Là-bas

by J.-K. Huysmans

  CHAPTER III

  Durtal was in a situation familiar to all bachelors who have theconcierge do their cleaning. Only these know how a tiny lamp can fairlydrink up oil, and how the contents of a bottle of cognac can becomepaler and weaker without ever diminishing. They know, too, how a oncecomfortable bed can become forbidding, and how scrupulously a conciergecan respect its least fold or crease. They learn to be resigned and towash out a glass when they are thirsty and make their own fire when theyare cold.

  Durtal's concierge was an old man with drooping moustache and a powerfulbreath of "three-six." Indolent and placid, he opposed an unbudgeableinertia to Durtal's frantic and profanely expressed demand that thesweeping be done at the same hour every morning.

  Threats, prayers, insults, the withholding of gratuities, were withouteffect. Pere Rateau took off his cap, scratched his head, promised, inthe tone of a man much moved, to mend his ways, and next day came laterthan ever.

  "What a nuisance!" thought Durtal today, as he heard a key turning inthe lock, then he looked at his watch and observed that once again theconcierge was arriving after three o'clock in the afternoon.

  There was nothing for it but to submit with a sigh to the ensuinghullabaloo. Rateau, somnolent and pacific in his lodge, became a demonwhen he got a broom in his hand. In this sedentary being, who coulddrowse all morning in the stale basement atmosphere heavy with thecumulative aroma of many meat-stews, a martial ardour, a warlikeferocity, then asserted themselves, and like a red revolutionary heassaulted the bed, charged the chairs, manhandled the picture frames,knocked the tables over, rattled the water pitcher, and whirled Durtal'sbrogues about by the laces as when a pillaging conqueror hauls aravished victim along by the hair. So he stormed the apartment like abarricade and triumphantly brandished his battle standard, the dust rag,over the reeking carnage of the furniture.

  Durtal at such times sought refuge in the room which was not beingattacked. Today Rateau launched his offensive against the workroom, soDurtal fled to the bedroom. From there, through the half open door, hecould see the enemy, with a feather duster like a Mohican war bonnetover his head, doing a scalp dance around a table.

  "If I only knew at what time that pest would break in on me so I couldalways arrange to be out!" groaned Durtal. Now he ground his teeth, asRateau, with a yell, grabbed up the mop and, skating around on one leg,belaboured the floor lustily.

  The perspiring conqueror then appeared in the doorway and advanced toreduce the chamber where Durtal was. The latter had to return to thesubjugated workroom, and the cat, shocked by the racket, arched its backand, rubbing against its master's legs, followed him to a place ofsafety.

  In the thick of the conflict Des Hermies rang the door bell.

  "I'll put on my shoes," cried Durtal, "and we'll get out of this.Look--" he passed his hand over the table and brought back a coat ofgrime that made him appear to be wearing a grey glove--"look. That bruteturns the house upside down and knocks everything to pieces, and here'sthe result. He leaves more dust when he goes than he found when he camein!"

  "Bah," said Des Hermies, "dust isn't a bad thing. Besides having thetaste of ancient biscuit and the smell of an old book, it is thefloating velvet which softens hard surfaces, the fine dry wash whichtakes the garishness out of crude colour schemes. It is the caparison ofabandon, the veil of oblivion. Who, then, can despise it--aside fromcertain persons whose lamentable lot must often have wrung a tear fromyou?

  "Imagine living in one of these Paris _passages_. Think of a consumptivespitting blood and suffocating in a room one flight up, behind the'ass-back' gables of, say the passage des Panoramas, for instance. Whenthe window is open the dust comes in impregnated with snuff andsaturated with clammy exudations. The invalid, choking, begs for air,and in order that he may breathe the window is _closed_.

  "Well, the dust that you complain of is rather milder than that. AnywayI don't hear you coughing.... But if you're ready we'll be on our way."

  "Where shall we go?" asked Durtal.

  Des Hermies did not answer. They left the rue du Regard, in which Durtallived, and went down the rue du Cherche-Midi as far as the Croix-Rouge.

