The Man Who Walked through Walls

by Marcel Ayme

  “I am hopeful,” said Malicorne, “that’s all. Besides, my conscience is more or less easy. Of course, I am an abominable sinner, a vessel of iniquities, unclean vermin. That said, it remains true that I have never stolen a penny from anyone, that I used to go to Mass regularly and that I acquitted myself of my tasks as bailiff to general satisfaction.”

  “Really?” enquired Saint Peter. “Then take a look at this great tank, which has just risen to heaven along with your last sigh. What do you think it contains?”

  “I have not the least idea.”

  “No? It is full of the tears of the orphans and widows whom you reduced to despair.”

  The bailiff considered the tank with its bitter contents and carried on undeterred:

  “That is quite possible. When orphans and widows fail to pay their debts, the value must be recovered by means of seizure of goods. This never happens without its share of weeping and gnashing of teeth, naturally. Nor is it surprising that the tank should be full. God be thanked, my business prospered and I was never short of work.”

  Such casual cynicism incensed Saint Peter, who turned to the angels and cried:

  “To hell! Build up a nice hot fire for him and keep his burns open for eternity, washing them twice a day with the tears of the orphans and widows!”

  Already the angels were rushing towards Malicorne. He gestured firmly for them to halt.

  “One moment,” he said. “I appeal to God to review this gross injustice.”

  Rules are rules. Furious, Saint Peter was obliged to suspend the execution of his sentence. God did not take long to arrive and, heralded by a roll of thunder, entered riding on a cloud. He too appeared to take a dim view of bailiffs. This was plain from the surly fashion in which he questioned Malicorne.

  “My Lord,” replied this gentleman, “this is what’s going on. Saint Peter is blaming me for the orphans’ and widows’ tears that I have provoked in the exercise of my duties as bailiff, and he is making these burning tears the means of my eternal torment. This is an injustice.”

  “Clearly,” said God, turning to Saint Peter with a frown. “A bailiff who seizes a pauper’s belongings is only acting under a human law for which he is not responsible. All he can do is cry out against this in his heart.”

  “Exactly!” exclaimed Saint Peter. “Far from feeling pity at the thought of his victims, he was talking about them just now with disgraceful light-heartedness and taking a cynical pleasure in it!”

  “Not at all,” retorted Malicorne. “I was drawing contentment from always having correctly carried out my duties and also for never lacking work. Is it a crime then to like one’s profession and to do it well?”

  “In the usual run of things, it is not a crime,” God conceded; “on the contrary. Your case is rather a special one; but, in fairness, I don’t mind agreeing that Saint Peter judged you rather hastily. Now let’s take a look at your good works. Where are they?”

  “Dear Lord, as I was just saying to Saint Peter, I died owing nothing to anyone and I was always punctual in my duties.”

  “What else?”

  “What else? Let’s see, I remember that on leaving Mass about fifteen years ago I gave ten sous to a pauper.”

  “So he did,” observed Saint Peter. “It was, I should add, a counterfeit coin.”

  “My conscience is clear,” said Malicorne. “He would easily have found a way of passing it off as real.”

  “Is that all you have to offer?”

  “Dear Lord, my memory is terrible. They do say that the left hand does not know what the right hand donates.”

  It was all too easy to verify that these fine words hid not a single good action, nor one generous thought that might win over the supreme court. God appeared very put out. Speaking in Hebrew in order not to be understood by the bailiff, he said to Saint Peter:

  “Your carelessness may have got us into a fine mess. Obviously, this bailiff is a gentleman of little interest who had his place ready and waiting for him in hell, but your accusation took things too far and, what’s more, you have seriously wounded his professional pride. We owe him compensation. And what would you have me do with him? I cannot simply open up the doors of Paradise. It would cause a scandal. What do you suggest?”

  Saint Peter maintained a sulky silence. If it had been up to him, the bailiff’s fate would soon have been decided.

