Devil's Score: A Tale of decadent omen….

by Edouard Jourdan

  He wrote, absorbed in an intimate consultation.

  M. de Varmand, speaking in a low voice as if to respect the master's work, said in Katarina's ear:

  - You did not tell him about the visible nightmare? Katarina shook her head in a quick, dry motion. "I blundered," thought the Marquis.

  The nightmare visible, until his return to Rue Lesueur, Katarina had promised to describe it to Petiot. As long as the knife marked with a "666" had been content to play its part in a nightmare, she could have considered it the dream of a feverish sleeper. But the episode of the cream panel had singularly changed his intentions. This knife marked with a "666", which appeared concurrently in the world of dreams and in the world of facts, seemed to correlate well with a mystery known to Johan; and Katarina thought it imprudent to make foreigners perceive the existence of an enigma whose idea terrified her husband. Perhaps Johan, impressionable by nature and more by accident, was panicked beyond measure. Perhaps her wavering reason was growing in pleasure ... what? the fault committed? the suspended threat? Perhaps it would have been a hundred times better to speak than to be silent!

  She hoped for it with all her soul! But, in the uncertainty, silence was the only rule of conduct, the silence on everything that could take its source in a car of the Gare de l’Est, the night of December 12 to 13. With people, you can never say. If she had known, even, she would not have confided the story of the nightmare to M. de Varmand ...

  Petiot had finished re-reading his prescriptions.

  "Here," he said. I do not need to add: especially, no trouble! Tranquility, distractions, good food, exercise, trips to the occasion, finally all the program you know.

  Yes, she knew him, Petiot's program. She was not unaware of how expensive it was; and the surgeon's words, which reminded her of it, had just painfully affected her. She thought that her heart was numb with cold, so strong was the impression. Like many artists, Johan left his wife to administer his fortune. How would Katarina handle herself, deprived of professional resources, reduced to the low incomes of a few values? ...

  She hid her confusion behind a beautiful smile, and left Johan's savior with a thousand thanks.

  - He's amazing, that guy! recognized the Marquis. But why did not you want to tell him about the nightmare?

  - Because, you see, I think you were right, old friend. It was not a vision of Johan. It was a vision of Katarina.

  M. de Varmand, for all answer, began to sing with a deep voice: "La donna e mobile ...", after having played the ritornello on a jeering bassoon that was only his nose.

  - Thank you for the Italian, charming telephone!

  With a disdainful gesture that swept sarcasm, the Marquis hummed a succession of notes on the air of an old fashioned tune.

  Katarina smiled.

  - A Belgian song, now! Polyglot, then?

  He laughed disproportionately and gave him his arm, in the fashion of a time he regretted having known too little and whose nostalgic type he nostalgically lingered.

  Katarina left her "rider" Rue Lesueur. The spiritist apologized for not being able to climb. He would have liked to say hello to Johan, but we were waiting for him on Rue d'Assas for a mediumistic session.

  As he walked away, Katarina threw him:

  - Remind me of Honoré and Isidore!

  It was bad for her stepfather, but she did not do it on purpose. She was happy. She forgot her financial worries. Petiot's order folded in his purse, he seemed to him to bring happiness back home.

  As soon as she came to the landing on the second floor, the surprise immobilized her.

  It was a dream, an aberration of hearing! Or had a prodigy happened? Had Johan been miraculously? ...

  One heard the "Hungarian Fantasia" played by Johan. Katarina could not be mistaken. It was the decision of his attacks, the bead of his fingering, the phrasing of his diction!

  Not being able to believe her ears, Katarina approached the door and, by the slot which still opened it, she listened.

  This slot, in truth, gave on many mysteries. This crack, which for a moment had been the pierced heart of a ghost, seemed to communicate the here below with the elsewhere.

  Was it in this world that the Fantasy sounded? Cloudy cloud enveloped him. The piano seemed far away, far away, at the bottom of an unimaginable cavern. And ... But what? ... Ah! it had to be a dream, indeed! The orchestra! The return of orchestra! The accompaniment of the strings! ... but what nasal sounds ...

  Disappointment disappointments! Katarina understood everything. It was a phonograph! She entered without making any noise.

  Johan stood in the bedroom, standing in front of the device on the dresser.

  From the formidable blunderbuss that gaped open, from the huge volubly stream from which sounds were being released instead of smells, the noisy specter of a dead hour was springing up unabated. The Johan of the past was heard in the Johan today, like a deceased who would come without feigning to haunt a living.

  Oh! sadness, fantastic sadness of this invention that freezes the words, as François Rabelais had so fancifully imagined! Must we, alas! as soon as it is born, that the most seductive discovery, that which fixes life in its ephemeral voices, enters the service of death!

  This black and giant flower, this sonorous flower, would have plunged into the grave its mysterious roots, that it had not impressed Katarina any more.

  "I bought that," said Johan, rather confused. That surprises you, does not it? I never liked that kind of ... music. You remember: I played four or five things at Tape Brothers six months ago. Here they are. These are these discs ... Striated trays, that's all that's left of me. It reminds me of the funeral tablets of the Japanese ...

