The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE MADONNA OF THE SLEEPING CARS

  “This Madonna still has all her charms.”

  —LE MONDE

  “Railway travelers—appropriately enough—seem constantly to be reading it.”

  —THE NEW YORK TIMES (1929)

  “Pawing over the detritus in my bookshelf latterly, I was confronted after two decades by the very copy of The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars that had set me roving … Before you could say Maurice Dekobra, I was in the horizontal, drinking in the stuff in great, thirsty gulps.”

  —S.J. PERELMAN, THE NEW YORKER (1949)

  “In the spring twilight, as the Dewoitine airplane began its descent to Berlin, the change of pitch in the engines woke Carlo Weisz, who looked out the window and watched the drifting cloud as it broke over the wing. On his lap, an open copy of Dekobra’s La Madone des Sleepings—The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars—a 1920s French spy thriller, wildly popular in its day, which Weisz had brought along for the trip. The dark adventures of Lady Diana Wynham, siren of the Orient Express, bed-hopping from Vienna to Budapest, with stops at ‘every European watering-place.’ ”

  —ALAN FURST, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

  THE MADONNA OF THE SLEEPING CARS

  MAURICE DEKOBRA (1885–1973) was born Maurice Tessier in Paris, and changed his name to “Dekobra” in 1908, after encountering an Algerian snake charmer who told fortunes with two cobras. He began his writing career in England, where he worked as a journalist and translator. In 1912, he published his first novel, The Memoirs of Rat-de-Cave, or Burglary Considered as One of the Fine Arts. During World War I, he served as liaison officer with the British and U.S. armies, and, after the war, he covered presidential elections and interviewed Hollywood stars, politicians, and scientists. The publication of The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars in 1925 was an international success; the book was translated into thirty languages and sold millions of copies. It was banned in Boston and the New York Times dubbed him “the biggest seller of any living French writer—or dead one either.” Dekobra pursued a life of adventure: he shot big game in Africa, canoed on the Nile, and made long journeys to Japan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal. He incorporated his wide range of experiences into his novels, whose style, combining fiction and journalism, has earned its own adjective, dekobrisme. He died of a heart attack in Paris at the age of 88.

  NEAL WAINWRIGHT translated many of Maurice Dekobra’s books and the two became close friends—so close that Dekobra dedicated The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars to him.

  RENÉ STEINKE is the author of the National Book Award finalist Holy Skirts, a fictionalized account of the life of the artist and performer Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She is also the author of the novel The Fires.

  THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY

  I was by no means the only reader of books on board the Neversink. Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much.

  —HERMAN MELVILLE, WHITE JACKET

  THE MADONNA OF THE SLEEPING CARS

  Originally published in French as La Madone

  des sleepings by Maurice Dekobra, 1927

  Copyright © 2006 Zulma

  Translation © Neal Wainwright, 1927

  Afterword © René Steinke, 2012

  First Melville House printing: August 2012

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  www.mhpbooks.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the paperback edition as follows:

  Dekobra, Maurice, 1885-1973.

  [Madone des sleepings. English]

  The madonna of the sleeping cars / Maurice Dekobra; translated by Neal Wainwright.

  pages cm

  eISBN: 978-1-61219-059-4

  I. Wainwright, Neal, translator. II. Title.

  PQ2607.E22M313 2012

  843′.912–dc23

  2011053352

  v3.1_r1

  Author’s Dedication—

  To NEAL WAINWRIGHT:

  Truly, cher ami, you are my American pen. You have known how to make two languages speak as one. I dedicate “The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars” to you.

  MAURICE DEKOBRA

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Author

  Epigraph

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  THE MADONNA OF THE SLEEPING CARS

  1. An Exceptionally Stupid Gentleman

  2. Clouds in the Sky

  3. An Arrow Dipped in Gold

  4. Red French Heels

  5. Where Exclusive Ladies Go

  6. The Labyrinth of Indecision

  7. An Angel Needs a Valet

  8. The Proverbial Seventh Heaven

  9. Wind From the West

  10. Most Unwelcome Visitors

  11. A Woman’s Eyes

  12. Doves of Memory

  13. Dress Rehearsal with Destiny

  14. A Very Sick Husband

  15. A Question of Cells

  16. Oh! Djerrard!

  17. Scotch Thistles Sometimes Prick

  18. Resolutions May Be Broken

  19. Eternity Explains Everything

  20. The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars

  AFTERWORD by René Steinke

  THE MADONNA OF THE SLEEPING CARS

  CHAPTER ONE

  AN EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID GENTLEMAN

  LADY DIANA WYNHAM WAS RESTING. HER LEGS, enmeshed in a silken web, caressed a small beige cushion. The other half of her lovely self was hidden behind a copy of the Times unfolded in her snowy arms. Her tiny feet quivered in their cerise and silver mules, seriously endangering the future of a real Wedgwood cup on the table at her side.

  “Gerard,” she exclaimed, “I must have a consultation with Professor Traurig.”

  I had just mutilated a piece of sugar with a ridiculously small spoon which bore the coat of arms of the Duke of Inverness. Always anxious to satisfy Lady Diana’s slightest whim, I stopped drinking her bad coffee—the coffee they drink in London out of cups the size of a plover’s egg.

