by Theo Varlet
“You’re my beautiful male,” she proclaimed. “You’re my magnificent king, my god, my Eros. No, listen: tonight, I want to be your she-wolf, your Messalina. The ardors of lust are devouring me, the desire to make love to you!”
A little pomposity, perhaps, a little exaggeration in the note, but what fire, what ingenuousness! I was completely carried away.
And her palms slapped her firm and opulent breasts, which she extended, their nipples erect, toward the man.
He was annoying me, that one! Doubtless propped up on the pillow, smoking a last cigarette, he uttered vaguely approving grunts between puff. Did he understand the rare beauty of the spectacle? Did he appreciate the inestimable luck of possessing a true courtesan, one in ten thousand?
“I’m your Messalina, you bacchante, your maenad, your lustful slave. Oh, take me, embrace me, ravish me in the heavens of ecstasy!”
The last rustle of lingerie. A door grates, is wedged by a chair; the mirror-fronted wardrobe doubles the spectacle of their nudity for them, and the bed groans under the precious burden of indecency.
“See what a beautiful couple we make! See the wild harmony of your virile flesh combined with my pale complexion! Oh, you’re my beautiful male. What joy you’ll give me with your admirable member! And me! You see these beautiful breasts, you see this beautiful bottom, this superb bottom? They’re yours, entirely yours; they’re instruments devoted to your pleasure. Take everything!”
Sacred woman! Her brio and her enthusiasm were provoking my imagination t the point that being able to see the scene would, I believed, have told me nothing.
The frescoes of the Pompeiian brothel, those in the Secret Museum of Naples, were revived in my memory, and reconstituted the tableau of that sister of Lais and Phryné...
What triumphs could she not claim in the world of gallantry! Which of the fashionable professional beauties possessed such an enthralling mastery?
Bedclothes bitten, fingernails digging into flesh, hair thrown backward with an abrupt thrust of the head—and there was the click of colliding teeth, the impetuous gallop, the supreme gasp…and immobility.
I witnessed all that without missing a single detail, lying on the bed next to my stupid sleeper.
A cool draught flowed in through the wide window, from the blue and nuptial night, in which the solitary cricket accompanied the whistling of the tireless swallows.
While the wild maenad and her “beautiful male” rested, amid the moistness of love, I ruminated the desire to know the marvelous artiste who had put on that unforgettable performance for me. And I lay there for a long time following the progress of the constellations in the sliver of sky between the houses and the station, where a rocky peak was silhouetted, Hellenically.
The glimmer of the street-lights melted into the first light of dawn; the stars disappeared; the mountain was clouded in pink. The first cicadas began clicking, and my fever was numbed momentarily by the multiple titillations of their solar rhythm.
A coming-and-going in the next room reassembled my consciousness. The station came to life; footsteps and voices in the square dominated the confused awakening of the city, beneath the already-warm light. Just then the waiter knocked, following my instructions.
“Half past five!”
Should I board the train at seven for the Îles d’Or?
No! Only one thing as important, at present: to see the beautiful “Messalina,” perhaps to speak to her—who could tell?—to conquer her; to make her deploy her talents for me, alone…recompensed, to be sure; I wouldn’t stint. And, dressing hurriedly, I kept track of every gesture of the others, behind the wall, as they got ready to leave.
Singular. The amorous blandishments had ceased. The lush and spicily sonorous voice that had celebrated the furious obscenity a little while ago, was no longer uttering anything but everyday banalities. In a bad mood this morning, she was making bittersweet comments to the “beautiful male.” As for him, he was a different man—loquacious, urgent, more submissive than was reasonable…stupid. His “Yes, my love” and “Here you are, my beauty” were more those of a placid bourgeois than a fatal individual, the careless foreigner that I had reconstituted.
But I was not about to knock my goddess off her pedestal for the sake of quibbles. They were taking the seven-ten to Bandol, where they would be staying. Enough of the Îles d’Or! A free traveler, I would follow them. I would go to Bandol; I would go to the devil, for Her!
Suddenly, my ex-bed-companion moved. Honestly, I had forgotten all about her! Tangled in the sheet, she was still asleep. Her white stockings, which she had kept on, had a lump between the ankle and the knee, designating the purse. Adieu, little brute!
They were ready. Suitcase in hand, standing by the partly-open door, as excited as a student on the lookout for his first mistress, I waited.
One more bag to pack, apparently. Finally, the “beautiful male” declared: “I’ll go down first to order the chocolates.”
An unexpected stroke of luck! The blot clicked in its socket; the handle turned. Heavy footsteps went along the landing, and down the stairs...
I saw a round back, a yellow valise and the black straw boater disappearing.
She was alone! And her door was still open!
I went forward, throwing all my chips into the pot, trusting to my inspiration, in approaching the woman, equally prepared for lyricism or conquering brutality.
