Werewolf of Paris
GUY ENDORE
A NOVEL
PEGASUS CRIME
NEW YORK LONDON
These creatures live onlely without meats;
The Camelion by the Air,
The Want or Mole, by the Earth,
The Sea-Herring by the Water,
The Salamander by the Fire,
Unto which may be added the Dormouse,
which lives partly by sleep,
And the Werewolf, whose food is night,
winter and death.
(
AN OLD SAYING
)
TO
HENRIETTA PORTUGAL
âIntroductionâ  | W This one has neither beginning nor end, but only a perpetual unfolding, a multi-petaled blossom of strange botany. I might, for example, begin with Eliane. Remember, please, |
She opened the door and said: “Here I are!” Pretty, pert and healthy, a certain amount of money and a certain amount of brains. Nothing extravagant. Just a certain amount. But entirely sufficient for her purposes.
I did my best to express “Welcome to Paris,” but I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of it. We weren't really such great friends back home. But in the torrid atmosphere of Paris, a nodding acquaintance ripens quickly to intimacy. At any rate among Americans who have just come over. As for myself, I considered myself an old resident and Paris a quiet city in which to do a hard piece of work.
“I want to go to Zelli's and see the Folies Bergère and oh! just everything. I'll have to work fast because you see I've got only a week.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, only half interested, “and don't forget le Louvre.”
“And I want to go to the Dôme and the Select and eat in the Dingo and at Foyot's.”
“There are fine things in the Musée du Luxembourg,” I added. But she went right on:
“And I've got to see the Moulin Rouge and the Rat Mort.”
“And the Cluny,” I reminded her.
“Oh,” she said, “all the places I've read so much about. Montmartre and Montparnasse. And you'll go with me.”
“I'll go what?”
“You'll go with me. Oh! I know you haven't any money. Of course, I mean to pay for both of us.”
“I have no money,” I said severely, “and I have no time. I'm busy.”
“Busy with what?” she asked innocently.
“Why, my dear child, do you see all these books?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied, “but they're written already, aren't they? What are you doing, writing them again?”
“You may put it that way,” I said, somewhat offended by her refusal to be impressed.
She picked up a volume: “
De Rerum Natura
. Of things in nature,” she translated.
“Of the nature of things,” I corrected harshly.
“What's the difference?” she asked. “Say you'll come. Don't be mean. There's no one else in Paris whom I know. If you won't take me around I'll have to go rubbernecking with the rest of the tour's gang. And I'm just sick of them.”
“And my work?” I reminded her.
“It'll keep,” she said. “Besides, why don't you write fiction? Then you'd make money. I read the swellest book on the boat coming over.
Flaming Youth.
Have you read it?”
“No,” I said with decision.
“You should. It's about the new generation that's growing up with freedom. I wish I could get mom and pop to see it. They just won't understand. But you're young, you ought to be with us. Be modern. Not a stick-in-the-mud.”
“It's you who is the stick-in-the-mud,” I said. “Look, I'll show you. Here,” I said, opening up a volume, “is a quotation from an ancient Egyptian papyrus.
The young people no longer obey the old. The laws that ruled their fathers are trampled underfoot. They seek only their own pleasure and have no respect for religion. They dress indecently and their talk is full of impudence
. Do you find yourself depicted there? There always was a younger generation and there always will be. And the younger element will always think it smart to thumb its nose at its elders.”
But my superior wisdom was of little avail against her persistence. We went to Zelli's. The champagne was, as usual, excellent and expensive and all that, but I don't care for it anyhow. I like beer. I remember reading in a German restaurant:
Ein echter Deutscher mag kein Franzen nicht, doch seine Weine trinkt er gern.
A real German can't stand a frog, but he drinks French wine with pleasure. Many French feel the same way. They don't like Germans but they like their beer well enough. In fact, the beers in Paris are never spoken of, but they are really fine. I ordered beer at Zelli's. The waiter must have thought me crazy.
Eliane drank champagne. I forget how much. She danced with me. Then with a dark-skinned fellow, a Cuban probably. Then she decided we would go elsewhereâjust when I had decided that we ought to be going home. The taxis would be charging double fare soon. Eliane had no such compunctions. She was beginning to find Paris a huge lark. So it is, for people who don't have to count pennies and work hard for a Ph.D.
We went elsewhere and then elsewhere again and then somewhere else. I forget just where all we went. There are any number of places to go in Paris. You would think there are no such places in the United States. They are full of Americans. The waiters speak English, the band is American, the customers are from back home. What's the use of being abroad? Now
MS F.2839
, on which I was writing my thesis, was not to be found in America. So I had to be in Paris. But dives? There are dives all over the world. And all over the world they are the same. That is because sin is the same all over the world. And sin is always the same. You might rack your brain from now till doomsday and you won't manage to think up a new sin.
By three o'clock I was saying to Eliane that, well, now, this was enough. But she had learnt from someone that there is an all-night restaurant at Les Halles where one could have onion soup and she wanted that. So off we went and landed there. By that time I was myself a little hazy and there were two or three other people in the party. I can't remember how they joined us or if they joined us at all. But one of them was a nice young man and he and I were soon deep in a discussion of mimicry. It was long since I had read anything on the subject, but in my drunkenness it was as fresh as if I had studied it only the day before.
“There's the pinthea,” I said, “that imitates bird excrement, looks just like the dropping of a bird. There's a harmless insect that imitates a wasp. And a beetle that looks like a dangerous ant.”
“Can't you people ever stop that?” Eliane said. “God, what are you men made of?” Whereupon she rose and began to dance around by herself. We continued our talk. He had some very interesting points to make. I forget what they were. Then I noticed that Eliane was singing at the top of her voice.
“I'm hot,” she said, and quickly loosening her dress she slipped out of it and began to pirouette in her silken panties and brassière. The proprietor came running out and began to upbraid her and all of us as
sales américains
. But Eliane was not to be stopped so easily. She cast herself into the arms of a strange man and said: “Take me; I'm yours. I want to belong to you. To you only.”
He put his arms around her and led her over to his table, where she was at once at home on his lap, her arms slung tightly around his neck and their mouths as if glued together.
I went over to him and expostulated. Eliane promptly abandoned him and said to me, “Don't be jealous, I'll be yours. Yes, I'll be yours. Take me with you quick.”
Right there I made my mistake. For what I said was: “Now come along, Eliane, get your clothes on and let me take you home.” I should have pretended to fall in with her plans. Instead I summoned her to be decent. That was precisely what she did not want to be.
“If you won't have me, then anyone can have me. Who wants me?” she shouted, “Who wants me? I want a man! I'm a virgin and free and white and good-looking, too. I'll show you,” and she began to tug at her brassière.
I tried to hold her arms, but she pushed me away. “Eliane!” I said.
The stranger on whose lap she had sat came up to her and said: “You know, darling, you are mine. You shall come with me. We belong to each other. All night long I shall worship your sweet body,” and other rubbish of the sort, which, it is true, I have said to women myself, but it does sound like rubbish when you hear someone else saying it. Things like that are not meant to be overheard. That's boudoir talk and should be born and die there.
She took him seriously and melted onto his shoulder. Literally melted. Became limp all over and clove to his body. He pulled her away and talked her into putting on her dress. Then he took her downstairs and called for a taxi.