The Beggar and Other Stories

by Gaito Gazdanov

  Sitting beside Madeleine in the car, Dorin subconsciously knew that he could not simply leave this woman. Madeleine knew this even before he did. She told him that she lived alone in Paris, that her parents lived in the Alpes-Maritimes, that she was twenty-eight years old, that she wrote articles on urbanism and sometimes appeared in films. They had a bite to eat on the Grands Boulevards, after which they set out for another drive, then Dorin found himself in Madeleine’s apartment; later, as if nothing had happened, he saw, as if in a dream, her shoulders, her breasts with what seemed to him naive, boyish nipples, and her long legs and moist eyes. In the morning, without getting up from the divan, he reached over to the telephone standing on the little side table, rang his number in Sainte-Sophie and told André that he would be home at around four o’clock that afternoon. “All right, Papa,” calmly replied André. “I won’t be at home then; I’m going out to hunt for butterflies.” “Excellent, so we’ll see each other after.” Half an hour later, in the crepuscular light passing through the shutters, Dorin asked Madeleine to be his wife. “You’re mad,” she replied, laughing. “I’m not joking,” repeated Dorin with a quaver in his voice. Madeleine looked at him earnestly, then she embraced him tightly, kissed him and didn’t say a word.

  At four o’clock that afternoon Dorin brought her home, to Sainte-Sophie. He gave her a tour of the house and showed her all of the rooms with the exception of André’s, which was locked with a key as usual; André would never leave the door open on going out. They went through to the dining room; Madeleine paused by the long mirror fastened to the wall in order to fix her hair. Dorin approached her from behind and embraced her; her lips began to murmur; she, gasping from the tension of his muscles and leaning over, turned to him so as to kiss him, and in that instant spotted someone else’s eyes: on the threshold of the room stood a scrawny young boy staring intently at her and Dorin. Dorin blushed, released Madeleine’s shoulders from his grip and said in an unexpectedly cheery voice:

  “André, allow me to introduce your future new mother. Madeleine, this is my son, André.”

  “Alors, mon petit…” Madeleine began, mistakenly using the same tone of voice that she had just used with Dorin; apprehending this immediately, she began afresh: “Mon petit, faisons la connaissance.”†

  André made a low bow, kissed her hand and coldly replied: “Enchanté, madame.”‡

  Ever since the day when Madeleine first crossed the threshold of the Dorins’ home, André had sensed some changes in its calm, happy atmosphere. Madeleine brought with her something new and sharply distinct from what there had been before. André disliked Madeleine because everywhere she turned up, everywhere her figure went and her low voice rang out, there invariably reigned a single aura, and everything surrounding her began to acquire a definitive meaning, at the centre of which was she, Madeleine. It was as if she spoke through her presence: “What you think, do or read is important only so long as I’m not here; but the minute I appear, you shall think only of me and consider my proximity the sole purpose of your life.” Madeleine did not consciously strive for this, but within her there was a peculiar psychological humidity, a readiness at any moment to accommodate any movement that occurred amid the charged atmosphere. Her lips and hands were always hot, and when in the evening she would offhandedly kiss André on the forehead, bidding him goodnight, André felt ill at ease.

  Madeleine was marked by a most felicitous physical equipoise, and her body was in a certain sense just as perfect and unwearying as the lungs of an eagle or the muscles of the world’s best athlete; any sensation that gave an ordinary person mild pain or satisfaction, the lure of which was easy enough to overcome, stirred up a tempest in her blood. It was as if her senses were a long sword, whose tip, after the blow had already been delivered, still quivered and trembled, fluttering like a banner in the wind, or the white trim of a sail over the rippling sea, or the wings of a bird sitting on the water. Henri Dorin knew this just as well as André, but he thought that it was true only for him, and for no one else; he thought that before meeting him Madeleine had known neither herself nor her senses, which were revealed only in close proximity to him and beyond which there was nothing. His relationship with André had not ostensibly altered in any way, yet Henri Dorin and his son now stood, as it were, on opposing shores of a steaming hot river that separated them and that neither one nor the other could cross.

