Death on Credit

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  And yet we’d made almost unbelievable reductions… We went farther and farther… We supplied our own hydrogen… the pump… the condensimeter… We went to Nuits-sur-Somme for 125 francs! Gas included! And we paid the shipping costs!… It was getting to be too much! The stinkingest holes… the most rancid county seats… all they cared about was fuselage and biplanes!… Flying meets and Wilbur Wright!…

  Courtial knew it was a death struggle… He was determined to fight back… He attempted the impossible. Within two months he published twelve articles in his rag and four handbooks in quick succession, proving to the hilt that aeroplanes would never fly!… That they were a perversion of progress!… An unnatural fad!… A technological monstrosity!… That all this would end in an atrocious shambles! That he, Courtial des Pereires, with his thirty-two years of experience, washed his hands of the whole business! He ran his picture with the article!… But his readers were way ahead of him!… He was obsolete! Submerged by the rising wave! The only answer he got to his diatribes, his virulent philippics, was insults, blistering broadsides, menacing threats… The inventor audience wasn’t going along with des Pereires any more!… That’s the plain truth… Still he persisted… he stuck to his guns!… He even took the offensive!… That was when he founded the “Feather-in-the-Wind Society”, at the most critical moment!… “For the defence of the spherical, much-lighter-than-air balloon.” Exhibitions! Demonstrations! Lectures! Parties! Socials! Headquarters at the Génitron office. We never enrolled ten members! There was hunger in the air! I went back to my mending… I’d taken so much out of the Archimedes, our old captive, that there wasn’t a decent piece left!… All mouldy rags!… And the Enthusiast wasn’t much better… There was nothing left but the ropes! You could see the warp all over… And I’m in a position to know!

  Our last flight was one Sunday in Pontoise. We’d decided to risk it… They hadn’t said yes and they hadn’t said no!… We’d drastically overhauled the old carcass, tucked in the frayed edges, turned her inside out… We’d reinforced her a little with patches of cellophane… rubber, fuse wire and oakum! But in spite of all our efforts she was condemned, she had her last spasm in front of the Town Hall! We pumped almost a whole gasometer into her… but she was losing more than went in… It was a case of endosmosis, as Pereires immediately explained… And when we kept trying, the thing split… with a terrible farting noise!… The foul smell spreads!… The people flee from the gas… It was a panic, a nightmare!… To make matters worse, the whole enormous cover flops down on the cops!… It smothers them, they’re stuck in the flounces… wriggling under the folds!… They damn near suffocated!… They were caught like rats… After struggling for three hours we got the youngest out!… The rest had fainted… We weren’t popular any more! They swore at us something terrible!… The kids spat at us!…

  Even so, we folded up the wreck… we found some charitable souls… Luckily the fairground wasn’t far from the big lock!… We hailed a barge… They let us come on board… They were going down to Paris… We threw all our crap down in the hold…

  The trip was fine… It took about three days… One night we reached the Port-à-l’Anglais… That was the end of our balloon flights!… We hadn’t had a bad time on the barge… They were nice friendly people… Flemings from the north… we drank coffee the whole time, so much we couldn’t sleep. They played the accordion fine… I can still see the laundry drying all along the deck… The liveliest colours… raspberry, saffron, green and orange. You could take your pick… I taught their kids to make paper boats… They’d never seen them.

  * * *

  As soon as our old lady, Mme des Pereires, heard the fatal news, she descended on the office… she didn’t let the grass grow under her feet… I’d never seen her in all the eleven months I’d been there… It took a real disaster to move her… She was happy in Montretout.

  At first glance she looked so weird I thought she must be an “inventress”, that she’d come to talk about some “system”… She was in a terrible state… As she opened the door, she was so upset – that was plain – and in such a lather she could hardly get the words out. Her hat was all crooked, shimmying in all directions. She wore a thick veil… I couldn’t see her face. What I remember mostly is her black velvet skirt with the big flares, the big embroidered pattern on her mauve, bolero-style waist sprinkled with beads of the same colour… and a changeable-silk umbrella… The picture is still with me…

  After a certain amount of palavering, I finally got her to sit down in the big visitor’s armchair… I ask her to be patient… the master won’t be long… But right away she sails into me…

  “Ah! Why, you must be Ferdinand?… Am I right? You are, aren’t you? Then you know all about the tragedy?… Isn’t it a disaster?… That zebra of mine!… He got what he was after!… He doesn’t feel like working any more, is that it?…” She kept her fists clenched on her hips! She sat there anchored in the chair! She started up again. She was brutal!…

  “So he wants to sit on his arse all day?… So he’s sick of working?… He thinks there’s no need of it?… What does he expect us to live on? Our investments? Ah, the bum! The scoundrel! The stinker! The slimy toad! Where’s he keeping himself at this time of day?”

