The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2) Page 16

  He came over to me, and tried to move my arm, which remained as firm as bronze.

  “...And he’s in complete rigor mortis, as you can see, a stiffness proof against anything. It’s not surprising in a man who made rigidity the firmest of his principles—morally, I mean. But we’ll reckon with it, in death, by force, as you reckoned with in life, my dear friend, by tenderness.”

  He was definitely trying to get a reaction out of Lucienne. He had never flattered her so much. He had to be preparing some underhanded blow for her. Poor Lucienne...

  “How are we going to dress him?” asked Madame Godsill.

  “In a suit, of course,” said Tornada, curtly. “Étienne Montabert can only go down into the grave in his Sunday best. Let’s only regret that he’s kicked the bucket three days too soon; we could have decked him in green, with a bicorn hat, and buckled a sword around his waist. There—that’s an outfit in which to present oneself before the Eternal!”

  “He no longer has a decent suit,” my wife mourned. “His own were eaten by mites during the war, and since then, he’s only worn smoking jackets.

  “We’ll go with the smoking jacket,” said Tornada. “There’ll be time later to put a suit on him. Another question: what burial did you have in mind?”

  “Religious,” declared Lucienne. “My principles command it!”

  “That’s appropriate for a writer who, without being a believer, defended in his work the great traditions of the saber and the aspergillum. But what class?”

  “First class, naturally, Doctor!”

  “Damn! Twelve carriages. Tell me, do you know what undertakers cost these days?”

  “I can’t refuse anything to the man I adored.”

  “Bravo!” Tornada hymned. “If all women were of your stamp, there’d no longer be a husband in France; they’d all want to be pushing up dandelions by the roots.” He calmed down. “So, it’s agreed: You’ll prepare his number one smoking jacket, his brightest shirt and his best shoes—his gala outfit, in brief, as if he were dining with a Duchesse in your company, my darling. And don’t forget his decorations—he was fond of his tinsel. Then, when that’s ready, in twenty minutes, I’ll come back to slip it on him. In the meantime, I have my auto downstairs; I’ll go choose one of those sleeping-cars as profound as divans. I want him to be treated like a prize rooster. Don’t order the coffin from the Funeral Directors who’ll soon be surging forth. You concierge was absent when I arrived; that’s because he’d gone to inform the undertakers, in order to get their commission. There are two kinds of necrophages in this world, the worms and the humans, and I’ve always wondered which are the most voracious...”

  He vanished. And now that we were rid of that eccentric, whose enormous lack of feeling chills the dolor of others, and Lucienne no longer had to exercise constraint before her best friend, I expected her to let herself wax lyrical over my remains, not as she had a little while before, for the pathetic and, dare I say it, official display of her despair, but in more sincere, graver, more confidential tones—the exhalation of a heart struck by fatality in its deepest roots. No more frantic embraces, shrill plaints, wild cries, but the hand that caresses the livid face gently, the voice that pauses and breaks, which begs: “It’s over then, the two of us? We’ll never see one another again? We’re separated forever? Do you know that you were all I had in the world…and that if it were not for listening to my religion, I would depart with you?”

  Yes, I expected that from Lucienne—but that powerful homage was not rendered to me. Poor love, she must have been too downcast, too dead herself, to let herself go now. That would be for later. For the moment, she was obeying social necessities like an automaton. Our most imperious impulses are repressed every day by banal contingencies. Even strong women yield to them. They have to.

  So I was not offended when, in spite of her dejection, she nevertheless retained her practical lucidity, and, doubtless having forgotten, that afternoon, to settle some detail with her lawyer, she ran to my study as soon as Tornada had gone to demand Ségur 102-90 on the telephone.

  When the connection was established she closed the door, so I could not hear the conversation, but it seemed to me that it was quite animated, and that—although I could not swear to it, that a meeting arranged for the following day was canceled. I reflected later that the hour must have long passed when offices closed, but one can always reach a lawyer at home, and Ségur 102-90 probably had the same number at this residence as his workplace.

