The Master of Light

by Maurice Renard

  “My great-grandfather!” Bernard rectified, with an ironic smile and a quiver of his unparalleled nose, which had betrayed him as much as the cane with the silver handle.

  “All right,” said Charles. “As I was saying: his mysterious handiwork doesn’t tell us anything definite.” And as his anxious sister’s sobs redoubled, he added, softly: “Calm down, Colomba. Come on, there’s no doubt about it—the murderer is Fabius!”

  “But I don’t want it to be Fabius either!” cried Colomba, weeping all the harder, like a little girl. “I want you to marry the person you love, so that you can be happy too! Oh, Charles, Charles, how I understand you now! A thousand times better than before! And yet, you know…I understood you before…”

  The poor girl hiccupped. Charles embraced her tenderly.

  “It’s not definite that either of the two marriages will be wrecked,” Bertrand observed. “Perhaps, after all, the murderer is neither Fabius nor my anonymous grandfather.”

  “Alas,” said Colomba, as uncontrollable tremors shook her head and shoulders and her arms shivered,” that man had a key to the apartment; he could get into César’s home whenever he pleased.”

  “Don’t excite yourself with suppositions,” Bertrand begged. “Confidence! Patience! And tranquility! Why shouldn’t the best surprises still be in store for us? See here, my dear Colomba, imagine this: that no one killed César.”

  “You’re trying to amuse me to stop me crying. No one! You’re joking!”

  Bertrand examined the plate of luminite, taking an inventory with his eyes of everything that the now-vanished study contained: the furniture presently distributed in several locations; the objects now dispersed or destroyed. The calm of deserted rooms was still there, along with the external movement of passers-by and flying shadows cast from the drawing-room, amid which one could suddenly discern the leaping shadows of monkeys which were presumably quarrelling.

  “Has anyone ever considered suicide?” asked Bertrand, making an abrupt about-turn without much regard for the plate’s safety.

  “The hypothesis was raised by Fabius’s lawyer, but it was unsupported by any evidence, moral or material. César had no reason to kill himself…”

  “Does one ever know?”

  “And then there’s the weapon—the pistol. What became of it, since he was killed instantly?”

  “The open window, the trees…a branch retaining an object thrown through the window…”

  “Killed instantly, I tell you, facing the entrance door….”

  “Facing the door of the antechamber or the drawing-room door. Look, they’re side by side, in the corner.”

  Colomba wiped her eyes and sighed.

  “Better?” Charles asked her.

  “Yes,” she murmured, with a pretty smile.

  “That’s all I wanted,” Bertrand admitted.

  “How good you are, Bertrand,” she said, “And how I love you!” Without letting go of Charles’s hand she was about to lean gently upon her fiancé’s breast when the latter stopped her.

  “Look out! Here’s César and his ward coming back in.”

  That announcement brought them back in front of the plate, observing, taking good care not to interpose themselves between it and the “photographic” equipment—not merely the camera, but also the other luminite plate, which was comparable to a natural and permanent camera.

  Henriette Delille only stayed in her guardian’s study briefly. She was carrying some little packages, encouraging the supposition that she had just been out shopping with César. The latter, seemingly distracted, gave her his tall straw hat and a green umbrella that he had in his hand, and the young woman, after having stood the umbrella in a corner and put the hat on a peg fixed on the door, went out via the drawing-room to attend to her household duties.

  As soon as she had disappeared, César’s features, without losing their somber and sullen expression, were animated by an excitement that he had obviously contained in Henriette’s presence. They saw him take up a stance in the corner of the room, next to the two doors, visibly listening to see whether his ward really had gone away. Then he closed and locked both doors, and promptly headed for the plate of luminite—which, as we recall, was then suspended above the roll-top desk.

  The plate was undoubtedly the object of his movement. He looked at it while he approached it rapidly.

  Colomba, governed by her nerves, instinctively stepped backwards. César, of course, seemed to be looking at them rather than the plate. It was toward them that he seemed to be advancing so resolutely, his face set hard and his eyes gleaming. The illusion was impressive. One might have thought, in fact, that the old man was about to emerge from the frame and suddenly find himself in the midst of his great-grandchildren. They forgot that he was only an image transported by the eternal light: the image of a body that had turned to dust a long time ago; an image rigorously analogous to those of stars that were extinguished centuries ago, the light of which nevertheless reaches us because it has taken many centuries to reach our planet.

  César took down the plate and grabbed a stiletto. The optical effects that we have previously described were replicated. The worker’s fingers, or their shadow, moved along the edge of the luminite that he was about to split.

  Ten minutes later, the plate had resumed its secret observation-post on the wall—and César, without any hesitation, marched to the mantelpiece, going around the circular table. They understood that he had witnessed for himself, retrospectively, the whole scene of the man with the cane, and knew what that individual had done in his home while he was not there.

  In his turn, he lifted up the bust of Napoléon, took out a folded piece of paper that he found underneath it, quickly put on his horn-rimmed spectacles and went to the window in order to see it more clearly. There, his hands trembling and his face anxious, furrowing his bushy eyebrows, he read the note.

  A few moments before, Charles had started the cinematographic apparatus again. Then he made use of his binoculars to attempt to read the text of the note, but he was frustrated, César having positioned himself facing him and no writing being visible on the reverse side of the sheet of paper.

  As he read, a terrible rage took possession of the old man. He crumpled up the missive angrily, making a ball that he stuck into his pocket, and started walking around the table like a wild beast in a cage. As he went, passing close to the doors he turned the keys, opened the drawing-room door, which had not been closed before, and resumed his furious circling.

  “What does all that signify?” Bertrand asked.

  The man with the cane was either acting on his own behalf or for someone else,” Charles reasoned. “Is he someone’s messenger? In that case, why hesitate to believe that he works for Fabius Ortofieri?”

  Bertrand took out his watch and got to his feet. “Don’t go now, I beg you,” said Charles. “Stay a while longer.”

  “Yes, stay!” begged Colomba, in an anxious tone.

  He sat down without saying a word. He was expected at the Variétés for a rehearsal—but what about Colomba! What would he not have missed, for love of Colomba? Especially now.

  He did well to stay. As Charles had anticipated, what followed was worth taking the trouble to see.

  César was still circling, frantically. He suddenly stopped and reflected. He had had an idea and was plotting something. He nodded his head in approval. His decision was made. It was lucky that he was a southerner, for, even when he was alone, he was unsparing with his gestures, and his mime was expressive. However meagerly his thoughts were translated, it was much more than a man of the north would have allowed to appear in the same circumstances.

  He picked up his umbrella and his hat, and hid them in his desk, lowering the rosewood roll-top in order to do so. Then he opened the door to the antechamber violently, went out, stamping hard on the floor-tiles and slammed the door—but reappeared almost immediately, closing the door carefully without making any sound.

  Obviously h
e had just simulated a departure, and it was a good bet that he had also slammed the entrance door on the other side of the antechamber.

  Quickly, he ran to one of the curtains at the window, and hid himself behind the green and blue flower-patterned cloth. There he was invisible.

  He did not have to wait for long.

  A shadow passes along the drawing-room wall, a color shows in the mirror—and the pretty Henriette appears on the threshold, leaning forward slightly, with one hand on the door-frame, her gaze anxious and interrogative.

  Where does that gaze settle first?

  The coat-peg. The straw hat is no longer there.

  The corner where the umbrella had been placed. It is empty.

  Lightly and swiftly, with her ears pricked, Henriette launches herself toward the bust of Napoléon and lifts it up…then lifts it further, searches for something that she does not find, then, annoyed and disappointed, moves the objects surrounding the bust—in vain…

  Ah! One would have sworn that she has cried out in alarm!

