The mutism of my slang-babbling Cypris25 was a stroke of luck. I wished it might be prolonged. Fortunately, as the habit often adapts itself to the monk, the foundation can correct the form, and she moderated her language somewhat in order to express the grave matters that had now begun to torment me. She continued her train of thought.
“My darling,” she said, “now that we’ve got there, there’s no use trying not to do it again—but I beg you, no recklessness; we need to be completely safe! Lerne, you see…Lerne! You’ve no suspicion of the dangers that threaten us…that threaten you, you most of all.”
I understood that she was recalling tragic scenes to mind.
“What dangers?”
“That’s the worst of it—I don’t know. I don’t understand anything of what’s happening around me—nothing at all…except that Donovan MacBell has become a madman because I loved him…and I love you too!”
“Come on, Emma, calm down! We’re allies now; between the two of us, we’ll discover the truth! When did you arrive at Fonval? And what has happened since then?”
She told me about the ups and downs of her life then. I shall reproduce them as best I can, for the sake of clarity, but in reality the story was scattered through a dialogue in which my questions guided the story-teller, who was ever-ready to digress and loquacious in matters of unnecessary detail. The conversation was, moreover, pleasantly augmented by intervals that interrupted it delightfully—like a drama interwoven with songs—and that is the main reason why I shall refrain from transcribing it in full, to spare my sensibility the remembrance of transports that were never completed. One cannot conserve a very coherent manner with an intemperate mistress when she is exceedingly beautiful, clad only in bedclothes, especially if she loses track of what she is saying every time she gets up to her old tricks.
Sometimes, too, a creak or some other noise would interrupt our talk or our frolicking in mid-sentence or mid-kiss. Emma would stiffen then, fearful of Lerne, and I could not help shivering at the sight of her terror, for it only required an ear at the door or an eye at the keyhole for the somber anecdote to have been re-enacted with respect to me.
One way or another, I learned the details of Emma’s origin and early life. They are irrelevant to this story, and can be summed up as a tale of “how a foundling became a whore.” During this confession, Emma gave evidence of a sincerity that one might have charged with cynicism in anyone less candid.
She continued, with the same frankness: “I met Lerne five years ago—I was 15—in the hospital at Nanthel. I had entered his employ. As a nurse? No. I’d got into a fight with a comrade, Léonie, over Alcide, my man…well, what of it? I’m not ashamed of it. He’s superb. He’s a colossus, my darling—he could juggle with you. My belt was too narrow to make a bracelet for him. Anyway, I’d got a stab-wound…well deserved, I assure you. Just look!”
She threw off the bedclothes and showed me a livid triangular scar in her armpit, the handiwork of the execrable Léonie. “Yes, go on, you can kiss it,” she went on. “I nearly died of it. Your uncle looked after me and saved me, it must be said. At that time your uncle was a nice chap, not stuck-up. He often talked to me. I found that flattering, myself. He preached me sermons as fine as those in church, on my life—it was wicked, I ought to change, and all that stuff—and all without seeming disgusted with me, so seriously that I began to be thoroughly disgusted with myself, and not to want to go back to being a whore, or to Alcide…being ill, you know, calms your blood….
“Then Lerne says to me one day: ‘You’re cured. You can go wherever you want. But it’s not enough to make good resolutions; you have to keep them. Would you like to come to my house, as a laundry-maid, and earn a living far away from your old companions? All perfectly honorable, you know!’
“Well, that startled me. I said to myself: All this talk is just to jolly me along. Once I’m in your home…goodbye platonic relationship! To hear you before, I’d never have thought it—but there are no more saints; no one offers to keep a woman for love of the art…
“All the same, Lerne’s kindness, his status, his renown, and a certain indefinable style magnified my gratitude, making it into a sort of affection, you see? And I accepted his proposition willingly, along with the consequences I expected. Well, not at all! There was still one saint: him. He didn’t touch me for an entire year.
“I’d gone with him in secret. The idea that Alcide might find me again kept me awake at night. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Lerne, ‘I’m no longer a surgeon at the hospital; I’m going to do research work; we’ll go live in the country, and no one will come looking for you there.’ Indeed, he brought me here right away. Oh, you should have seen the château and the grounds! Gardeners, domestics, carriages, a horse…nothing was lacking here. I was happy.
