THE EDUCATION OF A PHILOSOPHER
The installation of the adopted stable-boy was thus happily effected, and
the wheels of life continued to run smoothly in the Doctor's house.
Jean-Marie did his horse and carriage duty in the morning; sometimes
helped in the housework; sometimes walked abroad with the Doctor, to
drink wisdom from the fountainhead; and was introduced at night to the
sciences and the dead tongues. He retained his singular placidity of mind
and manner; he was rarely in fault; but he made only a very partial
progress in his studies, and remained much of a stranger in the family.
The Doctor was a pattern of regularity. All forenoon he worked on his
great book, the "Comparative Pharmacopoeia, or Historical Dictionary of
all Medicines," which as yet consisted principally of slips of paper and
pins. When finished, it was to fill many personable volumes, and to
combine antiquarian interest with professional utility. But the Doctor
was studious of literary graces and the picturesque; an anecdote, a touch
of manners, a moral qualification, or a sounding epithet was sure to be
preferred before a piece of science; a little more, and he would have
written the "Comparative Pharmacopoeia" in verse! The article "Mummia,"
for instance, was already complete, though the remainder of the work had
not progressed beyond the letter A. It was exceedingly copious and
entertaining, written with quaintness and colour, exact, erudite, a
literary article; but it would hardly have afforded guidance to a
practising physician of to-day. The feminine good sense of his wife had
led her to point this out with uncompromising sincerity; for the
Dictionary was duly read aloud to her, betwixt sleep and waking, as it
proceeded towards an infinitely distant completion; and the Doctor was a
little sore on the subject of mummies, and sometimes resented an allusion
with asperity.
After the midday meal and a proper period of digestion, he walked,
sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by Jean-Marie; for madame would
have preferred any hardship rather than walk.
She was, as I have said, a very busy person, continually occupied about
material comforts, and ready to drop asleep over a novel the instant she
was disengaged. This was the less objectionable, as she never snored or
grew distempered in complexion when she slept. On the contrary, she
looked the very picture of luxurious and appetising ease, and woke
without a start to the perfect possession of her faculties. I am afraid
she was greatly an animal, but she was a very nice animal to have about.
In this way she had little to do with Jean-Marie; but the sympathy which
had been established between them on the first night remained unbroken;
they held occasional conversations, mostly on household matters; to the
extreme disappointment of the Doctor, they occasionally sallied off
together to that temple of debasing, superstition, the village church;
madame and he, both in their Sunday's best, drove twice a month to
Fontainebleau and returned laden with purchases; and in short, although
the Doctor still continued to regard them as irreconcilably antipathetic,
their relation was as intimate, friendly, and confidential as their
natures suffered.
I fear, however, that in her heart of hearts madame kindly despised and
pitied the boy. She had no admiration for his class of virtues; she liked
a smart, polite, forward, roguish sort of boy, cap in hand, light of
foot, meeting the eye; she liked volubility, charm, a little vice--the
promise of a second Doctor Desprez. And it was her indefeasible belief
that Jean-Marie was dull. "Poor dear boy," she had said once, "how sad it
is that he should be so stupid!" She had never repeated that remark, for
the Doctor had raged like a wild bull, denouncing the brutal bluntness of
her mind, bemoaning his own fate to be so unequally mated with an ass,
and, what touched Anastasie more nearly, menacing the table china by the
fury of his gesticulations. But she adhered silently to her opinion; and
when Jean-Marie was sitting, stolid, blank, but not unhappy, over his
unfinished tasks, she would snatch her opportunity in the Doctor's
absence, go over to him, put her arms about his neck, lay her cheek to
his, and communicate her sympathy with his distress. "Do not mind," she
would say; "I, too, am not at all clever, and I can assure you that it
makes no difference in life."
The Doctor's view was naturally different. That gentleman never wearied
of the sound of his own voice, which was, to say the truth, agreeable
enough to hear. He now had a listener, who was not so cynically
indifferent as Anastasie, and who sometimes put him on his mettle by the
most relevant objections. Besides, was he not educating the boy? And
education, philosophers are agreed, is the most philosophical of duties.
