Rigadoon (33 page)
Authors: Louis-ferdinand & Manheim Celine
"Let's get out of here!"
For us, I think, everything's dangerous . . . these birds . . . I'm sure they've escaped from their aviaries . . . they must have come from down south like us, from zoos in Germany, bombed . . . anyway, my canes! . . . I struggle to my feet . . . and back to the streetcar! . . . I've told you, the terminus . . . where we came from . . . we'll find the way . . .
If you ask me, that's enough . . . 791 pages . . . whew! . . . enough? . . . enough? . . . not at all! I'd signed up . . . I had to finish . . . oh, not that I gave a damn! . . . but Achille wasn't going to shell out any advances for asking myself questions . . . being neither a queen nor a cokehead nor a common-law criminal, I have no excuse . . . if you're a cabinet minister, your debts don't count . . . if you belong to some Academy, they'll understand your weaknesses . . . but me, suppose I start talking about
Journey
, that it's a date in history, that everything that's been written since is "clumsy imitation, lukewarm gook" . . . they'll tell me to go fuck myself! . . .
"You arrogant old fool! nobody's even read your
Journey!"
No answer to that one! . . . the younger generation are absolute idiots, can I help it? . . . all they're interested in is the movies! . . . not a single producer knows how to read . . . all the more reason! . . . the movies know nothing, stop at nothing . . . what audacity! bravo! . . . you tell yourself that if you manage to turn out 791 pages more or less right side up, it's plenty! especially as this chronicle isn't so very gay . . . and the rest if I finished it wouldn't exactly make you laugh . . . not that I go looking for tragedy, mind you! . . . I do my best to avoid it . . . but
bam!
. . . naturally in the conditions we're reduced to it tends to catch up with us . . . if we'd stayed on rue Girardon, we'd have been rubbed out right away . . . murder with trimmings, "Dental Institute"° or "Villa Saïd"° . . . Achille's galley is pretty rough, I admit, especially at my age, but all the same a breeze compared to what we'd have been in for . . . step one, flayed alive . . . step two, larded and spitted with small onions and green peppers over a low fire . . . maybe you think I'm partial . . . holy cathouse, not at all! . . . they were the same in both camps! Cousteau was as stinking mean ferocious as Sartre . . . true as I'm standing here, the Petiots of both camps have the same instruments of torture ready for me . . . I've seen them . . . same perfected racks and . . . where? you'll ask me . . . okay, I'll tell you, it won't cost you anything to look . . . down under the L.V.F.° office that used to be the "Intourist" . . . corner of Caumartin and Auber, a deep, enormous cellar, straight out of Piranesi, absolutely incredible! . . . go see for yourself, they've thought of everything . . . I'll repeat the address: across the street from the Turkish baths . . . you see how impartial I am, pure historian . . . equally sadistic in both camps . . . only one aim in life: murder! blood and guts! fricasseed brains, slaves to the barracudas, Christians to the jaguars, collaborators to Villa Said . . . you'll see a thing or two tomorrow! . . . foaming kettles on every street corner . . . for who? . . . who do you think? for you! to simmer you with the season's slogans . . . but one little thing that bothers me . . . sticks in my craw . . . their bad manners . . . if Hitler, for instance, had won, and he only missed it by a hair, take it from me, they'd have been all for him . . . mad scramble to see who could hang more Jews, who could be a bigger Nazi . . . extract Churchill's guts, exhibit Roosevelt's heart, make the most love with Goering . . . whichever way it turns out, they all come running, all the same to them which organ they land on as long as they got a thorough fucking . . . believe you me, a hair and they'd all be sucking Hitler off! . . .
I had a right, you'll admit . . . 796 pages . . . to take a breather . . . oh, not to deliver messages! . . . the "messagiers" are a different breed, philosophico-addlepated, heaven help you if you mess with them, if you lose yourself in their waves, urinals, terraces, abbeys . . . complexes, seaweeds, and complications, you'll never get your bearings again . . .
knock knock!
somebody's there! . . .
wah! grrr! miow! tweet! tweet!
. . . I'm imitating the pack for you . . . and the trees, you know, the birds . . .
ding-a-ling!
the door! . . . and Flute, the cat . . . he's a bold one!. . .
"Come in! . . . come in!"
"Ah, how are you?"
It's Ducourneau! this is serious! . . . he hasn't come for nothing . . . right away we get together . . . just a few minor questions . . . that does it! . . . just an accent here, a comma there . . . you've got to watch out for copyreaders, you see, they operate with "plain common sense" . . . "plain common sense" is the death of rhythm! . . . all fuckers of imperfect women, I know whereof I speak . . . Ducourneau has come to see me for the N.R.F. . . . you suspected as much, about the last little trifles, the p.e.'s and tr.'s . . . on that God-awful paper from Madame Bolloré's vats in earth's end° . . . a few slight changes if possible, nobody dares! . . . imagine!
Journey
and
Death on the Installment Plan
. . . coming out at the end of the year, under his command . . . and don't forget it! . . . as long as he's here, we talk about one thing and another . . . Balzac, for instance! . . . it seems that Balzac came to Meudon . . . and stayed in Bellevue at the house of Count Apponyi, the Austrian ambassador . . . Ducourneau is a "Balzacien" and no dilettante . . . far from it! . . . serious and thorough! . . . knocked himself out trying to find a trace of Balzac and this Count Apponyi . . . no luck! . . . at the town hall . . . at the land office . . . at the notary's . . . nothing! . . . if a reader has any information, would he be kind enough to write . . . ? Ducourneau changes the subject . . . "and what about you?" he asks me . . . "your affairs?"
"My dear Ducourneau, it's not the Pléiade with its four percent royalty that's going to put me on easy street! four percent is kidding the Muses . . . the Pléiade authors won't complain, they're all dead . . . except two . . . or three . . . survivors . . .
'Lacquer Lock' . . . 'Walking Bust' . . . and me-that-gripes . . . 'Lacquer Lock' is rich, 'Walking Bust' has no need of anybody, eminent patrician, Olympus' con man, toast of the Academies . . ."
"Your case is hideous indeed, a semi-living 'Pléiaden,' virtually unknown, except for your abominable past. . ."
Ducourneau was telling the truth, but if I complain about the four percent and tell them their Pléiade is a shameless racket, they'll tell me to go chase myself, shower me with a new batch of insults, and kick me out of the "cemetery" . . .
Ducourneau agrees.
Same as my father and mother at Père-Lachaise . . . their names were rubbed out. . .
"My dear Balzacien, this state of affairs won't last!"
"Why not?"
"Why not? I'll tell you! . . . I keep informed! the Chinks, the genuine Chinese, the hard-core, the ones that are going to occupy France . . . right now they're bivouacking in Silesia . . . Breslau and environs . . . mines and blast furnaces . . . and there's more coming! lots more across the steppes . . . hordes and hordes! . . . Kirghizes, Moldo-Finns, Balto-Ruthenians, Teutons . . . you'll see them at the Porte de Pantin, welcomed by the biggest crowds you ever saw! howling with wine, happiness, freedom!"
"Bravo! bravo! when are you expecting them?"
"Soon . . . say in two three years."
"All Communists?"
"Naturally! but that's nothing! . . . the big thing is their blood! . . . it's only the blood that counts! they've got the 'dominant blood' . . . and don't forget it!"
I point out to him that in Byzantium they were worrying about the sex of the angels when already the Turks were shaking the ramparts . . . setting fire to the low quarters, like here now in Algeria . . . you won't see our Great Transitioners worrying about the sex of the angels . . . or the yellow peril! what they're interested in is eating . . . better and better! . . . and wines to match . . . menus a yard long! are they or aren't they the masters of the swillingest nation in the world? and the most saturated? . . . let the Chinese come if they dare, they won't get any further than Cognac! the famous yellow peril will end up in the cellars . . . happy, stewed to the gills! besides, it's a long way to Cognac . . . billions and billions of them will be out for the count by the time they get to you know where . . . Rheims . . . Epernay . . . those bubbling depths that cancel our existence . . .
