A Tress of Hair
The walls of the cell were bare and white washed. A narrow gratedwindow, placed so high that one could not reach it, lighted this sinisterlittle room. The mad inmate, seated on a straw chair, looked at us witha fixed, vacant and haunted expression. He was very thin, with hollowcheeks and hair almost white, which one guessed might have turned gray ina few months. His clothes appeared to be too large for his shrunkenlimbs, his sunken chest and empty paunch. One felt that this man's mindwas destroyed, eaten by his thoughts, by one thought, just as a fruit iseaten by a worm. His craze, his idea was there in his brain, insistent,harassing, destructive. It wasted his frame little by little. It--theinvisible, impalpable, intangible, immaterial idea--was mining hishealth, drinking his blood, snuffing out his life.What a mystery was this man, being killed by an ideal! He arousedsorrow, fear and pity, this madman. What strange, tremendous and deadlythoughts dwelt within this forehead which they creased with deep wrinkleswhich were never still?"He has terrible attacks of rage," said the doctor to me. "His is one ofthe most peculiar cases I have ever seen. He has seizures of erotic andmacaberesque madness. He is a sort of necrophile. He has kept a journalin which he sets forth his disease with the utmost clearness. In it youcan, as it were, put your finger on it. If it would interest you, youmay go over this document."I followed the doctor into his office, where he handed me this wretchedman's diary, saying: "Read it and tell me what you think of it."I read as follows:"Until the age of thirty-two I lived peacefully, without knowing love.Life appeared very simple, very pleasant and very easy. I was rich.I enjoyed so many things that I had no passion for anything inparticular. It was good to be alive! I awoke happy every morning anddid those things that pleased me during the day and went to bed at nightcontented, in the expectation of a peaceful tomorrow and a future withoutanxiety."I had had a few flirtations without my heart being touched by any truepassion or wounded by any of the sensations of true love. It is good tolive like that. It is better to love, but it is terrible. And yet thosewho love in the ordinary way must experience ardent happiness, thoughless than mine possibly, for love came to me in a remarkable manner."As I was wealthy, I bought all kinds of old furniture and oldcuriosities, and I often thought of the unknown hands that had touchedthese objects, of the eyes that had admired them, of the hearts that hadloved them; for one does love things! I sometimes remained hours andhours looking at a little watch of the last century. It was so tiny, sopretty with its enamel and gold chasing. And it kept time as on the daywhen a woman first bought it, enraptured at owning this dainty trinket.It had not ceased to vibrate, to live its mechanical life, and it hadkept up its regular tick-tock since the last century. Who had first wornit on her bosom amid the warmth of her clothing, the heart of the watchbeating beside the heart of the woman? What hand had held it in its warmfingers, had turned it over and then wiped the enamelled shepherds on thecase to remove ,the slight moisture from her fingers? What eyes hadwatched the hands on its ornamental face for the expected, the beloved,the sacred hour?"How I wished I had known her, seen her, the woman who had selected thisexquisite and rare object! She is dead! I am possessed with a longingfor women of former days. I love, from afar, all those who have loved.The story of those dead and gone loves fills my heart with regrets. Oh,the beauty, the smiles, the youthful caresses, the hopes! Should not allthat be eternal?"How I have wept whole nights-thinking of those poor women of formerdays, so beautiful, so loving, so sweet, whose arms were extended in anembrace, and who now are dead! A kiss is immortal! It goes from lips tolips, from century to century, from age to age. Men receive them, givethem and die."The past attracts me, the present terrifies me because the future meansdeath. I regret all that has gone by. I mourn all who have lived; Ishould like to check time, to stop the clock. But time goes, it goes, itpasses, it takes from me each second a little of myself for theannihilation of to-morrow. And I shall never live again."Farewell, ye women of yesterday. I love you!"But I am not to be pitied. I found her, the one I was waiting for, andthrough her I enjoyed inestimable pleasure."I was sauntering in Paris on a bright, sunny morning, with a happy heartand a high step, looking in at the shop windows with the vague interestof an idler. All at once I noticed in the shop of a dealer in antiques apiece of Italian furniture of the seventeenth century. It was veryhandsome, very rare. I set it down as being the work of a Venetianartist named Vitelli, who was celebrated in his day."I went on my way."Why did the remembrance of that piece of furniture haunt me with suchinsistence that I retraced my steps? I again stopped before the shop, inorder to take another look at it, and I felt that it tempted me."What a singular thing temptation is! One gazes at an object, and,little by little, it charms you, it disturbs you, it fills your thoughtsas a woman's face might do. The enchantment of it penetrates your being,a strange enchantment of form, color and appearance of an inanimateobject. And one loves it, one desires it, one wishes to have it. Alonging to own it takes possession of you, gently at first, as though itwere timid, but growing, becoming intense, irresistible."And the dealers seem to guess, from your ardent gaze, your secret andincreasing longing."I bought this piece of furniture and had it sent home at once. I placedit in my room."Oh, I am sorry for those who do not know the honeymoon of the collectorwith the antique he has just purchased. One looks at it tenderly andpasses one's hand over it as if it were human flesh; one comes back to itevery moment, one is always thinking of it, wherever ore goes, whateverone does. The dear recollection of it pursues you in the street, insociety, everywhere; and when you return home at night, before taking offyour gloves or your hat; you go and look at it with the tenderness of alover."Truly, for eight days I worshipped this piece of furniture. I openedits doors and pulled out the drawers every few moments. I handled itwith rapture, with all the intense joy of possession."But one