Part 2
Toward the end of the third act, someone shouted "Fire!" in the hall. The frightened spectators rushed from the hall howling. In fleeing, Macarée possessed herself of the arm of the first man she encountered. He was well dressed and fair of feature, and as Macarée was charming, he seemed flattered that she had chosen him as her protector. They made each other's acquaintance at a café and from there went to sup in the Montmartre. But it appeared that François des Ygrées had negligently forgotten to take his purse with him. Macarée gladly paid the bill. And François des Ygrées pushed gallantry so far as not to allow Macarée to spend the night alone, the incident at the theatre having rendered her nervous.
* * *
François, baron des Ygrées (a doubtful baronetcy belonging to whoever claimed it) called himself the last offshoot of a noble house of Provence and pursued a career in heraldry on the sixth floor of an apartment in the rue Charles V.
"But," he said, "the revolutions and the demagogues have changed things so that arms are no longer studied except by ill-born archaeologists, and the nobility is no longer tutored in this art."
The baron des Ygrées, whose coat of arms was of _azur à trois pairies d'argent posés en pal_, was able to inspire enough sympathy in Macarée for her to want to take lessons in heraldry out of gratitude for that night at the Théâtre Français.
Macarée showed herself, it is true, little given to learning the terminology of heraldry, and one might even say that she did not interest herself seriously in anything but the arms of the Pignatelli who had furnished popes for the Church and whose coat-of-arms was adorned with kettles.
However, these lessons were wasted time to neither Macarée nor François des Ygrées, for they ended by marrying. Macarée brought as her dot, her money, her beauty and her fatness. François des Ygrées offered to Macarée a great name and his noble bearing.
Neither complained of the bargain and they found themselves very happy.
"Macarée, my dear wife," said François des Ygrées a few days after their marriage, "Why have you ordered so many robes? It seems to me that hardly a day passes without some modiste brings new costumes. They do, true enough, honor to your taste and to their skill."
Macarée hesitated for a moment and then replied:
"It is to our honeymoon that you refer, François!"
"Our honeymoon, yes, I have thought of it. But where do you want to go?"
"To Rome," said Macarée.
"To Rome, like the bells of Easter?"
"I want to see the Pope," said Macarée.
"Very fine, but what for?"
"That he may bless the child who lies under my heart," said Macarée.
"Phew-ew-ew!"
"It will be your son," said Macarée.
"You are quite right, Macarée. We shall go to Rome like the bells of Easter. You will order a new robe of black velvet; and the dressmaker must not neglect to embroider our arms at the bottom of the skirt: of _azur à trois pairies d'argent posés en pal._"
V. PAPACY
_Per carita_, baroness, (I had almost called you Mademoiselle!) Ah! Ah! Ah! But the _baron_, your husband, he would protest. Ah! ah! quite true, you have a little belly which commences to become arrogant. They do their work well, I see, in France. Ah! if that fine country would only become religious again, the population decimated by anti-clericalism would at once, (yes, _baroness_) the population would increase considerably. Ah! dear Christ! how well she listens, the _arrogantine_, when one talks seriously, yes, _baroness_, you have the air of an _arrogantine._ Ah! ah! ah! so, you want to see the Pope. Ah! ah! ah! the benediction of a mere cardinal like me will not do. Ah! ah! tut-tut, I understand quite well. Ah! ah! I shall try to obtain an audience for you. Oh! no need to thank me, you can let my hand go. How well she kisses, the _arrogantine_, oh! Come here, again, I want you to carry away with you a little souvenir of me.
"There! a chain, with the medal of the holy house of Lorette. Let me put it about your neck... Now that you have the medal you must promise me never to part with it. There, there, there! Come here so that I can kiss you on the forehead. Come, come, can she be afraid of me, the little _arrogantine?_ Done! Now tell me why you laugh?... Nothing! Well! Now, one bit of advice! When you go to the Vatican, I warn you not to use so much odour, I mean so much perfume. Goodbye, _arrogantine._ Come and see me again. My compliments to _the baron._"
* * *
It was thus, that, thanks to Cardinal Ricottino, who had been to Paris as _nuncio_, Macarée obtained an audience with the Pope.
