In 1965

by Albert Robida

  To his utter surprise, Monsieur Montgrabel recognized, in that fifth chalet, that of his son Maurice, the intensive agriculturalist, worldwide grocer, etc. Maurice was making signals to him from a facing window; a band of bare-legged children were running in front of the gentle waves that were unfurling all the way to the chalets. Pierrette and Gustave were already there, splashing one another enthusiastically.

  But Monsieur Montgrabel was rapidly snatched from the pleasure of following their frolics, because the tele bell resounded. It was the clever sleuth that he had launched on the trail of the Boissy mystery, who was finally showing signs of life. Until now, the investigation had yielded no results. Had he discovered something this time?

  Monsieur Montgrabel locked his door and, as a precaution, spoke into the apparatus in a low voice, muffling the loudspeaker.

  “Well, what’s new? A trail, some clue? That mysterious reporter…? Yes, that’s right... Hello! What did you say? You suspect Monsieur Blossière, who was one of my twenty-four secretaries for a time? I had to deprive myself of his services. Oh, he’s dabbling in feminist politics now? I remember…a lady-killer devoured by ambition... Hello! If I knew his forename? Eh? His name is Camille! Oho! Camille Blossière, Camille Boissy... Ah! He’s just written a eulogistic article on the book in question, you say? Five or six electoral subscriptions already want to send this Camille Boissy to the Chamber… Let’s see, do you have Monsieur Blossière’s address? Ah! Montrouge, the quarter of the letter…Office 48, Montrouge! Until tomorrow—I need to reflect...?”

  Reflect was easy enough to say. At eleven o’clock, twenty-four parasols could be counted, planted at the limit of the waves, and fifty deckchairs occupied by women. Hydroplanes arrived from Pornic were hovering above the waves, accompanying the Espadon, which were bringing friends for a little diving tour around Noirmoutier.

  Visits succeeded one another at the aircottage. Monsieur Montgrabel went back and forth between the veranda where Madame Montgrabel and Suzanne were receiving, and the drawing room, where Maurice and Charles, with Monsieur Larose, weighted down by an enormous portfolio, had taken their places around a heap of circulars, letters and various papers.

  Monsieur Montgrabel distributed handshakes and amiable but brief remarks to the visitors, and then went back to dive into the heap of messages, which he scanned and then passed to one or other of his sons.

  “Up to you…up to you…,” he said. “It’s your affair now...”

  There were further visits, polite remarks and handshakes. Monsieur Montgrabel came back again...

  “Hang on, what’s this? Electoral committee, mixed intellectual section, Var et Bouches-du-Rhône! Madame Charles Montgrabel! It’s for Suzanne...”

  “Var et Bouches-du-Rhône?” said Monsieur Larose. “In that regard, I have various things to communicate to you...”

  “Again, Madame Charles Montgrabel... Madame Charles... Another Committee... Madame... Another...”

  “Give them to me!” said Charles, in a changed voice, while Suzanne disappeared.

  “But who’s that fellow over there coming toward us?” said Monsieur Montgrabel, suddenly. “I know him…it’s...”

  Monsieur Larose had turned round. “It’s my secretary,” he said. “A talented fellow, Monsieur Blossière, an advocate and journalist...”

  “Blossière? Camille Blossière, one of my own former secretaries...”

  “Oh, he’s been in your employ? He’s now in mine,” said Larose, laughing. “Does it annoy you that I’ve brought him?”

  “Not at all—on the contrary… Wait a minute, I’ll come back.”

  At the mere mention of Blossière’s name, Charles had shuddered and had stood up abruptly, frowning, his face distressed. Monsieur Montgrabel grabbed his arm and drew him into another room, not without having glanced into the drawing room. Suzanne had not flinched; doubtless she had not perceived Blossière.

  Monsieur Blossière, whom Montgrabel had described as a “lady-killer” a few minutes earlier, was a fellow of thirty or thirty-five, handsome and rather elegant in appearance, with an expression of expansive satisfaction in which he was smiling into his neatly-groomed blonde beard.

  “So, Charles,” said Monsieur Montgrabel, “I see you’re up to date...”

