Nora, The Ape-Woman

by Félicien Champsaur

  “Certainly!” exclaimed Nora, extending her hand to the doctor. “I shall consider you as a father...”

  “Gently, gently!” said the American. “I can’t accept that title—but as your best friend...”

  “As you please—so be it! You can’t give me any information about my parents, then?”

  “Alas, no—not at present. Later, perhaps, when you’re ready.”

  Nora stamped her foot. “More mysteries! There’s something abnormal about me. You’re a doctor, you’ve seen me as a child, you know about this, and that.” She indicated her jaw and her foot. “What can these anomalies signify?”

  “Pooh! Nothing extraordinary. A simple emotion of your mother while she was carrying you. But if you would like to pay me a visit at the house of my friend Dr. Voronoff, where I stay when I’m in Paris, with his help, we can elucidate the matter. A visit to his Institute is, in any case, very interesting.”

  “The name of that doctor isn’t unknown to me.”

  “He’s the greatest of our surgeons, the first one to attempt the renovation of the sexual organs by grafting.”

  “I confess that that question doesn’t interest me, and if it weren’t for the pleasure of returning your visit...”

  “An idea! Are you free today?”

  “Yes, until it’s time for the theater.”

  “And I’m leaving this evening to return to Eze. So, my dear child, I’ll take you to lunch at Voronoff’s. Don’t fear being indiscreet; it’s as if I were in my own home there.”

  “And what can be seen at your friend’s home?”

  “All sorts of things related to human beings. Among others, you’ll see some of my boarders. I brought eight of them the day before yesterday.”

  “You have a strange way of talking about your patients. One might think it were a matter of dogs or cats.”

  “Well, it’s a little like that. Come on, then—my auto is waiting for us.”

  “I accept—just give me time to put my hat on, and I’m all yours.”

  Left alone, the doctor rubbed his hands. “I think, as Fortin would say that we’re going to have some fun!”

  He did not have to wait long. Nora returned, clad in a short skirt and a dainty hat, ready to go out.

  “Let’s go, my adoptive father—take me away!”

  At the Institute in Auteuil they were greeted by Dr. Jean Fortin. Voronoff was not there.

  “Aha! Here’s our beautiful fugitive, then! You see, Goldry, that I wasn’t mistaken.”

  “You know me, then, Monsieur?” asked Nora.

  “As if I’d made you,” replied the incorrigible ironist.

  “I’ve invited her to have lunch with us.”

  “Good idea, all the more so as Voronoff has been obliged to go to Orléans for an interesting operation. He’ll greatly regret not having seen Mademoiselle. On the other hand, I’ll have the pleasure of introducing her to Dr. Vanel. He came back to Paris this morning, and he’s gone to supervise the unloading of the apes. Let’s go into the dining room; he’ll join us there.”

  During that conversation Nora admired the exquisite cleanliness of the surroundings. All the rooms and corridors that she had traversed were well-ventilated and illuminated. The walls and ceilings were covered in white ripolin slightly tinted with lilac. Flowery friezes in bright colors ornamented the walls. The doors were made of varnished pitch pine, with hinges and locks of polished copper. Everything was fresh, bright and cheerful. There was no useless furniture; the chairs were comfortable, the tables covered with plates of glass. Here and there, a few tubular crystal vases contained choice flowers, or a spray of gilded foliage.

  “It’s charming here,” Nora said. “One senses an atmosphere of care and repose.”

  “It’s a place of organic cures; it’s necessary that the ambiance is adequate to that purpose.”

  The dining room was more decorative than the other rooms. Large painted panels brought an impression of spring gaiety into it.

  At that moment, Marc Vanel—Homo-Deus—came in, followed by six of the Institute’s practitioners in white smocks and skullcaps.

  Marc advanced swiftly. “Ah! So this is our Nora! All grace and beauty! My compliments, Mademoiselle.”

  “Does everybody here know me, then? But I don’t recognize anyone.”

  “But Mademoiselle,” said one of the interns, “We’ve all admired you at the Folies Bergères.”