  "Let's go on to the place Saint-Sulpice," said Des Hermies, and after asilence he continued, "Speaking of dust, 'out of which we came and towhich we shall return,' do you know that after we are dead our corpsesare devoured by different kinds of worms according as we are fat orthin? In fat corpses one species of maggot is found, the rhizophagus,while thin corpses are patronized only by the phora. The latter isevidently the aristocrat, the fastidious gourmet which turns up its noseat a heavy meal of copious breasts and juicy fat bellies. Just think,there is no perfect equality, even in the manner in which we feed theworms.

  "But this is where we stop."

  They had come to where the rue Ferou opens into the place Saint-Sulpice.Durtal looked up and on an unenclosed porch in the flank of the churchof Saint-Sulpice he read the placard, "Tower open to visitors."

  "Let's go up," said Des Hermies.

  "What for! In this weather?" and Durtal pointed at the yellow sky overwhich black clouds, like factory smoke, were racing, so low that the tinchimneys seemed to penetrate them and crenelate them with little spotsof clarity. "I am not enthusiastic about trying to climb a flight ofbroken, irregular stairs. And anyway, what do you think you can see upthere? It's misty and getting dark. No, have a heart."

  "What difference is it to you where you take your airing? Come on. Iassure you you will see something unusual."

  "Oh! you brought me here on purpose?"

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you say so?"

  He followed Des Hermies into the darkness under the porch. At the backof the cellarway a little essence lamp, hanging from a nail, lighted adoor, the tower entrance.

  For a long time, in utter darkness, they climbed a winding stair. Durtalwas wondering where the keeper had gone, when, turning a corner, he sawa shaft of light, then he stumbled against the rickety supports of a"double-current" lamp in front of a door. Des Hermies pulled a bell cordand the door swung back.

  Above them on a landing they could see feet, whether of a man or of awoman they could not tell.

  "Ah! it's you, M. des Hermies," and a woman bent over, describing anarc, so that her head was in a stream of light. "Louis will be very gladto see you."

  "Is he in?" asked Des Hermies, reaching up and shaking hands with thewoman.

  "He is in the tower. Won't you stop and rest a minute?"

  "Why, when we come down, if you don't mind."

  "Then go up until you see a grated door--but what an old fool I am! Youknow the way as well as I do."

  "To be sure, to be sure.... But, in passing, permit me to introduce myfriend Durtal."

  Durtal, somewhat flustered, made a bow in the darkness.

  "Ah, monsieur, how fortunate. Louis is so anxious to meet you."

  "Where is he taking me?" Durtal wondered as again he groped along behindhis friend, now and then, just as he felt completely lost, coming to thenarrow strip of light admitted by a barbican, and again proceeding ininky darkness. The climb seemed endless. Finally they came to the barreddoor, opened it, and found themselves on a frame balcony with the abyssabove and below. Des Hermies, who seemed perfectly at home, pointeddownward, then upward. They were halfway up a tower the face of whichwas overlaid with enormous criss-crossing joists and beams rivetedtogether with bolt heads as big as a man's fist. Durtal could see noone. He turned and, clinging to the hand rail, groped along the walltoward the daylight which stole down between the inclined leaves of thesounding-shutters.

  Leaning out over the precipice, he discerned beneath him a formidablearray of bells hanging from oak supports lined with iron. The sombrebell metal was slick as if oiled and absorbed light without refractingit. Bending backward, he looked into the upper abyss and perceived newbatteries of bells overhead. These bore the raised effigy of a bishop,and a place in each, worn by the striking of the clapper, shone golden.


  All were in quiescence, but the wind rattled against thesounding-shutters, stormed through the cage of timbers, howled along thespiral stair, and was caught and held whining in the bell vases.Suddenly a light breeze, like the stirring of confined air, fanned hischeek. He looked up. The current had been set in motion by the swayingof a great bell beginning to get under way. There was a crash of sound,the bell gathered momentum, and now the clapper, like a gigantic pestle,was grinding the great bronze mortar with a deafening clamour. The towertrembled, the balcony on which Durtal was standing trepidated like thefloor of a railway coach, there was the continuous rolling of a mightyreverberation, interrupted regularly by the jar of metal upon metal.

