Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday

by Italo Calvino

  This with regard to morality. With respect to politics, he was con vinced that theft organized on a grand scale favored, more than anything else, the division of great fortunes and the circulation of the smaller ones, which would result in the well-being and liberation of the lower classes.

  As you shall see, only high-quality fraud filled him with joy, the subtleties and adulation of the true clerics of Saint Nicholas, the old tricks of Master Gonin, which had retained their charm and ingenious quality for two hundred years. That man Villon was his true compatriot, and not highwaymen like Guilleris or Captain Crossroads. Most certainly, the bandit stationed on the highway who brutally despoils a traveler seemed as horrible to him as he would to any sound mind; nor did he feel any differently about those who, with no effort of imagination, enter an isolated house, sack it, and, perhaps, murder the owners. But if he had learned of some distinguished thief who had opened a hole in the wall to get inside a mansion, he would have adorned the opening with a Gothic trefoil, so that the next day, when the theft was discovered, people would see that it had been done by a man of good taste. Certainly Godinot Chevassut would have held such a thief in greater esteem than he would Bertrand de Clasquin, or Caesar himself, to say the least.

  III. THE MAGISTRATE’S WIDE BREECHES

  Having said all this, I think it high time to raise the curtain and, following the custom of the ancient comedians, to give a good kick in the backside to Monsieur Prologue, who has been so annoyingly prolix that it’s been necessary to trim the candle wicks three times since his exordium. May he finish quickly, as Bruscambille did, by begging the spectators to “clean up the imperfections of his speech with the brush of humanity and to receive an enema of excuses in the intestine of their impatience.” That’s that, and now the action will begin.

  We are in a great hall, dark and furnished. The old magistrate, seated in a wide, carved chair with twisted feet, the chair back upholstered in fringed damask, was trying on a new pair of starched breeches just brought to him by Eustache Bouteroue, apprentice to Master Goubard, tailor and hosier. Master Chevassut, tying the laces, stands up and sits down again, from time to time addressing the apprentice, who, as rigid as a stone saint and staring at Chevassut timidly, is sitting on the edge of a low stool, having acceded to the magistrate’s invitation.

  “Huh! These have already done their job!” he said, pushing away with his foot the old breeches he’d just taken off. “They were as worn out as a prohibitive ordinance of the provostship, and all the pieces were saying adieu—a ripping farewell!”

  Nevertheless, the jocular magistrate picked up his old necessary suit to get his wallet, from which he extracted a few coins, which he held out in his hand. “It’s clear,” he went on, “that we men of law get a lot of wear out of our clothes thanks to the toga under which we wear them, as long as the weave holds and the seams stay closed. For that reason, and because all of us have to make a living—including thieves, and, therefore, tailor-hosiers—I will not bargain about the six escudos Master Goubard is charging me and to which I generously add besides one counterfeit escudo for the apprentice, on condition that he not change it at a loss but pass it off as good to some knavish bourgeois, using all the resources of his wit to do so. If that idea doesn’t please you, I’ll keep the aforementioned escudo for Sunday collection tomorrow at Notre-Dame.”

  Eustache Bouteroue took the six escudos as well as the counterfeit escudo, thanking the magistrate in a low voice.

  “All right, my son!” said the magistrate. “Have you begun dying the cloth yet? And can you cut and measure it by eye? Can you exchange the old for the new, and make the customer believe that what is black is really white? In other words, are you maintaining the grand reputation of the merchants of the Les Halles market?”

