Thirty Hours with a Corpse

by Maurice Level

  An unspeakable horror took possession of Madame de Hartevel; a quick flash of understanding dominated her fear, and, her eyes wild, she flung herself on her husband, digging her nails in his face as she shrieked:

  “Fiend! . . . He wasn’t dead! . . .”

  M. de Hartevel pushed her off with the back of his hand, and standing straight up before her, jeered:

  “Did you think he was?”

  Who?

  THAT DAY I had worked very late, so late that when at length I raised my eyes from my desk, I found twilight had invaded my study. For some minutes I sat perfectly still, my brain in the dull condition that follows a big mental effort, and looked round mechanically. Everything was gray and formless in the half-light, except where reflections from the last rays of the setting sun made little patches of brightness on table or mirror or picture. One must have fallen with particular strength on a skull placed on the top of a bookcase, for, looking up, I saw it clearly enough to distinguish every detail from the point of the cheekbones to the brutal angle of the jaw. As everything else became swallowed up in the fast-deepening shadow, it seemed to me that slowly but surely this head quickened into life and became covered with flesh; lips came down over the teeth, eyes filled the orbits, and soon, by some strange illusion, I had before me, as if suspended in the darkness, a face that was looking at me.

  It was watching me fixedly, the mouth set in a mocking smile. It was not one of those vague floating images one sees in hallucinations: this face appeared so real that for a second I was tempted to stretch out my hand to touch it. Immediately the cheeks dissolved, the orbits emptied, a slight mist enveloped it . . . and I saw nothing but a skull like all other skulls.

  I lit my lamp and went on with my writing. Twice or thrice I raised my eyes to the place where I had seen the apparition; then the momentary excitement it had caused died away, and my head bent over my desk, I forgot all about it.

  Now, a few days later, as I was going out of my house, near my door I passed a young man who drew aside to allow me to cross the road. I bowed. He did the same and went on. But the face was familiar, and believing it was someone I knew, I turned to look after him, imagining he might have stopped. He had not, but I stood watching him till he disappeared among the passersby. “A mistake on my part,” I thought, but to my surprise, I kept on asking myself: “Where the devil have I seen him? . . . In the drawing-room? . . . At the hospital? . . . In my consultingroom? . . . No . . . I concluded that he must resemble someone else and dismissed him from my thoughts. Or tried to—for in spite of myself I continued to endeavor to place him. I certainly knew the head well: its deep-set eyes, hard, steady gaze, cleanshaven lip, straight mouth, and square jaw made it too characteristic to be either forgotten or mistaken for that of another person. Where on earth had I seen it? During the whole evening it obsessed me, coming between me and what I looked at, giving me that feeling of irritation caused by not being able to remember a name or some melody that haunts you. And this persisted for a long time, for weeks.

  One day I saw my Unknown again in the street. As I approached I almost stared at him. On his part he looked at me with the same frigid expression, with the cold look I knew so well; but he betrayed no sign of knowing me, did not hesitate a second, and avoided me by turning sharply to the right. My conclusion was the inevitable one. If I really knew him he must also know me, and meeting me face to face for the second time, would have shown it by a glance or movement as if to stop. There had been nothing of this: I was therefore the victim of an illusion.

  And I forgot all about him.

  Some time after this, late one afternoon, a man was shown into my consulting room. He was hardly over the threshold when, much surprised, I rose to greet him: it was my Unknown. And once again the likeness that had so obsessed me was so striking that, mechanically, I walked toward him with outstretched hand as to an acquaintance. He showed surprise, and I almost stammered as I pointed to a chair, saying:

  “Excuse me, but you are so extraordinarily like . . .”

  Under his cold, intent gaze, I left my sentence unfinished, saying instead:

  “What can I do for you?”

