Our Lady of the Flowers (34 page)

It was also this discovery of the man in the god that once made Culafroy love Alberto for his cowardice. Alberto's left eye had been gouged out. In a village, an event of this kind is no small matter. After the poem (or fable) that was born of it (recurring miracle of Anne Boleyn: from the steaming blood sprang a bush of roses, that might have been white, but were certainly fragrant), the necessary sifting was done in order to disengage the truth scattered beneath the marble. It then became apparent that Alberto had been unable to avoid a quarrel with his rival over his girl friend. He had been cowardly, as always, as the whole village knew him to be, and this had given victorious promptness to his opponent.
With a stab of his knife, he had put out Alberto's eye. All Culafroy's love swelled up, as it were, when he learned of the accident. It swelled with grief, with heroism, and with maternal tenderness. He loved Alberto for his cowardice. Compared to this monstrous vice, the others were pale and inoffensive and could be counter-balanced by any other virtue, particularly by the most beautiful. I use the popular word in the popular sense, which is so becoming to it and which implies the fullest recognition of the bodily powers: guts. For we may say of a man who is full of vices: All is not lost so long as he doesn't have “that one.” But Alberto did have
that
one. So it made no difference whether he had all the others; the infamy would have been none the greater. All is not lost so long as valor remains, and it was valor that Alberto had just lacked. As for suppressing this vice–for example, by pure and simple negation–that was out of the question, but it was easy to destroy its belittling effect by loving Alberto for his cowardice. Though his downfall, which was certain, did not embellish him, it poetized him. Perhaps Culafroy drew closer to him because of it. Alberto's courage would not have surprised him, nor left him indifferent, but now, instead, he was discovering another Alberto, one who was more man than god. He was discovering the flesh. The statue was crying. Here, the word “cowardice” cannot have the moral–or immoral–sense usually ascribed to it, and Culafroy's taste for a handsome, strong, and cowardly young man is not a fault or aberration. Culafroy now saw Alberto prostrate, with a dagger stuck into his eye. Would he die of the wound? The idea made him think of the decorative role of widows, who wear long crepe trains and dab their eyes with little white handkerchiefs rolled up as tight as snowballs. He no longer thought of anything but observing the external signs of his grief, but as he could not make it visible to people's eyes, he
had to transport it into himself, as. Saint Catherine of Siena transported her cell. The country folk were confronted with the spectacle of a child who trailed behind him a display of ceremonial mourning weeds; they did not recognize it. They did not understand the meaning of the slowness of his walk, the bowing of his forehead, and the emptiness of his gaze. To them it was all simply a matter of poses dictated by the pride of being the child of the slate house.

Alberto was taken to the hospital, where he died; the village was exorcised.

Our Lady of the Flowers. His mouth was slightly open. Occasionally he would shift his eyes to his feet, which the crowd hoped were wearing selvaged slippers. At the drop of a hat they expected to see him make a dance movement. The court clerks were still fussing with the records. On the table, the lithe little Death lay inert and looked quite dead. The bayonets and the heels were sparkling.

“The Court!”

The Court entered by a door that was cut out of the wallpaper behind the jurors’ table. Our Lady, however, having heard in prison of the ceremoniousness of the Court, imagined that today, by a kind of grandiose error, it would enter by the great public door which opened in the middle, just as, on Palm Sunday, the clergy, who usually leave the sacristy by a side door near the choir, surprise the faithful by appearing from behind them. The Court entered, with the familiar majesty of princes, by a service door. Our Lady had a foreboding that the whole session would be faked and that at the end of the performance his head would be cut off by means of a mirror trick. One of the guards shook his arm and said:

“Stand up.”

He had wanted to say: “Please, stand up,” but he
didn't dare. The audience was standing in silence. It sat down again noisily. M. Vase de Sainte-Marie was wearing a monocle. He looked shiftily at the tie and, with both hands, fumbled about in the file. The file was as crammed with details as the chamber of the examining magistrate was crammed with files. Facing Our Lady, the prosecuting attorney did not let out a peep. He felt that a word from him, a too commonplace gesture, would transform him into the devil's advocate and would justify canonization of the murderer. It was a difficult moment to endure; he was risking his reputation. Our Lady was seated. A slight movement of M. Vase de Sainte-Marie's fine hand brought him to his feet.

The questioning began:

“Your name is Adrien Baillon?”

‘'Yes, sir.”

“You were born on December 19, 1920?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In . . . ?”

“In Paris.”

“Very well. Which district?”

“The eighteenth, sir.”

“Very well. Your . . . er-acquaintances gave you a nickname . . . (He hesitated; then:) Would you mind telling it to the Court?”

The murderer made no answer, but the name, without being uttered, emerged through the forehead, all winged, from the brain of the crowd. It floated over the courtroom, invisible, fragrant, secret, mysterious.

The judge replied aloud:

“Yes, that's right. And you are the son of . . .?”

“Lucie Baillon.”

