The Ark

by André Arnyvelde

  Forgive me. I do not know how to put it any other way.

  The king, entirely gripped by unassimilable emotions, by the contemplation of beautiful works of art, picturesque or grandiose panoramas, by the edification of his esthetic sensibilities, and a consciousness that had leapt over six centuries, had scarcely had time, thus far, to study the regimes of the countries through which he passed, or their democratic systems. Men were greater in this world than Galade, that was certain; but the others—the slaves, the workers, the peasants, the poor—were still the slaves, the workers, the peasants, the poor…the others...

  The Laborers

  “There must be métiers,” said the king, mildly, “in which a man can be used who has a strong back and robust muscles?”

  “Métiers of beasts of burden, undoubtedly, Monsieur,” aid the bellboy. “There are market porters, coal-heavers on the quays, ditch-diggers…all those who have no need to reflect much on their work, to whom one puts a sack or basket on their back, a pick or a spade in their hand, and to whom one says: This is what you have to do...”

  Excellent, thought the king. So, while the hands and the arms exert themselves, the mind is free to devote itself to memories and reflections, not to mention profound meditations. “And how, my friend,” he asked, aloud, “can one become a digger?”

  “By going to get oneself hired by an entrepreneur, or simply in a workplace. There’s no shortage of them at present. One strolls through Paris; one sees a construction site; one goes to it and asks a man: ‘Comrade, is there work here?’” The bellboy added: “At least. I think that’s how it’s done; for myself, I’ve never had the slightest desire to be a digger. Nor has Monsieur…?”

  The king turned his back on the bellboy and arranged a few books on the table.

  “Then again, if Monsieur presented himself dressed as he is now, people would think he was joking. I suppose Monsieur has the intention of studying the workers…Monsieur ought to put on a corduroy costume with a red belt, and above all, never call anyone ‘Monsieur’ but always ‘Comrade’ or ‘Citizen.’”

  “Thank you, my friend,” said the king. “You can go now.”

  With the few dozen francs he had left the king paid the hotel bill, bought a corduroy jacket and trousers, strong boots, a red belt and a flannel shirt, and went in search of a workplace.

  “Bonjour, Comrade,” he said to a man who was pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand. “Where is it necessary to address oneself in order to be hired?”

  The other continued on his way as if he had not heard, went to empty his wheelbarrow, and came back slowly and placidly toward the king. He looked at him, spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at him again before replying.

  “You want to be hired?” he said, finally. “Are you in the union?”

  “Pardon?” said the king.

  “I asked if you’re in the union.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where have you come from?”

  “But…,” said the king, a trifle embarrassed.

  “If you aren’t in the union there’s nothing for you here; it’s not worth the trouble of trying.” He spat on his hands, picked up his wheelbarrow and drew away from the king.

  Very perplexed, the king waited for a moment to see whether the man was coming back. Another man emerged from the work site carrying a sack of chalk, which he went to place beside the sand that the first man had poured out of the wheelbarrow. As he went past the king, the latter stopped him.

  “Comrade,” he said, “listen: I had money; I don’t have any more. I want to earn my living and work with you. What is it necessary to do?”

  “Right!” said the worker. “You’ve had bad luck…you can’t look for another trade? It’s hard here…you have white hands…you’ll soon be worn out.”

  “Look,” said the king. He picked up the sack of chalk that the man had been carrying under his arm with some difficulty. He gripped it by the edges and carried it for a few moments with his arms at full length, without a quiver.”

  “Well, if you like,” said the man. “It’s a funny idea, but when one has to eat…I’ll try to arrange it. You’re not in the union? No, since you had money, you said. Right…we’ll see. Wait here.”

  He came back with a man similar to himself in his costume, but who had something curt and authoritarian in his manner.

  “Come with me,” said the newcomer to the king. They went into the work-site. “Pick up a shovel. Empty this hole for me.”

