The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  “Now, give us news of your uncle.”

  Madame Legris was a plump individual, quite replete, whose moist lips sketched an eternal smile, the expression of which adapted nevertheless to circumstances. When it was a matter of an illness or some other sad subject, that smile became appropriately tearful, and for the moment, it was with an expression of lugubrious compassion that she asked after the health of the uncle—the dear uncle—who, after having treated his nephew rigorously, had suddenly appeared on the horizon with the physiognomy of a good uncle with a legacy to leave.

  It seemed, however, that her question was not addressed to anyone. Bémolisant eluded it; Pilesèche was busy cutting up bits of food for the baby.

  It was, however impossible to escape that redoubtable interrogation for long. The good woman took the latter directly to task in his turn.

  “You who live in his intimacy, Monsieur Pilesèche, tell us what you’re thinking.”

  “Oh, he’s very ill, very ill,” replied the laboratory assistant, shaking his head.

  “Ah! You fear a fatal outcome, then?”

  “I fear so…I certainly fear so,” repeated the poor man, at a loss

  “To be sure, you see us all deeply affected. Come on, Népomucène, tell Monsieur how affected we are, for after all, he’s your uncle. One doesn’t lose an uncle without emotion. This one wasn’t always good to us, but we practice the forgetfulness of insults.”

  The good lady paused momentarily on order to let that profession of faith produce its full effect. Then she resumed, in a low voice: “He’s rich, isn’t he?”

  “I believe that he enjoys…that he enjoys a modest ease.”

  “It’s only just that it should remain in the family, and my son-in-law is his only nephew.”

  “Forgive me, Madame, but there’s a niece, at a convent in Fontenay-sous-Bois.”

  “Oh, that’s right! Poor, dear child, now she’s alone in the world!” groaned Madame Legris.

  “Oh, her uncle wasn’t a great resource for her, for he paid very little attention to her.”

  “We’ll go to collect her, pamper her…Népomucène, do you know your cousin?”

  “I’ve only seen her when she was very small, Mother-in-Law.”

  “Hélène, we’re going to go to Fontenay-sous-Bois, aren’t we? It’s necessary that the child witnesses her uncle’s last moments.”

  “No, no, Mother-in-Law. Let’s not get carried away, if you please. My godfather doesn’t like anyone forcing his hand, and doesn’t want to see anyone he hasn’t summoned personally.”

  “So, Hélène, your wife...”

  “My wife, like everyone else, will be obliged to leave him tranquil. I don’t suppose, in any case, that that will cause Hélène any mortal chagrin, since she doesn’t know him.”

  “Very well, very well,” riposted Madame Legris, slightly piqued. “But if it’s not permitted to us to testify our sympathy to the dying man, it’s not forbidden for us to take an interest in our cousin, our co-inheritor. She must be bored to death in her convent; we’ll go in search of her. She’ll live with us, and the regulation of the succession can only be facilitated by good relationships between the heirs.”

  “But Mother-in-Law, I really don’t know why you want to regulate prematurely a succession that isn’t open and might well escape us. How do you know what my uncle’s testamentary dispositions are?”

  “That’s right! Come straight out and say that he’s disinherited you! So you argued with him? For after all, if he summoned you, is doubtless wasn’t with the intention of telling you that he was disinheriting you!”

  “I haven’t said anything of the sort.”

  “…On the contrary, it was to be reconciled with you. Come on, have you or have you not been reconciled with your uncle?”

  Bémolisant was undergoing torture. That woman, unconsciously, was twisting the knife in the wound. He did not know what to say, and answered obliquely.

  “Yes, of course…but does one ever know? Can one ever say? I’m not at odds with my uncle, but...”

  “Well, then,” Madame Legris concluded, “let’s be tranquil. We’ll act as we please. You have no understanding of sentimental matters.”

  In response to that apothegm, to which there was no answer, Bémolisant thought it best to lower the flag, and he finished lunch with his nose in his plate.

  IV. A Revolution in Art

  All Paris invaded the gallery in the Rue de Sèze, where the Hungarian painter Shaparazzy was exhibiting his works. But it was not exclusively the paintings of the celebrated artist that attracted the elegant and select crowd of première patrons.

  Everyone was rushing, in fact, to see—finally—the statue whose praises the entire press was singing, with a great reinforcement of hyperbole, and a great clash of cymbals.

  Only one discordant note had been struck within the concert, by the journal Art classique—but the tendencies of that specialist periodical being well-known, that very criticism was a certificate of modernity that had to add further advantage to the magisterial work, exhibited thanks to the care of the valiant critic Antoine Leroux.

  The latter had set his heart on assuring its success, and, while one scarcely caught a glimpse of the sculptor—this Bémolisant whose name had been unknown yesterday—the journalist multiplied his efforts as if it were a matter of personal importance. It is true that he drew a profit from it that was no less effective for being indirect, for his name was, on this occasion, pronounced at least as often as that of the artist.

  The newspapers waxed lyrical in his regard. One read comments such as: “The savant critic whose marvelous flair has been able to discover a modern Praxiteles…” or “We owe to the illustrious critic the opportunity finally to admire, etc…” or “With an abnegation and a disinterest that does him honor, the eminent Antoine Leroux had sworn to reveal this neglected talent to the artistic world; he has kept his word...”

  In brief, there was around his name an honest acclaim to which he was not at all averse.

  On the day when the Exhibition opened, he never quit the room where the nickel statue had been placed, lying on a pedestal covered in red velvet, in the middle of the principal gallery.

  And it was, in fact, a strange and magisterial work, that metal statue representing a man who was tensed as if in the final coma of his agony: the features emaciated by suffering, the skeleton jutting forth beneath the skin, the breast hollowed out by a spasm, the hands clutching two short metal cylinders of which, to be sure, no one could quite explain the significance, and the eyes, finally, wide open to the horrors of surging death.

  The lovers of prettiness in art had no need to go to that exhibition, but those in search of eternal verity, those whose souls were open to all pity, shivered as they approached that moribund, and felt their hearts squeezed by a dolorous grip.

  Antoine Leroux went from group to group, explaining, provoking enthusiasm that never seemed sufficiently spontaneous.

  It was a triumph, a stunning triumph. For a week, the newspapers resounded with the name of Népomucène Bémolisant. People were astonished that they had not heard mention of him before, and a few critics occasionally hinted that the artist in question resembled many others who had found a work in a stroke of luck and had emptied themselves in that single effort—one work, and one alone—with no yesterday and no tomorrow. For Bémolisant, who suddenly appeared like a meteor, had produced nothing until then; it was quite possible that his fortune would be exhausted in that flash of genius.

  Those prophets of ill-omen, however, were clamoring in the desert—or, to put it more accurately, their voices were drowned out by the concert of enthusiasm and admiration.

  Even the government seemed excited, as if by the advent of a Messiah. What! A master had been born, and did not bear the official stamp! What use, then, was the École? What was the point of the Grand Prix? They did not go so far, however, as to hold it against him that he had no attachment, and the director of the Beaux-Arts
was already skillfully feeling out the critic and the sculptor, in order to acquire the work for the State.

  Monsieur Bémolisant, at the first mention of that, seemed to jump out of his skin. It was as if someone had made a monstrous suggestion. The statue was not for sake; it was destined to ornament a tomb—the tomb of Monsieur X, as the label said.

  Who could that Monsieur X be, whose family had commissioned a statue stark naked and in such a state of morbid emaciation?

  We are usually pleased to ornament our deceased, to idealize them, to drape them in ample folds in a noble attitude; and the public found the nudity of the dying man a trifle bizarre for the coronation of his tomb. It was admirable as a work of art, but it was absurd when one thought of its destination.

  From there to making up stories about that mysterious and eccentric family it was only a short step, and that served to defray the curiosity of the public, as well as filling the columns of newspapers.

  The artist’s studio was besieged by reporters, to whom he replied as best he could—which is to say, with the first thing that came into his head. By dint of explaining to them his conception of art and the secret thoughts that had led him to conceive that superb work, he ended up taking himself seriously in his role as a reformer, and perhaps ended up believing that he really was the author of the statue—but a cold shower brought him abruptly back to a sense of reality

  That irresistible and chilly disillusionment was inflicted upon him by a journalist at bay, Jean Saure, well known for the elegant fashion he had of being indiscreet.

  The reporter had forced his door, notebook in one hand, pencil in the other, and without wasting any time, interrogated him. Between the questions and in the course of the interview he let the latest gossip escape.

  “Oh, by the way, dear Master,” he put in, “in spite of the mystery you’ve tried to suspend over your statue, we’ve now finally identified the original that it represents/”

  “What! How?”

  “Yesterday, in a group of people who had come to see the work and were discussing its anatomical perfection, Dr. Delcourtil suddenly cried out, on seeing it: ‘But if I’m not mistaken, it’s the image of Népomucène Grillard!’”

  “Ah!” groaned Bémolisant, who felt faint.

  “Monsieur Grillard might have lived as a misanthrope and hardly ever shown himself, but he’s sufficiently well known in the scientific world; a few academicians were summoned, who recognized him immediately. This evening’s newspapers will be very well documented on the subject. But everyone is crying; ‘But the man isn’t dead yet; how has Monsieur Bémolisant dared to exhibit his statue…a statue that represents him struggling in his death throes?’”

  “That’s precisely where the mystery, the enigma begins,” Bémolisant stammered, for the sake of saying something.

  “That enigma you’re going to help me clarify. I promise you a leading article in my paper. You’ll never have had such acclaim, such a magnificent success.”

  “No, no…I beg you…no publicity; I’m the enemy of fame. It offends my most intimate family sentiments. Look, I’ll buy your silence with a confidence...”

  “Ah! Now you’re talking!”

  “But swear to me that you’ll keep what I’m going to tell you to yourself.”

  “Word of a reporter!” said Jean Saure, with an enigmatic smile.

  “Well, know then that Monsieur Grillard is my uncle. He’s very ill…perhaps he’s dead at this moment. I wanted to retain his features such as they appeared to me in that supreme illness, to erect a monument worthy of him, to make him, in his final hour, the supreme homage of my talent.”

  “That’s a whole novel in outline. I understand everything: your reluctance to exhibit, your hesitations, which Antoine Leroux only vanquished by trickery, your persistent silence regarding the original of the statue. Perfect, perfect... I’ll run along…I don’t want to know any more. I’m expected at the paper. It’s necessary that the public know your great soul, and finally appreciate you...”

  “No, no, I implore you. You swore to me to keep silent...”

  “And you reminded me of my oath: thank you!” said the reporter, making his escape before the artist was able to stop him.

  Bémolisant was furious. He sensed a vague danger suspended over his head. Without knowing in what form the danger would fall upon him, he was invaded by an extreme anxiety.

  No matter; it was the day that his exhibition closed; he was about to regain possession of his work and finally remove it from indiscreet curiosity. It was about to change domicile and be lost to sight. He hoped that, as one fad follows another, Paris would soon forget him in favor of some new attraction at the zoological gardens or the winter circus.

  When evening came, therefore, he went to the Rue de Sèze in order to reclaim his statue and regulate his account. The entrance fees had produced a considerable sum, and his share of that celestial manna was rather tidy.

  He stuffed the bills and gold coins into his pockets, pinching himself in order to convince himself of the reality of the windfall.

  The statue had been carefully packed. In front of the gallery it was hoisted on to a fiacre that was waiting at the door. Bémolisant was about to climb into the cab himself and leave when a man hurtled toward him, shoved him into the fiacre, leapt in after him, closed the door and, leaning out of the lowered window, shouted at the coachman urgently: “To the Gare de Lyon!”

  That man was Pilesèche.

  Pilesèche, pale and wan, his features distressed, trembling with fear.

