WHEREIN MIRA THE SEERESS, ZÉPHYRINE, AND THE FATAL AMÉDÉE
ARE SUCCESSIVELY BROUGHT UPON THE SCENE, AND WHEREIN THE
NOTION OF EURIPIDES THAT THOSE WHOM ZEUS WISHES TO CRUSH HE
FIRST MAKES MAD, IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF
MONSIEUR SARIETTE
Disappointed at his failure to enlighten an ecclesiastic renowned for
his clarity of mind, and frustrated in the hope of finding his angel
again on the high road of orthodoxy, Maurice took it into his head to
resort to occultism and resolved to go and consult a seer. He would have
undoubtedly applied to Madame de Thèbes, but he had already questioned
her on the occasion of his early love troubles, and her replies showed
such wisdom that he no longer believed her to be a soothsayer. He
therefore had recourse to a fashionable medium, Madame Mira. He had
heard many examples quoted of the extraordinary insight of this seeress,
but it was necessary to present Madame Mira with some object which the
absent one had either touched or worn and to which her translucent gaze
had to be attracted. Maurice, trying to remember what the angel had
touched since his ill-fated incarnation, recollected that in his
celestial nudity he had sat down in an arm-chair on Madame des Aubels'
black stockings and that he had afterwards helped that lady to dress.
Maurice asked Gilberte for one of the talismans required by the
clairvoyante. But Gilberte could not give him a single one, unless, as
she said, she herself were to play the part of the talisman. For the
angel had, in her case, displayed the greatest indiscretion, and such
agility that it was impossible always to forestall his enterprise. On
hearing this confession, which nevertheless told him nothing new,
Maurice lost his temper with the angel, calling him by the names of the
lowest animals and swearing he would give him a good kick when he got
him within reach of his foot. But his fury soon turned against Madame
des Aubels; he accused her of having provoked the insolence she now
denounced, and in his wrath he referred to her by all the zoological
symbols of immodesty and perversity. His love for Arcade was rekindled
in his heart, and burned with a more ardent flame than ever, and the
deserted youth, with outstretched arms and bended knees, invoked his
angel with sobs and lamentations.
During his sleepless nights it occurred to him that perhaps the books
the angel had turned over before his incarnation might serve as a
talisman. One morning, therefore, Maurice went up to the library and
greeted Monsieur Sariette, who was cataloguing under the romantic gaze
of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Monsieur Sariette smiled, but his face was
deathly pale. Now that an invisible hand no longer upset the books
placed under his charge, now that tranquillity and order once more
reigned in the library, Monsieur Sariette was happy, but his strength
diminished day by day. There was little left of him but a frail and
contented shadow.
"One dies, in full content, of sorrow past."
"Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice, "you remember that time when your
books were disarranged every night, how armfuls disappeared, how they
were dragged about, turned over, ruined, and sent rolling helter-skelter
as far as the gutter in the Rue Palatine. Those were great days! Point
out to me, Monsieur Sariette, the books which suffered most."
This proposition threw Monsieur Sariette into a melancholy stupor, and
Maurice had to repeat his request three times before he could make the
aged librarian understand. At length he pointed to a very ancient Talmud
from Jerusalem as having been frequently touched by those unseen hands.
An apocryphal Gospel of the third century, consisting of twenty papyrus
sheets, had also quitted its place time after time. Gassendi's
Correspondence too seemed to have been well thumbed.
"But," added Monsieur Sariette, "the book to which the mysterious
visitant devoted the most particular attention was undoubtedly a little
copy of _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vendôme, Grand
Prieur de France, with autograph annotations by Voltaire, who, as is
well known, frequently visited the Temple in his younger days. The
fearsome reader who caused me such terrible anxiety never grew weary of
this _Lucretius_ and made it his bedside book, as it were. His taste was
sound, for it's a gem of a thing. Alas! the monster made a blot of ink
on page 137 which perhaps the chemists with all the science at their
disposal will be powerless to erase."
And Monsieur Sariette heaved a profound sigh. He repented having said
all this when young d'Esparvieu asked him for the loan of the precious
_Lucretius_. Vainly did the jealous custodian affirm that the book was
being repaired at the binder's and was not available. Maurice made it
clear that he wasn't to be taken in like that. He strode resolutely into
the abode of the philosophers and the globes and seating himself in an
arm-chair said:
"I am waiting."
Monsieur Sariette suggested his having another edition. There were some
that, textually, were more correct, and were, therefore, preferable from
the student's point of view. He offered him Barbou's edition, or
Coustelier's, or, better still, a French translation. He could have the
Baron des Coutures' version--which was perhaps a little
old-fashioned--or La Grange's, or those in the Nisard and Panckouke
series; or, again, there were two versions of striking elegance, one in
verse and the other in prose, both from the pen of Monsieur de
Pongerville of the French Academy.
"I don't need a translation," said Maurice proudly. "Give me the Prior
de Vendôme's copy."
Monsieur Sariette went slowly up to the cupboard in which the jewel in
question was contained. The keys were rattling in his trembling hand. He
raised them to the lock and withdrew them again immediately and
suggested that Maurice should have the common _Lucretius_ published by
Garnier.
"It's very handy," said he with an engaging smile.
But the silence with which this proposal was received made it clear that
resistance was useless. He slowly drew forth the volume from its place,
and having taken the precaution to see that there wasn't a speck of dust
on the table-cloth, he laid it tremblingly thereon before the
great-grandson of Alexandre d'Esparvieu.
Maurice began to turn the leaves, and when he got to page 137 he saw the
stain which had been made with violet ink. It was about the size of a
pea.
"Ay, that's it," said old Sariette, who had his eye on the _Lucretius_
the whole time; "that's the trace those invisible monsters left behind
them."
"What, there were several of them, Monsieur Sariette?" exclaimed
Maurice.
"I cannot tell. But I don't know whether I have a right to have this
blot removed since, like the blot Paul Louis Courier made on the
Florentine manuscript, it constitutes a literary document, so to speak."
Scarcely were the words out of the old fellow's mouth when the front
door bell rang and there was a confused noise of voices and footsteps in
the next room. Sariette ran forward at the sound and collided with Père
Guinardon's mistress, old Zéphyrine, who, with her tousled hair sticking
up like a nest of vipers, her face aflame, her bosom heaving, her
abdominal part like an eiderdown quilt puffed out by a terrific gale,
was choking with grief and rage. And amid sobs and sighs and groans and
all the innumerable sounds which, on earth, make up the mighty uproar to
which the emotions of living beings and the tumult of nature give rise,
she cried:
"He's gone, the monster! He's gone off with her. He's cleared out the
whole shanty and left me to shift for myself with eighteenpence in my
purse."
And she proceeded to give a long and incoherent account of how Michel
Guinardon had abandoned her and gone to live with Octavie, the
bread-woman's daughter, and she let loose a torrent of abuse against the
traitor.
"A man whom I've kept going with my own money for fifty years and more.
For I've had plenty of the needful and known plenty of the upper ten and
all. I dragged him out of the gutter and now this is what I get for it.
He's a bright beauty, that friend of yours. The lazy scoundrel. Why, he
had to be dressed like a child, the drunken contemptible brute. You
don't know him yet, Monsieur Sariette. He's a forger. He turns out
Giottos, Giottos, I tell you, and Fra Angelicos and Grecos, as hard as
he can and sells them to art-dealers--yes, and Fragonards too, and
Baudouins. He's a debauchee, and doesn't believe in God! That's the
worst of the lot, Monsieur Sariette, for without the fear of God...."
Long did Zéphyrine continue to pour forth vituperations. When at last
her breath failed her, Monsieur Sariette availed himself of the
opportunity to exhort her to be calm and bring herself to look on the
bright side of things. Guinardon would come back. A man doesn't forget
anyone he's lived and got on well with for fifty years----
These two observations only goaded her to a fresh outburst, and
Zéphyrine swore she would never forget the slight that had been put on
her; she swore she would never have the monster back with her any more.
And if he came to ask her to forgive him on his knees, she would let him
grovel at her feet.
"Don't you understand, Monsieur Sariette, that I despise and hate him,
that he makes me sick?"
Sixty times she voiced these lofty sentiments; sixty times she vowed she
would never have Guinardon back with her again, that she couldn't bear
the sight of him, even in a picture.
Monsieur Sariette made no attempt to oppose a resolve which, after
protestations such as these, he regarded as unshakable. He did not blame
Zéphyrine in the least. He even supported her. Unfolding to the deserted
one a purer future, he told her of the frailty of human sentiment,
exhorted her to display a spirit of renunciation and enjoined her to
show a pious resignation to the will of God.
