“Eh?”
“Fortunate are the unconscious, because serenity is only permitted to them; but they’re only human figuratively.”
“Huh!”
“Don’t laugh. To be conscious is the rare virtue and the execrable gift.”
“Oh!”
“It’s sad to say, lad, but undeniable: it’s necessary to choose, to opt. Be stupid, if you like, stupidly emotive and candidly tender; then you’ll be able to love, without suffering from it, and even without pleasure. Or, on the contrary, be an intelligence, if you can, but dry, pitiless, open to ideas and mature in emotion, a solitary, thinking egotism; then you’ll be able to enjoy your intellectual exercises. But don’t be an intelligence and a heart at the same time, because that’s abomination.”
“Eh?”
“The abomination of desolation for the complete man, of both head and heart, the image of God, as you say! Now that, take note, leads us straight to the conclusion that the most unfortunate of all is God himself, total intelligence and supreme goodness. Oh, that poor devil God! I pity him.”
“And I pity you. You’re talking impiously.”
“Look at the nincompoop who dares to accord me his pity!”
“I know that I’m stupid...”
“If you know it, you aren’t,”
“And I can’t always grasp what you’re saying...”
“Don’t worry about it; when I talk to you, it’s for my sake that I’m talking.”
“But if there is in what you say a heap of things that escape me, there’s one, at least, which I’m sure of having understood.”
“Bah!”
“I think that you’re not happy.”
“Certainly not! But I no longer aspire to be. That’s progress.”
“You’re alone in the world, perhaps?”
“I have my pride to keep me company.”
“Uh...”
“In any case, I remain literally denuded of glory. I don’t lament that; I have the right to it. Every man who creates a work has a right to injustice at first; the justice only comes later.”
“Yes?”
“Have you even understood the octosyllable of my name. It’s very fine but unknown: Calame the Calamitous.”17
“But I know it, your name!”
“Impossible!”
“What…yes…I remember…one day, I even drank to your health, drank wine, with men who praised your genius.”
“Oh?”
“Bad men! Brigands…two brigands, Ruprecht the Pug-nosed and Gontran the Rogue, one ferocious, the other genteel.”
“The more to be feared! Avoid them both, especially the second. As for me, if I have any advice to give you, only remember of me my name; the rest will do you harm.”
“Ah! And the bearded roofer, what do you call him?”
“By a terrible and generous vocable, Polygene. And you?”
“It’s Onuphre, people tell me.”
“Well then, we know one another. Good night. Let me sleep.”
XXX. He acquires amity for the poor in spirit
They knew one another even better after thirteen days and as many nights spent in the same shroud. The philanthropist had quickly perceived that the misanthrope, in spite of his bitter words, was anything but a bad man, and he had arrived at no longer hearing the sarcasms of that voice as anything other than the exhalation of a perpetual suffering; it no longer shocked him, but caused him a god deal of chagrin. Little by little, he passed from pity to affection, and gave it more frankly every day. Calame, for his part, savored that conquest; he found a charm in it, and although he was careful to let nothing show, he became attached to the modest and mild individual who knew, at least, how to listen.
Ordinarily, they chatted, in order to abridge the long hours; Dieudonat, who was worried by the memory of the judge maltreated because of him, had a strong desire to confide his perplexities to his new friend; he thought that Calame, such a subtle mind, might be able to give him some advice as to how to avoid similar blunders in the future. But would not revealing his name, his origin and his magical power thus be boasting? He refrained, while sensing that he would not resist forever.
He sensed that all the more because the misery of the roofer and his lamentations began to solicit his pity in too pressing a fashion. Between attacks the poor man scratched his beard and picked his nose, but was only able to open his mouth to mourn his wife and the kids without bread: “They have no more bread…no more bread...”
“He’s in pain,” said Onuphre
“He’ll have nothing more than that in his life, unless he also has more brats.”
“Poor folk…one would like to try to do something for them.”
“Indeed! You’re sensitive?”
“My God, yes.”
“And you wouldn’t hurt a fly?”
“My God, no”
“And suffering attracts you more than happiness?”
“My God, yes.”
“And yet you can’t bear to see or hear it?”
“My God, no.”
“I’ll even wager that you strive to help your neighbor?”
“When I can.”
“And you go as far as granting him what belongs to you?”
“When he has more need of it than me...”
“And you give don’t you? And it’s stronger than you, for it’s necessary that you give? And in so doing, you believe yourself to be a good soul?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the well?”
“Pardon?”
“It also gives. It gives water, the well, and lead gives the colic, miasmas give fever, walking gives appetite, a dog gives chase to a quarry: they all give! They must all be good souls! You give with full hands, when you have full hands, as the river fills buckets and the wind fills sails, always generosity, no?”
“You’re a joker.”
“So are you, but you don’t perceive it. My poor boy, giving isn’t synonymous with being good. How can obeying an imperious destiny constitute a virtue? I imagine, for my part, that two sorts of goodness exist, and that they have nothing in common except their apparent gestures: one is virtue, which is to say, thinking and acting strength; the other, yours, isn’t a strength but, on the contrary, a weakness, a way of being, intuitive and quasi-pathological, more animal than moral; it’s benevolence, if you wish, but don’t tell me that it’s a virtue, for the essence of all virtue is knowing and willing...are you asleep?”
