THE NEW BEAST
Under the influence of an indifference most praiseworthy, in these
unfortunate circumstances, the official doctor asked no questions,
examined nothing. I told him how my late uncle had died of syncope. He
had heard about his heart-disease, and this official doctor gave me the
Burial Certificate.
“Dr. Lerne is dead,” said he, “and our mission to-day will stop at
that, if you please. For the rest, it is not our business to set
investigations on foot which might bring us to contradict so eminent a
master, and make him die otherwise than he desired.”
The funeral took place at Grey-l’Abbaye, without any pomp or
spectators, after which I employed ten days in unraveling the affairs
of this inconceivable duality; this unparalleled amalgam of assassin
and victim: Klotz-Lerne.
During the course of his “phenomenal” existence, that is to say
the last four and a half years or so, he had made no testamentary
dispositions. This was to me the proof that in spite of his
forebodings of his end, death had overtaken him unexpectedly, for
no doubt had it been otherwise, he would have done everything to
disinherit me.
I found in his desk, at the bottom of the secret drawer, my uncle’s
Will, as the letter of long ago had told me I should. It appointed me
his residuary legatee.
But Klotz-Lerne had charged the estate with a super-abundance of
mortgages, and contracted numberless debts.
My first thought was to appeal to the Courts, and then the absurdity
of the case struck me, and I perceived all the confusion, which such a
substitution of persons could cause to legal minds--those frauds of a
kind not provided against by the Code, those false pretenses and all
this legacy-hunting, which were a defiance of nature and law alike.
I had to resign myself to all the consequences of an astounding
imposture, and not say a word about it, for fear of arousing the worst
suspicions.
Everything considered, however, the acceptance of the succession still
brought me some profit, and whatever happened, I was resolved to get
rid of Fonval, judging that it would, henceforward, be for me but a
nest of evil memories.
I went through all the papers. Those of the real Lerne, confirmed
his medical honor, and the legitimacy of his researches in grafting
in every line. Those of Klotz-Lerne, usually recognizable by the
illustrations in the manuscript, and often blackened with German
Gothic characters, were carefully examined, and were reduced to ashes,
for they were irrefutable witnesses of several crimes, and contained
nothing to refute the presumption that a certain Nicolas Vermont, who
had been present at Fonval for six months, had been a partner in them.
Under the influence of this same dread, I ransacked the park and
outhouses.
That done, I presented the animals to the villagers, and dismissed
Barbe.
Then I summoned help. We filled trunks and cases with family treasures,
whilst Emma packed her boxes--half annoyed at the loss of her daydream,
and half pleased to follow me to Paris.
After the death of Klotz-Lerne, eager to take my place again in the
world, and to enjoy once more the comforts of wealth, without passing
through the worries of too small a house, I had written to one of
my friends, asking him to take a flat for me, a little larger than
my bachelor rooms, and suitable for a couple of lovers. His answer
delighted us. He had found out a home for us in the Avenue Victor
Hugo--a little house built as if to our measure, and furnished exactly
to our taste. Servants, recruited by his good offices, awaited us.
All was ready. I sent off a mountain of parcels belonging to Emma along
with her trunks.
One morning Maître Pallud, the Notary of Grey, had a final interview
with me with regard to the sale of the property. Emma could not keep
still. We fixed that very evening for our departure in the car,
intending to sleep at Nanthel, in order to be in Paris the next day.
And the hour came for departing from Fonval for ever. I went over the
_château_, which was empty of furniture, and the park, in which there
was no leafage. It looked as if the autumn had stripped them both.
The old perfumes still clung to the abandoned rooms, recalling sad
memories. Ah! what charm there sometimes is in musty things! One saw on
the walls the indelible outline of pictures or mirrors now taken down,
sideboards or chiffoniers that had gone, leaving behind patches that
looked new against the faded paper, outlines of things magically given
by them to the familiar wall, bright spots destined to grow pale, as
time went on, just as the memory of the absent.
Some of the rooms seemed made smaller by being emptied, others larger,
without any obvious reason.
I went over the house from garret to basement, by the light of the
skylight and the gleams of a grating. I explored from attic to cellar,
and I did not grow weary of wandering through this scenery of my
youth, like a living being haunting a phantom place. Ah! my youth! It
alone dwelt in Fonval. I felt that. In spite of their importance, the
recent dramas were pale beside it. The bedrooms were duller than ever,
and Donovan’s and Emma’s were no longer anything but my own and my
aunt’s.
