Madame Caillaux, Part 3 of 7
(The writer Bourget is discussing the murder of
his friend, Gaston Calmette. Sixte is the hero of
one of Bourget's novels. Proust, another novelist,
lived in the street where the murder occurred.
Sorel was a pre-Fascist philosopher.)
3. Paul Bourget
I wonder why she'd do it? It's unclear,
at least to me, why Calmette had to die.
Unless we penetrate the sleek veneer,
we'll never know the who, the how, the why.
Like Sixte, assailed by Greslou's angry mother,
poor Calmette had to square the circle, and
make heat and ice accord with one another.
One might as well try growing rice on sand.
Perhaps the novelist may be of use.
The fellow Proust lives near, at one-three-three.
He'll know how human nature's an abstruse,
illogical, symbolic pot-pourri.
Or Sorel is the moral. We're not free.
For all our empty talk of Liberty,
our lives are ruled by (could we only see!)
the crude determinist machinery
that novels have. For such lèse-majesté
he got his just come-uppance. Ça suffit.
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