  “Nothing simpler, my dear. I’ll telephone him at the Ritz,” I said.

  “Please do, Gerard.”

  The boudoir telephone stood upright in its ebony tomb. I picked up the receiver.

  “Hello! Is this Professor Siegfried Traurig? Prince Séliman speaking. Lady Diana Wynham’s secretary. Lady Diana wishes an interview with you on a matter of utmost importance.”

  A guttural voice said, “I can receive her at four o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  I told Lady Diana. Like lightning that blond hair and that pure and classic face, only slightly ravaged by all-night revels at the Jardin de Ma Soêur or at the Ambassadors, appeared from behind the paper screen—but what is the use of describing Lady Diana’s beauty? Anyone could look at her for the price of a copy of the Tatler or the Bystander. Weekly magazines all over the world in that period of some twenty years ago never failed to include a picture of Lady Diana Wynham playing golf, cuddling a baby bull, driving a Rolls-Royce, shooting a grouse
on the Scotch moors, or climbing the slopes above Monte Carlo, in a white sweater.

  In Paris there was a saying that when an Englishwoman is beautiful she is very beautiful. Lady Diana was no exception to this esthetic truism. She was the type of woman who would have brought tears to the eyes of John Ruskin—beautiful from the point of view of people who go in for high cheekbones, sensual lips, and limpid, deceiving eyes which glow from behind long lashes.

  “You must come with me,” she said. “Yes, you must, Gerard! I insist upon your being there. I have an important reason for interviewing this eminent neurologist. I have been reading a criticism of his work in the Times—I didn’t understand one word of it—Gerard, do explain it to me. You’re always so sweet!”

  Fancy explaining Traurig’s ideas! This profound medico, Doctor Siegfried Traurig—a disciple of Freud—had been heralded for years in those European clinics where they dug up the soul with the shovel of introspection and where they sliced apart the elements of the will with the chisel of psychopathic analysis. They talked about him; they imitated him; they scoffed at him; they admired him.

  “Lady Diana,” I said modestly, “the Professor can certainly explain himself far better than I can. Be perfectly frank with him! He will take the arterial tension of your impulses and the temperature of your subconscious.”

  “How does one get into the subconscious?”

  “What did you say, Lady Diana?”

  “Through what natural doorway does one arrive at the real self?”

  “Through a moral buttonhole, then an invisible pin promptly pricks and deflates the balloon of one’s personality.”

  Lady Diana burst out laughing—a harmonious laugh in an unaffected mi, consisting of a descending sharp and a rising flat. This Scotchwoman’s indefatigable hilarity was one of her most poignant charms.

  I had no personal acquaintance with those paradises in which one might wander with Lady Diana. I was her private secretary; I was her confidant. But not once had I even dreamed of trying to cross the threshold which separated business from pleasure. I don’t deny having read her a bit of Boccaccio, some of Lord Byron’s privately printed poems, and a few choice lines of Jean Lorrain, but my lectures always remained unillustrated.

  We arrived at the Ritz on the dot of four o’clock. After waiting a short five minutes we were received by an old man dressed in black who presented himself with a click of his heels and a deep bow.

  “Doctor Funkelwitz, madam,” he began, with a strong German accent. “I am the great man’s first assistant. He will be at your disposal in a few moments.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Lady Diana. “I appreciate this more than I can tell you. I understand that Professor Traurig has been frightfully busy since he came to London.”

  “Yes, Milady. Two princesses have just left his office. This evening we have an appointment with Lloyd George. Tomorrow morning we expect Marie Tempest, the Viceroy of India, and Charlie Chaplin.” It was the year 1927, remember.

  Dr. Funkelwitz bristled with pride as he pronounced these famous names. A bell rang. He disappeared. Turning to Lady Diana, I whispered:

  “This reminds me of Barnum’s Circus.”

  “Gerard! You’re perfectly outrageous. You don’t even respect the most solid reputation.”

  “Not when it’s built on big words and breezy theories.”

  The old man in black returned and beckoned us to follow. We entered a parlor done in mauve and gold. The Professor stood motionless behind a table littered with papers and books.

  I had never seen any pictures of Siegfried Traurig. In my mind’s gallery I had portrayed him as a medieval necromancer. I would have had him receive us in a flowing robe of black silk, adorned with stars and the equations of the cabala, but Imagination, when all is said and done, is the subordinate who salutes Intelligence, his superior. I was disappointed not to find Siegfried Traurig surrounded by angora cats, in front of a cauldron of boiling rabbits, herbs, and blood.

  Nevertheless this old Privatdozent, from the University of Jena, was an impressive person. His gray hair stood up in mad disorders on a wolf’s head with a wrinkled brow. One could never forget his piercing gaze through those bushy lashes. A veritable Mephistopheles, attired by a Sackville Street tailor. Tall, thin as a shadow, and clean shaven. His narrow lips were protected by the beak of a bird of prey. He spoke English, French, and German with the utmost fluency.

  After the usual formalities he took us into his office—an ordinary enough hotel parlor except for the strange electrical apparatus.