“When we arrived, workmen were finishing off the extensions to the greenhouse and the laboratory. Lerne supervised the work. He was constantly joking and repeating: ‘The work will go well in there! The work will go well!’ in the same way that schoolboys shout ‘Hurray for the holidays!’
“The laboratory was furnished. Lots of boxes went in, and one morning, when it was all finished, Lerne left for Grey in the open carriage. The avenue was straight then. I saw your uncle come back with the five travelers and the dog that he’d gone to fetch from the station: Donovan MacBell, Johann, Wilhelm, Karl, Otto Klotz—you remember him, the big dark man in the photograph—and Nelly. The Scotsman had met up with the Germans in Nanthel. I’m sure he hadn’t met them before.
“The assistants were lodging in the laboratory, and MacBell was given a bedroom in the château, as was Dr. Klotz. That one frightened me from the start. I couldn’t help asking Lerne where he’d found that jailbird. My question amused him greatly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he answered. ‘You see Monsieur Alcide’s henchmen everywhere! Professor Klotz comes from Germany. He’s very knowledgeable and very honorable. He’s not a subordinate but a collaborator, whose main task is to supervise the work of his three compatriots…’ ”
“I beg your pardon, Emma,” I said, interrupting her, “but did my uncle speak German and English at that time?”
“Very little, it seemed to me. He practiced every day, without any great result. It was only after a year, all of a sudden, that he succeeded in speaking it fluently. Anyway, the assistants already knew a few words of French, and Klotz more, as well as a little English. As for MacBell, though, he only understood his own language. Lerne told me that he’d only let him come to Fonval on the insistence of his father, who wanted the young student to work under his supervision for a while.”
“Where did you sleep, Emma?”
“Next door to the laundry.” With a smile, she added: “Oh, a long way away from MacBell and Klotz!”
“What attitude did all these men have to one another?”
“They seemed to be good friends. Were they sincere? I don’t know anything about it, and it’s not impossible that the four Germans were jealous of MacBell from the start. I noticed a few dirty looks. At any rate, Donovan wouldn’t have had to tolerate their close company, since he didn’t work in the laboratory with them but in the château and the greenhouse. Besides, at first his studies consisted of picking up French from books. We ran into one another frequently because I was always coming and going about the house. He was always polite and respectful—in sign-language, of course—and I was obliged to be pleasant…
“Those little flirtations were, I’m sure, the cause of a muted antipathy between him and Klotz. I soon noticed it. Although they hid their animosity successfully, Nelly, incapable of disguising hers, never lost an opportunity to growl at the German—and that wasn’t the only sign I could see that a storm was brewing. But your uncle didn’t see anything, and I didn’t dare disturb his happiness with woeful prophecies. I didn’t dare…and on the other hand, there was nothing in that rivalry to displease me. In spite of all my promises to Lerne to live virtuously, the jealous desire of the two adversaries ended up e
xciting me. I didn’t know how it was going to work out, when our circumstances changed abruptly. We’d been here at year, so it was four years ago…”
“Ah!” I cried.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, nothing! Go on!”
“Well, four years ago, Donovan MacBell left for Scotland, in order to spend a few weeks’ leave with his parents. On the day after his departure, in the morning, Lerne left. ‘I’m going to Nanthel with Klotz,’ he told me. ‘We’ll be there all day.’
“That evening, Klotz came back alone. I asked him about Lerne. The professor, it appeared, had received important news requiring a trip aboard, and would be gone for about three weeks. ‘Where is he?’ I asked. Klotz hesitated, and finally replied: ‘He’s in Germany. We’ll be alone here all that time, Emma…’
“He put his arm round my waist and looked me in the eyes…
“I couldn’t understand why Lerne, careful of my promised virtue, could have left me, without warning, at the mercy of a foreigner. ‘Do you like me?’ Klotz asked, pressing me against him without more ado. As I’ve already told you, Nicolas, he was big and strong. I felt his muscles and abandoned myself to him without wanting to. ‘Well, Emma,’ he said, ‘let’s love one another today, for you’ll never see me again!’
