The Inferno

With a feeling of wild joy I returned from the northern railway station, where I had said goodbye to my wife. She was going to our child, who was ill in a distant place. The sacrifice of my heart was then fulfilled. Her last words, “When shall we meet again?” and my answer, “Soon!” echoed in my ears, like falsehoods which one is unwilling to confess. A foreboding said to me “Never!” And, as a matter of fact, these parting words which we exchanged in November, 1894, were our last, for to this present time, May, 1897, I have not seen my dear wife again.

As I entered the Café de la Régence, I placed myself at the table where I used to sit with my wife, my beautiful jail-keeper, who watched my soul day and night, guessed my secret thoughts, marked the course of my ideas, and was jealous of my investigations into the unknown.

My newly-won freedom gave me a feeling of expansion and elevation above the petty cares of life in the great capital. In this arena of intellectual warfare I had just gained a victory, which, although worthless in itself, signified a great deal to me. It was the fulfilment of a youthful dream which all my countrymen had dreamed, but which had been realised by me alone, to have a play of one’s own performed in a Paris theatre. Now the theatre repelled me, as everything does when one has reached it, and science attracted me. Obliged to choose between love and knowledge, I had decided to strive for the highest knowledge; and as I myself sacrificed my love, I forgot the other innocent sacrifice to my ambition or my mission.

As soon as I returned to my poor student’s room in the Latin Quarter, I rummaged in my chest and drew out of their hiding-place six saucepans of fine porcelain. I had bought them a long time ago, although they were too dear for my means. A pair of tongs and a packet of pure sulphur completed the apparatus of my laboratory. I kindled a smelting-furnace in the fireplace, closed the door, and drew down the blinds, for only three months after the execution of Caserio it was not prudent to make chemical experiments in Paris.

The night comes on, the sulphur burns luridly, and towards morning I have ascertained the presence of carbon in what has been before considered an elementary substance. With this I believe I have solved the great problem, upset the ruling chemical theories, and won the immortality grudged to mortals.

But the skin of my hands, nearly roasted by the strong fire, peels off: in scales, and the pain they cause me when undressing shows me what a price I have paid for my victory. But, as I lie alone in bed, I feel happy, and I am sorry I have no one whom I can thank for my deliverance from the marital fetters which have been broken without much ado. For in the course of years I have become an atheist, since the unknown powers have left the world to itself without giving a sign of themselves.

Someone to thank! There is no one there, and my involuntary ingratitude depresses me.

Feeling jealous about my discovery, I take no steps to make it known. In my modesty I turn neither to authorities nor to universities. While I continue my experiments, the cracked skin of my hands becomes worse, the fissures gape and become full of coal-dust; blood oozes out, and the pains become so intolerable that I can undertake nothing more. I am inclined to attribute these pains which drive me wild to the unknown powers which have persecuted me for years, and frustrate my endeavours. I avoid people, neglect society, refuse invitations, and make myself inaccessible to friends. I am surrounded by silence and loneliness. It is the solemn and terrible silence of the desert in which I defiantly challenge the unknown, in order to wrestle with him, body with body, and soul with soul. I have proved that sulphur contains carbon; now I intend to discover hydrogen and oxygen in it, for they must be also present. But my apparatus is insufficient, I need money, my hands are black and bleeding, black as misery, bleeding as my heart. For, during this time, I continue to correspond with my wife. I tell her of my successes in chemical experiments; she answers with news about the illness of our child, and here and there drops hints that my science is futile, and that it is foolish to waste money on it.

In a fit of righteous pride, in the passionate desire to do myself an injury, I commit moral suicide by repudiating my wife and child in an unworthy, unpardonable letter. I give her to understand that I am involved in a new love-affair.

The blow goes home. My wife answers with a demand for separation.

Solitary, guilty of suicide and assassination, I forget my crime under the weight of sorrow and care. No one visits me, and I can see no one, since I have alienated all. I drift alone over the surface of the sea; I have hoisted my anchor, but have no sail.

Necessity, however, in the shape of an unpaid bill, interrupts my scientific tasks and metaphysical speculations, and calls me back to earth.