"Seeing, in truth, that your friend is so little worthy of affection
..."
He was not suffered to continue. Zéphyrine flew at him, and shaking him
furiously by the collar of his frock-coat, she yelled, half choking with
rage: "So little worthy of affection! Michel! Ah! my boy, you find
another more kind, more gay, more witty, you find another like him,
always young, yes, always. Not worthy of affection! Anyone can see you
don't know anything about love, you old duffer."
Taking advantage of the fact that Père Sariette was thus deeply
engaged, young d'Esparvieu slipped the little _Lucretius_ into his
pocket, and strolled deliberately past the crouching librarian, bidding
him adieu with a little wave of the hand.
Armed with his talisman, he hastened to the Place des Ternes, to
interview Madame Mira. She received him in a red drawing-room where
neither owl nor frog nor any of the paraphernalia of ancient magic were
to be found. Madame Mira, in a prune-coloured dress, her hair powdered,
though already past her prime, was of very good appearance. She spoke
with a certain elegance and prided herself on discovering hidden things
by the help alone of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. She felt the
morocco binding, feigning to close her eyes, and looking meanwhile
through the narrow slit between her lids at the Latin title and the coat
of arms which conveyed nothing to her.
Accustomed to receive as tokens such things as rings, handkerchiefs,
letters, and locks of hair, she could not conceive to what sort of
individual this singular book could belong. By habitual and mechanical
cunning she disguised her real surprise under a feigned surprise.
"Strange!" she murmured, "strange! I do not see quite clearly ... I
perceive a woman...."
As she let fall this magic word, she glanced furtively to see what sort
of an effect it had and beheld on her questioner's face an unexpected
look of disappointment. Perceiving that she was off the track, she
immediately changed her oracle:
"But she fades away immediately. It is strange, strange! I have a
confused impression of some vague form, a being that I cannot define,"
and having assured herself by a hurried glance that, this time, her
words were going down, she expatiated on the vagueness of the person and
on the mist that enveloped him.
However, the vision grew clearer to Madame Mira, who was following a
clue step by step.
"A wide street ... a square with a statue ... a deserted
street,--stairs. He is there in a bluish room--he is a young man, with
pale and careworn face. There are things he seems to regret, and which
he would not do again did they still remain undone."
But the effort at divination had been too great. Fatigue prevented the
clairvoyante from continuing her transcendental researches. She spent
her remaining strength in impressively recommending him who consulted
her to remain in intimate union with God if he wished to regain what he
had lost and succeed in his attempts.
On leaving Maurice placed a louis on the mantelpiece and went away moved
and troubled, persuaded that Madame Mira possessed supernatural
faculties, but unfortunately insufficient ones.
At the bottom of the stairs he remembered he had left the little
_Lucretius_ on the table of the pythoness, and, thinking that the old
maniac Sariette would never get over its loss, went up to recover
possession of it.
On re-entering the paternal abode his gaze lighted upon a shadowy and
grief-stricken figure. It was old Sariette, who in tones as plaintive as
the wail of the November wind began to beg for his _Lucretius_. Maurice
pulled it carelessly out of his great-coat pocket.
"Don't flurry yourself, Monsieur Sariette," said he. "There the thing
is."
Clasping the jewel to his bosom the old librarian bore it away and laid
it gently down on the blue table-cloth, thinking all the while where he
might safely hide his precious treasure, and turning over all sorts of
schemes in his mind as became a zealous curator. But who among us shall
boast of his wisdom? The foresight of man is short, and his prudence is
for ever being baffled. The blows of fate are ineluctable; no man shall
evade his doom. There is no counsel, no caution that avails against
destiny. Hapless as we are, the same blind force which regulates the
courses of atom and of star fashions universal order from our
vicissitudes. Our ill-fortune is necessary to the harmony of the
Universe. It was the day for the binder, a day which the revolving
seasons brought round twice a year, beneath the sign of the Ram and the
sign of the Scales. That day, ever since morning, Monsieur Sariette had
been making things ready for the binder. He had laid out on the table as
many of the newly purchased paper-bound volumes as were deemed worthy of
a permanent binding or of being put in boards, and also those books
whose binding was in need of repair, and of all these he had drawn up a
detailed and accurate list. Punctually at five o'clock, old Amédée, the
man from Léger-Massieu's, the binder in the Rue de l'Abbaye, presented
himself at the d'Esparvieu library and, after a double check had been
carried out by Monsieur Sariette, thrust the books he was to take back
to his master into a piece of cloth which he fastened into knots at the
four corners and hoisted on to his shoulder. He then saluted the
librarian with the following words, "Good night, all!" and went
downstairs.
Everything went off on this occasion as usual. But Amédée, seeing the
_Lucretius_ on the table, innocently put it into the bag with the
others, and took it away without Monsieur Sariette's perceiving it. The
librarian quitted the home of the Philosophers and Globes in entire
forgetfulness of the book whose absence had been causing him such
horrible anxiety all day long. Some people may take a stern view of the
matter and call this a lapse, a defection of his better nature. But
would it not be more accurate to say that fate had decided that things
should come to pass in this manner, and that what is called chance, and
is in fact but the regular order of nature, had accomplished this
imperceptible deed which was to have such awful consequences in the
sight of man? Monsieur Sariette went off to his dinner at the _Quatre
Évêques_, and read his paper _La Croix_. He was tranquil and serene. It
was only the next morning when he entered the abode of the Philosophers
and Globes that he remembered the _Lucretius_. Failing to see it on the
table he looked for it everywhere, but without success. It never entered
his head that Amédée might have taken it away by mistake. What he did
think was that the invisible visitant had returned, and he was mightily
disturbed.
The unhappy curator, hearing a noise on the landing, opened the door and
found it was little Léon, who, with a gold-braided _képi_ stuck on his
head, was shouting "Vive la France" and hurling dusters and
feather-brooms and Hippolyte's floor polish at imaginary foes. The child
preferred this landing for playing soldiers to any other part of the
house, and sometimes he would stray into the library. Monsieur Sariette
was seized with the sudden suspicion that it was he who had taken the
_Lucretius_ to use as a missile and he ordered him, in threatening
tones, to give it back. The child denied that he had taken it, and
Monsieur Sariette had recourse to cajolery.
"Léon, if you bring me back the little red book, I will give you some
chocolates."
The child grew thoughtful; and in the evening, as Monsieur Sariette was
going downstairs, he met Léon, who said:
"There's the book!"
And, holding out a much-torn picture-book called _The Story of
Gribouille_, demanded his chocolates.
A few days later the post brought Maurice the prospectus of an enquiry
agency managed by an ex-employee at the Prefecture of Police; it
promised celerity and discretion. He found at the address indicated a
moustached gentleman morose and careworn, who demanded a deposit and
promised to find the individual.
The ex-police official soon wrote to inform him that very onerous
investigations had been commenced and asked for fresh funds. Maurice
gave him no more and resolved to carry on the search himself. Imagining,
not without some likelihood, that the angel would associate with the
wretched, seeing that he had no money, and with the exiled of all
nations--like himself, revolutionaries--he visited the lodging-houses at
St. Ouen, at la Chapelle, Montmartre, and the Barrière d'Italie. He
sought him in the doss-houses, public-houses where they give you plates
of tripe, and others where you can get a sausage for three sous; he
searched for him in the cellars at the Market and at Père Momie's.
Maurice visited the restaurants where nihilists and anarchists take
their meals. There he came across men dressed as women, gloomy and
wild-looking youths, and blue-eyed octogenarians who laughed like little
children. He observed, asked questions, was taken for a spy, had a knife
thrust into him by a very beautiful woman, and the very next day
continued his search in beer-houses, lodging-houses, houses of ill-fame,
gambling-hells down by the fortifications, at the receivers of stolen
goods, and among the "apaches."
Seeing him thus pale, harassed, and silent, his mother grew worried.
"We must find him a wife," she said. "It is a pity that Mademoiselle de
la Verdelière has not a bigger fortune."
Abbé Patouille did not hide his anxiety.
"This child," he said, "is passing through a moral crisis."
"I am more inclined to think," replied Monsieur René d'Esparvieu, "that
he is under the influence of some bad woman. We must find him an
occupation which will absorb him and flatter his vanity. I might get him
appointed Secretary to the Committee for the Preservation of Country
Churches, or Consulting Counsel to the Syndicate of Catholic Plumbers."