RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CAST-OFF
GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A
HEAVENLY GUARDIAN
"Reassure yourself, Madame," replied the apparition, "your position is
not as risky as you say. You are not confronted with two men, but with
one man and an angel."
She examined the stranger with an eye which, piercing the gloom, was
anxiously surveying a vague but by no means negligible indication, and
asked:
"Monsieur, is it quite certain that you are an angel?"
The apparition prayed her to have no doubt about it, and gave some
precise information as to his origin.
"There are three hierarchies of celestial spirits, each composed of nine
choirs; the first comprises the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones; the
second, the Dominations, the Virtues, and the Powers; the third, the
Principalities, the Archangels, and the Angels properly so called. I
belong to the ninth choir of the third hierarchy."
Madame des Aubels, who had her reasons for doubting this, expressed at
least one:
"You have no wings."
"Why should I, Madame? Am I bound to resemble the angels on your
holy-water stoups? Those feathery oars that beat the waves of the air in
rhythmic cadences are not always worn by the heavenly messengers on
their shoulders. Cherubim may be apterous. That all too beautiful
angelic pair who spent an anxious night in the house of Lot compassed
about by an Oriental horde--they had no wings! No, they appeared just
like men, and the dust of the road covered their feet, which the
patriarch washed with pious hand. I would beg you to observe, Madame,
that according to the Science of Organic Metamorphosis created by
Lamarck and Darwin, the wings of birds have been successively
transformed into fore-feet in the case of quadrupeds and into arms in
the case of the Linnæan primates. And you may remember, Maurice, that by
a rather annoying reversion to type, Miss Kate, your English nurse, who
used to be so fond of giving you a whipping, had arms very like the
pinions of a plucked fowl. One may say, then, that a being possessing
both arms and wings is a monster and belongs to the department of
Teratology. In Paradise we have Cherubim and Kerûbs in the shape of
winged bulls, but those are the clumsy inventions of an inartistic god.
It is nevertheless true, quite true, that the Victories of the Temple of
Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis are beautiful, and possess both
arms and wings; it is also true that the Victory of Brescia is
beautiful, with her outstretched arms and her long wings folded on her
mighty loins. It is one of the miracles of Greek genius to have known
how to create harmonious monsters. The Greeks never err. The Moderns
always."
"Yet on the whole," said Madame des Aubels, "you have not the look of a
pure Spirit."
"Nevertheless, I am one, Madame, if ever there was one. And it ill
becomes you, who have been baptised, to doubt it. Several of the
Fathers, such as St. Justin, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of
Alexandria thought that the Angels were not purely spiritual, but
possessed a body formed of some subtile material. This opinion has been
rejected by the Church; hence I am merely Spirit. But what is spirit and
what is matter? Formerly they were contrasted as being two opposites,
and now your human science tends to reunite them as two aspects of the
same thing. It teaches that everything proceeds from ether and
everything returns to it, that the same movement transforms the waves
of air into stones and minerals, and that the atoms scattered throughout
illimitable space, form, by the varying speed of their orbits, all the
substance of this material world."
But Madame des Aubels was not listening. She had something on her mind,
and to put an end to her suspense, she asked:
"How long have you been here?"
"I came with Maurice."
"Well--that's a nice thing!" said she, shaking her head. But the Angel
continued with heavenly serenity:
"Everything in the Universe is circular, elliptical, or hyperbolic, and
the same laws which rule the stars govern this grain of dust. In the
original and native movement of its substance, my body is spiritual, but
it may affect, as you perceive, this material state, by changing the
rhythm of its elements."
Having thus spoken he sat down in a chair on Madame des Aubels' black
stockings.
A clock struck outside.
"Good heavens, seven o'clock!" exclaimed Gilberte. "What am I to say to
my husband? He thinks I am at that tea-party in the Rue de Rivoli. We
are dining with the La Verdelières to-night. Go away immediately,
Monsieur Arcade. I must get ready to go. I have not a second to lose."
The Angel replied that he would have willingly obeyed Madame des Aubels
had he been in a state to show himself decently in public, but that he
could not dream of appearing out of doors without any clothes. "Were I
to walk naked in the street," he added, "I should offend a nation
attached to its ancient habits, habits which it has never examined. They
are the basis of all moral systems. Formerly," he added, "the angels, in
revolt like myself, manifested themselves to Christians under grotesque
and ridiculous appearances, black, horned, hairy, and cloven-footed.
Pure stupidity! They were the laughing-stock of people of taste. They
merely frightened old women and children and met with no success."
"It is true he cannot go out as he is," said Madame des Aubels with
justice.
Maurice tossed his pyjamas and his slippers to the celestial messenger.
Regarded as outdoor habiliments they were not adequate. Gilberte pressed
her lover to run at once in quest of other clothes. He proposed to go
and get some from the concierge. She was violently opposed to this. It
would, she said, be madly imprudent to drag the concierge into such an
affair.
"Do you want them to know that ..." she exclaimed.
She pointed to the Angel and was silent.
Young d'Esparvieu went out to seek a clothes-shop.
Meanwhile, Gilberte, who could not delay any longer for fear of causing
a horrible society scandal, turned on the light and dressed before the
Angel. She did it without any awkwardness, for she knew how to adapt
herself to circumstances; and she took it that in such an unheard-of
encounter in which heaven and earth were mingled in unutterable
confusion it was permissible to retrench in modesty.
Moreover, she knew that she possessed a good figure and had garments as
dainty as the fashion demanded. As the apparition's sense of delicacy
would not permit him to don Maurice's pyjamas, Gilberte could not help
observing by the lamp-light that her suspicions were well-founded, and
that angels have the same appearance as men. Curious to know if the
appearance were real or imaginary she asked the child of light if Angels
were like monkeys, who, to win women, merely lack money.
"Yes, Gilberte," replied Arcade, "Angels are capable of loving mortals.
It is the teaching of the Scriptures. It is said in the Seventh Book of
Genesis, 'When men became numerous on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of
men were beautiful, and they took as wives all those which pleased
them.'"
"Good heavens," cried Gilberte all at once, "I shall never be able to
fasten my dress; it hooks down the back."
When Maurice entered the room he found the Angel on his knees tying the
shoes of the woman taken in _flagrante delicto_.
Taking her muff and her bag off the table she said:
"I have not forgotten anything? No. Good-night, Monsieur Arcade.
Good-night, Maurice. I shall not forget to-day." And she vanished like a
dream.
"Here," said Maurice, throwing the Angel a bundle of clothes.
The young man, having seen some dismal rags lying among clarionettes and
clyster-pipes in the window of a second-hand shop, had bought for
nineteen francs the cast-off suit of some wretched sable-clad mortal who
had committed suicide. The Angel, with native majesty, took the garments
and put them on. Worn by him, they took on an unexpected elegance. He
took a step to the door.
"So you are leaving me," said Maurice. "It's settled, then? I very much
fear that, some day, you will bitterly regret this hasty action."
"I must not look back. Adieu, Maurice."
Maurice timidly slipped five louis into his hand.
"Adieu, Arcade."
But when the Angel had passed through the door, and all that was to be
seen of him in the door-way was his uplifted heel, Maurice called him
back.
"Arcade! I never thought of it! I have no guardian angel now!"
"Quite true, Maurice, you have one no longer."
"Then what will become of me? One must have a guardian angel. Tell
me,--are there not grave drawbacks,--is there no danger in not having
one?"
"Before replying, Maurice, I must ask you if you wish me to speak to you
according to your belief, which formerly was my own, according to the
teaching of the Church and the Catholic faith, or according to natural
philosophy."
"I don't care a straw for your natural philosophy. Answer me according
to the religion I believe in, and which I profess, and in which I wish
to live and die."
"Very well, my dear Maurice. The loss of your guardian angel will
probably deprive you of certain spiritual succour, of certain celestial
grace. I am expressing to you the unvarying opinion of the Church on the
matter. You will lack an assistance, a support, a consolation which
would have guided and confirmed you in the way of salvation. You will
have less strength to avoid sin, and as it was you hadn't much. In fact,
in spiritual matters, you will be without strength and without joy.
Adieu, Maurice; when you see Madame des Aubels, please remember me to
her."
"You are going?"
"Farewell."
Arcade disappeared, and Maurice in the depths of an arm-chair sat for a
long time with his head in his hands.