  Sitting quietly with his two hands stretched on the arm of his chair, he did not reply immediately. I was beginning once more to cudgel my brains: “Where have I seen him?” when suddenly a thought, or rather an extraordinary vision flashed into my mind, a vision amazing enough almost to surprise me into crying aloud: “I know.” At last I had succeeded in locating him—I had recognized on the shoulders of this living man the head that had appeared to me one evening in the darkness above my bookcase! It was not a resemblance: it was identically the same face. The coincidence was sufficiently curious to distract my attention from what he was saying, and he had been talking for some moments before I began to follow his case:

  “I don’t think I was ever normal. When I was quite young I began to feel different from other boys, to have sudden desires to rush away, to hide myself, to be alone; while at other times I longed passionately for society, for wild excitements that would make me forget myself. Sometimes, for little or no reason, I had sudden fits of temper that almost choked me . . . They sent me to the sea, to the mountains: nothing did me any good. At the present time I start at the slightest sound; a very bright light hurts me like a pain; and though all my organs are sound—I have been to several doctors—the whole of my body aches. Even if I sleep, I wake in the morning as tired as if I had been dissipating all night. Frequently a feeling of agony of mind for which there is no real cause makes my brain giddy; I can’t sleep, or if I do, I have horrible nightmares . . .”

  “Do you drink?”

  “I have a horror of wine, of every kind of alcohol; I drink nothing but water. But I haven’t yet told you the worst . . .” (he hesitated) . . . “what it is that is really grave in my condition . . . If anyone contradicts me even, about a trifle, for a look, a gesture, a nothing, a sort of fury takes possession of me. I am careful never to carry any weapon in case I might be unable to resist using it. It seems to me that at these times my own will leaves me, as if that of someone else takes its place; it drives me on, I cease to be my own master, and when I come back to myself I can’t remember anything—except that I wanted to murder someone! If one of these crises takes me when I am at home, I can shut myself up safely in my own room, but if, as sometimes happens, I am out, I know nothing more till I find myself perhaps sitting on a bench alone at night in some strange place. Then, remembering the fury I felt and coupling it with the lassitude that has followed and the impossibility of recollecting what I have done, I begin to wonder if I have committed some crime. I rush home and shut myself up, my heart beats violently whenever the bell rings, and I have no peace of mind till some days have gone by and I feel sure that once again I have been saved from myself. You will understand, Doctor, that this state of things can’t go on. I shall lose not only my health, but my reason . . . What am I to do?”

  “There’s nothing to be really alarmed about,” I replied. “These are only the symptoms of a nervous condition that will yield to treatment. Let us try to find its cause. Do you work very hard?—No.—Is there anything in your life that is likely to cause great nerve-strain?—No.—Any excesses?—None.—You can tell a doctor anything . . .”

  His tone was convincing as he replied:

  “I have told you the truth.”

  “Let us look for other reasons. Have you any brothers or sisters?—No.—Your mother is alive?—Yes.—She is probably very high-strung?—Not at all.—And your father?—Is he strong, too?”

  In a very low voice he replied:

  “My father is dead.”

  “He died young?”

  “Yes, I was just two years old.”

  “Do you know what he died of ?”

  This question seemed to affect him deeply, for he grew very pale. At this moment more than at any other I was struck by the extraordinary resemblance between him and the apparition. After a pause, he replied
:

  “Yes . . . and that is why my condition terrifies me. I know what my father died of: my father was guillotined.”

  Ah, how I regretted having pushed my investigations so far! I tried to glide off to something else; but we now understood each other. Endeavoring to speak naturally and hopefully, I gave him some general advice and some kind of prescription; then I told him that he must have confidence in himself, and be sure to come back to me soon. After I had gone to the door with him I said to my servant:

  “I will not see anyone else today.”

  I was not in a state to listen to or examine a sick person. My mind was confused: the apparition . . . the resemblance . . . this confession . . . I sat down and tried to collect my thoughts, but in spite of myself my eyes kept fixing themselves on the skull. I looked in vain for the strange resemblance that had for so long puzzled me—I saw nothing but its mysterious mask. But I was unable to keep my gaze from it; the head drew me toward it . . . I ended by leaving my chair and going to lift it down.