CHRONOLOGY
1894 Louis-Ferdinand Destouches born on Courbevoie (Seine),
son of Ferdinand Destouches, minor employee of an
insurance firm, and Louise-Céline Guillou, lacemaker.
1905
Certificat d'études
. Starts work as an apprentice and
messenger boy.
1912 Enlists for three years in the 12th Cavalry Division.
1914 Wounded in Poelcapelle, Flanders. High military honors.
Severe head and arm injuries resulting in 75 percent disability
rating and withdrawal from active service.
1916 Trip to Cameroons with Occupation Services. Malaria.
Amoebic dysentery. Travels to London for Armament Service.
1917 Obtains baccalaureate degree. Preparation completed on
his own.
1918 Begins medical studies in Rennes.
1919 Marriage to Edith Follet, daughter of the director of the
medical school.
1920 Daughter, Colette, born.
1924 Diploma from the Faculté de Médecine in Paris. Doctoral thesis
on Semmelweis. Missions for Rockefeller Foundation in Geneva
and Liverpool.
1925 Further travel in Cameroons, United States, Canada and Cuba.
Divorced.
1928 Sets up practice in Clichy. General practitioner, specialist in
children's diseases.
1932
Voyage au bout de la nuit
published by Denoël and Steele.
1933
L'église
, Celine's only play.
1936
Mort à crédit
. Trip to Russia financed by royalties from
Russian translation of
Voyage
by Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet.
Upon return, denounces communist society.
1937
Bagatelles pour un massacre
, racist pamphlet, followed by two
similar works ( 1938, 1941 ).
1939 Attempts to enlist. Rejected due to ill health. Ship's doctor,
then runs dispensary in Sartrouville. Leaves Paris.
Ambulance service. Returns to practice in Montmartre.
1942 Trip to Berlin.
1943 Marriage to Lucette Almanzor, a dancer.
1944
Guignols band
published by Gallimard. Leaves Paris in an
attempt to reach Denmark, accompanied by his wife, his cat
Bébert, and a movie actor, Le Vigan. Imprisoned in Berlin,
then goes into exile in Sigmaringen.
1945 With his wife and cat, crosses Germany on foot amid bomb-
ardments. Hides in Copenhagen. French legation asks for his
arrest. Fourteen months in the prison of Vensterfangsel.
1947 Released. Lives in an attic on the Princessgade, then in a hut on
the Baltic Sea.
1950 Condemned by a French court to a year of prison,
fine of 50,000 francs, and the confiscation of half his property.
1951 Exonerated by military tribunal.
Sets up practice among the poor in Meudon on the outskirts
of Paris.
1952
Féerie
pour une autre fois
published by Gallimard,
as are all his subsequent works.
1954
Normance
,
féerie pour une autre fois II.
1956
Entretiens avec le professeur.
1957
D'un château Vautre.
1960
Nord.
1961 Death and burial, kept secret from the press.
Rigodon
published posthumously.
GLOSSARY
COUSTEAU.
Paul-Antoine Cousteau, born in 1906, not to be confused with Jacques-Yves, the oceanographer. Journalist. Contributed to Je suis partout, an extreme rightist weekly published in Paris from 1933 to 1939 and from 1941 to 1944. Taken prisoner by the Germans in June 1940, he was set free in 1941. Became associate editor of
Je suis partout
, which had been suspended at the outbreak of the war but was relaunched under the German occupation, and of
Paris-Soir
. Replaced Brasillach as editor-in-chief of
Je suis partout
in 1943. Fled to Baden-Baden in 1944, then to Landau, where he broadcasted for Radio-Patrie. Condemned to death in 1946, then reprieved, after which, if Céline is to be believed, he turned against his former associates.