  “I arrived at the tele the other day when you were talking with Paris about that accursed Poste Restante envelope. I didn’t say anything, although I could have. Immediately, though, I thought about Blossière. Why? I don’t know...or rather, I recalled that he had had a rapport with Suzanne on social occasions at the house. Is it him, the correspondent…the man of the letters? What audacity! Coming to confront us here! But I’m exaggerating...there certainly can’t have been any imprudence on the part of Suzanne. I wanted to demand a frank explanation from her, but I recoiled before the odiousness of the suspicions. And yet, if I can’t hold myself back, I’ll go seize that man by the collar and throw him out!”

  “Calm down,” said Monsieur Montgrabel. “We’ll soon know. Wait!”

  He opened the door to the drawing room.

  “Monsieur Larose, a word, if you please. I have something to ask you.”

  Monsieur Larose, in discussion with his secretary regarding the papers the latter had brought, hastened to arrive, papers in hand.

  “You say, Monsieur Montgrabel, that you have something to ask me?”

  “Yes, a very small thing. Could you show me a specimen of your secretary’s handwriting?”

  “Our secretary,” said Larose, laughing. “So you practice graphology—that’s good. Here, these notes are his—a few proposed declarations on various subjects...”

  Monsieur Montgrabel cast a rapid glance over the papers. He had a surprised expression; then, after riffling through them, he returned them to Monsieur Larose, only keeping the last sheet.

  “Excuse me—I’ll be back in a minute...”

  He went to his room, immediately followed by Charles, who left Monsieur Larose impolitely to his own devices, without even thinking of excusing himself.

  “I have the envelope, we’ll soon see. But I’m surprised, it seems to me that this handwriting bears no resemblance to...let’s see…where are my papers? Wait...”

  In order to assist his father, Charles searched feverishly though a few files that Monsieur Montgrabel had just taken out of a drawer.

  “Wait, wait, you’ll muddle everything up…ah, here it is? Well, no, a simple glance suffices. Complete error…entirely different handwriting. Blossière isn’t the correspondent!”

  XIV. The Great Affair of the Puy-de-Dôme

  The Inauguration Banquet

  of the Synthetic Factories

  There was one major enterprise of the company, or, rather, two: firstly, the works for the utilization of the Puy de Dôme; secondly, the great affair of Monsieur Valette’s synthetic factories: a fine idea, which presented enormous difficulties of execution.

  The Puy de Dôme was being pierced in order to pour into it a diversion of the Allier and extract torrents of steam therefrom, which gigantic turbines would utilize to the great benefit of the region, transformed into a great industrial center.

  There had been strong opposition to the idea, with, it has to be admitted, rather powerful arguments: Scientific imprudence! Dangerous folly! Will inevitably bring about disasters of catastrophes, and the ruination of all the surrounding terrain, etc. In spite of all those objections and in the teeth of all the hostility, Monsieur Montgrabel had persisted. There had not been any catastrophe, or even a serious accident; and the success of the “dangerous folly” now seemed complete.

  The Puy de Dôme—“the old volcano that had been allowed to die out,” as a individual named Labiche7 had called it, in the last century—had, therefore, been pierced. That was the easy part of the enterprise, successfully executed.

  At the same time, the work of diversion, carefully planned, had made rapid progress. A tube-canal took a portion of the waters of the Allier, collected those of a few small ste
ams encountered in the way, solely to the detriment of a few families of frogs, and brought them to the Puy de Dôme.

  Artful construction works on a considerable scale had been carried out: hydraulic factories, pumping stations, redistribution plants... Everything had gone well, in spite of the anticipated difficulties, and even the unanticipated ones, and on a fine day, in the previous spring, the regional prefect of Auvergne and the Central Plateau, by pressing a button in the director’s office of the last pumping station established on the side of the mountain at an altitude of even hundred meters—a magnificent construction of metal and reinforced concrete in a remarkably picturesque ensemble—had projected into the flank of the swollen old volcano, more amazed than inconvenienced, the thousands of cubic meters of water brought by the tube-canal.