  Leaving him to his bad temper, God turned to Malicorne and said in good French:

  “You are an unpleasant type, but Saint Peter’s mistake is your good luck. I will not have it said that you escaped hell only to find yourself in hell once more. Since you are not worthy to enter Paradise, I am sending you back to earth to continue your career as a bailiff and have a second shot at beatitude. Go, and make the best of this reprieve that you’ve been granted.”

  The next morning, on waking up next to his wife, Malicorne might have thought he’d been dreaming. But he did not make that mistake and set to thinking about ways of assuring his deliverance. He was still thinking about this as he walked into his office at eight o’clock. Old Bourrichon, his clerk, who had worked with him for thirty years, was already seated at his table.

  “Bourrichon,” said the bailiff as he came in, “I’m raising your salary by fifty francs a month.”

  “You are too good, Monsieur Malicorne,” protested Bourrichon, clasping his hands together. “Thank you so much, Monsieur Malicorne.”

  The expression of this gratitude did not warm the bailiff’s heart. He took a new notebook from a cupboard and, drawing a straight line down the centre of it, divided the first page into two columns. At the head of the left-hand column, he carefully inscribed the following words—Bad Deeds, and in the other column, facing the first—Good Deeds. He promised to be strict with himself and to leave out nothing that might count against him. It was in this spirit of severe fairness that he examined his actions so far that morning. He found nothing to write up in the left-hand column, but in the column for good deeds he wrote: “I spontaneously increased my clerk Bourrichon’s salary by fifty francs a month, despite his not deserving it.”

  His best client, Monsieur Gorgerin, came by at about nine o’clock. Gorgerin was a landlord on a large scale; he owned forty-two buildings in the city, and the impecuniousness of some of his tenants frequently obliged him to call on Malicorne’s services. This time, he had just come from a meeting with an overstretched family whose rent was now late by two quarters.

  “I cannot wait any longer. I’ve had six months of nothing but promises. Let’s put an end to it.”

  Not without some revulsion, Malicorne made an effort to plead the bad tenants’ cause.

  “I wonder if it might not be in your interest to give them a little more time. Their belongings are not worth fourpence. Whatever the sale raises won’t cover a tenth of your claim.”

  “I know,” sighed Gorgerin. “I have been too kind. One is always too kind. These people take advantage. That’s why I’ve come to ask you to do the necessary. Just think—I have one hundred and fifty-one tenants. If word gets around that I’m nice, I’ll not be gathering more than half the rent I’m due.”

  “Naturally,” conceded Malicorne. “One must always consider the consequences. But don’t worry, Monsieur Gorgerin. I see quite a few people in town in the course of business, and I’ve never heard anyone say you were nice.”

  “All the better, I say!”

  “In a manner of speaking, perhaps, indeed.”

  Malicorne did not dare pursue this thought. He was imagining the enviable position of a sinner appearing before God’s tribunal, preceded by the good opinion of a whole city as witness to his generosity. Having shown his client to the door, he went straight to the kitchen and, in front of his horrified wife, said to the maid:

  “Mélanie, I’m raising your salary by fifty francs a month.”

  Without waiting for thanks, he returned to his study and wrote in his notebook, in the good-deeds column: “I spontaneously increased my mai
d Mélanie’s salary by fifty francs a month, although she’s a slattern.” Having no one left whose salary he could raise, Malicorne went out into the cheaper parts of town, where he visited some of the poor families. The families could not see this man enter their houses without great apprehension and greeted him with cool hostility, but he hastened to reassure them and, on departing, left each one with a fifty-franc note. Mostly, once he had left, his debtors pocketed the money, grumbling: “The old thief ” (or old murderer, or old tight-fists), “he can afford a bit of charity with everything he’s made out of our misery.” But such words served merely to cover the embarrassment of a reversal of opinion.

  By the evening of his resurrection, Malicorne had written up in his notebook twelve good deeds—which had cost him six hundred francs altogether—and not a single bad one. The next day and in those that followed, he continued to distribute money to needy families. He was holding himself to a daily average of twelve good deeds, which he raised to fifteen or sixteen when his liver or belly caused him anxieties. A bout of indigestion for the bailiff was thus worth a further increase of fifty francs for Bourrichon who, until recently, had dreaded this kind of indisposition, the cost of which used almost always to fall to him.

