The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2) Page 22

  As for the husband, just Heaven! It is with fear that I record what happened to him.

  He happened to be, at that moment, in the direct line of my observation, with the result that I missed nothing of the coup de théâtre. Congested as he already was, I saw my rival turn crimson. He began to grimace; his eyes rolled back. He put his hand to his head, as if to get rid of a biting insect. He uttered a few coughs, and tried to hang on to the railing of my bedstead.

  Then, definitively, he collapsed.

  Clamors from the poetess, urgency on the part of the witnesses, cold water, vinegar, injections by Tornada. Nothing could be done; my competitor for the Titon chair had been scythed down by an embolism identical to the one that Tornada had imagined for me.

  “It’s devastating!” declared the scientist. “One might think that I bring bad luck to all the candidates for the Académie! If you want to take advantage of my auto to take him home...”

  And when the unfortunate had been carried away: “That’s made me late for Venus, but I don’t regret a thing. You’re lucky, old Lernean Hydra; Atropos is on your side. I might perhaps have been able, with a little patience and the aid of my 222, to keep him going for a while longer, but apoplexy is damnably bad luck. Then, all things considered, I’d rather have made sure of your election.”

  He rubbed his hands. “I believe that it’s the first time since human meat has existed that a dead man has been seen to kill a living one!”

  It might seem that, after that drama, the end of my second mortuary day was bound to seem utterly devoid of interest, but my egotism and my instinct of property still attached me to the actions of a little troop that filled my room a quarter of an hour after the removal of Firmin Tardurand. It was a matter of a further removal, no less anguishing than that of my rival—and also a restitution.

  Jojo came in first, furtively, his boater over his ear and his paunch furnished. He undressed rapidly and unwound my tapestry from around his midriff, kissed it before parting with it, and recommenced his acrobatic exercises on the superimposed armchair and chair. He resuspended his booty, got down again, got dressed again, rediscovered his waist and uttered a sigh of relief at finally having a tranquil abdomen and conscience. The remaining items were only peccadilloes.

  My other robbers arrived as soon as he had finished. I distinguished, under the supervision of Lucienne and Madame Godsill, equipped with traveling bags, two tall cousins of my wife’s, built like beanpoles, with fleeting profiles and hands like octopodes; then the florid Ségur 102-90; then a friend of the latter, an auctioneer, a reliable man brought in the capacity of an expert. All those guests, in that enormous heat—thirty degrees, in my shade!—were wearing vast overcoats fitted with poachers’ pockets.

  They did not waste time. After a moment’s meditation at my bedside—nothing inhibits fine sentiments, and anyway, it was not me that they were robbing but my daughter—they began to clear my bedroom of the collectible objects that Jojo had not stolen that morning.

  The bags received admirable Directoire candlesticks, the apple of my eye; three framed enamels from the thirteenth century; an exquisite series of miniatures by André Devambez;55 two original sanguines by Greuze; an elegant reproduction in bronze of the Vatican Spinario; an adorable mirror in a sculpted gold frame mounted on a poudreuse; a silver alarm clock; wooden sculptures; miniatures; my pencil-holders, rings, pins, watches, chronographs…and I don’t know what else: everything that animated beauty, the art of the past and present for me; everything that resulted from my travels, and my passionate hunts in antique shops.

  And my heart sobbed—one loves things as one loves people—every time that the expert, after an examination, approved the theft. I doubted his competence, however, when he rejected a descent from the cross in ivory, a veritable marvel, carved by Cellini for Pope Clement VII. He affirmed that it was a reproduction.

  Once everything had been stuffed away, Guy ordered: “Into the auto.”

  My ravagers then attacked my study. My torture increased; it was my books that they were stealing, my beautiful ancient bindings, my enchanting décor. It took the cousins three trips to carry them clandestinely to the auto, under the nose of the snoring concierge.

  Then the scourge passed into the small drawing room, and into the large drawing room. I was at the limit of bitterness and impotent rage.

  At half past eleven the door closed on the last thief. Lucienne came back and calmly switched off the light.

  Should I put the police to work? I would, in any case, sack the notary who had neglected to impose the seals.

