The Devil’s Laughter

by Frank Yerby

  “Vive!” the mob bellowed. Then they swarmed forward, and Jean found himself and the twelve soldiers lifted to their shoulders. They were borne with cheers and laughter to the nearest tavern. There innumerable toasts were drunk to their health, and to liberty, equality, and fraternity.

  It was a good two hours before Jean, pleading duties of State, could escape. His head was far from clear, and that was a dangerous thing. He had his work to do. He had to try to calm the people as much as possible. For that he needed all his wits about him. The toasts he had had to drink hadn’t helped matters. He walked uncertainly in the direction where he judged the uproar to be greatest, though that decision was a hard one to make: all Paris was a surging sea of sound and fury—was, and had been since noon, when the news that the King had dismissed M. Necker had reached the Palais Royal.

  M. Necker, the King’s Minister of Finances, was Swiss, a banker, a Protestant, a pedant, and a fool. But the Queen hated him, which alone was enough to make the people love him. Besides, even his religion stood in his favour in the great wave of anti-clericalism sweeping over France. And now poor weak Louis, under his wife’s thumb as usual, had dismissed the man the people revered in the mistaken belief that he could ameliorate their hard lot.

  Jean Paul saw men hurrying by, sprigs of green stuck in their hats—the green cockade proposed by Camille Desmoulins that same hour that the news had been brought to him.

  “Morbleu!” Jean swore, thinking of the young orator. “He’s got everything—youth, good looks, a telling rhetorical style—everything in the world save an ounce of brains in his head or the slightest sense of responsibility.”

  He remembered the fury of Desmoulins’ speech, the young man, his auburn locks flying, mounted upon a table in the Palais Royal, swearing that the court planned a St. Bartholomew of patriots. That the court meditated no such thing, that even the King had given his Gardes orders to show the utmost forbearance in dealing with the people—for the sergeant had lied when he said they had been commanded to shoot to kill; Jean, who had seen the orders himself, knew that—disturbed Desmoulins and others of his ilk not the least. They were bent upon revolt, and any pretext served.

  A singing, dancing mob whirled into the street, bearing a bust of M. Necker.

  “Fools!” Jean swore under his breath; “if you knew how wanting in sense on talent your Swiss banker is, you’d smash that piece of plaster.”

  But the horde lifted aloft their demi-god, and forced all they encountered to pay homage. Jean saluted the bust with goodwill. For, he mused wryly to himself, M. Necker’s not worth dying for in plaster or in the flesh. . . . Yet, after he had given the required salute, the mob, composed largely of fishwomen from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, would not let him go.

  “For,” said a bedraggled slattern, “we’d be highly honoured to have the Citizen Deputy accompany us. Lends a bit of swank to our company, eh, girls?”

  The other toothless, ill-favoured, vile-smelling hags shrilled their assent to her statement, lifting a forest of sticks to emphasise their words. There was nothing for Jean Paul to do but to go with them, so he went.

  They wound through the crooked streets for what seemed to him several hours, beating unmercifully all those who would not salute the bust of Necker. Jean no longer knew what section of the city he was in. He was half dead of fatigue, but the fishwives and their few male satellites seemed as fresh as ever.

  Then he stopped short, and all the tiredness went out of him. For Lucienne Talbot was coming towards them, walking a little unsteadily, her hair a trifle disarrayed, trailing a cloak over one Shoulder. He could see as she passed under a street lamp, that her lip salve was smeared and her eyes deep sunken.

  “A lady,” the fishwomen howled; “a great lady—a Duchess. How now, my lady? M. Necker is lonely—all he wants of your ladyship is a kiss.”

  Lucienne straightened up, staring at them. There was fear in her eyes, mingled with a bottomless contempt.

  “No,” she got out; but they raised their clubs on high. “All right, all right,” Lucienne said; “I’ll kiss M. Necker—then, by God’s love, let me go, I’m dead for want of sleep. . . .”

  They lowered M. Necker’s stony face for her to kiss. Lucienne looked at it with acute distaste. Then she kissed it, full upon the mouth, hard.

