to be of any service to you. You are occupied with researches in which I
myself have always felt a very lively interest. I have done all that lay
in my power. I know, as you do--and still better than you can know--how
much there remains to do. The manuscript you asked for is at your
disposal; you may take it home with you, but it is not a manuscript of
the smallest kind, and I am afraid---”
“Oh, Monsieur,” said Gelis, “big books have never been able to make me
afraid of them.”
I begged the young man to wait for me, and I went into the next room to
get the Register, which I could not find at first, and which I almost
despaired of finding, as I discerned, from certain familiar signs, that
Therese had been setting the room in order. But the Register was so big
and so heavy that, luckily for me, Therese had not been able to put it
in order as she had doubtless wished to do. I could scarcely lift it up
myself; and I had the pleasure of finding it quite as heavy as I could
have hoped.
“Wait, my boy,” I said, with a smile which must have been very
sarcastic--“wait! I am going to give you something to do which will
break your arms first, and afterwards your head. That will be the first
vengeance of Sylvestre Bonnard. Later on we shall see what else there is
to be done.”
When I returned to the City of Books I heard Monsieur Gelis and
Mademoiselle Jeanne chatting--chatting together, if you please! as if
they were the best friends in the world. Mademoiselle Prefere, being
full of decorum, did not say anything; but the other two were chatting
like birds. And what about? About the blond tint used by Venetian
painters! Yes, about the “Venetian blond.” That little serpent of a
Gelis was telling Jeanne the secret of the dye with which, according to
the best authorities, the women of Titian and of Veronese tinted their
hair. And Mademoiselle Jeanne was expressing her opinion very prettily
about the honey tint and the golden tint. I understood that that scamp
of a Vecellio was responsible--that they had been bending over the book
together, and that they had been admiring either that Doge’s wife we had
been looking at awhile before, or some other patrician woman of Venice.
Never mind! I appeared with my enormous old book, thinking that Gelis
was going to make a grimace. It was as much as one could have asked a
porter to carry, and my arms were stiff merely with lifting it. But the
young man caught it up like a feather, and slipped it under his arm
with a smile. Then he thanked me with that sort of brevity which I
like, reminded me that he had need of my advice, and, having made an
appointment to meet me another day, took his departure after bowing to
us with the most perfect self-possession conceivable.
“He seems quite a decent lad,” I said.
Jeanne turned over a few more pages of Vecellio, and made no answer.
“Aha!” I thought to myself.... And then we went to Saint-Cloud.
September-December.
The regularity with which visit succeeded visit to the old man’s house
thereafter made me feel very grateful to Mademoiselle Prefere, who
succeeded at last in winning her right to occupy a special corner in
the City of Books. She now says “MY chair,” “MY footstool,” “MY pigeon
hole.” Her pigeon hole is really a small shelf properly belonging to the
poets of La Champagne, whom she expelled therefrom in order to obtain
a lodging for her work-bag. She is very amiable, and I must really be
a monster not to like her. I can only endure her--in the severest
signification of the word. But what would one not endure for Jeanne’s
sake? Her presence lends to the City of Books a charm which seems to
hover about it even after she has gone. She is very ignorant; but she
is so finely gifted that whenever I show her anything beautiful I am
astounded to find that I had never really seen it before, and that it is
she who makes me see it. I have found it impossible so far to make her
follow some of my ideas, but I have often found pleasure in following
the whimsical and delicate course of her own.
A more practical man than I would attempt to teach her to make herself
useful; but is not the capacity of being amiable a useful think in life?
Without being pretty, she charms; and the power to charm is perhaps,
after all, worth quite as much as the ability to darn stockings.
Furthermore, I am not immortal; and I doubt whether she will have become
very old when my notary (who is not Maitre Mouche) shall read to her a
certain paper which I signed a little while ago.
I do not wish that any one except myself should provide for her, and
give her her dowry. I am not, however, very rich, and the paternal
inheritance did not gain bulk in my hands. One does not accumulate money
by poring over old texts. But my books--at the price which such noble
merchandise fetches to-day--are worth something. Why, on that shelf
there are some poets of the sixteenth century for which bankers would
bid against princes! And I think that those “Heures” of Simon Vostre
would not be readily overlooked at the Hotel Sylvestre any more than
would those Preces Piae compiled for the use of Queen Claude. I have
taken great pains to collect and to preserve all those rare and curious
editions which people the City of Books; and for a long time I used to
believe that they were as necessary to my life as air and light. I have
loved them well, and even now I cannot prevent myself from smiling at
them and caressing them. Those morocco bindings are so delightful to the
eye! These old vellums are so soft to the touch! There is not a single
one among those books which is not worthy, by reason of some special
merit, to command the respect of an honourable man. What other owner
would ever know how to dip into hem in the proper way? Can I be even
sure that another owner would not leave them to decay in neglect, or
mutilate them at the prompting of some ignorant whim? Into whose
hands will fall that incomparable copy of the “Histoire de l’Abbaye de
Saint-Germain-des-Pres,” on the margins of which the author himself, in
the person of Jacques Bouillard, made such substantial notes in his
own handwriting?... Master Bonnard, you are an old fool! Your
housekeeper--poor soul!--is nailed down upon her bed with a merciless
attack of rheumatism. Jeanne is to come with her chaperon, and, instead
of thinking how you are going to receive them, you are thinking about
a thousand stupidities. Sylvestre Bonnard, you will never succeed at
anything in this world, and it is I myself who tell you so!
And at this very moment I catch sight of them from my window, as they
get out of the omnibus. Jeanne leaps down lie a kitten; but Mademoiselle
Prefere intrusts herself to the strong arm of the conductor, with the
shy grace of a Virginia recovering after the shipwreck, and this time
quite resigned to being saved. Jeanne looks up, sees me, laughs, and
Mademoiselle Prefere has to prevent her from waving her umbrella at me
as a friendly signal. There is a certain stage of civilisation to which
Mademoiselle Jeanne never can be brought. You can teach her all the arts
if you like (it is not exactly to Mademoiselle Prefere that I am now
speaking); but you will never be able to teach her perfect manners. As
a charming child she makes the mistake of being charming only in her own
way. Only an old fool like myself could forgive her pranks. As for young
fools--and there are several of them still to be found--I do not know
what they would think about it; and what they might think is none of my
business. Just look at her running along the pavement, wrapped in her
cloak, with her hat tilted back on her head, and her feather fluttering
in the wind, like a schooner in full rig! And really she has a grace
of poise and motion which suggests a fine sailing-vessel--so much
so, indeed, that she makes me remember seeing one day, when I was at
Havre.... But, Bonnard, my friend, how many times is it necessary to
tell you that your housekeeper is in bed, and that you must go and open
the door yourself?
Open, Old Man Winter! ‘tis Spring who rings the bell.
It is Jeanne herself--Jeanne is all flushed like a rose. Mademoiselle
Prefere, indignant and out of breath, has still another whole flight to
climb before reaching our lobby.
I explained the condition of my housekeeper, and proposed that we should
dine at a restaurant. But Therese--all-powerful still, even upon her
sick-bed--decided that we should dine at home, whether we wanted to
or no. Respectable people, in her opinion, never dined at restaurants.
Moreover, she had made all necessary arrangements--the dinner had been
bought; the concierge would cook it.
The audacious Jeanne insisted upon going to see whether the old woman
wanted anything. As you might suppose, she was sent back to the parlour
with short shrift, but not so harshly as I had feared.
“If I want anybody to do anything for me, which, thank God, I do not,”
Therese had replied, “I would get somebody less delicate and dainty than
you are. What I want is rest. That is a merchandise which is not sold
at fairs under the sign of ‘Motus with finger on lip.’ Go and have your
fun, and don’t stay here--for old age might be catching.”
Jeanne, after telling us what she had said, added that she liked very
much to hear old Therese talk. Whereupon Mademoiselle Prefere reproached
her for expressing such unladylike tastes.
I tried to excuse her by citing the example of Moliere. Just at that
moment it came to pass that, while climbing the ladder to get a book,
she upset a whole shelf-row. There was a heavy crash; and Mademoiselle
Prefere, being, of course, a very delicate person, almost fainted.
Jeanne quickly followed the books to the foot of the ladder. She made
one think of a kitten suddenly transformed into a woman, catching mice
which had been transformed into old books. While picking them up, she
found one which happened to interest her, and she began to read it,
squatting down upon her heels. It was the “Prince Grenouille,” she told
us. Mademoiselle Prefere took occasion to complain that Jeanne had so
little taste for poetry. It was impossible to get her to recite Casimir
Delavigne’s poem on the death of Joan of Arc without mistakes. It
was the very most she could do to learn “Le Petit Savoyard.” The
schoolmistress did not think that any one should read the “Prince
Grenouille” before learning by heart the stanzas to Duperrier; and,
carried away by her enthusiasm, she began to recite them in a voice
sweeter than the bleating of a sheep:
“Ta douleur, Duperrier, sera donc eternelle,
Et les tristes discours
Que te met en l’esprit l’amitie paternelle
L’augmenteront toujours;
. . . . . . . . .
“Je sais de quels appas son enfance etait pleine,
Et n’ai pas entrepris,
Injurieux ami, de consoler ta peine
Avecque son mepris.”
Then in ecstacy, she exclaimed,
“How beautiful that is! What harmony! How is it possible for any one
not to admire such exquisite, such touching verses! But why did Malherbe
call that poor Monsieur Duperrier his injurieux ami at a time when
he had been so severely tied by the death of his daughter? Injurieux
ami--you must acknowledge that the term is very harsh.”
I explained to this poetical person that the phrase “Injurieux ami,”
which shocked her so much, was in apposition, etc. etc. What I said,
however, had so little effect towards clearing her head that she was
seized with a severe and prolonged fit of sneezing. Meanwhile it was
evident that the history of “Prince Grenouille” had proved extremely
funny; for it was all that Jeanne could do, as she crouched down
there on the carpet, to keep herself from bursting into a wild fit of
laughter. But when she had finished with the prince and princess of the
story, and the multitude of their children, she assumed a very suppliant
expression, and begged me as a great favour to allow her to put on a
white apron and go to the kitchen to help in getting the dinner ready.
“Jeanne,” I replied, with the gravity of a master, “I think that if
it is a question of breaking plates, knocking off the edges of dishes,
denting all the pans, and smashing all the skimmers, the person whom
Therese has set to work in the kitchen already will be able to perform
her task without assistance; for it seems to me at this very moment I
can hear disastrous noises in that kitchen. But anyhow, Jeanne, I will
charge you with the duty of preparing the dessert. So go and get your
white apron; I will tie it on for you.”
Accordingly, I solemnly knotted the linen apron about her waist; and she
rushed into the kitchen, where she proceeded at once--as we discovered
later on--to prepare various dishes unknown to Vatel, unknown even to
that great Careme who began his treatise upon pieces montees with these
words: “The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry,
Sculpture, and Architecture--whereof the principal branch is
Confectionery.” But I had no reason to be pleased with this little
arrangement--for Mademoiselle Prefere, on finding herself alone with me,
began to act after a fashion which filled me with frightful anxiety. She
gazed upon me with eyes full of tears and flames, and uttered enormous
sighs.
“Oh, how I pity you!” she said. “A man like you--a man so superior
as you are--having to live alone with a coarse servant (for she is
certainly coarse, that is incontestable)! How cruel such a life must
be! You have need of repose--you have need of comfort, of care, of every
kind of attention; you might fall sick. And yet there is no woman
who would not deem it an honour to bear your name, and to share your
existence. No, there is none; my own heart tells me so.”
And she squeezed both hands over that heart of hers--always so ready to
fly away.
I was driven almost to distraction. I tried to make Mademoiselle Prefere
comprehend that I had no intention whatever of changing my habits at so
advanced an age, and that I found just as much happiness in life as my
character and my circumstances rendered possible.
