📖👻 Le fauteuil hanté | Gaston Leroux

Plongez dans l’univers mystérieux et envoûtant de *Le fauteuil hanté* de Gaston Leroux 👻✨. Un récit où l’étrange et l’occulte se mêlent aux intrigues les plus captivantes. Dans ce chef-d’œuvre, l’auteur du *Fantôme de l’Opéra* nous entraîne dans une histoire de châtiment invisible, d’objets maudits et de destins bouleversés par un fauteuil meurtrier. 🪑💀

👉 Dans cette lecture immersive, vous découvrirez :
– Une intrigue riche en suspense et en mystère 🔎
– Des personnages pris au piège d’un destin surnaturel ⚡
– Une atmosphère gothique où se mêlent peur et fascination 🌑
– La plume inimitable de Gaston Leroux, maître du roman policier et fantastique ✍️

Ce récit fascinant explore les limites entre la superstition et la raison, la vie et la mort. Chaque page vous rapproche un peu plus du secret qui hante ce fauteuil mystérieux… Osez-vous découvrir la vérité ? 😱

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**Navigate by Chapters or Titles:**
00:00:37 Chapter 1.
00:14:36 Chapter 2.
00:40:58 Chapter 3.
01:07:35 Chapter 4.
01:30:04 Chapter 5.
01:34:51 Chapter 6.
01:46:43 Chapter 7.
02:15:04 Chapter 8.
02:20:15 Chapter 9.
02:35:25 Chapter 10.
02:42:29 Chapter 11.
03:01:51 Chapter 12.
03:11:13 Chapter 13.
03:17:18 Chapter 14.
03:21:53 Chapter 15.
03:29:04 Chapter 16.
03:35:09 Chapter 17.
03:55:25 Chapter 18.
04:06:42 Chapter 19.

Today, let’s dive into the mysterious world of Gaston Leroux, the undisputed master of suspense novels and the strange, with his captivating work The Haunted Armchair. In this unique story, we leave behind traditional detective intrigues to explore a literary and high-society Paris, where a seemingly ordinary armchair becomes the center of disturbing events. Between humor, satire, and mystery, Leroux leads us into an investigation where the supernatural mixes with the rational, and where each page reveals a new surprise. Make yourself comfortable, but beware: this armchair may not be so harmless… Chapter 1. The Death of a Hero. –It’s a nasty time to go through… –No doubt, but they say he’s a man who’s afraid of nothing!… –Does he have children? –No!… And he’s a widower! –So much the better! –And then, we must hope all the same that he will not die from it!… But let us hurry!… On hearing these funeral words, M. Gaspard Lalouette—an honest man, a dealer in paintings and antiques, established for ten years on the Rue Laffitte, and who was walking that day on the Quai Voltaire, examining the shop windows of the dealers in old engravings and bric-a-brac—raised his head… At the same moment, he was slightly jostled on the narrow sidewalk by a group of three young men, wearing student berets, who had just emerged from the corner of the Rue Bonaparte, and who, still talking, did not take the time to make the slightest apology. M. Gaspard Lalouette, for fear of attracting a nasty quarrel, kept to himself the bad humor he felt at this incivility, and thought that the young people were rushing to witness some duel whose fatal outcome they feared aloud. And he began to examine attentively a fleur-de-lis casket which claimed to date from the time of Saint Louis and to have perhaps contained the psalter of Madame Blanche of Castile. It was then that, behind him, a voice said: “Whatever one may think, he is a truly brave man!” And another replied: “They say he has traveled around the world three times!… But, in truth, I prefer to be in my place than in his. Provided we are not late! ” M. Lalouette turned around. Two old men were passing, heading towards the Institute, quickening their steps. What! thought Mr. Lalouette, could old people suddenly have become as mentally ill as young people? (Mr. Lalouette was about forty-five, the age when one is neither young nor old…) Here are two of them who seem to me to be running to the same unpleasant rendezvous as my students from earlier! With his mind thus preoccupied, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette had approached the turn of the Rue Mazarine and perhaps he would have taken this tortuous route if four gentlemen, who by their frock coats, top hats , and morocco briefcases under their arms, could have been recognized as professors, had not suddenly found themselves facing him, shouting and gesticulating: “You won’t make me believe, all the same, that he made his will! ” “If he didn’t, he was wrong!” –They say he saw death up close more than once… –When his friends came to dissuade him from his plan, he threw them out! –But at the last moment, he might change his mind?… –Do you take him for a coward? –Look… there he is… there he is! And the four professors started to run, crossing the street, the quay, and turning right towards the Pont des Arts. M. Gaspard Lalouette, without hesitation, dropped all his bric-a-brac. He had only one curiosity left, that of knowing the man who was going to risk his life in conditions and for reasons he still did not know, but which chance had given him a glimpse of as particularly heroic. He took the short path under the vaults of the Institute to join the professors and immediately found himself in the small square whose only The monument bears, on its head, a small cap generally called a cupola. The square was teeming with people. The carriages crowded there, amidst the clamor of the coachmen and the hawkers. Under the arch leading into the first courtyard of the Institute, a noisy crowd surrounded a person who seemed to have great difficulty in freeing himself from this enthusiastic embrace. And the four professors were there shouting: Bravo!… M. Lalouette put his hat in his hand and, addressing one of these gentlemen, he asked him very timidly to kindly explain to him what was happening. “Hey! You can see it clearly!… It’s Captain Maxime d’Aulnay! ” “Is he going to fight a duel?” asked M. Lalouette again, with the most humble politeness. “But no!… He’s going to give his reception speech at the French Academy!” replied the irritated professor. Meanwhile, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette found himself separated from the professors by a large crowd. They were Maxime d’Aulnay’s friends, who, after escorting him and embracing him with emotion, were trying to enter the public session hall. There was a great uproar, for their entrance tickets were of no use to them. Some of them, who had taken the wise precaution of having their seats reserved for them by hired servants, were at a loss, for those who had come for the others stayed for themselves. Curiosity , stronger than their interest, nailed them to the spot. However, as Mr. Lalouette found himself cornered between the peaceful claws of the stone lion that watches over the threshold of Immortality, a messenger addressed him as follows: “If you want to come in, sir, it’s twenty francs!” Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, dealer in bric-a-brac and paintings as he was, had a great respect for literature. He himself was an author. He had published two works that were the pride of his life, one on the signatures of famous painters and on the means of recognizing the authenticity of their works, the other on the art of framing, as a result of which he had been named officer of the Academy; but he had never entered the Academy, and especially never had the idea he had been able to form of a public session at the Academy agreed with everything he had just heard and seen in the last quarter of an hour. Never, for example, would he have thought that it would be so useful, in order to deliver a reception speech, to be a widower, without children, to be afraid of nothing and to have made a will. He gave his twenty francs and, through a thousand blows, saw himself installed as best he could in a tribune where everyone was standing, looking into the room. It was Maxime d’Aulnay who was entering. He entered, looking a little pale, flanked by his two godfathers, the Count of Bray and Professor Palaiseaux, both paler than he. A long shudder shook the assembly. The women, who were numerous and select, could not suppress a movement of admiration and pity. A pious dowager crossed herself. All the stands stood up, for all this emotion was infinitely respectful, as before death passing by. Having arrived at his place, the recipient sat between his two bodyguards , then he raised his head and cast a firm gaze over his colleagues, the audience, the desk, and also over the saddened face of the member of the illustrious assembly charged with receiving him. Usually, this last personage brings to this sort of ceremony a ferocious countenance, a portent of all the literary tortures he has prepared in the shadow of his speech. That day, he had the compassionate expression of a confessor who comes to assist the patient in his last moments. Mr. Lalouette, while attentively considering the spectacle of this tribe dressed in oak leaves, did not miss a word of what was being said around him. They said: –Poor Jehan Mortimar was handsome and young, like him! –And so happy to have been elected! –Do you remember when he stood up to make his speech? –He seemed to be beaming… He was full of life… –No matter what you say, it’s not a natural death… –No, it’s not a natural death… Mr. Gaspard Lalouette couldn’t hear any more without turning to his neighbor to ask him what death was being talked about, and he recognized that the one he was addressing was none other than the professor who, a moment ago, had already informed him, in a rather gruff manner. This time again, the professor didn’t mince his words: –So you don’t read the newspapers, sir? Well, no, Mr. Lalouette didn’t read the newspapers! There was a reason for that that we will have the opportunity to explain later and that Mr. Lalouette did not shout from the rooftops. Only, because he did not read the newspapers, the mystery into which he had entered by penetrating, for twenty francs, under the vault of the Institute, thickened more and more with every moment. Thus he understood nothing of the kind of protest which arose when a noble lady, whom everyone called: the beautiful Madame de Bithynie, entered the box which had been reserved for her. It was generally thought that she had a pretty cheek. But still M. Lalouette did not know why. This lady regarded the audience with cold arrogance, addressed a few brief words to some young people who accompanied her and fixed M. Maxime d’Aulnay with her face-to-face. “She will bring him bad luck!” someone cried. And public rumor repeated: “Yes, yes, she will bring him bad luck!…” M. Lalouette asked: “Why will she bring him bad luck?” But no one answered him. All he could learn that was almost certain was that the man who was there, ready to make a speech, was called Maxime d’Aulnay, that he was a ship’s captain, that he had written a book entitled: Voyage autour de ma cabine, and that he had been elected to the seat formerly occupied by Mgr d’Abbeville. And then the mystery began again with shouts and gestures of a mentally ill person. The public in the galleries rose up and shouted things like this: “Like the other one!… Don’t open it!… Ah! the letter!… like the other one!… like the other one! … Don’t read it!” M. Lalouette leaned over and saw an usher bringing a letter to Maxime d’Aulnay. The appearance of this usher and this letter seemed to have put the assembly out of its wits. Only the members of the bureau were trying to keep their cool, but it was clear that M. Hippolyte Patard, the friendly permanent secretary, was trembling all over. As for Maxime d’Aulnay, he had stood up, taken the letter from the usher’s hands, and unsealed it. He was smiling at all the clamour. And since the session was not yet open, because they were waiting for the chancellor, he read it, and he smiled. Then, in the galleries, everyone continued: “He’s smiling!… He’s smiling!… The other one smiled too!” Maxime d’Aulnay had passed the letter to his sponsors, who, for their part, were not smiling. The text of the letter was soon on everyone’s lips, and as it went around the room from mouth to mouth , Mr. Lalouette learned what the letter contained: There are journeys more dangerous than those one makes around one’s cabin! This text seemed to be about to bring the excitement of the room to a head , when the icy voice of the president was heard announcing, after a few rings of the bell, that the session was open. A tragic silence immediately fell over the audience. But Maxime d’Aulnay was already on his feet, more than brave, bold! And there he was, beginning to read his speech. He read it in a deep, sonorous voice. He first thanked, without baseness, the Company which does him the honor of welcoming him; then, after a brief allusion to a bereavement which recently struck the Academy even within its walls, he speaks of Mgr d’Abbeville. He speaks… he speaks… Next to Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, the professor murmurs under his breath this sentence which Mr. Lalouette believed, wrongly, to be inspired by the length of the speech: It lasts longer than the other!… He speaks and it seems that the audience, as he speaks, breathes better. We hear sighs, women smile at each other as if they found themselves after a person of all body types in danger… He speaks and no unforeseen incident comes to interrupt him… He arrives at the end of the eulogy of Mgr d’Abbeville, he becomes animated. He becomes heated when, on the occasion of the talents of the eminent prelate, he expresses some general ideas on sacred eloquence. The speaker evokes the memory of certain resounding sermons which earned Bishop d’Abbeville the wrath of the secularists for their lack of respect for human science… The gesture of the new academician takes on an unusual magnitude as if to strike, to castigate in his turn, this science, island of impiety and pride!… And in an admirable burst which, certainly! has nothing academic about it, but which is all the more beautiful for it is indeed that of a sailor of the old school, Maxime d’Aulnay exclaims: –Six thousand years ago, gentlemen, divine vengeance chained Prometheus to his rock! Also, I am not one of those who fear the lightning of men. I fear only the thunder of God! The unfortunate man had barely finished pronouncing these last words when he was seen to stagger, raise his hand to his face in a desperate gesture, then fall like a sledgehammer. A clamor of terror rose from beneath the Dome… The academicians rushed in… They bent over the inert body… Maxime d’Aulnay was dead! And they had the greatest difficulty in clearing the room. Dead as Jehan Mortimar, the poet of Parfums tragiques, the first elected to succeed Mgr d’Abbeville, had died two months earlier, in the middle of a reception. He too had received a threatening letter, brought to the Institute by a messenger who was never found, a letter in which he had read: Perfumes are sometimes more tragic than one thinks, and he too, a few minutes later, had fallen: this is what Mr. Gaspard Lalouette finally learned, in a somewhat precise way, while listening with an avid ear to the frantic remarks made by the crowd that had just filled the public hall of the Institute and that had just been thrown onto the platforms in inexpressible dismay. He would have liked to know more and at least to know the reason why, Jehan Mortimar being dead, the death of Maxime d’Aulnay had been so feared. He heard talk of revenge, but in such absurd terms that he attached no importance to it. However, he felt he should ask, for the sake of his conscience, the name of the person who would have had to take revenge in such new circumstances; then they came out with such a bizarre list of words that he thought they were making fun of him. And, as night was approaching, for it was winter, he decided to return home, crossing the Pont des Arts where some academicians, people with intellectual disabilities, and their guests, deeply moved by the terrible coincidence of these two sinister ends, were hurrying to their homes. All the same, M. Gaspard Lalouette, just as he was about to disappear into the shadows that were already thickening at the ticket offices of the Place du Carrousel, changed his mind. He stopped one of these gentlemen who was coming down from the Pont des Arts and who, with his nervous appearance, still seemed quite agitated by the event. He asked him: “At last! Sir! Do we know what he died of?” –Doctors say he died of a ruptured aneurysm. –And the other one, sir, what did he die of? –The doctors said: of a cerebral congestion!… Then a shadow came between the two speakers and said: –All that is a joke!… They both died because they wanted to sit on the Haunted Armchair! Mr. Lalouette tried to hold back this shadow with the shadow of his jacket, but it had already disappeared… He went home, pensive… Chapter 2. A session in the Dictionary Room. The day after that fateful day, Mr. Hippolyte Patard, the permanent secretary, entered the vault of the Institute at the stroke of one o’clock. The concierge was on the threshold of his lodge. He handed his mail to Mr. Permanent Secretary and said to him: –You are well ahead of time today, Mr. Permanent Secretary , no one has arrived yet. M.
Hippolyte Patard took his mail, which was quite bulky, from the concierge’s hands, and prepared to continue on his way, without saying a word to the worthy man. The latter was surprised. “The Permanent Secretary seems very preoccupied. Besides, everyone here is upset after such a story!” But M. Hippolyte Patard did not even turn away. The concierge made the mistake of adding: “Did the Permanent Secretary read the article in L’Époque this morning about the Haunted Armchair?” M. Hippolyte Patard had the peculiarity of being sometimes a small, fresh, rosy old man, amiable and smiling, welcoming, kind, charming, whom everyone at the Academy called my good friend, except the servants of course, although he was full of consideration for them, asking them for news of their health; and sometimes, M. Hippolyte Patard was a small, dry old man, yellow as a lemon, nervous, annoying, bilious. His best friends then called M. Hippolyte Patard: Monsieur le secretaire permanente, nobody of all types of body like the arm, and the servants were not at ease. M. Hippolyte Patard loved the Academy so much that he had thus put himself in two to serve it, love it and defend it. The auspicious days, which were those of great academic triumphs, of beautiful solemnities, of prizes of virtue, he marked them with the pink Patard, and the inauspicious days, which were those when some dreadful scribbler had dared to disrespect the divine institution, he marked them with the lemon Patard. The concierge, evidently, had not noticed, that day, what color of Patard he was dealing with, because he would have avoided the scathing retort of M. le secretaire permanente. On hearing about the Haunted Armchair, M. Patard turned around. “Mind your own business,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s a haunted armchair! But I know there’s a box here that’s always full of journalists! A word to the wise is enough!” And he turned back, leaving the concierge thunderstruck. If only the permanent secretary had read the article about the Haunted Armchair! But he’d been reading nothing else in the newspapers for weeks! And after the sudden death of Maxime d’Aulnay, following so closely on the heels of the no less sudden death of Jehan Mortimar, it wasn’t likely that the press would lose interest in such a fascinating subject for a long time to come! And yet, what sane mind (Mr. Hippolyte Patard stopped to ask himself this again)… what sane mind would have dared to see, in these two deaths, anything other than an infinitely regrettable coincidence? Jehan Mortimar had died of a cerebral congestion, that was quite natural. And Maxime d’Aulnay, impressed by the tragic end of his predecessor and also by the solemnity of the ceremony, and finally by the unfortunate prognoses with which some nasty literary rascals had accompanied his election, had died of a ruptured aneurysm. And that was no less natural. Mr. Hippolyte Patard, who was crossing the first courtyard of the Institute and was heading left towards the staircase leading to the secretariat, struck the uneven and mossy pavement with the iron tip of his umbrella. What could be more natural, he said to himself, than the rupture of an aneurysm? It is something that can happen to anyone to die from the rupture of an aneurysm, even while reading a speech at the French Academy!… He added: It is enough for that to be an academician! Having said this, he stopped thoughtfully on the first step of the staircase. Although he denied it, the permanent secretary was rather superstitious. This idea that, immortal as one is, one can die from the rupture of an aneurysm incited him to furtively touch with his right hand the wood of his umbrella which he held in his left. Everyone knows that wood protects against bad luck. And he resumed his upward march. He passed in front of the secretary’s office without stopping, continued to climb, stopped on the second landing and said aloud: “If only there weren’t this business about the two letters! But all fools fall for it! Those two letters signed with the initials EDSEDTDLN, all the initials of that swindler Eliphas!” And the permanent secretary began to pronounce aloud in the solemn resonance of the staircase the abhorred name of the one who seemed to have, by some criminal spell, unleashed fate upon the illustrious and peaceful Company: Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox! With a name like that, to have dared to present himself to the French Academy!… To have hoped, he, this unfortunate charlatan, who called himself a magician, who called himself: Sâr who had published a perfectly grotesque volume on the Surgery of the Soul, to have hoped for the immortal honor of sitting in the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville!… Yes, a magician! As one would say a sorcerer who claims to know the past and the future, and all the secrets that can make man master of the universe! An alchemist, what! A soothsayer! An astrologer! A sorcerer! A necromancer! And he had wanted to be part of the Academy! M. Hippolyte Patard was suffocating. All the same, since this magician had been blackballed as he deserved, two unfortunates who had been elected to the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville were dead!… Ah! if the Secretary General had read it, the article on the Haunted Armchair! But he had even reread it, that very morning, in the newspapers, and he was going to reread it again, immediately, in the newspaper L’Époque; and, indeed, he deployed with a fierce energy for his age, the gazette: it took up two columns, on the front page, and it repeated all the nonsense with which Mr. Hippolyte Patard’s ears were bombarded, because, in truth, he could no longer enter a salon or a library, without immediately hearing: Well, and the Haunted Armchair! L’Époque, in connection with the formidable coincidence of these two so exceptionally academic deaths, had thought it necessary to report at length the legend which had formed around the armchair of Mgr d’Abbeville. In certain Parisian circles, where much was being done about the events happening at the end of the Pont des Arts, it was believed that this chair was now haunted by the spirit of vengeance of Sir Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox! And since, after his failure, this Eliphas had disappeared, L’Époque could not help but regret that he had, precisely before disappearing, uttered threatening words followed very unfortunately by such regrettable sudden deaths. Leaving for the last time the club of the Pneumatiques (so called from pneuma, soul), which he had founded in the salon of the beautiful Madame de Bithynie, Eliphas had said verbatim, speaking of the chair of the eminent prelate: Woe to those who would have wanted to sit before me! In the end, L’Époque did not seem reassured at all. It said, on the occasion of the letters received by the two deceased immediately before their death, that the Academy was perhaps dealing with a con artist, but also that it could be dealing with a mentally ill person. The newspaper wanted Eliphas to be found, and it almost demanded an autopsy of the bodies of Jehan Mortimar and M. d’Aulnay. The article was not signed, but M. Hippolyte Patard condemned the anonymous author after calling him, frankly, an idiot, then having pushed the drum of a door, he crossed a first room cluttered with columns, pilasters and busts, monuments of funerary sculpture in memory of the deceased academicians whom he greeted as he passed, then, a second room, then arrived in a third completely furnished with tables covered with carpets of a uniform green and surrounded by symmetrically arranged armchairs. In the background, on a large panel, stood out the full-length figure of Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu. The Permanent Secretary had just entered the Dictionary Room. It was still deserted. He closed the door behind him, went to his usual place, deposited his mail there, and carefully arranged in a corner where it was easy for him to keep an eye on his umbrella, which he never went out without and which he took jealous care of, as if it were a sacred object. Then he took off his hat, which he replaced with a small embroidered black velvet cap , and, with short, muffled steps, he began the tour of the tables which formed between them like little boxes, in which were the armchairs. There were some famous ones. When he passed by them, the Permanent Secretary lingered there with a saddened look, nodded his head, and murmured illustrious names . Thus, he arrived before the portrait of Cardinal Richelieu. He lifted his hat. “Hello, great man!” he said. And he stopped, turned his back on the great man, and looked at an armchair right in front of him. It was an armchair like all the armchairs there, with its four legs and its square back, no more, no less, but it was in this armchair that Bishop d’Abbeville used to attend the sessions, and no one since the prelate’s death had sat in it. Not even poor Jehan Mortimar, not even poor Maxime d’Aulnay, who had never had the opportunity to cross the threshold of the private session room, the Dictionary Room, as they say. Now, in the kingdom of the Immortals, there is really only this room that counts, for it is there that the forty armchairs are, the seats of Immortality. So, the permanent secretary was looking at Bishop d’Abbeville’s armchair . He said aloud: “The Haunted Armchair!” And he shrugged his shoulders. Then he uttered the fatal phrase, in a mocking manner: “Woe to those who tried to sit down before me.” Suddenly, he advanced towards the armchair until he touched it. “Well, I,” he cried, beating his chest, “I, Hippolyte Patard, who mock bad luck and M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox, I, I am going to sit on you, haunted armchair!” And, turning around, he prepared to sit down… But half-bent over, he stopped in his gesture, straightened up, and said: “And then no, I will not sit down! It’s too stupid!… One must not attach importance to such nonsense.” And the permanent secretary returned to his seat after having touched, in passing, with a furtive finger the wooden handle of his umbrella. Whereupon the door opened and the Chancellor entered, dragging the Director behind him. The Chancellor was just any chancellor, the kind elected every three months, but the Director of the Academy that term was the great Loustalot, one of the foremost scholars in the world. He let himself be led by the arm like a blind man. It was not that he could not see clearly, but that he had such illustrious distractions that the decision had been taken at the Academy not to to let go of a step. He lived in the suburbs. When he left his house to come to Paris, a little boy, about ten years old, accompanied him and came to drop him off in the concierge’s lodge of the Institute. There, the Chancellor took care of him. Ordinarily, the great Loustalot heard nothing of what was happening around him, and everyone was careful to leave him to his sublime cogitations from which some new discovery could be born destined to transform the ordinary conditions of human life. But that day, the circumstances were so serious that the Permanent Secretary did not hesitate to remind him of them and perhaps to tell him about them. The great Loustalot had not attended the session the day before; He had been sent for urgently at home, and it was more than likely that he was the only one, at that hour, in the civilized world, who was still unaware that Maxime d’Aulnay had suffered the same cruel fate as Jehan Mortimar, the author of such Tragiques parfums. “Ah! Monsieur le directeur! What a catastrophe!” cried M. Hippolyte Patard, raising his hands to heaven. “What is it, my dear friend?” deigned to ask the great Loustalot with great good nature. “What! You don’t know! Didn’t the chancellor tell you anything? Then it falls to me to announce such sad news to you! Maxime d’Aulnay is dead! ” “God rest his soul!” said the great Loustalot, who had lost none of his childhood faith. “Dead like Jehan Mortimar, who died at the Academy while delivering his speech!” “Well, so much the better!” declared the scholar, with the utmost seriousness in the world. That’s a very fine death! And he rubbed his hands together, innocently. And then he added: “Is that why you disturbed me?” The Permanent Secretary and the Chancellor looked at each other, dismayed, and then realized, from the vague look of the great Loustalot, that the illustrious scholar was already thinking of something else; they did not insist and led him to his place. They made him sit down, gave him paper, a quill, and an inkwell, and left him, seeming to say to themselves: “Now he’ll stay quiet!” Then, withdrawing into a window, the Permanent Secretary and the Chancellor, after casting a satisfied glance at the deserted courtyard, congratulated themselves on the stratagem they had employed to get rid of the journalists. They had officially announced the previous evening that, having decided to attend Maxime d’Aulnay’s funeral en masse , the Academy would not meet for another two weeks to elect Bishop d’Abbeville’s successor, because people continued to talk about Bishop d’Abbeville’s seat as if two successive votes had not given him two new incumbents. However, the press had been deceived. It was the very day after Maxime d’Aulnay’s death , the day we had just accompanied Mr. Hippolyte Patard to the Dictionary Room, that the election was to take place. Each academician had been notified by the Permanent Secretary, in particular, and this session, as exceptional as it was private, was about to open within half an hour. The Chancellor whispered in Mr. Hippolyte Patard’s ear: “And Martin Latouche? Have you heard from him?” Saying this, the Chancellor looked at the Permanent Secretary with an emotion he made no attempt to conceal. “I don’t know,” replied Mr. Patard evasively. “What!… You don’t know?… ” The Permanent Secretary showed his undamaged mail. “I haven’t opened my mail yet! ” “But open it, you wretch!” “You’re in a hurry, Mr. Chancellor!” said Mr. Patard with some hesitation. “Patard, I don’t understand you!… “You’re in a hurry to learn that perhaps Martin Latouche, the only one who dared to maintain his candidacy with Maxime d’Aulnay, knowing moreover, at that moment he would not be elected… you are in a hurry to learn, I said, Mr. Chancellor, that Martin Latouche, the only one left to us, is now renouncing the succession of Mgr d’Abbeville! Mr. Chancellor opened his eyes in terror, but he clasped the hands of Mr. Permanent Secretary: –Oh! Patard! I understand you… –So much the better! Mr. Chancellor! So much the better!… –Then… you will not open your mail… until after… –You said it, Mr. Chancellor; there will always be time for us to learn, when he is elected, that Martin Latouche is not standing !… Ah! there are not many candidates for the Haunted Chair!… Mr. Patard had hardly uttered these last two words when he shuddered. He, the Permanent Secretary, had said, fluently, as if it were a natural thing: the Haunted Chair!… There was a silence between the two men. Outside, in the courtyard, a few groups were beginning to form, but, lost in their own thoughts, neither the Permanent Secretary nor the Chancellor took any notice. The Permanent Secretary heaved a sigh. The Chancellor, frowning , said: “Just think! What a shame if the Academy had only thirty-nine seats left! ” “I would die!” said Hippolyte Patard simply. And he would have done as he said. Meanwhile, the great Loustalot was calmly smearing his nose with black ink that he had gone, with the tip of his finger, to draw from his inkstand, thinking he was dipping it into his snuffbox. Suddenly, the door burst open with a crash: Barbentane entered, Barbentane, the author of the History of the House of Condé, the king’s old hawker. “Do you know his name?” he cried. “Who?” asked the Permanent Secretary, who, in the sad state of mind he was in, feared a new misfortune at every moment. “Well, him! Your Eliphas! ” “What! Our Eliphas! ” “Well, their Eliphas!… Well, Mr. Eliphas de Saint Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox is called Borigo, like everyone else! Mr. Borigo! Other academicians had just entered. They were all talking with the greatest animation. “Yes! Yes!” they repeated, “Mr. Borigo! The beautiful Madame de Bithynie was having her fortune told by Mr. Borigo!… It’s the journalists who say so! ” “So the journalists are here!” exclaimed the Permanent Secretary. “What! Are they here? But they fill the courtyard. They know we are meeting and they claim that Martin Latouche is no longer coming. ” Mr. Patard turned pale. He dared to say, in a whisper: “I have received no communication in this regard…” Everyone questioned him anxiously. He reassured them without conviction. “It’s another invention of the journalists. I know Martin Latouche… Martin Latouche is not a man to be intimidated… Besides , we are going to proceed immediately with his election…” He was interrupted by the abrupt arrival of one of Maxime d’Aulnay’s two godfathers, the Count of Bray. “Do you know what he sold, your Borigo?” he asked. ” He sold olive oil!… And since he was born on the edge of Provence, in the Careï valley, he first called himself Jean Borigo du Careï…” At that moment the door opened again and Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière, the old Egyptologist who had written volumes of pyramids on the first pyramid itself, entered. “That’s the name I knew him by, Jean Borigo du Careï!” he said simply. An icy silence greeted the entrance of M. Raymond de La Beyssière. This man was the only one who had voted for Eliphas. The Academy owed this man the shame of having given a vote to the candidacy of an Eliphas! But Raymond de La Beyssière was an old friend of the beautiful Madame de Bithynie. The permanent secretary went towards him. “Our dear colleague,” he said, “could anyone tell us if, at that time, Mr. Borigo was selling olive oil, or children’s skins, or wolf’s teeth, or hanged man’s fat?” There was laughter. Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière pretended not to hear them. He replied: “No! At that time, he was, in Egypt, the secretary of Manette-bey, the illustrious successor of Champollion, and he was deciphering the mysterious texts that have been engraved for thousands of years at Sakkara, on the funerary walls of the pyramids of the kings of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, and he was seeking the secret of Thoth!” Having said this, the old Egyptologist went to his place. Now his chair was occupied by a colleague who took no notice. M. Hippolyte Patard, who was following M. de La Beyssière with a treacherous eye over his glasses, said to him: “Well, my dear colleague? You won’t sit down? Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair is holding out its arms to you! ” M. de La Beyssière replied in a tone that made a few Immortals turn around . “No! I won’t sit in Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair! ” “And why?” asked the Permanent Secretary with a small, unpleasant laugh. “Why wouldn’t you sit in Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair? Would you, by any chance, also take seriously all the nonsense that is said about the Haunted Chair? ” “I don’t take any nonsense seriously, Mr. Permanent Secretary, but I won’t sit in it because I don’t like it, that’s simple!” The colleague who had taken Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière’s place immediately gave it up to him and asked him very properly, and without any mockery this time, if he, Raymond de La Beyssière, who had lived for a long time in Egypt, and who, through his studies, had been able to go back as far as anyone else to the origins of the Kabbalah, believed in bad luck. “I will not deny it!” he said. This declaration made everyone prick up their ears, and as it was still a quarter of an hour before the ballot was due to the gathering of so many Immortals that day, they asked Mr. de La Beyssière to be kind enough to explain himself. The academician noted, with a glance around, that no one was smiling and that Mr. Patard had lost his little air of mischief. Then, in a grave voice, he said: “Here we touch on mystery. Everything around you that we don’t see is a mystery, and modern science, which has penetrated what we see better than the ancient science, is far behind the ancient science in what we don’t see. Whoever was able to penetrate the ancient science was able to penetrate what we don’t see. We don’t see bad luck, but it exists. Who would deny luck or bad luck? One or the other clings to people, businesses, or things with a striking tenacity. Today we speak of luck or bad luck as a fatality against which there is nothing to be done.” The ancient science had measured, after hundreds of centuries of study, this secret force, and it may be—I say it may be—that he who had gone back to the source of this science would have learned from it to direct this force, that is to say, to cast good or bad luck. Perfectly. There was a silence. All were silent now, looking at the Armchair. After a moment, the Chancellor said: “And has Mr. Eliphas de La Nox truly penetrated what we cannot see ? ” “I believe so,” replied Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière firmly, “otherwise I would not have voted for him. It is his real knowledge of the Kabbalah that made him worthy of entering among us. ” “The Kabbalah,” he added, “which seems to want to be reborn in our days under the name of Pneumatology, is the oldest of sciences and all the more respectable. ” Only fools laugh at it. And M. Raymond de La Beyssière looked around him again. But no one was laughing any more. The room had gradually filled up. Someone asked: “What is Toth’s secret?” “Toth,” replied the scholar, “is the inventor of Egyptian magic and his secret is that of life and death. ” The little flute of the permanent secretary was heard: “With a secret like that, it must be very annoying not to be elected to the French Academy!” “Mr. Permanent Secretary,” declared Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière solemnly , “if Mr. Borigo or Mr. Eliphas—call him what you will, it doesn’t matter—if this man has discovered, as he claims, the secret of Toth, he is stronger than you and me, I beg you to believe it, and if I had had the misfortune to make an enemy of him, I would rather encounter on my way, at night, a troop of armed bandits, than in broad daylight this man, with his bare hands!” The old Egyptologist had spoken these last words with such force and conviction that they did not fail to cause a sensation. But the Permanent Secretary continued with a dry little laugh: “Perhaps it was Toth who taught him to walk around the salons of Paris in a phosphorescent dress!… Apparently, he presided over the pneumatic meetings at the beautiful Madame de Bithynie’s house, in a dress that made light!… ” “Everyone,” replied Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière calmly, “everyone has their little quirks. ” “What do you mean?” asked the Permanent Secretary imprudently. “Nothing!” replied Mr. de La Beyssière enigmatically; “only, my dear Permanent Secretary, allow me to express my surprise that a magician as serious as Mr. Borigo du Careï finds the most fetishistic among us to mock him! ” “Me, a fetishist!” cried M. Hippolyte Patard, walking towards his colleague, his mouth open, his dentures thrust forward, as if he had resolved to devour all of Egyptology in one go… Where did you get the idea, sir, that I was a fetishist? – Seeing you touch wood when you think no one is looking at you ! – Me, touch wood, you saw me, me, touch wood? – More than twenty times a day!… – You lied, sir! Immediately someone intervened. We heard: “Come on, gentlemen!… gentlemen! and: “Mr. Permanent Secretary, calm down!” and : “Mr. de La Beyssière, this quarrel is unworthy of you and of this chamber!” And the entire illustrious assembly was in a state of fever incredible for Immortals; Only the great Loustalot seemed to see nothing, to hear nothing, and was now dipping his pen with conviction into his snuffbox. M. Hippolyte Patard stood on tiptoe and shouted from the top of his head, his little eyes glaring at old Raymond: “He’s finally boring us, that one, with his Eliphas, Feu Saint-Elme , Taille-à-rebours, La Boxe du Bourricot, du Careï!” M. Raymond de La Beyssière, faced with such a furious and inappropriate joke from the mouth of a permanent secretary, kept his cool. “Mr. Permanent Secretary,” he said, “I have never lied in my life, and I won’t start at my age.” No later than yesterday before the solemn session, I saw you kissing the handle of your umbrella!… M. Hippolyte Patard jumped up and it was with great difficulty that they prevented him from committing an assault on the old Egyptologist . He shouted: “My umbrella… My umbrella!… First of all, I forbid you to speak of my umbrella!”… But M. de La Beyssière silenced him by showing him, with a tragic gesture, the haunted armchair: “Since you are not a fetishist, sit on it, if you dare!”… The assembly, which had been in a commotion, was suddenly immobilized. All eyes now went from the armchair to M. Hippolyte Patard, and of Mr. Hippolyte Patard to the chair. Mr. Hippolyte Patard declared: “I will sit if I want! I have no orders to receive from anyone!… First, gentlemen, allow me to point out to you that the time to open the ballot has been five minutes… And he returned to his place, having suddenly recovered great dignity. He did not, however, arrive at his desk without a few smiles accompanying him. He saw them, and as everyone took a seat for the session which was about to begin… and the Haunted Chair remained empty, he said, with his pinched little air, the air of the lemon Patard: “The regulations do not prevent any of my colleagues who wishes to sit in Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair from taking a seat there.” No one moved. One of these gentlemen, who had wit, eased everyone’s conscience with this explanation: “It is better not to sit there out of respect for the memory of Bishop d’Abbeville. In the first round, the only candidate, Martin Latouche, was unanimously elected. Then Mr. Hippolyte Patard opened his mail. And he had the joy, which consoled him for many things, of not finding any news of Mr. Martin Latouche. Servilely, he received from the Academy the exceptional mission of going himself to announce the happy event to Mr. Martin Latouche. This had never been seen before. “What are you going to tell him?” the chancellor asked Mr. Hippolyte Patard. The permanent secretary, whose head was becoming a little clouded by all these ridiculous stories, replied vaguely: “What do you want me to say to him? I will say: Be brave, my friend…” And so it was that that evening, at the stroke of ten o’clock, a shadow that seemed to be taking the greatest precautions not to be followed glided along the deserted sidewalks of the old Place Dauphine, and stopped in front of a small, low house, whose knocker it made resonate rather lugubriously in this solitude. Chapter 3. The Walking Box. M. Hippolyte Patard never went out after dinner. He did not know what it was like to walk at night in the streets of Paris. He had heard, and he had read in the newspapers, that it was very dangerous. When he dreamed of Paris at night, he saw dark, winding streets lit here and there by a lantern, crossed by shifty shadows, on the lookout for the bourgeois, as in the time of Louis XV. Now, as the Permanent Secretary continued to live at the ugly Carrefour Buci, a small apartment that no literary triumph, no academic position had been able to force him to leave, M. Hippolyte Patard, that night when he went to the silent Place Dauphine through ancient narrow streets, deserted quays, and the disturbing Pont-Neuf, found no difference between his imagination and the gloomy reality. So he was afraid. He was afraid of thieves… And of journalists… especially. He trembled at the idea that some newspaperman might surprise him, the Permanent Secretary, making a nocturnal approach to the new academician, Martin Latouche. But he had preferred, for such an exceptional task, the shadows conducive to the brightness of day. And then, to tell the truth, M. Hippolyte Patard bothered less, that night, to officially announce, despite all the customs, to Martin Latouche, that he was elected (an event, moreover , that Martin Latouche was no longer ignorant of), than to ask from Martin Latouche himself if it was true that he had declared that he had not stood again, and that he refused the seat of Mgr d’Abbeville. For such was the version of the evening papers. If it was correct, the situation of the French Academy was becoming terrible… and ridiculous. M. Hippolyte Patard had not hesitated. Having read the dreadful news after his dinner, he had put on his overcoat and his hat, taken his umbrella, and he had gone down into the street… Into the pitch-black street… And now he was trembling on the Place Dauphine, in front of Martin Latouche’s door, whose knocker he had lifted. The knocker had struck, but the door had not opened… And it seemed to the Permanent Secretary that he had seen on his left, in the flickering light of a street lamp, a strange, astonishing, inexplicable shadow. Certainly, he had seen something like a walking box. It was a square box with little legs and which had fled into the night, without a sound. Above the box, Mr. Patard had seen nothing, distinguished nothing. A walking box! At night! Place Dauphine! The Permanent Secretary rapped the knocker on the door frantically. And he hardly dared to glance again in the direction where this strange apparition had occurred. A small peephole had just opened and lit up in the dilapidated door of the building inhabited by Martin Latouche. A beam of light struck the terrified face of the permanent secretary. “Who are you? What do you want?” asked a harsh voice. “It’s me, Mr. Hippolyte Patard. ” “Patard?” “Perpetual secretary… Academy… ” At the word “Academy” the peephole closed with a crash, and the permanent secretary found himself once again isolated in the silent square. Then, suddenly, to his right this time, he saw the shadow of the walking box pass by again. Sweat was now running down the cheeks of the extraordinary delegate of the illustrious Company, people of all shapes and sizes, and it is fair to say, in praise of M. Hippolyte Patard, that the emotion to which he was ready to succumb, in that cruel moment, came less from the unheard-of vision of the walking box, and from the fear of thieves, than from the affront that the entire French Academy had just suffered in the person of its permanent secretary. The box, as soon as it appeared, had disappeared again. Fainting, the unfortunate man cast vague glances around him. Ah! the old, old square, with its raised, stepped sidewalks , its gloomy facades, pierced by immense windows, whose bare, black panes seemed to uselessly protect from drafts the vast rooms abandoned for countless years. The tearful eyes of M. Hippolyte Patard stared for a moment, beyond the sharp roofs, at the celestial vault where the heavy clouds glided, and then came back down to earth, just enough to see again in the space that stretched out in front of the Palais de Justice, lit by a brief ray of moonlight, the walking box. In truth, it was running with all the strength of its little legs, towards the Clock. And it was diabolical! The poor man desperately touched the wooden handle of his umbrella with both hands. And suddenly, he jumped. Something had just burst out behind him… A voice of anger… It’s him again! It’s him again! Ah! I’m going to give him one of those volleys… M. Hippolyte Patard clung to the wall with his legs limp, without strength, unable to utter a cry… A kind of stick, some broomstick , was whirling above his head. He closed his eyes, ready for death, offering his death to the Academy. And he opened them again, astonished to be still alive. The broomstick, still whirling, above a flight of skirts, moved away, accompanied by the hurried sound of clogs slapping on the sidewalks. This broom, these shouts, these threats were therefore not for him; he breathed. But where had this new apparition come from? Mr. Patard turned around. The door behind him was half-open. He pushed it open and entered a corridor that led him to a courtyard where all the winter breeze had gathered. He was at Martin Latouche’s house. The permanent secretary had done his research. He knew that Martin Latouche was an old bachelor, who loved nothing in the world but music, and who lived with an old governess who, for her part, could not stand it; this governess was very tyrannical, and she had the reputation of making life difficult for the good man. But she was devoted to him more than one could say and, when he had been very good, she cuddled him in return, like a child. Martin Latouche suffered this devotion with the resignation of a martyr. The great Jean-Jacques, too, experienced trials of this kind and that did not prevent him from writing La Nouvelle Héloïse. Martin Latouche, despite Babette’s intolerance for melody and wind instruments, had nevertheless written very correctly, in five volumes, a History of Music, which had won the highest awards at the French Academy. M. Hippolyte Patard stopped in the corridor at the entrance to the courtyard, convinced that he had just seen and heard the terrible Babette leave. He thought she would return. It was in this hope that he kept quiet, not daring to call out for fear of perhaps waking some irascible tenants, and not venturing into the courtyard for fear of breaking his neck. The patience of the permanent secretary was to be rewarded. The clogs slammed again, and the front door was slammed shut. And immediately a black form came and bumped into the timid visitor. “Who is there? ” “It’s me, Hippolyte Patard… Academy, permanent secretary…” said a trembling voice… “Oh, Richelieu!… ” “What do you want? ” “M. Martin Latouche… –He’s not here… but come in all the same… I have something to tell you… And M. Hippolyte Patard was pushed into a room whose door opened under the vault. The poor permanent secretary then realized, by the light of a kerosene lamp burning on a rough white wooden table and illuminating, against the wall, a whole battery of kitchen utensils, that he had been brought into the pantry. The door had slammed behind him. And, in front of him, he saw an enormous belly covered with a checkered apron , and two fists resting on two formidable hips. One of these fists still held the broomstick. Above, in the shadows, a voice, the voice of a rogomme towards which M. Hippolyte Patard did not dare raise his eyes, was saying: –So you want to kill him? And this was said with an accent peculiar to Aveyron, for Babette was from Rodez like Martin Latouche. M. Hippolyte Patard did not answer, but he shuddered. And the voice continued: “Tell me, Monsieur le Perpétuel, do you want to kill him?” Monsieur le Perpétuel shook his head vigorously in denial. “No,” he finally dared to say… “No, madame, I don’t want to kill him, but I would like to see him. ” “Well, you will see him, Monsieur le Perpétuel, because deep down, you have the good face of an honest man that I remember… you will see him, because he is here… But first, I must speak to you… That is why you must forgive me, Monsieur le Perpétuel, for having brought a man like you into my office…” And the terrible Babette, having finally put down her broomstick, signaled to M. Hippolyte Patard to follow her to the corner of a window where they each found a chair. But before sitting down, Babette went to hide her oil lamp right behind the fireplace, so that the corner where she had led M. le Perpétuel was plunged into an opaque night. Then she came back and, very gently, opened one of the interior shutters which closed the window. Then, a section of window appeared with its iron bars; and a little of the flickering light from the street lamp, abandoned on the pavement opposite, having slipped through these bars, Babette’s face was softly illuminated. M. le Secretaire Perpétuel looked at her and was reassured, although all the precautions taken by the old woman servant would not have failed to intrigue him, and even to worry him. This face, which must have been, at certain moments, very formidable to behold, expressed, in this dark moment, a pitying sweetness which inspired confidence. “Monsieur le Perpétuel,” said Babette, sitting down opposite the academician, “do not be surprised by my manner; I am putting you in the dark to watch over the old man. But that is not the question for the moment… for the moment I only want to tell you one thing (and the voice of rogomme was heard to the point of tears): do you want to kill him?” So saying, Babette had taken Hippolyte Patard’s hands in her hands, but he did not withdraw them, for he was beginning to be deeply moved by this desolate accent which came from the heart by way of Aveyron. “Listen,” Babette continued, “I ask you, Monsieur le Perpétuel, I ask you quite sincerely, in your soul and conscience, as they say among judges, do you believe that all these deaths are natural? Answer me, Monsieur le Perpétuel!” At this question, which he had not expected, Monsieur le Perpétuel felt a certain unease. But, after a moment that seemed very solemn to Babette, he replied in a firm voice: “In my soul and conscience, yes… I believe that these deaths are natural…” There was another silence. “Monsieur le Perpétuel,” Babette’s deep voice said, ” perhaps you have not thought enough… ” “The doctors, madam, have declared…” “Doctors are often mistaken, sir… We have seen that in court… think about it, Monsieur le Perpétuel.” Listen: I’ll tell you something… You don’t die like that, all at once, in the same place, two by two, saying almost the same words, a few weeks apart without it having been prepared! Babette, in her language more expressive than correct, had admirably summed up the situation. The Permanent Secretary was struck by it. “What do you think?” he asked. “I think your Eliphas de La Nox is a nasty sorcerer… He said he would take revenge and he poisoned them… Perhaps the poison was in the letter… you don’t believe me?… And perhaps that’s not it? But, Mr. Perpetual, listen to me carefully… perhaps it’s something else!… I’m going to ask you a question: In your heart of hearts, if, while paying his compliment, Mr. Latouche fell dead like the other two, would you still believe that it was natural? “No, I wouldn’t believe it!” replied M. Hippolyte Patard without hesitation. “In your soul and conscience? ” “In my soul and conscience! ” “Well, I, Monsieur le Perpétuel, do not want him to die! ” “But he will not die, madame! ” “That is what was said about this M. d’Aulnay and he is dead! ” “That is no reason for M. Latouche… ” “Possible! In any case, I forbade him from presenting himself to your Academy… ” “But he is elected, madame!… He is elected!… ” “No, since he did not present himself! Ah! That is what I replied to all the journalists who came here… There is no going back on it. ” “What! He did not present himself! But we have letters from him.” “It doesn’t count anymore… since the last one he wrote to you yesterday evening in my presence, as soon as we learned of the death of this M. d’Aulnay… He wrote it there, in my presence; no one will say otherwise… And you must have received it this morning… He read it to me… He said he was no longer appearing at the Academy. ” “I swear to you, madame, that I didn’t receive it!” declared M. Hippolyte Patard. Babette waited before replying, then she made up her mind: “I believe you, Monsieur le Perpétuel. ” “The post office,” declared M. Patard, “sometimes does its job badly. ” “No,” replied Babette with a sigh, “no, Monsieur le Perpétuel!… that’s not it! You didn’t receive the letter because he didn’t put it in the post office.” And she heaved another sigh—He so wanted to be in your Academy, Monsieur le Perpétuel! And Babette wept. —Oh! that will bring him bad luck!… that will bring him bad luck! In her tears, she said again: —I have presentiments… hauntings that don’t lie… Isn’t it, Monsieur le Perpétuel, that it wouldn’t be natural if he died like the others… So don’t do everything to make him die like the others… don’t make him pay his respects!…— That, replied M. Hippolyte Patard immediately, whose eyes were moist… that’s impossible!… Someone must end up by pronouncing the eulogy of Mgr d’Abbeville. —I don’t care, replied Babette. But him, alas! He thinks of nothing else. Paying compliments to Mgr d’Abbeville… He’s not mean in the least… Ah! compliments, he ‘ll pay her some!… That’s not what will keep him from being at your Academy… but I have fears, I tell you. Suddenly Babette had stopped crying–Shh! she said. She was now staring fiercely at the pavement opposite… The permanent secretary followed this look, and then he saw, right under the street lamp, the walking box; only the box now had not only legs, but a head… an extraordinary hairy and bearded head… which barely rose above the enormous case… “A barrel organ player…” murmured M. Hippolyte Patard. “A hurdy-gurdy!” Babette corrected in a whisper, for whom all the musicians in the classes were hurdy-gurdies… Here he is back, I swear! He may think we’re asleep; don’t move!” She was so moved that one could hear her heart beating… She said again between her teeth: “We’ll see what he’s going to do!” Opposite, the box that was working was no longer working. And the hairy, bearded head, above the box, was looking, without moving, towards Mr. Patard and Babette, but certainly without the… This head was so bushy that one could not distinguish any feature; but its eyes were lively and piercing. Mr. Hippolyte Patard thought: “I’ve seen those eyes somewhere,” And he was more worried. However, he did not need a new event to increase a disturbance that was widening of its own accord. The hour was so strange, so uncertain, so mysterious, in the depths of this old kitchen, behind the bars of this dark window, facing this good servant who had turned his heart with her questions… (Truly! Truly! He had answered that these two deaths were natural!… And if the other one too, the third, was going to die! What responsibility for M. Hippolyte Patard, and what remorse!) And the heart of M. le Perpétuel was now beating as hard as that of old Babette… What was the hairy, bearded head doing, at this hour, on this deserted sidewalk , above the barrel organ? Why had the box moved so strangely just now, appearing, disappearing, returning after having been chased away? (For surely it was she that old Babette had pursued so ardently, with all the speed of her clogs, along the sidewalks, until the depths of the night.) Why had the box come back under the street lamp opposite, with that impenetrable beard, and those little twinkling eyes?… “We’ll see what he’s going to do…” said Babette… …But he did nothing but look… “Wait!” whispered the servant… “Wait!” And, with a thousand precautions, she went towards the kitchen door … Obviously, she was going to start her hunt again… Ah! she was brave, despite her fear!… The permanent secretary had, for a moment, taken his eyes off the motionless box on the sidewalk to follow Babette’s movements; when he looked again into the street, the box had disappeared. “Oh! He’s gone,” he said. Babette came back to the window. She, too, looked out into the street… “Nothing!” she moaned. “He’ll scare me to death!… If I ever get his beard in my crooked fingers!… ” “What does he want?” asked the Permanent Secretary at random . “You must ask him, Mr. Perpetual! You must ask him!… But he won’t let you get near him… He’s more elusive than a shadow… and then, you know, I’m from Rodez! And hurdy -gurdies bring bad luck! ” “Ah!” said Mr. Perpetual, touching the handle of his umbrella… And why? Babette, while she crossed herself, said in a very low voice: “La Bancal… ” “What? La Bancal?” –…La Bancal had brought hurdy-gurdies to play music in the street, so that no one would hear him murdering poor Mr. Fualdès… It’s well known, though… Monsieur le Perpétuel. –Yes, yes, I know… indeed, the Fualdès affair… But I don’t see … –You don’t see?… But do you hear? Do you hear? And Babette, leaning over in a tragic gesture, her ear pressed to the windowpane, seemed to hear things that did not reach Mr. Hippolyte Patard, which did not prevent the latter from getting up in great agitation. –You will take me to Mr. Martin Latouche, immediately, he said, trying to show some authority. But Babette had fallen back into her chair… –I’m crazy! she said… I thought… but things like that aren’t possible … didn’t you hear anything, Mr. Perpetual? –No, nothing at all… –Yes… I’ll go mad with this old fellow who never leaves us. –What do you mean? He never leaves you. –Hey! In broad daylight, when you least expect it, we find him in the courtyard… I chase him away… I find him on the stairs… In a doorway, anywhere… Anything goes to hide his music box… And at night, he prowls under our windows… –That, indeed, is not natural, pronounced Mr. Perpetual Secretary. –You see!… I don’t need you to tell me… –Has he been prowling around here for a long time? –For about three months… –That long?… –Oh! He sometimes goes for weeks without reappearing… Look, the first time I saw him, it was during the day… And Babette stopped. “Well?” asked Patard, struck by this sudden silence. The old servant murmured: “There are things I must not say… but, all the same, Monsieur le Perpétuel, the old man came to us at the time that Monsieur Latouche presented himself at your Academy… I even told him: it’s not a good sign! And it was precisely at the time that the others died. And when we talk again about your Academy, it’s always at that time that he comes back… No, no, all that, it’s not natural… But I can’t tell you anything…” And she shook her head energetically. Monsieur Patard was now very intrigued. He sat down again. Babette continued, as if speaking to herself: “There are times when I reason with myself… I tell myself that it’s just an idea. In Rodez, when we saw, in my time, a hurdy-gurdy, we would cross ourselves, and the little children would throw stones at him… and he would run away. ” And she added thoughtfully: “But this one, he always comes back.” “You said you couldn’t tell me anything,” insinuated M. Patard; ” is it about hurdy-gurdy people? ” “Oh! It’s not only hurdy-gurdy people…” But she shook her head again, as if to chase away the urge that was gripping her to speak. The more she shook her head, the more M. Patard wanted old Babette to speak. He said, determined to strike a blow: “After all, these deaths… are perhaps not as natural as one might think.” might believe it… And if you know something, madame, you will be more guilty than all of us… for anything that might happen. Babette clasped her hands as if in prayer… “I swore on God,” she said. M. Patard stood up straight. “Take me, madame, to your master.” Babette jumped up: “So, it’s really over?” she implored. “What then?” asked the Permanent Secretary in a rather harsh voice . “I ask you: is it really over? You elected him from your Academy… he is one of them… and he will pay his respects to your Mgr d’Abbeville? ” “Why yes, madame. ” “And he will pay his respects… in front of everyone? ” “Certainly. ” “Like the other two. ” “Like the other two?… It must be done!” But here the Permanent Secretary’s voice was no longer harsh at all… It even trembled a little. “Well, you are murderers!” said Babette, calmly, with a great sign of the cross, and she continued: “But I will not let Monsieur Latouche be murdered, and I will save him in spite of himself… in spite of what I swore… Monsieur le Perpétuel, sit down… I will tell you everything. ” And she threw herself on her knees on the floor. “I swore on my salvation, and I break my oath… But the good Lord who reads my heart will forgive me. That is exactly what happened…”
Monsieur Patard listened eagerly to Babette, looking vaguely through the half-open shutter into the street… He saw that the old man had returned and was raising his flickering eyes in the air, staring at something above Monsieur Patard’s head, toward the first floor of the house. Monsieur Patard shuddered. However, he remained sufficiently in control of himself not to reveal, by any sudden movement, to Babette what was happening in the street… And she was not interrupted in her story. On her knees, she could see nothing. And she did not try to see anything. She spoke painfully, with a sigh, and in one go, as if in confession… to be sooner freed from the weight that weighed on her conscience. –So it happened that two days after you did not want my master at your Academy (for at that time, you did not want him, and you took in his place a M. Mortimar as you took after M. d’Aulnay), well, one afternoon when I was due to be absent and when I had nevertheless remained in my kitchen, without M. Latouche knowing anything about it, I saw a gentleman arrive who found the way to the stairs all by himself to go up to my master’s house, and who locked himself in with him. I had never seen him. Five minutes later, another gentleman whom I didn’t know either arrived… and he went upstairs like the other one, quickly, as if he were afraid of being seen… and I heard him knocking at the library door , which was opened immediately, and now there were three of them in the library: Mr. Latouche and the two strangers. … An hour, two hours passed like that… The library is just above the kitchen… What surprised me most was that I couldn’t even hear them walking… You couldn’t hear a thing at all… It intrigued me too much, and, I admit, I’m curious. Mr. Latouche hadn’t told me about these visits… I went upstairs in turn, and I put my ear to the library door. We couldn’t hear anything… Well, I knocked, no one answered… I opened the door… there was no one in there… As there is only one door, the door of the little office which opens into the library, apart from the front door, I went to that door; but I was more astonished, on going there, than by all the rest… because I have never, never entered Mr. Latouche’s little office. And my master has never received anyone there; it’s a habit he has, the good man; that’s where he writes, and to be sure of not being disturbed, when he ‘s in there… it’s as if he were in a tomb. Often, he gave in to me on many things that I reasonably asked of him, but he never gave in to me on that. He had a special key made, and I, like anyone else, was never able to get into the little office. In there, he did his own cleaning. He would say to me: This corner is mine, Babette, everything else is yours to scrub and clean. And there he was, locked in there with two men whom I didn’t know from Adam… So, I listened… I tried, through the door, to understand what was happening, what was being said. But they were talking very quietly and I was furious at not understanding… In the end, I thought I understood that there was a discussion going on that wasn’t going well… And suddenly, my master, raising his voice, said, and I heard this distinctly: Is it really possible? He wouldn’t have committed a greater crime in the world! I heard that!… with my own ears… That’s all I heard… I was still stunned… when the door opened; the two strangers threw themselves on me… Don’t hurt him! cried Mr. Latouche, who was carefully closing the door of his little office… I’ll answer for it as if for myself! And he came to me and said: Babette, we won’t question you; you either heard or you didn’t hear! But you’re going to get on your knees and swear on God that you’ll never speak to a living soul about what you heard and what you saw! I thought you were out, so you didn’t see those two gentlemen coming to my house. You don’t know them. Swear it, Babette. I looked at my master. I had never seen such a face on him. He, usually so gentle—I can do what I will with that—anger had transformed him. He was trembling! The two strangers were leaning over me with threatening faces. I fell to my knees, and I swore whatever they wanted… Then they left… one after the other, cautiously looking out into the street… I had gone back down, more dead than alive, into the kitchen, and I was watching them go away, when I saw… precisely… for the first time… the hurdy-gurdy!… He was standing, as before, under the street lamp… I made the sign of the cross… misfortune had struck the house. The permanent secretary, while listening with all his ears to old Babette, had followed the hurdy-gurdy’s movements with his eyes. And he had not been a little impressed to see him making mysterious signs above his box… finally, once again, the walking box had vanished into the night. Babette had stood up. “I have finished,” she repeated. “Misfortune had struck the house.” “And these men,” asked Mr. Patard, “whom the governess’s story worried beyond all expression… These men, have you seen them again? ” “There is one I have never seen again, Mr. Perpetual, because he is dead. I saw his photograph in the newspapers… It is this Mr. Mortimar. ” Mr. Perpetual jumped up. “Mortimar… And the other one, the other one? ” “The other one? I also saw his photograph in the newspapers… It was Mr. d’Aulnay!…” “Mr. d’Aulnay!… And you saw him again, that one? ” “Yes… that one… I saw him again… He came back here the day before his death, Mr. Perpetual. ” “The day before his death… The day before yesterday?” “The day before yesterday!… Ah! I haven’t told you everything!” It must be!… And no sooner had he arrived than I found the old man in the courtyard!… As soon as he saw me, he ran away as always… But I immediately thought: Bad sign, bad sign!… Monsieur le Perpétuel, my great-aunt always told me: Babette, beware of hurdy-gurdy!… And my great-aunt, who had reached a great age, Mr. Perpetual, knew about that… She lived just opposite La Bancal, in my native land, in Rodez, the night they murdered Fualdès… and she heard the tune of the crime… the tune that the organ players and the hurdy-gurdy players were playing in the street, while on the table, La Bancal and Bastide and the others were cutting the poor man’s throat… It was a tune… that always stayed in her ears… in the poor old woman’s, and that she sang to me once, in great secrecy, very quietly, so as not to compromise anyone… a tune… a tune… And Babette had suddenly stood up with the gestures of an automaton… Her face, lit by the pale red glow of the street lamp opposite, expressed the most unspeakable terror… Her outstretched arm pointed to the street from where a slow, distant refrain, desperately melancholy came.