“I’m not a coward. Between you and me, I’ve been caressed by hands that had just committed murder, and I’ve even been subjected to possessions that were akin to murders. My first lovers made love as if they were stabbing you to death…they weighed down heavily and hammered hard; you’re a victim to them, you don’t know whether you’re experiencing more fear than pleasure. It’s not unpleasant—but that’s nothing. That night with Klotz was awful. It left me with an impression of rape. I’ll always remember the terror and the fatigue.
“I woke up late the next morning. He was no longer beside me, and I never saw him again. Three weeks went by. Your uncle didn’t write and his absence was prolonged. He came back without warning. I didn’t even see him come in. He told me that he had gone to the laboratory as soon as he returned, I saw him when he came out, at about midday. His pallor worried me. A great sadness seemed to be weighing him down. He walked slowly, as if behind a hearse. What had he learned? What had he done? What cataclysm had overwhelmed him?
“I questioned him gently. His awkward speech retained the accent of the country he had just left. ‘Emma,’ he said, ‘you like me, I think?’
“ ‘You know that very well, my dear benefactor; I’m devoted to you body and soul.’
“ ‘I’m only interested in the body. Do you think you’re capable of liking me…of loving me?’ He sniggered. ‘Oh, I’m no longer a young man, but after all…’
“What answer should I have given? I didn’t know. Lerne frowned. ‘That’s all right!’ he snapped. ‘From tonight on, my bedroom will be yours.’
“I admit, Nicolas, that it seemed more natural that way. But I had no inkling of the suspicious and wrathful Frédéric Lerne that was about to be revealed. He took hold of both my hands; his eyes were amazing. ‘Now,’ he cried, ‘there’s no more laughing, no fooling around, eh? You’re mine, exclusively. I’m very well aware of what’s been happening here, and that those dandies have been sniffing around you. I’ve got rid of Klotz. As for Donovan MacBell, beware! If he carries on, his account will be settled! Take care!’
“Then Lerne, having sacked the domestics, engaged poor Barbe as his only servant, and built the labyrinth.
“On the appointed day, MacBell, bewildered at finding the forest turned inside out, came back to the château in his turn, followed by his dog. Lerne accosted him while he was still holding his suitcases, and finished up dumbfounding him by admonishing him, with so many gestures and an expression so malevolent, that Nelly started to growl, with her hackles raised and showing her fangs.
“What was bound to happen, happened. In consideration of the age and quality of our host, MacBell and I should probably have respected his roof, as they say, but it was no more than a matter of deceiving an angry and tyrannical greybeard—which we did.
“Meanwhile, the professor became more despotic and more irritable every day. He lived in a state of indescribable overexcitement, not going out, working without rest, a genius perhaps, but a sick man for certain. The proof? He was losing his memory. He was subject to fits of total forgetfulness and often questioned me about his own past, only having precise memories in matters of science.
“No more laughing! That was true. And no more happiness with him! On an assumption, Lerne would scold me; on a suspicion, he would beat me. I’m not averse to insults or blows, I admit, but only when the former make me weep and the latter draw blood, when the insulting mouth is that of someone I love and the fist that strikes is solid, able to carry it through to the end. I told the feeble old wreck that I’d had enough of loneliness and poverty. ‘I want to leave,’ I declared. Oh, my darling, if you could have seen him! He fell at my knees and hugged them.
“ ‘What! What! Stay, Emma, I implore you. Wait! Wait two more years! Afterwards, we’ll leave together, and you’ll live like a queen. I’ll be rich, extremely rich. Be patient! I know perfectly well that you weren’t made to live like this indefinitely, as if in a convent. Believe me, I’m on the way to making an incalculable fortune. Two years of petty bourgeois existence, for the life of an empress!’
