Now, such was the speed that it had built up, and its power, that it followed a considerable further trajectory before coming to a halt. Its gait imitated the yawing motion of a boat bobbing on a stormy wave. It rose up only to plunge down again, pitching and rolling. Soft impacts battered the hood. The tires caused bloody splashes to spring forth. It advanced amid howls of pain.
The terrifying reaper of a field of humankind, it cut an abominable swathe through the mass. The killing surpassed all the carnages that those who were there could remember.
To top everything else, though, no crazier massacre had ever been carried out by murderers so cold. An impassive driver directed the hecatomb. By a subtle refinement, his costume was that of Comte Cyril d’Outremort, whose passage from life to death the peasants had contrived. The detail was recognized; the terror increased. Everyone fled.
Every man for himself! The rout scattered the crowd in all directions.
A large number of gawkers had, however, piled into a side-street opening into the square, which was a dead end, and the danger cornered them there. There was an indescribable agglomeration at that spot of bewildered creatures, who were trampling one another down, climbing on top of one another and stifling one another.
The automobile headed toward them.
An ailing monster covered with innumerable stains, a final effort precipitated it into the heart of the panic-stricken mass. The car cut right through the crowd, crushing its victims with its quivering bumper as it smashed into the wall.
The beast was dead! The four executioners lay among the debris. Immediately, ferocious laborers drunk with hatred ran to finish them off.
One of them, a mechanic by trade, saw the motor beneath a heap of twisted metal, and was astonished to be unable to make out the quadruple silhouette of the cylinders; a large dynamo replaced their familiar block—but the avenger had better things to do than hang around examining an electrical system. His acolytes were already grabbing hold of the criminal chauffeur. The latter was seized, and the goggles masking his bandit’s face were torn away…by the man who was the first to let go of him….
For it was Death, in person, who had piloted the reaper-car.
I can tell you this: it was a frightful jeering skeleton, half-denuded of its greenish shreds of flesh…
Three other skeletons, divested of their dust-covers, appeared at the same time. One was clad in Marquis Fulbert’s button-up hunting-jacket, the second in a silken coat and knee-breeches, with a sheathed sword, the third in a dress with petticoats, held up by a blue sash…
They all agreed, then, that Comte Cyril, having come from beyond the grave, had guided the revenge of the huntsman, the ambassador and the canoness. All eyes turned as one to look at the macabre château from which the dead had escaped. The majority were haggard eyes fixed in a permanent stare. Many expected visions of Jehoshaphat...
But the château did not flinch, and someone therein calmly closed a turret-window.
THE CANTATRICE
To Louis Cochet6
Old Hauval—who is still the director of the Opéra-Dramatique—smoothed his flowing beard with a gnarled hand and said: “This is what happened!”
In 189-, in the month of March, there was a performance of Siegfried at Monte Carlo. An extraordinary interpretation made that revival the great lyrical event of the season. I had decided to see it, and I left Paris with a group of artistes, critics and dilettantes who were racing, without knowing it, to the most troubling auditory experience that living men might undergo. I shall spare you the vicissitudes of the journey, for our journey was nothing but vicissitudes: pauses, delays, and a forced two-hour halt in Marseilles caused by a railway accident, which I employed as best I could in visiting the city. Suffice it to say that I went, reached Monaco, and arrived at the performance.