  - Johan, Johan, do not say that! All hopes are allowed! With care and patience, your hands will return as before. It's only about wanting. Here, look!

  She unfolded the prescription.

  - Did Petiot do that? he said.

  An indefinable smile passed on his lips.

  - You're unfair, Johan! He thinks.

  - Well! yes, that's right, you're right: I'm unfair. And you are right: you have to get down to work and pull from that (he held out his hands) all we could.

  It had been a long time since he had shown such a decision. The accent was firm, punctuated by a fiery expression. It was as if the hearing of old Johan had galvanized the new, and that the convalescent had drawn, in contact with his past strength, the strength necessary to fight against fate. The will to conquer was on his forehead ... The fixed idea had sprung up.

  Because Johan was still far from the fine balance that presides over the weighted, well-thought-out, and carried out companies, from the project to the end, with a keen foresight. His will proceeded by impulsive blows. Sleeping for several months, she had awakened with a start under the influence of an energetic stimulant; but it was capable of acting only in one point, like an electric machine whose fouled distributor, instead of distributing the fluid between several studs, furnishes only one of them with a formidable current.

  Johan, however, was launched. Katarina, helped by the phonograph, had just given him the impetus. Love and music, his gods so far, saved him from himself.

  Without losing a moment, he began to work furiously.

  The same evening, the instrument maker brought a silent keyboard; the pharmacist delivered ointments and liniments, the perfumer of creams, the bandager of massage machines and hygienic mittens; the cutler sent out kits and cases filled with pliers, scissors, ivory sticks and boxwood; the faucet provides a shower apparatus; the rubber exerciser came from a sports house; the orthopedist billed lead fingertips for training pianists; the hairdresser sold very expensive little caparison for the nails; finally, at nightfall, Fralquin's employees put up two boxes, each containing an electrotherapy device, and Miss Otsuki, a Japanese masseuse, presented herself at Johan's.

  She carried in a beautifully understood box, besides a kimono which she dressed to operate, a thousand delicate and baroque objects and
a whole game of polished beads, of different material and caliber, that she knew how to roll along the muscles with science and quickness. Crouching on a table where her small hunched person held the place of a monkey medium, she placed in front of her a small stool similar to the clogs of his country, but which supported a cushion of plum velvet. In turn, Johan's hands were spread out on the palm, on the back, and for a long time the anointing of the oils, the subtle touching of the fingers, the ironing of the hot irons, the hammering of the shakers, the slaps, the caresses, the tickling and the flicking of instruments so ingenious and so agile that Johan could not believe his astonished senses.

  The manicure came the day after. A harpist, renowned for the beauty of her arms, had pointed it out to the ex-virtuoso. Madame Flosse was not one of those alluring creatures who see in their work only a means of producing themselves, and who exercise it only for a moment of seduction. Canonic age, ugly, medical, certainly pedicure and visibly graduated, this practitioner pulled from a travel bag its shatterproof bowls and its necessary. She was working on a towel. Johan knew with her the tingling of hair removal, the scented warmness of emollient baths, the torture of skin peeling. Her nails, trimmed off (in a circle, madam, in a circle, not pointed, because of the piano!) Became the lime of impeccable festoons. He felt them, pasty red, warm up to the rubbing of the polisher, then glaze under a layer of varnish. At last he had at the end of each finger a shining and rosy thing like a coral.

  Dazzled, almost intimidated, Johan put his hands in his pockets.

  Miss Otsuki was daily, Mrs. Flosse was weekly. But not a minute went by without Johan's hands being cared for and attentive.

  The apartment on Rue Lesueur included a kind of redoubt whose pianist had made a studio. Before the disaster, it was there that he enjoyed small recreational tasks that relaxed his art. The studio became the "Hand's Room". He installed the two electric machines, the silent keyboard, all the physical and chemical paraphernalia he had provided. Special books piled on it. It was soon a pharmacy similar to that of Dr. Faust.

  When he came out of there, strumming on all that was within reach, stretching his fingers or stirring them as if he feared that a second of rest would paralyze them, clapping his hands, slapping or waving them like epileptic puppets, when he came out of there, it was to strip his correspondence, half of which consisted of leaflets and advertisements extolling the excellence of a beauty product, the magic of a new dough, the influence of magnetic rings, the efficiency of an original «electrizer», the knowledge of an iatraliptic doctor, the talents of an almost shamanic crusher, even the discernment of a palmist. For, in the specialist trade and profession, a two-handed man also a single handed one had been promptly spotted.

  Was he going to Paris to buy his gloves himself at the good maker's, to renew his supply of curative substances - or by hygiene; then he was seen walking, throwing his left and right arms, like the soldiers, in order to promote the blood circulation in the digital extremities.

