The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2)

by André Couvreur

  The phantasmagoria of dreams immediately took Marcel and me to the same place in the brushwood at which the adventure had become, and we were both so surprised that, before harsh nature, we allowed ourselves to be drawn into the marriage missed by Adam, Marcel proving to me that he was not in the condition implied by appearances.

  That imagination was renewed three times in the course of the night, with the result that I didn’t obtain any real repose until the morning. It required the noise of a saraband of children in the corridors of the hotel to wake me up. My clock marked ten, and the time was approaching when it had been agreed that I would meet Monsieur Danator and approach him, in order to pronounce the fatal words of my consent.

  In order not to give myself time to hesitate, I jumped out of bed hurriedly and dressed for conquest. To that end I adopted a delightful mauve lawn dress, heightened the glamour of my face with a little artifice, and, with all those seductions deployed, I went down to the beach.

  By virtue of a social paradox, nudity, at seaside resorts, becomes almost bashful at the sacred hour of immersion. On the wooden walkways permitting the avoidance of the sand, and even on the sand at the edge of the waves, there is an incessant movement of slender or sumptuous anatomies, a human display as compact as a market-stall, offered for the edification of consumers. Young girls hoping to facilitate their marriages, and married women their extramarital entertainments, chatter and flirt in bright bathing costumes and wraps; everyone is, for the moment, at the same embarkation-point for Cythera, free no longer to recognize one another when hazard causes your paths to cross again. Thus, in my orphan pride, I had always refused to take my bath along with the crowd, and preferred to get up earlier in order to savor the exquisite caress of the waves in solitude.

  I searched for the Danators among the people massed at the water’s edge, and further away, in the area variegated by the tents.

  No Danators. Had they, for their part, thought better of it? Had they hesitated, and were they about to break their word?

  No Marcel either. I wandered around for some time, collecting greetings, and a perfidious smile from Mademoiselle de Laricarière, still escorted by her pseudo-young man, to which I replied with the utmost politeness. I was just about to head the Pergola, where the tango and the foxtrot were starting to build momentum, when two disparate individuals emerged from the passage that links the road to the beach via the bathing huts. It was my citizens.

  The son was squeezed into a perfectly esthetic green bathing-costume with concentrically-traced dark stripes, which he seemed to wear like scales. The father had not renounced his frock-coat and Basque beret, and was holding a peignoir in one hand and a little wicker basket in the other. Their haste was so great that they brushed past me, almost jostling me, without recognizing me.

  I distinctly heard Monsieur Danator exclaimed: “Not so fast, Adam, not so fast!”

  His son replied to that instruction of moderation with a guttural grunt, a definite expression of intense contentment; then they disappeared behind the compact wall of people assembled on the edge.

  I went after them as rapidly as propriety permits a demoiselle out for a stroll, and then witnessed a most extraordinary spectacle, which did not take long to generate cries of amazement around me.

  Adam Danator had not inaugurated his bath in the fashion of the profane individuals who penetrate progressively into the water, or those who resolve to immerse themselves with a plunge, but always after the brief hesitation that a normal individual experiences at a change of temperature. Taking a run-up, he had begun with a perilous leap of implausible breadth, which had carried him immediately into deep water.

  While one was still expecting to see him reappear close by, the green costume, by means of invisible strokes, had already reached the vicinity of the pontoon reserved for divers, which was, in consequence, a considerable distance from the shore. That was only to accomplish, with the surface as his sole support, a prodigious carp-like leap and to plunge once again, for a time far surpassing pulmonary capacity, into the liquid element. Then he submerged for a second time, disappeared, and then reappeared, expelling water from his mouth and nostrils, but in full possession nevertheless of the respiration that would, in anyone else, have been extinct.

  I followed these improbable frolics with an anxious curiosity, admitting that I had never witnessed such aquatic acrobatics. One might have thought that he was not merely an accomplished swimmer but a veritable amphibian, playing in his two milieux, pirouetting for a submarine gallery as much as for the spectators on the shore.

