Certified Mining-Prospector Explorer of Occult Hearths Initiated Engineer
"Doesn’t that name mean anything to you? Obviously!”
I was nonplused..
"I suspected so.. Young and ignorant!.. That explains it!.. One goes with the other! I, Monsieur, am Tibet!.. Knowledge about Tibet? All knowledge about Tibet? Here! You understand!. it’s all here!”
He taps his forehead.
"Didn’t you follow the Bonvallot Mission?.. No?.. Don’t you know anything?”
He looks me up and down.
"Bonvallot?.. Strange!.. Strange! ”
He thinks it over.
"All in all, so much the better!”., in my ear: "What a charlatan that Bonvallot!.. What a scoundrel!.. That’s all!
.. Just between us!.. A clown!.. He’s never seen Tibet. What a braggart.. He, the Gaourisankar? Some joke!” He squeals with laughter just thinking about it! about Bonvallot! What a faker!.. That damned Bonvallot!.. An agent of England!.. of the Trusts!.. The biggest international bandit in the world! Gaourisankar! 7,022 meters!.. It’s all clear! Bonvallot, corrupt.. What a traitor!
I take the same tone. I approve… I sneer..
"Boy oh boy! What a phony! disgusting, that Bonvallot!”
Ah! he was hipped on the Bonvallot in question, he kept at it! it gave him the evil eye, the murderous eye, just talking about him!.. about that awful Bonvallot!.. and I know something about looks!
"Do I interest you? Or am I boring you?.. Tell me frankly!
You probably need girls! You’re not disembodied? The spell of buttocks gets you?.. Voluptuousness!. Sighs!”
Ah! I make him sick! all of a sudden!.. Bah! he spits!.. he shoves me with Bonvallot! Ah! into the same boat!.. a foul pair! and it was all his idea! there was nothing lecherous about me!
So as a result of walking and talking all around the square we were in front of the Consulate again.. where we’d met.. head-on!.. the Consulate of the Czar.. The huge flag with the black eagle was floating high above the crowds.. teeming, roaring.. they were all waiting for visas. A real army now, scratching themselves, spitting, cursing! an enormous din..
"You’ve never gone exploring?” he deigns to inquire.
"No.. not much.”
I admit.
"Are you really looking for work?”
"Ah! I sure am! ”
"Can you ride a horse?”
What a question!
"Hah! and how! take it from me! I’ll say I can! When it comes to horses I can do anything! I can saddle ’em! water ’em! make ’em trot! gallop! leap! pass! waltz!.. Whatever you like!..And references, eh! Five years!..I’ve slept with horses! eaten with ’em! I’ve eaten their droppings! I’ve still got a mouthful! That shows you! that shows you! I’m still rearing! kicking! I’m almost a horse myself! from me to you! just between us! more than half!.. I had to! Is that enough for you?”
"Fine! Fine!”
I whinny so he’ll understand me, so he won’t go thinking I’m lying.
Ah! a deep impression!
"I think that ought to do.”
He concedes the point. And then he gets all worried again. "Ah! but you’re a commoner!”
Another shift! something else bothering him.
"You’re not born! obviously!” He stressed "born”…"no noble blood?”
Commoner? I didn’t get it.. It was about a job..
"Your mother and father?. common people?”
The nerve!
"What about you, you big ape?”
"Sh! Sh! No insult!.. You’re unaware of the full implication!”
I listen to him.
"Just consider the question of ancestors… for me it’s the cult!.. The Myth!.. The cult of blood!.. The Cult of the Dead!.. Do you understand me?”
I’m ready to try.. I try anything..
"But watch out! Don’t be carried away! Beware! Beware! The Tragedy of China! Admitting everyone! Promiscuities! All the ancestors! Good Lord!.. All at the same time! Anyone!
.. High and low!.. Discriminate! Let’s discriminate!.. Catastrophe! ”
Wild-eyed.
"Don’t you know?”
I don’t know anything..
"They venerate any dead person in China! any ancestor! What a mistake! How disgusting!”
Ah! the Chinese are preposterous! what morons!
"China’s washed up!.. washed up! young man! and I know why!”
He knows everything.
"All the dead! They worship them all. It’s very simple! All! it’s a fact! I’m telling you! Their heaven? A brothel! That’s the result!”
Naturally.
"A casastrophe! It’s inevitable! Just imagine!.. They adore their housemaids, their ancient priestesses, their queens, their goddesses, their whores, all of them, a hodgepodge! their cowards! their heroes, their bloated commoners as well as their generals! all of them jumbled up together! Their forgers with the police, their bankers along with their judges! their scholars with their rickshaw men! Nullity, my friend! nullity! That’s what happens!”
Ah! the awful promiscuity drove him wild! he was making broad gestures, people were looking at us..
He didn’t give a damn! Nothing stopped him! He was off!
"No, my friend! You must choose! Believe me!.. the lowly die and stay dead! Such is the will of justice!.. It must be so!
.. Otherwise foulness triumphs!.. Do you understand me?
Your grandmother, for example! Certainly an insignificant commoner, dead! She remains dead!.. quite dead!. she stops congesting! She no longer befouls the City! the High City of Memory!.. whereas take my grandfather! whom I venerate and most rightly! He relives within me! An entire existence of glory! of royal services!. I give him new life with my blood!.. Splendid! He survives within me.. You understand me?.. I cultify him!.. Pious and practical!.. Good blood will tell!.. Worship!.. All the devotions.. He serves me.. I serve him!.. I extend his being!. He makes mine illustrious!.. I idolize him!.. I carry him with me everywhere!
.. The cult of the dead!.. I’ll show him to you very soon!.. in his mystic person! He’s at home with my wife!.. He’s been around the world with us three times! in his traveling cenotaph! ”
He looks around, right and left.. Ah! he’s suspicious of the passers-by!
"He’s flawlessly mummified! consecrated! You’ll see him with your own eyes! ”
That looks promising.
He’s summing up.
"I take from China what’s necessary!.. Not everything.”
That’s luck!..
"Ah! let’s get back to you, my child!.. Here’s your chance!
.. You fall from the sky!”
It’s working out..
"A real horseman!. A Centaur!.. The two of us! Lowborn, to be sure! But what difference? You will mold yourself into nobility! That’s all! No valid ancestors? We’ll attend to that! You’ll cultify mine! I’ll transmute him toward you! a little! just what’s necessary!.. I’ll lend you a few arms!.. the coat’s big enough!.. Achille Norbert! 26 quarters!.. A fiber of my lineage! I’ll lend you a fiber!.. That’s it! a fiber!
.. 1*11 dub you knight! You’ll wave my standard!.. but not with that face!.. Oh! what a scowl!.. All for the Faith! young man! the Faith!”
He yells it out loud.. "All for the Faith! ”
"Our motto! ’All for the Faith! Rodiencourt! ’ Council of Poitou! 1114!.. That’s not yesterday!”
I’m pleased for his sake!..
"It’s up to the two of us! ” he grabs me by the arm.. "All for the Faith!.. I want to use you! My next mission! My great work!.. But listen!.. I want a whole cavalry!.. Pay close attention! thirty porters! A hundred fifty horses! The cost of it!.. A matter of 200,000 piasters! at the very least!
what’s the difference!.. We won’t haggle!.. the goal is worth any sacrifice!.. To be sure!. When you know!.. What an expedition!”
Ah! there’s an idea for you!
"Oh! You can count on me!. day and night!.. I’ve got cavalry in my blood!.. I can boast about it!.. Saddle horses! draft horses!.. escort horses!”