TWO PAGANS DISCUSS FISH, PARIS AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM.
It was midsummer. The Marquise was in Brittany, Monsieur in Germany; or,
as Madame de Fleury patriotically expressed it, among the barbarians, he
having penetrated into barbaric wilds in order to reclaim his daughter,
whose education, for the past two years, had been progressing under
barbaric auspices.
There is, not far from Heidelberg, and in that part of the country of
the barbarians known as the Odenwald, a quaint village called
Forellenbach; and hard by the village, which is clustered against a
steep hill-side, there dashes in cascades that foam and roar, a stream,
from the dark pools whereof are drawn trout, which, by the excellent
host of the Red-Ox are served hot, in a sauce compounded of white wine
and butter; and these things render the place forever memorable to him
who loves fish or scenery, or both.
Monsieur Claghorn and his daughter were seated in the garden of the
Red-Ox. They had arrived at the inn in a carriage, being on their way to
Heidelberg. From Natalie's school they had journeyed by rail to Bad
Homburg; and from that resort, having despatched the girl's maid ahead
by train, they had commenced a mode of travel which Natalie secretly
hoped would not end as soon as had been originally anticipated; for the
trip thus far had been the most delightful experience of her life.
There were reasons for this delight besides the joy derived from driving
in pleasant weather, over smooth roads, through curious villages, beside
winding rivers whose vineclad hills echoed the raftsman's song; beneath
the trees of many a forest, passing often the ruins of some grim keep,
which silently told to the girl its story of the time that, being past,
was a time of romance when life was more beautiful, more innocent, less
sordid than now. Not that Natalie knew much of the unpleasing features
of modern life, or of any life (else had her self-made pictures of other
days borne a different aspect), still the past had its attraction for
her, as it has for all that love to dream; and from her Baedeker she had
derived just enough information to form the basis of many a tender scene
that had never taken place, in days that never were or could have been.
Her dreams were not wholly of the past, but of the future as well; all
impossible and as charming as innocence and imagination could paint
them. School was behind her, her face toward France, a home fireside,
liberty and happiness for all time to come. No vision of the days in
which she had not lived could be more alluring than the visions of the
days in which she was to live, nor more delusive.
Beverley Claghorn looking upon his daughter, perhaps, also saw a
visionary future. He loved her, of course. He respected her, too, for
had not her mother been of the ancient House of Fleury? It was no
ignoble blood which lent the damask tint to cheeks upon which he gazed
with complacent responsibility for their being. The precious fluid,
coursing beneath the fair skin, if carefully analyzed, should exhibit
corpuscles tinged with royal azure. For, was it not true that a
demoiselle of her mother's line had been, in ancient days, graciously
permitted to bear a son to a king of France, from which son a noble
House had sprung with the proud privilege of that bar sinister which
proclaimed its glory? These were facts well worthy to be the foundation
of a vision in which he saw the maid before him a wife of one of the old
noblesse; a mother of sons who would uphold the sacred cause of
Legitimacy, as their ancestors (including himself, for he was a furious
Legitimist) had done before them. It would solace the dreaded status of
grandfather.
"What are you thinking of, Natalie?" he asked in French.
"Of many things; principally that I am sorry he showed them to us."
"The trout?"
"Yes, I am so hungry."
"They have sharpened your appetite. They are beautiful fish."
"I'm glad they haven't spoiled it. Why, papa, they were alive! Did you
see their gills palpitate?"
"They are very dead now."
"And we shall eat them. It seems a pity."
He laughed. "Grief will not prevent your enjoyment," he said; "you will
have a double luxury--of woe, and----"
"You are ashamed of my capacity for eating, papa. It is very
unromantic."
Papa smiled, raising his eyelids slightly. He seemed, and in fact was, a
little bored. "Haven't we had enough of this?" he asked.
"But we haven't had any yet."
"I don't mean trout--I only hope they won't be drowned in bad butter--I
mean of this," and he lazily stretched his arms, indicating the
Odenwald.