  People around me, aiming lorgnettes, marveled at his unique prowess. All the dancers from the Pergola had come out to watch. The orchestra had followed them. The negro xylophone-player, who had spent his childhood diving for the copper coins thrown to him when boats arrived, howled with enthusiasm. The most ardent admirer of all was, however, Monsieur Danator, for he remained silent with emotion, accommodating the expression of his clean-shaven face and the tics of his entire being to the fantastic evolutions of his child.

  He noticed me then.

  “Well?”

  “Bravo for the man of the sea!” I blurted out.

  Immediately, he seized a golden whistle that was hanging with the trinkets from his watch-chain and used it to give his son the signal to stop bathing. Adam came ashore in a few strokes.

  “Into my arms, O my creation!” proclaimed Monsieur Danator. Then, taking no notice of the curious people surrounding us, he added: “You can also kiss your fiancée!”

  It was hardly the right moment. I was apprehensive of the kiss of the charming esthete, fearful that he might pollute my beautiful mauve dress with the water streaming from his green bathing-suit, and perhaps even an expulsion of sea-water. In any case, mauve and green do not go together, and I was particularly sensitive to any clash of colors...

  I therefore took a step backwards, to spare myself his embrace—but, by virtue of a phenomenon that I could not explain, and which, in any case, inasmuch as vitality is a function of animal flesh, testified to a stupefying interior vitality, the brilliant swimmer’s skin and costume had dried out as if by magic. Yes, he presented, on emerging from that prolonged ducking, the same florid complexion, and the same tranquil irradiation, as when he arrived on the beach, stepping out of his automobile, correct in his well-tailored jacket with a gardenia in the buttonhole.

  In any case, as I tried to escape the kiss prescribed by his father, he set himself to give it to me anyway, no matter what; Monsieur Danator commanded him to do so with a particularly authoritarian stare, and I had already remarked that Adam submitted passively to his father’s will, as transmitted by the fluid of his eyes. I therefore submitted to that public demonstration and did not, in sum, have to regret it, given that I was able to observe how Mademoiselle de Laricarière, a spectator of the incident, was vexed by it.

  “To the car, quickly. You’ll have lunch at the villa, my daughter-in-law,” commanded Monsieur Danator.

  “At least give him time to get dressed,” I protested.

  “My son, alone in a bathing-hut! My son, with those peasants! The very idea!”

  “Do you expect to take him away like this, practically naked, with me, in your auto?”

  “Why not?” said Monsieur Danator, covering Adam with the ample cape he was carrying over his arm. “You’ll see him like that on many other occasions.”

  We went to the auto. It was a forty-horsepower Voisin, splendidly decked out like a Louis XV berline, in rosewood with golden arabesques and an interior lined with crocodile-skin with yellow silk blinds. A chauffeur and an assistant chauffeur in the front, and two footmen at the rear, all dressed in white with Russian helmets, constituted an impressive crew, even though they were dressed like a fairground dentist. Just as the vehicle was about to pull away, though, one of the superintendants of the baths appeared, his back rounded, and addressed Monsieur Danator.

  “Permit me to observe, Monsieur, that it is forbidden
to bathe without passing through the Establishment. I am regretfully obliged to make a formal complaint...”

  Oh la la! What he received for his officiousness, that brave inspector! I had never seen such an outburst of wrath against arbitrary regulations. Monsieur Danator took as his witnesses the people attracted by the dispute, and his voice took on the fury of a locomotive. He would go from the court to the appeal court to the Council of State if he had to, but he would never pay a sou to bathe.

  “You’re nothing but highwaymen!”

  “And you, Monsieur, are nothing but a skinflint!”

  “Me, a skinflint! I give ten thousand francs to the poor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, but I won’t part with a centime to bathe!”

  Everyone was splitting their sides. Guy Frappart’s monocle was sparkling with joy. The windows opened in two villas overlooking the beach from the other side of the road, and the families, suspending their lunch, indulged in five minutes of delirium at our expense. A large beldame with glittering teeth was gurgling with pleasure. Oh, we could expect a tasty echo in the Journal de Biarritz...

  “We’re becoming a laughing-stock—let’s go!” I begged.