  Eustache raised his eyes toward the magistrate with a certain fear, and, supposing he was joking, began to laugh; but the magistrate wasn’t joking. “I most certainly do not like the style of robbery carried out by merchants,” he added. “The thief steals and doesn’t trick you. The merchant robs and tricks. A comrade of mine with the gift of the gab, and who knows Latin as well, buys a pair of breeches. He argues over the price and ends up paying six escudos for them. A good Christian turns up, one of those whom some call pariahs and the merchants call customers, and it can happen that he takes a pair of breeches just like the other’s, and believing in the clothier, who invokes the Virgin and the saints as witnesses of his honesty, pays eight escudos for them. In that instance, I’m not sorry for him because he’s an idiot. But if, as the merchant is counting the sums he’s just charged—satisfied with himself and jingling in his hand the two extra escudos from the second sale—there passes a poor devil condemned to the galleys for having stolen from some pocket a dirty, torn handkerchief, the merchant exclaims, ‘Look at this great criminal! If justice were just, this villain would be quartered alive, and I would go to see him!’ And he says that with the two escudos in his hand, Eustache. What do you think would happen if, following the merchant’s desire, justice were really just?”

  Eustache Bouteroue was no longer laughing. The paradox was too extreme for him to dare to answer, and the mouth from which it issued made it even more disturbing. Master Chevassut, seeing that the boy was as flustered as a wolf caught in a trap, began to laugh with his special laugh. Then he patted the apprentice on the cheek and sent him away. Now quite pensive, Eustache walked down the staircase with its stone bannister, and although he heard in the distance, in the patio of the palace, the trumpet of Galinette la Galine, the clown of the celebrated quack healer Jerome, who was calling the curious to hear his jokes and to buy his master’s concoctions, this time he pretended to be deaf and prepared to cross the Pont-Neuf to get into the neighborhood of the Les Halles market.

  IV. THE PONT-NEUF

  The Pont-Neuf, finished while Henri IV was king, is the most important monument of his reign. There is nothing comparable to the enthusiasm it produced when, after huge labors, its twelve arches completely crossed the Seine and linked the three ancient cities of the capital even more tightly.

  Soon it also became the meeting place of all idle Parisians, whose number is considerable, and, for that reason, of troubadours, unguent sellers, and swindlers, whose abilities keep the masses moving just as the flowing waters move the mill.

  When Eustache emerged from the triangle of Place Dauphine, the sun was pouring its dusty rays onto the bridge, which was very crowded despite the fact that in general the most popular walkways were the paved ones that stood in the shadow of the houses and city walls and were adorned with shop windows.

  With considerable difficulty, Eustache made his way into the river of people that crossed that other river and ran slowly along from one end of the bridge to the other, stopping here and there for the slightest obstacle, like the ice floes the water drags along, turning, spinning around some sleight-of-hand artist, or a singer, or a merchant crying out his merchandise. Many stopped along the railing to watch the rafts pass under the arches or to see the boats sailing by, or to contemplate the magnificent panorama the Seine offered downstream as it wound its way around the Louvre on the right and the Pré-aux-Clercs on the left, divided by the beautiful avenues of linden trees and surrounded by gray, disorderly willows, or green willows weeping over the water. Beyond, and on both shores, the Nesle tower and the Bois tower looked like sentinels at the gates of Paris, like the giants of the old novels.

  Suddenly a great noise of fireworks called the eyes of the passersby and gawkers toward one spot and announced a spectacle worthy of notice. It was in the center of one of those half-moon-shaped platforms that were covered in other times by stone stores and which now formed empty spaces on top of each of the bridge’s pillars outside the walkway. A magician had set himself up there. He’d arranged a table on top of which strolled a handsome monkey dressed in black and red like a perfect devil, tail and all, and which, without the slightest timidity, tossed a huge number of firecrackers and skyro
ckets, to the bitter disgust of the other vendors who had not attracted nearly as much attention so quickly.

  The monkey’s owner was one of those gypsies who were so common a century ago, though already scarce then, and today sunk and lost in ugliness, in the insignificance of our bourgeois heads: an axe-blade profile; high but straight forehead; a long nose with a bump in it, curved, though not in the style of a Roman nose, no, to the contrary, snubbed and barely more extended than the mouth; thin, prominent lips; a sunken chin; then, slanted eyes under brows that formed a V; and long black hair completed the picture. A certain air, let’s say, of ease and agility in his comportment denoted a skillful rogue, busy from an early age in all kinds of endeavors.

