Death on the Installment Plan

by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Once more I was knocked out, fed up, resolute. I ran my comb through my hair on my way into the building. I attacked the stairs. I rang at the first door and then at another … But all of a sudden everything went wrong when I had to answer questions … If they asked me for my references … or what kind of work I wanted to do … my actual aptitudes … my demands … That knocked the stuffings out of me … I stammered, I made bubbles … I panicked … I mumbled vague apologies and began to back out … The faces on those inquisitors scared me green … All of a sudden I had this queasy feeling … All the nerve trickled out of me. I was drained … I took my bellyache out of there … Even so, I started in again … I rang at the door across the way … It was always the same monsters … I’d do twenty like that before lunch … I even stopped going home to eat. I just had too much on my mind … My appetite was gone in advance … I was too fiendishly thirsty … For two cents I wouldn’t have gone home at all. I knew by heart the scenes that were waiting for me. My mother and all her suffering. My father all tangled up in his typewriter, with his rages, his screwball ideas, his insane bellowing … A gloomy prospect … I knew the kind of compliments to expect … It caked my shit to think about it … I stayed out by the banks of the Seine, waiting for it to be two o’clock … I watched the dogs swimming … I didn’t even have a system anymore … I just looked around at random … I searched the whole Left Bank … At the rue du Bac my Odyssey would start in again … rue Jacob, rue Tournon … I ran across businesses that were almost shut down … agencies for textile mills that had gone out of existence … in provinces that maybe France would recover some day … dealers in objects so dismal they left you speechless … Even so I put on the charm … I plugged for an interview at a shop that sold religious articles … I attempted the impossible … I put on a good show in a wholesale house for chasubles … It looked like they were going to hire me in a chandelier factory … I was out of my mind with joy … I was even beginning to like the stuff … And then everything collapsed! In the end the Saint-Sulpice quarter was a big disappointment to me … They were having their troubles too … Everybody turned me out …

  From pounding all those pavements my tootsies were on fire … I took my shoes off wherever I could … I’d give them a quick dip in the toilet … I could slip out of my shoes in one second flat … That way I made the acquaintance of a waiter in a café whose dogs hurt him even worse than mine. He worked all day until past midnight on the enormous terrace of the German brasserie in the Cour de la Croix-Nivert … Sometimes his shoes hurt him so bad he stuck little pieces of ice inside … I tried it … It helps for a little while, but then it’s even worse.

  My mother stayed like that in the back of her shop with her leg stretched out for three weeks. There weren’t many customers … That gave her one more reason to eat her heart out … She couldn’t go out at all …

  There were only the neighbors that came in now and then to bat the breeze and keep her company … They brought her all the gossip … They worked her up good … Especially in connection with me they dreamed up the stinkingest stuff … Those bastards couldn’t stand to see me doing nothing. Why couldn’t I find a job? they kept asking … It was inconceivable that I should be getting nowhere so fast after such efforts, such extraordinary sacrifices … It surpassed the understanding! It was a mystery! Seeing me on the rocks like that gave them a pain … Oh-ho, not on your tintype! They wouldn’t be saps like my parents … They wouldn’t make that mistake … They made that perfectly plain … You wouldn’t catch them working their fingers to the bone … for kids that didn’t give a shit … They wouldn’t bleed themselves white for their brats … Hell, no! Where did it get you? … Especially teaching them languages! Christ almighty Jesus, some joke! It only turned them into tramps, that’s all … it certainly didn’t do any good … There’s the living proof, one look at me was enough … A job? I’d never find one! … I didn’t inspire confidence … I just didn’t look right … They knew, they’d known me all my life … And that’s a fact.