  The king leapt into the hole, his feet sinking a little into the soft earth. He began to pick up earth and throw it out of the hole. When he had removed all the earth, he emerged from the hole. The foreman saw him and said: “Follow the comrades.”

  A few men went to take hold of a heavy beam, lift it up and move it. The king joined them and helped them.

  Break time arrived. The men sat down on piles of stones, wheelbarrows or beams. They took bread, meat and a bottle of wine out of a sack. They placed the bread on their thumb, the meat on the bread, and carved large slices with their knives.

  “I still have a little money,” said the king. “Would you like wine?”

  They stared at him. Mastications stopped. The man to whom he owed having been hired, his cheek inflated by a mouthful that he had crammed in, said: “Do you need to ask? There’s a bistro behind the fence.”

  The king got up, left the site, went to buy the wine and brought it back to the laborers.

  “So, you’ve been a monsieur?” said one.

  “Me, I told him not to persist, seeing as he’s not in the union,” said another, “but he hadn’t explained…need to eat…but need to be in the union…”

  “To your health, Comrades!” said the king, raising his glass, his voice cheerful and his eyes bright.

  “To yours,” replied weary, hoarse, lax voices, which contrasted with his.

  They drank.

  Soon, they resumed work.

  In the middle of the day, during a brief rest, one of the laborers went to the king.

  “My name’s Lobre, Joséphin,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  “Emmanuel,” said the king.

  “Just Emmanuel?”

  “Just,” said the king.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Paris,” said the king.

  “Me, Ollinges in Savoy. Where do you live?”

  “Nowhere, at least until this evening.”

  “If you buy me a drink when we go, I’ll find you a bed, not dear, and good.”

  “Agreed.”

  Lobre, Joséphin, drew away. He was a young fellow, heavily built, with a broad and short torso on firm stout legs. He had big hands, a squashed nose, yellow teeth, a little moustache, and when he took off his hat one could see his square, massive, shiny forehead, reminiscent of a closed fist.

  The king was delighted and thought that everything was going smoothly. The work did not frighten him. While plying the heavy shovel, he edified his life-plan. He would stay with these men who had given him a good welcome. He would accept everything that happened to him, with regard to subsistence, lodging and contact with the humble. The form of the bed did not matter to him, as long as he could sleep in it, nor the room, provided that he could reflect a little and rediscover himself before going to sleep, nor the food, provided that it maintained his muscles.

  Nothing mattered to him much, since he felt full of life, free to feel, to gaze and to think, and he knew that a time would come when everything would sort itself out, either because he had enough money to return to Galade or because some unexpected opportunity would crop up. Hope was within him, like the regular flow of his blood, like the play of his strong, agile limbs, and just as certain. He would be capable, just like the others, of the work that was demanded of him; and in any case, whatever he did, doing it with good humor would multiply his strength tenfold.

  Thus, as soon as he had adapted to the material conditions of his new existence, he woul
d organize himself to safeguard, nourish and satisfy his spiritual necessities, spending a part of his wages in on quotidian necessities, while saving the rest for his return to Galade, and employing a little of it for whatever might serve to further his education: a book, a fête, a concert on days of rest...

  Night came, the site emptied

  “Do you have a bed?” his first protector asked the king.

  “Yes,” said the king. “Comrade Lobre is going to show me where I can get one.”

  “Until tomorrow, then,” said the other.

  The king left with Lobre, Joséphin, who took him through narrow and increasingly poorer streets, soon sordid, to a frightful house.

  The Rooming-House

  Its façade was bleeding its plaster from a hundred crevices. A lantern in the center announced in white letters on blue glass that lodgings for the night were available from fifty centimes. On the ground floor, a wine-merchant’s shop was illuminated by a tremulous gas-lamp, where a quantity of men and women dressed in rags was heaped up, eating, drinking and, most of all, sleeping, their heads buried in their folded arms.

  Lobre opened the door of the shop, greeted the proprietor standing behind a narrow wooden counter, and crossed the room. A complex stink grabbed the king by the throat. He resisted it and followed Lobre. The latter sat down at a half-empty table and said: “A drink before bed.”

