Raoul & Marguerite

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Masqueraders, 1875–78
by Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, 1841–1920
This darling little story by French humorist, Alphonse Allais is not always easy to locate, so I thought I'd take a minute this morning to type it up and pass it on to you here on my blog. It is perfect for Mardi Gras, Valentine's Day, or Purim, so I want to post it quick, before all the Fleeting February Feast Days slip away!

A MOST PARISIAN EPISODE
by Alphonse Allais (1854 - 1905)
translated by Fredric Jameson

Chapter I
In which we meet a Lady and a Gentleman who might have known happiness, had it not been for their constant misunderstandings.

At the time when this story begins, Raoul and Marguerite (splendid names for lovers) have been married for approximately five months.
Naturally, they married for love.
One fine night Raoul, while listening to Marguerite singing Colonel Henry d'Erville's lovely ballad:

L'averse, chere a la grenouille,
Parfume le bois rajeuni.
…Le bois, il est comme Nini.
Y sent bon quand y s'debarbouille.

Raoul, as I was saying, swore to himself that the divine Marguerite (diva Margarita) would never belong to any man but himself.
They would have been the happiest of all couples, except for their awful personalities.
At the slightest provocation, pow! a broken plate, a slap, a kick in the ass.
At such sounds, Love fled in tears, to await, in the neighborhood of a great park, the always imminent hour of reconciliation.
O then, kisses without number, infinite caresses, tender and knowing, ardors as burning as hell itself.
You would have thought the two of them had fights only so they could make up again.

Chapter II
A short episode which, without directly relating to the action, gives the clientele some notions of our heroes' way of life.

One day, however, it was worse than usual.
Or, rather, one night.
They were at the Theatre d'Application, where, among other things, a play by M. Porto-Riche, The Faithless Wife, was being given.
"Let me know," snarled Raoul, "when you're through looking at Grosclaude."
"And as for you," hissed Marguerite, "pass me the opera glasses when you've got Mademoiselle Moreno down pat."
Begun on this note, the conversation could end only in the most unfortunate reciprocal insults.
In the hansom cab that took them home, Marguerite delighted in plucking at Raoul's vanity as at an old, broken-down mandolin.
So it was that no sooner back home than the belligerents took up their respective positions.
Hand raised to strike, with a remorseless gaze, and a moustache bristling like that of a rabid cat, Raoul bore down on Marguerite, who quickly stopped showing off.
The poor thing fled, as hasty and furtive as the doe in the north woods.
Raoul was on the point of laying hands on her.
It was at that moment that the brilliant invention of the greatest anxieties flashed within her little brain.
Turning suddenly about, she threw herself into the arms of Raoul, crying, "Help, my darling Raoul, save me!"

Chapter III
In which our friends are reconciled as I would wish you also to be frequently reconciled.

………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
[ellipses in original]
Chapter IV
As to how people who get involved in things that are none of their affair would do better to mind their own business.

One morning Raoul received the following message:

"If you would like just once to see your wife in a good mood,
go on Thursday to the Bal des Incoherents at the Moulin-Rouge.
She will be there, with a mask and disguised as a Congolese Dugout.
A word to the wise is sufficient! -- A FRIEND."

The same morning, Marguerite received the following message:

"If you would like just once to see your husband in a good mood,
go on Thursday to the Bal des Incoherents at the Moulin-Rouge.
He will be there, with a mask and disguised as a fin-de-siecle Knight Templar.
A word to the wise is sufficient! -- A FRIEND."

These missives did not fall on deaf ears.
With their intentions admirable dissimulated, when the fatal day arrived:

"My dear," Raoul said with his innocent look, "I shall be forced to leave you until tomorrow. Business of the greatest urgency summons me to Dunkirk."

"Why that's perfect," said Marguerite with delightful candor. "I've just received a telegram from Aunt Aspasia, who, desperately ill, bids me to her bedside."

Chapter V
In which today's wild youth is observed in the whirl of the most illusory and transitory pleasures, instead of thinking on eternity.

The social column of the Diable boiteux was unanimous in proclaiming this year's Bal des Incoherents as having unaccustomed brilliance.
Lots of shoulders, no few legs, not to mention accessories.
Two of those present seemed not to take part in the general madness: a fin-de-siecle Knight Templar and a Congolese Dugout, both hermetically masked.
At the stroke of three a.m. exactly, the Knight Templar approached the Dugout and invited her to dine with him.
In reply the Dugout placed a tiny hand on the robust arm of the Templar, and the couple went off.

Chapter VI
In which the plot thickens.
"Leave us for a moment," said the Templar to the waiter, "we will make our choice and call you."
The waiter withdrew, and the Templar locked the door to the private room with care.
Then, with a sudden gesture, having set his own helmet aside, he snatched away the Dugout's mask.
Both at the same instant cried out in astonishment, neither one recognizing the other.
He was not Raoul.
She was not Marguerite.
They apologized to each other and were not long in making acquaintance on the occasion of an excellent supper, need I say more.

Chapter VII
Happy ending for everyone, except the others.

This little mesaventure was a lesson to Raoul and Marguerite.
From that moment on, they no longer quarreled and were utterly happy.
They don't have lots of children yet, but they will.

THE END
CODA, by Anon.

In which Raoul and Marguerite and Scheherazade attend Whose Party and depart after an evening of fun, or so it seemed.

As the door shut behind them, Raoul muttered crudely and jealously, "He likes your ass."

Before Marguerite could formulate a response of any kind, Scheherazade announced brightly: "Who doesn't?"

