Doctor Lerne

by Maurice Renard

  Brown was sitting on a high stool at a designer’s desk, smoking a cigarette. Drawings, plans and blueprints were mingled with rulers and set-squares in front of him.

  “Good day,” he said. “Did you sleep well? I’ve found a way to change gear on a chainless bicycle.”

  “Oh, really?” I replied, stupidly. I could not tell him what I had to say. The diabolical fellow was as cold as ice. Wherever he goes, there’s always a Protestant church wrapped around him. “That’s nice,” I added. “You’re a stout fellow, Brown. It’s really very good….”

  “What’s the matter with you, Dupont? You’ve got a strange expression. Aren’t we going out? Where’s your hat?”

  “Well,” I said, resolutely, “I need to talk to you. I’m very tired, Brown…”

  “Sit down.”

  “It’s not that. My fatigue didn’t begin yesterday…”

  “You’ve been working hard.”

  “Yes, and as my work isn’t congenial, it wearies me all the more—and that, above all, is the cause of my exhaustion. It’s more mental than physical. Since the end of last year, the situation has grown worse on a daily basis. I’m worried, Brown—I won’t hide it from you.”

  “Spleen,” he said. “You need to take a trip. It astonishes me that you suffer from spleen, because you’re a stout, ruddy-complexioned fellow, but I can see, all the same, that you do.”

  I seized upon an unexpected suggestion in his reply. “A trip, Brown? Do you think so? What would happen to the business? Remember that I haven’t abandoned you for longer than a day in 20 years.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed.

  Rapidly, I went on: “Oh, I know very well that Verneuil, the accountant, is very capable. He’s certainly as familiar with the business as I am, but…”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, he’s very intelligent, Verneuil…”

  “Go, then! Undertake a tour of some sort—the world, if you have the money, or France. You have to undertake a trip, though—it’s the most effective cure for spleen.”

  “That’s what…thank you, Brown, for being willing to assume command of the business…except that…well, you’re very kind, Brown, but…I’ve been invited by a friend to stay with him for a while…”

  It seemed to me that my associate’s eyes became brighter.

  “Here—I got this letter this morning…read it, Brown…”

  He scanned it, and, as he did so, I repeated the fortunate news back to myself.

  My dear friend,

  In replying to my December letter, you confessed your fondness for the countryside. Why don’t you come to exercise it in Les Ormes?

  I’m counting on you and shan’t take no for an answer.

  R. de Gambertin.2

  P.S. It goes without saying that it’s a season I’m asking of you, and two if possible. The Sun will be shining brightly, so come soon. I’m expecting you.

  Brown looked at me, with an amused expression. “I suspect that your spleen began in December. You’re ill simply because you’ve envisaged the remedy—but that’s no reason why you shouldn’t take it. Who’s Monsieur de Gambertin?”

  “A childhood friend. We lost contact with one another when we left school. He was rich, and traveled for pleasure until he was almost impoverished. Now he lives in an old family château in Les Ormes. I don’t know exactly what he does there. Nothing, I dare say. He probably took it into his head to write to me in order to feel a little less lonely…and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Go pack your suitcase, Dupont; I’m glad that I can be useful to you. You have every right to six months leave every twenty years. You can leave today.”

  “No, Brown, I don’t want to—the work is too heavy for one person alone; The Exposition Universelle will increase trade considerably. It’s not reasonable…”

  “Not another word!” he said, brusquely. “It’s settled.”

  And yet, I was sincere. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as helpless as at that moment. That sudden liberty gave me a sensation of emptiness; as I contemplated my six months of vacation it was as if I were on the threshold of a desert.

  I seized Brown’s hands in mine, with what must have been a comically exaggerated effusiveness, for he burst out laughing and cried as he shoved me out: “Come on—don’t play the poet, you fat Manfred!”

  I went back to my own apartment and started pacing around in all directions without being able to settle down to anything. All the familiar objects stared at me in a disapproving manner, especially the clock, with the round eye of its dial, and the Louis XVI barometer with its larger pupil, which I consulted every day before setting off for the office.

