“To begin with, the people of Rouen had thought that Salomon was mad, but a vague and perfidious rumor soon began to accuse him of being occupied with magic, of pursuing the Great Work, and of having recourse, for that purpose, more to the aid of the Demon than the enlightenment of science. So, when the magistrates, with common accord, took away his title of alderman, the measure received general assent. People exhibited no less satisfaction when it was learned with what rigor the parliament of Normandy as treating him. He expiated his former popularity by a general hatred. When he went out, fingers were pointed at him; children avoided his presence and his old friends turned away at the sight of him in order not to have to recognize and greet him.
“You can imagine Diane’s despair; already her daughter was beginning to suffer the first afflictions of puerility. The little blind girl no longer had anyone to look after her but her mother; it had been necessary to dismiss the domestics, to take up residence in a mansard and reduce themselves to living on the income of a small pension bequeathed to Marie by her grandmother. The entire fortune that Diane had brought to Salomon as a dowry had been annihilated.
“Alas, other despairs and further opprobrium were still reserved for the unfortunate woman.
“One night, Diane, after having waited in vain for her husband all day, gazed sadly, by moonlight, in the direction of the laboratory that Salomon had rented about two hundred paces from the mansard that now served as lodging for those whose happiness had long been assured by their fortune. Suddenly, there was a horrible noise; it was the laboratory that had exploded. The debris launched by the unparalleled explosion fell back over a wide area, not without causing numerous accidents. Seven or eight passers-by were injured and a child whose skull was fractured by a large stone died.
“In the midst of the frightful disorder caused by such an event, Diane, distraught, ran to the scene of the disaster in order at least to receive the last sigh of her husband, whom she expected to find the first victim of the explosion. To her great surprise, she found him uninjured, occupied in collecting his scattered papers. Such composure exasperated the people who had witnessed the event; the words ‘sorcerer’ and ‘a soul sold to the Devil’ were circulating in the crowd, and did not take long to be shouted aloud, with rage. People armed themselves with stones and hurled hem at Salomon; he was attacked like a wild beast. The imminence of the peril returned his reason and presence of mind. He understood that flight alone could procure him a chance of salvation, and he therefore ran away before the furies that were pursuing him, crying: ‘Death to the sorcerer! Death to the murderer!’
“He would not have escaped their range without Diane’s help. She snatched the cloak that was covering her husband’s shoulders, placed Salomon’s hat on her own head and exposed herself, for more than ten minutes, to the risks of the stones that people thought they were throwing at the apothecary. When she supposed that she had allowed the fugitive time to get out of the city and find a safe refuge, she threw the cloak down at her feet and informed the people of their error.
“Even the most frantic were touched by such devotion, and permitted Diane to leave. Some, full of admiration and pity for the poor woman, even resolved to make sure of her husband’s escape because of his wife’s courage. Not only did they reunite her with Salomon, who had taken refuge with one of his relatives in a house on the outskirts of the city, but they even procured them horses in order to leave Rouen and go to Paris; for henceforth, the man who had been for such a long time the idol of the citizens of the former city could no longer expect to find there anything but the hatred of his compatriots and the rigors of the law.
“The exiles’ journey was long and difficult. It was in the midst of the most bitter rigors of winter that Salomon reached Paris with his wife and daughter. Diane had taken off her warmest garments in order to wrap Marie in them; after which, she had placed her on the horse whose bridle she held, walking in the snow and icy mud of the road. Her husband traveled placidly on his horse, which he allowed to wander almost at will. His head slumped over his chest, entirely devoted to his habitual meditation, one might have thought that he had no traveling companions, and certainly not that those companions were his wife and daughter.
“Finally, they arrived in Paris; they went to lodge in one of the poorest houses in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. There, Salomon resumed—or, rather, continued—the course of his unknown speculations, and Diane set to work to earn bread for her child and her husband, while waiting for a devoted friend, one of Salomon’s former apprentices, to send them the few items of furniture and linen and a little money that they had left in Rouen.