Christmas approaches. I have abruptly refused the invitation of a Scandinavian family, the atmosphere of which makes me uncomfortable because of their moral irregularities. But, when evening comes and I am alone, I repent, and go there all the same.

They sit down to table, and the evening meal begins with a great deal of noise and outbursts of hilarity, for the young artists who are present feel themselves at home here. A certain familiarity of gestures and attitudes, a tone which is anything but domestic, repels and depresses me indescribably. In the middle of the orgy my sadness calls up to my inner vision a picture of the peaceful home of my wife: the Christmas tree, the mistletoe, my little daughter, her deserted mother. Pangs of conscience seize me; I stand up, plead ill-health as an excuse, and depart.

I go down the dreadful Rue de la Gaieté in which the artificial mirth of the crowd annoys me; then down the gloomy silent Rue Delambre, which is more conducive to despair than any other street of the Quarter. I turn into the Boulevard Montparnasse, and let myself fall on a seat on the terrace of the Lilas brewery.

A glass of good absinthe comforts me for some minutes. Then there fall on me a set of cocottes and students who strike me on the face with switches. As though driven by furies, I leave my glass of absinthe standing, and hasten to seek for another in the Café François Premier on the Boulevard St. Michel. Out of the frying-pan into the fire! A second troop shouts at me, “There is the hermit!” Driven forth again I fly home, accompanied by the unnerving tones of the mirliton pipes.

The thought that it might be a chastisement, the result of a crime, does not occur to me. In my own mind I feel guiltless, and consider myself the object of an unjust persecution. The unknown powers have hindered me from continuing my great work. The hindrances must be broken through before I obtain the victor’s crown.

I have been wrong, and at the same time I am right, and will maintain it.

That Christmas night I slept badly. A cold draught several times blew on my face, and from time to time the sound of a jew’s-harp awoke me.

An increasing prostration comes over me. My black and bleeding hands prevent my dressing myself and taking care of my outer appearance. Anxiety about my unpaid hotel bill leaves me no peace, and I pace up and down my room like a wild beast in a cage. I eat no longer, and the hotel manager advises me to go to a hospital. But that is no help to me, for it is too dear, and I must pay my bill here first.

The veins in my arm begin to swell visibly; it is a sign of blood-poisoning. This is the finishing stroke. The news spreads among my countrymen, and one evening there comes the kindhearted woman, whose Christmas dinner I had so abruptly left, who was antipathetic to me, and whom I almost despised. She finds me out, asks how I am, and tells me with tears that the hospital is my only hope.

One can understand how helpless and humiliated I feel, as my eloquent silence shows her that I am penniless. She is seized with sympathy at seeing me so prostrate. Poor herself, and oppressed with daily anxieties, she resolves to make a collection among the Scandinavian colony, and to go to the pastor of the community.

A sinful woman has pity on the man who has deserted his lawful wife!

Once more a beggar, asking for alms by means of a woman, I begin to suspect that there is an invisible hand which guides the irresistible logic of events. I bow before the storm, determined to rise again at the first opportunity.

The carriage brings me to the hospital of St. Louis. On the way, in the Rue de Rennes, I get out in order to buy two white shirts. The winding-sheet for the last hour! I really expect a speedy death, without being able to say why.

In the hospital I am forbidden to go out without leave; besides, my hands are so wrapped up that all occupation is impossible to me; I feel therefore like a prisoner. My room is bare, contains only the most necessary things, and has nothing attractive about it. It lies near the public sitting-room, where from morning to evening they smoke and play cards. The bell rings for breakfast. As I sit down at the table I find myself in a frightful company of death’s-heads. Here a nose is wanting, there an eye; there the lips hang down, here the cheek is ulcered. Two of them do not look sick, but show in their faces gloom and despair. These are “kleptomaniacs” of high social rank, who, because of their powerful connections, have escaped prison by being declared irresponsible.