  In vain Durtal scanned the upper abyss. Finally he managed to catchsight of a leg, swinging out into space and back again, in one of thosewooden stirrups, two of which, he had noticed, were fastened to thebottom of every bell. Leaning out so that he was almost prone on one ofthe timbers, he finally perceived the ringer, clinging with his hands totwo iron handles and balancing over the gulf with his eyes turnedheavenward.

  Durtal was shocked by the face. Never had he seen such disconcertingpallor. It was not the waxen hue of the convalescent, not the lifelessgrey of the perfume-or snuff-maker, it was a prison pallor of abloodless lividness unknown today, the ghastly complexion of a wretch ofthe Middle Ages shut up till death in a damp, airless, pitch-dark_in-pace_.

  The eyes were blue, prominent, even bulging, and had the mystic'sreadiness to tears, but their expression was singularly contradicted bythe truculent Kaiser Wilhelm moustache. The man seemed at once a dreamerand a fighter, and it would have been difficult to tell which characterpredominated.

  He gave the bell stirrup a last yank with his foot and with a heave ofhis loins regained his equilibrium. He mopped his brow and smiled downat Des Hermies.

  "Well! well!" he said, "you here."

  He descended, and when he learned Durtal's name his face brightened andthe two shook hands cordially.

  "We have been expecting you a long time, monsieur. Our friend herespeaks of you at great length, and we have been asking him why he didn'tbring you around to see us. But come," he said eagerly, "I must conductyou on a tour of inspection about my little domain. I have read yourbooks and I know a man like you can't help falling in love with mybells. But we must go higher if we are really to see them."

  And he bounded up a staircase, while Des Hermies pushed Durtal along infront of him in a way that made retreat impossible.

  As he was once more groping along the winding stairs, Durtal asked, "Whydidn't you tell me your friend Carhaix--for of course that's who heis--was a bell-ringer?"

  Des Hermies did not have time to answer, for at that moment, havingreached the door of the room beneath the tower roof, Carhaix wasstanding aside to let them pass. They were in a rotunda pierced in thecentre by a great circular hole which had around it a corroded ironbalustrade orange with rust. By standing close to the railing, which waslike the well curb of the Pit, one could see down, down, to thefoundation. The "well" seemed to be undergoing repairs, and from the topto the bottom of the tube the beams supporting the bells werecrisscrossed with timbers bracing the walls.

  "Don't be afraid to lean over," said Carhaix. "Now tell me, monsieur,how do you like my foster children?"

  But Durtal was hardly heeding. He felt uneasy, here in space, and as ifdrawn toward the gaping chasm, whence ascended, from time to time, thedesultory clanging of the bell, which was still swaying and would besome time in returning to immobility.

  He recoiled.

  "Wouldn't you like to pay a visit to the top of the tower?" askedCarhaix, pointing to an iron stair sealed into the wall.

  "No, another day."

  They descended and Carhaix, in silence, opened a door. They advancedinto an immense storeroom, containing colossal broken statues of saints,scaly and dilapidated apostles, Saint Matthew legless and armless, SaintLuke escorted by a fragmentary ox, Saint Mark lacking a shoulder andpart of his beard, Saint Peter holding up an arm from which the handholding the keys was broken off.

  "There used to be a swing in here," said Carhaix, "for the little girlsof the neighbourhood. But the privilege was abused, as privileges alwaysare. In the dusk all kinds of things were done for a few sous. Thecurate finally had the swing taken down and the room closed up."

  "And what is that over there?" inquired Durtal, perceiving, in a corner,an enormous fragment of rounded metal, like half a gigantic skull-cap.On it the dust lay thick, and and in the hollow the meshes on meshes offine silken web, dotted with the black bodies of lurking spiders, werelike a fisherman's hand net weighted with little slugs of lead.

  "That? Ah, monsieur!" and there was fire in Carhaix's mild eyes, "thatis the skull of an old, old bell whose like is not cast these days. Thering of that bell, monsieur, was like a voice from heaven." And suddenlyhe exploded, "Bells have had their day!--As I suppose Des Hermies hastold you.--Bell ringing is a lost art. And why wouldn't it be? Look atthe men who are doing it nowadays. Charcoal burners, roofers, masons outof a job, discharged firemen, ready to try their hand at anything for afranc. There are curates who think nothing of saying, 'Need a man? Goout in the street and pick up a soldier for ten sous. He'll do.' That'swhy you read about accidents like the one that happened lately at NotreDame, I think. The fellow didn't withdraw in time and the bell came downlike the blade of a guillotine and whacked his leg right off.