“That tune!” she groaned. “Look… it was that tune!” Chapter 4. Martin Latouche. Immediately, in the room just above the kitchen, a great crash was heard, the sound of furniture being overturned, like a real battle. The ceiling resounded with it. Babette screamed: “He’s being murdered!… Help!…” And she leaped toward the hearth, grabbed a poker, and rushed out of the kitchen, crossing the vault, climbing the steps leading to the first floor. M. Hippolyte Patard had murmured: “My God!…” And he remained there, his temples pounding, overcome by fear, broken by the horror of the situation, while in the street the cursed refrain, the banal, historical, and terrible air, quietly prolonged its rhythm, complicit in some new crime… music of the devil which had always prevented one from hearing the cries of those whose throats were being cut… and which now reached all by itself, covering all other noise, to the buzzing ears of M. Hippolyte Patard… to his frozen heart. He could have believed that he was going to faint. But the shame he suddenly felt at his pusillanimity held him back on the edge of that dark abyss into which the human soul, overcome by vertigo, lets itself fall . He remembered in time that he was the perpetual secretary of Immortality, and having made, for the second time in that eventful evening, the sacrifice of his miserable life, he gave himself up to a great moral and physical effort which led him, a few seconds later, armed, on the left, with an umbrella, on the right, with a pair of tongs, to a door on the first floor which Babette was shaking with great blows of the poker… and which, moreover, opened immediately. “Are you always so crazy, my poor Babette?” said a frail but peaceful voice. A man of about sixty, still robust in appearance, with graying hair that curled, a fine white beard, framing a pink, doll-like face, with gentle eyes, was on the threshold of the door, holding a lamp. It was Martin Latouche. As soon as he saw M. Hippolyte Patard between his tongs and his umbrella, he could not suppress a smile: “You, Mr. Permanent Secretary! What’s going on? ” he asked, bowing respectfully. “Hey, sir! It’s us who ask you!” cried Babette, throwing down her poker. “Is it possible to make such a noise! ​​We thought you were being murdered!… With that, the old man is busy turning the tune of Fualdès in the street, under our windows… ” “The old man had better go to bed!” replied Martin Latouche calmly, “and you too, my good Babette!” (And, turning to M. Patard:) Mr. Permanent Secretary, I would be very curious to know what I owe, at this hour, the great honor of your visit… ” So saying, Martin Latouche had shown M. Patard into the library and relieved him of his pair of tweezers. Babette had followed. She looked everywhere. All the furniture was in order… the tables, the lockers occupied their usual places… “But still, Mr. Perpetual and I, we weren’t dreaming!” she declared. “It was as if we were fighting here or moving…” “Don’t worry, Babette… it was me, in the little office, who clumsily moved an armchair… And now, say goodnight to us! ” Babette looked suspiciously at the door of the little office, the door that had never opened for her, and she sighed: “They’ve always distrusted me here!” “Go away, Babette!…” “They say they don’t want the Academy anymore…” “Babette, will you leave?… ” “And we’re still here…” “Babette!” –One writes letters that one doesn’t post… –Mr. Permanent Secretary, that old servant is unbearable!… –One locks oneself in one’s library with two turns of the key and doesn’t let you in until one has half-broken down the door!… –I lock what I want!… And I open when I want!… I am the master here!… –That’s not what we’re discussing… one is always the master of doing stupid things… –Babette!… That’s enough!… –…of receiving strangers in secret… –Huh? –…unknown people at the Academy… –Babette, there are no unknown people at the Academy!… –Oh! those people are only known, by Jove, because they died there!… The servant had no sooner uttered these last words than that tall , gentle man, Martin Latouche, had leaped at her throat. “Shut up!” It was the first time Martin Latouche had assaulted his servant. He immediately regretted his actions, and was particularly ashamed in front of M. Hippolyte Patard, and apologized: “I beg your pardon,” he said, trying to control the emotion that was visibly gripping him, “but that crazy old Babette has the gift of exasperating me tonight. And there are times when the calmest… Ah! Women’s stubbornness is terrible!… Sit down, sir…” And Martin Latouche offered M. Patard an armchair that turned its back to Babette, and he himself turned his back on Babette. They were going to try to forget that she was there, since she wouldn’t leave .
“Sir,” said Babette suddenly, “after what you’ve just done , I can expect anything, and you might kill me.” But I told everything to Mr. Perpetual. Martin Latouche turned around suddenly. At that moment, his head was entirely in shadow and Mr. Hippolyte Patard could not read on that dark face the feelings that animated him, but the man’s hand, which was leaning on the table, was trembling. And Martin Latouche was for a few seconds unable to utter a word. Finally, controlling his emotion, he said, in a broken voice: “What did you say to Mr. Perpetual Secretary, Babette? ” It was the first time he had said “vous” to the old housekeeper, in front of Mr. Patard. The latter noticed it, as a sure sign of the gravity of the situation. “I said that Messrs. Mortimar and d’Aulnay had come to find Monsieur here, that they had locked themselves with Monsieur in the little office, before going to die paying compliments to the Academy.” “You swore to silence, Babette. ” “Yes, but I only spoke to save Monsieur… because if I wasn’t careful, Monsieur would go and die there like the others. ” “Good,” said the broken voice of Martin Latouche. “And what else did you say to the permanent secretary? ” “I told him what I had heard while listening behind the door of the small office.” “Babette! Listen to me carefully!” continued Martin Latouche, who immediately stopped addressing the housekeeper as “vous” and began to address her informally again, which seemed even more serious to M. Patard. “Babette, I never asked you what you heard behind the door… is that true?” “It’s true! My master… ” “You swore to forget it, and I didn’t question you because I thought it was useless; but since you remember what you heard… you’re going to tell me what you said to the permanent secretary. ” “That’s only fair, sir. I told him that I heard your voice saying: No! No! It’s not possible! He couldn’t have committed a greater crime in the world!” After Babette’s declaration, Martin Latouche said nothing. He seemed to be thinking. His hand was no longer on the table, and besides, he was completely out of sight. He had retreated to the darkest corner of the room. And Mr. Patard was even more frightened by the crushing silence that reigned in the old house than by the noise made just now by the hurdy-gurdy’s refrain in the street. The hurdy-gurdy was no longer heard. No one was heard… nothing. Finally, Martin Latouche said: “You heard nothing else, Babette, and you said nothing else! ” “Nothing, my master!” “I don’t dare tell you to swear; it’s quite useless. ” “If I had heard anything else, I would have told Mr. Perpetual, for I want to save you.” If I didn’t tell her more, it’s because I didn’t hear more… Martin Latouche then, to the great astonishment of the maid and Mr. Patard, heard a good person of all body types laugh clearly. He advanced towards Babette and patted her cheek: –Come on! They wanted to frighten you, you old beast! You’re a good girl, I like her, but I have to talk to the permanent secretary; see you tomorrow, Babette. –See you tomorrow, Sir!… And God keep you! I have done my duty. She greeted Mr. Patard very ceremoniously and left, carefully closing the library door. Martin Latouche listened to her footsteps descending the stairs; then, returning to Mr. Hippolyte Patard, he said to him, in a joking tone: –Ah! These old maids!… they’re very devoted, but sometimes they’re very cumbersome. She must have told you some stories!… She’s a bit crazy, you know!… Those two deaths at the Academy have confused her brain… “You must excuse her,” replied Hippolyte Patard… “There are others in Paris who are more educated than she is and who are still completely distraught about it. But I am happy, my dear colleague, to see that such a deplorable event, such a dreadful coincidence… ” “Oh! I’m not superstitious, you know!” murmured poor Patard, who was still deeply moved by all Babette’s cries and terrors… “Mr. Permanent Secretary, I heard, right here, as my crazy old governess told you, M. Maxime d’Aulnay, two days before his death; I can tell you, in all confidence, that he was very struck by the sudden death of Mr. Mortimar after the public threats of this Eliphas… Mr. Maxime d’Aulnay had a heart condition… When he received, like Mr. Mortimar, the letter undoubtedly sent by some sinister joker, he must have felt a terrible blow, despite his apparent bravery. With an embolism, it doesn’t take more… Mr. Hippolyte Patard stood up; his dilated chest swelled with air and he let out one of those sighs which seem to restore life to divers who have disappeared, for an abnormal time, underwater. –Ah! Mr. Martin Latouche! he said, what a relief to hear you speak like that!… I won’t hide from you that with all the stories about your Babette, I myself was beginning to doubt the simple a truth which should, however, be staring every sensible man in the face!… “Yes! Yes!” sneered Martin Latouche softly… “I can see it from here… the old man!… the memories of the Fualdès affair… my meetings with Messrs. Mortimar and d’Aulnay… their subsequent deaths… the terrible sentences spoken in my mysterious little office… ” “It’s true!” interrupted Hippolyte Patard… “I didn’t know what to think anymore…” Mr. Martin Latouche took the hands of Mr. the permanent secretary, in a gesture of great confidence and sudden friendship… “Mr. the permanent secretary,” he said, “I’m going to ask you to come into my mysterious little office…” And he smiled at him. He continued: “You must know all my secrets… I want to confide them to you… who are an old bachelor, like me… you will understand me!… And, without complaining too much, you will smile about it!…” And Martin Latouche, leading the permanent secretary, arrived at the small door of the mysterious little office, which he opened with a special key, a key that never left him, he said. “There is the cave!” said this honest man, pushing open the door. It was a room of a few square meters. The window was still open and, on the parquet floor, a table and an armchair were overturned, and papers and various objects had rolled everywhere in great disorder. A lamp on a piano lit up the walls where the most bizarre musical instruments hung. M. Hippolyte Patard, in the center of all this bric-a-brac, opened his eyes wide and worried. As for Martin Latouche, after locking the door, he went to the window. He looked outside for a moment, then closed the window too. “This time, I think he’s gone,” he said. “He’s understood that this evening again, he’ll have nothing to do!…” “Who are you talking about?” asked M. Hippolyte Patard, who was again very unreassured. “Hey! But the old man! As my Babette says.” And, calmly, he put the table and the armchair back on their feet, then he smiled, with all his good, childish face, at the permanent secretary, and said to him, in a low voice: “You see, M. Permanent Secretary, here, I’m really at home!… It’s not as tidy as in the other rooms, but Babette doesn’t have the right to set foot there!… This is where I hide my musical instruments, my whole collection… If Babette ever knew!… she’d burn it all!… Yes, yes! My word!… to the fire!… And my old Northern lyre and my minstrel’s harp which dates back to no more and no less than the 15th century… And my nabulon! And my psaltery… And my guitar!… Ah! Mr. Perpetual Secretary, have you seen my guitar?… Look at it!… and my archlute!… And my theorbo!… All to the fire! to the fire!… And my mandora!… Ah! You look at my guitar!… it’s the oldest guitar known, you know!… Well, she would have thrown all that into the fire!… Yes! yes!… it’s as I told you!… ah! she doesn’t like music!… And Martin Latouche heaved a sigh that would break Mr. Hippolyte Patard’s heart … –And all that… continued the old music lover, all that because she was brought up on all that silly Fualdès business… In our youth, in Rodez!… we still only talked about that! The hurdy-gurdies who turned their handles in front of La Bancal while that poor gentleman was being murdered!… Babette, Mr. Permanent Secretary, has never been able to see a musical instrument… you will never know… never all the imagination it took me to bring those instruments here… Look! Right now, I want to buy a barrel organ!… that’s what they call them, but it’s one of the oldest barrel organs there is!… Imagine what a stroke of luck it was to have discovered it!… The poor devil who grinds music with that instrument does not suspect the treasure he has in his hand… I met him at the corner of the Pont-Neuf and the quay, one evening, around four o’clock… The man was begging for alms… I am an honest man… I offered him five hundred francs from his old box… The deal was concluded immediately, you can imagine!… Five hundred francs!… a fortune for him, and for me! I did not want to rob him completely… I promised him what I had… But what was not easy to arrange was the way in which I could come into possession of the instrument!… It is understood that I will only pay if Babette knows nothing about anything!… Well… it is like a fatality… she is always there when the other one arrives!… She meets him in the courtyard, on the stairs at the moment when we think she has left! And then it’s a devil’s hunt!… Luckily the other one is agile… This care was understood that, with Babette lying down, I would hoist the instrument with strings, straight up, into the little office… I had already climbed onto a table and was about to throw down the strings here… when the table tipped over… that’s when you both arrived, thinking I was being murdered… ah! you were very funny, Mr. Permanent Secretary … with your umbrella and your pair of tweezers… very funny, but very brave all the same!… And Martin Latouche began to laugh… and Mr. Hippolyte Patard laughed too, heartily , this time… laughed not only at his own image evoked by Martin Latouche, but also at his own fear in front of the walking box . How naturally everything explained itself!… And shouldn’t everything, in truth, be naturally explained?… There are times when a man is no more reasonable than a child, thought M. Patard. How ridiculous he had been with Babette and all her old-timer business! Ah!… after so many cruel emotions, it was a good time! M. Patard was moved by the fate of that old bachelor Martin Latouche who , like so many others, alas!, was suffering the tyranny of his old servant… “Don’t pity me too much!” he said, bringing out his kind smile again… “If I didn’t have Babette, I would have been penniless long ago with my manias!… We’re not rich, and I made some really stupid mistakes, at the beginning, for my collection!… That good Babette, she’s obliged to cut the pennies into four; she deprives herself of everything for me!… And she cares for me like a mother… But she cannot hear the music!… Martin Latouche, saying this, passed a devout hand over his dear instruments whose poor sleeping souls were only waiting for the caress of his fingers to moan with their master… –So, I caress them very gently!… very gently!… so gently that only we know we are crying!… and then, sometimes… when I have managed to send Babette on an errand… then I take my little guitar to which I have put the oldest strings I could find! and I play distant airs like a true troubadour… No, no, I’m not too unhappy, Mr. Permanent Secretary !… believe me!… And then, I must tell you: I have my piano!… So, I do whatever I want with my piano!… I play all the airs I want… terrible airs, thunderous overtures, marches to all the abysses!… Ah! it’s a magnificent piano that doesn’t bother Babette when she’s doing her dishes!… At that, Martin Latouche rushed to a piano and pounded on the keys, running with a real rage over the entire keyboard . Mr. Hippolyte Patard was expecting the frenzied clamour of the instrument. But, despite all the work his master made him undergo, he remained silent. It was a silent piano, which consequently makes no sound, and which is made for those who want to practice scales without disturbing the ears of their neighbors. Martin Latouche said, his head thrown back, his curls blowing in the wind with his inspiration, his eyes to the sky, and his hands bouncing: “I sometimes play it all day long… And I’m the only one who can hear it! But it’s deafening!… Oh! It’s a real orchestra!… And then, suddenly, he closed the piano and Mr. Hippolyte Patard saw that he was crying… Then, the permanent secretary approached the music lover. “My friend…” he said very gently… “Oh! you are good, I know you are good!… replied Martin Latouche in a broken voice… One is happy to be in a Company where there is a man like you!… Now, you know all my little miseries… my mysterious little office where there are such dark meetings… and you know why I am in such anxiety when I learn that my old Babette has been listening behind the door… I like her, my governess… but I also like my little guitar… and I would like to part with neither one nor the other… although sometimes here (and Mr. Martin Latouche leaned into Mr. Patard’s ear)… there is nothing to eat… But silence! Ah! Mr. Permanent Secretary, you are an old bachelor but you are not a collector!… The soul of a collector is terrible for the body of an old bachelor!… Yes, yes, fortunately Babette is here!… But I will have the barrel organ all the same… an organ that grinds out old, old tunes… an organ that was perhaps used in the Fualdès affair itself!… Do we know?… Mr. Martin Latouche wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand… “So,” he said… “It is very late!” And with great care, he led Mr. Permanent Secretary from the mysterious little office into the large library. There, the precious door closed, he said again: “Yes, very late!… How did you come so late, Mr. Permanent Secretary?… ” “The rumor was going around that you were refusing the seat of Mgr. d’Abbeville. The evening papers printed it. ” “That’s nonsense!” declared Martin Latouche in a deep and suddenly deliberate voice… nonsense!… I will return immediately to the triple eulogy of Mgr d’Abbeville, Jehan Mortimar and Maxime d’Aulnay… M. Hippolyte Patard said: –Tomorrow, I will send a note to the newspapers. But tell me, dear colleague… –Speak!… what is it?… –Perhaps I am being indiscreet… M. Hippolyte Patard seemed indeed very embarrassed… He turned and turned the handle of his umbrella. Finally, he decided… –You have confided so much in me that I will risk it. First, I can ask you–and this is not indiscreet if you knew Messrs. Mortimar and d’Aulnay well… Martin Latouche did not answer at first. He went to take the lamp from the table and held it above Mr. Hippolyte Patard’s head: “I will accompany you,” he said, “Mr. Permanent Secretary, to the street door, unless you are afraid of unpleasant encounters, in which case I will accompany you to your home… but the neighborhood, despite its gloomy air, is very quiet… ” “No! No! My dear colleague… I beg you, don’t bother !… ” “It’s as you wish!” said Martin Latouche without insisting… I’ll enlighten you… They were now on the landing: the new academician then answered the question that had been put to him: –Yes, yes, certainly… I knew Jehan Mortimar very well… and Maxime d’Aulnay… we were old friends… old comrades… and when we found ourselves in the same row for the seat of Mgr d’Abbeville… we decided to let things be, not to intrigue and we met sometimes to discuss the situation… sometimes at one’s house, sometimes at the other’s… The history of Eliphas’s threats, after Mortimar’s election, were a rather amusing topic of conversation for us… –This conversation terrified our Babette… And it is here, my dear colleague, that I am perhaps going to show indiscretion… What crime were you talking about when you said: No! No! It is not possible! Could there be no greater crime in the world? Martin Latouche made Mr. Hippolyte Patard go down a few steps, asking him to feel the stairs with his heel… –Well, but!… he replied again. (Oh! There is no indiscretion! None! You must be joking!) Well, but, I have already told you that Maxime d’Aulnay, although he joked about it, had been deeply touched by the threatening words of Eliphas who had disappeared after having pronounced them… That day, Maxime d’Aulnay while congratulating Mortimar on his election, which had taken place two days before, had advised, still jokingly, of course, poor Mortimar who was already thinking about his acceptance speech, to be on his guard, because the vengeance of the sar was watching him. Hadn’t he announced that the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville would be fatal to anyone who dared to sit in it?… So, I couldn’t think of anything better…–watch out for that step, Mr. Permanent Secretary–I couldn’t think of anything better than to up the ante on this sort of game…–be careful, there… we are under the vault–and I cried out–turn left, Mr. Permanent Secretary–and I cried out emphatically: No! No! It’s not possible! He wouldn’t have committed a greater crime in the world.–There, we have arrived… The two men were indeed under the great door… Martin Latouche noisily pulled on heavy iron bars, turned an enormous key, and, pulling the door towards him, looked out onto the square. – “All is quiet!” he said, “everyone is asleep… do you want me to accompany you, my dear Permanent Secretary?” – “No! No! I’m stupid!” I am a poor, stupid man! Ah! my dear colleague, allow me to shake your hand one last time… –What! One last time!… Do you think I’m going to die like the others?… Ah! I can’t stand it!… And then, I don’t have heart disease!… –No! No!… I’m stupid… we must hope that less sad times will come, and that one day we’ll be able to laugh at all this!… Come on! Farewell, my dear new colleague!… Farewell!… And once again, my congratulations… With a brave heart and completely comforted, M. Hippolyte Patard, his umbrella at a standstill, was already taking the Pont-Neuf, when Martin Latouche called to him: –Psst!… One more word!… Don’t forget that all this is my little secrets!… –Ah! you don’t know me!… It’s understood that I haven’t seen you this evening! Good night, my dear friend!… Chapter 5. Experiment No. 3. The great day arrived. It had been set by the Academy for the fifteenth day following the solemn funeral of Maxime d’Aulnay. The illustrious Company had not wanted the regrettable situation in which it had been placed by the sad end of the two previous recipients to continue. It was keen to put an end as quickly as possible to all the absurd rumors that the disciples of Eliphas de La Nox, the friends of the beautiful Madame de Bithynie and the entire Pneumatics club (from pneuma, soul) had not ceased to spread. As for the sâr himself, he seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. All efforts made to contact him had come to nothing. The best reporters sent on his trail had returned empty-handed and this prolonged absence had easily become the main cause of concern, for, quite obviously, the sâr was hiding; and why was he hiding? On the other hand, it is right to recognize at once that brains generally in good health, after the excitement of the first or rather of the second moment, an emotion which had also made them wander a little (but where are the brains which, even in good health, at times, do not wander?), that these brains, I say, once the crisis had passed, had regained a perfect balance. Thus, the most tranquil of men, since his moving and mysterious interview with Martin Latouche, was Mr. Hippolyte Patard. Even he had regained his pretty pink color. But, when the great day of Martin Latouche’s reception arrived, curiosity among everyone, among the wise as well as among the mentally ill, was unleashed. The crowd which rushed to storm the dome filled it at first and then remained beating the approaches, overflowing onto the quays and into the adjacent streets, interrupting all traffic. Inside in the large hall of public meetings, everyone was standing, men and women crushing each other. As the minutes passed (the minutes preceding the opening of the session), the silence, above the frightful throng, became heavier, more terrible. It had been noticed that the beautiful Madame de Bithynie had refrained from appearing at the solemnity. The most dreadful omen had been drawn from this… Certainly, if anything were to happen, she had done well not to show herself, for she would have been torn to pieces by a crowd over which a wind of madness was ready to blow! In the place that this lady occupied at the previous session stood a proper gentleman, with a bourgeois belly, whose amiable bouncing was adorned with a beautiful thick gold chain. He was standing, the tips of the fingers of his two hands slipped into the two pockets of his waistcoat. His face was not that of a genius, but it was not unintelligent, far from it. The bald forehead made one forget, by the absence of any hair subterfuge, that it was low. A pair of gold spectacles rode over a common nose. M. Gaspard Lalouette (it was he) was not nearsighted, but he did not mind letting those around him think that his eyesight had been worn out by literary work, like the great writers. His emotion was no less than that of the people around him and a little nervous tic kept raising, rather comically, the ridge of his eyebrows. He looked at the place where Martin Latouche was going to deliver his speech. One minute! One more minute! And the president was going to open the session… if… if Martin Latouche arrived… for he was not there… His sponsors waited for him in vain… standing at the door anxious, disconsolate, and turning their heads twenty times. Would he have backed down at the last moment?… would he have been afraid?… That was what Mr. Hippolyte Patard was wondering, and at this thought, his face regained all its lemon color… Ah! What a life!… what a life for Mr. Permanent Secretary ! Here is one—Mr. Permanent Secretary—who would have liked to see the ceremony finished… happily finished!… Suddenly, Mr. Hippolyte Patard stood up straight, his ear pricked up towards a distant clamor… A clamor coming from outside… which was approaching… which was running… a clamor of enthusiasm, no doubt, accompanying Martin Latouche… “It’s him!” said Mr. Hippolyte Patard aloud. But the noise, made up of shouts, rumors, and the stirrings of the crowd, was growing to threatening proportions, and now it was anything but reassuring. But it was impossible to understand what they were shouting outside!… And the whole room, which until then had been breathing the same emotion through hundreds and hundreds of mouths, in a single breath, suddenly stopped breathing! A storm seemed to surround the Dome… The popular wave beat against the walls, slammed doors… soldiers, guards retreated into the room… And one began to distinguish, among so many tumult, a sort of peculiar rumbling. It was like an infinite, mournful moan. M. Hippolyte Patard felt his hair stand on end. And like a human beast, a monstrous bundle rolled out, skirts in tatters, bodice torn off, the whole thing topped with Gorgon hair that clenched fists tore off, while a mouth, which could not be seen , screamed: –Monsieur le Perpétuel! Monsieur le Perpétuel!… He is dead!… you killed him for me!… Chapter 6. The song that kills. The author of this cruel work refuses to give an idea of ​​the nameless tumult that followed this dramatic turn of events. Thus, Martin Latouche was dead! Dead like the others! Not while delivering his acceptance speech under the Dome, but at the very moment when he was about to go to the Academy to read it, while he was preparing, in short, like the other two, to take possession of Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair! If the emotion of the audience, around the screaming old Babette, bordered on madness, that of the crowd, outside, and throughout Paris afterward, knew hardly any more reasonable bounds. To recall it in all its integrity, one must reread the newspapers that appeared the day after this new and abominable catastrophe. A note from the editors of the newspaper L’Époque (Editor’s note) gives a fairly accurate glimpse of the state of mind. Here it is: The series continues! After Jehan Mortimar, after Maxime d’Aulnay, here is Martin Latouche who dies on the threshold of immortality, and Mgr d’Abbeville’s chair remains unoccupied! The news of the sudden death of the third academician who tried to sit in the seat coveted by the mysterious Eliphas spread through Paris last night with the speed and brutality of lightning. And we could not do better, in truth, than to call for help from thunder itself, to give an idea of ​​what happened in the capital during the few hours following the incredible event. Some seemed struck as if by fire from heaven, and, having lost their senses, spread through the streets, into the cafes, at the theater, in the salons, making such imbecilic remarks, that one wonders how there can be in the City of Light, in our time, sensible people to listen to them. Ah! we will not waste our time repeating here all the nonsense that has been uttered! And this Mr. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox, deep in his monstrous retreat, must be having a good time. As for us, we have stopped laughing. We loudly proclaim our opinion that we had only hinted after the death of Maxime d’Aulnay… No! No! All these deaths are not natural! We may not have been surprised by the first, we may have hesitated at the second, it would be criminal to doubt at the third! But let us be clear: when we say that these deaths are not natural, we do not mean to allude to some occult power which, outside of known natural laws, would have struck! We leave this nonsense to the little ladies of the Pneumatic Club, and we come categorically to say to the public prosecutor: There is a murderer down there, find him! The press was almost unanimous, obeying the general opinion that the three academicians had been poisoned, in calling for the intervention of the public authorities; and, although the doctors who had examined the body of the deceased had declared that Martin Latouche—despite a rather robust appearance—had died of premature and exhausted old age, the Public Prosecutor’s Office had to open an investigation to calm the fractious tempers. The first person questioned was naturally old Babette , who, on the fatal day, had been brought home in a faint, while devoted friends carried Mr. Hippolyte Patard to his home in a very sorry state. And this is how Babette, who no longer thought than to avenge his master, recounted the truly singular death of this poor Martin Latouche. –For some time now, my master had lived only on the compliment he had to pay and I heard him speaking of their Mgr d’Abbeville, and also of Mortimar and also of d’Aulnay as if they were good gods made of sugar. And often, he would stand in front of his mirrored wardrobe, like a real actor. At his age, it was pitiful, and I would not have failed to laugh in his face, if I had not been bothered by the words of the sorcerer whom they had not wanted for their damned Academy. The sorcerer had already killed two of them. I thought of only one thing, that he was going to kill my master like the others. That, I had said to M. le Perpétuel between the four eyes. But he had n’t listened to me, because, apparently, he needed his academician. So, every time I saw my master repeat his compliment, I threw myself at his feet, I kissed his knees, I wept like a madwoman, I begged him with clasped hands to send his resignation to M. le Perpétuel. I had fears that didn’t deceive me. The proof is that I met a hurdy-gurdy almost every day who played a barrel organ; I’m from Rodez: a hurdy-gurdy brings bad luck since the affair of that poor Mr. Fualdès. I had said that too to M. le Perpétuel, but it had been as if I were singing. Then I said to myself: Babette, you will never leave your master again! And you will defend him until the last moment! So, on the day of the compliment, I had dressed up, and I was watching for him in my kitchen, the door open, waiting for him to pass under the vault, determined to accompany him to this Academy of misfortune at the end of the world, everywhere! So I was waiting for him , but he didn’t come… He should have been here a good quarter of an hour ago!