[Illustration: 136]
MY good master, M. l’Abbé Coignard, had taken me with him to sup
with one of his old fellow-students, who lodged in a garret in the Rue
Gît-le-Cour. Our host, a Premonstratensian Father of much learning and
a fine Theologian, had fallen out with the Prior of his House for having
writ a little book relating the calamities of Mam’zelle Fanchon. The end
of it was he turned tavern-keeper at The Hague. He was now returned to
France and living precariously by the sermons he composed, which were
full of high argument and eloquence. After supper he had read us these
same calamities of Mam’zelle Fanchon, source of his own, and the reading
had kept us there till a late hour. At last I found myself without-doors
with my good master, under a wondrous fine summer’s night, which made
me straightway comprehend the verity of the ancient fables regarding the
loves of Diana and feel how natural it is to employ in soft dalliance
the silent, silvery hours of night. I said as much to M. l’Abbé
Coignard, who retorted that love is to blame for many and great ills.
“Tournebroche, my son,” he asked me, “have you not just heard from the
mouth of yonder good Monk how, for having loved a recruiting sergeant,
a clerk of M. Gaulot’s mercer at the sign of the Truie-qui-file, and the
younger son of M. le Lieutenant-Criminel Leblanc, Mam’zelle Fanchon was
clapped in hospital? Would you wish to be any of these,--sergeant or
clerk or limb of the law?”
I answered I would indeed. My good master thanked me for my candid
avowal, and quoted some verses of Lucretius to persuade me that love is
contrary to the tranquillity of a truly philosophical soul.
Thus discoursing, we were come to the round-point of the Pont-Neuf.
Leaning our elbows on the parapet, we looked over at the great tower of
the Châtelet, which stood out black in the moonlight.
“There might be much to say,” sighed my good master, “on this justice of
the civilized nations, the punishments whereof in retaliation are often
more cruel than the crime itself I cannot believe that these tortures
and penalties that men inflict on their fellows are necessary for the
safeguarding of States, seeing how from time to time one and another
legal cruelty is done away with without hurt to the commonweal. And I
hold it likely that the severities they still maintain are no whit more
useful than those they have abolished. But men are cruel. Come away,
Tournebroche, my dear lad; it grieves me to think how unhappy prisoners
are even now lying awake behind those walls in anguish and despair. I
know they have done faultily, but this doth not hinder me from pitying
them. Which of us is without offence?”
We went on our way. The bridge was deserted save for a beggarman and
woman, who met on the causeway. The pair drew stealthily into one of the
recesses over the piers, where they lurked together on the door-step
of a hucksters booth. They seemed well enough content, both of them, to
mingle their joint wretchedness, and when we went by were thinking
of quite other things than craving our charity. Nevertheless my good
master, who was the most compassionate of men, threw them a half
farthing, the last piece of money left in his breeches pocket.
“They will pick up our obol,” he said, “when they have come back to the
consciousness of their misery. I pray they may not quarrel then over
fiercely for possession of the coin.”
We passed on without further rencounter till on the Quai des Oiseleurs
we espied a young damsel striding along with a notable air of
resolution. Hastening our pace to get a nearer view, we saw she had a
slim waist and fair hair in which the moonbeams played prettily. She was
dressed like a citizen’s wife or daughter.
“There goes a pretty girl,” said the Abbé; “how comes it she is out of
doors alone at this hour of night?”
“Truly,” I agreed, “‘tis not the sort one generally encounters on the
bridges after curfew.”
