Does She Have A Metronome Under Her Dress?
Gabriel is dead! Gabriel is dead! The old man turned him into a bloody pulp! For my part, I do not worry about anything more than this single essential fact. The rest can be explained afterwards, if it becomes at all necessary but, for me, the only thing that matters is the death of Gabriel. He no longer stands between me and Christine! Will I get any further with her? I don’t really care! My heart has been reinvigorated by all the blood that the old man has spilled!
Never again will she rest her head against the shoulder of this young man, handsome as a demigod, and never again will I have to watch them kissing. But what are they going to do with the corpse? I waited and watched all night, but the door of the atelier was not opened again.
At that point, drained by fatigue and emotion, I climbed downstairs, back to my room, threw myself onto my bed, and fell asleep in the clutches of an immense joy. Upon waking, I had the same feeling for the entire day: Gabriel is dead!
Oh, what a cry of triumph on the threshold of a renewed life!
My heart is grave and joyous as it pumps the blood through my chest! So how do I dare to write such words of fire? How can I delight at the sight of a cowardly murder? What does it matter? I’ve decided to believe in that principle of Schelling’s: “great minds are above the law!” Am I, then, a great mind? Perhaps I am, perhaps not. But, of one thing, I am certain: I am a great pariah!
And that bestows rights upon me that are not understood by ordinary creatures… since I came into this world, God has tempted me! But beware! Enough of this nonsense..!
Enough wallowing in sacrilege… time to come back down to earth… here is the sound of the cleaning lady, who comes knocking on the door of the shop.
Ordinarily, at his hour – eight in the morning, to be precise – the old man is already behind his curtains, bent over his square wheels, and Madame Langlois only has to push open the door. But, this morning, the shutters are still closed. Old Mother Langlois – who I know well, for she also serves me as a housekeeper – is slightly disconcerted. She knocks. She knocks again with her dried, wrinkly fists. At last, the door is opened. It’s the old man who comes. She goes in and Monsieur Prosector comes out at once, almost on the run! He must be late for his lectures. I watch him as he passes. Apart from his frowning eyebrows – he seems to me to be as insignificant as on any other day.
The door of the shop is left ajar; I no longer see the old man! Ah, if only I could get in through there: I, the one who knows! What might I see in there..? They will already have arranged things so that old Mother Langlois will see nothing… she will see nothing… but I? And suddenly, without further reflection, I pick up my stock of leathers, lurch across the street, and steal into that house of crime… I pass through the shop, through the small dining room located at the rear, and in which old Mother Langlois is already going through the motions of her function. With broom in hand, she calls to me as I pass through, but I have already reached the garden.
There I go, and collide with a stupefied old Norbert, who is overwhelmed by this extraordinary event: by the sheer audacity of a man who dares to cross the five square metres of his shop floor and go for a walk in his garden as if it were his own home!
“Wh… what are you doing here, monsieur?” he finally mumbled while fixing me with grey eyes, full of intense hostility.
“Monsieur, I am the bookbinder.”
“But I thought my daughter had come to an understanding with you!”
And then he whispered another few words through his teeth, after which I understood that Christine had made her visit to me the excuse for not accompanying the watchmaker and his nephew on their Sunday stroll.
At that moment, a voice could be heard from above us:
“Let the gentleman come upstairs, papa!”
I didn’t need to be asked twice, and without waiting for the old man’s permission (indeed, I left him in a state of complete agitation), I bounded up the staircase leading to the atelier where Christine waited, leaning over the balcony.
She was still as calm as when I had seen her the evening before, in my place, and there was nothing in her demeanour, or in her physiognomy, that in any way reflected the slightest trace of the terrible drama of the night before.
Who can imagine what my thoughts were at this moment? Could I even express them? I was about to find myself in a room, which I knew no-one entered, apart from Christine, her father, her fiancé – and their victim – and only a few hours after the murder, I was about to be let in by Christine herself who, with the most natural gesture imaginable, pushed the door open for me.
Immediately, my eyes turned around the joists of the balcony, to the atelier floor, to the table, to the immense cabinet, as if I were destined to discover the bloody traces of the crime. It was an infantile idea! From the moment she received me in that room it was obvious that everything necessary would have already been done! Necessary? But the floor did not even seem to have been swept... Nothing, nothing, nothing in this long room, which was flooded with daylight, nothing remained here that could hold the gaze of the one who had seen the most – my gaze – which had seen Gabriel murdered!
