The Crazy Corner Page 2

  They were talking about an old comrade who had had all the luck: honorary positions, lucrative positions, renown, power, fortune, happiness—he lacked nothing, as was repeated enviously.

  “One could easily believe,” someone said, “that he’s a sorcerer who has a talisman. I’d think so, if we weren’t in the 19th century.”

  “We’ve hit the nail on the head,” replied Z***. “I can affirm, personally, that our former comrade is indeed a sorcerer in possession of a talisman.” And, as people laughed, he added: “He’s the heir of the last priest of Lilith, and he possesses a fragment of black stone.”

  Z*** then told us the story of an old scholar, an Assyriologist and mage, who had been reputed to be mad, and whose granddaughter had been espoused by our comrade.

  Everyone knows that Z*** is one of our best straight-faced humorists, and that he loves to play tricks even on his closest friends, but as he does so wittily, with inventions of the most brilliant fantasy, people listen without resentment and even thank him for putting one over on them. Everyone therefore savored his pretended revelations, his air of mystery and the rich imagination he deployed in reviving the fantastic old man, the last priest of Lilith and possessor of the fragment of black stone that is the ultimate open sesame of her supreme worshipers.

  Among all those charmed and attentive guests, however, two drank in his words open-mouthed, wide-eyed and pale-faced, racked by dolorous tics. They were the two former apprentice great men, who were tormented by a retrospective and impotent avarice, and the certainty that it was not a fanciful tale, that the comrade who had had all the luck owed it to a real and authentic talisman, that they might have been the esteemed and triumphant Jasons, but that they had lacked the faith necessary to obtain it.

  And I, who had once been the confidant of their singular and vain adventure, now saw again, in the troubled mirror of their dilated pupils, behind the veil of suppressed tears that filled them like a tragic fog, the strange scene that they had described to me forty years before, with disdainfully skeptical smiles, of the old man making his three salutes to the idol of shadow, executing his magical march toward the labyrinth and calling into the depths of ancient darkness to the ancient goddess who was thought to be abolished but perhaps lives on, still omnipotent:

  “Lilith! Lilith! Lilith!”

  A Legacy6

  I’ll be damned if I had ever expected to be the legatee one day, however small the inheritance might be, of old Doctor Amable Cherpillard!

  Undoubtedly he had once been a comrade in the Latin Quarter, and then a colleague, of my father’s—but not, however, his friend! Of that I was certain; their relationship, long-standing though it was, had never been intimate at any time. As for me, personally, I had hardly had any contact with him, even in the distant days when I went every year to spend my summer vacations with my parents in Wimeurs-les-Eppes. I had known him then, above all, by reputation, and as some sort of poor imbecile to whom I had never manifested any great sympathy. Finally, in the course of the last twenty years, no longer going back there after the death of my parents, I had completely lost sight of him.

  There was, therefore, no plausible reason for the fellow to have thought of putting me in his will, and even less for him to have thought of doing so in such a singular and romantic manner. It was, however, necessary for me you yield to the evidence. The notary’s letter was there, in front of my bewildered eyes. It informed me that Doctor Amable Cherpillard had left me…a sealed letter, which would be put into my own hands, on the express condition that I would, after having read it, burn it in the presence of the said notary.

  However little attraction the posthumous confidence of a man of no significance at all could promise me, my curiosity was excited by it even so, so alluring is the romantic—and I took the train.

  During the journey I reproached myself a thousand times for allowing myself to be hooked by such a bait, as all the details I had once heard about the character and life of the old doctor gradually came back to me. They reconstituted a physiognomy truly devoid of interest. What more was I about to learn about the old imbecile? It would surely not be worth the trip!

  To begin with, I recalled, in vivid colors, the face of Amable Cherpillaud, on the day when I had seen it for the first time—the day of his marriage—forty years ago. Oh, the sad, ridiculous, ingrate face, more lamentable than ever in such circumstances, even more lamentably sad, ridiculous and ingrate!