Our surprise was changed to alarm when we saw her go down to the river
bank by a little stairway the sailors use. We ran towards her; but she
did not seem to hear us. She halted at the edge; the stream was running
high, and the dull roar of the swollen waters could be heard some
way off. She stood a moment motionless, her head thrown back and arms
hanging, in an attitude of despair. Then, bending her graceful neck, she
put her two hands over her face and kept it hid behind her fingers for
some seconds. Next moment she suddenly grasped her skirts and dragged
them forward with the gesture a woman always uses when she is going to
jump. My good master and I came up with her just as she was taking the
fatal leap, and we hauled her forcibly backward. She struggled to get
free of our arms; and as the bank was all slimy and slippery with ooze
deposited by the receding waters (for the river was already beginning
to fall), M. l’Abbé Coignard came very near being dragged in too. I was
losing my foothold myself. But as luck would have it, my feet lighted on
a root which held me up as I crouched there with my arms round the best
of masters and this despairing young thing. Presently, coming to the
end of her strength and courage, she fell back on M. l’Abbé Coignard’s
breast, and we managed all three to scramble to the top of the bank
again. He helped her up daintily, with a certain easy grace that was
always his. Then he led the way to a great beech-tree at the foot of
which was a wooden bench, on which he seated her.
Taking his place beside her:
“Mademoiselle,” he said gently, “you need have no fear. Say nothing just
yet, but be assured it is a friend sits by you.”
Next, turning to me, my master went on:
“Tournebroche, my son, we may congratulate ourselves on having brought
this strange adventure to a good end. But I have left my hat down yonder
on the river bank; albeit it has lost pretty near all its lace and is
thread-bare with long service, it was still good to guard my old head,
sorely tried by years and labours, against sun and rain. Go see, my son,
if it may still be found where I dropped it. And if you discover it,
bring it me, I beg,--likewise one of my shoe buckles, which I see I have
lost. For my part I will stay by this damsel we have rescued and watch
over her slumber.”
I ran back to the spot we had just quitted and was lucky enough to find
my good master’s hat. The buckle I could not espy anywhere. True, I did
not take any very excessive pains to hunt for it, having never all my
life seen my good master with more than one shoe buckle. When I returned
to the tree, I found the damsel still in the same state, sitting quite
motionless with her head leant against the trunk of the beech. I noticed
now that she was of a very perfect beauty. She wore a silk mantle
trimmed with lace, very neat and proper, and on her feet light shoes,
the buckles of which caught the moonbeams.
I could not have enough of examining her. Suddenly she opened her
drooping lids, and casting a look that was still misty at M. Coignard
and me, she began in a feeble voice, but with the tone and accent, I
thought, of a person of gentility:
“I am not ungrateful, sirs, for the service you have done me from
feelings of humanity; but I cannot truthfully tell you I am glad, for
the life to which you have restored me is a curse, a hateful, cruel
torment.”
At these sad words my good master, whose face wore a look of compassion,
smiled softly, for he could not really think life was to be for ever
hateful to so young and pretty a creature.
“My child,” he told her, “things strike us in a totally different light
according as they are near at hand or far off. It is no time for you to
despair. Such as I am, and brought to this sorry plight by the buffets
of time and fortune, I yet make shift to endure a life wherein my
pleasures are to translate Greek and dine sometimes with sundry very
worthy friends. Look at me, mademoiselle, and say,--would you consent to
live in the same conditions as I?”
She looked him over; her eyes almost laughed, and she shook her head.
Then, resuming her melancholy and mournfulness, she faltered:
“There is not in all the world so unhappy a being as I am.”
“Mademoiselle,” returned my good master, “I am discreet both by calling
and temperament; I will not seek to force your confidence. But your
looks betray you; any one can see you are sick of disappointed love.
Well, ‘t is not an incurable complaint. I have had it myself, and I have
lived many a long year since then.”
He took her hand, gave her a thousand tokens of his sympathy, and went
on in these terms:
“There is only one thing I regret for the moment,--that I cannot offer
you a refuge for the night, or what is left of it. My present lodging
is in an old château a long way from here, where I am busy translating a
Greek book along with young Master Tournebroche whom you see here.”
My master spoke the truth. We were living at the time with M. d’Astarac,
at the Château des Sablons, in the village of Neuilly, and were in the
pay of a great alchemist, who died later under tragic circumstances.
