“No, Madam. What?”
“Can’t you hear it, for God’s sake?”
The snoring is still “going on.” It is serene now, almost sage. Exalted.
“Oh, that? Someone’s sleeping.” Melkior was enjoying himself.
On the staircase he comes upon a tableau. The judge in the middle, gray-haired, tall, lean, peering up toward the attic, both palms behind the ears, like a priest of a sect at prayer. On either side of him, his daughters in long nightgowns (angel-like), ministering. The maid gripping the door firmly, with both hands, according to instructions, the wife ringing at all the doors, summoning the faithful …
When Melkior appears, the daughters squeal and leave the scene of the ritual. “Fled. The foolish virgins.” He sees the first florescence of breasts—“buds”—and the two other curves, smooth, sprightly, in flight. And the silhouetted legs, long, swift, — “wild animals”—joined by a shy acute angle. Heretical, blasphemous thoughts smile at Melkior. He forgets the sanctity of fear and gives the angels a parting glance — a lustful one.
“We ought to wake him up,” the judge says to him.
“Why bother? Let him sleep.”
“Sleep? The man’s a cannibal!”
“Polyphemus the Cyclops, the beast, will eat us all, one-eyed …”
“What did you say?”
“I said, what magnificent snoring! Homeric!”
The judge turns away from him with an I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-joking grimace.
His wife has woken up two floors, the second and the third. Everyone comes out onto the stairs, like characters in a French film. Everyone is talking at once, pointlessly, without direction. The judge calms them down before explaining the matter. The sleeper is a giant of a man, he could batter them all to death, the situation calls for circumspect and concerted action. They propose getting brooms and umbrellas. Calling the fire brigade (by all means!), alerting the troops in the barracks across the way. Mrs. Ema, still under the sway of a dream, feels it is “quite simple”: shear the man’s hair while he is asleep and he will be left helpless. Just as Delilah sheared Samson’s …
At last there appears on the staircase ATMAN himself. The black dressing gown, white scarf and golden spider, the black goatee, and the grin put an end to all the chatter. Reverence reigns on the stairs. Even the judge is relegated to the ranks. ATMAN ascends like the Savior. He takes his right elbow in his left palm, formally, and, stroking his goatee, waits patiently until there is complete silence. Then he says, “I’m going to hypnotize him!”
That is a catharsis. There are even handclaps. With a “shh” and a finger to his lips ATMAN cuts the ovations short and bows to the audience on all three sides with an almost painful grin. “Please don’t.” Whereupon begins the ascension, for he is ascending to the attic like God to Heaven. And he disappears in the darkness. He leaves behind upturned heads like in a Renaissance painting.
Melkior, too, turns his head atticward. Like a hen catching a drop of water. He swallows with impatience. He listens. Something appears to have got between the cogs of the snoring: it had now become irregular, like an engine winding down. And it stops with a powerful exhalation. And something like an oath is thrown in. Melkior hears angry whispers: the incautious, sleepy raising of a voice being hushed by another, threatening one. Everyone takes it for the sound of Hypnosis, for the voice of a mysterious force lulling the snorer’s senses. Now they all await the descent.
The way he’d said, “I’m going to hypnotize him!” No, really, what is going on up there? Four feet on the staircase, Melkior remembers, four feet when ATMAN was climbing to my door! An advertising stunt of the palmist’s, Melkior decides. It is only curiosity that keeps him out there.
The lights in the stairwell suddenly go out. Fear of darkness grips everyone. Body pressing against body, protection. Something curving, female, half-dressed, cuddles against Melkior. In response he gives it a protective embrace. The curved thing surrenders limply, caressingly. His hands greedily explore the relief of the hemispheres, entering gorges, running down gorges; the mouth enters the jungle of hair, discovering the tiny shell of an ear, “Darling, darling, let’s retire” says the mouth of its own accord, inaudibly.
Tens of panicky fingers grope for the switch on the wall. They interweave like languages unintelligible to each other. “It must be hereabouts. Move away, everyone,” commands the judge, his voice on the wrong wavelength, quavering. “Matches!” There are none to be found. The switch is not to be found either. “Now where in the dickens …?”
“Darling,” whispers Melkior’s lips in the jungle, and the curvy warm says to the palms of his hands, “yours, yours.” Everything is there in his arms, given as gift, as if in a dream. “Darling,” whisper the lips to the tiny ear, “my room is right here.” Suddenly the sleek slim fish comes to life, gives a frightened start, slides out of his arms and dives into the dark. Damn it, I could have … The curse of that masculine “now.” That canine “right here and right now” lust. I could have arranged it with her. Now I don’t even know who she was. They go for contrivance, for secrecy. Ugo has made a date with her. Or was ATMAN lying? What’s going on up there now? Can’t hear a thing.
Finally someone stumbles upon the switch. The light snaps on. Which one was it? He searches not by exclusion but the other way around: by choice, following his wishes. “Buttons,” Mr. Adam had said. Well, which button? The judge has two girls: the “foolish virgins.” Then there is the young wife from the second floor. He selects the young wife from the second floor. She is standing a little way off, next to her husband. Skier, the athletic type, broad-shouldered. Melkior feels inferior. He looks at her. Nothing. Another look, a long one, accomplice-like, with an invisible wink. Nothing. Sheer innocence. Her response is an absolutely conjugal, good-neighborly smile. No, not her. The “foolish virgins” then? But they are not even turning around. They are looking up, in the direction of the attic. Everyone is looking in the direction of the attic. “Coming down now,” somebody whispers piously.
“Coming down now.” The sentence reverberates inside Melkior in strange acoustics, refracted through a sound prism, with multiple echoes. ATMAN is bringing up the rear like a controlling power. Something is radiating from his eyes.
Everyone sees it. In front of him walks the hypnotized medium, his arms dutifully outstretched, like those of a blind man. His eyes are open but unseeing. He is controlled by the power residing in ATMAN.
Why, it’s Four Eyes, the lush! The palmist has arranged it all. Four feet on the staircase: that’s what had been coming up. A con job.
General disappointment on the stairs. They had expected a man-eating giant tamed by hypnosis. What they get is a rumpled runt, unshaven, dirty. It is amusing all the same. A hypnotized man. Arms outstretched, red, cold-bitten, trembling uncertain, tired, freshly awoken, shaken awake.
The ape’s acting well, thought Melkior. This can’t be their first show.
On reaching the last step ATMAN halts. But he does not loosen the hold his almighty gaze has on the unconscious subject. Four Eyes’s glazed eyes look for someone among those present. Melkior goes numb with fear: he has been found out! The two outstretched dirty hands are coming closer. The brute is indeed a good actor. Before he can collect his wits, the subject falls into his arms sobbing, “Mon ami, Mon ami.” At last, at long last, he has found the long-lost one!
“So that’s what the ‘Let him sleep’ was for?” said the judge. He now sees everything clearly. “You knew.”
“I did not!” Melkior barely manages to scream from the grimy embrace. Four Eyes has his smelly shoulder against Melkior’s mouth, sobbing “Mon ami, mon ami” into his ear.