  She looked in the back room!…

  “He’s not there, Madame! He’s gone to see the minister!…”

  “Ha, the minister! What’s that again? The minister!” That gives her a laugh. “Oh no, sonny, that won’t go down with me! Not with me!… I know him better than you, the swine! Minister! Oh no. A whorehouse, maybe! In the clink, you mean… in jail, yes! That I’m willing to believe. Anywhere! In Vincennes! In Saint-Cloud! Maybe!… but that minister gambit? Oh no!”

  She shakes her umbrella in my nose…

  “You’re an accomplice, Ferdinand! That’s right, an accomplice! Do you hear? You’ll end up in jail, the whole lot of you!… That’s where your schemes will land you!… Your slimy tricks!… Your dirty work!… Your rotten swindles!…”

  She fell back in the chair, her elbows on her knees, she made no attempt to control herself… her ferocious harangues gave way to prostration… she mumbled and sobbed!… She filled up her veil! She told me the whole story!…

  “Never mind, I know what’s what!… I never wanted to come! I knew how it would hurt me!… I know he’s incorrigible!… I’ve been putting up with him for thirty years!…”

  Out there in Montretout she had peace and quiet… she could take care of herself. Her health was frail… She didn’t like to go out, to leave her house… Long ago… Long ago! She’d knocked around a lot with des Pereires… in the early days of their marriage. Now she didn’t care for change… She preferred to stay at home… Especially on account of her shoulders and her back, they were so sensitive… If she was caught in the rain or took a chill, she’d suffer for months on end… excruciating rheumatism and everlasting bronchitis, a kind of catarrh… That’s how it had been all last winter and the year before… On the business end, she told me, they hadn’t finished paying for their house… Fourteen years of scrimping and saving… She spoke gently… She appealed to my reason…

  “Dear little Ferdinand! Dear boy! Have pity on an old woman!… Why, I could be your grandmother, and don’t forget it! Please tell me! Tell me, I beg of you! If the Enthusiast is really lost? With Courtial I never know, I can’t trust him… I can’t believe a thing he tells me… How could you expect me to?… He’s such a liar!… He’s got to be so lazy… But you, Ferdinand!… You can see what a state I’m in!… You can understand how I feel!… You won’t try to pull the wool over my eyes! I’m an old woman!… I’ve plenty of experience of life!… I’m capable of understanding anything!… I only want someone to explain…”

  I had to tell her again… I had to swear by my immortal soul that the Enthusiast was completely cracked up, rotten, finished… inside and out! That there wasn’t one sound stitch in the whole cover!
… In the carcass or the basket… That nothing was left but stinking rubbish… loathsome junk… absolutely impossible to repair!…

  The more I talked, the more miserable it made her! But now she trusted me, she saw I wasn’t lying… She started confiding in me some more!… She told me all the details… about her life since the early days of her marriage… when she’d still been a certified first-class midwife!… How she’d helped Courtial get ready for his balloon flights… how she’d given up her own career for him and his balloon! And never left him for a second!… They’d spent their honeymoon in a balloon!… From one fair to the next!… In those days she’d gone up with her husband… They’d gone as far as Bergamo in Italy!… Even to Ferrara… to Trentino near Vesuvius… As she unloaded, I realized that that woman, in her heart and conviction, expected the Enthusiast to last for ever!… And the fairs too! She expected them to go on and on!… She had a good reason, an absolutely imperative reason… Namely, the balance due on their dump! La Gavotte, at Montretout… They still owed six monthly payments plus arrears… Courtial had stopped bringing money home… They were actually two and a half months overdue and had been given notice five times… Just telling me about the disgrace of it tied her voice into knots… Which reminded me that our own rent on the shop was long overdue… And what about the gas?… And the telephone bill?… There wasn’t a chance we’d ever pay it!… Maybe the printer would deliver again, just this once… That son of a bitch Taponier knew what he was doing! He’d put a lien on the joint… He’d snap it up for a song!… That was a sure thing!… He was the crummiest of the lot!… A fine pickle we were in!… I could feel a whole mountain of headaches… an avalanche of troubles coming down on me… The future and our lovely dreams were all screwed up!… I couldn’t kid myself!… The old doll was moaning into her veil!… She’d sighed so much that she thought she’d make herself a little more comfortable!… She took off her hat!… I could recognize her by the portrait and des Pereires’s description of her… Even so I was taken aback… He’d told me about the moustache that she refused to have removed… And it wasn’t any faint shadow!… It had started growing after her operation!… They’d taken everything out in one throw!… Both ovaries and the womb!… At first they’d thought it was her appendix, but when they opened up the peritoneum, they’d found an enormous fibroma… She’d been operated on by Péan* himself…