  Within its glass case, the clock marked 9 a.m. The barometer indicated “Variable” but its needle described a sudden arc and stopped on “Set Fair.” That was encouraging. Magnanimous circumstance itself was exhorting me to depart.

  The housekeeper came in then. The servant’s presence confirmed my decision.

  “Madam Grenier, I’m going away. I’ll return in six months’ time. Tomorrow—Monday—various purchases; Tuesday, en route! You’ll be kind enough to come in to do the dusting from time to time, won’t you?”

  “Very well, Monsieur. What about the chickens?”

  My God—the chickens! A diversion from my bureaucratic life! The chickens that the landlady permitted me to keep on the terrace: my twenty-five chickens of different rare breeds. How could I abandon them to the untender care of Brown? The English don’t know how to look after animals. And yet, I did it. When I think about it, mysterious forces were at work. An irresistible magnetic force was definitely attracting me to Les Ormes. Yes, it’s an all-powerful injunction that is guiding my pen to write this story—and I’m astonished, for, although it is expert in long additions, the effort of narrative causes it to scratch.

  The following Tuesday, at 8 a.m., I was in a railway carriage, with the prospect of not emerging until evening, except to change trains several times.

  Here, I find myself in some embarrassment. A professional writer would get around it cleverly, but I don’t know how to do that, and I’d rather admit the thing frankly. Here it is: I do not want to reveal the region to which I went. To divulge what happened there would, I think, do it a serious disservice. Travelers would be reluctant to go there and the local inhabitants—still ignorant of that facts I am about to relate—might perhaps desert it.

  I could seek out a foreign region where conditions are similar to the province, in order to transport my characters there—being careful to advertise the deception, so as not to do any harm to anyone. I could also, while conserving the actual décor along with its appellations, declare that it is not authentic—but I am not habituated to such hypocritical finesse, and I deem it unacceptable for a name to be associated with an accusation, even one universally recognized as fictitious.

  I shall therefore say nothing about the place in question, forcing myself to let nothing slip that that might give it away—and if, by some mischance, a few isolated details are distinguishable among the necessary descriptions, whose ensemble could only apply to one location, I beg the reader not to put them together. If he will not do what I ask for the sake of others, let him do so for himself, for—take it from me—it’s frightful to think that an actual landscape with actual trees and actual rocks should have borne witness to their actual fable, and that there is someone, somewhere…but I digress.3

  I was, therefore, in the railway carriage, as unsettled by the disruption of my habits as a tadpole that suddenly finds itself to be a frog. The mountain air of independence intoxicated me. I did not appreciate it fully. Too many figures were still swarming in my mind. I felt them gradually calm down and disappear. Soon, I was entirely immersed in the joys of the moment.

  The countryside passed before my eyes, already burgeoning. I could not help thinking momentarily about how yellow and desiccated it would be on my return—but that was brief, for I wanted to enjoy myself and had no intention o
f spoiling a single minute of my six months. I resumed my contemplation and admired the passage of the successive views, vertiginous at close range and slow in the distance. Nevertheless, while the myriameters4 of France were passing by, as if rotating around a point beyond the horizon, I became bored. There was no one with whom to chat.

  To compound the misfortune, I had forgotten to buy a newspaper, and the train, an express until noon, was not due to stop until that time. The only distraction I had was my mail. There was little of it. I no longer have any family, and my wealth is invested in an annuity, so little affection is manifest in my favor. Commercial correspondence having been, thank God, left in Paris, my mail consisted entirely of a prospectus from the Louvre and a sample copy of La Poularde, a periodical devoted to aviculture.

  Moved by an affectionate memory of my chickens, I read the opportune gazette from cover to cover, quite slowly, in order to get through to noon without having to start again. Like all sample copies designed for advertising purposes, it was very interesting. I found valuable items of information therein, including a very well-presented article about a kind of incubator called “Egyptian,” which I resolved to acquire as soon as I returned.

  The train came to a halt as I put the journal away in my valise.