  Back home, Johan shut himself up in the "Hand's Room", whose key did not leave him. The machines buzzed, the strangest noises followed one another, among which - God forgive me! - we could distinguish that of the silent keyboard. At the table, a strict diet regulated his diet. And he did not go to bed without his hands, covered with frost, being gloved with balloons.

  Bansberg's hands had become twin, demanding and sterile goddesses.

  In the early days of this therapeutic rage, Johan's character improved somewhat. So much occupation distracted him; the progress made encouraged it, despite their mediocrity; finally, as time passed without the signs and nightmares being renewed, he was evidently calmed down.

  The social attitude in which his situation was reduced did not seem to cost him. He affected to have the greatest confidence in the resumption of his artistic career.

  But people do not let themselves be fooled so easily. The neighbors were astonished by a silence to which the pianist had hardly accustomed them. He evaded, for reasons of health, the proposals of the directors of concerts and impresarios, who naturally became rarer and then ceased. Johan declined any invitation and received no one, for fear of having to refuse to put himself at the piano. His friends and confreres realized the truth. "It's flamed," they said between a good word and perfidy. The visits were spaced out. All Paris lost interest in his old idol. One day the courier brought only catalogs and prospectuses.

  Johan seemed indifferent. In his pursuit of his talent, he saw in each avian a reason to redouble his ardor. Like Raphael de Balzac, "he built himself a grave to be reborn brilliant and glorious".

  Sometimes, when he thought he was alone, he entered the drawing-room, felt the keyboard of the great grand piano, made a chord, risked a trill, and fled, with a hard eye and clenched teeth.

  Katarina would have liked to leave Paris, in order to avoid by a skillful absence, the deplorable effect of a crippled presence. Besides, Petiot had advocated the change of air. But Johan, at the thought of leaving his arsenal and his caretakers, objected. "We should not annoy him. Katarina did not insist; she was too happy with her husband's activity, as unhealthy as this boiling; she tasted with joy the riddance of nightmares, appearances, and dramatic jokes. Yet she could not help regretting a decision so contrary to Johan's reputation as to his pecuniary interests.

  Katarina, indeed, Minister of Conjugal Finance, had counted on a stay in the fields to slow the train led by the patient. She did not know how to reduce her expenses. The hands of Bansberg, who no longer earned a penny, cost mad sums, and the poor treasurer saw with terror diminishing her resources. The operation, the clinic, the convalescent house had swallowed up a small fortune; now, it was every day new prodigality.

  Tell him? To pray to stop his offensive against the spell? Or to make it heard by revealing savings? It would have been to plunge him into the doldrums, to cancel the efforts made and to lose all hope of piano reeducation.

  However, he would have to know one day! Because at the end of the ditch, the tumble!

  Yes. But that day, perhaps the hands would become swift, agile, fruitful!

  It was to hold until then.

  And Katarina was holding, the good girl!

  But in the shadow, the enemy was also holding, and carried him, without warning, a blow so severe, that for a moment saw sinking his hopes and reviving his trances.

  9 – THE SCARLET BANNER

  Katarina closed her account book and said to herself:

  - I only have eight days left. Fifteen maximum, with luck. After that, you have to sell them.

  Jewelry.

  He had three thousand liquid francs left, some values​​representing a capital of fifty thousand francs - and his jewels.

  Cash could provide for expenses of one or two weeks; Katarina did not notice, by the fortnight's horizon, any regulation of importance.

  Values​​would yield nothing for a month. As for selling them, let's not talk about them. It was for Katarina a sacred fund, an intangible reserve. With that spirit of superstition that the most virile women bring to the less sentimental affairs, she would have been chopped rather than alienated from one of these titles. She saw in them the very core of conjugal goods, the heart of economic life, a way of talisman. Besides, to negotiate them, Johan's signature would have been necessary.

  There remained the jewels. For it was then the only wealth that Katarina could dispose of without Johan noticing.

  Certainly, the works of art that furnished the house were a resource that was reassuring to feel behind. But the day when it would be necessary to separate from it would be the very one where the pianist would learn the collapse of his hopes!

  Katarina spared her husband until he saw an invoice or an account. Her calculations finished, she pressed the notebook to its usual place in the vault.

  The vault was sealed near the jewelry chest in the bedroom closet.

  Having closed first, she opened the second.

  The ornaments she drew from it were not royal. I
n addition to the tie-pin, the wedding band and Johan's signet ring - which he had not only called for - she invented some young girl's brooches, a bad-looking watch (godmother's gift on the day of first communion). ), her engagement ring, simple and worthless (she would keep it), a pearl necklace, brilliant earrings, two bracelets from her mother, a dozen trinkets such as fibulae, staples, buckles, etc. the whole being in a handkerchief, and worth, at most, thanks to the brilliants of the earrings and the pearls of the necklace, sixty or sixty-five thousand francs.

  Katarina was one of those women so dazzling that an adornment disfigures them, and so fine that they feel it. Despite Johan's entreaties, she had always refused her least presents of jewels, and it was by surprise that he had imposed on her these earrings and this necklace which she never wore and whose possession was her today so precious.