The Man Who Walked through Walls

by Marcel Ayme

  “Hey there, soldier, stop!” called out Saint Peter. “What is that woman doing up there behind you?”

  In terror, unable to hold on much longer, the spinster almost fell to the horse’s feet. Still mounted, Bobislas rose a little in his stirrups and, gesturing breezily, turned to Saint Peter with a respectful nod and replied in deep and confident tones:

  “S’just the regiment’s harlot!”

  “Ah! Right … Move on then … ”

  With the sobs she held back then, Mademoiselle Borboïé swallowed that last, supreme humiliation, but a moment later she had forgotten it, for she had already entered God’s Kingdom, where the whys and wherefores no longer count for anything.

  THE WIFE COLLECTOR

  IN THE SMALL TOWN OF NANGICOURT, there lived a tax collector by the name of Gauthier-Lenoir, who was struggling to pay his income tax. His wife was spending lots of money at the hairdresser and the dressmaker, on account of a handsome lieutenant in the Field Service Corps who would trot by in front of the house every morning and whom she would bump into sometimes several times of an afternoon while strolling on the Grande Rue.

  This apart, Madame Gauthier-Lenoir was a loyal wife who rarely entertained any bad thoughts. It simply tickled her to imagine adultery with a well-turned-out young man and to know that such imaginings were not merely fanciful, but on the contrary could be realised at a moment’s notice. The best hairdresser in Nangicourt would do her shampoo and set for seventeen francs altogether, not including the head massage or the perm, when that fell due again. But her greatest expenses came in the category of dresses, suits and coats, for every one of hers was made by Madame Legris on Rue Ragondin (after Léonard Ragondin, born in Nangicourt in 1807, a fine poet, author of Foliage in Love and Odes to Cousin Lucie, mayor of the town during the 1870–71 war. To him we owe the establishment of the fine art museum. A distinguished archaeologist also, the end of his life was darkened by his famous quarrel with Professor J Pontet over the ruins of the Alibienne Tower. Since his passing in 1886, his stone bust, from the chisel of Nangicourt-born sculptor Jalibier, can be admired on the square of La Défense, at the end of the road that bears his name today), the same Madame Legris who dressed all the high society of Nangicourt. Not being the least bit high-society, the tax collector paid the dressmaker’s bills the very week they came in, and so always found himself short of cash when the time for payment came round.

  Yet he never upbraided his wife for spending too much. He even had a way of looking rather fondly on her outfits that could have been interpreted as an encouragement. He was a man of thirty-seven who stood 1.71 metres tall and measured 0.85 metres around the chest, had black hair, an oval face, brown eyes, an average nose, a black moustache and a beauty spot that sprouted coarse hairs too high up his cheek for it to be worth his growing a beard. His profession kept him very busy even outside usual working hours, and the trouble he generally had paying his own taxes taught him sympathy for the lot of ordinary taxpayers. He received them warmly at his office, gladly according them extra time to pay what they owed. “I shan’t hold the knife to your throat,” he would say, “just do the best you can. After all, no one is obliged to do what’s impossible”; sometimes even indulging in a sigh: “Ah! if it were up to me alone … ” The taxpayers understood this affable approach perfectly and did not rush to pay up. Some with rather comfortable lifestyles were even several years behind on their payments to the tax office. The tax collector liked these ones even more than the others. Secretly he admired them and spoke of them with some affection.

  Nevertheless, as a cog in the administrative machine, Gauthier-Lenoir was required to serve warnings and to employ the services of a bailiff. This broke his heart. When he made up his mind to send out a warning (with administration charge included), he would almost always drop in a friendly little note, to temper, where possible, the rigidity of the administrative formulae. He was even, occasionally, overtaken by remorse and, on leaving the office, he would take himself round to the taxpayer’s home with a wide smile: “You’ll be receiving a warning tomorrow but, you know, don’t worry about it too much. I can quite easily wait a little longer.”

  In the whole town of Nangicourt there was only one man who, in his function as a taxpayer, had attracted the tax collector’s hostility. This was Monsieur Rebuffaud, a wealthy landlord who lived in the large house on Rue Moinet (Melchior Moinet, born in Nangicourt in 1852. He studied architecture in Paris but then returned to establish his business in the town of his birth. To him we owe, among other monuments, the savings bank and the wheat exchange. He died in 1911 following a hunting accident). This Monsieur Rebuffaud was always the first to pay his taxes. The very morning that he received the letter advising him of his liability, he would be at the tax office and calling out in a cheerful voice: “Monsieur Gauthier-Lenoir, I’m here to pay my little debt. To each his dues, isn’t that right? I do dislike having these things drag on.” Taking about sixty thousand-franc notes from his wallet, he would count them out aloud: one, two, three, four, right up to sixty-something, then he would move on to the hundreds, give exactly the right change in cash, pocket his receipt and, hunting for a little approval, would say with the happy smile of a man at peace with his conscience: “There we are, free of bother until next year.” But the tax collector could never bring himself to make a friendly reply. He would bow coldly, turn back to his paperwork and, once the other man had turned to leave, watch him walk towards the door with a sour look.

  One year—this was in 1938—the tax collector was particularly short of money. This was what had happened—one day, while walking along the Grande Rue (which was also known as the Rue Grande), Madame Gauthier-Lenoir had seen the lieutenant in the Field Service Corps following at the heels of a young widow whom he was undressing (there is no other word for it) with his eyes. The next day, having informed the young lieutenant by means of an anonymous letter that the young widow was suffering from a sickness of venereal origin, she took herself to Madame Legris’s establishment to order a sky-coloured dress, a woollen dress with sporty styling, a tweed suit, another suit in crêpe de Chine with a selection of blouses to match, and a fuchsia-coloured jacket in wool with patch pockets. In order to meet these expenses, the tax collector had to draw on some money he had put aside in anticipation of his taxes. He was not too bothered about this. Every year he would build up a small reserve, and it was always used up by August. He simply noted that things had gone more quickly than usual and allowed himself to hope that his wife had laid in a supply of dresses sufficient for a year at least. A month later, she bought six silk slips, four pairs of silk pyjamas, six pairs of silk underpants, six silk brassieres, two rubber belts covered in a silky material, twelve pairs of silk stockings and two pairs of slippers, one pink, the other white.

  One October evening, the tax collector left the office wearing a miserable expression. It had begun to rain when he turned into Bornebelle Square (Étienne de la Bornebelle, born in the chateau of Bornebelle in 1377. In 1413 he defended the town of Nangicourt, which was besieged by the Burgundians, and swore he would die rather than give himself up. Indeed, he capitulated only on the eighteenth day of the siege, provisions being exhausted. He died in Paris in 1462). Light flooded the square from all the shop windows. The tax collector made his way towards the post office building, on the corner of the Grande Rue and, stopping in front of the letter box, he took a rectangle of green paper from his pocket, the address on which he read over several times. It was a warning notice addressed to himself. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed it into the box and, taking an envelope full of warning notices destined for other taxpayers from another pocket, he posted these after his own.

  The rain was falling more heavily. His forehead burning, the tax collector gazed at the bustle in the square, the umbrellas dancing over the pavements, the cars moving slowly on the shining cobbles. There rose up from the wet town a muffled hum, which sounded to his ears like the moans of summonsed taxpayers. Among the
hurrying passers-by, he caught sight of a man running with his collar turned up and recognised the pâtissier Planchon, to whom he had just posted a warning. On an impulse of solidarity, the tax collector himself began to run and, following Planchon, found himself at the Café du Centre. There were twenty or so customers chattering and playing cards in the main salon. He sat down beside the pâtissier and shook his hand, with a warmth of feeling that the latter seemed not to understand, for he replied with only a distracted bonjour, quite unmoved, and turned to watch a game of piquet going on at a neighbouring table. Sitting on the far side of the card-players, the assiduous taxpayer Monsieur Rebuffaud was also following the game and puffing away on his pipe. The presence of this irreproachable man only sharpened the tax collector’s sense of the misfortune of those citizens being chased by the tax office. He leant over to Planchon and said in a half-whisper:

  “I saw you going into the café. I ran after you. I wanted to warn you that I’ve sent you a formal warning. Please understand that I only sent it because I was obliged to. But most importantly, don’t trouble yourself about it … ”

  Planchon was visibly annoyed. He thought about the business for a moment and then said aloud:

  “So, just like that, you’ve sent me a warning?”

  “What else could I do? There’s a rule and I’ve no choice but to follow it. It gives me no pleasure to do this.”

  And the tax collector added modestly:

  “I’m actually required to follow it twice over, since I’m a taxpayer too.”

  Planchon did not seize the chance of fraternal solidarity that arose from this overture. Besides, while he didn’t exactly doubt that the tax collector himself paid tax, he at least suspected that the latter’s position gave him access to dubious alternative avenues. Turning to the card-players, he said bitterly:

  “Good news! I’m getting a formal warning from the tax collector!”

  At once, the game of piquet lost its appeal. The players gave the tax collector black looks and one of them asked him:

  “I suppose it won’t be long before I’m sent one too?”

  The gentleman’s discreet silence implied confirmation. The player grimaced.

  “Nothing to be done now. Looks as though I’ve had it.”

  He appeared, however, rather easily resigned to the idea of this impending burden. Planchon too was not the type to agonise over a warning from the tax office, but both had felt the wind of hard times blow over them and both were automatically on the defensive. At the tables round about, other customers echoed their words, discussing the tax office’s requirements with some acrimony, although still without directly challenging the tax collector. Not once did they give him an opportunity for a word of self-defence. Their disapproval was understood or, rather, it was quite natural. As an agent of the tax office, he was of course regarded as complicit in the taxman’s severity; perhaps it was prudence alone that kept the others from addressing their reproaches to his face.

  The tax collector suffered the outrage of this confusion in silence. He would have liked to mention his own anxieties as a taxpayer, to join these hostile people in their sense of shared hostility—or anxiety, at least—towards the fiscal machine, but the weight of his official function kept him quiet. Leaning away from them all, Monsieur Rebuffaud was sucking on his pipe, which he held in both hands, and listening silently to his neighbours’ complaints. His eyes were shining with an ironic light and periodically sought to catch those of the tax collector, hoping to pick up there a reflection of his own thoughts, or some invitation to a united response. But the tax collector didn’t even see him, oblivious to the unspoken support that Rebuffaud was offering.

  This gentleman could stand it no longer. A comment from Planchon hinting at an administration in chaos, and which seemed to Rebuffaud the most pernicious yet, gave him his chance to intervene. This he did calmly, with a friendly smile in the tax collector’s direction. He proceeded to demonstrate persuasively that taxes played a vital role in maintaining the nation and that its citizens could not sidestep them without damaging their own interests. For Planchon’s benefit, he set out clearly how, to take just one example, the business of his patisserie owed its prosperity to a vigilant system of taxation, for as he said, if the state had not the funds required to maintain the churches, they would crumble into ruins, and if the faithful were no longer able to go to church on Sunday, how could they possibly buy a tart or a saint-honoré cake on their way home from Mass? And Monsieur Rebuffaud concluded by praising the zeal of those modest gatherers of our taxes who ensure the smooth functioning of society. Before putting his pipe back to his lips, he gave the tax collector an understanding and sympathetic smile. Gauthier-Lenoir was sweating with embarrassment and had turned rather red. Monsieur Rebuffaud’s sympathy and support filled his heart with bitterness. A vehement objection filled his chest and rose up only to stop in his throat—his professional conscience prevented him from speaking out against the entirely reasonable arguments just pronounced by this model taxpayer.

  The others had listened to Monsieur Rebuffaud with reverent attention. The man’s importance, the consideration due to him, lent weight to his words and, if they persuaded nobody at heart, still they left no room for contradiction. A conciliatory silence settled over everyone and Planchon, to show that Monsieur Rebuffaud’s speech had not been in vain, politely asked the tax collector what he would like to drink. The tax collector excused himself rather awkwardly, bid them all good night in a timid mumble and slipped away, annoyed to feel their surprised and ironically benevolent gazes pressing on his shoulders.

