The Second Life of Doctor Albin

by Raoul Gineste

  As he got closer to Père-Lachaise, the increasingly compact multitude took on a silent and meditative sect that moved him involuntarily. From the anxious expressions of some and the hope-illuminated eyes of others he could deduce various beliefs, what curbed all those heads, the sentiment compound of respect and fear that dominated those countless living individuals, was the religion of death.

  An instinctive terror chilled his heart. His action appeared to him in all its criminal horror: he had offended the pitiless Goddess, he had toyed with her power, he had mocked her worship. And to arrive at what pitiful result?

  He almost regretted having thought of the duty whose accomplishment was occasioning him discouraging thoughts. He hastened his steps, penetrated into the cemetery and followed the narrow path that led to the Albin family crypt. A woman in full mourning, whom he recognized from afar, was coming toward him with slow steps.

  His heart started to beat violently; what part had he had in her prayers and her tears? Quickly, he hid behind a stele and was thus able to study her at close range. This time, the face had an unhealthy pallor and was marked by nascent wrinkles; her expression was full of reserve and tenderness.

  The resemblance that he had thought so striking now appeared to him more uncertain and vague. Had he, then, been the victim of an illusion of costume and make-up, perhaps a hallucination? His overexcited imagination alone was culpable!

  It was the first time since the day of the funeral solemnities that he had seen the place where, by virtue of his cunning will, his first existence, so favored by destiny, had come to an end. He was no longer thinking of laughing. The funereal monument, which he perceived in the distance, appeared to him as an ironic reproach. He advanced almost regretfully.

  He went nevertheless to deposit on the tomb the bouquet of hyacinths that he was holding in his hand, and gazed for a long time, plunged in a profound sadness compounded of disillusion and remorse and the iron door that had closed on his wellbeing, and reread several times the epitaph that celebrated the glory of Professor Albin. Then, fleeing the location that reminded him of his overly audacious lie, he made appeal to his pride, which was the only thing still sustaining his wounded hope.

  What is death? A change of state; he had not, therefore, deceived anyone; was he not the master of his existence? He had committed civil suicide. That was his right; the error, the crime would rather be to believe that he was mistaken, to abandon the task he had undertaken, to want to resume his original personality; but if he had vaguely thought of that in a moment of weakness, he was not so cowardly, above all now that that amorous whim had suddenly vanished.

  He left the cemetery, astonished to have almost recovered calm and forgetfulness.

  Soon, a strange impression took possession of his heart.

  It seemed to him that, like Mariette, his wife was dead forever, and that, thus confounded, he loved them both with an effaced and distant amour.

  Chapter XXXII

  A messenger had been waiting for him at his home for a short while; the editor of the newspaper requested that he come to the office immediately.

  “Herr Doctor,” he said—they had an irritating mania in the editorial offices of making him understand that they considered him to be a shameful German—“it’s an opportunity to distinguish yourself forever. A talented young sculptor, in the intelligent hope that the State might make the acquisition, had just completed a very fine statue of the illustrious Dr. Albin. The director of the Beaux-Arts has exhausted his budget—the directors of the Beaux-Arts never have any money, that’s taken for granted—but he has applauded the idea and advised a public appeal and had promised formally to support it. A committee, the cream of the crop, has been formed, the paper has been chosen to launch the subscription and I have orders to set out on campaign immediately.

  “As it’s a patriotic endeavor and, at the same time, excellent publicity for us, you’re going to write me an article quickly, for tomorrow: you know, one of those uplifting, decisive articles overflowing with enthusiasm; in brief, something to whip up excitement. Above all, don’t forget the chauvinistic aspect. The patriotic couplet in confections of that sort is as necessary as it is in café concert songs; one battles on scientific terrain as on others; it’s necessary to prove to foreign science that we’re not prepared to let ourselves be overtaken. You can see the fine humanitarian tirade from here: no more fratricidal struggles, no more bloody battles, but a noble rivalry for the conquests of Science and Art, etc.”

