The Other Thing
10th June. – The spectacle presented by Dorga had prevented me from paying the slightest attention to the Indian physician, the famous Saib Khan, who was sitting in the same box as the Marquis. I found it difficult to remember those womanly eyes; the deep, black eyes of a houri set in a bearded mask. But today, the Marquis came down to the library with Saib Khan and I was able to watch him closely and completely at my leisure.
Saib Khan has rather a lot of what one might call Afghan traits about him. He is handsome. They are all very handsome in that land. He is not quite as bronzed as the Indian princes from the palaces on the banks of the Ganges. His severe face is framed by a well-groomed beard, which ends in a point. Like Sangor, he has a powerful physique, broad shoulders and a fine posture. He is smartly dressed and shod: he has a simple elegance, he is impeccable. I can understand his power over women and the disorders he inspires. He appears to be so sure of himself that it is almost impossible not to be agitated by some kind of disturbance in the presence of this double mystery, with the soft eyes of a woman and that carnal, carnivorous mouth.
All of this led me to wonder... Where had I seen that dangerous smile and those tiger’s teeth before? Of course, it was in the portraits… especially in the picture of Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome, the first of the four...and that smile, always a little ferocious, if not quite as powerful, from time to time, strays across the face of our bon vivant, Georges-Marie-Vincent!
The two of them interest themselves in my work which consists, for the moment, of making a catalogue of the rarest documents, the most precious of which I had found lying in a pile in a corner of the library. I am allowed to classify and collect them according to my own liking and tastes...
The Marquis is by no means a brute. I do not find him to be an ‘informed’ collector, because this collection owes little or nothing to any effort on his part, but he is highly erudite, and well-informed about the literary movements of the last two centuries: this I cannot deny, I cannot deny... he is a man that, on his travels, has always interested himself in libraries... We have had a long discussion about the one in Florence, and about the Longus manuscript, and about the famous ink spot of Paul-Louis Courier... [6] He did not defend Paul-Louis for making light of such a crime... I did not realize that the Marquis was such a lover of Daphnis and Chloë. But, then again, that’s all just literature... the reality is Dorga..!
While these things passed through my mind, there can be little doubt that Saib Khan was thinking about the same things, because his sinister smile widened across his jaw with all the gleaming menace of a wild animal...
They must have left the house as soon as they had left the library, because I heard the sound of an automobile being driven out of the courtyard...
Almost immediately, the door which led into the small vestibule opened and the Marchioness appeared: “Where do you suppose he learned all that,” she hissed, “where do you think?... Can you tell me? Georges-Marie-Vincent almost completely neglected his education...or, at least, that is what he told me. He could never even remember the name of his teacher... So? ...”
She had been listening at the door... So it had all been in vain! Although she was better physically, that idea of hers was always there...that absurd idea that made me look at her with an infinite sadness... She was not mistaken in noticing this in my manner:
“I make you unhappy, isn’t it true? Christine has excited your pity for me!”
Then she said, in a deeper voice:
“Isn’t Christine still here?”
“No, she has gone home!”
“Oh, that’s good,” she continued, “now we can talk... She will have told you, no doubt, about the idea... They all think that I’m insane here... There are moments when I wish that I was dead... dead, I tell you!... But at the same time, I am afraid of death... and I’ll tell you why, one of these days, if you haven’t already fathomed it for yourself... I am afraid of death; I am afraid of life; I am afraid of Saib Khan!... He is all-powerful... He can do anything that it is possible to do... If he had been able to extract my idea from my body as one would extract a tooth, he would have done so long ago... I knew him back in India... No mere idea can resist him!... So why has he not been successful in my case?... It is because, in my case, it is not just an idea – it is the reflection of a reality... Do you understand?... It is not a primitive imagination over which a man like Saib Khan can prevail... it is a living and natural truth... against which he can do nothing. If Saib Khan was to command a mountain to disappear, it would not make the Himalayas any more movable from their base, would it?... Well, then, neither does he have it in his power to disperse my idea of an inseparable, indestructible bloc... or, at least, not until today, at any rate... the Coulteray bloc... do you understand me? Do you understand me?”
She placed her burning-hot hand upon mine: “I tell you: they are all one and the same person!”
Her immense eyes sought out mine... I did not dare to look at her, out of fear that she would notice the pity that she inspired in me!
“Milady! Milady! How can you say that? How can a woman like you, with intelligence like yours, say such a thing?... Milady, be on your guard! There is nothing more powerful in the world than the realm of the unknown. It is a domain in which even the soundest minds have lost their way. There are ideas, milady, with which one should not play!”