  The rest of the journey was a series of annoying stops. I would not mention it if I did not take pleasure in reliving that journey into summer—it is, in fact, difficult for me to conceal the fact that I was drawing further away from the North.

  Finally, in the evening, I reached my destination: an isolated station.

  Gambertin was not there. An aged peasant speaking in dialect came up to me, took possession of my valise and had my climb into a shaky and dusty rattletrap of a brake—a true museum-piece. A retrospective horse was asleep between its shafts.

  “Hup, Chauren!” said the man.

  We moved off. In the dusk, the countryside did not greet me with the springtime cheerfulness of which I had dreamed. It was warm, to be sure; yes, there were flowers—but in front of us, on the far side of a forest, a chain of grey mountains saddened the horizon. They seemed immutably desolate; one might have thought of them as a refuge where November was awaiting its turn, a sort of permanent winter.

  “Hup, Chauren!”

  A strange name, I thought. It must be a local term.

  After 20 years in Paris and ten hours in a shaky railway carriage, however, the rural tranquility appeared to me to be immense, and a sudden thankfulness softened my attitude—but we were heading for the forbidding mountains, and…

  “Hup, Chauren!”

  “What does that name mean?” I asked the old man.

  “Chauren? You don’t know that in Paris?”5 He sniggered.

  Ah! I thought. He doesn’t mean Chauren, he means Sauren. Wretched accent!

  The peasant continued, slyly and wittily: “You don’t know anything in Paris, then?”6

  Right, I said to myself. It’s not Sauren, it’s Saurien. What a name for a horse! Aloud, I exclaimed: “Right! I remember now—a saurian is a crocodile, or a lizard.”

  “Pfffttt!” the other replied. “All lies…stories…”

  I tried to continue the dialogue, but the skeptic was speaking an impenetrable gibberish and the conversation was laborious. I gathered that my conductor was a gardener and coachman named Thomas, but at Les Ormes he was nicknamed Didymus—which told me that Gambertin knew his gospels and liked his jokes.

  After quite a long time—night was falling—our pathetic vehicle went through a poor village; then, after a long ascent along rough paths, it reached the edge of a wood. We went into it obliquely and suddenly, darkness having arrived, the carriage stopped and I found myself in front of the whiteness of a broad façade.

  Saint Thomas told me, sharply, that we had arrived.

  Gambertin and I were face to face.

  What! Was this puny quinquagenarian, bald and jaundiced, Gambertin? The Gambertin who had been taller than me at the age of 17? How amazing! Behind his pince-nez, he seemed to me to be making observations of the same sort with respect to me—but all that took less time than a single stride; we were already next to one another and I felt our spirits of yesteryear embrace in a firm handshake.

  After dinner, Gambertin took me into a library ornamented with exotic trophies, and collections of primitive weapons bristling with lances, arrows and assegais. He had already begun to confide in me, sketching out in broad terms the adventurous life he had led in various parts of the world.

  We continued our conversation.

  “Yes, it’ll soon be six years since I came back. I found the ancient dwelling well past its best, but I had no more to do than repair it. The estate had also suffered terribly. The farmer had died and all my fields were lying fallow when I got back. They’re rented out to the villagers now.”

  “It seems to me,” I replied, “that in your shoes, I’d have taken pleasure in making the most of my resources myself. That would be a precious distraction in your isolation.”

  “Oh, I’ve no lack of occupation,” he told me, hotly, “I’ve more than I need for the rest of my days, and if I’d foreseen…” He did not finish, and walked nervously back and forth, twirling his pince-nez at the end of its cord like a sling.

  I darted a glance at the glass-fronted bookcase and noticed several new books on the shelves, in the midst of a lot of old ones. Geographical maps, also new, were hanging from the walls. “Your time’s taken up by studies…” I suggested.