What can be more heavenly to poor mankind than to have one's hobby grow
into a duty to the State? Then, indeed, do the ways of life become ways
of pleasantness. Never had the Doctor seen reason to be more content with
his endowments. Philosophy flowed smoothly from his lips. He was so agile
a dialectician that he could trace his nonsense, when challenged, back to
some root in sense, and prove it to be a sort of flower upon his system.
He slipped out of antinomies like a fish, and left his disciple
marvelling at the rabbi's depth.
Moreover, deep down in his heart the Doctor was disappointed with the
ill-success of his more formal education. A boy, chosen by so acute an
observer for his aptitude, and guided along the path of learning by so
philosophic an instructor, was bound, by the nature of the universe, to
make a more obvious and lasting advance. Now Jean-Marie was slow in all
things, impenetrable in others; and his power of forgetting was fully on
a level with his power to learn. Therefore the Doctor cherished his
peripatetic lectures, to which the boy attended, which he generally
appeared to enjoy, and by which he often profited.
Many and many were the talks they had together; and health and moderation
proved the subject of the Doctor's divagations. To these he lovingly
returned.
"I lead you," he would say, "by the green pastures. My system, my
beliefs, my medicines, are resumed in one phrase--to avoid excess.
Blessed nature, healthy, temperate nature, abhors and exterminates
excess. Human law, in this matter, imitates at a great distance her
provisions; and we must strive to supplement the efforts of the law. Yes,
boy, we must be a law to ourselves and for our neighbours--_lex
armata_--armed, emphatic, tyrannous law. If you see a crapulous human
ruin snuffing, dash from him his box! The judge, though in a way an
admission of disease, is less offensive to me than either the doctor or
the priest. Above all the doctor--the doctor and the purulent trash and
garbage of his pharmacopoeia! Pure air--from the neighbourhood of a
pinetum for the sake of the turpentine--unadulterated wine, and the
reflections of an unsophisticated spirit in the presence of the works of
nature--these, my boy, are the best medical appliances and the best
religious comforts. Devote yourself to these. Hark! there are the bells
of Bourron (the wind is in the north, it will be fair). How clear and
airy is the sound. The nerves are harmonised and quieted; the mind
attuned to silence; and observe how easily and regularly beats the heart!
Your unenlightened doctor would see nothing in these sensations; and yet
you yourself perceive they are a part of health. Did you remember your
cinchona this morning? Good. Cinchona also is a work of nature; it is,
after all, only the bark of a tree which we might gather for ourselves if
we lived in the locality. What a world is this! Though a professed
atheist, I delight to bear my testimony to the world. Look at the
gratuitous remedies and pleasures that surround our path! The river runs
by the garden end, our bath, our fish-pond, our natural system of
drainage. There is a well in the court which sends up sparkling water
from the earth's very heart, clean, cool, and, with a little wine, most
wholesome. The district is notorious for its salubrity; rheumatism is the
only prevalent complaint, and I myself have never had a touch of it. I
tell you--and my opinion is based upon the coldest, clearest processes of
reason--if I, if you, desired to leave this home of pleasures, it would
be the duty, it would be the privilege, of our best friend to prevent us
with a pistol bullet."
One beautiful June day they sat upon the hill outside the village. The
river, as blue as heaven, shone here and there among the foliage. The
indefatigable birds turned and flickered about Gretz church-tower. A
healthy wind blew from over the forest, and the sound of innumerable
thousands of tree-tops and innumerable millions on millions of green
leaves was abroad in the air, and filled the ear with something between
whispered speech and singing. It seemed as if every blade of grass must
hide a cigale; and the fields rang merrily with their music, jingling far
and near as with the sleigh-bells of the fairy queen. From their station
on the slope the eye embraced a large space of poplared plain upon the
one hand, the waving hill-tops of the forest on the other, and Gretz
itself in the middle, a handful of roofs. Under the bestriding arch of
the blue heavens, the place seemed dwindled to a toy. It seemed
incredible that people dwelt, and could find room to turn or air to
breathe, in such a corner of the world. The thought came home to the boy,
perhaps for the first time, and he gave it words.
