A Fantasy of Dr Ox Read online

  The burgomaster was a fifty-year-old man, neither fat nor thin, neither tall nor short, neither young nor old, neither florid nor pasty-faced, neither happy nor sad, neither content nor bored, neither active nor passive, neither proud nor humble, neither good nor bad, neither generous nor mean, neither brave nor cowardly, neither too much nor too little – ne quid nimis* – a man who showed moderation in all things. But from the unvarying slowness of his movements, his somewhat drooping lower jaw, his invariably raised upper eyelid, his forehead as smooth as a sheet of yellow copper and perfectly unwrinkled, and his inconspicuous muscles, a physiognomist would doubtless have recognized that Burgomaster van Tricasse was the very model of a phlegmatic character. Never – either in anger or in passion – had any sort of emotion sped up the movements of this man’s heart or brought a flush to his face; never had his pupils contracted under the influence of a moment of anger, however fleeting. He was inevitably dressed in nice clothes, neither too wide nor too narrow, that he never managed to wear out. On his feet he wore big, square-toed shoes with triple soles and silver buckles; their longevity was the despair of his shoemaker. On his head he wore a broad hat which dated from the period when Flanders was decisively separated from Holland, which meant that this venerable headpiece could be estimated to be forty years old.* But what do you expect? It is passions which wear out the body as much as the soul – they also wear out the clothes as much as the body; and our worthy burgomaster, apathetic, indolent, indifferent, could get passionate about nothing; he wore nothing out – certainly not himself – and for that very reason he was just the man needed to administer the city of Quiquendone and its tranquil inhabitants. The town, in fact, was no less calm than van Tricasse’s house. Now it was in this peaceful dwelling that the burgomaster hoped to drink life to the lees, after seeing, of course, good Mme Brigitte van Tricasse, his wife, precede him to the grave, where she would certainly not find a repose any more profound than that she had been enjoying on earth for the last sixty years.

  This merits an explanation.

  The van Tricasse family could have been called, with justice, the Jeannot* family. Here’s why:

  Everyone knows that the knife of that typical character is just as famous as its proprietor and just as durable as he is, thanks to the endlessly repeated operation, which consists of replacing the handle when it is worn out and the blade when it has lost its edge. This was the absolutely identical operation that had been practised from time immemorial in the van Tricasse family – an operation to which nature had lent itself with a quite extraordinary indulgence. Ever since 1380, a newly widowed van Tricasse husband had invariably been seen to marry a van Tricasse wife younger than himself; when she in turn was widowed, she would remarry a van Tricasse man younger than herself; when he in turn was widowed… etc., without interruption. Each of them died in turn with mechanical regularity. Now the worthy Mme Brigitte van Tricasse was on her second husband, and unless she failed in all her duties, she would inevitably precede her spouse into the other world, as he was ten years younger than she was, so as to make way for a new Mme van Tricasse. On this the honourable burgomaster was counting absolutely, so as not to break with the family traditions.

  Such was this house, peaceful and silent, whose doors didn’t creak, whose windows didn’t shudder, whose polished floors didn’t squeak, whose chimneys didn’t rumble, whose weathervanes didn’t squeal, whose furniture didn’t groan, whose locks didn’t jingle and whose hosts moved about as silently as their shadows. The divine Harpocrates would certainly have chosen it for his Temple of Silence.*

  3

  In which Commissioner Passauf

  makes an entrance that is as noisy

  as it is unexpected

  When the interesting conversation between the councillor and the burgomaster that we reported earlier started, it was a quarter to three in the afternoon. It was at three forty-five that van Tricasse lit his vast pipe, which could contain a quart of tobacco, and it was only at five thirty-five that he came to the end of his smoke.

  This whole time, the two conversation partners didn’t exchange a single word.

  At around six o’clock, the councillor, who always proceeded by preterition or aposiopesis,* resumed in these terms:

  “And so our decision is?…”

  “To decide nothing,” replied the burgomaster.

  “I think that, at the end of the day, you’re right, van Tricasse.”

  “I think so too, Niklausse. We’ll make a resolution regarding the civil commissioner when we are better informed… later on… We don’t need to do anything for a whole month.”

  “Or even a whole year,” replied Niklausse, unfolding his pocket handkerchief, which he proceeded to use with perfect discretion.

  There was a new silence, which lasted for a good hour. Nothing disturbed this new halt in the conversation – not even the appearance of the household dog, honest Lento, who, no less phlegmatic than his master, came to take a polite turn round the parlour. Worthy dog! A model for all those of its species. Even if he’d been a cardboard dog with little wheels on his paws, he couldn’t have made any less noise during his visit.

  At around eight o’clock, after Lotchè had brought in the antique lamp with its frosted glass, the burgomaster said to the councillor:

  “We don’t have any urgent business to attend to, do we, Niklausse?”

  “No, van Tricasse, not so far as I’m aware.”

  “But didn’t someone tell me,” the burgomaster asked, “that the Oudenaarde Tower was in danger of imminent collapse?”

  “Indeed it is,” replied the councillor, “and to tell you the truth I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day or another it fell down and crushed some passer-by.”

  “Oh!” continued the burgomaster. “Before any such misfortune happens, I do hope that we will have taken a decision regarding this tower.”

  “I hope so too, van Tricasse.”

  “There are more urgent questions to resolve.”

  “Doubtless,” replied the councillor. “The question of the leather market, for example.”

  “Is it still on fire?” asked the burgomaster.

  “Still on fire, as it has been for three weeks.”

  “Didn’t we decide in council to let it burn down?”

  “Yes, van Tricasse, and at your suggestion.”

  “Wasn’t this the surest and simplest way to control the fire?”

  “Indisputably.”

  “Well, let’s wait. Is that all?”

  “That’s all,” replied the councillor, scratching his forehead as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t forgetting any important piece of business.

  “Ah!” said the burgomaster. “Haven’t you also heard about a leak that’s threatening to flood the lower district of Saint-Jacques?”

  “I have indeed,” replied the councillor. “It is even rather annoying that this leak didn’t happen above the leather market. It would naturally have doused the fire, and that would have spared us many of these discussions.”

  “What do you expect, Niklausse?” replied the worthy burgomaster. “There’s nothing so illogical as accidents. There’s no link between these cases, and we can’t take advantage of the one to lessen the effects of the other, as we would wish.”

  This acute observation coming from van Tricasse required some time to be fully appreciated by his interlocutor and friend.

  “Ah yes, but,” continued Councillor Niklausse after a few moments, “we haven’t even mentioned our main business!”

  “What main business? Do you mean we have some main business?” asked the burgomaster.

  “I should think so: the town lighting.”

  “Ah, yes!” replied the burgomaster. “Dr Ox’s lighting?”

  “Precisely. And?…”

  “It’s all happening, Niklausse,” replied the burgomaster. “They are
already proceeding to lay down the pipes, and the factory is completely finished.”

  “Perhaps we went about this business in a bit too much of a hurry,” said the councillor, shaking his head.

  “Perhaps,” replied the burgomaster, “but our excuse is that Dr Ox is bearing all the expenses for his experiment. It won’t cost us a penny.”

  “True, that’s our excuse. And then, we have to keep in step with the times. If the experiment succeeds, Quiquendone will be the first town in Flanders to be lit with that gas – oxy… What do they call it?”

  “Oxyhydric gas.”

  “If you say so – oxyhydric gas.”

  Just then, the door opened, and Lotchè came in to announce to the burgomaster that his supper was ready.

  Councillor Niklausse rose to take his leave of van Tricasse, who had worked up an appetite over so many decisions and so much business. Then it was arranged that they would summon, at a reasonably distant date, the council of notables, so as to decide whether they could come to a provisional decision on the truly decisive question of the Oudenaarde Tower.

  Then the two worthy administrators went down to the door that opened onto the street, the one showing the other the way. When the councillor arrived on the last landing, he lit a little lamp to guide him through the dark streets of Quiquendone, still unilluminated by Dr Ox’s lighting. The night was dark, as it was October, and the town was enveloped in a light, hazy mist.

  Councillor Niklausse required a good quarter of an hour to make the preparations for his departure – having lit his lamp, he still had to put on his big clogs with their cowhide linings and his thick sheepskin mittens; then he put up the fur collar of his overcoat, pulled his felt hat down over his eyes, took a firm hold of his heavy, crutch-handled umbrella and made ready to step out.

  Just as Lotchè, who was holding the light for her master, was about to pull back the bar on the door, there was a loud, unexpected noise outside.

  Yes, however improbable it might seem, a noise, a real noise, such as the town had certainly not heard since the taking of the castle keep by the Spanish in 1513, a dreadful noise awoke the echoes that were sleeping so soundly in the old van Tricasse house. Someone was banging this door, so unravished until then by brutal hands! Someone was banging and hammering on it with a blunt instrument that could only be a gnarled stick wielded by a strong hand! The blows were interspersed with shouts and cries for help. They could distinctly hear these words:

  “Monsieur van Tricasse! Burgomaster! Open up, quick, quick!”

  The burgomaster and the councillor, absolutely dumbfounded, stared at each other without uttering a word. They simply couldn’t imagine it. Even if someone had fired into the parlour a shot from the old culverin in the castle that hadn’t been used since 1285, the inhabitants of the van Tricasse house couldn’t have been more “flabbergasted”. We must be forgiven for using this word – it’s rather colloquial, but in this case it’s the mot juste.*

  Meanwhile, the blows, the cries, the pleas were becoming more insistent. Lotchè, regaining her calm and composure, ventured to speak.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  “It’s me! Me! Me!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Commissioner Passauf!”

  Commissioner Passauf! The very man whose job they had been thinking of suppressing for the past ten years! So what was happening? Could the Burgundians have invaded Quiquendone as they had in the fourteenth century? Nothing less than an event of this importance could have affected to such a degree Commissioner Passauf, who was no wit less calm and phlegmatic than the burgomaster himself.

  At a sign from van Tricasse – the worthy man would have been quite unable to utter a single word – the bar was pulled back and the door half opened.

  Commissioner Passauf swept into the hallway like a hurricane.

  “What’s the matter, commissioner?” asked Lotchè, a brave lass who never lost her head in the most serious circumstances.

  “What’s the matter!” replied Passauf, whose big round eyes were filled with real consternation. “The matter is that I’ve just come from Dr Ox’s house, where there was a reception, and there…”

  “There?” said the councillor.

  “There I was witness to an altercation of a kind that… Burgomaster, they talked politics!”

  “Politics!” repeated van Tricasse, running his fingers through his wig.

  “Politics!” continued Commissioner Passauf. “Something that hasn’t been seen for perhaps a hundred years in Quiquendone! And then the discussion became heated. The barrister, André Schut, and the doctor, Dominique Custos, laid into one another with such violence that they might end up challenging each other to a duel…”

  “Calling each other out!” exclaimed the councillor. “A duel! A duel in Quiquendone! So what did Barrister Schut and Dr Custos say to one another?”

  “These were their very words: ‘Mr Barrister,’ the doctor said to his opponent, ‘you are going a bit too far, it seems to me, and you are not taking enough care to measure the effect of your words!’”

  Burgomaster van Tricasse clasped his hands. The councillor went pale and dropped his lamp. The commissioner shook his head. Such a provocative exchange of words between two of the local notables!

  “This Dr Custos,” murmured van Tricasse, “really is a dangerous, hot-headed man! Come, gentlemen!”

  Upon which, Councillor Niklausse and the commissioner returned to the parlour with Burgomaster van Tricasse.

  4

  In which Dr Ox reveals himself

  to be a physiologist of the first order

  and a bold experimenter

  So who is this personage known by the strange name of Dr Ox?

  An eccentric, to be sure, but at the same time a bold scientist – a physiologist whose works are known and esteemed by scholars throughout Europe – a successful rival of figures like Davy, Dalton, Bostock, Menzies, Godwin, Vierordt and all other such great minds who have brought physiology into the front rank of the modern sciences.

  Dr Ox was a man of middling girth, medium height, aged… but we couldn’t say exactly how old he was, any more than we could tell you his nationality. In any case, it’s not very important. All you need to know is that he really was a strange character, hot-blooded and impetuous, a veritable eccentric who had escaped from a volume of Hoffmann stories and formed a remarkable contrast, as you may well imagine, with the inhabitants of Quiquendone. He had an unshakeable confidence in himself and his doctrines. Always smiling, walking with his head held high and swinging his shoulders in a relaxed, free-and-easy manner, with a self-assured gaze, his broad nostrils flaring, his huge mouth open to breathe in great gulps of air – his whole figure was a pleasure to see. He was alive all right, fully alive, well balanced in every part of his machinery, always on the go, with quicksilver in his veins and a spring in his step. So he could never stand still for long, and kept breaking out into a torrent of words, while ceaselessly gesticulating.

  Was he rich, then, this Dr Ox, who had come to undertake at his own expense the lighting of an entire town?

  Probably, since he could permit himself such expenses, and this is the only reply we can make to such an indiscreet enquiry.

  Dr Ox had arrived in Quiquendone five months previously in the company of his assistant, who answered to the strange name of Gideon Ygène – a tall, gaunt, skinny fellow, a real beanpole, but no less full of life than his master.

  So why, then, had Dr Ox undertaken to organize the town’s lighting, and at his own expense? Why had he chosen those very same peaceable Quiquendonians, those most Flemish of folk, rather than others – and why did he want to endow their little town with the benefits of an incomparable system of lighting? Wasn’t he using this as a pretext to attempt some great physiological experiment, performing it in anima vili?* What, in short, was this eccentric fell
ow up to? This is just what we don’t know, as Dr Ox had no other confidant than his assistant Ygène, who, furthermore, obeyed him blindly.

  To all appearances, at least, Dr Ox had promised to provide the town with lighting, which it did need, “especially at nights”, as Commissioner Passauf said. And so a factory for producing gas had been set up. The gasometers were ready to come into operation, and the gas pipes extending under the street paving were shortly due to be capped with gas burners in the public buildings and even in the private houses of certain allies of progress.

  Van Tricasse, in his capacity as burgomaster, and Niklausse, in his capacity as councillor, together with numerous other notables, had thought it their duty to authorize the introduction of this modern lighting into their dwellings.

  If the reader has not forgotten, it was said, during this long conversation between the councillor and the burgomaster, that the lighting of the town would be brought about not by the burning of common-or-garden carburetted hydrogen as produced by the distillation of coal, but instead by the use of that more modern gas, twenty times more brilliant – oxyhydric gas, produced by hydrogen and oxygen combined.