  “That’s not a reason why I should by ‘your’ Nora. It doesn’t offend me, but all the same...”

  “My dear child, you’re one of the family here,” Dr. Fortin put in. “It’s our friend Goldry who gave you his name, but Marc Vanel and I have the same rights to your recognition.”

  “And that’s why,” Dr. Goldry added,” I can’t claim for myself alone...”

  “In sum, I’m a lost child that you collected and adopted?”

  “That’s it, exactly. You’re the child of four fathers, for Voronoff is one too.”

  “Really?” said Nora laughing. “Will it stop there? What about these gentlemen?”

  “We, Mademoiselle, are merely your admirers.”

  “And now the acquaintance is made,” concluded Dr. Jean Fortin, “to table, my friends!”

  In her capacity as an artiste and a good companion, Nora quickly acclimatized to that picturesque milieu, so full of merriment, and it was a charming lunch. The three doctors examined the young girl carefully, but surreptitiously, especially Marc Vanel, whose faunesque gaze undressed her, but Nora, full of joy, was joking with the six young men, and did not notice anything.

  “It’s curious,” she said. “Who would suspect that this is a place of suffering, a hospital? I can’t get over it.”

  “But it’s not at all what you think, Mademoiselle. A clinic, an Institute of renovation, of rejuvenation, is not a place of suffering, even for our simian inmates, to whom we gave all possible wellbeing.”

  “Oh yes—I have it now! I remember having heard mention of Dr. Voronoff’s method. It appears that he removes the you-know-whats from monkeys to give them to deprived humans, in order to restore their virility.” She laughed and added: “Poor animals!”

  “What do you expect? Man is the master. He kills to nourish himself; can he not mutilate in order to prolong and ameliorate his organism?”

  “Oh, I’ve known too much hardship in life, you know, to weep over the sufferings of animals. I’m scarcely interested in those of my fellows...”

  “Her fellows!” Fortin whispered in Goldry’s ear. “Well, old man, we’ll see shortly what she thinks of them!” He turned to Nora. “We have a young chimpanzee here who is very intelligent, and of whom, without knowing it, you’re the godmother.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We thought you were lost to us, so, in memory of you, we gave your name to our favorite.”

  “That tender thought on your part proves to me that my fathers haven’t forgotten me. I’m grateful to you. On the part of men I’ve known a great deal of desire, but never any affection, so I can assure you that I’m very sensible to what you’re telling me.”

  “But for your flight, child, you’d have had a great many more effects of our affection. But for myself, I made a huge mistake in counting too much on the tenderness of those ladies of Saint-Pleur.”

  “We’ll make up for lost time,” Nora replied. “Now, my fathers, introduce me to my goddaughter.”

  They left the table and went to the long gallery where the apes’ cages were.

  Like the rest of the establishment, that gallery, broad, high-ceilinged and brightly-lit, was scrupulously clean. The cages, ten in number, were green, and as comfortable as a prison can be. Thick mats of rice-straw covered the floor, in order that the animals could lie down without feeling the hardness of the floor.

  In anticipation of the introduction, Dr. Goldry had furnished Nora with a few gifts to offer the young chimpanzee. The cages were full; there were two orangutans, three chimpanzees and five gibbons
.

  When the visitors drew near to Nora’s cage, the little she-ape came forward excitedly and extended her hands through the bars. Goldry took one of them and kissed it gallantly, by which the ape seemed very flattered, for she immediately gave voice to a soft purr of pleasure.

  “I present you your godmother,” the doctor said. “Her name is the same as yours.”

  The ape immediately extended her hand to Nora, who dared not take it, but placed in the extended hand a box of bonbons that Goldry had given to her for that purpose.

  Without even looking at it, however, the ape threw the box away and took a step backwards.

  “You’ve offended her,” said Dr. Goldry. “Give her your hand—you have nothing to fear.”

  The young woman obeyed. She approached the cage and extended her hand through the bars. Without rancor, the she-ape took it and stroked it gently. Then, without letting go of the dancer’s hand, she placed hers beside it and seemed to become absorbed in their contemplation.

