Bonjour, bonsoir, gens de tout acabit!
Laissez moi vous soumettre une
courte nouvelle en anglais, écrite pour un cours de Creative Writing et à rendre pour... hum... très bientôt, sur laquelle j’accueillerais avec faste et joie tout type de commentaire. o/ (Et si quelqu'un pouvait m'aider à chasser les dernières fautes de langue qui se tapissent sournoisement dans les recoins sombres, je lui en serais très reconnaissante.)
27 July 1890
I am so weary I can barely write these lines. Oh what a horrible day it has been! Since we got off that train, nothing happened but misfortunes, and I am barely exaggerating.
But I must start from the beginning, for if I am to keep a journal during the coming weeks, I must make it clear and easy to read. I am not used to this exercise, though it is not a lack of will. I already tried several times to keep a journal, but each time failed to discipline myself to write entries everyday – and anyway, I felt like my life was so boring it wasn’t worth being recorded. But now is different. Things – bad, horrible things - are happening and I have no one to tell them to. I could write to my dear Marcus, but I don’t want to alarm him with my complaints – not now, it is too early. I shall write to him for sure when I know the outcome of all this. For the moment, keeping track of the events will bring me a bit of solace, I hope.
We arrived, Solia and I, in Baden-Baden this morning at 6 a.m. It had been an exhausting journey. We departed very late, for there was no other train before, and spent the night in our wagon. None of us managed to close an eye and, when we finally arrived, when we finally alighted, it was so terribly hot outside that I thought I was going to collapse. But we had no time to lose. We had no place to spend the coming night and needed to find a hotel, for I must confess our trip was, because of me, planned at the last minute. For five hours we unsuccessfully searched. For five hours under the beating sun, we wandered through the busy streets carrying our heavy luggage. (I wanted to hire some people to help us at the train station, but Solia said it would be too expensive. Dad told me not to marry a Jew!) Solia kept complaining. The city was the ugliest he had ever seen. Everyone spoke German, here, and German was the ugliest language in the world – and the people resembled their tongue, he said. He never addressed me any clear reproach, but I knew this litany of childish complaints was directed at me, for I was the one responsible of our stay in Baden-Baden. If it hadn’t been for me, we would be home, right now. But how could I have known that things would go this way? Lately I have been feeling like something was going wrong in our wedding. We were starting to drift apart, after only two years of marriage. (Thought were we ever a happy, loving couple? I used to think so but now… Ah! I am not so sure anymore) Therefore, only two weeks ago, I figured out it would be a good idea to spend a few days away together on holidays. I wasn’t really fond of the hot springs or casinos Baden-Baden was famous for, but Aurelia told me she had been there with her husband last summer, and she had so much fun, she said, the city was so nice, so full of amusements, she painted such a vivid portrait of their wonderful stay, that I believed it would be the perfect place for Solia and I to spend a second honeymoon. Of course, Solia thought differently and it took me ages to convince him – and now I wish I had failed. I must say I am really expecting a lot from this trip. I feel like something exceptional will happen to us, I want something to happen to us. But seeing how things started, I am dreading what will come next. I love Solia, I swear I do! But why am I always the one making all the efforts?
All the good hotels were already full. Solia said nothing, but gave me a single, ironic glance that meant “I told you we shouldn’t have come here”. This was depressing. Solia was taking care of the talking, since I couldn’t speak nor understand a word of German. This was part of the things I liked with him. He is fluent in at least five different languages. A gifted-child, my Solia! When he finally came out of a hotel, announcing he had at last found a free room for us, I looked up at the building and instantly felt like I was going to burst into tears. It was an old building with dirty walls. The inside wasn’t any better. Everything looked cheap and the entrance hall was dark. Harassed and depressed, I fell on the bed as soon as we entered our small, poorly furnished room. It took me a good three hours to recover and regain my spirits. We had a bad start, but, after that, things could only get better, I told myself. (How naïve I was!) Positive events required a positive state of mind to occur. I should not let Solia see how disappointed and depressed I was, I thought, for that would only make him more cynical. (I hate his cynism!)
When I emerged from my bed of thorns, it was already time for dinner, and so, trying to be as optimistic as I could, I took Solia’s hand and led him to the dining hall.
The hall was larger, cleaner than I expected. Busier, as well. Almost all the tables were occupied. Voices were blurting from everywhere, happily conversing and, much to my delight, Solia thought it was wonderful and started to cheer up a bit. We found a small table at the very end of the hall and ordered dinner. The food wasn’t bad; actually, it was even quite good. Solia had devoured his plate with the haste of a starving man and his face was now red with satisfaction.
We stayed for quite a while in the dining hall, even after our plates had been removed and our desserts finished, talking and talking. Our conversation was pleasant in the beginning, but as time passed, it gained a heavier tone that made me feel uneasy. I can’t remember how we ended up there, but a few minutes before his seizure, Solia was rattling about suicide and life’s hopeless lack of meaning with the ardor of a drunk man (even though he didn’t drank a single glass of the cheap wine we had been brought. Here, I must confess that I was the drunk one, for I remember filling up and drinking a new glass each time he preached for suicide’s necessity. And – alas – he did that often.) I can’t remember precisely all what he said, apart from the passage that came right before his seizure:
“You have no idea of what you’ve done when you accepted to marry me, my poor, my sweet Livia (Oh how I hated it when he started calling me his “sweet Livia” with this pathetic voice. He sounded just like an old, disgusting drunkard – and he was only twenty!) You have no idea of how disgusting, how monstrous I am! I am a monster of Pride and Selfishness, and yet, I have no Honor. Should I ever find someone able to dominate and submit me, I would kneel before him, and call him master, and lick his shoes for ever. I could cover myself with mud, crawl in dirt just for the shameful, guilty, nasty pleasure of hurting you – or hurting me, for it is the same thing. How ashamed I would feel, should I willingly hurt your feeling, how dolorously conscious of my own ignominy I would be, but then – how pleasurable this conscious would be as well, for Sade and Karelov – our Russian Sade - are right, there is a pleasure in guilt and humiliation, a pleasure in suffering received and inflicted, in submission and domination, a pleasure greater than everything else, a pleasure….”
But I will never know what this terrible pleasure was again, for, upon this word, he suddenly let out a dreadful, inhuman shriek and collapsed on the floor. I instantly rised from my chair, a cry stuck in my throat, to see him convulsing at my feet. His eyes were wide open with an empty look, and saliva was dripping from his mouth as he was crying and ripping the air to pieces with his arms.
It was late, five to midnight, and the hall was almost empty. Nevertheless, I looked around, completely panicked, in search of some help. My eyes automatically fell upon the table next to us, for I believe I saw an old man and a young lady sitting here before. The girl was still there, but I couldn’t see the man. I turned my head back to Solia and let out a gasp. Here he was, kneeling by my husband’s side and maintaining his head firmly in his hands to keep it from hitting the floor. When did he come that close? I never heard him! Without a word, I kneeled by Solia’s side and looked at him. Surely, he wasn’t as old as I thought. He looked tired and older than his age, but a close, attentive look revealed that he must still be in his forties. Despite his wrinkles and prematurely whitened hairs, his eyes retained a little something, a little spark of energy and youth that gave him the strange aura I first perceived. He somehow reminded me of a fairytale character. An old, wise wizard. Or maybe an evil sorcerer. Bending over my husband, he looked like he was about to cast a dreadful spell on a young, sleeping Prince. A few memories from my childhood came back, when my brother used to read me creepy tales to scare me before bedtime. Oddly enough, the story of Melmoth or the Wandering Jew was one of my favorite. It wasn’t particularly creepy, but I couldn’t help but relate to this poor man condemned to wander the earth forever. The perspective of being an eternal outcast, with no place to rest or to call home was enough to make me feel uneasy and keep me awake all night.
“- Is this his first epileptic crisis?”
The voice, grave and profound, definitively woke me up from my stupor and I realized I had let my mind wander too far. I noticed Solia had stopped convulsing, and, unconscious, was now taken care of by the young dark-haired lady. It was the old man himself who spoke.
“Yes – Or, no, I mean… This is the first time I ever see him convulsing, but he told me, I remember, now, that he suffered from epilepsy.”
I answered in French, for - I forgot to mention it - the old man has spoken to me in that tongue. He had a strange, strong foreign accent but his French was surprisingly good.
He asked me a few more questions about Solia’s medical past with the precision of a doctor, though, according to his own word, he was nothing but “a poor unfortunate fellow who happened to himself be suffering from the Sacred Disease since childhood”. When I asked him how I could repay him for his time and kindness, he first refused the offer, until an idea seemed to pop up in his mind. “Oh, actually, there is a way you could repay me” he said, mysteriously. But then, Solia groaned and opened his eyes. He muttered something in Russian, his mother tongue. Upon hearing it, the old man’s face suddenly lit up. He exclaimed something in the same language. Solia’s face lit up as well, and on they went in Russian. I didn’t understand a word of their conversation, but at one point, the man gave a little purse full of coins to Solia who immediately put it in his pocket. While I stared incredulously at the scene, they shook hands and, with a warm “Au revoir Madame” addressed to me, the old man left the hall, the young lady (his daughter, maybe?) closely following him. When I asked Solia about the purse, he told me that it contained ten goldmarks and that the old man apparently wanted him to gamble them and then bring him what he won. This was a strange request indeed, but it was how this man wanted to be repaid for the care he took of Solia. He didn’t even say his name – just that he was staying in room 21. It was almost one in the morning, though, so we decided it would be wiser to ponder all these mysteries tomorrow. As soon as we entered our room, Solia undressed and fell asleep on the bed, while I took this journal out of my traveling bag and started writing. This is all I have to say for today. So much emotions! But at least, Solia looks fine. (He even started snoring.) I hope tomorrow will be a better day!
28th of July 1890
This was another horrible day! Are things ever going to get better? And to think that the day started in such a lovely way!
I was feeling much better than yesterday, when I awoke. We had a lovely, fresh morning. Solia was grumpy as ever, but nothing remained of the seizure he had yesterday, and I was so relieved to see him in good health that I didn’t even pay attention to his jeremiads. We took a stroll in the city. It was much prettier than what I thought yesterday and I was even starting to understand why Aurelia liked it so much. At one point, I noticed a lovely little church and suggested that we could visit it. Alas, here, Solia decided that he had not been childish and whimsical enough since the beginning of our trip, and so tried to make up for it. “I am not going there”, he said, “for this would be an insult to my beliefs and yours as well to my family’s”. And since I was insisting, not understanding how simply visiting a little church for ten minutes could hurt anyone’s beliefs, he went on: “Did I ever asked you to visit a synagogue? I believe not. So don’t ask me to visit a church, for this is not my religion, this is not the way I was raised, and it would be disrespectful toward Christian religion for a Jew like me to enter a Christian church” Here, he was so obviously lying, he was being such a sophist, that I decided it was pointless to argue and gave up without trying. Alone I entered the church, remembering how he had once proudly explained to me that he was an atheist, raised between a Jewish mother who would take him to the synagogue on Saturdays, and a Christian father who would take him to church on Sundays.
The worst thing was that I knew exactly why he had done this. He was trying to annoy me, no doubt. He was a child, a child of twenty – even though his smart, green suit and the dark brown beard he had recently decided to grow were making him look much older – just a little child who was trying to get my attention by contradicting me. Solia was sometimes a complete mystery to me – no doubt he was much more clever than I was, and his mind sure worked in mysterious ways – but in these moments, when he was so childishly trying to get me angry, in these moments, his attitude was so clear, it was so easy for me to read through him, to guess his intentions and the meaning of all his words and deeds, that I always felt an overwhelming wave of love for him drowning my heart. A maternal, possessive love. How shall I put this? In these moments, I felt truly superior to him, like a mother who is listening to her ill-behaved child’s lies, knowing they are lies, but still loving him, and loving him more, maybe, because she precisely knows he is lying to her, while he believes she doesn’t know… But she knows, and, magnanimously, she forgives him and loves him. There was something utterly cute about Solia’s childish attempts to make me lose my temper, and – should I say it? – it always gave me a great pleasure to watch him getting caught in his own web, getting angry and restless because I wasn’t falling for his childish, obvious tricks. Therefore, the church incident this morning didn’t gave me the least displeasure, and it is happy and full of love for my child-husband that I returned to the hotel – even our cheap, low-standard hotel didn’t look that bad, after all. But alas! These optimistic and joyful feelings didn’t last.
After our stroll, Solia went out to gamble for that queer old man we had met yesterday. When he came back, at 3pm, he was all excitement and restlessness. His eyes were wide, and he was spiting more than speaking. I must say he scared me and, for a second, I feared he might have another seizure. But fortunately, nothing of that type happened. He rushed into the room and, putting the now empty purse the old man had gave him under my nose, he exclaimed:
“-Karelov! It is Karelov! I asked the front desk and they told me the guy in room 21 was Alexandre Alexandrovitch Karelov! This century’s literary genius! And I lost his money!” Here, he paused, shaking the purse in this hand, squeezing it and then, angrily throwing it to the floor. “Livia, Livia, if you have a heart, if you ever had a taste for Literature and Philosophy, you will give me twenty goldmarks, surely!”
I must say it took me some time to understand what was going on. Obviously, Solia was talking about the old man. Karelov, Karelov... The name was familiar, but where did I already heard it? Ah, yes! Solia’s favorite writer! I never read anything by him, but now that I met the man, I am not sure I want to anyway. “Our Russian Sade”, Solia had called him during our dreadful dinner, yesterday. I am not really sure this is supposed to be a good sign.
“Are you listening to me? Livia! hey! Give me twenty goldmarks! I can’t go and see Karelov while I lost all his money!”
He looked like a madman. Suddenly, I felt very lonely and frightened. I wanted to fly away, but I did my best to keep my countenance and try to calm him down. Alas, he would hear nothing. Karelov was a genius, he said impatiently, and he couldn’t allow losing a genius’ money in a .
Here I feel like I must pause for a second and explain a few things about our financial situation. If Solia was asking me for money it is because I was the one responsible for our finances. All our money was mine, and he didn’t have a single penny of his own. Besides, our marriage contract forbade him to spend anything without my permission – in one word, he was financially completely under my power. This was the only condition Dad had put to allow Solia to marry me. Dad never really liked Solia. “A penniless Jew sure is a suspicious thing” he had said. And so this is why Solia was now at my feet, shaking my hand, threatening, begging me to give him twenty goldmarks for Karelov.
At last, too tired to argue, I gave him the money. He hugged me, gave me a kiss, called me an “angel of sweetness” – and rushed out of the room.
All of this took place at 3pm. It is now 9pm and he still has not returned. I am anxious but I feel like it would be worthless to stay awake any longer. Solia should surely return anytime soon, now. Or at least I hope so. I am going to bed, but I really, really have a bad feeling about all this.
29th of July 1890
A lot of things happened today, but I guess I must at first complete my telling of yesterday’s events, for Solia actually came back right after I stopped writing.
“- I lost again! Livia, please, give me thirty more goldmarks!” were his first words.
But he was much less excited, much more lucid than earlier and, when he saw the frown upon my face, he apologized for his rudeness and started to explain everything.
Karelov, he said, welcomed the money with an undying gratefulness, called him his Savior and, in his joy, hugged him and kissed him. He took it and, apologizing for the queerness of his request, explained the meaning of it.
Karelov often indulged into gambling and drinking (What an example for my sweet Solia!) and was drowned in debts. Partly to escape his censors, partly to seek inspiration for his next novel, he had fled Russia with his young wife, Anna Alexievna (his wife! The young lady was his wife! But she looked half his age! How disgusting!) and took refuge in Baden-Baden – which turned out to be a very bad idea, as the town was mostly reputed for its casinos. Soon, all of the Karelov’s money dwindled to zero, as Alexandre Alexandrovitch kept playing roulette. They had only ten goldmarks left, when we met them, which meant barely enough to finish the week in the hotel, and clearly not enough to go back to Russia. The situation seemed inextricable. Karelov’s only way out would have been to gamble his last coins and win enough money to pay for everything, but this was only a mere dream. The great writer was too superstitious and too aware of the consequences to risk his very last means of survival on roulette. Yet something must be done. Desperate, he was discussing the matter with his poor wife in the dining hall when Solia had his seizure. Upon looking at my young, unconscious, innocent husband, Karelov guessed he had never been to a casino in his life, and a strange idea came to his mind. Since he, a veteran gambler, could not manage to win, maybe a young man with no experience could benefit from the beginner’s luck and help him get part of his money back. This was a folly, indeed, a queer and superstitious plan, but Karelov’s situation was so desperate he was ready to cling to any tiny crumb of hope he could find and. So by giving him the purse, he entrusted Solia with his life. After that, he went back to his room and prayed until Solia came back with the twenty goldmarks. Not knowing, indeed, that the money came from me and that Solia had actually lost everything, Karelov, firmly believing in the beginner’s luck, gave him ten other goldmarks at once. Solia went back to gambling room immediately and, again, lost everything – and this is why he was standing before me, asking, this time, for thirty goldmarks.
“I know how wrong it is of me to ask you so much money in a single day, my sweet Livia, he was begging me. But please, consider that I am not asking such a sum for me, but for a poor, unfortunate man and his wife, who have no other means of survival”
But all this pleading was unnecessary. I was tired and only wanted to go to bed. I gave him the money upon this sole condition that he should go to sleep now and wait until the morrow to give them to Karelov.
And now another day has passed, and I am sitting alone in our room, forsaken, while Solia is having tea with Karelov. I was invited as well but refused to go. The way we met them this morning had produced too bad an impression on me, but the worst part of it was that Solia didn’t even seem to care whether I was there or not.
We were having a stroll into town when a deep voice came behind us, calling for us. Karelov was there with his wife, and they both warmly hugged Solia as a greeting. “My dear boy”, Karelov called him. I couldn’t help but be annoyed by how close they had become in only one afternoon. The worst thing, though, was that Solia didn’t even seem to mind all these familiarities. On the contrary, he looked almost glad to be treated as an old friend or, rather, as a young beloved nephew. This startled me. Solia who usually hated to be called “my boy”, who wasn’t even of age yet, but wanted to be considered as a fully grown man, who would burst into terrible angers when treated as a child, Solia, right before my eyes, had just let a stranger call him “my dear boy” and even seemed pleased by it as if it had been a compliment! Indeed, I was missing something, and this gave me a very unpleasant feeling.
When Solia took the thirty goldmarks out of his pocket and solemnly gave them to Karelov, the man let out a cry of delight and surprise. He took the money with haste.
“-My sweet, sweet boy! My savior! Light of my life!” exclaimed Karelov, hugging my Solia so hard I feared he might break the thin boy’s spine. “I owe you my life, you know? Thirty goldmarks? The goddess of Luck is with you! Ah, how I was right to believe that chance smiles to the innocent hearts!” (Here I could not help but frown, for I knew the sad truth)
“But here, come on, taste this!” he said, taking a flask of vodka out of his jacket “This is a fine, fine day and we ought to rejoice!” He drank a long (gorge???) of Vodka and passed the flask to Solia who looked at it suspiciously. I knew he disliked alcohol, and I must say I hoped that he would refuse to drink. But, alas, Karelov’s ascendant over him was too strong. He took a small lap of Vodka and swallowed it with a comic grin.
“Come on, let’s go back to the hotel!”, Karelov went on, “I am inviting both of you to a nice little tea party in my room and we shall buy some fine blends, as well as a good bottle of Whiskey on our way back! This is the least we can do to celebrate!”
At the idea of spending their newly gained money on tea and alcohol, Anna Alexievna frowned. (I bet she particularly dreaded the Whiskey.) She whispered something in Russian to her husband, but he waved his hand and said:
“-Solia, my love, let’s have a nice little manly talk together while our women could make acquaintance. They look the same age and I am sure they have got a lot of things in common!”
And upon these words, he took Solia by the arm and led him ahead of us. I remained speechless, motionless. What shocked me the most was the “Solia, my love”! Solia! How dare he use such an intimate diminutive? How dare he call my beloved the way I call him? And “my love!” Oh, Lord have mercy!
Same day, later
I had a dreadful quarrel with Solia, that night. He returned to our room around 8pm and, by the look on his face, I knew at once that he had gambled again for Karelov and lost everything. This time, he was asking for sixty goldmarks… Sixty! A fortune!
Apparently, Karelov had told him that this was the sum he needed to go back to Russia. Here, a lightning of understanding stroke my mind. Karelov had “told him”… That is rather to say “asked him.” Surely, the first time, he had believed that Solia had really won the money thanks to the beginner’s luck, but by now, he must have guessed from where did the goldmarks really came… And still, he was giving Solia some coins to gamble, innocently suggesting that “sixty goldmarks would be the perfect sum for them to be able to go back to their country”. What a horrible man! And Solia who was falling for it! I did not understand why he was so blind, allowing this man to manipulate him so easily? He who was usually so proud, so arrogant, boasting about his independence and freedom, he was being used as a vulgar tool, and even seemed to like it, judging by the way he had accepted Karelov’s familiars manners earlier. I shared all these thoughts with him and, while I was indeed expecting that he would not like them, I could never have imagined that he would get so mad. He didn’t even give me a chance to finish what I had to say. He said horrors I dare not report, I answered withhorrors myself, and so we quarreled. At one point, my nerves abandoned me and I burst into tears. Solia calmed down at once. His face was still red, but he looked puzzled, not knowing what to do. Eventually, after muttering a few words of apologies, he cowardly fled and left the room. I have no idea where he is now – probably at the Karelov’s.
31th of July 1890
For the first time since we got married, I feel contempt and pity for my husband, and see him for what he truly is. I used to admire him so much for what I believed to be is intelligence and his pride. But phew, his pride! Where was it, now?
I noticed this morning that my purse was missing and I immediately understood, with a horrible clarity, that Salomon had crossed a line and stolen from me for Karelov. (I do not want to call him Solia anymore.) Admitting the truth was still a difficult thing. Salomon wasn’t there, so I concluded he might be with the Karelov again and decided to go and fetch him at once in hope of getting some explanations. I went downstairs but before I had the chance to knock on Karelov’s door, I heard voices coming from inside and realized it wasn’t locked. Suddenly filled with a devouring curiosity and bolder than ever, I carefully pushed it enough to take a small step inside and see what was going on without being seen. Right before me, facing me but without looking at me, was Salomon. Sitting on a chair, he seemed completely absorbed by the contemplation of something on his right and, judging from what I was hearing, it must certainly be Karelov. And indeed, as I dared to peek my head a little bit more inside the room, I saw the man lying on his bed, speaking aloud in Russian, half naked under the blanket, ugly and ridiculous. He was dictating something, for, punctuating the sound of his voice I could hear the ticking of someone typing – probably Anna Alexievna. I don’t have the slightest idea of what he was saying, but it must have been some kind of divine preaching for Salomon was listening with a look of profound, almost religious, adoration. What power did this man’s words seems to have on my husband! What was he saying?
I was about to enter and interrupt this little mass when Karelov suddenly paused and coughed. Immediately, Salomon rose from his seat and disappeared from my vision. I leaned through the small space I had opened again and saw him next to Karelov, kneeling – kneeling, Lord! – at his bed, offering him a glass of water, helping him to drink and re-adjusting the blanket like a mere servant before sitting back on his chair, with the same dumb look of adoration stuck on his face.
This sight made me sick and I left at once. So that was it. This was what had become of my so proud young husband. A dog would not have been so prompt to lick his master’s feet. While I am sitting here, thinking over and over again about this horrible sight, I can’t help but wonder what in the world could Karelov had been saying to amaze him like this. Was he dictating his latest novel? How could such a disgusting man write something capable of brainwashing Salomon Antonovitch like this? I do not understand, I do not understand. All I see is that I will probably never be able to look at my husband as before. Something is broken between us. I do not want to keep on writing this journal, for what will happen next between Salomon and I doesn’t matter to me anymore. I remember writing on the first page that I was expecting something exceptional to happen to us during our holidays – well, sadly, I got what I wanted.