  She drew back, staring at it in mock wonder.

  “You, you stony bastard,” she whispered, “are the first man I ever kissed who didn’t melt!”

  It was only then that she became aware of the little gamine of some ten years who stood beside her, close enough to hear her words.

  “Ma!” the indescribably filthy child screamed, “she insulted M. Kecker! She called him a bastard under her breath! I heard her!”

  The fishwomen split the sky apart with their screeches. They fell over each other in their haste to get to her.

  “Tear off her fine duds!” the slattern next to Jean howled; “strip her mother-naked and let her run!”

  This suggestion raised a fierce chorus of agreement. Before Jean could move forward ten feet, it was done.

  I thought, he reflected bitterly, that she could never become more beautiful than she was. But she is—God in glory, she is—and now they’re going to ruin her. . . .

  Lucienne took the first blows without crying out. But they brought blood from her bare back before Jean reached her side. She cursed at them, using words that no duchess of France could possibly have known. It stopped them for a moment—just long enough for Jean Paul to reach her side. But they were closing in now for the kill.

  Jean took out his pistols.

  “I have never shot a woman,” he said. “But, by heaven and the memory of my mother, I’ll burn the brains of the first of you that dares touch her again!”

  They fell back, snarling. But they had no stomach for gunfire.

  “Make way!” Jean cried, “and let us through!”

  The women opened a way for the two of them. Jean pointed his big flintlocks right and left and when they were entirely through the mob, he walked backwards, covering them all, until he came to a corner.

  “Don’t follow us!” he called out; “the first who tries it—dies!”

  They ran then through the crooked streets, turning at each corner, doubling back, hearing the noise of the pursuit growing fainter, dying at last into silence.

  “Here,” Jean panted, “take my coat.”

  “Thank you,” Lucienne mocked, “for your rather tardy respect for my modesty. I’ll take it, all right; but because I’m beginning to get chilled after all the exercise. My body shouldn’t disturb you, mon Jeannot—you’ve seen me like this often enough.”

  “Not,” Jean said, “in years—and never running through the streets. Take it, quickly, damn you! ‘Tis not your modesty I’m concerned with, but my own inclinations.”

  She slipped her soft arms into his sleeves, and gathered the long frock-coat about her. The effect was fetching; the more so, Jean realised, because she was being deliberately careless.

  Lucienne groaned a bit when the coat touched her bruised back.

  “Take me home with you,” she said; “I’d never make it to my place alive. You can apply salve to my wounds—that should be amusing, shouldn’t it?”

  “Too blessed amusing,” Jean said grimly. “Come along, then. And you might beguile the tedium of our promenade by telling me what the devil you were doing walking through that quartier at such an hour.”

  “That,” Lucienne said coolly, “is none of your business. I’ll tell you why I was walking at least—you saw what they did to every coach that tried to pass through the streets tonight?”

  “You were wise to walk,” Jean said, “but you should have kept your mouth shut after you’d kissed that bloody plaster. What difference did it make anyhow?”

  “None, really. But I wish I’d been brave enough to refuse to kiss it at all. It’s a thing I’ve lived by up till now. I’ve never before in all my life done anything I didn’t want to. I h
ave also never regretted for a second anything I’ve ever done—because, you see, Jeannot, if I do a thing, it’s because I really want to.”

  “This,” Jean said, “has some connection with your ideas of right and wrong?”

  “Of course not!” Lucienne laughed. “The wronger a thing is—by other people’s standards, that is—the more I want to do usually.”

  Jean looked at her. He was beginning to understand her now. After all these years, he was beginning to. M. le Philosophe! he mocked himself, thinking that it was no affair of his, that nothing Lucienne said or did should concern him now.

  But it does, he admitted. With himself Jean Paul was always honest.

  “Other people’s standards?” he said quietly; “I take it, then, that your own are different?”

  “Quite. It’s a habit I got from you, Jeannot—this business of thinking for myself. Only, with you, it never went very deep. You used to say many things, but when it came to practising them, your emotions always got in the way. I’m different—my head always dominates my heart.”

