The Wild Ass's Skin

by Honoré de Balzac

  This small world was obeying, perhaps unwittingly, the great law that rules high society, whose implacable ethic now became plain to Raphael in its entirety. Casting a look over his past, he saw this ethic completely typified in Foedora. He wouldn’t find any sympathy for his physical pain in this company, any more than he had for his heartache in hers. High society banishes the unfortunate from its midst, just as a strong, healthy man expels a morbid humour from his body. Society abhors pain and misfortune; it fears them just as it does diseases, it never hesitates in its choice between them or vice: vice is a sign of affluence. However distinguished the misfortune, society knows how to belittle or make fun of it with some catty remark. It draws caricatures to throw in the face of deposed kings the insults it thinks it has received from them. Like the young Roman women in the Circus Maximus, it never spares the fallen gladiator. It survives on gold and mockery. Death to the weak! That is the wish of this equestrian order,* as we might call it, established in every nation on the earth, for there are wealthy people everywhere; and that sentence is engraved on the heart of all those shaped by opulence or nourished by the aristocracy.

  Take a group of children in a school. This microcosm of society, an image all the more accurate because more naive and more ingenuous, always contains poor helots, creatures of suffering and pain, constantly subjected to either scorn or pity: the Gospels promise them the kingdom of heaven. Go lower down the scale of creation. If some chicken has been hurt amongst those in the farmyard, the others pursue it and peck it, tear its feathers out, and destroy it.

  Faithful to this charter of selfishness, society is harsh towards those brave enough to come and spoil its feasts, or ruin its pleasures. Whoever suffers in body or soul, lacks money or power, is a pariah. Let him stay in his wilderness. If he oversteps that boundary he finds winter everywhere: cold looks, cold manners, cold words, cold hearts; fortunate not to reap insults where solace ought to be forthcoming. If you are dying, stay abandoned on your beds. Old men, crouch over your cold, solitary hearths! You poor girls without a dowry, freeze and burn in your solitary attics. If the world tolerates a misfortune, is it not to turn it to its own use, draw some advantage from it, saddle, bridle, dress, and mount it, all for fun?

  All you consumptive young ladies’ companions, put on your brightest smiles! Endure the vapours of your so-called benefactress; carry her lapdogs; be the rival of those English griffons in her affections; amuse her, guess her wishes, and hold your tongues! And you, king of unliveried valets, shameless parasite, leave your true self at home; digest as your host digests, weep when he weeps, laugh when he laughs, pretend his witticisms are funny. If you wish to say anything bad about him, wait for his downfall. That is how society honours misfortune: it kills it, or chases it away, vilifies or castrates it.

  These reflections welled up in Raphael’s heart with the rapidity of poetic inspiration. He looked all round him, and felt the dismal cold that society distils to fend off miseries, and that grips the soul even more sharply than the December winds chill the body. He folded his arms, leaned against the wall, and fell into a deep melancholy. He thought how little happiness this dreadful governance gives society. What was it? Enjoyment without pleasure, gaiety without joy, festivals without delight, delirium without gratified desire, the wood and the ashes of a fire without a spark of flame. When he raised his head again, he saw that he was alone and that the billiard-players had all gone. ‘To make them love my cough, I would only have to tell them about my powers,’ he said to himself. At this thought he put on a protective cloak of contempt between himself and them.

  The next day the doctor in the spa came to see him, and in a kindly and concerned manner enquired after his health. Raphael reacted with delight when he heard the friendly words addressed to him. The doctor’s expression seemed full of gentleness and goodness, the curls on his blond wig spoke of a concern for mankind; the square cut of his suit, the creases in his trousers, his shoes, wide as a Quaker’s, everything, even the powder scattered in a semicircle by his little pigtail on to his slightly stooped back, betrayed an apostolic character expressive of Christian charity and the devotion of a man who, out of zeal for his patients, had forced himself to play whist and backgammon well enough to win their money.