  Before being mutilated that way, Irène des Pereires had been a very pretty woman, attractive, affable, charming and what have you!… But since the operation and especially in the last four or five years, the male characteristics had got the upper hand!… Regular moustaches had come out and even a sort of beard!… They were bathed in tears, which flew copiously as she talked to me!… Coloured streams ran down from her make-up! She had powdered… plastered… and painted like mad! She’d made odalisque’s eyelashes, she’d given herself a complete overhaul before coming to town!… She put her enormous lid back on, with its bed of hydrangeas… it started wobbling again in the storm… there was nothing to hold it! It slid back!… She banged it straight… She put in long hatpins… and tied her veil again. For a minute I see her rummaging around in her petticoats… She takes out a big briar pipe… He’d told me about that too.

  “Is it all right to smoke in here?” she asks…

  “Yes, Madame, of course. Only be careful about the ashes, because of the papers on the floor! They’d catch fire easily! Hee-hee!” A guy’s got to laugh once in a while…

  “You don’t smoke, Ferdinand?”

  “No. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to try. I’m not careful enough! I wouldn’t want to be a living torch! Hee-hee!…”

  She begins to puff… She spits on the floor! In all directions!… She was a little calmer now!… She puts her veil back on! She only lifted up one corner with her little finger! When she’d completely finished her pipe, she took out her tobacco pouch again… I thought she was going to fill another!…

  “Say, Ferdinand!” she fires at me… An idea had shot through her head, suddenly she jumps up… “You’re sure he’s not hiding upstairs?…”

  I was afraid to be too definite… It was a ticklish situation!… I wanted to avoid bloodshed…

  “Ha!” She didn’t wait! She gave a leap!… “Ferdinand! You’ve been deceiving me! You’re as big a liar as he is!…”

  She won’t listen to any explanations… She brushes me aside… She dashes into the little winding staircase… She climbs up in a rage… He had no warning… She jumps him!… I listen… I hear… Right away hell breaks loose!… She gives him his money’s worth! It starts out with a couple of clouts! Then screams…

  “Will you look at the sex fiend!… The smut hound!… The no-good!… That’s how he spends his time!… I suspected his filthy ways! It’s good I came!…” She must have caught him just as he was putting our postcards away in the album… the transparent ones that I sold on Sunday!… He often spent his time that way after lunch…

  His troubles weren’t over! She didn’t listen to what he said! “Pornographer! False membrane! Anarchist! Dishrag! Cesspool!…” Those were some of the things she called him!…

  I went up, I risked a glance over the banister!… When she couldn’t think of anything more to say, she threw herself on him… He flopped on the couch… How heavy and brutal she was!

  “Ask forgiveness! Ask forgiveness, you stinker! Ask your victim’s forgiveness!” Finally he put up a bit of struggle… She lashed into his shirt front, but the material was so hard she cut her hands on it… She was bleeding… but she kept on squeezing…

