The Man Who Walked through Walls Read online

  At last the horses were lined up for the start of the Ministry of Records’ Grand Prix, and Sabine concentrated on gazing devotedly at her horse Theocrat VI. She had bet about five hundred francs on him, which were all her savings just then, and was counting on winning enough to placate Theorem’s landlord. The jockey riding Theocrat VI was wearing a sweet green-and-white cap, the green a tender, light, delicate, fresh, even a fragile shade, like the colour a lettuce might grow if it were growing in paradise. The horse himself was ebony black. He took the lead from the start, pulling ahead by three lengths. According to the other punters, such a start could not dictate the race’s outcome, but, already certain of triumph and carried away by her excitement, Sabine jumped up and yelled: “Theocrat! Theocrat!” There were smiles and sniggers around her. Sitting on her right, a distinguished, gloved and monocled gentleman was looking sympathetically at her from the corner of his eye, moved by her artlessness. In the intoxication of victory, Sabine went on to cry: “Theorem! Theorem!” Her neighbours were raucously amused at her outbursts and almost forgot about the race. At last Sabine noticed and, realising how indecorously she had behaved, blushed in confusion. Seeing this, the distinguished old gentleman in gloves and monocle stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Theocrat! Theocrat!” Instantly the laughter died out and, from her neighbours’ whispers, Sabine learnt that this gallant man was none other than Lord Burbury.

  In the meantime, Theocrat VI had lost his head start and finally came in nowhere. Seeing her hopes melt away, Theorem condemned to poverty and his talent squandered, Sabine at first sighed and then gave a small, dry sob. At last, her nostrils having trembled and sniffed, her eyes grew rather moist. Lord Burbury felt a deep compassion. After exchanging a few words with her, he asked Sabine if she would not like to be his wife, for he had an annual income of two hundred thousand pounds sterling. Just then, Sabine had a vision—of Theorem expiring on a hospital pallet and cursing the names of the Lord and of his landlord. For love of her lover and perhaps of painting too, she replied to the old gentleman that she would agree to be his wife, informing him however that she had no possessions, not even a surname, only a first name and that the most ordinary—Marie. Lord Burbury found this singularity most fascinating and happily anticipated the effect it would produce on his sister Emily, a middle-aged virgin of a certain age who had devoted her life to preserving the venerable traditions of the realm’s historic families. Without waiting for the end of the last race, Lord Burbury drove off with his fiancée for the Bourget airfield. At six o’clock they touched down in London and at seven they were married.

  While she was getting married in London, Sabine was having dinner opposite her husband, Antoine Lemurier, at Rue de l’Abreuvoir. He found her looking happier and spoke to her very kindly. Touched by his solicitude, she was assailed by doubts, wondering if she could marry Lord Burbury without contravening laws both human and divine. One thorny question that led straight to another—that of the consubstantiality of Antoine’s and the lord’s wife. Even allowing for each of them to be an autonomous physical person, although consummated carnally a marriage remains first and foremost a union of souls. In fact, these scruples were excessive. Legislation for marriage having overlooked the case of ubiquity, Sabine was free to do as she wished and could even, in good faith, consider herself pure in God’s eyes, since there exists no bull, brief, rescript or decree that even touches on the problem. But her conscience was above taking advantage of this legalistic logic. Hence she felt obliged to consider her marriage to Lord Burbury a consequence and continuation of adultery, which remains entirely unjustifiable and punishable by damnation. In reparation, to God, to society and to her husband, all three of whom she felt she had offended, she forbade herself ever to see Theorem again. Besides, she would have been ashamed to see him after consummating a marriage of convenience, entered into, indeed, for glory and for peace of mind, but that she regarded with laudable simplicity as a blight upon their love.

