North

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Taking it very slow … we get there just the same … a turn up ahead …

  “Moorsburg?”

  Yes … we’d taken three hours … he’d told me about the place, how picturesque … the truth … three … four Place Vendômes in a county seat, Frederick needed them to drill his thugs … and for executions! … from every window you could see the drilling … brutal! … and the executioner at work … the floggings … free show! … a thousand times juicier than our pathetic jerk-off sessions in dark halls … people happy! … cannon fodder toeing the line! any playwright will tell you … the trouble they have drawing a crowd … filling three rows in the orchestra … with all the ballyhoo! … sexhibitions, banner headlines, stripteasing ushers, doormen falling all over themselves! … hill of beans! … the only reliable drawing card is blood, bowels hanging out! … vivisection! … guts all over the stage! … dead and dying! … no gladiators: yawns! a disemboweled gladiator: orgasms! … there in the big bus I could see us panting and gasping … clearly branded on the shoulder with our Article 75 …

  “You seem pensive, Céline .. .”

  I wasn’t talking … I hadn’t opened my mouth since Grünwald … neither had the two others …

  “Not bad, Moorsburg …”

  Trying to be friendly …

  “Oh, you’ll come here often! right near Zornhof! … four miles … a stroll … but right now I’ll have to introduce you to the Landrat…”

  He stops the car …

  I’d better warn you, Count Otto von Simmer isn’t exactly young … or congenial … he’s a “reserve” Landrat, so to speak … Prussian aristocracy, his father was governor of the Grand Duchy of “North and Schleswig” … he himself was a colonel in the last war, fought at Verdun, as a foot uhlan, wounded at Douaumont … he limps, you’ll see, and he doesn’t like the French at all, or the Russians, or the Nazis, or the Poles, or anybody, else … I believe, though, that he’s rather fond of Baroness von Leiden … you’ll see him there at Zornhof … you’ll enjoy yourself … don’t tell me about it … he hates me, first because I’m younger than he is, second because I’m a doctor, third because I’m in the SS, and fourth because I see the baroness … all the same I’m going to introduce you, indispensable!”

  Another big square … another … here it is! … two elderly guards in civilian clothes … blunderbuses, armbands … the Landrat’s mansion …

  “Wait here … I’ll go up and tell him … hell come down … if he feels like it…”

  The guards at attention! Harras goes in … ten minutes … he comes, down with the Landrat… old buzzard, at least seventy, needs a shave, bad humor, picklepuss … comes out to look us over … first me, then the two others … a flick of the hand and b’jour… b’jour in French … now I can see his face close up, wrinkles and hairs … delicate though, a certain beauty … almost feminine, like an old woman … gray eyes, pure gray … oh, but steady, nothing old about them …

  “They’re going to the von Leidens?”

  “Yes, I’m taking them.”

  “Gut! … gut!”

  Shakes hands all around… that’s it! … military salute! … bows to Lili! … and about-face! … in and up the steps … trouble climbing … he limps worse than me … fracture of the hip I’d say … he disappears … I haven’t mentioned his outfit … colonel’s dolman with brandenburgs … boots with gold braid, gold spurs, William II moustaches, but measly, two tufts …

  “He wouldn’t be bad in a ballet!”

  “What ballet?”

  “Ballet Russe, 1912, at the Châtelet!”

  “Think so? … you’ll see the one at Zornhof! better still for your ballet! … and even older! … this one is nothing!”

  Sounds promising … let’s go! this Moorsburg is a very small town except for those Place Vendômes … a quarter of Chartres on a very flat plain, all sand and clay … practically no cattle, no meadows … only ponds, rushes … but plenty of geese, ducks, hens! … right in the middle, of Moorsburg, all over the streets …

  “They’re not to eat! verboten! … none of them! … later! … later! … after Christmas!”

  “You don’t have to tell me that … in the first place we’re very light eaters … we won’t touch them … even after Christmas …”

  “The geese won’t hurt you, Céline … but watch out for that old clown!”

  “Simmer?”