evening I surmised, while I was feeling the thickness of one ofthe panels, that there must be a secret drawer in it: My heart began tobeat, and I spent the night trying to discover this secret cavity."I succeeded on the following day by driving a knife into a slit in thewood. A panel slid back and I saw, spread out on a piece of blackvelvet, a magnificent tress of hair."Yes, a woman's hair, an immense coil of fair hair, almost red, whichmust have been cut off close to the head, tied with a golden cord."I stood amazed, trembling, confused. An almost imperceptible perfume,so ancient that it seemed to be the spirit of a perfume, issued from thismysterious drawer and this remarkable relic."I lifted it gently, almost reverently, and took it out of its hidingplace. It at once unwound in a golden shower that reached to the floor,dense but light; soft and gleaming like the tail of a comet."A strange emotion filled me. What was this? When, how, why had thishair been shut up in this drawer? What adventure, what tragedy did thissouvenir conceal? Who had cut it off? A lover on a day of farewell, ahusband on a day of revenge, or the one whose head it had graced on theday of despair?"Was it as she was about to take the veil that they had cast thither thatlove dowry as a pledge to the world of the living? Was it when they weregoing to nail down the coffin of the beautiful young corpse that the onewho had adored her had cut off her tresses, the only thing that he couldretain of her, the only living part of her body that would not sufferdecay, the only thing he could still love, and caress, and kiss in hisparoxysms of grief?"Was it not strange that this tress should have remained as it was inlife, when not an atom of the body on which it grew was in existence?"It fell over my fingers, tickled the skin with a singular caress, thecaress of a dead woman. It affected me so that I felt as though I shouldweep."I held it in my hands for a long time, then it seemed as if it disturbedme, as though something of the soul had remained in it. And I put itback on the velvet, rusty from age, and pushed in the drawer, closed thedoors of the antique cabinet and went out for a walk to meditate."I walked along, filled with sadness and also with unrest, that unrestthat one feels when in love. I felt as though I must have lived before,as though I must have known this woman."And Villon's lines came to my mind like a sob:Tell me where, and in what placeIs Flora, the beautiful Roman,Hipparchia and ThaisWho was her cousin-german?Echo answers in the breezeO'er river and lake that blows,Their beauty was above all praise,But where are last year's snows?The queen, white as lilies,Who sang as sing the birds,Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,Ermengarde, princess of Maine,And Joan, the good Lorraine,Burned by the English at Rouen,Where are they, Virgin Queen?And where are last year's snows?"When I got home again I felt an irresistible longing to see my singulartreasure, and I took it out and, as I touched it, I felt a shiver go allthrough me."For some days, however, I was in my ordinary condition, although thethought of that tress of hair was always present to my mind."Whenever I came into the house I had to see it and take it in my, hands.I turned the key of the cabinet with the same hesitation that one opensthe door leading to one's beloved, for in my hands and my heart I felt aconfused, singular, constant sensual longing to plunge my hands in theenchanting golden flood of those dead tresses."Then, after I had finished caressing it and had locked the cabinet Ifelt as if it were a living thing, shut up in there, imprisoned; and Ilonged to see it again. I felt again the imperious desire to take it inmy hands, to touch it, to even feel uncomfortable at the cold, slippery,irritating, bewildering contact."I lived thus for a month or two, I forget how long. It obsessed me,haunted me. I was happy and tormented by turns, as when one falls inlove, and after the first vows have been exchanged."I shut myself in the room with it to feel it on my skin, to bury my lipsin it, to kiss it. I wound it round my face, covered my eyes with thegolden flood so as to see the day gleam through its gold."I loved it! Yes, I loved it. I could not be without it nor pass anhour without looking at it."And I waited--I waited--for what? I do not know-- For her!"One night I woke up suddenly, feeling as though I were not alone in myroom."I was alone, nevertheless, but I could not go to sleep again, and, as Iwas tossing about feverishly, I got up to look at the golden tress. Itseemed softer than usual, more life-like. Do the dead come back? Ialmost lost consciousness as I kissed it. I took it back with me to bedand pressed it to my lips as if it were my sweetheart."Do the dead come back? She came back. Yes, I saw her; I held her in myarms, just as she was in life, tall, fair and round. She came back everyevening--the dead woman, the beautiful, adorable, mysterious unknown."My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it. No lover evertasted such intense, terrible enjoyment. I loved her so well that Icould not be separated from her. I took her with me always andeverywhere. I walked about the town with her as if she were my wife, andtook her to the theatre, always to a private box. But they saw her--theyguessed--they arrested me. They put me in prison like a criminal. Theytook her. Oh, misery!"Here the manuscript stopped. And as I suddenly raised my astonished eyesto the doctor a terrific cry, a howl of impotent rage and of exasperatedlonging resounded through the asylum."Listen," said the doctor. "We have to douse the obscene madman withwater five times a day. Sergeant Bertrand was the only one who was inlove with the dead."Filled with astonishment, horror and pity, I stammered out:"But--that tress--did it really exist?"The doctor rose, opened a cabinet full of phials and instruments andtossed over a long tress of fair hair which flew toward me like a goldenbird.I shivered at feeling its soft, light touch on my hands. And I satthere, my heart beating with disgust and desire, disgust as at thecontact of anything accessory to a crime and desire as at the temptationof some infamous and mysterious thing.The doctor said as he shrugged his shoulders:"The mind of man is capable of anything."
A Tress of Hair was featured as
TheShort Story of the Day on
Tue, Sep 27, 2016
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