The Vatican swindle

by André Gide

I

Amédée Fleurissoire had left Pau with five hundred francs in his pocket. This, he thought, would certainly suffice him for his journey, notwithstanding the extra expenses, to which the Lodge’s wickedness would no doubt put him. And if, after all, this amount proved insufficient—if he found himself obliged to prolong his stay, he would have recourse to Blafaphas, who was keeping a small sum in reserve for him.

As no one at Pau was to know where he was going, he had not taken his ticket further than Marseilles. From Marseilles to Rome a third-class ticket cost only thirty-eight francs, forty centimes, and left him free to break his journey if he chose—an option of which he took advantage, to satisfy, not his curiosity for foreign parts, which had never been lively, but his desire for sleep, which was inordinately strong. There was nothing he feared so much as insomnia, and as it was important to the Church that he should arrive at Rome in good trim, he would not consider the two days’ delay or the additional expense of the hotel bills.... What was that in comparison to spending a night in the train?—a night that would certainly be sleepless, and particularly dangerous to health on account of the other travellers’ breaths; and then if one of them wanted to renew the air and took it into his head to open a window, that meant catching a cold for certain.... He would therefore spend the first night at Marseilles and the second at Genoa, in one of those hotels that are found in the neighbourhood of the station, and are comfortable without being over-grand.

For the rest he was amused by the journey and at making it by himself—at last! For, at the age of forty-seven, he had never lived but in a state of tutelage, escorted everywhere by his wife and his friend Blafaphas. Tucked up in his corner of the carriage, he sat with a faint goat-like smile on his face, wishing himself Godspeed. All went well as far as Marseilles.

On the second day he made a false start. Absorbed in the perusal of the Baedeker for Central Italy which he had just bought, he got into the wrong train and headed straight for Lyons; it was only at Arles that he noticed his mistake, just as the train was starting, so that he was obliged to go on to Tarascon and come back over the same ground for the second time; then he took an evening train as far as Toulon rather than spend another night at Marseilles, where he had been pestered with bugs.

And yet the room which looked on to the Cannebière had not been uninviting, nor the bed either, for that matter; he had got into it without misgivings, after having folded his clothes, done his accounts and said his prayers. He was dropping with sleep and went off at once.

The manners and customs of bugs are peculiar; they wait till the candle is out, and then, as soon as it is dark, sally forth—not at random; they make straight for the neck, the place of their predilection; sometimes they select the wrists; a few rare ones prefer the ankles. It is not exactly known for what reason they inject into the sleeper’s skin an exquisitely irritating oily substance, the virulence of which is intensified by the slightest rubbing....

The irritation which awoke Fleurissoire was so violent that he lit his candle again and hurried to the looking-glass to gaze at his lower jaw, where there appeared an irregular patch of red dotted with little white spots; but the smoky dip gave a bad light; the silver of the glass was tarnished and his eyes were blurred with sleep.... He went back to bed still rubbing and put out his light; five minutes later he lit it again, for the itching had become intolerable, sprang to the wash-hand-stand, wetted his handkerchief in his water jug and applied it to the inflamed zone, which had greatly extended and now reached as far as his collar-bone. Amédée thought he was going to be ill and offered up a prayer; then he put out his candle once more. The respite which the cool compress had granted him lasted too short a time to permit the sufferer to go to sleep; and there was added now to the agony of the itching, the discomfort of having the collar of his night-shirt drenched with water; he drenched it, too, with his tears. And suddenly he started with horror—bugs! it was bugs!... He was surprised that he had not thought of them sooner; but he knew the insect only by name, and how was it possible to imagine that a definite bite could result in this indefinable burning? He shot out of his bed and for the third time lit his candle.

Being of a nervous and theoretical disposition, his ideas about bugs, like many other people’s, were all wrong; cold with disgust, he began by searching for them on himself—found ne’er a one—thought he had made a mistake—again believed that he must be falling ill. There was nothing on his sheets either; but nevertheless, before getting into bed again, it occurred to him to lift up his bolster. He then saw three tiny blackish pastilles, which tucked themselves nimbly away into a fold of the sheet. It was they, sure enough!