  ‘Monsieur le Marquis,’ he said after a long chat with Raphael, ‘I am surely going to dispel your melancholy. Now that I am more familiar with your constitution I can affirm that the Paris doctors, of whose great talents I am well aware, have made a mistake about the nature of your malady. Barring accidents, monsieur, you may live as long as Methuselah. Your lungs are strong as a blacksmith’s bellows, and your stomach would make an ostrich envious. But if you remain at high altitude you risk being promptly and definitively despatched to consecrated soil. Let me explain in simple terms, Monsieur le Marquis.

  ‘Chemistry has proved that human respiration constitutes a true combustion whose greater or lesser intensity depends on the affluence or the rarity of the phlogistic elements* amassed by the organism particular to each individual. In your case phlogiston abounds. You are, if you will allow me to say so, hyperoxygenated by the ardent temperament characteristic of men of your type, whose fate it is to experience great passions. Thus, breathing the pure clear air which quickens life in men of softer fibre, you are further stimulating a combustion which is already too rapid. One of the conditions of your survival is therefore the dense atmosphere of byre or valley. Yes, the vital air of the man devoured by genius is to be found in the lush pastures of Germany, Baden Baden, or Toplitz. If you can bear England, her foggy atmosphere will calm your fever. But our waters here, a thousand feet above the Mediterranean, are harmful for you. That is my opinion,’ he said, allowing himself a modest little shrug. ‘I offer it against our best interests because, if you follow my advice, we shall unfortunately lose your company.’

  But for these last words, Raphael would have been persuaded by the falsely genial words of this honey-tongued doctor, but he was too acute an observer not to guess, from the tone, gesture, and look that accompanied this gentle irony, the mission with which the little man had no doubt been charged by the rest of his happy band of patients. These florid idlers, these bored elderly ladies, these English adventurers, these fashionable women who had managed to get away from their husbands and be carried off to the spa by their lovers, were taking it upon themselves to get rid of a poor, sick, dying man, weak, apparently incapable of resisting their daily persecution. Raphael accepted the challenge, anticipating some amusement in this intrigue.

  ‘Since you would be so sorry to see me go,’ he said to the doctor, ‘I will try to put your good advice to use while staying here. From tomorrow, I will have a house built where the air may be modified according to your prescription.’

  Interpreting the sardonic smile which came to play around Raphael’s lips, the doctor, at a loss to answer, contented himself with bidding him farewell.

  The Lac du Bourget* is a vast hollow among jagged mountains in which there gleams, seven or eight hundred feet above the Mediterranean, a drop of blue water like none other. Seen from the top of the Dent-du-Chat this lake resembles a turquoise which has been dropped there by accident. This pretty sheet of water is nine leagues round and in certain places nearly five hundred feet deep. To be there in a boat under a sunny sky at the midpoint of this water, to hear nothing but the sound of the oars, to see nothing but cloud-capped mountains on the horizon, to admire the sparkling snow of the French Maurienne,* as you pass in turn blocks of granite clothed in velvety green ferns, dwarf bushes, or smiling pastures; on the one side wilderness, on the other nature in her abundance; a poor guest at the rich man’s table; these harmonies, these dissonances make up a spectacle where everything is huge, where everything is small. When you look at the mountains the conditions of vision and perspective change. A fir tree a hundred feet high seems no taller than a marsh reed, a wide valley seems as narrow as a mountain path. This lake is the only lake where heart can speak to heart, where
you may meditate or fall in love. In no other place will you come across a more beautiful conjunction of water, sky, mountains, and plain. There you will find balm for all life’s woes. This place will keep your grief secret, offer consolation, lessen your trouble, and invest love with a certain seriousness, a quietude, which makes passion deeper and more pure. A kiss becomes more meaningful. But above all, it is the lake of memories. It enhances them because they take on the colour of its ripples, a mirror in which everything comes to be reflected and reflects.

  Raphael was only able to bear his burden when surrounded by this beautiful landscape. Here he might remain, dreamily indolent, free from desires. After the doctor’s visit he went for a row and had himself dropped off on a deserted point below a picturesque hill on which the village of Saint-Innocent is situated.

