The End of the Trip

It was the worst trip of my life, in a life of nothing but I terrible trips. Every stone on the road was a punch to my back, every corner absolute torture. Whenever the carriage stopped because of an obstacle or a checkpoint, I wondered if the price on my head might be high enough for the coachman to turn me in. But as soon as Paris was far behind, my coffin was opened to the cold morning, and the driver handed me the reins so he could get some sleep.

We came to an abandoned farm in the middle of a rainstorm. The coach was heading straight on, to the north; I was to continue to Ferney on foot. I walked beneath gray trees and crossed a stone bridge over a stream. With every step I grew weaker; I was exhausted and running a fever. The birdsong was dirgelike, making the trees and the sky even darker, pushing my destination farther away. By the time I reached the castle, I was unable to even say my own name.

I was given a bed and dry clothing, but my request to see Voltaire was ignored. That section of the castle was undergoing renovations, so I was moved, bed and all, from one place to another all night long. I went to the kitchens, the foul-smelling cellars, the halls where the clocks were tested (and where there was no way to tell the time because each one was different). Sometimes I was left with other servants who were recuperating from an illness. There was no way to obtain any information: the sick speak an incomprehensible language that no one has any interest in answering. The domestic staff who moved me were terribly somber—I wondered if it was because they didn’t know how to treat me (a little less than a gentleman, a little more than a servant) or because they knew my prognosis was uncertain—and carried my bed with funereal solemnity.

The trip wore on, the trip never ended, all through a night that stretched out through rooms and parlors, up and down stairs. Nothing stays still while a fever lasts. My travels ended at the entrance to Ferney theater, whether on orders from my employer, by chance, or by mistake I never knew. Unsteady on my feet, pale but no longer feverish, I crossed a dark room, like a sleepwalker, amid Sicilian and Japanese puppets, stuffed crows, and the copper frame for a Chinese dragon.

I pulled back the curtain and appeared on stage, like an actor who had arrived late to a performance and forgotten his lines. There was Voltaire—although at first I thought it was an actor portraying him: his decrepitude was so pronounced it suggested theatrical trickery. Others were there as well, spectators and performers, who looked at me in surprise. Once the astonishment had passed, I heard Voltaire say: “It’s my calligrapher, back from his mission.” He said it as if those words brought a long comedy to an end. I heard the applause and felt I was back, at last.