Setting his candle on the bed, he tracked them down, opened out the fold and discovered five of them. Not daring to squash them with his finger-nail, he flung them in disgust into his chamber-pot and watered them copiously. He watched them struggling for a few moments—pleased and ferocious. It soothed his feelings. Then he got back into bed and blew out his candle.

The bites began again almost immediately with redoubled violence. There were new ones now on the back of his neck. He lighted his candle once more in a rage and took his night-shirt right off this time so as to examine the collar at his leisure. At last he perceived four or five minute light red specks running along the edge of the seam; he crushed them on the linen, where they left a stain of blood—horrid little creatures, so tiny that he could hardly believe that they were bugs already; but a little later, on raising his bolster again, he unearthed an enormous one—their mother for certain; at that, encouraged, excited, amused almost, he took off the bolster, undid the sheets and began a methodical search. He fancied now that he saw them everywhere, but as a matter of fact caught only four; he went back to bed and enjoyed an hour’s peace.

Then the burning and itching began again. Once more he started the hunt; then, worn out at last with disgust and fatigue, gave it up, and noticed that if he did not scratch, the itching subsided pretty quickly. At dawn the last of the creatures, presumably gorged, let him be. He was sleeping heavily when the waiter called him in time for his train.

At Toulon it was fleas.

He picked them up in the train, no doubt. All night long he scratched himself, turning from side to side without sleeping. He felt them creeping up and down his legs, tickling the small of his back, inoculating him with fever. As he had a sensitive skin, their bites rose in exuberant swellings, which he inflamed with unrestrained scratching. He lit his candle over and over again; he got up, took off his night-shirt and put it on again, without being able to kill a single one. He hardly caught a fleeting glimpse of them; they continually escaped him, and even when he succeeded in catching them, when he thought they were flattened dead beneath his finger-nail, they suddenly and instantaneously blew themselves out again and hopped away as safe and lively as ever. He was driven to regretting the bugs. His fury and exasperation of the useless chase effectually wrecked every possibility of sleep.

All next day the bites of the previous night itched horribly, while fresh creepings and ticklings showed him that he was still infested. The excessive heat considerably increased his discomfort. The carriage was packed to overflowing with workmen, who drank, smoked, spat, belched and ate such high-smelling victuals that more than once Fleurissoire thought he was going to be sick. And yet he did not dare leave the carriage before reaching the frontier, for fear that the workmen might see him get into another and imagine they were incommoding him; in the compartment into which he next got, there was a voluminous wet-nurse, who was changing her baby’s napkins. He tried nevertheless to sleep; but then his hat got in his way. It was one of those shallow, white straw hats with a black ribbon round it, of the kind commonly known as “sailor.” When Fleurissoire left it in its usual position, its stiff brim prevented him from leaning his head back against the partition of the carriage; if, in order to do this, he raised his hat a little, the partition bumped it forwards; when, on the contrary, he pressed his hat down behind, the brim was caught between the partition and the back of his neck, and the sailor rose up over his forehead like the lid of a valve. He decided at last to take it right off and to cover his head with his comforter, which he arranged to fall over his eyes so as to keep out the light. At any rate, he had taken precautions against the night; at Toulon that morning he had bought a box of insecticide and, even if he had to pay dear for it, he thought to himself that he would not hesitate to spend the night in one of the best hotels; for if he had no sleep that night, in what state of bodily wretchedness would he not be when he arrived at Rome?—at the mercy of the meanest freemason!

At Genoa he found the omnibuses of the principal hotels drawn up outside the station; he went straight up to one of the most comfortable-looking, without letting himself be intimidated by the haughtiness of the hotel servant, who seized hold of his miserable portmanteau; but Amédée refused to be parted from it; he would not allow it to be put on the roof of the carriage, but insisted that it should be placed next him—there—on the same seat. In the hall of the hotel the porter put him at his ease by talking French; then he let himself go and, not content with asking for “a very good room,” inquired the prices of those that were offered him, determined to find nothing to his liking for less than twelve francs.

