The Mysterious Force

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  The brevity of his conversations, and their fearful and furtive appearance, far from working to his disadvantage, had been helpful to him; they permitted an extreme density of emotion, hid the awkwardness, the gaps and the linkage of souls, excused incomplete sentences and gave a subtle or mysterious meaning to the play of his expression. Sabine’s youth and the vicissitudes of her existence also worked in his favor. By virtue of her father’s ravaged life, she knew the story of unjust suffering and the legend of misunderstood greatness only too well. The man’s features, his tone of voice, his gestures, his breathless manner and his ardent pallor of jealousy corresponded strangely to that legend. Sabine had shivered at the thought that she might treat Pierre as society had treated Langre. Her compassionate soul had yielded to the drama.

  The illusion was total, for she loved Vérannes. She did not love him as she might have loved a more well-balanced man, better suited to her nature, but she did love him. Social destiny is as restricted as it is complex. Those who are made for one another brush past one another in the street, at the theatre and on social occasions, but, close as they may be, are separated by incommensurable distances—or, rather, separated by subtle isolating factors. In consequence, choices are falsified. An obscure fortune determines them, in which our own will is negligible. Sabine had yielded to Vérannes because the momentary combination of encounters and coincidences had decided it.

  Afterwards, she paid the price. Trapped, jealously ill-treated, asphyxiated by anxiety, she lived the corrosive existence of women surrounded by suspicion. Because her husband loved her, she became a little tremulous creature, who was safe neither by day nor by night, neither among others, nor in the petty desert of the hearth, neither during caresses, nor at work. In the vast and intimate worlds alike, there was nothing that was not dangerous. A word or silence, a gesture or something read, a star or the light of a lamp—anything might excite the wild beast. Some days, every minute suggested peace, serenity and trust: she had not left the house; she had not seen anyone; no footstep had sounded in the garden; the red sunset was decaying delightfully into black night…but all the same, the suspicion was born, like a little flame at the tip of a blade of grass; it increased, it took possession of Pierre’s soul, filled him with odious and sinister impacts…

  Two children had come along; that had not been able to cure the somber man. Although he was not very perspicacious, outside the things he knew—his microscopes and his electrical coils—Langre eventually realized that his daughter was unhappy. When she saw that he knew, she hid it with less courage. Intermittently, he intervened. Vérannes was afraid of the old man, of whose worth he had a vague idea and whose bitter eloquence fascinated him.

  II. The Red Night

  The car moved at great speed. People hurled insults as it passed by; the crossroads vomited forth furious creatures; the driver made superfluous gestures, moving his head in a maniac fashion or replying to the vituperations with hoarse shouts and blasts of his horn.

  “The wretch is excited!” Meyral murmured, when they reached the Pont d’Alma. He was subject to a certain intoxication himself. Langre’s eyes were glistening wildly beneath his huge white eyebrows. That hyperesthesia made the young man more anxious as it seemed to increase.

  He was not surprised to see four well-dressed pedestrians in the Avenue Marceau fall upon one another with mighty blows of their walking-sticks. A woman ran in front of the car shouting ominously, and the driver, who only avoided her by a miracle, laughed like a hyena. Near the Arc they ran into a huge brawl; several hundred individuals, howling and brandishing weapons, had surrounded a few policemen with the attitude of guard-dogs. Suddenly, the shouting became terrible: an automobile, having crushed several people, projected its driver into the crowd.

  It was only a glimpse. The Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne opened its wide expanse; the vehicle leapt forward like a racing-car. Other bolides were vibrating in the semi-darkness, and light was streaming from almost every window.

  “The fever’s spreading,” Meyral muttered, with exasperated melancholy. “Dementia is scything through humankind like a cavalry charge.”

  The car stopped in the Rue Marteau, in front of a small town house built of lumps of millstone punctuated with red brick. A meager garden preceded it, which contained a poplar, a few yew-trees and hollyhocks.

  “We’ll keep you on!” said Gérard to the driver.