  Dr. Iblan was in no hurry to reply. “It’s just that,” he ended up venturing, “I consider Dr. Albin’s doctrine to be stained by error.”

  “Ha!” said the editor, in the most indifferent tone. “That’s your affair; I don’t care whether, privately, you approve of Dr. Albin’s doctrine or not, I want you to write an enthusiastic article that will declare him perfect, that’s all. The paper isn’t a scholarly academy, we’re not forced to take a position in a technical discussion; the excellence of Dr. Albin’s theories is a matter of public notoriety and we’re launching a subscription; it’s a matter of ensuring its success.

  “For that, the article I’m demanding from you is absolutely indispensable. That a few foreign or French scholars don’t admit all of the celebrated chemist’s ideas is possible, even probable; what theory doesn’t have its detractors? But it’s necessary for you to refrain from breathing a word of that; the slightest restriction might chill the generosity of the public, and a failed subscription is worse than a lost battle.”

  “I’d pass for a weather-vane—I’ve already voiced contrary opinions.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to take responsibility for the article, I’ll sign it myself. But it requires specialist knowledge to write it, you’re my scientific reporter and it’s entirely natural that I should address myself to you.”

  “I no longer have any prejudices,” the crestfallen reporter declared, effortfully, having not succeeded in vanquishing his repugnance. “I’ve had to say the opposite of what I thought many a time. In this circumstance, however, I admit to you honestly that it would be impossible for me to do the work you’re demanding. It would be necessary for me to proclaim loudly admirations that I no longer have, convictions whose abandonment has caused me many difficulties. Believe me, in spite of all the effort I might put into it, I couldn’t arrive at the enthusiasm you think necessary.”

  The editor looked at him in complete surprise.

  “Oh, I understand,” he exclaimed, in the end. “You’re not French—I’d forgotten that. That’s all right, my dear Monsieur, I’ll think again.”

  As he expected, the reporter embarrassed by so many scruples was dismissed a few days later under some pretext.

  That dismissal, combined with the success of the subscription, which surpassed all expectations, threw him back into the struggle.

  He had been greatly mistaken to lay down his arms; Dr. Albin’s renown was an implacable enemy that would grant no mercy to any assault and prevent him edifying his own; it was necessary to make the greatest efforts to prepare its collapse.

  He inundated editorial offices with violent and perfidious articles, which were, for the most part, thrown into the rubbish bin. Some, the most attenuated, appeared in rival papers and aroused the indignation of the official establishment.

  Why the devil was that foreign maniac always mixing in our affairs? On behalf of what foreign government was he working? He had certainly asked for papers of naturalization, but was that better to conceal his game?

  He felt that he was spied upon, followed by suspect individuals who dogged his steps and watched his slightest moves.

  As long as they did not discover, beneath his mask, the bone-setter Balin and the vagabond Jacques Liban...

  The United States legation had him informed confidentially that he would do better to cease his attacks; the French government had the right to expel him and would seize the first opportunity to do so. A scientific dispute was not, it is true, a sufficient
reason, but the rage and acrimony that he was putting into demolishing such a well-established reputation had made him numerous and powerful enemies. Ambushes would be set for him, and he would end up compromising himself in some equivocal adventure.

  He was warned, in addition, that an investigation had established the recent date of his American naturalization, and traces of him were being sought in Cuba.

  That advice gave him pause for thought; he felt, once again, temporarily vanquished. After all, why should Dr. Albin not have his statue? Others less meritorious had that honor. Ought he not to be flattered, fundamentally, by an homage rendered to his original self? In what way would the statue of Dr. Albin prevent him from demonstrating the falsity of his doctrine? It would consecrate his reputation, to be sure, but what glory could resist the proofs that the Dynamic Chemistry would bring? An accumulation of poor reasons soothed his self-esteem in order to dissimulate and attenuate defeat.