  Then it was that, raising it in my hands, I became aware of an extraordinary thing that had till now escaped my notice. The lower part of the back of the head was marked by a broad and sharp groove, an unmistakable gash such as would be made by the violent stroke of an axe, such as is made on the necks of those who are executed by the instinctive retreat of the body at the supreme moment from the knife of the guillotine.

  It may have been nothing but coincidence. Perhaps it could be explained by saying that I had already seen, without noticing, my consultant in the street, and that, unknowingly, the face thus subconsciously registered in my memory had come before me when I was looking at the skull the night of the apparition . . . Perhaps . . . perhaps? . . . But there are mysteries, you know, that it is wiser not to try to solve.

  Illusion

  BLUE WITH cold, clutching at the bottom of his pockets the few pence he had earned that morning by opening and shutting the doors of cabs, his head bent toward his shoulder in an attempt to get some shelter from the biting wind, the beggar moved among the hurrying crowd, too weary to accost, too benumbed to risk holding out a bare hand.

  Blown sideways in powdery flakes, the snow caught in his beard, or melted on his neck. He did not notice it, for he was lost in a dream.

  “If I were rich, just for an hour . . . I’d have a carriage . . .”

  He stopped, thought for a moment, shook his head, and asked himself:

  “And what else? . . .”

  Visions of various kinds of luxury passed through his mind. But every time he formulated a wish, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “No, that’s not it . . . Is it then so difficult to get just one minute of real happiness? . . .”

  As he trudged along in this way he saw another beggar who was shivering under the protecting doorway of a house, his features drawn, his hand outstretched, his voice so weak it was lost in the noises of the street as he droned:

  “Help, if you please . . . Please help me . . .”

  Close by him sat a dog, a poor bedraggled cur that trembled as it barked, feebly trying to wag its tail. He stopped. At the sight of this other brother in affliction, the dog yelped a little louder, rubbing its nose against him.

  He looked with attention at the beggar, at his rags, his gaping shoes, his poor hands blue with cold, at the set, livid face with closed eyes, at the gray placard on his breast which bore the one word: “Blind.”

  Feeling that a man had stopped before him, the blind man took up his plaintive cry:

  “Help, Monsieur . . . Pity the poor blind . . .”

  The beggar stood motionless. The passersby quickened their steps, turning their heads away. A woman loaded with furs and followed by a servant in livery who held an umbrella over her came out of the door of the house and walking quickly on the tips of her toes as she protected her mouth with her muff, was swallowed up in her carriage.

  The blind man kept on murmuring his monotonous appeal:

  “Help . . . Please spare me a copper . . .”

  But no one paid any attention to him. After a time the beggar took some coppers from his pocket and held them out. Seeing the action the dog barked with pleasure. The blind man closed his trembling fingers on the halfpence and said:

  “Thank you, Monsieur . . . may God reward you . . .”

  Hearing himself addressed as “Monsieur,” the beggar was on the point of replying:

  “I’m not ‘Monsieur,’ mate. I’m just another poor devil as miserable as yourself . . .”

  But he restrained himself, and knowing only too well how the poor are spoken to, answered:

  “It is very little, my poor fellow . . .”

  “You are very kind, Monsieur . . . it is so cold, and you must have taken your hands out of your pockets for me. It is bad weather for the infirm . . . If people only knew . . .”

  A great pity welled up in the heart of the beggar as he muttered:

  “I know . . . I know . . .”

  Then, forgetting his own poverty in the face of this greater affliction, he asked:

  “Were you born blind?”

  “No . . . it came as I grew old . . . At the hospital they told me that it was caused by age . . . cataract, they called it, I think . . . But I know better . . . I know that it wasn’t only age that brought it . . . I have had too many misfortunes . . . I have shed too many tears . . .”

  “You have had a great deal of trouble?”

  “Oh, Monsieur! . . . In one year I lost my wife, my daughter, my two sons . . . all that I loved . . . all I had to love me. I almost died myself, but gradually I began to get better . . . But I wasn’t able to work any more . . . Then it was poverty . . . destitution . . . Some days I don’t have anything to eat at all. I’ve had nothing since yesterday but a crust of bread, and I gave half to my dog . . . With the money you gave me, I shall get some more for tonight and tomorrow.”

  As he listened the beggar turned over the coppers in his pocket. He was trying to count them, distinguishing by touch the difference between the pence and halfpence. He had elevenpence-halfpenny. He said:

  “Come with me. It’s too cold here. I will see that you have something to eat.”

  The blind man reddened with pleasure, stammering:

  “Oh, Monsieur . . . you are too kind . . .”

  “Come . . .”

  Careful that the other should not feel how wet his own clothes were, how thin, he took him by the arm, and they set off. The dog, its head up, its ears cocked, led the way through the people, pulling sharply at its chain when they crossed a road where there was traffic. They walked on like this for a long time, finally stopping before a little restaurant in a back street.

  The beggar opened the door and said to the blind man:

  “Come in . . .”

  Choosing a table near the stove, he made him sit down and took a chair near him.

  Some workmen, all of them silent, were hungrily emptying the small thick plates before them. The blind man took the lead off his dog and held his hands out to the fire, sighing:

  “It’s very comfortable here . . .”

  The beggar called the girl who was waiting and ordered some soup and boiled beef. She asked:

  “And what will you have?”

  “Nothing.”

  When the soup, which smelled very appetizing, and the meat were before him, the blind man began to eat slowly and in silence. The beggar watched him, cutting little bits of bread that he held under the table to the dog. The soup and meat finished, he said:

  “Have something to drink. It will put some strength into your legs.”

  Later, he called the servant:

  “How much?”

  “Tenpence-halfpenny.”

  He paid, leaving the remaining penny for the girl, and helped his companion to rise. When they were back in the street, he asked:

  “Do you live far from here?”

  “Where are we?”

  “Near St. Lazare station.”

  “Far e
nough. I sleep in a shed on the other side of the river.”

  “I’ll go part of the way with you.”

  The blind man kept on thanking him. He replied:

  “No . . . no . . . it’s not worth mentioning . . .”

  Without knowing why, he felt happy, supremely happy, happier than he ever remembered feeling. As he walked along, lost in dreamy thoughts, he forgot that he himself had been without food since yesterday, that he had no place to sleep in that night; he forgot his miseries, his rags, that he was a beggar.

  From time to time he said gently to the blind man:

  “Am I going too quickly? Are you very tired?”

  The blind man, humble and grateful, answered:

  “No . . . oh, no, Monsieur . . .”

  He smiled, happy to hear himself addressed in that way, soothed alike by the illusion he was giving the other and his own odd sensation of being a rich, charitable person . . .

  On the quay, feeling the dampness of the air from the river, the blind man said:

  “Now I can find my way alone. I have my dog.”

  “Yes, I will say goodbye,” replied the beggar in a solemn voice.

  For a strange thought had taken possession of him: the illusion that he had so often and so ardently desired, had it not become a reality? Had he not at last enjoyed the sensation of perfect happiness? Had not this last hour given him more joy than any of his wildest dreams of wealth and rich food and love? This blind man had no suspicion that he had been leaning on the arm of a beggar as poor as himself . . . had he not been able to believe himself rich, and could he hope ever again to feel the deep, unmixed joy of tonight?

  But the elation did not last long. Suddenly realities came back. He said a second time:

  “Yes . . . I will leave you now.”

  They had reached the middle of the bridge. He stopped, felt once more in his pockets to see if by any chance a halfpenny remained there. Not one . . .

  He grasped the blind man’s hand, pressed it warmly, while the other said: