The Prague Cemetery Read online

  They think the whole world speaks French. That's what happened a few decades ago with that fellow Lucas, a genius who forged thirty thousand documents, stealing antique paper by cutting the endpapers out of old books at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and imitating various kinds of handwriting, though not as well as me . . . I don't know how many he sold at an outrageous price to that fool Chasles (a great mathematician, they say, and a member of the Academy of Sciences, but a blockhead). And not just he, but many of his fellow academicians took it for granted that Caligula, Cleopatra and Julius Caesar would have written their letters in French, and Pascal, Newton and Galileo would have written to each other in French, when every child knows that educated men in those days wrote to each other in Latin. French scholars had no idea that other people spoke anything other than French. And what's more, the false letters told how Pascal had discovered universal gravitation twenty years before Newton, and that was enough to trick those sorbonnards who were so eaten up by national self-importance.

  Perhaps their ignorance is a result of their meanness — the national vice that they take to be a virtue and call thrift. Only in this country has a whole comedy been devised around a miser. Not to mention Père Grandet.

  You can see their meanness in their dusty apartments, in their threadbare upholstery, bathtubs handed down from their forebears, those rickety wooden spiral staircases constructed to ensure that no space is left unused. Graft together a Frenchman and a Jew (perhaps of German origin), as you do with plants, and you end up with what we have now, the Third Republic.

  If I have become French, it's because I couldn't bear being Italian. Being Piedmontese (by birth), I felt I was only the caricature of a Gaul, but more narrow-minded. The people of Piedmont flinch at the idea of anything new. They are terrorized by the unexpected: to get them to move as far as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (though very few of Garibaldi's men were Piedmontese) required two Ligurians, a hothead like Garibaldi and an evil character like Mazzini. And let's not mention what I discovered when I was sent to Palermo (when was it? I'd have to work it out). Only that conceited fool Dumas loved those people, perhaps because they adored him more than did the French, who always regarded him as a half-caste. He was liked by the Neapolitans and Sicilians, who are mulattos themselves, not through the fault of a strumpet mother but through generations of history, born from the interbreeding of faithless Levantines, sweaty Arabs and degenerate Ostrogoths, who took the worst of each of their hybrid forebears — laziness from the Saracens, savagery from the Swabians, and from the Greeks, indecision and a taste for losing themselves in idle talk until they have split a hair into four. In any event, it's quite enough to see the guttersnipes in Naples who fascinate foreigners by gulping down spaghetti, which they stuff into their gullets with their fingers, spattering themselves with rancid tomato. I've never seen them do it, but I know.

  The Italian is an untrustworthy, lying, contemptible traitor, finds himself more at ease with a dagger than a sword, better with poison than medicine, a slippery bargainer, consistent only in changing sides with the wind — and I saw what happened to those Bourbon generals the moment Garibaldi's adventurers and Piedmontese generals appeared.

  The fact is that the Italians have modeled themselves on the clergy, the only true government they've had since the time that pervert the last Roman emperor was buggered by the barbarians, because Christianity wore down the pride of the ancient race.

  Priests . . . How did I come to know them? At my grandfather's house, I think. I have a vague memory of shifty looks, decaying teeth, bad breath and sweaty hands trying to caress the back of my neck. Disgusting. They are idle and belong to a class as dangerous as thieves and vagrants. They become priests or friars only to live a life of idleness, and idleness is guaranteed by their number. If there were, say, one priest for every thousand people, they'd have so much to do that they couldn't laze about eating capons. And from the most unworthy priests the government chooses the stupidest, and appoints them bishops.

  You have them around as soon as you are born, when they baptize you; you have them at school, if your parents have been so fervent as to send you to them; then first communion, catechism, confirmation; there's a priest on your wedding day to tell you what to do in bed, and the day after at confession to ask you how many times you did it, so he can arouse himself behind the grille. They talk with horror about sex, but every day you see them getting out of an incestuous bed without so much as washing their hands, and they eat and drink their Lord, then shit and piss him out.

  They keep saying that their kingdom is not of this world, then take everything they can lay their hands on. Civilization will never reach perfection until the last stone of the last church has fallen on the last priest, and the earth is rid of that evil lot.

  The communists have spread the idea that religion is the opium of the people. That's correct, because it is used to keep a lid on people's temptations, and without religion there would be twice the number of people on the barricades, whereas during the days of the Commune there weren't enough, and they could be gunned down without much trouble. But after hearing that Austrian doctor talk about the advantages of the Colombian drug, I would say religion is also the cocaine of the people, because religion has always led to wars and the massacre of infidels, and this is true of Christians, Muslims and other idolaters. And while the Negroes of Africa confined themselves to massacring each other, the missionaries converted them and made them into colonial troops, ideally suited to dying on the front line and raping white women when they reached a city. People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

  Worst of all, without a doubt, are the Jesuits. I have the feeling I have played a few tricks on them, or perhaps it's they who have done me wrong, I'm not sure which. Or perhaps it was their blood brothers, the Masons. They're like the Jesuits, only more confused. The Jesuits at least have their theology and know how to use it, but the Masons have too much of it and lose their heads. My grandfather told me about the Masons. Along with the Jews, they had cut off the king's head. And they created the Carbonari, who are more stupid than the Masons — once they got themselves shot, and later on they had their heads cut off for making a mistake in producing a bomb, or they became socialists, communists and Communards. All up against the wall. Well done, Thiers!

  Masons and Jesuits. Jesuits are Masons dressed up as women.

  I hate women, from what little I know of them. For years I was obsessed by those brasseries à femmes, the haunts of delinquents of every kind. They are worse than brothels, which are hard to set up because the neighbors object. Brasseries, on the other hand, can be opened anywhere because, as they say, they are just places for drinking. But you drink downstairs and the prostitution goes on upstairs. Each brasserie has a theme, and the girls are dressed accordingly: in one place you have German barmaids; the waitresses opposite the law courts wear lawyers' gowns. Elsewhere the names are enough, like the Brasserie du Tire-cul, the Brasserie des Belles Marocaines or the Brasserie des Quatorze Fesses, not far from the Sorbonne. They're nearly always run by Germans — here's a way of undermining French morality. There are at least sixty of them between the fifth and sixth arrondissements, and almost two hundred throughout Paris, and all are open even to the young. Youths go there first of all out of curiosity, then out of habit, and finally they get the clap, if not worse. When the brasserie is near a school, the pupils go there after classes to spy on the girls through the door. I go there to drink . . . and to spy from inside, through the door, at the pupils who are spying from outside. And not just at the pupils — you learn a great deal about the customs and habits of adults, and that can always be useful.

  What I most enjoy is spotting the various kinds of pimps hanging around the tables; some are husbands living off the charms of their wives: they hang about, well dressed, smoking and playing cards, and the landlord or the girls refer to them as the cuckolds' table. But in the Latin Quarter many are fa
iled ex-students, always worried that someone is going to make off with their source of income, and they often draw knives. Calmest of them all are the thieves and cutthroats, who come and go because they need to keep a low profile and know the girls won't betray them — otherwise they'd end up next day floating in the Bièvre.

  * * *

  Jesuits are Masons dressed up as women.

  * * *

  There are also the inverts, busy looking for perverts of either sex for the most lurid services. They pick up clients at the Palais-Royal or the Champs-Élysées and attract them using a coded sign language. They often get their accomplices to turn up at their room dressed as policemen, threatening to arrest the client in his underpants, who then begs for mercy and pulls out a handful of coins.

  When I enter these whorehouses I do so with caution, because I know what might happen to me. If the client looks as though he's wealthy, the landlord makes a sign, a girl introduces herself and gradually persuades him to invite all the other girls to the table and to order the most expensive things (but they drink anisette superfine or cassis fin so as not to get drunk, colored water for which the client pays dearly). Or they get you to play cards, and of course they exchange signs, so you lose and have to buy dinner for everyone, including the landlord and his wife. And if you try to stop, they invite you to play not for money but so that for every hand you win a girl takes off a piece of clothing . . . And each item of lace that falls reveals that disgusting white flesh, those swollen breasts, those dark sweaty armpits that unnerve you . . .

  I've never been upstairs. Someone said that women are just a substitute for the solitary vice, except that you need more imagination. So I return home and dream about them at night— I'm certainly not made of iron — and then it is they who've led me on.

  I've read Doctor Tissot, and I know they harm you even from a distance. We do not know whether animal spirits and genital fluid are the same thing, but we know that these two have a certain similarity, and after long nocturnal pollutions, people lose energy and the body grows thinner, the face turns pallid, memory becomes blurred, eyesight misty, the voice hoarse; sleep is disturbed by restless dreams, the eyes ache and red blotches appear on the face. Some people spit out a limy matter, feel palpitations, choking, fainting, while others complain of constipation or increasingly foul-smelling emissions. In the end, blindness.

  Perhaps these are exaggerations. As a boy I had a pimply face, but that seems normal at such an age, or perhaps all boys indulge in such pleasures — some excessively, touching themselves day and night. Now I know how to pace myself. My dreams are disturbed only after I have spent an evening in a brasserie, and I don't get an erection every time I see a skirt in the street, as many do. Work keeps me from moral laxity.

  But why philosophize instead of piecing together events? Perhaps because I need to know not only what I did before yesterday, but also what I'm like inside — that is, assuming there is something inside me. They say that the soul is simply what a person does. But if I hate someone and I cultivate this grudge, then, by God, that means there is something inside! What does the philosopher say? Odi ergo sum. I hate therefore I am.

  A while ago the bell rang downstairs. I thought maybe it was someone fool enough to want to buy something, but the fellow told me that Tissot had sent him — why did I ever choose that password? He wanted a handwritten will, signed by a certain Bonnefoy in favor of someone called Guillot (which was certainly him). He had the writing paper that Bonnefoy uses, or used to use, and an example of his handwriting. I invited Guillot up to my office, chose a pen and the right ink and wrote out the document perfectly without making a draft. Guillot handed me a payment proportionate to the legacy, as if he knew my rates.

  So is this my trade? It's a marvelous thing creating a legal deed out of nothing, forging a letter that looks genuine, drafting a compromising confession, creating a document that will lead someone to ruin. The power of art . . . to be rewarded by a visit to the Café Anglais.

  My memory must be in my nose, yet I have the impression that centuries have passed since I last savored the aroma of that menu: soufflés à la reine, filets de sole à la vénitienne, escalopes de turbot au gratin, selle de mouton purée bretonne . . . And as an entrée: poulet à la portugaise, or pâté chaud de cailles, or homard à la parisienne, or all of them, and as the plat de résistance, perhaps canetons à la rouennaise or ortolans sur canapés, and for entremets, aubergines à l'espagnole, asperges en branches, cassolettes princesse . . . For wine, I don't know, perhaps a Château Margaux, or Château Latour, or Château Lafite, depending on the vintage. And to finish, a bombe glacée.

  I have always found more pleasure in food than in sex, perhaps a mark left upon me by priests.

  I feel as if my mind is in a continual cloud that prevents me from looking back. Why, all of a sudden, do memories resurface about my visits to Bicerin in Father Bergamaschi's robes? I had quite forgotten about Father Bergamaschi. Who was he? I'm enjoying letting my pen wander where my instinct takes it. According to the Austrian doctor, I ought to reach a point where my memory feels true pain, which would explain why I have suddenly blotted out so many things.

  Yesterday, which I thought was Tuesday, the 22nd of March, I woke up thinking I knew perfectly well who I was— Captain Simonini, sixty-seven years old, but carrying them well (I'm fat enough to be described as a fine-looking man). I assumed the title of Captain in France, in remembrance of my grandfather, making vague references to a military past in the ranks of Garibaldi's Thousand, which in this country, where Garibaldi is esteemed more highly than in Italy, carries a certain prestige. Simone Simonini, born in Turin, father from Turin, mother French (a Savoyard, but when she was born, Savoy had been invaded by the French).

  I was still in bed, allowing my thoughts to wander . . . With the problems I'd been having with the Russians (the Russians?), it was better not to be seen at my favorite restaurants. I could cook something for myself. I find it relaxing to labor away for a few hours preparing some delicacy. For example, côtes de veau Foyot: meat at least four centimeters thick — enough for two, of course — two medium-size onions, fifty grams of bread without the crust, seventy-five of grated gruyère, fifty of butter. Grate the bread into breadcrumbs and mix with the gruyère, then peel and chop the onions and melt forty grams of the butter in a small pan. Meanwhile, in another pan, gently sauté the onions in the remaining butter. Cover the bottom of a dish with half the onions, season the meat with salt and pepper, arrange it on the dish and add the rest of the onions. Cover with a first layer of breadcrumbs and cheese, making sure that the meat sits well on the bottom of the dish, allowing the melted butter to drain to the bottom and gently pressing by hand. Add another layer of breadcrumbs to form a sort of dome, and the last of the melted butter. Add enough white wine and stock until the liquid is no more than half the height of the meat. Put the dish in the oven for around half an hour, basting now and then with the wine and stock. Serve with sautéed cauliflower.

  It takes a little time, but the pleasures of cooking begin before the pleasures of the palate, and preparing means anticipating, which was what I was doing while still luxuriating in my bed. Only fools need to keep a woman, or a young boy, under their bedcovers so as not to feel alone. They don't understand that a salivating mouth is better than an erection.

  I had almost everything I needed in the house, except for the gruyère and the meat. For the meat, on any other day I could go to the butcher in place Maubert — goodness knows why he closes on Tuesday. But I knew another one, two hundred meters away on boulevard Saint-Germain, and a short walk would do me no harm. I dressed and, before leaving, stuck on my usual black mustache and fine beard at the mirror over the washstand. I then put on my wig and made a part in the center, slightly wetting the comb. I slipped on my frock coat and placed the silver watch into my waistcoat pocket with its chain clearly visible. While I'm talking, in order to give the appearance of a retired captain, I like to fiddle with a tortoiseshel
l box of licorice lozenges, a portrait of an ugly but well-dressed woman on the inside lid, no doubt a deceased loved one. Every now and then I pop a lozenge into my mouth and pass it with my tongue from one side to the other. This allows me to talk more slowly — and the listener follows the movement of your lips and doesn't hear what you're saying. The problem is trying to keep up the appearance of someone of less than average intelligence.

  I went down to the street, turned the corner, trying not to stop in front of the brasserie, where the raucous voices of its fallen women could be heard from early morning.

  Place Maubert is no longer the court of miracles it was when I arrived here thirty-five years ago. Then it teemed with sellers of recycled tobacco, the coarser variety obtained from cigar stubs and pipe ash, and the finer variety from cigarette butts — coarse tobacco at one franc twenty centimes a pound, fine at between one franc fifty and one franc sixty (though the industry had hardly ever been profitable, and once they'd drunk away most of their profits in some wine cellar, none of those industrious recyclers had anywhere to sleep the night). It teemed with pimps who, having lazed about until at least two in the afternoon, spent the rest of the day smoking, propped against a wall like respectable pensioners, then going into action at dusk, like shepherd dogs. It teemed with thieves reduced to stealing from each other because no decent person (except for the occasional idler up from the countryside) would have dared to cross the square, and I would have been easy prey if it were not for my military step and the way I twirled my stick. And, in any event, the pickpockets of the area knew me, and now and then one of them would greet me, addressing me as Captain. Apart from that, they thought I belonged in some way to their underworld, and dog does not eat dog. It teemed with prostitutes whose beauty had faded — for those who were still attractive would have been working in the brasseries à femmes — and they therefore had no choice but to offer themselves to rag-and-bone men, petty thieves and foulsmelling secondhand-tobacco sellers. On seeing a respectably dressed gentleman with a well-brushed top hat, they might dare to sidle up to you or take you by the arm, coming so close that you could smell their terrible cheap perfume mixed with sweat, and this would have been too appalling an experience (I had no wish to dream of them at night), so when I saw one of them approaching I would whirl my stick full circle, as if to form an inaccessible area of protection around me, and they understood at once, since they were used to being ordered about and knew how to respect a stick.