  So many good deeds could not go unremarked. News flew round the city that Malicorne was preparing the ground for an electoral bid; he was too well known for any to believe he would act with the least altruistic intention. He had a brief moment of discouragement, but then, remembering what was at stake, he quickly recovered and redoubled his philanthropy. Rather than limit his generosity to giving alms to individuals, he thought of making donations to the Lady Patrons of the city, to the parish priest, to mutual aid societies, the Firemen’s Brotherhood, the High School Graduates’ Friendly Society and to all the good works, Christian or lay, organised under the auspices of an influential person.

  In four months he had spent nearly a tenth of his fortune, but his reputation was now safely established. Throughout the city he was cited as a model of philanthropy. Moreover, his example was so persuasive that donations began to flow to philanthropic organisations from all over the country, to such a degree that the executive committees were able to throw many banquets with fine, plentiful fare, at which edifying ideas were discussed. The poor themselves no longer begrudged their gratitude to Malicorne, whose bounty became proverbial. People now said: “as kind as Malicorne”, and it quite often happened, increasingly even, that without much thought, this expression would be substituted by another, so striking and so unexpected that it seemed to strangers’ ears a rather unfortunate joke. People really would say: “as kind as a bailiff ”.

  Malicorne had only to maintain this reputation and, while persevering with his good works, wait with calm confidence for God to call him back to heaven. On making a donation to the Lady Patrons’ cause, their president, Madame de Saint-Onuphre, would tell him affectionately: “Monsieur Malicorne, you are a saint.” And he would protest humbly: “Oh, madame, a saint, that is too much. I’m still quite far from that.”

  His wife, a practical and thrifty housekeeper, thought all this generosity came at a rather high price. Her irritation was all the worse for having seen right through him to the true cause of his bountifulness. “You are buying your share of paradise, she said, rather bluntly, but you won’t give a penny for mine. You’re as selfish as ever.” Malicorne protested half-heartedly that he gave for the pleasure of giving, but his wife’s reproach had struck home and his conscience was troubled to such a degree that he authorised his wife to spend as much as she judged necessary to get into heaven. She rejected this generous offer with indignation and he could not help feeling greatly relieved.

  After a year, the bailiff, who had continued to record all his good deeds, had six school exercise books filled with them. He would take them from their drawer several times a day, happily weigh them in his hands and sometimes linger to leaf through one or two. Nothing was as comforting as the sight of all those pages in which his good works were inscribed in neat columns next to wide, white margins of which the majority were quite empty of bad deeds. Savouring a little foretaste of beatitude, Malicorne dreamt of the moment when he would reappear up there, weighed down by his impressive burden.

  One morning, having just repossessed an unemployed man’s belongings, walking away through the little streets of his rough part of town, the bailiff grew troubled and anxious. He felt a kind of piercing, melancholic uncertainty, not caused by anything in particular and unlike anything he had experienced before. Yet he had accomplished his duty without fear or pointless pity and, after the repossession, on dispensing a charitable fifty-franc note to the jobless gentleman, he hadn’t even felt sorry for him.

  He stopped at Rue de la Poterne, to step inside a miserable abode, ancient, damp and stinking, that belonged to his client Monsieur Gorgerin. He had a long acquaintance with this residence, having acted against several of its tenants; he had been there just the day before in order to distribute some alms. Now he had only the third floor still to visit. After navigating a dark corridor with mould streaking the walls and climbing three flights, he came out into the peculiar half-light of an attic. The third and highest floor was lit only by a skylight that opened under one of the roof’s steeply pitched eaves. A little breathless from the climb, Malicorne stopped for a moment to examine his surroundings. Despoilt by the damp, the plaster in the pitched partitions had swollen into blisters, several of which had burst, thus, like punctured boils, laying open the black and rotting wood of a rafter or some lathwork. Under the skylight, an iron basin and rug lay directly on the floor, which was evidently poorly protected from the infiltration of rainwater by these precautions for it was eaten away with rot and in places as soft as a carpet. Neither the dark and straitened aspect of this stairwell nor the dank stench that passed for air inside it could surprise the bailiff, who had seen many similar in the course of his career. Yet his apprehension had grown even more piercing and he thought he might be about to discover its cause. He heard a child crying inside one of the two dwellings that opened onto the landing, but he could not be certain which side the voice was coming from, and knocked at random on one of the two doors.