  It must be said that from the outset her life in England rendered Sabine’s guilt and even her sorrow at leaving Paris bearable. Lord Burbury truly was a man of means. Apart from being very rich, he was a direct descendent of King John, who (and this is little known among historians) had a morganatic marriage to Ermessinde de Trencavel with whom he had seventeen children, all of whom died young except the fourteenth, Richard-Hugues, primogenitor of the house of Burbury. Among other privileges that made him the envy of all the English nobility, Lord Burbury possessed the exclusive right to open his umbrella, and his wife her parasol, in the King’s apartments. So his wedding to Sabine was a noteworthy event. The new Lady Burbury was the object of mostly well-meant curiosity, despite her sister-in-law’s attempt to expose her as a dancer from the Tabarin cabaret. Sabine, who in England was known as Marie, kept very busy with her new commitments as a noble lady. Receptions, tea parties, charity knits, golf, dress fittings, all left her not a moment to yawn. Still, with all these diverse occupations, she never forgot Theorem.

  The painter had no doubt about the provenance of the cheques he was receiving regularly from England and adapted perfectly to the idea that he would not see Sabine in his studio again. Delivered from material worries by an allowance that added up to about twenty thousand francs, he realised that he was going through a hypersensitive phase, unpromising for the pursuit of his art, and that he needed time for things to settle. In view of this, he gave himself a year off, readily extendable should this be necessary. He was seen in Montmartre less and less. He went to settle in the bars of Montparnasse and the nightclubs on the Champs-Elysées where he lived on caviar and champagne among expensive women. On learning that he was leading a rather dissolute life, Sabine, with her passion still intact, thought he must be pursuing some Goya-esque artistic method using tricks of the light and the impurities that lie behind the feminine facade.

  One afternoon, on returning to her sumptuous home on Malison Square after a three-week stay at Burbury Castle, Lady Burbury found four boxes containing respectively: an evening gown of fine fimsheen, a Roman crêpe afternoon dress, a woollen dress for outdoor activities and a classic suit of pure sticking plaster. She sent her maid away and multiplied herself into five in order to try on the new gowns and the suit. Lord Burbury happened to look in.

  “My dear!” he cried. “You have four ravishing sisters. And you never mentioned them!”

  Instead of reassembling herself, Lady Burbury grew flustered and felt she ought to respond:

  “They have only just arrived. Alphonsine is my elder by a year. Brigitte is my twin. Barbe and Rosalie are the youngest—twins too. People say they look very much like me.”

  The four sisters were warmly welcomed into English society and toasted everywhere they went. Alphonsine married an American millionaire, an embossed-leather tycoon, and went to America with him; Brigitte married the Maharajah of Gorissapur who took her to live in his princely residence; Barbe a distinguished Neapolitan tenor whom she accompanied on his world tours; Rosalie a Spanish explorer with whom she went to New Guinea to observe the Papuans’ curious customs.

  In England and even on the Continent, much was made of these four marriages, which were celebrated almost simultaneously. The Parisian newspapers gave them several inches, including photographs of the couples. One evening, in the dining room at Rue de l’Abreuvoir, Antoine Lemurier said to Sabine:

  “Have you seen the photos of Lady Burbury and her four sisters? It’s amazing how like you they look, except that your eyes are lighter, your face a little longer, your mouth smaller, your nose shorter and your chin less pronounced. Tomorrow I shall take the paper and a photo of you to show Monsieur Porteur. He’ll never believe his eyes.”

  Antoine chuckled, for he liked to surprise Monsieur Porteur, the SBNCA’s senior executive.

  “I’m laughing at the thought of Monsieur Porteur’s face,” he explained. “Poor Monsieur Porteur! While I think of it, he has given me another card for the races on Wednesday. What should
we do, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Sabine. “It’s rather awkward.”

  Looking anxious, she wondered whether or not it would be right for Lemurier to send flowers to Madame Porteur, his superior’s wife. And at the very same moment, Lady Burbury, sitting at a bridge table facing the Count of Leicester; the Begum of Gorissapur, lounging in her palanquin on the back of an elephant; Mrs Smithson, busy in Pennsylvania showing guests around her neo-Renaissance castle; Barbe Cazzarini in a box at the Vienna Opera where her distinguíssimo was tenoring away; Rosalie Valdez y Samaniego, lying beneath her mosquito net in a Papuan village, all were equally absorbed in weighing up this question of sending flowers to Madame Porteur.

