The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (35 page)

‘I?’ said Roger.

‘If you are not utterly wanting in courage.’

Unlike the moment when he had been called a lunatic, Roger had remained calm.

‘Very well! Let us fight. It is perhaps all for the best.’

‘Where may my seconds call upon you?’

‘I am staying at the Hôtel d’Anjou, Rue Louis-le-Grand.’

‘What time shall we say?’

‘Seven o’clock this evening, if that is convenient for you.’

The two men bowed to each other and Roger, who had not thought to ask his adversary’s name, made for the Champs-Elysées. He no longer looked around with curiosity. He walked quickly, his hand in his pockets and his head lowered. His exaltation of a few minutes ago had subsided. The appearance of this man, who resembled M. Lannoy to such a striking degree, had dumbfounded him. Undoubtedly, some bloody adventure, in which he had been one of the protagonists, and which he had forgotten, or rather which he hadn’t dared to remember until then, had come back to him. It was not difficult to reconstruct what must have happened. Behind his impoliteness, behind his accusation that the stranger had killed another man in a duel, even behind the wretched nature of M. Lannoy’s subsequent death, there was a woman’s weakness, a husband’s vengeance, and all the attendant consequences. Presumably Roger must have been the confidant of the wife, the friend of the lover, or a comrade of the husband. If he had been overcome by such a violent burst of anger at hearing himself described as a lunatic, it was surely because his reason had become unbalanced; and if his reason had become unbalanced, it was either because, by some thoughtless act, he had been the cause of the catastrophe or had been somehow prevented from stopping events taking their course.

Oppressed by the weight of these memories, such as they were, he was tormented for several minutes by visions of death. Perhaps he glimpsed the shades of his former friends beseeching him with outstretched hands. Then, slowly, the reality of the situation impressed itself on his thoughts, and he congratulated himself on his forthcoming duel with this double of the man whom he had hated so much – because, by some mysterious psychological process, the stranger whom he had accosted, curiously unaware of his reincarnation, and M. Lannoy had become in his mind one and the same person. Yes, he would run him through with his sword; make him pay for all the pain and regret that he had inflicted.

Savouring his imminent triumph, Roger’s hatred subsided. His face, totally distraught until that moment, brightened, then became pensive again. Roger meditated. He had a facility for making logical connections between strange ideas, and these ideas, so familiar to him that he had forged his own system out of them, told him what the consequences of all this would be. Since chance, almost as soon as he set foot in Paris, had made him cross paths with M. Lannoy, and since it was quite possible, as he himself believed, that those who had died reappear in living form many years later, and with exactly the same features as when they were buried, none of this could be coincidental. Thus, it was quite permissible for him to think that his former friends, just like the man whom he had once hated, were to be found somewhere and that they would look exactly the same as they had done in the past. Life, after all, is no more than an endless story which is no sooner finished than it resumes again; one in which the actors, whether or not they seem to survive the
dénouement
, tragic or otherwise, mount the boards again the following night with the same passions and the same faces, to present a new play only to a different audience. Since he had chanced upon one of the actors in the drama of his own life, why shouldn’t all the others be close at hand, their lines carefully prepared? The wife of the man whose name he didn’t know, and the other man who was no doubt paying his attentions to her, could not possibly be unfamiliar to him. Without conscious effort, he recalled their names: Martial and Léonie. He pronounced these names aloud, first with trembling voice, then with an arrogant smile on his lips. This time he knew precisely what was going on and would be able to make a decisive intervention!

He was suddenly afraid. What if fortune did not favour him in his duel the next day? What if he should be killed? Far from saving his friends, it would perhaps be he who brought about their ruin, his foolish words averted the husband, who would set a trap for them. There was only one way to help them: he had to warn them of the danger they were in. But how could he do that? He could hardly expect to bump into them accidentally and, even if they recognised each other, how could he be sure that they would trust him?

He stopped, wiped his forehead, which was covered in sweat, and, his mood suddenly swinging from extreme agitation to one of tremendous calmness, he said to himself:

Of course! I know exactly where they are! If I present them with the evidence, they must believe me!’

