Dieudonat

by Edmond Haraucourt

  Onuphre wept large tears; Melanie was devastated; Polygene scratched the back of his neck; Calame rubbed his palms. They decided in haste to take down the compromising crutches and the collection-box, de-gild the kneading trough and unstick the pious images. The brats were amused by the panic, but they wailed when people outside began to throw pebbles at the door and the windows, not to mention cobblestones and the excrement that, even better than stones, is appropriate to express public opinion.

  “Stupidity has turned its coat! Who feeds you, stones you. Vox populi, vox Dei!”

  The distraught housewife ran around the house, only pausing to implore the advice of the shrewd clerk: “What do we do now?”

  “Wait, and live in apprehension.”

  The family had no lack of that; Inquisitors clad in black came, frowning, posing questions to which they trembled to respond; at nightfall, the passers-by on the road hastened their steps, making the sign of the cross, and darkness soon effaced their frightened silhouettes. Onuphre no longer dared budge, desolate at a common peril of which he was the unique cause.

  Once, however, he beamed at an unexpected face; a young woman has just come in, ugly of face but rich in youth and buxom. She ran to the kneading trough, where she embraced the human stump as if he were a real loaf of bread.

  “Gertrude!”

  “I recognized you by the stories they’re telling. I said to myself: ‘If they’re going to burn him, I ought to kiss him one last time beforehand.’ Well, my poor fellow, things have worked out badly for you! You’ve lost even more things!”

  “Little by little...”

  “It’s almost a coffin, your box. You were more comfortable in the cell, for sure.”

  Melanie approached, intrigued.

  “What’s that you saying, in the cell?” Then, looking the stranger up and down: “Wait a minute…I remember you. You were the jailer’s daughter once.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “The one who clipped dogs and cut cats at the prison door.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then, this one was in prison?”

  “By error; he’s taken the place of another there.”

  “Holy Virgin! That’s all its lacked! He’s been in prison!”

  “Bah!” said Gertrude. “Like Saint Peter.”

  “And all the saints,” added Calame.

  The housewife grumbled for a long time, shifting her buckets.

  “Is he going to bring us the girl now? The poet wasn’t enough, it seems. In prison…!”

  The confused benefactor gazed, by force of habit, at his absent feet. The jailer’s daughter came to his aid. “Would you like to get some air, perhaps?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  She lifted him in her left arm, like a bundle of laundry, and carried him on to the road.

  “Oof! It’s better in the street. You’ve got a shrew of a hostess. You must have a hard time in her house.”

  Onuphre protested, praising Melanie, her domestic virtues and her fecundity. Calame, standing up, watched the lovely young woman install herself on her buttocks beside the amputee, holding him against her torso; she took his hand and laughed near his ear. Noiraud sat down on the other side of him; between the two of them, Onuphre, wide-eyed and beaming, gave the impression of contemplating the angels. The Calamitous went away, and the three simple souls began chatting together very quietly.

  After an hour, Gertrude said: “I have to get back, my friend.” She replaced him in his kneading rough and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “A fine day you’ve made for me, Gertrude! Will I see you again some day?”

  “I promise you that; every time I come to the neighborhood I’ll come to see you, and if I don’t come, I’ll come anyway.”

  Scarcely had she gone out than another face appeared: clean-shaven and green-tinted, brows furrowed and dressed entirely in black, the magistrate was standing on the threshold.

  “Outside, the rest of you, while I talk to this man.”

  When he was alone with the sorcerer, Master Touillechair went to shoot the bolt.

  “Recognize me, I’m your judge. Reasons that I don’t want to dwell upon incite me to benevolence in your regard. In favor of a tumult, you were able to escape the gibbet, but not without the crowd having molested you harshly, and even, I believe, breaking your kneecap; that chastisement by God appeared to us to be sufficient; I abstained from reclaiming you from the physician in order to return you to the executioner; furthermore, after the feast that scandalized our hospice by virtue of an evident character of sorcery, I succeeded in deflecting the curiosity of the Tribunal away from you.

  “If, therefore, I owed you something, understand me well, if you estimate that I owed you something, I have paid my debt. At present, I no longer owe you anything, except justice. Now, you have put yourself in further peril by a recidivism of your faults, and the secular hand will soon weigh upon you and our accomplices.”

  “On the good people, Milord Judge!”

  “On all the makers of impostures! But the parables of the Gospel teach us clemency, and when we see that a sinner, having given himself to evil, testifies a repentance and devotes himself to good, our paternal indulgence is always ready, not only to welcome him, but to aid him in the work of redemption. That is why I have brought you a means of repairing your crimes by a benevolent act.”

  “If I could, Milord Judge...”

  “Since I know that you can. There exists in this town an unfortunate soul who is losing her eternal salvation by the incapacity of any resistance to the demon, who labors the flesh of which she is the slave. The wife of a man upright and venerable among all, a judge who places above his own joys the care of protecting against Satan and against themselves the beings that Our Lord Jesus and our King has confided to his care, she desolates him with the spectacle of her intemperance, and he has deliberated conquering paradise for her. Since within that person the soul is the victim of the flesh, it is important to separate them from one another, and to abandon the wretched body to the Spirit of Darkness, in order that the liberated soul can rise up to the Spirit of Light.

  “Now, listen carefully; in thirteen days, on the holy occasion of Easter, by the double sacrament of penitence and communion, that woman will have obtained remission of her sins, and in that state of grace, which will not last long, she will find herself temporarily in a position to appear before the Divine Tribunal. Heaven will be grateful to you for sending the stray lamb there at such a moment; by an action so favorable you will have redeemed your sins. Here is a lock of the lady’s hair; here is a wax figurine modeled in her image. You know better than I do what it remains for you to do. Operate.

  “I am quitting you now. You have thirteen days, and you will save yourself by saving that poor woman. But if, on Easter day, or Monday at the latest, we do not see her called to render her account to the Supreme Judge, those who represent him down here will summon you to render yours, and you ought not to hope from their justice a mercy you will not have had for the distress of your neighbor. You’ve understood me? Don’t respond. Hide this.”

  Master Touillechair deposited a little packet wrapped in cloth in the kneading trough; then he made with his hand the gesture that imposes silence, and he left.

  Polygene, who was coming home, and who saw the magistrate on the threshold of his house, recoiled in fear. Melanie took charge of explaining the detail of things to him.

  “He’s come out of prison! He hid that from you! Fine company, eh! And he passes himself off as a prince. You don’t seem to understand. He’s come out of prison, I tell you.”

  Onuphre stammered: “By error, cousin...”

  “For sure there was an error in letting you out. And for a start, I’m not your cousin. Everyone in our family belongs to decent society, know that! In prison! And he brings loose women here, into the bargain—yes, loose women! A whore who kissed him in full, in front of the children. What did he say to you, the magistrate?”

  Dieudona
t dared not think about that; he lowered his head without replying. The father of the family waited for a moment, and then rendered his verdict.

  “He doesn’t want to say anything; he has his secrets. Let him be. He’s my savior, isn’t he? He has a right to respect. He’s put us all on the road to the pyre with his simulations of a saint, and now he’s dishonoring my roof with his mistresses, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he’s the Benefactor, and he’ll stay with us as long as it gives him pleasure to do us wrong.”

  He crossed the room lengthways—one, two, three—scratched the back of his neck, crossed it again sideways—one, two, three—and resumed speaking.

  “There’s also news, Onuphre, that I’ve just learned myself, and it isn’t good. They don’t want me on the roofs anymore because of your rotten kneecap. I’m no longer a roofer; I’m no longer anything. That’s it.”

  “God in Heaven!” cried Melanie. “How are we going to eat? And now we have a man with no legs on our hands, for life!”

  Onuphre could not sleep. He thought by turns about the injunctions of the judge, Polygene’s kneecap, Gertrude’s benevolent eyes and all the disasters of a day that he had thought a little while ago to be the sweetest of his life.

  “Send me Calame, great God, in order for him to advise me.”

  But the thaumaturge had abjured the right to ask for anything for himself, and Calame did not come; impregnated with a poem by the charming April, the troubadour was striding through the spring

  Every morning, after his prayer, Onuphre repeated: “Perhaps it will be today…only nine more days and the magistrate will come to fetch the good people in order to burn them...”

  “Only another seven days…have pity, my God, and send Calame!”

  He had hidden the evil wax figure under his surcoat. The hours were very long, and existence became hard; Polygene, having become a manual laborer, was carrying burdens as Onuphre had done previously; the man earned less, the wife grumbled more. She still had coins gathered in the time of pilgrimages in an old sock, but her heart bled when she touched it.

  “Since we have no more bread, because of that kneecap, it’s necessary to return the kneading trough to me, you!”

  He was taken down permanently from his once-glorious couch, like a saint extracted from his niche. He was planted in a corner of the room, and then in another, under the pretext that he was cluttering up that one, and then in another, and incessantly from one to another, since he was in the way everywhere; he alone enjoyed all four corners. Since he resided at floor level, the housewife was able to bump into him by chance with a few particularly hard objects; the girls played at imitating Mama.

  “You couldn’t go outside, instead of remaining under our feet…?”

  The human stump dragged himself like a worm, or dug his fingers into the greasy soil; Noiraud, leaning toward him, followed him step by step, frowning and breathing on his spine to help him. In the house, one of the girls wailed, demanding bread, and her mother replied: “Necessary to keep it for the Benefactor.”

  It was thus that the grandmother got the idea of whining every ten minutes: “I’m hungry...”

  “Ask the Benefactor to send you a roast goose.”

  “Dirty Benefactor!”

  When he had crawled as far as the edge of the road, he raised himself up on his palms, looking into the distance, at the bend in the road.

  Calame did not come into view; it was Gertrude who appeared.

  She was carrying an immense wooden hat on her head, as square as a crate and decorated with four castors by way of plumes or frills.

  “It’s to take you for a walk, Onuphre, so you can get some air. You need a vehicle, since you no longer have legs. A prisoner made it for me, for the pleasure, with old pieces of wood. What do you think?”

  “I think that I’ve had a great many things in my life, and that I’ve made a few little deals here and there, but this is the first time that I’ve ever received a gift.”

  “Really? Oh, how glad I am!”

  “You love me, then, a little.”

  “Yes, of course, I love you a lot.”

  “And I also believe that no one has ever loved me, and that you’re the first, since my Mama.”

  She seemed so happy, and for his part, he felt an emotion so sweet that the loss of his limbs appeared to him to be a blessed event, generously compensated by the joys of that minute. He asked for his vehicle, turned it in all directions and made the wheels rotate.

  “Do you want to try it out,” said Gertrude, “so I can teach you how to use it?”

  “Oh yes!”

  The party commenced: the big girl and the little ones, pushing the amputee around, laughed until they cried; He was tipped into the ditch, pulled out, replanted covered in dust, and off again! Everyone sweated, and Noiraud danced around, barking with a furious joy. The grandmother, on the threshold, held her sides.

  Finally seeing people happy Dieudonat forgot his worries.

  Eventually, he tried to walk with his wrists, and when Gertrude had gone, Melanie, her fists on her hips, shouted to him: “You’ll have to go and beg now that you have your carriage.”

  He went, meekly, thinking it a good idea, but the children in the streets threw stones at him; pious people, on recognizing the sorcerer and his dog, made the sign of the cross and ran away; he did not bring back a sou.

  By way of compensation, he found that Calame had returned.

  “My God! My God! Only another five days!”

  But he did not have the leisure to lament for long on that theme; what he saw on the doorstep caused him a very different emotion. The eldest of the little girls, leaning against the jamb, was swaddling and rocking the wax figurine, and her younger sister was demanding the doll with screams. Melanie arrived, drawn by the noise of the quarrel, seized the object of litigation, undressed the minuscule female, was astonished by the immodestly excessive organs, and enquired: “Where did this come from?”

  “It’s mine,” yapped the younger sister. “I found it in the ditch where Onuphre fell.”

  “Witchcraft! It’s yours, this horror?”

  He only just had time to reply: “Yes, cousin.” His emotion was so great that he was immediately gripped by a seizure.

  When he recovered consciousness, the Calamitous was standing beside him. He raised his bleak eye toward him.

  “Calame…what day…is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “One, two, three, four... Lean over, so I can talk to you.”

  “Take him away, rather!” cried the harpy, “And may we never see either one of you again!”

  As soon as they were alone, Dieudonat made a supreme effort with his head in order to tell the story of the magistrate.

  “Bad,” said Calame. “Doubly bad. Master Touillechair is ambitious to be elevated to the rank of widower and he’s charging you with the task; beware of him if you don’t obey, and beware of Melanie, who has finally found a weapon with which to rid herself of your carcass.”

  “You can believe…?”

  “Oh, the good people! Their natural amenity, excited by their gratitude, is making daily progress. They detest you, at present. Are you weeping?”

  “Why did you say that to me? It wasn’t necessary to tell me that. I didn’t want to see it, myself, and now I won’t be able any longer not to think it.”

  “Come on, come on, calm down.”

  “They are as they can be, the poor. They aren’t able to command themselves. It costs them to nourish me, you understand? And now I’ve become dangerous, into the bargain.”

  “So beware; by taking the priest the proof of your witchcraft, the worthy woman is exonerating herself and getting rid of you at a single stroke: a double profit.”

  “Denounce their friend? The worthy Polygene will oppose it.”

  “As soon as he’s no longer angry, his wife draws him by the end of you know what.”

  “The end of the nose?” said Onuphre, through his tears.


  “Yes, my innocent, the end of the nose. You don’t want to be burned, do you?”

  “If that will sort things out...but I don’t want them to sell me, like Judas; that would be too nasty a sin; it’s necessary to spare them that, Calame.”

  “Make a wish.”

  “No, it’s necessary that that comes from their good heart, and I’ll disencumber them afterwards, I’ll disencumber you all, since I’m still a danger. Talk to them a little, Calame...”

  The poet went back into the house, but he did not stay there long. Dieudonat saw him come out again at a run, holding is back and opening his hands above the nape of his neck in order to protect the box of poems from the blows of the fire-tongs applied by the wife and the blows of a cudgel applied by the husband; the couple pursued him until they ran out of breath.

  When they came back, a large tear rolled down the benefactor’s cheek.

  “Filth!” howled Melanie. “Now he’s weeping, so that he can say that we martyrize him”

  “Shut up, wife!” ordered Polygene. “He’s the Benefactor; he can do anything to us.”

  Then she served the soup.

  The amputee remained outside, in order to be less alone, and he stroked Noiraud’s back, sometimes looking him in the eyes.

  XXXVI. The heart goes on

  The next day, Calame returned courageously to Polygene’s house; he found that his friend was no longer there.

  “Where is he, then?”

  “Don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “When did he go?”

  “Yesterday evening. He didn’t come back.”

  “You haven’t looked for him?”

  “He’s his own master, isn’t he? We don’t ask him to account for himself. I don’t have any rights over his liberty.”