  “Yes, let’s go,” ordered Monsieur Danator, suddenly calming down—because he saw his son cowering in the vehicle, troubled, although I could not determine exactly why. I was soon enlightened, however, by the covetousness he manifested for the little basket that Monsieur Danator was carrying. The latter opened it and took out slices of white meat, carefully prepared, which he present successively to my fiancé, sprinkling them with a powder reminiscent of finely-ground salt.

  “Every time he bathes he gets hungry,” he explained, “And he is, as you can imagine, horribly tired. Let’s leave him tranquil, and permit me, my child, to tell you how glad I am to welcome you to my home as a future collaborator in my family. We’ll see to it that you’ll be as comfortable as a chick in a nest, and you’ll see how amorous he can be.”

  He winked at the same time, to underline that promise, paying no heed to the fact that Adam had begun to shiver. Twitching and grating, he gave details of our future life, advising two separate rooms, for reasons of hygiene, which he made the first rule of all existence.

  As the automobile moved on to the bridge that separates Saint-Jean-de-Luz from Ciboure, exposing us to the redoubtable odors of mud and rotten fish that plague the port at that location, Adam straightened up abruptly, put his head out of the window and set about avidly inhaling the nauseating emanations.

  “Breathe, Adam! Breathe deeply!” Monsieur Danator encouraged, while I covered my nose with my perfumed handkerchief.

  The rest of the journey was delightful, though. As if vivified by the exhalations of the harbor, Adam started chattering unstoppably. I no longer recall what he said, but it did not seem to me to be banal. His father, lost in admiration, never took his eyes off him, and I felt pleasantly mingled in that familial fervor, taking it as an augury of a most seductive future.

  After having skirted Ciboure, the automobile followed the coast road. We advanced in the midst of an enchantment. The elements had never dispensed as much unanimous beauty. Why did I experience a pang of anguish when, two kilometers further on, we made an abrupt turn to penetrate the Danators’ property?

  It was not because the aspect was severe; on the contrary, the Villa of the Immaculate Conception, built in reinforced concrete on the site of an old convent that must have given it its name, was immediately pleasing, with its covering of mosaics married in such a fashion that they represented fantastic green and gold flowers. The windows, balconies and terraces, protected from the sun by blinds in the form of red algae, added further gaiety to the graceful flight of bell-turrets topped by mushroom-domes. Beds of brightly-colored flowers erupted from the lawns in places, and clumps of rare trees spread shade over the pathways.

  In the background, however, behind the palace, in contract to that architectural and vegetal harmony, a disquieting chaos of rocks loomed up, which would have buried the villa had they crumbled, and that natural rampart as completed by an encircling wall hermetically sealing the property. As a result, on crossing the boundary of the domain, which was to become mine, my vanity gave way to an indescribable malaise, which only increased when the vehicle and its crew had been returned to domestic offices separate from the villa, and we had climbed the steps to enter into an immense hall.

  The first person who came to welcome us, and the only one, was a negro. He presented the rather unexpected appearance of being clad in an academic gown with golden brown knee-breeches and white stockings, wearing enormous gold-rimmed spectacles. Although one cannot say of a negro that he is anemically pale, and it is impossible to estimate his anemia by the color of his tegument, he nevertheless gave the impression of poor health, and I felt sorry for him immediately. By the gestures that he made and those with which Monsieur Danator replied to him, the poor fellow also revealed that he was deaf and dumb.

  “My only manservant,” Monsieur Danator informed me. “He informs us that your friend Marcel Germaud has arrived and is waiting for us.”

  What! Marcel, in my presence, just as Adam was about to begin wooing me! He would have the courage to witness our effusions! I had forgotten that he had told me, the previous evening, that he wanted to protect me in spite of myself. It was doubtless with that intention that he had arranged to force a way into that dwelling forbidden to mortals. I reddened with anger when I saw him appear, smiling innocently.

  “There you are,” Monsieur Danator greeted him. “Esteem, young man, the favor of entering here. It’s true that you’ll be Mademoiselle Ribaire’s first witness, so you’re almost a family member. Let me inform you, in that regard, that I’ve just called in at the Mairie to have the banns published.

