Speaker 1: Chapter three of The Feasting Dead by John Metcalf. The
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
Speaker 1: Chapter three, question and answer between us tumbled over each other,
Speaker 1: standing on no ceremony of greeting. Is he with you? Yes,
Speaker 1: but you could not have my deligrim so soon? Is
Speaker 1: he all right? He? You will see. We got into
Speaker 1: the car flebart, Monsieur Vignon explained, Interjectorily has left, and
Speaker 1: it is I who am cheffeur. I fear I am late,
Speaker 1: I mumbled something to which he paid no attention. We
Speaker 1: had shot out of the station yard into the gathering
Speaker 1: dusk of the highway. Monsieur Vignon still driving like a maniac.
Speaker 1: His manner, notwithstanding, had a kind of distrait debonair moroseness,
Speaker 1: and the conditions generally as we careened wildly onwards were
Speaker 1: unfavorable conversation. Yet I did once attempt it. Dennis has
Speaker 1: been terribly ill, I said, he is not himself, or
Speaker 1: he would not have run away and I would not
Speaker 1: have had to trouble you. How does he seem now?
Speaker 1: Monsieur Vignon's nearer shoulder gave me an absent shrug. I
Speaker 1: cannot tell you we are albideviled nespar as. The evil
Speaker 1: days are on this. They are on your boy, who
Speaker 1: does not know you are here. But won't I bet
Speaker 1: you let you talk to him, or get with him
Speaker 1: ten feet of him. My heart sank, but despair goaded
Speaker 1: me to a flare of anger too. We shall see
Speaker 1: about that, I said. The chateau, when we entered it
Speaker 1: at nightfall, was a place of dark, uneasy stillness. A
Speaker 1: man whose face was unfamiliar had admitted us, and he
Speaker 1: immediately retreated again from us. Where is Dennis, I asked
Speaker 1: Monsieur Vignon. Where is he? We had passed from the
Speaker 1: hall into a small salon to the left, where and
Speaker 1: I remembered it had once been promised that Denis should
Speaker 1: devote a daily hour to the study of des Mouseilles,
Speaker 1: the Dumas and Victor Hugo. Whether he had ever done
Speaker 1: so I doubted, But two walls of the room were
Speaker 1: book lined. Where is he? I repeated, But at this
Speaker 1: very instant, hearing a step along the hall, I glanced
Speaker 1: up towards the door, and there, staring back, frozenly at me,
Speaker 1: was Denis. It was a glimpse only that I had
Speaker 1: of him, for with a kind of indignantly affrighted ah,
Speaker 1: he vanished. I rushed out after him into the hall,
Speaker 1: calling his name. A man. It was he who had
Speaker 1: led us in. Stood there dinner would be. He was beginning,
Speaker 1: where's my boy le juon Garson? I interrupted him? Which
Speaker 1: way did he go? Just now? Which is his room?
Speaker 1: The fellow regarded me consideringly, as he replied slowly, SiZ sime.
Speaker 1: But he stopped then with a quick and as if
Speaker 1: guilty or surreptitious movement crossed him. Dennis's old room was
Speaker 1: on the first floor, by the stairhead. Having run up
Speaker 1: to it, I tried the door, but it was locked,
Speaker 1: and there was no answer to my knocks. Dennis, I cried, Dennis,
Speaker 1: are you there? Not a sound? It was just possible,
Speaker 1: though most unlikely, that the door had been locked from
Speaker 1: the outside. I knocked and called again, in vain. Descending
Speaker 1: to the salon, I debated wretchedly. It appeared but too
Speaker 1: evident that Monsieur Vignon had spoken truly, and that Dennis
Speaker 1: had not ceased to regard me as his enemy. I
Speaker 1: recalled in misery the intonation of his ah when he
Speaker 1: caught sight of me some moments since it had been
Speaker 1: an eh, not merely of disconcertment and dismay, but I
Speaker 1: realized of actual execration. Monsieur Vignon had come out into
Speaker 1: the hall. You see, he murmured dryly. I was right.
Speaker 1: At dinner, no place was laid for Denis, and Monsieur
Speaker 1: Villon must have noticed my disappointedly inquiring glances in the presence, however,
Speaker 1: of the ever attendant dorlo as I gathered was his name.
Speaker 1: Nothing of any importance could be said, and our talk
Speaker 1: was of trivialities. Meanwhile, my mind ran feverishly on what
Speaker 1: I had so far discovered. I had already seen alas
Speaker 1: enough to recognize that matters could not be adjusted off
Speaker 1: hand or hurried, and that the home bringing of my
Speaker 1: poor prodigal would prove no simple and probably no brief procedure.
Speaker 1: There would be difficulties, especially in a foreign country, about
Speaker 1: compelling him forcibly to go with me, and in consulting
Speaker 1: with Monsieur Villon, and striving to come at the inner
Speaker 1: truth of the whole business, I must do what I
Speaker 1: could to practice greater patience and restraint. After the meal,
Speaker 1: I again followed Monsieur Villon into the salon, where he
Speaker 1: motioned me to a seat by the fire. As you
Speaker 1: will doubtless have observed, he began immediately anticipating one, though
Speaker 1: certainly not the most pressing of the questions, that burned
Speaker 1: upon my tongue. Marseilles and Augustine Argonne. They were, in
Speaker 1: all benevolence snatched from me by an aunt, my sister
Speaker 1: in law, who considered the atmosphere here not altogether sympathetic
Speaker 1: to young children. Mon dieu, how very right she was.
Speaker 1: My good resolutions at such words broke down and I
Speaker 1: burst out and my child, Monsieur, what about him? He
Speaker 1: wasn't at dinner with us? Where is he now? Is
Speaker 1: he safe now this minute? When did he come here?
Speaker 1: And why you have told me nothing?
Speaker 2: Yet?
