by Richard Klaw

  The notes were initially slow, soft; the bow touched the strings and walked from the bridge to the tuning pegs hardly making any sound. Then gradually Djalioh’s head came to life: he lowered it onto the neck of the violin; his forehead furrowed; his eyes closed as the bow leaped around across the strings like a rubber ball, with quick jumps. The music was choppy, full of high notes and heartrending cries. Upon hearing that music everyone fell into the grip of a terrible oppression, as if all these notes were made of lead and weighed on the chest. And then rained a string of bold arpeggios, notes that rumbled together and then flew off, octaves rising like Gothic spires, tumbling jumps, altered chords. And all these sounds, of strings and whistling notes without measure, without voices, no rhythm and no melody, stirred vague thoughts of runners who followed one upon the other like fleeting dreams of demons that fled pushed by others, in a restless whirlwind, constantly in a race. Djalioh gripped the neck of the instrument, and every time one of his fingers rose from the fingerboard, his nail made the string throb and the note whistle as it died. Sometimes he paused, startled by the noise, smiled stupidly and resumed the course of his reverie with more concentration, and finally, tired, he stopped and listened for a long time, to see if it would all come back. But nothing! The last vibration of the last note had died from exhaustion.

  Everyone looked surprised to have endured that strange noise for so long. The dance resumed. As it was nearly three in the morning, one danced a cotillion. Only the young single women remained; the old ladies had left, along with the married, consumptive men. To make the waltzing easier, the waiters opened the parlor door, along with those leading to the billiard and the dining rooms, into a long suite. Each man grabbed his waltzing partner; they heard the cracked sound of the bow striking the desk and whirled about energetically.

  Djalioh stood, leaning on a door panel as the waltz passed him by, whirling, noisy with laughter and joy. Whenever he saw Adele before him, twirl and then disappear, return, only to disappear again; every time he saw her lean on the arm that encircled her waist—she was tired with all the dancing and the excitement—he felt within him a demon shudder and a savage instinct roar in his soul, as a lion in its cage. Each time, at the same repeated measure, the same bow stroke, the same note, he saw the hem of a white dress with pink flowers, and two satin shoes that yawned a little as they whirled past him, and the dance lasted a long time, about twenty minutes. Then the music stopped. Oppressed, Adele wiped her brow, and then she resumed her dancing, lighter, bouncier, crazier and drunker than ever.

  It was a hellish torment. It was the pain of the damned. What! To feel in his chest all the strength it takes to love, to feel the soul burning like fire, and then not be able to turn off the volcano that consumes, to break the rope that binds.To be there, attached to a barren rock, throat parched, like Prometheus, to see a vulture upon your belly, ripping out your entrails, and still be unable to shake off the anger with both hands and crush it!

  “Oh! why,” wondered Djalioh in his bitter pain, head down, while the crazed waltz ran swirling, the women danced and the music vibrated and sang. “Why don’t I like the happy dancing? Why am I ugly and these women are not? Why do they flee when I smile? Why should I suffer and be bored and hate myself? Oh! If I could take her, and then rip off all the clothes that cover her, and tear apart the veils which hide her, and then take her in my arms, carry her far away, across the woods, the meadows, the grasslands, across the seas, and finally arrive in the shade of a palm tree, and once there, look at her and make her look at me, too, make her seize me with her bare arms, and then...ah...” And he wept with rage.

  The lights went out...the clock struck five. They heard a few carriages stop, and then the dancers donned their coats and left. The servants closed the shutters and went away. Djalioh had remained in his place, and when he looked up, everything was gone, women, dance and sounds. All had vanished, and the last light sparkled again in the few drops of oil that remained. At that moment dawn appeared on the horizon behind the lime trees.

  VI

  He took a candle and went upstairs. After removing his coat and his shoes, he jumped on his bed, lowered his head on his pillow and tried to sleep.

  But he could not!