"How small it looks!" he sighed.
"Ay," replied the Doctor, "small enough now. Yet it was once a walled
city; thriving, full of furred burgesses and men in armour, humming with
affairs;--with tall spires, for aught that I know, and portly towers
along the battlements. A thousand chimneys ceased smoking at the
curfew-bell. There were gibbets at the gate as thick as scarecrows. In
time of war, the assault swarmed against it with ladders, the arrows fell
like leaves, the defenders sallied hotly over the drawbridge, each side
uttered its cry as they plied their weapons. Do you know that the walls
extended as far as the Commanderie? Tradition so reports. Alas! what a
long way off is all this confusion--nothing left of it but my quiet words
spoken in your ear--and the town itself shrunk to the hamlet underneath
us! By-and-by came the English wars--you shall hear more of the English,
a stupid people, who sometimes blundered into good--and Gretz was taken,
sacked, and burned. It is the history of many towns; but Gretz never rose
again; it was never rebuilt; its ruins were a quarry to serve the growth
of rivals; and the stones of Gretz are now erect along the streets of
Nemours. It gratifies me that our old house was the first to rise after
the calamity; when the town had come to an end, it inaugurated the
hamlet."
"I, too, am glad of that," said Jean-Marie.
"It should be the temple of the humbler virtues," responded the Doctor
with a savoury gusto. "Perhaps one of the reasons why I love my little
hamlet as I do, is that we have a similar history, she and I. Have I told
you that I was once rich?"
"I do not think so," answered Jean-Marie. "I do not think I should have
forgotten. I am sorry you should have lost your fortune."
"Sorry?" cried the Doctor. "Why, I find I have scarce begun your
education after all. Listen to me! Would you rather live in the old Gretz
or in the new, free from the alarms of war, with the green country at the
door, without noise, passports, the exactions of the soldiery, or the
jangle of the curfew-bell to send us off to bed by sundown?"
"I suppose I should prefer the new," replied the boy.
"Precisely," returned the Doctor; "so do I. And in the same way, I prefer
my present moderate fortune to my former wealth. Golden mediocrity!
cried the adorable ancients; and I subscribe to their enthusiasm. Have I
not good wine, good food, good air, the fields and the forest for my
walk, a house, an admirable wife, a boy whom I protest I cherish like a
son? Now, if I were still rich, I should indubitably make my residence in
Paris--you know Paris--Paris and Paradise are not convertible terms. This
pleasant noise of the wind streaming among leaves changed into the
grinding Babel of the street, the stupid glare of plaster substituted for
this quiet pattern of greens and greys, the nerves shattered, the
digestion falsified--picture the fall! Already you perceive the
consequences: the mind is stimulated, the heart steps to a different
measure, and the man is himself no longer. I have passionately studied
myself--the true business of philosophy. I know my character as the
musician knows the ventages of his flute. Should I return to Paris, I
should ruin myself gambling; nay, I go further--I should break the heart
of my Anastasie with infidelities."
This was too much for Jean-Marie. That a place should so transform the
most excellent of men transcended his belief. Paris, he protested, was
even an agreeable place of residence. "Nor when I lived in that city did
I feel much difference," he pleaded.
"What!" cried the Doctor. "Did you not steal when you were there?"
But the boy could never be brought to see that he had done anything wrong
when he stole. Nor, indeed, did the Doctor think he had; but that
gentleman was never very scrupulous when in want of a retort.
"And now," he concluded, "do you begin to understand? My only friends
were those who ruined me. Gretz has been my academy, my sanatorium, my
heaven of innocent pleasures. If millions are offered me, I wave them
back: _Retro, Sathanas!_--Evil one, begone! Fix your mind on my example;
despise riches, avoid the debasing influence of cities. Hygiene--hygiene
and mediocrity of fortune--these be your watchwords during life!"
The Doctor's system of hygiene strikingly coincided with his tastes; and
his picture of the perfect life was a faithful description of the one he
was leading at the time. But it is easy to convince a boy, whom you
supply with all the facts for the discussion. And besides, there was one
thing admirable in the philosophy, and that was the enthusiasm of the
philosopher. There was never any one more vigorously determined to be
pleased; and if he was not a great logician, and so had no right to
convince the intellect, he was certainly something of a poet, and had a
fascination to seduce the heart. What he could not achieve in his
customary humour of a radiant admiration of himself and his
circumstances, he sometimes effected in his fits of gloom.
"Boy," he would say, "avoid me to-day. If I were superstitious, I should
even beg for an interest in your prayers. I am in the black fit; the evil
spirit of King Saul, the hag of the merchant Abudah, the personal devil
of the mediæval monk, is with me--is in me," tapping on his breast. "The
vices of my nature are now uppermost; innocent pleasures woo me in vain;
I long for Paris, for my wallowing in the mire. See," he would continue,
producing a handful of silver, "I denude myself, I am not to be trusted
with the price of a fare. Take it, keep it for me, squander it on
deleterious candy, throw it in the deepest of the river--I will
homologate your action. Save me from that part of myself which I disown.
If you see me falter, do not hesitate; if necessary, wreck the train! I
speak, of course, by a parable. Any extremity were better than for me to
reach Paris alive."
Doubtless the Doctor enjoyed these little scenes, as a variation in his
part; they represented the Byronic element in the somewhat artificial
poetry of his existence; but to the boy, though he was dimly aware of
their theatricality, they represented more. The Doctor made perhaps too
little, the boy possibly too much, of the reality and gravity of these
temptations.
One day a great light shone for Jean-Marie. "Could not riches be used
well?" he asked.
"In theory, yes," replied the Doctor. "But it is found in experience that
no one does so. All the world imagine they will be exceptional when they
grow wealthy; but possession is debasing, new desires spring up; and the
silly taste for ostentation eats out the heart of pleasure."
"Then you might be better if you had less," said the boy.
"Certainly not," replied the Doctor; but his voice quavered as he spoke.
"Why?" demanded pitiless innocence.
Doctor Desprez saw all the colours of the rainbow in a moment; the stable
universe appeared to be about capsizing with him. "Because," said
he--affecting deliberation after an obvious pause--"because I have formed
my life for my present income. It is not good for men of my years to be
violently dissevered from their habits."
That was a sharp brush. The Doctor breathed hard, and fell into
taciturnity for the afternoon. As for the boy, he was delighted with the
resolution of his doubts; even wondered that he had not foreseen the
obvious and conclusive answer. His faith in the Doctor was a stout piece
of goods. Desprez was inclined to be a sheet in the wind's eye after
dinner, especially after Rhone wine, his favourite weakness. He would
then remark on the warmth of his feeling for Anastasie, and with inflamed
cheeks and a loose, flustered smile, debate upon all sorts of topics, and
be feebly and indiscreetly witty. But the adopted stable-boy would not
permit himself to entertain a doubt that savoured of ingratitude. It is
quite true that a man may be a second father to you, and yet take too
much to drink; but the best natures are ever slow to accept such truths.
The Doctor thoroughly possessed his heart, but perhaps he exaggerated his
influence over his mind. Certainly Jean-Marie adopted some of his
master's opinions, but I have yet to learn that he ever surrendered one
of his own. Convictions existed in him by divine right; they were
virgin, unwrought, the brute metal of decision. He could add others
indeed, but he could not put away; neither did he care if they were
perfectly agreed among themselves; and his spiritual pleasures had
nothing to do with turning them over or justifying them in words. Words
were with him a mere accomplishment, like dancing. When he was by
himself, his pleasures were almost vegetable. He would slip into the
woods towards Achères, and sit in the mouth of a cave among grey birches.
His soul stared straight out of his eyes; he did not move or think;
sunlight, thin shadows moving in the wind, the edge of firs against the
sky, occupied and bound his faculties. He was pure unity, a spirit wholly
abstracted. A single mood filled him, to which all the objects of sense
contributed, as the colours of the spectrum merge and disappear in white
light.
So while the Doctor made himself drunk with words, the adopted stable-boy
bemused himself with silence.