Joris-Karl Huysmans: Down There (Là-Bas)

"With solitude! and that complaisant and paternal cuckold, her husband! Well, he is the one most to be pitied now. Thanks to me, he had evenings of quiet. I restored his wife, pliant and satisfied. He profited by my fatigues, that sacristan. Ah, when I think of it, his sly, hypocritical eyes, when he looked at me, told me a great deal.

"Well, the little romance is over. It's a good thing to have your heart on strike. In my brain I still have a house of ill fame, which sometimes catches fire, but the hired myrmidons will stamp out the blaze in a hurry.

"When I was young and ardent the women laughed at me. Now that I am old and stale I laugh at them. That's more in my character, old fellow," he said to the cat, which, with ears pricked up, was listening to the soliloquy. "Truly, Gilles de Rais is a great deal more interesting than Mme. Chantelouve. Unfortunately, my relations with him are also drawing to a close. Only a few more pages and the book is done. Oh, Lord! Here comes Rateau to knock my house to pieces."

Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture. Then he hurled himself at the bed, grappled with the mattress, got a half-Nelson on it, and balancing himself, turning half around, hurled it onto the springs.

Durtal, followed by his cat, went into the other room, but suddenly Rateau ceased wrestling and came and stood before Durtal.

"Monsieur, do you know what has happened?" he blubbered.

"Why, no."

"My wife has left me."

"Left you! but she must be over sixty."

Rateau raised his eyes to heaven.

"And she ran off with another man?"

Rateau, disconsolate, let the feather duster fall from his listless hand.

"The devil! Then, in spite of her age, your wife had needs which you were unable to satisfy?"

The concierge shook his head and finally succeeded in saying, "It was the other way around."

"Oh," said Durtal, considering the old caricature, shrivelled by bad air and "three-six," "but if she is tired of that sort of thing, why did she run off with a man?"

Rateau made a grimace of pitying contempt, "Oh, he's impotent. Good for nothing-"

"Ah!"

"It's my job I'm sore about. The landlord won't keep a concierge that hasn't a wife."

"Dear Lord," thought Durtal, "how hast thou answered my prayers!-Come on, let's go over to your place," he said to Des Hermies, who, finding Rateau's key in the door, had walked in.

"Righto! since your housecleaning isn't done yet, descend like a god from your clouds of dust, and come on over to the house."

On the way Durtal recounted his concierge's conjugal misadventure.

"Oh!" said Des Hermies, "many a woman would be happy to wreathe with laurel the occiput of so combustible a sexagenarian.-Look at that! Isn't it revolting?" pointing to the walls covered with posters.

It was a veritable debauch of placards. Everywhere on lurid coloured paper in box car letters were the names of Boulanger and Jacques.

"Thank God, this will be over tomorrow."

"There is one resource left," said Des Hermies. "To escape the horrors of present day life never raise your eyes. Look down at the sidewalk always, preserving the attitude of timid modesty. When you look only at the pavement you see the reflections of the sky signs in all sorts of fantastic shapes; alchemic symbols, talismanic characters, bizarre pantacles with suns, hammers, and anchors, and you can imagine yourself right in the midst of the Middle Ages."

"Yes, but to keep from seeing the disenchanting crowd you would have to wear a long-vizored cap like a jockey and blinkers like a horse."

Des Hermies sighed. "Come in," he said, opening the door. They went in and sitting down in easy chairs they lighted their cigarettes.

"I haven't got over that conversation we had with Gévingey the other night at Carhaix's," said Durtal. "Strange man, that Dr. Johannès. I can't keep from thinking about him. Look here, do you sincerely believe in his miraculous cures?"

"I am obliged to. I didn't tell you all about him, for a physician can't lightly make these dangerous admissions. But you may as well know that this priest heals hopeless cases.

"I got acquainted with him when he was still a member of the Parisian clergy. It came about by one of those miracles of his which I don't pretend to understand.

"My mother's maid had a granddaughter who was paralyzed in her arms and legs and suffered death and destruction in her chest and howled when you touched her there. She had been in this condition two years. It had come on in one night, how produced nobody knows. She was sent away from the Lyons hospitals as incurable. She came to Paris, underwent treatment at La Salpêtrière, and was discharged when nobody could find out what was the matter with her nor what medication would give her any relief. One day she spoke to me of this abbé Johannès, who, she said, had cured persons in as bad shape as she. I did not believe a word, but hearing that the priest refused to take any money for his services I did not dissuade her from visiting him, and out of curiosity I went along.

"They placed her in a chair. The ecclesiastic, little, active, energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three precious stones. Then he said coolly, 'Mademoiselle, you are the victim of consanguineal sorcery.'

"I could hardly keep from laughing.

"'Remember,' he said,'two years back, for that is when your paralytic stroke came on. You must have had a quarrel with a kinsman or kinswoman?'

"It was true. Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had sworn vengeance.

"'Your aunt lives in Lyons?'

"She nodded.

"'Nothing astonishing about that,' continued the priest. 'In Lyons, among the lower orders, there are witch doctors who know a little about the witchcraft practised in the country. But be reassured. These people are not powerful. They know little more than the A B C's of the art. Then, mademoiselle, you wish to be cured?'

"And after she replied that she did, he said gently, 'That is all. You may go.'

"He did not touch her, did not prescribe any remedy. I came away persuaded that he was a mountebank. But when, three days later, the girl was able to raise her arms, and all her pain had left her, and when, at the end of a week, she could walk, I had to yield in face of the evidence. I went back to see him, had occasion to do him a service; and thus our relations began."

"But what are his methods?"

"He opens, like the curate of Ars, with prayer. Then he evokes the militant archangels, then he breaks the magic circles and chases-'classes,' as he says-the spirits of Evil. I know very well that this is confounding. Whenever I speak of this man's potency to my confrères they smile with a superior air or serve up to me the specious arguments which they have fabricated to explain the cures wrought by Christ and the Virgin. The method they have imagined consists in striking the patient's imagination, suggesting to him the will to be cured, persuading him that he is well, hypnotizing him in a waking state-so to speak. This done-say they-the twisted legs straighten, the sores disappear, the consumption-torn lungs are patched up, the cancers become benign pimples, and the blind eyes see. This procedure they attribute to miracle workers to explain away the supernatural-why don't they use the method themselves if it is so simple?"

"But haven't they tried?"

"After a fashion. I was present myself at an experiment attempted by Dr. Luys. Ah, it was inspiring! At the charity hospital there was a poor girl paralyzed in both legs. She was put to sleep and commanded to rise. She struggled in vain. Then two interns held her up in a standing posture, but her lifeless legs bent useless under her weight. Need I tell you that she could not walk, and that after they had held her up and pushed her along a few steps, they put her to bed again, having obtained no result whatever."