  From this promontory his eye could encompass both the mountains of Bugey, at the foot of which flows the Rhône, and the far end of the lake. But Raphael loved to contemplate, on the opposite bank, the melancholy abbey of Hautecombe, the burial-place of the kings of Sardinia,* lying there at the foot of the mountains like pilgrims who have arrived at their journey’s end. A rhythmic cadence of oars dipping into the water troubled the silence of this landscape and lent it a monotonous quality resembling the chanting of monks. Surprised to come across people in this part of the lake that was normally so solitary, the Marquis studied, without coming out of his reverie, the people sitting in the boat and recognized in the stern the elderly lady who had so severely admonished him the previous day. When the boat passed before Raphael, he was greeted only by the companion of this lady, a poor gentlewoman whom he could not recall seeing before.

  A few moments later they had disappeared behind the promontory, and he had already forgotten these visitors when he heard the rustle of a dress and a light footstep near to him. Turning, he saw the lady’s companion. By her constrained expression he realized she wished to talk to him, and he moved towards her. Aged about thirty-six, tall and thin, gaunt and lacking in warmth, she was, like all old maids, rather embarrassed to meet his eye, for such an initiative did not accord with her movements, which were hesitant and awkward. Both young and old at the same time, she indicated the high price she attached to her treasures and perfections by a certain dignity in her bearing. Moreover, she had the discreet and nun-like gestures of women who are in the habit of looking after themselves, no doubt so as to be ready for the love they are destined to encounter.

  ‘Your life is in danger, sir, you must not come to the club any more,’ she said to Raphael, backing away as though her virtue were already compromised.

  ‘But my dear young lady,’ replied Valentin with a smile, ‘please explain yourself more clearly since you have been so good as to come as far as this …’

  ‘Oh,’ she went on, ‘if it were not for the powerful motive which brings me here I should not have risked incurring the displeasure of the Countess, for if she ever found out I had warned you …’

  ‘But who would tell her, mademoiselle?’ cried Raphael.

  ‘That’s true,’ replied the old maid, blinking at him like an owl in the sunshine. ‘But please think of yourself,’ she went on, ‘several young men who wish to force you to leave the spa have vowed to provoke you into fighting a duel.’

  The voice of the old Countess rang out in the distance.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said the Marquis, ‘my gratitude …’

  But his protectress had already gone, having heard again her mistress’s shrill voice from behind the rocks.

  ‘Poor girl! The unhappy always understand and help one another,’ thought Raphael, sitting down beneath a tree.

  The key to all knowledge is undoubtedly the question-mark; we owe most great discoveries to the question ‘How?’ and life’s wisdom perhaps consists in constantly asking ‘Why?’ But this false prescience destroys our illusions. Thus Valentin, without intending to philosophize about the old maid’s good deed, took it as the text for his wandering thoughts, and decided it was full of venom.

  ‘It’s not so extraordinary for a lady’s companion to be in love with me,’ he thought. ‘I’m twenty-seven, I have a title and two hundred thousand pounds a year! But for her mistress, who hates the water as much as a cat does, to have brought her here by boat, to be near me, is that not a strange and marvellous thing: that these two women who come to the Savoie to sleep like two marmots and rise at midday, should have got up before eight today in pursuit of me, and make it seem a chance occurrence?’

  Soon the old maid and her middle-aged ingenuousness became in his eyes just another manifestation of this artificial, scoffing society, a cunning ruse, the devious plot of a fussy old priest or woman. Was the duel an invention, or did they just want to scare him? Irritating and annoying as flies, these petty-minded people had succeeded in pricking his vanity, awakening his pride, exciting his curiosity. Not wanting to be duped by them nor to be thought a coward, but rather amused by this little drama, he went to the club that very evening. He stood leaning on the marble mantelpiece, silent in the middle of the principal salon, being careful not to give anyone cause for comment. But he examined their faces and seemed to be challenging the assembled company by his guardedness. Like a bulldog sure of his strength, he waited for the fight to come to him, without any useless barking. Towards the end of the evening he walked into the gaming-room, from the entrance to the billiard-room door, where from time to time he threw a glance at the young men who were having a game. After a few turns, he heard his name being mentioned. Although they were talking in low voices, Raphael had no difficulty guessing that he was the object of their discussion and in the end could make out a few of the louder remarks:

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, me!’