  He heard an insistent buzzing in his head, a strange din, a weird music. Fever throbbed in his arteries, and the veins in his forehead were swollen and green. His blood boiled in his veins, rushed into his brain and choked him. He rose and opened the window. The fresh morning air calmed his senses. The day approached, the clouds and the moon fleeing with the first rays of light. As the night paled, he gazed at the thousand fantastic shapes the clouds drew in the sky, and then studied the disk of candlelight that illuminated his green-silk curtains.

  After an hour or so he went out. The night was not completely over yet, and dew still hung on every leaf of the trees; quite much rain had fallen during the night, and the paths, driven by wheels, had swollen with mud; Djalioh plunged into the most tortuous and obscure of the paths. He took a long walk in the park, trampling the early autumn leaves, yellowed and carried away by the winds, walking on the wet grass, through the bower, to the rhythm of the rustling breeze that stirred the trees. He heard in the distance the first sounds of nature’s awakening.

  How sweet it is to dream this way, to listen with delight to your footsteps on fallen leaves and dead wood that cracks under your boots, to let yourself go freely down open paths like the current of reverie that carries your soul! And then a poignant and downhearted thought seizes you as you gaze at the falling leaves, as you listen to the trees groaning in the wind and nature singing sadly upon awakening, as if it were crawling out of its tomb. A dear face appears then in the shadows, your mother, or a friend, and the ghosts that brush against the black wall file on, severe in their white surplices. And then the past returns as well, another ghost, in the company of old sorrows, pains, tears and laughter, and finally the future, more vacillating and undefined, wrapped in a thin gauze like those long-dreamed sylphs that rise from a bush and fly away with the birds. We love to hear the wind passing through the trees, bending their tops, singing like a procession of specters, the wind whose breath tousles your hair and cools your burning forehead.

  Djalioh wallowed in the most terrible thoughts. The dreamy sort of melancholy, full of fancy and whim, oozes from the soul’s lukewarm, chronic suffering, while pure despair is physical and acutely palpable. His pain came from reality that crushed his heart. Oh, reality! You are a ghost as heavy as a nightmare, yet you last for as long as the spirit perdures!

  He didn’t care for the past, as it was already lost, and what the future held for him was summed up in one meaningless word: death? But he had the present, this very minute, the moment that obsessed him. This was what he wanted to destroy, to crush under his foot or slaughter with his bare hands. When he thought of himself, poor and despairing, with empty hands, while the ball twirled with flowers and women, Adele and her half-bare breasts, her shoulders, her white hands—when he thought of all this, wild laughter burst from his mouth and bounced off his teeth like a hungry, dying tiger. In his mind’s eye he saw Paul’s smile, Paul kissing his wife. He saw the two of them lying on a silky bed, arms intertwined, sighs, cries of delight; he saw everything: the sheets twisted by their passionate embrace; flowers on the tables. He saw the rugs and the furniture and finally all that was there, and when he gazed back at himself, his own shape surrounded by the trees, walking alone on the grass and broken twigs, he trembled, and now he saw the immense distance that separated him from the couple, and when he came to wonder why it was so, an impassable barrier rose before him, and a black veil clouded his thoughts.

  And he wondered why Adele was not his. Oh! If he had her, he would be so happy to hold her in his arms, rest his head on her chest, lay burning kisses on her breasts! And he cried and sobbed.

  Oh! Had he known, as we men do, how to end a life that haunts you, a life fast gone with the trigger of a pistol. Had he known that six
sous made a man happy, and that the river swallowed up the dead!...But no. Unhappiness was in the order of things. Nature gave us the consciousness of existence to keep our unhappiness alive for the longest time.

  He soon reached the banks of the pond. Swans were playing with their young, gliding on crystal water, wings spread and necks arched backwards, heads resting on their backs. The largest among them, male and female, swam together in the swift current of the small river that crossed the pond. From time to time they turned their white necks towards each other and exchanged glances while swimming, and then they plunged most of their bodies underwater and flapped their wings on the rippling surface, and made waves when they advanced with their chests cutting the water like the prows of boats.

