Master of Souls by Irène Némirovsky

Author:Irène Némirovsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kales Press
Published: 2022-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

18

Thirteen years later, Dario was expensive. Women were raving about him. They had been warned: “He’s a charlatan. He’s popular, he’s pleasing, yet no one knows where he comes from . . .” But the women just thought: “Jealousy, the malice of high society and colleagues—we know what that’s like.”

Wearing their coquettish hats, lowered to cover one eye or pushed back like an angel’s halo, depending on the fashion of the season, the Frenchwomen of the bourgeoisie, who always tried to assess the value of everything, would look over the furniture, the decoration of the waiting room on the Avenue Hoche, in Dr. Asfar’s private house. Their gaze would measure the height of the ceiling, the length of the garden as seen from the French windows, the paintings, the thickness of the carpets, and then they would nod, saying to one another:

“Can you imagine what a fortune all this must cost?”

“He doesn’t heal bodies,” they would add, “he heals souls.”

They repeated the words he had confided in one of them, the name he’d given himself:

“My title is ‘Master of Souls.’”

They would wait for the consulting room door to open. It was autumn. They wore brown or black suits; fox furs were draped around their chests and hung down their backs. Their chins rested on thin, hairy paws and cold muzzles. Their makeup were masks, allowing their faces to look smooth and indestructible; but just as a beam of light escapes from an arrow slit in a castle fortification, so their souls were exposed in their anxious, somber, or tormented eyes. What made them suffer? The thousands of problems women experienced. Unable to feel pleasure. No longer able to feel pleasure. Dario’s clientele were mainly women. The few men who came to him didn’t speak, didn’t move. They didn’t even sigh. They waited, terrified.

It was an October day: cold, dull, and drenched in rain. Every now and then, the men would look up and see the doctor’s lovely garden, its trees and paths; then they would lower their eyes again. Those men had never seen Dario before. Their thoughts sometimes seemed to have left their bodies, the way people undress and throw off their clothing. In their minds, they wandered far from the room, far from the moment. Some of them were caught up in the little problems of day-to-day life: social engagements, domestic issues, their wives or mistresses. Others harbored worries about the future in their souls: how their property would be divided up, inheritance taxes, eternal suffering. A man would uncross his legs and, with a humble and melancholic expression, slowly wipe his tired eyes. A man would start to reach for a cigarette, then suddenly remember where he was and the doctor’s advice: “Don’t smoke, it’s bad for your heart condition.” He would then sadly clench his lips and drop his empty hand. Another man would quietly move his lips, probably repeating for the hundredth time the words he used to confide his secret to the doctor.

“He’s nothing but a charlatan,” his neighbor would think, a bitter expression on his face.

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