In partnership with Rocambole, the app to read differently, we are offering you a new episode of Tina Bartoli's L'Ancre Noire soap opera every day. Today, 4th episode and beginning of the problems for our heroine…
Summary of previous episodes: Clémence, consultant overwhelmed by her success, dreams of becoming a writer. She entered a competition organized by the publishing house L'Ancre Noire and won three weeks of coaching in the disturbing property of the great author Jean De Saint Geores. When she arrives, she must get rid of her phone. Unpacking her bags, she discovers that her laptop has disappeared, probably confiscated by Octave, the handyman of the house…
EPISODE 4 - Pondichery 1769
Furious, I rushed down the stairs, the wood of which groans under my determined step. Arriving in the cathedral hall, I skipped without hesitation towards the bright room seen a few minutes earlier. Jean De Saint Geores was comfortably installed in a club chair, he read. But when I opened my mouth to pour out my dissatisfaction following the disappearance of my computer, I recognized it placed on a beautiful light wooden desk whose tray was covered with green leather. His screen was on and care was taken to charge it.
Slightly softened, I then paid attention to the room I had just entered. It was a large glass roof with a wrought iron structure in the Eiffel style, which must have been a winter garden at the time and which had been converted into a library. The wall against which the glass roof was leaning was indeed covered with immense shelves on which hundreds of books wisely slept. In the center of the room softly crackled the embers of a chimney fire. On the floor, the intricate patterns of shimmering rugs brightened the surroundings and lamps in quaint style diffused a soft yellow light. The three glass walls overlooked the lawn and the dense dark forest. Through the transparent roof, I observed for a moment the course of the gray clouds in the sky. A large drop crashed over my head, then another and another. It was raining. The atmosphere of this warm room became all the more cozy.
My host looked up from his book and smiled at me:
- Well installed? Are you ready to get to work?
And while I clumsily tried to explain my very average appreciation of the initiative of Octave rummaging through my personal affairs, De Saint Geores brushed aside my argument:
- Don't blame Octave, he thought he was doing the right thing. He is so happy to welcome you here, it makes him lively. Do not be afraid of him, he is a bit limited but he is a good boy. Go to work ! On what theme would you like to go for your future bestseller?
The following days settled into a routine set like music paper. In the morning, I worked with Monsieur De Saint Geores. We never talked about literary technique, but we discussed the scenario of the book he hoped to see me write. The great writer turned out to be a strange character. He went from raucous enthusiasm to the deepest silence. In his bad days, he did not loosen his jaws and I had to content myself with working alone in silence under his scrutinizing gaze. This man impressed me, I found it very difficult to relax in his presence and our conversations remained focused on our common work.
In the afternoon, the glass-roofed library was exclusively reserved for me. I wrote down on my computer the fruit of our morning reflections, when there were any. At four o'clock sharp, Octave brought me tea and cookies. For this specific mission, he wore a butler's apron and white gloves. He ceremoniously placed his tray on the desk, before serving Moroccan-style tea in a large stream of gargoyling water which, every time, did not fail to scald me in the process. De Saint Geores had not lied: under his disturbing air Octave was an endearing being. Once or twice, I had seen him, from the top of my dungeon, playing on the lake with small replicas of 18th century frigate ships. Questioning him one day on these models, he replied, all swollen with pride, in his rough speech:
- I do them. Alone !
I went back to work with the strange feeling that life was only a flight forward: each of us continually seeks to escape from it, we are all stowaways of our own lives. Octave escaped on his frigates. I was writing.
Sometimes, during our work sessions, my mentor got angry: he never questioned my way of writing but he found me too slow and brandished the time limit each time as an award. I did my best to be productive, however I also needed time to relax to recharge my batteries. I was then going to get some fresh air in the park, but invariably, at the end of an hour, De Saint Geores went out on the porch, brandishing a gong on which he was striving to signify the end of my recreation. I was well aware that these methods were questionable, yet I was happy with the creative work I was producing here and I was hoping with all my might to succeed.
On a beautiful sunny afternoon, when I had just been caught by the gong ringing the end of my hour of freedom, and that the inspiration was not there, I took guilty pleasure at rummage through the library shelving. While I was bitten in the morning about my lack of imaginative ambition, I wanted to leaf through the books born from the creative power of my host. The twenty or so novels he had published were collected on two shelves by the fireplace. They were arranged in order of publication. I took one at random about halfway through the row and fell when I opened it on the dedication page. "At Pondichery 1769".
This inscription reminded me of a conversation I had had with De Saint Geores. In one of his good days, he deigned to evoke the history of the estate which had been owned by a native Vosgien who made his fortune in colonial trade. In 1769, at the end of the monopoly of the East India company, he had taken advantage of the freedom of trade to arm his first ship. Despite the politically tormented era, the trade war with the English and the pirates, business was going rather well thanks to its Pondichery counter. But he wanted more, decided to diversify and embarked on the profitable trade in "ebony wood".
It was from there that the troubles began: it was difficult at the time to find a place among the few large families who were well established and who shared the black trafficking market. Bad financial transactions and the sinking of his last boat had ruined him. He then retired to his family Vosgian estate where he tried to reproduce, with the help of a bell founder, the replicas of the anchors of the boats that made his fortune. Like the originals, each reproduction faithfully bore the name of the ship and its date of entry into the service of the company. In the 1980s, De Saint Geores bought the property from an old family of Rhine oil operators. He had found intact the collection of the last witnesses to the fall of this man. The account of this dramatic story had resounded in my head like the death knell of a dismal bell. It was the only time that my host allowed himself a digression: only the progress of my writing seemed to interest him.
As I continued to browse the collection, I noticed that the following book bore a classic dedication, but the one after said pompously: "To the Virgin of Grace 1772". I had never paid attention before to these few enigmatic words placed in the first pages of each work. Because I did not want to go back to work, I decided that these few coincidences were very exciting and decided to play the investigators. I discovered that the two following novels bore the same type of dedications: "For Alcyon 1774" and finally the last, the one reread on the train: "A la Sempiternelle 1782". However, the first fifteen books carried classic inscriptions, as we often see, without really noticing them elsewhere.
As I dreamed of the type of dedication I could put on the front pages of my edited book, a thunderous cry made me jump:
- What are you doing ? !
It was De Saint Geores with his head on bad days.
- Well you told me this morning that I lacked imaginative ambition, so I plunged back into your work to seek inspiration, I said calmly.
- It is not in others that you will find the spark. For that you have to dive deep inside, this is where the sources of your own creativity are found. Otherwise, it is called plagiarism. Get back to work, you have chapter 8 to finish. Time is running out, should I remind you? "
I hesitated for a moment between anger and despondency. Tears came to me, but I certainly didn't want to give her the pleasure of seeing them flow. So I sat down loudly behind the computer, shouting "Get out!" And, in rage, I finish chapter 8 all at once.
(…)
Check out the next episode right here on March 28 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
- Literature
- Books
- Investigation