Paris Before the Deluge Read online

  Meanwhile, Atlas disappeared into Lord Nirvana’s courtyard, while the drunken mob drew away, singing the ballad of Uranus:

  Uranus was a good king,

  Who came down to earth.

  To do what?

  To ask us the question

  Why do you want a king?

  V. A Rival

  Atlas and Chemnis had found a benevolent protector in Nimrod. Thanks to him, they had been able to take shelter from poverty in Lord Nirvana’s small house in the village of Me-nu-tche.

  They had not been residents there very long when the revolution of the Pah-ri-ziz burst forth, in which the clubman from Sylacea took a very active part, without worrying about his master’s opinion. And he did well, because Nirvana only pampered him all the more. He was too well informed of public affairs not to see that he could no longer count on the past, and he had too much tact not to understand that in his servant there was all the amplitude of a man of the future. He was therefore careful to retain all his esteem, like a prudent man who puts a cloak over his garments on a stormy day.

  Atlas did not abuse the unexpected favor of his master, but his secret hopes became all the firmer in consequence. The times, moreover, were in his favor. In days of political troubles, the great and the rich disguise themselves; they hide, and avoid one another. There was, therefore, a chance that Ormuzda would not be bothered by amorous pursuers. Perhaps, then, he would have time to create a position for himself fine enough to be inevitable.

  Nirvana lived in the greatest solitude; even his only friend, Speos, barely knew the way to his village dwelling. Everything therefore went as desired. Atlas was far from fearing any rival, for the moment. And yet, he had one: a rival he had not divined, but whose name the insinuation of his friend the rabble-rouser had just hurled in his face like a thunderbolt.

  That rival was, like him, a poor child of the people: a man lost in the crowd, one of the disinherited of society, a man without a family, devoid of relatives, a child of hazard, or rather of corruption, of which there were thousands in Atlantis, in spite—or perhaps because—of the severity of its laws.

  He was Speos’ secretary; his name was Hyperion.

  By comparison with Atlas, who had a herculean vigor, Hyperion was frail, although well-proportioned in all his limbs; his face was not so expressive, but more seductive; his skull was less worthy of the eulogies of phrenology, but it was more gracious; it was easy to divine that the blood of the aristocracy ran in his veins.

  Endowed with natural virtue, and a good mind, he had been able to profit from all the opportunities that hazard had offered him to develop his intelligence, and he was truly more perfect than one might expect of a young man abandoned to the cares of nature alone. He was almost the same age as Atlas.

  Poor Atlas had believed, until then, that there was a vast abyss between himself and Ormuzda, the insignificant. In order to fill that abyss, he had launched himself into a giant task, only to discover, finally, that someone else, as insignificant as he was, had risen to the level of the young woman of his dreams, with a few petty perfections that he did not have.

  A secret rage devoured his soul; he cursed his birth and his domesticity, which had not permitted him to increase his chances of success in time; he cursed Heaven and hazard for rendering him less gracious than Hyperion, and less lovable.

  His thoughts became more audacious in consequence; a few ferocious words even slipped from his mouth, in thinking of the inequality of conditions, the pretensions of despotism, the shameful favoritism of his times and the great treason of the sinners of the aristocracy.

  Love had rendered Atlas unhappy, and had caused him to suffer, but had not yet rendered him unjust. It had caused the scales to fall from his eyes; had rendered him scholarly, philosophical. A profound thinker, an ardent, determined citizen no longer seeing any but one thing: the sanctity of contracts, public or private, his rights and his duties: not the rights and duties of social convention, which varied from one country to another in accordance with governments, passions and the prejudices of the time—the century, the year or the hour—and which so often diminished men in the eyes of the just; but the rights of the being who ought to live happily and without obstacles beneath his feet other than those to which nature gives rise. Love, in brief, had made him into a great and good patriot. Let us not reproach him for it. What does the cause matter, when the result is so fine?