She went to the Vatican dressed in her beautiful armorial robe. The baron des Ygrées, in full dress, accompanied her. He admired much the bearing of the royal guards, and the Swiss mercenaries, inclined to drunkenness and brawling, seemed fine devils to him. He found occasion to whisper into his wife's ear something about one of his ancestors who was a cardinal under Louis XIII...
* * *
The couple returned to the hotel deeply moved and almost prostrated by the benediction of the Pope. They undressed chastely, and in bed, they spoke for a long time about the pontiff, the whitened head of the old church, a pressed lily, the snow which Catholics think eternal.
"My dear wife," said François des Ygrées finally, "I esteem you to adoration, and I love the child whom the Pope has blessed with all my heart. May he come, the blessed infant, but I want him to be born in France."
"François," said Macarée, "I have never yet been to Monte-Carlo. Let us go there! I needn't lose our whole pile. We are not millionaires, but I am sure that we shall be lucky in Monte-Carlo."
"Damn! damn! damn!" swore François, "Macarée, you make me see red."
"Ho, there," cried Macarée, "you gave me a kick, you----"
"I note with pleasure, Macarée," said François des Ygrées waggishly, recovering his good humor, "that you do not forget that I am your husband."
"Come, then, li'l nobs, let's go to Monaco."
"Yes, but you must have your confinement in France, for Monaco is an independent state."
"Agreed," said Macarée.
On the morrow the baron des Ygrées and the baroness, all swollen by mosquito bites, took tickets at the station for Monaco. In the coach they laid charming plans.
VI. GAMBRINUS
The baron and the baroness des Ygrées in taking tickets for Monaco had thought to arrive at the station which is the fifth on the way from Italy to France and the second in the little principality of Monaco.
The name of Monaco is properly the Italian name of this principality, although it is widely used nowadays in French, the French terms _Mourgues_ and _Monéghe_ having fallen into desuetude.
However the Italians call Monaco, not only the principality which bears that name but also the capital of Bavaria which the French call Munich. The messenger accordingly gave the baron tickets for Monaco-Munich instead of Monaco-principality. Before the baron and the baroness had noticed their error they were already at the Swiss frontier, and after having recovered from their astonishment, they decided to finish the voyage to Munich in order to see at close hand all that the anti-artistic spirit of modern Germany could conceive of ugliness in architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts...
* * *
The cold winds of March made the couple shiver in this stone-box Athens.
"Beer," the baron des Ygrées had said, "is excellent for women who are enceinte."
And so he led his wife to the royal brewery of Pschorr, to the Augustinerbräu, to the Münchnerkindl and other great breweries. They penetrated to the Nockerberg where there is a great garden. They drank there, as long as it held out, the famous March beer, _Salvator_, and it didn't last very long, for the Munich people are great drunkards.
* * *
When the baron and his wife entered the garden they found it thronged with a mob of drinkers, who were already under-the-weather and sang head to head and danced dizzily, breaking all the empty steins.
Peddlers sold roast fowl, grilled herrings, pretzels, rolls, sausages, sweets, souvenirs, post-cards. And there was also Hans Irlbeck, the King of Drinkers. Since Perkeo, the midget drunkard of the great cask of Heidelberg, no such boozer had ever been seen. At the time of the March beer, and in May, Bock-time, Hans Irlbeck drank his forty quarts of beer a day. Ordinarily he did not have occasion to drink more than twenty-five.
Just as the gracious Ygrées pair passed by, Hans placed his colossal buttocks on a bench which, bearing already the weight of some twenty huge men and women, cracked disconsolately. The drinkers fell, their legs in the air. Some bare thighs could be seen because Munich ladies never wear their stockings above their knees. Bursts of laughter everywhere. Hans Irlbeck who had also been floored, but had not let go of his stein, spilled its contents over the belly of a girl who had rolled near him, and the beer bubbling under her resembled that which she did when she got to her feet after swallowing a quart at one gulp in order to recover her composure.
But the proprietor of the garden cried:
"_Donnerkeil!_ damned swine ... a bench broken."