  Learning from the newspapers about all the nuptial celebrations and having seen the photos illustrating the articles, Theorem had no doubt whatsoever that all these brides were new incarnations of Sabine. Apart from the explorer, whose profession he thought insufficiently lucrative, he felt the choice of spouses entirely judicious. It was around this time that he decided he should return to Montmartre. He was tiring of the rainy climes of Montparnasse and the noisy aridity of the Champs-Elysées. Besides, Lady Burbury’s allowance afforded him better returns in Montmartre’s cafés than in foreign establishments. This done, he made no other changes to his ways and soon attracted a reputation around Montmartre as a flashy party-goer, a drinker and debaucher. His friends enjoyed recounting his escapades and, a little envious of his new-found opulence even though they shared its benefits, they repeated with satisfaction that he was lost to painting. They took care to add that it was a shame, since he had the true temperament of an artist.

  Sabine knew about Theorem’s bad habits and realised that he had started down a fatal path. Her faith in him and his future was shaken at this, but she only loved him all the more and blamed herself for her part in his decline. For about a week she was wringing her hands in all four corners of the world. Then, at midnight one evening, coming back from the cinema with her husband, she saw Theorem at the Junot-Girardon junction, staggering between two tipsy, giggling girls. Himself blind drunk, vomiting black wine and belching vile insults for the benefit of these two creatures, one of whom was holding his head while cosily addressing him as her mucky pig, while the other, in vocabulary worthy of a sailor, was playfully evaluating his prowess as a lover. Recognising Sabine, he turned a spattered face towards her, hiccuped the name Burbury, followed this with a short but disgusting speech, and collapsed at the foot of an electric street light. From this occasion forwards, he was no more to her than an object of revulsion and odium, whom she was determined to forget.

  Two weeks later, Lady Burbury, who resided with her husband in their Burbury estate, fell in love with a local young pastor, who had come to lunch at the castle. His eyes were not black but light-blue, nor his mouth voluptuous but rather narrow and pursed; everything about him looked clean, washed out, his expression the cold, scoured look of someone determined to despise what they don’t understand. At their first lunch together Lady Burbury was madly in love with him. That evening, she said to her husband:

  “I didn’t tell you, but I have one more sister. Her name is Judith.”

  Next week, Judith visited the castle, where she had lunch with the pastor, who was polite but distant, as was proper in the company of Catholics, those receptacles and vehicles for evil thoughts. After lunch they went for a turn around the park and Judith, appropriately and as if by coincidence, quoted from the Books of Job, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Reverend understood that here was fertile ground. A week later he had converted Judith; another two weeks and they were married. The happiness was short-lived. The pastor only had improving conversation; even his pillow talk consisted of lofty observations revealing his superior intelligence. Judith grew so bored in his company that she took the opportunity of a walk they were taking beside a Scottish lake to drown, accidentally. In reality, she allowed herself to sink while holding her breath and, as soon as her spouse was out of sight, enacted a partial reunion with Lady Burbury. The Reverend was terribly upset, but nevertheless thanked the Lord for having sent him this trial and had a small plaque installed in his garden in memoriam.

  Meanwhile, Theorem was growing anxious about the non-appearance of his last month’s allowance. At first sure that it must simply be delayed, he tried to be patient. But after living on credit for over a month, he decided to share his worries with Sabine. He waited vainly on Rue de l’Abreuvoir, hoping to catch her, for three mornings in a row, then bumped into her at six o’clock one evening.

  “Sabine,” he said, “I’ve been looking for you for three days.”

  “But, monsieur, I don’t know you,” replied Sabine.

  She tried to continue on her way. Theorem put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Look, Sabine, why should you be angry with me? I have done what you wanted. One fine day, you decided never to see me again and I suffered in silence, not even asking why you left me.”

  “Monsieur, I haven’t a clue what you are talking about, but the vulgarity with which you accost me and your unfathomable allusions are offensive. Let me by.”

  “Sabine, you can’t have forgotten everything. Don’t you remember?”

  Not daring yet to broach the subject of the allowance, Theorem endeavoured to restore a sense of intimacy with Sabine. Plaintively, he recalled touching memories and retraced the story of their love. But Sabine stared at him, a little frightened, and protested less with indignation than out of astonishment. The boy persevered.