  He was dressed in an old clown costume that he wore with great dignity and on his head a great black hat made of felt with a wide brim, very wrinkled and old. Everyone called him Master Gonin, perhaps because of his skill at prestidigitation, or perhaps because in effect he was a descendant of that famous troubadour who under Charles VI founded the theater of the Enfants-sans-Souci and was the first to bear the title of Prince of Fools, inherited by Monsieur Chotacabras, who maintained his sovereign prerogatives, even in parliament.

  V. GOOD FORTUNE

  The prestidigitator, seeing he’d gathered a good number of spectators, ran through a series of tricks that produced a noisy admiration. The fact is that the fellow had chosen his spot in the half-moon quite deliberately, and not, as it seemed, merely so he wouldn’t block traffic. This way, he kept all of the spectators in front of him. The art of the magician was not then what it has become today, when the sleight-of-hand artist works surrounded by his audience.

  Once the tricks were over, the monkey made his way through the crowd, collecting a large number of coins, for which he thanked peo ple in a most charming way, accompanying his little salutes with a cry rather like that of a cricket. The hand tricks, it seemed, were but a prelude to something else, something quite different, and in a very well executed prologue the new Master Gonin announced he possessed the gift of telling the future through cartomancy, chiromancy, and pythagorean numbers. This was something that could not be paid for, but which he did for just a sou, to please the public. And on saying that, he shuffled the cards and had the monkey, whose name was Pacolet, distribute them among those who held out a hand to receive them.

  When the monkey had satisfied all requests, his master began calling, by the names of their cards, all the curious so that they would approach the half-moon. He then predicted for each one his good or bad fortune while Pacolet, to whom he’d given an onion as a reward for his labor, amused the others with the contortions the treat provoked in him, simultaneously delighted and sobbing, a smile on his mouth and tears in his eyes, and emitting with each bite a grunt of satisfaction while making a horrible face.

  Eustache Bouteroue, who had also taken a card, was the last called. Master Gonin stared attentively into his naive, long face and spoke to him in emphatic terms. “Here is your past: you have neither father nor mother, and for six years you’ve been an apprentice breeches-maker in the plaza of Les Halles. Here is your present: your master has promised you his only daughter and is planning to retire and leave you his business. For the future, show me your hand.”

  Eustache, quite astonished, held out his hand. The prestidigitator carefully examined the lines, wrinkled his brow with an expression of doubt, and called over his monkey as if to consult with him. The monkey took Eustache’s hand, observed it, and, climbing up on Master Gonin’s shoulder, seemed to speak in his ear. But he only moved his lips very quickly, which is what animals do when they are uneasy.

  Finally, Master Gonin exclaimed, “What a strange thing! How an existence at first so simple and bourgeois can transform itself into something so uncommon and toward an end that is so elevated! … Ah, my little chick! You will break out of your shell. You will reach a high place, very high … You will die a great man!”

  “Of course!” said Eustache to himself. “These are the things these people always promise … But how could he have known the things he told me first? That was astonishing! … Unless he knows me from somewhere.”

  Nevertheless, he took the magistrate’s counterfeit escudo out of his pocket, asking Master Gonin for the change. Now, perhaps he was speaking in a very low voice. And perhaps the magician didn’t hear him, for he took the escudo, and, rolling it between his fingers, went on to say: “Well now. I see you know how to live, and for that reason I’ll add some details to the prediction I just made for you, which, though true, was a bit ambiguous. Yes, my dear friend, you were right not to pay me with a sou as the others did—even if your escudo loses a fourth part of its value. It doesn’t matter, because this bright coin will be for you a shining mirror in which the pure truth will be reflected.”

  “But what you just said to me, about my rising up, is that not the truth?” asked Eustache.

  “You asked me for your fortune, and I told it to you. But what’s missing is the gloss, the commentary. This elevated end to your life which I’ve predicted—how do you understand it?”

