The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (36 page)

Once in his room, he wrote this letter:

Sir,

I cannot express my disappointment at not being available at the hour I asked you to call. Unfortunately, I have been detained by an extremely urgent matter. However, my absence will obviate a perfectly unnecessary discussion. I have decided to kill you tomorrow. I have not had time to make arrangements concerning my seconds. With your agreement, and I see no reason why you should withhold it, our encounter shall take place at Vincennes, and I shall ask two soldiers from the local garrison to act as seconds on my behalf. The terms of the combat are a matter of complete indifference to me. They may be settled without delay on the spot.

PS I would be most obliged if you could provide the pistols and swords. Once again, my apologies for any inconvenience I may have occasioned you.

Roger read this through with satisfaction, sealed the envelope, and enjoined a servant to give it to the gentleman who were to call on him at seven o’clock. He looked for an overcoat, but there was not a single item of clothing in his trunk. He opened the cupboards and drawers of the chest; they were completely empty.

‘What am I thinking about!’ he wondered. Of course none of my clothes are here. I am not at home.’

He had to make do with wrapping his frock-coat around himself and pulling up the collar. A few minutes later, he was sitting in the Café Anglais. He had just started his meal when a waiter enquired:

‘’Scuse me, sir. Aren’t you the gentleman who breakfasted here?’

‘Yes. What of it?’

‘Not long after you left someone brought a book from your hotel for you.’

‘That’s right; I asked someone to fetch it for me. Let me see it, I know what it is.’

Nonetheless, he opened the book and read the title:
On the Transmigration of the Human Soul into the Bodies of Animals.

He shut it angrily.

‘If Pythagoras was one of the wisest men in Greece,’ he muttered, ‘what fools the rest of them must have been!’

Roger tried to control himself, but he was less at ease than before dinner. He ate quietly, continually checking his watch. He thought of Martial and Léonie, or rather of Ernest and the young woman who accompanied him.

‘I bet they are thinking of me too,’ he said to himself.

At a quarter to seven, he made up his mind: ‘That’s it. In a quarter of an hour, I shall go and see them.’

Then he buried his head in his hands, put his elbows on the table, and remained so deeply absorbed in his thoughts that the waiters pointed at him and whispered to each other.

Ernest and his lady friend were, indeed, thinking about him. In the Bois-de-Boulogne, they had been worried by his attempt to follow them; but as soon as they were back in Paris they felt confidant that they had given him the slip. Once they were in the restaurant, they were completely reassured. The meal was a sad affair, however; they hardly touched their food and no more than exchanged the odd word. All lovers have such moments, when the promised happiness one has looked forward to all day fails to materialise; when forebodings, real or imaginary, weigh on the soul; when conversation dries up and the ensuing silence only serves to make the tension worse. The hidden cause of this discomfort is some unexpected but profound anxiety within ourselves. In the end, this anxiety always finds a means of making itself known.

‘Ernest,’ said the young woman, ‘that man we met in the woods … He was a lunatic, wasn’t he?’

‘He certainly looked like one.’

‘What could he possibly have wanted to say to us?’

‘Nothing of interest. We just reminded him of a man and a woman he once used to know and it gave him a funny turn seeing us.’

‘What an odd thing to say though, that we were dead?’

‘Ernest made no reply.

‘I’m afraid,’ she continued. ‘It feels as if some misfortune is hanging over our heads!’

Ernest was sitting opposite the young woman. He got up and went to sit next to her on the divan.

‘Dearest Clementine,’ he said, ‘why worry yourself like this?’

‘I don’t know … What if my husband has become suspicious? He hasn’t been himself for the last couple of days. This morning, he told me he was going to the countryside. What if he changed his mind?’

‘What difference does it make? In another hour, I shall drive you home. All you have to do is say that you dined at a friend’s.’