Speaker 1: There was a person, a creature Raoul who ah sah,
Speaker 1: Monsieur Wignon had raised a nervously, or it may have
Speaker 1: only been contemptuously deprecating hand to check me. Let us
Speaker 1: not speak that name too loudly. It is a name
Speaker 1: to me of ridicule and of annoyance to others, many
Speaker 1: people whose susceptibilities one must regard of well, of something
Speaker 1: infinitely worse. It he paused, continuing, presently you are bad
Speaker 1: found now that you are here to hear of this
Speaker 1: this nonsense anyhow, and I may just as well propel
Speaker 1: you and forewarn you, Enfant, It was of that in
Speaker 1: fact I wrote to you, or any how, of that
Speaker 1: I was thinking when I advised you in my letter
Speaker 1: not to send me your boy again. When I told
Speaker 1: you I was the victim of a persecution, as in
Speaker 1: a mood of some exasperation, I recall I did. I
Speaker 1: was hardly exaggerating, and but I broke in. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how I hesitated, for my most urgent question would
Speaker 1: not be repressed. Is he is it here now? Monsieur
Speaker 1: Viaignon considered me. Warily it if we ought to call
Speaker 1: this damnable old wive's tale an itat is not here
Speaker 1: or active now that this to say, Enfant, it is
Speaker 1: not here now. After a moment, he went on morosely,
Speaker 1: as far understanding, there are things of which one can
Speaker 1: perceive the effect upon oneself and the others, but which
Speaker 1: one may not altogether understand, and may indeed, in this
Speaker 1: sense entirely repudiat. As I have just told you this,
Speaker 1: this nuisance, this most supreme and consummate nuisance is not
Speaker 1: with us actually more but your boy, your boy, are
Speaker 1: I very late last night in search of it? He
Speaker 1: is trying, He will do his best to get it back.
Speaker 1: It would be hard to describe the unhappy confusion into
Speaker 1: which these words had thrown me. What was I to believe?
Speaker 1: Monsieur Villon had alluded almost scoffingly to Raoul, as if
Speaker 1: to a sort of troublesome but relatively minor notifiable disease
Speaker 1: or garden pest, much as he might have spoken of
Speaker 1: some curiously periodic scarlatina or potato blight. Yet underneath his
Speaker 1: shrugging air, I could define a genuine and continuing apprehension.
Speaker 1: He rose abruptly, with an access of agitation. Is this thing?
Speaker 1: Is this kind of molestechon or superstition of a mollusteschon
Speaker 1: is not entirely unexempled, if one may credit certain authors,
Speaker 1: certain boogiemongers of or of at least two centuries or ago.
Speaker 1: He had moved to the bookshelves, ran a finger along
Speaker 1: the tops of a few heavy looking tomes, and half
Speaker 1: pulled one out. No matter, he said, pushing the volume
Speaker 1: into place again. It is there and duly catalogued, though
Speaker 1: under an evasive appellation. They called these these preposterousnesses, or
Speaker 1: the caste of mind that fostered and engindered them. Some
Speaker 1: norm simply that the nameless undecidedly he resumed his seat.
Speaker 1: I I give you my word of honor that when
Speaker 1: I first met you, and until recently, this particular nameless
Speaker 1: add not to my recognition, bothered us, or at all events.
Speaker 1: I do not deny that it, or the the rumor
Speaker 1: of it, was supposed to have bothered us in the past,
Speaker 1: but it was presumed to be gone. Don't mem there
Speaker 1: was a technical, an academical risk of which I might
Speaker 1: no doubt have warned you earlier. A tide of bewildered
Speaker 1: anger swelled in me. Yes, I said, bitterly, rumor or not,
Speaker 1: whatever the thing was, and whether we are mad or
Speaker 1: saying you might, indeed you certainly should have warned me. Yes,
Speaker 1: you would have left, and rightly or a moir most
Speaker 1: excusably at such a history. You would have delighted it
Speaker 1: and me. And what would that have mattered if I had?
Speaker 1: I almost shouted on a longer to contain the explosion
Speaker 1: of impatience, I had had to wait on tenter hooks
Speaker 1: all through the drive from font and then there through
Speaker 1: dinner to ask anything of what I had been bursting
Speaker 1: desperately to ask, And now, when I could at last
Speaker 1: demand straightforward answers, I was treated to nothing but side
Speaker 1: steppings and prevarications. Monsieur Villon was silent, his head bowed.
Speaker 1: I was entirely convinced that he knew very well he
Speaker 1: had not told me the whole story and was still
Speaker 1: keeping something back this nameless I insisted, what is it?
Speaker 1: I mean, this particular specimen. We're just beating round the
Speaker 1: bush about it all, and I can't in the least
Speaker 1: follow what it is you really think you're telling me.
Speaker 1: If you are telling me, what is it, That's what
Speaker 1: I've got to know. But whatever it is, you surely
Speaker 1: could have stopped my boy from from meeting it. He
Speaker 1: told me it was something he chummed up with in
Speaker 1: the village, a kind of semi vagrant, it sounded, but
Speaker 1: my words trailed away. Monsieur viaignon his face white under
Speaker 1: my accusation, toiled his brandy, of which a glass was
Speaker 1: before me. Too untasted, he raised his own glass all
Speaker 1: at once and drained it. His expression showed an almost
Speaker 1: morbid exaltation. Ah bah it you say it, Ebbien. It
Speaker 1: is something, if you please, that Ebb's enflows and that
Speaker 1: refuses to be satisfact or really dead. Something that cops
Speaker 1: up and comes and goes, and is repeated to have
Speaker 1: plagued my family through three generations, something that has nourished
Speaker 1: itself at intervals. So the tel runs at our expense
Speaker 1: and owns its vary being and persistence to its victims.
Speaker 1: All that is in the text book. We are not
Speaker 1: unique in this affliction. The so and souls you will hear, ah, yes,
Speaker 1: a final family, but they have a san gnome as
Speaker 1: for this this particular example, as you say, it has
Speaker 1: a human shape which you have seen. It eats, drinks,
Speaker 1: sleeps as other men. While it exists mont dir, it
Speaker 1: has even minded my edges and bought support tea or
Speaker 1: thought at the epissiary before I suspected it, until it
Speaker 1: was recognized. And then when it was recognized, oh how
Speaker 1: do you do? But to exist it must, as they say,
Speaker 1: have an an attachment, and its attachment must be young.