  The driver pulled a face. “As you wish!” he croaked. “Provided that it’s not for long—I need my rest. I’ve been on the go for 15 hours.”

  He had, to be frank, a face like a dog, with bloodshot and candid eyes, but he was very excited. Meyral looked at him with anxious attention. He’s quite normal! He thought. Aloud, he said, gently: “We’ll try not to keep you waiting for too long.”

  The man struck an expression that was almost cordial.

  As Langre extended his hand toward the bell, the door of the little house opened suddenly; bare-headed with untidy hair, a man leapt into the garden and rushed toward the gate. “Father-in-law!” he exclaimed, with wild amazement. In a thunderous voice, he added: “Where’s Sabine? Where are the children?”

  “How should I know?” Gérard replied, impetuously.

  They looked at one another through the bars, like wild beasts. Their eyes were glittering in the same way; the same mistrust clenched their jaws. In that first moment, inflamed by the mysterious influence, they seemed ready to leap upon one another—but the anger gave way to anxiety.

  “Yes, how should I know?” Langre went on, plaintively. “Twenty-five minutes ago I was at home, and Sabine…”

  “…Was still here,” Pierre agreed, feverishly.

  “She can’t have gone far, then,” Meyral interjected, standing some distance away from the gate.

  Vérannes turned to him with a peevish expression, but the observation had struck home.

  “Have you searched the house and the back garden thoroughly?” demanded the old man.

  “Everywhere! I’ve searched everywhere!”

  “Did she leave alone?”

  “She took the two children with her, and a chambermaid.”

  “Then we have only to divide up the field of research,” said Langre. “You search the neighboring streets, Vérannes. Meyral, the cab-driver and I will explore a wider area.”

  “I don’t want strangers getting mixed up in my private life!” cried the husband, wildly.

  “You don’t want?” said Langre, exasperatedly. “You don’t want! It’s time to put an end to all this, isn’t it? For the moment, you’re not Sabine’s husband—you’re a criminal! You shouldn’t even be participating in our search. If I consent to let you involve yourself, it’s because, in the circumstances, you’re going to conduct yourself like a worthy man. Yes, you’ve behaved like a maniac—you’ll answer for your iniquity.”

  Vérannes was convulsed by hatred, anguish and resentment. All the same, he was subdued. Silently, he limited himself to making a curt rude gesture, and then he ran back into the house.

  “He’s gone to look for the manservant,” muttered Langre. “There’s no point waiting for him. Let’s start searching.”

  “Where?”

  “Along the Avenue du Bois.”

  “That’s not my opinion. Your daughter took an opportunity to save herself, while her husband was upstairs for some reason or other. She can only have had one idea in her mind—to seek refuge with you.”

  “She knew that I was coming.”

  “She knew it, she was counting on it, and surely hesitated before going out—then, fear got the better of her, fear inspired by the conduct of Vérannes who must have said something crazy, but also born of the over-excitement she shares with all of us. So she ran away, and I believe she’s hiding, fairly close by. One of us ought to wait—the other ought to go to the Metro station in the Avenue du Bois, the one in the Avenue de la Grande-Armée, or to the nearest cab-stands.”

  “You’re right! The chambermaid who went with Sabi
ne will come back here to tell me. I’m astonished that she isn’t here already.”

  “This is a very difficult night!” Meyral grumbled. “Who’ll wait?”

  “It’s better if it’s me. Take the car.”

  Georges wasted no time. He gave an order and climbed into the cab just as Vérannes came out of the house again. The driver took off at speed. In two minutes, the vehicle reached the Avenue de la Grande-Armée, where Meyral inspected the cab-rank. Then he went down into the Metro. He bought a ticket and went as far as the platform. A few men and women were waiting there, showing signs of impatience.

  As the physicist came out again, the clerk shouted at him angrily: “What are you doing?”

  “That’s none of your business!” Meyral replied.

  “I need to know why you went in without a reason.”

  The man did not insist. Georges went back into the avenue. There was a lot of noise there. In a restaurant ablaze with light, men and women were singing, howling or yapping. Two prowlers on the threshold of a bar were threatening to stick a knife in the owner. The passers-by wore unusual expressions.