  Nora shivered. Apart from the color of the skin, the two hands were strangely similar.

  From the hand, the ape passed on to the person, and appeared very interested in that observation.

  For her part, the dancer was singularly impressed by the sight of her goddaughter. She also made comparisons. It seemed to her that deep within her, a veil ripped, and that she must have lived, at one time, with beings similar to that one—but it was very vague, an impression more akin to a very old dream, of which an episode had become reality.

  The she-ape was the first to return to the present moment. Releasing Nora’s hand, she picked up the box of bonbons—a very elegant box sealed with a broad silk ribbon. Carefully and dexterously, she undid the large knot and folded up the ribbon, which she set down beside her. Then she opened the box, moved aside the paper flap and took a bonbon, which she ate with extreme elegance.

  An angry cry attracted attention to the next cage. The chimpanzee occupying it had watched with great attention what had happened in Nora’s, and, at the sight of his neighbor crunching treats, had leapt on to the bars; he held out his hands, desperate to have his share of the feast—but the indifferent she-ape did not even seem to have noticed him.

  What relationship could there be between Nora the civilized she-ape and that savage? Bah! Did he even exist, for her?

  Nora—the woman—was equipped with more objects. She held out to her homonym a long necklace of green-tinted wooden beads. The she-ape’s first impulse was to raise the beads to her mouth, but, recognizing her error, she immediately looked at the dancer, who had a superb pearl necklace around her neck—a gift from Jules Ducon. The ape understood; she put the necklace around her neck, the green olives streaming over her breast, and the rest of the long string gathered in an amusing green pile at the confluence of her legs—which she seemed very satisfied. A second necklace, red this time, rewarded her for her intelligence. She immediately arranged it alongside the other.

  That was too much for her neighbor, who let go of the bars and dropped to the floor of the case, prey to a violent nervous crisis—a futile manifestation, for Nora the she-ape did not even deign to perceive him.

  “Let’s pass on to other exercises now,” said Jean Fortin, handing the she-ape an illustrated book.

  The latter opened it and stated leafing through it, pausing over the illustrations. She obviously understood, because some of the pictures were at right-angles to the page, and she rotated them in order to see them better. Having reached the end of the book she went back to the pictures, tearing out the pages of text as she went, doubtless considering them to be useless. She dispersed them around her like a carpet, and, from time to time, raised her eyes toward the dancer, as if in quest of her approval.

  And Nora the woman perceived that the eyes of Nora the she-ape were the same maroon velvet speckled with gold as her own, and found in their expression a certain relationship.

  She felt an impression of malaise.

  “Let’s get out of here!” said the dancer, abruptly. “The sight of that woman pains me.”

  The three doctors exchanged glances.

  “In fact,” said Dr. Goldry, tranquilly, “the sight of these great apes always gives an indefinable impression of sadness at first. It seems that, through the night of time, a vague memory of our origins awakens in us. But we quickly manage to overcome it. I’m convinced that at your next visit, you’ll no longer feel it—or, at least, the consciousness of the progress accomplished will render you proud of the success achieved by our race over the ancestral races.”

  “Doubtless you’re right. Yes, I’ll come back, because I want to follow the intellectual progress of my goddaughter.”

  “And let me hope that one day you’ll come to visit our establishment on the Riviera. There you’ll see my great apes, the orangutans that I brought back from the island of Borneo.”

  “Gladly. Now that I’ve rediscovered in you my true family, I have no fear of abusing your benevolence.”

  “You’re charming,” said Marc Vanel. “Here, as at Eze, you’re at home.”

  “But Eze is a long way away, and I’m not free. The theater is a kind of slavery.”

  “Bah!” It can be done by airplane. “You can leave after the performance; you’ll be in Eze in the morning and will be able to get back to Paris by ten p.m., before the ballet nègre—I guarantee it.”

  “Yes, that’s an idea, and it doesn’t lack originality.”

  “Any day that you like,” said Vanel. “I have an apparatus of my own invention, which can do two hundred miles an hour easily.”