“And an unknown father. Yes. The accusation . . .” (Here the jurors–there were twelve of them–took a comfortable position, which, though suiting each of them individually because it favored a certain propensity,
was consistent with each one's dignity. Our Lady was still standing, with his arms dangling at his sides, like those of that bored and delighted little king who from the stairway of the royal palace witnesses a military parade.)

The judge continued:

“. . . on the night of July 7 to 8, 1937, entered, and no trace has been found of forced entry, into the apartment situated on the fifth floor of the building located at number 12 Rue de Vaugirard and occupied by M. Paul Ragon, sixty-seven years of age.”

He raised his head and looked at Our Lady:

“Do you acknowledge the facts?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The investigation specifies that it was M. Ragon himself who opened the door for you. At least, that is what you have stated without being able to prove it. Do you still maintain it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, it appears that M. Ragon, who knew you, seemed delighted with your visit and offered you liquor. Then, without his expecting it, with the help . . . (he hesitated) . . . of this tie, you strangled him.”

The judge took the tie.

“Do you recognize this tie as belonging to you and as being the instrument of the crime?”

“Yes, sir.”

The judge had the soft tie in his fingers, a tie like a piece of ectoplasm, a tie that had to be looked at while there was still time, for it might disappear at any moment or stiffen in the dry hand of the judge, who felt that if it did actually become erect or disappear, he would be covered with ridicule. He therefore hastened to pass the instrument of the crime to the first juror, who passed it to his neighbor, and so on, without anyone's daring to linger over recognizing it, for each of
them seemed to be running the risk of being metamorphosed before his own eyes into a Spanish dancer. But the precautions of these gentlemen were futile, and though they were not aware of it, they were thoroughly changed. The guilty gestures of the jurors, seemingly in connivance with the destiny that governed the murder of the old man, and the murderer, who was as motionless as a mediumistic subject who is being questioned, and who, by virtue of such immobility, is absent, and the place of this absence, all these darkened the courtroom where the crowd wanted to see clearly. The judge droned on and on. He had reached the following point:

“And who gave you the idea of this method of committing murder?”

“Him.”

The entire world understood that Him was the dead man, who was now replaying a role, he who had been buried and devoured by worms and larvae.

“The victim?”

The judge started shouting frightfully:

“It was the victim himself who showed you how you were to go about getting rid of him? Come, come now, explain what you mean.”

Our Lady seemed embarrassed. A gentle modesty prevented him from speaking. Shyness too.

“Yes. You see . . . M. Ragon was wearing a tie that was too tight. He was all red. So he took it off.”

And the murderer very gently, as if he were consenting to an infamous deal or a charitable action, admitted:

“So I thought that if I tightened it, it'd be worse.”

And a little lower still, barely loud enough for the guards and the judge (but it was lost on the crowd):

“ ‘Cause I got good arms.”

The judge, overwhelmed, lowered his head:

“You wretch!” he cried. “Why?”

“I was fabulously broke.”

Since the word “fabulous” is used to qualify a fortune, it did not seem impossible to apply it to destitution. And this fabulous impecuniousness made for Our Lady a pedestal of cloud; he was as prodigiously glorious as the body of Christ rising aloft, to dwell there alone and fixed, in the sunny noonday sky. The judge was twisting his beautiful hands. The crowd was twisting its faces. The clerks were crumpling sheets of carbon paper. The eyes of the lawyers suddenly looked like those of extra-lucid chickens. The guards were officiating. Poetry was kneading its matter. Alone, Our Lady was alone and kept his dignity, that is, he still belonged to a primitive mythology and was unaware of his divinity and his divinization. The rest of the world knew not what to think and made superhuman. efforts not to be carried off from the shore. Their hands, the nails of which had been ripped away, clung to any safety plank: crossing and uncrossing their legs, staring at stains on their jackets, thinking of the family of the strangled man, picking their teeth.

“Now explain to the court how you proceeded.”

It was awful. Our Lady had to explain. The police had demanded details, so had the examining magistrate, and now it was the court's turn. Our Lady was ashamed, not of his deed (that was impossible), but of continually repeating the same old story. He was so tired of ending his account with the words: “Until he was done for,” that he boldly thought of giving a new version. He decided to relate something else. Yet, at the same time, he related exactly the story he had told in the very same words to the detectives, the judge, the lawyer, and the psychiatrists. For, to Our Lady, a gesture is a poem and can be expressed only with the help of a symbol which is always, always the same. And all that remained with him of his two-year-old act was the bare expression. He was rereading his crime as a chronicle is reread, but it was no
longer really about the crime that he was talking. Meanwhile, the clock on the wall opposite him was behaving in orderly fashion, but time was out of order, with the result that, every second, the clock ticked off long periods and short ones.

Of the twelve good old men and true of the jury, four were wearing spectacles. These four were cut off from communion with the courtroom, glass being a bad conductor–it insulates–and they followed, elsewhere, other adventures. In fact, none of them seemed interested in this murder case. One of the old men kept sleeking his beard; he was the only one who appeared to be attentive, but, looking at him more closely, we see that his eyes are hollow, like those of statues. Another was made of cloth. Another was drawing circles and stars on the green table cover; in daily life he was a painter, and his sense of humor led him at times to color pert little sparrows perched on a garden scarecrow. Another was spitting all his teeth into his pale blue–France blue–handkerchief. They stood up and followed the judge through the small hidden door. The deliberations are as secret as the election of a chief of masked bandits, as the execution of a traitor within a confraternity. The crowd relieved itself by yawning, stretching, and belching. Our Lady's lawyer left his bench and walked over to his client.