  When the communication was concluded, Lucienne went into the bedroom, separated from mine by a common dressing-room. She washed and then opened drawers and cupboards. I heard the silky noise of garments being taken from their wrappings. She was getting ready my “gala outfit,” as Tornada put it. Madame Godsill was helping her.

  And they conversed, as they had to.

  “You too, my dear—you have to think about your own costume.”

  “Tomorrow, first thing.”

  “What will you choose?”

  “The crêpe Georgette.”39

  “That’s the best thing—black suits blondes so well. Are you putting a band on your hat?”

  “Yes, but white.”

  “You’re right. It’s less lugubrious.”

  “And besides, I’m not expecting to wear mourning forever. What does it prove, mourning…?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Half-mourning will be sufficient. Mauve and white with the black is quite fetching.”

  Another cupboard groaned. My polished shoes clattered on the tiles.

  “To think that he only bought them three days ago, the worthy man! He had no suspicion…let’s take it all into the bedroom, shall we? Oh—I’ve forgotten the shirt.”

  “Poor love, you’re going to be worn out.”

  “What can you expect? It’s a few days to get through.”

  “After that, you can rest.”

  “I’ll go to the country. There’s nothing like it.”

  “That’s right. We’ll come to find you there—and him.”

  I could not blame Lucienne for thinking about her clothes. I had always recommended her to dress elegantly—and my recommendations were, in any case, superfluous—so I refrained from any criticisms in the matter of coquetry at such a time. But I was surprised by the tranquility with which she was planning a sojourn in the country immediately after the funeral. Furthermore, there was that singular “and him” in Madame Godsill’s voice, coming after the plural “we’ll come,” which I could not explain. To whom could that “and him” refer? Was it Madame Godsill’s liaison? Was it…what the anonymous letters suggested?

  But no. Absurdity, folly! The “and him” belonged to the friend. And if Lucienne retired to the country, where better to cultivate my memory? What weeping window does not retire to the country?

  They came back into my room carrying my “gala outfit.” They deposited it on a chair. Then, as the day was drawing to a close, one of them closed the shutters and switched on the electric light.

  I must have offered them a more gripping aspect under the artificial light. Lucienne underlined that: “I’ve always been afraid of corpses—but that one hasn’t changed very much.”

  That one. Decidedly, my wife had a self-control that I would never have suspected. She was able, in these grave hours, to emerge from her customary superfluity, to unveil a self-mastery. But I was convinced that, if my eyes had been open, I would have observed that her face was not displaying the same detachment as her language.

  Alas, Tornada had closed my eyes, and I would not be able to ask him to open them again.

  Then he came back! “Let’s hurry,” he said, urgently. “I still have work to do. I go to bed at impossible times! I’ll end up envying the sound repose of the worthy Étienne. Oh, to die, to die! One must be better off, in oblivion!”

  “It’s not oblivion, Doctor!” Lucienne protested, loudly.

  “Oh! What is it, then? Where have you gone? And will you come back,
to confirm it?” I deduced that he was indicating me to his interlocutrices. “If only this one could speak! If only he could tell us something about where he is, and what he’s doing right now!”

  Confidentially, he went on: “Look, my good friends, you don’t realize that you’ve just walked over my flower-bed in talking about survival. I’m making it the object of my studies at present. Just between us, eh? But think: what is the soul? It’s thought. What is thought? It’s cerebral function. You agree? Good. If the soul subsists after death, what happens to it? You’ll say, my darlings, that the soul finds its retreat with the Eternal Father, or is put on the spit by Satan, or that it floats in Limbo. That’s your idea; it’s respectable; I won’t dispute it—but I have the right to have my own. Well, I, Tornada, think, personally—and I’ll soon have the confirmation of it—that if the soul subsists after death, it’s...”