  The consultation was about to begin. Professor Traurig scowled at me. I caught the meaning of his glance and was going to withdraw when Lady Diana stopped me with a gesture.

  “No, no, I want the Prince to stay. I have no secrets from him.”

  The all-knowing psychiatrist waved his beautiful patient into an armchair and waited for the explanation of her case.

  “Doctor,” said Lady Diana, “although I am far too ignorant ever to understand your celebrated work, I am intrigued by your extraordinary theories, especially in regard to the will, the senses, and decadence. I am not ill, in the true sense of the word. I am a thoroughly healthy woman who would like, with your assistance, to solve a difficult problem. It has to do with a dream—a weird dream which haunts and upsets me.”

  “Very well, Lady Wynham, but before you go on, permit me to ask you if the details which I possess in regard to your intimate life are correct.”

  The Professor opened a drawer and took out a typewritten sheet of paper. As Lady Diana appeared surprised he explained.

  “I never give a consultation until one of my secretaries has compiled a little brief on the patient. This is how yours reads, madam—you may correct any errors: Lady Diana Mary Dorothea Wynham. Born at Glensloy Castle, Scotland, the twenty-fourth of April, 1897. Only daughter of the Duke of Inverness. Sporting education at Salisbury College. Married in 1916 to Ralph Edward Timothy, Lord Wynham, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O., former British Ambassador to Russia. A marriage of convenience. Fidelity of short duration on the part of Lady Wynham …”

  Here the Professor paused before declaring with icy politeness, “There must be some mistake.”

  But Lady Diana made no protest. “It is entirely correct,” she confirmed, extracting a perfumed cigarette from a platinum case set with diamonds.

  “Then I will continue,” said the Professor, referring once more to his paper: “Lady Wynham’s devoted admirers, in chronological order, have been Lord Howard Dewallpen; the Duke de Massignac, Secretary at the Embassy; George Wobbly, the burlesque singer; Somerset Wiffle, M.P.; and Leo Tito, the dancer at the Ambassadors—”

  Lady Diana carelessly flicked the ashes from her cigarette. “Excuse me, Doctor, but they were contemporaneous.”

  Professor Traurig bowed again, and remarked:

  “That was merely an error in punctuation.”

  He read on—“And several unidentified intimates.”

  Lady Diana acquiesced: “Exactly—I quite agree. Is that all, Doctor?”

  “No, madam. There are a few more lines of a psychic nature: Lady Diana, although she has tried morphine and opium, is not the slave of any drug. She is merely a seeker after new sensations. No tendency toward religious mysticism. Unbounded ambition.”

  The Professor folded the paper. Lady Diana spoke:

  “Your information is correct, Doctor. You have a perfect synopsis of my life and my character. I am neither a semi-idiot, nor a nymphomaniac. I do what I do quite openly and without the slightest regard for that false modesty which is so dear to my fellow countrymen.”

  The Professor arose from his chair. His hands clasped behind him, he walked back and forth in front of the fireplace. His interrogation began. It was a precise questionnaire, strewn with crude words and intimate details, which he announced gravely and with no frivolous intent nor double meaning.

  “Lady Wynham, when did you discover love?”

  “I was married at
nineteen.”

  “Had you any precocious tendencies in your infancy?”

  “After I was thirteen—I was curious—I used to read—”

  “No, I mean your real childhood—didn’t you have some intuitive knowledge of things?”

  “None whatever.”

  “All right. Before you were married you doubtless had several rather serious flirtations?”

  “Of course, but never too serious.”

  “Do you consider yourself hypersensitive?”

  “Why, no—I suppose I am like all women, Doctor.”

  “Then you don’t get any particularly pleasing reaction if someone hugs you very tight, so that it hurts?”

  “I adore it, Doctor—but that, for me—how shall I put it?”

  Professor Traurig scrutinized Lady Wynham with his steel-gray eyes. I was, at the same time, amused and a trifle shocked by the astonishing implication, which Lady Diana had volunteered so casually. Comfortably relaxed in her armchair, her legs crossed beneath her seal-skin coat, she talked as frankly as if she had been pouring tea at a garden party. The psychiatrist went on:

  “Do you enjoy looking at yourself in a mirror?”

  “You want to know if I am inspired by my own beauty?”

  “Just that! You see, Lady Wynham, in the profession we attach great importance to that question.”

  “Well, then, I will admit that I consider myself an unusually alluring woman. But the dream I had last night—”

  The Professor interrupted his patient with a wave of his hand. “One minute, madam—now I am beginning to see a little more clearly into your psychic machinery. Before you narrate your dream, you must allow me to take the spectral analysis of your reactions.”

  “What—Doctor?”

  “This is the point, madam. You have probably heard about the spectral analysis of luminous rays which helped us so much to discover the various simple bodies of which the stars and planets are composed. The position of the dark streaks in the spectrum of such a ray enables us to prove that there is hydrogen in Aldebaran or potassium in Vega. I have applied the same process to the study of the peculiarities of a given individual and that study makes it possible for me to form interesting deductions as to the person’s character. The best way is to observe the subject during the fleeting instants of love-contact.”