  Amable Cherpillaud was then about fifty years-old, but fifty years pickled in provincial ennui, in the consciousness of a dull and animal ugliness, in the routine of a life devoid of thought, action and ambition. A poor little country doctor, who had, until then, lived on a hazardous clientele, he had just come into an inheritance that permitted him to live henceforth in the renunciation of a profession that he did not like—and the bitter bile of all his past frustrations was plainly legible on his thin face, simultaneously sullen and proud, along with the base joy of now being envied.

  That was all that could be read there, though; nothing else. Beneath those two hints of green and red, which were manifestly temporary, was the everyday pallor that would resume its neutral, uniform, bleak grayness—the emblem of an irremediable and essential imbecility.

  And yet, a true joy, a joy of passion, ought to have flourished there that day, on that stupid face, and transfigured it, since the doctor, thanks to his money, was marrying the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood—but he did not even seem to be smitten with the radiant Madeleine Grimblet, blossoming in the glory of her seventeen florid years, so pale and so pink beneath her curly hair, like clusters of black grapes, so “well set,” as they say out there, with her young still-virginal grace and her hips, already rounded, and her curvaceous womanly bosom, ripe for love.

  No, he seemed to be marrying her solely to put one over on all those who desired her—and that visible sentiment rendered him even uglier beside such splendor: a thin and dried up old man, a half-plucked cockerel, a scarecrow with hare’s-tail side-whiskers, a long vulpine nose, narrow and wrinkled eyes, a turkey’s neck, slack, lobeless ears, an interminably stupid upper lip, a curt and fugitive chin, and pale lips giving him a mouth like the slot of a money-box.

  And I had always seen him, after that, getting even uglier with age, while his wife became ever more lovely, and became the beautiful Madame Cherpillaud—no longer merely the most beautiful daughter of the locality but, as current fashion puts it, the queen of the region.

  And as current fashion also puts it, what was then said was that Madame Cherpillaud, utterly devoted as she was, and very devoted, played the old imbecile for a fool. Oh, without the slightest scandal, of course, as these things are done in the provinces. Wearing the trousers and manipulating the simpleton ostentatiously, she indulged the fantasies of a fiery temperament at home—or so the secret chronicle said. Cherpillaud being unable to satisfy her, the task fell, it appears, to the gardener.

  Thus, at least, with a great reinforcement of laughter, said the Brantômes7 of Wimeurs-les-Eppes. They even added that the gardeners succumbed to the task, one after another, no matter well-chosen and well cared-for they were—and I had a very clear memory, in fact, of always seeing some new strapping lad in the doctor’s service on each of my trips out there: some thickset and robust rustic, of whom I heard it said later that he had soon perished and had “gone the way of consumption.”

  In the same way, the memory came to mind of having heard drunks, on evenings of celebration, singing a lewd and mocking popular song at the doctor’s expense, of which I shall only cite one verse, because the others—especially the last—risk too much honesty.

  Do you know what I eat

  When I eat at home?

  I’m forced to eat oatmeal.

  Poor folk, that’s not good.

  I have lots of good white bread.

  It’s white and soft;

  But it’s for our wife

  And her va-a-let.

  Tra la la la l
a, my wife’s for others.

  Tra la la la la, my wife’s not for me.

  And I also recalled that Amable Cherpillaud did not flinch under the insult, imperturbably retaining his complexion of a neutral, uniform, bleak grayness—the emblem of an irremediable and essential imbecility.

  In truth, he gave the impression of either being a consenting individual, as was repeated, to his shame, or of knowing absolutely nothing at all, as his air of perfect stupidity might have caused one to believe.

  Other details were revived in my memory, but they added very little to the fellow’s physiognomy. Those I got from my father. In his estimation, Cherpillaud was a very paltry scientific intelligence, who had only scraped through his doctorate and had never worked thereafter, clinging to the old methods of fifty years before, bleeding his patients with leeches—and who, in sum, had sinned most of all, as a physician and as a man, by virtue of an absolute stupidity combined with the most crippling weakness.