“No, you are not happy!” she cried. “You need to have always beside you
a mind capable of comprehending your own. Shake off your lethargy, and
cast your eyes about you. Your professional connections are of the most
extended character, and you must have charming acquaintances. One cannot
be a Member of the Institute without going into society. See, judge,
compare. No sensible woman would refuse you her hand. I am a woman,
Monsieur; my instinct never deceives me--there is something within me
which assures me that you would find happiness in marriage. Women are so
devoted, so loving (not all, of course, but some)! And, then, they are
so sensitive to glory. Remember that at your age one has need, like
Oedipus, of an Egeria! Your cook is no longer able--she is deaf, she
is infirm. If anything should happen to you at night! Oh! it makes me
shudder even to think of it!”
And she really shuddered--she closed her eyes, clenched her hands,
stamped on the floor. Great was my dismay. With awful intensity she
resumed,
“Your health--your dear health! The health of a Member of the Institute!
How joyfully I would shed the very last drop of my blood to preserve the
life of a scholar, of a litterateur, of a man of worth. And any woman
who would not do as much, I should despise her! Let me tell you,
Monsieur--I used to know the wife of a great mathematician, a man who
used to fill whole note-books with calculations--so many note-books that
they filled all the cupboards in the house. He had heart-disease, and
he was visibly pining away. And I saw that wife of his, sitting there
beside him, perfectly calm! I could not endure it. I said to her one
day, ‘My dear, you have no heart! If I were in your place I should...I
should...I do not know what I should do!’”
She paused for want of breath. My situation was terrible. As for telling
Mademoiselle Prefere what I really thought about her advice--that was
something which I could not even dream of daring to do. For to fall out
with her was to lose the chance of seeing Jeanne. So I resolved to take
the matter quietly. In any case, she was in my house: that consideration
helped me to treat her with something of courtesy.
“I am very old, Mademoiselle,” I answered her, “and I am very much
afraid that your advice comes to me rather late in life. Still, I will
think about it. In the meanwhile let me beg of you to be calm. I think a
glass of eau sucree would do you good!”
To my great surprise, these words calmed her at once; and I saw her
sit down very quietly in HER corner, close to HER pigeon-hole, upon HER
chair, with her feet upon HER footstool.
The dinner was a complete failure. Mademoiselle Prefere, who seemed lost
in a brown study, never noticed the fact. As a rule I am very sensitive
about such misfortunes; but this one caused Jeanne so much delight that
at last I could not help enjoying it myself. Even at my age I had not
been able to learn before that a chicken, raw on one side and burned on
the other, was a funny thing; but Jeanne’s bursts of laughter taught me
that it was. That chicken caused us to say a thousand very witty
things, which I have forgotten; and I was enchanted that it had not been
properly cooked. Jeanne put it back to roast again; then she broiled it;
then she stewed it with butter. And every time it came back to the table
it was much less appetising and much more mirth-provoking than before.
When we did eat it, at last, it had become a thing for which there is no
name in any cuisine.
The almond cake was much more extraordinary. It was brought to the table
in the pan, because it never could have got out of it. I invited Jeanne
to help us all to a piece thinking that I was going to embarrass her;
but she broke the pan and gave each of us a fragment. To think that
anybody at my age could eat such things was an idea possible only to
the very artless mind. Mademoiselle Prefere, suddenly awakened from her
dream, indignantly pushed away the sugary splinter of earthenware,
and deemed it opportune to inform me that she herself was exceedingly
skilful in making confectionery.
“Ah!” exclaimed Jeanne, with an air of surprise not altogether without
malice. Then she wrapped all the fragments of the pan in a piece
of paper, for the purpose of giving them to her little
playmates--especially to the three little Mouton girls, who are
naturally inclined to gluttony.
Secretly, however, I was beginning to feel very uneasy. It did not
now seem in any way possible to keep much longer upon good terms with
Mademoiselle Prefere since her matrimonial fury had this burst forth.
And that lady affronted, good-bye to Jeanne! I took advantage of a
moment while the sweet soul was busy putting on her cloak, in order to
ask Jeanne to tell me exactly what her own age was. She was eighteen
years and one month old. I counted on my fingers, and found she would
not come of age for another two years and eleven months. And how should
we be able to manage during all that time?
At the door Mademoiselle Prefere squeezed my hand with so much meaning
that I fairly shook from head to foot.
“Good-bye,” I said very gravely to the young girl. “But listen to me
a moment: your friend is very old, and might perhaps fail you when you
need him most. Promise me never to fail in your duty to yourself, and
then I shall have no fear. God keep you, my child!”
After closing the door behind them, I opened the window to get a last
look at her as she was going away. But the night was dark, and I could
see only two vague shadows flitting across the quay. I heard the vast
deep hom of the city rising up about me; and I suddenly felt a great
sinking at my heart.
Poor child!
December 15.
The King of Thule kept a goblet of gold which his dying mistress had
bequeathed him as a souvenir. When about to die himself, after having
drunk from it for the last time, he threw the goblet into the sea. And I
keep this diary of memories even as that old prince of the mist-haunted
seas kept his carven goblet; and even as he flung away at last his
love-pledge, so will I burn this book of souvenirs. Assuredly it is not
through any arrogant avarice nor through any egotistical pride, that I
shall destroy this record of a humble life--it is only because I fear
lest those things which are dear and sacred to me might appear
before others, because of my inartistic manner of expression, either
commonplace or absurd.
I do not say this in view of what is going to follow. Absurd I certainly
must have been when, having been invited to dinner by Mademoiselle
Prefere, I took my seat in a bergere (it was really a bergere) at the
right hand of that alarming person. The table had been set in a little
parlour; and I could observe from the poor way in which it was set out
that the schoolmistress was one of those ethereal souls who soar above
terrestrial things. Chipped plates, unmatched glasses, knives with loose
handles, forks with yellow prongs--there was absolutely nothing wanting
to spoil the appetite of an honest man.
I was assured that the dinner had been cooked for me--for me
alone--although Maitre Mouche had also been invited. Mademoiselle
Prefere must have imagined that I had Sarmatian tastes on the subject
of butter; for that which she offered me, served up in little thin pats,
was excessively rancid.
The roast very nearly poisoned me. But I had the pleasure of hearing
Maitre Mouche and Mademoiselle Prefere discourse upon virtue. I said the
pleasure--I ought to have said the shame; for the sentiments to which
they gave expression soared far beyond the range of my vulgar nature.
What they said proved to me as clear as day that devotedness was their
daily bread, and that self-sacrifice was not less necessary to
their existence than air and water. Observing that I was not eating,
Mademoiselle Prefere made a thousand efforts to overcome that which she
was good enough to term my “discretion.” Jeanne was not of the party,
because, I was told, her presence at it would have been contrary to the
rules, and would have wounded the feelings of the other school-children,
among whom it was necessary to maintain a certain equality. I secretly
congratulated her upon having escaped from the Merovingian butter; from
the huge radishes, empty as funeral-urns; form the leathery roast, and
from various other curiosities of diet to which I had exposed myself for
the love of her.
The extremely disconsolate-looking servant served up some liquid to
which they gave the name of cream--I do not know why--and vanished away
like a ghost.
Then Mademoiselle Prefere related to Maitre Mouche, with extraordinary
transports of emotion, all that she had said to me in the City of Books,
during the time that my housekeeper was sick in bed. Her admiration for
a Member of the Institute, her terror lest I should be taken ill while
unattended, and the certainty she felt that any intelligent woman would
be proud and happy to share my existence--she concealed nothing, but,
on the contrary, added many fresh follies to the recital. Maitre Mouche
kept nodding his head in approval while cracking nuts. Then, after all
this verbiage, he demanded, with an agreeable smile, what my answer had
been.
Mademoiselle Prefere, pressing her hand upon her heart and extending the
other towards me, cried out,
“He is so affectionate, so superior, so good, and so great! He
answered... But I could never, because I am only a humble woman--I could
never repeat the words of a Member of the Institute. I can only utter
the substance of them. He answered, ‘Yes, I understand you--yes.’”
And with these words she reached out and seized one of my hands. Then
Maitre Mouche, also overwhelmed with emotion, arose and seized my other
hand.
“Monsieur,” he said, “permit me to offer my congratulations.”
Several times in my life I have known fear; but never before had I
experienced any fright of so nauseating a character. A sickening terror
came upon me.
I disengaged by two hands, and, rising to my feet, so as to give all
possible seriousness to my words, I said,
“Madame, either I explained myself very badly when you were at my house,
or I have totally misunderstood you here in your own. In either case, a
positive declaration is absolutely necessary. Permit me, Madame, to
make it now, very plainly. No--I never did understand you; I am totally
ignorant of the nature of this marriage project that you have been
planning for me--if you really have been planning one. In any event, I
should not think of marrying. It would be unpardonable folly at my age,
and even now, at this moment, I cannot conceive how a sensible person
like you could ever have advised me to marry. Indeed, I am strongly
inclined to believe that I must have been mistaken, and that you never
said anything of the kind before. In the latter case, please excuse an
old man totally unfamiliar with the usages of society, unaccustomed to
the conversation of ladies, and very contrite for his mistake.”
Maitre Mouche went back very softly to his place, where, not finding any
more nuts to crack, he began to whittle a cork.
Mademoiselle Prefere, after staring at me for a few moments with an
expression in her little round dry eyes which I had never seen there
before, suddenly resumed her customary sweetness and graciousness. Then
she cried out in honeyed tones,
“Oh! these learned men!--these studious men! They are like children.
Yes, Monsieur Bonnard, you are a real child!”
Then, turning to the notary, who still sat very quietly in his corner,
with his nose over his cork, she exclaimed, in beseeching tones,
“Oh, do not accuse him! Do not accuse him! Do not think any evil of him,
I beg of you! Do not think it at all! Must I ask you upon my knees?”
Maitre Mouche continued to examine all the various aspects and surfaces
of his cork without making any further manifestation.
I was very indignant; and I know that my cheeks must have been extremely
red, if I could judge by the flush of heat which I felt rise to my
face. This would enable me to explain the words I heard through all the
buzzing in my ears:
“I am frightened about him! our poor friend!... Monsieur Mouche, be kind
enough to open a window! It seems to me that a compress of arnica would
do him some good.”
I rushed out into the street with an unspeakable feeling of shame.
“My poor Jeanne!”
December 20.
I passed eight days without hearing anything further in regard to the
Prefere establishment. Then, feeling myself unable to remain any longer
without some news of Clementine’s daughter, and feeling furthermore that
I owed it as a duty to myself not to cease my visits with the school
without more serious cause, I took my way to Les Ternes.
The parlour seemed to me more cold, more damp, more inhospitable, and
more insidious than ever before; and the servant much more silent and
much more scared. I asked to see Mademoiselle Jeanne; but, after a very
considerable time, it was Mademoiselle Prefere who made her appearance
instead--severe and pale, with lips compressed and a hard look in her
eyes.
“Monsieur,” she said, folding her arms over her pelerine, “I regret very
much that I cannot allow you to see Mademoiselle Alexandre to-day; but I
cannot possibly do it.”
“Why not?” I asked in astonishment.
“Monsieur,” she replied, “the reasons which compel me to request that
your visits shall be less frequent hereafter are of an excessively
delicate nature; and I must beg you to spare me the unpleasantness of
mentioning them.”
“Madame,” I replied, “I have been authorized by Jeanne’s guardian to
see his ward every day. Will you please to inform me of your reasons for
opposing the will of Monsieur Mouche?”
“The guardian of Mademoiselle Alexandre,” she replied (and she dwelt
upon that word “guardian” as upon a solid support), “desires, quite as
strongly as I myself do, that your assiduities may come to an end as
soon as possible.”
“Then, if that be the case,” I said, “be kind enough to let me know his
reasons and your own.”
She looked up at the little spiral of paper on the ceiling, and then
replied, with stern composure,
“You insist upon it? Well, although such explanations are very painful
for a woman to make, I will yield to your exaction. This house, Monsieur
is an honourable house. I have my responsibility. I have to watch like
a mother over each one of my pupils. Your assiduities in regard to
Mademoiselle Alexandre could not possibly be continued without serious
injury to the young girl herself; and it is my duty to insist that they
shall cease.”
“I do not really understand you,” I replied--and I was telling the plain
truth. Then she deliberately resumed:
“Your assiduities in this house are being interpreted, by the most
respectable and the least suspicious persons, in such a manner that I
find myself obliged, both in the interest of my establishment and in the
interest of Mademoiselle Alexandre, to see that they end at once.”