This time, the listener had not heard anything; he was holding himself motionless on his back, and his gaze was obstinately drilling into the eighth knot of the sixteenth beam, of which he was fond.
“I’ll wager that you’re reflecting?”
“I’m trying.”
“Difficult, eh?”
“A little; I’m wondering whether it’s necessary to do something...”
“Would it be disagreeable for you?”
“Rather...”
“Then don’t hesitate, do it; and remember this criterion: when you ask yourself whether or not it’s appropriate to do something that costs you, your hesitation alone proves to you that you ought to do it.”
“This one would cost me greatly…”
“Are you very rich, then, little vagabond?”
“I’ll explain it to you. My wishes are realized; it’s a power that I’ve had since both. Does that astonish you?”
“A sage is never astonished to find power in incapable hands. Continue.”
“So, when I see you so sad, and so harsh in your words, I think that deep down, you’re not nasty at all, and you’re only making a semblance of it because you’re unhappy, and I think you’d become pleasant, intelligent as you are, if you were no longer ill, if you were no longer alone, if someone showed you amity and proved it to you…by taking your illness, for example.”
“You could do that?”
“I can.”
“And you would do it?”
“If you wante
d.”
“And my stomach cramps, the contortions of my intestine, the colics of my liver, you’d have them instead of me?”
“You wouldn’t have them anymore.”
The poet coughed in order to dissimulate the emotion that he felt. In silence, he looked at Onuphre tenderly. Then, abruptly, he burst out laughing.
“Oh, you’d like to take my old gastralgia! And I’d no longer rage, or curse, or suffer, when I’m rejected or whipped? The stupidity and villainy of the world wouldn’t make me indignant anymore and I’d contemplate life with neither disgust nor anger? I’d see everything rose-tinted, ignoble life, and I’d savor with amenity the sanies of the human species? Very well—but what would remain to me then? What would I do with myself on earth? What good would I be if I became good? You’re joking, comrade!”
“And you’re being serious?”
“One can’t be more serious! Since I’ve lost candor, at least let me keep speech; it’s my treasure.”
“Your treasure?”
“You don’t know, then, that it’s necessary to suffer to cry out? My most sublime discoveries and my most beautiful verses are the offspring of my constipation, which makes me see life in black—which is to say, in its true color. Melancholy! Melancholy! An admirable word, that, to express the desolation of immortal souls, since it means black bile in a black intestine!”
“So you don’t want to give me your illness?”
“What use would you make of it, you who aren’t endowed with any formulatory talent? Let’s not talk about it anymore, and let’s remain what God and men have made us. No matter: you’re a brave little fellow. You’ve given me a good moment. I’ll inscribe you in my tablets. My gratitude will take charge of your epitaph: when the surgeons operate on you, I’ll compose verses about it, which I promise you will be marvelous, and which I’ll engrave, for centuries to come, on the fresh sand of your tomb.”
“Thank you, but I have no desire to be operated on.”
“They’ll do it without your consent, unless you scarper.”
“I’d rather do that, and I feel, merely at the idea, the bones in my leg sticking together again.”
“As to that, my good man, tell me: if our wishes are realized, why not formulate that of being cured and getting out of here?”
“I’ll tell you: my wishes are irrevocable, and I’ve taken the judge’s knee.”
“Why didn’t you relieve the fellow of his wife? You might be less deteriorated.”
“And I’ve made an oath no longer to ask for anything for myself, except for food when I need it.”
“Bread” cried Polygene.
“Victuals!” exclaimed the Calamitous
“Ah!” said the roofer. “If it’s true that you can do such things without it costing you a sou, send a loaf to the house!”
“It’s there,” replied Onuphre, “and a quarter of meat as well: every morning, in accordance with my prayer, I send provender to Dame Polygene, who finds the loaf in her kneading trough and the piece of beef in her cooking pot; she must be wondering where it fell from.”
He laughed, but Calame interrupted him. “This is something else! I refused your stomach, but if you can garnish the one I possess, go ahead! Since the age of reason I’ve labored in the desire for a quail roasted in a coating of lard and a vine leaf. Prove your magic power to us by procure me that marvel.”
“When its dark. At this hour, too many people would see us.”
“Rather confess that you’re boasting.”
“Say ‘chick’ and you’ll have a fresh egg in your hand!”
“Chick!”
The sorcerer stammered the necessary words, and the troubadour’s right hand laid the egg. Calame, as a good poet, had a liking for the marvelous; he registered the prodigy and swallowed the egg.
“I believe you. I doubted, and I repent. But by Saint Thomas, patron of miscreants, you can prepare the resources of your magic! Until this evening! I’ve been hungry for twenty years, and I only have four hours left to make the list for my first feast!”
“Will I also have roast quail?” asked the roofer, humbly.
“You’ll have them.”
Calame turned his back and closed his eyes in order to reflect in darkness on the harmonies of taste. On the wax-coated tablets that he had habituated to receive his rhymes he inscribed the names of dishes, lined up one beneath the other like poorly rhymed verses, which nevertheless seemed admirable to him. Night was slow in coming.
