“He was a priest,” — said the official with a slight accent of contempt— “the clothes prove that,” — and he indicated by a gesture a set of garments (I recognized them well enough!) hanging up, as is the Morgue custom, immediately above the corpse they once covered, “but of what Order, and where he came from no one can tell. We found a purse full of money upon him, and a breviary with no name inside, — he has not been identified and he will not keep any longer, — so tomorrow he will be removed.”
“Where to?” I inquired, — my voice sounding thick and far away, and I coughed violently, as a sort of excuse for huskiness.
Gessonex laughed. He was busy making a rapid pencil sketch of the corpse.
“Where to? My dear friend, to the comfortable ‘fosse,’ — the ditch of death wherein we all drown in the end. Of course we can have our own private patches of ditch if we choose to pay for such a luxury, — but we shall fertilize the earth better if we allow ourselves to be thrown all together in one furrow, — it is more convenient to our survivors, and we may as well be obliging. The public ‘fosse’ is really the most sensible sort of grave, and the most truly religious because it is the most equalizing. This man” — and he gave a few artistic finishing touches to his sketch— “was evidently good-looking once.”
Jéteaux smiled incredulously.
“M’sieu is an artist, and can imagine good looks where none have ever existed,” he observed politely.
“Not at all,” — returned Gessonex still working rapidly with his pencil. “This body is certainly very much swollen by the water, but one can guess the original natural outlines. The limbs were finely moulded, — the shoulders and chest were strong and nobly formed, — the face — yes! — it is probable the face was an ideal one — there are faint marks upon it that still indicate beauty, — the eyes were evidently remarkable, — why Beauvais! — what pleasant jest amuses you?”
For I had broken out into an uproarious fit of laughter, — laughter that I could no more restrain than an hysterical woman can restrain her causeless tears. And when Gessonex and his friend Jéteaux stared at me in surprise I became fairly convulsed and laughed more than ever! Presently, struggling for utterance— “Mon Dieu!” I said. “Would you have me play tragedian over such a spectacle as this? M. Jéteaux says he was a priest! — well, look at him now, how well he represents his vocation! Is not his mouth most piously open and ready to say an ‘Ave!, — and his eyes — those admirable eyes! — have they not quite the expression of sanctimonious holiness so ingeniously practised by all of his crafty calling? — A priest, you say! — a worshipper of God, — and see what God has done for him! Defaced his beauty, if beauty he ever had, and brought him to the Morgue! — what a droll way this GOD has of rewarding His sworn servants!”
M. Jéteaux appeared vaguely troubled by my words.
“Perhaps he was a bad priest,” — he suggested. “There are many, — and this one may have committed so flagrant an error, of discipline that he probably imagined the only way out of it was suicide.”
I laughed again.
“Oh! you think him a suicide?”
“Assuredly! There are no marks of violence, — and besides, he was not robbed of his money.”
These foolish officials! Always the same ideas and the same routine! Inwardly I congratulated myself on my own cunning, — and turning to Gessonex, asked him if he had finished his sketch.
“Though what you want it for I cannot imagine!” I added irritably.
Gessonex shrugged his shoulders.
“Only for the sake of study,” he returned. “Just to see what Death can do for a man’s anatomy! See!” — and he touched the throat of that which had been Guidèl, “the arteries here are swollen, and in such a way, that one could almost fancy he had been strangled! Again, observe the ribs, — they start through the flesh, — not from meagreness, but from having made a powerful effort, — a struggle for life. Here the sinews of the leg are strained as though they had used all their resisting power against some opposing body. I am not an artist for nothing,” — he continued, affably turning to Jéteaux— “and I assure you, life did not go easily or willingly out of this priest, — he was probably murdered.”
Curse him and his knowledge of anatomy, I thought! — why the devil could he not hold his tongue! M. Jéteaux however only smiled, shrugged his shoulders as Gessonex had done, and spread out his hands with a deprecatory gesture.
“Mais — m’sieu, there are no proofs of such a crime,” he said. “And besides — a priest!”
“True!” I interposed, the passion of ribald laughter once more threatening me, “a dead priest is a ridiculous object! A dead dog or a dead cat is more worthy of pity in these times! France — our France — has nobly declared herself sick of priests, mon ami” — and I clapped him familiarly on the shoulder— “and one less in the world is a relief to us all!”
Jéteaux was quite delighted with this remark.
“M’sieu is a thinker?” he queried pleasantly, as we left the Morgue death-chamber, and turned our backs on the livid mass of perishing clay once called “le beau” Silvion Guidèl.
