IV

 

A CARRIAGE drew up late one afternoon outside the house at Fontenay.  As Des Esseintes never had any visitors and the postman did not so much as approach this uninhabited region, since there were no newspapers, reviews, or letters to be delivered, the servants hesitated, wondering whether they should answer the door or not.  But when the bell was sent jangling violently against the wall, they ventured so far as to uncover the spy-hole let into the door, and beheld a gentleman whose entire breast was covered, from neck to waist, by a huge buckler of gold.

      They informed their master, who was at breakfast.

      "Yes indeed," he said; "show the gentleman in" - for he remembered having once given his address to a lapidary so that the man might deliver an article he had ordered.

      The gentleman bowed his way in, and on the pitch-pine floor of the dining-room he deposited his golden buckler, which rocked backwards and forwards, rising a little from the ground and stretching out at the end of a snake-like neck a tortoise's head which, in a sudden panic, it drew back under its carapace.

      This tortoise was the result of a fancy which had occurred to him shortly before leaving Paris.  Looking one day at an Oriental carpet aglow with iridescent colours, and following with his eyes the silvery glints running across the weft of the wool, which was a combination of yellow and plum, he had thought what a good idea it would be to place on this carpet something that would move about and be dark enough to set off these gleaming tints.

      Possessed by this idea, he had wandered at random through the streets as far as the Palais-Royal, where he glanced at Chevet's display and suddenly struck his forehead - for there in the window was a huge tortoise in a tank.  He had bought the creature; and once it had been left to itself on the carpet, he had sat down and subjected it to a long scrutiny, screwing up his eyes in concentration.

      Alas, there could be no doubt about it: the nigger-brown tint, the raw Sienna hue of the shell, dimmed the sheen of the carpet instead of bringing out its colours; the predominating gleams of silver had now lost nearly all their sparkled and matched the cold tones of scraped zinc along the edges of this hard, lustreless carapace.

      He bit his nails, trying to discover a way of resolving the marital discord between these tints and preventing an absolute divorce.  At last he came to the conclusion that his original idea of using a dark object moving to and fro to stir up the fires within the woollen pile was mistaken.  The fact of the matter was that the carpet was still too bright, too garish, to new-looking; its colours had not yet been sufficiently toned down and subdued.  The thing was to reverse his first plan and to deaden those colours, to dim them by the contrast of a brilliant object that would kill everything around it, drowning the gleams of silver in a golden radiance.  Stated in these terms, the problem was easier to solve; and Des Esseintes accordingly decided to have his tortoise's buckler glazed with gold.

      Back from the workshop where the gilder had given it board and lodging, the reptile blazed as brightly as any sun, throwing out its rays over the carpet, whose tints turned pale and weak, and looking like a Visigothic shield tegulated with shining scales by a barbaric artist.

      At first, Des Esseintes was delighted with the effect he had achieved; but soon it struck him that this gigantic jewel was only half-finished and that it would not be really complete until it had been encrusted with precious stones.

      From a collection of Japanese art he selected a drawing representing a huge bunch of flowers springing from a single slender stalk, took it to a jeweller's, sketched out a border to enclose this bouquet in an oval frame, and informed the astonished lapidary that the leaves and petals of each and every flower were to be executed in precious stones and mounted on the actual shell of the tortoise.

      Choosing the stones gave him pause.  The diamond, he told himself, has become terribly vulgar now that every businessman wears one on his little finger; Oriental emeralds and rubies are not so degraded and they dart bright tongues of fire, but they are too reminiscent of the green and red eyes of certain Paris buses fitted with headlamps in the selfsame colours; as for topazes, whether pink or yellow, they are cheap stones, dear to people of the small shopkeeper class who long to have a few jewel-cases to lock up in their mirror wardrobes.  Similarly, although the Church has helped the amethyst to retain something of a sacerdotal character, at once unctuous and solemn, this stone too has been debased by use in the red ears and on the tuberous fingers of butcher's wives whose ambition is to deck themselves out at little cost with genuine, heavy jewels.  Alone among these stones, the sapphire has kept its fires inviolate, unsullied by contact with commercial and financial stupidity.  The glittering sparks playing over its cold, limpid water have as it were protected its discreet and haughty nobility against any defilement.  But unfortunately in artificial light its bright flames lose their brilliance; the blue water sinks low and seems to go to sleep, to wake and sparkle again only at daybreak.

