In 1835 I went to Bicêtre regularly three times a week in order to follow the lecture course on mental alienation offered by one of our most intelligent and knowledgeable doctors, F .31 The rest of the day was employed in anatomical studies and dissections, in which I was supervisee by an intern of the establishment, Dr. Émile D***, to whom the art of surgery owes one of the most remarkable books on pregnancy and childbirth.
To serve and assist us in the most difficult parts of our work we had an orderly at the hospital whom epilepsy had reduced, at least apparently, to a condition bordering on stupidity. He was a machine who received, with a remarkable facility, the impulsion one gave to him and carried it out with a mechanical perfection. He was never in default and never exceeded the orders he received. He did not understand anything but the literal meaning of what was said to him, but by way of compensation, he never fell into the more perilous inconvenience of subalterns who aim at intelligence. He did not interpret, and did not seek to understand. I can still see him, with his vacillating gait, his pale cheeks, his deep-set eyes with their scintillating irises, and his mouth, sometimes disfigured by horrible convulsions.
The faithful bearer of a copper cauldron from which he was never separated, he rarely spoke, and his voice resembled the broken sounds that emerge from an unhealthy larynx. In any case, attentive without slowness, dexterous without arrogance, humble without baseness, he resembled one of those genies that a talisman renders subject to the will of a magician and resigns himself to a power he knows to be invincible. More than once I suspected in Jean—that was his name—more intelligence than he consented to show: a word, a gesture or a glance betrayed it, but he would immediately resume is vulgar appearance, warily on is guard against my observations and ever ready to disconcert them.
One evening, however, I resolved to penetrate the mystery with which he surrounded himself—if, indeed, he did surround himself with mystery. Retained by bad weather and obliged to stay the night at Bicêtre, I left a bottle of champagne on the table after supper. Jean had a habit of appropriating our dessert; he therefore took possession, as usual, of everything that there was on the table.
When he reached the bottle of champagne, he picked it up with the conviction that he would find it empty, and was surprised when its weight informed him that it was almost full. A kind of convulsive tremor passed through all his limbs, tensed and knotted by his malady. His vitreous eyes became as resplendent as the eyes of a cat in the dark, and he replaced the bottle on the table—after which he examined the walls of the room slowly, and arrested his crazed gaze on the door of the study in which we were lurking. In that attitude, he waited attentively.
After a few seconds, he returned to the table, put the cork firmly in the bottle and went to put it with the silverware in the old oak dresser that formed, with two rickety chairs, the dining-room furniture.
That was not what I wanted.
“That bottle is for you, Jean!” I exclaimed.
He shivered, and I thought for a moment that he was about to suffer a fit of epilepsy; his face was covered by a lividity even more sepulchral than usual, and his knees wobbled beneath him. He succeeded in mastering his emotion, but he had to sit down and open a window in order to render an energetic respiration to his oppressed lungs.
Curious to see what would happen next, I resolved to study Jean without him knowing that he was being watched, I therefore closed the connecting door between the dining room and the study in which we normally sat—after which I extinguished he lamp and pretended to leave by another exit. Instead of going out, I applied my eye to the keyhole.
Jean was still there, emotional and sitting in front of the bottle.
Eventually, he got up, took the bottle and placed it between his eye and the candlelight, in such a fashion as to illuminate the liquid contained in the glass envelope. During that contemplation, a smile devoid of intelligence, in which the instinct of gluttony was clearly legible, parted the epileptic’s lips to allow a glimpse of his long yellow teeth. One might have thought that he was studying each of the bubbles of air rising from the bottom of the bottle to burst at the surface of the liquid.
Gradually, Jean’s face darkened, the intelligence reappeared, and effaced the material expression that I have described. A thousand memories full of bitterness and despair appeared to the poor man’s imagination; a tear rolled down his cheek, hollowed out by misery.
Suddenly, he emerged from that bleak sadness by means of an abrupt and violent effort, gripped the bottle, tore out the cork, raised it to his lips and drank long draughts from it.
When he put the bottle back on the table it was more than half empty. Jean was no longer recognizable; a light redness covered his prominent cheekbones, his damp forehead seemed free of the grip of the malady and his gait took on a firm and solid appearance. To cap it all, his hands came together petulantly, and his chest heaved as he sucked in air avidly.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a gesture full of vigor and petulance, “I feel twenty years younger.” He drank again and added: “I can almost see, as in the past, Gabrielle’s white hand pouring me a glass. One might imagine that Désaugiers were about to present his glass to me once more, that we might clink them together cheerfully.”
And he hummed one of those Bacchic refrains that the members of the Caveau once repeated to the clatter of bottles, in the midst of noisy choruses.32
I opened the door then and came in. Jean came toward me, held out his hand and accosted me with the manners of a gentleman. “Your wine is delicious!” he exclaimed.
Curious to return him abruptly from the height of his excitement to the humility of his real situation, I pretended to bump into his copper cauldron, and said, with false ill-humor: “What’s you cauldron doing there, Jean?”
He gazed coldly at the utensil, from which, by virtue of a kind of monomania, he was never separated, and which he employed for the most bizarre purposes; then, pushing it away with his foot, he said: “To the Devil with the cauldron! I don’t need it any more—for, after all, life is a good thing, and I want to live!”
As he concluded that Epicurean statement, he kicked the cauldron ten paces behind him, and extended a caressant hand toward the bottle again.
“Why are you treating your old friend and inseparable companion like that?”
“Because I want to live, I tell you.”
“How can the presence of the cauldron be injurious to your health?”
“It’s evident that you don’t know your history. I was only carrying it with me in the hope of dying soon, because it brings bad luck to anyone who touches it. Anyway, in letting me live it wasn’t giving the lie to its evil influence, for if you knew how ardently I’ve called up death to aid me…! A little while ago I would have received it as a blessing, but I was mad then. Well, in truth, life’s a good thing, isn’t it, my friend?”
He tapped me on the thigh as he addressed that jovial question to me, and filled his glass to the brim.
“What’s the story of your cauldron, then?”
“To begin with, the cauldron is a cooking-pot,” he said, with a roguish expression, “only its lid is missing and its side-handles have been replaced by a single iron handle. That cooking-pot’s been at Bicêtre for many years; it was brought here is the 17th century, and had never ceased, ever since, to play a dramatic role. Damn it, my dear chap, I’ll tell you the story; I’m certain that you can make something good out of it; I’d be delighted to make you that little gift. Come on, let’s move to the fireplace—go fetch your lamp, because this odor of tallow candles is odious to me. Stoke up the fire with a fresh log, and listen to me.
“Have you ever been to Rouen? Yes? Well, you’ll doubtless have noticed an old house two hundred paces from the cathedral, whose pointed gable terminates in a gargoyle in the form of a dragon with a woman’s head. A dealer in wall-hangings has lived in that house for the last twenty years. But in the 17th century, it was the laboratory of a apothecary who was reputed to be dabbling in alchemy. The fact is that he possessed, not only one of the best-stocked pharmacies, producing a considerable income, but a capital of twenty thousand écus. In those days, you know, twenty thousand écus was worth almost twice as much as it is today.
“Diane Daupats, the apothecary’s daughter, was, in consequence, one of the richest catches in Rouen; a large number of suitors came to ask her father for her hand in marriage. He replied to them all, gently, that his daughter wasn’t old enough yet to take a husband, and that, in any case, he thought that a little love wasn’t a bad thing to put into a household, and, in consequence, that Diane would marry the young man for whom her heart felt a penchant.
“Diane was only sixteen and, although she was one of the prettiest girls in Rouen, thanks to the way her mother had brought her up, she wasn’t a coquette. Her greatest joys were going to hear mass on Sunday and playing battledore and shuttlecock with one of her father’s apprentices. The latter, the poor son of a peasant, used to being harshly treated by the other apprentices, nevertheless gave evidence on all occasions of a intelligence that Maître Daupats didn’t take long to notice.
“The apothecary tried him out. Satisfied with the manner in which Salomon de Caus passed the various tests to which he was subjected, he appointed him his senor apprentice and gave him full authority over those who had previously crushed him under their domination.
“The young man didn’t abuse that power, not subjecting the two fellows to the vexations that they had heaped on him, and ended up being almost forgiven for the favor he had enjoyed.
“That favor, I can tell you, wasn’t limited to concocting, under his master’s supervision, the complicated potions and medicaments of which medicine made lavish use in those days. Madame Daupats treated him benevolently, and Diane found that no one knew how to handle a racket and launch a shuttlecock like Salomon. Gradually, the apothecary and his wife became accustomed to regarding the young man as a member of the family. So, when they saw him gradually falling into a profound sadness, he experienced a veritable distress. Maître Daupats had recourse to all the elixirs most likely to triumph over that melancholy, which he attributed to peccant humors, and Madame Gertrude exhausted all her ruses and all her womanly perspicacity trying the penetrate the reason for that mysterious chagrin. The apothecary’s drugs only served to render the invalid’s complexion even paler, and the good woman’s inquisition only drove Salomon into an even more absolute reserve.