… I was getting impatient when, all of a sudden, what do I hear?… the air of the crime!… the air that had killed poor Mr. Fualdès!… Yes!… the hurdy-gurdy was still somewhere around the house, making his handle sing!… I broke out in a cold sweat… There was no denying it, that was an indication!… If someone had recited the prayer for the dead in my ear, I wouldn’t have been more impressed… I said to myself: here comes the hour of the Academy ringing… the hour of death!… and I opened the window to see if the hurdy-gurdy was in the street and to silence him… but there was no one in the street… I left my kitchen… No one under the arch!… no one in the courtyard… and the air was still singing… It was coming to me from above now… Perhaps the hurdy-gurdy was on the stairs… no one on the stairs… on the first floor… nothing! Nothing but the air of that poor Mr. Fualdès who was still pursuing me… and the further I went, the more I heard it… I opened the door of the library… one would have thought that the song was behind the books!… My master wasn’t there!… He must be in his little study where I never go!… I listened… The air of crime was in the little study!… Ah!… Was it possible!… I approached the door holding back my bursting heart… called to him: Sir! Sir!… He didn’t answer me… The air was still turning… behind the door of his little study… Ah! How sad it was!… It was such a sad tune that you couldn’t breathe it anymore and tears came to your eyes… a tune that seemed to weep for all those who had been murdered since the beginning of the world!… I pressed my hands against the door to keep from falling. The door opened… At the same moment there was a sort of loud grinding noise in the crank of the music of the tune of the crime. It tore my heart and my ears!… And Then I almost fell in the little office, I was so dizzy… But what I saw put me back on my feet, straighter than a statue. In the middle of a pile of instruments that I don’t know from Adam or Eve, and which certainly arrived in this little office with the devil’s permission, my master was leaning over the hurdy-gurdy organ. Ah! I recognized him ! It was the organ that was playing the song of the crime… but the hurdy-gurdy wasn’t there!… My master still had his hand on the handle… I threw myself on him, and he gave way!… He fell flat on the floor:… He went plop!… My poor master was dead… murdered by the song that kills!… This story, close to what some regulars at the Pneumatiques club were telling secretly, produced a strange effect and public opinion was not satisfied by the overly natural explanations provided by the investigation into such a bizarre event. The investigation showed old Martin Latouche as a person with mental health problems who took the bread out of his mouth to be able to secretly enrich his collection. It was even said that he deprived himself of the lunches he was supposed to eat out, to save the few cents he then wasted at antique dealers and dealers in old musical instruments. This is how, quite obviously, the famous organ had arrived at his house, despite Babette’s surveillance; and it was at the moment when he was trying the handle that he had fallen, exhausted by the regime of abstinence to which he had subjected himself for too long. But they refused to accept a version that was too simple to be true, and the newspapers demanded that the police set out in pursuit of the hurdy-gurdy. Unfortunately, he remained as untraceable as Eliphas himself. From which it resulted, as was to be expected, that certain reporters affirmed that Eliphas and the hurdy-gurdy were one and the same—one and the same murderer. No one dared to speak out too loudly against this opinion, for after all, there remained the coincidence of the three deaths, and if each, in itself, seemed natural, it was quite certain that all three together were calculated to frighten. Finally, an autopsy was requested. This was a sad extremity to which one had to resort. Despite all the efforts and all the influence of the most person of all types of body caps of the Institute, the still fresh coffins of Jehan Mortimar and Maxime d’Aulnay were reopened. The forensic pathologists found no trace of poison. The body of Jehan Mortimar presented, upon examination, nothing unusual. However, certain stigmata were noted on the face of Maxime d’Aulnay which, on any other occasion, would have gone unnoticed, and which could be attributed to the normal decomposition of the flesh. They looked like light burns which would have left a sort of thickened trace on the face. On close inspection, one could distinguish on the face of Maxime d’Aulnay, affirmed two doctors out of three (because the third could see nothing at all), something like a sacristy sun. The forensic doctors had, of course, also examined the body of Martin Latouche, and they had found no other traces than that of a very slight nasal hemorrhage, which had also spread through the mouth. In short, there was, at the tip of the nose, and at the corner of the mouth, on the side where the corpse was inclined, a small trickle of blood which had coagulated. In truth, this hemorrhage must have been produced by the fall of the body on the floor, but, spirits being so wild, they still did not fail to attach to these insignificant stigmata a mysterious importance destined to leave a criminal legend hanging over the triple death which definitively took hold of the crowd. Experts had conscientiously worked on the two letters threatening letters that had been handed over in full Academy to the first two recipients, and they had declared that these letters were not in the handwriting of Mr. Eliphas de La Nox, a handwriting with which they had previously been authentically provided. But there were people who claimed that the experts had too often been mistaken in asserting that a handwriting was authentic, so that they would not be mistaken in claiming that it was not. Finally, there remained the barrel organ. An antique expert, who sometimes dealt in more or less plausible Stradivarius, asked to see the instrument. He was allowed to see it, with the aim of calming the excited minds who imagined that this old box, which played music while Martin Latouche expired, could not be an ordinary organ and that a man like Eliphas had perhaps hidden the instrument there, or better, the mysterious means of his crime. The antiquarian examined the organ from every angle and even played the murder tune, as Babette called it. “Well,” they asked him, “is this an organ like any other? ” “No,” he replied, “it’s not an organ like any other… it’s one of the most curious and oldest pieces that has come to us from Italy. ” “Finally, have you discovered anything abnormal in it? ” “I haven’t discovered anything abnormal. ” “Do you believe this organ to be an accomplice in the crime? ” “I don’t know,” the antiquarian replied in a very ambiguous manner. “I wasn’t there at the moment of the great creaking in the crank of the music for the murder tune. ” “But you do believe there was a crime? ” “Uh! Uh!” They tried in vain to ask this man what he meant by his “Uh! Uh!…” He stopped at: “Uh!” Uh! This expert, with his Uh! Uh!, finished throwing people’s consciences into disarray. He also made a profession of selling paintings; he lived on Rue Laffitte and was called M. Gaspard Lalouette. Chapter 7. Toth’s Secret. A few days later, at 3:15 in the afternoon, a traveler, who must have been about forty-five years old, and whose pleasantly rounded belly was adorned with a beautiful thick gold chain, got out of a second-class carriage at La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire. After carefully wrapping himself in the folds of his cloak–for it was the time of frost–and having conversed for a few moments with the ticket collector, he took the large central avenue which ends at the Marne, crossed the bridge which leads to Chennevières and went down to the right of it onto the bank. He followed it for about a quarter of an hour, then seemed to get his bearings. He had just left behind him the last villas, empty of inhabitants since the summer, and found himself in an absolutely flat and deserted space. A great white sheet of recent snow stretched out at his feet, and the man, with his coat whose wings flapped as he walked, appeared above it like a large black bird. Far away, far away, a pointed roof encircled by a group of trees made almost invisible by the sleet that made them the color of the sky, was nevertheless seen by our traveler, who immediately let slip a few spiteful phrases into the sonorous air. He complained that people were so crazy as to live in such a country in the middle of winter. However, he quickened his pace, but he could not hear himself walking, for his feet were clad in rubber clogs. An immense silence, a completely white silence, surrounded him. It was about four o’clock when the man reached the trees. The property they sheltered was enclosed by high walls. The entrance was defended by a solid iron gate. As far as the eye could see, no other dwelling was visible. From the claw hung the wire of a bell. The man rang. Immediately, two enormous dogs, two real mastiffs, rushed at the man, growling, their mouths foaming. If there had not been the grate between these dogs and the man, there would certainly have been some misfortune to be deplored. The man recoiled, although he had nothing to fear from the anger of these devouring beasts. A terribly guttural voice commanded: Ajax! Achilles! To the kennel! Filthy beasts! And a giant appeared. Oh! it was a giant! A real one! Something monstrous! More than two meters tall, perhaps even two and a half meters, when the titan stood upright, for at that moment he walked slightly bent forward, his heavy shoulders hunched, in an attitude that must have been customary for him. The head was completely round, with short, brush-cut hair; A drooping Hun mustache crossed his face; his jaw seemed as formidable as that of the two animals whose fangs gnashed on the bars. With his formidable fists , he hooked the beasts by the neck, made them release their hold, and threw them defeated behind him. The visitor trembled slightly, oh! nothing! a shiver of the shoulders! Obviously, it was not warm!… And he murmured between his teeth: –I was told: Beware of the dogs, but I was not told of the giant. The monster—we are talking about the giant—had stuck his terrifying brute face to the claw: –Ouzzguia? The visitor guessed that this meant: What is it?… And he replied, keeping at a respectful distance: –I would like to speak to Mr. Loustalot. –Ouzzivlez? Obviously, the visitor was of average intelligence, for he understood that this meant: What do you want from him? “Tell him it’s urgent, that it’s for the Academy business.” And he held out his card, which he had kept ready in his coat pocket. The giant took the card and walked away, growling, in the direction of a staircase that must have led to the main entrance of the house. Ajax and Achilles immediately returned to stick their threatening muzzles to the gate, but this time they stopped barking. They silently considered the newcomer and, with blood in their eyes, seemed to be estimating, piece by piece, the meal from which they were separated. The visitor, impressed, turned his head away and paced back and forth a few times . “I know,” he said aloud, “that I must have patience, but no one told me that I would also need courage.” He looked at the time on his watch and continued his monologue, as if hoping that the noise his words were making around him would prevent him from thinking about the three monsters who guarded this solitary dwelling. “It’s not late!” he said… So much the better… It seems I can wait an hour, two hours, three hours, before he sees me… He doesn’t bother himself during his experiments… and sometimes he forgets you… Everything is permitted to the great Loustalot. These few sentences will allow us to appreciate the joyful astonishment of the traveler when he suddenly saw coming towards him, not the giant who had disappeared, but the great Loustalot himself… The great Loustalot, the honor and glory of universal science, was small, that is to say, of a height below average. We know that he was, apart from his work, nonchalant and distracted, and that he passed among men like a light and distant shadow, ignorant of all contingencies. These were details that no one was unaware of, and which should, in particular, be known to the visitor, because the latter, whom the rapid arrival of Mr. Loustalot had already greatly astonished, showed, by his attitude, a real stupefaction on seeing the tall little scholar who was rushing from all the speed of his little legs towards the gate, and greeted him with these words: “Is it you, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette? ” “Yes, master… it is I, at your service…” said Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, giving a great wave of his soft felt hat in the air . (The expert antique dealer in pictures wore on special occasions capes and soft felt hats to resemble as much as possible well-known literary heroes, like Lord Byron, for example, or Alfred de Vigny and his son Chatterton, for he had above all a love of literature and he was—it must not be forgotten—an officer of the Academy. ) The small, pink, smiling face of the great Loustalot then appeared at the gate, at about the same height as the terrifying jaws of the two mastiffs, and between these two jaws. It was a spectacle. “So, it was you who appraised the barrel organ?” asked the great Loustalot, whose small eyes, usually so veiled when they had gone off on some unsuspected scientific dream, had suddenly become alive, twinkling, piercing. “Yes, master, it’s me!” Another flick of the felt hat in the icy air. “Well, come in… It’s cold outside…” And the great Loustalot, without any distraction, worked the interior bolts that closed the claw… ” Come in!” was easy to say… when one was the friend of Ajax and Achilles. The dogs, as soon as the door was opened, had leaped out, and poor Gaspard Lalouette had truly thought his last hour had come, but a snap of Mr. Loustalot’s tongue had stopped the two watchdogs dead in their tracks… “Don’t be afraid of my dogs,” he said, “they are as gentle as lambs. ” Indeed, Ajax and Achilles were now crawling in the snow, licking their master’s hands. Mr. Gaspard Lalouette heroically entered. Loustalot immediately did the honors. He preceded him, after closing his claw. The two dogs now followed, and Lalouette did not dare turn around for fear that a false move would invite the animals into some irreparable game. They climbed the steps. Mr. Loustalot’s house was a beautiful, large country house, solid, comfortable, built of brick and millstone. It was completely surrounded, in the garden and courtyard, by small buildings that must certainly have been dedicated to the immense works of the great Loustalot, works that revolutionized chemistry, physics, medicine, and generally all the false theories placed by the routine ignorance of men at the origin of what we call, in our pride: science. A peculiarity of the great Loustalot was that he worked all alone. His character, which was, it seems, rather touchy, did not tolerate collaboration. And he lived in this house all year round, with his servant—a single servant—the giant Tobie. The fact was well known. No one was surprised. Genius needs isolation. Behind Loustalot, Gaspard Lalouette had entered a narrow vestibule onto which opened the staircase leading to the upper floors. “I’ll take you up to the living room,” said the tall Loustalot, “we ‘ll be better off talking.” And he climbed the stairs leading to the first floor. Lalouette followed, naturally, and behind Lalouette came the dogs. After the first floor, they began to climb to the second. There, they stopped, for there was no third floor. The tall Loustalot’s living room was under the roof. He pushed open the door. It was a completely bare room, with no ornamentation on the walls, and furnished simply with a small table and three straw chairs. The two men entered, still followed by the two dogs. “It’s a bit high!” said the tall Loustalot, “but at least the visitors–you know there are some who don’t hesitate to make noise and who think they are at home everywhere, pacing up and down the living room, at random–the visitors, when I make them wait in the attic, do not bother me while I work downstairs in my cellar. Sit down, my dear Mr. Lalouette, I don’t know what brings you here, but I would be particularly happy to please you. I learned from the newspapers that I sometimes read… “I, my dear master, never read them, but Mrs. Lalouette reads them for me. That way I don’t waste time and I am aware of everything. ” But he said no more. The until then so amiable attitude of the great Loustalot suddenly took on a disturbing aspect. His little person, so restless, had at that very moment become immobilized on his chair like a wax puppet, while his eyes, formerly so flickering, had become completely fixed, like the eyes of someone who listens from afar if he does not hear something. At the same time, the two dogs which had placed themselves on either side of M. Gaspard Lalouette, slowly opening their enormous mouths, made a slow, long, lamentable howl as when dogs, it is said, howl to death. Impressed, even frightened, M. Lalouette, who, however, did not easily lose his composure, stood up. On his chair, motionless, the Loustalot still listened, far, far away. Finally, he seemed to return from the ends of the earth, and, with the automatic rapidity of a spring-loaded toy, he threw himself upon the dogs and struck them with his little fists until they were no longer heard. And then, turning to Lalouette, he made him sit down again and spoke to him, this time, in the harshest and most unpleasant tone. –So!… hurry up!… I have no time to lose!… speak!… This business of the Academy is very regrettable… these three deaths… three sublime deaths. But I can’t do anything about it, can I? We must hope that it won’t continue!… because after all, where would we go, where would we go? as that good Mr. Patard says!… The calculation of probabilities would be quite insufficient to explain a fourth natural death… certainly if the French Academy, of which I am honored to be a member… if the Academy had existed for ten thousand years and even then… such a thing in ten thousand years!… No! It’s over… Three, that’s already very good! We must be completely reassured!… But speak, Mr. Lalouette… I’m listening!… So you have appraised the barrel organ?… And you said… I read that… you said: Uh! Uh! Basically, what do you think? And he added in a softened, almost childish tone: “It’s very curious, this story of the song that kills. ” “Isn’t it?” Mr. Gaspard Lalouette finally dared to interject, who, now entirely concerned with himself, no longer thought at all of the two mastiffs who, for their part, never let him out of his sight. “Isn’t it?… Well, my dear master… it’s because of that that I came to find you… because of that… and of Toth’s secret… since you read the newspapers. ” “Oh!” I am going through them, Mr. Lalouette, I don’t have a Mrs. Lalouette to read them to me, and I have no more time to waste than you, please believe me… so I am completely ignorant of what your secret of Toth is! –Ah! it is not mine, alas! Otherwise, I would be, it seems, master of the universe… but I am in a position to tell you what it consists of. –Pardon, sir, pardon, let us not digress! Is there any connection between the song that kills and the secret of Toth? –No doubt, my dear master, otherwise I would not speak to you about it… –Finally, what are you getting at? What was your purpose in coming here? –To ask you, as the most learned, if a being who knows the secret of Toth can kill another by means unknown to the rest of mankind. What I want to know, I, Gaspard Lalouette, that the circumstances have called, as an expert, to have my say in this lugubrious story, it is this–this is the only reason why I came to find you–could Martin Latouche have been murdered? Could Maxime d’Aulnay have been murdered? Could Jehan Mortimar have been murdered? Mr. Lalouette had not finished formulating this triple hypothesis when Ajax and Achilles reopened their frightful jaws from which he escaped, even more lamentable than before, the howl to death! Opposite , the tall little Loustalot, his eyes fixed again like those of someone who listens from afar to see if he does not hear something, the tall little Loustalot was completely pale. But this time he did not silence his mastiffs, and with the howling of the dogs, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette thought he heard another howl, more dreadful, more horrible, like a howl that might have been human. But it was doubtless an illusion, for the dogs fell silent at the end, and what might have been a human howl fell silent at the same time. Then Mr. Loustalot said, his eyes once more twinkling and alive, and after letting out a little dry cough: “Of course not, they were not murdered… It’s not possible. Isn’t it! It’s not possible!” exclaimed Mr. Loustalot. “And there’s no secret of Thoth that holds up!” Mr. Loustalot then scratched the tip of his nose… He said: “Hum! Hum!” His eyes had gone again, vague… distant… Mr. Lalouette was still speaking, but, quite obviously, Mr. Loustalot no longer heard him… no longer even saw him… even forgot that he was there… And Mr. Loustalot forgot so well that Mr. Lalouette was there that he went away, quietly, without a word of goodbye or politeness addressed to his host, and he closed the door, leaving Mr. Gaspard Lalouette with the two mastiffs. Mr. Lalouette went towards the door, but he found Ajax and Achilles between it and him, who formally opposed, without much speech, his taking a step further in that direction. The unfortunate man, then, completely bewildered, and understanding nothing of his situation, called out. And then, he fell silent, for his voice had the gift of exasperating, it seemed, the two dogs who showed their terrible fangs. He stepped back. He went to the window. He opened it. He said to himself: If I see the giant pass by, I’ll signal to him, for, certainly, the great Loustalot has completely forgotten me here with his dogs. But he saw no one pass by… Below him, it was a veritable desert of snow, no one in the courtyard, no one in the countryside… and night was coming so quickly, as was his custom at this time of year. He turned around, streaming with sweat despite the cold, assailed by a thousand sad forebodings. The dogs had closed their mouths. He had the audacious idea of ​​stroking them. The mouths opened again… And suddenly, while the mouths were not yet howling, a human clamor—oh! certainly human, madly human— horribly, filled the space, and his bones were still frozen. He threw himself back to the window, he saw the space… the deserted, white space that had vibrated with that frenzied cry, but to his ear, now, there was nothing but the formidable double hooting of the mastiffs that had begun again. And M. Gaspard Lalouette let himself fall helplessly onto a chair, his hands to his ears… Then he heard nothing more, and to avoid seeing the open mouths, he closed his eyes. He opened them again at the sound of a door being pushed. It was M. Loustalot. The dogs had fallen silent again. Everything had fallen silent. Nothing had ever been quieter than this house. The great Loustalot kindly apologized: “I beg your pardon for having left you for a moment… you know, when one is carrying out an experiment… But you were not alone,” he added, chuckling amusingly… “Ajax and Achilles kept you company, at that that I see… Oh! they are real apartment dogs. “Dear master,” replied Mr. Lalouette, in a slightly altered voice, who was recovering from his emotion at finding such an amiable and natural Loustalot … dear master… I heard a terrible cry just now . “Not possible!” said Loustalot in astonishment… here! “Here. ” “But there is no one here but my old Tobie and me, and I have just left him. ” “It is, no doubt, in the vicinity. ” “No doubt… Bah! some poacher from the Marne… some quarrel with a guard… but, in fact, you seem quite upset… come on, Mr. Lalouette, this isn’t serious… pull yourself together… wait, I’ll close the window… here, we’re at home… and now, let’s talk like reasonable people… Aren’t you a bit mentally ill to come and ask me what I think of Toth’s secret and the song that kills?… This business at the Academy is extraordinary, but we must be careful not to make it even more extraordinary with all the nonsense of their Eliphas, their Taillebourg, their I-don’t-know-what, as that excellent Mr. Patard says. Apparently, he’s ill, poor Patard? –Sir, it was Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière who advised me to come to your house. –Raymond de La Beyssière, a mentally ill person!… a friend of Bithynia… a Pneumatic. He turns the tables, and they call him a scholar! He must know what the secret of Toth is. What is he sending you to do at my house? –Well, there you go! I went to his house because there had been a lot of talk for a few days about the secret of Toth without knowing what it was. I must tell you that the Eliphas whom we first mocked now appears terrible to everyone and that searches were made at his house, in his laboratory on the rue de la Huchette, and there they discovered, on the mysteries of humanity, formulas which are not as harmless as one might think, for he mixes enough physics and chemistry, it seems, to make people pass from life to death at a distance! “In that genre,” sneered the great Loustalot… “There is the formula for gunpowder… ” “Yes, but it is known… while there is a formula, it seems, which is not known to everyone and which is the most dangerous of all… it is what is called the secret of Toth… It seems that on all the walls of the laboratory on the rue de la Huchette this mysterious formula of Toth is repeated… We asked—the magistrates, pushed by public opinion, journalists, and myself—we asked Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière, who is one of our most brilliant Egyptians, what the secret of Toth was. He replied verbatim: The letter of the secret of Toth is this: You will die if I wish, through the nose, the eyes, the mouth, and the ears, for I am the master of the air, light, and sound. ” “That old Toth was a wonderful guy!” said the great Loustalot, nodding his head with a half-serious, half-mocking air. “If we are to believe M. Raymond de La Beyssière, we should see in him the inventor of magic. He was the Hermes of the Greeks, it seems , and he was nine times tall. His formula was found written at Sakkara, on the walls of the funerary chambers of the pyramids of the kings of the 5th and 6th dynasties—these are the oldest texts we know of—and this formidable formula was surrounded by other formulas which protected against the bite of snakes, the sting of scorpions and, in general, the attack of all animals that fascinate. ” “My dear Mr. Lalouette,” declared the great Loustalot, “you speak like a book. It is a pleasure to hear you. ” “I am gifted, my dear master, with an excellent memory, but I do not I have no vanity. I am the most ignorant of men and I come very humbly to ask you what you think of the secret of Toth… Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière does not hide the fact that the letter of the famous secret inscribed in the tomb was followed by mysterious signs like our algebraic and chemical ones over which generations of Egyptians have paled. And he said that these signs which gave the power of which Toth speaks had been deciphered by Eliphas de La Nox. The latter affirmed this on several occasions and in his papers, during the search on rue de la Huchette, a manuscript was found entitled: From the forces of the past to those of the future which would tend to make one believe that Eliphas had, in fact, penetrated the formidable thought of the scientists of that time. You know of course, my dear master, that the priests of early Egypt had already discovered electricity? “You’re great, Lalouette,” sneered Loustalot, bending like a monkey and catching the tips of his feet in the tips of his little hands. “But keep going… you amuse me.” Mr.
Gaspard Lalouette was suffocated by such vulgar familiarity, but reflecting that men of genius could not move within the framework of politeness manufactured for ordinary men, he continued without seeming to notice anything: “This Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière is very affirmative on that. And he even added: They could have been just as well aware of the immeasurable forces of the dematerialization of matter that we have only just discovered and perhaps they had even measured these forces, which allowed them to do many things.” The great Loustalot let go of his little feet, relaxed like a bow, and found himself upright under Mr. Lalouette’s chin, uttering, while scratching the tip of his nose, these strange words: “You said it, puffy!” Mr. Lalouette did not bat an eyelid; he said: “All this seems very ridiculous to you, my dear master. ” “You bet, Charles! ” “I am not sorry,” Mr. Lalouette said at once, smiling amiably at the dear master, “to see you take things in that tone. Imagine that I had ended up letting myself be impressed, like so many others. For you know what happened. As soon as the text of the secret of Thoth was known : You will die if I wish through the nose, through the eyes, the mouth, and the ears, for I am the master of the air, the light, and the sound,” immediately, people were found to explain everything—Ah! yes! “At the thought that with Toth’s secret, Eliphas was the master of sound, they immediately remembered Babette’s words about the song that kills! And they said that Eliphas, or the hurdy-gurdy, had introduced something into the organ’s mechanism, a force that kills by singing and which was perhaps enclosed in a box that was later removed from the organ. It was on this that I asked to visit the organ. ” “Is this a matter that interested you, then, Monsieur Lalouette?” the scholar asked in an almost fierce tone, which completely discomfited this poor Monsieur Lalouette, who was nevertheless not at all timid. “It didn’t interest me any more than the others,” he replied in a rather embarrassed manner… “you know, I too have sold organs… old organs… and I wanted to see… ” “And what did you see?” “Listen, master… I didn’t see anything in the organ, but I discovered, next to the organ, something… an object like this…” And Mr. Lalouette took from his waistcoat pocket a long, narrow tube that ended in a cone and that looked roughly like a wind instrument mouthpiece. The tall Loustalot took the object, looked at it, and handed it back. “It’s some mouthpiece,” he said, “from some whelk… ” “I think so too. However, just imagine, my dear master, that this mouthpiece fitted marvelously onto a hole in the organ of a barrel organ, and I have never seen a mouthpiece of this kind on a barrel organ… I beg your pardon… but haunted by all the nonsense I had heard, I said to myself: Perhaps this is the mouthpiece which was intended to conduct the sound which kills in a certain direction. –Yes! Well, my dear antiquarian of Lalouette, that’s enough! You are as stupid as the others!… and what are you going to do with this mouthpiece? –My dear master, declared Lalouette, wiping his face… I will do nothing at all with it and I will no longer concern myself with this organ, if a man like you declares to me that the secret of Thoth… –Is the secret of imbeciles!… Farewell, Monsieur Lalouette, farewell!… Ajax! Achilles! Let the gentleman go. But Lalouette, who was now free to leave, did not take advantage of it.