  “I didn’t show him to you for nothing …”

  Ah, here we are! … Zornhof! more geese! millions of them! … flying up from every puddle … a few cows … an enormous park … there at the edge a small manor house with round towers …

  “This park was designed by Mansard … before the Revocation … no Huguenots here! … the von Leidens are Lutherans … fine family … manor house, arms and dovecote!”

  Mansard, it’s a fact, had made the best of this chunk of plain, all yellow muck and cinders … splendid trees! … in among these tall ash trees, on this gracefully curving walk, you really felt you were entering an abode of charm …

  For all his gross Teutonic ways Harras had seen it …

  “Over here Versailles, Céline! on this side the manor! … on the other side the steppe! … Russia! … the East!”

  He leads us through the gardens, around the little lake … yes, on one side you could say Versailles … the semi-grand marble stairway … with two bronze lions … on the other side the plain … the steppe, as he says … a really endless plain …

  “As far as the Urals!”

  Lines of enormous oak trees … ponds … but right there under the windows, on the plain, the Ural side, we see a small marsh … muck and grass … they must have been trying to fill it in …

  “Now let’s look inside … see what preparations they’ve made for us! and call on the Rittmeister … if it’s all right with you, colleague?”

  “Certainly! Certainly, Harras!”

  “Rittmeister von Leiden!”

  He announces … I don’t see him … but I see two … three little girls who are very much amused at our arrival! giggles! … . they’re practically in rags and barefoot … but not unhappy! barefoot and long hair … they must be about ten … maybe twelve years old … Polish or Russian … I ask …

  “Little Ukrainian girls! … they’re his soubrettes, he’s got five of them! … they amuse him! he spanks them! for fun! they whip him! for fun! … they get along fine! … none of your hateful squires like the one you just met! … except with his dog Iago! … you’ll see Iago!”

  The little girls open the doors for us … all five of them … something else to laugh about! guffaws! they open the doors wide! … monumental! everything’s good for a laugh! … especially us! … ah, here he is, the Rittmeister in his study!

  “Bitte! bitte! Kindern! children!”

  He tries to calm them down … he can keep trying … now they’re after us … tugging at our bags, our straps … especially Bébert’s bag … Harras steps in …

  “Ruhe! … quiet!”

  The old man in his study implores him … not to mistreat his little girls! … his little girls are uncontrollable … they pinch, they scream, they all want to pet Bébert … they’re impossible … Lili lets them pet Bébert … that’ll keep them busy … now we can introduce ourselves to Baron von Leiden! … oh, a lot more gracious than the Landrat! … he speaks French, studied at the Sorbonne before the war of 1870 … he stands up, he can’t wait to talk about Paris … the wonderful time he had! he takes off his bonnet, bald as a billiard ball, he rolls and pitches, merrily, merrily, bandy legs, another horseman … like the Landrat in Moorsburg, a Uhlan too, that’s how it was in Paris! he chows us! comme ça, comme ça! … he was a waltzer! … he can still do it! … and a skater too! the Palais de Glace! … he shows us the way he waltzed and skated! … the movements! … bandy-legged across the whole enormous room … and he hums, he’s the band! … the kids are splitting a gut! … oh, not at all like the Landrat! … he slips and catches himself
on a chair … he makes us laugh too! the five kids are rolling on the floor, he’s so funny when he acts silly, it makes them pee in their pants! He bumps into the furniture … he sails from one armchair to the next! really comical! … All of a sudden it’s over, he stops, they’re laughing too much! stock still on his bandy legs! … he’s thinking … ah, he’s going to show us our rooms … enough foolishness! the two of us, Lili and me, in the court! well see! … off we go! … he has trouble walking! … he’s waltzed too much! … I see him there, as gnarled as die Landrat, but not edgy, not hateful, just the opposite, a charming host… only bard on his dog Harras has told me… now to our pads … we climb …rough on him too … big stone steps … here we are! … a circular cell, gloomy, a folding bed, a basin, a pitcher, that’s all… much less than in Grünwald, a cross between a monastery and a prison …

  “You know, Céline, it’s only temporary …”