“At the same time, mademoiselle,” my master added, “if you should know
of any place where you think you could go, I shall be happy to escort
you thither.”
To which the girl answered she appreciated all his kindness, that she
lived with a kinswoman, to whose house she could count on being admitted
at any hour; but that she had rather not return before daylight. She was
fain, she said, not to disturb quiet folks’ sleep, and dreaded moreover
to have her grief too painfully renewed by the sight of her old,
familiar surroundings.
As she spoke thus, the tears rained down from her eyes. My good master
bade her:
“Mademoiselle, give me your handkerchief, if you please, and I will wipe
your eyes. Then I will take you to wait for daybreak under the archways
of the Halles, where we can sit in comfort under shelter from the night
dews.”
The girl smiled through her tears.
“I do not like,” she said, “to give you so much trouble. Go your way,
sir, and rest assured you take my best thanks with you.”
For all that she laid her hand on the arm my good master offered her,
and we set out, all the three of us, for the Halles. The night had
turned much cooler. In the sky, which was beginning to assume a milky
hue, the stars were growing paler and fainter. We could hear the first
of the market-gardeners’ carts rumbling along to the Halles, drawn by a
slow-stepping horse, half asleep in the shafts. Arrived at the archways,
we chose a place in the recess of a porch distinguished by an image of
St. Nicholas, and established ourselves all three on a stone step, on
which M. l’Abbé Coignard took the precaution of spreading his cloak
before he let his young charge sit down.
Thereupon my good master fell to discoursing on divers subjects,
choosing merry and enlivening themes of set purpose to drive away the
gloomy thoughts that might assail our companion’s mind. He told her he
accounted this rencounter the most fortunate he had ever chanced on all
his life, and that he should ever cherish a fond recollection of one who
had so deeply touched him,--all this, however, without ever asking to
know her name and story.
My good master thought no doubt that the unknown would presently tell
him what he refrained from asking. She broke into a fresh flood of
weeping, heaved a deep sigh and said:
“I should be churlish, sir, to reward your kindness with silence. I am
not afraid to trust myself in your hands. My name is Sophie T------. You
have guessed the truth; ‘tis the betrayal of a lover I was too fondly
attached to has brought me to despair. If you deem my grief excessive,
that is because you do not know how great was my assurance, how blind my
infatuation, and you cannot realize how enchanting was the paradise I
have lost.”
Then, raising her lovely eyes to our faces, she went on:
“Sirs, I am not such a woman as your meeting me thus at night time might
lead you to suppose. My father was a merchant. He went, in the way of
trade, to America, and was lost on his way home in a shipwreck, he
and his merchandise with him. My mother was so overwhelmed by these
calamities that she fell into a decline and died, leaving me, while
still a child, to the charge of an aunt, who brought me up. I was a
good girl till the hour I met the man whose love was to afford me
indescribable delights, ending in the despair wherein you now see me
plunged.”
So saying, Sophie hid her face in her handkerchief. Presently she
resumed with a sigh:
“His worldly rank was so far above my own I could never expect to be
his except in secret. I flattered myself he would be faithful to me. He
swore he loved me, and easily overcame my scruples. My aunt was aware
of our feelings for one another, and raised no obstacles, for two
reasons,--because her affection for me made her indulgent, and because
my dear lover’s high position impressed her imagination. I lived a year
of perfect happiness only equalled by the wretchedness I now endure.
This morning he came to see me at my aunt’s, with whom I live. I was
haunted by dark forebodings. As I dressed my hair but an hour or so
before, I had broken a mirror he had given me. The sight of him only
increased my misgivings, for I noticed instantly that his face wore an
unaccustomed look of constraint... Oh! sir, was ever woman so unhappy as
I?...”
Her eyes filled again with tears; but she kept them back under her
lids, and was able to finish her tale, which my good master deemed as
touching, but by no means so unique, as she did herself.
“He informed me coldly, though not without signs of embarrassment,
that his father having bought him a Company, he was leaving to join the
colours. First, however, he said, his family required him to plight his
troth to the daughter of an Intendant of Finances; the connection
was advantageous to his fortune and would bring him means adequate to
support his rank and make a figure in the world. And the traitor, never
deigning to notice my pale looks, added in his soft, caressing voice
which had made me so many vows of affection, that his new obligations
would prevent his seeing me again, at least for some while. He assured
me further that he was still my friend and begged me to accept a sum of
money in memory of the days we had passed together.
“And with the words he held out a purse to me.
“I am telling you the truth, sirs, when I assure you I had always
refused to listen to the offers he repeated again and again, to give me
fine clothes, furniture, plate, an establishment, and to take me away
from my aunt’s, where I lived in very narrow circumstances, and settle
me in a most elegant little mansion he had in the Rue di Roule. My wish
was that we should be united only by the ties of affection, and I was
proud to have of his gift nothing but a few jewels whose sole value came
from the fact of his being the donor. My gorge rose at the sight of the
purse he offered me, and the insult gave me strength to banish from my
presence the impostor whom in one moment I had learnt to know and to
despise. He faced my angry looks unabashed, and assured me with the
utmost unconcern that I could know nothing of the paramount obligations
that fill the existence of a man of quality, adding that he hoped
eventually, when I looked at things quietly, I should come to see his
behaviour in a better light. Then, returning the purse to his pocket,
he declared he would readily find a way of putting the contents at my
disposal in such a manner as to make it impossible for me to refuse his
liberality. Thus leaving me with the odious, the intolerable implication
that he was going to make full amends by these sordid means, he made for
the door to which I pointed without a word. When he was gone, I felt a
calmness of mind that surprised myself. It arose from the resolution I
had formed to die. I dressed with some care, wrote a letter to my aunt
asking her forgiveness for the pain I was about to cause her by my
death, and went out into the streets. There I roamed about all the
afternoon and evening and a part of the night, moving from busy
thoroughfare to deserted lane without a trace of fatigue, postponing
the execution of my purpose to make it more sure and certain under the
favouring conditions of darkness and solitude. Possibly too I found a
certain weak pleasure in dallying with the thought of dying and tasting
the mournful satisfaction of my coming release from my troubles. At two
o’clock in the morning, I went down to the river’s brink. Sirs, you know
the rest,--you snatched me from a watery grave. I thank you for your
goodness,--though I am sorry you saved my life. The world is full of
forsaken women. I did not wish to add another to the number.”
Sophie then fell silent and began weeping afresh. My good master took
her hand with the greatest delicacy.
“My child,” he said, “I have listened with a tender interest to the
story of your life, and I own ‘tis a sad tale. But I am happy to discern
that your case is curable. Not only was your lover unworthy of the
favours you showed him and has proved himself on trial a selfish,
cruel-hearted libertine, but I see plainly your love for him was only
an impulse of the senses and the effect of your own sensibility, the
particular object of which mattered far less than you imagine. What
there was rare and excellent in the liaison came from you. Well then,
nothing is lost, since the source still remains. Your eyes, which have
thrown a glamour of the fairest hues over, I doubt not, a very ordinary
individual, will not cease to go on shedding abroad elsewhere the same
bright rays of charming self-delusion.”
My good master said more in the same strain, dropping from his lips the
finest words ever heard anent the tribulations of the senses and the
errors lovers are prone to. But, as he talked on, Sophie, who for some
while had let her pretty head droop on the shoulder of this best of men,
fell softly asleep. When M. l’Abbé Coignard saw his young friend
was wrapped in a sound slumber, he congratulated himself on having
discoursed in a vein so meet to afford repose and peace to a suffering
soul.
“It must be allowed,” he chuckled, “my sermons have a beneficent
effect.”