  On leaving Bornebelle square, where a few umbrellas were still shuffling back and forth, the tax collector turned into a deserted street. Ignoring the rain, he was reliving the various incidents of his hour at the Café du Centre. The angry thoughts that had almost roused him to violence against Monsieur Rebuffaud now seemed hard to put down to his antipathy for the man. He guessed at reasons of another order, but respect for his office still kept him from engaging in any deeper analysis. It seemed to him these reasons must be so dreadful that for peace of mind he forced himself to stop thinking about them. He thought the anxieties of his domestic life would be sufficient distraction, but in pursuing these, ended up at the same question, only from another angle. His money problems reminded him of the warning he had just tossed into the postbox and which would reach him the following morning. This threat, slowly making its way to him through the night was a strange thing, not without a certain irony. It was a little like a present that the tax collector was sending to himself. Instead of putting the warning in the post, he could just as well have slipped it into his pocket and considered himself warned, but he had preferred to provide the illusory respite of a single night. And now, as he wandered down dark side streets, he was shocked to realise that he was hoping the post would be delayed, as if such a delay, even supposing it were to happen, could in the least alter his position.

  Thinking about this, he realised the meaning of the powerful, silent objection to Monsieur Rebuffaud’s attitude that had taken root inside him. That happy and punctual man, who paid his taxes without a day’s or an hour’s delay, would never manufacture such a spurious surprise for himself. By paying what he owed right away, or as good as, he was never exposed, as was your common taxpayer, to wilfully forgetting the tax office’s threat, and so ran none of the risks that this entailed. For the tax collector, the idea of obligation, of obligations related to tax, was inseparable from ideas of temptation, of hesitation, of second thoughts and of danger. By not demanding instant payment, the tax office was giving the taxpayer a kind of free will over his purse, a period of trial during which he could indulge in moments of imprudence, put his savings towards dubious projects, but also then triumph over all temptations and fully rise to his duty as a taxpayer. By the very fact that he paid straight away in cash, Monsieur Rebuffaud was escaping these hard-won triumphs and fulfilling his duty only partially, in the meanest, least worthy way
. “The swine,” murmured Gauthier-Lenoir, “I had my suspicions. I always thought that man was not fulfilling his duty as a taxpayer.” Meanwhile he had left the little alleys behind and now caught sight of the electric street lights that heralded Boulevard Wilson (Woodrow Wilson, born in Stanton, Virginia, in 1856. Democrat candidate for the United States presidency, he was elected in 1912 and again in 1916. Author of the Fourteen Points, he died in Washington DC in 1924) and illuminated the small house with flimsy, chipboard walls where he lived.

  The following morning, the tax collector was having breakfast with his wife when the postman delivered the warning. He opened it and said flatly:

  “I’ve been sent a warning to pay my taxes before the first of November.”

  “A warning?” cried his spouse, shocked. “But who sent it?”

  “The tax collector … I’m late this year … ”

  “What? You sent yourself a warning? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t see why I wouldn’t send myself a warning. You don’t imagine I would take advantage of my position and allow myself preferential treatment? I’m a taxpayer just like everyone else.”

  There was a glimmer of pride in Gauthier-Lenoir’s eyes; he repeated:

  “Just like everyone else.”

  His wife only shrugged. She guessed that the warning had only been sent in the post to serve as a pretext for Gauthier-Lenoir to scold her about economising and keeping within limits. She prepared to hear out his sermon but realising that none was forthcoming, felt sorry and broke the silence herself.

  “I spent a good deal on my new dresses, a deal too much. Do forgive me.”

  “Not at all,” protested the tax collector. “You must dress well. You didn’t buy anything unnecessary.”

  Madame Gauthier-Lenoir sighed and, touched by her remorse, he kissed her tenderly before leaving for the office. Left alone, she busied herself furiously with projects begun the day before, then, around ten o’clock, she climbed onto the sill of the window that looked out over boulevard Wilson. As the lieutenant in the Field Service Corps was passing by on his horse, she jumped astride behind him, a suitcase in one hand and hatbox in the other, and, spurring the beast’s flanks with all their four heels, the couple galloped off to a garrison deep in the East, and Madame Gauthier-Lenoir was never heard of again in Nangicourt. On his return home at midday, the tax collector was informed of the occurrence by a note that went as follows: “I am leaving for ever with him my heart adores.”