His liaison with Mathilde de Guinac—a true noblesse de jupons12—had served the surgeon well. Mathilde had been able to bring a number of her former lovers to him and to entertain them with an amiable camaraderie at a savant table. A shady society frequented her drawing-room; demi-mondaines of her acquaintance brought their protectors. She always had an invitation to dinner on her lips.
Painters, sculptors, journalists and musicians came to sit down at weekly dinners; Jewish bankers fraternized there with politicians, defenders of Catholicism and the pope. Over glasses of champagne there was an affable meeting of the mandarins of farce and patented gamblers.
Among them, Armand Caresco, humble, insinuating, his hand limp, never meeting anyone’s eye, insidiously inflated his reputation, imposing his personality. Newcomers were taken up by him; he slipped into conversations interesting accounts of the successes he obtained in his operating theater, his skill, his rapidity, his discoveries. Scorning the observation of the principles of professional secrecy, he cited the nature of his interventions carried out on important people; he made the slightest cuts into veritable surgical events.
Suddenly, his voice would rise up in the middle of the drawing-room: “Oh him! He had a lucky escape…can you imagine…?” And he would describe a frightful operation; one could hear the flesh cry out, see the blood flow. His gaze was no longer fleeting but imposing, fascinating is interlocutors. Usually, he finished his speeches with loud laughter. “He was lucky to fall into my hands—another wouldn’t have been able to get him out of it. I believe I’m the only man in Paris capable of carrying out such an intervention.”
People quit his presence hypnotized. His name passed from mouth to mouth; fame swelled its organ-pipes for him. His reputation spread like a pool of oil over the human wave. His murderous endeavors became exploits of fortunate daring. So it goes with the renowned: an abominable act, initially reputed as such, imposes itself subsequently as a heroic deed. History is filled with such examples, science even more so.
Mathilde interrupted her contemplation and turned her head. Caresco was in the room, correctly dressed in an elegantly-tailored suit.
“They’re late,” Mathilde said, pointing at a glass case in which a small clock was already indicating half past seven. “The roasts will be overcooked. Should I alert the chef?”
“No need—they’ll be here,” said the surgeon, going to sit down on a divan and draw her toward him by the waist.
She sat down beside him, meekly. A wisp of hair was forming an untidy curl over her lover’s forehead; she replaced it with a dainty gesture; then, taking Armand’s face in her plump hands, she kissed his forehead.
“You’re very handsome, my wolf!”
Under the caress of that flattery, a smile curled the man’s lips, causing his pearly teeth to appear. He was always sensitive to the compliments he was paid, which corroborated his own self-esteem. He wanted to be the most handsome, the strongest, the most intelligent of men; an immense conceit was corroding him.
“Israel’s coming, you know,” Mathilde continued, in a seductive voice. “Have you paid him?”
“Oh! Israel’s coming...”
“Yes, my wolf.”
Israel was the banker from whom Armand had borrowed a hundred thousand francs in order to satisfy one of Mathilde’s whims, to buy her a pearl necklace she wanted. The surgeon, who possessed a hereditary prudence in the organization of his expenses, no longer counted costs where his mistress was concerned. Money flowed from his hands to the courtesan’s as a stream goes from its source to the river; he was dominated by the sensual need for the beautiful Tripe-merchant to such a degree that all the other primordial considerations of life were effaced before the satisfaction of that lust; and, for fear of losing her, he abandoned madly to her what he cherished most in all the world: money.
If it sometimes happened, when he was away from her and less directly subject to the demands of his temperament, that he wanted to draw back, criticizing himself for an absurd generosity that he had formerly criticized in others, and felt, in his mercantile soul, the agony of his passing coins, all of that vanished as soon as he was close to her again, in contact with her skin, his sense of smell intoxicated by the fat woman’s reek. Cupid with others, he became prodigal with her, opening his hands without calculation to let thousand-franc bills blow away in the wind of her desire.