Was I not right to have put up Fonval to auction?
This double feeling accompanied me in my farewells to the park. The
paddock became a lawn, and the summerhouse of the Minotaur only
recalled Briareus to me.
I made a circuit to the cliff. The clouds were so low that one would
have said it was a ceiling of gray wool, laid over a circular crater.
Under this subdued light, which is that of winter, the statues, now
bereft of their green togas, showed their concrete, weather-beaten and
rain stained, with their noses knocked off, or their chins broken; some
of them were crumbling to bits--one with a Bacchante’s gesture, was
stretching out her arm, the hand of which, carrying a mixing-bowl, only
stuck to the wrist by its iron bone, which was dreadful to see. They
were going to continue their poses in solitude.
Something wild and savage was already beginning to emerge, but no more
than was vaguely perceptible. A hawk was sharpening his beak on the
weather-cock of the summerhouse. A weasel crossed the paddock with
little quiet jumps.
Unable to make up my mind to depart, I unlocked the door of the
_château_ again, then I came back to the park. I heard my movements
resounding on the flooring of the corridors and rustling amongst the
leaves of the alleys.
The silence was deepening every moment. I felt a certain difficulty in
breaking it. It knew well it was going to reign as a master, and as I
paused in the midst of the domain, it put forth its almighty power.
There I dreamt a long time--I, the human center of the enormous
amphitheater, the center, also, of a Walpurgis dance of thoughts.
To my call there came in a whirlwind, the faces of long ago and
yesterday--imaginary or real--personages of fairy tales, or truth;
they whirled round me in a wild crowd, and made of all the deep valley
a maelstrom of remembrance, in which the whole past turned and turned
again.
But I had to go away at last, and leave Fonval to the ivy and the
spiders.
* * * * *
In front of the coach-house, Emma ready dressed for her journey, was
impatiently mounting guard.
I opened the door. The car was standing askew at the end of the old
shed. I had not seen it again since the accident, and I did not even
remember having housed it. The assistants, no doubt, through some tardy
act of courtesy, had got it in somehow.
Heedless of my negligence, the engine roared admirably, the moment
the electric contact was made, so I brought out the car as far as
the semi-circular terrace, and shut on so many memories a symbolical
portal, which closed with a sound like a sob.
Thank Heaven! No more of the awful business of Klotz, but no more,
also, of my youthful years. Then it occurred to me that by keeping
Fonval I might prolong them.
“We shall stop at Grey, at the Notary’s,” I said to Emma. “I am not
going to sell, I am going to let it.”
I plunged on the straight road; the rocky walls seemed to straighten
themselves. Emma was prattling.
At first the car hummed cheerfully. However, I was not slow in
repenting that I had paid so little attention to it. With a sudden jerk
it slowed down; then several more, and its progress was soon no more
than a succession of abrupt jumps.
I have said, with regard to this car, that it was the perfection of
automatism--pedals and handles reduced to the minimum. Such a machine
presents only one drawback. It must be perfectly in order before
setting out, for once _en route_, one has no more influence on it,
except to quicken the pace, or to moderate it, but not to fortify it by
dosing and repairs.
The prospect of a halt spoiled my good humor.
Meanwhile, the car pursued its jumpy course, and I could not prevent
myself laughing.
This manner of advancing recalled to me, in a comical way, the walks I
had taken in this very place, with Klotz-Lerne, and the capricious way
in which my sham uncle would stop, and then set off again.
Hoping that it was merely a passing indisposition of the machine,--too
much oil, for example,--I let the engine run on, and endeavored to find
out by the noise it made, which of its functions was defective, and
every now and again caused those inequalities of power transmission,
which grew more marked at every pause, and some of which were so
accentuated, indeed, that we were almost motionless for a second.
My absurd comparison became clearer to me, and that amused me.
“Just like that blackguardly Professor,” I said to myself. “It is
amusing!”
“What is the matter?” said my fellow-traveler. “You are not looking
cheerful.”
“I? Nonsense!”
It is a curious thing, but this question had affected me. I should have
thought that my face was quite calm. What motive had I not to be easy
in my mind? I was annoyed, that was all. I simply was asking myself
what organ was suffering in this great body (as the Professor had
called it) and not being able to find anything, and it being about to
stop altogether, I was annoyed, that was all.
In vain I listened with a carefully trained ear to the explosion,
clickings, dull-sounding knocks; no characteristic sound revealed to me
the stiffness of valves or cranks.
“I bet it is the clutch which has gone wrong,” I cried, “and yet the
engine is all right.”
And then Emma said, “Oh, Nicholas, do look! Should that thing there
move?”
“Ah! I told you so. There, you see!”
She had pointed to the clutch-pedal, which was moving by itself, while
the jolts of the car coincided with its motions.
“That was the trouble.”
Whilst my eyes were fixed on the pedal, it remained pushed right over.
The car, unclutched, stopped. I was going to get out of it, when it
set off again in a most brutal way. The pedal had come back. A certain
uneasiness tormented me; it is certain nothing is so annoying as a car
that will not work; but all the same, I do not remember ever having
been so curiously affected by engine-trouble.
_Suddenly the hooter began to yell of its own accord._ I felt the
insurmountable need of saying something or other, but my dumbness
redoubled my anxiety.
“It is out of order generally,” I said, endeavoring to speak in a
casual tone. “We shan’t get there before night, my dear.”
* * * * *
“Would it not be better to repair it immediately?”
“No, I prefer to go on. When one stops one never knows when one will be
able to set out again. There will always be time to....”
“Perhaps it will warm up again,” but the hooter drowned my hesitating
voice with a great clamor, and my fingers clutched hold of the
steering-wheel, for when this clamor had died down, it turned to a
continuous note which took on rhythm and inflections, and I felt coming
through this cadence an air--a marching tune (after all, it was perhaps
I who made myself hear it).
This air drew nearer, so to say, became more defined, and after some
halting attempts like those of a singer trying his voice, the car
resolutely thundered out with its copper throat, “_Rum fil dum, fil
dum._”
At the accent of the German’s songs, a horde of suspicions swooped
on my uneasy mind. I had an intuition that something fantastic,
mysterious, monstrous, had happened. I tried cutting off the petrol.
The handle resisted. The brake resisted. A superior force kept them
immovable.
Losing my head altogether, I let go the steering-wheel, and took two
arms to the diabolical brake. The same result, but the hooter made a
gargling sound, and then was silent.
The girl exclaimed angrily, “That’s a funny trumpet!”
As for me, I had no desire to laugh. My ideas began to follow one
another in a giddy whirl, and my Reason refused to sanction my
reasoning.
This metallic car, from which wood, india rubber and leather had been
banished--of which no fragment belong to matter at one time alive,
was it not an _organized body which had never lived_? This automatic
mechanism--was it not a body _capable of reflexes, but a body devoid
of intelligence_? Was it not in fact--according to the note-book--a
possible receptacle of a soul in its totality,--that receptacle which
the Professor in his haste had declared to be non-existent?
At the moment of his apparent death, Klotz-Lerne had doubtless indulged
in an experiment on the car, recalling that of the poplar tree, but
having been absent-minded for some weeks, perhaps he had not foreseen
(fatal want of logic), that his soul would slip entirely into that
empty receptacle, and that the “attachment” being broken, his human
form would be no more than a corpse, into which the laws of his own
discovery forbade him to return. Or else, perhaps, weary with pursuing
the fortune he could not seize, Klotz-Lerne had acted of his own free
will, and committed a sort of suicide, by exchanging the substance of
my uncle for that of a machine.
But why should he not have wished, simply and solely, to become the new
beast, foretold by him in a moment of eccentricity--the animal of the
future--the ruler of creation, which the re-fitting of its organs was
to make immortal and infinitely perfectible, according to his lunatical
prophecy?
Once more, however sensible this inner discussion with myself was, I
would not accept its conclusions. A resemblance in manner between the
car and the Professor, a probable hallucination of my sense of hearing,
and possibly the way of gripping the lever, should not suffice to prove
this absurdity. My distress wanted a more decisive proof. _It came
without delay._
We were coming to the edge of the forest, to that limit where the dead
maniac invariably paused in his walks. I understood that I was going to
have the question settled, and at all hazards, I gave Emma warning.
“Hold tight; keep your body back!”
In spite of our precaution, a sudden stop of the car threw us forward.
“What’s the matter?” said Emma.
“Nothing, do not worry.”
Frankly, I was undecided. What was to be done? To get down would have
been perilous. Inside the Klotz-car we were at least out of his reach,
and I did not desire to be butted at by him, so I endeavored to get him
forward.
As before, no bit of him would obey my orders.
We were in this awkward position, when suddenly I felt the
steering-wheel turn round, (levers and foot-breaks working away); and
the car, making a wide sweep, faced about, and began to take us back
again towards Fonval.
I was luckily able to turn it round again by a sudden movement, but the
moment it was set in the right direction, it definitely manifested the
wish not to move a wheel forward.
At last Emma perceived that there was something unusual the matter, and
she urged me to get down to put this right, but for some moments my
terror had been changed into rage.
The hooter laughed!
“He who laughs last, laughs loudest,” I cried to myself.
“What is the matter? What is the matter?” said my companion.
Without listening to her, I took from the grid a steel rod, which
served me as a defensive weapon, and to the profound stupefaction of
Emma, I hit the restive car with it. Then there was an epic scene!
Under the formidable hail of blows, the heavy vehicle behaved like a
restive horse--plunged, kicked and bucked. It tried everything to fling
us out of the saddle.
“Hold fast!” I said to my companion, and I laid on all the harder.
The engine growled; the hooter yelled with pain, or bellowed with rage.
On the sheet-metal of the hood, the blows rained thick and fast, and
the thrashing made the woods resound with a fabulous noise.
Suddenly uttering a shrill scream like an elephant, the metallic
mastodon gave a bound, executed two or three plunges, and then dashed
forward with the speed of lightning.
A runaway!
I was no longer master of the situation. The frenzy of a mad monster
ruled our fate. We were almost flying. The 80 h. p. car sped on with
the rapidity of a falling body. We could no longer breathe the wild
rushing air. Sometimes the hooter gave a strident cry.
We flashed through Grey-l’Abbaye like lightning. Hens and ducks were
under our wheels--blood on my glasses. We were going so fast that the
brass-plate of Maître Pallud gave me the impression of a golden streak.
On issuing from the village, the Route Nationale hedged us with its
plane trees, then the long hill with its slope formed an obstacle to
our speed. There, showing signs of weariness, for the first time, the
car slackened down, and allowed itself to be managed.
* * * * *
I had to thrash it often, to make it bring us as far as Nanthel where
we got in late, and without any hitch. As we passed over a gutter,
however, the copper mouth uttered an exclamation of pain, and I saw
that the jolt had just broken a spring of the off hind wheel.
When we got into the courtyard of the Hotel, I tried to fasten a new
spring into the felloe, but did not succeed. My attempts roused such
a noise from the hooter, that I had to give up trying to repair the
damage; besides it was not very urgent.
I had resolved to finish the journey in a train, and to put my
recalcitrant machine in the goods station. The future should decide
about its fate. For the moment I put it in the garage amongst the
phaëtons, buggies and limousines, but I hastily withdrew, knowing
that behind me, the round eyes of its head-lamps were shining with a
treacherous look.
As I reflected on all the ins and outs of this astonishing phenomenon,
and as I moved away, a phrase in a scientific article which I had once
read, and which had struck me, came into my mind, and I was not a
little surprised at finding in those words a vague explanation of the
marvel, and the promise of happenings no less astonishing.
“It is possible to imagine that there exists an intermediate link
between living creatures and inert matter, just as there exist links
between animals and vegetables.”
* * * * *
The Hotel had all the outward signs of luxurious comfort. A lift took
me up, and I was taken to our room.
My partner had preceded me. After being a prisoner for so long, she
was looking with a sort of eagerness at the street, the people moving
about, and the shops, whose glories were being lit up.
Emma could not tear herself away from the spectacle of life, and as
she dressed, she turned continually to the window, drawing aside the
curtains to behold the spectacle again.
I thought I perceived that she was less affectionate towards me.
My strange conduct in the car had not failed to surprise her. As I had
made up my mind not to give any explanation, I had no doubt that she
regarded me as a lunatic, hardly cured of his madness.