  Henri Dorin was often not at home: he would leave now for Paris, now for the Midi, where his factories were located. Sometimes André would accompany him; trips with his father were the greatest of pleasures for him. He would sit in the car and watch the ornament on the radiator, an Indian head with hair swept back, flying in the wind; the head hurtled along, hovering above the even surface of the asphalt, past houses and trees, along the coastline, down the streets of provincial towns and Paris’s boulevards; and in his imagination André had long since thought up the title for a story about the car: ‘The Indian Voyager’. The story, however, he never wrote. All the trips ended well; only once did André return from a journey in the car with an enormous bump on his forehead. It happened as André and his father were driving home one evening in Paris—there had been a downpour, and the sides of the road along which they were driving were covered by a thin layer of mud—and the boy’s father, hurrying to reach Sainte-Sophie before nine o’clock, pressed ever harder on the accelerator—at the corner of one of the streets in Passy, which was almost deserted at this hour, André suddenly spotted a little fox terrier pup running across the road, directly in the car’s path, so there was nowhere to swerve; the street was too narrow. Scarcely able to breathe, André looked at his father and, without time to utter so much as a word, saw that he had also clocked the puppy. However quickly all this was taking place, André still had time to think: What will Papa do? “Hold on, André,” was all Dorin said, and that very moment the brakes screeched and squealed, and with extraordinary speed the Indian head began to veer right; the car skidded at full speed. André was thrown out of his seat and hurled into a corner; then he heard a powerful impact, and everything stopped. André stood up where he had landed, and the first thing he saw was the puppy, which had managed to run to the opposite pavement and was wagging its short snub tail. His father’s hands settled him in the seat beside him, and in an altered voice he asked:

  “That was a close shave, wasn’t it, André?”

  André didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  “No,” replied André. “I just have a bump on my forehead.”

  His father felt his head. “You’re made of iron, young man,” he said. “Nothing damaged whatsoever. Let’s check the car now.”

  But the car had not suffered either, and the remainder of the journey passed as usual. There was no conversation about the reason for the “catastrophe”; only not far from home, André asked his father:

  “Papa, why in fact do they cut fox terriers’ tails?”

  “Why indeed?” said Dorin. “Perhaps they think they’re more comfortable without it, though I find that very doubtful.”

  “Now, Madeleine,” said Dorin as he entered the dining room with André, “only thanks to André’s selfless heroism do I have the pleasure of dining at home this evening.”

  “How so?”

  And so Dorin related an absolutely fantastic story about how, at full speed, André had stopped the car “with the help of the auxiliary air brake and the alarm signal”—while he himself had been paralysed with horror and was unable to move a muscle; how a crowd of people had gathered around André and warmly thanked him for this selfless act and how one town councillor, who happened to be there and whose life also, by the way, had been saved by André, immediately proposed that he become an honorary citizen of the district that the councillor had represented for twenty years; and how André had declined this honour and left, accompanied by the people’s cries of jubilation, causing his head to swell, which was particularly
noticeable in one spot, where the bump had formed, serving as incontrovertible proof that the story corresponded exactly to the truth.

  André frowned as he listened to his father’s tale; he didn’t like it when Dorin spoke to Madeleine about him in such a way—André thought that his relationship with his father ought not to extend to a third party.

  André stayed at home more often; he would retire to his room to write, to attend to his beloved butterflies, or to read his books; he was particularly interested in books on zoology. His father was the only person he would on occasion initiate into his activities.

  On one of those airless summer evenings when André ran off immediately after dinner, telling Madeleine in that same cold tone he always took with her: “Forgive me, I must dash,” Henri Dorin had noticed in the depths of the garden an electric light coming from among the trees. It took him by surprise. He walked over and saw André, who was standing over a hollow glass cylinder illuminated by a modest electric lamp. In the cylinder, slowly crawling over the glass, were two torpid butterflies with large wings. André was examining them closely.