  After leaving the tavern in Me-nu-tsche, Atlas went home precipitately, as we have seen, with his eyes ablaze and menace in his heart. He went straight to the garden where he seized his mattock violently, as if he wished to break it.

  “They’re right!” he cried, “and I’m just a fool for staying here, toiling away in the fields, hardening my hands for her, who disdains them, for getting sunburn, for her, who thinks me ugly, to protect aristocrats who scorn me. In these times of equality, can’t I find something better to do?” He headed resolutely toward the exit from the house. “Yes, I have better things to do.”

  He found Chemnis there, who came to meet him.

  “Is that you, Chemnis?” he said, hesitantly.

  “It’s me, your little sister,” the young woman replied. “I saw you weeping, and I came to ask you why.”

  “I was thinking, Chemins,” said Atlas, taking her hands and squeezing them affectionately, “that no one is more amiable than you, and that, if I were rich, you wouldn’t remain at the mercy of others for long.”

  “Why were you thinking that, my friend? We’re so comfortable here.”

  “Child,” said Atlas, fixing Chemnis with his gleaming eyes, “you’re content, as if this chance bread were yours, as if this noble domain would always be your home, as if all your days were going to be as beautiful.”

  “Oh, what do you expect, Atlas? I don’t ask so much of the three divine friends. As long as I always see you by my side, I’ll always be happy.”

  Atlas took Chemnis’ hand and kissed it avidly, raising an angry gaze to the heavens.

  “And to think that I can’t love anyone but her!” he murmured. “Is the spirit of evil more powerful than God, then?”

  Then he looked down at the young woman, his gaze softer and full of interest. He went back to his bedroom instead of continuing his route toward the exit.

  Chemnis had guessed. Even though Atlas had not betrayed his secret thought and his secret torment by any word, she had read it in the depths of his heart.

  She ran after her friend, therefore, to cheer up his somber thoughts a little, caught up with him and disappeared with him into the house.

  An hour later, however, Atlas took the road to Lutecia.

  Chemis stood on the threshold, weeping copiously. She followed him with her eyes for as long as she could.

  “Oh, Sylax, Sylax, will he ever come back?” she cried, in the midst of her sobs. “Is it really true that he’s only going to visit the generous Nimrod, our protector?”

  VI. The Fire

  The abrupt departure of Atlas, whose objective he suspected, was a thunderbolt for Lord Nirvana. He was not unaware that, in spite of the obscurity in which he lived, he had needed the officious intervention of his servant on more than one occasion.

  Political affairs were not becoming any brighter; ambition and envy reigned everywhere, not advancing public stability. The provisional had not come to an end, and the provisional was by no means showing a smiling face to peaceful people.

  Atlas, meanwhile, was walking sadly along the road to Lutecia. He was no longer thinking about the grandeurs of which he had dreamed, even though he was now running after them. He was no longer thinking about the future of Atlantis or his own; he was thinking about love, about Ormuzda, and he was desperate.

  Before losing sight of the house he was fleeing, he looked back at it one last time, embracing it with a long and profound contemplation. Then, shaking his head proudly, he advanced resolutely toward the city.

  He had only taken a few paces, however, when he stopped, utter
ly amazed. His feet did not advance, any more than they would have done if they had been buried in the ground. With his eyes he followed two riders who had just gone past and who had not noticed him, so rapid were the reindeer on which they were mounted.

  His first impulse was to follow them, but he felt his legs totter beneath him. His face was pale and taut, his heart was beating violently. A new determination bore him in the direction of Lutecia, toward which he seemed to be running rather than walking. Then he stopped again, in great agitation, muttering unintelligible menaces, cursing his destiny. His gaze sought the two riders; they had disappeared.

  A horrible grimace strayed over the young man’s lips then; a horrible tempest was raging in his heart. Jealousy caused snakes to hiss in his ears, and the mockery of his riotous friends came to weigh with all its weight upon his memory.

  He launched himself toward the village of Me-nu-tche, on the heels of Speos and Hyperion, whom he had recognized as the two riders.

  He did not go back to Nirvana’s house, however, but prowled around the vicinity all day, devoured by thousands of various and horrible thoughts.

  When dusk fell, he went to the club, alone and silently, and crouched in a corner, as if he wanted to hide from all eyes. It was evident that habit had brought him there, but that a secret sentiment was driving him into the shadows now.

  An orator with a hoarse voice, the rabble-rouser of the previous day, the malevolent counselor who had turned Atlas’ heart upside-down and whom Atlas had accused of obeying malevolent orders—which was true—suddenly launched himself to the podium, where he delivered a violent diatribe against Atlas, the slave of an aristocrat, the disdained suitor of Nirvana’s daughter.

  At those words, Atlas, whom no one had noticed in his corner of the room, where he was keeping quiet, got to his feet as if he had received an electric shock, and leapt toward the tribune. His presence disconcerted the orator, who went pale, trembled and was gripped by a sudden weakness that caused his legs to totter.

  That was because Atlas seemed frightful to behold. The flickering light that illuminated the room projected his shadow on the walls like that of a giant. It seemed that his hair was bristling on his head, and that his heart was rumbling like the dull and distant waves of a stormy sea; his features seemed hideously clenched, like the wrinkles of a tiger grimacing before tearing its prey apart.

  “Citizens,” he cried, standing up on tiptoe and threatening to descend with all the mass of his body on those surrounding him, “this man is a liar, a treacherous liar! I needed bread; I stretched out my head to take what the hand of an aristocrat offered me. Where is the evil? Where is the treason? Which of you would have wanted to feed me every day for doing nothing? Is it you, who are slandering me without knowing me? Is it you, whom the hand of some secret enemy is driving upon me like a ferocious beast on an unarmed enemy? Speak! Say so!”

  And Atlas turned to his accuser, who made no reply, but who, having recovered from his initial surprise, sought to strike a pose as proud as the words he had hurled at the club, even though he did not feel bold enough to sustain them further.

  Atlas then abandoned his mute enemy; he renewed his profession of faith, which everyone knew, but so emotively that several people suddenly got to their feet and left the room, utterly furious against the nobility whose provender they had supplied, against the former aristocrats, the powerful and the rich, the obstinate and incorrigible enemies of new things.

  Atlas did not perceive the strange emotion that he had produced. Exhausted after the energy he had just expended, he let himself fall back into his seat and lowered his head as if under the weight of some overwhelming thought, and remained pensive for a long time.

  Meanwhile, orators succeeded one another with frightful rapidity, spreading an entirely new bile around them. Animated by Atlas’ fervor, they discoursed angrily about the affairs of the day, the ripping up of privileges, the innate equality of humans, the social contract and the future of fraternity and equality.

  Night, however, was still advancing.

  A strange noise was suddenly heard in the distance, vague, dull and uncertain, like the subterranean rumble of a volcano slowly building up to a terrible eruption.

  The noise soon became more expressive, and then a few screams penetrated as far as the enclosure of the club, heart-rending cries that stirred all the Me-nu-tcheans in their seats.

  Everyone got up spontaneously. Atlas was the first to launch himself over the threshold with a single bound, and then precipitated himself instinctively toward Lord Nirvana’s house.

  It was, in fact, there that the trouble was.

  Thick smoke, speckled with streaks of fire, was emerging from the chimneys in great floods. The courtyard and its surroundings were enveloped by thick black clouds that were escaping from all the windows, which were cracking and breaking in the tongues of fire. It was a conflagration, and a serious one.

  Atlas advanced resolutely, lending an attentive ear in order to seize a few screams emerging from inside the buildings. He heard nothing but a staccato sniggering emerging from the depths of the courtyard behind him. He ran in that direction, with fury in his heart and his eyes. He found himself in the presence of a small group of men who were rubbing their hands at the sight of the blaze and trying to stifle the expression of their infernal joy in order to listen to the sinister crepitations of the fire.

  “Well, Citizen,” said a hoarse voice that Atlas recognized perfectly, “that’s how they’ll all be grilled, your aristocrats.”

  “All! Wretch!” cried Atlas, seizing the arms of the ferocious jester and dragging him to a blazing window. “Save them, then! Save them, wretch!” He shoved the arsonist up against the window, where he almost suffocated.

  “Poor fool,” said the latter, straightening up. “You don’t know everything. You don’t know anything. There’s someone in there,” he added, in a low voice, “a great enemy of the fatherland, who’s hiding with your Nirvana, and also your rival. You ought to kiss my hands.”

  Atlas did not hear that reply; a muffled groan from the interior had just reached them, and he launched himself through the window into the midst of the flames.

  “By Me-nu-tche, I don’t understand that democrat at all,” said the incendiary, tranquilly rejoining his comrades, who were waiting for him at the back of the courtyard.

  “He did, however, say that all the leftovers27 should be killed,” added another, as if to console the one who had just felt the force of Atlas’ vigorous hand.

  “By Sylax, he said it!” retorted the raucous voice. “And citizen Nimrod said it too. Would we have set fire to that wolves’ den otherwise?”

  A few moments later a man emerged from the bosom of the blaze carrying two heavy burdens in his arms: two inert bodies. They were those of Ormuzda and Hyperion. He did not stop until he was outside the house, in the middle of a cultivated field.

  He set Hyperion down, and then fled, carrying the young woman, with the rapidity of a wolf carrying off a lamb. Ormuzda’s hair was loose, trailing on the ground, her head hanging down backwards, her eyes closed; her heart was no longer beating.

  “Atlas! Atlas!” a young woman shouted to him, who was in his path—but Atlas did not hear anything; he paid no heed to Chemnis’ voice.

  Chemnis followed him with her eyes as best she could in the obscurity of the night, and then listened to the sound of his footsteps, which faded away in the distance.

  When she could no longer hear anything, she returned to the burned house, and went back in, wiping away the large tears that were running down her cheeks, repairing the disorder of her garments, which she had torn with her fingernails in a fit of rage and jealousy.

  VII. An Hour After the Conflagration

  Lord Nirvana’s residence had not burned completely. The tent on the platform, which was composed of wood and fabric, had suffered more than anything else. There was nothing left of it but a heap of ashes—but the basement, the house properly speaking, stil
l had many sections that were intact, or nearly so.

  The fire was out everywhere, and the crowd that had run to rescue the victims of the fire had ebbed away. The house had become as mute and dark as a tomb again.

  Chemnis headed toward it by the gleam of a light that she could see through a window. That was where Nirvana was, with his wife and his dubious friend Speos, sitting face to face and maintaining a silence of desolation that they only interrupted from time to time with a few stifled sighs or exclamations of despair. They continually turned their eyes toward the door as if they were expecting someone whose arrival was not in doubt.

  At the door, Chemnis bumped into a man who went back in precipitately without saying anything, and disappeared without her being able to recognize him in the darkness.

  At the noise she made, Nirvana ran toward her, and stopped dead upon seeing that the young woman was alone and in the most profound desolation.

  “My daughter! My daughter!” cried two voices, simultaneously.

  “She’s alive,” Chemnis replied, in a tremulous voice.

  “Oh, may the three divine friends be blessed!” they said.

  The night, however, followed its course peacefully. The atmosphere spread the agreeable freshness of a beautiful summer night everywhere. Desolation was in the heart of everyone in Nirvana’s house, but nothing had changed in nature, the calm of which seemed to be insulting the troubles of those who were suffering.

  Some distance away, on the edge of a ditch dug around a little wood adjacent to the village of Me-nu-tche, Atlas was standing upright, immobile, his arms folded over his breast and his face turned toward the ditch. Ormuzda was there, half recumbent, so feeble was she still.

  “I’m cold, Atlas,” said the young woman, in a quavering voice.

  Atlas took off his plebeian smock and laid it over her.