Woes of the True Policeman

the name of their old friendship. Silently, André Maurin hands him a more-than-generous check. The traveler, moved and grateful, tells him that he’s spent five years in America and that he’s seen his father. André says that he doesn’t want to know anything about him. He no longer even touches the account that his father adds to each year without fail. But this time, says the traveler, I saw him in person, I spoke to him about you, I spent seven days at his house, I can give you all sorts of detail about his life. André says that none of that interests him anymore. Their parting is cold. That night, on his way back to Paris, André Maurin dreams of his father: all he sees are children and weapons and terrified faces. By the time he reaches Paris, he’s forgotten everything.

3
    An Arcimboldi Novel Read in Four Days The Natives of Fontainebleau (Gallimard, 1970, 140 pages) A painter by the name of Fontaine returns to the city of his birth in the south of France after thirty years of absence. The first part of the book, briefly: the return trip by train, the view from the windows, the silence or loquacity of the other passengers, their conversations, the train corridor, the restaurant car, the step of the ticket inspector, assorted opinions on politics, love, wine, the nation, then night on the train, the countryside in the dark, and the moon. In the second part we see Fontaine two months later, settled on the edge of town in a little three-room house by a stream, where he lives in dignity and poverty. He has only one friend left: Dr. D’Arsonval, whom he has known since he was a child. D’Arsonval, who is well-off and fond of Fontaine, tries to help him financially but Fontaine refuses his help. Here we are given our first description of Fontaine: he’s short and lamb-like, with dark eyes and brown hair, his expression occasionally intense and his movements clumsy. During his absence he’s been all over the world but he prefers not to talk about it. His memories of Paris are happy and bright. In his youth Fontaine was a painter of whom great things were expected. Once (D’Arsonval remembers as he sets off on horseback for Fontaine’s little house), he was accused of imitating Fernand Khnopff. It was a trap set with malice and craft. Fontaine didn’t defend himself. He knew Khnopff’s work, but he preferred that of another Belgian: Mellery, the delightful Xavier Mellery, like himself the son of a gardener. That was the beginning of the end of his career. D’Arsonval visited him three years later: Fontaine’s time was devoted to the reading of Rosicrucian literature, to drugs, and to friendships that contributed little to his physical or mental well-being. He made a living by working some mysterious job at a big warehouse. He hardly painted at all, though once D’Arsonval was back working as a doctor in the Roussillon, he received invitations for various shows, presumably sent by Fontaine himself, from a group of painters who called themselves “The Occults”—shows that, as might be supposed, D’Arsonval did not attend. Soon afterward Fontaine disappeared. The third and last part of the novel is set in D’Arsonval’s library, after a long and lavish dinner. The mistress of the house has gone to sleep, and D’Arsonval’s four guests are single men: in addition to Fontaine, there is Clouzet, widower and fabulously wealthy merchant, an aficionado—like the host—of poetry, music, and the fine arts; the young painter Eustache Pérol, on the eve of his second and definitive trip to Paris, where he plans to stay and forge a career with the initial support of D’Arsonval and Clouzet; and finally the parish priest, Father Chaumont, who confesses himself ignorant of the delights of art. The postprandial conversation goes on until dawn. Everyone talks. Sometimes the discussion is calm, other times it is impassioned. Chaumont pokes fun at D’Arsonval and Clouzet. Eustache Pérol treats the priest like a spiritual outlaw. They bring up Michelangelo. D’Arsonval and Clouzet have been to the Sistine Chapel. Chaumont speaks of Aristotle and then of Saint Francis of Assisi. Clouzet recalls Michelangelo’s Moses and sinks into something that might be nostalgia or silent desperation. Eustache Pérol speaks of Rodin, but no one pays any attention to him: he’s reminded of The Burghers of Calais , which he’s never seen, and grits his teeth. D’Arsonval puts his hand on Clouzet’s shoulder and asks if