Speaker 1: If and when it's victim, it's Pettitami dies. The pest
Speaker 1: of transverse its attentions with believe to the children of
Speaker 1: another and the neerest branch. The thing is amorous and
Speaker 1: and ropecious. Norm no norm gell eat dar Geluvumit's theory
Speaker 1: kel imbecility, separate gull the fantastic in cre. His voice
Speaker 1: had risen wildly on a note it might be equally
Speaker 1: of scorn or terror. As a knock at first soft,
Speaker 1: then louder, was repeated on the door. The man Dorleo entered,
Speaker 1: wearing a look of remonstrance. Monsieur should know that such
Speaker 1: excitement of which the noise penetrated to the kitchen is
Speaker 1: very bad for him. Go to bed, monsieur, I advise
Speaker 1: it to go to bed. Well, you may forget our troubles,
Speaker 1: possibly in sleep. Meekly accepting the rebuke, and I imagined,
Speaker 1: rather welcoming the excuse to escape further questioning, Monsieur Vignon
Speaker 1: said to me, Doleou is right, and if you will
Speaker 1: forget me, I shall leave you now. My health laterally
Speaker 1: is precarious. Doleo will give you anything, your choir. But
Speaker 1: first he turned to the man, where is the young Monsieur?
Speaker 1: Is he in his room? And I'm quiet.
Speaker 2: Yes, he is in his room, as is to be
Speaker 2: ivered from the very fact that his room is not
Speaker 2: entirely quiet. The noises are again, while not as yet excessive.
Speaker 2: My heart sank at these words, though they conveyed nothing new.
Speaker 2: The poltergeist disturbances, however, were connected in my mind with Raoul,
Speaker 2: and their continuance depressed me. A good night, said Monsieur Villon.
Speaker 2: I was desperately tired, but lingered a little longer in
Speaker 2: the library. What honestly could I believe in? What tries
Speaker 2: still to disbelieve? Ordinarily, of course the recital which my
Speaker 2: host had just concluded, would be dismissible as a farrago
Speaker 2: of lurid and unpleasant nonsense. But I had had experience
Speaker 2: alas myself, of what you plainly contradicted this consoling view.
Speaker 1: As I was going over what Monsieur Vignon had said
Speaker 1: and sipping my brandy, at last my eye fell on
Speaker 1: the volume he had started to pull out from the shelves.
Speaker 1: It protruded slightly still, and I got up and took
Speaker 1: it my seat. Lejent d'ttre fois. The tomb was entitled tritely,
Speaker 1: But I had scarcely flicked over a haphazard page or
Speaker 1: two before I read, as if my glance had been
Speaker 1: directed to the spot esse anile le marte se reglarent
Speaker 1: de vivante. I experienced a cold, grew of that sort
Speaker 1: of surprise which is not surprised at all, but eerie confirmation,
Speaker 1: and immediately restored the volume. The dead shall feast upon
Speaker 1: the living. There it was, and I did not want
Speaker 1: at present to read more. It was the completion of
Speaker 1: the passage in that dream that I had had some
Speaker 1: weeks ago about my wife holding the book before her
Speaker 1: non existent face. I don't know what had made me
Speaker 1: so optimistic in leaving England as to the prospect of
Speaker 1: an early return there with my boy. No doubt I
Speaker 1: had the legal right to compel him to come home,
Speaker 1: but if he still repulsed me and offered physical resistance,
Speaker 1: the practical difficulties would be put it mildly formidable. On
Speaker 1: the morning after my arrival, and throughout that day and
Speaker 1: the next, I had tried again to speak with him,
Speaker 1: but either his room would be locked and silent, or
Speaker 1: if I caught sight of him at all upon the
Speaker 1: stairs or in the grounds, he would take literally to
Speaker 1: his heels. Where does he eat? I asked for he
Speaker 1: continued absent from our meals, and it appeared that sometimes
Speaker 1: he would raid the larder and carry off his plunder
Speaker 1: to the fields. Neither Monsieur Villon nor his domestics had
Speaker 1: any control over him, and even if they had, I
Speaker 1: could not have relied on them to exercise it upon
Speaker 1: my behalf. As to the servants, they were in all
Speaker 1: respect so uncooperative as to be almost obstructionist, while in
Speaker 1: particular their extraordinary reticence caused me to think that they
Speaker 1: had probably been forbidden to gossip with me upon this
Speaker 1: or any other subject. How fervently I wished that Goderic
Speaker 1: were here, but of course he could not desert his
Speaker 1: patience at short notice, Nor obviously was Monsieur Villon's hospitality
Speaker 1: in my gift. Denis, I found, had done as I
Speaker 1: had thought, and managed to stow away upon a fishing
Speaker 1: boat at Brixham. It had been evidently useless for him
Speaker 1: to pretend that his visit had my sanction, and he
Speaker 1: must have known I would eventually pursue him. But beyond
Speaker 1: his infatuated determination to be reunited with raoulat and a cost.
Speaker 1: I doubted whether he could have had much of a
Speaker 1: settled plan of action and campaign. He had steered as
Speaker 1: clear as possible, it seemed, of Monsieur Vignon, and so
Speaker 1: as far as I could gather, had confided the manner
Speaker 1: of his crossing only half inadvertently to Dorle, who had
Speaker 1: retailed the story subsequently to his master. It was a
Speaker 1: beautiful kettle of fish all round. I sent a wire
Speaker 1: to the police at Winchester, reflecting what slight satisfaction it
Speaker 1: had brought me thus to have proved them wrong in
Speaker 1: my anxiety. I had little or no help from Monsieur Villon,
Speaker 1: either he was genuinely ill or feigned it to avoid
Speaker 1: my badgering. Never joining me at breakfast, he would retire,
Speaker 1: though with excuses, immediately after lunch and dinner, And since
Speaker 1: our talk on the first evening had said nothing to
Speaker 1: me of the least seriousness, sincerity, or moment as to
Speaker 1: what should have been our common problem, left my own devices.
Speaker 1: I would wander wretchedly around the estate in nearer villages,
Speaker 1: exchanging a bolsieu occasionally with some peasant, but often meeting
Speaker 1: no one. As I chose the less frequented paths. The
Speaker 1: autumn days were dull, but now and then a brighter
Speaker 1: spell invited me to extend my rambles towards a pie
Speaker 1: that topped a line of rocky hillocks to the north.