  That song and dance crushed my mother completely, especially in the state she was in, with her painful abscess that was getting worse and worse … The whole side of her leg was swollen now … Usually she restrained herself a little from repeating all that rot … But with the excruciating pain she was in she couldn’t control her reflexes … She repeated the whole business to my father, almost word for word … He hadn’t had a tantrum in a long time … He jumped at the opportunity … He began to holler that I was skinning him alive and my mother too, that I was his shame and opprobrium, that everything was my fault! The worst disasters, past and future! That I was driving him to suicide … that I was an absolutely unprecedented type of murderer! … He didn’t say why … He whistled, he blew out so much steam there was a cloud between us … He tore his hair … He dug his fingers into his scalp till he drew blood … He cracked his nails … He gesticulated so wildly that he banged into the furniture … He knocked the sideboard over … The shop was very small … There wasn’t room enough for a lunatic … He bumped into the umbrella stand … He sent two vases crashing. My mother tried to pick them up and gave her leg a terrible twist … She let out a yell so piercing … so horrible … that the neighbors all came running.

  She almost fainted … We gave her smelling salts … Little by little she came to … She began to breathe, she settled back on her chairs … “Ah!” she says. “It’s burst.” She meant her abscess … She was delighted, Visios came and squeezed the pus out. He was used to it. He’d done it often on shipboard.

  I was very nicely dressed with my choker collar, my shoes polished fit to kill, but my mother, thinking it over in the room behind the shop, decided I still wasn’t quite right … that I still didn’t look serious enough in spite of my watch and my darkened chain … In spite of all their lectures there was still something of the hoodlum about me … The way I carried money, for instance, whole pockets full of change … That’s what gave me my disreputable look … like a tough! A tout! Revolting!

  She made up her mind on the spot … She sent Hortense to the Bazar Vivienne … for the ideal change purse … Good and solid, hand-stitched, with plenty of compartments, indestructible … In addition she made me a present of four fifty-centime pieces … But I wasn’t to spend them … ever! … Those were my savings … to give me a taste for thrift! She put in my address too, in case of an accident in the street … It gave her pleasure. I raised no objection.

  I quickly drank up the little nest egg in ten-centime bocks … The summer of 1910 was abominably hot … Luckily it was easy to wet your whistle around the Temple … It was cheap on the stands all along the street … whole sidewalks full of drinks … and the little bars in the street fairs …

  I transferred my efforts to the jewel setters. That’s a real trade after all and I knew something about it … I went back to the Marais … It was unbearable on the Boulevards … The people were packed like a parade in front of the Café du Nègre and the Porte Saint-Denis … Like being crowded into a furnace … With the loafers on the Square des Arts it was even worse … there was no use sitting down, the whole place was a dust bowl … just trying to breathe made you choke … All the peddlers from miles around collected there with their boxes and bundles … and the dumb kid that pushes their pushcarts … They all slumped down by the railing, waiting for it to be time to go up and face the boss … They were sad sacks … Business was so slow that summer they weren’t selling anything at all … Even with ninety days’ credit nobody wanted their stuff anywhere … They looked dazed … They were suffocating in the clouds of sand … They’d never get a single order before the fifteenth of October … That didn’t encourage me very much … They could close their order books … Their misery paralyzed me …