  "People will spend thirty thousand francs on an altar baldachin, andruin themselves for music, and they have to have gas in their churches,and Lord knows what all besides, but when you mention bells they shrugtheir shoulders. Do you know, M. Durtal, there are only two men in Pariswho can ring chords? Myself and Pere Michel, and he is not married andhis morals are so bad that he can't be regularly attached to a church.He can ring music the like of which you never heard, but he, too, islosing interest. He drinks, and, drunk or sober, goes to work, then hebowls up again and goes to sleep.

  "Yes, the bell has had its day. Why, this very morning, Monsignor madehis pastoral visit to this church. At eight o'clock we sounded hisarrival. The six bells you see down here boomed out melodiously. Butthere were sixteen up above, and it was a shame. Those extras jangledaway haphazard. It was a riot of discord."

  Carhaix ruminated in silence as they descended. Then, "Ah, monsieur," hesaid, his watery eyes fairly bubbling, "the ring of bells, there's yourreal sacred music."

  They were now above the main door of the building and they came out intothe great covered gallery on which the towers rest. Carhaix smiled andpointed out a complete peal of miniature bells, installed between twopillars on a plank. He pulled the cords, and, in ecstasies, his eyesprotruding, his moustache bristling, he listened to the frail tinklingof his toy.

  And suddenly he relinquished the cords.

  "I once had a crazy idea," he said, "of forming a class here andteaching all the intricacies of the craft, but no one cared to learn atrade which was steadily going out of existence. Why, you know we don'teven sound for weddings any more, and nobody comes to look at the tower.

  "But I really can't complain. I hate the streets. When I try to crossone I lose my head. So I stay in the tower all day, except once in theearly morning when I go to the other side of the square for a bucket ofwater. Now my wife doesn't like it up here. You see, the snow does comein through all the loopholes and it heaps up, and sometimes we aresnowbound with the wind blowing a gale."

  They had come to Carhaix's lodge. His wife was waiting for them on thethreshold.

  "Come in, gentlemen," she said. "You have certainly earned somerefreshment," and she pointed to four glasses which she had set out onthe table.

  The bell-ringer lighted a little briar pipe, while Des Hermies andDurtal each rolled a cigarette.

  "Pretty comfortable place," remarked Durtal, just to be sayingsomething. It was a vast room, vaulted, with walls of rough stone, andlighted by a semi-circular window just under the ceiling. The tiledfloor was badly covered by
an infamous carpet, and the furniture, verysimple, consisted of a round dining-room table, some old _bergere_armchairs covered with slate-blue Utrecht velours, a little stainedwalnut sideboard on which were several plates and pitchers of Bretonfaience, and opposite the sideboard a little black bookcase, which mightcontain fifty books.

  "Of course a literary man would be interested in the books," saidCarhaix, who had been watching Durtal. "You mustn't be too critical,monsieur. I have only the tools of my trade."

  Durtal went over and took a look. The collection consisted largely ofworks on bells. He read some of the titles:

  On the cover of a slim parchment volume he deciphered the faded legend,hand-written, in rust-coloured ink, "_De tintinnabulis_ by JeromeMagius, 1664"; then, pell-mell, there were: _A curious and edifyingmiscellany concerning church bells_ by Dom Remi Carre; another _Edifyingmiscellany_, anonymous; a _Treatise of bells_ by Jean-Baptiste Thiers,curate of Champrond and Vibraye; a ponderous tome by an architect namedBlavignac; a smaller work entitled _Essay on the symbolism of bells_ bya parish priest of Poitiers; a _Notice_ by the abbe Baraud; then a wholeseries of brochures, with covers of grey paper, bearing no titles.

  "It's no collection at all," said Carhaix with a sigh. "The best onesare wanting, the _De campanis commentarius_ of Angelo Rocca and the _Detintinnabulo_ of Percichellius, but they are so hard to find, and soexpensive when you do find them."