Mathilde profited skillfully from his weakness; she had manipulated enough men to know that such generosity was only temporary, and that the day would come when the surgeon, disillusioned, would discard her like something filthy, all the more casually because it was in his egotistical nature to rid himself brutally of things that had become useless. When that day came, she would not find any more takers for her flaccid feminine charms. He was an unexpected, miraculous opportunity, manna in the desert. Her appetite was, in consequence never satisfied. In three years she had saved up more than six hundred thousand francs under the pretext of old debts to liquidate, and the pearl necklace that she had just had offered to her had not, in reality, been purchased; it had been hired from an obliging jeweler, on bail.
“Oh! Israel’s coming,” Armand repeated, anxiously.
“Yes, my great tomcat. You’ve paid him, haven’t you?”
“No, not yet. The bill fell due a week ago, but there’s plenty of time in hand. I’ll settle up at the end of the month. I’ll be doing a few fruitful operations this week...” He leaned back on the divan, looked at her anxiously, and added, between his teeth: “You cost me dear, you know...”
In a tone of perfect sincerity, Mathilde protested. “Oh, my wolf…if you think…it’s the first time I’ve asked for something for myself…and then, I don’t ask, you give…it’s very kind of you, my big rat. You can’t think that I love you for your money!”
She was almost speaking into his mouth; a kiss completed the sentence. A waiter appeared, introducing the guests; they pulled apart rapidly.
A sculptor and a celebrated painter came in. The sculptor was threadbare; his hair was full of dandruff. The painter was elegant; sapphires and rubies covered his fingers; the velvet collar of his jacket was immaculate.
Almost immediately, the drawing-room filled up; the carriages bringing the diners made the widows tremble. Two young men who were squandering fortunes amassed with difficulty by their ancestors came in with their mistresses, dancers at the Opéra, old friends of Mathilde’s.
Then, at the same time, came a composer of operettas and a professor of the Faculté de Médecine, a member of the Académie, whose specialty was launching new pharmaceuticals. The handshake he gave Armand Caresco was vigorous; an understanding existed between the two men.
Then, others appeared: a député; a former singer from Montmartre; an actor in third-rate theaters, his face clean-shaven.
Then came Bordier, silent and reserved, his eyes calm behind the transparency of his spectacles. He had been invited for the first time, and had thought that he could not refuse. His entrance caused a sensation in the feminine clan; his delicate features went straight to women’s hearts. He was followed by Dr. Savre, his predecessor in Caresco’s employ. The two physicians, who had not previously met, engaged in conversation to one side. Savre had a physiognomy carved in abrupt angles, a direct eyes and a great sobriety of gesture; Bordier liked him.
At each arrival Mathilde stood up heavily, extended a plump hand and said: “How nice of you to come...”
She was pleased by that meeting of men, almost all of whom had plumbed the mystery of her body; she delighted in the flutter of costumes, the cleavages of her friends, all lanky, whom she had been careful to choose from those uglier or older than herself. The odor of the cuisine came through the double curtain that separated the dining room from the drawing-room, hollowing out stomachs.
Armand Caresco came to join his mistress.
“Shall we start?” he said.
“Israel hasn’t arrived, my wolf.”
“It’s eight o’clock—t
oo bad.”
He was nursing the secret hope of not seeing his creditor—but Israel came in, apologizing for having been delayed by business matters He was accompanied by an actress much appreciated in the boulevard theaters, his mistress. He was short, fat and bald, and his nose plunged toward his lower jaw. The avid regards of the women saluted the appearance of the golden calf. He suffered them amiably, a great lover of women, very perverse, inclining the mirror of his occiput before each lady. At the appeal of the maître d’hôtel, the beautiful Tripe-merchant took the banker’s arm and they went into the dining room.
The beginning of the meal was icy. The majority of the guests were unacquainted; the women, not yet under the influence of the generosity of the wines, adopted attitudes that they strove to render dignified. They observed one another, copying one another’s gestures. Only the voices of the waiters announcing the dishes and the wines, and the sound of forks colliding with porcelain, broke the silence. The candle-flames fluttered, pouring a cheerful light over the harmony of colors, caressing the blue and pink tulles of necklines and bare shoulders, softening the contrast between whites and blacks among the men.