Speaker 1: One afternoon, it was the fourth or fifth since my arrival.
Speaker 1: I had set out thither at about three o'clock. I
Speaker 1: paid no particular heed to where I was going, and
Speaker 1: walked on, I suppose, with my head bent in gloomy thought,
Speaker 1: for which I certainly had food enough. Yes, the position
Speaker 1: was fantastic, and a description of it given baldly would
Speaker 1: provoke only pitying disbelief. And yet the history was true.
Speaker 1: That was I knew that, as much of it as
Speaker 1: I had seen with my own eyes was true. As
Speaker 1: for the rest, For Monsieur Vignon's wild, while have contemptuous
Speaker 1: elaborations on the theme, I reserved judgment. He was a
Speaker 1: sick man, whatever the cause, and his troubles seemed reflected
Speaker 1: in the unprosperous, depleted and decayed condition generally of his
Speaker 1: estate and household. The chateau was in disrepair, in its staff,
Speaker 1: whether by flight or by dismissal, reduced to an uneasy remnant.
Speaker 1: Why for example, had the trusted Fleabart left, my heart
Speaker 1: was leaden with misgiving. Could Monsieur Vignon a diabolic suspicion
Speaker 1: flashed into my brain? Could he initially have asked Dennis
Speaker 1: to the chateau, or anyhow have gone on having him
Speaker 1: there in order to to safeguard his children? Could he,
Speaker 1: at one time to protect them, to divert something from
Speaker 1: them and fasten it on Denis, have actually been tempted
Speaker 1: to promote and foster the disastrous intimacy between Raoul and
Speaker 1: my boy. But I rejected such a vile hypothesis as
Speaker 1: altogether to far fetched. My mind as well must be
Speaker 1: infected to have harbored it, And suddenly roused from my reverie,
Speaker 1: I looked about me. The country was unfamiliar and very lonely.
Speaker 1: In a small half ruined church or chapel with a
Speaker 1: graveyard attached, added to its general air of desolation. In
Speaker 1: that indifference of purpose which is born of mental exhaustion
Speaker 1: rather than of any even idle curiosity, I entered the
Speaker 1: graveyard and wandered aimlessly among its tombs. Some distance off,
Speaker 1: I noticed a man was wending towards me down the road.
Speaker 1: Ahead I loitered absently around the inside of the boundary wall.
Speaker 1: The burial ground was evidently disused, and the graves were untended,
Speaker 1: many overgrown with bramble or rank grass. Now and then
Speaker 1: a date caught my eye eighteen thirty eighteen thirteen, seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy possibly the all at once I stopped, transfixed as
Speaker 1: in the silence and aims stole staring back at me.
Speaker 1: It was inscribed upon a headstone slightly taller than the rest,
Speaker 1: though lichen coated, tilted, cracked and weather worn as they rivache,
Speaker 1: and just as decipherable below Yes Raoul Mireau, eighteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: A footfall made me start. It was the man I
Speaker 1: had seen on the ground, and whose approach over the
Speaker 1: grass had been noiseless. He seemed a respectable, decent fellow
Speaker 1: of the sturdy bonum type, probably a small tradesman or
Speaker 1: petty farmer. But he was regarding me and the grave
Speaker 1: with a frown of somber disapproval. He gave a significant
Speaker 1: upward jerk of the head and pointed to the tomb.
Speaker 1: Monsieur knows, perhaps of whom datistic grave. In a double disconcertment,
Speaker 1: I stammered faintly, Yes, I know the No, I cannot.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is the name, the same name as
Speaker 1: somebody's I know. The man took a step backward, crossing himself,
Speaker 1: and said, coldly, enough, Zin, it is to be hoped
Speaker 1: that Monsieur knows osso that it is a bad name.
Speaker 1: Hallo barsieur Monsieur. He was going slowly away from me,
Speaker 1: but on an impulse I detained him. Why who who
Speaker 1: was he? I asked? Was he a criminal? Or? My
Speaker 1: tongue faltered, and as the man's glance met mine searchingly,
Speaker 1: it was as if a thousand things had passed wordlessly
Speaker 1: between us. No, Monsieur in life, he is not a criminal.
Speaker 1: But he paused, then, stooping, traced with a forefinger that
Speaker 1: eight eighteen seventy three that Monsieur was when he died.
Speaker 1: It is there Cateniston, and is so far as it
Speaker 1: goes character. My father was mayor of the commune and
Speaker 1: could remember all about it. I have even myself seen
Speaker 1: the burial record, which was in the register of the
Speaker 1: parish before the amalgamission. I can tell you no more
Speaker 1: than that, if you please, monsieur, that he died almost
Speaker 1: eighty years ago, in eighteen seventy three, again he crossed himself,
Speaker 1: and this time, as he withdrew, I did not stay him.
Speaker 1: I was thrown momentarily into a kind of panic. In
Speaker 1: a sense, my talk several evenings since with Monsieur Vignon
Speaker 1: should have prepared me for this further shock. Yet I
Speaker 1: had still tended. Then, I think to discount a good
Speaker 1: deal of his discourse as crazy ranting, which he had
Speaker 1: not repeated and probably repented. But now the story borne
Speaker 1: out in another mouth had gained fresh substance and solidity,
Speaker 1: something a mortuary breath of evil had addressed me, subverting
Speaker 1: reason and defeating sanity. Raoul, if it were he dead
Speaker 1: eighty years ago, or what would lead this steady countryman
Speaker 1: and sober citizen thus to accost me so suspiciously and reprehendingly,
Speaker 1: Waiting only until he disappeared across a field, I walked
Speaker 1: quickly back to the chateau. That same evening I got
Speaker 1: miss Urvaillon's consent to my begging Goderic if he could
Speaker 1: possibly arrange it to join me at the earliest opportunity.
Speaker 1: I had spent six days here quite uselessly. My boy
Speaker 1: remained obdurate in avoiding me, keeping out of doors as
Speaker 1: much as he could, and eating his meals. I knew
Speaker 1: not when or precisely where. This could not go on indefinitely,
Speaker 1: and he must be removed somehow, But I did not
Speaker 1: feel confident of my ability to hail him home single handedly,
Speaker 1: or wish either to invoke police assistance French or British.