For the first time since he had left the Madeleine, he took stock of where he was. He had walked along the Champs-Elysées, gone past the Arc de Triomphe, and turned into the Avenue de l’Impératrice. On his right, he noticed Doctor Vermond’s mental asylum, a large white building, which has since been demolished, and as he looked at it he smiled delicately and rather disdainfully to himself. However, catching sight of some people coming out of the building, he moved on with a certain haste, shooting the cuffs of his jacket, brushing his lapels, and composing his deportment into something suitably unruffled and aimless to pass through the gate of the Bois-de-Boulogne. By now, it was three o’clock in the afternoon and carriages and pedestrians littered the edge of the lake. Roger avoided the crowds and made his way round as quickly as possible to the least frequented side of the woods. Within a quarter of an hour, he had come to a little crossroads where five or six paths converged, some reserved for pedestrians, others accessible by coach. He noted, with satisfaction, that he could see in all directions and that the spot was deserted.

‘This is where they used to come,’ he said, ‘they should be here any time now.’

He leaned against a tree and waited. The intense excitement of the morning’s events had subsided now and he acted with remarkable composure. He had no doubt that his secret hypotheses were completely accurate. Perhaps, though without being aware of it, he was reasoning on the basis of less metaphysical factors? Lannoy – as he called him, not knowing any other name to call him by – had looked as if he were about to go on a trip. The lovers, if they really existed, would naturally take advantage of his absence to see each other, and they might well decide to go for a walk in the afternoon. There was a genuine likelihood that they would choose these woods for their walk; and once in the woods they would undoubtedly prefer the side where they were least likely to meet anyone else. Roger began to feel somewhat melancholy. The sun was sinking down towards the horizon, piercing the foliage, which was still luxuriant for the time of year, with slanting rays of light. An incredibly thin veil of mist hovered in the air, and the only sound that could be heard was the far off rumble of carriages. The last radiant days of autumn do not invite the hope and happiness of spring; they suggest instead a sense of resignation. Roger forgot about the present and sought refuge in the past. Formerly, this was where his friends would arrange to meet him, where they would confide in him or asked him favours. Nearly always he had been the first to arrive, and, just like today, he had waited alone. Before long, a carriage stopped in one of the lanes. A man and a woman got out and, talking together, wandered off. The man had a proud and noble bearing; the woman was quite charming. The yellowing leaves which had fallen from the trees rustled under their feet. They passed right in front of Roger; but they were so preoccupied with each other that they ignored him completely.

It should also be added that he hid himself so as not to embarrass them. After a while, they turned round and came back again. It was definitely them. The man had Martial’s pale skin, his black eyes, his high forehead, and an impressive moustache. Equally, the woman had Léonie’s chestnut hair, her large, blue eyes, and the same fresh complexion. Martial was listening attentively to Léonie. What were they saying? All the sweet nothings of love! For the most part, they just gazed at each other, smiling, and squeezed each other’s hands; but, occasionally, they became pensive: there was a cloud on their beautiful horizon. Léonie was suffering from the instinctive fears suffered by every guilty woman, and these she confided, in a trembling voice, to her lover who, in order to dispel her anxieties, treated them as mere fancies, though they nonetheless caused him a few anxious moments too. There was a sense that this love which they had sworn to be eternal could be abruptly shattered at any moment.

Such was the charming picture that Roger’s memory had drawn for him. Then, slowly, this mental image appeared before his very eyes.

He thought he really could see Martial and Léonie; but he was afraid that if he spoke to them they would disappear like apparitions in a dream, and so he said nothing. They had crossed in front of him several times by now, blissfully at first, then more sadly. As they made their next circuit, the illusion became so strong that Roger made up his mind. It used to be his custom to go up to them and try to distract them from their unhappiness; but, on this occasion, he had taken no more than a few steps when his friends began to stare at him with astonishment, seeming not to recognise him.

‘My dear Martial,’ said Roger. ‘I’ve come especially to dispel your gloomy thoughts. I must say, though, you don’t look very glad to see me!’

‘I’m afraid you are mistaken, sir,’ replied the young man. ‘My name is not Martial, and I don’t understand what you are saying.’

‘And you, madam, – Léonie – don’t you recognise me either?’