Mathilde was radiant in all the solidity of her flesh; to her right, Israel guzzled; opposite, Caresco, a hearty eater, a gourmand of nourishment as of everything else, filled his plate and his cheeks, but found time nevertheless to recount his operating achievements to his neighbors. One of them, the actress, listened with interest; the other, one of the two stars of the Opéra, remained indifferent to his eloquence, and had great difficulty suppressing the yawns occasioned by the sleeplessness of the previous night—and the ennui that she emitted seemed to pass along the table from one guest to the next. Conversations begun in loud voices became gradually quieter and then stopped, cut off by silence.
Bordier, relegated to a corner, as an individual of no importance, had the good fortune to be seated next to Dr. Savre. They were the only ones in the assembly exchanging ideas—the grave professor of the Académie de Médecine, the dear master, was only exchanging winks with the other dancer, who was sitting opposite.
A mute sympathy was established between the two young physicians, formed by a symmetry of ideas and an equal fundamental honesty.
“What do you think of Caresco, in sum?” asked Bordier. “I don’t know him, and can’t succeed in fathoming him.”
“Shh! Let’s not talk about that here,” Savre replied, lowering his voice.
The champagne loosened tongue, however. Voices gradually rose up, cheeks colored, eyes became languid. The women let out volleys of laughter, abandoning their poses. A digestive well-being spread over physiognomies. As soon as the glasses were emptied they were filled with the heady dry wine. The waiters had instructions to pour copiously; their gestures rounded out, interrupted whispers; the glass filled, they gave the bottle a rapid twist that brought the drop about to escape back into the bottle, avoiding staining dresses. The women remarked that the service was impeccable.
The actress, now watched closely by Mathilde, who thought that the conversation with her lover as going on too long, said to Caresco: “Doctor, one of my friends, whom you know well, Stella, of the Opéra-Comique, has abdominal pains. She’s suffering terribly. She went to consult Monant, the surgeon at the Lariboisière...”
“One doesn’t go to see Monant,” said Caresco, shrugging his shoulders. “He’s old and soft in the head.”
“Oh, I didn’t know—I thought he had a good reputation,” said Israel’s mistress, surprised. “In any case, he said that there was nothing to be done surgically.”
“Of course, if there was anything to be done, he wouldn’t know about it. Send your friend to me; I’ll tell you if she can be cured. No promises.”
Now the voices were rising, and a certain communicative abandon initiated by the younger members of the party overtook the more serious. The two stars of the dance, animated by the alcohol, were babbling, with their elbows on the table. Their minds were going astray in a buoyant overflow.
One of them, avid to smoke long before the end of the meal, took a packet of Oriental tobacco from a golden case attached to her belt and showed it to Mathilde, who approved with a wink. Immediately, she rolled a cigarette with an expert hand, lit it and perfumed the air with a blue-tinted incense.
Others followed suit, and an intimacy was established, complete with lewd jokes and stupid puns. A sorbet was served; they waxed ecstatic over its pale pink color.
“The color of excited mucus,” said the grave professor, dedicating the quip to the dancer that he coveted more among the two.
The color of excited mucus…the witticism passed from mouth to mouth, illuminating Israel’s eye, causing Caresco and the artistes to laugh loudly, but only bringing a wan smile to Bordier’s lips. It was stupid and hilarious. After having pretended to more reserve than in respectable houses, the formal pose dissolved. It only required a waltz tune to be tapped out by the composer to unchain delirium when they returned to the drawing room. A disheveled quadrille began.
Wild dances agitated arms and legs; there was a disorientation of gestures and faces, the epilepsy of the Moulin Rouge. One young man, in launching a high kick, knocked a tray out of the hands of a waiter. Cups broke; coffee stained white silk cushions and filled the professor’s opera hat, which caused Mathilde’s opulent bosom to heave with gargantuan laughter. Beside her, Israel, whom she had warmed up with secret pressures of her foot throughout the meal, was mentally calculating the price of her favors. The bargain was concluded in low voices. Thus, Mathilde avenged herself on the actress she believed to be guilty of wanting to attract Caresco’s attention.