  “This explains Gervais la Moyte, perhaps?” Jean said grimly.

  “Jealous?” Lucienne laughed. “Don’t be. That’s very unintelligent. That’s thinking like everybody else—and unworthy of you, my Jeannot, because, oddly enough, you are or could become a person. Most people aren’t, you know. They’re puppets, controlled by those above them, by their own fears, by other people.”

  “Now you’re being unclear,” Jean mocked, “and on purpose, too.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re jealous of Gervais. You always have been, and that’s rather pitiful. You and men like you have turned a fairly good world upside down, because you were eaten up with envy. Gervais is taller, gayer, far better-looking than you ever were. He has beautiful manners; he even understands women. Because he and men like him never bothered to hide their natural contempt for you industrious, grubbing bourgeois, you had to unleash the mob against them. The peasantry of France, with all its troubles, Gervais tells me, is far better off than any other peasantry in Europe. And Gervais doesn’t lie—you know that. He’s far too sure of himself to ever feel the slightest compulsion to.”

  “That’s true,” Jean sighed; “there are many things about La Moyte I admire.”

  “Good! Now you’re on your way to becoming somebody. But to return to your jealousy—as far as I’m concerned. I, Jeannot, have always found the ideas that most men have about women faintly ridiculous, and a little insulting. You list us among your possessions, like your dogs and your horses. I used to sleep with you. Fine. I did so because I liked to; it was something I enjoyed. But you, who should have been intelligent enough to know better, figured you owned me. Nobody owns me—I own myself.”

  “Not even—Gervais?” Jean said.

  “Not even God—if there is a God. Gervais, bless him, has never been too possessive. He knows, I think, that I have been unfaithful to him two dozen times—no, more. And he, likewise. But we manage it well. We never flaunt things in each other’s face. And we never, never pry into each other’s affairs. In all the years I’ve known Gervais he has yet to ask me, ‘Where the devil were you last night?’ Never. He doesn’t, I think, because he knows I’d tell him. And because nobody can be that different from the common run of men, he wouldn’t like it. So he doesn’t ask. Good?”

  “Mad!” Jean spat.

  “Sane, I think. ‘Tis the world that’s mad, Jeannot. When do we get to that place of yours? I’m dead tired.”

  “Soon,” Jean told her. “It’s not very far, now.”

  She looked at him, smiling.

  “Did you have an affair with Gervais’ sister, Jean?” she said.

  “You,” Jean reminded her, “never ask questions.”

  “Then you did! How frightfully amusing! I rather thought so, but Gervais wouldn’t tell me. That’s one time you got to him, Jean.”

  “What ever,” Jean growled, “made you think a thing like that?”

  “Her letters. Gervais is very careless. He used to swear like a trooper every time he got one from her. But he never thought to destroy them. So I read them. She always asked about you, and in such a pitiful fashion. It amused me. Have you really become so good in that department, or was it just her inexperience?”

  “Damn you, Lucienne!” Jean began; then he checked himself. “Wouldn’t you like to find out?” he asked mockingly.

  “Perhaps. That depends upon the mood I’m in. Those things are never really very important—except to men. Any woman who has escaped the deadening routine expected of us: home, husband, family, knows better. When one is hungry, one eats. When one is not, one doesn’t. And not the same food all the time—not even caviar. Right, Jeannot?”

  “You,” Jean breathed, “are fantastic!”

  “No—just tired, and awfully sore. I hope you have some decent wine in that place of yours.”

  “The best,” Jean said.

  But it took him longer than he expected. They had to detour around half a dozen new tumults. Everywhere there were gunshots, screams In every major street barricades had been erected by the soldiers; and three-quarters of them had been torn down or set afire by the people. This thing was out of hand now, completely out of hand.

  When Lucienne gazed upward at that first flight of stairs, she swore feelingly.

  “Take me up, Jean,” she said; “you look strong enough now.”

  Jean swept her up as though she were weightless.