The young woman’s only reply was to press herself against her companion. At that moment, Roger experienced the same shock as a sleep-walker who is suddenly awakened. His memories, so powerful that they had become living images, making him confuse dream and reality, ceased to delude him. He did, indeed, have before him the man and the woman for whom he had been searching; but even though reality had manifested itself, just as he had imagined it would, the transition was so abrupt that he felt but faint joy.

‘Damn it!’ he said, smiling bitterly. ‘These are the Martial and the Léonie of the present not the past.’

‘Ah! A lunatic!’ muttered the young woman.

Roger heard the remark, but did not react angrily as he had done with the man he had called M. Lannoy.

‘A lunatic!’ he repeated. ‘Why should they think that? Why should they presume that I am a lunatic merely because they don’t understand me? Of course, they don’t recognise me because they both died while I went on living. One can change a great deal in the course of six years, especially when those six years have been passed, as they have for me, in study and sorrow. They are still the same though. It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends, but time which stops. It leaves us just how it finds us, young or old, neither adding nor removing a single wrinkle. Martial, what is your name at this moment?’

The young man and his companion stared at Roger. Despite his strange appearance and the truly unfathomable look in his eyes, which were so clear and animated, his features radiated such a natural goodness, the tone of his voice was so soft, that they were reluctant to take their leave too abruptly in case they should offend him. Besides which, the singularity of his speech fascinated them.

‘I am Ernest,’ replied the young man.

‘And you, madam?’

The young woman hesitated.

‘You needn’t be afraid,’ said Roger. ‘I have no intention of betraying you.’

Then, without waiting for an answer, he suddenly became peculiarly voluble:

‘Talking of betrayal, I have something very important to tell you. You must forgive me, I had forgotten all about it, even though that was what really brought me here.’

He grabbed Ernest’s arm. This time the young woman genuinely did feel afraid.

‘Ernest,’ she said. ‘Let’s go, please.’

‘No, no,’ replied Roger. ‘You mustn’t leave until you have heard what I have to say.’

And he retained Ernest by his clothes.

The young man might have heard him out, but at that moment some people started to approach. He made a sign to his driver, who drew up at a brisk trot, helped the young woman into the carriage and, freeing himself by force from Roger’s grasp, climbed in after her, ordering the coachman to drive on smartly as he did so.

As Roger, who had been pushed rudely backwards, watched the carriage gather speed, he shouted after them:

‘Come back! Come back!’

Although he ran after them, Roger had no chance of catching them. He was out of breath in a few moments. He was also afraid that someone would ask him to explain his strange behaviour. Just as he was starting to despair a vacant cab drew alongside him. He jumped in and ordered it in pursuit of the carriage. Owing to the numerous coaches driving back from the woods along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, it was easy not to lose sight of the carriage a little way ahead of Roger’s cab which, mingling in with the rest, even managed to gain a little on it. In this way, he followed them at a suitable distance as far as the Café Anglais where Ernest and his companion got out again. Roger, his composure completely restored by this time, and delighted at his success, paid the cab driver and slipped nimbly along the boulevard, until he caught up with Ernest and his companion who were entering a restaurant which had private parlours on the first floor. He looked at his watch and was just about to install himself on the ground floor until they came out when an inconvenient thought occurred to him.

‘Six o’clock already,’ he said to himself, ‘and that gentleman promised he would send his seconds to my hotel at seven! It would be inexcusable to make them wait.’

At that moment, he was more preoccupied with M. Lannoy than anything else. He had not given enough consideration to the matter of his duel. He should have found himself some seconds, but he had forgotten all about it. The fact of the matter was that Roger didn’t know where to find any. Given that he had just returned to Paris after a long absence, as one might have guessed from the way he had been strolling about that very morning, and given that he had a reason for not wanting anyone to know of his presence, the most minor transactions were fraught with difficulty. He also reflected that this meeting with his adversary’s seconds or with his adversary himself, however brief it might be kept, would most likely prevent him from returning to the Café Anglais in time to accomplish the plan he had formulated in his mind. Struggling with such trivial problems of daily life, Roger assumed a pensive air. He was also cold and hungry. After walking up and down for a minute or two, he seemed to make a decision and returned to his hotel.