And he started off with his towel under his arm, calling loudly for the waiters:
"Franz! Jacob! Ludwig! Martin!" while the patrons called for the proprietor:
"_Ober! Ober!_"
However the Oberkellner and the waiters did not come back. The drinkers crowded about the counters and took their steins themselves, but the kegs were no longer emptied, and no more were heard the sonorous blows of another cask being put under the hammer. The singing ceased, the drinkers, angered, proffered oaths at the brewers and at the March beer itself. Some profited by the lull to vomit with violent efforts, their eyes almost popping out of their heads; their neighbors encouraged them with imperturbable seriousness. Hans Irlbeck who had picked himself up, not without difficulty, grumbled with a great snort:
"There is no more beer in Munich!"
And he repeated, with the accent of his native city:
"Minchen! Minchen! Minchen!"
After raising his eyes toward heaven, he fell upon a vendor of fowls, and having ordered him to roast a goose for him, began to formulate his desires:
"No more beer in Munich... if there were only some white radishes!"
And he repeated many times the Munich expression:
"Raadi, raadi, raadi..."
Suddenly he stopped. The crowd of drinkers, beside themselves, gave a cry of exultation. The four waiters had just appeared at the door of the brewery. With dignity they were carrying a sort of canopy under which the Oberkellner marched proud and erect, like a negro king dethroned. Behind him came fresh kegs of beer which were put under the hammer at the sound of the bell, while shouts of laughter rang out, and cries and songs rose above this teeming butte, hard and agitated as the Adam's apple of Gambrinus himself, when, burlesqued in the costume of a monk, a white radish in one hand, he tossed off with the other the jug which rejoiced his gullet.
And the unborn child found himself right shaken by the laughter of Macarée who, greatly amused by the spectacle of this colossal gluttony, drank and drank in company with her spouse.
But then, the vivacity of the mother exerted a happy influence on the character of the offspring who acquired therefrom much common sense, before his birth, and some of the real common sense, of course, which great poets are made of.
VII. CONFINEMENT
Baron François des Ygrées left Munich when the baroness knew that the hour of delivery was approaching. Monsieur des Ygrées did not want to have a child born in Bavaria; he was sure that that country was overrun with syphilis.
They arrived in the springtime, in the little port of Napoule, which in an excellently turned verse the baron baptised for eternity:
_Napoule of the golden skies._
It was there that the delivery of Macarée's child took place.
* * *
"Ah! Ah! Aie! Aie! Aie! Ouh! Ouh! Whee-ee-ee!"
The three local midwives took to improvising pleasantly:
FIRST MIDWIFE
I dream of war.
O my friends, the stars, the bright stars, have you ever counted them?
O my friends, do you even remember the titles of all the books you have read and the names of their authors?
O my friends, have you ever thought of the poor men who tread the broad highways?
The herdsmen of the golden age led their herds to pasture without fear that the cattle would flee, they feared only the jungle beasts.
O my friends, what do you think of all these cannons?
SECOND MIDWIFE
What do I think of these cannons? They are vigorous phalli.
O my beautiful nights! I am happy because of a sinister horn which enchanted me last night, 'tis a good augury. My hair is perfumed with abelmosch.
O! the beautiful and rigid phalli that these cannons are! If women had to do military service they would all go into the artillery. The sight of the cannons in battle would be strange for them.
Lights are born on the sea far off.
Reply, o Zelotide, reply with thy sweet voice.
THIRD MIDWIFE
I love his eyes at night, he knows my hair well and its odour. In the streets of Marseilles an officer pursued me for a long time. He was well dressed and of fair colour, there was gold on his costume and his mouth tempted me, but I fled his kisses and took refuge in my "bedroom" of the "family-house" where I was stopping.[2]
FIRST MIDWIFE
O Zelotide, spare the sad men as thou sparest this beau. Zelotide what thinkest thou of the cannons.
SECOND MIDWIFE
Alas! Alas! I want to be loved.
THIRD MIDWIFE
They are the tools of the ignoble love of the people. O Sodom! Sodom. O sterile love!
FIRST MIDWIFE
But we are women, why dost thou speak of Sodom?