An unpleasant smell of iodoform takes away my appetite. Since my hands are muffled I must ask the help of my neighbour for cutting bread and pouring out wine. Round this banquet of criminals and those condemned to death goes the good Mother, the Superintendent, in her severe black and white dress, and gives each of us his poisonous medicine. With a glass holding arsenic I drink to a death’s-head who pledges me in digitalis. That is gruesome, and yet one must be thankful! That makes me wild. To have to be thankful for something so petty and unpleasant!

They dress me, and undress me, and look after me like a child. The kind sister takes a fancy to me, treats me like a baby, calls me “my child,” while I call her “mother.”

But it does me good to be able to say this word “mother,” which has not passed my lips for thirty years. The old lady, an Augustine nun, who wears the garb of the dead, because she has never lived, is mild as resignation itself, and teaches us to smile at our sufferings as though they were joys, for she knows the beneficial effects of pain. She does not utter a word of reproof nor admonition nor sermonising.

She knows the regulations of the ordinary hospitals so well that she can allow small liberties to the patients, though not to herself. She permits me to smoke in my room, and offers to make my cigarettes herself; this, however, I decline. She procures for me permission to go out beyond the regulated limits of time. When she discovers that I am actively interested in chemistry, she takes me to the learned apothecary of the hospital. He lends me books, and invites me, when I acquaint him with my theory of the composite character of so-called simple bodies, to work in his laboratory. This nun has had a great influence on my life. I begin to reconcile myself again to my lot, and value the happy mischance which has brought me under this kindly roof.

The first book which I take out of the apothecary’s library opens of itself, and my glance fastens like a falcon’s on a line in the chapter headed “Phosphorus.” The author states briefly that the scientific chemist, Lockyer, has demonstrated by spectral analysis that phosphorus is not a simple body, and that his report of his experiments has been submitted to the Parisian Academy of Science, which has not been able to refute his proofs.

Encouraged by this unexpected support, I take my saucepans with the not completely consumed remains of sulphur, and submit them to a bureau for chemical analysis, which promises to give me their report the next morning.

It is my birthday. When I return to the hospital I find a letter from my wife. She laments my misfortune, and she wants to join me, to look after me and love me.

The happiness of feeling myself loved in spite of everything awakes in me the need of thankfulness. But to whom? To the Unknown, who has remained hidden for so many years?

My heart smites me, I confess the unworthy falsehood of my supposed infidelity, I ask for forgiveness, and before I am aware of it, I write again a love-letter to my wife. But I postpone our meeting to a more favourable time.

The next morning I hasten to my chemist on the Boulevard Magenta, and bring his analysis of my powder in a closed cover back to the hospital. When I come to the statue of St. Louis in the courtyard of the institution, I think of the Quinze-Vingt,3 the Sorbonne, and the Sainte Chapelle, these three buildings founded by the Saint, which I interpret to mean⁠—“From suffering, through knowledge, to repentance.”

Arrived at my room, I shut the doors carefully, and at last open the paper which is to decide my destiny. The contents are as follows; “The powder submitted to our analysis has three properties⁠—Colour: grey-blacky leaves marks on paper. Density: very great, greater than the average density of graphite; it seems to be a harder kind of graphite. The powder burns easily, releasing oxide of carbon and carbonic acid. It therefore contains carbon.”

Pure sulphur contains carbon!

I am saved. From henceforth I can prove to my friends and relations that I am no fool. I can establish the theories which I propounded a year ago in my Antibarbarus, a work which the reviews treated as that of a charlatan or madman, making my family consequently thrust me out as a good-for-nothing, or Cagliostro. My opponents are pulverised! My heart beats in righteous pride; I will leave the hospital, shout in the streets, bellow before the Institute, pull down the Sorbonne!⁠ ⁠… But my hands remain wrapped up, and when I stand outside in the courtyard, the high encircling walls counsel me⁠—patience.

When I tell the apothecary the result of the analysis, he proposes to me to summon a commission before whom I should demonstrate the solution of the problem by experiment publicly. I, however, from dislike to publicity, write instead an essay on the subject, and send it to the Temps, where it appears after two days.

The password is given. I am answered from all sides; I find adherents, am asked to contribute to a scientific paper, and am involved in a correspondence which necessitates the continuance of my experiments.

One Sunday, the last of my stay in the purgatory of St. Louis, I watch the courtyard from the window. The two thieves walk up and down with their wives and children, and embrace each other from time to time with joyful faces, like men whom misfortune draws together in closer bonds.

My loneliness depresses me; I curse my lot and regard it as unjust, without considering that my crime surpasses theirs in meanness. The postman brings a letter from my wife, which is of an icy coldness. My success has annoyed her, and she pretends that she will not believe it till I have consulted a chemical specialist. Moreover, she warns me against all illusions which may produce disturbance of the brain. And, after all, she asks, What do I gain by all this? Can I feed a family with my chemistry?

Here is the alternative again: Love or Science. Without hesitation I write a final crushing letter, and bid her goodbye, as pleased with myself as a murderer after his deed.

In the evening I roam about the gloomy Quarter, and cross the St. Martin’s canal. It is as dark as the grave, and seems exactly made to drown oneself in. I remain standing at the corner of Rue Alibert. Why Alibert? Who is he? Was not the graphite which the chemist found in my sulphur called Alibert-graphite? Well, what of it? Strangely enough, an impression of something not yet explained remains in my mind. Then I enter Rue Dieu. Why “Dieu,” when the Republic has washed its hands of God? Then Rue Beaurepaire⁠—a fine resort of criminals. Rue de Vaudry⁠—is the Devil conducting me? I take no more notice of the names of the streets, wander on, turn round, find I have lost my way, and recoil from a shed which exhales an odour of raw flesh and bad vegetables, especially sauerkraut. Suspicious-looking figures brush past me, muttering objurgations. I become nervous, turn to the right, then to the left, and get into a dark blind alley, the haunt of filth and crime. Street girls bar my way, street boys grin at me. The scene of Christmas night is repeated, Væ soli.4 Who is it that plays me these treacherous tricks as soon as I seek for solitude? Someone has brought me into this plight. Where is he? I wish to fight with him!

As soon as I begin to run there comes down rain mixed with dirty snow. At the bottom of a little street a great, coal-black gate is outlined against the sky. It seems a Cyclopean work, a gate without a palace, which opens on a sea of light. I ask a gendarme where I am. He answers, “At St. Martin’s gate.”

A couple of steps bring me to the great Boulevard, which I go down. The theatre clock points to a quarter-past seven. Business hours are over, and my friends are waiting for me as usual in the Café Neapel. I go on hurriedly, forgetting the hospital, trouble, and poverty. As I pass the Café du Cardinal, I brush by a table where someone is sitting. I only know him by name, but he knows me, and at the same moment his eyes interrogate me: “You here? You are not in hospital then? Then it was all gossip?”

I feel that this man is one of my unknown benefactors, for he reminds me that I am a beggar, and have nothing to do in the café. Beggar! that is the right word, which echoes in my ears, and colours my cheek with a burning blush of shame, humiliation, and rage. Six weeks ago I sat here at this table. My theatre manager sat opposite me, and called me “Dear Sir”; journalists pestered me with their interviews; photographers asked for the honour of selling portraits of me⁠—and, today⁠—what am I today? A beggar, a marked man, an outcast from society!

Lashed, tormented, driven, like a night-tramp, I hurry down the Boulevard back to the plague-stricken hospital. There at last, and only there, in my cell, I feel at home. When I reflect on my lot, I recognise again that invisible Hand which scourges and chastises without my knowing its object. Does it grant me fame and at the same time deny me an honourable position in the world? Must I be humbled in order to be lifted up, made low in order to be raised high? The thought keeps on recurring: “Providence is planning something with thee, and this is the beginning of thy education.”

In February I leave the hospital, uncured, but healed from the temptations of the world. At parting I wished to kiss the hand of the faithful Mother, who, without speaking many words, has taught me the way of the Cross, but a feeling of reverence, as if before something holy, kept me back. May she now in spirit receive this expression of thanks from a stranger, whose traces have been lost in distant lands.