“One more word, my dear master… and you will have eased my conscience to a point you cannot suspect, but which I will allow myself to explain to you later. ” “What is it?” Loustalot immediately asked, pricking up his ears and stopping on the landing. “Here it is. Those who said that Eliphas could have assassinated Martin Latouche with the song that kills have, always according to the secret of Toth which speaks of the deadly power of light, claimed that Maxime d’Aulnay was killed by rays. “By rays! You must definitely be locked up! ” “Why by rays? ” “Yes, they would have sent previously poisoned rays into his eye with the help of a special device, and he would have died.” In support of their story, they affirm that a ray struck Maxime d’Aulnay while he was reading his speech… and that Mr. d’Aulnay, before falling struck by lightning, made the gesture of someone who wants to chase a fly from his face or suddenly protect himself from a flash of light that bothers him. –Ah! that… that’s sent! Bang! in the eye! –Finally, the secret of Toth still allows one to kill by the mouth or the nose. These mentally ill people, for I see well that one could give them no other name, these mentally ill people, my dear master, have chosen death by the nose for Jehan Mortimar! –They could not have done better, sir! declared the great Loustalot, for the poet of the Tragic Perfumes. –Yes, perfumes are sometimes more tragic than one thinks. –Hortense! –Laugh, my dear master, laugh! but I want to make you laugh until the end.
These gentlemen claim that the first letter which was brought to Jehan Mortimar with the terrible inscription about the perfumes is authentic, entirely in Eliphas’s handwriting, while the second is only the dispatch of a bad joker. In his letter, Eliphas had enclosed a subtle poison such as that of the Borgias of which you have certainly heard—Hair on the nose! One might have thought that the contemptuous manner in which the great Loustalot believed he had to answer the very serious questions of M. Gaspard Lalouette ended up tiring the patience and politeness of the expert antiquarian and picture dealer, but, quite the contrary, it happened that, no longer containing his joy, M. Lalouette seized the great Loustalot in his arms and showered him with caresses. He kissed him while the immense little scholar kicked with all his little legs. “Leave me!” he cried, “leave me! or I will have you devoured by my dogs.” But—by a miraculous chance—the dogs were no longer there, and Mr. Lalouette’s happiness seemed at its height. “Ah! what a relief!” he cried, “how good it is!… how good you are! How great you are!… what a genius! ” “You are mentally ill!” said Loustalot, finally freeing himself, furious, not knowing what was happening to him. “No! It is they who are mentally ill! Tell me again, my dear master, and I will go away.” “Obviously! They are all mentally ill people! ” “Ah! ah! They are all mentally ill people! I remember it: they are all mentally ill people.” “They are all mentally ill people!” the scholar continued. And they both kept repeating: They are all mentally ill people! They are all mentally ill people!… And they were laughing now, the best of friends. Finally, M. Lalouette took his leave. M. Loustalot accompanied him very amiably to the courtyard and there, noticing that night had completely fallen, he said to M. Lalouette: “Wait, I’ll accompany you a little way with a lantern; I don’t want you to fall into the Marne.” And he came back immediately with a small lighted lantern that he was holding at the height of his short knees. “Well!” he said. And he himself opened and carefully closed the gate. The giant Tobias had not been seen again. Mr. Lalouette was saying to himself: “What told me this man was distracted? He thinks of everything.” They walked like this for ten minutes. They arrived at the bank of the Marne where Mr. Lalouette found a comfortable path. Mr. Lalouette, who did not dislike a certain emphasis in conversation, felt it his duty to say then, before leaving the great Loustalot and after apologizing once more for the great inconvenience he had caused: “Decidedly, dear master, our great Paris has fallen very low. Here are three deaths which are indeed the most natural of deaths. Instead of explaining them, as you and I do, with the light of reason alone, Paris prefers to believe in acrobats who arrogate to themselves a power to make the gods blush. ” ​​”Hair in the eyes! ” finished the great Loustalot, and he went back, straight away, with his lantern, leaving M. Gaspard Lalouette completely stunned, on the bank, in the middle of the dark night… In the distance, the light of the lantern danced… and then that light too disappeared, and, suddenly, the frightening clamor, the great cry of death, the human hooting resounded in the distance… followed immediately by the desperately prolonged barking of the mastiffs. M. Lalouette, who had first stopped, panting with horror at this terrifying cry, thought he heard the howling of the beasts closer to him… He fled. Chapter 8. In France, Immortality is dwindling. The thirty-nine! The die was cast. They were now saying: The thirty-nine! There were only thirty-nine academicians left! No one came forward to make the fortieth. Since the recent events, several months had passed during which no candidacy had been submitted to the Haunted Chair. The Academy was dishonored… …And when, by chance, the illustrious Assembly found itself in the need to appoint a few colleagues who were to, according to custom, enhance the splendor of a public ceremony, generally a funeral one, by their presence in uniform, it was quite a drama. It was a race to invent an illness or unearth, deep in a distant province, some dying relative, so as not to publicly don the oak-leaf coat and hang at his side the sword with the mother-of-pearl hilt. Ah! the times were sad! And Immortality was very ill. It was no longer spoken of except with a smile. For everything ends like this in France, with a smile, even when the songs kill. The investigation was quickly closed and the case filed. And it seemed that nothing would remain of this terrible adventure in which panicked public opinion had seen only crimes, only the memory of an armchair that brought bad luck. …And in which no man was bold enough to sit down from now on… Which, indeed, was quite laughable. Thus: All the horror of this inexplicable and triple tragedy was erased before this smile: The thirty-nine! Immortality had diminished by one. And that had been enough to make it forever ridiculous. So ridiculous, that the former eagerness to be part of an Assembly which unquestionably united the noblest minds of the time had noticeably slowed down. Yes, even for the other seats—for in the meantime there were two or three seats to distribute—the candidates were dragged . Damn! They did not hesitate to mock them a little for presenting themselves for a seat other than that of Mgr d’Abbeville. Shamefully, they made their visits. It was learned that they were candidates at the last minute, and it was a very painful thing to hear them pronounce any eulogy while those of Mgr d’Abbeville, Jehan Mortimar, Maxime d’Aulnay and Martin Latouche still remained to be given. They were considered cowards, nothing more and nothing less. And one could foresee the moment when the recruitment of immortality would become almost impossible. In the meantime, there were only thirty-nine of them left! Thirty-nine!… If Immortality had had hair—but it is generally bald—it would have torn it out… It still had a lock of hair here and there, on the head, for example, of M. Hippolyte Patard, but such a poor, pitiful lock that despair itself would have taken pity on it. It was a lock of hair that wept; as one might say, hanging on the forehead, a tear of hair. M. Hippolyte Patard had changed a lot! Until then, he had only been known to have two colors, rose and lemon. He had adopted a third, a third that was indefinable by the very fact that it consisted in no longer being a color at all. It is this kind of negative color , if I dare say, that the ancients put on the cheeks of the pale Fates , infernal goddesses. The permanent secretary also seemed, so sinister was his attire, to have risen from hell where he had believed, in his soul and conscience, that he was going to descend. After the death of Martin Latouche, dreadful remorse kept him in bed, and he was heard, in his delirium, accusing himself of the sad end of the unfortunate music lover. He asked Babette for forgiveness, and it took nothing less than the closure of the investigation, the doctor’s affirmation, the visit of his colleagues, to restore him to his senses. Having recovered the use of his common sense, he understood that the Academy had never needed his services so much. He got up, and heroically resumed his fine task. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that Immortality was no longer an existence for him. When he went to the Institute, he was obliged to take detours so as not to be recognized and not immediately become an object of ridicule. The sessions around the Dictionary were spent in vain complaints, in sighs, in useless moans, and this was not done to hasten the completion of this glorious work, when, suddenly, one fine day when some members of the Company were standing silent and collapsed in their private room… There was in the adjacent room a great noise of doors opening and closing, and hasty footsteps, and a frenzied irruption of a Hippolyte Patard who had regained all, all his pink color. Seeing this, everyone stood up in a great hubbub. What was there? The permanent secretary was so moved that he could no longer speak… He waved a piece of paper but no sound could come out of his panting mouth… Certainly the courier from Marathon was no more exhausted who brought to Athens the news of the defeat of the Persians and the salvation of the city. Only, if he died, it was because he was not, like Mr. Hippolyte Patard, Immortal. They made Mr. Hippolyte Patard sit down, the paper was torn from his hands, It read: I have the honor of submitting my candidacy for the seat left vacant by the death of Mgr d’Abbeville, Jehan Mortimar, Maxime d’Aulnay, and Martin Latouche. It was signed: Jules-Louis-Gaspard LALOUETTE, man of letters, Officer of the Academy. 32 bis, rue Laffitte, Paris. Chapter 9. In France… There is always a citizen of courage and good sense to shame , by his example, the stupid crowd. Quite simply, we embraced. The memory of this happy enthusiasm has been preserved at the Academy under the name of the Lalouette kiss. Those who were there regretted not being in greater numbers to rejoice more completely. The more mentally ill people there are, the more we laugh. They laughed. They embraced and laughed, all seven of them. For there were only seven of them. In those days, people came to the sessions as little as possible, because they were not cheerful. But this one was memorable. All seven immediately decided to pay a visit to this Mr. Jules-Louis-Gaspard Lalouette. They wanted to get to know him without further delay and, by a step also outside all custom, to bind him definitively to the academic fate. They wanted to hire him. They waited until Mr. Hippolyte Patard had recovered a little from his shock, and everyone went down to the concierge’s house, who was sent to fetch two carriages. They had thought of going to Rue Laffitte on foot—it would have done them good to get some fresh air, and for a long time they had not breathed so lightly—but they were afraid that on the sidewalks they would recognize Mr. Director, Mr. Chancellor—which were no longer the same as those we have known, for the office is renewed every three months—and Mr. Permanent Secretary; and that some indecent demonstration would be made which would have harmed academic dignity . And then, to tell the truth, they were in a hurry to meet their new colleague. You can imagine that in both cars they talked only about him. In the first they would say: Who is this Mr. Lalouette, man of letters? This name is not unknown to me. It seems to me that he has published something recently. His name was in the newspapers. In the second they would say: Have you noticed that he has added this curious formula to his signature: Officer of the Academy? He was a man of wit who wanted us to understand that he already belonged to us. And so everyone had their say, as happens when life is good. Only M. Hippolyte Patard said nothing, for his inner joy was too precious to him to be wasted in vain chatter. He did not ask himself: Who is this M. Lalouette? What has he published? All that was indifferent to him. M. Lalouette was M. Lalouette, that is to say: the fortieth, and he granted him, without discussion, genius. Thus they arrived at rue Laffitte. The carriages moved away. M. Hippolyte Patard noted that they were indeed opposite 32 bis, and, followed by his colleagues, he resolutely entered under the vault. They were in a fine-looking residence. At the door of her lodge the concierge asked these gentlemen where they were going. The permanent secretary said: “Mr. Lalouette, please? ” “He must be in his shop, sir.” The seven looked at each other. In his shop, Mr. Lalouette, man of letters? The good lady must have been mistaken. The permanent secretary clarified: “We wish to see Mr. Lalouette, officer of the Academy. ” “That’s right, sir, I tell you he’s in his shop. The entrance is on the street.” The seven bowed, quite astonished and deeply disappointed. They found themselves in the street and, looking at an antique shop above which they read these words: Gaspard Lalouette! “That’s right,” said Mr. Patard. They looked at the windows, which revealed a fair amount of bric-a-brac and an old painting whose colors were no longer distinguishable. “They sell everything here,” observed the director, his lips pursed. The chancellor said, “It’s not possible! This gentleman wrote on his card: man of letters.” But the permanent secretary said in a snarling voice, “I beg you, gentlemen, don’t act disgusted.” And bravely, he opened the door of the shop. The others followed, ill at ease, but no longer daring to risk a comment. The permanent secretary threw them dazzling glances. From the shadows, a lady appeared, wearing a beautiful, thick gold chain around her neck. She was of a certain age, must have been pretty, and her admirable white hair gave her a grand air. She asked these gentlemen what they wanted. Mr. Patard bowed low and replied that they wished to see Mr. Lalouette, a man of letters and an officer of the Academy. The permanent secretary, in the tone of a corporal on drill, ordered: “Announce the Academy!” And he stared at his men with the obvious intention of sending them all to the police station if they made a false move. The lady gave a slight cry, put her hand to her ample bosom, seemed to wonder if she was going to faint, and finally retreated into the shadows. “It’s probably Mrs. Lalouette,” said Mr. Patard; “she looks very well.” Almost immediately, the lady returned with a nice, pot-bellied gentleman, whose belly was adorned with a beautiful, thick gold chain. This
gentleman was marble-like pale. He advanced towards the visitors without being able to utter a word. But M. Hippolyte Patard was watching. He immediately put him at ease. “It is you, sir,” he said, “who are M. Gaspard Lalouette, officer of the Academy, man of letters, who is applying for the seat of Mgr d’Abbeville? If that is so, sir—M. Gaspard Lalouette, who had not been able to overcome his stifling emotion, signaled that it was so—if that is so, sir, allow M. the director of the Academy, M. the chancellor, my colleagues, and myself, M. Hippolyte Patard, permanent secretary, to congratulate you. Thanks to you, it will be understood once and for all that in France there is always a citizen of courage and good sense to shame, by his example, the stupid crowd.” And M. the permanent secretary solemnly and firmly shook M. Gaspard Lalouette’s hand . “Well, answer, Gaspard!” said the white-haired lady. M. Lalouette looked at his wife, then at these gentlemen, then at his wife, then again at M. Hippolyte Patard, and he read so much encouragement on the latter’s good and honest face that he felt quite cheered up. “Sir!” he said, “this is too much of an honor!… Allow me to introduce my wife to you. ” At these words: my wife, the director, and the chancellor had begun to sketch a vague smile, but a terrible glance from M. Patard stopped them in their tracks and brought them back to the gravity of the situation. Mme. Lalouette had bowed. She said: “These gentlemen no doubt have something to talk about. They will be better off in the back room.” And she showed them into the back room. This expression “the back shop” had made M. Hippolyte Patard himself grimace , but when the academicians had entered this back shop they were very happy to recognize that they were in a real little museum, arranged with the greatest taste, and where, on the walls and in glass-window tables, one could admire marvels. Paintings, statuettes, jewels, lace, embroideries of the greatest price were arranged. “Oh! Madam! Your back shop!” exclaimed M. Hippolyte Patard, What modesty! I don’t know of a more beautiful, nor even a more precious or artistic salon in the whole capital. “One would think we were at the Louvre!” declared the director. “You’re overwhelming us!” affirmed Madame Lalouette, puffing herself up. And everyone raised the stakes on the splendors of the back shop. The chancellor said: “It must pain you to sell such beautiful things… ” “One has to make a living!” replied Mr. Gaspard Lalouette humbly. “Obviously!” agreed the permanent secretary, “and I don’t know of a nobler profession than that which consists of distributing beauty!” “That’s true!” approved the Company. “When I speak of a profession,” continued Mr. Patard, “I express myself badly. The greatest princes sell their collections. One is not a merchant for that. You sell your collections, my dear Mr. Lalouette, and that is your right.” “That’s what I always say to my husband, sir,” said Madame Lalouette, “and that’s the subject of our usual discussions. But he finally understood me, and next year’s Directory will no longer read: M. Gaspard Lalouette, picture dealer, antique expert, but: M. Gaspard Lalouette, collector—Madame!” cried M. Hippolyte Patard, delighted, madame, you are a superior woman. We must also put that in Le Tout-Paris. And he kissed her hand. “Oh! surely,” she replied, “when he is at the Academy.” There was a short silence and then some little coughs. M. Hippolyte Patard cast a stern glance at everyone and, with authority, took a seat. “Sit down, all of you,” he ordered. “We are going to talk seriously.” They obeyed. Madame Lalouette rolled her large, thick gold chain between her fingers. Beside her, Monsieur Gaspard Lalouette stared at the Permanent Secretary with that special anxiety in his eyes of somewhat dunced students who find themselves facing their examiners on the day of their baccalaureate. “Monsieur Lalouette,” said Monsieur Patard, “you are a man of letters; does that mean that you simply loved literature, or that you have already published something?” As you can see, the Permanent Secretary was already taking precautions in case Monsieur Lalouette had published nothing at all. “I have already, Monsieur Permanent Secretary,” replied the art dealer confidently , “I have already published two works which are, I dare say, highly appreciated by art lovers. ” “Very good! And their titles, if you please? ” “On the Art of Framing.” “Perfect! ” “And another on the authenticity of the signatures of our most famous painters.” –Bravo! –Obviously, these works are not widespread among the personnel of all types of public bodies, but all those who frequent the Hôtel des Ventes know them. –Mr. Lalouette is too modest, declared Madame Lalouette, jingling her gold chain. We have here a letter of congratulations from a person who knew how to appreciate my husband at his true worth. I have named Monseigneur the Prince of Condé. –Monseigneur the Prince of Condé! exclaimed all the academicians, rising as one. –Here is the letter. And Madame Lalouette did indeed take a letter from her opulent bodice. –It never leaves me! she said. After Mr. Lalouette, it is the most precious thing in the world to me. All the academicians were now upon the letter, which was truly from the prince and most complimentary. Joy was general. M. Hippolyte Patard turned to M. Lalouette and shook his hand until it broke. “My dear colleague,” he said, “you are a brave man!” M. Lalouette turned very red. He raised his brow. He already dominated the situation. His wife looked at him with pride. And everyone repeated: “Yes, yes, you are a brave man. ” M. Patard: “The Academy will be honored to have a brave man in its midst.” “I don’t know, sir,” said Mr. Lalouette with feigned humility, for he saw clearly that the matter was in the bag, “if there really isn’t too much ambition in a poor scribbler like me, to seek such an honor? ” “Eh!” cried the director, who now regarded Mr. Lalouette with love since he had read the letter from Monseigneur the Prince of Condé! “That will make the fools think!” Mr. Lalouette did not know at first how he should take this reflection, but there was such joy on the director’s face that he thought that the latter had not meant to be disagreeable to him, which, moreover, was the truth. “Indeed! There was some in this whole story,” he said. They listened to him. They were curious to know how Mr. Lalouette viewed the misfortunes of the Academy. Now there was only one fear, that he would go back on his resolution. He said: “Oh! For me, it’s very simple! I pity poor humanity, which perfectly accepts a series of twenty-one on black and does not accept three natural deaths in a row at the Academy! ” There was applause. The director, who did not know the game of roulette, had it explained to him. They let Mr. Lalouette speak. They studied him. They were pleased with him; but it was a true admiration when, regarding a purely literary incident which had arisen between the chancellor and the permanent secretary, Mr. Lalouette decided between them with remarkable authority. This is how it happened. “At last, I am going to be able to live, thanks to this gallant man!” cried Mr. Patard in his enthusiasm. “My word, I was only a shadow of myself, and I had grown real jowls! ” “Oh! Mr. Permanent Secretary! demanded the Chancellor: we say real jowls! Jowls, the word is not French. It was then that Mr. Lalouette, cutting short Mr. Patard’s protests , intervened, and he declared all in one go and almost without breathing: Jowls, corruption of the word bajoues, feminine noun. Pouches that certain cheiropteran monkeys and rodents have in the thickness of their cheeks, on each side of the mouth. The jowls are reservoirs for food not immediately consumed. In bats of the genus Nocterus they facilitate flight by allowing the introduction of air into the subcutaneous cellular tissue. By extension and pleasantly, drooping cheeks. Lateral parts of the pig’s snout and the calf’s head! There was nothing to say to that. They all had their beaks closed, academicians as they were. But the general admiration turned almost to humiliation and this humiliation to consternation, when, passing in front of a sort of table divided into a certain number of parallel grooves where sliding buttons slid, the director himself asked what it was and was answered by Mr. Lalouette that it was the abacus and finally the director asked what an abacus was. Mr. Lalouette seemed to grow, he gave a glorious glance to Mrs. Lalouette and said: –Mr. director, we say an abacus. Abacus is a masculine noun which comes from the Greek abax, counter, checkerboard buffet. Among the Greeks, a table placed in the sanctuary to receive offerings. Among the Romans, a buffet on which expensive dishes were displayed. Mathematics: a calculating machine of Greek origin, used by the Romans in their arithmetic operations. The Chinese, the Tartars, the Mongols used it. The Russians adopted it. In architecture: a tablet that is placed between the capital of a column and the architrave. Vitruvius, Mr. Director Vitruvius uses the word plinth to designate the abacus. Hearing the art dealer speak of Vitruvius, they all lowered their heads, except for Mr. Patard, whose eye was blazing. Vitruvius, above all, finished winning him over. “The chair of Mgr d’Abbeville will be worthily occupied,” he said. And no one spoke to M. Lalouette except with respect. Finally, these gentlemen, a little embarrassed, and fearing to make another mistake in French, took their leave. They paid their compliments to M. Lalouette and all kissed the hand of his wife, who seemed very imposing to them. But M. Patard did not leave, for M. Gaspard Lalouette had given him to understand that he had something particular to say to her. Left alone, M. Lalouette dismissed Mme Lalouette. “Go away, daughter,” he ordered. She left with a sigh and an imploring look at M. Patard. “What is there for your service, my dear colleague?” asked M. Patard, a little worried. –I have a secret to tell you, Mr. Permanent Secretary; it will remain between you and me, but it is necessary that I hide nothing from you… Between the two of us, we will certainly be able to remedy the inconveniences of the thing… for, as for the speech, for example… –What?… as for the speech?… Explain yourself, my dear Mr. Lalouette, I don’t understand you… Wouldn’t you know how to compose a speech? –Oh! yes, yes, that’s not what bothers me! –Well, then! –Well, then… we read it… –Naturally, it’s much too long to learn by heart—that’s what worries me, Mr. Permanent Secretary… for I don’t know how to read. Chapter 10. The Calvary. At these last words, Mr. Permanent Secretary jumped up as if he had received a whiplash in the legs. –It’s not possible! he cried. And he looked at M. Gaspard Lalouette, thinking that the latter was making fun of him. But M. Lalouette was silent now, his eyes lowered, showing him a rather sad expression. “Ah! You’re joking,” exclaimed M. Patard, pulling M. Lalouette’s sleeve . “No, no,” said M. Lalouette, shaking his head like an unhappy child, “I’m not laughing!” But the permanent secretary, who seemed to be overcome by a sort of delirium, continued: “What’s this story? Come on?… Answer me!… Look at me!…” M. Lalouette raised a humble and sorrowful look to M. Patard, one of those looks that never deceives. This time, M. Lalouette felt a real shudder run through his body from head to toe: “The candidate for the Academy didn’t know how to read!” M. Patard gave an “oh!” that spoke volumes about his state of mind. And then he sank down onto a chair with a sigh: “That’s annoying!” he said. And there was a sad silence between the two men. It was Mr. Gaspard Lalouette who dared to speak first: “I would have hidden it from you, as from the others, but you, who are in the permanent secretariat, who receive my correspondence, who will certainly have the opportunity to submit your writings to me (submit your writings to me! Mr. Hippolyte Patard raised his eyes to heaven), I thought you would notice it immediately… and I told myself that it would be better to arrange things with you in such a way that no one would ever know anything about it… ever!… You won’t answer? Is it the matter of the speech that bothers you? Well, you won’t make it too long and you will learn it for me by heart… I will do whatever you want… but say something.” M. Hippolyte Patard couldn’t believe it… He was as if stunned. He had seen many things in the last few months, but this was the strongest of all. A candidate for the Academy who couldn’t read! Finally, he decided to express the contradictory feelings that were troubling him. –My God, how annoying! Ah! How annoying! Here at last is a candidate and he can’t read! He’s the one, he’s perfectly the matter, but he doesn’t know how to read!… Ah! my God, how annoying! annoying! annoying! annoying! And he went, furious, to Mr. Lalouette. –How is it that you don’t know how to read?… it’s beyond all imagination! Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, gravely, replied: –It’s because I never went to school… that my father made me work as a laborer in his shop, from the age of six . He judged it useless to make me learn a science that he did not know and which he did not need to succeed in his business. He confined himself to teaching me his trade which was, like mine, that of an antique dealer. I didn’t know what a letter was, but I wouldn’t have been fooled at ten about the signature on a painting , and at seven, I knew how to distinguish a Cluny point from an Alençon point!… That’s how, although I couldn’t read, I was able to dictate works that were admired by Monseigneur the Prince of Condé. This final sentence was very clever, and it made a great impression on the permanent secretary. He got up and paced furiously up and down… M. Lalouette, who was watching him out of the corner of his eye, heard him mumbling words, or rather guessed that he was mumbling: Not reading! Not reading! He can’t read! Finally, furiously, M. Hippolyte Patard returned to M. Gaspard Lalouette. “Why did you tell me that?… You shouldn’t have told me!” –I thought I was more honest and more skillful… –Tatata!… I would have noticed it, but afterward, and it no longer had the same importance!… Listen!… Imagine that you didn’t say anything to me: would you?… I don’t know anything! I’m a little hard of hearing, I didn’t hear anything! –But it’s as you wish!… I didn’t say anything to you, Mr. Permanent Secretary, and you didn’t hear anything. Mr. Patard breathed. –It’s incredible! he said, no one would ever have thought that of you… to see you… to hear you… Another sigh from Mr. Permanent Secretary. –And what is quite unheard of is that you speak like a scholar!… I can tell you now, Mr. Lalouette… we weren’t proud when we entered your shop… but you conquered us, conquered us in a literary way, with your erudition!… and now you don’t know how to read! “I thought, Mr. Permanent Secretary, that you knew nothing more about it!” “Ah! Yes, sorry! But it’s stronger than me… I’m going to think about nothing else all my life… an academician who can’t read! ” “Again!” said Mr. Lalouette, smiling. Mr. Patard smiled too, this time, but his smile was very pitiful. “It’s still stiff!” he said in a low voice. Mr. Lalouette timidly expressed the opinion that one must get used to everything in life and added: “All the same, if it’s a matter of being a scholar to be an academician, I’ve proven to some of these gentlemen that I know more than they do. ” “Why, yes! You’ve spoken to us about the Greeks and the Romans, and the cheek pouch, and the abacus, and Vitruvius.” Where did you learn all that you have told us? “In the Larousse dictionary, Mr. Permanent Secretary. ” “In the Larousse dictionary? ” “In the illustrated Larousse dictionary! ” “Why: illustrated?” exclaimed poor Mr. Patard, whose astonishment was turning into bewilderment. “Because of the pictures which, in my ignorance of the meaning of these strange little signs called letters, are of great help to me. ” “And who is it that makes you learn the Larousse dictionary by heart? ” “But Madame Lalouette herself! It is a resolution we both made, from the day I intended to apply for membership in the Academy.” “On that account, you would have done better, Monsieur Lalouette, to learn the Academy’s dictionary by heart. ” “I’ve thought about it,” Monsieur Lalouette agreed, laughing, “but you would have recognized him. ” Monsieur Hippolyte Patard said: “Ah! yes!” And he remained pensive for a moment. Such intelligence, perspicacity, and courage gave him food for thought. He knew people at the Academy who knew how to read and who were certainly no match for Monsieur Gaspard Lalouette. The latter interrupted his thoughts. “I’m still at the letter A,” he said, “but I’ll soon have finished it. ” “Ah! ah! you’re still at A! ” “It’s to the sign A that the words abajoue and abaque belong, Monsieur le Secrétariat permanente!… thanks to which I had the honor of winning you over…” “Yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes!” M. Hippolyte Patard stood up; he opened the door that led to the street, his chest heaved as if it wanted to imprison once and for all the breathable air of the capital, then he looked at the street, the passers-by, the houses, the sky, the Sacred Heart which carried its cross high up in the clouds, and by a connection of ideas quite understandable, he thought of all those who carried their cross on earth, without showing it. The situation had never been more terrible for a permanent secretary. Heroically, he made his resolution. He turned towards the man who could not read: “See you soon, my dear colleague,” he said. And he went down onto the sidewalk, opening his umbrella, although it was not raining. But he could bear it no longer, he hid as best he could. He went off through the streets, limping. Chapter 11. Terrible apparition. The door had barely closed behind the permanent secretary when Madame Lalouette rushed to her husband: “Well, Gaspard?” she implored. “Well, that’s it. He said to me: See you soon, my dear colleague. ” “And… He knows everything? ” “He knows everything! ” “That’s better!… That way, if one day we learn something… There won’t be any surprises… You will have done your duty… it’s he who won’t have done his! ” They embraced. They were radiant. Madame Lalouette said: “Good morning, Mr. Academician! ” “Good for you…” said Lalouette. ” And it’s true that it was for her that he was playing this strange part. Madame Lalouette, who had married Monsieur Lalouette because he had written books, had never forgiven her husband for having hidden from her the fact that he couldn’t read. When the confession was made, there were heartbreaking scenes in the household. Afterwards, Madame Lalouette had tried to teach Monsieur Lalouette to read. It was a waste of time. There was a kind of spell there. The alphabet went on (the large letters), but Monsieur Lalouette could never reach the syllables ba ba, bi bi, bo bo, bu bu. He had started too late; they never entered his head. It was a pity, because Monsieur Lalouette was an artist and he loved beautiful things. Madame Lalouette became ill with it. She only consented to recover from the day Monsieur Lalouette was named an officer of the Academy. Then, she returned a little of his love. But, although the years had passed and Mr. Gaspard Lalouette affected to be interested above all, through his wife, in literature, there was still between the two spouses this formidable secret which poisoned their existence: Mr. Lalouette did not know how to read! In the meantime, this affair of the Academy had arrived. By the greatest of chances, Mr. Lalouette had witnessed the death of Maxime d’Aulnay. Mr. Gaspard Lalouette was neither superstitious nor foolish. He judged the death to be natural in a man who had a heart condition and whom the tragic death of his predecessor must haunt above all else. He was astonished by the general emotion and smiled at all the stupidities that were spread on the occasion of the revenge of a certain sorcerer who had disappeared. And he was very surprised to learn that this double event had upset minds to such an extent that no new candidate was presented to succeed Mgr d’Abbeville. Only Martin Latouche remained who had not yet withdrawn his candidacy. Mr. Lalouette, one fine day, had said to himself: It’s still funny! But if they don’t want the chair, it doesn’t scare me!… that’s what would amaze Eulalie! Eulalie was the nickname of Mrs. Gaspard Lalouette. But he was disappointed when he learned that Martin Latouche accepted with the most calmness in the world to be elected to the fatal chair. All the same, he wanted to attend Martin Latouche’s reception session . It was impossible to say exactly what his thoughts were then. Did Mr. Lalouette have, deep down, the hope (which he could not, as an honest man, admit to himself) that fate, sometimes so bizarre, would still play its tricks?… One could not, without being unjust, affirm it. So much so that Mr. Lalouette witnessed the scene where old Babette, disheveled, came to announce the death of her master. Strong and solid as one is, there are things that impress. Mr. Lalouette came out of this crowd, very impressed. It was at this moment that he began to take a real interest in the singular and mysterious figure of Eliphas. Who was this fellow? He questioned the competent people about witchcraft. He interviewed some influential members of the Pneumatic Club. He saw Mr. Raymond de La Beyssière. He knew Toth’s secret. And he asked to visit the barrel organ. He then took the train to La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire and if he came back a little dismayed by the strange reception he had received, he no longer doubted the futility of all the Egyptian formulas. He had not yet said anything to Madame Lalouette. He judged the moment opportune to reveal his plans to her. Eulalie was stunned. But she was a strong-willed woman and she approved of him with enthusiasm. Only, as she was prudence itself, she advised him to act without fail. This M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox must be somewhere. He had to be found or at least have news of him. A few more months passed in this search. Monsieur Lalouette was becoming impatient. Having learned that Eliphas was still called Borigo du Careï, because he was originally from the Careï valley, he left for Provence and there, at the very end of a deep valley, behind a curtain of olive trees that sheltered a modest little house, he unearthed a kind old woman who was neither more nor less than the respectable mother of the illustrious magus. The latter, who knew nothing of life’s battles, made no difficulty in telling him that for months her son, tired, she told him, of Paris and the Parisians, after having spent a few quiet weeks near her, had left for Canada. Eliphas had written to her. She showed her letters. M. Lalouette compared the dates. There was no longer any doubt. Eliphas was now as interested in the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville as in his first shirt. M. Lalouette returned triumphant and he sent his letter of candidacy. The only dark point of the adventure was that Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, candidate for the French Academy, could not read. Strengthened by the situation placed in their hands by all those who could read and who did not apply, Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette had honestly decided to rely on the Permanent Secretary. This was acting like good people. Now, we have seen that the Permanent Secretary had overlooked this minor detail. The joy was therefore immense in the household. They embraced each other. The shop, around them, beamed. “Tomorrow,” said Mrs. Lalouette, her eyes shining with pleasure. My candidacy will be in all the newspapers; it’s going to cause a stir! Monsieur Lalouette, you’re famous!… –Thanks to whom, little girl? Thanks to you, who are intelligent and brave! Another woman would have been afraid! You supported me, you encouraged me; you told me: go, Gaspard!…–And then, we’re very calm, noted the prudent Madame Gaspard, since we know that this Eliphas type, who in Paris is accused of all the crimes, is quietly walking around in Canada. –Madame Lalouette, I confess to you that after the third death, despite everything that eccentric Loustalot had told me, I needed to be reassured by Eliphas. If I had known that he was prowling around, I would have thought twice before launching my candidacy. A sorcerer is always a man. He can murder like anyone else. “And even better than everyone else,” declared the excellent Madame Lalouette, with a kind smile, as reassuring as it was skeptical… “especially if he commands, as they say, the past, the present, and the future, and the four cardinal points!” “And if he possesses the secret of Toth!” added Monsieur Lalouette, bursting into laughter and joyfully slapping his thighs with the palms of his hands… “But, Madame Lalouette, people have to be stupid!” “It’s all to the benefit of others, Monsieur Lalouette. ” “When I saw his face in the magazines and his photograph in the shop windows, I said to myself at once: There’s a face that has never murdered anyone! ” “It’s like me!… His face is rather reassuring; it’s beautiful and noble, and his eyes are very gentle… ” “With a little mischief, Madame Lalouette… yes, there’s a little mischief in his eyes.” “I’m not saying no. When he learns that he killed three people, he ‘ll have a good laugh!” “But who would tell him, Madame Lalouette? He only corresponds with his mother, who alone has his address,” she told me. ” His mother, whose existence is unknown even to the police, knows nothing of what is happening in Paris, and I took care not to tell her. Anyway, Eliphas has withdrawn from the world, deep down, deep down in Canada.” Madame Lalouette repeated, like an echo: Deep down, deep down in Canada… In their happiness, they had taken each other’s hands, which were warm with the sweet fever of success… Suddenly , as they both repeated, smiling: Deep down, deep down in Canada, their hands tightened, and, from being warm , became icy. Mr. and Mrs. Gaspard Lalouette had just noticed behind their window, stopped on the sidewalk and looking into their shop, a figure… This figure was both beautiful and noble, and its eyes, very gentle, were spiritual. A double cry of horror escaped from the throats of Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette. They could not be mistaken. They recognized this figure… this figure that was looking at them, through the windows… that fascinated them… It was Eliphas! Eliphas, himself… Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox! The man, on the sidewalk, moved no more than a statue. He was elegantly dressed in a dark morning suit; he had a cane in his hand; a folded beige overcoat floated carelessly on his arm. A tie knot, called a lavallière, adorned the front of his shirt; A round hat of soft felt was placed on his blond hair, which curled a little, and cast a soft shadow on a profile worthy of the sons of Pallas Athene. Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette felt their knees tremble. They could no longer support themselves. Suddenly, the man moved. He went with a peaceful step to the door of the shop and pressed the latch. The door opened; he entered. Mrs. Lalouette fell like a bundle onto an armchair. As for Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, he threw himself squarely on his knees, and he cried: “Pardon!… Pardon!” That was all he could say at the moment. “Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, is this really the place?” asked the man, without appearing at all surprised at the effect his appearance produced. “No! No! It’s not here!” replied Mr. Lalouette spontaneously, still prostrate. And he gave his lie such an air of truth that he himself would have been deceived, so sincere was it! The man smiled calmly and, still with his supreme calm, closed the door. Then he advanced to the middle of the store. “Come now! Mr. Lalouette! Get up!” he said, “and compose yourself!… and introduce myself to Mrs. Lalouette. What the devil! I’m not going to eat you! ” Mrs. Lalouette stole a quick and desperate glance at the visitor. For a second she hoped that a horrible resemblance had deceived her and her husband. And, subduing her terror, she managed to say, her voice quavering: “Sir! We must be excused… you look exactly like… two peas in a pod… one of our relatives who died last year…” And she moaned, overcome by the effort… “I forgot to introduce myself,” said the man, in his clear, well -defined voice. “I am Mr. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox. ” “Ah! My God!” cried the two Lalouettes, closing their eyes. “I heard that Mr. Lalouette was running for the seat of Bishop d’Abbeville… ” The couple jumped. “It’s not true!” whined Mr. Lalouette, “who told you that?” And, in his terrified soul, he said to himself: “He’s a real sorcerer! He knows everything!” The man, unmoved by all these denials, continued: “I wanted to come and congratulate him myself. ” “There was no point in bothering you!” affirmed Mr. Lalouette. ” You’ve been lied to!” But Eliphas cast his sovereign gaze around every corner of the room. “At the same time,” he said, “I wouldn’t have been sorry to have a word with Mr. Hippolyte Patard… Where is he, Mr. Hippolyte Patard?” Mr. Gaspard Lalouette stood up, livid: faced with the new situation, he had made up his mind… his mind to live since he wasn’t dead yet. “Don’t tremble, Eulalie, my wife… We’ll explain things to the gentleman,” he said, wiping his forehead with a trembling hand… Mr. Hippolyte Patard, I don’t know! “So, I was deceived at the Academy?” “Yes, yes, you were deceived at the Academy,” declared M. Lalouette in a peremptory voice. “You were completely deceived. Nothing has been done! Ah! They would have been very happy for me to present myself!… for me to sit in their chair!… for me to deliver their speech!… and then what else?… It’s none of my business! I’m an art dealer… me!… I earn my living honestly!… As you see me, M. Eliphas, I’ve never taken anything from anyone… ” “From anyone!” pressed Mme Lalouette… “And I won’t start today!… This chair is yours, M. Eliphas… you alone are worthy of it… Keep it, I don’t want it ! ” “But I don’t want it either!” said Eliphas in his superiorly careless manner, “and you can take it if it pleases you !” M. and Mme Lalouette looked at each other. They examined the visitor. He seemed sincere. He was smiling. But perhaps he was still making fun of them. “Are you serious, sir?” asked Madame Lalouette. “I always speak seriously,” said Eliphas. Monsieur Lalouette jumped. “We thought you were in Canada, sir!” he said, regaining some of his composure, “Madame, your mother… ” “Do you know my mother, sir? ” “Sir, before introducing myself at the Academy… ” “So you are introducing yourself? ” “That is to say, having intended to introduce myself, I wanted to be sure that it would not disturb you. I looked everywhere for you.” And so, I had the honor of finding myself one day in front of your mother, who told me that you were in Canada… “That’s right! I’m coming… ” “Ah!… really… And when, Mr. Eliphas, did you arrive from Canada?” asked Mrs. Lalouette, who was beginning to enjoy life again. “But this morning, Mrs. Lalouette… this morning, even… I landed at Le Havre. I must tell you that I lived like a savage there and that I was completely unaware of all the nonsense that was being said in my absence about the seat of Mgr. d’Abbeville.” The couple were recovering. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette said: “Ah! yes… ” “I learned of the sad events that accompanied the last elections at the house of a friend who had offered me lunch this morning; I knew that they had been looking for me everywhere… and I immediately decided to reassure everyone by going to see this excellent Mr. Hippolyte Patard. –Yes! Yes! –So I went this afternoon to the Academy and, taking care to stay in the shadows so as not to be recognized, I asked the concierge if Mr. Patard was there. The concierge replied that he had just left with some of these gentlemen… I assured the concierge that the commission was pressing… He replied that I would certainly find the permanent secretary at the home of Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, 32 bis, rue Laffitte, who had just submitted his candidacy to succeed Mgr d’Abbeville and to whom these gentlemen had gone by car to congratulate him without delay!… But it seems that I was mistaken, since you do not know Mr. Patard!… added Mr. Eliphas de La Nox with his subtle smile. –Sir! He’s getting out of here!… declared Mr. Lalouette; I don’t want to deceive you any longer. Everything you tell us is too natural for us to play tricks with you!… Well, yes! I applied for this seat, convinced that a man like you could not be a murderer and sure that all the others were imbeciles. “Bravo! Lalouette!” approved Madame Gaspard. “I’ve found you again. You speak like a man! Besides, if the gentleman regrets his seat, there will always be time to give it back to him! He has only to say the word and it’s his!”… Mr. Eliphas advanced towards Mr. Lalouette and took his hand. “Be an academician, Mr. Lalouette! Be one in all tranquility!” in all safety!… as for me, I am, be assured, only a poor man like all the others… I believed myself for a moment above humanity, because I had studied a lot… and penetrated a lot… The sad humiliation that I suffered, during my failure at the Academy, opened my eyes. And I resolved to punish myself for lowering myself… I condemned myself to retirement… I followed in this the rule of those admirable religious men who subject the most intelligent among them to the hardest manual labor… In the depths of the forests of Canada, I worked with my hands like the most common trapper… and I return today to Europe to place my merchandise… –What are you doing then? asked Mr. Lalouette, who was stirred by the sweetest emotion of his life, for the words of the one who had been called the Man of Light were most captivating and flowed like honey through the beating arteries of those who had the good fortune to hear them. “Yes, what are you doing, my dear sir?” implored Mrs. Gaspard, rolling her white eyes. The Man of Light said simply, without false shame: “I am a rabbit skin merchant!” “Rabbit skin merchant!” exclaimed Mr. Lalouette. ” Rabbit skin merchant!” sighed Mrs. Lalouette. “Rabbit skin merchant!” repeated the Man of Light, bowing calmly and ready to take his leave. But Mr. Lalouette held him back. “Where are you going like that, dear Mr. Eliphas?” he asked. “You Don’t you want to leave us like this! Will you allow us to offer you a little something?… “Thank you, sir, I never take anything between meals,” replied Eliphas. “However, we are not going to part like this,” continued Madame Lalouette. And she cooed: “After all that has happened, we have many things to say to each other… ” “I am not curious,” replied Eliphas kindly. ” I know enough for what I have to do here… As soon as I have seen the Permanent Secretary, I will take the train from Leipzig where I am expected for my fur business. ” Madame Lalouette went to the door and bravely blocked the way. “Pardon, Monsieur Eliphas,” she said, her voice trembling, “but what are you going to say to him, to the Permanent Secretary?”… “That’s true!” cried Lalouette, who had understood his wife’s new emotion , what are you going to say to Mr. Hippolyte Patard? “My God! I’m going to tell him that I didn’t murder anyone!” declared the Man of Light. Mr. Lalouette turned pale: “It’s not worth it,” he swore… “He never believed it! And it’s a very useless step, I assure you! ” “My duty, in any case, is to reassure him as I reassured you yourselves… and also to dispel once and for all the stupid suspicions that weigh on me…” Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, his face completely shattered, looked at Mrs. Lalouette. “Ah! girl!” he moaned… “it was too beautiful a dream!” And he let himself go in her arms and, without false shame, wept on her shoulder. Eliphas questioned Mrs. Lalouette. “Mr. Lalouette, he said, seems to be in great sorrow… and I don’t understand what he means… “That means,” cried Madame Lalouette in turn, “that if it is learned with certainty that you are in Paris, that you are returning from Canada and that you have nothing to do with the whole affair of the deaths at the Academy, Monsieur Lalouette will never be an Academician! ” “And why is that? ” “Hey! He is only being granted this seat,” she sobbed, “it’s terrible to say, because no one wants it!… Just wait, my dear Monsieur Eliphas, to make known the real truth, which is your innocence, which no sensible man doubts, you understand! Just wait until my husband is elected!” “Madame!” Eliphas said, “calm down! The Academy will not be so unjust as to reject your husband, who alone came bravely to it in its dark days… ” “I tell you that it will not want it .” “But yes!” –But no!… –But yes!… –Gaspard!… I have confidence in Mr. Eliphas. Tell Mr. Eliphas why the Academy will never want you, if it has the means to elect another… It’s a secret, Mr. Eliphas! A terrible secret that had to be confided to the permanent secretary… But it will remain between us forever!… So! Speak, Gaspard! Mr. Gaspard Lalouette tore himself away from Madame Lalouette’s bosom and, leaning towards Mr. Eliphas’s ear, while he covered his mouth with his hand, he murmured something so low, so low… that only Mr. Eliphas’s ear could hear it. Then, Mr. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox began to laugh frankly, he who never laughed. –It’s too funny! he said… No, my friends, I won’t say anything! Don’t worry. Whereupon he solemnly shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette, declared that he was happy to have made the acquaintance of such good people, swore that he would have no greater joy in his life than to see Mr. Lalouette an academician, and nobly returned to the street where he soon disappeared with a peaceful and harmonious step. Chapter 12. One must be polite to everyone, especially at the French Academy. Madame Gaspard Lalouette had not exaggerated in predicting to Mr. Lalouette that the next day he would be famous. For two months, there was never a man more famous than him. His house was always full of journalists and his image was reproduced in magazines all over the world. It must be said that Mr. Lalouette welcomed all these tributes as if they were his due. The courage he seemed to show in the circumstances exempted him from all modesty. We say that he seemed to show because in fact, now, Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette were completely reassured regarding the revenge of the sar. And the latter’s visit, after having at first filled them with terror, had finally left them full of security and confidence in the future. This future was not long in coming. Mr. Jules-Louis-Gaspard Lalouette was unanimously elected by the illustrious Assembly, no competitor having come to dispute the palm of martyrdom with him. During the next few weeks, hardly a day went by without the art dealer’s back room receiving a visit from M. Hippolyte Patard. He would come towards evening, so as to avoid being recognized as much as possible, enter through the small, low door of the courtyard, hastily cross the back room, and lock himself and M. Lalouette in a small study where they were not likely to be disturbed. There, they prepared the speech. And M. Lalouette had not boasted that he had a good memory. It was excellent. He would know his speech by heart, without fail. Madame Lalouette worked on it herself and made her husband recite the oratorical masterpiece, even in the marital alcove, at bedtime and upon waking. She had also taught him to arrange his pages as if he were reading them and to put them away, one after the other, as he went along. Finally, she had marked the top of the pages with a small red sign, so that M. Lalouette would not hold his speech upside down in front of himself—and in front of everyone else . The day before the famous day that had all of Paris in a fever arrived. The newspapers had permanent delegations in the Rue Laffitte. After the previous triple experience, there was no doubt among many that M. Gaspard Lalouette was doomed to an imminent death. They wanted to have news of the great man every five minutes and, in the absence of M. Lalouette who, tired, it seemed, was resting and had resolved not to receive anyone all day, Mme Lalouette had to answer all questions. The poor woman was, as they say, on edge and radiant. For in reality, M. Lalouette was as healthy as a charm. “As healthy as a charm!” Mr. Editor… say so in your newspapers… He’s doing like a charm! Mr.
Lalouette had, that day, prudently fled his home, because his fame disturbed him at the moment when he most needed to be alone to rehearse, several last times, his speech. At dawn, he had very cleverly gone, unrecognized, to the home of a second cousin of his wife who ran a pub on the Place de la Bastille. The telephone on the first floor had been locked away by this kind relative and only Mr. Lalouette had access to it, which allowed him to recite to Mrs. Lalouette, despite the distance that separated them, the most difficult passages of the famous speech whose author, between us, was Mr. Hippolyte Patard. The latter came, as agreed, to join Mr. Lalouette, around six o’clock in the evening at his small pub on the Place de la Bastille. Everything seemed to be going well, when, in the conversation which took place between the two colleagues, the following little incident occurred: –My dear friend, said M. Hippolyte Patard, you can rejoice. Never will there have been, under the Dome, a solemn session of such radiant brilliance! All the academicians will be there! You understand: all of them!… all of them want to mark, by their presence, the particular esteem in which they hold you. Not even the great Loustalot himself who had not announced that he would attend the session, although he is rarely seen at these kinds of ceremonies, for the great man is very busy and he did not bother to attend Mortimar or d’Aulnay, nor even Martin Latouche, whose reception had nevertheless aroused the most extreme curiosity. “Ah! yes!” said M. Lalouette, who immediately seemed rather embarrassed, “M. Loustalot will be there!… ” “He took the trouble to write to me. ” “That’s very kind of you… ” “What’s the matter with you, my dear Lalouette? You seem bored… ” “Well, yes, that’s true! ” admitted M. Lalouette… “Oh! It’s probably not very serious… but I didn’t behave well with the great Loustalot… –How so?… –At one time, I went, well before submitting my candidacy… I went to his house to ask what to believe about the secrets of Toth and all the swings relating to the death of Martin Latouche. Very categorically, he mocked me and the opinion of this great scholar, although it had been expressed in terms of a vulgarity that shocked me, had a lot to do with my decision to apply to the Academy. –Well, but! I don’t see that enough to put you in a tizzy… –Wait, my dear permanent secretary, wait!… when I had definitively submitted my candidacy, I made my official visits, didn’t I? –Of course! This is a custom which one cannot fail to observe without showing the greatest impoliteness… especially since the Academy itself did not hesitate to be the first to disturb itself, I hardly dare remind you, my dear Mr. Lalouette… –Yes, well!… I was guilty of this great impoliteness towards the man who in some way had the greatest right to my gratitude… I did not pay a visit to the great Loustalot!… Mr. Hippolyte Patard jumped up. –What! You did not pay a visit to the great Loustalot?… –My goodness, no!… –But, Mr. Lalouette, you have contravened all our rules!… –I know that very well! –That astonishes me from a man like you!… you have insulted the Academy!… –Oh!… Mr. Permanent Secretary… that was not my intention… –And why then, Mr. Lalouette, did you not pay a visit to the great Loustalot? –I will tell you, Mr. Permanent Secretary… It is because of Ajax and Achilles who are two people of all types of body dogs who frighten me and also of the giant Tobias whose sight is not reassuring… M. Hippolyte Patard uttered an ah! of ineffable stupefaction. –You!… such a brave man!… –It is because, continued the unfortunate man, who rather pitifully lowered his head, it is because if I am not easily frightened by chimeras… I rather fear reality. I saw the fangs, which are solid, and also I heard the cries… –What cries? –First the cries of the dogs howling to death… and then, several times, like a great, heart-rending human cry!… –A great, heart-rending human cry?… –The scholar told me that it must have been the cry of some marauder fighting on the banks of the Marne… My goodness, he was crying as if he were being murdered… The country is deserted… The house is isolated… So much so that I haven’t gone back there… M. Hippolyte Patard, during these last words, had sat down at a table and was consulting an informant. –Well! he said. –Where? –But at the great Loustalot’s!… We have a train in five minutes… That way, it will only be half bad, since you are not officially received until tomorrow!… –Bah! said Lalouette, that’s not a refusal!… With you, it’s all right!… Do you know them, the dogs? –Yes, yes… and the giant Tobie too. “Bravo!… And we’ll dine at the little restaurant in La Varenne, next to the station, while we wait for the train to take us back. ” “Unless Loustalot invites us,” said Mr. Patard… “a very possible thing, if he thinks about it!” They prepared to get out and run to the nearby Vincennes station . At that moment, the telephone rang next to them. “It must be Mrs. Lalouette,” said the new academician. ” I’m going to tell her we’re going to dine in the country.” And he went to the telephone, where he detached the receiver and listened. The telephone was at the very back of the room under a small electric bulb. Was it the electricity that produced an unfavorable light, or what he heard that moved him so much, but Mr. Lalouette was green. Mr. Patard, worried, asked: “What’s the matter?” Mr. Lalouette leaned over the receiver: “Don’t go away, Eulalie. You must repeat this to the permanent secretary. ” “What is it?” he asked feverishly. “It’s a letter from Mr. Eliphas de La Nox!” replied Lalouette, growing greener and greener. Mr. Patard, for his part, turned yellow and, after letting out a cry of stupefaction, hastily put one of the receivers to his ear. The two men listened. They listened to the voice of Mrs. Lalouette, who was transmitting to them the text of a letter that had just arrived for Mr. Lalouette. “My dear Mr. Lalouette. I am happy about your success and I am quite certain that with a man like you, there is no need to fear that any unpleasant emotion will interrupt the thread of your speech.” As you can see from the stamp on this letter, I am still in Leipzig, but since I saw you, I have been curious to find out more about this strange affair at the Academy. And now that I have thought about it, I am wondering if it is really as natural as that that three academicians should die in quick succession before sitting in the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville! Perhaps somewhere there was a real interest in their disappearance!… And this is what I said to myself: that is not, after all, a reason, because I am not a murderer, for there to be no more murderers on earth! In any case, these reflections should not stop you. Even if there were reasons for the disappearance of Messrs. Mortimar, d’Aulnay and Latouche, it may very well be that there were none to make Mr. Gaspard Lalouette disappear. Compliments and best regards to Mrs. Lalouette. ELIPHAS DE SAINT-ELME DE TAILLEBOURG DE LA NOX. Chapter 13. On the train. On the train taking them to La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, Mr. Hippolyte Patard and Mr. Gaspard Lalouette were reflecting. And their reflections must have been rather gloomy, because they were in no hurry to share them. Eliphas’s letter was full of terrible common sense! Just because I’m not a murderer is no reason why there shouldn’t be any more murderers on earth! This sentence had entered their heads like a drill, both of them . Obviously, the one it caused the most pain was Mr. Lalouette, but Mr. Patard was very ill, and he had naturally asked for an explanation from Mr. Lalouette, who had recounted to him, in detail, the visit of the harmless Eliphas. There was no longer, moreover, any inconvenience in this confidence, since M. Lalouette was definitely elected. But, if he had not been elected, I believe that after this letter from Eliphas, M. Lalouette would have told everything all the same, because in truth, he was now asking himself if he had reason to rejoice so much at his election. As for M. Hippolyte Patard, the annoyance he had conceived at the moment, at having been carefully kept away from an incident by the prudent Lalouette as considerable as that of the reappearance of Eliphas had not lasted under the blow of the particularly lugubrious ideas raised by the quiet hypothesis of Eliphas de La Nox himself: If it is not me, it is perhaps another!… Is it as natural as that that three academicians die in a row, before sitting in the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville? Another sentence which danced before his eyes… But it was especially the last one which worried this poor Mr. Lalouette. If there were reasons for the disappearance of Messrs. Mortimar d’Aulnay and Latouche, it may very well be that there were none to make Mr. Gaspard Lalouette disappear… It may be!!!… Mr. Lalouette could not swallow this It may be!!!. He looked at Mr. Patard… The expression of the permanent secretary was less and less reassuring… “Listen, Lalouette,” he said suddenly, “this Eliphas’s letter opens up some rather dark horizons for me… but in all conscience, I think there is no reason to alarm you… ” “Ah!” replied Lalouette, his voice slightly altered, “but you ‘re not sure of that?” “Oh! Now, since Martin Latouche’s death, I’m no longer sure of anything in the world… I had too many remorse with the other one… I wouldn’t want to have any with you!… ” “Huh?” exclaimed Lalouette dully, standing up to his full height before Mr. Patard. “Do you think I’m already dead?” A jolt threw the art dealer back onto the bench where he collapsed with a groan. “No, I don’t think you’re dead, my friend…” said Mr. Patard gently , consoling, placing his hand on the recipient’s, “but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that the deaths of the other three were perhaps not so natural as that… ” “The other three!” shuddered Lalouette. “This Eliphas speaks well… What he says makes one think… and rather singularly awakens in my mind memories of personal investigation… But tell me, Mr. Lalouette, you didn’t know Mr. Mortimar, Mr. d’Aulnay, or Mr. Latouche? ” “I never spoke to them about life… ” “So much the better!” sighed the permanent secretary, “you swear it to me?” he insisted. “I swear it on the life of Eulalie, my wife. ” “That’s good!” said Mr. Patard… Nothing could bind you to their fate… –You reassure me a little, Mr. Permanent Secretary… But you think then that something bound them to the fate of each other?… –Yes, I think so now… since Eliphas’s letter… my word!… The thought of this sorcerer had hypnotized us all, and, because of all his impossible sorcery, we did not look elsewhere for the natural, and perhaps criminal, secret of this dreadful enigma… Perhaps there was somewhere a real interest in their disappearance…. repeated Mr. Patard with an exaltation quite as if speaking to himself: Is that right?… Is that right?… –What! Is that right!… What do you mean?… What is the matter? You reassured me just now and you frighten me again!… Do you know something?… implored Lalouette, who was pitiful to see. The two men clasped hands. “I don’t know anything, if you like!” growled Mr. Patard… But I know something, if I think about it!… These three men did not know each other , you understand, Mr. Lalouette, before the first election for the succession of Mgr. d’Abbeville… They had never seen each other!… Never!… I have become certain of this, although Mr. Latouche lied to me by telling me that they were all three old comrades… Well! immediately after the election, they meet… they see each other in secret… sometimes at one’s house, sometimes at the other’s… It was said that it was to talk about the sorcerer… and to thwart his threats, and they believed it and I believed it myself… What nonsense!… They must have something else to tell each other!… They must all have something to fear … because they were hiding well! And no one could hear them!… –Are you sure of that?… said Lalouette, who was no longer breathing… –When I tell you!… oh! I’ve made my inquiries… Do you know where they met for the first time?… –Well, no!… –Guess!
–How do you want it?… –Well, here!… yes!… here!… perfectly… on this train… by the greatest chance… they met, going to visit Mr. Loustalot before the election!… They came back together, of course–and, since then, something terrible must have happened to them, before their mysterious death, since they arranged to meet in such secret places … that’s what I think, me… –It may be true… Something will have happened to them that no one knows about… but to me, Mr. Permanent Secretary, to me, nothing happened to me, to me… –No! No! To you, nothing happened to you… that’s why I think that as far as you are concerned, you can rest easy, my dear Mr. Lalouette!… yes… my goodness… almost rest easy… I tell you almost… understand well… because now… I no longer want to take any responsibility… none. At that moment the train stopped. On the platform, an employee shouted: La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire! Mr. Patard and Mr. Lalouette jumped. Ah! Well! They were far from La Varenne, and they no longer even thought about what they had come to do there… However, they got out, and Mr. Lalouette said to Mr. Patard: –Monsieur Patard, you should have told me what you just told me there, during your first visit to my store… Chapter 14. A great, heart-rending human cry. They found no carriage at the station and they had to take the road to Chennevières at nightfall. On the Chennevières bridge, before going down to the bank of the Marne, the road which led, by the shortest route, to the isolated residence of Mr. Loustalot, Mr. Lalouette stopped his companion. “Well, my dear Mr. Patard,” he asked dully, “don’t you believe they’re going to assassinate me?” “That they?” exclaimed the Permanent Secretary, who seemed very annoyed.
“But do I know? Those who assassinated the others!… ” “What makes you think the others were assassinated, first of all?” he asked, this time in a tone like a snarling dog. “But you!… ” “Me! I didn’t say anything, do you hear? Because I know nothing!… ” “I’m going to confess one thing to you, Mr. Permanent Secretary : I’m quite willing to be a member of the Academy… ” “You are!” “That’s true!” sighed Mr. Lalouette. They went down to the bank… Mr. Lalouette was haunted by a fixed idea. “But I’d still like not to be assassinated,” he said. M. Hippolyte Patard shrugged his shoulders. This man who could not read, but who knew perfectly well that by presenting himself at the Academy he had nothing to fear from all that all the others who did not present themselves feared, this man, whom he had taken for a hero and who had been nothing but a smart aleck, was beginning to be less sympathetic to him. He resolved to remind him rather rudely of his self-respect: “My dear sir, there are situations in life which are well worth risking!… And come on! That’s sent!” thought M. Hippolyte Patard. The truth is that he found the complaints of this M. Lalouette quite nauseating. Although the situation appeared difficult, mysterious, and, all things considered, threatening, M. Hippolyte Patard thought that it was still very good for M. Lalouette, who was made an Academician by it. M. Lalouette had turned up his nose; when he raised it, it was to let fall into the cool of the evening this sentence which was, in all Sincerity, filthy… –Is it really necessary, he said, that I pronounce this speech?… They were then on the banks of the Marne. The veils of night already enveloped the two travelers. The permanent secretary looked at the deep, sly water and the slumped silhouette of Mr. Lalouette. He felt like simply drowning him. Bang! A blow from the shoulder!… Only, instead of throwing this flaccid flesh into the waters, the permanent secretary went to take the arm of the recipient in a friendly manner… And this because, firstly, Mr. Hippolyte Patard was the least criminal of men and secondly, he had just suddenly thought of what a fourth death would cost the illustrious Company!… He shuddered. Ah! What was he thinking about? Worrying this excellent Mr. Lalouette! He called himself a mentally ill person! He squeezed Mr. Lalouette’s arm! He swore eternal gratitude to this honest man from the bottom of his heart … He tried to rekindle in him an academic ardor that he certainly reproached himself for having let die out. He described to him his triumph the next day, he showed him the intoxicated and delighted crowd , finally, he melted, as they say, the heart of M. Lalouette by showing him, in the front row, Mme Lalouette to whom all the homage went, as to the glorious and radiant wife of the Man of the Day!… Finally they embraced, congratulating each other, comforting each other, treating each other like children who had allowed themselves to be darkened by dark thoughts . And they laughed aloud, like brave men, when they realized that they had arrived at the clutches of the great Loustalot. “Watch out for the dogs!” said M. Lalouette. But the dogs did not make themselves heard… Strangely enough, the clutches were open. M. Hippolyte Patard nevertheless rang to warn of the presence of strangers. “Where are Ajax and Achilles?” he said. “And Tobias?” He’s not coming. In fact, no one bothered. “Let’s go in!” said the permanent secretary. “I’m afraid of dogs!” M. Lalouette began again. “Hey! I tell you I’ve known them for a long time!” repeated M. Patard. ” They won’t do us any harm. ” “Then walk ahead,” M. Lalouette commanded bravely. Thus they reached the steps. The most profound silence reigned in the garden, in the courtyard, and in the house. The door of the house was also ajar. They pushed it open. A half-open gas lamp lit the vestibule. “Is anyone there?” cried M. Patard, in his head voice. But no voice answered him. They waited again in extraordinary silence. All the doors leading to the vestibule were closed. And, suddenly, as Mr. Patard and Mr. Lalouette remained there, very embarrassed, hats in hand, the walls of the house resounded with a terrible clamor. The night resounded desperately with a great, heart-rending human cry… Chapter 15. The Cage. The lock of hair of the permanent secretary had stood up straight on his head. Mr. Lalouette was leaning against the wall, in a state of great weakness. “There’s the cry!” he moaned, “the great, heart-rending human cry…” Mr.
Patard still had the strength to express an opinion: “It’s the cry of someone who has had an accident… We’ll have to see…” But he didn’t move. “No! No!” It’s the same cry… I know it… it’s a cry, said Mr. Lalouette in a low voice, a cry that you hear like that… all the time… in the house… Mr. Hippolyte Patard shrugged his shoulders. “Listen,” he said. “It’s starting again…” shivered Mr. Lalouette. Now we could hear a sort of painful rumbling, a distant, uninterrupted moan. “I’m telling you, an accident has happened… it’s coming from downstairs… from the laboratory… Perhaps Loustalot is unwell…” And Mr. Patard took a few steps into the vestibule. We have said that in this vestibule was the staircase leading to the upper floors, but beneath that staircase there was another one leading down to the laboratory. Mr. Patard leaned over the steps. The moaning came almost distinctly there, mixed with incomprehensible words that seemed to express great pain. “I tell you that an accident has happened to Loustalot.” And bravely Mr. Hippolyte Patard went down the stairs. Mr. Lalouette followed. He said aloud: “After all, there are two of us!” The further they went down, the more they heard moaning and crying. Finally, as they arrived in the laboratory, they heard nothing more. The laboratory was empty. They looked all around them. Perfect order reigned in that room. Everything was in its place. The retorts, the stills, the earthen furnaces in the great fireplace used for experiments, the physics instruments on the tables, all of this was clean and tidy and methodically arranged. This was clearly not the laboratory of a man hard at work. Mr. Patard was astonished. But what astonished him most was, as I said, to hear nothing more… and to see nothing that would have put him on the trail of this great pain that had turned the blood of both of them, Mr. Lalouette and himself. “That’s strange!” said Mr. Lalouette, “there’s no one there. ” “No, no one!…” And suddenly, the great cry shook them again, tearing at their hearts and entrails. It had as if lifted them from the ground: it even came from beneath the earth. “Someone is screaming in the earth!” murmured Mr. Lalouette. But Mr. Patard was already pointing at an open trapdoor in the floor. “It comes from here…” he said. He ran towards it… “Someone must have fallen through this trapdoor and broken their legs…” Mr. Patard leaned over the trapdoor: the groans had stopped again. “It’s incredible!” said the permanent secretary… “There’s a room there I didn’t know about… like a second laboratory under the first…” And he went down more steps, cautiously examining everything around him. The laboratory below, like the one above, was lit by gas butterflies. Mr. Patard was going down cautiously. Mr. Lalouette, who was definitely regretting his visit to the great Loustalot, was arriving. In this underground laboratory, everything was arranged in the same way as in the room above. Only all these things were in great disorder, and in full use, in the course of an experiment… Mr. Patard was searching. Mr. Lalouette opened his eyes wide… They still saw no one… Suddenly, as they turned towards a corner of the wall, they recoiled with a cry of horror. This corner of the wall was open and covered with bars. And behind these bars, like a wild beast locked in its cage, a man… yes, a man with large, burning eyes stared at them in silence… As they said nothing and remained there like statues, the man behind his bars said: “Have you come to free me?… In that case, hurry… for I can hear them coming back… and they would kill you like flies…” Neither Patard nor Lalouette moved yet. Did they understand? The man shouted again: “Are you deaf?… I tell you they would kill you like flies!… if they ever know you saw me!… like flies!… run away!… run away!… There they are!… I hear them!… The giant is making the earth crack!… Ah! woe!… they are going to have you eaten by dogs!… And indeed furious barking was heard, up there, on the earth. The two visitors had understood this time!… They circled around themselves as if they were drunk… looking for a way out. And the other in his cage repeated, shaking the bars as if he wanted to tear them off: –By the dogs!… If they know that you have surprised the secret!… the secret of the great Loustalot… Ah! Ah! Ah!… like flies… by the dogs!… Patard and Lalouette, unable to hear any more, panicked with terror, had rushed to the stairs that led to the trapdoor… –Not that way!… shouted the man, behind the bars… can’t you hear them coming down?… Ah! There they are!… there they are!… with the dogs!… Ajax and Achilles must have now entered the house… for it resounded with their formidable outbursts like a hell full of the barking of demons… Patard and Lalouette had fallen back to the bottom of the stairs, howling their terror, like madmen and shouting: Which way?… which way?… which way?… while the other covered them with insults, ordering them to be silent… –You’re going to get caught again like the others! And he’ll kill you like flies!… Be quiet then… listen!… Ah! If the dogs get involved, the score is right!… Will you be quiet!… Patard and Lalouette, already believing they saw the terrible fangs of Ajax and Achilles appear at the top of the stairs of the trapdoor, had rushed to the other end of this cellar, against the very bars of the cage in which the man was locked up; and it was they now who begged the unfortunate man to save them. They implored him with incoherent words, with death rattles… Ah! they envied the man in his cage… But he had taken from both of them what remained of their hair, through the bars, and shook their heads horribly to silence them: –Be quiet!… We will all three save ourselves!… Listen then!… The dogs! The brute is carrying them off!… They are silencing them!… The giant is making the earth crack, but he suspects nothing! The brute!… Ah! What an idiot!… you’re in luck… And he let them go: –Here! Quick!… Quick!… In the drawer of the table over there, a key… Lalouette and Patard pulled the drawer out at the same time and searched it feverishly with their trembling hands. –A key, continued the other… that opens the passage… the dogs are chained… We must take advantage of it… –But the key!… the key?… demanded the two unfortunates who searched in vain in the drawer… –Well, but the key to the stairs that go up to the courtyard!… Quick… look!… He puts it there every day… after giving me something to eat… –But there’s no key!… –Then the giant has kept it, the brute!… Silence!… But don’t move any more! Ah! There they are! There they are!… they are coming down… Now the giant is making the stairs creak!… Lalouette and Patard were turning… still turning… ready to throw themselves under the furniture, to hide in the cupboards… –Ah! Don’t lose your heads like that! breathed the prisoner… or we’re doomed!… Here, in the corner of the fireplace, there… yes, there, of course… on either side!… Don’t move!… or I won’t be responsible for anything!… He’ll go to dinner later … But if he sees you… He’ll kill you like flies… my poor dear gentlemen… like flies! Chapter 16. By the ears. Dying, Messrs. Patard and Lalouette had each hidden in a corner of the great fireplace of the underground laboratory. There, they were in a deep night. They saw nothing. All that remained of their life had taken refuge in their ears. In truth, they lived only by their ears. First it was the giant Tobit who, descending the stairs of the underground laboratory, made some fatal grunts heard. “You left the trapdoor open again, master,” he said, “you’ll see that it will bring you bad luck… in the end!” Tobias’ monstrous footsteps were heard approaching the cage, that is to say, the bars behind which they had discovered the man locked up. “Dédé must have taken advantage of it to scream like a deaf man… Did you scream, Dédé? ” “Certainly he screamed…” replied the falsetto voice of Mr. Loustalot… “I heard him, myself, when I was at the oak and I was laying hands on Ajax!… But there’s no one around at this hour.” “You never know…” growled the giant… “You might have visitors like last time… You must always close the trapdoor… with it, we’re safe… it’s padded with horsehair… we can’t hear a thing… ” “If you hadn’t left the garden gate open, you old, mentally ill person, and let the dogs escape… You know very well that they only come in at my voice… I didn’t think about the trapdoor behind me… ” “Did you shout, Dédé?” asked the giant. But he got no answer… The man, behind his bars, didn’t move any more than a dead man. The giant continued: “The dogs were terrible tonight. Ah! I had a hard time chaining them up!” When they came back, I thought they were going to eat the house… They were like the evening when we found the three gentlemen here visiting Dédé’s cage… It was an evening like that, master, when the dogs had escaped and we had to run after them… “Never speak to me of that evening, Tobie,” said Loustalot’s quavering voice. “It was that evening,” continued the giant, “that I really thought it would bring us bad luck!… for Dédé had shouted!… had chattered… Wasn’t that right, Dédé, that you chatted? No answer… ” “But it’s them,” continued the giant in his deep, slow voice, “it’s them that it brought bad luck… They’re dead… “Yes, they’re dead…” “All three of them…” “All three of them…” repeated the broken voice of the great Loustalot like a sinister echo. “That,” the giant sneered gloomily, “it was almost done on purpose.” Loustalot didn’t answer him, but something like a sigh, a sigh of terror and anguish passed over the heads of the two men who , from the noise they were making with the instruments, must have been busy with some experiment. “Did you hear that?” asked Loustalot. “Is that you, Dédé?” said the giant. “Yes, it’s me,” replied the voice of the man at the bars. “Are you sick?” asked Loustalot… ” Look, Tobie, what’s wrong with him. Is Dédé sick? He screamed so loudly just now … Perhaps he’s hungry? Are you hungry, Dédé? ” “Here,” said the voice of the man in the cage, “there’s the formula! It ‘s complete. You can give me something to eat now… I’ve earned my supper!” “Go get him his formula,” ordered Loustalot, “and give him his soup… ” “First see if the formula is good,” replied Dédé… “you ‘ve trained me not to steal my bread…” There were the giant’s footsteps and then the sound of a crumpled piece of paper that the prisoner must have passed to Tobie through the bars… And a silence during which the great Loustalot must certainly have examined the formula. “Oh! that!… that’s amazing!” he exclaimed in a real transport… “it’s absolutely amazing, Dédé!… But you didn’t tell me you were working on that!… “I’ve been working on nothing else for eight days… night and day… do you hear?… night and day… but this time, it’s done!…” “Oh! it’s done!…” There was a great sigh from Loustalot. “What a genius!” he said… “Has he found something again?” asked Tobie. “Yes, yes… He has found something again… and what he has found, he has enclosed in a very beautiful formula!…” Loustalot and Tobie then spoke in low voices. If anyone had still had the strength to listen in the fireplace, they certainly would not have been able to hear anything they were saying there… Loustalot continued aloud: “But that’s real alchemy, my boy!… What you ‘ve just found there is something like the transmutation of metals!… Are you sure of the experiment, Dédé? ” “I repeated it three times with potassium chloride. Ah! No one will say anymore that matter is unalterable!… It’s something quite different!… A real new potassium that I have obtained!… an ionized potassium, with no relation to the first one.” “And the same for chlorine?” asked Loustalot. –The same for the chlorine… –Good heavens!… Loustalot and the giant spoke to each other again in low voices, then Loustalot again: –What do you want for your trouble, Dédé? –I’d like some preserves and a good glass of wine. –Yes, tonight, you can give him a good glass of wine,’ complied the big Loustalot, ‘it can’t do him any harm.’ But suddenly, the relative peace of this deep cellar was terribly disturbed by Dédé. There was something like a subterranean storm, an unleashing of fury, cries, lamentations, curses!… Mr. Lalouette for his part, Mr. Patard for his, only had time to stop on the edges of their dry lips the supreme clamor of their terror… One felt that the man had rushed like a ferocious animal behind the bars of his cage. –Murderers! he yelled… Murderers!… miserable bandits, thief of Loustalot!… Filthy jailer, prison guard of my genius!… monster to whom I give glory and who pays me with a piece of bread!… Your crimes will be punished, you hear, wretch!… God will punish you!… Your crime will be known to the universe!… They will have to come, the men who will deliver me!… You will not kill them all!… And I will drag you like an infamous carcass with a butcher’s pike, bandit!… By the scruff of the neck… “Enough! Make him shut up, Tobie!” Loustalot groaned. There was a sound of an iron gate turning on its hinges. “I will not be silent!… By the scruff of the neck! By the scruff of the neck!… No! No! Not that!… Help!” Help!… Yes, I’ll shut up… I’ll shut up!… By the scruff of the neck, to the grievances!… I’ll shut up!… And the noise of the iron gate began again on its hinges… And soon there was nothing left, in the deep cellar, but a moan that grew quieter and quieter, like someone falling asleep after a great rage or dying… Chapter 17. Some of Dédé’s inventions. After this moan there was still some commotion in the Laboratory in the back cellar and then little by little all noise died away. In their corner by the fireplace, Mr. Hippolyte Patard and Mr. Lalouette gave no sign of life. They were glued to the wall as if they would never leave it again. However, the voice of the man, behind the bars of the cage, resounded: “You can come… they’ve left.” There was silence again. And then the man’s voice continued: “Are you dead?” Finally, in the gloom of the laboratory-tomb, which was now lit only by a small candle that shone behind the bars of the cage, in the prisoner’s house, in this gloom, we say, two silhouettes appeared timidly, at the edge of the vast fireplace… The heads first cautiously showed themselves, then the bodies… and everything became motionless again. “Oh! you can go forward,” said Dédé’s voice… “they won’t come back all night… and the trapdoor is closed.” Then the two silhouettes moved again… but with extreme precautions. They stopped at every step. They slid very cautiously… They were standing on tiptoe , hands outstretched… and, when they bumped into a piece of furniture and this piece of furniture responded to this shock with some sound, the silhouettes remained as if suspended. Finally they arrived at the barred light of the gate behind which Dédé, standing, was waiting for them. And they collapsed, exhausted, at the foot of the bars. A voice which was that of Mr. Hippolyte Patard said: “Ah! my poor sir!” And the voice of Mr. Lalouette was heard in turn: “We thought they were going to murder you. ” “You stayed in the chimney all the same?” said the man. It was true. They couldn’t deny it. They explained, in confused words , that their legs had refused them any service, that they were not used to such emotions, that they were academicians and in no way prepared for such horrible tragedies. “Academicians!” said the man. “One day, three of them came down here… three candidates who were making their visit and whom the bandit surprised… I never saw them again… Since then, I learned, by listening to the bandit and the giant, that they were all dead… He must have killed them like flies ! This whole conversation was spoken in a very low, muffled voice, the lips of all three glued to the bars. “Sir!” implored Gaspard Lalouette, “is there a way to get out without the bandit surprising us? ” “Of course!” said the man… by the staircase that leads directly into the courtyard… Mr. Hippolyte Patard said: “The key that opens this staircase and that you told us about is not in the drawer.” The man said: “I have it in my pocket! I took it from the giant’s pocket… I silenced myself so that he would come into my cage. ” “Ah! my poor sir,” Patard continued. “Yes! Yes! I am to be pitied, come on! They have terrible ways of keeping me quiet. ” “So you think we can leave?” sighed Mr. Gaspard Lalouette, who was surprised that the other had not yet given them the key. “Will you come back for me?” asked the man. “We swear it to you,” said Mr. Lalouette solemnly. “The others swore it too, and they have not returned.” M.