  César is there, before her, having emerged from behind his curtain. He stands up straight, very pale, intimidating and authoritarian—and he is holding in his hand the uncrumpled note, which his other hand is striking furiously. He is speaking. What is he saying?

  What he is saying, the facts have announced, and his pantomime does not give the lie to their prediction. “Ah! Ah, my beauty! You’ve just looked under that bust for a note that someone had come, during our absence, to deposit there for you! Well, it’s me who has discovered your note! Look! Here it is, your note! A fine thing! So, Mademoiselle permits herself to enter into a relationship with a gentleman who comes into my house without my knowledge, who violates my home! You tolerate that: that a man should slip under my roof, thanks to your connivance, to hide a message here, in a place agreed between you!”

  It would have been reckless to make César’s gestures and expression say any more than that. Did he know the man with the cane? Had he already forbidden Henriette to see him and correspond with him? Did he mention the key and reproach his ward for having given it to an undesirable womanizer? Did he, in fact, consider the author of the note to be a womanizer? Did he list, in that case, all the reasons that led him to send him away? In relation to these various hypotheses, they could only speculate.

  But César’s fury did not abate. He thundered. He fulminated…

  “He’s in pain,” said Bernard.

  “I believe so,” Charles confirmed.

  The old corsair, standing as tall as his short stature permitted, solidly planted on his stocky legs, recovered the vigor and fire of his youth—and the unfortunate Henriette, submissive and prostrate, leaning on the mantelpiece in a despairing attitude, weathered the storm without trying to justify herself. From time to time, she raised her head fearfully, extending her hand in supplication—but the sight of the furious man robbed her of all courage, and she fell back limply.

  “Poor girl!” said the kindly Colomba. “Oh, my God, what will he do? I wish it were all over!”

  César, at the peak of his fury, had seized his ward’s wrists and was shaking her cruelly, while hurling unknown insults in her face. She let herself fall to her knees, inert, offering no resistance to the rude shaking that was brutalizing her young body, so supple and graceful.

  Finally, the irascible old fool shoved her away with one last violent thrust—and while she remained at his feet, in a state of collapse, but without any tears and showing no sign of repentance, he spoke to her like a master demanding that his orders are obeyed.

  She got to her feet painfully, as if the divine lightness of her 18 years had suddenly become heavy. She stood up, pensive and mournful, facing her guardian, who was now looking at her silently, with a somber expression. Henriette’s face was fully illuminated. Her lifeless eyes were staring into empty space. Mechanically, her fingers played with the cloth of her little apron.

  César, apparently calm, his features contracted but no longer exhibiting any vehemence, resumed speaking in a different tone, betrayed by the shrugging of his shoulders, full of ponderous reprobation. Soothed, having given free rein to his fit of wrath, he devoted himself to a remonstrance tinged with sentiment. He was doubtless talking about wisdom and morality; he was appealing to the young woman’s rationality and sensibility. Finally, standing directly in front of her, taking hold of her arms beneath the shoulder, amid the amplitude of her flared sleeves, he looked very paternally into the beautiful absent eyes, which were riveted elsewhere—and flash of anguish passed back and forth across his serious face as he slowly articulated a sentence that could only be an interrogation. Henriette did not flinch. Nothing was visible in her but sadness and softness, resolution and perseverance. She replied simply by slowly shaking her head several times from right to left. Her decision was irrevocable.

  Then César let her go, as if discouraged, took two steps back and, very coldly, without anger, with a firmness tempered with regret, pronounced a few words. His attitude signified: “Since that’s the way it is…”

  The young woman listened to him, rigid in her courageous sadness. With a wan, heart-broken smile, she said “yes” in such a way that she seemed to be yielding to an evil destiny rather than responding silently to an order. She did not withdraw until a word from César, accompanied by a disillusioned gesture, set her at liberty.