Not to disturb Mademoiselle’s slumbers, he took a thousand pretty
precautions, amongst others constraining himself to talk on
uninterruptedly, not unreasonably apprehensive that a sudden silence
might awake her.
“Tournebroche, my son,” he said, turning to me, “look, all her sorrows
are vanished away with the consciousness she had of them. You must see
they were all of the imagination and resided in her own thought.
You must understand likewise they sprang from a certain pride and
overweening conceit that goes along with love and makes it very
exacting. For, in truth, if only we loved in humbleness of spirit and
forgetfulness of self, or merely with a simple heart, we should be
content with what is vouchsafed us and should not straightway cry
treason when some slight is put on us. And if some power of loving were
left us still, after our lover had deserted us, we should await the
issue in calmness of mind to make what use of it God should please to
grant.”
But the day was just breaking by this time, and the song of the birds
grew so loud it drowned my good master’s voice. He made no complaint on
this score.
“Hearken,” he said, “to the sparrows. They make love more wisely than
men do.”
Sophie awoke in the white light of dawn, and I admired her lovely eyes,
which fatigue and grief had ringed with a delicate pearly-grey.
She seemed somewhat reconciled to life, and did not refuse a cup of
chocolate which my good master made her drink at Mathurine’s door, the
pretty chocolate-seller of the Halles.
But as the poor child came into more complete possession of her wits,
she began to trouble about sundry practical difficulties she had not
thought of till then.
“What will my aunt say? And whatever can I tell her?” she asked
distractedly.
The aunt lived just opposite Saint-Eustache, less than a hundred yards
from Mathurine’s archway. Thither we escorted her niece; and M.
l’Abbé Coignard, who had quite a venerable look, though one shoe _was_
unbuckled, accompanied the fair Sophie to the door of her aunt’s lodging
and pitched that lady a fine tale:
“I had the happy fortune,” he informed her, “to encounter your good
niece at the very moment when she was assailed by four footpads armed
with pistols, and I shouted for the watch so lustily that the thieves
took to their heels in a panic. But they were not quick enough to
escape the sergeants who, by the rarest chance, ran up in answer to my
outcries. They arrested the villains after a desperate tussle. I took my
share of the rough and tumble, and I thought at first I had lost my hat
in the fray. When all was over, we were all taken, your niece, the four
footpads and myself, before his Honour the Lieutenant-Criminel, who
treated us with much consideration and detained us till daylight in his
cabinet, taking down our evidence.” The aunt answered drily:
“I thank you, sir, for having saved my niece from a peril which, to say
the truth, is not the risk a girl of her age need fear the most, when
she is out alone at night in the streets of Paris.”
My good master made no answer to this; but Mademoiselle Sophie spoke up
and said in a voice of deep feeling:
“I do assure you, Aunt, Monsieur l’Abbé saved my life.”
*****
Some years after this singular adventure, my master made the fatal
journey to Lyons from which he never returned. He was foully murdered,
and I had the ineffable grief of seeing him expire in my arms. The
incidents of his death have no connexion with the matter I speak of
here. I have taken pains to record them elsewhere; they are indeed
memorable, and will never, I think, be forgotten. I may add that this
journey was in all ways unfortunate, for after losing the best of
masters on the road, I was likewise forsaken by a mistress who loved me,
but did not love me alone, and whose loss nearly broke my heart, coming
after that of my good master. It is a mistake to suppose that a man
who has received one cruel blow grows callous to succeeding strokes
of calamity. Far otherwise; he suffers agonies from the smallest
contrarieties. I returned to Paris in a state of dejection almost beyond
belief.
Well, one evening, by way of enlivening my spirits, I went to the
Comédie, where they were playing _Bajazet_, one of Racine’s excellent
pieces. I was particularly struck by the charm and beauty, no less than
the originality and talent, of the actress who took the part of Roxane.
She expressed with a delightful naturalness the passion animating that
character, and I shuddered as I heard her declaim in accents that were
harmonious and yet terrible the line: