But suddenly he wondered whether it was not he, rather, who was the fool? ‘If all these people were like me,’ he told himself, ‘Paris would be a hospital for the melancholy mad. Everyone would be haunted by memories, the streets would turn into puddles, the houses into ruins. Yet they take life as it is, they pursue practical aims, are happy and create masterpieces. And what am I pursuing? First it was perpetual motion and guided balloons, then a position to which my own allies refused to admit me, then a woman I’m hardly allowed to approach. But I have always either sacrificed myself or submitted to ideas created by those classes which want to make me their servant, their slave…’
And he imagined how it would have been if he’d been born in Paris instead of Warsaw. In the first place, he would have been enabled to learn more as a child because of the many schools and colleges. Then, even if he had gone into trade, he would have experienced less unpleasantness and more help in his studies. Further, he wouldn’t have worked on a perpetual motion machine, for he’d have known that many similar machines which never worked were to be found in the museums here. Had he tried to construct guided balloons, he would have found models, a whole crowd of dreamers like himself, and even help if his ideas were practical.
And, had he finally made a fortune for himself and fallen in love with an aristocratic young lady, he would not have encountered so many obstacles in approaching her. He might have made her acquaintance and either recovered or won her hand. Under no circumstances would he have been treated like a Negro in America. Besides, was it possible in Paris to fall in love as he had done—to the point of insanity? Here lovers did not despair, but danced, sang and lived a gay life. If they could not have an official marriage, they created a free union: if they could not keep their children, they put them out to nurse. Here love would surely never lead a sensible man into madness.
‘The last two years of my existence,’ thought Wokulski, ‘have been passed in the pursuit of a woman I might even have rejected if I’d known her better. All my energies, studies, talents and huge fortune are absorbed into a single emotion because I am in trade and she an aristocrat. Perhaps society, by harming me harms itself?’
Here Wokulski reached the apex of his self-criticism: he saw how preposterous his situation was, and resolved to extricate himself: ‘What am I to do, though? What am I to do?’ he thought. ‘Why, the same as everyone else, to be sure!’ And what did they do?…Above all they worked extraordinarily hard, up to sixteen hours a day, regardless of Sundays and holidays, thanks to a selection process here in which only the strongest had the right to survive. A sickly man would perish before the year was out, an incompetent one within a matter of years, and only the strongest and cleverest were left.
These, thanks to the work of whole generations of strivers like themselves, found here the satisfaction of all their needs. Huge sewers protected them from disease, wide streets facilitated the flow of air; the Halles Centrales provided food, a thousand factories—clothing and furniture. When a Parisian wanted to see nature, he travelled beyond the city or to the Bois; if he wanted art to gladden his eyes, he went to the Louvre; and when he desired knowledge, he had museums and scientific collections.
To strive for happiness in all domains—this was the substance of Parisian life. Here, a thousand carriages were introduced to counter tiredness; to counter boredom, hundreds of theatres and shows; to counter ignorance, hundreds of museums, libraries, and lectures. Here, not only man met with concern, but even the horse, for whom a smooth road was provided. Here, care was lavished even on the trees, which were transported in special carts to their new places of abode, protected with iron baskets from all who might harm them, ensured moist conditions, nurtured in the event of disease.
Thanks to a solicitude towards all things, objects finding themselves in Paris possessed a variety of advantages. Houses, furniture and utensils were not only useful, but beautiful; they pleased not only the sinews, but also the mind. And vice versa—works of art were not only beautiful, but useful. At the side of triumphant arches and church steeples were steps, facilitating one’s ascent to look at the town from a height. Statues and paintings were accessible not only to their devotees, but to artists and sculptors who were permitted to make copies in the galleries.
A Frenchman, when he created something, first took care that the work should meet its aim, and only then that it should be beautiful. And, not content with that, he strove also for permanence and purity. Wokulski ascertained this truth at every step and with every object, beginning with the carts carrying away rubbish, to the Venus de Milo surrounded by a barrier. He guessed also the consequences of such economy, that work was not wasted here: each generation gave its successors the finest works of its forefathers, supplementing them with its own output.
