The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait

by Gabriel de Lautrec

  One day, in the public plaza, a bizarre individual presented himself, dressed in a somber garment that made a sinister stain on the gilded brightness of the surroundings. They thought at first that he had come from the fabulous land of legend where darkness reigns uninterruptedly; it is there that the larvae of indeterminate form roam, which come to suck the blood of children by night and drag themselves over their shadowy soil as they return, blinking their eyes at the yellow light of the Moon. On the head of the unknown was a strange hat, black in color and extraordinarily tall, like an Asiatic tiara with a broad brim. His black peplum, like the dresses of female mourners at a funeral, extended from his shoulders to his waist and then, bizarrely cut short in front, was elongated at the back as far as his knees in the form of a bird’s wings. A narrow and rigid double tunic was wrapped around his legs, his feet disappearing into two supple and shiny black animal-skin caskets. And his beard, far from imitating those of the majestic philosophers, was separated on the two sides of his shaven skin, like the acroteria on the fronton on the temple. An old fig-merchant who was sleeping on the hot pavement rose nonchalantly to his feet and came toward him, while the children playing knucklebones on the threshold of a theater fled in fear.

  But the people flocked from all directions, amused by the craziness of his appearance, and by the hoarse and muffled intonations with which he pronounced their language. A passing courtesan took off her saffron cloak and threw it over the unknown’s shoulders to veil that ugliness, more obscene than nudity. He told them that he had come from a distant country, different from theirs, whose more advanced civilization had realized prodigies that they could scarcely imagine. There were immense cities there, with tall houses sheltering thousands of citizens; all the industries and all the sciences were ruthlessly and desperately cultivated, having given new forms and new words to life. By night, gigantic light-sources insolently replaced the light of day. Powerful machines multiplied labor and human strength tenfold. It was a grandiose civilization, disdainful of ideas and dreams, hostile to philosophers, poets and jugglers of words—and the unknown man found inspired tones to paint for that naïve and credulous people the beauty of the gospel that he was preaching to them.

  The people listened; some of them, leaning of columns, put their heads in their hands pensively. Others extended their words and gestures toward him, interrogatively. He told them that their idle existence was unworthy of free human beings, and that their facile happiness was not the only dream in a world of avid competition and hostile efforts. They were frightened by these ideas; the unknown man appeared less grotesque in his appearance and the ugliness of his clothing, and they understood confusedly that they had, until that day, forgotten to live, while gigantic forms and mirages of feverish activity appeared to them on a misty dream-horizon, in the midst of a forest of chimneys, ships’ masts and tall houses, beneath a fuliginous sky that the divine light of the Sun no longer penetrated.

  Months went by. The unknown had not left the city, but a gradual and inexorable metamorphosis had transformed everything, and nothing remained of the smiling and calm life of earlier days but a memory. There was a new décor and new mores.

  After having laughed, in their esthetic arrogance, at the stranger’s bizarre garments, the people had adopted them. They had discarded the long, brightly-colored tunics, the gilded sandals so well-adapted to treading on shifting sand or the large flagstones of streets and the loose peplums adapted to the majestic gestures of orators. One might have thought that the obscurity that extended over the Sun was composed to the wing-beats of their old chimeras, flying away from their eternally dreamy eyes. Tall houses of desolate appearance, with dark windows, had emerged from the ground as if by the power of magical evocation. The polished ground had been covered with a layer of mud, as black as the preoccupations that haunted their hearts. New crimes had become manifest. Hands armed with daggers were seen emerging from obscure coverts, and men were learning to take human life by means of iron, fire, poison and vibrations of the ether. A devouring activity having replaced the former nonchalance, labor now extended from one dawn to the next, even for those tormented by no anxieties. The odors of coal, oil and filth had stifled the delicate aromas of oleanders and the mysterious warmth of female bodies that had once brushed the soul. And the city offered an aspect of unspeakable horror, even though gigantic sewers had been constructed with the marmoreal ruins of the temple of beauty, feverish veins through which the corrupt blood of the city ran.

  From then on, instead of ancient leisure pursuits, it was practical action that ruled. In the violet hour of evening, tradesmen, bankers and travelers came together in the marketplace and formed a circle, gesticulating with barbaric and unknown words.. There were people who lived and grew old behind grilles, sitting in exactly the same place, eternally covering sheets of paper with complicated and incomprehensible symbols, without anyone thinking they were mad. Networks of metal wire criss-crossed the city at an extraordinary height, in order to transmit thought, for which slow and harmonious language fallen from the lips of gods was no longer sufficient. By night, heavy vehicles of massive form, deprived of harness, ran noisily through the streets, sowing sparks and fear as they went. And one day, after a terrible riot in which all the people took part, a company of actors, the last remaining priests of the mysterious religion of art remaining in the city, were shamefully expelled. They went along the lugubrious boulevards, insouciantly sad, with their tambourines and charming masks, on to highways fringed with gorse, heading for the rosy horizon of the ideal.

  The beautiful blond ephebes who had spent their lives in the sunlight, and in the shade of plane-trees, put their supple limbs at the service of useful tasks. Forgetful of the dawns of olden times, they no longer went along pathways at the belated hour of confessions, humming tremulous songs of love with brightly-laughing girls who drank fresh spring-water between two kisses. Their joy was extinguished in nights of fabrication, and their bodies took on the rigid and complicated forms of the machines in the midst of which they lived. Slowly, their blue eyes became dull. The buzz of their trades made them forget the refrains that they had once circulated in their sonorous cups when drunkenness in bacchanal dress, the folly of divine nights, had knocked at the door of feasting. Fever made their teeth chatter and their skin crawl.

  Even those who died—and how numerous they were!—did not escape the triumph of practical action. Their calcined bones were reduced into chemical substances; their tanned skin was exposed to the Sun like that of animals; ropes were made from their viscera for the rigging of vessels that set forth to search for unknown treasures, and small works of art from their teeth, displayed in the showcases of the noisy city under the wan glow of artificial light.

  But when that vigorous and esthetic race was dead, and the sparse semen of men no longer gave rise in the wombs of sterilized women to any but paltry and sickly children, prepared by their birth for that new life, the work of civilization was complete—and the Sun, which was still shining, went out. The divine demon that is naked humankind disappeared forever beneath the grotesque burden of clothing. In their narrow breasts, no longer lifted by the sob of lost things, the blood, beating in isochronic movements, imitated the monotonous coming-and-going of crank-shafts and pistons, and a powerful and terrible voice was heard in the dismal night, proclaiming the eternal death of ideas, dreams and beauty, while the triumph of modern horror—and unlimited action—extended like a shroud over the filthy streets, the black houses and the lividly-gleaming sea, mocked by the Moon.

  Ambush

  That there is a secret in every life is certain. But the secret is not what it is imagined to be. Love’s belief that it is something unique is vain. Mysteries do not usually bear the names under which they are adored.

  An unknown face haunts dreams, generating apprehension. During the nights of youth, at the same hour, a circle of shadows is seen, which one is afraid to distinguish. People with unknown or familiar faces converse, but we cann
ot hear what they are saying; there is a secret in the room. With every passing moment, the faces threaten to become more revealing—and the secret brushes their mouths like a black butterfly in flight.

  Were the sinister password—which is perhaps that to life—to be revealed, it would, we know, sow mortal terror. The sphinx has intimated as much to us. We would see the convulsed face and the upraised hands bring forth the image of things that we ought never to see.

  A shadowy hand rises up, slowly, beside the bed. The nightlight is on watch, fortunately. But will not the visitor’s first concern be an obscure breath toward the whispering furniture? The spare clothing of one of them takes on a precise appearance. Lines stand out from their hazardous folds. One gets up, hands fluttering madly, to disturb the fortuitous harmony, but along with the new creases, another face appears.

  On the window, now pale, the wooden frame stands out, making the sign of the cross. It is the blessed dawn. Happy are we to have avoided the crepuscular landscape, even more frightening than the livid afternoon sunlight. In the morning, cold and shivering, beneath the pallor of the great definitive sky, an unreal fifth-floor balcony in the distance displays a frozen plant—to the north.

  The children of the apartment, who are asleep, brought their wooden horses on to the balcony a little while ago in order to watch our vain cavalcade, an enchantment of the forest and ourselves, passing by in the street, on a chariot pulled by two large birds, with a little page astride the neck of one, at hazard, in ambush, skirmishing, toward the light.

  Nocturne

  The low-set door opened to me on the edge of the city, near the vineyards. Dry stone walls commenced there. From the open country, on the evening breeze, came the green aroma of olives.

  A voice called: “Are you coming in?” and I found myself in front of an old woman. In her hand, in order that she might recognize me, was a bronze lamp in the form of a cup; beneath the other hand, forming a shade, black and blinking eyes interrogated me.

  Then, having passed through corridors and bolted doors, I was seated next to a timid and pretty woman, whose loquacity amused me.

  The woman I met there shook her head bitterly and said: “What do you want me to talk about? Tell me whether I recognize you. I don’t know anything. Sometimes I go down into the courtyard, in the dark, and I sew. Sometimes a wicked fairy breaks the needle. But I sew. It’s my great afternoon celebration. You did well to come this evening.”

  She had a charming laugh and her thin hands stroked my face. Then she said: “The chimney’s smoky. It doesn’t require anything else to make one cry. Yesterday, it poured down. That’s the cause. Don’t you think so?”

  I absorbed myself momentarily, with benevolent emotion, in the logs that were burning poorly. My companion had lain down on the divan and spoke to me sparsely, her head raised at the chin by her oblique palms.

  “I frighten you, I know. Did you see, when you came in, the tall Egyptian woman watching out for you? But you didn’t notice anything. Men are so stupid. She would have told you her story. It’s a terrible story. I’ve heard it.”

  She stopped, putting a finger on her mouth, holding her breath.

  “Listen,” she said.

  Voices were coming from the staircase.

  The entrance being closed henceforth to transient visitors, they said goodnight two by two. It was an ancient refrain, for everything remains the same, and sad priestesses invoke love in the same phrases. Their rhythmic steps announced that their hands were baring lamps.

  “You,” I said to her, “are not in love. Which of your sisters reflects your solitude? Are you too new? Isn’t there anyone left to love?”

  “Oh, if I wanted to—if I wanted to—I would have to confide my secrets to the Egyptian. She’s the latest arrival. She’s fretful, I think, but I can’t console her. She sings the songs of her homeland, in a cracked voice. Then again, she has no heart. I know. Don’t ask. It’s a secret.”

  The old woman had appeared. She shook a bunch of keys, impatiently. When I raised my head, she was obliging and hastened toward us.

  It was a decrepit and dilapidated house. The doors we had passed through in the corridor had groaned when they were opened. Everything seemed far from the sunlight and the other life.

  The narrow, hot room was suggestive of the exoticism of a lost land. There was an armchair next to the bed. On the mantelpiece, two candelabras lent a hint of luxury. When everything was closed, I dreams visions so distant, beyond the olive-groves, that I suddenly started. But I recovered the infamy, the nocturnal course, and the woman gravely sitting beside the fire. “Do you want cigarettes, adored monster?” I offered her one. We lit up, and I praised the interior.

  “It lacks many things,” she sighed. “I have a nice armchair. They’re jealous, would you believe? Then again, the curtains need changing. The wallpaper’s ancient. On rainy days, one would think one were in a tomb. I sit here for hours, listening to the drops fall. With the window open, I breathe in the odor of dust moistened by round patches. It’s the perfume I like best of all. In the evening, I lean out over the dark street and I’m scared, so much liberty comes in through the window.”

  She supported herself on her elbow and fell silent. The air was empty. The plaint of a belated traveler came from the corridor.

  “How wicked they are,” she said. “That one’s been here some time. He was told to wait and that someone would fetch him. Now, she’s got distracted with someone else, and the two of them are laughing. He might well cry out. When he goes home, she’ll demand that the lamp be put out and turn toward the wall. The poor thing is sure to have a good night.”

  We laughed together at that thought, and I bestowed a few distracted caresses on the girl who amused me. She let me do it, her eyes continuing to speak in a hesitant fashion. When she appeared naked, in the red shadow of the fire, young as she was, she realized, in spite of everything, a white statue, stripped of anxiety and clothing.

  Of her own accord, for my eyes, she adopted docile poses. The illusion of goddesses appeared in her poor pupils. Unconsciously and without understanding, her body painted the definitive images of desire in response to my gestures. Even crouching, her hand like a veil, she deified modesty; lying down subsequently, with her head on her shoulder, she gave the impression of drinking from springs that her simple eyes had never seen. One might have thought her one of those long and supple branches that the wind causes to bend in all directions. Leaning over to flee or listen, the harmony of leaves imitates fear, sadness, or an undulation toward a kiss.

  When she was tired, in the room now free of invocations, she shivered. I took her in my arms, and on the vulgar bed, I gave her the amicable poses of sleep. By caressing her like a child, I gave birth to a puerile soul in her. She thanked me with her lips.

  In the morning, she let her head hang back and breathed with a light rhythm. The twilight of dawn brushed the windows. The raw light made the shadows in the corners sharper. Primitive objects appeared. Everything stood forth in the horror of that light that is not yet daylight, with its ardent magic, which is no longer the blurry night and merely nudity. From outside, the song of a drunken man rose up, joyful at seeing the black boundary-markers on the road turn grey.

  I slipped toward the staircase. The windows in the corridor were livid. The horrible old woman came in response to my knock, her eyes misted with heavy dreams. She made the lock creak with one hand. The other reached out to me, in the form of a cradle. I was outside in the dizziness of the fresh air. Trees of every shade of green were stirring on the horizon. The Sun was born. And I fled into the neighboring countryside, breathing in my hollow palms, produced by the night or the dawn, a light odor of voluptuousness.

  Empedocles’ Sandal36

  Since early youth, he had been seduced by the mystery of fire. One encountered him on the threshold of forges where hammers struck large red sparks. Elsewhere, for the curiosity of puerile strollers, travelers from Libya or Asia Minor showed off brazen je
wels twisted by flame on the steps of Agrigentum. No one knew whether they had acquired their bizarre forms in the caves of Etna, where an evil god had taken refuge. But the Sicilian winter, not being very harsh, only shuts up the children and herds for a few days. In the great dark room he spent hours sitting and staring under the mantelpiece of the fire. On the brick wall irregularly blackened by the smoke, he saw confused visions sketched out that he would recover later. A moment comes when one knows henceforth that the light cares of youth are only passing the time while waiting real life, but also form a prelude and a bass-line to what comes after.