“In a way — yes!” I responded swiftly. “I think as Paris thinks — that life is a bagatelle, and death a satisfactory finish to the game! And to invent a God and pay priests to keep up the imposture is a disgrace to humanity and civilization! But we are progressing quickly! — we shall soon sweep away the old legends and foolish nursery superstitions — and bury them, — bury them, — as — as yonder lump of dead priestcraft is to be buried to-morrow, — in the common ‘fosse,’ the receptacle for all decayed and useless lumber which obstructs or is offensive to the world!” I paused, — then on a sudden impulse added— “He is to be buried to-morrow — positively?”
Jéteaux looked surprised.
“The body in there? — Mais, certainement, m’sieu! — it could not be kept another day!”
This idea diverted me extremely. “It” could not be kept another day! Here was this brave Silvion Guidèl, — once beautiful as Antinous, brilliant, witty, amorous, — he was no more than so much tainted flesh that could not be kept above ground another day! And I had brought about this pleasant end for him — even I! I had murdered him, — I could have identified him, — and yet — no one guessed — no one imagined the secret that there was between that quiet corpse and me! Despite my efforts I laughed wildly again, when we went out of the Morgue, though I did not venture to give another backward glance through the glass screen, — laughed so loudly and long that Gessonex, always easily moved, began to laugh also, and soon agreed with me that the sight of a dead priest was after all a very amusing entertainment.
“Let me see your sketch” — I said to him presently, when we stopped a moment to light our cigarettes, — then, as he handed it to me— “It’s not badly done! — but you have made the eyes like saucers! ‘Bon Dieu!’ they seem to say— ‘Rends-moi la grace d’être amoureux pour une fois, quoique je suis prêtre! Qu’est-ce-que la vie sans aimer une femme!’”
I broke into another laugh, and with an air of complete unconsciousness, tore the sketch into minute fragments, and sent the bits floating on the breeze. Gessonex uttered a quick exclamation.
“Sacre-bleu! Do you know what you have done, Beauvais?”
I looked at him blankly.
“No! What?”
“You have torn up my sketch!”
“Have I? Positively I was not aware of it! I thought it was a bit of waste paper! Forgive me! — I often get frightfully abstracted every now and then, — ever since I took to drinking Absinthe!”
He turned upon me with nervous suddenness.
“Dieu! Have you taken to drinking it then, as a matter of course?”
“As a matter of life! — and death!” I replied curtly.
He stared at me, and seemed to tremble, — then he smiled.
“Good! Then — you must also take the consequences!”
“I find the consequences fairly ag
reeable, — at present.”
“Yes — so you may, — so you will, — until—” He broke off, then looked sharply behind him, — he had an unpleasant trick of doing that I noticed, — and he had frequently startled and annoyed me by those quick glances backward over his own shoulder; “Can you see him?” he whispered abruptly, a peculiar expression coming into his eyes as they met mine.
“See him? See whom?” I queried amazed.
He laughed lightly.
“A friend, — or rather I should say, a creditor! He wants his bill paid, — and I am not disposed to settle with him — not just yet!”
We were standing at the quiet corner of a quiet street, — I looked from right to left, and round and about everywhere, but not a soul could I perceive but our two selves.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Pshaw! You are dreaming, Gessonex!” He smiled, — very strangely, I thought.
“So are you!” he responded calmly. “Dreaming heavily, — a fiery, drunken dream! I know! — I know all the pleasure of it — the madness of it! But Absinthe has its waking hours as well as its sleep, — and your time for waking has not come. But it will come, — you may be sure of that!” He paused, — then added slowly— “I am sorry you tore up my sketch!”
“I also regret it, mon cher!” I declared, puffing away at my cigarette— “But it was an ugly memory, — why did you want to keep such a thing?”
“To remind me of death” — he replied, “to teach me how hideous and repulsive and loathsome the fairest of us may become when the soul has been snatched out of us and lost in the elemental vortex. God! — to think of it! — and yet, while the soul still remains in us we are loved, — actually loved!”
“While the life is in us, you mean!” I said, with a cold smile. “There is no soul, so say the Positivists.”
“The soul — the life;” — murmured Gessonex dreamily— “are they not one and the same? I think so. The vital principle, — the strange ethereal essence that colours the blood, strings the nerves, lights the eyes, and works the brain, — we call it Life, — but it is something more than life — it is Spirit. And imagine it, Beauvais! — we have it in our own power to release that subtle thing, whatever it is, — we can kill a man and lo! — there is a lump of clay and that strange essence has gone! — or, we can kill ourselves, — with the same result. Only, one wonders, — what becomes of us?”