In this way, Paris was an ark in which were housed the trophies of a dozen centuries, if not whole millenniums, of civilisation. There was everything here, from monstrous Assyrian statues and Egyptian mummies, to the latest discoveries of mechanics and electrotechnology, from jars in which Egyptian women had carried their water 4000 years ago, to the great hydraulic wheels of St-Maur.
‘The men who created these marvels,’ thought Wokulski, ‘or who collected them together in one place, they were not crazed idlers like myself…’
And thus saying to himself, he felt overcome by shame.
And, after dealing with Suzin’s business for a few hours, he would wander around Paris. He strolled down unknown streets, immersed himself in a crowd of thousands, plunged into the apparent chaos of things and events, and at the bottom of it all he found order and law. Then again he would drink brandy for a change, play cards or roulette, or give way to dissipation. It seemed to him that he was going to encounter something extraordinary in this volcanic centre of civilisation, and that a new epoch in his life would start here. At the same time he felt that his hitherto scattered fragments of knowledge and his opinions would merge into a sort of unity or philosophical system, which might explain to him many of the world’s mysteries and the meaning of his own existence.
‘What am I?’ he asked himself sometimes, and gradually he formulated his own reply: ‘I am a man who has gone to waste. I had great talents and energy, but have done nothing for civilisation. The eminent people I meet here don’t have even half my powers, yet they leave behind them machines, buildings, works of art, new ideas. But what shall I leave behind? My store, perhaps—but that would have gone to wrack and ruin if Rzecki were not looking after it…Yet I haven’t been idle: I struggled for three men, and had I not been helped by chance I wouldn’t even have the fortune I now possess.’
Then it occurred to him to ask what he had squandered his powers and his life on? ‘On struggling with an environment into which I didn’t fit. When I wanted to study, I could not, because in my country scholars aren’t needed—only peasants and store clerks. When I wanted to serve society by sacrificing my own life if need be, fantastic dreams were put forward instead of a practical programme and then—were forgotten. When I sought work, I was not given any, but shown an easy way to marry an old woman for her money. When I finally fell in love, and wanted to become the legal father of a family, the pastor of a domestic circle, the holiness of which everyone acclaimed, then I was placed in a situation from which there was no way out. So much so, that I don’t know whether the woman I was crazy about was an ordinary flirt whose head had been turned, or perhaps a lost soul like myself, who had not found her proper way. Judging by her behaviour, she is an eligible young lady looking for the best possible husband: when one looks into her eyes, she is an angelic spirit, whose wings have been clipped by human conventions. If I’d had some tens of thousands of roubles a year, and a passion for whist, I’d have been the happiest man in Warsaw,’ he said to himself, ‘but because in addition to a stomach I have a soul which is greedy for knowledge and love, I would have had to perish there. That is a region where certain kinds of plants cannot grow, nor certain kinds of people either…’
>
And at this moment, for the first time, the idea of not returning to Poland appeared clearly to him: ‘I’ll sell the shop,’ he thought, ‘withdraw my capital and settle in Paris. I won’t get in the way of people who don’t want me…I’ll visit the museums, perhaps take to some special studies, and life will pass, if not happily, then at least painlessly.’
Only one incident, one person could bring him back to Poland and keep him there…But this incident hadn’t happened, and indeed, others had occurred to detach him more and more from Warsaw and attach him increasingly to Paris.
XXIII
An Apparition
ONE DAY he was conducting business as usual with clients in the reception room. He had just dismissed an individual who offered to fight duels on his behalf, another who was a ventriloquist and wanted to take part in diplomacy, and a third, who promised to reveal to him the treasures buried by Napoleon’s general staff at Berezina, when a footman in a blue frock-coat announced: ‘Professor Geist!’
‘Geist?’ Wokulski repeated, and he experienced a peculiar sensation. It occurred to him that iron, in the vicinity of a magnet, must feel such sensations: ‘Ask him in.’
