WHEREIN MAURICE FINDS HIS ANGEL AGAIN
The performance was over. Bouchotte in her dressing-room was taking off
her make-up, when the door opened softly and old Monsieur Sandraque, her
protector, came in, followed by a troop of her other admirers. Without
so much as turning her head, she asked them what they meant by coming
and staring at her like a pack of imbeciles, and whether they thought
they were in a tent at the Neuilly Fair, looking at the freak woman.
"Now, then, ladies and gentlemen," she rattled on derisively, "just put
a penny in the box for the young lady's marriage-portion, and she'll let
you feel her legs,--all made of marble!"
Then, with an angry glance at the admiring throng, she exclaimed: "Come,
off you go! Look alive!"
She sent them all packing, her sweetheart Théophile among them,--the
pale-faced, long-haired, gentle, melancholy, short-sighted, and dreamy
Théophile.
But recognizing her little Maurice, she gave him a smile. He approached
her, and leaning over the back of the chair on which she was seated,
congratulated her on her playing and singing, duly performing a kiss at
the end of every compliment. She did not let him escape thus, and with
reiterated enquiries, pressing solicitations, feigned incredulity,
obliged him to repeat his stock panegyrics three or four times over, and
when he stopped she seemed so disappointed that he was forced to take up
the strain again immediately. He found it trying, for he was no
connoisseur, but he had the pleasure of kissing her plump curved
shoulders all golden in the light, and of catching glimpses of her
pretty face in the mirror over the toilet-table.
"You were delicious."
"Really?... you think so?"
"Adorable ... div----"
Suddenly he gave a loud cry. His eyes had seen in the mirror a face
appear at the back of the dressing-room. He turned swiftly round, flung
his arms about Arcade, and drew him into the corridor.
"What manners!" exclaimed Bouchotte, gasping.
But, pushing his way through a troop of performing dogs, and a family of
American acrobats, young d'Esparvieu dragged his angel towards the exit.
He hurried him forth into the cool darkness of the boulevard, delirious
with joy and wondering whether it was all too good to be true.
"Here you are!" he cried; "here you are! I have been looking for you a
long time, Arcade,--or Mirar if you like,--and I have found you at last.
Arcade, you have taken my guardian angel from me. Give him back to me.
Arcade, do you love me still?"
Arcade replied that in accomplishing the super-angelic task he had set
himself he had been forced to crush under foot friendship, pity, love,
and all those feelings which tend to soften the soul; but that, on the
other hand, his new state, by exposing him to suffering and privation,
disposed him to love Humanity, and that he felt a certain mechanical
friendship for his poor Maurice.
"Well, then," exclaimed Maurice, "if only you love me, come back to me,
stay with me. I cannot do without you. While I had you with me I was not
aware of your presence. But no sooner did you depart than I felt a
horrible blank. Without you I am like a body without a soul. Do you know
that in the little flat in the rue de Rome, with Gilberte by my side, I
feel lonely, I miss you sorely, and long to see you and to hear you as I
did that day when you made me so angry. Confess I was right, and that
your behaviour on that occasion was not that of a gentleman. That you,
you of so high an origin, so noble a mind, could commit such an
indiscretion is extraordinary, when one comes to think about it. Madame
des Aubels has not yet forgiven you. She blames you for having
frightened her by appearing at such an inconvenient moment, and for
being insolent and forward while hooking her dress and tying her shoes.
I, I have forgotten everything. I only remember that you are my
celestial brother, the saintly companion of my childhood. No, Arcade,
you must not, you cannot leave me. You are my angel; you are my
property."
Arcade explained to young d'Esparvieu that he could no longer be guiding
angel to a Christian, having himself gone down into the pit. And he
painted a horrible picture of himself; he described himself as breathing
hatred and fury; in fact, an infernal spirit.
"All nonsense!" said Maurice, smiling, his eyes big with tears.
"Alas! our ideas, our destiny, everything tends to part us, Maurice. But
I cannot stifle the tenderness I feel for you, and your candour forces
me to love you."
"No," sighed Maurice. "You do not love me. You have never loved me. In a
brother or a sister such indifference would be natural; in a friend it
would be ordinary; in a guardian angel it is monstrous. Arcade, you are
an abominable being. I hate you."
"I have loved you dearly, Maurice, and I still love you. You trouble my
heart which I deemed encased in triple bronze. You show me my own
weakness. When you were a little innocent boy I loved you as tenderly
and purely as Miss Kate, your English governess, who caressed you with
so much fervour. In the country, when the thin bark of the plane trees
peels off in long strips and discloses the tender green trunk, after the
rains which make the fine sand run on the sloping paths, I showed you
how with that sand, those strips of bark, a few wild flowers, and a
spray of maidenhair fern to make rustic bridges, rustic shelters,
terraces, and those gardens of Adonis, which last but an hour. During
the month of May in Paris we raised an altar to the Virgin, and we burnt
incense before it, the scent of which, permeating all the house,
reminded Marcelline, the cook, of her village church and her lost
innocence, and drew from her floods of tears; it also gave your mother a
headache, your mother who, with all her wealth, was crushed with the
_ennui_ that is common to the fortunate ones of this world. When you
went to college I interested myself in your progress, I shared your work
and your play, I pondered with you over arduous problems in arithmetic,
I sought the impenetrable meaning of a phrase of Julius Cæsar's. What
fine games of prisoners' base and football we had together! More than
once did we know the intoxication of victory, and our young laurels were
not soaked in blood or tears. Maurice, I did all I could to protect
your innocence, but I could not prevent your losing it at the age of
fourteen. Afterwards I regretfully saw you loving women of all sorts, of
divers ages, by no means beautiful, at least in the eyes of an angel.
Saddened at the sight, I devoted myself to study; a fine library offered
me resources rarely met with. I delved into the history of religions;
you know the rest."
"But now, my dear Arcade," concluded young d'Esparvieu, "you have lost
your position, your situation, you are entirely without resource. You
have lost caste, you are off the lines, a vagabond, a bare-footed
wanderer."
The Angel replied bitterly that, after all, he was a little better clad
at present than when he was wearing the slops of a suicide.
Maurice alleged in excuse that when he dressed his naked angel in a
suicide's slops, he was irritated with that angel's infidelity. But it
was useless to dwell on the past or to recriminate. What was really
needful was to consider what steps to take in future.
And he asked:
"Arcade, what do you think of doing?"
"Have I not already told you, Maurice? To fight with Him who reigns in
the heavens, dethrone Him, and set up Satan in His stead."
"You will not do it. To begin with it is not the opportune moment.
Opinion is not with you. You will not be in the swim, as papa says.
Conservatism and authority are all the go nowadays. We like to be ruled,
and the President of the Republic is going to parley with the Pope. Do
not be obstinate, Arcade. You are not as bad as you say. At bottom you
are like the rest of the world, you adore the good God."
"I thought I had already explained to you, Maurice, that He whom you
consider God is actually but a demiurge. He is absolutely ignorant of
the divine world above him, and in all good faith believes himself to be
the true and only God. You will find in the _History of the Church_, by
Monsignor Duchesne--Vol. I, page 162--that this proud and narrow-minded
demiurge is named Ialdabaoth. My child, so as not to ruffle your
prejudices and to deal gently with your feelings in future, that is the
name I shall give him. If it should happen that I should speak of him to
you, I shall call him Ialdabaoth. I must leave you. Adieu."
"Stay----"
"I cannot."
"I shall not let you go thus. You have deprived me of my guardian angel.
It is for you to repair the injury you have caused me. Give me another
one."
Arcade objected that it was difficult for him to satisfy such a demand.
That having quarrelled with the sovereign dispenser of guardian
Spirits, he could obtain nothing from that quarter.
"My dear Maurice," he added, smiling, "ask for one yourself from
Ialdabaoth."
"No,--no,--no," exclaimed Maurice. "You have taken away my guardian
angel,--give him back to me."
"Alas! I cannot."
"Is it, Arcade, because you are a revolutionary that you cannot?"
"Yes."
"An enemy of God?"
"Yes."
"A Satanic spirit?"
"Yes."
"Well, then," exclaimed young Maurice, "I will be your guardian
angel,--I will not leave you."
And Maurice d'Esparvieu took Arcade to have some oysters at P----'s.