It commenced in splendor and continued without a hitch. The program was a list of celebrities. The finest singers in the world were realizing the Wagnerian drama. Caruso played Siegfried, and we were in the depths of the delight into which his power and timbre had plunged us when the bird sang.7
You will recall that there is in Siegfried a singing bird—which is to say, a woman, in the wings, who lends the bird the prestige of words and melody. Thus, an invisible woman suddenly began to sing—and then it seemed to us that all the other singers had merely been mewling, roaring or braying since the curtain went up. The sonorous sounds of the impeccable orchestra immediately became screechy and annoying, so magical was that voice. Its purity was only equaled by its strength. It combined all the virtues that sounds can acquire, and did so in a manner so incomparable, unprecedented and superhuman, that everyone wondered, at first, whether a human throat was really emitting that prodigious song, or whether it might be some strange independent voice with a life of its own…
But on listening to it, no, no: that tender soprano revealed a feminine soul, the ardent heart of a young woman who was breathing it out in a charmingly natural fashion, as a flower yields its perfume…
On listening to it, one divined as its source a vermilion mouth and palpitating white breasts…
One shivered, on listening to it, as if gazing at the freshness of an excessively beautiful virgin…
Who, then, was singing in that fashion? My memory recalled, one by one, the voices of the world’s most famous singers. I knew them all. I thought for a moment that one of them had taken us by surprise by accepting that minor role—but no prima donna could have rivaled, in voice or skill, the fairy who was singing the bird in the wings.
She fell silent. There was a sensational rustle in the audience. The program was consulted. It bore only one name that was obscure, which every eye sought out: Borelli.
The public awaited with bizarre impatience the bird’s next entrance in the scene and the moment when the unknown woman would begin to sing again. For my part, I was subject to a tyrannical desire to hear her voice…
It finally sprang forth, and streamed over us like a subtle and bewitching wave, in which one could have wished to bathe forever…
When La Borelli stopped singing for the second and last time that evening, the crowd must have suffered a chagrin akin to pain, for a great dolorous sigh was heard to swell, from the stalls to the highest boxes. Then the applause burst forth, so impetuous that the orchestra stopped playing. The standing spectators clapped their hands, demanding that the diva appear and take a bow. It was in vain, however, that Caruso extended an inviting arm toward the wings; Mademoiselle—or Madame—Borelli refused, presumably unwilling to exhibit her pretty face in the stage-lights without make-up.
I took advantage of the mundane tumult to slip away to the wings in order to discover the phenomenon. Gunsbourg, the director, intercepted me. He was radiant.
“What a revelation, eh, my dear chap!”
“But who is she? Borelli, Borelli…a pseudonym? It’s miraculous, the voice of a maiden with the experience of a seasoned artiste! Amazing! What authority! What warmth! What…”
“What a revelation, eh!”
Gunsbourg could not get over it. As for me, I had but one idea: to engage La Borelli at the Opéra-Dramatique—and I admit that frankly. But Gunsbourg shook his head mockingly. “That, you know, is something else!”
I assumed that he had contracted with the singer for a long series of performances. He corrected my misapprehension, but swore nevertheless—still in a bantering tone—that Madame Borelli would never appear on the stage of my theater.
“Is it that she doesn’t know how to act?” I asked. “Bah! She’ll learn. It’s a mere detail. Her diction already leaves nothing to be desired. Introduce me to her, my dear chap—quickly. I’ll take responsibility for the rest.”
“Hold on! She’s already leaving! There she is at the end of the corridor with her husband. Well, are you coming?”
A couple had just emerged into the corridor through a side-door and, having turned their backs toward us, were drawing away. I glimpsed them for a few seconds before the
y reached the far corner: he, an imposing stature enveloped in dark clothing; she, a meager imprecise form propped up on two crutches that made her shoulders rise and fall rhythmically and dug into her armpits at every tottering step.
The unparalleled cantatrice was a cripple!
I felt a cruel disappointment, whose violence astonished me when I recovered from my stupor.
The Borellis were on their way out. Gunsbourg was waiting.
“What does it matter!” I eventually exclaimed, in the ardor of my enthusiasm. “There’s no lameness that can hold her back! After they’ve heard her sing, every composer will want her as an interpreter. They’ll write roles to suit her, episodic, motionless or hidden—roles of admirable originality! Roles for voices, not for characters! What do I know? Then again, we have the resource of concerts—in that respect, the field is wide open. In any case, my dear chap, it’s essential that she be heard. Think of it! Centuries might pass before such a vocal prodigy is reproduced—if it ever is reproduced! I’m astonished that your company-member isn’t famous in spite of her infirmity. Where the Devil did you unearth that nightingale?”