  Exhausted and discouraged by so much futile effort, he went to ground with the pride of a wounded beast. He had lost the position as a journalist that had brought him influence and profit; he no longer even had the self-respect, the good opinion of his moral value that had sustained him in difficult circumstances; he was no better than the others; his short passage in the press had sufficed to accustom him to compromises that he would once have repudiated arrogantly. He could not, however, lower himself to writing an enthusiastic eulogy of the man he was destined to combat, lick the feet of the bronze elevated to the reputation he wanted to destroy, resign himself to acts of base domesticity. That would have been to lose his self-esteem completely. And, even though he had put out his hand to beg, even though he had accepted the aid of a whore, he did not feel that he was yet sufficiently degraded to do that.

  A strange situation, that obliged him to become the artisan of his own incessant disappointments.

  For the moment, he had to seek new resources; the practice of medicine was too absorbing, and in any case had not succeeded; pharmaceutical work only presented itself at rare intervals. Was he about to fall back into the Bohemian ways from which he thought he had liberated himself?

  He spent that day on the Boulevard des Italiens.

  A carriage emerged from the Grand Hôtel, loaded with baggage. A gentleman with a bronzed complexion turned round swiftly on perceiving him and studied him with and interrogative stare. The vehicle was about to break into a trot; the foreigner stopped it and summoned the passer-by with a gesture.

  “Can you, Monsieur,” he asked, in English, “give me news of Monsieur Charles Balin?”

  Dr. Iblan, made wary by the police surveillance of which he was the object, instinctively put on an astonished expression.

  “I don’t have the honor,” he replied, in the most natural tone, “of knowing the person of whom you speak.”

  “I regret it infinitely! Excuse me, Monsieur; I mistook you for his most intimate friend.” He made a sign, and the coachman urged the horses forward at a trot.

  Confused, Dr. Iblan searched his memories. That face was not unfamiliar to him, and it was someone who had recognized him. He must have a very particular gift for physiognomy.

  He uttered an exclamation of surprise: “Raphael!”

  He leapt into a fiacre and had himself taken to the Gare St-Lazare. The London train was leaving just as he gained access to the platform.

  He returned to the Grand; the list of numerous foreigners that was communicated to him furnished him with no indication.

  That abortive encounter caused him a real chagrin; he had certainly lost an exceptional opportunity to arrive at his goal. Raphael, emerging from the Grand Hôtel under aristocratic appearances, had acquired some large fortune, and would have hastened to aid him. Perhaps he had even returned to Paris to find his former companion in misfortune.

  While Dr. Iblan spent, in order to live, the money that he had hoped to devote to the publication of his work, the monument erected to the glory of Dr. Albin was readied for its inauguration.

  He had already seen the bronze in a gallery in the Champs-Élysées; the artist had represented him with natural grandeur, clad in his professorial gown—that bronze gown must have cost a small fortune—examining with an inspired expression the retort he as holding in his hand; allegorical figures of Physics and Chemistry were extending a fraternal hand to Medicine, leaning on the pedestal. A bas-relief represented his tragic death in Tonkin, and Renown, with chubbier cheeks than usual, was playing the fanfare of his glory on a bronze trumpet. All that art has of the conventional and the pompous was assembled in the work, whose execution was not, however, devoid of merit.

  The inauguration was to take place on the twentieth of July at two o’clock in the afternoon, in one of the squares of the Latin Quarter.

  At first he had promised himself that he would not go to watch it, and had even sworn to take some suburban train that day, but vanity soon put an end to those vain hopes.

  Since the Roman emperors, a few kings had seen, while alive, the marble or bronze that would consecrate their great deeds, sand apart from them, no mortal had ever had that honor. Ought he to avoid an opportunity to experience such a rare impression? In any case, could any event which, for good or ill, related to his goal, leave him indifferent? Had he not followed the illustrious professor’s interment without flinching? He could surely witness the inauguration of his statue.