At dinner, which we took at little private tables lit up by candles,
whose soft light was that of a boudoir, Emma, surrounded by men in
evening dress, and women in low-necked frocks, made herself conspicuous
by her aggressive behavior which was quite out of place. She ogled
the men, and looked with a sneer at the women--sometimes admiring and
sometimes contemptuous--speaking her approval in a loud voice, and
laughing ostentatiously--which caused amusement and astonishment all
round us--in the most ridiculous and delicious manner.
She wanted to jabber with everybody there.
I carried her off as soon as I could, but her desire to get back to the
life of the world was so ardent, that we had to go immediately to some
place of public entertainment.
The theater was shut, and only the Casino was open, and that evening,
the entertainment consisted of a wrestling tournament organized in
imitation of Paris.
The little Hall was full of counter-jumpers, students and common folk.
A cloud was floating in it which was a mixture of all proletarian and
lower middle-class tobaccos.
Emma spread herself in her box. A vulgar bit of ragtime proceeding from
the shameless orchestra plunged her into ecstasy, and as her ecstasies
were not discreet, three hundred pairs of eyes turned round to look at
her, attracted by the waving of a fan, and the hat-feathers which also
courageously beat time.
Emma smiled and looked at the three hundred pair of eyes.
The wrestling aroused her enthusiasm, and more especially the
wrestlers. Those human brutes, whose heads--great jaw, and no
brow--seem destined for the sawdust-box of the guillotine aroused the
most unseemly excitement in my fair friend.
A hairy, tattooed colossus won. He came to make his bow, and as he did
so, awkwardly nodded a myrmidon’s head, with two little pig’s eyes
surmounting his titanic body.
He belonged to the town. His fellow-citizens gave him an ovation. He
was given the title of “Bastion of Nanthel,” and “Champion of the
Ardennes.”
Emma rose in her seat, applauding him so loudly and insistently, that
she both scandalized and amused the audience.
The Champion threw her a kiss. I felt my face getting red with shame.
We returned to the Hotel, exchanging bitter remarks.
Our apartment happened to be above the arch of the main door, where
motor-cars kept passing and re-passing until morning, which made me
dream of misfortunes and absurdities. My awakening brought me real
ones. Emma was gone!
In my astonishment, I endeavored to find plausible reasons for her
absence.
I rang for the waiter. He came, and handed me this letter, which I have
preserved, and whose criss-crossed paper, bespattered with blots and
blobs of ink, I now pin on to my piece of white paper:
“DEAR NICK,
“Pardon me for the pain I am causing you, but it is better that we
should part. I found again yesterday, my first lover Alcide, the
man I fought with Léonie about. He is the handsome fellow who won
the wrestling-match yesterday. I am going off with him. I could not
give up that kind of life, except for the sort of money which Lerne
promised me. I should have made you unhappy, and should have been
unfaithful to you. All the rest amounts to nothing. I want a real
man. It is not your fault, and so I hope this will not cause you any
pain. Adieu for life.
“EMMA BOURDICHET.”
In the presence of so categorical an intimation, couched in jargon
almost as barbarous as that of the Law Courts, I could only bow to
fate. Moreover, were not those sentiments which Emma was expressing,
exactly those which had charmed me in her? Had I not loved in her just
that thirst for pleasure which was the cause of her bewitching beauty,
and the cause of her infidelity?
I had the energy and wisdom to defer the rest of my reflections until
the morrow. They might have brought on weakness in action.
I inquired about the first train for Paris, and sent for a mechanic to
undertake to dispatch my 80 h. p. car, or, if you prefer to call it,
the Klotz-automobile, to me.
I was soon informed of the man’s arrival. Together we went to the
garage.
The car had disappeared!
It can easily be imagined that I put the two treasonable acts together,
and accused Emma of a secret complicity.
But the Manager of the Hotel, thinking he had to do with audacious
thieves, went off to the police-office. He came back, saying that they
had found in a little street of the _faubourg_, a car with the number
234XY, which had been abandoned, as he thought, by thieves, for want of
petrol. The tank was empty.
“Ah! just so,” said I to myself. Klotz wanted to run away. He forgot
about the exhaustion of the petrol, and there he is, paralyzed.
I kept the true version of the incident to myself, and advised the
mechanic to push the car to the train, without making the engine go.
“Promise me this,” I insisted, “it is very important. My train is due,
I must be off. Off you go, and remember, _no petrol_.”