  “Look, remember last summer, the holiday we spent together in Brittany, our room that faced the sea.”

  “Last summer? But I spent the holiday with my husband in the Auvergne!”

  “Naturally! If you will hide behind the facts!”

  “What! Hide behind the facts! Either you are insulting me or you have lost your senses. Let me by or I shall call for help!”

  Irritated by such patent dishonesty, Theorem gripped her arms and began to shake her while calling God as his witness. Just then Sabine saw her husband walking by on the other side of the street without seeing them, and called out “Antoine!” He crossed over and, not understanding the situation, nodded to Theorem.

  “I set eyes on this man for the first time in my life when he tried to stop me here in the street,” Sabine explained. “And not only does he address me as if I were a regular at his bar, he is claiming that I have been his mistress, calling me darling and describing invented memories from what he is calling our love affair.”

  “What can one say, monsieur?” retorted Antoine Lemurier, imperiously. “Must I conclude that your intention was to engage in devious and sordid machinations? Be that as it may, you shall not persuade me that they are those of a gentleman, that I warn you.”

  “Very good,” growled Theorem, “I don’t wish to exploit the situation.”

  “Exploit! Monsieur, do not concern yourself with that,” Sabine countered, laughing. And turning to Antoine: “Among other memories from our supposed trysts, this man was just now talking about a three-week holiday that he claims to have taken with me last summer at a beach in Brittany. What can one say?”

  “Let’s pretend I said nothing,” Theorem fumed.

  “There is certainly nothing better for you to do,” Sabine’s husband agreed. “You should know, monsieur, that my wife and I did not leave each other’s side the whole summer and that we spent our holiday—”

  “On a lake in the Auvergne,” Theorem cut in. “It’s understood.”

  “How did you know?” exclaimed Sabine innocently.

  “A little bird told me one day, swimming off a Breton beach.”

  This reply seemed to give the young lady some food for thought. The painter gazed down at her with those coal-black eyes. She smiled and enquired:

  “In short, if I have understood correctly, you are claiming that I was simultaneously on a lake in the Auvergne with my husband and on a Breton beach with you?”

  T
heorem winked and indicated that this was so. For Antoine Lemurier the man’s case was now clear and he stood ready to administer a sharp kick to the stomach.

  “Monsieur,” said this good man, nevertheless, “I suppose that you are not alone in life. Doubtless you have someone who looks after you—a friend, a wife, relatives. If you live in the neighbourhood, I can accompany you back to your home.”

  “Don’t you know who I am then?” the painter exclaimed.

  “Excuse me, no.”

  “I am Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls. Please don’t worry about helping me home. I shall take the metro at Lamarck and get off at Alésia for dinner. Right, good evening to you, and do get home safe to fawn over your darling bourgeoise.”

  As he pronounced the last of these words, Theorem looked Sabine in the eye with as much insolence as he could muster and walked off, his ghastly giggles still occasionally audible. The poor boy could no longer ignore his own madness; he was amazed not to have recognised it sooner. Demonstrating it was easy. If the Breton holiday and Sabine’s ubiquity had never been real except in his mind, then this was the very delusion of a madman. Supposing on the contrary that it had all been true, Theorem found himself in the position of witness to a preposterous truth, which is the peculiar position in which the insane tend to find themselves. The certainty of his disorder had a very profound effect on the painter. He grew gloomy, withdrawn, anxious, avoiding his friends and discouraging their overtures. He also began to avoid the company of women and no longer frequented the Montmartre cafés but remained confined in his studio to contemplate his madness. Short of losing his memory, he could not see how to cure himself of a single day of it. Solitude had the happy effect of bringing him back to painting. He began to paint with fierce dedication, with a violence that frequently verged on derangement. His very fine sensibility, that he had once dissipated among the cafés, bars and bedrooms of the city, began to gleam, then to shine, then to blaze. After six months of toiling, of impassioned questing, he had found his way and from this point on painted nothing but masterpieces, immortal works, almost every one. We might mention, among others, his celebrated Woman with Nine Heads, which has already been so much discussed, and his Voltaire Armchair, so simple and yet so disturbing. His uncle in Limoges was well pleased.