The Horseman on the Roof (56 page)

“What is it he's feeling? Banal things: his feet are cold. His hands icy. He's cold in what are called the extremities. His blood is receding, rushing to the site of the spectacle. It doesn't want to miss anything.

“Well, it's nothing much. Generally, there's nothing to be done. Poultices for wooden legs—as you can imagine, there's an infinite variety of them. Calomel is one. No, I haven't got any. What should I do with it? Sirup of gum perfumed with orange blossom is another. We have a choice between leeches at the anus and bloodletting—one doesn't need much erudition to think of these in such cases. We can pass from clysters to cachou, from ratany to quinine, mint, camomile, lime, balm. In Poland they give a grain of belladonna; in London two grains of subnitrate of bismuth. Some try cupping the epigastrium, or mustard plasters on the abdomen. Some administer (it's a pretty word) hydrochlorate of soda or acetate of lead.

“The best remedy would be to make oneself preferred. But, as you can see, one has nothing to offer
in exchange,
to replace this new passion. That's to say, we keep on looking for a specific capable of neutralizing the toxic attack, according to the formula of learned persons, when what is wanted is to make oneself preferred, offer more than is given by that burst of pride: in a word,
to be stronger, or more handsome, or more seductive, than death.
”

He would tell them something in confidence—or rather, no, the confidence should stop there. He wouldn't say a word more on this subject. “Prayers, appealing looks, and all your charm are no help. If you knew me better, you'd know that when I've decided to be silent I never yield to the temptation to talk.”

On the other hand, they had wanted a description of the cholera. He had agreed; they should have it. “And no stopping up your ears, if you please. Just now this young man seemed disposed to eat me alive if I didn't humor his desires. He shoved his pretty lady under my nose; he shoved you under my nose with the excuse that you must be saved at all costs. Why must you? That's a question he doesn't even ask himself. Above all, why should I and the rest of the world share his opinion? And, I repeat, save what?”

He wasn't in the least scared by loftiness: “Sit down and take some more rum, it's more sensible.” He was an old gentleman. He had shot his bolt long ago. “Saber, pistol, the duel you considerately offer me with such amusing ardor—what good would they do?
Was it I who made the world?

“If I inflict my confidences on you, it's precisely because I think I'm in the presence of reasonable persons, having regard to their pleasant faces and notwithstanding that awkward age which so easily drives one to extremes. Be thankful for youth, which permits one to approach death without mistrust or terror.

“The cholera victim no longer has any face: he has a
facies
—a facies that
could only mean cholera.
The eye, sunk deep in its socket and seemingly atrophied, is surrounded by a livid circle and half covered by the upper eyelid. It expresses either great agitation of the soul or a sort of annihilation. The sclerosis, now visible, is smitten with ecchymosis; the pupil is dilated and will never contract again. These eyes will never have tears again. The lashes, the lids are impregnated with a dry, grayish matter. Eyes that remain wide open in a rain of ashes, gazing at halos, giant fireflies, flashes of lightning.

“The cheeks have lost their flesh, the mouth is half open, the lips glued to the teeth. The breath passing through the narrow dental arcades becomes loud. It's like a child imitating an enormous kettle. The tongue is swollen, flabby, rather red, covered with a yellowish coating.

“The chill, first felt in the feet, knees, and hands, tends to invade the whole body. Nose, cheeks, ears are frozen. The breath is cold, the pulse slow, extremely weak, toward the decline of physiological existence.

“Now in this condition the victim answers with lucidity if questioned. His voice is hoarse but he doesn't wander. He sees clearly, and
from both sides.
When he chooses, it is with full awareness.”

He pointed out that all this takes longer to describe than to happen. “It is all seen in a flash as one cries out, rushes forward, takes Jacques, Pierre, or Paul in one's arms and asks: ‘What's to be done? He's lost!'”