“One morning, Salomon went to find his master and declared, stammering all the while, that it was his intention to leave Rouen and go seek his fortune in Paris. Maître Daupats looked at him with the cold and bitter gaze that the presence and bad behavior of an ingrate excites.
“‘You’re free to go whenever you please,’ he replied to Salomon’s request.
“Salomon wiped away a tear and went out without saying another word.
“When the rest of the household learned about the departure of everyone’s favorite apprentice, everyone became emotional and shared Maître Daupats’ sentiments regarding an apprentice who, with no apparent reason and for the hazardous lure of a risky fortune, was leaving the people who had treated and loved him like their own child.
“He supported the mute reproaches of the wounded family without trying to justify himself and without going back on his determination.
“However, Maître Daupats, ordinarily so just, began grumbling at his apprentices without any reason; Madame Gertrude let the roast burn that a maidservant was cooking under her direction; and finally, Diane wept and hid her tears by pretending to read prayers in her Book of Hours.
“When evening arrived in the desolate household, Madame Gertrude, going along the corridor where the apprentices’ bedrooms were, heard sobs coming from one of the rooms and pricked up her ears. It was Salomon who as crying.
“Moved to pity, she opened the door and found the apprentice giving evidence of the most violent despair. At the sight of Madame Gertrude, he tried to suppress his dolor, but he couldn’t do it, and his tears flowed in even greater abundance
“‘My child,’ she said. ‘if you’re regretting a moment of error, it’s not necessary for a false shame to prevent you from going back on a resolution you regret. Youth merits indulgence, and we’re ready to forget a foolish thought, quite natural at your age.’
“‘I don’t merit the happiness that you’ve heaped upon me,’ he said. ‘I have to go. By going, I’m giving you proof of my devotion and my gratitude.’
“‘Then it’s necessary to go,’ replied Madame Gertrude, almost as emotional as the young man. ‘Adieu, Salomon; may God watch over you and may his bounty protect you.’
“She left the apprentice and went to find her husband. She told him what Salomon had just said and added: ‘Do you understand now, my love, why your apprentice wants to go?’
“‘I only understand one thing, which is that he’s being stupid as a result of the consciousness of his fault.’
“‘I can see into all this more clearly than you,’ Madame Gertrude told him, ‘and if you let me take care of it, I don’t think that anyone will be weeping in the house any longer—for Salomon isn’t the only one who’s shedding tears.’
“‘Eh? Who else is weeping, then?’
“‘Our daughter Diane,’
“The apothecary, absorbed by the preparation of the most difficult medicaments to concoct, raised his head and looked his wife in the face. Then he let slip one of those exclamations which cannot be translated, in any language, by any combination of the letters of the alphabet.
“‘Do as you wish,’ he added, after a moment’s reflection, when he had recovered from his initial surprise.
“Madame Gertrude threw her arms around her husband’s neck and went back up to Salomon’s room. He was busy packing in clothes into a haversack. ‘Salomon, she said, ‘you’ll have to postpone your journey for a week. My husband needs you here until then; you’ll be free thereafter to leave, if you persist in your resolution and still think you ought to quit Rouen.’
“Salomon seemed both sad and glad to have to defer his departure. He took out the clothes and underclothes that he had put in his haversack and replaced the objects one by one, tidily, in the little cupboard of his room.
“Afterwards, he went downstairs to the pharmacy and resumed his customary station.”
At this point, Jean interrupted his story and pointed at the bottle. I poured out everything it still contained for him; he sighed on seeing it empty, put his glass to his lips and slowly drank the foam-crowned wine. He drank it to the last drop, clicked his tongue against his palate in order to savor the aroma better, sighed again, and looked at me.
Jean looked once more at the emptiness of his glass, started to smile with the disdainful irony of a fashionable individual deigning to sit down at a poorly-served bourgeois table, and shrugged his shoulders slightly. Then, crossing his legs and moving closer to the fire, almost all of whose heat he appropriately casually for himself.
“Where the Devil was I up to?” he asked me, in a cavalier manner. “Oh, I remember now.
“I have no need to tell you what thoughts of every nature assailed and preoccupied Salomon during the rest of the day and that night. The next morning, the old apothecary summoned his apprentice and, after having carefully closed the door of his laboratory, so that no one could hear what he was about to say, he murmured in a sacredly audible voice: ‘Salomon, a great misfortune has struck me. In the desire to increase my fortune considerably, I chartered a ship to go to the Indies to fetch a cargo of medicinal plants. Not only was all my fortune engaged in the enterprise, but I had to resort to loans. Well, the ship, on its return journey, has just sunk off the coast of Normandy; my ruination is complete; there’s no more bread for my old age. As soon as my misfortune become known, my creditors will have me thrown into prison. It’s not my own fate that I deplore; my imprudence has merited it—but what will become of my wife and my daughter?’
“Salomon looked at the old chemist with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. The old man hid his face in his hands and seemed to be shedding bitter tears. ‘Master,’ he replied, then, ‘I’m only a poor apprentice who possesses nothing in the world. An interior voice, however, tells me that I shall be able to protect your wife and daughter against adversity. Let me make a confession that I had resolved to hide from you by my departure. I love Diane. Without the fatal blow that has struck you, the secret would never have escaped from my heart. Let me marry Diane.’
“‘Alas, my friend, your generosity is deceiving you; you have no idea what suffering poverty brings to the father of a family. My boy, when people make fun of you, and laugh in your face, one bears those blows cheerfully, to which one can riposte with insouciance and courage—but one cannot be insouciant regarding the dolors of a wife and child! Don’t waste your youth and your future in such an existence.’
“‘I’m young and I feel strong,” cried Salomon, enthusiastically. ‘I’ll be able to conquer my wife a fortune in exchange for the one that fate has stolen from her,’
“The old man reflected for a few moments. ‘Your confidence in the future has won me over,’ he said. ‘Become my daughter’s husband. A month will doubtless go by before anyone learns of my ruination; let’s take advantage of it to complete your marriage; that space of time will also permit me to arrange my affairs in such a way as to be able to leave you my pharmacy. Undoubtedly it will be shackled by enormous mortgages that will absorb almost all the profits, but at least you won’t remain in the grip of adversity and without arms with which the combat it.’
“He held out his hand to Salomon, who raised it respectfully to his lips. At the same moment, Madame Gertrude and Diane came into the laboratory. ‘Daughter,’ said the apothecary, ‘I’ve just betrothed you to my apprentice Salomon de Caus.’
“Diane’s charming face was covered by a blush; she lowered her eyes and made no reply. Madame Gertrude took her daughter’s hand and placed it in that of the happy apprentice.
“He fell at the knees of his promised beauty. ‘Won’t you,’ he asked, in a voice trembling with emotion, ‘ratify my happiness with a word, or a sign?’
“She ran to take refuge in her mother’s arms with a delicious shame. As Salomon seemed sad and anxious, she detached the blessed rosary that she wore suspended from her waist and slipped it into her mother’s hand. Madame Gertrude took it to Salomon; Salomon would not have exchanged his happiness for that of the angels.
“He was, moreover, like all men whose foreheads are marked by the ardent seal true love in their youth, a serious fellow of great intelligence, who felt called to success by a superior organization, and full of energy. In making the resolution to marry a poor wife, he had not hidden the extent and the consequences of such an engagement from himself. He therefore set about studying the resources that he might create and organizing the means of remaining victorious in the struggle that he was about to undertake against fate. His passion for Diane raised him above all difficulties, and he was already glimpsing in the distance the fortune that was holding out a golden crown to him.
Meanwhile, the preparations for the marriage were made in the house as if nothing had changed in Maître Daupats’ situation. Everyone in Rouen was astonished that the rich apothecary was giving his daughter to the son of a peasant with no money, when the most eligible suitors had offered themselves for Diane. A thousand suppositions were already being made, such as are always prodigal among townsfolk, especially the women, and even ladies of the highest rank.
“In spite of the respect he had for Madame Gertrude and her husband, Salomon could not help being secretly critical of their imprudent conduct; his bride’s rich trousseau, the wedding feast that was to bring together a hundred guests, among the richest and most highly-reputed people in the town, seemed to him to be veritable extravagances. He did not understand how anyone could throw money around with open hands when conscious of imminent ruin and the scandal that would soon be produced by the public divulgence of such terrible news. He was afflicted by it, and tried on more than one occasion to talk about it to his father-in-law and Madame Gertrude.
“They were both obstinate in changing the topic of conversation, and continued in their prodigality.
“The exaggeration of a fault rarely fails to throw those who suffer from it into a contrary excess. A chatterbox renders people silent, a prodigal drives them to avarice. That is exactly what happened to Salomon. He started secretly organizing his future household, and did so with an economy so prudent as to be almost excessive. He had recourse to second-hand dealers to buy furniture, and thought he was concluding an excellent bargain when he paid a few sous less than it would have cost from the manufacturer for an object that had already been used. So, morning and evening, he roamed the poorest streets, hunting high and low for old items and haggling over every farthing.
“One day, Salomon perceived at the door of a coppersmith a copper cooking-pot in good condition, the dimensions of which seemed to him to be appropriate for a young household. An old woman was holding it in her hands and examining it with minute attention. She felt it all over—inside, outside and round the sides—caused the copper to ring, and made sure that nothing impeded the movement of the lid, after which she offered the merchant a price.
“The merchant raised his eyes to the heavens as if he had heard a blasphemy uttered, swore that he would be losing more than half, and refused the old woman’s proposition.
“The latter persisted, and made concessions.
“The coppersmith, for his part, dropped his price slightly, and was perhaps about to concede when he saw Salomon darting one of those covetous glances at the cooking-pot which merchants hardly ever misinterpret. Immediately, he became more demanding than ever; acrimony entered into the bargaining; the old woman moved away, discontented and as if to give up the game.
“Immediately, Salomon, who thought that a good thing, ran up to the merchant, gave him the last price that the latter had demanded from the woman, and was just about to carry off his acquisition when the old woman came back.
“On seeing the cooking-pot in someone else’s hands she went pale with anger, and her eyes seemed to swell up with venom, like those of a poisonous animal. ‘That cooking-pot’s mine,’ she said, in a hoarse and menacing voice. ‘I was haggling over the price before you.’
“‘Yes, but I bought it before you,’ Salomon replied, sarcastically, irritated by his adversary’s brutal tone.
“‘I want it! I must have that cooking-pot!’ she repeated, reaching for the object of her covetousness with two long stiff hands, which reminded Salomon involuntarily of the claws into Medieval sculptors formed the hands of the evil angel.
“Salomon retreated automatically, put the cooking-pot under his arm, covered it with his cloak and carried it away.
“The old woman followed him.
“‘That cooking-pot is very fine,’ she said, in a low voice, croaking like a crow tearing at a cadaver, ‘but it isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. Did you know that, my handsome young man?’
“Salomon made no reply.
“‘I knew it; I saw it often in the hands of Catherine Lestoquoy. Catherine placed it at a crossroads at eleven o’clock at night, on pieces of wood that she’d taken from the remains of a coffin in a cemetery To set the wood alight she went to fetch fire from the lanterns on the gibbet, after which the flames emerged long and devouring—except that instead of raising their ardent tongues toward the heavens, they licked the earth and seemed to want to enter into it. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, my handsome young man.
“‘When the wood was ablaze, Catherine threw water into it taken from a marsh covered with fire-follets, in which the corpse of an unbaptized child had been buried. After which she added many other things, which I won’t name for you, profane, but of which I know the mysterious recipe. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, young man!
“Then plaintive voices came out of the cooking-pot, and other voices replied to them from the bosom of the earth, the gibbet and the cemetery itself. The moon was hidden by a bloody cloud, the signpost at the crossroads trembled on its stone base and phantoms flew through the air. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, young man!
“‘Joyfully, Catherine took off one of her shoes, took a dead man’s bone and stirred the water in the cooking-pot. Midnight sounded then, and a circle of mysterious beings came to dance around the fire. When Catherine shouted three times: To me, Master, to me! they clapped their hands and stamped their feet, and the they all went away; everything disappeared; silence fell. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, young man!
“‘A fine cooking-pot for a witch, for an old witch like me! It would have served me until the day when, put on a pyre like my Mistress Catherine Lestoquoy, I would have called Satan to my aid, and demanded a good place in Hell, among the Devils and their wives. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, young man!
“But for a fiancé, for a Christian who dreams of dying with his hands together on a bed with his eyes turned to Heaven, it’s a fatal talisman. It summons demons, it attracts misfortune, it casts fatality everywhere. You’ll weep more than once for possessing it; you’ll struggle more than once under the vengeance of the witch from whom you’ve stolen it. You’ve got a fine cooking-pot there, young man!’
“Salomon hastened his steps in order to get away from the woman’s pursuit and threats. The more he hurried, the more she increased her pace; nothing could free the apprentice from that sinister and pitiless murmur, every word of which struck his heart with an invisible whip.
“Several times, he felt that he was ready to hurl the cooking-pot she was claiming with such threats at the old woman. A sentiment of false shame always prevented him. He would have blushed to yield like that to puerile threats, unworthy of a man, a Christian and a scientist.
“Still talking, still cursing, the witch only stopped outside the apothecary’s house. When she saw Salomon, with the cooking-pot, go through the low-set door ornamented with sculptures, she threw back the ragged cloak she was wearing, raised her arms to the sky, lowered them toward the ground, and seemed to trace a mysterious circle with one of her fingers. Salomon, under the influence of a kind of fascination, watched her through the window. He saw the hideous creature devoted herself to bizarre gestures, appealing by cabalistic signs to invisible beings and fulfilling all the reproved rites of a conjuration.
“Then she put her hands around her mouth, and shouted with all the might of her shrill and piercing voice: ‘You’ve got a very fine cooking-pot there, young man!’
“At that moment, the watch patrol passed by. The officer in command had the old woman surrounded by his soldiers. ‘I’ve been hunting for you for three days, you damned witch,’ he said. ‘Thank God I can finally arrest you and deliver you to the law—which will, it’s necessary to hope, liberate the city of Rouen from your evil spells.’
“The old woman allowed herself to be tied up by the soldiers, not putting up any resistance. Except that, when the led her away toward the prison she turned to the window where Salomon was standing and let out a burst of laughter that chilled the apprentice with terror.
“Without hesitation, he picked up the cooking-pot and went to throw it into the Seine.
“The next day, Madame Gertrude came home with a copper cooking-pot under her arm. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ve just struck an excellent bargain. I bought this cooking-pot, just for the price of the copper, from some fishermen who had just found it in the Seine.’
“A month later, the witch was burned in the main square of Rouen. When she was led to the pyre, instead of repenting and thinking about the salvation of her soul, she proffered the most horrible blasphemies, and when the flames began to bite her limbs, she howled: ‘That young man’s got a fine cooking-pot!’
“Then she expired.”
Jean interrupted himself again and said: “My lips are very dry. Nothing tires you out and gives you a thirst like talking next to the fire. Give me a drink, I beg you.”
And he held out his glass to me.
I pretended not to see Jean, and yet, my eyes couldn’t turn away from him. I could no longer find in that poor devil his habitual manners. His figure, previously curbed by humility, had now taken on an attitude full of pride, and he was carrying his head proudly, which had no lack of expression.
For the first time, I noticed the aquiline form of his Grecian nose, the sarcasm of his thin mouth, and the bitter smile of his lips, of a bright red that went marvelously with an energetically-tilted chin and a neck solidly planted on powerful shoulders. The light that fell vertically on his bald cranium rendered legible there, in the mysterious characters that Gall was the first to teach us to read, the projection of a keen intelligence, a powerful memory, a poetic imagination and an ardent love of the marvelous. In sum, there was nothing, from his hands, withered as they were by rude and abject labor, to his bare feet, emerging from the sabots that shod them, in which one did not observe, in an undeniable fashion, the particular characteristics of a man of pure race ad superior organization.
His soft voice, the elegant and well-chosen expressions of which he made use, the animation of his large blue eyes, and the singular energy of his gestures, full of distinction, added further to my surprise and caused me a sort of embarrassment. I sought in vain for the inferior that I was accustomed to treating as a kind of machine, appropriate at the most for carrying out, under an external impulsion, some elementary task. I found myself face to face with an equal, who was perhaps soon about to display before me a superiority of which he was conscious.
So, when the storyteller turned to me, and said to me with the cool and casual manner of a friend: “Send for some champagne, then!” I got up mechanically to order an attendant to go and find a second bottle and bring it to me. The worthy fellow hesitated for a few seconds, for the rain was falling heavily, and the tempest was roaring furiously. It was necessary to go across the courtyard and walk at least two hundred paces to reach the wine merchant’s shop. Nevertheless, he armed himself with resolution, wrapped himself up in an old cloak, and left.
Satisfied, Jean resumed his story.
“At the sight of the fatal talisman that Madame Gertrude had brought back to the house, and learning of the strange manner in which it had been recovered, Salomon felt full of mortal anxiety. The witch’s words on the pyre did not serve to reassure him, and he resolved to make a further attempt to get rid of such a deadly utensil. A few days before his wedding, he got out of bed in the middle of the night, took the cooking-pot and went to deposit it on the far side of the city, in a district inhabited by poor workers.
“It’s impossible, he told himself, that anyone would not be tempted to appropriate a copper cooking-pot and keep it for their own use; thank God, I’m rid of it now!
“He had not yet reached home again when a frightful din caused him to turn his head and look behind him. A huge dog was running after him at a frantic pace, dragging behind it the fatal cooking-pot, which street-urchins had tied to its tail. The animal, exasperated by pain, impatience and rage, was howling, and its lips were flecked with bloody foam. A man tried to stop it, but the dog leapt at his throat and tore it out. Five or six other people made similar attempts, but had to give up after receiving serious bites that put the out of action.