  He bounded toward my cadaver and tapped me on the forehead. “It’s there, in the noggin, that it remains lodged! Yes, it’s there! You’re shrugging your shoulders? No, you’re not shrugging them, because you’re too polite. But you’re saying to yourselves: ‘This Tornada is off his rocker.’ Think about it though, my beauties. Here’s a dead poet, Étienne Montabert. He’s lying there, immobile, rigid, looking even more serene than in life. Ask him: is your soul still alive? He won’t answer you. Tickle him; he’ll remain insensible—yes, insensible to the most agreeable goosing. But is that proof that, under his meninges, the neurons aren’t still hanging on? Where’s the proof that, his organism having stopped, his cerebral gizzard isn’t still functioning? Don’t the fingernails continue to grow after death? Doesn’t the hair persist in lengthening? Doesn’t the beard take on the fluvial amplitude of mine? Tell me, my darlings? And if I were to demonstrate to you experimentally, physiologically, scientifically and irrefutably that I’m right, who would laugh last, eh, my lovelies?”

  He sniggered. A silence—I can say a deathly silence, since I was participating in it—followed his declaration. I divined, from the trouble I was experiencing myself, the impression that that problem of the afterlife must have had on its auditrices.

  But he pulled us out of it. “Let’s go! Let’s truss ourselves up for the great voyage!”

  It was hard work. My muscles were still taut and opposed an insurmountable resistance the removal of my garments. Just try to undress a recumbent bronze statue...

  “Damn! I’ve never observed such a wonderful rigor mortis!” Tornada rejoiced.

  In vain he tried to sit me up on my bed; my lower back did not bend. In vain he rolled me over in order to take my jacket off from behind; my arms retained it stuck to my torso.

  “We’ll never get there, my pullets. It’s necessary to cut off his togs. I’m heartbroken, given that you’d be able to sell them at a good price, but what other means is there?”

  “The trousers too?” said Lucienne, regretfully.

  “No, they’ll slide off easily—but up top, it’ll be necessary to take them apart completely. Let’s arm ourselves with courage and scissors.”

  They rolled me on to my back again, and vanquished the difficulty, slicing though my shirt too.

  “Cutting is so delightful!” Tornada declared. “If I weren’t a surgeon, I’d like to have been a tailor.”

  “I like couture too,” said Lucienne.

  “With me, it’s fashion,” Madame Godsill preferred.

  And I verified, in these reflections, that the most pathetic sentiments dissolve into the banal exigencies of sociability.

  When I was quite naked, Tornada remarked: “He’s as hairy as our ancestral orangutan!”

  “But he’s well-built,” said Madame Godsill, appreciatively. “One wouldn’t have suspected it under his clothes.”

  Lucienne probably agreed with her friend’s complimentary opinion, but she had the tact to keep quiet.

  The difficult increased when it was matter of putting my gala outfit on. I opposed an irreducible impassivity and force of inertia.

  “He can’t know anything...” Tornada said “I’ve got an idea. We’ll get him out of bed, and once he’s upright, as straight as a pikestaff, it’ll go like clockwork.”

  He climbed up on the bed to grip my shoulders. “Hup! Hup!” he yapped, at the same time, to regulate he force employed in displacing me.” But he groaned again. “No! How stubborn he is. You’re soft in the head, my old Étienne. When I say soft, it’s hard that would be more exact!”

  He got up, discouraged. “And they say that the dead go quickly!”

  They repeated the maneuver. I was finally stood up and maintaining in a perpendicular position, ready to be rotated. I can only imagine the spectacle that must have been offered by that cadaver, in the apparel of the lost paradise before the apple, manhandled by a bearded man and two women in summer dresses!

  No matter—the result was magnificent; with a few flicks of the wrist I was adorned. I was laid down on the bed again. Tornada pinned the brochette of my decorations on to my chest. A few heroic tractions brought my arms over me abdomen and they were furnished with a crucifix. Then two candles were lit, one to either side of the bed.

  “He’s worn us out, but he’s splendid!” Tornada opined, expansively. “He’s the integral dog’s dinner! Oh, the journalists can come! They’ll drool with admiration!”