  “I think I could become a syndic for the tailor-hosiers, the superintendent of a parish, an alderman …”

  “That’s certainly hitting the nail on the head! Why not Grand Sultan of Turkey while you’re at it? No, my dear friend! You’ll have to understand it in a different sense. And since you desire an explanation of this sibylline oracle, I will tell you that for us, ‘reaching a high place’ is said of those sent to tend sheep on the moon, just as we say ‘he’ll go far’ about those who are sent to write their story in the ocean with fifteen-foot quills …”

  “Oh, certainly! … Now, if you will please explain your explanation to me, I’m sure I’ll understand it.”

  “They are two honest phrases that stand in for two words: ‘gallows’ and ‘galleys.’ You will reach a high place, and I will go far. I can see it very clearly in this central line, cut into right angles by these other, less pronounced lines. In your case, by one line that cuts the one in between without going very far, and another that cuts obliquely through both of them.”

  “The gallows!” exclaimed Eustache.

  “What? Do you have some special fondness for horizontal death?” quipped Gonin. “It would be puerile. In any case, in this way you’ll be spared from falling into the other kinds of ends to which every mortal is exposed. Besides, it’s possible that when Madame Gallows raises you up by the neck and your arms hang down you’ll be nothing more than a poor old man disgusted with the world and everything in it …. But the bell says it’s twelve o’clock, and at this hour the order from the Paris provost is to throw us off the bridge until afternoon. However, if sometime you need advice, a charm, a spell, or a philtre to use in the event of danger, or for love, or revenge, I live over there, at the end of the bridge in Château-Gaillard. Can you see the pointy little tower from here?”

  “Only one more thing,” said Eustache, trembling. “Will I be happy in my marriage?”

  “Bring your wife to see me, and I’ll tell you …. Pacolet, bow to the gentleman and kiss his hand.”

  The prestidigitator folded his table, put it under his arm, loaded the monkey on his shoulder, and made his way toward Château-Gaillard, humming an old song between his teeth.

  VI. CROSSES AND MISERIES

  It’s true that Eustache Bouteroue was going to marry the daughter of the master breeches-maker quite soon. He was a formal young man, serious about business, who did not spend his free time playing skittles or ball as the other apprentices did but instead examined the bills or read the Bocage des six corporations or learned a bit of Spanish, very sensible at that time for a merchant, as English is today, because of the large number of people from that nation who live in Paris.

  Master Goubard, convinced after six years of the apprentice’s perfect honesty and excellent character, and having noticed as well between his daughter and the boy a certain inclination—completely virtuous and severely restrained
on both sides—had decided to join them on Saint John the Baptist’s Day and then to retire to Laon, in Picardy, where he had some family property.

  Eustache did not possess a fortune, but in those days it was not the custom to marry one sack of escudos with another. Parents would take into account the tastes and sympathies of the future husband and wife and set about carefully studying the character, conduct, and ability of the persons who were going to wed. Very different from today’s parents, who demand greater moral guarantees from a servant than from a future son-in-law.

  Meanwhile, the troubadour’s prediction had reduced the already rather stagnant thoughts of the clothier to such an extent that he remained standing in the center of the half-moon, completely dazed, not hearing the crystalline voices chattering in the bell towers of the Samaritaine, repeating: “Midday! Midday!” But in Paris, striking twelve takes an hour, and the clock at the Louvre soon took over the speaker’s podium with more solemnity; then that of the Augustinians; and afterward, that of the Châtelet. Eustache, terrified because it had become so late, began to run as quickly as he could, leaving behind in a matter of minutes the streets of la Monnaie, Borrel, and Tirechappe. Then he slowed down, and, once he’d turned the corner of the Boucherie-de-Beauvais, joy covered his face when he spied the red canvases of Les Halles, the stands of the Enfants-sans-Souci, the scale, the cross, and the handsome lantern of the spire with its small, lead-covered roof.