See, that's what makes Scheherazade a storyteller. Because in one inspired, well-timed, and heart-felt remark, she rendered Marguerite innocent of any implied wrong-doing and established Raoul's remark as foolish and churlish. Simultaneously, raising the interpretation of Whose behavior from leering to admiration, and establishing her loyalty to Marguerite.

A good friend and a good storyteller -- Scheherazade was both!*


Harmony in Flesh Colour and Red, 1869
by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1834 - 1903
[embellished by Yours Truly]

*"It is not often that
someone comes along
who is a true friend
and a good writer.
Charlotte was both."

from Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White

************
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, March 14th

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THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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The Little Door

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Carriage House in University City, West Philadelphia
Here is the Little Door
Lift up the latch; O lift!
We need not wander more,
but enter with our gift . . . "
~ Chesterton

"Strive to enter through
the narrow door:
for many, I tell you,
will try to enter
and will not be able."
~ Luke 13: 22

[L: The Cutest Playhouse
in all of Philadelphia!]


There are numerous symbolic doors in literature: opening, closing, revolving, inviting, forbidding, remaining locked forever. As I read on a poster once, "There are as many doors as there are desires." Here are four of the most meaningful doors that I have come across in my reading:

1. In Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird,
a door representing one's own humanity:

"We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in the rooms you've already been in. Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer's job is to see what's behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words -- not just any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues.

"You can't do this without discovering your own true voice, and you can't find your true voice and peer behind the door and report honestly and clearly to us if your parents are reading over your shoulder. They are probably the ones who told you not to open that door in the first place. . . .

"'Why, though?' my students ask, staring at me intently. 'Why are we supposed to open all these doors? Why are we supposed to tell the truth in our own voice?'

. . . And it's wonderful to watch someone finally open that forbidden door that has kept him or her away. What gets exposed is not people's baseness but their humanity. It turns out that the truth, or reality, is our home" (198 - 200).

2. In Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "Bluebeard,"
a door representing privacy:

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see…. Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

Lamott's words give me courage when my self - editor starts taking over. Her metaphor reminds the writer that keeping a lock on the door does not guarantee safety. Any more than opening it wide insures disaster. In fact, opening up may well put you in less danger, not more. So go ahead and grant yourself the freedom of self - acceptance. However, as Millay warns, just don't go bashing down doors that aren't yours to open. That's not the path to authenticity or humanity.

3. In Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law,"
a door representing the Law:

"Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. . . . the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but . . . he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for waiting for days and years."

Nearing the end of his life, the man asks the gatekeeper, "so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” And the gatekeeper answers: “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” Can it be true? Following the parable, a discussion of its meaning takes place between K and a priest. The priest points out that perhaps the Door Before the Law can never be shut, and he reminds K that when the man "sits down on the stool by the side the door and stays there for the rest of his life, he does it of his own free will."

Of course my sympathy always lies with the Man Before the Law, never with the bossy, small-minded gatekeeper. Yet I can't shake my mixed feelings about the man's predicament. Yes, the Law can be contrary; we all know that. But how can he allow himself to sit so quietly, never growing impatient at the waiting, the impotence, the lack of useful information? Why doesn't his reach exceed his grasp? It should.

4. In E. B. White's essay, "The Door,"
a door representing (in)sanity:

"First they would teach you the prayers and the Psalms, and that would be the right door(the one with the circle) and the long sweet words with the holy sound, and that would be the one to jump at to get where the food was. Then one day you jumped and it didn't give way, so that all you got was the bump on the nose, and the first bewilderment, the first young bewilderment. . . .

"You wouldn't want me, standing here, to tell you, would you, about my friend the poet (deceased) who said, 'My heart has followed all my days something I cannot name'? (It had the circle on it.) And like many poets, although few so beloved, he is gone. It killed him, the jumping. First, of course, there were the preliminary bouts, the convulsions, and the calm and the willingness.

"I remember the door with the picture of the girl on it (only it was spring), her arms outstretched in loveliness, her dress (it was the one with the circle on it) uncaught, beginning the slow, clear, blinding cascade-and I guess we would all like to try that door again, for it seemed like the way and for a while it was the way, the door would open and you would go through winged and exalted (like any rat) and the food would be there, the way the Professor had it arranged, everything O.K., and you had chosen the right door for the world was young. The time they changed that door on me, my nose bled for a hundred hours--how do you like that, Madam? Or would you prefer to show me further through this so strange house, or you could take my name and send it to me, for although my heart has followed all my days something I cannot name, I am tired of the jumping and I do not know which way to go, Madam, and I am not even sure that I am not tired beyond the endurance of man (rat, if you will) and have taken leave of sanity. What are you following these days, old friend, after your recovery from the last bump? What is the name, or is it something you cannot name?"

If you have a moment, to read the entire essay, you'll find an eerily broken-hearted description of the disjunction between perception and reality. I have kept it in my folder of favorites for many years, something to reread periodically as I follow my own heart's quest for something I cannot name. As radio / telvision personality Clifton Fadiman summed it up, "E. B. White [better known as the author of Charlotte's Web] never again wrote anything like 'The Door.' Nobody has done so."

To conclude, I'll tag on a couple of German vocabulary words whose connection you will appreciate: the first, weltschmerz, particularly in relation to E. B. White's essay of pain and distortion; the second, torschlusspanik, to Kafka's Man Before the Law whose doomed life illustrates the very concept:

weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) noun meaning world-pain or world weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference between physical reality and the ideal state.

torschlusspanik (TOR - schluss - panic) noun describing the door-shutting panic experienced at the thought that a door between oneself and life's opportunities is closing forever.

DON'T FORGET TO
CHECK BACK FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, August 14, 2010

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com