  “You don’t like it, do you? You don’t like it!” she shouted in the thick of the battle. “Ah! You like it, you infernal windbag! What do you say, you swill pail? Does it give you pleasure to see me angry?” She was square on top of him! She was bouncing up and down on his belly! “Wah! Wah! Wah!” he groaned! “You’re suffocating me, you big bitch! You’re killing me! You’re strangling me!…” Then she let him go, she was bleeding too hard… She ran down the stairs… She went to the faucet… “Ferdinand! Ferdinand! Just imagine, it’s been a whole week! All week I’ve been waiting for him! All week he hasn’t been home once!… He’s eating my heart out! I’m wasting away!… He doesn’t care!… He only sent me a postcard: ‘Balloon ruined! No lives lost!’ Not another word!… I ask him what he means to do. Don’t nag, he says!… Total loss!… Since then not a word! His Lordship doesn’t show up! Where is he? What’s he doing? The Benoiton Loan Company is dunning me for the payments!… Complete mystery!… Ten times a day they ring the bell… The baker’s at my heels!… The gas has been shut off!… Tomorrow they’re going to cut off the water!… His Lordship is doing the town!… While I’m eating my heart out!… That rotten failure!… The pervert!… The criminal!… The infernal, diabolical beast!… The baboon!… Believe me, Ferdinand, I’d rather live with a real monkey!… I’d understand him at least!… He’d understand me! I’d know where I was! But after almost thirty-five years with that lunatic I don’t know what he’s going to do from one minute to the next as soon as I have my back turned! Drunkard! Liar! Lecher! Thief! He’s every one of them!… You’ll never know how I detest that swine!… Where is he? That’s the question I ask myself fifty times a day… While I work my fingers to the bone all alone out there to keep him! To pay the bills… saving candle ends… His Highness throws it to the winds! He sows! He waters any grass!… And all those filthy whores! My money! The little I’ve been able to put aside! By denying myself everything! Where does it go? Into the sink of degradation! Don’t worry, I know! He can’t hide it from me… Vincennes!… Pari-Mutuel!… Enghien!… Rue Blondel!… Boulevard Barbès, it’s all one to him… He’s not hard to please as long as it’s depravity! Any stinkhole will do!… It’s all grist for his mill! His Highness wallows in vice! He throws money down the drain!… And meanwhile!… I’m killing myself trying to save a sou! To save an hour on the cleaning woman’s wages!… I’m
the one that does everything in spite of the condition you see me in!… I wear myself out! I scrub the floor! All of it, in spite of my hot flushes! Even when my rheumatism comes on!… I can hardly stand up, that’s the plain truth… I’m killing myself!… And that’s not the end of it! When they attach the house!… Where are we going to sleep then? Can you tell me that? You beggar! You rotten nitwit! Gangster! Bandit!” She was shouting up at him!… “Why, in a dosshouse of course! Have you still got the addresses? You ought to remember, my fine-feathered friend!… That’s where he went before we were married!… And under the bridges, Ferdinand!… I should have left him there… That’s right! With his mange and his vermin! Why, he’s poisoned my life! That’s what he deserves!… He’d have enjoyed himself! I should have sent him to the venereal hospital! His Highness likes to indulge his passions! He’s a rake, Ferdinand! The worst kind of ruffian! Nothing holds him back! Neither dignity! Nor reason! Nor self-respect! Nor kindness!… Nothing!… That man has mocked me, made a fool of me, poisoned my whole existence!… Ah, what a daisy he turned out to be! Ho ho! You can say that again! I’ve been a hundred times too good!… I’ve been a sap, Ferdinand! I could die laughing! It’s a scream!… And now he’s fifty-five and then some!… Fifty-six, to be exact, next April! And what does the old clown do?… He ruins us!… He sends us to the poorhouse!… Absolutely! He’s given up the fight! All he cares about is his vices!… They’ve carried him away!… He rolls in the gutter! And it’s up to me to fish him out! To make ends meet, to wear myself to the bone!… His Highness couldn’t care less!… He refuses to control himself!… I’ve got to mend the pieces!… I’ve got to pay his debts! How about it, you chimpanzee?… The balloon? He lets it go! He hasn’t two cents’ worth of guts!… Do you want to know what he does at the Gare du Nord, instead of coming straight home?… Or maybe you’ve heard?… Where he wastes his vitality? In the toilet, Ferdinand! That’s right! Everybody’s seen him! They all recognized my hubby!… Seen him masturbating… They caught him in the waiting room and in the corridors… Exhibiting himself!… His private parts!… His nasty equipment!… To all the little girls! That’s right, to children! Yes, indeed, there’ve been complaints! I’m not making it up! Yes, you pervert!… They’ve had their eye on him for a long time!… Right in the middle of the station, Ferdinand! Swarming with people that know us!… They come and tell me about it!… Who told me? You’re not going to deny it, I hope! You’re not going to tell me it was somebody else!… The infernal gall of that man!… Why, it’s the superintendent himself, my friend!… He came to see me last night just for that… just to tell me about your slimy ways!… He had a complete description of you and even your picture!… You see they’ve got your number!… Ah, and it’s nothing new! He’d taken your papers! Well, am I telling the truth?… You knew all right!… You scum, that’s why you didn’t come home!… You knew what to expect!… Anyway, he’d told you!… Children is what he needs now! Babies!… It’s too awful… Gambling! Liquor! Lies!… Spendthrift! Crook! Women! Every known vice! Minors!… Sink of corruption!… Of course I knew all about it! I learnt the hard way!… I’ve been through hell! But now… little girls!… It’s too much!…” She looked at him, she stared at him from the distance… He was still on the steps, on the winding staircase… He felt safer behind the bars… He didn’t come any closer… He made me signs not to rile her… to keep absolutely quiet… that it would pass… that I shouldn’t say a word!… And actually she did calm down slightly…