In this burg of Saligons they served mostly cider in the cafés … and it didn’t taste like piss, which, you’ve got to admit, is very unusual way out in the sticks … It went to your head kind of, especially the sparkling kind … We got to drinking quite a lot of it on our prospecting tours … That was in the Big Ball, the only tavern in the place … We got to going there more and more, it was conveniently located right near the cattle market … We learned about local customs from listening to the hicks …
Des Pereires made a beeline for the Paris-Sport … He’d been deprived of it for a long time … He talked to everybody … In exchange for advice about farming … little lessons about livestock … he was able to give them dope, some really ingenious pointers about placing bets in Vincennes … even from miles away … He made some fine connections … This was a hangout for cattlemen … I let him talk … The maid suited me fine … Her ass was so muscular it was almost square. Her tits too, you can’t imagine how hard they were … The more you shook them, the harder they got … They were solid rock … Nobody’d ever licked her crack … I showed her the whole business … all I knew … It was magnetic … She wanted to throw up her job, at the bar and come back to the farm with us … That wouldn’t have gone down with old lady des Pereires … especially as she was beginning to smell something fishy … It seemed to her that we were spending a lot of time around this Mesloir … It didn’t look kosher … She asked us some tough questions … We were stumped … She set less and less store by our prospecting for vegetables … She was getting persnickety … The summer was getting ahead fast … it would be harvest time pretty soon … Hell!
At the Big Ball a sudden change came over the peasants, they got mighty weird … Between drinks they read the Paris Racing News … Des Pereires was kept busy … He sent their little bets, never more than five francs each, to his old pal in an envelope … Fifty francs was the limit … he wouldn’t take more … Tuesday, Friday, Saturday … always through Formerly at the Insurrection … We kept twenty-five centimes a bet … that was our little rake-off. I taught the maid, the ironclad Agathe, how to keep from having babies … I showed her that it’s even more terrific from behind … After that she was really crazy about me … She wanted to do everything for me … I passed her on some to Courtial to show him how well I’d trained her … She was willing … She’d have gone into a house if I’d only said the word … It couldn’t have been my clothes that sent her, we’d have scared sparrows away … Nor my dough … We never gave her a cent … It was the prestige of Paris … That’s the long and the short of it.
But when we got back at night, the hullabaloo was worse and worse … Irène was no joke … We got in later and later … We were in for some wild tantrums … horrible sessions … She tore out her hair to the blood … by the handful, by the bucket … because he couldn’t make up his mind about the “right” vegetable … and his maximum soil … The old girl had started working in the fields all by herself … She spaded up the ground pretty good … She still couldn’t make a furrow quite straight … but for application she was tops … She’d get there … She was mighty good at clearing brush … If she wanted to build up her muscles, there was plenty of room … just about anywhere … In Blême-le-Petit there was nothing to stand in your way … the whole region was fallow … to the right, to the north, south or left … There were no neighbors on the west either … The whole place was a desert … parched … perfectly arid …
“You’re wearing yourself out, angel pie,” Courtial would sing out in the middle of the night when we’d find her on the job, still spading up the ground … “You’re wearing yourself out … It’s no use … This soil is hopeless! I keep trying to tell you … Even the peasants have gradually given up … My feeling is that they’ll shift to cattle … But even there … I don’t know … Cattle on these plains … With the marly subsoil … the calcico-potassic seams… I can’t see them getting anywhere … It’s a perilous undertaking … beset with enormous hazards … abominable difficulties … I can see it all … Irrigate such gook? … My oh my …”
“What about you, you big lug … who’s going to irrigate you? Will you tell me that? Go on … I’m listening …” He refused to say another word … He dashed into the house … I still had work to do. Every night when we got in I had to classify the day’s samples … on separate boards … strewn around the kitchen in little bags … They dried all over the place … samples of the whole country for fifteen miles around … There’d be plenty to choose from when the time came … but our richest selection was certainly from Saligons.
Little by little we’d gotten popular at the Big Ball … Our friendly drunks had developed a keen taste for the races … We even had to preach moderation … They didn’t care how they risked their dough … They’d put fifteen francs on a single pony … Those kind of bets we turned down flat … We didn’t want to get any more people too down on us … We played it safe and cautious … Agathe, the maid, was having a fine time … She was really enjoying herself … turning into a whore right there on the premises … What bothered us more was our battle-ax’s spells … Her fits and ultimatums were more than we could take … She was getting on our nerves … On one little point, though, des Pereires had changed his tactics … He stopped ragging her when he found her toiling … He encouraged her to dig … he egged her on … And actually, patch by patch, week by week, she spaded up enormous areas … Sure she was a holy terror … but if ever she stopped working, it was a damn sight worse … She was fed up with our shilly-shallying, she did the deciding: potatoes … We couldn’t stop her … In the long run, she decided, that was the ideal vegetable … She got to work right away. She didn’t ask for our opinion … Once her tubers were planted, huge fields of them, she went telling everybody in Persant … on her way in, on the way back … that we were experimenting with “giant potatoes,” obtained with electrical waves … The news traveled like gunpowder …
At the Big Ball in the afternoon they bombarded us with questions … up to that point they’d liked us fine, we’d minded our own business at the other end of the county … the local hicks had welcomed us and treated us all right … they’d even expected us every afternoon … And now they began to give us the cold stare … This farming of ours looked fishy to them … They were jealous right away … ‘“Spuds” they started calling us.
We couldn’t goof off anymore. The old cutie had gradually turned into a real terror … Now that she’d spaded up several acres of land all by herself, she was really leading us a life … We were afraid to say a word to her … She threatened to follow us if we went out bumming, if we didn’t get to work within twenty-four hours … Our vacation was over … We had to get started, to haul the motor and the dynamo out from under the tarp … We cleaned the rust off the big flywheel … We started her up a little … We drew up a nifty-looking “table of resistances” … We let it go at that … Anyway we saw we wouldn’t have wire enough … We needed a hell of a lot of it, spools and spools to zigzag back and forth between the rows of potatoes all over the plantation … Fifteen hundred feet wouldn’t be enough … We needed miles … Otherwise it would never work … Without wire no radiotellurism … no intensive cultivation! no cathode rays … Wire was absolutely indispensable … Actually it wasn’t so bad … At first we thought that lousy wire would be the perfect excuse, the airtight alibi, that the price of the stuff would scare our old lady out of this vital purchase … that she’d stop to think and leave us alone a while … But nothing doing, on the contrary … If anything it made her madder … She threatened that if we farted around anymore … if we kept letting things ride, she’d go to Saligons on her own and set up as a midwife … no later than next week … love had flown out the window! She was bluffing … But even with the best of intentions, we hadn’t enough money left for such expensive purchases … Great God, they’d ruin us … And who’d give us credit? … It was no use trying …
On the other hand, we couldn’t very well le
t the old girl in on our exact situation … Especially we couldn’t tell her we’d just blown our last little reserves, what was left from the sky pilot, playing the races by mail … Well, anyway we’d lost it … It was certainly a terrible blow … the end of our scheme … an intolerable cataclysm … We were really in a jam … Now that she was sold on potatoes, she was getting absolutely fanatical and intolerant … It was getting to be exactly the same as the balloon … or her cottage in Montretout … She couldn’t be budged … Once she threw herself into something, she latched onto it like a rivet, you had to tear the whole house down … It was very painful …
“That’s what you said, isn’t it? … You’re not going to deny it? … I heard you, didn’t I? … You told me ten times … a hundred times … that you were going to run your lousy electrical contraption? I wasn’t seeing things, was I? … That’s what we all came here for, isn’t it? … I’m not making it up? … That’s why we sold the house for a song … And threw up your paper … That’s why you dragged us all here like it or not by force into this swamp … this pigsty … this muck! Am I right?”
“Yes, my love.”
“Good! … Well, I want to see it, understand? I want to see it … I want to see every bit of it … I’ve sacrificed everything! My whole life! … My health … My future! … Everything! … I haven’t anything left! … I want to see them grow! … Understand? … Grow!”
She planted herself there defiantly, she handed it to him full in the face … Her hard labor had given her biceps that were no joke … they looked like hams … She chewed tobacco in the fields … She only smoked her pipe in the evening and when she went to market … Eusèbe, the postman, who hadn’t delivered in our neck of the woods for years, had to start in again … He came around two or three times a day … The news had spread around the country like wildfire that certain agriculturists were doing wonders, performing real miracles raising potatoes with magnetic waves …
Our old crowd of inventors had picked up our track … They all seemed mighty happy to hear that the three of us were safe and sound … They besieged us with new projects … They bore us no grudge at all … The postman was good and sick of it … Three times a week he had to tote whole sacks of manuscripts … His pouch was so heavy his frame had caved in … He’d been using a double chain … his bike had folded up … He’d put in to the department for a new one …
From the very start des Pereires had taken to meditating again … He really took advantage of his solitude and leisure … He finally felt equal to the hazards of fate … all of them … He was deep in his meditations! Absolutely determined! The great Decision! … He’d face up to his Destiny … Not overconfident … not overcautious … just forewarned! …
“Ferdinand! See here and take note! … Events are shaping up pretty much as I predicted … But they’ve got a little ahead of themselves … The rhythm has been a little hasty … which wasn’t what I wanted … Nevertheless, you’ll see … Observe … Don’t lose a scrap! Not one luminous atom! … Behold, my child, how Courtial is going to crush, to tame, to chain, to subjugate rebellious Fortune! … Behold with wonderment! Open your ears! Try to be fearless, ready at a moment’s notice! The second I catch her, I’ll pass her on to you! And go to it! Clutch her! Strangle her! It will be your turn! Kiss her! Mangle the bitch! My strictly private needs are those of an ascetic! I shall soon be replete! Stuffed! Submerged in abundance! Yours to bleed her. Drain her to the gills! … You’re at an age for follies! Take advantage! Overdo it! Gods above! Shine! Do what you please with her! For me there’ll always be too much and to spare … Embrace me … Lord, how lucky we are!”
It wasn’t easy to do any embracing on account of my overcoat that was solidly moored with strings inside my pants … It curtailed my movements but kept me good and warm … It was necessary … The winter was on us … In spite of the fireplace and the caulking the main building was lousy with drafts … it kept in all the winds and very little heat … It was a strainer for the cold … It was really a very old house.
This inspiration that des Pereires had after all his meditations at the Big Ball and in the woods was really terrific … His ideas were even bolder and more farsighted than usual … He fathomed the needs of the world …
“The individual is washed up! … You won’t get anything out of individuals … It’s to the family, Ferdinand, that we’ll have to turn! Once and for all, to the family! Everything for and by the family!”
His grand appeal was addressed to the “Anguished Fathers of France.” To those whose sovereign preoccupation was the future of their dear little ones … To those who were slowly being crucified by daily life in corrupt, putrid, unhealthy cities! … To those who were ready to attempt the impossible to save their poor little cherubs from the atrocious fate of slavery in a shop … from bookkeeper’s tuberculosis … To the mothers who dreamed of a wholesome spacious existence for their little darlings, absolutely in the open air … far from the city’s putrefaction … of a future fully secured by the fruits of wholesome labor … in the country … of great sunlit joys, peaceful and complete! … Des Pereires solemnly guaranteed all that and a good deal more … He and his wife would take complete care of those lucky little tikes, their primary education, their secondary “rationalistic” education too … and finally of their higher learning, “positivistic, zootechnie, and horticultural …”
In two shakes of a lamb’s tail our “radio-telluric” farm was transformed, with the help of our subscribers, into the “Renovated Familistery for the Creation of a New Race” … That’s what we called our farm in our prospectus … In a few days our appeals (all sent out by Taponier) had covered several Paris neighborhoods … the most populous, the most congested … and for the hell of it a few of the slum districts out by Achères, where it stinks … We had only one worry … that the invasion would start too soon! We dreaded overenthusiasm like the plague … We knew all about it!
With our radiotellurism plentiful fare would be no problem … All in all, there was only one thing to worry about … The market would be glutted with our “undige-nous” potatoes … We’d think about that in due time … We’d raise pigs … millions of them … We’d have plenty of poultry too … The pioneers would eat chicken … Courtial was all in favor of a mixed diet … Meat is good for growth … Obviously we’d have no trouble clothing our little charges in the linen we raised on our farm … woven in choral cadence on long winter evenings … Sounds pretty good … All very promising! A beehive of agricultural industry! But under the aegis of Intelligence! not of mere instinct! Ah yes! That distinction meant a good deal to Courtial! He wanted his hive to be rhythmical! … flowing! … intuitive! That was how he summed up the situation. Playing all the while, learning on every hand, building their lungs, the children of the “New Race” would at the same time joyfully provide a spontaneous labor force … quickly trained and stable, absolutely free of charge … Without constraint they would harness their youthful vigor to the needs of “neo-pluri-radiant” agriculture … This great reform was rooted in the depths, in the very sap of the countryside! It would flourish in the heart of nature! We’d all bask in its perfume! Courtial sniffed in advance … We were especially counting on our charges, on their zeal and enthusiasm, to pull out weeds! to uproot them! to clear more ground! … A perfect pastime for kids … The worst torture for adults … Relieved of the petty tasks of common farming by this industrious afflux, des Pereires would be free to devote himself entirely to the delicate regulation, the endless adjustments of his “polarizer complex” . . He’d rule the waves … He wouldn’t do anything else … He’d flood our subsoil, he’d overwhelm it with telluric torrents! …
Our pamphlet looked good … We had ten thousand of them sent to various neighborhoods … It must have responded to a good many secret desires, unspoken longings … Anyway, we almost immediately received a deluge of answers … with truculent comments … almost all of them extremely flattering … What seems to have struck most of
our subscribers in particular was the extreme modesty of our terms … It’s true that we’d cut our prices to rock bottom … We could hardly have done better … To carry a pupil from early childhood (minimum age, seven) to the draft board, to provide him with board and lodging for thirteen consecutive years, to develop his character, his lungs, his mind, and his arms, to inculcate the love of nature, to teach him a magnificent trade, and last but not least to give him, when he left the phalanstery, the magnificent and valid diploma of a “Radio-geometric Engineer,” all we asked of the parents, everything included, was the lump, global, and definitive sum of four hundred francs … This sum, these immediate receipts were to enable us to buy our wire and set up our circuits … our underground currents. We weren’t expecting the impossible … Four carloads of potatoes a month would do for a starter.
The moment an undertaking begins to shape up, it becomes ipso facto the butt of a thousand hostile, treacherous, subtle, and untiring intrigues … Nobody can say different … A tragic fatality penetrates its very fibers … slowly lacerates its warp, so profoundly that, when you come right down to it, the shrewdest captains, the snootiest conquerors can only hope to escape disaster, to keep from cracking up, by some cockeyed miracle … Such is the nature and the burden, the true upshot of the most admirable ventures … It’s in the cards … Human genius is out of luck … The Panama disaster … it’s the same old lesson … ought to bring the most outrageous blowhards to their senses … make them do some tall thinking about the perfidy of fate … the murky harbingers of Hard Luck! Foo! The slings and arrows! … Destiny eats prayers like a toad eats flies … It jumps on them! crushes them! mangles them! swallows them! It feasts on them and shoots them out in tiny little turds, ex-votive spitballs for the bride to be.
Death on the Installment Plan Page 56