THIRD MIDWIFE
The fire of heaven devoured her.
THE CONFINED
When you have finished your monkey-tricks, if it please you, will you not forget to give a little attention to the baroness des Ygrées.
* * *
The baron slept in a corner of the room on several travelling blankets. He made a fart which caused his better half to laugh until the tears came. Macarée wept, cried, laughed and a few moments later brought into the world a sturdy child of the male sex. Then, exhausted by these efforts, she rendered up her soul, with a scream that was like the ululation of the eternal first wife of Adam, when she crossed the Red Sea.
In reporting the above, I believe that I have elucidated the important question of the birthplace of Croniamantal. Let the 123 towns in 7 countries dispute the honor of his birth.[3]
We know now, and the state records bear testimony that he was born of the paternal fart at _Napoule of the golden skies_, on the 25th of August, 1889, but not announced at the mayoralty until the following morning.[4]
It was the year of the Universal Exposition, and the Eiffel Tower, which was just born, saluted the heroic birth of Croniamantal with a beautiful erection.
The baron des Ygrées made another fart which woke him by the macabre bed where the corpse of Macarée reclined. The child cried, the midwives croaked, the father sobbed, and declaimed:
"Ah, Napoule with the golden skies, I have killed my hen with the golden eyes!"
Then he bathed the new-born calling him by a name which he invented forthwith and which did not belong to any saint in Paradise: CRONIAMANTAL. He left on the following day, having arranged for the funeral of his spouse, written the necessary letters assuring his inheritance, and announced the child under the names of Gaëtan—Francis—Etienne—Jack—Amélie—Alonso des Ygrées. And with this nursling whose putative father he was, he took the train for the Principality of Monaco.[5]
VIII. MAMMON
A widower, François des Ygrées established himself near the principality; on the grounds of Roquebrune; he took pension with a family, which included a pretty brunette called Mia. There he reared the bearer of his own name with the baby-bottle.
Often he would go out at dawn for a walk at the sea shore. The road was fringed with amaryllis which he would always compare involuntarily with packages of dried cod. Sometimes, because of the contrary winds, he would turn to light an Egyptian cigarette whose smoke rose in spirals like the bluish mountains emerging far off in Italy.
* * *
The family in whose bosom he had installed himself was composed of the father, the mother and Mia. M. Cecchi, a Corsican, was a croupier at the casino. He had previously been croupier at Baden-Baden and had married a German woman there. Of this union Mia was born; her carnation tint and black hair bespoke her Corsican blood. She was always dressed in buoyant colors. Her walk was balanced, her figure arched; she was smaller at the breast than at the buttocks, and a touch of strabism lent her dark eyes a somewhat distraught look, which only rendered her more tempting.
Her speech was lazy, soft, guttural, but pleasant nevertheless. It was the accent of the Monegascans whose syntax Mia followed. After having seen the young girl gather roses, François des Ygrées began to take notice of her and was much amused by her syntax for whose rules he enjoyed making research... First of all, he noticed the italianisms in her vocabulary, and especially the habit of conjugating the verb "to be" with the wrong auxiliary. For example, Mia would say: "_Je suis étée_," instead of "_J'ai été._" He also noted her bizarre way of repeating the verb in her principal clause: "I was at the Moulins, while you went to Menton, I was;" or better: "This year I am going to the gingerbread fair at Nice, I am."
One time before sunrise, François des Ygrées went down to the garden. He abandoned himself to sweet reveries, during which he caught cold. All of a sudden he began to sneeze about twenty times in succession.
Sneezing aroused him. He saw that the sky had whitened and the horizon cleared with the first light of dawn. Then the first shafts of sunlight enflamed the sky along the Italian coast. Before him spread the still sorrowful sea, and on the horizon, like little clouds above the film of sea, could be seen the curving peaks of Corsica, which always disappeared after the rising of the sun. The baron des Ygrées shivered, then he yawned and stretched himself. He kept on regarding the sea to the east where one might have said there glittered a royal navy in sight of a seaport with white houses, Bodighère, which furnished palms for the festivities of the Vatican. He turned toward the immobile guardian of the garden, a great cypress, begirt with a full-blown rose bush which clambered up almost to its top. François des Ygrées breathed of the sumptuous roses of nonpareil fragrance whose petals, as yet closed, were of flesh.