  Djalioh studied the grace of their movements and the beauty of their bodies. And he wondered why he was not a swan, as beautiful as these animals. When he approached other people, everybody fled; he was despised among men. Why was he not as beautiful as the swimming birds? Why had Heaven not made him swan, bird, something light, something that sang and was loved? Or, rather, why was he not null, unmade and non-existent? “Why,” he said, kicking a stone, “why am I not like that? I lash out at her and she runs away unscathed!” Then he jumped into the boat, unfastened the chain, took the oars and went across the pond to the prairie where cattle were beginning to roam.

  After a few moments he returned to the castle. The servants had already opened the windows and cleaned the dining room. The table was set, because it was nearly nine o’clock, and Djalioh’s moments had been long and slow.

  Time flies when one is joyful, and also when one sheds tears, and Old Man Time will never lose his breath.

  Run fast, walk tirelessly, cut them down with no mercy, white-haired old thing! Walk on and never stop running. Carry your misery along, you who are condemned to live, and lead us quickly into the common grave where you throw everything that stands in your way!

  VII

  After lunch, it was time for a walk, because the sun had pierced the clouds and was beginning to shine.

  The ladies insisted on a boat trip, the freshness of the water promising a rest after last night’s exertions.

  The company split into three groups. Paul, Djalioh and Adele found themselves together. She looked tired and pale, dressed in blue georgette silk with white flowers, and she was more beautiful than ever.

  Adele accompanied her husband out of a sense of propriety.

  Djalioh did not understand. Despite his soul’s ability to embrace all that pertained to sympathy and love, his mind resisted everything that we call delicacy, custom, honor, decency and propriety. He sat at the prow and pulled on the oars. In the middle of the pond was a small island, created to serve as a refuge for the swans. On the island, rose bushes bent their branches to gaze at their reflections on the water, letting dead flowers drop to trail in the current. The young woman crumbled some bread and threw it on the water, and swans rushed, stretching their necks to grab the crumbs that were running away with the river. Every time she doubled over and the white hand stretched out, Djalioh felt her breath caressing his hair and cheeks, brushing against his head, which was burning. The water was clear and still, but a storm raged in his heart. Several times he thought he was going mad, and he brought his hands to his forehead like a delusional man who believes he is dreaming. He rowed quickly, and yet the boat was advancing less than the others, for his movements were jerky and convulsive. Occasionally his dull gray eyes turned slowly on Adele and then on Paul. Djalioh seemed calm, but it was the quiet of the ash that covers a fire; the only sounds were the oars falling in the water, the water lapping at the sides of the boat and a few words exchanged by the couple, and then they looked at each other and smiled, and the swans ran around the boat, swimming across the pond. The wind had dropped a few leaves on the boat and the sun shone upon the green meadows where the river meandered, and the boat glided in the middle of all this, fast and quiet.

  At some point, Djalioh halted, set his hand to his eyes and withdrew it all warm and moist. He resumed pulling on his oars, and the tears that rolled on his hands were lost in the stream. Paul, seeing that the rest of the company was far ahead, took Adele’s hand and placed on her sateen glove a long kiss of happiness that resounded in Djalioh’s ears.

  VIII

  Madame de Lansac owned plenty of monkeys—it is an old woman’s typical passion, as monkeys are the only creatures that, along with dogs, do not reject their love.

  I am saying this without malignant intent, and if there were any, it would rather be the desire to appeal to the young, who hate monkeys wholeheartedly. Lord Byron said he could not watch without disgust a pretty woman eat. But Byron may never have thought of this same woman’s company, forty years later, which would amount to her poodle and her monkey. All the women you see so young and fresh, well, if they do not die before their sixties, one day will have a mania for dogs instead of men, and they will live with a monkey instead of a lover.