“I saw her for the first time a week ago. She arrived in my office one evening, escorted by her husband, or at least by an individual who claimed to be her husband. He’s a rather disquieting character, shady in appearance and manner. Both of them, decked out in unspeakable rags, seemed to be very poor. Their bearing, however, respired the health of vagabonds accustomed to the open air. I thought they’d come from Italy, perhaps as beggars…but in sum, no one knows where they come from. Monsieur Borelli argued the conditions of the engagement with revolting rudeness. He has his hooks into his companion, that’s obvious. She has that constrained physiognomy of Lakmés or Mignons,8 and surely wouldn’t sing unless someone were forcing her to do it. Poor girl! Did you notice the melancholy quality of her voice?”
No, I hadn’t noticed that. Besides, my project was preoccupying my mind.
“Give me their address,” I said, brusquely. “I must take that woman to Paris.”
The Bohemians’ household occupied two small rooms in a fourth-rate hotel called Villa des Mouettes,9 overlooking the sea. It happened that I was staying nearby. I went there the next day, early in the morning.
Without the least protocol, a boy led me to their apartment. “They’re on the first floor,” he told me, “because of the lady’s incapacity. There’s no lift here, and no rooms on the ground floor.” As the blast of a trumpet shook the whole the building, he added: “He’s the one playing the hunting-horn. He’s already been told three times to shut up.”
We arrived in front of a door that the interior fanfare—savage and scandalous, but not without a certain crude beauty—was causing to vibrate.
My guide knocked. Silence fell abruptly. I perceived a muffled dialogue, the sound of something moving away, being dragged across the carpet, the closing of a door, then the opening of a window…the click-click of a key…
Finally, Borelli appeared.
Face to face, we recoiled. For my part, it was surprise, at the sight of that astonishingly chubby, suntanned, curly-haired gallows-bird—a sort of dangerous Hercules, half-dressed in trousers and a loose jacket, and who…in truth, I don’t know how to express it…
I had a vague sensation of having met that man somewhere before—and recently, damn it!—but in circumstances such that I should never have seen him again. Do you see? The fact of seeing him again seemed—obscurely—impossible. It was a vague impression—so vague that a moment’s reasoning immediately attributed it to the remembrance of some dream.
Borelli’s suspicion was not so quick to dissipate. Anxiety widened his eyes, and I didn’t understand the reason for it—for, far from explaining my reminiscence, my host’s attitude seemed to contradict it. I had a muted consciousness of that relationship.
I bowed. Borelli’s face lit up.
“Damn!” he said, blowing into his abnormal cheeks. “You frightened me, with your big white beard! Perbacco, signore—you should warn people, when you resemble someone else so closely!”10
I offered him my card. He burst into loud laugher, from which I inferred that he could not read. That is why I told him my name and my position. Then he invited me to sit down.
I explained the purpose of my visit, neglecting to mention crutches and lameness, while surreptitiously taking inventory of the lodgings. Borelli, impelled by false modesty, had hidden his hunting-horn. I was only able to discover miserable impersonal furniture: two chairs; an iron-framed bed; a chest of drawers; a cheapjack clock flanked by two large spiny seashells on the mantelpiece; lithographs and coat-pegs on the walls; and the most wretched trunk imaginable—moldy and falling apart—in a corner, like debris washed on shore after a shipwreck.
Confronted by that indigence, pity gradually softened my attitude. My offers reflected that. They were…what they needed to be.
Borelli listened to them without saying a word. He gazed through the open window at the sea, with piercing eyes. The toes of his bare, sun-bronzed feet played with their sandals. In the opening of his jacket, the brown torso of a Neapolitan athlete could be seen swelling with the rhythm of life. Oh, what a handsome fellow! But where had I seen him before?
Furrowing his brows and clenching his fists, he muttered: “Just my luck!” And he began laughing sarcastically. “I knew I’d be offered loads of gold and silver,” he went on. “Just my luck! I can’t, perbacco! We can’t accept. We can’t go to Paris, you see, Monsieur Director. I’m obliged to refuse. Oh, existence on land isn’t easy! I even wonder if we’ll succeed in living here…you know, don’t you, that Madame Borelli is a cripple?”