And just then Mia called him to have his breakfast.
With her braid hanging down her back, she had just come to pick some figs and she was letting a few creamy drops flow into a pitcher of milk. She smiled at François des Ygrées, saying:
"Have you slept well?"
"No, there are too many mosquitoes."
"Don't you know that when you are stung you should rub the place with lemon and in order not to be stung by them you should put vaseline on your face before going to sleep. They never bite me."
"That would be too bad. For you are very pretty, and ought to be told so oftener."
"There are those who tell me so and others who think so without telling. Those who tell it to me make me neither hot nor cold, as for the others, so much the worse for them..."
And François des Ygrées conceived at once a little fable for the timid:
FABLE OF THE OYSTER AND THE HERRING
An oyster dwelt, beautiful and wise, on a rock. She never dreamed of love but during fine weather simply bayed beatifically at the sun. A herring saw her and it was as a spark of powder. He tumbled hopelessly in love with her without daring to avow it.
One summer day, happy and coy, the oyster yawned. Smuggled behind a rock the herring looked on, but all at once the desire to imprint a kiss upon his beloved became so overpowering that he could no longer restrain himself.
And so he threw himself between the open shells of the oyster who in her surprise shut them with a snap, decapitating the wretched herring, whose headless body floats aimlessly upon the ocean.
"'Twas so much the worse for the herring," said Mia laughing, "He was much too foolish. I too want people to tell me that I am pretty, not for fun, but so as we can marry..."
And François des Ygrées noted for future consideration her curious peculiarities of syntax: "so as we can marry." ...And he thought further: "She doesn't love me. Macarée dead. Mia indifferent. Alas I am unhappy in love."
* * *
One day he found himself in the valley of Gaumates on a little knoll covered with skinny little pines. The shore trimmed by the white-blue of the waves stretched far out before him. The Casino emerged from the bank of splendid trees in its gardens. This palace looked like a man squatting and lifting his arms toward heaven. Near it, François des Ygrées hearkened to an invisible Mammon:
"Regard this palace, François, it is made in the image of man. It is sociable like him. It loves those who come to it and especially, those who are unhappy in love. Go there and thou wilt win, for thou canst not lose in play, since thou hast lost all in love."
Since it was six o'clock, the angelus tinkled from the different churches in the neighborhood. The voice of the bells prevailed against the voice of the invisible Mammon, who became silent, while François des Ygrées searched for him.
* * *
On the next day, François took the road to the temple of Mammon. It was Palm Sunday. The streets were littered with children, young girls and women carrying palms and olive-branches. The palms were either very simple or woven in a peculiar fashion. At each corner of the street, the weavers of palms were sitting against the wall, working. Under their deft hands the palm fibers bent, circled bizarrely and charmingly. The children were playing about already with hard eggs. On a square a troop of urchins were pummelling a red-headed kid whom they had found trying to consume a marble egg. Very small girls were going to mass, well dressed and carrying like candles the woven palms in which their mothers had hung sweet-meats.
François des Ygrées thought:
"The sight of these palms brings good luck and today, which is gay Easter, I shall break the bank."
* * *
In the game hall, he regarded at first the diverse throng which pressed about the tables...
François des Ygrées approached a table and played. He lost. The invisible Mammon had come back and spoke sharply each time they erased a deal:
"Thou hast lost!"
And François saw the crowd no more, his head was turning, he placed louis, packages of bills, on one square, diagonally, transversally. He played a long time losing as much as he wanted to.
He turned away at last and saw the whole brilliant hall where the players still pressed about the tables as before. Noticing a young man whose chagrined face revealed that he had had no luck, François smiled at him and asked whether he had lost.
The young man replied angrily:
"You too? A Russian just won more than two hundred thousand francs by my side. Ah! if I only had a hundred francs more, I would make up what I have lost twenty or thirty times over. But Oh, I have beastly luck, I am hoodooed, done for. Imagine..."
And taking François by the arm, he led him toward a divan on which they sat down.