“Madame,” I cried, “I have heard a great many silly things in my life,
but never anything so silly as what you have just said!”
She answered me quietly,
“Your words of abuse will not affect me in the slightest. When one has a
duty to accomplish, one is strong enough to endure all.”
And she pressed her pelerine over her heart once more--not perhaps on
this occasion to restrain, but doubtless only to caress that generous
heart.
“Madame,” I said, shaking my finger at her, “you have wantonly aroused
the indignation of an aged man. Be good enough to act in such a fashion
that the old man may be able at least to forget your existence, and do
not add fresh insults to those which I have already sustained from your
lips. I give you fair warning that I shall never cease to look after
Mademoiselle Alexandre; and that should you attempt to do her any harm,
in any manner whatsoever, you will have serious reason to regret it!”
The more I became excited, the more she became cool; and she answered in
a tone of superb indifference:
“Monsieur, I am much too well informed in regard to the nature of
the interest which you take in this young girl, not to withdraw her
immediately from that very surveillance with which you threaten me.
After observing the more than equivocal intimacy in which you are living
with your housekeeper, I ought to have taken measures at once to render
it impossible for you ever to come into contact with an innocent child.
In the future I shall certainly do it. If up to this time I have been
too trustful, it is for Mademoiselle Alexandre, and not for you, to
reproach me with it. But she is too artless and too pure--thanks to
me!--ever to have suspected the nature of that danger into which you
were trying to lead her. I scarcely suppose that you will place me under
the necessity of enlightening her upon the subject.”
“Come, my poor old Bonnard,” I said to myself, as I shrugged my
shoulders--“so you had to live as long as this in order to learn for the
first time exactly what a wicked woman is. And now your knowledge of the
subject is complete.”
I went out without replying; and I had the pleasure of observing, from
the sudden flush which overspread the face of the schoolmistress, that
my silence had wounded her far more than my words.
As I passed through the court I looked about me in every direction for
Jeanne. She was watching for me, and she ran to me.
“If anybody touches one little hair of your head, Jeanne, write to me!
Good-bye!”
“No, not good-bye.”
I replied,
“Well, no--not good-bye! Write to me!”
I went straight to Madame de Gabry’s residence.
“Madame is at Rome with Monsieur. Did not Monsieur know it?”
“Why, yes,” I replied. “Madame wrote to me.”...
She had indeed written to me in regard to her leaving home; but my head
must have become very much confused, so that I had forgotten all about
it. The servant seemed to be of the same opinion, for he looked at me
in a way that seemed to signify, “Monsieur Bonnard is doting”--and he
leaned down over the balustrade of the stairway to see if I was not
going to do something extraordinary before I got to the bottom. But I
descended the stairs rationally enough; and then he drew back his head
in disappointment.
On returning home I was informed that Monsieur Gelis was waiting for
me in the parlour. (This young man has become a constant visitor. His
judgement is at fault at times; but his mind is not at all commonplace.)
On this occasion, however, his usually welcome visit only embarrassed
me. “Alas!” I thought to myself, “I shall be sure to say something
very stupid to my young friend to-day, and he also will think that my
facilities are becoming impaired. But still I cannot really explain to
him that I had first been demanded in wedlock, and subsequently traduced
as a man wholly devoid of morals--that even Therese had become an object
of suspicion--and that Jeanne remains in the power of the most rascally
woman on the face of the earth. I am certainly in an admirable state
of mind for conversing about Cistercian abbeys with a young and
mischievously minded man. Nevertheless, we shall see--we shall try.”...
But Therese stopped me:
“How red you are, Monsieur!” she exclaimed, in a tone of reproach.
“It must be the spring,” I answered.
She cried out,
“The spring!--in the month of December?”
That is a fact! this is December. Ah! what is the matter with my head?
what a fine help I am going to be to poor Jeanne!
“Therese, take my cane; and put it, if you possibly can, in some place
where I shall be able to find it again.
“Good-day, Monsieur Gelis. How are you?”
Undated.
Next morning the old boy wanted to get up; but the old boy could not
get up. A merciless invisible hand kept him down upon his bed. Finding
himself immovably riveted there, the old boy resigned himself to remain
motionless; but his thoughts kept running in all directions.
He must have had a very violent fever; for Mademoiselle Prefere, the
Abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and the servant of Madame de Gabry
appeared to him in divers fantastic shapes. The figure of the servant
in particular lengthened weirdly over his head, grimacing like some
gargoyle of a cathedral. Then it seemed to me that there were a great
many people, much too many people, in my bedroom.
This bedroom of mine is furnished after the antiquated fashion. The
portrait of my father in full uniform, and the portrait of my mother in
her cashmere dress, are suspended on the wall. The wall-paper is covered
with green foliage designs. I am aware of all this, and I am even
conscious that everything is faded, very much faded. But an old man’s
room does not require to be pretty; it is enough that it should be
clean, and Therese sees to that. At all events my room is sufficiently
decorated to please a mind like mine, which has always remained somewhat
childish and dreamy. There are things hanging on the wall or scattered
over the tables and shelves which usually please my fancy and amuse me.
But to-day it would seem as if all those objects had suddenly conceived
some kind of ill-will against me. They have all become garish,
grimacing, menacing. That statuette, modelled after one of the
Theological Virtues of Notre-Dame de Brou, always so ingenuously
graceful in its natural condition, is now making contortions and putting
out its tongue at me. And that beautiful miniature--in which one of the
most skilful pupils of Jehan Fouquet depicted himself, girdled with the
cord-girdle of the Sons of St. Francis, offering his book, on bended
knee, to the good Duc d’Angouleme--who has taken it out of its frame
and put in its place a great ugly cat’s head, which stares at me with
phosphorescent eyes. And the designs on the wall-paper have also turned
into heads--hideous green heads.... But no--I am sure that wall-paper
must have foliage-designs upon it at this moment just as it had twenty
years ago, and nothing else.... But no, again--I was right before--they
are heads, with eyes, noses, mouths--they are heads!... Ah! now I
understand! they are both heads and foliage-designs at the same time. I
wish I could not see them at all.
And there, on my right, the pretty miniature of the Franciscan has come
back again; but it seems to me as if I can only keep it in its frame by
a tremendous effort of will, and that the moment I get tired the ugly
cat-head will appear in its place. Certainly I am not delirious; I can
see Therese very plainly, standing at the foot of my bed; I can hear her
speaking to me perfectly well, and I should be able to answer her
quite satisfactorily if I were not kept so busy in trying to compel the
various objects about me to maintain their natural aspect.
Here is the doctor coming. I never sent for him, but it gives me
pleasure to see him. He is an old neighbor of mine; I have never been of
much service to him, but I like him very much. Even if I do not say much
to him, I have at least full possession of all my faculties, and I even
find myself extraordinarily crafty and observant to-day, for I note all
his gestures, his every look, the least wrinkling of his face. But the
doctor is very cunning, too, and I cannot really tell what he thinks
about me. The deep thought of Goethe suddenly comes to my mind and I
exclaim,
“Doctor, the old man has consented to allow himself to become sick; but
he does not intend, this time at least, to make any further concessions
to nature.”
Neither the doctor nor Therese laughs at my little joke. I suppose they
cannot have understood it.
The doctor goes away; evening comes; and all sorts of strange shadows
begin to shape themselves about my bed-curtains, forming and dissolving
by turns. And other shadows--ghosts--throng by before me; and through
them I can see distinctively the impassive face of my faithful servant.
And suddenly a cry, a shrill cry, a great cry of distress, rends my
ears. Was it you who called me Jeanne?
The day is over; and the shadows take their places at my bedside to
remain with me all through the long night.
Then morning comes--I feel a peace, a vast peace, wrapping me all about.
Art Thou about to take me into Thy rest, my dear Lord God?
February 186-.
The doctor is quite jovial. It seems that I am doing him a great deal
of credit by being able to get out of bed. If I must believe him,
innumerable disorders must have pounced down upon my poor old body all
at the same time.
These disorders, which are the terror of ordinary mankind, have names
which are the terror of philologists. They are hybrid names, half Greek,
half Latin, with terminations in “itis,” indicating the inflammatory
condition, and in “algia,” indicating pain. The doctor gives me all
their names, together with a corresponding number of adjectives ending
in “ic,” which serve to characterise their detestable qualities. In
short, they represent a good half of that most perfect copy of the
Dictionary of Medicine contained in the too-authentic box of Pandora.
“Doctor, what an excellent common-sense story the story of Pandora
is!--if I were a poet I would put it into French verse. Shake hands,
doctor! You have brought me back to life; I forgive you for it. You
have given me back to my friends; I thank you for it. You say I am quite
strong. That may be, that may be; but I have lasted a very long time.
I am a very old article of furniture; I might be very satisfactorily
compared to my father’s arm-chair. It was an arm-chair which the good
man had inherited, and in which he used to lounge from morning until
evening. Twenty times a day, when I was quite a baby, I used to climb up
and seat myself on one of the arms of that old-fashioned chair. So long
as the chair remained intact, nobody paid any particular attention to
it. But it began to limp on one foot and then folks began to say that it
was a very good chair. Afterwards it became lame in three legs, squeaked
with the fourth leg, and lost nearly half of both arms. Then everybody
would exclaim, ‘What a strong chair!’ They wondered how it was that
after its arms had been worn off and all its legs knocked out of
perpendicular, it could yet preserve the recognisable shape of a chair,
remains nearly erect, and still be of some service. The horse-hair came
out of its body at last, and it gave up the ghost. And when Cyprien,
our servant, sawed up its mutilated members for fire-wood, everybody
redoubled their cries of admiration. Oh! what an excellent--what a
marvellous chair! It was the chair of Pierre Sylvestre Bonnard, the
cloth merchant--of Epimenide Bonnard, his son--of Jean-Baptiste Bonnard,
the Pyrrhonian philosopher and Chief of the Third Maritime Division.
Oh! what a robust and venerable chair!’ In reality it was a dead chair.
Well, doctor, I am that chair. You think I am solid because I have been
able to resist an attack which would have killed many people, and which
only three-fourths killed me. Much obliged! I feel none the less that I
am something which has been irremediably damaged.”
The doctor tries to prove to me, with the help of enormous Greek and
Latin words, that I am really in a very good condition. It would, of
course, be useless to attempt any demonstration of this kind in so lucid
a language as French. However, I allow him to persuade me at last; and I
see him to the door.
“Good! good!” exclaimed Therese; “that is the way to put the doctor out
of the house! Just do the same thing once or twice again, and he will
not come to see you any more--and so much the better?”
“Well, Therese, now that I have become such a hearty man again, do not
refuse to give me my letters. I am sure there must be quite a big bundle
of letters, and it would be very wicked to keep me any longer from
reading them.”
Therese, after some little grumbling, gave me my letters. But what did
it matter?--I looked at all the envelopes, and saw that no one of them
had been addressed by the little hand which I so much wish I could see
here now, turning over the pages of the Vecellio. I pushed the whole
bundle of letters away: they had no more interest for me.
April-June
It was a hotly contested engagement.
“Wait, Monsieur, until I have put on my clean things,” exclaimed
Therese, “and I will go out with you this time also; I will carry your
folding-stool as I have been doing these last few days, and we will go
and sit down somewhere in the sun.”
Therese actually thinks me infirm. I have been sick, it is true, but
there is an end to all things! Madame Malady has taken her departure
quite awhile ago, and it is now more than three months since her pale
and gracious-visaged handmaid, Dame Convalescence, politely bade me
farewell. If I were to listen to my housekeeper, I should become a
veritable Monsieur Argant, and I should wear a nightcap with ribbons for
the rest of my life.... No more of this!--I propose to go out by myself!
Therese will not hear of it. She takes my folding-stool, and wants to
follow me.
“Therese, to-morrow, if you like, we will take our seats on the sunny
side of the wall of La Petite Provence and stay there just as long as
you please. But to-day I have some very important affairs to attend to.”
“So much the better! But your affairs are not the only affairs in this
world.”
I beg; I scold; I make my escape.
It is quite a pleasant day. With the aid of a cab and the help of
almighty God, I trust to be able to fulfil my purpose.
There is the wall on which is painted in great blue letters the words
“Pensionnat de Demoiselles tenu par Mademoiselle Virginie Prefere.”
There is the iron gate which would give free entrance into the
court-yard if it were ever opened. But the lock is rusty, and sheets
of zinc put up behind the bars protect the indiscreet observation
those dear little souls to whom Mademoiselle Prefere doubtless teaches
modesty, sincerity, justice, and disinterestedness. There is a window,
with iron bars before it, and panes daubed over with white paint--the
window of the domestic offices, like a glazed eye--the only aperture
of the building opening upon the exterior world. As for the house-door,
through which I entered so often, but which is now closed against me for
ever, it is just as I saw it the last time, with its little iron-grated
wicket. The single stone step in front of it is deeply worn, and,
without having very good eyes behind my spectacles, I can see the little
white scratches on the stone which have been made by the nails in the
shoes of the girls going in and out. And why cannot I also go in? I
have a feeling that Jeanne must be suffering a great deal in this dismal
house, and that she calls my name in secret. I cannot go away from
the gate! A strange anxiety takes hold of me. I pull the bell. The
scared-looking servant comes to the door, even more scared-looking than
when I saw her the last time. Strict orders have been given; I am not to
be allowed to see Mademoiselle Jeanne. I beg the servant to be so kind
as to tell me how the child is. The servant, after looking to her right
and then to her left, tells me that Mademoiselle Jeanne is well, and
then shuts the door in my face. And I am all alone in the street again.
How many times since then have I wandered in the same way under that
wall, and passed before the little door,--full of shame and despair to
find myself even weaker than that poor child, who has no other help of
friend except myself in the world!
Finally I overcame my repugnance sufficiently to call upon Maitre
Mouche. The first thing I remarked was that his office is much more
dusty and much more mouldy this year that it was last year. The notary
made his appearance after a moment, with his familiar stiff gestures,
and his restless eyes quivering behind his eye-glasses. I made my
complaints to him. He answered me.... But why should I write down, even
in a notebook which I am going to burn, my recollections of a downright
scoundrel? He takes sides with Mademoiselle Prefere, whose intelligent
mind and irreproachable character he has long appreciated. He does
not feel himself in a position to decide the nature of the question at
issue; but he must assure me that appearances have been greatly against
me. That of course makes no difference to me. He adds--(and this does
make some sense to me)--that the small sum which had been placed in
his hands to defray the expenses of the education of his ward has been
expended, and that, in view of the circumstances, he cannot but gently
admire the disinterestedness of Mademoiselle Prefere in consenting to
allow Mademoiselle Jeanne to remain with her.
A magnificent light, the light of a perfect day, floods the sordid place
with its incorruptible torrent, and illuminates teh person of that man!
And outside it pours down its splendour upon all the wretchedness of a
populous quarter.
How sweet it is,--this light with which my eyes have so long been
filled, and which ere long I must for ever cease to enjoy! I wander out
with my hands behind me, dreaming as I go, following the line of the
fortifications; and I find myself after awhile, I know not how, in an
out-of-the-way suburb full of miserable little gardens. By the dusty
roadside I observe a plant whose flower, at once dark and splendid,
seems worthy of association with the noblest and purest mourning for the
dead. It is a columbine. Our fathers called it “Our Lady’s Glove”--le
gant de Notre-Dame. Only such a “Notre-Dame” as might make herself very,
very small, for the sake of appearing to little children, could ever
slip her dainty fingers into the narrow capsue of that flower.
And there is a big bumble-bee who tries to force himself into the
flower, brutally; but his mouth cannot reach the nectar, and the poor
glutton strives and strives in vain. He has to give up the attempt, and
comes out of the flower all smeared over with pollen. He flies off in
his own heavy lumbering way; but there are not many flowers in this
portion of the suburbs, which has been defiled by the soot and smoke
of factories. So he comes back to the columbine again, and this time he
pierces the corolla and sucks the honey through the little hole which
he has made; I should never have thought that a bumble-bee had so much
sense! Why, that is admirable! The more I observe, them, the more do
insects and flowers fill me with astonishment. I am like that good
Rollin who went wild with delight over the flowers of his peach-trees. I
wish I could have a fine garden, and live at the verge of a wood.
August, September.
It occurred to me one Sunday morning to watch for the moment when
Mademoiselle Prefere’s pupils were leaving the school in procession
to attend Mass at the parish church. I watched them passing two by
two,--the little ones first with very serious faces. There were three of
them all dressed exactly alike--dumpy, plump, important-looking little
creatures, whom I recognized at once as the Mouton girls. Their elder
sister is the artist who drew that terrible head of Tatius, King of
the Sabines. Beside the column, the assistant school-teacher, with her
prayer-book in her hand, was gesturing and frowning. Then came the next
oldest class, and finally the big girls, all whispering to each other,
as they went by. But I did not see Jeanne.
I went to police-headquarters and inquired whether they chanced to
have, filed away somewhere or other, any information regarding the
establishment in the Rue Demours. I succeeded in inducing them to send
some female inspectors there. These returned bringing with them the most
favourable reports about the establishment. In their opinion the Prefere
School was a model school. It is evident that if I were to force an
investigation, Mademoiselle Prefere would receive academic honours.
October 3.
This Thursday being a school-holiday I had teh chance of meeting the
three little Mouton girls in the vicinity of the Rue Demours. After
bowing to their mother, I asked the eldest who appears to be about ten
years old, how was her playmate, Mademoiselle Jeanne Alexandre.
The little Mouton girl answered me, all in a breath,
“Jeanne Alexandre is not my playmate. She is only kept in the school for
charity--so they make her sweep the class-rooms. It was Mademoiselle who
said so. And Jeanne Alexandre is a bad girl; so they lock her up in the
dark room--and it serves her right--and I am a good girl--and I am never
locked up in the dark room.”
The three little girls resumed their walk, and Madame Mouton followed
close behind them, looking back over her broad shoulder at me, in a very
suspicious manner.
Alas! I find myself reduced to expedients of a questionable character.
Madame de Gabry will not come back to Paris for at least three months
more, at the very soonest. Without her, I have no tact, I have no common
sense--I am nothing but a cumbersome, clumsy, mischief-making machine.
Nevertheless, I cannot possibly permit them to make Jeanne a
boarding-school servant!
December 28.
The idea that Jeanne was obliged to sweep the rooms had become
absolutely unbearable.
The weather was dark and cold. Night had already begun. I rang the
school-door bell with the tranquillity of a resolute man. The moment
that the timid servant opened the door, I slipped a gold piece into her
hand, and promised her another if she would arrange matters so that I
could see Mademoiselle Alexandre. Her answer was,
“In one hour from now, at the grated window.”
And she slammed the door in my face so rudely that she knocked my
hat into the gutter. I waited for one very long hour in a violent
snow-storm; then I approached the window. Nothing! The wind raged, and
the snow fell heavily. Workmen passing by with their implements on their
shoulders, and their heads bent down to keep the snow from coming in
their faces, rudely jostled me. Still nothing. I began to fear I had
been observed. I knew that I had done wrong in bribing a servant, but
I was not a bit sorry for it. Woe to the man who does not know how to
break through social regulations in case of necessity! Another quarter
of an hour passed. Nothing. At last the window was partly opened.
“Is that you, Monsieur Bonnard?”
“Is that you, Jeanne?--tell me at once what has become of you.”
“I am well--very well.”
“But what else!”
“They have put me in the kitchen, and I have to sweep the school-rooms.”
“In the kitchen! Sweeping--you! Gracious goodness!”
“Yes, because my guardian does not pay for my schooling any longer.”
“Gracious goodness! Your guardian seems to me to be a thorough
scoundrel.”
“Then you know---”
“What?”
“Oh! don’t ask me to tell you that!--but I would rather die than find
myself alone with him again.”
“And why did you not write to me?”
“I was watched.”
At this instant I formed a resolve which nothing in this world could
have induced me to change. I did, indeed, have some idea that I might
be acting contrary to law; but I did not give myself the least concern
about that idea. And, being firmly resolved, I was able to be prudent. I
acted with remarkable coolness.
“Jeanne,” I asked, “tell me! does that room you are in open into the
court-yard?”
“Yes.”
“Can you open the street-door from the inside yourself?”
“Yes,--if there is nobody in the porter’s lodge.”
“Go and see if there is any one there, and be careful that nobody
observes you.”
Then I waited, keeping a watch on the door and window.
In six or seven seconds Jeanne reappeared behind the bars, and said,
“The servant is in the porter’s lodge.”
“Very well,” I said, “have you a pen and ink?”
“No.”
“A pencil?”
“Yes.”
“Pass it out here.”
I took an old newspaper out of my pocket, and--in a wind which blew
almost hard enough to put the street-lamps out, in a downpour of snow
which almost blinded me--I managed to wrap up and address that paper to
Mademoiselle Prefere.
While I was writing I asked Jeanne,
“When the postman passes he puts the papers and letters in the box,
doesn’t he? He rings the bell and goes away? Then the servant opens the
letter-box and takes whatever she finds there to Mademoiselle Prefere
immediately; is not that about the way the thing is managed whenever
anything comes by post?”
Jeanne thought it was.
“Then we shall soon see. Jeanne, go and watch again; and, as soon as the
servant leaves the lodge, open the door and come out here to me.”
Having said this, I put my newspaper in the box, gave the bell a
tremendous pull, and then hid myself in the embrasure of a neighbouring
door.
I might have been there several minutes, when the little door quivered,
then opened, and a young girl’s head made its appearance through the
opening. I took hold of it; I pulled it towards me.
“Come, Jeanne! come!”
She stared at me uneasily. Certainly she must have been afraid that I
had gone mad; but, on the contrary, I was very rational indeed.
“Come, my child! come!”
“Where?”
“To Madame de Gabry’s.”
Then she took my arm. For some time we ran like a couple of thieves.
But running is an exercise ill-suited to one as corpulent as I am,
and, finding myself out of breath at last, I stopped and leaned upon
something which turned out to be the stove of a dealer in roasted
chestnuts, who was doing business at the corner of a wine-seller’s shop,
where a number of cabmen were drinking. One of them asked us if we
did not want a cab. Most assuredly we wanted a cab! The driver, after
setting down his glass on the zinc counter, climbed upon his seat and
urged his horse forward. We were saved.
“Phew!” I panted, wiping my forehead. For, in spite of the cold, I was
perspiring profusely.
What seemed very odd was that Jeanne appeared to be much more conscious
than I was of the enormity which we had committed. She looked very
serious indeed, and was visibly uneasy.
“In the kitchen!” I cried out, with indignation.
She shook her head, as if to say, “Well, there or anywhere else, what
does it matter to me?” And by the light of the street-lamps, I observed
with pain that her face was very thin and her features all pinched. I
did not find in her any of that vivacity, any of those bright impulses,
any of that quickness of expression, which used to please me so much.
Her gaze had become timid, her gestures constrained, her whole attitude
melancholy. I took her hand--a little cold hand, which had become all
hardened and bruised. The poor child must have suffered very much. I
questioned her. She told me very quietly that Mademoiselle Prefere
had summoned her one day, and called her a little monster and a little
viper, for some reason which she had never been able to learn.
She had added, “You shall not see Monsieur Bonnard any more; for he
has been giving you bad advice, and he has conducted himself in a most
shameful manner towards me.” “I then said to her, ‘That, Mademoiselle,
you will never be able to make me believe.’ Then Mademoiselle slapped my
face and sent me back to the school-room. The announcement that I should
never be allowed to see you again made me feel as if night had come down
upon me. Don’t you know those evenings when one feels so sad to see
the darkness come?--well, just imagine such a moment stretched out into
weeks--into whole months! Don’t you remember my little Saint-George? Up
to that time I had worked at it as well as I could--just simply to work
at it--just to amuse myself. But when I lost all hope of ever seeing you
again I took my little wax figure, and I began to work at it in quite
another way. I did not try to model it with wooden matches any more, as
I had been doing, but with hair pins. I even made use of epingles a la
neige. But perhaps you do not know what epingles a la neige are? Well,
I became more particular about than you can possibly imagine. I put a
dragon on Saint-George’s helmet; and I passed hours and hours in making
a head and eyes and tail for the dragon. Oh the eyes! the eyes, above
all! I never stopped working at them till I got them so that they had
red pupils and white eye-lids and eye-brows and everything! I know I am
very silly; I had an idea that I was going to die as soon as my little
Saint-George would be finished. I worked at it during recreation-hours,
and Mademoiselle Prefere used to let me alone. One day I learned that
you were in the parlour with the schoolmistress; I watched for you; we
said ‘Au revoir!’ that day to each other. I was a little consoled by
seeing you. But, some time after that, my guardian came and wanted to
make me go to his house,--but please don’t ask me why, Monsieur. He
answered me, quite gently, that I was a very whimsical little girl. And
then he left me alone. But the next day Mademoiselle Prefere came to me
with such a wicked look on her face that I was really afraid. She had
a letter in her hand. ‘Mademoiselle,’ she said to me, ‘I am informed
by your guardian that he has spent all the money which belonged to
you. Don’t be afraid! I do not intend to abandon you; but, you must
acknowledge yourself, it is only right that you should earn your own
livelihood.’ Then she put me to work house-cleaning; and whenever I made
a mistake she would lock me up in the garet for days together. And that
is what has happened to me since I saw you last. Even if I had been able
to write to you I do not know whether I should have done it, because I
did not think you could possibly take me away from the school; and, as
Maitre Mouche did not come back to see me, there was no hurry. I thought
I could wait for awhile in the garret and the kitchen.
“Jeanne,” I cried, “even if we should have to flee to Oceania, the
abominable Prefere shall never get hold of you again. I will take a
great oath on that! And why should we not go to Oceania? The climate
is very healthy; and I read in a newspaper the other day that they have
pianos there. But, in the meantime, let us go to the house of Madame de
Gabry, who returned to Paris, as luck would have it, some three or four
days ago; for you and I are two innocent fools, and we have great need
of some one to help us.”
Even as I was speaking Jeanne’s features suddenly became pale, and
seemed to shrink into lifelessness; her eyes became all dim; her lips,
half open, contracted with an expression of pain. Then her head sank
sideways on her shoulder;--she had fainted.
I lifter her in my arms, and carried her up Madame de Gabry’s staircase
like a little baby asleep. But I was myself on the point of fainting
from emotional excitement and fatigue together, when she came to herself
again.
“Ah! it is you.” she said: “so much the better!”
Such was our condition when we rang our friend’s door-bell.
Same day.
It was eight o’clock. Madame de Gabry, as might be supposed, was very
much surprised by our unexpected appearance. But she welcomed the old
man and the child with that glad kindness which always expresses itself
in her beautiful gestures. It seems to me,--if I might use the language
of devotion so familiar to her,--it seems to me as though some heavenly
grace streams from her hands when ever she opens them; and even the
perfume which impregnates her robes seems to inspire the sweet calm zeal
of charity and good works. Surprised she certainly was; but she asked us
no question,--and that silence seemed to me admirable.
“Madame,” I said to her, “we have both come to place ourselves under
your protection. And, first of all, we are going to ask you to give us
some super--or to give Jeanne some, at least; for a moment ago, in the
carriage, she fainted from weakness. As for myself, I could not eat a
bite at this late hour without passing a night of agony in consequence.
I hope that Monsieur de Gabry is well.”
“Oh, he is here!” she said.
And she called him immediately.
“Come in here, Paul! Come and see Monsieur Bonnard and Mademoiselle
Alexandre.”
He came. It was a pleasure for me to see his frank broad face, and to
press his strong square hand. Then we went, all four of us, into the
dining-room; and while some cold meat was being cut for Jeanne--which
she never touched notwithstanding--I related our adventure. Paul de
Gabry asked me permission to smoke his pipe, after which he listened to
me in silence. When I had finished my recital he scratched the short,
stiff beard upon his chin, and uttered a tremendous “Sacrebleu!” But,
seeing Jeanne stare at each of us in turn, with a frightened look in her
face, he added:
“We will talk about this matter to-morrow morning. Come into my study
for a moment; I have an old book to show you that I want you to tell me
something about.”
I followed him into his study, where the steel of guns and hunting
knives, suspended against the dark hangings, glimmered in the
lamp-light. There, pulling me down beside him upon a leather-covered
sofa, he exclaimed,
“What have you done? Great God! Do you know what you have done?
Corruption of a minor, abduction, kidnapping! You have got yourself into
a nice mess! You have simply rendered yourself liable to a sentence of
imprisonment of not less than five nor more than ten years.”
“Mercy on us!” I cried; “ten years imprisonment for having saved an
innocent child.”
“That is the law!” answered Monsieur de Gabry. “You see, my dear
Monsieur Bonnard, I happen to know the Code pretty well--not because I
ever studied law as a profession, but because, as mayor of Lusance, I
was obliged to teach myself something about it in order to be able to
give information to my subordinates. Mouche is a rascal; that woman
Prefere is a vile hussy; and you are a...Well! I really cannot find a
word strong enough to signify what you are!”
After opening his bookcase, where dog-collars, riding-whips, stirrups,
spurs, cigar-boxes, and a few books of reference were indiscriminately
stowed away, he took out of it a copy of the Code, and began to turn
over the leaves.
“‘CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS’...’SEQUESTRATION OF PERSONS’--that is
not your case.... ‘ABDUCTION OF MINORS’--here we are....’ARTICLE
354’:--‘Whosever shall, either by fraud or violence, have abducted or
have caused to be abducted any minor or minors, or shall have enticed
them, or turned them away from, or forcibly removed them, or shall have
caused them to be enticed, or turned away from or forcibly removed from
the places in which they have been placed by those to whose authority or
direction they have been submitted or confided, shall be liable to the
penalty of imprisonment. See PENAL CODE, 21 and 28.’ Here is 21:--‘The
term of imprisonment shall not be less than five years.’ 28. ‘The
sentence of imprisonment shall be considered as involving a loss of
civil rights.’ Now all that is very plain, is it not, Monsieur Bonnard?”
“Perfectly plain.”
“Now let us go on: ‘ARTICLE 356’:--‘In case the abductor be under the
age of 21 years at the time of the offense, he shall only be punished
with’...But we certainly cannot invoke this article in your favour.
‘ARTICLE 357:’:--‘In case the abductor shall have married the girl
by him abducted, he can only be prosecuted at the insistence of such
persons as, according to the Civil Code, may have the right to demand
that the marriage shall be declared null; nor can he be condemned until
after the nullity of the marriage shall have been pronounced.’ I do not
know whether it is a part of your plans to marry Mademoiselle Alexandre!
You can see that the code is good-natured about it; it leaves you one
door of escape. But no--I ought not to joke with you, because really you
have put yourself in a very unfortunate position! And how could a man
like you imagine that here in Paris, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, a young girl can be abducted with absolute impunity? We are not
living in the Middle Ages now; and such things are no longer permitted
by law.”
“You need not imagine,” I replied, “that abduction was lawful under the
ancient Code. You will find in Baluze a decree issued by King Cheldebert
at Cologne, either in 593 or 594, on the subject: moreover, everybody
knows that the famous ‘Ordonance de Blois,’ of May 1579, formally
enacted that any persons convicted of having suborned any son or
daughter under the age of twenty-five years, whether under promise of
marriage or otherwise, without the full knowledge, will, or consent of
the father, mother, and guardians, should be punished with death; and
the ordinance adds: ‘Et pareillement seront punis extraordinairement
tous ceux qui auront participe audit rapt, et qui auront prete conseil,
confort, et aide en aucune maniere que ce soit.’ (And in like manner
shall be extraordinarily punished all persons whomsoever, who shall have
participated in the said abduction, and who shall have given thereunto
counsel, succor, or aid in any manner whatsoever.) Those are the exact,
or very nearly the exact, terms of the ordinance. As for that article of
the Code-Napoleon which you have just told me of, and which excepts
from liability to prosecution the abductor who marries the young girl
abducted by him, it reminds me that according to the laws of Bretagne,
forcible abduction, followed by marriage, was not punished. But this
usage, which involved various abuses, was suppressed in 1720--at least I
give you the date within ten years. My memory is not very good now,
and the time is long passed when I could repeat by heart without even
stopping to take breath, fifteen hundred verses of Girart de Rousillon.
“As far as regards the Capitulary of Charlemagne, which fixes the
compensation for abduction, I have not mentioned it because I am sure
that you must remember it. So, my dear Monsieur de Gabry, you see
abduction was considered as decidedly a punishable offense under the
three dynasties of Old France. It is a very great mistake to suppose
that the Middle Ages represent a period of social chaos. You must
remember, on the contrary---”
Monsieur de Gabry here interrupted me:
“So,” he exclaimed, “you know of the Ordonnacne de Blois, you know
Baluze, you know Childebert, you know the Capitularies--and you don’t
know anything about the Code-Napoleon!”
I replied that, as a matter of fact, I never had read the Code; and he
looked very much surprised.
“And now do you understand,” he asked, “the extreme gravity of the
action you have committed?”
I had not indeed been yet able to understand it fully. But little by
little, with the aid of Monsieur Paul’s very sensible explanations, I
reached the conviction at last that I should not be judged in regard to
my motives, which were innocent, but only according to my action, which
was punishable. Thereupon I began to feel very despondent, and to utter
divers lamentations.
“What am I to do?” I cried out, “what am I to do? Am I then
irretrievably ruined?--and have I also ruined the poor child whom I
wanted to save?”
Monsieur de Gabry silently filled his pipe, and lighted it so slowly
that his kind broad face remained for at least three or four minutes
glowing red behind the light, like a blacksmith’s in the gleam of his
forge-fire. Then he said,
“You want to know what to do? Why, don’t do anything, my dear Monsieur
Bonnard! For God’s sake, and for your own sake, don’t do anything at
all! Your situation is bad enough as it is; don’t try to meddle with it
now, unless you want to create new difficulties for yourself. But you
must promise me to sustain me in any action that I may take. I shall go
to see Monsieur Mouche the very first thing to-morrow morning; and if
he turns out to be what I think he is--that is to say, a consummate
rascal--I shall very soon find means of making him harmless, even if the
devil himself should take sides with him. For everything depends on him.
As it is too late this evening to take Mademoiselle Jeanne back to her
boarding-school, my wife will keep the young lady here to-night. This of
course plainly constitues the misdemeanour of complicity; but it saves
the girl from anything like an equivocal position. As for you, my dear
Monsieur, you just go back to the Quai Malaquais as quickly as you can;
and if they come to look for Jeanne there, it will be very easy for you
to prove she is not in your house.”
While we were thus talking, Madame de Gabry was preparing to make her
young lodger comfortable for the night. When she bade me good-bye at the
door, she was carrying a pair of clean sheets, scented with lavender,
thrown over her arm.
“That,” I said, “is a sweet honest smell.”
“Well, of course,” answered Madame de Gabry, “you must remember we are
peasants.”
“Ah!” I answered her, “heaven grant that I also may be able one of these
days to become a peasant! Heaven grant that one of these days I may
be able, as you are at Lusance, to inhale the sweet fresh odour of the
country, and live in some little house all hidden among trees; and if
this wish of mine be too ambitious on the part of an old man whose life
is nearly closed, then I will only wish that my winding-sheet may be as
sweetly scented with lavender as that linen you have on your arm.”
It was agreed that I should come to lunch the following morning. But
I was positively forbidden to show myself at the house before midday.
Jeanne, as she kissed me good-bye, begged me not to take her back to the
school any more. We felt much affected at parting, and very anxious.
I found Therese waiting for me on the landing, in such a condition of
worry about me that it had made her furious. She talked of nothing less
than keeping me under lock and key in the future.
What a night I passed! I never closed my eyes for one single instant.
From time to time I could not help laughing like a boy at the success of
my prank; and then again, an inexpressible feeling of horror would come
upon me at the thought of being dragged before some magistrate, and
having to take my place upon the prisoner’s bench, to answer for the
crime which I had so naturally committed. I was very much afraid; and
nevertheless I felt no remorse or regret whatever. The sun, coming into
my room at last, merrily lighted upon the foot of my bed, and then I
made this prayer:
“My God, Thou who didst make the sky and the dew, as it is said in
‘Tristan,’ judge me in Thine equity, not indeed according unto my acts,
but according only to my motives, which Thou knowest have been upright
and pure; and I will say: Glory to Thee in heaven, and peace on earth to
men of good-will. I give into Thy hands the child I stole away. Do that
for her which I have not known how to do; guard for her from all her
enemies;--and blessed for ever be Thy name!”
December 29.
When I arrived at Madame de Gabry’s, I found Jeanne completely
transfigured.
Had she also, like myself, at the very first light of dawn, called upon
Him who made the sky and the dew? She smiled with such a sweet calm
smile!
Madame de Gabry called her away to arrange her hair for the amiable lady
had insisted upon combing and plaiting, with her own hands, the hair of
the child confided to her care. As I had come a little before the
hour agreed upon, I had interrupted this charming toilet. By way of
punishment I was told to go and wait in the parlour all by myself.
Monsieur de Gabry joined me there in a little while. He had evidently
just come in, for I could see on his forehead the mark left my
the lining of his hat. His frank face wore an expression of joyful
excitement. I thought I had better not ask him any questions; and we all
went to lunch. When the servants had finished waiting at table, Monsieur
Paul, who had been keeping his good story for the dessert, said to us,
“Well! I went to Levallois.”
“Did you see Maitre Mouche?” excitedly inquired Madame de Gabry.
“No,” he replied, curiously watching the expression of disappointment
upon our faces.
After having amused himself with our anxiety for a reasonable time, the
good fellow added:
“Maitre Mouche is no longer at Levallois. Maitre Mouche has gone away
from France. The day after to-morrow will make just eight days since
he decamped, taking with him all the money of his clients--a tolerably
large sum. I found the office closed. A woman who lived close by told
me all about it with an abundance of curses and imprecations. The
notary did not take the 7:55 train all by himself; he took with him the
daughter of the hairdresser of Levallois, a young person quite famous in
that part of the country for her beauty and her accomplishments;--they
say she could shave better than her father. Well, anyhow Mouche has run
away with her; the Commissaire de Police confirmed the fact for me. Now,
really, could it have been possible for Maitre Mouche to have left the
country at a more opportune moment? If he had only deferred his escapade
one week longer, he would have been still the representative of society,
and would have had you dragged off to gaol, Monsieur Bonnard, like a
criminal. At present we have nothing whatever to fear from him. Here is
to the health of Maitre Mouche!” he cried, pouring out a glass of white
wine.
I would like to live a long time if it were only to remember that
delightful morning. We four were all assembled in the big white
dining-room around the waxed oak table. Monsieur Paul’s mirth was’
of the hearty kind,--even perhaps a little riotous; and the good man
quaffed deeply. Madame de Gabry smiled at me, with a smile so sweet, so
perfect, and so noble, that I thought such a woman ought to keep smiles
like that simply as a reward for good actions, and thus make everybody
who knew her do all the good of which they were capable. Then, to reward
us for our pains, Jeanne, who had regained something of her former
vivacity, asked us in less than a quarter of an hour one dozen
questions, to answer which would have required an exhaustive exposition
on the nature of man, the nature of the universe, the science of physics
and of metaphysics, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm--not to speak of the
Ineffable and the Unknowable. Then she drew out of her pocket her little
Saint-George, who had suffered most cruelly during our flight. His legs
and arms were gone; but he still had his gold helmet with the green
dragon on it. Jeanne solemnly pledged herself to make a restoration of
him in honour of Madame de Gabry.
Delightful friends! I left them at last overwhelmed with fatigue and
joy.
On re-entering my lodgings I had to endure the very sharpest
remonstrances from Therese, who said she had given up trying to
understand my new way of living. In her opinion Monsieur had really lost
his mind.
“Yes, Therese, I am a mad old man and you are a mad old woman. That
is certain! May the good God bless us both, Therese, and give us new
strength; for we now have new duties to perform, but let me lie down
upon the sofa; for I really cannot keep myself on my feet any longer.”
January 15, 186-.
“Good-morning, Monsieur,” said Jeanne, letting herself in; while Therese
remained grumbling in the corridor because she had not been able to get
to the door in time.
“Mademoiselle, I beg you will be kind enough to address me very solemnly
by my title, and to say to me, ‘Good-morning, my guardian.’”
“Then it has all been settled? Oh, how nice!” cried the child, clapping
her hands.
“It has all been arranged, Mademoiselle, in the Salle-commune and before
the Justice of the Peace; and from to-day you are under my authority....
What are you laughing about, my ward? I see it in your eyes. You have
some crazy idea in your head this very moment--some more nonsense, eh?”
“Oh, no! Monsieur.... I mean, my guardian. I was looking at your white
hair. It curls out from under the edge of your hat like honeysuckle on a
balcony. It is very handsome, and I like it very much!”
“Be good enough to sit down, my ward, and, if you can possibly help it,
stop saying ridiculous things, because I have some very serious things
to say to you. Listen. I suppose you are not going to insist upon being
sent back to the establishment of Mademoiselle Prefere?... No. Well,
then, what would you say if I should take you here to live with me,
and to finish your education, and keep you here until... what shall I
say?--for ever, as the song has it?”
“Oh, Monsieur!” she cried, flushing crimson with pleasure.
I continued,
“Behind there we have a nice little room, which my housekeeper has
cleaned up and furnished for you. You are going to take the place of the
books which used to be in it; you will succeed them as the day succeeds
night. Go with Therese and look at it, and see if you think you will be
able to live in it. Madame de Gabry and I have made up our minds that
you can sleep there to-night.”
She had already started to run; I called her back for a moment.
“Jeanne, listen to me a moment longer! You have always until now made
yourself a favourite with my housekeeper, who, like all very old people,
is apt to be cross at times. Be gentle and forebearing. Make every
allowance for her. I have thought it my duty to make every allowance for
her myself, and to put up with all her fits of impatience. Now, let me
tell you, Jeanne:--Respect her! And when I say that, I do not forget
that she is my servant and yours; neither will she ever allow herself
to forget it for a moment. But what I want you to respect in her is her
great age and her great heart. She is a humble woman who has lived a
very, very long time in the habit of doing good; and she has become
hardened and stiffened in that habit. Bear patiently with the harsh ways
of that upright soul. If you know how to command, she will know how to
obey. Go now, my child; arrange your room in whatever way may seem to
you best suited for your studies and for your repose.”
Having started Jeanne, with this viaticum, upon her domestic career, I
began to read a Review, which, although conducted by very young men,
is excellent. The tone of it is somewhat unpolished, but the spirit
is zealous. The article I read was certainly far superior, in point of
precision and positiveness, to anything of the sort ever written when I
was a young man. The author of the article, Monsieur Paul Meyer, points
out every error with a remarkably lucid power of incisive criticism.
We used not in my time to criticise with such strict justice. Our
indulgence was vast. It went even so far as to confuse the scholar and
the ignoramus in the same burst of praise. And nevertheless one must
learn how to find fault; and it is even an imperative duty to blame when
the blame is deserved.
I remember little Raymond (that was the name we gave him); he did not
know anything, and his mind was not a mind capable of absorbing any
solid learning; but he was very fond of his mother. We took very good
care never to utter a hint of the ignorance of so perfect a son; and,
thanks, to our forbearance, little Raymond made his way to the highest
positions. He had lost his mother then; but honours of all kinds were
showered upon him. He became omnipotent--to the grievous injury of
his colleagues and of science.... But here comes my young fiend of the
Luxembourg.
“Good-evening, Gelis. You look very happy to-day. What good fortune has
come to you, my dear lad?”
His good fortune is that he has been able to sustain his thesis very
credibly, and that he has taken high rank in his class. He tells me
this with the additional information that my own words, which were
incidentally referred to in the course of the examination, had been
spoken of by the college professors in terms of the most unqualified
praise.
“That is very nice,” I replied; “and it makes me very happy, Gelis, to
find my old reputation thus associated with your own youthful honours.
I was very much interested, you know, in that thesis of yours;--but some
domestic arrangements have been keeping me so busy lately that I quite
forgot this was the day on which you were to sustain it.”
Mademoiselle Jeanne made her appearance very opportunely, as if in order
to suggest to him something about the nature of those very domestic
arrangements. The giddy girl burst into the City of Books like a fresh
breeze, crying at the top of her voice that her room was a perfect
little wonder; then she became very red indeed on seeing Monsieur Gelis
there. But none of us can escape our destiny.
Monsieur Gelis asked her how she was with the tone of a young fellow who
resumes upon a previous acquaintance, and who proposes to put himself
forward as an old friend. Oh, never fear!--she had not forgotten him
at all; that was very evident from the fact that then and there, right
under my nose, they resumed their last year’s conversation on the
subject of the “Venetian blond”! They continued the discussion after
quite an animated fashion. I began to ask myself what right I had to be
in the room at all. The only thing I could do in order to make myself
heard was to cough. As for getting in a word, they never even gave me a
chance. Gelis discoursed enthusiastically, not only about the Venetian
colourists, but also upon all other matters relating to nature or
to mankind. And Jeanne kept answering him, “Yes, Monsieur, you are
right.”.... “That is just what I supposed, Monsieur.”.... “Monsieur,
you express so beautifully just what I feel.”... “I am going to think a
great deal about what you have just told me, Monsieur.”
When I speak, Mademoiselle never answers me in that tone. It is
only with the very tip of her tongue that she will even taste any
intellectual food which I set before her. Usually she will not touch
it at all. But Monsieur Gelis seems to be in her opinion the supreme
authority upon all subjects. It was always, “Oh, yes!”--“Oh, of
course!”--to all his empty chatter. And, then, the eyes of Jeanne! I
had never seen them look so large before; I had never before observed in
them such fixity of expression; but her gaze otherwise remained what it
always is--artless, frank, and brave. Gelis evidently pleased her; she
like Gelis, and her eyes betrayed the fact. They would have published it
to the entire universe! All very fine, Master Bonnard!--you have been so
deeply interested in observing your ward, that you have been forgetting
you are her guardian! You began only this morning to exercise that
function; and you can already see that it involves some very delicate
and difficult duties. Bonnard, you must really try to devise some means
of keeping that young man away from her; you really ought.... Eh! how am
I to know what I am to do?...
I have picked up a book at random from the nearest shelf; I open it, and
I enter respectfully into the middle of a drama of Sophocles. The older
I grow, the more I learn to love the two civilisations of the antique
world; and now I always keep the poets of Italy and of Greece on a shelf
within easy reach of my arm in the City of Books.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle finally condescend to take some notice of me,
now that I seem too busy to take any notice of them. I really think that
Mademoiselle Jeanne has even asked me what I am reading. No, indeed, I
will not tell her what it is. What I am reading, between ourselves,
is the change of that smooth and luminous Chorus which rolls out its
magnificent tunefulness through a scene of passionate violence--the
Chorus of the Old Men of Thebes--‘Erws avixate...’ “Invincible Love,
O thou who descendest upon rich houses,--Thou who dost rest upon the
delicate cheek of the maiden,--Thou who dost traverse all seas,--surely
none among the Immortals can escape Thee, nor indeed any among men who
live but for a little space; and he who is possessed by Thee, there is a
madness upon him.” And when I had re-read that delicious chant, the
face of Antigone appeared before me in all its passionless purity. What
images! Gods and goddesses who hover in the highest heights of Heaven!
The blind old man, the long-wandering beggar-king, led by Antigone, has
now been buried with holy rites; and his daughter, fair as the fairest
dream ever conceived by human soul, resists the will of the tyrant and
gives pious sepulture to her brother. She loves the son of the tyrant,
and that son loves her also. And as she goes on her way to execution,
the victim of her own sweet piety, the old men sing, “Invincible Love,
O Thou who dost descend upon rich houses,--Thou who dost rest upon the
delicate cheek of the maiden.”...
“Mademoiselle Jeanne, are you really very anxious to know what I am
reading? I am reading, Mademoiselle--I am reading that Antigone, having
buried the blind old man, wove a fair tapestry embroidered with images
in the likeness of laughing faces.”
“Ah!” said Gelis, as he burs out laughing “that is not in the text.”
“It is a scholium,” I said.
“Unpublished,” he added, getting up.
I am not an egotist. But I am prudent. I have to bring up this child;
she is much too young to be married now. No! I am not an egotist, but
I must certainly keep her with me for a few years more--keep her alone
with me. She can surely wait until I am dead! Fear not, Antigone, old
Oedipus will find holy burial soon enough.
In the meanwhile, Antigone is helping our housekeeper to scrape the
carrots. She says she like to do it--that it is in her line, being
related to the art of sculpture.
May.
Who would recognise the City of Books now? There are flowers
everywhere--even upon all the articles of furniture. Jeanne was right:
those roses do look very nice in that blue china vase. She goes to
market every day with Therese, under the pretext of helping the old
servant to make her purchases, but she never brings anything back with
her except flowers. Flowers are really very charming creatures. And one
of these days, I must certainly carry out my plan, and devote myself to
the study of them, in their own natural domain, in the country--with all
the science and earnestness which I possess.
For what have I to do here? Why should I burn my eyes out over these old
parchments which cannot now tell me anything worth knowing? I used to
study them, these old texts, with the most ardent enjoyment. What was
it which I was then so anxious to find in them? The date of a pious
foundation--the name of some monkish imagier or copyist--the price of
a loaf, of an ox, or of a field--some judicial or administrative
enactment--all that, and yet something more, a Something vaguely
mysterious and sublime which excited my enthusiasm. But for sixty years
I have been searching in vain for that Something. Better men than I--the
masters, the truly great, the Fauriels, the Thierrys, who found so many
things--died at their task without having been able, any more than I
have been, to find that Something which, being incorporeal, has no name,
and without which, nevertheless, no great mental work would ever be
undertaken in this world. And now that I am only looking for what I
should certainly be able to find, I cannot find anything at all; and
it is probable that I shall never be able to finish the history of the
Abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres.
“Guardian, just guess what I have in my handkerchief.”
“Judging from appearances, Jeanne, I should say flowers.”
“Oh, no--not flowers. Look!”
I look, and I see a little grey head poking itself out of the
handkerchief. It is the head of a little grey cat. The handkerchief
opens; the animal leaps down upon the carpet, shakes itself, pricks up
first one ear and then the other, and begins to examine with due caution
the locality and the inhabitants thereof.
Therese, out of breath, with her basket on her arm, suddenly makes her
appearance in time to take an objective part in this examination, which
does not appear to result altogether in her favour; for the young cat
moves slowly away from her, without, however, venturing near my legs, or
approaching Jeanne, who displays extraordinary volubility in the use of
caressing appellations. Therese, whose chief fault is her inability
to hide her feelings, thereupon vehemently reproaches Mademoiselle for
bringing home a cat that she did not know anything about. Jeanne, in
order to justify herself, tells the whole story. While she was passing
with Therese before a chemist’s shop, she saw the assistant kick a
little cat into the street. The cat, astonished and frightened, seemed
to be asking itself whether to remain in the street where it was being
terrified and knocked about by the people passing by, or whether to go
back into the chemist’s even at the risk of being kicked out a second
time. Jeanne thought it was in a very critical position, and understood
its hesitation. It looked so stupid; and she knew it looked stupid only
because it could not decide what to do. So she took it up in her arms.
And as it had not been able to obtain any rest either indoors out
out-of-doors, it allowed her to hold it. Then she stroked and petted it
to keep it from being afraid, and boldly went to the chemist’s assistant
and said,
“If you don’t like that animal, you mustn’t beat it; you must give it to
me.”
“Take it,” said the assistant.
... “Now there!” adds Jeanne, by way of conclusion; and then she changes
her voice again to a flute-tone in order to say all kinds of sweet
things to the cat.
“He is horribly thin,” I observe, looking at the wretched
animal;--“moreover, he is horribly ugly.” Jeanne thinks he is not ugly
at all, but she acknowledges that he looks even more stupid than he
looked at first: this time she thinks it not indecision, but surprise,
which gives that unfortunate aspect to his countenance. She asks us to
imagine ourselves in his place;--then we are obliged to acknowledge that
he cannot possibly understand what has happened to him. And then we all
burst out laughing in the face of the poor little beast, which maintains
the most comical look of gravity. Jeanne wants to take him up; but he
hides himself under the table, and cannot even be tempted to come out by
the lure of a saucer of milk.
We all turn our backs and promise not to look; when we inspect the
saucer again, we find it empty.
“Jeanne,” I observe, “your protege has a decidedly tristful aspect of
countenance; he is of sly and suspicious disposition; I trust he is not
going to commit in the City of Books any such misdemeanours as might
render it necessary for us to send him back to his chemist’s shop. In
the meantime we must give him a name. Suppose we call him ‘Don Gris
de Gouttiere’; but perhaps that is too long. ‘Pill,’ ‘Drug,’ or
‘Castor-oil’ would be short enough, and would further serve to recall
his early condition in life. What do you think about it?
“‘Pill’ would not sound bad,” answers Jeanne, “but it would be very
unkind to give him a name which would be always reminding him of the
misery from which we saved him. It would be making him pay too dearly
for our hospitality. Let us be more generous, and give him a pretty
name, in hopes that he is going to deserve it. See how he looks at us!
He knows that we are talking about him. And now that he is no longer
unhappy, he is beginning to look a great deal less stupid. I am not
joking! Unhappiness does make people look stupid,--I am perfectly sure
it does.”
“Well, Jeanne, if you like, we will call your protege Hannibal. The
appropriateness of that name does not seem to strike you at once. But
the Angora cat who preceded him here as an intimate of the City of
Books, and to whom I was in the habit of telling all my secrets--for he
was a very wise and discreet person--used to be called Hamilcar. It is
natural that this name should beget the other, and that Hannibal should
succeed Hamilcar.”
We all agreed upon this point.
“Hannibal!” cried Jeanne, “come here!”
Hannibal, greatly frightened by the strange sonority of his own name,
ran to hid himself under a bookcase in an orifice so small that a rat
could not have squeezed himself into it.
A nice way of doing credit to so great a name!
I was in a good humour for working that day, and I had just dipped the
nib of my pen into the ink-bottle when I heard some one ring. Should any
one ever read these pages written by an unimaginative old man, he
will be sure to laugh at the way that bell keeps ringing through my
narrative, without ever announcing the arrival of a new personage or
introducing any unexpected incident. On the stage things are managed
on the reverse principle. Monsieur Scribe never has the curtain raised
without good reason, and for the greater enjoyment of ladies and young
misses. That is art! I would rather hang myself than write a play,--not
that I despise life, but because I should never be able to invent
anything amusing. Invent! In order to do that one must have received
the gift of inspiration. It would be a very unfortunate thing for me
to possess such a gift. Suppose I were to invent some monkling in my
history of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres! What would our young
erudites say? What a scandal for the School! As for the Institute, it
would say nothing and probably not even think about the matter either.
Even if my colleagues still write a little sometimes, they never read.
They are of the opinion of Parny, who said,
“Une paisible indifference
Est la plus sage des vertus.”
[“The most wise of the virtues is a calm indifference.”]
To be the least wise in order to become the most wise--this is precisely
what those Buddhists are aiming at without knowing it. If there is any
wiser wisdom than that I will go to Rome to report upon it.... And all
this because Monsieur Gelis happened to ring the bell!
This young man has latterly changed his manner completely with Jeanne.
He is now quite as serious as he used to be frivolous, and quite as
silent as he used to be chatty. And Jeanne follows his example. We have
reached the phase of passionate love under constraint. For, old as I
am, I cannot be deceived about it: these two children are violently
and sincerely in love with each other. Jeanne now avoids him--she hides
herself in her room when he comes into the library--but how well she
knows how to reach him when she is alone! alone at her piano! Every
evening she talks to him through the music she plays with a rich thrill
of passional feeling which is the new utterance of her new soul.
Well, why should I not confess it? Why should I not avow my weakness?
Surely my egotism would not become any less blameworthy by keeping it
hidden from myself? So I will write it. Yes! I was hoping for something
else;--yes! I thought I was going to keep her all to myself, as my own
child, as my own daughter--not always, of course, not even perhaps for
very long, but just for a few short years more. I am so old! Could she
not wait? And, who knows? With the help of the gout, I would not have
imposed upon her patience too much. That was my wish; that was my hope.
I had made my plans--I had not reckoned upon the coming of this wild
young man. But the mistake is none the less cruel because my reckoning
happened to be wrong. And yet it seems to me that you are condemning
yourself very rashly, friend Sylvestre Bonnard: if you did want to keep
this young girl a few years longer, it was quite as much in her own
interest as in yours. She has a great deal to learn yet, and you are
not a master to be despised. When that miserable notary Mouche--who
subsequently committed his rascalities at so opportune a moment--paid
you the honour of a visit, you explained to him your ideas of education
with all the fervour of high enthusiasm. Then you attempted to put that
system of yours into practice;--Jeanne is certainly an ungrateful girl,
and Gelis a much too seductive young man!
But still,--unless I put him out of the house, which would be a
detestably ill-mannered and ill-natured thing to do,--I must continue to
receive him. He has been waiting ever so long in my little parlour, in
front of those Sevres vases with which King Louis Philippe so graciously
presented me. The Moissonneurs and the Pecheurs of Leopold Robert are
painted upon those porcelain vases, which Gelis nevertheless dares to
call frightfully ugly, with the warm approval of Jeanne, whom he has
absolutely bewitched.
“My dear lad, excuse me for having kept you waiting so long. I had a
little bit of work to finish.”
I am telling the truth. Meditation is work, but of course Gelis does not
know what I mean; he thinks I am referring to something archaeological,
and, his question in regard to the health of Mademoiselle Jeanne having
been answered by a “Very well indeed,” uttered in that extremely dry
tone which reveals my moral authority as guardian, we begin to
converse about historical subjects. We first enter upon generalities.
Generalities are sometimes extremely serviceable. I try to inculcate
into Monsieur Gelis some respect for that generation of historians to
which I belong. I say to him,
“History, which was formerly an art, and which afforded place for the
fullest exercise of the imagination, has in our time become a science,
the study of which demands absolute exactness of knowledge.”
Gelis asks leave to differ from me on this subject. He tells me he does
not believe that history is a science, or that it could possibly ever
become a science.
“In the first place,” he says to me, “what is history? The written
representation of past events. But what is an event? Is it merely
a commonplace fact? It is any fact? No! You say yourself it is a
noteworthy fact. Now, how is the historian to tell whether a fact is
noteworthy or not? He judges it arbitrarily, according to his tastes and
his caprices and his ideas--in short, as an artist? For facts cannot by
reason of their own intrinsic character be divided into historical facts
and non-historical facts. But any fact is something exceedingly complex.
Will the historian represent facts in all their complexity? No, that is
impossible. Then he will represent them stripped of the greater part
of the peculiarities which constituted them, and consequently
lopped, mutilated, different from what they really were. As for the
inter-relation of facts, needless to speak of it! If a so-called
historical fact be brought into notice--as is very possible--by one or
more facts which are not historical at all, and are for that very reason
unknown, how is the historian going to establish the relation of
these facts one to another? And in saying this, Monsieur Bonnard, I am
supposing that the historian has positive evidence before him, whereas
in reality he feels confidence only in such or such a witness for
sympathetic reasons. History is not a science; it is an art, and one
can succeed in that art only through the exercise of his faculty of
imagination.”
Monsieur Gelis reminds me very much at this moment of a certain
young fool whom I heard talking wildly one day in the garden of the
Luxembourg, under the statue of Marguerite of Navarre. But at another
turn of the conversation we find ourselves face to face with Walter
Scott, whose work my disdainful young friend pleases to term “rococo,
troubadourish, and only fit to inspire somebody engaged in making
designs for cheap bronze clocks.” Those are his very words!
“Why!” I exclaim, zealous to defend the magnificent creator of ‘The
Bride of Lammermoor’ and ‘The Fair Maid of Perth,’ “the whole past lives
in those admirable novels of his;--that is history, that is epic!”
“It is frippery,” Gelis answers me.
And,--will you believe it?--this crazy boy actually tells me that no
matter how learned one may be, one cannot possibly know just how men
used to live five or ten centuries ago, because it is only with the very
greatest difficulty that one can picture them to oneself even as they
were only ten or fifteen years ago. In his opinion, the historical poem,
the historical novel, the historical painting, are all, according to
their kind, abominably false as branches of art.
“In all the arts,” he adds, “the artist can only reflect his own
soul. His work, no matter how it may be dressed up, is of necessity
contemporary with himself, being the reflection of his own mind. What do
we admire in the ‘Divine Comedy’ unless it be the great soul of Dante?
And the marbles of Michael Angelo, what do they represent to us that
is at all extraordinary unless it be Michael Angelo himself? The artist
either communicates his own life to his creations, or else merely
whittles out puppets and dresses up dolls.”
What a torrent of paradoxes and irreverences! But boldness in a young
man is not displeasing to me. Gelis gets up from his chair and sits
down again. I know perfectly well what is worrying him, and whom he is
waiting for. And now he begins to talk to me about his being able to
make fifteen hundred francs a year, to which he can add the revenue
he derives from a little property that he has inherited--two thousand
francs a year more. And I am not in the least deceived as to the purpose
of these confidences on his part. I know perfectly well that he is only
making his little financial statements in order to persuade me that
he is comfortably circumstanced, steady, fond of home, comparatively
independent--or, to put the matter in the fewest words possible, able to
marry. Quod erat demonstrandum,--as the geometricians say.
He has got up and sat down just twenty times. He now rises for the
twenty-first time; and, as he has not been able to see Jeanne, he goes
away feeling as unhappy as possible.
The moment he has gone, Jeanne comes into the City of Books, under the
pretext of looking for Hannibal. She is also quite unhappy; and her
voice becomes singularly plaintive as she calls her pet to give him some
milk. Look at that sad little face, Bonnard! Tyrant, gaze upon thy work!
Thou hast been able to keep them from seeing each other; but they have
now both of them the same expression of countenance, and thou mayest
discern from that similarity of expression that in spite of thee they
are united in thought. Cassandra, be happy! Bartholo, rejoice! This is
what it means to be a guardian! Just see her kneeling down there on the
carpet with Hannibal’s head between her hands!
Yes, caress the stupid animal!--pity him!--moan over him!--we know very
well, you little rogue, the real cause of all these sighs and plaints!
Nevertheless, it makes a very pretty picture. I look at it for a long
time; then, throwing a glance around my library, I exclaim,
“Jeanne, I am tired of all those books; we must sell them.”
September 20.
It is done!--they are betrothed. Gelis, who is an orphan, as Jeanne is,
did not make his proposal to me in person. He got one of his professors,
an old colleague of mine, highly esteemed for his learning and
character, to come to me on his behalf. But what a love messenger! Great
Heavens! A bear--neat a bear of the Pyrenees, but a literary bear, and
this latter variety of bear is much more ferocious than the former.
“Right or wrong (in my opinion wrong) Gelis says that he does not want
any dowry; he takes your ward with nothing but her chemise. Say yes,
and the thing is settled! Make haste about it! I want to show you two
or three very curious old tokens from Lorraine which I am sure you never
saw before.”
That is literally what he said to me. I answered him that I would
consult Jeanne, and I found no small pleasure in telling him that my
ward had a dowry.
Her dowry--there it is in front of me! It is my library. Henri and
Jeanne have not even the faintest suspicion about it; and the fact is I
am commonly believed to be much richer than I am. I have the face of
an old miser. It is certainly a lying face; but its untruthfulness has
often won for me a great deal of consideration. There is nobody so much
respected in this world as a stingy rich man.
I have consulted Jeanne,--but what was the need of listening for her
answer? It is done! They are betrothed.
It would ill become my character as well as my face to watch these young
people any longer for the mere purpose of noting down their words and
gestures. Noli me tangere:--that is the maxim for all charming love
affairs. I know my duty. It is to respect all the little secrets of that
innocent soul intrusted to me. Let these children love each other
all they can! Never a word of their fervent outpouring of mutual
confidences, never a hint of their artless self-betrayals, will be set
down in this diary by the old guardian whose authority was so gentle and
so brief.
At all events, I am not going to remain with my arms folded; and if they
have their business to attend to, I have mine also. I am preparing a
catalogue of my books, with a view to having them all sold at auction.
It is a task which saddens and amuses me at the same time. I linger over
it, perhaps a good deal longer than I ought to do; turning the leaves
of all those works which have become so familiar to my thought, to my
touch, to my sight--even out of all necessity and reason. But it is
a farewell; and it has ever been in the nature of man to prolong a
farewell.
This ponderous volume here, which has served me so much for thirty long
years, how can I leave it without according it every kindness that
a faithful servant deserves? And this one again, which has so often
consoled me by its wholesome doctrines, must I not bow down before it
for the last time, as to a Master? But each time that I meet with a
volume which led me into error, which ever afflicted me with false
dates, omissions, lies, and other plagues of the archaeologist, I say to
it with bitter joy: “Go! imposter, traitor, false-witness! flee thou far
away from me for ever;--vade retro! all absurdly covered with gold
as thou art! and I pray it may befall thee--thanks to thy usurped
reputation and thy comely morocco attire--to take thy place in the
cabinet of some banker-bibliomaniac, whom thou wilt never be able to
seduce as thou has seduced me, because he will never read one single
line of thee.”
I laid aside some books I must always keep--those books which were given
to me as souvenirs. As I placed among them the manuscript of the
“Golden Legend,” I could not but kiss it in memory of Madame Trepof,
who remained grateful to me in spite of her high position and all her
wealth, and who became my benefactress merely to prove to me that she
felt I had once done her a kindness.... Thus I had made a reserve. It
was then that, for the first time, I felt myself inclined to commit
a deliberate crime. All through that night I was strongly tempted; by
morning the temptation had become irresistible. Everybody else in the
house was still asleep. I got out of bed and stole softly from my room.
Ye powers of darkness! ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering
within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about
on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame
Trepof did at Naples, “That old man has a good-natured round back!” I
entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly erected,
came to rub himself against my legs and purr. I seized a volume from
its shelf, some venerable Gothic text or some noble poet of the
Renaissance--the jewel, the treasure which I had been dreaming about
all night, I seized it and slipped it away into the very bottom of the
closet which I had reserved for those books I intended to retain, and
which soon became full almost to bursting. It is horrible to relate:
I was stealing from the dowry of Jeanne! And when the crime had been
consummated I set myself again sturdily to the task of cataloguing,
until Jeanne came to consult me in regard to something about a dress or
a trousseau. I could not possibly understand just what she was
talking about, through my total ignorance of the current vocabulary of
dress-making and linen-drapery. Ah! if a bride of the fourteenth century
had come to talk to me about the apparel of her epoch, then, indeed, I
should have been able to understand her language! But Jeanne does not
belong to my time, and I have to send her to Madame de Gabry, who on
this important occasion will take the place of her mother.
... Night has come! Leaning from the window, we gaze at the vast sombre
stretch of the city below us, pierced with multitudinous points of
light. Jeanne presses her hand to her forehead as she leans upon the
window-bar, and seems a little sad. And I say to myself as I watch her:
All changes even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we
leave behind us is a part of ourselves: we must die to one life before
we can enter into another!
And as if answering my thought, the young girl murmurs to me,
“My guardian, I am so happy; and still I feel as if I wanted to cry!”
The Last Page
August 21, 1869.
Page eighty-seven.... Only twenty lines more and I shall have finished
my book about insects and flowers. Page eighty-seventh and last.... “As
we have already seen, the visits of insects are of the utmost importance
to plants; since their duty is to carry to the pistils the pollen of
the stamens. It seems also that the flower itself is arranged and made
attractive for the purpose of inviting this nuptial visit. I think I
have been able to show that the nectary of the plant distils a sugary
liquid which attracts the insects and obliges it to aid unconsciously
in the work of direct or cross fertilisation. The last method of
fertilisation is the more common. I have shown that flowers are coloured
and perfumed so as to attract insects, and interiorly so constructed as
to offer those visitors such a mode of access that they cannot penetrate
into the corolla without depositing upon the stigma the pollen with
which they have been covered. My most venerated master Sprengel
observes in regard to that fine down which lines the corolla of the
wood-geranium: ‘The wise Author of Nature has never created a single
useless hair!’ I say in my turn: If that Lily of the Valley whereof the
Gospel makes mention is more richly clad than King Solomon in all his
glory, its mantle of purple is a wedding-garment, and that rich apparel
is necessary to the perpetuation of the species.”
“Brolles, August 21, 1869.”
[Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard was not aware that several very illustrious
naturalists were making researches at the same time as he in regard to
the relation between insects and plants. He was not acquainted with
the labours of Darwin, with those of Dr. Hermann Muller, nor with
the observations of Sir John Lubbock. It is worthy of note that the
conclusions of Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard are very nearly similar to
those reached by the three scientists above mentioned. Less important,
but perhaps equally interesting, is the fact that Sir John Lubbock is,
like Monsieur Bonnard, an archaeologist who began to devote himself only
late in life to the natural sciences.--Note by the French Editor.]
Brolles! My house is the last one you pass in the single street of the
village, as you go to the woods. It is a gabled house with a slate roof,
which takes iridescent tints in the sun like a pigeon’s breast. The
weather-vane above that roof has won more consideration for me among the
country people than all my works upon history and philology. There is
not a single child who does not know Monsieur Bonnard’s weather-vane. It
is rusty, and squeaks very sharply in the wind. Sometimes it refuses
to do any work at all--just like Therese, who now allows herself to be
assisted by a young peasant girl--though she grumbles a good deal about
it. The house is not large, but I am very comfortable in it. My room
has two windows, and gets the sun in the morning. The children’s room is
upstairs. Jeanne and Henri come twice a year to occupy it.
Little Sylvestre’s cradle used to be in it. He was a very pretty child,
but very pale. When he used to play on the grass, his mother would watch
him very anxiously; and every little while she would stop her sewing in
order to take him upon her lap. The poor little fellow never wanted to
go to sleep. He used to say that when he was asleep he would go away,
very far away, to some place where it was all dark, and where he saw
things that made him afraid--things he never wanted to see again.
Then his mother would call me, and I would sit down beside his cradle.
He would take one of my fingers in his little dry warm hand, and say to
me,
“Godfather, you must tell me a story.”
Then I would tell him all kinds of stories, which he would listen to
very seriously. They all interested him, but there was one especially
which filled his little soul with delight. It was “The Blue Bird.”
Whenever I finished that, he would say to me, “Tell it again! tell it
again!” And I would tell it again until his little pale blue-veined head
sank back upon the pillow in slumber.
The doctor used to answer all our questions by saying,
“There is nothing extraordinary the matter with him!”
No! There was nothing extraordinary the matter with little Sylvestre.
One evening last year his father called me.
“Come,” he said, “the little one is still worse.”
I approached the cradle over which the mother hung motionless, as if
tied down above it by all the powers of her soul.
Little Sylvestre turned his eyes towards me; their pupils had already
rolled up beneath his eyelids, and could not descend again.
“Godfather,” he said, “you are not to tell me any more stories.”
No, I was not to tell him any more stories!
Poor Jeanne!--poor mother!
I am too old now to feel very deeply; but how strangely painful a
mystery is the death of a child!
To-day, the father and mother have come to pass six weeks under the old
man’s roof. I see them now returning from the woods, walking arm-in-arm.
Jeanne is closely wrapped in her black shawl, and Henri wears a crape
band on his straw hat; but they are both of them radiant with youth,
and they smile very sweetly at each other. They smile at the earth which
sustains them; they smile at the air which bathes them; they smile at
the light which each one sees in the eyes of the other. From my window I
wave my handkerchief at them,--and they smile at my old age.
Jeanne comes running lightly up the stairs; she kisses me, and then
whispers in my ear something which I divine rather than hear. And I make
answer to her: “May God’s blessing be with you, Jeanne, and with your
husband, and with your children, and with your children’s children for
ever!”... Et nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine!
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, by Anatole France