  “Oh, of course, Harras, of course …”

  I wasn’t going to sulk, neither was Lili … but now Le Vig? … down again … the stone stairway … and then another … Le Vig’s hole is next to the kitchens … in the cellar … we look … another folding bed, a straw tick; and a little pitcher … worse than us, all in all … except that he looks out on the plain, or rather on the weed pond, we’ve got the park, the ash trees … but through a dismal slit … Le Vig it’s bars … so what? … so nothing … once you’re launched on the “misfortunes of war” all you can do is turn the page … to another misfortune … and another! … “ohs” and “ahs” won’t help you … no great surprise, you don’t expect to be rocked to sleep, coddled with tidbits … you’ve got into this, you shouldn’t have! … think of the Roman gladiator, the hoots and catcalls if he didn’t expose his whole throat! … where does that leave you? … every kind of criminal, now and forever! … don’t kid yourself … your goose is cooked! …

  Maybe Harras had pulled a fast one … he had his bosses too, invisible super-Obers … who had their eyes on him … witness those mikes in Grünwald, every wall every armchair … the Chancellery? … or Conti, the minister? … maybe he’d done his best … just a stopgap … while we were making up out minds … Good God, to what? … was there any choice? … Le Vigan in propaganda, like Ferdonnet ° … me, a factory doctor … we weren’t very eager, either of us … what would you have done in our place? … “shouldn’t have left Paris! what were you doing in Berlin?” … very true! … no business there! especially me, since September 1914 I’ve known all about it! not from books, from experience … the best lessons in the most expensive schools are no use … this proves it! … the minute I laid eyes on Zornhof, from the distance, I said to myself, this is it! you’ve seen the East and serves you right! … a more blithering grotesque imbecile than forty million Frenchmen! who at least know how to turn their coats! retreat, run the other way with their drawers full of shit and pick themselves up covered with glory, models of honor! feast your eyes! bloated with miraculous endowments, gilt-edged hereditary prebends, enough to snow the Gotha under! … “Ferdie boy, you dumb jerk, paying for everybody, you never going to stop? … Well, you’ve got something to look forward to … turning pages … plenty of pages! you’ll never see anything else! … lucid or not, you’re sunk!”

  I’m not going to depress Lili or Le Vig, those are things you keep to yourself … Anyway, this jerk von Leiden, the Rittmeister, seemed a little more acceptable than the Landrat in Moorsburg … we’d see … but first let’s look around … the family, the estate across the way, the farms, the other side of the park … sure … while we’re about it … Here we are! … really large-scale agriculture … barns … barns … mooing … manure pits … very hard for the nose to distinguish which is most acrid, what flows from the pigs? … from the cows? or from the silos? … puddles, streams all over … a pool of urine and manure in the middle of the yard … I know something about it … force of circumstances … I’ve handled, by hand, whole wagonloads of manure and urine, every squadron in the 12th, and I can say authoritatively that uns here is pungent … especially the beet juice …

  Two men in a doorway. I see they’re talking about us … not Polacks or Russians or Fritzes … there are different kinds of sloppiness … they’re French no less … oh, not friendly, not chummy … they just glom us from the distance … a third comes out from the barn … ah, they’re saying something, motioning us to come over … “Where you from?” One’s from Saint-Germain … one from the Var … the third from Haute-Marne … what interests them is Le Vig’s weed! … okay… I slip them two packs … cigarettes come, first, before soup, before butter, before liquor … irresistible! … Harras is just crossing the yard, he’s going over to see the son and daughter-in-law, to announce our visit … just then the three of them ask us:

  “Deportees?”

  “No, collabos!”

  If I didn’t tell them they’d find out …

  “Okay, well fill you in, we know these people … you’ve never seen more two-timing murderous hogs! … the bigger cons they are, the crummier they get! … the basket case, Inge, the bowlegged old bastard, all the same! plus the Landrat! you’ll see! …”

  They make motions:

  “Their pockets … bursting! … enormous! … like this! look around! the barns are full! but they let us starve! … they’re loaded! … and they won’t give us a carrot! you’ll get a load of their System! … they’ll roll you in clover! … that’s what you came for, isn’t it? … you’re not the first! … take it from me, they’re not fat when they leave … skin and bones! … you won’t be either … you’ll never see them eat! … they stoke in their rooms! at the table, nothing! … pure water their mahlzeit, nothing in it! … heil! for your benefit, nothing in it! you’re not the first boarders! … Fats Harras, you know what he comes for?”