      It was clear that none of these stones satisfied Des Esseintes' requirements; besides, they were all too civilized, too familiar.  Instead he turned his attention to more startling and unusual gems; and after letting them trickle through his fingers, he finally made a selection of real and artificial stones which in combination would result in a fascinating and disconcerting harmony.

      He made up his bouquet in this way: the leaves were set with gems of a strong and definite green - asparagus-green chrysoberyls, leek-green peridots, olive-green olivines - and these sprang from twigs of almandine and uvarovite of a purplish red, which threw out flashes of harsh, brilliant light like the scales of tartar that glisten on the insides of wine-casks.

      For the flowers which stood out from the stem a long way from the foot of the spray, he decided on a phosphate blue; but he absolutely refused to consider the Oriental turquoise which is used for brooches and rings, and which, together with the banal pearl and the odious coral, forms the delight of the common herd.

      He chose only turquoises from the West - stones which, strictly speaking, are simply a fossil ivory impregnated with coppery substances and whose celadon blue looks thick, opaque, and sulphurous, as if jaundiced with bile.

      This done, he could now go on to encrust the petals of such flowers as were in full bloom in the middle of his spray, those closest to the stem, with translucent minerals that gleamed with a glassy, sickly light and glittered with fierce, sharp bursts of fire.

      For this purpose he used only Ceylon cat's-eyes, cymophanes, and sapphires - three stones which all sparkled with mysterious, deceptive flashes, painfully drawn from the icy depths of their turbid water: the cat's-eye of a greenish grey streaked with concentric veins which seem to shift and change position according to the way the light falls; the cymophane with blue waterings rippling across the floating, milky-coloured centre; the sapphire which kindles bluish, phosphorescent fires against a dull, chocolate-brown background.

      The lapidary took careful notes as it was explained to him exactly where each stone was to be let in.

      "What about the edging of the shell?" he then asked Des Esseintes.

      The latter had originally thought of a border of opals and hydrophanes.  But these stones, interesting though they may be on account of their varying colour and vacillating fire, are too unstable and unreliable to be given serious consideration; the opal, in fact, has a positively rheumatic sensitivity, they play of its rays changing in accordance with changes in moisture and temperature, while the hydrophane will burn only in water and refuses to light up its grey fires unless it is wetted.

      He finally decided on a series of stones with contrasting colours - the mahogany-red hyacinth of Compostella followed by the sea-green aquamarine, the vinegar-pink balas ruby by the pale slate-coloured Sudermania ruby.  Their feeble lustre would be sufficient to set off the dark shell but not enough to detract from the bunch of jewelled flowers which they were to frame in a slender garland of subdued brilliance.

      New Des Esseintes sat gazing at the tortoise where it lay huddled in a corner of the dining-room, glittering brightly in the half-light.

      He felt perfectly happy, his eyes feasting on the splendour of these jewelled corollas, ablaze with colour against a golden background.  Suddenly he had a craving for food, unusual for him, and soon he was dipping slices of toast spread with superlative butter in a cup of tea, an impeccable blend of Si-a-Fayoun, Mo-you-Tann, and Khansky - yellow teas brought from China into Russia by special caravans.

      He drank this liquid perfume from cups of that Oriental porcelain known as egg-shell china, it is so delicate and diaphanous; and just as he could never use any but these adorably dainty cups, so he insisted on plates and dishes of genuine silver-gilt, slightly worn so that the silver showed a little where the thin film of gold had been rubbed off, giving it a charming old-world look, a fatigued appearance, a moribund air.

      After swallowing his last mouthful he went back to his study, instructing his manservant to bring along the tortoise, which was still obstinately refusing to budge.

      Outside the snow was falling.  In the lamplight icy leaf- patterns could be seen glittering on the blue-black windows, and hoar-frost sparkled like melted sugar in the hollows of the bottle-glass panes, all spattered with gold.

      The little house, lying snug and sleepy in the darkness, was wrapped in a deep silence.

      Des Esseintes sat dreaming of one thing and another.  The burning logs piled high in the fire-basket filled the room with hot air, and eventually he got up and opened the window a little way.

      Like a great canopy of counter-ermine, the sky hung before him, a black curtain spattered with white.

      Suddenly an icy wind blew up which drove the dancing snowflakes before it and reversed this arrangement of colours.  The sky's heraldic trappings were turned around to reveal a true ermine, white dotted with black where pinpricks of darkness showed through the curtain of falling snow.

      He shut the window again.  This quick change, straight from the torrid heat of the room to the biting cold of midwinter, had taken his breath away; and curling up beside the fire again, it occurred to him that a drop of spirits would be the best thing to warm him up.

      He made his way to the dining-room, where there was a cupboard built into one of the walls containing a row of little barrels, resting side-by-side on tiny sandalwood stands and each broached at the bottom with a silver spigot.

      This collection of liqueur casks he called his mouth organ.

      A rod could be connected to all the spigots, enabling them to be turned by one and the same movement, so that once the apparatus was in position it was only necessary to press a button concealed in the wainscoting to open all the conduits simultaneously and so fill with liqueur the minute cups underneath the taps.

      The organ was then open.  The stops labelled 'flute', 'horn', and 'vox angelica' were pulled out, ready for use.  Des Esseintes would drink a drop here, another there, playing internal symphonies to himself, and providing his palate with sensations analogous to those which music dispenses to the air.

      Indeed, each and every liqueur, in his opinion, corresponded in taste with the sound of a particular instrument.  Dry curaçao, for instance, was like the clarinet with its piercing, velvety note; kümmel was like the oboe with its sonorous, nasal timbre; crème de menthe and anisette like the flute, at once sweet and tart, soft and shrill.  Then to complete the orchestra there was kirsch, blowing a wild trumpet blast; gin and whisky raising the roof of the mouth with the blare of their cornets and trombones; marc-brandy matching the tubas with its deafening din; while peals of thunder came from the cymbal and the bass drum, which arak and mastic were banging and beating with all their might.

      He considered that this analogy could be pushed still further and that string quartets might play under the palatal arch, with the violin represented by an old brandy, choice and heady, biting and delicate; with the viola simulated by rum, which was stronger, heavier, and quieter; with vespetro as poignant, drawn-out, sad, and tender as a violoncello; and with the double-bass a fine old bitter, full-bodied, solid, and dark.  One might even form a quintet, if this were thought desirable, by adding a fifth instrument, the harp, imitated to near perfection by the vibrant savour, the clear, sharp, silvery note of dry cumin.

      The similarity did not end there, for the music of liqueurs had its own scheme of interrelated tones; thus, to quote only one example, Benedictine represents, so to speak, the minor key corresponding to the major key of those alcohols which wine-merchants' scores indicate by the name of green Chartreuse.

      Once these principles had been established, and thanks to a series of erudite experiments, he had been able to perform upon his tongue silent melodies and mute funeral marches; to hear inside his mouth crème-de-menthe solos and rum-and- vespetro duets.

      He even succeeded in transferring specific pieces of music to his palate, following the composer step by step, rendering his intentions, his effects, his shades of expression, by mixing or contrasting related liqueurs, by subtle approximations and cunning combinations.

      At other times he would compose melodies of his own, executing pastorals with the sweet blackcurrant liqueur that filled his throat with the warbling song of a nightingale; or with the delicious cacaochouva that hummed sugary bergerets like the Romances of Estelle and the Ah! vous dirai-je, maman of olden days.

      But tonight Des Esseintes had no wish to listen to the taste of music; he confined himself to removing one note from the keyboard of his organ, carrying off a tiny cup which he had filled with genuine Irish whiskey.

      He settled down in his armchair again and slowly sipped this fermented spirit of oats and barley, a pungent odour of creosote spreading through his mouth.

      Little by little, as he drank, his thoughts followed the renewed reactions of his palate, caught up with the savour of the whiskey, and were reminded by a striking similarity of smell of memories which had lain dormant for years.

      The acrid, carbolic bouquet forcibly recalled the identical scent of which he had been all too conscious whenever a dentist had been at work on his gums.

      Once started on this track, his recollections, ranging at first over all the different practitioners he had known, finally gathered together and converged on one of these men whose distinctive method had been graven with particular force upon his memory.

      This had happened three years ago: afflicted in the middle of the night with an abominable toothache, he had plugged his cheek with cotton-wool and paced up and down his room like a madman, blundering into the furniture in his pain.

      It was a molar that had already been filled and was now past cure; the only possible remedy lay in the dentist's forceps.  In a fever of agony he waited for daylight, resolved to bear the most atrocious operation if only it would put an end to his sufferings.

      Nursing his jawbone, he asked himself exactly what he should do when morning came.  The dentists he usually consulted were well-to-do businessmen who could not be seen at short notice; appointments had to be made in advance and times agreed.

      "That's out of the question," he told himself.  "I can't wait any longer."

      He made up his mind to go and see the first dentist he could find, to resort to a common, lower-class tooth-doctor, one of those iron-fisted fellows who, ignorant though they may be of the useless art of treating decay and filling cavities, know how to extirpate the most stubborn of stumps with unparalleled speed.  Their doors are always open at daybreak, and their customers are never kept waiting.

      Seven o'clock struck at last.  He rushed out of doors, and remembering the name of a mechanic who called himself a dentist and lived in a corner house by the river, he hurried in that direction, biting on a handkerchief and choking back his tears.

      Soon he arrived at the house, which was distinguished by an enormous wooden placard bearing the name 'Gatonax' spread out in huge yellow letters on a black ground, and by two little glass-fronted cases displaying neat rows of false teeth set in pink wax gums joined together with brass springs.  He stood there panting for breath, with sweat pouring down his forehead; a horrid fear gripped him, a cold shiver ran over his body - and then came sudden relief, the pain vanished, the tooth stopped aching.

      After staying for a while in the street, wondering what to do, he finally mastered his fears and climbed the dark staircase, taking four steps at a time as far as the third floor.  There he came up against a door with an enamel plaque repeating the name he had seen on the placard outside.  He rang the bell; then, terrified by the sight of great splashes of blood and spittle on the steps, he suddenly turned tail, resolved to go on suffering from toothache for the rest of his life, when a piercing scream came from behind the partition, filling the well of the staircase and nailing him to the spot with sheer horror.  At that very moment a door opened and an old woman asked him to come in.

      Shame overcame fear, and he let her show him into what appeared to be a dining-room.  Another door banged open, admitting a great, strapping fellow dressed in a frock-coat and trousers that seemed carved in wood.  Des Esseintes followed him into an inner sanctum.

      His recollections of what happened after that were somewhat confused.  He vaguely remembered dropping into an armchair facing a window, putting a finger on the offending tooth, and stammering out:

      "It has been filled before.  I'm afraid there's nothing can be done this time."

      The man promptly put a stop to this explanation by inserting an enormous forefinger into his mouth; then, muttering to himself behind his curly waxed moustaches, he picked up an instrument from a table.

      At this point the drama really began.  Clutching the arms of the chair, Des Esseintes felt the cold touch of metal inside his cheeks, then saw a whole galaxy of stars, and in unspeakable agony started stamping his feet and squealing like a stuck pig.

      There was a loud crack as the molar broke on its way out.  By now it seemed as if his head were being pulled off and his skull smashed in; he lost all control of himself and screamed at the top of his voice, fighting desperately against the man, who bore down on him again as if he wanted to plunge his arm into the depths of his belly.  Suddenly the fellow took a step backwards, lifted his patient bodily by the refractory tooth and let him fall back into the chair, while he stood there blocking the window, puffing and blowing as he brandished at the end of his forceps a blue tooth tipped with red.

      Utterly exhausted, Des Esseintes had spat out a basinful of blood, waved away the old woman who came in to offer him his tooth, which she was prepared to wrap up in a piece of newspaper, and after paying two francs had fled, adding his contribution to the bloody spittle on the stairs.  But out in the street he had recovered his spirits, feeling ten years younger and taking an interest in the most insignificant things.

      "Ugh!" he said to himself, shuddering over these gruesome recollections.  He got to his feet to break the horrid fascination of his nightmare vision, and coming back to present day preoccupations he felt suddenly uneasy about the tortoise.

      It was still lying absolutely motionless.  He touched it; it was dead.  Accustomed no doubt to a sedentary life, a modest existence spent in the shelter of its humble carapace, it had not been able to bear the dazzling luxury imposed upon it, the glittering cape in which it had been clad, the precious stones which had been used to decorate its shell like a jewelled ciborium.