So he felt; but, as he had remarked at the beginning, he had never been present at any volcanic eruptions. Nevertheless, he could imagine them quite well; and there must be in the spectacle of these convulsions a deeply tragic moment, doubtless of hypnotic value—the moment when the festival of fire sprang from the entrails of the earth and flung itself roaring upon life. Without having read anything on the subject except the
Ætna
and the stories of the Cyclops, it was easy to imagine those gigantic brayings, those brutalities incandescent, cindery, mephitic, and probably containing electricity. One had to be struck with such surprise, facing so clear a demonstration of our nothingness, that all the salt and probably all the sugar of Monsieur Claude Bernard turned into a statue.

“Some of my colleagues, who aren't all blind, have spoken of ‘choleric asphyxia.' I even thought for a moment that they were capable of understanding and expressing a little more than science whispers into their ears, when they added this charming remark—and how true!—‘The air still reaches the blood, but the blood doesn't reach the air.' I should have liked, after that (I repeat) most intelligent observation, to hear them pronounce the name of Cassandra; immediately after, and to show that they had really understood.

“I have spoken of proselytism; I mean that people cannot resist the need to proclaim the future, that is to say the truth, the truth in the egg.

“I've often thought that there is perhaps a moment when the cholera victim suffers, suffers horribly, not in his pride as hitherto (that's what is pushing him on) but, at last, in his love, and this might hold him back on our side.

“Here I open another parenthesis. Soon to be closed, don't worry, but necessary. It should be noted that the cholera, as you know, strikes everyone without distinction, and without warning. People take the decision to have cholera suddenly, in the midst of other fixed and firm decisions engendered by all the force of habit. And those most above suspicion are forthwith susceptible: the mother just as much as the girl in love, the housewife, the bourgeois, the soldier, the house-painter and the painter of battle scenes. Mediocrity does not exclude it; happiness (as is right) provokes it. Let's now close the parenthesis and keep its contents well in our minds. We are really much more than we think.

“It is maintained, then, that the cholera victim suffers horribly. It is said that nothing can compare with the torture of these living corpses who appreciate all the horror of their position. This obviously happens, as you will understand, in a state without dimensions or duration; let us place this horror: when they are among the cones of fire, the waves of sparks, the octopus lava, the fans of light. Their bodies are deaf, blind, dumb,
insensible.
That is to say, they no longer have hands, feet, back, nails, hair, or hide. And yet they are lucid. They continue to hear and see those around them, the noises in the street, the pot simmering on the fire, the flapping of the washing on the line, the groans, the red of a dress, the black of a mustache, the buzzing of the flies.

“If there is suffering, now is the moment. I say ‘if'; for what proof have we of this suffering? The spasms? The convulsions? The hiccups? The cries? The grinding of the teeth? Are we so sure we know the true outward manifestations of joy?

“But—a flash of pain, real horrible pain, that I believe in; and if it is possible, this is the moment for it. I say ‘if' because I am trying, like everyone else, to be objective, not to take a short cut, leave anything to chance. It comes at the moment when, under the rain of ashes, the victim wonders if
all this
is worth while, if it wasn't better to be eating one's stew and not thinking of Charlemagne.

“The invalid is in an extreme state of agitation. He tries to rid himself of every covering, complains of unbearable heat, feels thirsty; forgetting all modesty, he flings himself out of bed or furiously uncovers his sexual parts. And yet his skin has turned cold and soaked with an icy sweat, which soon becomes sticky and gives to anyone touching it the disagreeable impression of contact with a cold-blooded animal.

“The pulse becomes more and more faint but it is still very rapid. The extremities take on a bluish tinge. The nose, ears, fingers suffer cyanosis; similar patches appear on the body.

“The emaciation we have noted in the face has extended all over. The skin has lost its elasticity, and
retains the crease if one pinches it.

“The voice is extinguished. The patient now speaks only in sighs. The breath has a sickening smell, impossible to describe but unforgettable once one has smelled it.

“Calm comes at last. Death is not far off.

“I've seen some come out of this coma, sit up and for several seconds
look for air;
put their hands to their throats and, with a pantomime as painful as it is expressive, indicate to me an appalling strangling sensation.

“The eyes are turned up, their brilliance has vanished, the cornea itself has thickened. The gaping mouth reveals a thick tongue covered with ulcers. The chest no longer rises. A few sighs. It is over. He knows what to think of the outward marks of respect.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Angelo and the young woman spent the night in armchairs by the fire. In the morning the sky was clear.

“You're ten leagues from Gap,” the man in the riding-coat told them, “and you can't miss it. As you go down from here, you'll find seven or eight houses, which make up what the people call Saint-Martin-le-Jeune, and in the middle of these houses a crossroad, where the track you were following yesterday joins up with a fair-sized trunk road. There's nothing to worry about. Follow this road to the right for five leagues through country as healthy as a baby, and you come to the edge of the plateau. From here, you will see a hundred yards below your noses the main road to Gap. Go down and sit by the side of the road; the
diligence
was still running two days ago. And there are no barriers anywhere. Or, if you've got the money, push on to the little hamlet you'll see among the poplars. There's a post house there.”

He made them take a flask of rum and a handful of coffee beans.

Things were just as he said. The people of Saint-Martin-le-Jeune were going about their normal business. One was sitting on the ground, sharpening his scythe; another was observing the weather and told Angelo it would be sunny for three days.

It was warm—one of those autumn days that seem like spring. The tough-leaved vegetation of the plateau, bright from the recent rain, sparkled like the sea. A bland smell of mushrooms was rising from under the junipers and box bushes. A light wind, flecked with cold, gave the air an unparalleled vigor and virtue. Even the mule was happy.

The young woman walked along gaily and, like Angelo, kept exclaiming over the clarity of the sky, the beauty of the camellia-colored mountains lost in morning mist, toward which they were heading.

They saw timid crows again, passed a pedestrian returning to Saint-Martin with a sack of bread. The solitude was joyful.

Even after several leagues, when all trace of human life had vanished and they were passing through a little forest of stunted pines, the light, the air, the fragrance of the earth still kept the two travelers in high spirits. For the first time they were tasting the pleasures of travel.

“We are going to get there soon,” said the young woman.

“I'll need at least two more days,” said Angelo, “before I reach the other side of those lovely mountains.”

“You will stay a good two days at Théus, I hope. I still have to thank you for your help. And you've never seen me in a long dress, except for that evening at Manosque when I had dressed up for reasons quite unconnected with you.”

“I'll stay for the time it takes to buy a horse,” said Angelo. “Don't take that for rudeness or indifference to what you are like in a long dress when you put it on for someone. But I am not my own master. I really have to fight for liberty.”

His gaiety infected his old passion and he spoke of sacrificing his life for the happiness of mankind.

“It's a noble cause,” she said.

He had enough wit to look up, to see whether she was being ironical. She was serious, even a little too much so.

She spoke of her sister-in-law, who was, it seemed, very eccentric and kind, an old lady formerly tortured by a charming husband. The Château de Théus, though countrified, was full of charms, and its rustic terraces overlooked the Durance at its most torrential point, facing an extravagant setting of mountains. He would be able to find suitable horses at the village of Remollon nearby. He would have plenty to choose from.

Angelo apologized: he would certainly be the first to beg hospitality of Madame de Théus.

“That's my name too,” she said.

Well then, he would beg the hospitality of both Mesdames de Théus, and would ask the younger one to do him the favor of appearing in a long dress and all her finery.

“I shall have to choose my horse with great care,” he thought. “On it I may have to perform some grand exploit as soon as I've crossed the frontier. So it can't be settled in an instant.”

They halted at noon in the sunlit solitude. They made tea and rested for about an hour. They were sitting at the foot of a pine, on a knoll of soft, warm needles, before the miraculous spectacle of the plateau all bathed in light. The vaporous mountains seemed to contain it like some golden liqueur at the bottom of a blue bowl. The young woman closed her eyes and dozed. She was asleep, and snuffling in the most touching manner, when Angelo woke her.