  ‘I dare you!’

  ‘Shall we bet on it?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll go.’

  Just as Valentin, curious to learn what the bet was, stopped to listen closely to the conversation, a tall, strong young man, with a healthy complexion but with that staring, impudent look of those who have some material wealth behind them, left the billiards.

  ‘Sir,’ he said calmly, addressing Raphael, ‘I have taken it upon myself to apprise you of something of which you appear to be ignorant: your face and your person are displeasing here to everyone, and particularly to me. You are too civil not to sacrifice yourself for the common good, and so I beg you not to appear in the club any more.’

  ‘Sir, this joke, which used to be current in several garrisons in the days of the Empire, is in very bad taste today,’ Raphael coldly replied.

  ‘I am not joking,’ went on the young man, ‘I’ll say it again. Your health would suffer greatly if you stayed here: the heat, the light, the air of the salon, the company are all harmful to your well-being.’

  ‘Where did you study medicine?’ enquired Raphael.

  ‘Sir, I took my first degree at Lepage’s shooting-school in Paris and my doctorate with Cérisier,* king of the rapier.’

  ‘You still need to take one more degree,’ replied Valentin. ‘Study the Code of Politeness and you will be a perfect gentleman.’

  At this, the young men, smiling or silent, left their billiards. The other players became attentive, left their cards in order to listen to a quarrel that delighted their passions. Alone in the midst of this hostile company, Raphael attempted to keep his sang-froid and not to put himself in any way in the wrong; but his adversary, having permitted himself a sarcastic remark where the insult was couched in a highly objectionable and witty form, he answered gravely:

  ‘Sir, in these days it is no longer acceptable to strike a man on the cheek, but I cannot find words to condemn behaviour as cowardly as yours.’

  ‘That’s enough! You can have it out tomorrow,’ said several young people throwing themself between the two combatants.

  Raphael left the salon, in the position of challenger, having agreed to meet near the Château de Bordeau, on a small hillside not far from a newly constructed road along which
the victor could escape to Lyons. Raphael would have to keep to his bed or leave the spa of Aix. The company had triumphed. The next morning at eight o’clock Raphael’s adversary, accompanied by his two seconds and one surgeon, was the first to arrive at the spot.

  ‘We’ll be fine here, it’s splendid weather for a fight,’ he cried gaily, looking up at the blue vault of the sky, the waters of the lake, and the rocks, without the slightest misgivings or thoughts of death. ‘If I hit him in the shoulder,’ he continued, ‘I shall put him in bed for a month, will I not, doctor?’

  ‘At least,’ replied the surgeon. ‘But leave that little willow branch alone, or your hand will tire and you will no longer be master of your aim. You might kill the man, instead of wounding him.’

  The rattle of a carriage could be heard.

  ‘Here he comes,’ said the seconds, and soon they saw coming along the road a carriage harnessed with four horses and driven by two postillions.

  ‘What a strange individual!’ cried Valentin’s adversary. ‘He comes in a mail-coach to get himself killed.’

  In a duel, as in gambling, the slightest details have an influence on the imagination of the actors keenly interested in the outcome. So it was with some anxiety that the young man waited for the arrival of this carriage that had halted up on the road. Old Jonathas got out first, heavily, to help Raphael down. He supported him on his feeble arm, bestowing on him the little attentions a lover shows his mistress. Then they were both hidden by the bushes separating the main road from the place designated for combat, and only came into view again much later. They were walking slowly. The four spectators of this strange scene felt deeply affected by the sight of Valentin leaning on the arm of his servant. Pale and dejected, he was walking like a man with gout, head bowed and silent. You would have supposed them to be two old men equally ruined, one by time, the other by thought. The first had his age written in his white hair, the younger had no age at all.