Finally, the last light was extinguished; only a night-light was burning in front of the crucifix at the back of the room.
“Are you ready, Onuphre? This is the hour propitious for orgies. Pay attention, I’m reading the menu. Listen carefully, and repeat after me: fillet of carp with eggs, sprinkled with marjoram, rosemary and basil; little beef meatballs with raisins, lark’s tongue pâté and lamb chitterlings; veal stew in rose-water, well sugared. Roasted goslings with the Duke’s powders,18 not forgetting my quail, with a nice cameline sauce, flavored with cinnamon and ginger. Entremets, fried pike’s eggs with orange apples, jacobine pie with aromatic verjus. Wines of Saint-Pourcain, Meulan and Sezanne, and strawberry beer. Chailly bread. For desserts: parsleyed cheese and Normandy angelot cheeses; milk larded with saffron, warmed, and various baked custards, Corbeil peaches, Tours perdrigon plums, hazelnuts and Maltese figs. And we’ll see about the spices!”
Dieudonat took the tablets and reread them in a low voice; as soon as they were called by name, the dishes were juxtaposed on the bed, crushing legs and bellies with their weight; it was necessary to arrange them between the bed and the wall. Polygene’s eyes widened, Calame’s sparkled and Dieudonat’s were moist with the pleasure procured for others.
At first they ate in silence, dipping the thumb and index finger into the dishes, concentrating on savoring soundlessly, giving evidence of their delight in whispered approbations.
“Fine cuisine!”
Each in accordance with his fancy they attacked the stews and the roasts, bit into the unctuous meats, sucked the juices, licked their fingers, lapped the jellies off the trenchers. The roofer chewed with frenzy in the shelter of his thick beard, ingurgitating rapidly, without breathing a word, in order not to lose out in the division; grease coated his cheeks and oozed between his hairs. The poet sampled with curiosity. Between that gluttony and that Epicureanism, Dieudonat found a charm in eating and drinking.
“Half a liter of old Cyprus with that seems indispensable!”
“Indispensable!” hiccupped Polygene.
“Hey, sommelier, the doyen of your Cyprus!”
The dusty bottles circulated from hand to hand, and lips took long swigs from the bottlenecks. The guests’ reserve soon evaporated in the warmth of the wine; they evoked dishes aloud, laughing, exclaiming, clinking bottles, spoons and goblets.
“Sire crier, your banquet lacks poultry and venison! Waiter, look after the high table! Cup-bearer, bring the golden and the life-and-soul, let’s sample your hippocras and your eau-de-vie!
With the voice of a cantor, the roofer intoned a canticle with licentious variations; the troubadour, suddenly inspired, improvised stanzas, but started to weep, so beautiful did he find them and so profound was his pain on thinking that tomorrow he would no longer know them, and that humanity would lose them forever. In despair, he threw his sauce-soaked trencher at the ceiling; the father of a family, in order not to be left behind, threw a pheasant drumstick to the fever-sufferer in the next bed, who had dared to complain about the racket.
The warders ran forward; the three diners hid the remains of the meal under their mattress. Calame, with a ham under his arm in the manner of a folio, ran away across the room. Polygene howled drunkenly; they tried to take hold of him; he fought, his lips foaming, and he had a seizure. Quickly, they brought him the relic of Saint Mathurin, sovereign for cases of demonic possession; as soon as it was brought he nearly smashed it to pieces; then the victim of possession was tied up and two men dragge
d him away, bound with ropes, while a priest pronounced the formulae of exorcism over him. The holy water did not work, and he was plunged into cold water; that calmed his demons down, but a congestion choked him; a surgeon ran forward, declared that he was about to die, and bled him.
Calame did not fare much better; his stomach, astonished by the unusual windfall, protested and made restitution; his livid head nodded toward his sternum like that of a hanged man hesitating to die; he fell on the floor, writhing; the surgeon came running, declared that he was about to die, and bled him.
“Oh, my God!” said Dieudonat. “So that’s what I’ve given them for a feast! I’ve killed them with meat and wine, just as I induced the shepherdess to the sin of lying with my victuals. Let this serve as a lesson to me! I swear never again to ask for food for myself or anyone else! I make the wish! Everyone ought to earn his subsistence, otherwise he has too much and he harms himself with it. There!”
XXXI. He finally decides to live the good life
Neither of the two dying men died that night. On the stroke of midnight, the physician declared that they would escape if they took the emetic powder; Calame was forced to ingurgitate it and it was slipped to Polygene without him perceiving it, but both of them, without distinction, nearly rendered their soul along with their medicine. Dieudonat held their heads, and the lyric poet swore the great oath, by all the gods, to flee his tormentors as soon as he had regained his equilibrium on his legs.
“But will we be allowed to flee? Our case merits examination. Did that heap of meat arrive by theft or magic? The Inquisitors will be after us, that’s for sure.”
The imagination of the Calamitous worked on that theme, glimpsing interrogations, initially paternal, whose scarcely reassuring mildness would be promptly followed by the ordinary question, preliminary to the eventual pyre.
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