Speaker 1: I worded my letter to Goderich very strongly, and having
Speaker 1: posted it was slightly easier in mind. Otherwise I was
Speaker 1: more tortured by anxiety than ever, and my discovery of
Speaker 1: the lonely grave had had a horrible effect on me.
Speaker 1: Coupled with the queer manner of the honest fellow who
Speaker 1: had spoken to me beside it, his doubting, fearful looks,
Speaker 1: and his ambiguous reticence, it left me pray to a
Speaker 1: complete bewilderment and cold dismay of Dennis. Meanwhile, as I
Speaker 1: have just said, I caught only fleeting glimpses Monsieur Viagnon,
Speaker 1: who had warned me that he Denis would try to
Speaker 1: get it back, pretended to have interceded with him. But
Speaker 1: on this I placed no least reliance. I had little
Speaker 1: real idea of what my boy did with himself all day,
Speaker 1: of whether he still slept in the same room, though
Speaker 1: I was assured this was so, or of when he fed,
Speaker 1: or bathed or changed his clothes. As to this last point,
Speaker 1: I had brought with me for him some clean shirts, socks,
Speaker 1: and underwear, which I had handed to dor Lo and
Speaker 1: where now I was informed in use. But generally it
Speaker 1: seemed to me his condition was one of almost semi vagabondage,
Speaker 1: the chateau being for him not much more than a
Speaker 1: base or headquarters from which to forage in the countryside. However,
Speaker 1: the next morning I did have news of him, which,
Speaker 1: while unreassuring, was somewhat more detailed than previous accounts. Dennis
Speaker 1: dor Low remarked had laterally been spending a good deal
Speaker 1: of his time in the east wing, near the tower.
Speaker 1: But on my asking what my boy was doing there,
Speaker 1: the man had shrugged, quisse, monsieur, I have seen him
Speaker 1: reading or carving wood with his knife? Is he there now? No, monsieur,
Speaker 1: it was yesterday, as the day before this morning he
Speaker 1: has gone out. This conversation had been at my petit
Speaker 1: de jouney, which I always had alone, my host preferring
Speaker 1: his brought to his bed. After the mill, I busied
Speaker 1: myself in writing a short note to my faithful Jenny,
Speaker 1: from whom I had heard two days ago. She had
Speaker 1: reported all well at home, and that she and Clara
Speaker 1: were both hoping poor things to welcome us both back.
Speaker 1: Very soon. I went out to post my reply to her.
Speaker 1: Struck as I passed beneath a porte cochere by the
Speaker 1: chateau's latter day appearance of neglect. It was as if
Speaker 1: it lay under a spell, as if some blight of
Speaker 1: doom and galloping decay attacked it, yes, and assailed its
Speaker 1: inmates too, I thought one Colonel Walter Habgod not accepted,
Speaker 1: I to be sure, was only a temporary occupant of
Speaker 1: the place, a guest. Yet I was conscious whenever I
Speaker 1: walked abroad that something of its ill repute attached to
Speaker 1: me with the local peasantry. I too was in bad Odor,
Speaker 1: the carrier of an aura, an aroma of the dimly
Speaker 1: sinister and menacing. And when I had mailed my letter
Speaker 1: to Goderic yesterday at the little office three kilos up
Speaker 1: the road to font, whither I now again was on
Speaker 1: my way, the postmistress had eyed me bayfully touching her scapular.
Speaker 1: As I was leaving go where I might, a species
Speaker 1: of anxious hostility attended me, expressed in covert stairs, in
Speaker 1: sullen glances, crossings and avoidances. Even the children scattered from
Speaker 1: my path. What was the truth? I demanded for the
Speaker 1: hundredth time about this whole fantastic business. These yokels and
Speaker 1: mister Vignon I suspected were abjectly SUPERSTI ridden. You might
Speaker 1: suppose a recent world war would have knocked such sense
Speaker 1: out of them. But suddenly, and riley, I laughed at myself,
Speaker 1: though it wasn't at all funny, Yes, that was rich
Speaker 1: talk of the pot and kettle, For I was equally
Speaker 1: enthralled to a grotesque myth with any of the folk
Speaker 1: I was deriding. It was exasperating not to know quite
Speaker 1: what I did believe or disbelieve. Everything and everybody seemed
Speaker 1: to be conspiring to throw dust in my eyes and
Speaker 1: keep me ignominiously in the dark. Here was I Dennis's
Speaker 1: own father, thankful when I could pick up, as just now,
Speaker 1: a few crumbs of secondhand intelligence about him from a conceited,
Speaker 1: surly menial like door low. More than once latterly, I'd
Speaker 1: been tempted to question the fellow bluntly about many things,
Speaker 1: but hitherto my pride had not allowed me to interrogate
Speaker 1: the man behind his master's back. As for the master,
Speaker 1: aforesaid mister Vanel, since his first outburst had retired completely
Speaker 1: into his shell and been as cordially informative as any oyster,
Speaker 1: I felt I could endure this mistfying and maddening secretiveness.
Speaker 1: No longer. I must request from some one, any one,
Speaker 1: a forthright explanation of the whole enigma, and see at
Speaker 1: least what sort of answer was provoking. Accordingly, when I
Speaker 1: had posted my letter to Jenny, I asked the postmistress
Speaker 1: to direct me to some person of responsibility, the mayor perhaps,
Speaker 1: or a schoolmaster with whom I could discuss a private matter.
Speaker 1: The woman regarded me dirtily enough, replying only after a
Speaker 1: suspicious pause. Zip mayor is ill, she said, But there
Speaker 1: is Monsieur Baudelieue, the god champetre quillete de la resistance,
Speaker 1: and is ill. Likewise, or Monsieur d'Anville is the Formacieur.
Speaker 1: Monsieur d'anvill she added, more amiably, is very clever, and
Speaker 1: of his great discussion. Having been a quartermaster and the army.
Speaker 1: Then there is too, of course a peerres plindiscent the Cioix.