  “I’m very tired now,” said the king. “The first day, you understand. Have me shown to me room…”

  “Right!” said Lobre. “A drink will help you sleep.” He rapped the table. A bottle was brought, and two glasses. They drank.

  Finally, Lobre got up and preceded the king. Behind the shop there was a little door, which opened on to a long corridor at the end of which was a staircase, impenetrably obscure. At the bottom of the staircase, in the wall, there was an alcove, a glass cage, and a man asleep in the cage.

  “Hey! A room for the comrade!” said Lobre to the man.

  The latter, lighting the stairway, took them to all the way up to the top floor. In the angle of a corridor, on a landing, he opened a door and said: “In here,” to the king.

  “I sleep there,” said Lobre, indicating another door. “You’re lucky that there’s a room free directly facing mine. Bonsoir.”

  But the king, who had taken a step into the room, recoiled, nauseated and suffocated.

  “It’s a trifle lacking in air,” he said, striving to smile. “The window can’t be opened often...”

  “There’s no point,” replied the clerk. “It opens into a corridor.”

  “There isn’t another room…?” said the king, but he saw Lobre so astonished, and the indignant reaction of the clerk, looking him up and down as if the king had just overturned all normal notions of life and the world, that he dared not go on.

  “What!” said Lobre. “Monsieur would perhaps like the Élysée for ten sous. And he added: “It’s the odors that offend you. It’s no worse than barracks in summer. Haven’t you ever been a soldier?”

  “Bonsoir, Lobre,” said the king. He held out his hand, took the candlestick from the clerk, went resolutely into the room, closed the door and considered his lodging.

  An iron bed and a rickety table, on which was set a half-full jug of water, a basin the size of a soup-bowl and a kind of dish-cloth, formed the entire furniture. The flower-patterned wallpaper was sweating, blistering and peeling off in long shreds. The window was closed. The king opened it and saw, facing him, by the light of his candle, several doors like his own, and heard, coming through some of those doors, copious snores mingling without harmony.

  He closed the window again and, in spite of all his determined endurance, in spite of all he had promised to take to account of forms and places, and merely to parade an amused glance and curious around them, without allowing them to affect or afflict his mind, he could not help shivering a little. He let himself fall on to the bed, vacillating under the envelopment of heavy odors.

  There was no way out for him but temporary acceptance of this precarious life. He was good for nothing, unable to do anything, except contemplate and love. However, he had confidence…he had confidence...

  He began to undress, when a terrible snore made him start. It was Lobre, who had fallen asleep. That snoring was extremely disagreeable: imposing, imperious, inevitable, shaking there walls. It seemed, on escaping the sleeper’s mouth, to hang on before emerging therefrom, to some sort of nasal ridge, to lift up a noisy valve, close it again, then continue on its way, furiously...and then resume.

  The king made a gesture of chagrin. He counted, as soon as he was in bed, on closing his eyes, liberating himself from the surrounding ugliness, meditating a little on recent events, and on himself among the events. The snoring precipitated itself through his reveries, shoving the fragmentary thoughts left and right, carried them away into its rugged undulations as soon as they were born, falling silent for a moment, and recommenced its glutinous course.

  He sighed, and slid beneath the cold sheets. A hammering noise caused him to start again. It was a tenant coming up the stairs, legs and boots leaden, complaining, in a drunken voice, that he had been refused a drink on credit, and that he would settle the boss’s hash, and that it was a shameful way to treat his clients, and that he would show him, the boss, whether he was a thief that it was necessary to mistrust, that he had always been an honest man, that he father had been an old soldier, that he had served his time himself without punishments…and then a door slammed, shaking all the partition walls of the landing, interrupting the monologue with a clap of thunder…which resumed, some distance away from the king’s room, perceptible through the walls.

  “Everything,” said the king. “I shall accept everything…but I need to sleep...” He felt weary after the day’s work. The effort of will that he made to forget the stifling atmosphere and abstract himself from the sounds of the rooming-house, and not to let himself fall into depression, made him slightly feverish. His eyelids refused to remain closed. He tried to fix his thoughts, in order to numb himself gradually. He tried to create the illusion that he was lying in a comfortable bed in a silent room; he evoked images, imagined himself in Florence, strove to contemplate Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus, which was in the Loggia on the Piazza della Signoria; songs hovered on the edge of his lips…he resisted with all his strength the obsession of the snoring and the unarrested monologue of his neighbor; he whistled tunes with the residues of his respiration… the Moonlight Sonata, which he remembered having heard in Germany, with its evocation of perfumed quietude, confusedly silvered light, sylvan calm, floated around him…and he fell asleep.

  A bright light struck his eyes, lingering upon his eyelids. He opened them, and voices near his head completed his awakening. Beyond the window, in the corridor, a group was chatting outside a door while a key was inserted into a lock. He heard the clerk receive the money, close the door again and go away, hammering the stairs, which groaned beneath his steps, without any concern for the sleeping tenants.

  The light had disappeared. The king tried to go back to sleep. A conversation in the room that had just been occupied reached him, even though he pulled the sheet over his ears, clenched his eyelids shut, assembled all his forces in order not to hear, and to go to sleep. But he heard! He heard the bargaining of a young woman and a man—and what he heard made his heart leap in his chest and waves of nausea rise into his throat.

  “Bah!” said the man, at the end of a harsh and revolting discussion, “I don’t amuse myself every day. You’ll have what you desire.”

  “Oh, my darling,” replied a hoarse, withered, thick voice, which was the young woman’s; it had been insulting and harsh a moment before.

  The noise of a kiss transpierced the wall and reached the king. He made a dolorous grimace. He could not avoid picturing the horrible couple: her, bareheaded, clad in a skirt muddy at the hem, a mantle of threadbare wool with frayed edges, flabby, shiny, soiled, her face striated by little red vessels, her
eyes vitreous, her hair loose, sticky, dirty; and the man, doubtless similar to all those he had seen in the tavern downstairs or had passed in the sordid streets, with troubled eyes through which yellow gleams of desire were passing, and trembling hands, waiting for the moment to grip, opening and closing in the darkness, all ready...

  And the kiss that he had heard…the kiss…the kiss...

  He felt that he was on the point of bursting into sobs. The kiss! The kiss! He evoked the divine music of the pure Beethoven, as if to roll in it, to drown himself in it, to let it drag him away…far, far away…from that ignoble hotel, and far away, above all, from the sacrilegious act, the bought and sold intercourse of those two monsters...

  And suddenly...!

  Suddenly, a phrase emerged from his heart, took form in his mind, before he had deliberately thought it, before he had expressed it with his trembling lips:

  Poor people!

  What strange ensemble of sensations, what unconscious connection between the music he had summoned to his aid, and the hideous conversation…?

  Poor people, thought the king, his eyes wide open, his heard skipping a beat. What! I dare to feel sorry for myself and suffer on my own behalf! For me, who knows the noble joy of living, for me, still all ablaze with brilliant contemplations!

  Oh, poor people, who take such joys amid the paradise of life! For whom frightful kisses and stinking wine are delicious dew, because they don’t know that there are a thousand noble sensualities in the world…

  Oh, if I have to suffer, let it be for them and not for me!

  For him, happy, rich in himself, the horrors, the ugliness, the bestiality that for all these wretches were joys, could only be horrible, ugly, bestial, the privation of nobler joys, and lack of light—and not only ought he to traverse the ordeal without weakness, without nausea, but he felt, in his heart swollen by an infinite pain, which now prevented him from hearing the filthy noise, the raucous snores, the hiccups of the drunkard and kisses of the couple, that the ordeal would be august, and that he ought to go saturated with love and compassion…he, who Knew…among these brothers of the shadows into which hazard had led him...