“Keep your chin up, my boy,” he said, squeezing Our Lady's hands. “You answered very well. You were frank. I think the jury is with us.”

As he spoke, he squeezed Our Lady's hands, supported him or clung to him. Our Lady smiled. It was a smile that was enough to damn his judges, a smile so azure that the guards themselves had an intuition of the existence of God and of the great principles of geometry. Think of the moonlight tinkling of the toad; at night it is so pure
that the vagabond on the highway stops and does not go on until he has heard it again.

“They putting up a fight?” he asked, winking.

“Yes, yes, it's all right,” said the lawyer.

The guard of honor presented arms, and the unhooded Court emerged from the wall. M. Vase de Sainte-Marie sat down in silence; then everyone sat down very noisily. The judge placed his head between his beautiful white hands and said:

“We shall now hear the witnesses. Oh! first let's look at the police report. Are the inspectors here?”

It is extraordinary that a presiding judge should be so absentminded as to forget so serious a thing. Our Lady was shocked by his mistake, just as he would have been shocked by a spelling mistake (had he known how to spell) in the prison regulations. A clerk ushered in the two detectives who had arrested Our Lady. The one who had formerly carried on the now two-year-old investigation was dead. They therefore gave a succinct report of the facts: an astounding story in which a fake murder led to the discovery of a real one. This discovery is impossible, I'm dreaming. “All because of a trifle!” But, after all, I admit this amusing discovery, which leads to death, a little more readily ever since the guard took away the manuscript I had in my pocket during recreation. I have a feeling of catastrophe; then I dare not believe that a catastrophe of this kind can be the logical outcome of such slight carelessness. Then I think of the fact that criminals lose their heads because of such slight carelessness, so slight that one should have the right to repair it by backing up, that it's so trifling that if one asked the judge, he would consent, and that one cannot. Despite their training, which they say is Cartesian, the members of the jury will be unable, when, in a few hours, they condemn Our Lady to death, to figure out whether they did so because he strangled a doll or because
he cut up a little old man into pieces. The detectives, instigators of anarchism, withdrew with a pretty kowtow to the judge. Outside, snow was falling. This could be guessed from the movement of the hands in the courtroom, which were turning up coat collars. The weather was overcast. Death was advancing stealthily over the snow. A clerk called the witnesses. They were waiting in a little side room, the door of which opened opposite the prisoner's box. The door opened, each time, just enough to let them edge through sideways, and one by one, drop by drop, they were infused into the trial. They went straight to the bar, where each raised his right hand and replied “I so swear” to a question no one asked. Our Lady saw Mimosa II enter. The clerk, however, had called out, “René Hirsch.” When he called “Antoine Berthollet,” First Communion appeared; at “Eugène Marceau,” Lady-apple appeared. Thus, in the eyes of Our bewildered Lady, the little faggots from Pigalle to Place Blanche lost their loveliest adornment, their names lost their corolla, like the paper flower that the dancer holds at his finger tips and which, when the ballet is over, is a mere wire stem. Would it not have been better to have danced the entire dance with a simple wire? The question is worth examining. The faggots showed the framework that Darling discerned behind the silk and velvet of every armchair. They were reduced to nothing, and that's the best thing that's been done so far. They entered aggressively or shyly, perfumed, made up, expressed themselves with studied care. They were no longer the grove of crinkly paper that flowered on the terraces of cafés. They were misery in motley. (Where do the faggots get their
noms de guerre?
But first it should be noted that none of them were chosen by those who bore them. This, however, does not hold for me. I can hardly give the exact reasons why I chose such and such a name. Divine, First Communion, Mimosa,
Our Lady of the Flowers and Milord the Prince did not occur to me by chance. There is a kinship among them, an odor of incense and melting taper, and I sometimes feel as if I had gathered them among the artificial or natural flowers in the chapel of the Virgin Mary, in the month of May, under and about the greedy plaster statue that Alberto was in love with and behind which, as a child, I used to hide the phial containing my spunk.) Some of them uttered a few words that were terrifyingly precise, such as: “He lived at 8 Rue Berthe,” or “I met him for the first time on October 17. It was at Graff's Café.” A raised pinkie, lifted as if the thumb and forefinger were holding a teacup, disturbed the gravity of the session, and by means of this stray straw could be seen the tragic nature of its mass. The clerk called out: “M. Louis Culafroy.” Supported by Ernestine, who was wearing black and stood bolt upright, the only real woman to be seen at the trial, Divine entered. What remained of her beauty fled in confusion. The lines and shadows deserted their posts; it was a debacle. Her lovely face was uttering heart-rending appeals, howls as tragic as the cries of a dying woman. Divine was wearing a brown, silky camel-hair coat. She too said: