In partnership with Rocambole, the app for reading differently, we are offering a new episode of Tina Bartoli's literary soap L'Ancre Noire every day at 5 p.m.
Summary of season II (the summary of the first season is here):
In Corsica, Clémence is spotted by Octave, accompanied by a disturbing-looking man. She manages to escape them and take a flight to the mainland. Direction Hyères, where she finds her ex-stepfather and her ex-stepmother, suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Far from it, a diver delivers his memories of treasure seeker. He tells how on the occasion of an expedition to the Dominican Republic, he attended the sinking of L'Espérance on August 8, 2008, with Abel and his class on board. For years afterwards, he searched in vain for the trace of the wreckage of this ship, until, targeted by an investigation for wreckage, he took refuge in the Czech Republic. While walking in a village, he comes across a mysterious shop on a salesman who orders him to go back to sea and gives him an old bible.
SEASON II, EPISODE 5 - César Code
An old bible in Latin, the great deal! I said to myself, smiling. A horny work, with a tanned leather cover, the yellowed pages, shriveled and sometimes stuck together. But it smelled of old times, a forgotten era, an outdated way of life. It had passed into the hands of human beings with concerns similar to ours: to live, to love, to die. Nothing was left of these missing people except this old time-worn grimoire.
Delicately lifting the cover, I discovered a large curly handwriting in pen; the black of the ink had passed a little, but I could read clearly: Estienne Lebel. The name struck me: I had heard it somewhere before. But where ? A date followed: 1788. These few words, traced by the hand of a man 230 years ago, modestly revealed part of the history of this manuscript to me; I was moved. The drawing of a small black anchor completed the dedication. Beyond the little music of a forgotten patronym and the testimony through time, a strange coincidence troubled me; under the marine sketch appeared the name of a city: Otaville.
I knew this town surrounded by the dark forest of the Vosges. It housed my father's mansion, Jean De Saint Geores, and it was from this discreet place that my brother, Octave, meticulously wrote his letters to the attention of Jeronim DVOŘÁK.
Intrigued, I turned the old book, caressing its time-browned binding. It seemed to me that the back of the blanket was imperceptibly curved. Carefully, I gently lifted the leather and a few sheets of yellowed paper slipped to my feet before being scattered by a malicious breeze. It is out of the question to let them escape without having delivered their message to me! In all haste, I rushed to tear them from the wind. When I finally grabbed the last sheet, a van emerged at the corner of the street and braked suddenly to avoid knocking me over. Kneeling on the ground, clutching the precious piece of paper in my fist, the collision seemed inevitable. Was I afraid of death? No. At this moment, I only hoped that the shock would be violent enough to propel me directly into the realm of the dead. However, the driver managed to stop his vehicle a few inches from my head. Looking up, I recognized old Navràtil, the peasant whom I had accompanied for the fair. Furious, he quickly got out of the van, spreading in a shower of words that I didn't understand, but which I guessed were not particularly complimentary to me.
In the evening, our mission in Třebíč ended. It was time to return to the village. As I climbed into the van, I turned my head towards the mysterious little shop. Her storefront seemed even more tiny and tired by the weight of the building she was supporting; it looked like it was about to disappear underground. As Navràtil started the first, I seemed to distinguish, behind the dirty window, the silhouette of the old trader. Yes, it was him; I recognized his piercing gaze directed at me while, slowly, he nodded. Curious encounter, I said to myself, clutching the precious manuscript against my chest. My driver accelerated, and the strange bearded old man only existed in my memory.
The return was painful, Navràtil, had once again abused Slivovice. Stubborn, he stubbornly refused to let me take the wheel. I had to put up with her bawdy songs, her road trips and her thunderous laughter until the edge of my wood, plunged into darkness. Relieved, I slammed the door of the van and watched it go away in the dust of the road. Then, I plunged into the forest to return to my cabin. In the thick darkness, at the bend of an ash tree trunk, I saw two pupils glisten under a ray of moonlight which began to follow my progress.