  Left alone, César went to the window, leaned his forehead on one of the panes and did not move. He remained motionless for long minutes, his hands thoughtfully set behind his back. Abruptly, he turned round, lifted his head, shook himself, put his hands to his temples, and fluttered his eyelids, as if suffocated by the situation in which he unexpectedly found himself. Come on! he seemed to be thinking. It’s impossible! Me! Have I come to this? Get a grip, damn it!

  Suddenly, he let himself fall into an armchair, hiding his face in his trembling hands.

  Dusk fell in the vision.

  To satisfy the domestic requirements of Madame Christiani, Charles did not think it appropriate to delay dinner, of which Bertrand Valois partook.

  When they returned to the studio, where the last glimmers of the October twilight had been extinguished for some time, the luminite plate was still emitting a feeble light.

  The beautiful evening of June 30, 1835, one of the longest of the year, filled the image of César Christiani’s study with its dying light. A few windows on the far side of the boulevard were lit up by mediocre yellow fire. A lantern suspended its miserable illumination over the boulevard itself. The roofs and chimneys were bathed by the last redness of the dusk.

  Old César was still there, huddled up in the shadows.

  “Anything new?” asked Bertrand Valois, who did not attempt to hide his anxiety and the keen interest that he now took in the revelations of the luminite.

  It was the day after César’s anger and despair, early in the afternoon. Charles was in the studio.

  “Just that your grandfather, in the form of the young man who has your nose and your cane, has ‘got it in the neck’ this morning, if I might express it thus,” he told him.

  “He’s come back, then?”

  “Yes. In my opinion, he was invited by César. I had the idea yesterday, at the conclusion of that heart-rending scene, that Henriette had received an order to invite her lover to come and explain himself to César as soon as possible—and he deferred to that imperative invitation immediately.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’ll see it on the cinema screen when the film is developed and shown. I turned the camera during the conversation, which was tempestuous. Or would you prefer that we separate the leaves of the second plate that recorded it immediately?”

  “Bah! Tell me what happened first. Let’s not complicate things. But tell me, did you get the impression that the interview augments the evidence accusing my ancestor?”

  “That supposed ancestor might only be your great-uncle. Perhaps the man with the cane has a sister who resembl
es him, and it’s her from whom you’re descended…and everything’s all right!”

  “I’ve already thought of that. So long as no supplementary proof comes along to confirm my apprehensions, a feeble hope remains. I’ve also told myself that your mother might not perceive that accursed resemblance…”

  “That’s doubtful,” said Charles, in an ambiguous tone.

  “However,” Bertrand objected, “suppose that, even if César was killed by the man with the cane, and Madame Christiani is fated to witness the murder via retrovision, the murderer doesn’t have his cane with him on that day.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, your mother won’t be aware of one of the principal reasons for our believing that that man is my ancestor! For—let’s be sincere between the two of us, and not nurse any false hopes—that is what we believe, and nothing else. It’s 99% certain that I’m that I’m the grandson, not the great-nephew of the man with the cane!”

  Charles looked glum. “All right,” he said. “Let’s suppose that my mother remains uncertain. Let’s even suppose that she doesn’t suspect anything at all—which is highly unlikely. What then?”

  “Then we’re saved, of course! Not only will you marry Mademoiselle Rita Ortofieri, since her grandfather will be innocent, but nothing will stand in the way of Colomba being my wife, since your mother won’t know, according to this hypothesis, that my grandfather is guilty!”

  Charles’s silence and his disconcerting gaze gave rise to a certain anxiety in Bertrand’s mind, and immediately reminded him that Madame Christiani was not the only member of the family who placed a fanatical respect for tradition and the grim memory of offences above all other considerations.

  “That’s true,” he said. “You too!”

  After that, there was an extremely heavy silence. Then Bertrand extended his hand and said: “I beg your pardon.” He did not attempt to argue or beg in order to appeal to Charles’s intelligence and modify his traditional sentiments. He knew full well that such sentiments are unshakable and that, although they seem extreme to those who do not share them, those who experience them, passed down from father to son for generations, hold them to be the very foundations of duty and bases of morality.