  “Agreed. I’ll let you know, Monsieur Vanel. À bientôt, my dear fathers...”

  VIII. Ernest Paris and his Secretary,

  Jacquot Blakson20

  The celebrated author and academician Ernest Paris lived in Paris in a small town house in the Villa Saïd, on the Avenue Foch, and during what he called his “refreshments” he lived in his Château de La Martinière, situated three kilometers from Villefranche.21 It was the month of November 1928, and the illustrious man of letters had come to the blue sea to relax from the fatigues of Parisian life.

  Ernest Paris was then at the summit of his glory, and supported its inconveniences with ennui. He was a tall old man with a face elongated by a white beard trimmed to a point, with the eyes of a gazelle but heavy, swollen eyelids, a delicate ironic mouth and a benevolent expression—but always with a hint of mockery. That day, he had forbidden his door to anyone, having made the firm resolution the day before to work—a difficult thing to do, because the crowd of curiosity-seekers, esthetes and foreigners gave him no respite.

  Always amiable and seemingly welcoming, the Master often regretted all the time that his celebrity caused him to waste, all the more so as his natural slothfulness did not incite him to hard labor, but he had promised his publisher the publication of a work famous before its birth, Le Vrai Jésus, and in the ten years since the book had been announced, the publisher and the public had been waiting for it impatiently.

  Sometimes, Ernest Paris said to his secretary Jacquot: “Well, young man, tomorrow we’ll strike a blow!” But the next day, some circumstance or other prevented the beautiful plan from being realized, and the secretary, who was expecting it—a subaltern is not necessarily an inferior—shrugged his shoulders and made notes on what was said at La Martinière, knowing full well that one day, something would come of them.

  Sprawling in his armchair, Ernest Paris was dreaming, and the young man—Jacquot was only thirty-five years old—was waiting, as usual, for his employer to decide to open his mouth. A large cardboard box, stuffed with notes and notebooks, was open beside him.

  “Do you know, Jacquot,” said the Master finally, “what’s going through my mind at this moment?”

  “Another feminine silhouette. Aren’t you incorrigible? Why think about that, since”—Jacquot made a slicing gesture with his hand—“it’s futile.”

  “Hmm! Not entirely. I’m thinking about Vor
onoff and his method of regeneration.”

  “Oh, well! That’s all you need. And if the graft succeeds, the situation here will no longer be tenable; I’m handing in my resignation in advance.”

  “Come on, my lad…at least wait until I’ve completed my Vrai Jésus. That work will be original—you’ll see.”

  “I’m certain of it, although I find it strange to write a book about an individual to prove that he didn’t exist. Anyway, at the rate we’re going, the book won’t exist anymore than the true or false Jesus.”

  “One can’t always be working, damn it. Thus, today, I feel fatigued.”

  “Not astonishing. I left you yesterday evening with the Marquise de Virmile. That woman will kill you!”

  “What does it matter if one dies of beauty? And then, that woman, as you call her, has great qualities…for her age. Tell me, what age do you think she is? She’s still attractive…so?”

  “I’m the same age as her daughter.22 Draw your own conclusion!”

  “Damn! Damn! One wouldn’t think it. But she has a great deal of experience; that makes up for it. By means of her linguistic audacities, the Marquise always attains her goal.”

  “Tastes and colors one can’t dispute. In any case, today you’re worn out.”

  “Really? Is it as obvious as that?”

  And Ernest Paris, getting to his feet swiftly, went to look at his old equine face in a superb Venetian glass placed above a sideboard opposite the large window that illuminated the room.

  “Hmm! Indeed! I’m decidedly not reasonable. I definitely need to go to talk to Voronoff.”

  “And that’s what you call being reasonable? We aren’t going to do anything today, then?”

  “But my friend, you can see yourself what a state that old she-ape has left me in. If you’re up to it, you strike a blow! We’ll see tomorrow. By the way, Dr. Goldry telephoned me this morning to say that he’s expecting a visit from the dancer Nora—I have a strong desire to go to the refuge to see her. She’s adorable, you know, that child!”