Later, I discovered that there were others. The small luminous and silent points eventually multiplied in the night; soon I was surrounded by a threatening army. A groan behind my back told me where those eyes came from in the night: I was surrounded by a pack of wolves. Apart from Sněhurka, my tame wolf, I had never yet come across an entire pack in the woods. As the grunts became more threatening, as I felt the group coming dangerously close, an individual detached and rushed towards me. I recognized Sněhurka who came to stand at my feet while turning around me. She began to bark at the address of her fellows, who little by little, one after the other, turned to flee silently in the darkness of the woods. When there was only one left, Sněhurka slipped his head under my hand. I understood that this was a farewell: she had found her pack, she was about to follow her people in the heart of the secret forests of Central Europe. The other two glistening pupils in the night stirred. Sněhurka gave me one last look, then, following in the footsteps of his fellow, sank into the dark. With a heavy heart, I resumed my journey and, as I finally reached my cabin, a long howl rang out in the night. The last farewell of my exile companion. At that moment, I felt immensely alone.
Broken with fatigue, I threw myself fully clothed on my bed and sank into a sleep as deep as agitated. But soon, the regular sound of the keys of a typewriter started banging under my head. Like an army, obstinate, insidious. The dreamy image of my mother, pale in a white nightgown, leaning over her work, suddenly awoke me. Perfidious, the reminiscence of old buried memories resurfaced. Gushing and violent, my memory then forbids me to return to the limbo of sleep and I was condemned to return in a loop in my head this dark part of my story.
Between two chapters, in the third book written for my father, mom had given birth to Octave. Too eager to see the success of the novel written by his wife, my father had not bothered to declare his birth to the civil status. Then he left to promote his new work in Paris, and my mother, locked in her secret mansion, attacked the writing of the next volume. Octave still didn't exist in the eyes of the world, and my parents ended up forgetting to complete the formality. When Octave's mental retardation was flagrant, I suspect my father of having congratulated himself for having kept secret the existence of a degenerate from his genetics. I was born in the fourth book and my mother disappeared in the eleventh.
Dark years followed, during which Octave and I were left to our own devices, alone in this large mansion hidden in the hollow of the Vosges forest. I went to the village school, Octave took care of the house. My father reappeared from time to time; my brother had boundless admiration for him. I hated him with all my might. One day he decided to return to live at the manor; he was accompanied by a young woman. She settled in my mother's office and, like her, spent her days locked up writing for my father's glory. Choked by this reclusive life, I was finally able to go to university to study archeology. I had offered Octave to accompany me, but he categorically refused to leave our father. I forced myself to return regularly to the manor to make sure of its living conditions. I could see that in my mother's office there were sometimes different people, but my father's business did not interest me. Everything that could come from him made me sick.
Over time and during my quick visits, I finally realized that my father had made Octave a servant, a handyman, forced to thank you. A violent argument broke out and the last sons who could still connect me to Jean de Saint Geores were definitively broken. I tried to persuade Octave to leave the manor to follow me but, obstinately, he refused. From that day on, my rare visits to the castle were always made in secret and we began our regular and secret correspondence.
In the freezing dawn, tottering and smeared, I got up to run my head under cool water, and thus drive out the dark ideas. My foot then struck an object: it was the old bible. In shock, it opened and the few yellowed leaves after which I had run the day before were scattered on the floor. I discovered that they were handwritten letters in pen. The first dated June 15, 1787, the second the following year, June 3, 1788. The last had been written three days later, June 6, 1788. All had as their starting point the island of Hispaniola, current Haiti and the Dominican Republic and all were from the same hand; that of a certain Captain Dupasquier.
The other common point was their recipient: Estienne Lebel, the owner of the Bible. But one detail exacerbated my curiosity: two of them were coded. Except for the first and last sentences of use, the body of the documents was covered with a series of letters forming perfectly incomprehensible words, at first sight. My historian's soul caught fire: in the 18th century, the Caesar code was often used to encrypt confidential documents. I knew this technique well; if it was the one that had been used, all I had to do was get to work. The discovery of this correspondence between two men who had lived 230 years ago left me with the sweet taste of a promise.
(…)
Check out the next episode right here on April 9 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
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