Salomon, in despair at being the involuntary cause of such great misfortune, resolved t put an end to it, even at the risk of his life. He took out a little dagger that he then had the habit of carrying on his person, armed himself with a knotty stick, commended his soul to the Blessed Virgin, and ran straight toward the dog.
“Then a battle began between the two adversaries during which Salomon nearly succumbed several times. It required a great deal of composure and the most resolute courage to stand up to the monstrous hound, whose enormous mouth, armed with long fangs, broke the apprentice’s enormous club like a frail stick.
In the end, determined to triumph or perish, the young man wrapped his first in a handkerchief and threw himself upon the dog, engaging it bodily, and struck it so fortunately in the heat that the redoubtable animal fell dead on the spot.
“Salomon got to his feet covered in blood, but safe and sound.
“Immediately, the acclamations of the crowd that had witnessed the rude combat saluted enthusiastically the athlete who had fought so well and triumphed so courageously. People pressed around him, shook his hands, embraced him, and ended up taking him back to his house with the greatest honor, amid resounding cheers.
“Insensible to these testaments of admiration rendered to his bravery, Salomon, his heart full of remorse, reproached himself bitterly for the evils caused by his imprudence. Thank God, he thought, at the price of my blood and my remorse, at least I’m free of that infernal cooking-pot!
“That wish seemed to have been granted, because, for an entire week, he heard no mention of anything. And that week ended with his wedding celebration.
“Finally, as he was about to extend his hand to conduct his fiancée to the altar, his father-in-law said to him: ‘Salomon, forgive me for having tested you and made sure by means of a ruse of the honesty of your character and the sincerity of your love for Diane. I’m not ruined, as I told you, my son; far from it. You’ll receive a dowry of ten thousand gold écus, and I’ll also cede you the exploitation of my pharmacy, for I’m rich enough, my dear boy, to retire from commerce and live henceforth on the income from my investments.’
“At these soft and benevolent words, Salomon surrendered himself freely to the joy of his happiness. The fatality that was pursuing me, he told himself, has finally ceased to harass me, thank God. So, during the marriage ceremony, he prayed with fervor and gratitude.
“When they came out of the church, all the young people of the town, in their best clothes, were waiting for the married couple to honor them and escort them back home. They formed a cortege, with cries of ‘Long live the beautiful Diane!’ and ‘Long live the courageous Salomon!’ And arquebuses mingled their explosions joyfully with those affectionate clamors.
“It was necessary, to please the general enthusiasm, that the wedding-party, instead of returning directly to Maître Daupats’ house, parade in pomp through the principal streets of the city. The most illustrious ladies were on their balconies, from which they threw bouquets to the newlyweds; poor people clapped their hands. Such a fête had never been seen before.
“That wasn’t all. When the cortege arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the aldermen in their robes were standing on the threshold, and two ushers came to ask the newlyweds to come before the magistrates. They obeyed urgently. When they had answered the demand, the Maire invited them to sit on crimson velvet armchairs that had been prepared for the ceremony, after which he made a long speech, in which he spoke, in savant and complimentary terms, about the courage of which Salomon had so nobly give proof a week before. He compared him to the demigod Hercules, the tamer of wild beasts, the conqueror of the Nemean Lion and the Lernean Hydra.
“‘The city of Rouen,’ he added, in conclusion, has charged its magistrate to give you a reward, bit what can we offer you, who are marrying a young woman as rich as she is beautiful? What can remunerate the service that you have rendered your compatriots? We therefore resolved to have the cooking-pot that was the cause of the misfortunes afflicting Rouen, to which you put an end by your intrepidity, gilded. The city wanted you engrave on it the following words:
THE ALDERMEN AND TOWNSPEOPLE OF ROUEN
TO SALOMON DE CAUS
XI MAI MDC...
“Look,” said Jean, interrupting his story and showing me the cooking-pot. “One can still read that inscription clearly. Only the last figures of the date have been effaced.
“When the magistrate had finished his speech, trumpets set about sounding glorious fanfares, and the young people took possession of the cooking-pot, which they carried solemnly in front of Salomon. The Maire offered his hand to the bride, to the sound of bells, fanfares, arquebuses and acclamations.
“Maître Daupats and Madame Gertrude blessed God for having given them such a son-in-law. Diane looked at her husband with eyes full of tears of affection and pride.
“Salomon was the unhappiest of men. The fatal cooking-pot that was being carried before him seemed, like the sword of Damocles, to be disaster and death suspended above his head. He sensed that henceforth, no tranquility was possible for him in this world. The threats and vengeance of the witch were only too real. That diabolical talisman, of which there was no means of liberating oneself, was sufficient proof of that. The unfortunate fellow felt doomed to misfortune forever.
“When they arrived at Maître Daupats’ house, the young people who were carrying the gilded cooking-pot hooked it to the ceiling in the hall of the nuptial feast. The guests took their places around the table, and the Maire and his aldermen were invited to the banquet, which went on, as was the custom in that good old epoch, long into the evening.
“During the meal, Salomon incessantly expected the cooking-pot to detach itself from the ceiling and fall on to his wife’s head. Nothing happened, however, and calm finally returned to the young man’s heart when it was permitted to him to leave the dining-room, in which he swore never to set for again.
“There is no impression so sharp that it does not end up eventually fading from our memory. Eight years later, not only did Salomon go back into the room whose door he had sworn never to open again, but he did not even think about the witch’s cooking-pot. It had been relegated to some forgotten corner of the house, where it lay covered with rust and dust. Salomon, a happy husband and an even happier father, was rich, honored and beloved by his fellow citizens, who had raised him to the dignity of an alderman. He had acquired a brilliant reputation by the publication of several scientific works.
“Heaped with honors, overwhelmed by business affairs, and charged in addition with the administration of Rouen, it was perfectly natural that Salomon de Caus should have forgotten the terrors and superstitions of his youth.
“Besides which, he had many other reasons more powerful than business, fortune and renown; there was his wife Diane, whose beauty time had only augmented; there was an only daughter nine years old, baptized with the sweet name of Marie, of an angelic grace, whom he loved madly. In order not to be separated from those two cherished females, he refused the seductive offers that were made to him on several occasions by kings and princes desirous of attaching such an eminent scientist to their households.
“He submitted to municipal honors because every citizen owes to his homeland the tribute of his experience and his enlightenment, but he would gladly have abdicated them in order to devote himself entirely to the ineffable joys of his tenderness and domestic bliss.
“One morning he came out of the Hôtel-de-Ville in Rouen and hastened his pace in order to get back to the house sooner and kiss his wife and daughter, whom he had not seen all day. He noticed at a distance an unusual agitation in his house. The apprentices were running back and forth fearfully in the pharmacy. His heart gripped by ominous presentiments, he broke into a run.
“The bewildered Diane was hugging little Marie to her bosom, and the child was crying: ‘Mother! Mother! I can’t see!’
“Full of terror, he asked Diane for explanations. She scarcely had the strength to give them to him. While playing in the kitchen, Marie had imprudently come close to a cooking-pot on the boil; a few drops of scalding water had splashed into the child’s eyes, and she had been blinded.
“Salomon looked at the fireplace, and saw the witch’s coking-pot there. ‘Woe!’ he cried, “woe! Why is use being made of that diabolical utensil?’
“‘Today is the anniversary of the heroic deed that once earned you the gratitude of the entire city. I wanted to remind you of it, my love, by preparing the soup and having it served in that cooking-pot, which bears such a glorious inscription.
“Salomon took his daughter in his arms, and set about examining the poor little creature’s eyes with minute care. He was trying to see whether any hope remained of curing her.
“At that moment, an explosion rang out. The cover of the cooking-pot, launched into the air by the force of the steam, had just struck the ceiling, and it came to land at the scientist’s feet.
“At the sight of that phenomenon, he forgot everything—everything, including his wife’s grief and his daughter’s blindness. He fell into a profound reverie; the hands that were embracing Marie were detached from the child, and Diane spoke to him several times without him replying, or even having heard...”
“Here’s the wine you asked for,” said the attendant, opening the door and placing two bottles of champagne in front of Jean.
The latter gave an order to the astonished attendant—who nevertheless obeyed it mechanically—to bring a second glass. After which, he uncorked the bottle and did the honors himself, pouring me a glass. Then, refilling his own glass, he raised it to his lips with the slight salutation of the head, full of elegance and distinction that is commonplace among Englishmen and Germans.
Jean swilled another glass of champagne and continued his story.
“After the fatal days whose details I have just related, nothing could extract Salomon from the profound melancholy into which the accident suffered by his daughter had thrown him. As for the poor mother, she put all her faith in God; she spent almost every day at the church, invoking the Virgin on behalf of her child.
“Diane explained her husband’s preoccupation to herself by the desire that was devouring him to cure little Marie and return her sight to her. Salomon, she said to herself, is studying the causes of the evil in order to be able to combat it effectively and triumph over it.
“It was not the same with Salomon’s neighbors, for they accused him of madness—and, in fact, one could not abstain from sharing that supposition in the presence of the changes that overtook the behavior of Marie’s father. Pale and thin, his complexion wan and his hair unkempt, dressed in a negligent fashion, there was a strange gaze in his distracted eye that only belongs to the insane. Six months had aged him ten years. Already, white hairs were mingled with the long curls that fell in disorder about his neck, and profound wrinkles were hollowed it on his once-cheerful and expansive forehead.
“Furthermore, in the midst of that absolute forgetfulness of real life and the gravest interests, an unprecedented activity devoured him. He did not have a minute to devote to the duties of his profession, the concerns of his business or the direction of the community of which he was an alderman. He scarcely remembered that he was a husband and father, but spent his days and nights consuming himself in meditation and study. He continually undertook long and distant journeys. He left for Germany, for England, for Italy, suddenly and without any apparent reason.
“Before separating himself from them, he scarcely fond time negligently to embrace his wife and his daughter—his daughter, who could no longer see him and held out her arms to him, weeping.
“When he quit his house and family like that he often forgot to take the necessary underwear; often, he even set off without any money—but he never neglected to take the witch’s cooking-pot. It accompanied him on his slightest excursions; he was scarcely able to consent to be separated from it when he was only leaving the house for a few hours. Always hunched over that instrument of evil, he seemed to be attached to it by a magical power.
“The abandonment to which Salomon yielded his fortune did not take long to bear fruit. The neglected pharmacy gradually lost customers, and an accident soon discredited it.
“One day, when Diane’s husband chance to be at his counter, a local resident brought in a prescription written by one of the city’s most renowned physicians. Salomon prepared the medicament personally. An hour later, the invalid, who had previously only experienced a slight indisposition, died in the most frightful agony.
“The medical examiners summoned declared that a pharmaceutical error committed by Salomon had killed the unfortunate victim of culpable distraction. The guilty party was ordered to pay considerable compensation. Two months later, a similar error with a similar result occurred again.
“This time, a parliamentary warrant was issued, which prohibited Salomon from continuing to exercise the profession of apothecary and ordered him to sell his establishment within three months, on pain of seeing it confiscated by the government.
“Diane’s tears and prayers were unable to persuade Salomon to take care of his business and comply with the parliamentary warrant. Three months later, the pharmacy was closed; government agents carried out the confiscation, and set about liquidating the assets in order to make compensation payments. Nothing extracted Salomon from his apathetic preoccupation. When the desolate Diane showed him the poverty that was advancing with rapid strides toad them and their child, he traced cabalistic figures on the wall, carried out geometrical operations in the sand with his foot, and, making no reply, went to shut himself away with the gilded cooking-pot in a little room that he had rented in order to establish a laboratory there.
“To begin with, the people of Rouen had thought that Salomon was mad, but a vague and perfidious rumor soon began to accuse him of being occupied with magic, of pursuing the Great Work, and of having recourse, for that purpose, more to the aid of the Demon than the enlightenment of science. So, when the magistrates, with common accord, took away his title of alderman, the measure received general assent. People exhibited no less satisfaction when it was learned with what rigor the parliament of Normandy as treating him. He expiated his former popularity by a general hatred. When he went out, fingers were pointed at him; children avoided his presence and his old friends turned away at the sight of him in order not to have to recognize and greet him.
“You can imagine Diane’s despair; already her daughter was beginning to suffer the first afflictions of puerility. The little blind girl no longer had anyone to look after her but her mother; it had been necessary to dismiss the domestics, to take up residence in a mansard and reduce themselves to living on the income of a small pension bequeathed to Marie by her grandmother. The entire fortune that Diane had brought to Salomon as a dowry had been annihilated.
“Alas, other despairs and further opprobrium were still reserved for the unfortunate woman.
“One night, Diane, after having waited in vain for her husband all day, gazed sadly, by moonlight, in the direction of the laboratory that Salomon had rented about two hundred paces from the mansard that now served as lodging for those whose happiness had long been assured by their fortune. Suddenly, there was a horrible noise; it was the laboratory that had exploded. The debris launched by the unparalleled explosion fell back over a wide area, not without causing numerous accidents. Seven or eight passers-by were injured and a child whose skull was fractured by a large stone died.
“In the midst of the frightful disorder caused by such an event, Diane, distraught, ran to the scene of the disaster in order at least to receive the last sigh of her husband, whom she expected to find the first victim of the explosion. To her great surprise, she found him uninjured, occupied in collecting his scattered papers. Such composure exasperated the people who had witnessed the event; the words ‘sorcerer’ and ‘a soul sold to the Devil’ were circulating in the crowd, and did not take long to be shouted aloud, with rage. People armed themselves with stones and hurled hem at Salomon; he was attacked like a wild beast. The imminence of the peril returned his reason and presence of mind. He understood that flight alone could procure him a chance of salvation, and he therefore ran away before the furies that were pursuing him, crying: ‘Death to the sorcerer! Death to the murderer!’
“He would not have escaped their range without Diane’s help. She snatched the cloak that was covering her husband’s shoulders, placed Salomon’s hat on her own head and exposed herself, for more than ten minutes, to the risks of the stones that people thought they were throwing at the apothecary. When she supposed that she had allowed the fugitive time to get out of the city and find a safe refuge, she threw the cloak down at her feet and informed the people of their error.
“Even the most frantic were touched by such devotion, and permitted Diane to leave. Some, full of admiration and pity for the poor woman, even resolved to make sure of her husband’s escape because of his wife’s courage. Not only did they reunite her with Salomon, who had taken refuge with one of his relatives in a house on the outskirts of the city, but they even procured them horses in order to leave Rouen and go to Paris; for henceforth, the man who had been for such a long time the idol of the citizens of the former city could no longer expect to find there anything but the hatred of his compatriots and the rigors of the law.
“The exiles’ journey was long and difficult. It was in the midst of the most bitter rigors of winter that Salomon reached Paris with his wife and daughter. Diane had taken off her warmest garments in order to wrap Marie in them; after which, she had placed her on the horse whose bridle she held, walking in the snow and icy mud of the road. Her husband traveled placidly on his horse, which he allowed to wander almost at will. His head slumped over his chest, entirely devoted to his habitual meditation, one might have thought that he had no traveling companions, and certainly not that those companions were his wife and daughter.
“Finally, they arrived in Paris; they went to lodge in one of the poorest houses in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. There, Salomon resumed—or, rather, continued—the course of his unknown speculations, and Diane set to work to earn bread for her child and her husband, while waiting for a devoted friend, one of Salomon’s former apprentices, to send them the few items of furniture and linen and a little money that they had left in Rouen.
“Almost a month when by before the interrupted navigation of the Seine permitted that consignment. Finally, it arrived to offer a little relief to the wretched family. Salomon was only attentive to and sensible of one thing: the possession of the copper cooking-pot. He took possession of it with transports of joy such as he had not shown for a long time, and went to shut himself away with the object, as if he had rediscovered a treasure.
“Poverty is like gangrene; it devours those it strikes. Hardly a year had gone by before Diane was obliged to sell her linen, her furniture and even her own bed. Exhausted by fatigue and by sleepless nights, she ended up falling ill. Salomon paid no heed to that, and did not discontinue his solitary studies.
“One evening, Marie came, groping her way, to call him and beg him to come to their mother, whose suffering was worse. He promised to do so, but did not keep his promise. The blind child made further pleas. In the end, he gave in, regretfully, left the loft that he had adopted as an abode, and went to Diane.
“She held out her hand to him. ‘I’m dying, Salomon,’ she said.
“Those terrible words returned Salomon to real life he gazed desperately at his wife. The unfortunate woman had spoken only too truly; she was dying; death had already marked her with its inexorable seal.
“‘Salomon,’ she went on, ‘I’m dying; I’ve suffered a great deal these last five years, and I’ve suffered for you. Well, I shall die blessing you, if you’ll promise me to renounce insensate projects to take care of your daughter, as the duties of a father ordain.’
“Salomon took Diane’s hand and kissed it, sobbing.
“‘Look at what you have done! You’ve destroyed our happiness and our livelihood, for the sake of dreams impossible of realization. You’ve expelled from our home fortune, love, the joys of paternity, and even honor. Starvation is threatening us, the law is pursuing us; our child, blind, will remain alone in the world, without anyone to guide her, although she can’t walk without guidance. Blindness makes it impossible for her to do any kind of work, and she’s devoid of bread to nourish her. She won’t even be able to beg, for seduction and outrage would mercilessly afflict her youth and beauty. Salomon, in the name of the tenderness of old, in the name of our child, for the salvation of your soul, listen to me. Swear to me to devote the rest of your life and your thoughts to your daughter; don’t trouble the last moments of a dying woman. Burn all those books that are troubling your reason, perverting your judgment and hardening your heart. Have pity on our child, Salomon! I implore you with my hands joined.’