  The lodging comprised two rooms, one leading straight into the other, as narrow as a corridor, and the first, which was illuminated only through the glass of the door into the second, was even darker than the landing. A thin woman, whose face appeared very young but worn out, greeted Malicorne. A two-year-old child was clinging to her skirts and fixing his moist eyes on the visitor with a curiosity that already made the latter forget his agitation. The second room, into which she led the bailiff, was furnished with a trestle bed, a little white wooden table, two chairs and an old sewing machine that stood by a pitched window looking out onto the rooftops. The misery of this interior was no more than he had seen elsewhere; yet, for the first time in his life, Malicorne felt awkward entering the home of a pauper.

  Usually his charity visits were as brief as possible. Without sitting down, he would ask a few precise questions, spout an encouraging platitude and, leaving behind his donation, make straight for the door. This time, he could hardly remember why he had come and thought no more of putting his hand in his wallet. The ideas faltered inside his head and the words likewise on his lips. Remembering his office of bailiff, he scarcely dared to look at the little seamstress. She was no less frightened for her part, even though she had long known his reputation as a man of charity. The child became the focus of the encounter. Fearful at first, he overcame his hesitation in no time and, of his own accord, climbed into Malicorne’s lap. The latter so violently regretted having no sweets about him that he felt a slight urge to weep. Suddenly, there were loud blows at the door, as if someone were knocking on it with a cane. The seamstress was greatly distressed and hurried into the other room, closing the intervening door behind her.

  “Well?” enquired a wicked great voice, which Malicorne recognised as that of Gorgerin. “Well? I do hope
today will be our day.”

  The reply that reached the bailiff was no more than a faint murmuring, but its meaning was only too clear. Gorgerin began to roar in an appalling voice that terrified the child and must have penetrated the entire building:

  “Ah, no! This is the last straw! You shan’t pay me any longer with your stuff and nonsense. I want my rent. Give me my money; I want to see it right now! Get on with it, show me where you keep your savings. I shall see them.”

  In earlier days, the connoisseur in Malicorne would have admired the spirit with which Gorgerin carried out the difficult task of collecting pauper’s dues. But he could feel the same sensation of fear that was pumping the heart of the child still crouching in his arms.

  “Come on, get your money out!” thundered Gorgerin. “Give it to me, or I’ll know how to find it, believe me!”

  The bailiff stood up and, setting the child on the chair, walked into the other room without any precise plan in mind.

  “Well I never!” cried Gorgerin. “I was about to mention the Devil and in he walks!”

  “Get out!” ordered the bailiff.

  Lost for words, Gorgerin stared at him stupidly.

  “Get out!” repeated Malicorne.

  “Look, you’re losing your mind. I am the landlord here.”

  Indeed, Malicorne was losing his mind, for he hurled himself at Gorgerin and threw him out of the door, shouting:

  “A dirty pig of a landlord, yes! Down with landlords! Down with landlords!”

  Fearing for his life, Gorgerin pulled out a revolver and, aiming quickly at the bailiff, shot him dead on the little landing, next to the basin and its rug.

  God happened to be passing by the tribunal when Malicorne was called for his second hearing.

  “Ah!” he said, “our bailiff returns. And how has he been behaving?”

  “Oh my,” replied Saint Peter, “I see that it won’t take long to sentence him.”

  “Let’s have a quick look at his good deeds.”