Ocean Sea Read online

  But anyway.

  That business could not go on forever. Even though the citizenry appeared well disposed. Sooner or later it had to stop. Bartleboom understood this. And after twelve days of passionate oscillation, he dressed suitably for the occasion and headed straight for Bad Hollen. He had decided: he would live with a painter. He arrived on a Sunday evening. Anna Ancher was not at home. She would be back shortly. “I’ll wait,” he said. And he took a seat in a sitting room. It was there that a simple and ruinous image suddenly came to mind with the force of a lightning bolt: his mahogany box, all nice and shiny, sitting on the piano in the Anchers’ house. He had forgotten it there. These are things that normal people find hard to understand, me for example, because it’s part of the mystery of great minds, it’s their specialty, the mechanisms of genius, capable of magnificent acrobatics and colossal screw-ups. Bartleboom was one of that species. Colossal screw-ups, sometimes. But he did not get flustered. He got to his feet and, leaving a message that he would return later, repaired to a little hotel outside town. The next day he took the coach for Hollenberg. He was beginning to get to know that road rather well, he was becoming, so to speak, a real expert on it. If ever they had instituted a university chair for studies on that road, you could bet that it would have been his, guaranteed.

  At Hollenberg things went off smoothly. The box was indeed there.

  “I would have sent it to you, but I had absolutely no idea where to find you,” said Elisabetta Ancher with a voice that would have seduced a deaf man. Bartleboom vacillated for a moment, but then he recovered.

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s perfectly all right this way.”

  He kissed her hand and took his leave. He didn’t sleep a wink all night long, but the next morning he showed up punctually for the Bad Hollen coach. A fine trip. At every stop he was greeted and made much of. The folk were becoming fond of him. They are like that, in those parts, sociable folk, they don’t ask too many questions and they treat you with complete sincerity. Really. A frightfully unattractive area, this has to be said, but the people are exquisite. The kind they don’t make anymore.

  But anyway.

  Finally, Bartleboom arrived in Bad Hollen with his mahogany box, the letters and everything. He went back to Anna Ancher’s house and had himself announced. The painter was working on a still life, apples pears pheasants, things like that; the pheasants kept still of course, but then again they were dead and it was a still life after all. She held her little head slightly tilted to one side. Her raven hair framed her face charmingly. Had there been a piano, too, you wouldn’t have doubted that it was the other one, the Hollenberg one. But it was her, the Bad Hollen one. Peas in a pod, I say. It’s prodigious what nature can manage to do when it gets to work with a will. Unbelievable. Really.

  “Professor Bartleboom, what a surprise!” she twittered.

  “Good day, Miss Ancher,” he replied, adding immediately, “It is Anna Ancher, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, why?”

  He wanted to be on the safe side, did the Professor. You never know.

  “What has brought you all this way, to delight me with your visit?”

  “This,” replied Bartleboom seriously, placing the mahogany box in front of her and opening it before her eyes.

  “I have been waiting for you, Anna. I have been waiting for you for years.”

  The painter reached out and rapidly shut the box again.

  “Before our conversation goes any further, I ought to inform you of something, Professor Bartleboom.”

  “Whatever you wish, my beloved.”

  “I am betrothed.”

  “Really?”

  “I became engaged six days ago to Lieutenant Gallega.”

  “An excellent choice.”

  “Thank you.”

  Bartleboom mentally worked his way back to six days before. It had been the day on which, having arrived from Rulzen, he had stopped at Colzen before setting off again for Alzen. Right in the middle of his tribulations, in short. Six days. Six wretched days. By the way, that Gallega was a real parasite, if you see what I mean, an insignificant creature and in a certain sense even a noxious one. It was mortifying. Really. Mortifying.

  “Now, do you wish us to continue?”

  “I no longer think that that will be necessary,” replied Bartleboom, taking back his mahogany box.

  On the way back to his hotel, the Professor attempted a cold analysis of the situation and he came to the conclusion that there were two possibilities (a circumstance, it will be noted, that occurs with a certain frequency, the possibilities being generally two and only rarely three): either this was merely a disagreeable hitch, in which case what he had to do was to challenge the abovementioned Lieutenant Gallega to a duel and get rid of him. Or it was a clear sign of destiny, a magnanimous destiny, and in that case what he had to do was return as fast as possible to Hollenberg and marry Elisabetta Ancher, the unforgotten pianist.

  By the way, Bartleboom hated duels. He just could not bear them.

  “Dead pheasants . . .” he thought with a certain disgust. And he decided to leave. Seated in his place aboard the first coach of the morning, he took the road for Hollenberg once more. He was in serene mood and accepted with benevolent good nature the manifestations of cheerful affection accorded him by the populations of the towns of Pozel, Colzen, Tozer, Rulzen, Palzen, Alzen, Balzen, and Fazel. Likable folk, as I have said. At dusk he presented himself, impeccably dressed and holding his mahogany box, at the Anchers’ house.

  “Miss Elisabetta, please,” he said with a certain solemnity to the servant who opened the door.

  “She isn’t in, sir. She left this morning for Bad Hollen.”

  Unbelievable.

  A man of another moral and cultural background would have perhaps retraced his steps and taken the first coach for Bad Hollen. A man of lesser psychic and nervous fiber perhaps would have given himself over to the most theatrical expressions of a definitive and incurable discouragement. But Bartleboom was an upright and just man, one of those who have a certain style when it comes to digesting the whims of destiny.

  Bartleboom began to laugh.

  But heartily, really splitting his sides, enough to triple himself up with laughter, there was no way to stop him, with tears and everything, a sight to see, a chaotic, oceanic, apocalyptic laugh, an endless laugh. The Anchers’ servants no longer knew what to do, there was no way to make him stop, neither cajolery nor threats had any effect, he just carried on laughing fit to burst, an embarrassing business, and infectious apart from anything else, you know how it is, one starts and the rest follow, it’s the law of the giggles, it’s like a plague, you want to try to keep a straight face, you can’t manage, it’s inexorable, nothing can be done, they were collapsing one by one, the servants, despite the fact they had nothing to laugh about, on the contrary, to be precise, they ought to have been worried about that embarrassing if not exactly dramatic situation, but they were collapsing one by one, laughing their heads off, you could have wet yourself, if you see what I mean, wet yourself, if you weren’t careful. In the end they put him to bed. He also laughed from a horizontal position, however, and with such enthusiasm, with such generosity, a prodigy, really, what with sobs tears and choking, but unstoppable, prodigious, really. One and a half hours later he was still there laughing. And he hadn’t stopped for a second. By that time the servants were at their wits’ end, they were running out of the house so as to avoid hearing any more of that exhilarating and infectious sobbing laughter, they tried to escape, their guts writhing with the pain of all that gargantuan guffawing, they were trying to save themselves, and you can easily understand them, by that time it was becoming a question of life and death. Unbelievable. Then, at a certain point, Bartleboom stopped without warning; like a mechanism that had jammed, he suddenly became serious again, looked around, and having identified the nearest servant within range, he said, very seriously, “Have you seen a mahogany box?”

  The s
ervant jumped at the chance to make himself useful, as long as he stopped laughing.

  “Here it is, sir.”

  “Well, it’s a present for you,” said Bartleboom, and off he went again, laughing his head off, as if he had come out with some irresistible witticism, the best one of his life, the biggest, so to speak, a major witticism. From then on he didn’t stop.

  He spent the whole night laughing. Apart from the Anchers’ servants, who were walking about with cotton wool in their ears by that time, it was a nuisance for the whole of peaceful Hollenberg, since Bartleboom’s laughter, you see, overspilled the confines of the house proper and spread marvelously through that nocturnal silence. Sleep was out of the question. It was already something if you managed to stay serious. And at first, as a matter of fact, you could stay serious, also in view of the irritation aroused by that vexatious racket, but common sense went to pot very soon, and the germ of the giggles began to spread, unstoppable, to devour everybody, without distinction, men and women, not to mention the children, really everybody. Like an epidemic. There were houses in which no one had laughed for months, they didn’t even remember how it was done. People sunk deep in their own rancor and wretchedness. Not the luxury of a smile, for months. And that night, everyone set to laughing, laughing fit to bust a gut, it was unheard of, they could barely recognize one another, the mask of those eternal long faces of theirs had fallen away to reveal a gaping smirk. A revelation. It was enough to make you rediscover your joie de vivre to see the lights of that little town coming on again one by one, to hear the houses come down with gusts of laughter, without there being anything to laugh about, but just like that, miraculously, as if on that very night the barrel of collective and unanimous patience had brimmed over, and—here’s to all misery!—had flooded the entire town with a roaring torrent of blessed mirth. A concert that touched the heart. A wonder. Bartleboom himself was conducting the choir. It was his moment, so to speak. And he was conducting it like a real maestro. A memorable night, I tell you. Ask, by all means. Damned if it wasn’t a memorable night.

  But anyway.

  At the first light of dawn, he calmed down. Bartleboom, I mean. And then the whole town gradually followed suit. They stopped laughing, little by little, and then definitively. It went as it had come. Bartleboom asked for something to eat. Understandably, his exploit had left him with an enormous appetite, it’s no joke laughing for all that time, and with all that enthusiasm. But as far as health was concerned, he looked very much as if he had plenty and to spare.

  “Never felt better,” he assured the delegation of citizens that, to a certain extent out of gratitude and in any case out of curiosity, had come to see how he was. He had made some new friends. There was no doubt that he was fated to end up making friends with the people of that area. Really. In any case he got up, said good-bye to everybody, and prepared to depart once more. His mind was made up as far as that was concerned.

  “Which is the road to the capital?”

  “You should go back to Bad Hollen, sir, and from there take . . .”

  “Out of the question,” and he left in the opposite direction, aboard a gig belonging to a neighbor, a blacksmith and a talent in his field, a real talent. He had spent the night killing himself laughing. In short, he owed a debt of gratitude, so to speak. He closed his smithy that day and took Bartleboom away from those places, and from those memories, and from everything, to blazes with it, he would never come back, the Professor, it was over, that story, for good or for ill, it was over, once and for all, Good Christ Almighty. Over.

  Just like that.

  After that, Bartleboom didn’t try again. To get married, that is. He said that the time had passed, and that there was no more to be said. I think that he suffered a bit on account of that, but he didn’t burden you with it, he kept his sorrows to himself, and could ignore them. He was one of those men who, in any case, have a cheerful view of life. A man at peace with himself, if you see what I mean. In the seven years he lived here, below us, it was always a pleasure to have him here, below us, and many times in our house, as if he were one of the family, and in a certain sense he really was. Apart from anything else, he could have lived in a very different part of town, he could, with all that money that came to him in recent years, inheritances, you understand, the aunts were dropping one after another, like ripe apples, may they rest in peace, a regular procession of notaries, one testament after another, willy-nilly, they all brought cash into Bartleboom’s pocket. In short, had he wanted to, he could have lived in another part of town altogether. But he stayed here. He used to say that you lived well, in our part of town. He knew how to appreciate things, so to speak. These things too, are the measure of a man.

  He continued working on that Encyclopedia of the Limits etcetera right up to the end. Lately he had begun to rewrite it. He used to say that science was making giant strides and that the need to bring things up to date, to specify, correct, and polish, was never-ending. He was fascinated by the idea that an Encyclopedia of Limits should end up becoming a book that never ended. An infinite book. It was a fine absurdity, if you think about it, and he would laugh about it, he would explain it to me over and over again, amazed, even amused. Another man perhaps would have suffered. But he, as I say, wasn’t cut out for certain tribulations. He was cheerful, that one.

  Needless to say, even dying was a thing that he accomplished in his own way. Without too much show, understated. He took to his bed one day, he wasn’t very well, and by the following week it was all over. It was hard to understand whether he suffered or not, in those days, I asked him, but all that mattered to him was that that trifling business didn’t make any of us sad. Putting people out irked him. Only once he asked me if I would please hang up one of those paintings by his painter friend on the wall in front of the bed. That was another unbelievable story, the one about the collection of Plassons. Almost all white, if you can believe me. But he cared very much for them. Even the one that I hung up, that time, was quite white, all white, he had chosen it from the whole collection, and I hung it up there for him, so he could see it well from the bed. It was white, I swear. But he would look at it, and look at it again, he turned it over and over in his eyes, so to speak.

  “The sea,” he would say softly.

  He died in the morning. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again. Simple.

  I don’t know. There are people who die and, with all due respect, you don’t lose anything. But he was one of those that when they’re gone you feel it. As if the whole world had become, from one day to the next, a little heavier. Could be that this planet, and the whole thing, stays afloat in the air only because there are plenty of Bartlebooms around to hold it up. With that buoyancy of theirs. They don’t look like heroes, but in the meantime they keep the show on the road. They’re made like that. Bartleboom was made like that. For example, he was capable of taking you by the arm, on a day like any other, in the street, and saying to you, in great secrecy, “Once I saw the angels. They were on the seashore.”

  Even though he didn’t believe in God, he was a scientist, and had no great religious leanings, if you see what I mean. But he had seen the angels. And he would tell you about it. He would take you by the arm, on a day like any other, in the street and with wonder in his eyes, he would tell you about it.

  “Once I saw the angels.”

  How can you not love a man like that?

  CHAPTER 6

  Savigny

  “YOU ARE LEAVING US then, Dr. Savigny . . .”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you have decided to return to France.”

  “Yes.”

  “It will not be easy for you . . . I mean, people’s curiosity, the gazettes, the politicians . . . I fear that a real hunt is on for the survivors of that raft . . .”

  “They have told me.”

  “It has almost became a matter of state. It happens, when politics comes into it . . .”

  “Sooner or later, you’ll see
, they will all forget this story.”

  “I don’t doubt it, my dear Savigny. Here: these are your embarkation papers.”

  “I owe you a great deal, Captain.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “And as for your doctor, perhaps I owe him my life . . . he has worked miracles.”

  “Savigny, if we start counting the miracles in this story, we will never finish. Go. And good luck.”

  “Thank you, Captain . . . Oh, one more thing.”

  “Yes?”