There was more: I knew, from the insinuated confidences of Old Mother Langlois, that the old man, his daughter and the fiancé were locked in that atelier for hours and hours at a time, with all the curtains drawn over the windowpanes, engaged in some mysterious labour which – I had already heard – had begun to trouble a few of the simpler minds of the neigbourhood; but, after a brief glance around this rather banal atelier, I began to wonder if Mother Langlois had, in fact, been dreaming!
A vast divan stood in one of the corners, a few canvasses, studies, and modellings based on antique designs hung on the wall, two stools supported a rough model in clay covered in damp cloths, a glass bookcase stood to one side, which contained several polychrome stautettes (but no books), all of which reminded me that, two years ago, Christine Norbert had exhibited a bust of Antinous, of singular beauty, an event that had seen her frequently talked about owing to speculations about the substance from which it had been sculpted – but while this effort was being made to discover the substance and give it a name, one morning, the artist, without explanation, withdrew her exhibit.
At the far end of the atelier, a partly-drawn portière hung over the door to a little room that had to be Christine’s bed chamber. My eye, which I was unable to fix on anything, returned to the cabinet.
Then Christine gently reminded me of the purpose of my visit, and asked me to take a seat on the very chair on which, the night before, I had seen Gabriel sitting.
If she was feeling in complete control of herself, I certainly was not! My brain was on fire, my hands were trembling. She sat down in front of me; I dared not look at her. Here was the place where, last night, they had murdered her lover, and there she was studying the grain and colours of my leathers.
She offered to give me some drawings from which I could make a mosaic.
“So, you want a deluxe binding?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered, “but I have to admit that these books are not mine and neither are they intended for me. This is a secret that I have not told you, but I am sure that you will keep it! They belong to the Marquis de Coulteray, our landlord, who I have seen recently, and who is looking for a bookbinder, of great skill, who would be willing to dedicate himself to keeping his library in exceptional condition. Perhaps this would not be disagreeable to you, since you are a neighbour! I spoke with him about your work and he asked me to acquire him some samples. Forgive me the intrusion!”
I repaid her with a stammer like that of a timid and confused child. I was not particularly interested in the little story about the books, but in the idea that she had thought of me! That I actually existed for her! That she had even tried to do me a favour. The thought made me feel intoxicated. A moment before, I had approached this beautiful girl with horror, wondering to myself what kind of impassive metronome pulsed under her dress, now I would have kissed its hem as if she were the goddess of pity.
Yes, yes, it was adorable of her to lower herself to my level of abomination! To smile at my hideous face! O, my angel!
All the same, last night, in this very place, they had murdered her lover!
This idea, resurgent all of a sudden, made me feel giddy. My stupid gaze strayed once more around the circumference of that accursed room, which revealed none of its secrets, but it returned, as always, to the cabinet! The cabinet from which he stepped and into which they had probably thrown his body while digging a grave for him. I wonder if he’s still in there, the beautiful dead man..!
I’m sure he is..!
A force over which I was not master impelled my steps towards that fatal piece of furniture. “Where are you going, monsieur!”… This time it seemed to me that the voice was less assured and that the gesture with which she stopped me a little too hasty.
Now it was my turn to show pity. I pulled myself together… I said, without knowing why:
“Why, that’s an antique Norman bahut, isn’t it?...”
“It’s not a bahut, monsieur, it’s an old armoire from Renaissance Provençale, everything about it is quite authentic… this is the only piece of furniture I have left that belonged to my mother, monsieur, it was left to her by her grandmother… in its day, it contained some very fine and strong linen of a variety that is not made these days.”
I felt the urge to leave. She held out her hand. I sensed that if I touched her hand to my lips, I’d do something stupid and so I hurried away..! After all, he’s dead! He’s dead! That’s the most important thing..! Old Norbert was within his rights! The old Roman rights, the only true ones! The right to administer life and death under your own roof..! It is true that he killed the man in the cape, but he would never touch a hair on his daughter’s head…he’s done the right thing! A creature like her is sacred, no matter what she does! Brave pater familias! I shake his hand in the shop before locking myself up in my own. All of this is horrible!...