‘Oh!’ replied Clementine tearfully. ‘How awful it is having to live like this, always having to lie! At best, all we get is the odd hour of happiness every now and again; and this happiness which, after overcoming a thousand and one obstacles, we think we have won, then slips away from us. I was so happy this morning. It was sunny. When we got to the woods, I felt so proud walking arm-in-arm with you. There was nobody there to see us. Then we became sad, I don’t know why, and then we ran into that dreadful man. Why was he there? What business had he to be there? What did he want to tell us? Why can’t I get him out of my mind ….’

She broke off as the waiter came into the room.

‘Sorry to intrude, sir,’ he said to Ernest, ‘but there is a gentleman downstairs who would like to speak with madam and yourself. Although this gentleman does not seem to be quite himself, he described you perfectly. I told him that I didn’t know who it was he wanted to speak to; but he was quite insistent that he had seen you come in … I said I would enquire whether …’

‘It’s him again,’ said Clementine, ‘it’s that dreadful man!’

After asking the waiter to describe him, Ernest was in no doubt that it was Roger.

‘We must let him speak to us,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he really does know something which concerns us. What’s more, he could cause a scene if we refuse.’

He told the waiter to show him in.

Roger came in immediately. He looked very serious.

‘You will excuse my behaviour,’ he said, addressing Ernest and Clementine at the same time, ‘when you learn the motives which have prompted it.’

‘Speak, sir; we shall listen to you attentively,’ replied Ernest.

Roger collected his thoughts, then he looked Ernest in the eye and asked him:

‘Do you believe in metempsychosis?’

‘I must admit, sir, that I have never given the matter much thought.’

‘Well,’ went on Roger, ‘I do believe in it. The guiding principle behind metempsychosis is a very sensible one. It is one of the rules of life that none of the basic elements are destroyed by death. They are merely transformed so as to be reborn. If our body, on its return to the earth, fertilises the land in order to produce the harvests, it is probable that the soul, also upon its liberation, finds some new employment as well. However, I don’t believe in metempsychosis as one usually understands the term. Until now, there have been two opinions on the subject. The first is that of Pythagoras and the second, which is altogether more radical, that of Hindu philosophy, which believes that the soul, on quitting the human frame, goes into the body of an animal or even into the body of an inanimate object. The symbolism is quite ingenious: the soul of an inexorable man may be locked in a rock, one can imagine that of a money-lender in a sponge, and the impetuous soul of a conqueror in a lion. Fundamentally though, this is ridiculous. The soul, which is a divine emanation, cannot debase itself in this way. It is not possible that intelligence, simply by going into the body of an animal, can be turned into instinct, and it is even less possible for the soul to be condemned to the immobility of matter. As for the other system, although it is undoubtedly the more logical, it is still incomplete. It consists of the belief that the soul of a dying person animates the body of a child who is just being born at that very instant. In this way, the soul, by a retrogressive evolution, makes its way from grave to cradle. During the first years, until the development of the organs allow it to manifest itself, it remains, if not inert, at least asleep. Otherwise this process would represent wasted energy, and that is not an idea worthy of God’s vision.

‘Let me now explain my own system to you, which I call the system of affinities.’

Ernest, who preferred not to interrupt Roger, made a sign of assent. Clementine was torn between fear and curiosity.

‘However different men may be on the basis of their looks, characters, and aptitudes, it is nonetheless possible to categorise them. Medical science, for example, classifies them according to their physical constitutions. Ethically speaking, there are the clever and the stupid, the courageous and the cowardly, the generous and the selfish. Society itself, with regard to its own internal regulation, has further developed such categories. It is extremely difficult to be a poet, scholar or soldier if your aptitudes and temperament are not suited to such occupations. The result of this is that the essence of the soul – if we understand by that word, as it is right we should, the moral and intellectual principles which, through their alliance with matter, constitute life – must fragment itself in such a way as to supply to each of these collective individualities of which society is comprised the qualities which are necessary. In short, underlying the human soul in the widest sense we find the soul of the poet, the soul of the soldier, the soul of the scholar. I merely give these as examples. There are many others. It follows that these souls with their various nuances are as numerous as there are different occupations in society, whatever the social standing of each one might be. When a soul, following the body’s exhaustion, ceases to be utilised, it goes, according to a law of affinity, to wherever an element of a similar nature calls its. Such and such poet dies and is reborn in a living poet, generally younger, though occasionally older. Age has no importance. This soul, which has been rendered free, carries the sum of the experiences it has acquired, its aspirations, and its creative force to this other soul. It is easy to spot the moment this fusion occurs. The work of the man who receives this unexpected assistance suddenly assumes a new maturity, his originality emerges, his personality at last stands out. He overcomes everything which stands in his way. If he looks for something, he finds it. Darkness is replaced by light. There are many expressions in circulation which describe this transformation, though they are meaningless to ordinary people. We say, for example, that an artist has found his way; that an officer has shown his true colours. In this way, the soul through its immortality contributes to human progress; though, in its successive peregrinations, it perhaps never entirely loses self-consciousness nor quite forgets its previous states; at least, if we give credence to those vague sensations which are but the confused memories of our previous lives, memories which suddenly come back to us without prompting and whose secret we have not yet learned to unravel.’

Ernest was so astonished by this strange discourse, that he was unable to prevent himself from asking:

‘Are you quite sure about all this?’

‘Yes, and all the more so since I am myself an example of such a phenomenon. The only difference is that I have had the rare good fortune to know the man whose soul has merged with mine. A few years ago, as a result of an event which I shall relate to you in a moment, I was obliged to spend some time in a mental institution.’

Ernest and Clementine simultaneously recoiled.

‘Ah ha!’ said Roger, in a bantering tone, which disconcerted them both. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “At last! He even admits it himself!” Why shouldn’t I admit it. Only lunatics who are afraid of a relapse make a secret of their shameful misfortune. Such woes are well behind me. Anyway, the doctor who was second-in-charge of this mental home was about the same age as me. We looked almost alike and shared a great many interests in common. I have always been inclined towards the discipline of psychology, the subject in which he was principally engaged. During my convalescence, I devoted myself entirely to such studies; and he helped me with his advice. But he had been very ill for some time and died. From the moment of his death, I acquired the most penetrating insight. Problems which until then had been insoluble suddenly ceased to be so. It was then that I made the very important discovery which I have just exposed to you.’

‘Sir,’ replied Ernest, who was beginning to worry that Roger had nothing more interesting to say, ‘your discovery is highly commendable; but it is late and I fail to see any relation that there might be between it and what you came here to communicate to us.’

‘There is a very significant one; one which you will grasp for yourselves from the story that I am about to relate. First, though, allow me to make one final remark about my system. A few moments ago, in order to make my point clear, I cited to you some examples of how it operates which were drawn from public life; but the same phenomenon takes place in the private domain and in a manner which is just as apparent. From the instant that the fusion takes place between our soul and the new one, our individuality, formless as it was until then, assumes a clear shape and, from among the different paths before us, we select the one that is the most suited to us. There is one consequence which follows from this which is really rather odd. This fusion of souls, which facilitates certain physical and moral resemblances between the living and the dead, also gives rise to physionomical and behavioural similarities. If the living person is much younger, as soon as the difference in age which separates them has been passed, then the identity which establishes itself between them becomes much more marked. Sometimes, if they both belong to the same social sphere, the destiny of the survivor seems to mirror exactly the achievements which the deceased accomplished during his own lifetime. The past of one becomes the present of the other. After all, does not our destiny depend on the choices we make at crucial moments of our life? And are not these moments created by ourselves as a result of previous decisions we have made, decisions likewise influenced by our drives and desires? Why should it surprise us when the survivor, who has become indistinguishable from his dead counterpart in body and soul, who reasons and reacts like his predecessor, encounters some of the same set of people?