  A glance sufficed for the rest of the books, most of them being piousworks, Latin and French Bibles, an _Imitation of Christ_, Goerres'_Mystik_ in five volumes, the abbe Aubert's _History and theory ofreligious symbolism_, Pluquet's _Dictionary of heresies_, and severallives of saints.

  "Ah, monsieur, my own books are not much account, but Des Hermies lendsme what he knows will interest me."

  "Don't talk so much!" said his wife. "Give monsieur a chance to sitdown," and she handed Durtal a brimming glass aromatic with theacidulous perfume of genuine cider.

  In response to his compliments she told him that the cider came fromBrittany and was made by relatives of hers at Landevennec, her andCarhaix's native village.

  She was delighted when Durtal affirmed that long ago he had spent a dayin Landevennec.

  "Why, then we know each other already!" she said, shaking hands with himagain.

  The room was heated to suffocation by a stove whose pipe zigzagged overto the window and out through a sheet-iron square nailed to the sash inplace of one of the panes. Carhaix and his good wife, with her honest,weak face and frank, kind eyes, were the most restful of people. Durtal,made drowsy by the warmth and the quiet domesticity, let his thoughtswander. He said to himself, "If I had a place like this, above the roofsof Paris, I would fix it up and make of it a real haven of refuge. Here,in the clouds, alone and aloof, I would work away on my book and take mytime about it, years perhaps. What inconceivable happiness it would beto escape from the age, and, while the waves of human folly werebreaking against the foot of the tower, to sit up here, out of it all,and pore over antique tomes by the shaded light of the lamp."

  He smiled at the naivete of his daydream.

  "I certainly do like your place," he said aloud, as if to sum up hisreflections.

  "Oh, you wouldn't if you had to live here," said the good wife. "We haveplenty of room, too much room, because there are a couple of bedchambersas big as this, besides plenty of closet space, but it's soinconvenient--and so cold! And no kitchen--" and she pointed to alanding where, blocking the stairway, the cook stove had had to beinstalled. "And there are so many, many steps to go up when you comeback from market. I am getting old, and I have a twinge of therheumatics whenever I think about making the climb."

  "You can't even drive a nail into this rock wall and have a peg to hangthings on," said Carhaix. "But I like this place. I was made for it. Nowmy wife dreams constantly of spending her last days in Landevennec."

  Des Hermies rose. All shook hands, and monsieur and madame made Durtalswear that he would come again.

  "What refreshing people!" exclaimed Durtal as he and Des Hermies crossedthe square.

  "And Carhaix is a mine of information."

  "But tell me, what the devil is an educated man, of no ordinaryintelligence, doing, working as a--as a day labourer?"

  "If Carhaix could hear you! But, my friend, in the Middle Agesbell-ringers were high officials. True, the craft has declinedconsiderably in modern times. I couldn't tell you myself how Carhaixbecame hipped on the subject of bells. All I know is that he studied ata seminary in Brittany, that he had scruples of conscience andconsidered himself unworthy to enter the priesthood, that he came toParis and apprenticed himself to a very intellectual master bell-ringer,Pere Gilbert, who had in his cell at Notre Dame some ancient and ofcourse unique plans of Paris that would make your mouth water. Gilbertwasn't a 'labourer,' either. He was an enthusiastic collector ofdocuments relating to old Paris. From Notre Dame Carhaix came to SaintSulpice, fifteen years ago, and has been there ever since."

  "How did you happen to make his acquaintance?"

  "First he was my patient, then my friend. I've known him ten years."

  "Funny. He doesn't look like a seminary product. Most of them have theshuffling gait and sheepish air of an old gardener."

  "Carhaix will be all right for a few more years," said Des Hermies, asif to himself, "and then let us mercifully wish him a speedy death. TheChurch, which has begun by sanctioning the introduction of gas into thechapels, will end by installing mechanical chimes instead of bells. Thatwill be charming. The machinery will be run by electricity and we shallhave real up-to-date, timbreless, Protestant peals."

  "Then Carhaix's wife will have a chance to go back to Finistere."

  "No, they are too poor, and then too Carhaix would be broken-hearted ifhe lost his bells. Curious, a man's affection for the object that hemanipulates. The mechanic's love for his machine. The thing that onetends, and that obeys one, becomes personalized, and one ends by fallingin love with it. And the bell is an instrument in a class of its own. Itis baptized like a Christian, anointed with sacramental oil, andaccording to the pontifical rubric it is also to be sanctified, in theinterior of its chalice, by a bishop, in seven cruciform unctions withthe oil of the infirm that it may send to the dying the message whichshall sustain them in their last agonies.

  "It is the herald of the Church, the voice from without as the priest isthe voice from within. So you see it isn't a mere piece of bronze, areversed mortar to be swung at a rope's end. Add that bells, like finewines, ripen with age, that their tone becomes more ample and mellow,that they lose their sharp bouquet, their raw flavour. That willexplain--imperfectly--how one can become attached to them."

  "Why, you seem to be an enthusiast yourself."

  "Oh, I don't know anything about it. I am simply repeating what I haveheard Carhaix say. If the subject interests you, he will be only tooglad to teach you the symbolism of bells. He is inexhaustible. The manis a monomaniac."

  "I can understand," said Durtal dreamily. "I live in a quarter wherethere are a good many convents and at dawn the air is a-tingle with thevibrance of the chimes. When I was ill I used to lie awake at nightawaiting the sound of the matin bells and welcoming them as adeliverance. In the grey light I felt that I was being cuddled by adistant and secret caress, that a lullaby was crooned over me, and acool hand applied to my burning forehead. I had the assurance that thefolk who were awake were praying for the others, and consequently forme. I felt less lonely. I really believe the bells are sounded for thespecial benefit of the sick who cannot sleep."

  "The bells ring for others, notably for the trouble-makers. The rathercommon inscription for the side of a bell, '_Paco cruentos_,' 'I pacifythe bloody-minded,' is singularly apt, when you think it over."

  This conversation was still haunting Durtal when he went to bed.Carhaix's phrase, "The ring of the bells is the real sacred music," tookhold of him like an obsession. And drifting back through the centurieshe saw in dream the slow processional of monks and the knee
lingcongregations responding to the call of the angelus and drinking in thebalm of holy sound as if it were consecrated wine.

  All the details he had ever known of the liturgies of ages came crowdinginto his mind. He could hear the sounding of matin invitatories; chimestelling a rosary of harmony over tortuous labyrinths of narrow streets,over cornet towers, over pepper-box pignons, over dentelated walls; thechimes chanting the canonical hours, prime and tierce, sexte and none,vespers and compline; celebrating the joy of a city with the tinklinglaughter of the little bells, tolling its sorrow with the ponderouslamentation of the great ones. And there were master ringers in thosetimes, makers of chords, who could send into the air the expression ofthe whole soul of a community. And the bells which they served assubmissive sons and faithful deacons were as humble and as truly of thepeople as was the Church itself. As the priest at certain times put offhis chasuble, so the bell at times had put off its sacred character andspoken to the baptized on fair day and market day, inviting them, in theevent of rain, to settle their affairs inside the nave of the churchand, that the sanctity of the place might not be violated by theconflicts arising from sharp bargaining, imposing upon them a probityunknown before or since.

  Today bells spoke an obsolete language, incomprehensible to man. Carhaixwas under no misapprehension. Living in an aerial tomb outside the humanscramble, he was faithful to his art, and in consequence no longer hadany reason for existing. He vegetated, superfluous and demoded, in asociety which insisted that for its amusement the holy place be turnedinto a concert hall. He was like a creature reverted, a relic of abygone age, and he was supremely contemptuous of the miserable _fin desiecle_ church showmen who to draw fashionable audiences did not fear tooffer the attraction of cavatinas and waltzes rendered on the cathedralorgan by manufacturers of profane music, by ballet mongers and comicopera-wrights.

  "Poor Carhaix!" said Durtal, as he blew out the candle. "Another wholoves this epoch about as well as Des Hermies and I do. But he has thetutelage of his bells, and certainly among his wards he has hisfavourite. He is not to be pitied. He has his hobby, which renders lifepossible for him, as hobbies do."