Hippolyte Patard intervened for the honor of the Academy: “They would have come back if they hadn’t died. ” “That’s true… He killed them like flies!… But he won’t kill you, because he doesn’t know you came… But he mustn’t see you… ” “No! No!” moaned Lalouette. “He mustn’t see us… ” “You have to be clever!” the man recommended, holding a small black key out in front of the two visitors. And he gave the key to M. Hippolyte Patard, telling him that it opened a door behind the dynamo that could be seen in a corner. This door opened onto a staircase that led up to a small courtyard behind the house. There, they would find another door that opened onto the countryside, and they would only have to pull the inside bolts. The key to this other door always remained in the lock. “I noticed all this,” said the man, “when the giant was taking me for a walk. ” “So you sometimes leave your cage?” asked Mr. Patard, shivering at such misfortune, almost forgetting his own. “Yes, but always chained; one hour a day in the open air, when it’s not raining. ” “Ah! my poor gentleman! ” As for Mr. Lalouette, he thought only of leaving. He was already at the door of the staircase. But he thought he heard growling up there , and he backed away. “The dogs!” he moaned. “Why, yes, the dogs!” repeated the man, hostilely. “Is he a nuisance, this person of all types of body… you will not leave here until I tell you, at the The end! We must count on an hour before Tobias brings them food… Then you can pass… they won’t take the time to bark… When they eat, they no longer know anything, nor anyone… do you hear… when they eat! The man added: “What a life!… What an existence!…” “Another hour,” sighed Lalouette, who was definitely cursing the day he had had the idea of ​​becoming an academician. “I’ve been happy here for years!” replied the man. This came out of his throat in such a fierce tone that the two academicians, the old and the new, were ashamed of their cowardice! M. Lalouette himself assured him: “We will save you!” Whereupon the prisoner began to cry like a child. What a sight! Patard and Lalouette only then saw him in all his misery. His clothes were torn, but they were not filthy. These tears, these shreds, rather evoked the idea of ​​a recent struggle, and the two visitors thought that the prisoner just now had been silenced by the giant. But what was the prodigious fate of this wretch in his cage? The words heard just now led to the imagination of such an abominable crime that Mr. Patard, who believed he had known the great Loustalot for a long time, could not, would not, dwell on it! And yet, how could one explain, other than by the crime itself, the presence of the man behind bars… of the man who passed chemical formulas to the great Loustalot to avoid dying of hunger? Mr. Lalouette, for his part, had clearly understood the dreadful thing. He no longer hesitated. He was certain now that the great Loustalot had locked a genius in a cage and that it was this genius who had provided the illustrious scientist with all the inventions that had spread his glory throughout the world. With his precise mind, he pictured the thing in definitive outline. He saw, on one side of the gate, the great Loustalot with a piece of bread, and, on the other, the imprisoned genius with his inventions. And the exchange took place through the bars. The great Loustalot must, as one might imagine, have been very keen to keep such a formidable secret all to himself. He must certainly have valued it more than the lives of three academicians… This had been seen, alas!… and it seemed quite logical that he should still value it enough to sacrifice two more victims to it. When one has entered the path of crime, one never knows when one will stop. And it was precisely because of the great clarity with which he pictured the whole drama that M. Lalouette was in such a hurry to leave these dangerous places and that he could not console himself for prolonging such trances for another hour. Meanwhile, Mr. Hippolyte Patard, whose horrified brain was struggling to reject conclusions that Mr. Lalouette had accepted without further delay, Mr. Patard occupied the enforced leisure time granted him in trying to unravel the prisoner’s true situation. The mysterious words spoken by Martin Latouche and repeated by Babette came back to his terrified memory: It’s not possible, Latouche had said, it would be the greatest crime on earth! Yes, yes, the greatest crime on earth! Alas! Should not Mr. Patard also have to face the hideous truth? The prisoner behind his bars had let his head fall into his two hands, and he seemed overwhelmed by the weight of superhuman pain . Above him, the candle, hung high enough so that he could not reach it, illuminated things in a fantastic way and gave the objects scattered around the dungeon such a shape, behind the bars, that one could have believed oneself in front of the Devil’s Laboratory, quite frightening, with the enlarged shadows of the retorts and stills, and the monstrous bellies of its extinguished furnaces. The man lay like a rag in the midst of all this alchemy. Mr. Patard called him several times, without seeming to hear him. Up there the dogs were still growling and Mr. Lalouette was careful not to open the door through which he nevertheless dreamed of darting out. It was then that the rag—the man in rags—moved a little and his shadow with wild eyes uttered terrible words. “The proof that Toth’s secret exists is that they are dead. You see! you see! you see!” He came down one day so furious that the house was shaking. And I was shaking too. For I said to myself: That’s it! Oh! that’s it! I’ll have to invent something else! Every time he asks me for something very difficult, he frightens me… Then he has me, like a little child who is afraid that someone won’t give him his toast… What misery, isn’t it?… But he’s a bandit! There were wild groans in the man’s throat. And then: –Ah! He really tormented me, with his secret of Thoth! I had never heard of it. He told me that a mountebank claimed that one could kill with that secret, through the nose, the eyes, the mouth and the ears… And he told me that compared to this mountebank whom he called Eliphas, I was nothing but an ass… He humiliated me in front of Tobias!… It was indecent!… and I suffered greatly!… Ah! What a fortnight! What a fortnight we spent! I will remember it for a long time… and he only left me alone when I had given him the tragic perfumes… the murderous rays… and the song that kills! He knew how to use them, I see. The man sneered horribly. Then he sprawled out on the ground, stretching out his arms and legs wearily. “Ah! How tired I am!” he sighed… But I must have details. I would like to know if the sacristy sun was seen shining? M. Hippolyte Patard started. He remembered that strange and remarkable definition that a doctor had made of the stigmata found on the face of Maxime d’Aulnay. And he said in a whisper: “Yes, yes, that’s it!… the sacristy sun!” “He was there, wasn’t he?… It had exploded on the face… It was forced!… that, my dear sir! That’s death by light! It can’t be otherwise! It’s like an explosion!… or rather as if the face had exploded!… But the other one, what was wrong with him?… because, you understand, my dear sir, I need details… Oh! I suspected, come on, that the bandit would have been up to his old tricks again, since I heard him tell Tobie that they were all three dead. But I lack details, in my situation. Sometimes among themselves, in front of me, they talk… and sometimes they are silent… Ah! He’s a pitiless bandit! But the other one… what did he have? What stigmata? What did we find? ” “But I don’t think we found anything,” replied Patard. “Ah!” We won’t have found anything more tragic with the perfume… –It doesn’t leave any traces… it’s childish!… it’s put in a letter… you open it, you read it and you breathe it in!… Good evening!… no one else!… but you don’t kill everyone like that!… you’d end up being suspicious, of course… Yes, yes, you’d end up being suspicious… He must have killed the third one with it… Here, the growling of the dogs seemed to get so close that the conversation was suspended. All that was heard in the cellar was the panting of the three men… then the voices of the mastiffs faded away or rather diminished in intensity. –So we won’t give them anything to eat tonight? murmured Dédé. Patard, whose heart was beating to breaking point since the atrocious revelation, was still able to say: –There’s one of them, I think, who’s had a hemorrhage… because we found him a little blood at the tip of the nose! “Oh, by Jove! By Jove! By Jove!” gritted Dédé… and his teeth made an unbearable noise against each other. By Jove! That one died from the sound!… There was inevitably… Oh! That’s right!… an internal hemorrhage in the ear and there was a discharge of blood from the Eustachian tube, a discharge that reached the back of the throat and then the nose!… Here we are! Here we are, on my word! And the man, suddenly, straightening up with the agility of a monkey, was on his feet. It was as if he were leaping to the bars and clinging to them, like a quadrumane. Patard recoiled abruptly, fearing that the other would seize what was left of his hair. “Oh! don’t be afraid!… don’t be afraid!” The man dropped back onto his feet and walked with great strides into his dungeon-laboratory. He straightened his waist, he raised his head… When he passed under the light, his vast forehead could be seen. –You see, my dear sir!… All this is very terrible, but all the same, one can be proud of one’s invention!… That’s a success!… It’s not death for fun that I put in there… no, no! It’s real death that I’ve enclosed in light and sound!… It gave me a lot of trouble!… but you know, when you have the idea, the rest is nothing to do!… It’s a matter of having the idea, and it’s not ideas that I lack!… Ask the great, the illustrious Loustalot… Ah! The realization of an idea like that, with me, doesn’t take long!… It’s truly magnificent! The man stopped walking, raised his index finger and said: –You know that there are ultraviolet rays in the spectrum? These rays, which are chemical rays, act vigorously on the retina… Very serious accidents with these rays have been reported!… oh! very serious!… Now, listen to me carefully… you may be familiar with these kinds of long-tube lamps, with a pale, greenish glow, and in which the mercury volatilizes… Oh, are you listening to me? Or are you not listening to me? cried the man so loudly and so strongly that Lalouette, terrified, fell to his knees, begging the strange professor to be silent, and Mr. Patard moaned: –Oh! lower!… in the name of heaven, lower! But this humiliation of the student did not disarm the master who, completely absorbed in his lecture and proud of extolling the merits of his invention before this exceptional audience, continued in a strong, clear, dominating voice: –…These lamps in which volatilized mercury produces a truly diabolical light… Look, I think I have some here… The man searched, moved things… and found nothing. Upstairs, the dogs still did not shut up. They had smelled the visitors, and that was what made them so unbearable. They will only be silent, of course, with meat in their mouths, thought M. Lalouette, and this thought, which decidedly did not leave him, despite the professor’s eloquence, did not revive him at all and left him on his knees, as if, before death, he had only the strength left to ask forgiveness from the Lord for the stupid vanity which had driven him to seek an honor which is generally reserved for people who at least know how to read. The man continued his dangerous course, raising his brow even higher with pride and punctuating his sentences with large, sharp gestures. “Well, my idea, here it is! Here it is! Instead of using a glass as an envelope, I took a quartz tube, which gave me a crazy production of ultraviolet rays! And so! and so, I enclosed it, this tube which contained mercury, in a small, dark lantern, possessing a small coil moved by a small accumulator!… And so, and so! The deadly force of these rays on the eye is incomparable… A ray, just one, from my dull lantern that I make act as I wish, thanks to a diaphragm that allows me to intercept light at will—one ray, just one, is enough. The retina receives a terrible blow that brings instant death by trauma! But it had to be found… It was necessary to think of the possibility of this death by inhibition, that is to say by the sudden stopping of the heart, like this death also by inhibition—a phenomenon, gentlemen, discovered by me first, then by Brown-Séquard—like this death, I say, by inhibition that occurs, for example, following a blow struck by the back of the hand on the larynx!… —There! There! Ah! I was proud, very proud of my little deaf lantern!… But he took it from me and I never saw it again… —No, never! Ah! It’s a terrible little lantern that kills people like flies!… As true as I am Professor Dédé. Professor Dédé’s two listeners privately commended their souls to God, for, with the dogs and the little dark lantern, it was the devil’s mercy if they now escaped. But Professor Dédé had not yet said anything about the second invention which, it seems, had given him more joy than all those which had preceded it. He had not yet said anything about what he called his dear little earwig… This gap was filled in a few sentences and the terror was accomplished… The hideous horror of imminent and certain death seemed to freeze forever the permanent secretary and the new academician. “All that! All that!” proclaimed Professor Dédé, “it’s goat droppings compared to my dear little earwig.” It’s a little box that’s no taller than that!… It can fit anywhere!… in an accordion, if you’re clever and know how to use it … in a barrel organ… in anything that sings… in anything that plays a false note. Professor Dédé raised his index finger again. –What is there, sir, more unpleasant to a musical ear than a false note? I ask you, but don’t answer me! There’s nothing! nothing! nothing! With my dear little earwig, thanks to the happiest electrical device allowing new waves, much faster and more penetrating—yes, sir, my word!—than Hertzian waves—with, I say, my dear little earwig, I drill the false note into the meninges, I subject the brain, which normally expects a normal note, to such a shock that the listener falls dead, struck as if by a wave -like knife-thrust, if I may say so, at the very moment when the armed wave of the false note penetrates furtively and rapidly into the snail. Ah! True! What do you say about that?… Eh?… you say nothing about that!… No! Nothing at all!… Me neither! There is nothing to say… All this kills people like flies!… Ah! It’s really quite boring… because I’ll stay here all my life, having seen only people who would have come to free me if they hadn’t died… But, in their place, I know very well what I would do in such a serious circumstance… “What?… What?…” grumbled the two unfortunates. “I’d wear blue glasses and put cotton in my ears. ” “Yes! Yes! Yes! Blue glasses and cotton!” repeated the two men, and they held out their hands like beggars. “I haven’t got any with me!” said Professor Dédé gravely… And suddenly he cried: “Look out! Look out! Listen! Footsteps!… Perhaps it’s him, the terrible little lantern with one hand, and the dear little earwig in the other… Ah! Ah!… Not a penny!… I wouldn’t give a penny of your earthly existence to both of you, my word!… No!… No!… It’s another failed attempt!… a failed deliverance!… you’ll do like the others!… You’ll never come back!… never!… Indeed, footsteps were coming down… They were now walking just above of their heads. The footsteps were going towards the trapdoor… Patard and Lalouette had gotten up, had fled towards the door of the small staircase, straightened by a supreme energy, a last will to live. The other’s voice pursued them: Never!… I will never see them again… They will never come back! And they had the clear perception that the trapdoor was being lifted above their heads… They turned away instinctively, drawing their heads into their shoulders, closing their eyes, covering their ears. And it was too horrible… They definitely preferred to risk death by the dogs… They opened the door and climbed, scaled the stairs, thinking only of not being caught by the murderous ray or the song that kills… not even thinking about the dogs anymore. Now, the dogs were no longer barking. The dogs must have been eating, busy devouring Patard and Lalouette saw the door indicated by Dédé, the key in the lock… And they only made one leap there. …
And then, it was the frantic flight into the fields… the fields through which they ran, like mentally ill people, at random, straight ahead , in the dark… falling, getting up, leaping further when they were struck by a ray of moonlight!… a ray which perhaps came, after all, from the dull lantern!… Finally, they arrived at a road; a milkman’s cart was passing… They talked, slipped into the cart, exhausted, dying… and they had themselves driven to the station, hiding their personalities, saying that they had lost their way and that they had been frightened by two people of all types of bodies dogs who were chasing them. Just at that moment, the hounds were heard barking terribly, far away, in the depths of the night… They must have been let loose… they must have been looking for the unknown visitors who had left the door open… The giant Tobie must have been organizing a proper hunt… But the car set off at great speed… M. Hippolyte Patard and M. Lalouette finally breathed… They thought they were saved… The great Loustalot would never know, would he? Until the moment of punishment… who these men were who had surprised his secret. Chapter 18. The secret of the great Loustalot. Rue Laffitte was packed with people. At all the windows, groups of curious onlookers were waiting for M. Gaspard Lalouette to leave the marital home to go to the Académie Française, where he was to deliver his speech. It was a celebration and a glory for the neighborhood. An art dealer, an academician trinket dealer, this had never been seen before, and the heroic circumstances in which such an event took place had, as one can well imagine, greatly contributed to turning everyone’s minds upside down. The journalists had invaded the sidewalks and were constantly exhibiting their queue jumpers, so as not to be hampered in their reporting by the exceptional security service that the police prefect had been obliged to organize. Many of those who were there had formed the plan not only to acclaim Mr. Lalouette, but also to accompany him to the end of the Pont des Arts… a plan, moreover, that they would not have been able to accomplish because, for hours, no one had crossed the Pont des Arts. Finally, at the bottom of everyone’s thoughts lay the fear of the news of death that was bound to be expected. As Mr. Lalouette continued to remain invisible, this fear only grew, this anxiety increased with the passing minutes. Now, all these people had not seen Mr. Lalouette pass by, since the new academician had been at the Academy since nine o’clock in the morning, locked up with Mr. Hippolyte Patard in the Dictionary Room. Ah! the unfortunate people had spent a terrible night, and it was in a sad state that they had returned to the house of this second cousin of Mr. Lalouette. who ran a small bar in the Place de la Bastille. There, Madame Lalouette had very mysteriously joined them. Naturally, everything was told to her, and a consultation ensued that lasted several hours. M. Lalouette wanted them to go immediately to the police, but M. Patard touched him with his eloquence and his tears, and it was agreed that they would act very prudently and in such a way that a scandal, as much as possible, would be avoided and that the Academy would not be dishonored. M. Patard thus tried to make M. Lalouette understand that, since he had become an Academician, he had duties that did not fall to other men, and that he was responsible, for his part, like the ancient vestal, for the brilliance of this immortal flame that burns on the altar of the Institute. To which Mr. and Mrs. Lalouette felt they should reply that this glorious office now seemed to them to be accompanied by too many perils for them to hold much dear to it. To which the permanent secretary replied that it was too late to turn back and that when one was Immortal, it was until death. “That is what grieves me!” Mr. Lalouette had replied again. In the end, as they were sure that the great Loustalot was unaware that they had discovered his secret, the situation could seem rather reassuring to them, more reassuring than when they did not know the cause of death of the three previous recipients. Mrs. Lalouette did indeed make a few more reflections, but she was still very warm with the popular enthusiasm that was besieging her house and it would have been painful for her to renounce glory so soon. It was decided that, from the first hour, these gentlemen, so as not to be disturbed, would go and lock themselves in the Dictionary Room, the door of which would be closed to everyone, and consequently to the great Loustalot. Finally, cotton wool and blue glasses were bought. In the Dictionary Room, M. Hippolyte Patard and M. Lalouette, having put the cotton wool in their ears and the blue glasses on their noses, were waiting. Only a few minutes separated them from the moment when M. Lalouette’s memory would find the ever-illustrious opportunity to exercise itself for the triumph of letters. Outside, an impatient murmur rose. “It’s time!” M. Patard suddenly said; “it’s time,” and resolutely he opened the door of the room, taking under his arm the arm of his new colleague. But the door was brutally pushed open, then closed… The two men recoiled with a cry of fright. The great Loustalot was before them. “Look! Look!” said the latter, his voice slightly trembling, his brow furrowed… look! You wear glasses now, Mr. Permanent Secretary? Eh! But!… and Mr. Gaspard Lalouette too!… Good morning, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette… It’s been a long time since I had the honor of seeing you… Nice to meet you! Lalouette stammered unintelligible words. Mr. Patard, however, was trying to regain some composure, for the moment was most serious. What bothered him was that the great Loustalot was obstinately hiding one hand behind his back. And the most dreadful thing was that he had to be as if he were doing nothing. For, without a doubt, the great Loustalot suspected something. Mr. Hippolyte Patard let out a little dry cough and replied, without missing a single one of the scholar’s movements: “Yes, Mr. Lalouette and I have discovered that our eyesight is a little tired.” Mr. Loustalot took a step forward. The other two took two steps back. “Where did you discover that?” the scholar asked gloomily. “Wasn’t it at my house last night?” Mr. Lalouette felt dizzy, but Mr. Patard, with all his poor strength, protested… asserting that the great Loustalot was the most absent-minded of men and that he didn’t know exactly what he was saying, for, yesterday evening, neither M. Lalouette nor he had left Paris. The great Loustalot sneered again, his hand still hidden behind his back.
And, suddenly, his arm jerked forward, to the great terror of these gentlemen who, with one hand, abruptly tightened their glasses, and with the other, the cotton in their ears, thinking they saw the terrible little dull lantern or the dear little earwig appear. But the hand of the great Loustalot showed an umbrella. “My umbrella!” cried the permanent secretary. “I didn’t make you say so!” growled the scholar dully… your umbrella, Mr. Perpetual Secretary, which you forgot on the train that brought you back from La Varenne!… A faithful employee who knows you and me and who has sometimes seen us traveling together… gave it to me… Ah! ah! Mr. Perpetual Secretary! The great Loustalot grew more and more excited, waving the umbrella that M. Hippolyte Patard was trying in vain to catch in mid-air. “Ah! ah!… you think I’m distracted… but will I ever be as distracted as you, who forget the most beloved umbrella in the world?… The umbrella of the Permanent Secretary!… Ah! I truly took care of it… as if it had been my own umbrella!” And the scholar flung the umbrella at full speed across the room. The object spun around several times and shattered against the impassive face of Armand Duplessis, Cardinal Richelieu. Faced with this sacrilege, M. Patard began to scream. But Loustalot’s face had become so terrifying that this scream could not be completed… It remained in a state of power—or impotence—in the throat of the Permanent Secretary. Ah! the dazzling face of the demon! Mr. Loustalot was still blocking the doorway and waving his arms like a real Mephistopheles on stage, trying to make people believe he had wings. For a real scientist, this was unheard of, and everyone would have thought he was crazy. Mr.
Patard and Mr. Lalouette thought it was the devil. As he continued to advance, they retreated again. “Come on! Come on!… Bunch of thieves!” he shouted at them with a burst of anger that annihilated them more and more. “Bunch of thieves of my secret! You had to go down into the cellar, eh? While I wasn’t there… like ill-bred people or like a bunch of thieves! And he could have had it in for you, you know!… And the dogs could have eaten you like larks or killed you like flies! So says Dédé. Did you see him, Dédé? Bunch of thieves!… Take off your glasses, you bunch of imbeciles!” Loustalot was foaming at the mouth. He wiped his mouth and his sweaty forehead with his hands as if he were slapping himself! “But take off your glasses!” (The others, of course, didn’t take them off.) “You must have put cotton in your ears too!… All that nonsense!… All Dédé’s madness!… And he makes up my inventions for a piece of bread!… And Thoth’s secret, isn’t it?… And the light that kills? And the dear little earwig!… All the madness, all Dédé’s madness!… What could he not have told you?… The poor dear mentally ill person!… The poor dear mentally ill person!… The poor dear mentally ill person!” And Loustalot, sinking onto a chair, sobbed in such despair that the other two felt a shock. And this immense wretch who, only a second ago, seemed to them the greatest criminal on earth, suddenly seemed infinitely pitiful. Oh! they were very astonished to see him weeping like this, but they approached him only cautiously and keeping their glasses on. Loustalot, groaning, moaned: “The poor dear mentally ill person!… the poor child… my child!… Gentlemen… my son!… Do you understand now?… my son who is a mentally ill person!… a mentally ill person dangerous, very dangerously mentally ill person… The authorities only allowed me to keep him at home as a prisoner…–One day, they took from his hands a little girl whom he had almost strangled in order to take back from her throat what she had to sing as well as that!… Ah! You mustn’t say it… He’s my only son!… They would take him from me!… They would lock him up!… They would steal him from me!… you only have to speak and they would steal my son from me!… bunch of child thieves! And he wept!… He wept!… Mr. Hippolyte Patard and Mr. Lalouette looked at him, motionless, thunderstruck by this revelation. What they had just heard and the sincerity of this despair explained to them the singular and painful mystery of the man through the bars. But the three dead?… Mr. Patard placed a timid hand on the shoulder of the tall Loustalot, whose tears never stopped… “We will say nothing!” declared the Permanent Secretary, “but before us, there were three men who, too, had promised not to say anything… and who died.” Loustalot stood up and stretched out his arms as if he wanted to embrace all the pain in the world. “They are dead! The poor things!… Do you think I was not more terrified than you?… Fate seemed to have become my accomplice!… They died because they were not well! What do you want me to do about it?” And he went to Lalouette. “But you, sir… you! Tell me!… Are you in good health?” Before Mr. Lalouette could reply, the room was invaded by his impatient colleagues who came to fetch the Permanent Secretary and his hero. The courtyard, the halls, the corridors of the Institute were filled with the most ardent tumult. Despite the cotton wool he had stuffed into his ears, Mr. Lalouette missed nothing of all these noises of glory. In short, after Loustalot’s final confidence, he could pass on to Immortality, in complete peace and without remorse. He let himself be carried to the entrance of the hall of public sessions. There, he was stopped for a moment by the congestion and found himself face to face with Loustalot himself. He felt that before going any further, he should take a supreme precaution, and, leaning towards the scholar’s ear, he said to him: “You asked me if my health is good? Thank you, it is excellent… I firmly believe everything you have told us, but in any case, I hope that I do not die, because I have taken my precautions… I myself wrote an account of everything we saw and heard at your house, an account that will be divulged immediately after my death. ” Loustalot looked curiously at M. Gaspard Lalouette, then he replied simply: “That is not true, since you do not know how to read!” Chapter 19. The triumph of Gaspard Lalouette. M. Gaspard Lalouette could no longer decently retreat. He had already been seen in the room. Deafening cheers greeted his entrance. The sight of Madame Lalouette, in the front row, restored some of the recipient’s courage, but, in truth, M. Loustalot had just dealt him a terrible blow. He was still reeling. How did this man know that he, Lalouette, could not read? The secret had been carefully guarded, however. It was not Patard who could have spoken! And Eliphas had shown too much joy at seeing at the Academy a gentleman who could not read to compromise his revenge by an indiscretion. Eulalie was the tomb of secrets. So? How? How? He thought he had Loustalot and it was Loustalot who, at the last moment, proved his impotence to him. But Loustalot, after all, had perhaps not put any evil intention into his reply. Was he not an unfortunate, desperate father and an illustrious scholar to be pitied? Obviously. So, what did M. Lalouette had reason to fear? –Especially with blue glasses and cotton in his ears! Lalouette straightened up before the tributes that greeted him, that followed his every step. He wanted to appear proud as a Roman general in triumph and also like Artaban. And he succeeded. This, above all, thanks to his blue glasses which hid a remnant of anxiety in his eyes. He saw, beside him, very calm and very sad, the great Loustalot who seemed a thousand leagues from the gathering. He was, at once, reassured, indeed, completely. And, having been given the floor, he began his speech, very calmly, turning the pages with his elbow, as if he were reading, of course. All his good memory was there… so good… so good… that he recited his compliment while thinking of something else. He thought: but finally, how does the great Loustalot know that I can’t read? And suddenly, striking his forehead, he cried out, in the middle of his speech: “I’m there!” To this unexpected gesture, to this inexplicable cry, the whole room responded with a clamor. With a single movement of indescribable anguish, they rose up, leaning over the man… expecting to see him pirouette like the others. But after coughing freely to clear his throat, M. Gaspard Lalouette declared: “It’s nothing!… Gentlemen, I continue!… I was saying… I was saying: ah! I was saying that poor Martin Latouche, taken so prematurely… Ah! How handsome and calm he was, Father Lalouette! And sure of himself, now! Oh! absolutely sure!… He spoke of the death of others with the tranquility of a man who must never die… He was applauded enough to make the windows shatter! It was delirium. The women especially were crazy! They tore off their gloves with the force of clapping their little hands, they broke fans, they had little high-pitched cries of enthusiasm, enchantment, and satisfaction—it was extraordinary, for an academic reception— Ms. Lalouette was supported by two devoted friends, and one could see on her refreshed face two veritable streams of happy tears that never dried up. So Mr. Lalouette spoke well. He had found the answer to the riddle, and nothing could stop him in his speech. He made effects with his voice, arms, and torso. This is why he had shouted: I’m here! I’m here because the famous day when I went all alone to La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire and ran away from Loustalot’s as if I had escaped from Charenton… that day, I arrived just at the station to jump on the train that was taking me back to Paris. In the compartment, there was a lady who squealed like a peacock. It was a closed compartment that didn’t open onto a corridor; I saw that she thought I was going to murder her. The more I tried to calm her, the more she screamed. At the next station, she called the conductor, who reproached me for having boarded the ladies’ compartment alone. And he showed me a sign, announcing that he was going to draw up a report, and that I would have a fine trial. Luckily, I had my military booklet in my pocket, thanks to which I was able to prove that I couldn’t read! And there you go… this employee must be the same one who found Mr. Patard’s umbrella and gave it to Loustalot. To Loustalot’s questions about my description, the employee certainly replied that the permanent secretary was traveling with the man who couldn’t read! “Gentlemen… Mgr d’Abbeville was, like me, a child of the people.” At this point in the speech, a new waiter from the Institute—for the old ones would not have dared such a step, which recalled unfortunate precedents—crossed the enclosure on tiptoe, a letter in his hand. When the public saw this letter, a new intense emotion took hold of all… It was thought that this letter was still intended for the recipient… and immediately there were cries… –No!… No!… No letters!… Don’t open it!… Don’t let him open it ! And a heart-rending cry. It was Madame Lalouette who was feeling faint. Monsieur Lalouette had turned his head towards the waiter and had seen the letter… He had understood… The more tragic scent was perhaps waiting for him… Finally, he had heard Madame Lalouette’s despair… Then, he stood on tiptoe and made himself taller than he had ever been and, truly dominating, at least with all his moral strength, this terrified assembly, pointing with a finger that did not tremble at the fatal letter: –Ah! no! not with me, he said… it won’t work!… I don’t know how to read!… It was an explosion of mad joy! Ah! at least that one was witty. Brave and witty: He couldn’t read! The words were adorable. And Lalouette’s triumph was complete. Colleagues
came to shake his hands with fierce energy, and the session ended in a transport of marvelous enthusiasm… The triumph was all the more complete because in the end Mr. Gaspard Lalouette did not die and the man who cannot read was finally able to sit in the chair of Mgr d’Abbeville without having been poisoned in any way. The letter was not addressed to Mr. Lalouette. Mrs. Lalouette came to to find a husband very much alive who seemed to her the most handsome of men. Late in life, they had a male child whom they named Académus. As for the great Loustalot, he experienced, shortly after the events that have concerned us, great grief: he lost his son. Dédé died. Mr. Hippolyte Patard and Mr. Lalouette were invited to the funeral, which took place in the evening, almost secretly. At the cemetery, Mr. Lalouette was very intrigued by the presence of a mysterious character who, behind the tombs, slipped not far from the great Loustalot. When the illustrious scholar fell to his knees, the stranger approached and leaned over him as if he wanted to listen and question this pain. The man’s figure was invisible, so much was it enveloped in the hat and coat. Throughout the ceremony, Mr. Lalouette wondered: Who is this? For it seemed to him that the general appearance was not foreign to him. Finally, the man disappeared into the night. The permanent secretary and Mr. Lalouette returned together. In the train, where Mr. Lalouette almost got into the ladies’ compartment again, thinking he was getting into the smokers’ compartment, the two academicians chatted. “That poor Loustalot seems to be in a great deal of grief,” said M. Hippolyte Patard. “Yes, yes, very much grief,” replied M. Lalouette, nodding his head. Two years later, M. Gaspard Lalouette, on his way to the Academy, was crossing the Pont des Arts arm in arm with M. Hippolyte Patard. Suddenly he stopped walking: “See,” he said, “in front of you… the man in the coat… ” “Well?” asked the permanent secretary, quite astonished. “You don’t recognize that figure?” “Well, no!… ” “It didn’t strike you like it did me, M. Permanent Secretary … That man didn’t let go of the great Loustalot for a single step on the evening of the ceremony at the cemetery… and I thought I was right in saying that I had already seen that figure somewhere…” At that moment, the man in the coat turned around: “M. Eliphas de La Nox!” cried Mr. Lalouette. It was indeed the magician. He advanced towards the two Immortals and shook hands with Mr. Lalouette. “You here!” exclaimed the latter, “and you didn’t pay us a little visit? Mrs. Lalouette would have been so happy to shake your hand! Do us the pleasure of coming to dinner, without ceremony, one of these days.” evenings, at home. And turning to Mr. Patard: –My dear permanent secretary, I present to you Mr. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox, whose letter worried us so much at one time. And, apart from that! What has become of you, my dear Mr. de La Nox?… –But I still sell my rabbit skins, my dear academician, replied with a smile the one who had been the Man of Light. –And you do not miss the Academy? asked Mr. Lalouette bravely. –No, since you are there! replied Eliphas gently. Mr. Lalouette took these words as a compliment and thanked him. The permanent secretary coughed. Mr. Lalouette said: “By the way!… Imagine that when I saw you, and without having yet recognized you, I said to the permanent secretary: It’s funny, but I seem to remember seeing this figure at the funeral of the son of the great Loustalot…” “I was there,” said Eliphas. “Did you know the great Loustalot?” asked Mr. Patard, who had not yet said anything. “Not personally,” replied Mr. Eliphas de La Nox in a tone suddenly so serious that his two interlocutors were as if embarrassed… ” No, I did not know him personally, but I had the opportunity to deal with him following an investigation that I felt I should make for my personal satisfaction, relative to certain facts which occupied public opinion at a time when many people were dying at the Academy, Mr. Permanent Secretary…” Upon hearing this, Mr. Permanent Secretary wished that the Pont des Arts would open to put an end to a conversation which reminded him of the most disastrous hours of his honest and sad life. He stammered hastily: “Yes, I also remember seeing you at the cemetery… The great Loustalot was very sad about the death of his son…” Mr. Lalouette added immediately: “His grief has not diminished.” We have not seen him at the Academy since this cruel bereavement and he leaves us, alone, to work on the Dictionary… Ah! the poor man has been badly struck!… “So struck… so struck,” suddenly replied the Man of Light, bending his noble and mysterious face over the two trembling academicians… so struck that, since Dédé’s death, he has invented nothing at all! Whereupon, having pronounced the terrible sentence, M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de La Nox, turning his back on the Institute, disappeared at the end of the Pont des Arts… …While, leaning now on each other, as if to support each other, M. Hippolyte Patard and M. Gaspard Lalouette heroically directed their faltering steps towards the threshold of Immortality. As long as they were outside, they did not utter a word, but as soon as they were locked in the office of the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Gaspard Lalouette suddenly found his strength to declare that his conscience, finally cleared by the tragic words of Mr. Eliphas de La Nox, would not allow him to maintain a guilty silence any longer. It was in vain that Mr. Patard, with tears in his voice, tried to silence him and still pleaded the doubt with which he wanted to give the abominable Loustalot the benefit, for the honor of the Academy; Mr. Lalouette would hear nothing more. “No! No!” he cried, “it was Martin Latouche who was right! It was he who glimpsed the truth: there has been no greater crime on earth ! ” “Yes!” replied the Permanent Secretary, bursting out in his turn, “yes! There has been a greater one! ” “And which one, sir?” “That of admitting someone into the Academy who doesn’t know how to read! I committed that crime!” And he added, trembling with holy fury: “Denounce me if you dare!” It was the first time that, since the age of nine, when he had The misfortune of losing his mother, M. Hippolyte Patard used the informal “tu” in his speech. This threatening familiarity, instead of calming the discussion, only exasperated it further, and the two Immortals were standing against each other like two fighting cocks when a knock at the door reminded them of their sense of decorum. M. Lalouette dropped into an armchair by the fireside, and M. Patard went to open it. It was the concierge who had brought a rather voluminous envelope that had been strongly recommended to him and that he was to place in the hands of the permanent secretary. The concierge left, and M. Patard read the message. First, he read the words on the envelope: “To the permanent secretary, to be opened at a private session of the French Academy.” M. Patard recognized the handwriting and started. “What is it?” asked Lalouette. But, very agitated, the permanent secretary did not reply. With the message in his hands, he wandered around the room as if he no longer knew what he was doing. Suddenly, he made up his mind, popped the seals , and unfolded a rather voluminous notebook, at the top of which he read: This is my confession. Mr. Lalouette watched him read, understanding nothing of the prodigious emotion that was taking hold of Mr. Patard, as he turned the pages of the mysterious file. The face of the honorable academician was gradually losing that beautiful yellow color by which it had accustomed to expressing the gloomy emotions of this heart devoted to the most glorious of institutions. Mr. Patard was now paler than the marble that would, one day, beyond death, commemorate his immortal features, on the threshold of the Dictionary Room. And Mr. Lalouette suddenly saw Mr. Patard deliberately throwing the whole file into the fire. After which, the said Patard, having watched, motionless, his little blaze, went over to his accomplice and held out his hand: “No hard feelings, Mr. Lalouette,” he said, “we will not quarrel anymore. You were right. The great Loustalot was, above all, a great wretch. Let’s forget him. He is dead. He paid his debt! But you, my dear Gaspard, when will you pay yours? It is not very difficult to learn: ba: ba, be: be, bi: bi, bo: bo, bu: bu!
” Thus ends The Haunted Armchair, a work in which Gaston Leroux demonstrates all his virtuosity in handling irony and the fantastic. Through this story, he reminds us that the line between the ordinary and the extraordinary is sometimes very thin, and that behind a simple everyday object can hide a plot worthy of the greatest mysteries. Thank you for accompanying us on this literary adventure full of twists and turns and wit. If this reading captivated you, do not hesitate to discover other masterpieces by Leroux and to continue your journey to the heart of literary classics .