Speaker 1: Rejecting the bellatta, Monsieur tomvill, I decided on the cure,
Speaker 1: an obvious choice, which it was strange, had not occurred
Speaker 1: to me before. There was no difficulty in locating him.
Speaker 1: He had just returned from Mass and welcomed me into
Speaker 1: his vicarie politely, somewhat haltingly. I outlined as much as
Speaker 1: necessary of my story, including particularly of my discovery of
Speaker 1: the grave. Was I inquired the raoul for whom my
Speaker 1: boy had this unfortunate infatuation, a grandson, possibly of the deceased.
Speaker 1: The Curee's face had darkened, and at my final question
Speaker 1: wore a look of, as it were, a scandalized discomfiture.
Speaker 1: I was quite sure he had known all about me
Speaker 1: in advance. Fres chaument, monsieur. It is not easy to reply.
Speaker 1: This is a distruct, assays Superstitieux, and enfant is the
Speaker 1: individual whose GRAVESA observed at Saint Auvain had no dissentants.
Speaker 1: He was, to what appear a butler at the Chateau Vignon,
Speaker 1: where actually he died, but that was eight eight years ago.
Speaker 1: And yes, yes, I said, But this other fellow that
Speaker 1: my boy met, who is he? The good father? Blinked
Speaker 1: at me morosely. He was an elderly, florid visaged man
Speaker 1: with eyes that were worldly, but at the moment troubled
Speaker 1: and unsubtle. Monsieur, he said, reproachfully, you come to me
Speaker 1: like this and ask me what to confirm and to
Speaker 1: endorse a doubt that has beforehand been implanted in your mind,
Speaker 1: or maybe to deny it. I can stay to you.
Speaker 1: Or is the Boivoche we know of died in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three? The rest is merely superstition. And the superstition
Speaker 1: is he shrugged weakly, uncomfortable and disdainfully apologetic under my pressure,
Speaker 1: Evy de Monts. The superstition, you insisted I enunciate so clearly,
Speaker 1: is as the Poivoche who died in eighteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: And he for whom you say your boy has this
Speaker 1: inglements are one, is the same, say Rie de guille Allo.
Speaker 1: And I have told you absolute mont alegain his manner,
Speaker 1: while still courteous, showed the beginnings of a self protective frostiness,
Speaker 1: and again marveling. I felt defeated. All these folk when
Speaker 1: you try to tackle them and pin them down upon
Speaker 1: the subject of this preposterous myth affected superiorly to scoff
Speaker 1: at it. Yet all of them, in their hearts were
Speaker 1: really scared of it. Thinking the cure, I took my
Speaker 1: dissatisfied and disappointed leave. I had been at the chateau
Speaker 1: just a week, an utterly completely useless week. Each day
Speaker 1: I sought every chance of pleading with my boy, so
Speaker 1: far quite unavailingly. Must I then drag him home, a
Speaker 1: literal captive, and so made can hate me worse than before,
Speaker 1: possibly if need be, but not till I had tried
Speaker 1: every other more persuasive measure. Denis was like a wild thing,
Speaker 1: a wild thing piteously spellbound and enchanted, and it would
Speaker 1: profit little, I thought to trap and pinion the poor body.
Speaker 1: If the spirit still eluded me. I wished to snare him, Yes,
Speaker 1: but to snare the whole of him, and lovingly, and
Speaker 1: bonds and handcuffs seemed an unhappy way of doing this.
Speaker 1: Yet if he would not voluntarily come with me, there
Speaker 1: was nothing for it but a degree of force. And
Speaker 1: it had been with this necessity and closer prospect that
Speaker 1: I appealed to Goderic, whose sympathetically auxiliary convoy at the
Speaker 1: pinch would certainly be less humiliating than that of a
Speaker 1: police escort. In this past, Monsieur Vignon was a broken reed,
Speaker 1: his nerve racked in anition now indeed almost amounting to
Speaker 1: a kind of passive, undeclared resistance. And why, after exploating
Speaker 1: as violently as he had about his blessed Salm Gnome,
Speaker 1: had he stopped short there? The cureate had grudgingly enlightened
Speaker 1: me to the limit that his scruples or timidity allowed.
Speaker 1: But why couldn't Monsieur Villon have told me all this
Speaker 1: and more himself? I walked to the window of my
Speaker 1: breakfast room and surveyed the autumn fields. From here they
Speaker 1: were visible in brown or sallow squares, stretching irregularly up
Speaker 1: a saucer's rim to misty hillocks, and in one of them,
Speaker 1: far off, I fancied with a start that I saw Denis,
Speaker 1: But no, the figure was motionless, and I remembered now
Speaker 1: that it was only a scarecrow lingering purposelessly in the stubble.
Speaker 1: My letter should reach Goderic to day, and if and
Speaker 1: when he came, we could hold some sort of council
Speaker 1: of war. How glad I would be of his refreshing
Speaker 1: sanity and clearer judgment. My own ideas had become quite chaotic,
Speaker 1: and my affronted reason hurled itself hour by hour against
Speaker 1: brick walls of contradiction. It was a veritable antimony. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, here was the mid twentieth century, with
Speaker 1: even in this backwater the trains post, newspaper and radio
Speaker 1: showed Monsieur Vignon but elect to buy a set and
Speaker 1: an occasional Avian droning overhead, while on the other, equally
Speaker 1: compulsive of ascent, there lay sheer medievalism, rank mythology, a
Speaker 1: weird anachronism of fantastic horror. The two worlds, though interpenetrating,
Speaker 1: were irreconcilable, and each was true. I went undecidedly towards
Speaker 1: my room, and then passing it along a series of corridors.
Speaker 1: I had often roamed unchallenged, up and down the chateaus,
Speaker 1: twisting stairs, beneath its faded tapestries and seignurial banners, and
Speaker 1: across its echoing halls, and now uneasily, while unpremeditatedly enough
Speaker 1: my steps trended in the direction of the East Wing
Speaker 1: and its tower. Nothing in particular rewarded my reconnoiter, if
Speaker 1: it were one, though in a chamber just below the
Speaker 1: so called haunted room, I did find a few chips
Speaker 1: and shavings of the sticks, presumably that, as Dorlo informed me,
Speaker 1: Denis had been whittling. It was not till I had
Speaker 1: redescended that a speculation, springing from my recent conversation with
Speaker 1: the curet crossed my mind. Raoul pere Pois deus Sin
Speaker 1: had stated had died in the chateau, and Denis long ago,
Speaker 1: as I could now also remember, had said, in speaking
Speaker 1: of the turret room, that some one died. There was
Speaker 1: the some one, Raoul, And was it actually in the
Speaker 1: tower that he had died? It seemed more than probable.
Speaker 1: I spent the rest of the morning and most of
Speaker 1: the afternoon and desultory mooching, too anxious and distracted till
Speaker 1: at least I had Goddarik's reply to settle definitely to anything.
Speaker 1: My visit to the East Wing and my ensuing conjecture
Speaker 1: about Raoul had admittedly disturbed me, but beyond that, I
Speaker 1: seemed dimly conscious of some other cause of a vague
Speaker 1: apprehension or dissatisfaction. It was something I had the feeling
Speaker 1: that it happened, or that I had briefly noticed during
Speaker 1: the course of the day, but which I could not
Speaker 1: quite lay finger on, Something of which the impact had
Speaker 1: been oblique, and that now tapped irritatingly with an obscure,
Speaker 1: persistent warning at my mind for a long time. I
Speaker 1: tried vainly to recall it, whatever it had been, then
Speaker 1: gave it up. I wandered restively into the library again
Speaker 1: and took out the volume of Legends, despite a kind
Speaker 1: of contemptuous repugnance to consider more tentively what it might
Speaker 1: have to say. Presently, I found the passage I wanted.
Speaker 1: It was in a long section entitled simply Uvaione, and
Speaker 1: its immediate context was rather mystifying, too occult or too
Speaker 1: rhapsodical in diction for me to follow. Clearly, regretting the
Speaker 1: inadequacy of my French, I read on, puzzled exceptional tenacity
Speaker 1: of life, enabling the said nameless to withdraw vital force
Speaker 1: a line of two here that I could not make
Speaker 1: head or tail of, so to rebuild itself around the
Speaker 1: mammon as around a nucleus or focus. And again a
Speaker 1: string of unfamiliar words defeated me or other homely objects.
Speaker 1: So be it to have the semblance of a man,
Speaker 1: But woe to all who do adventure thus, and whether
Speaker 1: child or woman, if the right fixative be not supplied.
Speaker 1: And then some sentences of what appeared to be a
Speaker 1: sort of general description, their chief weakness being in the
Speaker 1: wrists and wattles yellow above all they joy in, and
Speaker 1: a certain tint of bluish gray they do defy. Wherefore
Speaker 1: in extirpating them. Disappointed at my stumbling translation, I rested
Speaker 1: the volume open on my knee and pondered, in a sense,
Speaker 1: what I had managed to translate. Relieved me because it
Speaker 1: seemed such arrant, puerile nonsense. Why yes, I thought, and delighted,
Speaker 1: welling up as it were, half hesitant, astonished thankfulness. It
Speaker 1: was all nonsense, sheer, utter nonsense, And I could laugh
Speaker 1: at it. How had I ever my fleeting elation ebbed
Speaker 1: But Dennis, I remembered, Yeah, Dennis, that was the trouble.
Speaker 1: Nonsense or no, my boy's plight was actual enough, and
Speaker 1: my host entered suddenly and brusquely, owing ostensibly to his
Speaker 1: continued indisposition we had scarcely encountered for the last several days,
Speaker 1: and his face now wore a slight frown er. Bonsieur,
Speaker 1: he greeted, peevishly. I I regret to see you so
Speaker 1: boily entertained. You will oddly derive much profit or even amusement,
Speaker 1: I should think from zat to my amazement, he swooped
Speaker 1: upon the volume and replaced it smartly in the shelves. Really,
Speaker 1: Monsieur Vignon was very trying, and it was now all
Speaker 1: in an instant that as the result of this comparatively
Speaker 1: trivial incident, I found myself having an outright first class
Speaker 1: row with him, no doubt. On each side nerves were
Speaker 1: afraid to breaking point, and it it needed but the
Speaker 1: spark to set our tempers and a blaze. I had
Speaker 1: stood up, You might, Monsieur, at least have had the
Speaker 1: courtesy not to snatch from my very knees a book
Speaker 1: that I was actually reading. He glared at me out
Speaker 1: of eyes swimming with tears. It is my book, It
Speaker 1: is my book, he repeated childishly. And I shall do
Speaker 1: as I believe you say. What I bloody well luck
Speaker 1: with it. I am going to bloody burn it there, monsieur.
Speaker 1: Can you advance any argument against my bloody burning my
Speaker 1: own property, including the entire chateau if I see fit?
Speaker 1: And should anybody still insist on lingering on lingering, I say,
Speaker 1: in this so charming chateau of mine, when I burn it,
Speaker 1: he will be burnt to neck and crop along with it,
Speaker 1: unless staggering he had clapped a hand to his breast.
Speaker 1: Forgive me, I am desolated to have made such an
Speaker 1: exhibition of myself and cost us to think me like
Speaker 1: like a stage frenchman nespa. But but threatened, things in
Speaker 1: this establishment are not quite as they should be. A large,
Speaker 1: an infinitely large blue bottle has got loose in my
Speaker 1: bedroom and kept me awake all night. And I too, am,
Speaker 1: as your son Nom weak in zerrists and wattles. Was
Speaker 1: he going mad or shamming mad? My son Nom? I
Speaker 1: was really completely disgusted with him, the more so perhaps
Speaker 1: because he had somehow succeeded in this ridiculous fashion in
Speaker 1: taking the wind out of my sails. This creature of yours,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I was startled to hear myself shouting
Speaker 1: this precious song, gnoume of yours. I say that has
Speaker 1: attacked my boy, and that for some reason, you'll tell
Speaker 1: me nothing more about he died here? Didn't he up
Speaker 1: in the tower room or under it? Monsieur Viallon regarded me,
Speaker 1: at first uncomprehendingly, and then almost as if pityingly, My
Speaker 1: poor friend, He said, slowly, my poor friend, this has
Speaker 1: been too much for you, and and you are going crazy.