  Alas! It’s sad, but true, and then, having thus yellowed for a dozen years and shriveled like old parchment by her fireplace, in the company of a cat, a novel, her dinner and her maid, this angel of beauty dies and becomes a cadaver, that is to say, a stinking corpse, and then a little dust, and nothingness...the foul air trapped in a tomb. There are people I always see as skeletons, people whose yellow complexion seems well steeped in the land that will contain them.

  I do not like monkeys, but I am wrong, for they seem to be a perfect imitation of human nature. When I see one of these animals (I do not mean men), I have the impression of seeing myself in a magnifying mirror: same feelings, same brutal appetites, a little less pride and there is nothing more to it.

  Djalioh felt drawn to the monkeys by strange sympathy. He often remained for hours, watching them, stock still as he gazed at them, either in deep meditation or in a more attentive observation.

  Adele went to their large common cage (because sometimes young women love apes, probably because apes remind them of their husbands) and threw nuts and cakes. The animals immediately rushed over, squabbling, tearing at the pieces like Parliament representatives grabbing the crumbs that fall from the King’s chair, and they all yelled like lawyers. One of them seized the biggest morsel, ate it quickly, took the most beautiful hazel, cracked it with its nails, peeled it and threw the shells to its colleagues with an air of generosity. This ape had like a crown of sparse hair on his shrunken head, which made him look quite the king. A second ape was humbly sitting in a corner, looking down with an air of modesty, like a priest, and taking surreptitiously everything he could not steal overtly. Finally, a third—it was a female—had dull long hair and puffy eyes. She went to and fro, flashing lewd gestures that made the ladies blush, biting the males, whistling and pinching their ears. This one looked like many prostitutes I know. Everybody was laughing at the animals’ simpering and mincing; it was so funny! Only Djalioh did not laugh. He sat on the floor, knees flush with his head, arms on his legs, and half-dead eyes turned solely to one point.

  In the afternoon they left for Paris; Djalioh was still placed in front of Adele, as if fate never stopped mocking his pain. Everyone was tired and fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the suspension and the sound of the wheels that turned slowly in the large ruts left by the rain, and the horses’ feet squelching in the mud. A window, open behind Djalioh, let air into the carriage, and the wind blew on his shoulders and down his neck.

  All bobbed their slumbering heads with the movement of the carriage. Djalioh alone did not sleep and kept his head bowed upon his chest.

  IX

  It was the beginning of May; the hour was, I think, seven in the morning. The sun rose and illuminated with his splendor Paris, which awoke to a beautiful spring day.

  Mrs. Paul de Monville had risen early and retired to a salon to finish a Balzac novel before bath time, lunch and walk.

  The couple dwelled in Faubourg Saint-Germain, which was now deserted, vast and covered with the
shadow cast by the tall walls of the mansions across the gardens with their acacias and their lime trees, thick foliage overflowing the walls, and grass piercing the cracks between the stones. Seldom was heard any noise in the neighborhood if not that of some carriage wheels rolling on the pavement, pulled by two white horses, or, at night, the din of youth returning from an orgy or a music-hall show with some bare-breasted, red-eyed and debauched creatures wearing torn clothes.

  It was in one of those Faubourg Saint-Germain mansions that Djalioh lived with Mr. Paul and his wife, and in the past two years many sentiments had unfurled within his soul, where unshed tears had dug a deep pit.

  One morning, the very day I want to tell you about, he rose and went into the garden where a child of about a year slept in silk and gauze, embroidered clothes and colored scarves, snug in a cradle gilded by the sunlight.

  The nannie had left the child alone. Djalioh looked around, and then drew near, very near the cradle.

  He pulled off the blankets in a swift movement and spent some time contemplating the wretched little creature as it slumbered and slept. He watched its plump hands, its rounded shape, white neck and tiny fingernails. Finally he picked the baby up with both hands and whirled it in the air over his head, and then he hurled it with all his strength onto the ground, which resounded with the impact. The child screamed once, and its brain spurted out to fall onto the grass a few steps away, near a carnation.