  “No.”

  “To fuck Inge and get butter and stuff!”

  “He takes care of himself …”

  “That’s for sure, the fat bastard! … crummier than the guy in Moorsburg! Simmer … you know him?”

  “Oh yes …”

  “His only idea is getting us shot! … three yesterday! … escaped from the camp, so he says! … any excuse… he fucks Baroness Leiden too! … he and Harras are hand in glove! … he comes here for chickens, butter, and eggs too! you’ll see!”

  “Delightful!”

  “Over where you are it’s something else again, the old man goes for the kids … he spanks them … then he takes his pants down and they whip him! … his little maids, seen them? his punishment; wham, bam! till the blood comes! his vice! but he’s good for a laugh! not the Landrat!”

  Just then Harras comes down from the farm … the little stairway … he’s buttoning his fly …

  “Here’s your guy! … hold it!”

  They step back into the doorway …

  “Try and swipe another pack!”

  “Okay …”

  “Come over tonight after the mahlzett …”

  Harras had come to pick us up …

  “Madame, and you my friends, I’m going to introduce you … von Leiden the younger, you’ll see … cripple, always in a bad humor, but she’ll be glad to see you … she’ll invite you to dinner…”

  We follow him … a cement walk … between two pools … liquid manure … enormous barnyard … turkeys, chickens, especially geese … we hear grunts … a barn the other side of the silos … pigs coming out … led by the man from Haute-Marne … we climb the little stairway … here we are in the parlor … Madame Inge von Leiden and her husband … salutations … I see the cripple huddled in an armchair … he hardly looks at us … hostile … she puts herself out a bit … very well preserved … about forty … what they call a well set-up woman … tall, shapely, a certain charm … smiling but distant … but if somebody made up to her? maybe … now’s the time for our Le Vigan, our No. 1 lady-killer to show his mettle …

  No soap … one of his pensive moods …

  “And you, Monsieur?”


  “Oh, thank you, Madame!”

  He freaks out … heartbreaking … the dashing blade, the ardent lover ,”… pure ice! that what Zornhof does to him? Lovely prospect, the cripple, the Landrat, Le Vig … up to me to be amiable all by myself … Lili didn’t speak German except for komm mit! meaning that Bébert should follow her … he did … he crossed, all Germany twice, Constance to Flensburg, under a hail of machine-gun bullets and bombs! in and out of five writhing armies! … the finish! … phosphorus, armored trains! … never an inch from Lili! a cat that never obeyed anybody … komm mit! that did it, the only German words that appealed to him, the only ones Lili ever learned … there with the cripple and his wife, I knocked myself out … I talk about the beauty of the countryside, the magnificent vistas … no answer … actually from the bay windows of their dining room you can see rutabagas, cabbages, enormous flocks of geese … and more geese! … a few sheep … and far … far in the distance, like a backdrop the big forest, the sequoias … and a few men … Russians, I guess from their boots … and women … they must be Russian too the way they tie their belts above their bosoms … kids all around them, clouting each other, tumbling between the grownups, laughing … when it stops being a kid, humanity gets gloomy, the movies don’t help … not at all! … what has it got to be cheerful about? … only a complete alcoholic can think life is funny … any life! … there in the vast spaces of Zornhof, in and out of the potatoes, those barefooted kids were having a ball … chucking turnips! chucking carrots! girls versus boys! … later, when you’ve got shoes you’re afraid of getting them dirty … at that age you don’t give a damn, bam! a clout! another clout! … Lili wanted to go out and have fun with the kids! she wasn’t haying fun with us … the cripple, the daughter-in-law, and Harras … Le Vigan more and more pensive … not very promising …