  “My God,” she breathed, “you are strong! That prison did wonders for you. . . . This affair of the gentle Nicole, did it occur before or after the jail?”

  “Questions again?” Jean said.

  “Oh, I can ask you. You’re a part of the past. Besides, it amuses me. It’s rare. Nobles like Gervais think nothing of taking their pleasure among bourgeoise maids—or even among the peasants, if it pleases them. But being men, and a part of our rather primitive society, they don’t relish the tables being turned. That’s why it amuses me. I love seeing their arrogance deflated.”

  “That,” Jean said flatly, “is none of your business, Lucienne. So I’m part of your past, eh?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your pride, Jeannot. You are. Perhaps you could become a part of my future, too; but that depends. . . .”

  Jean’s leg touched the flimsy railing and he drew away from it, closer to the wall. He shifted Lucienne easily, and groped in his pocket for the key. He got the door open and walked over to the bed. He laid Lucienne down upon it and took his fire-pistol out of his secretaire.

  Somebody, he swore, should invent a better way of making fire than this. But he kept on blowing on the little rags that caught the sparks from the barrel-less flintlock, until they stopped smouldering and made enough flame to light the candle. Then he turned back to her.

  “What does it depend upon?” he said.

  “What? Mon Dieu—what a persistent devil you are! That’s the kind of question you shouldn’t ask. But I’ll answer it. It depends upon many things: whether I find you sufficiently amusing. That’s the first thing, and the most important. . . .”

  “And the second?” Jean growled.

  “Whether you rise to a position of power and influence in the new State. I can’t be bothered with nobodies. I’m very fond of Gervais, but I think he and his kind are doomed. Put it this way, Jeannot: I could never put up with hardships or poverty again. I could never love a poor man, no matter how charming I found him. On the other hand, I couldn’t live with the richest, most powerful man on earth if I did not find him amusing and charming. There you have it—the code personnel de Lucienne Talbot. Now, for God’s sake stop catechising me and give me some wine!”

  Jean got out the bottles and the glasses. She’s very clear, he thought again, but for the life of me, I cannot like such clarity.

  Lucienne took the goblet from his hand and sipped the wine. A grimace of pain passed over her face.

  “Now, for God’s love,” she snapped, “stop standing t
here staring at me, and do something about my back—it’s killing me!”

  Jean walked into the bathroom-kitchen with a second candle he had lighted from the first. He was taking the salves down when he heard the whisper of her bare feet upon the floor. Then she was beside him, staring at the slipper-shaped tub he had bought at great expense and put in the kitchen next to the stove so that he might always have his water hot for bathing. Jean had for his time what amounted to an obsession with personal cleanliness.

  “A tub!” Lucienne said delightedly. “Oh, Jeannot, be an angel and heat some water—it would take all the soreness out of me. Besides, after that marathon, my aroma must be anything but pleasant; do be sweet and light a fire. . . .”

  “All right,” Jean said, and bent to his task.

  After he had the fire going, he went all the way down to the street, and came back with two huge pails of water from the public fountain. He put them on the stove, and waited. Lucienne was stretched out on the bed again.

  “Come help me out of your coat,” she said. “It was hot enough in this cubby-hole of yours in the beginning; but with that fire going . . . .”

  “Lucienne, for God’s sake,” he began.

  “Oh, don’t be childish. Don’t tell me that at your age, and after all the interesting experiences you’ve had with highborn ladies, the sight of a naked woman would trouble you!”

  “Not a woman,” Jean said, “you.”

  “How sweet! That’s quite the nicest thing you’ve said to me in ever so long. Nevertheless, I’ll just have to trouble you, that’s all. It’s too confounded hot, and this coat of yours is beginning to itch. Help me out of it like a good boy.”

  Jean helped her out of it.

  She got up from the bed and walked over to the mirror, tall, lithe-limbed, graceful She raised both arms and pushed her hair, which had come loose during their flight, high on top of her head. Jean found the gesture charming. But her back had half a dozen great greenish-blue splotches, and one or two places where the skin was broken were dark with dried and clotted blood.