Frightful luck!
She was at least fifty, smoke-preserved, with a severe expression. Coarse acned features; a double chin dotted with long grey hairs, her neck awkwardly gathered into a whalebone chemisette. She was sitting on the edge of the bed stuffing a moleskin bag; her pudgy hands, one of whose fingers was encrusted with a wedding-ring, emerged from black silk sleeves, and her similar dress compressed a gelatinous mass of ugly fat. Shapeless behind, breasts overflowing the receptacles of the corset. Jewelry in imitation jet, including a portrait-brooch, completed that paragon of womanhood, of odious housewifery, of shrewish and intransigent Virtue.
I stood there open-mouthed, as before a conjuror, hypnotized by the convexity of her tinted glasses, which she had fixed on me. An instantaneous sadistic desire ran through me, to rush at her, knock her down, pull up her skirts to expose that “beautiful bottom” and apply a magisterial kick thereto, avenging my deceived illusions, my concupiscent fever...
Suddenly standing up in the trappings of her threatened virtue, however, she overwhelmed me with a majestic: “Lecher!” and shut the door in my face.
I ran down the stairs with spasms of crazed laughter and tears of rage, to find the black boater that I had seen up above sitting in the restaurant in front of two empty cups, buttering his croissants with and unsteady knife.
He was reminiscent of a pet white rat, a poor tailless rat: minuscule eyes with puffy eyelids, one shoulder lower than the other, his meager skeleton parceled up in a schoolmaster’s overcoat.
My heart failed me on hearing the footsteps of “Messalina” coming downstairs. I settled my bill, grabbed my suitcase, and ran to the harbor tram, which moved off, grating on a curve in the rails, amid the implacable hosannas of cicadas celebrating the sun of Love.
Notes
1 It is possible that the 1922 date arises from a confusion, because Edgar Malfère published a novel entitled Messaline in 1922 by an author using the unlikely pseudonym of Nonce Casanova, whose true identity remains undetermined. Varlet probably read it, and he was doubtless also familiar with Alfred Jarry’s similarly-titled novella, published in 1900.
2 tr. as The Martian Epic, ISBN 978-1-934543-41-2.
3 tr. as Timeslip Troopers, ISBN 978-1-61227-078-4.
4 tr. as The Xenobiotic Invasion, ISBN 978-1-61227-054-8.
5 A more detailed account of Varlet’s life and career can be found in the introduction to The Martian Epic, and there are some additional observations in the introduction to The Xenobiotic Invasion.
6 tr. as The Chase of the Golden Meteor and The Hunt
for the Meteor.
7 When the novel was written, in the early days of radio broadcasting—when only a few people had their own receivers, often combined with transmitters so that they could communicate with one another—the Eiffel Tower was used as the broadcasting station in Paris, temporarily adding a new dimension to its iconic status.
8 In the 1920s, the pound sterling, rather than the US dollar, was the international currency by which most exchange rates were judged. 460 francs to the pound would have been regarded at the time as disastrous, but the deterioration—further assisted by World War II—eventually reached such a stage that the old franc had to be abandoned and “new francs” introduced, each worth a hundred old francs. The new franc eventually reached a level of eleven to the pound before the introduction of the euro changed the situation.
9 The industrial railway system invented by Paul Decauville in the 1870s and marketed by his company thereafter was so successful—especially in its military applications—that his name came to be used as a trivial noun in France.
10 Stanislas Meunier published his Recherches sur la composition et la structure des météorites in 1869.
11 Émile Belot published eight books on cosmogony between 1911 and 1932, although he became more famous as an engineer and technologist, promoting the progress of automation in State factories.
12 Svante Arrhenius, presumably in Das Werden der Welten (1908; tr. as Worlds in the Making). The speculation regarding the “refueling” of the sun is false, but it was not until the possibility of nuclear fusion was calculated in 1929 that the true source of the sun’s radiation could become evident, and not until 1939 that the theory was consolidated by Hans Bethe.
13 The crew’s contraction of Lefébure’s Fer-et-or [iron-and-gold] to Féréor does, indeed, make it more harmonious, but it also carries an additional implication, undoubtedly intentional on the part of the author, by virtue of modifying the pronunciation of the first syllable. Fée means enchantress, or fairy, so the island’s new name carries a phonetic implication of “fairy gold” that is entirely suited to the novel’s fairy-tale aspects.
14 The Locarno treaties of 1925 negotiated at the League of Nations were supposed to settle the borders of post-war Europe and normalize relations with the German Weimar Republic, but were widely regarded at the time as an unholy mess of unsatisfactory compromises; viewed in retrospect, they were the first instances of a policy of appeasement that eventually had the opposite result to that intended, helping to precipitate World War II. Varlet’s cynical sarcasm in respect of “the spirit of Locarno” was thus entirely justified.