  Seizing the artist by the arm, sticking his lips to his ear, he whispered, in a voice so distraught that the other started, gripped by the contagion of that fear: “The police are on our heels.”

  “Wretch! What’s happened, then?” he demanded.

  “Oh, let me pull myself together first.”

  He made use of his moustache to fan himself, although it was a cold January day, as breathless as if he had run all the way across Paris.

  Finally, reassembling his courage and his idea, he said: “I’ve just been to the house.”

  “On the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève?”

  “Yes. It’s on fire. It’s a furnace. There were firemen blocking the street. The steam-pumps were launching torrents of water, but to no avail. The flames were spurting out of the windows, crackling, with black and acrid smoke. It was horrible. And in the middle of it I saw a police commissioner wearing his sash and giving out orders. Madame Paponot came out to talk to him, and raised her arms toward the skies. I wondered if I ought to go up, but quickly reckoned that it was better to keep quiet. That suits my character better—and besides, the fire might have helped us, in sum, by permitting it to be supposed that my poor employer had perished in the flames.”

  “You’re right,” opined the artist, “and it’s all for the best.”

  “What, all for the best! But listen—that’s not all…unfortunately. I found myself in the midst of people of the neighborhood, who were too occupied watching the fire to recognize me. They were talking about the cause of the disaster. One said that it had begun in the distiller’s cellar, the other that it had started under the eaves. ‘In any case,’ he added, as soon as Madame Paponot perceived it, she immediately thought about the gentleman who’s ill that nobody ever sees him. Perhaps it’s him, she said, who started the fire. A sick person, you see—that can happen…especially if there’s no one looking after him’

  “At that moment Madame Paponot was with the commissioner, gesticulating as if she were demanding something of him. Then the commissioner turns to the firemen. ‘Hey,’ he said, in a loud voice, there’s a man in the mansards who’s ill and disabled. Is anyone willing to go up and find him?’

  “Two or three firemen run forward shouting: ‘Me! Me!’ They set up the telescopic ladder, which goes up all the way to the fourth. A fireman jumps on to it and goes up it like a cat; he staves in the window-frame of the laboratory, whose panes have already exploded, and disappears in
to the furnace. The crowd utter a cry of admiration and terror…he finally reappears, alone...”

  “Naturally!”

  “Then there’s an immense cry of disappointment. ‘He hasn’t got him!’ But he, to reassure them, shouts in his turn from the top of the ladder: ‘There’s no one there!’ He comes back down, rapidly. The commissioner is waiting, and questions him. The fireman reports that he’s explored the apartment and couldn’t find the old man.

  “The commissioner shakes his head and is thinking about it, without saying anything, when I hear murmurs in the crowd: ‘It’s odd, all the same, a man on his death-bed taking off like that on the very day of the fire. There’s a mystery in this, for sure…a mystery such as Richebourg32 never invented, and the police will stick their noses in, have no fear...’

  “Those words, you see, Monsieur Bémolisant, are engraved in my brain. I saw everything spinning; I nearly fainted, and I ran away as fast as my legs could carry me. How did I get here? I don’t know, for I was running without a goal. Instinctively, I looked for you, and I’m more tranquil now that I’ve found you.”

  “But what do you expect us to do?” groaned the artist.

  “We have to flee...”

  “Flee where? They’d catch us at the frontier. Why take me to the Gare de Lyon?

  “To go to Switzerland.”

  “Fool—we’d be arrested there and extradited without further ado.”

  “Damn! Let’s go to the station anyway; we’ll leave the cab there, to put the police off the track. Oh, I’m becoming artful! On the way, we’ll think of a means of getting away.”

  The vehicle was still moving. Finally, it piled up outside the station. The coachman hailed porters, who unloaded the heavy package and put it on a station trolley, not without commenting on the considerable weight of the oddly-shaped box.

  The travelers seemed very hesitant about the destination to which they wanted it to go. In the end, they decided to deposit it in the left luggage office; it was a temporary solution, which had no other advantage than giving them time to sort things out—but it was all very well to step back from the edge of the ditch; eventually, they would have to jump it.