  It was with these memories and notions regarding the doctor that I arrived at Wimeurs-les-Eppes, entirely regretting the journey that a vain curiosity had caused me to undertake, and convinced that the poor imbecile’s legacy could not possibly be anything interesting, in spite of its romantic form.

  The notary handed the sealed letter to me ceremoniously, in front of a large log fire that was blazing as if it were conscious of having soon to fulfill a legal duty. That fire and the ministerial officer had a majesty that obliged me an equal majesty in breaking the five large seals of red wax. I thought that we—the fire, the notary and myself—formed a consummate grotesque.

  To make myself slightly less self-conscious, I risked a timid joke about the beautiful Madame Cherpillard and the gardeners, knowing that the notary had once been one of the filthiest Brantômes of Wimeurs-les-Eppes.

  The notary interrupted me, croaking as gravely as a crow: “Madame Cherpillaud died six months ago, of cancer.”

  I swallowed my saliva, and started quietly reading the piece of paper, which said:

  For you, Parisian spirit who must despise provincials in general, and, in particular, the poor imbecile that I appear to be, these few notes are written.

  I loved Madeleine profoundly and I could not do without her—her body, I mean.

  I am faithful to the doctrines of Cabanis,8 absolutely materialistic and atheistic. I do not believe in remorse.

  Nevertheless, without anyone being aware of it, I kept up to date with the doctrine of Pasteur. I believe in microbes.

  For ten years, my wife, convinced of my omnipotence, was completely and delightfully submissive to me.

  I want her to die with me and therefore she will, my wishes in that regard having already been executed.

  I do not know whether tuberculosis and cancer will ever be cured, but I know perfectly well how to induce them.

  Acquaint yourself with the story of my life, if you do not know it, and conclude, young man, by telling yourself, like Balzac, that great eccentrics and great criminals are only to be found in the provinces.

  I threw the piece of paper in the fire, put on my hat, and ran swiftly to catch the train to go back to Paris, where the eccentrics and the criminals do, indeed, have less opportunity to become great, occupied as they are, like everyone else, in an incessant battle, amid turbulent hosts of boors.

  The Clock9

  With a grave and slightly cracked voice, melancholy in its timbre in the calm evening air that it rent with an abrupt sob, the first stroke of seven rang out from the bell-tower of the Hôtel de Ville.

  Like soldiers on parade, whose automatic gesture is triggered by a command, all the pedestrians in the Mall came to a halt, reached for their fob-pockets, took out their watches, checked the time on the dials of the watches, put them back into their fob-pockets, shaking their heads sadly, and raised their arms to the heavens.

  Then, with a voice as melancholy in its timbre as that of the bell-tower, almost with sobs like the ones continuing to rend the calm evening air, they said to one another, in tearful groups:

  “I make it five to seven myself.”

  “Me, five past seven.”

  “Me, two minutes past seven.”

  “Me, three minutes to seven.”

  “Me, one minute to.”

  “Me, half a minute past.”

  But none—absolutely none—showed exactly seven.

  And as an old man appeared in the Mall at that moment, heading toward the Église des Génovéfains,10 all gazes bombarded that old man with reproaches, which were no less indignant for being silent, some even going so far as to manifest not merely indignation but scorn, and some, even a veritable horror.

  The old man, however, did not present, either in his gait or in his physiognomy, anything seemingly capable of inspiring such a violent, undisguised and unanimously vengeful antipathy.

  He was dressed in the most decent fashion, which denoted the most respectable of bourgeois individuals. His shoes were coarse, but well-polished. His trousers, a little too short, were not frayed. His jacket, a little too long, only gave a little more majesty to his tall stature. Besides which, age had not curved that stature, which the old man held upright with the special pride that is the prerogative of a clear conscience.