A moment later in came a very small and skinny man, with a face as yellow as wax. He had not a single grey hair on his head.
‘How old might he be?’ thought Wokulski. Meanwhile, the visitor was eyeing him sharply, and they sat thus for a minute or perhaps two, appraising one another. Wokulski was seeking to estimate the age of the newcomer. Geist appeared to be examining him.
‘Your orders, sir?’ Wokulski finally exclaimed.
Geist shifted in his seat: ‘What can I order?’ he replied with a shrug, ‘I have come here to beg, not to give orders.’
‘What can I do for you?’ inquired Wokulski, for his visitor’s face seemed strangely likeable to him.
His guest rubbed his head: ‘I came here with one thing,’ he said, but I’m going to talk of something else. I wanted to sell you a new explosive…’
‘I won’t buy it,’ Wokulski interrupted.
‘Won’t you?’ asked Geist, ‘and yet I was told you gentlemen are seeking something of the sort for the navy. But never mind…I have something else for you…’
‘For me?’ asked Wokulski, surprised not so much by Geist’s words as by his looks.
‘Did you not at one time fly a captive balloon?’ said his guest.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘You are wealthy and an expert in natural sciences.’
‘Yes,’ Wokulski replied.
‘And there was a time when you meant to jump off a bridge?’ asked Geist. Wokulski pushed his chair back.
‘Do not be surprised,’ said his visitor. ‘In my life I have seen some thousand natural scientists, while I have had four suicides in my laboratory, so I am an expert in this type of person. You have glanced at the barometer too often for me not to have recognised a natural scientist, while even schoolgirls recognise a man thinking of suicide.’
‘What can I do for you?’ Wokulski asked again, wiping the sweat from his face.
‘I won’t say much,’ Geist declared. ‘Do you know what organic chemistry is?’
‘It’s the chemistry of carbon compounds…’
‘And what do you think of the chemistry of hydrogen compounds?’
‘There is no such thing.’
‘There is,’ Geist replied, ‘but instead of volatiles, fats, aromatic bodies, it gives new products…New products, Monsieur Suzin, with very interesting properties.…’
‘What does that have to do with me,’ said Wokulski dully, ‘I’m a tradesman.’
‘You are not a tradesman, sir, but a desperado,’ Geist replied. ‘Tradesmen don’t think of jumping out of a balloon…As soon as I saw you, I thought, “This is the man for me.” But you vanished from my sight as soon as you left the porch…Today chance has brought us together again…Mr Suzin, we must discuss the hydrogen compounds, and if you are wealthy…’
‘In the first place, I am not Suzin.’
‘No matter, since all I need is a wealthy desperado,’ said Geist.
Wokulski gazed at Geist almost fearfully. Questions flashed through his mind: is he a conjuror or secret agent, a madman or perhaps he’s really a spirit? Who knows that Satan is only a myth and doesn’t appear to people at certain times? The fact is, however, that this old man of indeterminate age had tracked down the most secret thought of Wokulski who had recently been dreaming about suicide, but so timidly that he had lacked the courage even to formulate the plan to himself.
His visitor continued gazing at him and smiled with tranquil irony: but when Wokulski opened his mouth to ask him something, he interrupted: ‘Don’t trouble yourself, sir. I have already spoken with so many people regarding their own characters and my inventions that I can tell in advance what you wish to know. I’m Professor Geist, an old madman, as they say in all the cafés around the university and polytechnic. Once I was called a great chemist, until…until I went beyond the boundary of scientific knowledge in force, today. I reported articles, I produced inventions in my own name or in the names of my collaborators, who even shared the profits with me conscientiously. But since the time when I discovered phenomena not to be found in the annals of the Academy, I have been denounced not only as a madman but as a heretic and traitor…’
‘Here, in Paris?’ Wokulski whispered.
‘Aha!’ Geist laughed, ‘here, in Paris. In Altdorf or Neustadt, a heretic and traitor is the man who doesn’t believe in the clergy, Bismarck, the ten commandments and the Prussian constitution. Here one may mock Bismarck and the constitution, but you run the risk of apostasy if you don’t believe in the multiplication table, the theory of wave movement, the consistency of specific gravities and so forth. Show me, sir, one city in which men’s brains are not cramped by some dogma or other, and I’ll make it the capital of the world and the cradle of a new race of men…’
Wokulski cooled down: he was certain he was dealing with a maniac. Geist gazed at him and went on smiling: ‘I’m ending, Mr Suzin,’ he said. ‘I’ve made great discoveries in chemistry, I have created a new science, I have found new industrial products which people scarcely dared even to dream of before. But…I still need a few extremely important facts, and I have no more money. I’ve sunk four fortunes in my research, and used up a dozen or more men: so now I need another fortune and new men…’
‘Why this confidence in me?’ asked Wokulski, calm now.
‘That’s simple,’ replied Geist. ‘Thoughts of suicide come to a madman, a scoundrel or to a man of high worth, for whom the world is too small.’
‘But how do you know I am not a scoundrel?’
‘And how do you know that a horse isn’t a cow?’ Geist replied. ‘During my enforced vacations, which have lasted for several years, alas, I have been occupying myself with zoology and making a special study of the species, Man. In this single species, with its two hands, I discovered dozens of animal types ranging from oysters and earthworms to owls and tigers. What is more, I have discovered blends of these types: tigers with wings, serpents with the heads of dogs, falcons with the shells of tortoises, which of course the imagination of poetic geniuses had already divined. And amidst all this menagerie of beasts and monsters, here and there I have found a real man, a being with sense, heart and energy. You, Mr Suzin, have the unmistakable traits of a man and that is why I have spoken so frankly to you: you are one in ten, perhaps in a hundred thousand.’
Wokulski frowned. Geist burst out: ‘What? Perhaps you think I am flattering you to gain a few francs? I’ll call on you again tomorrow and you’ll see how unfair you are just now, and stupid.’
He jumped up, but Wokulski stopped him: ‘Don’t be angry, professor,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want to offend you. But here I am visited almost every day by various kinds of tricksters.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll convince you I am neither a trickster nor a madman,’ Geist replied. ‘I’ll show you something seen by only six
or seven men who…are dead now. Ah, if only they were still alive!’ he sighed.
‘Why not until tomorrow?’
‘Because I live some distance away, and have no money for a horse-drawn cab.’
Wokulski pressed his hand: ‘You won’t be offended, professor?’ he asked, ‘if…’
‘If you give me the fare? No. After all, I told you to start with that I’m here to beg and am perhaps the most wretched beggar in Paris.’
Wokulski gave him a hundred francs. ‘For goodness sake,’ Geist smiled, ‘ten would do. Who knows but what you won’t be giving me a hundred thousand tomorrow…Do you have a large fortune?’
‘Around one million francs.’
‘A million!’ Geist repeated, clutching his head. ‘I’ll be back in two hours. God grant that I become as necessary to you, as you are to me.’
‘In that case, be so kind, professor, as to come to my room on the third floor. This is a public room.’
‘I prefer the third floor…I’ll be back in two hours,’ replied Geist, and he quickly hurried out of the room. A moment later Jumart appeared: ‘The old fellow bored you,’ he said to Wokulski, ‘eh?’
‘What sort of man is he?’ Wokulski asked casually.
Jumart stuck out his lower lip. ‘He’s a madman,’ he replied, ‘but when I was still a student, he was a great chemist. Well, then he produced some invention or other, he’s said to have some strange objects to display, but…’ He tapped his forehead with one finger.
‘Why do you call him a madman?’
‘What other epithet can you give to a man’, replied Jumart, ‘who believes he has succeeded in decreasing the specific gravity of bodies, or is it of metals—I don’t recall?’
Wokulski bade him good-bye and went to his room: ‘What a strange city,’ he thought, ‘where there are to be found treasure-seekers, hired defenders of a man’s honour, distinguished ladies who trade in secrets, waiters who discuss chemistry and chemists who want to decrease the specific gravity of bodies…’