One warm afternoon in May Claude sat in his upstairs room at the
Chapins', copying his thesis, which was to take the place of an
examination in history. It was a criticism of the testimony of
Jeanne d'Arc in her nine private examinations and the trial in
ordinary. The Professor had assigned him the subject with a flash
of humour. Although this evidence had been pawed over by so many
hands since the fifteenth century, by the phlegmatic and the
fiery, by rhapsodists and cynics, he felt sure that Wheeler would
not dismiss the case lightly.
Indeed, Claude put a great deal of time and thought upon the
matter, and for the time being it seemed quite the most important
thing in his life. He worked from an English translation of the
Proces, but he kept the French text at his elbow, and some of her
replies haunted him in the language in which they were spoken. It
seemed to him that they were like the speech of her saints, of
whom Jeanne said, "the voice is beautiful, sweet and low, and it
speaks in the French tongue." Claude flattered himself that he
had kept all personal feeling out of the paper; that it was a
cold estimate of the girl's motives and character as indicated by
the consistency and inconsistency of her replies; and of the
change wrought in her by imprisonment and by "the fear of the
fire."
When he had copied the last page of his manuscript and sat
contemplating the pile of written sheets, he felt that after all
his conscientious study he really knew very little more about
the Maid of Orleans than when he first heard of her from his
mother, one day when he was a little boy. He had been shut up in
the house with a cold, he remembered, and he found a picture of
her in armour, in an old book, and took it down to the kitchen
where his mother was making apple pies. She glanced at the
picture, and while she went on rolling out the dough and fitting
it to the pans, she told him the story. He had forgotten what she
said,--it must have been very fragmentary,--but from that time on
he knew the essential facts about Joan of Arc, and she was a
living figure in his mind. She seemed to him then as clear as
now, and now as miraculous as then.
It was a curious thing, he reflected, that a character could
perpetuate itself thus; by a picture, a word, a phrase, it could
renew itself in every generation and be born over and over again
in the minds of children. At that time he had never seen a map of
France, and had a very poor opinion of any place farther away
than Chicago; yet he was perfectly prepared for the legend of
Joan of Arc, and often thought about her when he was bringing in
his cobs in the evening, or when he was sent to the windmill for
water and stood shaking in the cold while the chilled pump
brought it slowly up. He pictured her then very much as he did
now; about her figure there gathered a luminous cloud, like dust,
with soldiers in it... the banner with lilies... a great
church... cities with walls.
On this balmy spring afternoon, Claude felt softened and
reconciled to the world. Like Gibbon, he was sorry to have
finished his labour,--and he could not see anything else as
interesting ahead. He must soon be going home now. There would be
a few examinations to sit through at the Temple, a few more
evenings with the Erlichs, trips to the Library to carry back the
books he had been using,--and then he would suddenly find himself
with nothing to do but take the train for Frankfort.
He rose with a sigh and began to fasten his history papers
between covers. Glancing out of the window, he decided that he
would walk into town and carry his thesis, which was due today;
the weather was too fine to sit bumping in a street car. The
truth was, he wished to prolong his relations with his manuscript
as far as possible.
He struck off by the road,--it could scarcely be called a street,
since it ran across raw prairie land where the buffalo-peas were
in blossom. Claude walked slower than was his custom, his straw
hat pushed back on his head and the blaze of the sun full in his
face. His body felt light in the scented wind, and he listened
drowsily to the larks, singing on dried weeds and sunflower
stalks. At this season their song is almost painful to hear, it
is so sweet. He sometimes thought of this walk long afterward; it
was memorable to him, though he could not say why.
On reaching the University, he went directly to the Department of
European History, where he was to leave his thesis on a long
table, with a pile of others. He rather dreaded this, and was
glad when, just as he entered, the Professor came out from his
private office and took the bound manuscript into his own hands,
nodding cordially.
"Your thesis? Oh yes, Jeanne d'Arc. The Proces. I had forgotten.
Interesting material, isn't it?" He opened the cover and ran over
the pages. "I suppose you acquitted her on the evidence?"