Claude Mercoeur's Reflection and Other Strange Stories by Frédéric Boutet (transl. Brian Stableford)

Author:Frédéric Boutet (transl. Brian Stableford) [Boutet, Frédéric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: short stories, horror, supernatural, French, fantasy
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

The Rehearsal

In a quiet old house on the Île Saint-Louis, on the quay facing the left bank, at the corner of a solitary little street, Raoul Berjean, after a second meeting with Claude Mercoeur, had rented a modest ground-floor apartment consisting of three small rooms, accessed by a narrow corridor, and a kitchen. The apartment door, under the arch of the house, was situated before the concierge’s lodge; in consequence, one escaped the latter’s professional curiosity, at least partially. The windows of the first two rooms overlooked the quay; the window of the third, which formed the corner of the house, and the kitchen window overlooked the side-street. As the windows were low and not barred, but only fitted with shutters, one could, if the need arose, make use of them to go out at night without asking for the door to be opened.

Berjean, whose imagination was somewhat romantic, as he had confessed himself, had been seduced by these details, all of whose advantages he had envisaged with satisfaction. They were truly the best possible circumstances for keeping the secret of his audacious pact with Claude Mercoeur very comfortably. They constituted a surplus of precaution, a guarantee of security that had filled him with enthusiasm.

Mercoeur, although he had initially thought the Île Saint-Louis a little too far away from the habitual center of his public existence, had finally come round to that opinion. Berjean had therefore rented it in his name, supplied with money by Mercoeur, had furnished the three rooms simply and comfortably, and had taken up residence a fortnight after the first meeting by the railings of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

And it was there, in the middle room—the largest of the three, which Berjean had made into a kind of study-cum-living-room, that Mercoeur, Berjean and Dr. Vautier met one evening in December.

When Mercoeur had told him about the strange proposition of the man who resembled him, Dr. Vautier, after the initial moment of surprise, had reflected for some time. Then, looking at Mercoeur again, he had said: “Why not? Yes, why not? It’s necessary to be wary of rejecting the strange and extraordinary out of hand simply for the reason that they are strange and extraordinary.…

“What is being proposed to you is perhaps the means for the superior man that you are to become something more than a superior man…yes, to acquire a quasi-miraculous power…the power of duplication, of having, perhaps not twice as much time as other men, but at least a third more time. All the useless aspects of your existence will be suppressed, since someone else will take them on for you. He will help you to bear your burden by taking on the part that you don’t need to bear yourself. Thus, you’ll be able to last.…

“I say last advisedly. You’re exhausting yourself. However much strength, energy and faculties of resistance you have, you can’t go on indefinitely if you don’t get some rest; your labor is crushing you. It’s a banal but absolute verity that human strength has its limits.

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