Berthe opened a door and moved a tapestry aside. Moving rapidly ahead of the two naked women, Homo-Deus slipped into the drawing room, where he had divined an orgy of women.
The drawing room, which was very large, had been cleared of all its furniture except for the piano, which had been pushed into a corner. With her back turned, a woman—this one dressed—was sitting on the stool. Masked like the others, her correct and silvery hair indicated that she was no longer young—doubtless a mercenary, accustomed to these kinds of celebrations.
The electric lamps were dressed with roses, the dainty bulbs artistically veiled in order not to cast harsh light on naked flesh. Rugs, cushions and two large divans replaced the furniture that had been removed. Through a lifted door-curtain, tables laden with a refined supper were visible in an adjacent room.
At the moment when Marc Vanel and the two women came in, the tribades, already coupled, were dancing, tightly enlaced, to the slow and voluptuous rhythm of a tango, while Maud and Nora—whose faces were the only ones uncovered—were sitting on one of the divans, caressing one another gently and chatting.
At the sight of the latecomers, the American woman came to meet them.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming, my dears, and we weren’t going to wait any longer for you.”
“Is Brigitte here? You know that it’s for her that I’ve come.”
“Yes—she’s the blonde dancing with that pretty brunette.”
“Oh! Is she in love with her, then?”
“If she is, it’s very recent, for they only met ten minutes ago.”
“Do me the great favor of separating them my dear?”
“Gladly, if I can thus be agreeable to you.”
The invisible satyr had completely forgotten his companion, who was languishing in the auto, waiting for him. The atmosphere of intense voluptuousness, the sight of the naked women, from which a frantic lust emanated, put his scientific philosophy to flight, and he felt himself borne away by a whirlwind of exasperated stupor.
The assembly became more animated. The gestures of the couples became more precise. Through the masks, eyes gleamed, cynical or lascivious; respirations became panting; lust was unchained in brutal and direct gestures; the bouquets of delicate perfumes was fusing now with the inebriating odor of sex organs moist with concupiscence. Sighs could be heard, groans, and even little screams, under overenthusiastic bites.
Moving through that orgy of flesh quivering with desire, the invisible satyr risked a gesture here and there—a kiss, a precise caress—which passed unnoticed in the lubricious desire that was exacerbating the enraged lesbians. For a long time, that apotheosis of feminine lust was unleashed in the drawing room, satisfied without restrained and without modesty. The mask authorized all temptations, all trials, and unusual poses.
Nora had played a good part in that unbridled lust, but her excited senses remained unslaked, lacking the excitement of the dance and, above all, the penetration of the male member. She was thinking about Narcisse, her indefatigable lover, and his hairy might; she almost regretted this neutered and phantasmal bacchanal, these uncertain hallucinations that irritated the senses without giving them the plenitude of the venereal act. She shouted an order to the pianist, suddenly bounded into middle of the drawing room, and began to dance.
She danced a savage and lubricious dance, miming the most suggestive gestures and attitudes of stupor. Then, howling, becoming simian again, she ran on all fours through the crowd of enlacements, rubbing herself against nude bodies, foraging in fleeces, and sex organs, crying unknown sounds: the language of the great apes, her brethren, the anthropoid colossi of Borneo.
Breathless and exhausted, she finally collapsed in the middle of the room. Then, the sensation she had felt once before was repeated; she was seized by the shoulders by invisible hands and tipped backwards.
This time, she knew what to expect, so she did not resist, and abandoned herself to the definitive possession.
Suddenly, a terrible cry rang out:
“Ouha! Ouha!”
Surging through the broken-down door, Narcisse leapt into the drawing room. With one bound, he was upon Nora, for he knew about the presence and the role of the Invisible, and his formidable hands fell upon the god, tearing the semi-conscious blue dancer from his grasp.
“Oh, Master!” he growled. “Not that—oh no, not that! I’ll kill you! No more!”
“Hey! Don’t squeeze so hard,” said a breathless voice. “You must be able to understand that it’s not my fault. Even a saint couldn’t have resisted...”
Recovering his composure, the orangutan paraded his amazed gaze over the strange spectacle. Frightened by the sight of the great ape, and by hearing the bizarre words, the women were huddled in a corner, like wild beasts in a cage when the tamer comes in with his whip, and the sight of those naked beauties, still vibrant with lust, whom terror had thrown into the most picturesque pell-mell, was not banal.
Narcisse uttered a profound moan. “I understand,” he said. “But why has Nora organized this orgy?”
“Why are we all dirty pigs? Bah! You’ll see many others…look, Nora’s bed is there, you know.” He pointed at the door. “Hurry up—you’ll find me in the auto.”
Those few words had been exchanged in low voices. The orangutan understood. He seized the bacchante star in his arms and disappeared, carrying his prey, while the band of crazed tribades howled: “Our clothes are in there! If anything happens to them, what will become of us?”
The chambermaid, brought running by the screams, increased the confusion further. Maud, however, had recognized Narcisse, and gradually calmed things down.
“Shh!” she said. “Shut up! Shut up!”
And, gently, she opened a gap in the bedroom door. It is necessary to believe that what she saw reassured her fully, for she let the door-curtain fall back again, and let herself fall upon a pouffe, in a fit of laughter,
“Don’t worry,” she said, when she was finally able to speak. “Our friend isn’t being badly served.”
At the buffet in the next room, now deserted—for the women were mingling to one side—a glass and a bottle were suspended in mid-air; the bottle was emptied into the glass, and the glass into an invisible mouth.
“Ah! That’s better. I was thirsty too…but what’s that animal doing in the bedroom, where he’s taking forever? I’ve a good mind to leave him here and send Mardruk back to pick him up at dawn…but I’m still thirsty. Let’s drink!”
And the airborne bottle resumed its maneuvers.
“To your health, Master!” said Narcisse, returning from the chamber of amour.
“Finally, there you are! Are we going home?”
“Yes,” said the orangutan. “Nora’s tired. She’s asleep. Then again, I’m a trifle disgusted.”
XXI. The Bankruptcy of Genius
Since Ernest Paris’s departure for Germany, Norway and Sweden, the life of Nora, the blue dancer, had continued as usual, with the difference that her possession by the orangutan had thrown her senses into a kind of erotic exasperation almost touching on hysteria. It was, perhaps, that very sensual exaltation before the audience at the Folies Bergère that amplified her success from day to day.
When the erotic fever took possession of her, the beast obtained the upper hand again, and it was necessary to assuage it at any price. Nevertheless, she conserved sufficient presence of mind to save appearances. She succeeded thus in satisfying herself with lovers of fortune, whom she stuffed with sensuality, while reserving for Jules Ducon the part which might be described as the lion’s share.
Furthermore, she became suddenly careful to augment her fortune. By giving her the house in the Rue Spontini, her lover had awakened a desire for property in her, for the increase and augmentation of her possessions well beyond her expenditure.
Such was the situation until the day when the awakening of the ancestral beast had thrown her into the hairy arms of the orangutan. Until then, the females
and males she had encountered at the hazard of her life had only half-satisfied her. With Narcisse, there was plenitude. For her, the ape was not what he was to others: a monster, an animal. She sensed—she knew, now—that there existed within her an intense rapport of race, an atavism, a heredity that made them very nearly similar.
And the orangutan’s visits became more frequent. Under the cover of literary reports, Ernest Paris having authorized his secretary to initiate the young woman into the mysteries of the construction of a book, Narcisse had arrived at her home, ostensibly bearing under his arm a briefcase stuffed with papers.
In order to have more liberty, however, and to avoid suspicions on the part of her protector, Jules Ducon, it was decided by Nora that she would go to meet Narcisse at the Academician’s house. She found it very original and exciting to make love in that environment, filled with artistic and Medieval treasures.
Pédauque and Paphnuce, who both had a profound horror of the orangutan, were unable to suppose that a young and pretty creature like Nora was infatuated with a frightening and repulsive beast. They therefore left the lovers perfectly free in the Villa Saïd, confining themselves to the servants’ parlor. The ape and the she-ape took advantage of that privilege to enjoy themselves to their hearts content.
One day, Narcisse and Nora, liberated from all inconvenient clothing, were frolicking gaily on the majestic bed decorated with ornaments and precious tapestries. Nora’s graceful nudity stood out against the massive and hairy corpulence of the ape, and, lost in their voluptuous romp, they were deaf to all exterior noises.
Suddenly, the door opened quietly, and Ernest Paris appeared on the threshold.
On returning from his voyage, the Academician, sprightly and seething with amorous impatience, had first had himself conveyed to the Rue Spontini, where a first deception awaited him. Madame was not at home. But Berthe restored his serenity by giving him the hope that Madame might well be at his house, because she sometimes went there to work with his secretary.
Oh well, I shall surprise them! the great man thought—and, climbing back into his taxi, he had told the driver to take him home.
The two domestics had received him with transports of joy.
“Madame Nora is here!” Paphnuce told him. “I’ll go inform to her, as well as Monsieur Narcisse.”
“There’s no need, Paphnuce, stay here. I’ll surprise them while they’re working. No one has been informed of my return. Oh, my children, what a heavy burden glory is! I’m positively crushed by the worldwide admiration, so I need a few days’ rest. So, not a word about my return to Paris, eh? Pédauque, go pay the taxi. In fact, no; I’ll keep it. It can take Narcisse away—I’ll give him the day off.”
“How well Monsieur looks! He’s twenty years younger!”
“Ha ha! You never said a truer word, my dear Pédauque.”
And, Earnest Paris went cheerfully upstairs to the first floor.
There was no one in the drawing room...nor in the library...
Coming toward the bedroom, he seemed to perceive a strange purring sound. Intrigued to the highest degree, he turned the door handle, and stood there for a moment, astounded by the sight that met his eyes.
The lovers had not seen or heard him; they bravely continued the inebriation in progress.
Rage and disgust seethed in the brain of Ernest Paris, while the living tableau displayed to him, in its bestial immodesty, excited his virility, already awakened by his imagination, anticipating the joys of his return. With a veritable cry of a beast in rut, he bounded toward the couple, struck the ape in the mouth with all his strength, dragged Nora away from the powerful embrace, and, overexcited by the spectacle and the battle, threw himself upon her with a savage animal sensuality.
The moment was badly chosen. In the three animals, in whom instinct and sexual frenzy were dominant, reason no longer existed. The orangutan, initially surprised, yielded to the instinct of a beast with whom another beast is disputing his female. With one hand, he seized his master, knocked him down, and seized his throat with his foot.
There was a sinister crack; the Academician’s tongue sprang out of his mouth, his eyes bulged.
Ernest Paris was dead.
The event had been so rapid that Narcisse’s action had preceded thought. He let himself fall on to the limp puppet, and remained motionless, stupid, looking alternately at his victim and Nora, unable to understand as yet.
“Wretch! What have you done?” said the frightened young dancer, eventually.
“I don’t know. It was stronger than me. I obeyed a reflex...the struggle for the female. But…is he really dead?”
“Yes, alas, he’s dead,” Nora replied, having approached the cadaver.
Gradually, the orangutan pulled himself together. He reflected momentarily.
“Only Homo-Deus can save us. I’ll telephone him. He’ll tell me what it’s necessary to do.”
Marc Vanel replied, briefly, that he would come right away, because, through Narcisse’s mysterious attempted explanations, he had divined something terrible.
Indeed, a few minutes later, Homo-Deus came into the library, where the two accomplices, dressed in haste, were waiting for him anxiously.
“It can be arranged,” the fantastic doctor said, tranquilly, having heard the story of the drama. “At Paris’s age, an abrupt decease won’t surprise anyone. Nora, you’re going to leave here, as usual, but to make sure that the domestics don’t come to disturb us, tell Pédauque that Monsieur Paris, feeling tired after his long voyage, has gone to bed, and that we’re chatting with him for a moment.”
Nora immediately made herself scarce, not sorry to be fleeing that ambience of death.
“It’s up to us now, Narcisse. Remake the bed while I undress the great man, and make him look presentable.”
A quarter of an hour later, the mortal remains of the illustrious man were laid out in his bed. His face was calm and restful. One would have thought that he was asleep.
“Poor old fellow!” said Mar Vanel. “The graft wasn’t much use to him.”
“Oh, yes, Master! If you had seen...”
“I can still see,” said Marc Vanel, lifting up the bedclothes. “All the same, Voronoff will have worked for nothing.”
“Look, Master: the beautiful corpse! An imposing statue!”
Indeed, the face of Ernest Paris was growing paler and paler, and taking on the august serenity that the human face only acquires in death.
“In there,” said Marc Vanel, striking the forehead of the cadaver with his folded index finger, “was one of the noblest intelligences in the world. Where, now, is the subtle fluid that animated him? Where is his self, Narcisse? I’m not reproaching you for having killed Paris, but what a pity that I wasn’t able to do for you what Jeanne Fortin has done for me: I could have given you his soul. If, one day, you make me submit to the same fate to which you’ve just subjected Ernest Paris—who can ever tell?—at least do so in such a way that I have the time to transmit my mind, my intelligence, my entire soul to you!”
“I would never kill you, Master! But if the opportunity arises, I won’t forget that magnificent offer.”
Thus spoke those two redoubtable beings, in the presence of the victim of one of them—a victim who was not yet cold.
At that Moment, Marc Vanel scanned the room with an investigative glance. Everything there was in order, and nothing revealed the horrible drama that had just unfolded there.
They went downstairs together.
“The Master isn’t feeling very well,” said Marc Vanel to the two domestics. “That’s why he sent for me. He’s resting now. Don’t disturb him, but be ready to respond to the first summons. At Monsieur Paris’s age, anything is to be feared. So, if our master gives you any anxiety, don’t hesitate to telephone me. I’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Pédauque and Paphnuce nodded their heads as a sign of acquiescence, and Marc Vanel and Narcisse took their places in the auto in which Mardruk had brought the do
ctor.
“Not a word to Voronoff,” said Homo-Deus to his pupil, in the car. “So far as everyone is concerned, Ernest Paris will have succumbed during the night to the rupture of an aneurism, or an embolism.” After a brief pause, he added: “Oh sweet philosophy, with an indulgent patience, protect us from all unhealthy emotion!”
XXII. Toward the Panthéon
When, the day after that unfortunate occurrence, the news of the celebrated writer’s death was spread by the voices of the press, the emotion was general. Strangely enough, the popular masses were moved by the death of the great skeptic. The people, however, knew very little about the work of Ernest Paris; if, by chance, a few of them had read him, they had certainly not understood him very well.
The celebrity of Ernest Paris was, perhaps, born above all of the need of the multitude to have conquered a patron belonging to the superior bourgeoisie, which the working class combats and, simultaneously, envies. Continually, the prudent writer had eclipsed himself at the precise moment when he would have been able to strike the attitude of a Chief, of a leader of man. The socialists had seen his disdain for all government as an acquiescence with their principles, and because of that scorn for governments they had considered him as one of theirs. It was the same on the part of the communists, and since the Russian Revolution, those who accepted orders and subsidies from Moscow, having received from Rappoport53 the assurance that the man of letters was a Bolshevist, coupled in their literary references the name of Ernest Paris with those of Lenin and Trotsky. In sum, for the most advanced progressives, the Academician was a “red.” Ernest Paris let them believe it.
In reality, he amused himself as a spectator of the human comedy, of its contrasts and its appearances. He did not see, underneath all that formidable racket, anything but the atavistic imitation of the same repeated facts and gestures, throughout the ages, by different races—and since he had had an orangutan for a secretary, he took the tragicomedy back to the primal ancestors, the apes, who made the first social grimaces. Had the great stirrer of thoughts ever worried about the consequences of his inertia? No. He had enjoyed life, playing with it as a dilettante, trying to extract from it ideas or subjects for new novels; and the people, in their naïve confidence, in their need to sense a superior intelligence holding their flag, saw in him a touch destined to set fire to the old world. He knew full well, himself, that he was only a Chinese lantern.
Nora, The Ape-Woman Page 18