  At a distance, they waited, quivering with anxiety. There was a formidable noise, rumbling and groaning, the amplitude of which seemed to grow and multiply, and then came the decrescendo of plunge into the entrails of the Earth. But there was no explosion, no eruption, no catastrophe, and not the smallest accident. The lid of the Puy de Dôme was not blown off. Clermont-Ferrand respired. The insurance companies, which had indemnified the town for that circumstance, did not have to regret their confidence.

  Through the orifices prepared in a crown around the old volcano, the steam started to rise toward the heavens in large white swirls, which eventually came together and mingled.

  Those inexhaustible torrents of steam were not to be lost in the clouds of the sky; they were to power Monsieur Valette’s synthetic factories, and all those that were to surge forth in the surrounding area.

  The success of that great enterprise was proclaimed in all the scientific journals and is being celebrated today at the great banquet of the inauguration of the “steam-powered derivative of the perforated Puy de Dôme.” The entire Montgrabel family is there, having disembarked from the dirigible the previous evening.

  “I shall not say any more, Messieurs, about the endeavor that has won the admiration of all the prominent people gathered around this table, celebrities of science, high finance, art and industry, a social elite who ornament this manifestation of a splendid banquet with grace and elegance...” (Bravo! Bravo!) “...And I raise my glass to the splendid success of this enterprise of genius. I drink to its promoters, to all the laborers and men of science to whom we owe this magnificent endeavor, to the man who carried it through, to all the agents of progress!”

  That is the prefect of the Auvergne finishing his speech. An audience of the highest quality, the prefect has said, eminent people of every order, guests from all sectors of society, the political world, the academies, great industry, representatives of the press... A superb banquet, highly successful, to which a group of well-known gourmets has been invited and placed at an immense table of honor, writers of “haulte graisse,” practicing Rabelaisians and stars of the hospitality industry. And everyone at that table of honor seems to be overflowing with delirious enthusiasm, making a great deal of noise. Motions are proposed, toasts drunk; everyone raises his glass joyfully, and the prefect has requested.

  “…Marvelous, your factories! Superbly equipped!”

  “The Puy de Dôme is seething and fuming! Long live the old Puy and those who have reignited it…!”

  “…For the greater good of the surrounding region and...”

  “A marvelous tableau, that ensemble of the Puy du Dôme, with the adduction tubes, those fabulous platform and all that extraordinary apparatus…and the plumes of smoke...”

  “Excellent, the cuisine! First class menu...”

  “Succulent! All supremely exquisite: ducklings, roast pheasants, salmon trout, etc... Everything, absolutely everything...”

  “And the wines! Superior, all the wines! All of them, a delightful bouquet, a frankness...”

  “But how was it done? Not a single bone in the chicken, in the pheasant...all so carefully filleted...”

  “Not a single pip in the apples, the pears, the grapes...”

  “Long live Valette!”

  “Valette! Valette! Valette!”

  “Monsieur Valette has the floor,” pronounced the president.

  A salvo of applause welcomed Monsieur Montgrabel’s son-in-law when, obedient to the appeal, he rose to his feet...

  “An ovation! An ovation!”

  Three ovations burst forth, in which the table of honor took part, without sparing the hands. They acclaimed Valette, Madame Valette, Monsieur Montgrabel, science, industry, etc...”

  Monsieur Valette declared that he was not an orator, and assured the audience, showing them a piece of paper, that they need not dread a long speech. He would only summarize, in a few sentences, the great work, the endeavor, his goal, his methods, his immediate results and his anticipations…

  We shall pass over the details, in spite of their interest, in order to arrive more rapidly at the final explanations.

  “Finally, Mesdames et Messieurs, I’ll conclude... How did you find our banquet? Your applause leads me to think that you are not too discontented. I can see, not far away from me, the expansive faces of fine gastronomes, eminent specialists in the art of fine living, who appeared to me to be manifesting a certain enthusiasm just now...” (Yes! Yes! Bravo!) “They were truly exquisite, I dare say, the dishes we have just savored, were they not? That’s your honest opinion…? Your satisfaction fills me with joy. Well, the salmon trout, the ducklings à la française, the roast lamb, the ruffled chicken, the pheasant au chaud-froid, etc…all those delicate dishes so warmly appreciated were purely and simply products of our synthetic factories, uniquely synthetic.” (Profound sensation.)

