Anarchistbanjo's World

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

In the prison they must have long since heard the howls
of the insane crowd, because several times, inquiring and
peering faces appeared at the windows of the first floor. But
soon the obstinate shouting of the crowd was followed by
action; axe blows thundered against the small, heavy door, a
dusty pane of glass shattered under the thrown stones. Then a
window opened upstairs, a sleepy face with half-closed eyes
and sagging cheeks appeared, smiled and nodded to the people,
whereupon the shouting intensified to the point of madness.
Only for a moment my eyes were on a gray relief on the
wall, when a hurricane-like howling of many thousand voices
passed over men, the windows of La Force were shaking. The
small door opened-
In the stone frame stood pale as a corpse, a distorted
smile of fear in the beautiful face, her small hands raised as if
pleading, a young woman –
“Aglaja!” I cried out. It was her. Aglaja.
My beloved, slipped into the realm of shadows,

awakened from a deep sleep by the roaring of irritated animals.

There she stood, threatened by madmen, murderers, by
rusty weapons, stones, shaking -.
I screamed, screamed -.
Her blinding forehead opened in a red, gaping crack, her
eyes opened wide – from the light brocade of the bodice
suddenly rose a greasy, wooden lance shaft – Silk tore with a
high-pitched hiss — a small, plaintive cry – – like a bird call.
Flames fell from the sky, flared up from the earth, and
enveloped me.
I pushed and hurled people at people, smashed my cane
into a face, slammed my fist into a screaming mouth, sobbed,
screamed, kicked, grabbed the handle of a saber, struck so that
it sprayed, spitting and roaring louder than the thousands – –
My gaze was drawn tightly to a twitching, white body
adorned with blood roses, rough red laughter – I saw a dark
hand tugging at something long and pale pink, a naked black
foot kicked at a trembling woman’s breast —
A booming blow struck my head.
I fell. I tried to get up on my knees. Devilish faces
neighed all around me; in a wide mouth were greenish stumps.
In the hollow of two large hands, close to my face, moved
twitching a bloody piece of meat, shining red, terrible to look
at – a throbbing heart – I fell down on my face. In an unearthly
roar the world passed away.
The prison in which I found myself was an old coal cellar
and received only a faint light through the small windows,
which had never been cleaned. The bars in front of the
windows were thickly covered with street excrement, and the
yellowish glow left the background in complete dimness.
It took quite some time before the dull pain in my head
subsided to such an extent that I could look around in this
subterranean room. Again and again I felt the painful lump on
the back of my head, which a terrible blow had left behind, and
repeatedly I tried to remove my torn, bloody and covered with
street excrement suit in order to clean it. I was not indifferent to
my appearance because several ladies were present. They had
been given the largest part of the dirty wooden enclosure, and
some of the gentlemen who were also in the prison, who, at the
moment of their arrest, had an overcoat at the time of their
arrest, had disposed of this garment in order to be used as
blankets and bedding.
“May I ask your name, Herr?” a tall, impeccably dressed
gentleman in a poppy red jacket addressed me. “So that I can
introduce you to the others if that is alright with you.”
I named myself and was thereupon formally introduced
by the Vicomte de la Tour d’Aury to the other prisoners. I was
spoken to in an amiable manner with regrets that my so
desirable acquaintance had to be made on such a sad occasion.
I had unfortunately arrived in Paris several years too late, said a
very pretty lady with a little beauty spot on her white and rosy
face, and it was more than deplorable that under the present
circumstances, one must get a completely wrong impression of
the French way of life.
With a bow, I replied that the setting in which people are
found is not as important as the fact that people find each other,
and that I had already experienced in just a few moments so
many pleasant acquaintances, I had been abundantly showered
with chivalrous attentions on the part of my accidental
comrades in destiny.
Asked about the cause of my arrest, I could not avoid
mentioning the murder of the poor Princess Lamballe in the
gentlest form. The ladies immediately burst into tears, and
several gentlemen, with clenched fists, expressed the ardent
desire for unprecedented revenge. To all, however, the sudden
death of the beautiful woman on whose energy they had placed
great hopes was a heavy blow, which destroyed a large part of
their secretly cherished expectations. Now all their wishes were
directed to a terrible and bloody retribution, while two floors
above, it was surely decided to send the heads in which such
plans flourished, into Samson’s wicker basket.
The tremendous mental shock into which the
resemblance between the slain princess and my beloved one,
who was always fleeing into the shadows of eternity, had given