  The pharmacist that employed him had an invitation, from which some other event prevented him from employing; he accepted the offer of it and when the day came, after further hesitations but yielding to the mysterious force that seemed to dominate and direct his will, he headed for the square where the monument, still covered with its white sheet, stood in the midst of a metropolitan décor. Oriflammes were fluttering on the fourteenth of July flagpoles left standing for the occasion, and escutcheons surrounded by tricolor flags representing scientific emblems, with mottos borrowed from quotations in the Latin grammar, had been nailed to them Labor improbus omnia vincit, etc., were resplendent there in golden letters. The setting seemed insufficient and banal; he was almost disappointed.

  The platform reserved for the public was already filled with people who, for the sake of discretion, had sat down in the back seats; only the first few rows were still empty. He thus found himself, against his will, placed in plain sight facing the official platform, and the chairs occupied by the members of the committee. Even though a generous wine, taken with his lunch, had given him courage, that kind of involuntary bravado embarrassed him sensibly.

  Certainly, he had no fear of being recognized, but he was keenly aware of the indiscretion involved in displaying himself to all gazes. Already, journalists and colleagues had noticed the intruder; people were pointing at him and whispering. What was Dr. Albin’s relentless detractor doing there, and who had had the poor taste to invite him?

  Momentarily, he wanted to get up and go; an iron hand clamped him in place.

  The official delegates, the entire Faculté de Médecine and numerous personalities from all parts of society came in turn to take possession of their seats. At a distance, a crowd in their Sunday clothing, maintained by a cordon of municipal guards on horseback and uniformed policemen, formed a circle around the platforms and the monument. All the youth of the schools was there, street-hawkers were selling tricolor insignia or advertising the illustrious Dr. Albin’s biography. Here and there, colored umbrellas seemed to be flowering in a bed of human heads.

  Finally, the band of the Republican Guard launched into the inevitable Marseillaise; the carriages of the Minister of Public Education and War, escorted by a platoon of cuirassiers, had just arrived.

  Soon the Grand Master of the Universities of France, lending his arm to the widow of the celebrated deceased, came to occupy the seat of honor, sitting Madame Larmezan down to his right and the Minister of War to his left; behind them, officers decked with gold, professors in red robes, foreign representatives covered in decorations, functionaries in braided a
nd embroidered coats, deputes and senators with a their insignia and delegates of all sorts arranged themselves on the steps of the official stage, decorated in grenadine velvet with a golden fringe, garlanded with foliage and flowers.

  Dr. Larmezan, with his long thin face, black beard and Arab profile, enveloped in his scarlet robe, came to sit beside his wife. Facing him, Dr. Iblan, clearly in view, was already serving as a target for his eyes. The director of his former newspaper and the members of the committee had hastened to signal his presence. Shrugs and ironic smiles were emitted from all the ranks.

  He had been humiliated by the public hostility; the official disdain struck his pride like a whiplash. Did he not have the right to be there? Who had more right than he did to witness the ceremony? He raised his head and paraded his gaze over all the spectators.

  In any other circumstances he would have avoided pausing it on Madame Larmezan, but today once again, by an unfortunate fatality, the indelicate comparison he had made at the Hôtel Continental, awakening an unconscious curiosity, took possession of his mind again. He saw Dr. Larmezan lean toward his wife and say a few words to her in a low voice. The window of the glorious deceased looked straight at the foreign chemist, blushed suddenly, made an abrupt movement of anger and struck him with a thunderous glare. He was both pained and delighted. She had loved Dr. Albin, then, since she was spitting in the face of his detractor—for, he had sensed, the gesture was sincere and the anger real.

  How pretentious and stupid I am, he immediately thought. She’s defending the glory that reflects on her and nothing else. If she had loved Dr. Albin, she would have noticed, divined, that I resemble him.

  Behind the fan that served her as a veil he sensed a gaze imprinted with profound astonishment fixed upon him.

  The band had fallen silent; the minister saluted the widow of the illustrious professor with a few amiable words, and the official dithyrambs commenced. Apart from a few periods and epithets adapted for the circumstances, they were no different from those pronounced before his tomb.