“By Jesus and Mary!” she cried, “do I have the look of someone who is playing games? I am speaking seriously. This is a fact. Georges-Marie-Vincent has never had an education. Only the first of the four, or shall we say of the five, counting the present Marquis, only Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome, who was one of the most debauched lords in the court of Louis XV, was educated. He was a scholar of sorts.”
“I know,” I said, “and he was a great debater, too. He stood his ground against Duclos. He simply shone at Holbach’s. He also wrote articles for the Great Encyclopaedia.”
“Then I am telling you nothing new,” she conceded. “He was raised by his uncle, the Bishop of Fréjus. Be that as it may, monsieur Masson, I must insist that the conversation you just had with Georges-Marie-Vincent would not have been possible if Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome had not received such an education!”
I was taken aback.
“All the same, Milady, allow me to tell you that Paul-Louis Courier did not spill his ink spot on the Longus manuscript at the time of Louis XV!”
She pursed her lips.
“So that is all that is needed to make you take me for a fool!” she let fall. “I simply want to tell you that, without this education, without the scraps of classical knowledge obtained through it, Georges-Marie-Vincent would not have the slightest interest in the treasures of the library in Florence.”
“Excuse me, milady... but if there is one thing in all that I have said to you that I must insist upon, it is the solid foundation of the Marquis’ classical education.”
“Is it really?”
Once again, her eyes glared... once again, she held my hand...
“Ah! If only you would be my friend... my friend!...”
I uttered a few words of devotion to her... Her sudden agitation had made me nervous... I regretted being left alone with her... I would even have been thankful if Sangor or Sing-Sing had appeared...
“Oh yes... I can feel it now... you... you do understand me... you do..! He knows that I am the most miserable being in the world, something that exists somewhere between life and death! Neither Saib Khan nor Christine wants to understand me..! Christine takes me for a madwoman... Saib Khan for a sick woman... and that he can resuscitate me... in spite of myself!... Ah! Why does he bring me back?... Why does he resuscitate me for this other?... Unless he is his accomplice... which is something I am beginning to believe... in a word... I have a horror of the life to which Saib Khan returns me, at the price of so many tortures. And yet, he has forbidden me to die!... Ah, my friend, my friend: have you ever been to the Chateau Coulteray? No, you have never visited it? It is the kind of chateau that they call ‘historical’... it’s down south... between Touraine and Sologne. The chapel there is a masterpiece, comparable with the church at Brou. But I pray you will believe me when I tell you that it was not for the ornate Gothic carvings that I went there... no... it was for what I found when I went down into the crypt... where the tombs of the Coulterays can be found. Monsieur Benedict Masson, the tomb of Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome is empty!... Empty, I tell you!... Don’t you understand?”
“In a word, no: I don’t! That I really do not understand!”
She seemed irritated by my insistence in not understanding:
“Empty! And it’s the last tomb of the Coulterays!... There are no others... There is no more death in the House of Coulteray...”
“But, Madame, what if they all died in foreign countries?”
“Evidently! Evidently!... But, I tell you again, the tomb is empty!...”
“That’s all very well... but the Revolution passed through there... and how many tombs were desecrated?...”
“That’s not true! That’s not true!... The Revolution had nothing to do with it... The day after they buried the corpse of Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome in the crypt, they found that the gravestone had been moved and that the tomb was empty..!”
“And then?”
“What do you mean: and then?... Don’t you know the history of the Coulterays?... I thought that you were well-informed about Louis-Jean-Marie-Chrysostome... A moment ago you told me that he had written articles for the Great Encyclopaedia... actually, he wrote one article... only one... and do you know what it was about? Do you have any idea of its subject matter? Wait for me here, I’ll go and find it for you!”
She ran off, while I remained there, dazed by this dumbfounding conversation – which had shocked me with its absence of reasoning... As far as I was concerned the poor woman was, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, completely insane..!
She returned within a couple of minutes, breathless:
“Quickly! Quickly!” she hurled the words at me, “take this parcel home with you. Hide it somewhere..! Read it and you will know everything... Sing-Sing is on the stairs! Sangor’s coming!... Farewell!”
She dropped a small parcel, wrapped in some pages from a fashion magazine and tied with a black ribbon, onto the table in front of me... I slipped it into my coat and went home... I was convinced that, at last, I was going to find out what the other thing was all about...