way in this prison to a feeling of desolate emptiness. And
secretly blossomed in me, like a pale Asphodelos, the longing
for the beloved image, which approached me in all kinds of
forms, leaving me to follow into the unexplored realm, where
her eternal home was. Without any excitement I thought of the
probability of my end. The hand on my pocket watch, which I
found in my vest with the glass broken, measured the last hours
of my life in the circle of numbers. For a long time I watched
the Arabic numerals on the white disc, adorned with a wreath
of cheerful roses, and thought that by one of the sixty strokes,
or between two of them, a sharp, short pain would fly through
my throat and extinguish my thoughts. With unheard-of clarity
I saw my headless torso in this badly battered brown suit lying
and twitching on the board, with two intermittently leaping
fountains of blood in place of the head, and this roll into the
basket of the Executioner. I looked at this shuddering self-
image so calmly, as if the thing didn’t concern me at all.
The addiction of the ladies for entertainment also in the
present place of stay soon snatched me from this sinking, and I
was compelled to answer all sorts of questions about my early
life, my adult life, my family and any adventures I might have
had in Paris. With graceful ease things were touched upon of
which I had not been accustomed to speak of for a long time
and whose description was embarrassing to me. But I soon saw
that the interest of the women was not as insistent as one would
have expected from the graceful eagerness of the questioning.
Everything that was done and talked about here had only
one purpose, to fill the gloomy and hopeless days that lay
before the sad end in the most distracting and entertaining way
possible. Some gentlemen dressed in the office of the maitre de
plaisir immediately offered, if someone covered himself in a
thoughtful silence, everything they had to dispel the contagious
gloom. They danced minuets and gavotte, practiced the almost
lost pavane, sang, arranged games of forfeits and blind man’s
bluff, played a little music and excelled in piquant anecdotes
and joking questions. This way of getting through the slowly
creeping time, I did not like much in my serious mood, but I
also accepted it. Even more unpleasant were the pleasures of
longing of a young count, who, with many sighs of regret for
the time when one of his distinguished relatives in Normandy
to pass the time had shot a rooftop worker from the castle tower.
Another gentleman who seemed to be of the same mind as him
praised the glory of the days when a member of his family had
been invited by Louis the thirteenth to a feast, and when, after
the hunt, his feet were frozen the bodies of two peasants were
cut open on the spot so that he could warm his cold feet in
them.
With such speeches, I did not know what I should marvel
at more: the blindness of people who even thought of such
conditions of existence, or the unspeakable patience of the
people, who had remained subject to such extremes, the taking
away of the last piece of bread. Despite my disgust against the
beasts of the street it became obvious to me once again that in
this country under horrible convulsions and according to laws,
which only God knew, a necessity was taking place, which was
nothing other than the consequences of the causes for which
these two thoughtless ones still mourned. The tender women in
this dungeon, the old men, among whom was the Count
Merigno, who was known for his charity, I felt sorry for most
of them with all my heart. But among them were also those
people who had nothing but a conceited disdain and insolent
contempt for those who were not noble born, who had no
knowledge of neither the sciences nor the arts and didn’t think
of anything at all, unless in the service of their indulgent and
gallant needs; their fate could not be called unjust. And I felt
strangely solemn and peculiar, when I discovered on the wall,
written in red chalk, the words: “Counted, weighed and found
too light.
In the late afternoon hours, when the room became more
and more relaxed, the outlines of all things blurred and only a
small candle stump burned in one corner, laughter and speech
gradually lowered. Several who seemed to be familiar with
each other, whispered all sorts of things that were not meant for
the general public. The wretched food in the unclean bowls,
which two turnkeys carried in on a board was, as far as it was
noticed, quickly gulped down, and the empty vessels were
taken away as they had come. After this many stretched out
with sighs on the plank beds or on the brick floor to escape into
the freedom of dreams and others, whispering prayers, moved
their lips and let the beads of the rosaries they had brought with
them slide through their fingers.
I had sat down, tired and with my head still aching, and
by stroking with my finger tips, tried to reduce the lump that
had been left by the blow, the force of which had caused me to
fall. Then, out of the groups, unrecognizable in the twilight, a
man emerged, carrying a stool in his hand and sat down on it
with me.