  Midnight. The hour of crimes belied its reputation. It became for me the edifying hour, the angelic hour, which brought Mademoiselle Hélène to watch over me.

  It was also the hour of divine harmonies, since, having found my Dawn Songs, a source of boredom for Madame Godsill, the Vestal, taking possession of it, opened it and started, not to read but to recite the first poem that her eyes fell upon, and then another, and then another.

  Her voice calmed me like celestial music; her inspiration doubled mine. There was nothing conventional, nothing emphatic in hr interpretation, but the just chords and natural tones of a soul quivering with the splendor of words, the magnificence of ideas.

  “Master! My beloved, listen to me…and forgive me…one addresses the Lord as tu…Oh, I’ve loved you so humbly…so secretly…as a servant…as a slave…you alone could put to sleep the memory of the man I lost during the war! You alone, by virtue of your generosity, your intelligence, your elevation…and I blessed you…and I mourned for you…you know why, now that verity inundates you on high...”

  She took my hand.

  “But let’s not talk about me. I don’t count. It’s only a question of Ninette…and since your verses, which I’ve consulted, have replied to me that it’s necessary that the child should not go to the other…the other, who might perhaps abandon her…she will therefore be mine, and mine alone. And this is what I’m going to do, Master. First, I’m going to take her away from that wretch. Yes, take her away—abduct her, steal her, hide her.

  “In an obscure corner of Provence I have a little property from an inheritance. Not much—a house and a few hectares; but they’re in the light, in the pine-woods, near a spring, with blue mountains in the distance. That’s where I’ll take her. There, she’ll change her name…there she’ll become my daughter, until she comes of age.

  “What will people say? What does it matter?... Will that woman even look for her? Am I not ridding her of a burden? Will she not have her vices?... So, I shall take Ninette away. I’ll work to nourish her. I’ll dig the soil! Oh, a beautiful life, under your aegis! And then, at twenty...I’ll have her interests guarded, won’t I? If the other tries to touch them, oh my God, she had better beware!...

  “And then, when Ninette is what she ought to be: beautiful, rich and worthy of you, my Master…then I shall stand up and cry: ‘This is Ninette! This child is Ninette! Don’t you recognize the daughter of Étienne Montabert!’ And the poets will come running! The poets! And if one of them, yes, one of them…I’ll only ask him not to separate me from her! That would be so sweet!”

  Oh, the pure joy of abnegation! She was no longer weeping, she was even smiling at her dream of sacrifice. Soon, hope overwhelmed her even more than fatigue. She fell asleep, on her knees, her head on my sheets, never ceasing to unite in her hand, placed on mine, furnished with the crucifix, the two powers, the human and the divine.

  Lulled like her by the sweetness of days to come, my confident brain allowed itself to be gained by sleep.

  Chapter VIII

  My third day, the dawn of my resurrection! The knell draws away, the carillon replaces it. The gates of night are about to open under the pressure of Tornada, the magnificent exorcist!

  He will come. I’ve been waiting for him, since my awakening—since five o’clock in the morning, when the Vestal disentangled our hands and went to see to Ninette. I’m waiting. He’ll come to reattach
the thread; he’s the sorcerer; he’s the Messiah. He will slip the magic elixir under my skin, a single gram of his 444. The ordeal will have been cruel, but I shall rise up, an administrator of justice!

  I’m waiting for him; the clock has already struck seven times. Now there’s one distributing eight. The street first, and then the house, fill up with household noises. They are my everyday morning torture, but I bless them today. They mingle with the joyous bells ringing in my head. They too are celebrating my deliverance!

  At nine o’clock, Tornada had still not arrived. I might have been astonished, if I had not known that he was at grips with Venus.

  Finally, ten o’clock, he made his irruption, prey to an agitation multiplied a hundredfold, Never had I seen him so grimacing, so tic-ridden. Beneath his long twisted beard was a collar devoid of a cravat; his garments were in a diabolical state.