  “No veritable pheasant, no true pre-salted fillet, no trout, no duckling and no authentic chicken entered into the saucepans of the illustrious restaurateur who has magisterially realized our abundant menu. The entire menu was artificial and synthetic. Chemistry has furnished us with everything by synthesis, including the cheeses, in which you have encountered the particular taste and perfumes of the most celebrated natural cheeses of the region, and even the superb fruits of the dessert...”

  The guests looked at one another; the bravos, momentarily constrained by the surprise of that revelation, resumed, in isolation at first, but then bursting forth again all along the tables.

  “Yes, Messieurs, by synthesis! The wines themselves! I took note of the admiring comments just now: Perfect, this Saint-Emilion! Remarkable, this Beaune! This champagne is more than sympathetic! Well, the Saint-Emilion, the Pouilly, the Beaune and the champagne are all synthesis 1965. There, Messieurs! It is, therefore, the absolute triumph of chemistry, the absolute triumph of synthesis!” (Explosion of bravos.) “The suspicions, prejudices and preconceptions with which our synthetic factories collided, all fall in confrontation with the results. I hasten to say that the ridiculous pretention, emitted by certain people, to administer nourishment in chemical pills legitimates those suspicions perfectly...”

  “Down with the pills!” proffered indignant voices in all the groups.”

  “Our synthetic factories do not manufacture pills, they furnish veritable foodstuffs, the synthesis of vegetable or animal products with all their particular elements and characteristics: flesh, fruits, vegetables, exactly as nature has the old habit of constituting them. But our synthetic products add to the solid basis of natural elements demanded of virtuous nature and transformed by chemistry, elements that we are going to extract from the great primal reservoir of strength and vital energy: the sea, which furnished the universal protoplasm, in the early ages of the globe.” (Long murmur of enthusiasm and a salvo of bravos.)

  It’s definitely the algae, thought Monsieur Montgrabel. Valette’s secret agents went in search of them in Jean-Marie’s world.

  “The vegetation of the immense prairies that carpet the bed of the oceans, the scorned and thus-far disdained fields, the great family of wrack and fucus, in innumerable varieties, the algae, simultaneously flesh and vegetable, furnish
us with that solid basis...”

  Monsieur Valette concluded his speech. The acclamations prevented his explanations from reaching the extremities of the hall. A complete success for the synthetic factories, the battle won. As the coffee was served, Monsieur Montgrabel called out to the “synthetic son-in-law”: “My dear Valette, the coffee is synthetic too, I assume?”

  “The coffee and the liqueurs, they’re all synthetic,” replied Valette.

  “Very good! Long live synthesis!”

  “One final word, Messieurs! For a very long time, science has been seriously preoccupied with the exceedingly grave question of nourishment. The development of the population of the poor Earth rendered the problem more anguishing every day: how could we exact, from a soil fatigued in places, the quantities of primary materials demanded by the appetite of the excessively numerous masses? Well, thanks to the synthetic factories, which we are going to see created and multiplied everywhere, those somber preoccupations are vanishing...”

  XV. A Field of Social Experimentation.

  “What a delightful son-in-law that dear Valette is!” said Monsieur Montgrabel, lighting an excellent synthetic cigar. “Yes, certainly, he truly is the synthesis of all the perfections desirable in a son-in-law! Speeches, toasts, factory visits, explanations on the spot, he takes all the difficulties upon himself, and I no longer have anything to do but relax. I’ve ordered the autos for two o’clock, after lunch. Oh, if all our affairs went as well as this one, what tranquility we’d have! But there’ll still be hindrance, I sense it. Anyway, in the meantime, let’s relax! Come on, Charles, have a cigar; let’s set the black ideas aside. There’ll be time to resume worrying in Paris. Monsieur Larose will leave, taking away that poor Monsieur Blossière, whose face remains disagreeable to us in spite of everything. Let’s relax!”