  I’d asked people right and left if they didn’t know of a job, I’d pestered everybody, I’d looked at every nameplate in town, analyzed all the directories and telephone books. I went back to the rue Vieille-du-Temple … For
at least a week I roamed along the Canal Saint-Martin, looking at the barges … the quiet movement of the locks … I went back to the rue Elzévir. I was so worried I woke up with a start in the middle of the night … I had an obsession that got stronger and stronger … It squeezed my head like a vise … I wanted to go back to Gorloge’s … All of a sudden I felt a terrible pang of remorse, an irresistible sense of shame, a curse … I was getting ideas like a poor bastard, absolutely screwy … I wanted to go up to Gorloge’s and frankly confess, accuse myself … in front of everybody … “It was I that stole …” I’d say … “It was I that took the beautiful pin! The pure-gold Sakya-Muni … It was I … Absolutely positively!” I worked myself up. Hell! Once I get it over with, I said to myself, my bad luck will leave me … I was under a spell … every fiber in my brain! The idea gave me such horrors I was always shivering … It got to be irresistible … Christ! … Well, in the end I actually went back to the house … in spite of the sizzling heat I had the cold shivers … I was in a panic! I catch sight of the concierge … She takes a good look at me, she recognizes me from far away … So I try to remember, to figure out why I’m guilty … I start for her den … First I’ll tell her all about it! … Shit! … No, I can’t do it … I’ve got the jitters … I about-face quick … I get out of there fast … I run down toward the Boulevards … what in hell’s the matter with me? … I was acting like an ass! I was going nuts … all sorts of crazy crummy ideas … I stopped going home for lunch … I took bread and cheese with me … I was sleepy in the afternoon from sleeping so badly at night … Always being woken up by dreams … I had to keep walking the whole time or I’d fall asleep on a bench … I kept on batting my brains out … trying to figure out what I was guilty of. There must have been some reason … some damn good reason … I wasn’t educated enough to puzzle it out … I covered so much ground I found another place to rest in the afternoon. At Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, by the little chapels on the left as you go in … you couldn’t have found a cooler place … I felt cruelly persecuted by my stinking luck … You feel better in the dark … The flags are soothing on the feet … Nothing could be more refreshing … I’d stay there a long time … The candles are nice … like fragile bushes … the way they quiver in the deep velvet of the vaulting … They hypnotized me … Little by little they put me to sleep … I woke up to the sound of little bells. Naturally it never closes … It’s the best place.

  I kept finding excuses for coming home later and later … Once it was almost nine o’clock … I’d applied for a job way out in Antony … in a wallpaper factory. They were looking for salesmen in midtown … It was just the thing for my aptitudes … I went back two or three times … Their factory wasn’t ready! … They hadn’t finished building it … Anyway a lot of hooey!

  I was scared shitless when I got back to the Passage. I’d spent all my carfare money on beer … So I walked more and more … It was a really unusual summer … It hadn’t rained in two months! …

  My father was twisting and turning like a tiger in front of his typewriter … In my bed right next door it was impossible to sleep, he cursed so much at the keyboard … At the beginning of September he developed a whole raft of boils, first on his arms, then on the back of his neck a really enormous one that turned into a carbuncle right away. In his case boils were really serious, they knocked him out completely … He went to the office anyway … But people looked at him in the street, all wound up in cotton. They turned around … He took quantities of brewer’s yeast, but it didn’t help …

  My mother was terribly worried to see him all broken out like that … Her abscess was doing a little better, what with lying still and putting on compresses. It festered a good deal, but the swelling had gone down. It drained a little more … And then she got back on her feet, she wouldn’t wait for the wound to heal, right away she got busy around the place, hobbling around the chairs and things … She tried to keep an eye on Hortense, she climbed the stairs, she wouldn’t let us carry her anymore. She clutched the banister to climb the steps all by herself, she hoisted herself from one floor to the next while we were busy … She wanted to clean the house, to straighten out the shop, put the knickknacks where they belonged …

  My father was so wrapped up in bandages he couldn’t turn his head, he was suffocating in his boils, but that didn’t prevent him from hearing my mother downstairs, bustling from room to room with her leg dragging behind her … That made him madder than anything else … He banged on his machine … He was in such a dither he scraped the skin off his fists. He yelled at her to watch what she was doing …

  “Jumping Jesus, Clémence! You can hear me all right. Holy suffering catfish, will you lie down, godammit. You think we haven’t trouble enough? Christ, what a stinking life!”

  ”Come, come, Auguste. Can’t you leave me be … Let me attend to my business … Don’t worry … I’m feeling fine.”

  She’d put on her angelic tone …

  “It’s easy to talk,” he yelled. “It’s easy to talk! Godammit to lousy stinking hell! Will you finally sit down?”

  In the morning I notified my mother …

  “Say, Mama, I won’t be home for lunch today … I’m going out to Les Lilas again … see about that factory …”

  “All right, Ferdinand,” she says. “In that case, listen to me. I’ve been thinking … This evening I’d like Hortense to do the kitchen thoroughly … It’s been in a disgusting state for the last two months at least, the pots, the sink, and all the brass … Since I’ve been sick, I haven’t been able to attend to it … You can smell the grease all the way upstairs … If I send her shopping, she’ll start dawdling again, she’ll be out for hours, she’s such a chatterbox … She hangs around the vegetable store … gabble gabble … You’ll be near the Place de la République … so drop in at Carquois’ and bring me seventy centimes’ worth of their best ham for your father … the very best … you know the kind I mean? … absolutely fresh and not too fat … Take a good look at it before you buy it … There are some noodles left over for the two of us, we’ll boil them up again … And at the same time you can bring me three portions of cream cheese and if you can remember a head of lettuce, not too wide open … That way I won’t have to cook for dinner … You’ll remember all that, won’t you? We’ve got beer … Hortense will get some yeast … With your father and his boils I think salad is the best thing for the blood … Before you go, take a five-franc piece out of my purse on the mantelpiece in our room. Don’t forget to count the change … And be sure to get back before dinner … Do you want me to write it all down? With this heat I’m afraid to give your father eggs … his digestion hasn’t been right … or strawberries, for that matter … They give me a rash … so with his nerves … we’d better be careful …”

  I’d had enough instructions, I was all set to go … I took the five francs … I left the Passage … I sat for a while in the Square Louvois, beside the fountain … thinking things over, on a bench … Lilas, my ass! But I had a little tip about a jobber, a fellow that made showease accessories at home, velvet pads, little wooden plaques. Somebody had told me about him … It was on the rue Greneta, at Number 8 … just to have a clear conscience … It must have been about nine o’clock … It wasn’t too hot yet … So I go there, very slowly … I come to the door … I climb up to the sixth floor … I ring, they open the door a crack … The job was taken … OK, no point arguing … That was a load off my chest … I went down maybe two flights … There on the fourth floor landing I sit down for a minute, I take off my collar … I do a little more thinking… After quite some thought it came to me that I still had another address, a dealer in de luxe leather goods way down at the end of the rue Meslay … There was no hurry about that either … I look around, I take in the setting. The place was really sumptuous … the floors were all worn down, it smelled terrible of mold and toilets … but what generous proportions, really magnificent … must have belonged to some gravy riders in the seventeenth century … You
could tell that by the decorations, the moldings, the wrought-iron railings, the marble and porphyry steps … Nothing phony about it … all handmade … I knew about style … Hell! … It was really magnificent… Not a single fixture was imitation! … It was like an enormous drawing room, where people would never stop again … They dashed straight through into the hovels, to their lousy jobs. I’d contemplated enough … I myself was a memory … a putrid smell …

  There, right beside the water faucet I could see the whole landing, I was nice and comfortable … That’s all I wanted … Even the panes of glass dated from the period … Little tiny ones, different-colored squares, violet, bottle-green, pink … So there I was, perfectly at peace, the people paid no attention to me … They were going to work … I pondered how I was going to spend the day … Hey! Suddenly I see an old friend coming up … a big six-footer with a goatee … holding on to the banister and panting … He was a salesman, not a bad guy … a real joker. I hadn’t seen him since I was at Gorloge’s … He sold watch chains and such … He recognized me on the landing … He shouts up to me … He tells me all about himself and asks me what I’ve been doing for the last year. I give him all the details … He didn’t have time to listen, he was just leaving for his vacation … early in the afternoon … He was all pepped up with the prospect … So he leaves me pretty quick … He took the stairs four at a time … He ran in to see his boss and drop his sample case … He barely had time to dash to the Gare d’Orsay and take the train for Dordogne … He was going to be away for a week. He wished me plenty of luck … I told him to have a good time …