  “Something terrible has happened, my antique. Can you imagine that I’ve just been fleeced! The Baronne de Quincampoix—that’s my Venus with the cyst; a Baronne, I thought—well, in brief, the Baronne robbed me when I passed from her arms into those of Morpheus. This morning, when I woke up, there was no longer anyone in my bed, no longer anything in my pockets...

  “Venus, you understand, I don’t give a damn about—she’s replaceable. The cyst too; one lost, ten found. Then again, her anatomy wasn’t very chic, nothing but padding, as flat as a bug…except for the cyst, of course. My portfolio’s been stolen too: ten thousand francs, that’s the price of a cyst. But what becomes serious, and even grave, is that she also took the case with which I’d furnished myself in order to resuscitate you, with the ampoule of 444, and my documents, including the formula for 444!

  “For you, don’t worry—it’s only a short delay; I have other preparations in my laboratory; by early afternoon you’ll be on your feet. But my formula, my antique, my formula! Ten years of research, of perfection, of experimentation, day and night, in the paws of that pickpocket! If she tries blackmail, I’ll give her my fortune, straight away! ‘Take it, Baronne, take it! And I’ll remove your cyst into the bargain!’ But she’ll probably offer it to my envious enemies, perhaps to hurl my discovery into the official gutter! Then it’ll be in the public domain!

  “Then, everything I’d constructed for human happiness: the psychological capacity of an inert brain; cadaveric voyeurism; the observation of unchained instincts around a pseudo-corpse; all that new experimentation, precious in my sagacious hands, will be at the mercy of charlatans! And history will say…oh, damnation!... History, I wound back the hour!...I slowed down the sands of the centuries!…I adjourned eternity!...I inundated the world with posthumous light!...and history will say that the neo-Christ was not me!”

  He was visibly suffering, in his restorative mania, in his supplanted pride. Judging by the vertiginous allure of his ideas, I could expect more unreason. I thought that he was about to succumb to it—but he suddenly pulled himself together.

  “I’m going to the police. Until this afternoon.”

  Tornada’s doctrine gave me food for reflection after his departure. It went deeper than its author’s eccentric originality. It ascended even so toward the ideal. That scientist wanted the happiness of his fellows. But he wanted it by means of the destruction of illusions—a conception radically opposed to mine. I was penetrated by the idea that happiness is only made of mirages. He wanted it in the desiccated truth. I could not subscribe to that, I spite of the philosophy, born of rancor, with which I accepted Lucienne’s treason.

  But I had difficulty continuing my reflections. It seemed to me that my brain was weary. I felt no better equipped to register external phenomena than speculating about abstractions. Was that the effect of 222 wearing off? One injection, Tornada had told me, would last a week. Expecting to reanimate me in two days’ time, had he decreased the dose? Or had my emotions been so intense, in those two days, that I had expended too much of the provision of latent life?

  I could not forge four lines, an epitaph for my defunct amour. I searched for a rhyme for Lucienne and only found reprehensible ones. Impotent, I resolved to have, if one might put it thus, a lie-in. The heat was turning stormy, but my slowed-down being was not suffering therefrom. Nothing disturbed me but a fly, which was buzzing persistently over my nose. Puer, abige muscas!56 I recalled. But no one was there to chase it away.

  Pardon me—someone was there, who did rid me of the troublesome insect, by an unusual method: by sprinkling my face with holy water. I felt the droplets fall. There was a pause, and it began again. And the most curious thing was that I could not see the hand that was giving me the tribute of that benevolent freshness. The manna seemed to be falling from the sky of its own accord, without there being anyone in the room.

  But I’ve caught you, little joker! I’ve seen your hand agitating the spring, heard your stifled laughter! You’re playing a trick on your Papa!

  Ninette stands up from beneath my bed. She can come in crawling. She complains: “Still sleepy, Papa! Lazybones! Come on, wake up! Come and play! Do you want to play funerals?”

  The treasure! She doesn’t suspect the enormity of her offer. She’s picked up the idea in the kitchen, where she’s forbidden to go. It’s exciting, the kitchen, with the red fire of the copper pans, the white of the nickel, the green of bottles, and the stove roaring and snapping, and the sink that swallows avidly, like the manservant’s throat, and goes glug glug... She’s come from there, I’d swear. She’s retained, for her ulterior amusement, the day’s ancillary words.