“‘Forgive me, forgive me!’ Salomon cried, his voice punctuated by bitter sobs. ‘Forgive me, Diane, for it’s me who ought to be dying of shame. Curse me in the Heaven to which you will rise! Demand of the sovereign judge all the rigor of his vengeance, if my thought ever strays again, just once, toward the projects of glory and invention that only the Evil Spirit could have suggested to me. I only want to live from now on to expiate my sins and protect our child; I swear that to you on the salvation of my soul. May God deprive me of my share of paradise if I succumb again even once!’
“‘God hears you and will give you the strength to keep your promises! God bless you!’ Diane murmured, with her tremulous lips.
“She reached out to Marie, who was weeping at her bedside, took her hand and put it in Salomon’s, and then stammered a few more confused words; they were prayers for her husband and her child.
“Gradually, her voice was extinguished; the murmur ceased, and nothing more was heard.”
Throughout that part of his story, Jean had negligently refilled his glass several times; it was with the same negligence and without perceiving it, so to speak, that he had emptied it. I was not without anxiety, for the carbonic acid contained in the champagne might have aggravated the story-teller’s unhealthy condition and thrown him into one of those terrible fits of which no description can give any but an incomplete idea. I therefore picked up the bottle that had not yet been opened and placed it close to me in order to put it out of Jean’s range.
Jean darted a mocking glance at me; then, seizing a carafe half-full of water, he emptied it almost entirely into his glass. However, he only drank a small mouthful, which he spat out disdainfully, and contented himself thereafter with slightly moistening his lips.
“It’s very late,” he said then. “My head feels fatigued; good night, Monsieur.”
“What about the end of your story?”
“It’s in that bottle,” he said, pointing to the champagne. “Do you think that my suffering brain, devoid of strength, can find any energy other than by artificial means? You’re afraid of making me ill; don’t worry—far from it; I think this little debauchery will be salutary for me.”
He took possession of the last bottle of champagne; I did not have the courage to take it out of his hands.
Jean cut the brass wire circling the bottle; the cork popped out with explosive force and hit the ceiling.
At the same moment, a frightful storm burst; all of a sudden, lightning seared our eyes and a clap of thunder resounded so terribly that we felt the commotion in our breasts. I shall never forget the glance full of bravado and despair that the drinker darted at the heavens. A painter would have wanted to give a fallen demon that expression of simultaneous suffering and rage.
He remained silent for a few moments; I watched him fighting against the storm that was suffocating his lungs. Vertigo produced by the carbonic acid was spinning before his eyes, entwining its invisible grip around his forehead, where I could see large blue veins swelling. Several times he tried to speak, but his voice always expired in a murmur on his convulsive lips.
Finally, by a superhuman effort, he overcame the sensations to which he had initially succumbed, and resumed his story.
The words emerged with difficulty from his mouth, slowly and one by one, as Laubardemont describes those of the possessed of Loudun.33
“Salomon had sworn an oath at his wife’s deathbed; he was determined to keep it no matter what the cost; that was his duty. While the corpse was still lying on the bed, where it had rendered its soul, Marie’s father went to take from his laboratory all the papers that he found there; the threw them into the fireplace, which devoured them, and the flames of which threw their bright red radiance on to Diane’s face. Then he passed his hands over his brow as if to rip out a thought entirely, wiped away a tear, and went to kneel next to the blind girl who was praying beside her mother’s mortal remains.
“The next day, he gave the witch’s cooking-pot to a carpenter in exchange for a coffin.
“A week later, Salomon was fulfilling the humble functions of an assistant laborer in the establishment of a local druggist. He spent entire days compressing pills and making up preparations too difficult and too fatiguing for the merchant.
“He had been reduced to that extremity because everywhere he went to ask for work, people had sent him away without even wanting to listen to him. A parliamentary clerk had agreed to give him a few copies to transcribe, but when he had seen is new clerk’s poor handwriting, he had dismissed him immediately. Like the son of the king in the fable, Salomon, who possessed a superior intelligence and whose knowledge was immense, found himself reduced to working with his hands to earn his daily bread.
“Unfortunately, those hands were unskillful, and above all, weak. Not only had the unfortunate father gravely impaired his health, but the druggist did not take long to perceive that a robust domestic would be able to do his work better. One evening, he told the pale and sickly man, whom the lightest tasks caused to sweat blood and wear out his arms, that he could no longer employ him.
“Salmon begged him to revoke an order that would reduce his daughter to the most absolute deprivation. He begged him, implored him, threw himself at his feet. Moved, the man gave him a thirty-sou coin and said to him: ‘I’d rather give you alms than have you spoil my merchandise with your clumsiness.’
“Misery had crushed Salomon’s heart too thoroughly for it to rebound in revolt against that insulting charity. He picked the coin out of the mud, went to a local bakery, bought a loaf of bread and took it to his daughter.
“For a week, they both lived on the proceeds of that thirty-sou piece. On the last two days Salomon only pretended to eat; he hid his bread under his coat and gave it to his daughter the next day.
“Cold was then raging with extreme violence; a glacial draught blew relentlessly and pitilessly through the poorly-sealed attic in which the two unfortunates lived. One morning, alas, it was necessary to quit that miserable refuge; they were thrown out pitilessly, and with violence. The owner had wearied of lodging strangers who had not paid him two sous for a year.
“Salmon linked arms with his daughter and wandered at random through the streets of Paris. That night, Marie had shelter and bread because her father begged and was able to extract a few sous from the charity of passers-by.
“The next day, all those to whom they addressed themselves rejected them mercilessly. He was, in any case, a poor beggar; after the first refusal he jibbed and was unable to be importunate.
“Marie prayed to God and said in her prayers: ‘Lord, won’t you put an end to my agony? Won’t you finally reunite me with my mother in paradise?’
“She interrupted her plaints when she heard her father coming, In spite of herself, however, her hands pressed her breast convulsively and her extinct eyes were raised toward the heavens.
“Salomon remained beside his child, silent and motionless, until nightfall.
“When night came, he got up, went into a bakery, took a loaf of bread from the counter, and brought it to Marie. ‘Here’s some bread, my child,’ he said, ‘take it.’
“Marie made no reply. He put the bread on the blind girl’s knees. The little girl’s hands did not move.
“He leaned over her. Her eyes were closed. He put his hand on her heart; it was no longer beating.
“He took the bread and went back to the bakery. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I stole a loaf of bread a little while ago. I’m bringing it back.’
“The baker took pity on him and told him to keep it, as alms.
“Salomon started to laugh bitterly. ‘Alms! Alms for me! I’ve begged and I’ve stolen for my daughter; my daughter is dead; I no longer want anything from the shameful pity of men.’
“‘Your daughter is dead,’ said the baker, who was a compassionate man, and lived in accordance with the Gospel. “May God give you the strength to withstand such a rude blow.”
“Salomon drew closer to him. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘If you will do what I ask, there will emerge from my lips, and my fear, full of maledictions, a word of blessing for you. Give the cadaver of my child a shroud and a coffin.’
“The baker, moved, hastened to go with the poor father to pick up the young girl’s cadaver. That same evening, Salomon followed the coffin in which Diane’s child as eternally asleep to the church and to the cemetery.
“When the funeral ceremony was over, he shook the hand of the charitable baker and went away. For a long time he wandered aimlessly, oppressed by dolor and making plans to demand shelter from death.
“Prey to those sinister thoughts, he sat down mechanically on a doorstep, and by virtue of an instinctive movement huddled himself up as best he could in order to keep the cold at bay. A kind of dolorous torpor gradually overcame him, until daybreak.
“When he woke up, he saw a housewife emerging from the house next door, with a copper coking-pot in her hand. It was the wife of the carpenter to whom he had given the utensil in exchange for a coffin for Diane. The sight of the diabolical object that had exercised such a fatal influence upon his life suddenly reanimated him.
“‘I don’t want to die!’ he exclaimed. ‘Glory, fortune and immortality await me! I can march toward them without shackles; today, I’m free.’
“He stood up, shook his rags, and drew away.
“To see him march with strength and confidence, as if he really were heading toward a goal that he was in haste to reach, no one would have recognized him as the father who had just buried his daughter and the wretch who was dying of starvation. He felt a vigor and a confidence that he had not experienced for a long time. His brain, freed from the iron hand that had been gripping it, formed thoughts full of energy. He had almost recovered the ardor and faith of his youth; one might have thought that a mysterious voice was repeating in his ear: ‘Your time of trials is over.’
“He had only taken some two hundred strides when he found that a man had been thrown by his horse in the street and sustained a serious head-injury. Salomon cut through the crowd, reached the gentleman and set about dressing his wound with so much dexterity that everyone recognized his superiority and his expertise, and accorded him the deference that one shows on such occasions to a special individual. The apothecary prescribed the drugs necessary to complete the care he had just given, and offered to take the invalid, who had recovered consciousness, back to his home. That offer was accepted gratefully, and Salomon was accommodated, in the capacity of physician, in the house of the Marquis de Combalet,34 for it was that nobleman, a favorite of Cardinal Richelieu, to whom Diane’s husband had rendered such opportune assistance.
“The Marquis, surprised to discover so much knowledge and intelligence in the man he had found dressed in rags, did not take long to conceive a considerable affection for his nurse. He did not want to receive care from anyone but Salomon, and refused to give admittance to the physicians that his family summoned. He had no reason to regret that resolution, for two months after his fall he was completely cured.
“One morning, he went into the room that Salomon occupied in his house, close to his sick-room, and found him occupied in writing and drawing bizarre diagrams. ‘Master Solomon,’ he said, ‘I owe you my life; I have to need to tell you how grateful I am and how much affection I have for you. Put a price on your services, therefore; if I cannot repay you in full, at least I can show you that I’m not an ingrate. Speak sincerely, and don’t hesitate to open your heart to me. If you care to attach yourself to my household, you’ll fulfill my dearest wish and will find in me, not a master, but a friend.’
“Salomon raised his head, cast an eye over his papers, as if he were reluctant to set them aside, and replied distractedly: ‘Monseigneur, before long I shall possess fortune and glory. A few more days and I will have completed the design of a machine destined to change the face of the word. Deign, therefore, to grant me a refuge in our house until my work is completely finished, and then obtain me a audience with Monseigneur le Cardinal, and you will have fulfilled all my desires.’
“‘I hope to do more for you, my dear Salomon,’ the Marquis said. ‘I shall see you soon.’
“He went down to the courtyard of the house and found the Marquise, who was waiting for him on the perron. ‘Monseigneur,’ she said to him, ‘your squire tells me that you intend to ride the unruly horse that nearly cost you your life the other day; out of affection for me, don’t do that.’
“‘That would be weakness,’ the Marquis replied. ‘It’s necessary that I prove to the malicious creature that I’m not afraid of him, and that I’m able to reckon with him. Have no fear, Madame.’
“So saying, he kissed the Marquise and leapt on to the horse. Scarcely had the impetuous beast felt a man on its back than it started kicking and bucking, and exhibiting the greatest fury. The Marquis held firm and true, used the whip and the spurs, struggled, resisted and manipulated the bridle skillfully. After a quarter of a hour, victory finally went to the rider, and the stallion, bathed with sweat, became pliant and docile to the bit, like the calmest of mares.
“Delighted with his triumph, the Marquis turned to the reassured Marquise with a smile, saluted her with his hand, and departed at a gallop.
“Just as he was about to go through the gate of the residence, a domestic, who was holding a cooking-pot, appeared at the end of the street. The sunlight, falling directly upon the copper vessel, was reflected resplendently, producing a dazzling light. At the sight of that glare, which suddenly hurt its eyes, the horse reared up, throwing its rider to the ground, fractured his skull with a kick, and killed him on the spot, before the eyes of the distressed Marquise.
“It did not take long to discover that the copper cauldron that had caused such a great misfortune belonged to Salomon, who had bought it back from the carpenter to whom he had previously sold it. The steward took advantage of that excuse to expel from the house a man whose credit with the Marquis had made him jealous so many times. Salomon did not put up any resistance, and headed for the Cardinal’s palace, where he solicited an audience with the Minister, making use of the name of his former protector in attempting to reach the man who held the destiny of France in his hands.
“After long solicitations, he succeeded in obtaining that audience. The Cardinal, who was in pain, and whose struggles with the king had thrown him into one of the nervous commotions that afflicted him so frequently, received Salomon harshly.
“‘You’ve been seeking an audience with me for a month now,’ he said, in a low and bitter voice. ‘What do you want?’
“‘Monseigneur,’ Salomon replied, ‘I’m the possessor of a secret that might ensure His Very Christian Majesty power over the entire world. Henceforth, vessels will have no more need of sails, and the speed of navigation will be multiplied a hundredfold. Carriages will move without horses.’
“‘And what means will you employ to bring about these marvels?’
“‘The steam of boiling water.’
“The cardinal picked up a silver whistle from his waist and blew a shrill blast on it. An officer appeared.
“‘Since when are madmen allowed access to me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Throw this man out!’
“‘Monseigneur!’ cried Salomon. ‘In the name of Heaven, don’t refuse to listen to me. However impossible they may seem to you, the marvels of which I speak can be executed before your eyes as soon as you wish. My life will answer for the success—take my head as a hostage! Steam is an energetic force.’
“The cardinal made a gesture with his head and Salomon was dragged away.
“Salomon drew his dagger to resist those who had seized him...”
Jean abruptly interrupted himself; his hand extended toward the bottle, but his strength failed him and he fell back into his chair. He tried to speak, but no voice emerged from his lips and he fell like an inert mass at my feet.
I cannot tell you what I experienced then. The thunder was rumbling, the lightning flashing, the rain lashing the windows. A mass of smoke and ashes, whipped up by the wind, suddenly erupted from the fireplace and extinguished my lamp.
I confess that at that moment, a veritable fear took hold of me, and I called for help.
Two attendants came running, and hastened to lavish care on poor Jean—who, in spite of their efforts, remained motionless, as if life had abandoned him.
The two men, realizing that their assistance remained powerless to reanimate the epileptic, carried him to the infirmary.
I spent all night in the most mortal anxiety. Several times I went out to ask the attendant whether the fatal crisis that had struck Jean had lost its violence, but I could not succeeded in gaining entry to the epileptics’ section. The rules of Bicêtre expressly forbade any person not on the staff of the establishment to go into its wards by night.
I saw Jean again the next morning. He had resumed his silent and humble behavior.
“Well, Jean,” I asked him, “are you feeling much better this morning?”
He hastened to take off his cap to salute, looked at me with a surprised expression, and replied in a voice that was even more respectful than usual: “It happens so often that it’s not worth the trouble of talking about it.”
“But wasn’t last night’s crisis more terrible than any other?”
“Last night? Is Monsieur not mistaken? It was in the evening, when I came back to the ward, that the illness struck…but perhaps Monsieur is right. I doubtless had two crises during the day. My poor head is so sick! I can scarcely remember what happened to me an hour ago.”
He bent down in order to poke the fire, picked up a broom and set about his humble functions in silence. After which he advanced toward his cauldron and prepared to hoist it on to his shoulder, as usual.
“Couldn’t you finish yesterday’s story now, Jean?” I said. “I’m very impatient to know how it ends.”
He looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language, about something unknown. He did not seem to understand my question.
“A story?” he repeated.
“Yes—the story of your cauldron.”
“Well, my God,” he said, “that’s a very simple story. The cauldron belonged to a poor madman who lived for fifty years imprisoned in a padded cell at Bicêtre, where he had been thrown on Cardinal Richelieu’s orders. Like all madmen, he protested against the order that kept him captive, and claimed to be in possession of his reason. If he could be believed, he knew marvelous secrets that would enable carriages move without horses and give them the rapidity of a bird in flight. Unfortunately, he never failed to add that he was pursued by a curse, that a witch had cast a spell on the copper cauldron found in his home in Paris and brought to Bicêtre with the debris of his possessions, in which his nourishment was now served to him. He begged for someone to take the cauldron away from his cell, and flew into the most violent fits of anger at the refusal or the warders in that matter. Nothing was done about it. He was let alone, and during the fifty years he spent in the asylum, he had that utensil before his eyes.
“However, he had been heard to insist so often, during that half-century, on the deadly properties of the vessel, that after the old man’s death, no one wanted to make use of it. Before I arrived here it stayed in a corner, where it did not fail to justify, by way of two or three accidents, its evil renown. Once it fell from a nail on which it had been hung and mortally wounded the head of a kitchen-boy. It was thrown into a cellar, and God known how long it remained there. One day, some children found it, and wanted to make use of it to cook some soup of their own making; four of the children died from verdigris poisoning. When I became an attendant, I saw that the cauldron was still in good condition, and that, in spite of its evil reputation, it could render some service. So I adopted it, half out of incredulity regarding its deadly properties, and half out of superstition. I no longer had anything to fear from death, I told myself, and far from dreading it, I desired it. Perhaps the diabolical cauldron would put an end to my suffering.
“Alas, Monsieur, as you can see, I’m not dead; my hope hasn’t been realized and the fatal influence of the cauldron has no effect on me—unless it’s responsible for the attacks of epilepsy from which I suffer so frequently, and of which I never showed any symptom before my arrival at Bicêtre. But Monsieur, if that malady has a cause, it’s not necessary to accuse that poor piece of copper. Poverty, chagrin and abandonment explain the veritable causes of my suffering too adequately for there to be any need to look for others.”
At that moment a bell rang; it was the signal for some service for which Jean was responsible. He picked up the cauldron and ran to his post.
Three or four months went by before I was able to return to Bicêtre. A journey to Flanders had taken me way from Paris for that entire time. On my return, I hastened to go to Bicêtre to shake the hand of my friend Doctor Émile.
I found him in the dissection room, with a cigar in his mouth and a scalpel in his hand, occupied in searching a cadaver for the characteristic signs of cholera, the first symptoms of which had just declared themselves at Bicêtre. He interrupted his lugubrious work to shake my hand; then, indicating the poor object on the marble table, he said: “This poor devil suffered a great deal; the cholera has not inflicted more frightful and crueler dolors on any of its victims.” He continued, like a true physician: “There’s one curious observation to make; perhaps it’s necessary to seek its cause in the subject’s epileptic condition.”
Turning back to the unfortunate individual who furnished that scientific observation, he continued: “Poor Père Jean—and to think that the man played a brilliant role in the social order, than en entire audience rose to its feet to salute the name of the poet whose play, full of grace and intelligence it had just admired. To think that those hands, so often occupied in the humblest employments, once disposed of the destiny of a king. Napoléon honored that head with his hatred; at the height of his power he remembered the name of that old man in order to pursue him with his vengeance.”
“What was that name, then?” I exclaimed.
“Jean Baudrais.”
“Jean Baudrais!” I repeated.
“Yes,” said Émile. “Yes, events pass so quickly in Paris that those who have been involved in them are soon forgotten, no matter how brightly they shone. Listen, then, and I’ll tell you what one of the employees of my establishment told me a little while ago—for like you, I had no idea, until two hours ago that this man was Jean Baudrais.
“In 1769, there was a charming and intelligent young man in Paris, recently married to a young woman of sixteen, whom he loved passionately, and whose grace equaled her angelic sweetness. When that couple, as remarkable for their youth as for their beauty, were seen in public people pointed to them in admiration, and more than once they found themselves surrounded by a crowd; no one at court or in the city was talking about anything but the two beautiful Tourangeaux. Marie-Antoinette wanted to see them, and had them introduced to her; she thanked Jean Baudrais, in the most affable terms, for delightful comedy entitled L’Allégresse villageoise, which he had composed to celebrate the dauphin’s birth, and did not dismiss them until she had taken off a diamond necklace, which she asked Madame Baudrais to accept.
“Not so many years later, Jean Baudrais was at the Temple. He presided over a dozen municipal functions there. It was the twenty-fourth of January. Having become a member of the commune, he had acquired a measure of popularity by the violence of his demagogic declamations, and no one more worthy that he had been found to supervise the preparations for the frightful drama that was about to take place. Jean Baudrais therefore received from the hand of King Louis XVI that prince’s testament, and he countersigned it before handing it to the commune; thus, the name of this poor wretch, who will be thrown into the common grave of a hospital, is attached to one of those eternal monuments of which fearful history can only count two or three examples.
“It was Baudrais, again, who sent the twenty-five louis d’or found in Louis XVI’s writing desk to the public treasury. In 1817 a lawsuit was brought against Baudrais by the heirs of Monsieur de Malesherbes, who claimed that sum. He demonstrated by means of irrefutable proofs that it had been handed to the secretarial clerk.
After the king’s death, Baudrais, doubtless in recompense for the said functions that he had fulfilled at the Temple, became one of the administrators charged with the supervision of the police. He was denounced in that epoch for being ‘too easy’ on pretty female petitioners. The truth is that Baudrais always showed compassion to the numerous victims of the Terror; that more than one person owed their liberty to him, and that he often, to his credit, saved victims from the scaffold.
“That benevolence was assessed as weakness and lack of patriotic fervor. Robespierre rendered him destitute and had him thrown in prison. Preparations were being made for his transfer to the Conciergerie and submission to judgment when Robespierre as overthrown and send to the scaffold himself.
“Baudrais was set free, but, although he had nearly perished under the blows of the power that had just collapsed, he was nevertheless set aside. He accepted the obscurity to which he was condemned without overmuch chagrin and fulfilled for some time the humble functions of a justice of the peace in the Cornmarket district. Anxiety was generated nevertheless by his presence in Paris, and he was ordered to embark for Guadeloupe with the title of civil, criminal and appeal judge in commercial matters. He obeyed, resignedly, embarked and arrived at his post in 1797.
“Three years later, although he had not left the island and was uninvolved with any political movement, he received his destitution and an order to leave immediately for Cayenne. Napoléon, who nourished sentiments of hatred against him for reasons that remain unknown, had taken his revenge, like a true Corsican. On his orders, Baudrais had been included among the one hundred and seventy-three people accused of complicity in the affair of the infernal machine.35
“In spite of the injustice of that condemnation, it was necessary to obey. Baudrais was deported to Cayenne. He remained there for several years, after which he found a means to escape and flee to the United States. There he lived for thirteen years, working with his hands. He fulfilled the functions of a cashier in a bank. He would have preferred to be employed as a clerk, but his handwriting, remarkably irregular and almost illegible, never permitted him to do so. He therefore spent his days relentlessly tramping the streets of New York, with a heavy bag on his shoulder, taking bonds whose due date had arrived from institution to institution. In the evening, when he returned to is mansard, he worked ardently on the composition of a very mediocre poem, to which he founded great hopes of fortune and renown.
“In 1817 he resolved to return to France, of which Napoléon’s fall permitted him to dream, Regnaud de Saint-Jean-d’Angely and Réal,36 exiled in their turn, who had found their old friend in America, clubbed together to give Baudrais the means to carry out this plan, and he arrived in Paris in the early months of 1818. The majority of his former colleagues were in government, and he had recourse to them, but all doors, including those of people who owed their lives to him, remained closed to a firmer member of the commune. Publishers showed their disdain for the poet’s manuscript. That latter disappointment was perhaps even more dolorous than the former.
“Meanwhile, his resources were exhausted. Poverty had already arrived sand starvation was approaching. Madame Baudrais fell ill and had to go into the hospital. Then all courage abandoned the poor old man. Separated from the woman who, for so many years, had courageously shared his ill fortune, he fell sick himself and was picked up one morning in a Paris street, at the foot of a boundary-marker, where he had fallen down, exhausted by need and fever. The minister of police had him sent to Bicêtre, among the charity cases. You know the rest, my friend. Jean Baudrais resigned himself courageously to fulfill the functions of a humble ward orderly, and did not recoil from any of the repugnant aspects of that employment. He could, at that price, earn a little money, which he could send to his wife, from whom he was separated, and whom he went to see every week at the Salpêtrière, where she had been placed.”
The doctor extended his hand over the cadaver by way of an oratorical gesture, and added: “This is the denouement of the drama—a hospital amphitheater!”
At that moment, attendants came in with a coffin. They had come to remove the mortal remains of Jean Baudrais, in order to take them to the cemetery.
One of the men bumped his leg on the copper cauldron, which was on the ground next to the table. He put his hand to his foot with the most expressive evidence of pain.
A fortnight after that, Dr. Émile came to see me in Paris. I reproached him affectionately for having gone such a long time without visiting me.
“It’s not my fault,” he replied, shaking my hand. I had to look after a poor fellow on my staff. He had a wound on his leg, insignificant in appearance; the negligence he showed on caring for it led to an inflammation; the inflammation caused ulceration and gangrene. In brief, I had to amputate the leg the day before yesterday.”
“Did it go well?”
“He’s gone to join Jean Baudrais,” he said, with a sigh.
“What strange fatality is attached to the cauldron!” I exclaimed.
Émile shrugged his shoulders. “There you go,” he said. “You poets seek the extraordinary everywhere; do you think the cauldron is bewitched? My poor fellow, examine with a little attention all the events in the life of any man, and you’ll see a similar chain of fatalities therein. Don’t you know that King Gustave III of Sweden died because his secretary broke his spectacles and couldn’t read his master a letter warning him about a conspiracy. Go back from cause to cause and you’ll arrive...”
“At God,” I interjected.
“That’s the conclusion to which I wanted to lead you,” the doctor replied, bowing respectfully before the august name that I had pronounced.”
Translator’s afterword
Salomon de Caus (1576-1626) was a Huguenot, and, in consequence, spent much of his life outside France, although he did work for Louis XIII as an engineer and architect; he never lived in Rouen. In a book published in 1615 Caus described a steam-driven pump, but it was not a new invention. The idea that it entitled him to be considered the true inventor of the steam engine was popularized by the 19th century scientist and statesman François Arago, but the contention is highly dubious. Thus the entire story-within-the-story told in “The Cauldron of Bicêtre” is a pure work of the imagination—as, indeed, the frame story ultimately represents it to be, although that narrative move might seem a trifle pusillanimous to some readers.
The biography of Jean Baudrais (1749-1832) summarized by “Dr. Émile” is broadly accurate, except for the details of his death. He did, indeed, die in Bicêtre, of cholera, but did so three years before the story is set; he was admitted to Bicêtre because of his advanced age and his identity was not unknown to the staff there. He did not suffer from epilepsy, and there is no evidence that Napoléon had anything more against him than he had against the other 129 former Jacobins that he banished after the affair of the infernal machine.
The witch’s cauldron is, unsurprisingly, a pure invention.