  “What are you doing?” asked Dorin.

  André explained to his father that for several months he had been keeping in his room the larvae of these butterflies, which were not found within a range of one hundred and twenty kilometres.

  “These are female butterflies,” said André. “And you’ll see, Papa,” he continued, raising his head and looking at his father, “that the males, sensing the presence of these females, will fly here—almost one hundred and fifty kilometres.”

  “Aren’t you getting your hopes up a bit much, André?” asked Dorin. “One hundred and twenty kilometres? How? I can understand one, maybe two, or even ten—but one hundred and twenty? André, I’m afraid I don’t believe your experiment will succeed.”

  “You’ll see, Papa,” said André. “I’ll put out the light now and wait here. You go upstairs. I’ll call you.”

  Dorin left. Much time passed; night had already fallen. André had still not returned.

  “What’s he playing around with in the garden?” asked Madeleine.

  “An interesting experiment; here’s what it consists of…” And so Dorin told Madeleine.

  “Wonders never cease,” she said. “What a queer boy,” she added, smiling and thinking of something else entirely. Suddenly, from beneath the window came André’s triumphant whisper: “Papa, they’re here!” Dorin and Madeleine followed André, inadvertently like him, treading on tiptoes and trying not to make any noise. André walked ahead. “I’ll turn the light on,” he whispered and began waving his hand. “Papa, come here.” They drew closer; André switched on the electricity, and Madeleine and Dorin saw on the illuminated glass dozens of enormous butterflies crawling back and forth and beating their wings.

  “You couldn’t exactly describe it as raucous,” noted Madeleine with a laugh. André shot her an angry and contemptuous look.

  André spent a lot of time on his own; whenever his father was away from home, he almost never left his room; only on rare occasions would he suddenly appear from the open door to go into Dorin’s study in order to fetch some book or other—his appearance would always be unexpected, for he moved about in absolute silence; on account of this, Madeleine would often start when she saw him. “Did I startle you?” André would ask in such instances. “I’m sorry.”

  The house frequently hosted guests: one time this resulted in unpleasantness for André. At the time, his father had disappeared for a few days; André himself had gone out in the morning, taking with him his butterfly net and a small jar that had a wooden lid with holes drilled in it for air—into this jar André placed newts and water beetles, which he would catch at a little lake about three miles from his house. He was accompanied by his mastiff, Jack—it amused him that Jack would bark at the lizards. André had been walking all day; whenever he grew tired, he would sit down on the ground and lie there with his face to the sun; his eyes closed, he would see a red expanse before him; the earth beneath him hummed; the grass quietly hissed, swaying in the gentle breeze, and beside him he could hear Jack’s even breathing—and amid the red expanse, butterflies, the Indian head and other strange, barely recognizable objects would appear and disappear. André got up and walked on. His jar was already full of newts, his legs were covered in scratches; he was tired and it was beginning to grow dark, and the forest in which he now found himself was beginning to emit its nocturnal sounds. “Time to head home, Jack,” said André. “Let’s go.” It was just then that he recalled having neglected to lock his door as he was leaving.

  As he approached the house, he saw the lights on in every room, including the lamp above his desk. He bolted upstairs; there was no one in the hallway, and from the dining room he could hear Madeleine’s voice. André approached his room; the door was ajar. He pushed it open and saw that his notebook was lying open, novel-like, on his desk. An unfamiliar woman with a pale face and bright-red lips was sitting in his chair. Reclining on the arm of the chair was a young man embracing the woman; his lips were almost touching her ear. André entered so quickly that the young man had no time to alter the situation. He looked at André and said:

  “I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, young man, but in future I would advise you to knock before entering.” Choked with anger, André was unable to utter a word. Jack began to growl. André suddenly recovered the gift of speech. “Allez-vous-en,”§ he said quietly.