  But I remain impassive; not a tremor runs over me. I’m in hiding…and she gets impatient, irritated, stamping her feet. She repeats the aspersion. She insists, tugging on the sleeve of my smoking jacket. I don’t flinch.

  Then, a silence. She observes me, and I can deduce the evolution of her thought in her facial expression...

  Oh! What a thunderbolt, all of a sudden! What anguish, what terror, what a hectic flight! Her first collision with misfortune, the legacy of fear!

  “Papa dead! Papa dead!” she cries, running back to her governess.

  But no, silly girl! Soon, I’ll take you in my arms, I’ll stroke you, I’ll cover you with frantic kisses, I’ll chase away the residue of imbecile atavistic terror. I’ll efface, by my transports of life, the somber moment in which you’ve already learned over to confront the beyond!

  Three more empty hours. People are eating nearby. People are eating everywhere. Ignoble humanity is stuffing itself. Only the belly counts. Work, the golden calf, ideas—everything is for the belly.

  Love is also for the belly; Lucienne brings me that abject suggestion. Here she is, blooming in her mourning-dress. Her substance is happy. How beautiful she is! How much difficulty I’ll have tearing myself away from hr flesh! My passion for her is elucidated; I’ve only ever loved her for her possession. That helps me to despise hr, not to suffer too much from the annihilation of my dream. But won’t that bind me to her, shamefully, in a servile fashion?

  No! I’ll be able to vanquish myself. I’ll only have to look at that telephone, of which she’s making use again, to arrange an afternoon rendezvous with her Guy in a patisserie near the Gare Saint-Lazare. She’s trampling all decency underfoot! Scoffing with her lover, in public, on the eve of my funeral!

  Telephone with the bronze foot, you’ll become my weapon, my club! It’s you who’ll smash her skull, who’ll splinter her bones, spill her blood, O telephone with the bronze foot!

  Did she feel pity, remorse, when on passing through my room, she stopped in front of her portrait, looking at me for slightly longer, and murmured: “Poor devil! He had his good points, all the same.”

  But no, not even then. She smiled: the same smile as in her painting, in which I now distinguished cruel irony, enjoyment, avidity...

  My God! How late Tornada is!

  But here come more visitors. They shouldn’t be coming anymore? It’s no longer Anna who ought to be letting them in, it’s me! It’s me who ought to be send
ing away that man with teeth like the blade of a saw and eyes that might have been drilled, who hasn’t even taken off his cap as he comes into my room. Who is that blackguard?

  He takes a measuring-tape out of his pocket, and measures me from head to toe.

  “So much for the length. The boss says that it’ll be here before nightfall.”

  He goes out. He is replaced by a pale homunculus with flat, discolored hair and unctuous gestures. I recognize him. He’s a parasite of letters. There are many like him. They’re the tithe of success. They live on loans, on debts, which brings a good enough return. Letter-writers of a sort, slipping their copy into blackmailing rags, they flatter or defile, in accordance with generosity of refusal. Their criticism has no kind of value or range, but one weakens before anything that is written about one. Good psychologists, moreover, they anticipate what will flatter or displease. Some of them even give occasional good advice. They move one with sob stories, entirely fabricated, but one lets them do it and puts one’s hand in one’s pocket. They come back; they only give up after rebuffs.

  This one, I made the mistake of not sending away from the start. I only got rid of him be forbidding him my door Anna had orders to say that I was out. The order could no longer be maintained now that I was dead, and Anna could hardly have imagined that he would still be gleaning over from my corpse!

  “I haven’t had any lunch. Couldn’t you get me something, in memory of what I’ve done for him?”

  Nothing is sacred for a cadger, Tornada would say.

  After him, a thin, dull silhouette daintily clad in four-sou elegance. I’m initially at a loss…but her broad, serious forehead, beneath abundant blonde hair reminds me of a scene that I had one day with Lucienne, in the time when I believed in her love. In order to dissipate my wife’s noisy jealousy, I had to sack that stenographer, a true collaborator. She had come a long way to bring me flowers. Her eyes were red.