“Nirvana! — Nothingness!” I responded airily. “That is the Buddhist idea of eternal bliss — an idea that is very fashionable in Paris just now!”
Gessonex turned his great wild eyes upon me with a look of vague reproach.
“Fashionable in Paris!” he echoed bitterly— “even so may one talk of being fashionable in Hell! The city that permits the works of a Victor Hugo to drop gradually into oblivion, and sings the praises of a Zola who with a sort of pitchfork pen turns up under men’s nostrils such literary garbage as loads the very air with stench and mind-malaria! — faugh! Religion of any sort for Paris in its present condition is absurd, — it is like offering the devil a crucifix! Do not accept Paris opinions, Beauvais! — there is something more than ‘nothingness’ even in apparently clear space” — and he glanced about him with an odd touch of dread in his manner— “Believe me, there is no nothingness!” He paused, — laughed a little, and passed his hand across his brows as though he swept away some unpleasing thought, “Good night!” he said then, “I must return to my enfant terrible, who will starve till I come. Again I wish you had not torn up that sketch!”
“So do I, as you harp upon the subject so persistently” — I said, with mingled irritation and contrition, — the latter feeling I feigned as best I could— “I am really very sorry! Shall we go back to the Morgue and ask permission to take another view?”
“No, no!” — and Gessonex shuddered slightly— “I could not look at that dead priest again! — There was something clamorous in his eyes, — they were alive with some ghastly accusation!”
I forced a smile.
“How unpleasantly grim you are this evening, Gessonex!” I said carelessly. “I think I will leave you to your own reflections. Au revoir!”
“Wait!” he exclaimed eagerly; and catching my hand in his own he pressed it hard. “I am ‘grim,’ as you say — I know it! I am at times more gloomy than a monk whose midnight duty it is to dig his own grave to the sound of a muffled bell. But it is not always so! — my natural humour is gay, — mirthful enough to please the wildest bon viveur, I assure you! You shall see me again soon, and we will have sport enough! — tell me where I can meet you now and then?”
I named a café on the Boulevard Montmartre, — a favourite resort for many a sworn absintheur.
“Ah!” he said laughingly. “I know the place, — it is too grand for me as a rule, — I hate the light, the gilding, the painted flowers, the ugly fat dame de comptoir, — but no matter! — I will join you there some evening. Expect me!”
“When?” I asked.
“Soon! When my creditors will allow me to appear in public! Bon soir!”
He lifted his hat with his usual fantastic flourish, — smiled, and was gone, I drew a deep breath of relief. For some moments the strain on my nerves had been terrific, — I could scarcely have endured his companionship a moment longer. I looked about me. I was in a very quiet thoroughfare, — there were trees, and seats under the trees, — but I was near the river, — too near! I turned resolutely away from it, and walked onward, — walked till I found myself in the lively and brilliant Avenue de l’Opéra. Here I presently saw a man pacing slowly ahead of me, clad in a priest’s close black garments. He annoyed me terribly, — I had no desire to be reminded of priestcraft just then. Could I not get in front of this leisurely strolling fool? I hurried my steps, — and with an effort came up with him, — passed him — looked round — and recognized Silvion Guidèl... Silvion Guidèl, — pale-faced, dreamy-eyed, serene as usual, — only,... as I stared wildly at him, his lips fell apart in the horrible leering smile I had seen on the face of the corpse in the Morgue! Heedless of what I did, I struck at him fiercely, — my clenched fist passed through his seeming substance! — he vanished into impalpable nothingness before my eyes! I stamped and swore, — a hand seized and swung me to one side.
“Va-t-en, bête!” said a rough voice. “Tu te grises trop fort!”
Drunk! I! I reeled back from the push this insolent passer-by had given me, and rallying my forces, took to walking again as rapidly as possible, concentrating all my energies on speed of movement; and refusing to allow myself to think.
I soon reached a café whereof I was a known frequenter, and called for the one, the only elixir of my life, the blessed anodyne of conscience, the confuser of thought, and drank and drank till the very sense of being was almost lost, and all ideas were blurred and set awry in my brain, — drank, till with every vein burning and every drop of blood coursing through my body like hissing fire, I rushed out into the calm and chilly night, maddened with a sort of furious, evil ecstasy that was perfectly indescribable! The spirit of a mocking devil possessed me, — a devil proud as Milton’s Satan, insidious as Byron’s Lucifer, and malevolently cunning as Goethe’s Mephistopheles, — the world seemed to me a mere child’s ball to kick and spurn at, — the creatures crawling on it, stupid emmets born out of a cloud of dust and a shower of rain! Yes — I was maddened — gloriously maddened I — maddened into a temporary forgetfulness of my crime of Murder! — and bent on some method of forgetting it still more and more utterly! Where should I go? — what should I do? In what resort of fiends and apes could I hide myself for a while, so as to be sure, quite sure that I should not again meet that pale yet leering shadow of Silvion Guidèl?
XXV.
PAUSING for a moment, while the pavement rocked unsteadily beneath me, I tried to shape some course of immediate action, but found that impossible. To return to my own rooms and endeavour to rest was an idea that never occurred to me; rest and I were strangers to each ot
her. I could not grasp at any distinct fact or thought, — I had become for the time being a mere beast, with every animal instinct in me awake and rampant. Intelligence, culture, scholarship — these seemed lost to me, — they occupied no place in my drugged memory. Nothing is easier than for a man to forget such things. A brute by origin, he returns to his brute nature willingly. And I, — I did not stand long considering or striving to consider my own condition there where I was, close by the Avenue de l’Opéra, with the stream of passers-by coming and going like grinning ghosts in a dream, — I hurled myself, as it were, full into the throng and let myself drift with it, careless of whither I went. There were odd noises in my ears, — ringing of bells, beating and crashing of hammers, — it seemed to my fancy that there, spread out before me was a clear green piece of water with a great ship upon it; — the ship was in process of building and I heard the finishing blows on her iron keel, — the throbbing sound of her panting engines; — I saw her launched, when lo! — her giant bulk split apart like a sundered orange — and there, down among her sinking timbers lay a laughing naked thing with pale amber hair, and white arms entwined round a livid corpse that crumbled into a skeleton as I looked, — and anon, from a skeleton into dust! All the work of my Absinthe-witch! — her magic lantern of strange pictures was never exhausted! I rambled on and on — heedless of the people about me, — eager for some distraction and almost unconscious that I moved, — but burning with a sort of rapturous rage to the finger-tips, — a sensation that would easily have prompted and persuaded me to any deed of outrage or violence. Mark me here, good reader, whosoever you are! — do not imagine for a moment that my character is an uncommon one in Paris! Not by any means! The streets are full of such as I am, — men, who, reeling home in the furia of Absinthe, will not stop to consider the enormity of any crime, — human wolves who would kill you as soon as look at you, or kill themselves just as the fancy takes them, — men who would ensnare the merest child in woman’s shape, and not only outrage her, but murder and mutilate her afterwards, — and then, when all is done, and they are by some happy accident, caught and condemned for the crime, will smoke a cigar on the way to the guillotine and cut a joke with the executioner as the knife descends! You would rather not know all this perhaps? — you would rather shut your eyes to the terrific tragedy of modern life and only see that orderly commonplace surface part of it which does not alarm you or shock your nerves? I dare say! — just as you would rather not remember that you must die! But why all this pretence? — why keep up such a game of Sham? Paris is described as a brilliant centre of civilization, — but it is the civilization of the organ-grinder’s monkey, who is trained to wear coat and hat, do a few agile tricks, grab at money, crack nuts, and fastidiously examine the insect-parasites of his own skin. It is not a shade near the civilization of old Rome or Athens, — nor does it even distantly resemble that of Nineveh or Babylon. In those age-buried cities, — if we may credit historical records, — men believed in the dignity of manhood, and did their best to still further and ennoble it; — but we in our day are so thoroughly alive to our own ridiculousness generally, that we spare neither time nor trouble in impressing ourselves with the fact. And so our most successful books are those which make sport of, and find excuse for, our vices, — our most paying dramas those which expose our criminalities in such a manner as to just sheer off by a hair’s breadth positive indecency, — our most popular preachers and orators those which have most rant and most hypocrisy. And so we whirl along from hour to hour, — and the heavens do not crack, and no divine thunderbolt slays us for our misdeeds — if they are misdeeds! Assuredly the Greek Zeus was a far more interesting Deity than the present strange Immensity of Eternal Silence, in which some people perchance feel the thought-throbbings of a vast Force which broods and broods and waits, — waits maybe for a fixed appointed time when the whole universe as it now is, shall disperse like a fleece of film, and leave space clear and clean for the working out of another Creation.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 228