  “I wouldn’t have believed that a dead man could be so difficult to dress,” observed Madame Godsill, fanning herself.

  “In general, they lend themselves to it, but this one is exceptionally mulish.” And Tornada asked: “By the way, it’s not that I fear he’ll escape, but who’s going to keep vigil over him tonight?”

  “I won’t leave that duty to anyone else,” declared Lucienne, resolutely.

  “You’re an incomparable spouse! Now I’ll run away. Until tomorrow. I’ll come early to see how things are going. With luck he won’t do too badly, but in this heat, fermentation proceeds rapidly. Tell that to the Funeral Directors. Tell them, too, that I’ve ordered the coffin. A princely box. You’ll see that—none of your small biers! Right, with that word of conclusion—and poor Étienne’s conclusion—I’ll leave you.”

  His departure was a deliverance for me. You can understand why my admiration and amity for that man had been suddenly transformed into a violent rancor. But I began to double my resentment with an anxiety that I shall explain later. For the moment, I shall continue the narration of that macabre adventure, which, at the beginning of my mortuary night, had more surprises still in store for me.

  Chapter IV

  When the ladies came back from showing Tornada to the door, they initially stood in a corner of the room, whispering about things that were insignificant, even by comparison with the crêpe Georgette and the white hatband. Then they came closer and Lucienne sat down.

  “I’m exhausted!”

  “And you’re going to spend the night here! You mustn’t destroy yourself, my dear. Suppose you were to tell Anna to keep vigil?”

  “Do you think so?”

  “What can you do that someone else can’t?”

  “The girl would doubtless tell me to get lost.”

  “Send for a nun, then, some Sister of Charity.”

  “It’s too late.”

  But the idea occurred to them both at the same time that they could ask Mademoiselle Robin, the governess. Lucienne did not like her. She thought her too proud and was jealous of her, although my Ninette’s perfect guardian had never given rise to the slightest suspicion of coquetry. Nevertheless, Lucienne recognized her qualities and knew that she was glad to take responsibility for the child off her hands.

  They rang for Anna.

  “Has Mademoiselle Robin had dinner?”

  “Mademoiselle said that she wouldn’t be eating.”

  “Why, what’s wrong with her?”

  “She has a headache.”

  “Has she put the child to bed?”

  “Yes, and she’s gone to her room.”

  I hoped that they would
let the poor girl sleep, but I heard: “Will you tell her that I’m suffering too and that I’d like her to watch over Monsieur?”

  Anna brought back the governess’ acceptance without delay. Then she said that Madame could go to table.

  “That’s true…one has to eat. What is there to eat, Anna?”

  “I asked the cook to make what Madame ordered.”

  “Tell Madame Godsill the menu.”

  “You want me to stay?” the latter demurred, mildly.

  “But of course—you can’t leave me alone on a day like this. Well, Anna?”

  “Soup; cheese soufflé; riz de veau with spinach; and raspberry ice cream.”

  “And a glass of champagne to make us feel better, Anna.”

  And they went to take that benign but satisfying mourning meal.

  I was choked—insofar as a man can be choked who hasn’t drawn breath for five hours. Once again, I could overlook the riz de veau, but it seemed to me that the glass of champagne, a wine of merriment and joy, ingurgitated within spitting distance of my cadaver, did not respond at all to a need for mortification.

  Inconsequence and thoughtlessness!

  In order to continue to accept indulgently the actions of my adored wife, since the moment when she had found herself in the presence of my mortal remains, I would have liked to persuade myself yet again that her metamorphosis was merely a repercussion of the blow she had suffered, but truly, the champagne surpassed the measure of what I could excuse, and everything now began to take on the significance of an inexplicable indifference. The anonymous letters began to ravage me again.

  Suddenly, though, what a dawn freshness, what a spring breeze, arrived to dissipate my black clouds momentarily! In the corridor, before the door even opened, the bright babble of my Ninette sounded, moderated in vain by her governess, in order that no one in the dining room might hear that she was coming to see me.