  His clean-shaven face, pale beneath long white hair, was not content, as they say, to respire honesty; it positively transpired it—and the two most luminous droplets of that venerable transpiration were the old man’s eyes: two eyes of pure diamond, In which shone, simultaneously, a mystical exaltation, a child-like candor, a patriarchal serenity and a heroic valor.

  What secret reasons, then, could have led all those pedestrians in the Mall—and, by their mute intermediary, the entire town—to manifest toward the old man so much indignation, and so much scorn, not to say horror.

  That is what you will begin to understand, or at least to suspect, when you know that the old man was the only clockmaker in the little town, that all the church clocks, pendulum clocks and pocket watches in the town were regulated by him, that they had always kept time admirably for more than thirty years, and that he was presently neglecting them.

  But why was he neglecting them at present? Through what breach had his disrupted professional honorability fled? How had that pure gold been transmuted into vulgar lead? Ah, that’s a long story! Listen, instead, to the reflections of the people.

  “Look, he’s going to spend the night at the Église des Génovéfains again.”

  “He’ll be there until tomorrow morning with his folly.”

  “Then, naturally, during the day, he can’t do any more.”

  “And he resets watches any old how.

  “And he goes to sleep over the pendulum clocks, instead of watching over them as before.”

  “He doesn’t even bother with the Hôtel de Ville clock anymore.”

  “He doesn’t care about anything but the old crock over there.”

  “And I ask you, what’s the point? He’s mad—completely mad.”

  “Obviously, since the cleverest haven’t been able to make head nor tail of it.”

  “He’ll come off worse than that, mark my words.”

  “The clientele comes first, doesn’t it? Like me...”

  “Me too, of course! Just let another clockmaker set up in business here, and we’ll see, once and for all.”

  “One’s coming from Saint-Jean, I’ve been told.”

  “So much the worse for Père Bringard. He’ll die of starvation.”

  “Unless he dies of old age before then...”

  “That might be the best thing for him. There’s danger over there.”

  “Oh, not only danger from machines, you know!”

  “Yes, yes, I know—even more so from legends.”

  “Exactly. Is it true or isn’t it? Still, our forefathers were no more stupid than we are, eh? Well, they believed, and firmly, that one couldn’t touch it without it bringing you bad luck.”

  “Which doesn’t prevent the old madman from
running off yet again, to spend all night flirting with his old vagabond witch of a clock.”

  For it is, in fact, a matter of a clock. At the Église des Génovéfains there is an ancient clock, one of those fabricated in the Middle Ages by patient workmen who consecrated their entire lives to it, multiplying its cogwheels, its pulleys, its weights and its counterweights in order that, at the hours of the Angelus, one would hear it sing interminable and cheerful carillons, while from its face, opening like a tabernacle, the Holy Virgin would emerge, to whom the Angel Gabriel bowed, and before whom filed in slow procession the holy apostles, six for the morning Angelus and six for the evening Angelus, and all twelve for the midday Angelus.

  Now, for many years, if not forever, the ancient clock of the Église des Génovéfains had been broken down—and there were, indeed, legends about that: like the one asserting that the master clockmaker who had constructed it had only completed the task with the aid of the Devil; and the one claiming that, after a certain number of revolutions, the Devil had stopped the clock; and the one declaring that the secret of it had been lost forever, and that misfortune befell anyone who tried to recover that secret—and a whole string of stories embroidered on that subject by the popular imagination.

  Today, of course, hardly anyone believed any longer in those legends and stories. A few people still talked about them, but only to laugh at them. But Père Bringard, personally, did not laugh at them. And, by dint of thinking about them, after thirty years of long meditation, he had ended up believing in them.

  In particular he believed this: that the soul of the master clockmaker of old had been a captive of the Devil since the day the clock stopped working, and that the poor soul in question would be liberated when the clock worked again. And, mostly thanks to that charitable hope, and also a little because of his pride as a clockmaker, he had harnessed himself to the task of repairing the clock, putting all his patient ingenuity into the task, and all his faith.