She sighed. Her secret hope that the journey by carriage might be
extended further than planned was waning. "I was never so happy in my
life," she exclaimed. "I shall never forget the pine-forests, the hills,
the castles; nor the geese in the villages; nor the horrible little
cobblestones----"
"Nor the sour wine----"
"That is your French taste, papa. The _vin du pays_ is no better in
France. The wine is good enough, if you pay enough."
"The Luetzelsachser is drinkable, the Affenthaler even good," admitted
Monsieur, indulgent to barbaric vintage; "but think of yesterday!"
"Think of an epicure who expected to get Affenthaler in that poor little
village! They gave you the best they had."
"Which was very bad." He laughed good-naturedly. "I dread a similar
experience if we continue this method of travel."
"I could travel this way forever and forever!" She sighed and extended
her arms, then clasped her hands upon her breast. It was an unaffected
gesture of youth and pleasure and enthusiasm.
It made him smile. "Wait until you have seen Paris," he said.
"But I have seen Paris."
"With the eyes of a child; now you are a woman."
"That is so," somewhat dreamily, as though this womanhood were no new
subject of reverie. "I am eighteen--but why should Paris be especially
attractive to a woman?"
"Paris is the world."
"And so is this."
"This, my dear----" the remonstrance on his lips was interrupted by the
arrival of the fish.
They were very good: "_Ravissant!_" exclaimed Natalie, who displayed a
very pitiless appreciation of them. "Not so bad," admitted papa.
"And so I am to stay with my cousin, the Marquise," said the girl, after
the cravings of an excellent appetite had been satisfied. "Papa, even
you can find no fault with this Deidesheimer," filling her glass as she
spoke.
"With your cousin for a time, anyhow. It is very kind of her, and for
you nothing better could be wished. She sees the best world of Paris."
"And as I remember, is personally very nice."
"A charming woman--with a fault. She is devout."
"I have known some like her," observed Natalie. "There was Fraeulein
Rothe, our drawing-mistress, a dear old lady, but very religious."
"I hope none of them attempted to influence you in such matters," he
said, frowning slightly.
"No. It was understood that you had expressly forbidden it. I was left
out of the religious classes; they called me 'The Pagan.'"
"No harm in that," commented Monsieur rather approvingly.
"Oh, no! It was all in good-nature. The Pagan was a favorite. But, of
course, I have had some curiosity. I have read a little of the Bible."
She made her confession shyly, as though anticipating reproach.
"There is no objection to that," he said. "At your age you should have a
mind of your own. Use it and I have no fear as to the result. My view is
that in leaving you uninfluenced I have done my duty much more fully
than if I had early impressed upon you ideas which I think pernicious,
and which only the strongest minds can cast aside in later life. What
impression has your Bible reading left?"
"The Jews of the Old Testament were savages, and their book is
unreadable for horrors. The Gospel narratives seem written by men of
another race. The character of Jesus is very noble. He must have lived,
for he could not have been invented by Jews. Of course, he was not God,
but I don't wonder that his followers thought so."
"He was a Great Philosopher," answered Monsieur Claghorn with high
approval. "The incarnation of pure stoicism, realizing the ideal more
truly than even Seneca or Marcus. And what of the literary quality of
the book?"
"The gospels are equal to the Vicar of Wakefield or Paul and Virginia.
As to the rest," she shrugged her shoulders after the French
fashion--"Revelation was written by a maniac."
"Or a modern poet," observed the gentleman.
Now while these latest exponents of the Higher Criticism were thus
complacently settling the literary standing of Luke and John, placing
them on as high a level as that attained by Goldsmith and St. Pierre,
the man smoking and the girl sipping wine (for the fish had been
devoured and their remains removed), two persons came into the garden.
They carried knapsacks and canes, wore heavy shoes, were dusty and
travel-stained. The elder of the pair had the clerical aspect; the youth
was simply a very handsome fellow of twenty or thereabout, somewhat
provincial in appearance.
Beverley Claghorn glanced at the pair, and with an almost imperceptible
shrug of the shoulders, which, if it referred to the newcomers, was not
complimentary, continued to smoke without remark. The girl was more
curious.
"They are English," she said.
"Americans," he answered, with a faint shade of disapproval in his
tone.
"But so are we," she remonstrated, noting the tone.
"We can't help it," he replied, resenting one of his grievances. "You
can hardly be called one."