  It’s getting worse! Meyral thought.

  He was about to give an order to the driver when he spotted the little Gare de Ceinture, which he had never used, and of whose existence he was almost unaware. It was an excellent place to wait. After avoiding a group from which incoherent chatter resounded, Georges reached the entrance. It was empty—which disappointed him. He examined the dusty ground feverishly, along with an old man bent over in front of the booking-office, a pneumatic clock that marked 11:30 p.m. The place seemed bleak and sinister.

  The young man was gripped by a terrible impatience. “A ticket to Saint-Lazare,” he said to the clerk.

  The woman shivered, and stamped the ticket with a shaky hand.

  Where will all this end? Meyral asked himself, as he went down the staircase. My excitement’s getting worse—other people’s must be getting more aggravated too. Are we all going to be raving mad before the night’s out?

  He was shaken by a spasm, but did not pause in his march; the platforms and the rails seemed even more sinister than the waiting-room. The lighting was pitiful; two shadows were wandering around miserably, and Georges’ heart skipped a beat. He had just perceived a seated woman in the distance, hidden behind a column. There was a child next to her and she was holding another on her knee.

  “Sabine!” he whispered.

  Memories rose up, so sweet, so fresh and so sad that he was shaken to the core of his being. He suppressed them, and presented himself before Madame Vérannes with a calm expression. She could not have seemed more alarmed if she had seen a wolf. Her small hand was visibly trembling; she clutched her child to her convulsively; the light in her eyes gleamed like starlight. Suddenly, she displayed an exaggerated astonishment and an inexplicable terror. “Is it by chance that…” she stammered. She stopped short.

  “It’s not by chance,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

  “You were looking for me?”

  She smiled vaguely; she seemed calmer and almost joyful. She was a sparkling creature, by virtue of the brightness of her blonde hair, piled up on her head, and her complexion of convolvulus and wild roses, but pathetic by virtue of her large, unsteady and timid eyes.

  “When you called your father, I was with him,” Meyral went on. “We came together. He’s waiting for you near your house, for we expected that you’d send the chambermaid to meet him.”

  “She should have reached him by now,” she whispered.

  “You don’t want us to go and find him?”

  She uttered a faint wail: “Oh, no! No! I don’t want to go back to the house tonight—I don’t want to risk running into…” She did not finish; fear took hold of her; her lips moved soundlessly.

  “We’ll wait, then,” he said, disturbed by the poor creature’s anxiety. “It’s not very far.”

  By means of a surge of sentiment analogous to the previous one, she reassured herself generally: “Oh, how nervous I am!”

  “We’re all nervous tonight,” he replied, mechanically. His tone was marked by gloom and malaise. His memories were still flowing, a cruel, destructive and magical host. “Perhaps it would be better to wait upstairs?” he added, by way of diversion.

  She approved the suggestion with a nod of the head. Gently, Meyral picked up the little girl who was sitting beside her mother, while Sabine brought the baby.

  They had not long to wait. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed when Langre and the chambermaid came into view. Gérard displayed an excessive joy; his hands were trembling. He had the taut smile of old men, in which even happiness is mingled with something unstable and tragic. His keen eyes never ceased looking fondly at the two children—the uncertain family that was supposed to extend into the far future.

  “What do you want to do, my darling?” he murmured, eventually. “Do you want to go back to your husband?”

  She uttered the same plaint that she had addressed to Gérard: “Oh no! Not now. Perhaps never again.” In a low and intense tone, she added: “I’ve tried, father; I’ve fought hard. I think I’ve been resigned, perhaps courageous—but I can’t any longer. I can’t do it any more!”

  “It’s not me who’ll force you to see him again,” her father replied, somberly.

  When the group got back to the Avenue de la Grande-Armée, a baseless quarrel was convulsing two hosts of frenzied individuals. The racket was getting louder; shady individuals were roaming near the barrier. It was impossible to find a supplementary vehicle; it was agreed that the chambermaid would take the Metro.