  “Yes, important studies…exciting projects!” His eyes were shining. He went on: “I can guess what you’re thinking. I wasn’t very studious when you knew me long ago, was I? Well, I’ve spent forty-four years becoming so. Oh, to have wandered the world without respite, to have searched every corner of the planet in order to discover a goal…only to encounter it at the point of departure, when one is almost an old man and utterly poor…! And to think that generations of Gambertins have spent their time whistling idly, their crossbows or rifles on their shoulders, without hearing the call of that glorious research. Yes, old chap, I’m swotting, if I might put it thus, and I’m swotting frantically.” He paused for effect, and proclaimed: “I’ve taken up paleontology!”

  Gambertin immediately became subdued, as if he were disappointed. My expression, in fact, could not have reflected the admiration he was looking for. The forgotten word did not mean very much to me. Even, so to be polite, I said: “Oh, really?”

  Gambertin did not want to humiliate me with a definition. “It’s as I said,” he went on. “Opportunity creates the thief. One day, in a place that I’ll show you, if you’re interested, I stumbled on a stone—at least, that’s what I thought it was. It had an unusual appearance; I dug it out. It was a bone, old chap—an animal’s skull…antediluvian. Do you understand?” His tone was mocking. “There’s a veritable shoal of fossils there. Exhuming them, cleaning them up and studying them—that’s my task. That’s how I became a paleontologist.”

  To be frank, his enthusiasm did not communicate itself me. The passion for digging up carrion in the perfumed splendor of nature seemed to me eccentric. Furthermore, I was very tired; the day had been long and hard. If Gambertin had confessed to me that he was a Muslim, I could not have been overly astonished. I admitted that to him by way of an excuse, and we went up to bed.

  Gambertin showed me to my room, on the second floor, separated from his own by one other. A corridor extended between them.

  “I live as high up as possible,” he said. “One breathes more easily here, and the view is better. You haven’t been put next door because I get up very early and I want you to sleep to your heart’s content.”

  These words put me in mind, successively, of cockerels, morning calls, my chickens, my coop, the Egyptian incubator, my mail, business-letters, the company, Brown, our last conversation, my departure, my arrival and, finally, Gambertin, with a face like a stunted Austrian emperor.

  I went to sleep.

  II.


  A ray of sunlight, coming in through the unshuttered window, woke me up. I ran toward the light and opened my window wide. It looked out on the fields.

  The château was situated in woodland, rich in plane-trees and elms, about four hectometers from the edge. In front of it, however, the trees had been cut down to create a vast sloping clearing, which broadened out into the pastureland. At the bottom of the slope, to the left, the red roofs of the poor village were visible, and from there the fields extended as far as the eye could see, flat and pale green.

  I got dressed.

  Gambertin had already left his bedroom. The door was open, and I saw that the room was lit by an immense bay window, which was somewhat out of keeping with the rest of the antiquated architecture. Gambertin was certainly enthusiastic about hygiene. I also noticed a table with books and stacks of papers.

  The house seemed to be deserted, and I could only discover one grumpy and voluminous servant. I learned subsequently that this was Madame Didymus; that rustic couple constituted the Comte de Gambertin’s entire household staff. Madame Saint Thomas honored me with an unintelligible speech, from which I disentangled: “Monsieur’s working.”

  That dictated my duty. I went for a walk.

  The château resembled a ruined barracks; grass was growing thickly in the cracks in the stonework. On the side opposite the plain, another clearing had been hollowed out in the woodland, but it was traversed by a few strands of verdure and trees were formed up into charming arbors there, making it resemble a park. On the elegantly-designed pathways, the scents of catalpas, sycamores and tulip-trees were discernible—a long-lost splendor. Everything was redolent of abandonment, and the forest was undoubtedly gaining ground year by year, gradually invading the lawns of yesteryear. The bare faces of the mountains rose up in the distance.

  Two large buildings flanked the manor, within the woods—probably granges. One of them had been partly raised up, the upper part of it being brighter and the frames of bricked-up windows being distinguishable in the lower part. The second backed on to other buildings—those of the neglected farm—the sight of which was heart-rending, so overwhelmed were they by lichen, rust and mold. In the courtyard, something on the ground attracted my attention; it was a cistern. It was full of foul, stagnant water, as green as the mossy curbstone. The silence was oppressive.