Nicolas did, however, venture to request permission to borrow a mount from the official stables as he wanted to make his way to Vaugirard to question Dr Descart. The answer, delivered in the haughtiest of tones by a furious Sartine, was that having been given a commission, a move that was perhaps already proving ill-advised, Nicolas should simply make good use of it, without worrying people with trivial details. He could take one, a score or fourscore horses, donkeys or mules, as long as it was in the King’s service.
Mortified by this reply, Nicolas went off to meet Bourdeau. He recounted this altercation, but regretted doing so immediately, as if he had let slip a personal weakness. The inspector listened with amusement and attempted to convince him of the insignificance of the incident, which had damaged nothing more than his self-esteem. Nicolas blushed and readily agreed.
Bourdeau pointed out that Monsieur de Sartine had dozens of cases on his hands and that Lardin’s disappearance was probably not the most important of them. He also had to answer to the Comte de Saint Florentin, a minister of the King’s household, whose responsibilities included Paris, and above him the chief ministers, who all wanted a say and, lastly, the King himself to whom he had direct access and from whom he received his orders. Could there possibly be a more delicate post, with more constant worries? This was ample justification for his occasional changes of mood and for an immoderate love of … wigs. What were they, in comparison, other than mere cogs in the immense police machine? Nicolas should learn his lesson and get on with the job.
Still smarting, the young man took the hint and changed the subject, thanking heaven for having granted him a companion who knew how to tell him the truth. After giving Bourdeau the task of reading the latest reports he went to the stables to choose a horse – there were no mules or donkeys to be seen – and set off for Vaugirard.
Nicolas crossed the Seine via Pont-Royal and arrived at the Esplanade des Invalides. There he stopped, awestruck by the splendour of the scene. The sun cast slanting shafts of light through dark clouds. With the help of the wind, an invisible ballet master directed constantly shifting and alternating plays of darkness and light that swept across this immense panorama. The curtain of shadow pierced by flashes of light gave way at each moment to its opposite: the brightness then flickered, swallowed up by a dark fiery glow.
In the middle of all this, majestically towering over the scene, the dome of the church of Saint-Louis seemed to swivel on its stone axis as it reflected the flitting shadows. The radiance of the dome was further highlighted by the horizontal line of the rooftops, their wet slates gleaming where the snow had already slid down. White heaps piled up around the attic rooms and the chimney pots, and came crashing down in blocks, topping the building with powdery whirls. Nicolas, an unrepentant dreamer before ocean skies, marvelled at the multifarious range of greys, blacks, whites, golds and deep blues. So much beauty stunned him and his heart was racing with joy. He found himself in love with a Paris that allowed him such feelings, and he understood for the first time the deep meaning of the sentence from the scriptures: ‘And there was light.’
The wind that slapped his face brought him out of his dream and back to the nagging fear of confronting Descart. He spurred his horse on and felt giddy from the icy air. Holding his hat, lest it blow away, he sat straight in the saddle and raised his head high. His hair billowed freely, like the brown mane of his mount, and from a distance this moving mass of muscle, cloth and leather must have looked like a ghostly centaur. The repeated thud of hooves on the snow produced a dull swishing sound, their irregular beat only adding to the strangeness of the misty apparition crossing the esplanade. Beyond the Vaugirard toll-gate, dreary-looking hills stretched out from the city walls to the heights of Meudon. The windmills, like towers of ice, kept guard; from their frost-encrusted sails hung delicate lances of crystal. All was bright, silky and brittle. The giddiness of the ride and the sun’s reflection in the snow again numbed Nicolas’s senses, as he passed like a dark streak through a colourless world.
In the midst of a petrified army of vines there appeared snow-covered hovels and bourgeois dwellings. He had the feeling of being worlds away from the capital. At ‘La Croix Nivert’, a crossroads forced him to try to find his bearings. He had come to see the doctor once before, to give him a letter from Lardin. Descart had not even invited him inside or deigned to speak to him.
Nicolas eventually located the residence. It was a large building surrounded by high walls, the tops of which were crowned with fragments of glass set into the mortar. A dog began to howl and the horse shied so much that a less experienced rider than Nicolas would have been thrown from his saddle straight away. He calmed the angry beast by stroking its neck and whispering words of comfort.
Jumping to the ground, Nicolas hesitated a moment, and then pulled a handle that rang a bell in the distance. The dog began to howl again. Nobody came. Nicolas then noticed that the gate was ajar, and he went through the garden along a path with box trees on either side. The shutters were closed, but the door opened with one turn of the handle.
He was surprised to find himself on a sort of inner terrace. This turned out to be the upper part of a stone staircase which led down to an enormous room via two semi-circular flights of steps. He was struck by the strange odour of something musty, like damp felt, cold incense and extinguished candle, added to which was an all-pervasive sweet, metallic and acid stench that Nicolas was unable to identify.
The young man contemplated the scene below him, of a tiled room with windows at either end concealed by heavy curtains and a fireplace opposite the staircase. The high ceiling consisted of exposed beams blackened by smoke. Wooden shelves covered almost all the walls. Above the fireplace a large crucifix offered the harrowing vision of a Christ made of ivory, his arms stretched upwards. It caught Nicolas’s attention: his guardian, the canon, would have required, if not a certificate of confession, at least a true and complete profession of faith from any parishioner owning one like this.1 In a corner of the room, Descart, a blood-spattered apron covering his coat, was finishing the process of bleeding an elderly woman whose right arm, held in position by bandages and splints, appeared to be broken. The contents of a metal bowl in which a crimson pool shimmered darkly revealed that several basins of blood had already been drawn. The ashen-faced patient was leaning back in an armchair in a faint as Descart dabbed her temples with smelling salts. Nicolas cleared his throat and coughed. The doctor turned round.
‘Can’t you see that I’m operating?’ he said angrily. ‘Get out.’
The woman was coming round and she began to groan feebly, taking up all the doctor’s attention.
‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘when you have finished what you are doing, I should like to speak with you. To question you in fact.’
Once again he was annoyed with himself for having been unable to find the right word in the first place, like a horse shying at an obstacle.
‘To question me?’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘To question me! A flunkey to question me! I demand you leave.’
Nicolas, white-faced, rushed down the staircase and stood firmly in front of Descart, who stepped back a pace, his face twitching.
‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘I would ask you not to insult me. You may come to rue it in several ways. I shall not leave and you will hear me out.’
The woman, still dazed, looked at each man in turn.
‘I shall unleash my dog and then you will leave, I guarantee it,’ growled Descart.
He lifted his patient to her feet, supporting her on her good arm, and led her towards the door.
‘Madame, go home. You need complete rest and a strict diet. I shall see you again tomorrow. Further bleedings will be necessary. Everything depends on the reaction between opposites. Go.’
*
No one had heard a man enter noiselessly who, for some moments, had been looking down at the scene in