“Almost a month when by before the interrupted navigation of the Seine permitted that consignment. Finally, it arrived to offer a little relief to the wretched family. Salomon was only attentive to and sensible of one thing: the possession of the copper cooking-pot. He took possession of it with transports of joy such as he had not shown for a long time, and went to shut himself away with the object, as if he had rediscovered a treasure.
“Poverty is like gangrene; it devours those it strikes. Hardly a year had gone by before Diane was obliged to sell her linen, her furniture and even her own bed. Exhausted by fatigue and by sleepless nights, she ended up falling ill. Salomon paid no heed to that, and did not discontinue his solitary studies.
“One evening, Marie came, groping her way, to call him and beg him to come to their mother, whose suffering was worse. He promised to do so, but did not keep his promise. The blind child made further pleas. In the end, he gave in, regretfully, left the loft that he had adopted as an abode, and went to Diane.
“She held out her hand to him. ‘I’m dying, Salomon,’ she said.
“Those terrible words returned Salomon to real life he gazed desperately at his wife. The unfortunate woman had spoken only too truly; she was dying; death had already marked her with its inexorable seal.
“‘Salomon,’ she went on, ‘I’m dying; I’ve suffered a great deal these last five years, and I’ve suffered for you. Well, I shall die blessing you, if you’ll promise me to renounce insensate projects to take care of your daughter, as the duties of a father ordain.’
“Salomon took Diane’s hand and kissed it, sobbing.
“‘Look at what you have done! You’ve destroyed our happiness and our livelihood, for the sake of dreams impossible of realization. You’ve expelled from our home fortune, love, the joys of paternity, and even honor. Starvation is threatening us, the law is pursuing us; our child, blind, will remain alone in the world, without anyone to guide her, although she can’t walk without guidance. Blindness makes it impossible for her to do any kind of work, and she’s devoid of bread to nourish her. She won’t even be able to beg, for seduction and outrage would mercilessly afflict her youth and beauty. Salomon, in the name of the tenderness of old, in the name of our child, for the salvation of your soul, listen to me. Swear to me to devote the rest of your life and your thoughts to your daughter; don’t trouble the last moments of a dying woman. Burn all those books that are troubling your reason, perverting your judgment and hardening your heart. Have pity on our child, Salomon! I implore you with my hands joined.’
“‘Forgive me, forgive me!’ Salomon cried, his voice punctuated by bitter sobs. ‘Forgive me, Diane, for it’s me who ought to be dying of shame. Curse me in the Heaven to which you will rise! Demand of the sovereign judge all the rigor of his vengeance, if my thought ever strays again, just once, toward the projects of glory and invention that only the Evil Spirit could have suggested to me. I only want to live from now on to expiate my sins and protect our child; I swear that to you on the salvation of my soul. May God deprive me of my share of paradise if I succumb again even once!’
“‘God hears you and will give you the strength to keep your promises! God bless you!’ Diane murmured, with her tremulous lips.
“She reached out to Marie, who was weeping at her bedside, took her hand and put it in Salomon’s, and then stammered a f
ew more confused words; they were prayers for her husband and her child.
“Gradually, her voice was extinguished; the murmur ceased, and nothing more was heard.”
Throughout that part of his story, Jean had negligently refilled his glass several times; it was with the same negligence and without perceiving it, so to speak, that he had emptied it. I was not without anxiety, for the carbonic acid contained in the champagne might have aggravated the story-teller’s unhealthy condition and thrown him into one of those terrible fits of which no description can give any but an incomplete idea. I therefore picked up the bottle that had not yet been opened and placed it close to me in order to put it out of Jean’s range.
Jean darted a mocking glance at me; then, seizing a carafe half-full of water, he emptied it almost entirely into his glass. However, he only drank a small mouthful, which he spat out disdainfully, and contented himself thereafter with slightly moistening his lips.
“It’s very late,” he said then. “My head feels fatigued; good night, Monsieur.”
“What about the end of your story?”
“It’s in that bottle,” he said, pointing to the champagne. “Do you think that my suffering brain, devoid of strength, can find any energy other than by artificial means? You’re afraid of making me ill; don’t worry—far from it; I think this little debauchery will be salutary for me.”
He took possession of the last bottle of champagne; I did not have the courage to take it out of his hands.
Jean cut the brass wire circling the bottle; the cork popped out with explosive force and hit the ceiling.
At the same moment, a frightful storm burst; all of a sudden, lightning seared our eyes and a clap of thunder resounded so terribly that we felt the commotion in our breasts. I shall never forget the glance full of bravado and despair that the drinker darted at the heavens. A painter would have wanted to give a fallen demon that expression of simultaneous suffering and rage.
He remained silent for a few moments; I watched him fighting against the storm that was suffocating his lungs. Vertigo produced by the carbonic acid was spinning before his eyes, entwining its invisible grip around his forehead, where I could see large blue veins swelling. Several times he tried to speak, but his voice always expired in a murmur on his convulsive lips.
Finally, by a superhuman effort, he overcame the sensations to which he had initially succumbed, and resumed his story.
The words emerged with difficulty from his mouth, slowly and one by one, as Laubardemont describes those of the possessed of Loudun.33
“Salomon had sworn an oath at his wife’s deathbed; he was determined to keep it no matter what the cost; that was his duty. While the corpse was still lying on the bed, where it had rendered its soul, Marie’s father went to take from his laboratory all the papers that he found there; the threw them into the fireplace, which devoured them, and the flames of which threw their bright red radiance on to Diane’s face. Then he passed his hands over his brow as if to rip out a thought entirely, wiped away a tear, and went to kneel next to the blind girl who was praying beside her mother’s mortal remains.
“The next day, he gave the witch’s cooking-pot to a carpenter in exchange for a coffin.
“A week later, Salomon was fulfilling the humble functions of an assistant laborer in the establishment of a local druggist. He spent entire days compressing pills and making up preparations too difficult and too fatiguing for the merchant.
“He had been reduced to that extremity because everywhere he went to ask for work, people had sent him away without even wanting to listen to him. A parliamentary clerk had agreed to give him a few copies to transcribe, but when he had seen is new clerk’s poor handwriting, he had dismissed him immediately. Like the son of the king in the fable, Salomon, who possessed a superior intelligence and whose knowledge was immense, found himself reduced to working with his hands to earn his daily bread.
“Unfortunately, those hands were unskillful, and above all, weak. Not only had the unfortunate father gravely impaired his health, but the druggist did not take long to perceive that a robust domestic would be able to do his work better. One evening, he told the pale and sickly man, whom the lightest tasks caused to sweat blood and wear out his arms, that he could no longer employ him.
“Salmon begged him to revoke an order that would reduce his daughter to the most absolute deprivation. He begged him, implored him, threw himself at his feet. Moved, the man gave him a thirty-sou coin and said to him: ‘I’d rather give you alms than have you spoil my merchandise with your clumsiness.’
“Misery had crushed Salomon’s heart too thoroughly for it to rebound in revolt against that insulting charity. He picked the coin out of the mud, went to a local bakery, bought a loaf of bread and took it to his daughter.
“For a week, they both lived on the proceeds of that thirty-sou piece. On the last two days Salomon only pretended to eat; he hid his bread under his coat and gave it to his daughter the next day.
“Cold was then raging with extreme violence; a glacial draught blew relentlessly and pitilessly through the poorly-sealed attic in which the two unfortunates lived. One morning, alas, it was necessary to quit that miserable refuge; they were thrown out pitilessly, and with violence. The owner had wearied of lodging strangers who had not paid him two sous for a year.
“Salmon linked arms with his daughter and wandered at random through the streets of Paris. That night, Marie had shelter and bread because her father begged and was able to extract a few sous from the charity of passers-by.
“The next day, all those to whom they addressed themselves rejected them mercilessly. He was, in any case, a poor beggar; after the first refusal he jibbed and was unable to be importunate.
“Marie prayed to God and said in her prayers: ‘Lord, won’t you put an end to my agony? Won’t you finally reunite me with my mother in paradise?’
“She interrupted her plaints when she heard her father coming, In spite of herself, however, her hands pressed her breast convulsively and her extinct eyes were raised toward the heavens.
“Salomon remained beside his child, silent and motionless, until nightfall.
“When night came, he got up, went into a bakery, took a loaf of bread from the counter, and brought it to Marie. ‘Here’s some bread, my child,’ he said, ‘take it.’
“Marie made no reply. He put the bread on the blind girl’s knees. The little girl’s hands did not move.
“He leaned over her. Her eyes were closed. He put his hand on her heart; it was no longer beating.
“He took the bread and went back to the bakery. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I stole a loaf of bread a little while ago. I’m bringing it back.’
“The baker took pity on him and told him to keep it, as alms.
“Salomon started to laugh bitterly. ‘Alms! Alms for me! I’ve begged and I’ve stolen for my daughter; my daughter is dead; I no longer want anything from the shameful pity of men.’
“‘Your daughter is dead,’ said the baker, who was a compassionate man, and lived in accordance with the Gospel. “May God give you the strength to withstand such a rude blow.”
“Salomon drew closer to him. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘If you will do what I ask, there will emerge from my lips, and my fear, full of maledictions, a word of blessing for you. Give the cadaver of my child a shroud and a coffin.’
“The baker, moved, hastened to go with the poor father to pick up the young girl’s cadaver. That same evening, Salomon followed the coffin in which Diane’s child as eternally asleep to the church and to the cemetery.
“When the funeral ceremony was over, he shook the hand of the charitable baker and went away. For a long time he wandered aimlessly, oppressed by dolor and making plans to demand shelter from death.
“Prey to those sinister thoughts, he sat down mechanically on a doorstep, and by virtue of an instinctive movement huddled himself up as best he could in order to keep the cold at bay. A kind of dolorous torpor gradually ove
rcame him, until daybreak.
“When he woke up, he saw a housewife emerging from the house next door, with a copper coking-pot in her hand. It was the wife of the carpenter to whom he had given the utensil in exchange for a coffin for Diane. The sight of the diabolical object that had exercised such a fatal influence upon his life suddenly reanimated him.
“‘I don’t want to die!’ he exclaimed. ‘Glory, fortune and immortality await me! I can march toward them without shackles; today, I’m free.’
“He stood up, shook his rags, and drew away.
“To see him march with strength and confidence, as if he really were heading toward a goal that he was in haste to reach, no one would have recognized him as the father who had just buried his daughter and the wretch who was dying of starvation. He felt a vigor and a confidence that he had not experienced for a long time. His brain, freed from the iron hand that had been gripping it, formed thoughts full of energy. He had almost recovered the ardor and faith of his youth; one might have thought that a mysterious voice was repeating in his ear: ‘Your time of trials is over.’
“He had only taken some two hundred strides when he found that a man had been thrown by his horse in the street and sustained a serious head-injury. Salomon cut through the crowd, reached the gentleman and set about dressing his wound with so much dexterity that everyone recognized his superiority and his expertise, and accorded him the deference that one shows on such occasions to a special individual. The apothecary prescribed the drugs necessary to complete the care he had just given, and offered to take the invalid, who had recovered consciousness, back to his home. That offer was accepted gratefully, and Salomon was accommodated, in the capacity of physician, in the house of the Marquis de Combalet,34 for it was that nobleman, a favorite of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom Diane’s husband had rendered such opportune assistance.
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