"Is it disgraceful?"
"Not at all; but I don't flaunt it."
"But, papa, surely you are not ashamed of it?"
"Certainly not. But it is a little tiresome. Our countrymen are so
oppressively patriotic. They demand of you that you glory in your
nativity. I don't. I am not proud of it. I shouldn't be proud of being
an Englishman, or a Frenchman, or an Italian, or----"
"In fact, papa, you are not proud at all."
"Natalie," proceeded the philosopher, not noticing the interruption,
"one may be well-disposed toward the country of one's birth; one may
even recognize the duty of fighting, if need be, for its institutions.
But the pretence of believing in one's country, of fulsome adoration for
imperfect institutions, is to welcome intellectual slavery, to surrender
to the base instinct of fetichism."
"Like religion," she said, recognizing the phrase.
"Like religion," he assented. "You will find when you are as old as I am
that I am right."
"Yet people do believe in religion. There's Fraeulein Rothe----"
"Natalie, no reasoning being can believe what is called Christianity,
but many beings think that they believe."
"But why don't they discover that they don't think what they think they
think?"
"There's nothing strange in that. When they were young they were told
that they believed, and have grown up with that conviction. The same
people would scorn to accept a new and incredible story on the evidence
which is presented in favor of the Christian religion."
The girl sighed as though the paternal wisdom was somewhat
unsatisfactory. Meantime the slight raising of Monsieur's voice had
attracted the attention of the dusty wayfarers who, in default of other
occupation, took to observing the pair.
"She is very pretty," said the youth.
The elder did not answer. He was intently scrutinizing Beverley
Claghorn. After a moment of hesitation he surprised his companion by
rising and approaching that person with outstretched hand.
"I cannot be mistaken," he exclaimed in a loud, hearty voice. "This is a
Claghorn."
"That is my name," replied the would-be Gallic owner of the appellation
in English. "I have the honor of seeing----" but even as he uttered the
words he recognized the man who was now shaking a somewhat reluctant
hand with gushing heartiness.
"I am Jared. You remember me, of course. I see it in your eyes. And so
this is really you--Eliphalet! 'Liph, as we called you at the old Sem.
'Liph, I am as glad to see you as a mother a long-lost son."
"And I," replied the other, "am charmed." He bore it smiling, though his
daughter looked on in wonder, and he felt that the secret of his baptism
had been heartlessly disclosed.
"This," said Jared, "is my son, Leonard," and while the son grew red and
bowed, the clergyman looked at the girl to whom his son's bow had been
principally directed.
"My daughter, Natalie de Fleury-Claghorn," said her father. "My dear,
this is my cousin, Professor Claghorn, whom I have not seen for many
years."
"Not since we were students together at Hampton Theological Seminary,"
added Jared, smilingly. He habitually indulged in a broad smile that
indicated satisfaction with things as he found them. It was very broad
now, as he offered his hand, saying, "And so you are 'Liph's daughter,
and your name is Natalidaflurry--that must be French. And your mother,
my dear, I hope----"
"My wife has been dead since my daughter's birth," interrupted Monsieur,
"and I," he added, "long ago discarded my baptismal name and assumed
that of my mother."
"Discarded the old name!" exclaimed the Reverend Jared, surprised. "Had
I been aware of that, I surely would have given it to Leonard. I
regarded it, as in some sort, the property of the elder branch. Surely,
you don't call yourself Susan?"
"My mother's name was Susan Beverley; I assumed her family name." The
philosopher uttered the words with a suavity that did him credit. Then,
apologetically, and in deference to his cousin's evident grief: "You
see, Eliphalet was somewhat of a mouthful for Frenchmen."
"And so the old name has fallen into disuse," murmured Jared
regretfully. "We must revive it. Leonard, upon you----"
But Leonard had taken Natalie to look at the cascades.
So, lighting fresh cigars, the two former fellow-students commenced a
revival of old memories. Their discourse, especially on the part of the
clergyman, contained frequent allusion to family history, which to the
reader would be both uninteresting and incomprehensible. But, since some
knowledge of that history is requisite to the due understanding of the
tale that is to be told, the respected personage indicated is now
invited to partake of that knowledge.