  “Then you were counting on...” I put in

  “On your acceptance? I was so convinced of it that I did the paperwork in advance. That’s the way I do things. Let yourself go. I’m working for your happiness.” To Marcel, he said, suspiciously: “What have you and Plus-Ultra been talking about?”

  “Plus-Ultra?”

  “He’s my negro. The negro Plus-Ultra! You get the joke? I love puns. The delicate claim that they’re the fecal matter of wit, but why should I care, if I like to stick my nose in? And then again, isn’t there poetry in a good digestion? So, with Plus-Ultra?”

  “Nothing. Conversation with him is difficult.”

  “What do you expect? I value silence above everything. That’s why I took him on. He’s a child of Dakar. I met him in the Latin Quarter, where he was studying medicine. He’s the son of a sorcerer. It’s all connected. He trained in the art of Aesculapius, but he also studied with Pasteur. His predilection was for the diseases of poultry, which didn’t prevent him from also interesting himself in those of the sidewalk. He collected several rebuffs there and a wound. What courage! Those who are so brave ought to be decorated, don’t you think? A Cross of Venus, would you say? He deserves it, but he only obtained the Croix du Guerre. Very chauvinistic, my Ultra was enlisted in the moist artillery—don’t laugh, Monsieur Germaud; remember the adage Sacra clysteria venerari—when, one evening, on the Chemin des Dames,11 boom! a shell burst nearby and the detonation split his eardrums.

  “After that I only had to cut his vocal cords, which I was authorized to do by the appearance of a tumor in that location, to make a precious deaf-mute. Poor Ultra, what would become of him? These anatomical incidents had rendered him sage and mystic; he entered Holy Orders. It was, therefore, as a priest that I found him after the armistice, having lost his taste for life and his faith. Then I took him in. I’ve made him my assistant, my porter and my drink-dispenser, as you’ll see...” Effervescent, and wagging his index-finger, he added: “Curious, isn’t it—a man who can no longer produce a chanson who serves as an échanson.”12 My God, I’m witty.”

  Marcel listened to this extraordinary monologue gratefully and approvingly. His attitude reassured me as to the mental health of our host.
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  This Danator is a fantasist, nothing more, I thought, a scientist who reverts to being a student in his hours of relaxation, and doesn’t care about those at whom he directs his dirty jokes.

  I turned to my fiancé, wondering whether he was as shocked as I was by his father’s lewdness. Plunged in a vast Genoan velvet armchair, with his feet on a sea-turtle shell, he was waiting patiently, indifferent to everything. One might have thought that he was ruminating. He was waiting, with his customary docility, for the order to go and get dressed. Monsieur Danator did not give it immediately, and, having got rid of his cape, it was in his bathing costume that Adam went up the monumental onyx staircase, with walls enriched with precious marine frescos, leading to his bedroom. His stature stood out hieratically amid the ambient splendor.

  “Perfection!” murmured Monsieur Danator. “I can affirm that no one has ever had a success like that.” Then, quite incomprehensibly so far as I as concerned and doubtless also for Marcel, He added, between his teeth: “Sunk, the vibrion! Poor Graaf, are you spinning in your grave?”13 Finally, he intimated to us: “While Adam perfumes himself, I’ll give you a tour of the house. Come on.”

  I would have preferred a brief chat with Marcel, but I had no alternative but to defer to his invitation. He paraded us through magnificent drawing-rooms, in which art-works were abundant and decorations superabundant.

  The villa had been constructed in the greatest mystery, one might almost say in the ignorance of the local people. Teams of workers had been seen arriving from foreign lands, jealously guarded, eating in temporary barracks, and had then been sent away without Ciboure ever having had any contact with them.

  We recognized, in some rooms, Japanese refinements, in others American ingenuity and in others French grace. There were ceilings decorated by Italians, carpets woven on the spot by Turks from Caramania. One entire room dazzled us with its rare Gobelins, and other by a parquet marqueted in precious woods. A collection of Chinese vases confounded us with admiration. Lace and silk espoused the chairs; the huge chandeliers, when they were not made of pure Venetian glass, were in solid gold.