15 In the 1920s cheddite was a chlorate-based explosive named after the town of Chedde in the Haute-Savoie, where it was manufactured; it was mostly used in France in quarrying, but was subsequently employed during World War II in the manufacture of improvised hand-grenades. After 1970 the name was redefined to refer to a slightly different compound used as a primer in shotgun cartridges.
16 The organizational philosophy popularized by Frederick Winslow Taylor’s highly influential Principles of Scientific Management (1911).
17 This adaptation of the name of the heroic explorer featured in Voyage au Centre de la Terre is one of two exceedingly oblique acknowledgements within the text of the debt owed by Varlet’s novel to Jules Verne,
18 In fact, it would have been eight o’clock in the evening, New York being six hours behind Paris, not ahead of it.
19 Morra was an ancient and exceedingly simple gambling game, the ultimate ancestor of all coin-tossing games and finger-display games, in which players usually shouted out their wagers at the same time as the tosses or displays were made, thus making it rather loud.
20 “Nobody’s property.”
21 The reference is to Gustave Flaubert’s sumptuous historical novel Salammbô (1862), set in Carthage in the wake of the first Punic War, in which the city’s most important symbol, the zaïmph (supposedly the veil of the goddess Tanit) is stolen by the obsessively lustful mercenary leader Matho, but subsequently recovered by the eponymous priestess. The final chapter, which describes the victory celebrations following the crushing defeat of the rebel mercenaries by Hamilcar Barca, concludes with Matho’s torture prior to his execution and Salammbô’s death, emphasizing that those who have dared to touch the sacred veil are doomed; Varlet’s decision to make that reference rather than likening the gold’s advent to a conventional Roman triumph is, therefore, a further display of his sarcasm.
22 As featured in Jules Verne’s love story Le Rayon vert (1882; tr. as The Green Ray).
23 The naos of a temple is the inner sanctum, usually housing an idol.
24 The author adds a footnote translating this phrase, which means “custodian of the ruins,” but leaves some of the character’s more obvious subsequent remarks in Italian.
25 A kind of giant ostensibly equipped with three hundred hands; the best-known, from available mythological sources, are Briareus and Gyges.
26 The poem by Theocritus, the great pioneer of Greek bucolic poetry, which is nowadays known as “Idyll V” features a song contest between the goatherd Comatas and a young shepherd, Lacon, the latter having accused the former of stealing his flute.
27 Rhedibitory (rhedibitoire in French) means “demanding a refund,” usually because a product is defective; its use here is eccentrically metaphorical.
28 Pierre Loti and “Claude Farrère” (Charles Bargone) were both famous for novels set in exotic locations. Varlet would also have known Farrère as the author of the celebratory Fumée d’Opium (1904; tr. as Black Opium) and several notable ventures in roman scientifique.
29 Lucie Ether and Mandarine are characters in Claude Farrère’s novel Les Petites alliées (1910), whose adventures include a visit to an opium den.
30 The Palazzo Farnese in Rome contains Annibale Carracci’s cycle of frescos The Loves of the Gods.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
81 Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
-- J.-C. Dunyach. The Night Orchid;
-- J.-C. Dunyach. The Thieves of Silence
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
08 Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
01 Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
87 Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The Unpretentious Philosopher
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
82 Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27-28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
07 Jules Lermina. Mysteryville
25 Jules Lermina. Panic in Paris
32 Jules Lermina. The Secret of Zippelius
66 Jules Lermina. To-Ho and the Gold Destroyers
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Victims Victorious
72 Xavier Mauméjean. The League of Heroes
78 Joseph Méry. The Tower of Destiny
77 Hippolyte Mettais. The Year 5865
83 Louise Michel. The Human Microbes
84 Louise Michel. The New World
11 José Moselli. Illa’s End
38 John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
04 Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
21 Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
56 Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
79 Pierre Pelot. The Child Who Walked On The Sky
85 Ernest Perochon. The Frenetic People
60 Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
33 Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril
34 Maurice Renard. Doctor Lerne
35 Maurice Renard. The Doctored Man
36 Maurice Renard. A Man Among the Microbes
37 Maurice Renard. The Master of Light
41 Jean Richepin. The Wing
12 Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries
62 Albert Robida. Chalet in the Sky
69 Albert Robida. The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul
46 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Givreuse Enigma
45 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Mysterious Force
43 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Navigators of Space
48 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Vamireh
44 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The World of the Variants
47 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Young Vampire
71 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River
24 Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
09 Han Ryner. The Superhumans
20 Brian Stableford. The Germans on Venus
19 Brian Stableford. News from the Moon
63 Brian Stableford. The Supreme Progress
64 Brian Stableford. The World Above the World
65 Brian Stableford. Nemoville