The atmosphere filled with cigar smoke and the powerful sonorities of the piano. The clean-shaven actor intoned the latest popular tune, the refrain of which was repeated in chorus.
Savre and Bordier, strangers to the unleashing of these follies, decided to leave. Caresco, who had noticed their retreat, came to catch up with them in the vestibule.
“You’re going already?” he said, with a note of criticism in his voice.
“Yes, Bordier replied. “I have to be at the Avenue Hoche at seven o’clock in the morning to prepare for the operations.”
“And I still have work to do this evening,” said Savre.
“Will you come tomorrow?” Caresco asked him. “We have a jolly session—we’re operating before all the foreign members of the surgical congress, aren’t we, Bordier? Come—you’ll see how our successor conducts himself. Then, if necessary, you can lend us a hand.”
“I shall always take pleasure in admiring your work, but as for getting involved…no, that’s over.”
In those words and the tone in which they were spoken there was a hostility that surprised Caresco. As usual, he did not react to it.
The two men left. The night, sown with a dust of stars and gently caressed by a breeze charged with the perfumes of the Bois, solicited a stroll. Cigars in their teeth, they went along the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne toward the Arc de Triomphe. Their footfalls struck the dry ground methodically. A few rare carriages were bring entwined couples back to Paris, fleeing the bustle of the Café Chinois, whose bright lights delimited blocks of shadow, seeming to be as many eyes charged with keeping watch through the black hole of the Porte Dauphine on the mystery of the Bois.
Bordier was haunted by an obsession, a question that was burning him. The moment seemed propitious to him for amicable confidences.
“Were you with Caresco for a long time?” he asked.
“A year.”
“You left him on good terms, it seems to me.”
“Yes, on good terms.”
“And why did you leave?”
Savre hesitated momentarily; then, gripping Bordier’s arm and forcing him to stop, he said: “My dear chap, for anyone else but you I’d probably cite banal reasons. but I want to tell you the truth, because I trust you. Well, I was afraid of him.”
Bordier started. In the semi-darkness of the night
, he considered Savre’s serious and rude face. The latter, however, with his energetic and hard forehead, his keen and straightforward eyes, did not seem to be a man prone to dread, to puerile fears.
As Savre spoke, a veil was ripped before Bordier’s eyes; he heard the expression of disillusionment, distress, and fears that he had experienced subconsciously himself. In the brutal revelation that had been made to him he found the state of his own soul.
“Yes, old chap,” said Savre, “I was afraid, not of what he was doing, but of what he was making me do. Look, it seems to me that I was living a dream during that year of collaboration, caught in the incessant struggle between my conscience and the interest that overflows from his scientific labors.
“You haven’t yet been able to appreciate that; you’ve only recently been attached to him—but he’s exciting…exciting and frightful. He’s an evil genius. Some days, during his great operations, his marvelous dexterity, his coolness, his rapidity of decision wrung cries of admiration from me; then, when the session was over, when I was no longer under his diabolical influence, when I returned to my heart, fear seized me and I asked myself why. Why did he do all that? Why those great dilapidations of the flesh, those broken bones, those perforated organs? Why that bloodshed? And I rubbed my hands, like Lady Macbeth, to erase the stains.
“Gradually, I allowed myself to be penetrated by the frightful reasoning that the man’s actions are guided by two equally culpable motives: firstly, his unfettered ambition, the ambition he has to be the foremost surgeon in the world, the one about whom people talk the most, to whom the most desperate cases can be confided; and secondly, I’m ashamed to say, his base cupidity, his avidity for gold, to satisfy his enormous needs and the caprices of that Mathilde, who eats him away, draining him through every pore.
“To arrive at those results, he doesn’t recoil before any compromise, or any crime. He races through life head down, blindly, like a bull at a red rag. His red rag is blood, also red, the sight of which seems to procure him a kind of intoxication. Sometimes, I wondered whether he might be mad, or at least on the edge of madness, in that region that touches on both alienation and sublime reason, as for all types of genius. I searched for other signs, but once his moment of exaltation has passed, he gets a grip on himself, masters himself—he even has too much self-control.
The Necessary Evil Page 11