The seventeen-franc room which he settled on after looking at several, was vast, clean, and elegant without ostentation; the bed stood out from the wall—a bright brass bed, which was certainly uninhabited, and to which his precautions would have been an insult. The washstand was concealed in a kind of enormous cupboard. Two large windows opened on to a garden; Amédée leant out into the night and gazed long at the indistinct mass of sombre foliage, letting the cool air calm his fever and invite him to sleep. From above the bed there hung down a cloudy veil of tulle, which exactly draped three sides of it, and which was looped up in a graceful festoon on the fourth by a few little cords, like those that take in the reefs of a sail. Fleurissoire recognised that this was what is known as a mosquito net—a device which he had always disdained to make use of.

After having washed, he stretched himself luxuriously in the cool sheets. He left the window open—not wide open, of course, for fear of cold in the head and ophthalmia, but with one side fixed in such a way as to prevent the night effluvia from striking him directly; did his accounts, said his prayers and put out the light. (This was electric and the current was cut off by turning down a switch.)

Fleurissoire was just going off to sleep when a faint humming reminded him that he had failed to take the precaution of putting out his light before opening his window; for light attracts mosquitoes. He remembered, too, that he had somewhere read praises of the Lord, who has bestowed on this winged insect a special musical instrument, designed to warn the sleeper the moment before he is going to be stung. Then he let down the impenetrable muslin barrier all round him. “After all,” thought he to himself as he was dropping off, “how much better this is than those little felt cones of dried hay, which old Blafaphas sells under the quaint name of ‘fidibus’; one lights them on a little metal saucer; as they burn they give out a quantity of narcotic fumes; but before they stupefy the mosquitoes, they half stifle the sleeper. Fidibus! What a funny name! Fidibus....” He was just going off, when suddenly a sharp sting on the left side of his nose awoke him. He put his hand to the place and as he was softly stroking the raised and burning flesh—another sting on his wrist. Then right against his ear there sounded the mock of an impertinent buzzing.... Horror! he had shut the enemy up within the citadel! He reached out to the switch and turned on the light.

Yes! the mosquito was there, settled high up on the net. Amédée was long-sighted and made him out distinctly; a creature that was wisp-like to absurdity, planted on four legs, with the other pair sticking out insolently behind him, long and curly; Amédée sat up on his bed. But how could he crush the insect against such flimsy, yielding material? No matter! He gave a hit with the palm of his hand, so hard and so quick that he thought he had burst a hole in the net. Not the shadow of a doubt but the mosquito was done for; he glanced down to look for its corpse; there was nothing—but he felt a fresh sting on the calf of his leg.

At that, in order to get as much as possible of his person into shelter, he crept between the sheets and stayed there perhaps a quarter of an hour, without daring to turn out the light; then, all the same, somewhat reassured at catching neither sight nor sound of the enemy, he switched it off. And instantly the music began again.

Then he put out one arm, keeping his hand close to his face, and from time to time when he thought he felt one well settled on his forehead or cheek, he would give himself a huge smack. But the second after, he heard the insect’s sing-song once more.

After this it occurred to him to wrap his head round with his comforter, which considerably interfered with the pleasure of his respiratory organs, and did not prevent him from being stung on the chin.

Then the mosquito, gorged, no doubt, lay low; at any rate, Amédée, vanquished by slumber, ceased to hear it; he had taken off his comforter and was tossing in a feverish sleep; he scratched as he slept. The next morning, his nose, which was by nature aquiline, looked like the nose of a drunkard; the spot on the calf of his leg was budding like a boil and the one on his chin had developed an appearance that was volcanic—he recommended it to the particular solicitude of the barber when, before leaving Genoa, he went to be shaved, so as to be respectable when he arrived in Rome.