  At first, the driver barked, angrily: “I’m not an omnibus!”

  “No, but you’re a good fellow,” Meyral retorted, sharply, “and you’ll help out these good people.” He pointed to the young woman and her children. The cabby, gripped by abrupt compassion, tapped himself on the sternum and exclaimed, in a generous tone: “One has a heart! And benevolence!”

  The car moved through deserted streets. Agitated silhouettes were perceptible at intervals; almost all the windows were lit up. Nothing got in the travelers’ way until the church of Saint-François-Xavier; there erratic bands surged into the road, composed of artisans from Grenelle or Gros-Caillou. They were moving rapidly, in the same direction. Sometimes, a cry echoing from mouth to mouth ended up as a unanimous shout. The automobile was greeted with vituperation and insults.

  One plaster-encrusted individual with the arms of a gorilla croaked: “Take it back! Take it back!”

  With every rotation of the wheels the crowd became denser; men were emerging from the side-streets unrelentingly, and the driver, after swerving a few times, was obliged to slow down.

  “Are you trying to squash the workers?” jeered a black-faced man with a flat nose and circular eyes.

  “I’m a more conscientious worker than you!” howled the driver. “And I’m in a union!”

  “Then f--- off to the Bois with your bourgeois!”

  “They’re not bourgeois. They’re good fellows—and a woman and two kids!” He was barking like a huge mastiff in the night, terrible and raucous.

  The man with the round eyes was already 30 meters behind.

  A loud roar emanated from the Gare Montparnasse: “Death! Death!”

  Almost immediately, a song rose up, in successive waves, like a tide:

  “C’est le grand soir, c’est le grand soir,

  “C’est le grand soir des exploiteurs!”8

  “In God’s name!” groaned the driver. “This is it! The red night’s arrived!”

  The automobile went forward slowly, without exciting any protests, for the driver had started singing along with the rest of them, and the chorus emerged from his throat like a roar:

  “Les bourreaux mordront la poussière

  “Lève-toi, peuple aux mille bras,

  “Nous allons tuer la misère;

  “La nuit rouge monte là-bas!”

  Innumerable hordes wer
e running toward the station. Six large aircraft were directing the beams of searchlights amid the stars.

  In the car, Langre and Meyral, who were very pale, looked at one another. “Is it the revolution?” asked the old man.

  “It’s an episode of it,” Meyral murmured. “An order must have reached the suburbs; hundreds of thousands of men are on the march.”

  Suddenly, the song quavered and broke up. A wave ran through the crowd; the multitude slowed down and gunshots resounded, isolated at first, and then in incoherent salvoes.

  “The cops! The cops! Death to the cops! Murderers! Have their hides!”

  A detachment of police arrived, which drove back the crowd; with roars and complaints it broke up, bumping into masses emerging from the Rue de Vaugirard, the Rue du Cherche-Midi and the Rue de Sevres: insane faces with frantic eyes, reminiscent of marine froth and phosphorescence.

  Behind them, the police formed a black raft, compact and solid, which oscillated without breaking. Everyone fled from them. Further shots crackled, and there was a charge; the hounds fell randomly on the ragged remnants of the crowd, breaking heads, recklessly kicking fallen bodies in the belly with booted feet. A boundless fury was exciting the assailants; the roars and growls of carnivores replied to the screams and blasphemies of the victims.

  An immense rumor filled the Avenue du Maine, however; as incoherent as a squall, it exhaled jeers, threats and exhortations—and then a rhythm took possession of it, channeling the enthusiasm, the war-cry giving it a soul:

  “Nous allons tuer la misère.

  “La nuit rouge monte là-bas!”

  A man with a skeletal torso, six feet tall, was brandishing a scarlet rag; a horde of laborers was following him, their arms interlinked and their bearded heads held high. The raft of policemen was fragmented and broken up. The tide of fugitives came back from all directions. The soft thud of falling bodies was audible, the impact of skulls on pavements, and the screams of the wounded and dying.