Speaker 1: Monsieur sei la comblere sah. He approached nearer with a
Speaker 1: curious dancing step, and to my utter dumbfounding, snapped a
Speaker 1: finger and thumb beneath my nose. I repete, monsieur, I repeat,
Speaker 1: with inexpressible regret, that you are quite demented. I had
Speaker 1: backed from him, far too bewildered to feel insulted by
Speaker 1: the taunting words and gesture. And it was at this
Speaker 1: instant that, as at a previous somewhat similar crisis, the
Speaker 1: tall form of Dorlo filled the doorway. Courmevou monmito, he remonstrated, commevou,
Speaker 1: it is this heavy weather that such arges and nerves.
Speaker 1: But do you do your tempoment in this manner and
Speaker 1: with the antics is unseemly. Comeevou say heaven, he added
Speaker 1: in a lower tone. It cannot last much longer now.
Speaker 1: Monsieur Vallon looked at us wildly. Forgive me, he murmured again,
Speaker 1: forgive me, a strange expression, a sort of leering. Still
Speaker 1: half impudent, despair flickered over his features. As turning, he
Speaker 1: let door Low lead him unsteadily away. I stayed motionless
Speaker 1: where I was a full minute. The whole scene had
Speaker 1: been incredible, and my bedlam had flowered unashamed before my eyes.
Speaker 1: At length, dazedly, I walked from the house outside. I
Speaker 1: recovered that was my immediate emotional disturbance gradually died down,
Speaker 1: but I felt exhausted, as if I had been through
Speaker 1: a fight or in a melee, and my fundamental apprehension
Speaker 1: and confusion were increased. It is a nightmare, I thought,
Speaker 1: a nightmare. That is why everyone appears mad, and why
Speaker 1: you yourself behave like a madman all at once. You
Speaker 1: will wake up, perhaps when Goderich comes. The air, as
Speaker 1: Dorlow had observed, was close and muggy. It was mild,
Speaker 1: but with a treacherous intimation of tenseness of I did
Speaker 1: not quite know what The fields stretched round me passively,
Speaker 1: Too passively, I fancied oddly, as if conspiring or abandoned
Speaker 1: to a gathering sly enchantment. They rolled in their meek
Speaker 1: rectangles of ochre, dun and beige, up two unstirring foothills,
Speaker 1: dreaming a guile full dream. Crossing one of them, I
Speaker 1: remarked idly that the scarecrow I had noticed earlier from
Speaker 1: the salon window seemed to have altered its position slightly.
Speaker 1: Monsieur Villon, good heaven, son nom his, if you please
Speaker 1: not mine, I wished him joy of them, son nom ye,
Speaker 1: gods who would have invented such bogies, such farsically loathsome things?
Speaker 1: Unless I raised my eyes to the gray baited sky
Speaker 1: and shivered, Oh, I was not to word it temperately,
Speaker 1: much enamored of this devil's nook, this baleful twelfth or
Speaker 1: thirteenth century pocket of provincial France, where superstitions and obscene mythologies,
Speaker 1: instead of just remaining quaintly decorative, had the unpleasant trick
Speaker 1: of springing suddenly alive and driving mad all those who
Speaker 1: brooded on them over long, If only my disjointed ruminations
Speaker 1: petered out once more, I raised my eyes with a
Speaker 1: faint shudder. All about me as I walked the hills,
Speaker 1: the waiting fields kept quiet pace with me. I was aware,
Speaker 1: how shall I put it, of a bland banking up,
Speaker 1: of a demure stealth, a kind of tiptoe ripening of something.
Speaker 1: My head ached, and I had an indescribably oppressive feeling.
Speaker 1: The chateau, from the spot where I had now come
Speaker 1: rather giddily to a halt, was visible, maybe a kilo off,
Speaker 1: but partially obscured by a dip and by a thin
Speaker 1: belt of trees. I would get back to it as
Speaker 1: quickly as I could, in case my disagreeable symptoms should increase. Slowly,
Speaker 1: I proceeded, conscious upon my mental palate of some recrudescent
Speaker 1: flavor that was dimly nauseous and half familiar. I had
Speaker 1: covered perhaps a third of the distance to the chateau
Speaker 1: when a dog ran up behind me, whining. It was
Speaker 1: one of the three or four dogs of the house,
Speaker 1: an amiable enough little creature mainly poodle called Gigi. Denis
Speaker 1: had been fond of it, and I supposed it still
Speaker 1: companioned him in his present gipsyish style of life. But
Speaker 1: now it appeared distressed or frightened, and slunk, whimpering and
Speaker 1: cringing at my heels. We went on together, skirting a
Speaker 1: field of stubble. It was the field containing the useless scarecrow,
Speaker 1: and again puzzled, I had the impression that the object
Speaker 1: had moved slightly in the direction of the chateau hang It,
Speaker 1: I thought, querlessly, in a sort of mild annoyed perplexity.
Speaker 1: This was preposterous, and I must previously have misjudged the
Speaker 1: confounded thing's position. Giji beside me, cowered closer and gave
Speaker 1: very low a series of curious, suppressed yelps. The day
Speaker 1: had grown overcast, and my headache was no better. I
Speaker 1: had a sense of something brewing, something making a kind
Speaker 1: of dumbly guarded watchfulness or wakefulness, and the dull air,
Speaker 1: the trees, the hilltops, and the whelming sky, as if
Speaker 1: they too were like myself alerted, and upon some strange
Speaker 1: and semianimate, Kivive the dog, while we passed opposite the
Speaker 1: middle of the field, darted for a moment from me
Speaker 1: and through the head venting two stiff little barks of
Speaker 1: actual terror, or of a variety of canine scandal. Gradually,
Speaker 1: as we neared the house, my head ached less yet
Speaker 1: a conviction of uneasy eminence, A presentiment of swiftly gathering evil,
Speaker 1: knocked still at my mind's door, And again more fervently
Speaker 1: I longed for Goderic. I entered the chateau, and there
Speaker 1: on a tray in the hall lay in answer to
Speaker 1: my prayer. Yes, said the telegram. He could come on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: that was in three days time. End of Chapter three