  “What did you just say?” said the young man, rising from the chair. Jack’s growling became frenzied. André held him by the collar and repeated:

  “Allez-vous-en, vous et votre dame. This is my room.” Without realizing, André raised his voice to drown out the growling of the dog.

  Five minutes later Madeleine knocked on André’s door.

  “André, you must go and apologize. What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Madame?…” said André enquiringly.

  “You must apologize.”

  André shrugged his shoulders.

  “Pray do me the favour,” he said in an even voice, as though reading from a book, “of conveying my regrets to monsieur and madame for what happened.”

  He leant over his book, pretending to read. Madeleine turned and left. There was silence in André’s room. He rang the bell, was brought something to eat and ate his dinner; after this he lay on the divan and fell asleep.

  He awoke during the night, got up and went over to the window. White summer clouds obscured the high moon; the air was warm and still; everything around was quiet. Suddenly in the dining room Madeleine’s swooning voice said:

  “Do you really?”

  “When I visit you,” replied a man’s voice, “I feel as though I’ve grown wings.”

  “Wings of love?” Madeleine intoned again.

  Silence descended. Then some movement could be heard, and an infinitely altered female voice, breathless and hurried:

  “Have you gone mad?”

  André withdrew from the window and sat down in an easy chair. Again, sounds came from the dining room, but André remained indifferent. “Wings of love,” he repeated to himself. “Where have I read about wings?”

  And he recalled reading about several species of ant, which, during the mating season, grow wings and rise into the air, only then to fall and perish by the thousand. “And then there are the drones,” thought André, “who fly after the queen; the weak are the first to be left behind, then others—until only one, the best and the strongest, reaches her. There they are, those wings of love. That’s what Madeleine is talking about. But what of Papa?”

  André lay on the divan and began to sob.

  André sat in his room, writing. He was dreaming of eventually becoming a great writer, like those whose books were published by Grasset and La Nouvelle Revue Française, dreaming how, dressed in a black overcoat and a navy suit, with a beret on his head and an Omega watch on his left wrist, he would walk about the Latin Quarter and how some
one’s impudent voice would say behind him as he went: “Mais regardez donc, c’est bien André Dorin.”¶ While he, without turning, and even quickening his pace in vexation, would walk on. The only thing he was unable to imagine was what exactly he would write. There just wasn’t a single subject, among all those to which he had given considerable thought, that he could make work; everything had seemed simple to begin with: open with a description of the main character, then his living conditions, the books he read, then his journey to England and his strange encounter on a foggy London street with yellow lamps—an encounter that would determine his fate—and all this would be written in a single breath, so that having begun the story, it would be impossible to break away from it. But each time that André reached a crucial point, everything came out so poorly and artificially that he would give up in despair, and with alarm begin to think that he would never make a famous writer of himself. He was unable to concentrate his efforts on a single line of the narrative; as soon as he began describing something, he wanted to say everything he knew about it and begrudged leaving anything out—this gave the impression that he knew nothing about those things that were not mentioned and were truly not required in this story, but which in and of themselves were very important, interesting and the sole intellectual province of the intelligent and observant. When André began to describe London, he would invariably pass over to reflecting on English history and present his verdict on the British national character, backing it up with examples drawn from across the centuries, mentioning Gladstone, Pitt, Shelley and Shakespeare—although not one of these people had the least to do with the story. Then he would return to his hero; but during all this time his hero had managed to change, unwittingly acquiring some English traits, and his whole characterization would have to be reworked. André patiently set about this work—but something would again lead his tale far off on a tangent, and the quantity of pages covered in writing would grow exponentially, while the heroine would never quite manage to emerge from the London fog; and her solitary figure, walking orphan-like down the street, involuntarily aroused such pity in André that he became grieved in earnest, as if she were really a living person—and he would resolve to write about her the very next day; but again he would be distracted, and again nothing would come out. Then André would throw away his work and go into the garden, while in the evening he would sit down to write his diary, where there was no need to invent anything.