“Dazzled by the prospect, I didn’t leave Fonval. But the years went by, the term elapsed, and of luxury there was none. Even so, I waited, having confidence in Lerne’s own confidence, and in his genius. ‘Don’t be discouraged,’ he told me, ‘we’re getting close. Everything will happen as I have prophesied; you’ll have billions…’ And to brighten up my idleness, he had dresses, hats and all sorts of trinkets sent from Paris every season. ‘Get used to wearing them, learn your part, and rehearse the future…’
“I lived like that for three years, between Lerne and MacBell, treated roughly and insulted by the former, then adored like a Madonna and heaped with useless finery, and taken on the sly by the other, here and there, as the hazard of circumstances permitted, on a sofa or a carpet.
“At that time, Lerne went off on a long journey—two months, during which your uncle sent MacBell back to his family, on the pretext of a vacation. They came back on the same day. I think the professor and he had met up at Dieppe. Lerne was depressed and incensed. ‘You’ll have to wait a little longer, Emma,’ he said.
“ ‘What’s the matter? Isn’t it going well?’
“ ‘The general opinion is that my inventions aren’t sufficiently perfected—but there’s nothing to fear! I’ll get there!’
“He resumed his researches in the laboratory…”
Once again, I broke into Emma’s narrative. “I beg your pardon,” I said. “Did MacBell also work in the laboratory at that time?”
“Never. Lerne gave him projects to do in the greenhouse, where he imprisoned him, my friend! Poor Donovan! He would have done better to stay away. It was because of me that he came back from Scotland. He gave me to understand that, in his gibberish. ‘For you! For you!’ He didn’t know how to say much more. For me! Great gods, what did he become, for me, a few weeks later!
“Listen—this is where the madness come in.
“It’s winter, and it’s snowing. After lunch, Lerne takes a nap in an armchair in the little drawing-room next to the dining-room; at least, he pretends to go to sleep. Donovan winks at me. Pretending to go for a walk in the falling snow, on a whim, he goes out through the vestibule. He’s heard whistling a tune outside. He draws away. As for me, I go back to the dining-room, as if to help the maid clear the table. Donovan rejoins me there by the door opposite the little drawing-room, which remains open to permit us to listen for Lerne’s movements. He takes me in his arms; I embrace him. A silent kiss.
“Suddenly, Donovan goes green. I follow the direction of his gaze. The door of the little drawing-room is fitted with a glass plate—what they call a finger-plate, you know—and in
the depths of that dark mirror, I see Lerne’s eyes spying on us!
“Here he is, upon us! My knees bend, MacBell is very short. Lerne has knocked him down. They fight. Blood runs. Your uncle stops at nothing—feet, fingernails, teeth. I cry out, snatch at his clothes. Suddenly, he gets up again. MacBell is unconscious. Then Lerne bursts into wild laughter, lifts Donovan on to his shoulder, and carries him off toward the laboratory. I’m still screaming, but then I have the idea of calling: ‘Nelly! Nelly!’ The dog comes running. I point at the pair of them, and she runs after them just as Lerne disappears behind the trees with his burden. She disappears too. I listen. She barks—but suddenly, all I can hear is the whisper of the snow.
“Lerne had played me for a fool. It required all the credibility of his word, and all my assurance in a sumptuous future, to prevent me from running away that day. Besides which, having seen me being unfaithful, didn’t he love me all the more ardently?
“Days passed…I scarcely dared hope that MacBell had suffered the same fate as Klotz and been sent away. Neither he nor the dog reappeared. Finally, the professor asked me to have the Yellow Room made up for the Scotsman. ‘Is he still alive, then?’ I said, without thinking.
“ ‘Half alive,’ Lerne replied. ‘He’s mad. A sad epilogue to your sin, Emma! First, he thought he was the Eternal Father, then the Tower of London; now he thinks he’s a dog. Tomorrow, he’ll doubtless suffer from some other delusion.’
“ ‘What have you done to him?’ I stammered.
“ ‘My child!’ cried the professor, ‘No one’s done anything to him! Remember that, and bite your tongue if you’re ever tempted to talk drivel. When I carried MacBell away after our scuffle in the dining-room, it was in order to care for him—you could easily see that he had been taken ill. As he fell, he seriously injured his head. That caused a lesion, and that led to madness. That’s all, understand?’
“I didn’t say anything else, convinced that if your uncle hadn’t killed Donovan, fear of his family and judicial consequences were the only reason.
Doctor Lerne Page 18