“I don’t care about that. No one will care about it. She sings, and one is all ears. She sings, and one no longer has eyes…”
“Isn’t that so? Isn’t it? You’ve never heard singing like that, eh? Can you believe that she has such treasures in her throat? Oh, tell me, anyway—do you think I could make a lot of money with her? What would you say to concerts in the dark? Darkness and music—they go together. No one ever saw her…then again, it would economize on lighting. What do you think? Tell me, Monsieur Director? I’m thinking about a tour along the coat: Nice, Marseilles…”
Profoundly sickened by the manners of this boor, who spoke of his wife and a great artiste as a curious object, I nevertheless replied: “But why don’t you want to try Paris? I guarantee…”
The enormous lout cut me off, curtly. “Basta! Basta! I said the coast; it will be the coast! We only do seaside resorts. It’s for health reasons, Madame’s whim, family secrets—anything you want, but that’s—the—way—it—is! The coast or nothing.”
He had the same effect on me as a rare wild beast. My opinion was further reinforced when Borelli, having distinguished the splashing sound of ablutions in the next room—which, moreover, must have splashed the surroundings copiously—ran to the connecting door, opened it by a crack, and cursed the author of the splashing in singularly barbarous terms. He was terrible in his fury and vehemence.
There was no response, but Madame Borelli—at least, I assume that it was her—continued taking her bath in a more subdued fashion.
The other, mollified, returned to me. “I regret it, damn it! I regret it, perbacco!—for the wages, as is reasonable…and also…you seem like a nice old fellow. We’d be fixed up…”
He looked me up and down with disdainful benevolence.
“I’m at your disposal,” I replied, politely.
The bumpkin misunderstood the conventional meaning of the formula. “Really?” he said. “Really and truly?” Drawing closer, he looked me in the eye without restraint. “Really, truly and honestly?”
The sad lot of the singer moved me to such pity that I made a sign of acquiescence with my eyes and head.
With that, Borelli said to me in a low voice: “Well then listen: you can do me a big favor.”
“Go on.”
“If you…” He stared at me seve
rely, then, satisfied with my attitude, resumed in a confidential mode, perhaps a trifle hesitantly: “If you see a man hereabouts who resembles you like your mirror image, tell me right away.”
I pretended to accept the mission. “A man with a long white beard? Very old?”
“Rather!” said Borelli, with a bitterly ironic smile.
“How is he dressed?”
He seemed perplexed. “Dressed? In faith…not very fashionably, doubtless. Baroque, probably. Ah! There’s this: try to get a look at his forehead. His forehead ought to bear the mark of a…an overly heavy hat, worn for a long time. Just now, when you appeared, that’s how I knew you weren’t him…but it’s the beard, most of all, that you’ll pick out.”
“What if he’s shaved?”
My interlocutor smiled again, this time without bitterness. The thought of my mysterious double stripped of his beard seemed to fill him with delight. “Have no fear, Monsieur Director. There are beards one does not shave off. And thanks, you know—he is, so to speak, a creditor…who’s tracking me…”
He looked at the sea, thoughtfully.
In order to prolong the conversation and, if possible, get more deeply into the confidence of the enigmatic churl, I ventured: “I can see that you love the sea.”
He emerged from his reverie, and his reddened cheeks puffed out. “Me? The sea?” he gasped. “Ugh…why ask me that? No, I don’t love the sea. It stinks, doesn’t it? You can smell the tide. Don’t you think that you can smell the fish even from here? No? That’s not what you were trying to insinuate? No? I can!” He raised his voice abruptly, in a menacing fashion: “I can! It smells of fish here!”
His keen eyes sparkled, fixed on mine. I thought I ought to withdraw without further ado, and took my leave of the irritable nomad, asking him to convey to Madame Borelli the assurance of my utter admiration and the regret I bore for not having been able to offer my homage to her.
“She’s getting dressed,” Borelli countered.
The Doctored Man Page 3
