CHAPTER XIX

Our last Dinner at M. d’Asterac’s Table--Conversation of M. Jerome

Coignard and M. d’Asterac--A Message from Home--Catherine in the

Spittel--We are wanted for Murder--Our Flight--Jahel causes me much

Misery--Account of the Journey--The Abbe Coignard on Towns--Jahel’s

Midnight Visit--We are followed--The Accident--M. Jerome Coignard is

stabbed.

I took my accustomed place that day at the dining-table of the cabalist,

oppressed by the idea that I sat down at it for the last time. Jahel’s

treachery had saddened my soul. Alas! thought I, my most fervent wish

had been to fly with her, a wish which looked like being granted, and

was now fulfilled in a very cruel manner. Again and again I admired my

beloved tutor’s wisdom who, on a day when I desired too vivaciously

the success of some affair, answered with the following citation: _“Et

tributt eis petitionem eorum.”_ My sorrows and anxieties spoilt my

appetite, and I partook sparingly of the dishes served. However, my dear

tutor had preserved the unalterable gracefulness of his soul.

He abounded in amiable discourse, and one might have said that he was

one of those sages which Telemachus shows us conversing in the shades of

the Elysian Fields, and not a man pursued as a murderer and reduced to a

roving and miserable life. M. d’Asterac, believing that I had passed

the night at the cookshop, kindly inquired after my parents, and, as he

could not abstract himself for a single moment from his visions, said:

“When I speak of that cook as being your father it is quite understood

that I express myself in a worldly sense, and not according to nature.

Nothing proves, my son, that you have not been begot by a Sylph. It

is the very thing I prefer to believe, in so far as your spirit, still

delicate, shall grow in strength and beauty.”

“Oh, sir! don’t speak like that,” replied my tutor, and smiled. “You

oblige him to hide his spirit so as not to damage his mother’s good

name. But if you knew her better you could not but think with me that

she never had any intercourse with a Sylph; she is a good Christian who

has never accomplished the work of the flesh with any other man than her

husband, and who carries her virtue written distinctly on her features,

very different from the mistress of that other cookshop, Madame Quonion,

about whom they talked so much in Paris, as well as in the provinces, in

the days of my youth. Have you never heard of her, sir? Her lover was M.

Mariette, who later on became secretary to M. d’Angervilliers. He was a

stout man, who left a jewel every time he visited his beloved; one day a

Cross of Lorraine or a Holy Ghost; another day a watch or a chatelaine,

or perhaps a handkerchief, a fan, a box. For her sake he rifled the

jewellers and seamstresses of the fair of St Germain. He gave her so

much that, finding his shop decorated like a shrine, the master-cook

became suspicious that all that wealth could not have been honestly

acquired. He watched her, and very soon surprised her with her lover. It

must be said that the husband was but a jealous fellow. He flew into

a temper, and gained nothing by it, but very much the reverse. For the

amorous couple, plagued by his wrangling, swore to get rid of him. M.

Mariette had no little influence. He got a _lettre de cachet_ in the

name of that unhappy Quonion. On a certain day the perfidious woman said

to her husband:

“Take me, I beg of you, on Sunday next out to dinner somewhere in the

country. I promise myself uncommon pleasure from such an excursion.”

She became caressing and pressing, and the husband, flattered, agreed

to all her demands. On the Sunday, he got with her into a paltry hackney

coach to go to Porcherons. But they had hardly got to Roule when a posse

of constables placed in readiness by Marietta arrested him, and took him

to Bicetre, from whence he was sent to the Mississippi, where he still

remains. Someone composed a song which finished thus:

‘Un mari sage et commode

N’ouvre les yeux qu’a demi

Il vaut mieux etre a la mode,

Que de voir Mississippi.’

And such is, doubtless, the most solid lesson to be derived from the

example given by Quonion the cook.

“As to the story itself, it only needs to be narrated by a Petronius

or by an Apuleius to equal the best Milesian fables. The moderns are

inferior to the ancients in epic poetry and tragedy. But if we do not

surpass the Greeks and Latins in story-telling it is net the fault of

the ladies of Paris, who never cease enriching the material for tales

by their ingenious and graceful inventions. You certainly know, sir, the

stories of Boccaccio. I am sure that had that Florentine lived in

our days in France he would make of Quonion’s misfortune one of his

pleasantest tales. As far as I am myself concerned I have been reminded

of it at this table for the sole purpose, and by the effect of contrast,

to make the virtue of Madame Leonard Tournebroche shine. She is the

honour of cookshops, of which Madame Quonion is the disgrace. Madame

Tournebroche, I dare affirm it, has never abandoned those ordinary

commonplace virtues the practice of which is recommended in marriage,

which is the only contemptible one of the seven sacraments.”

“I do not deny it,” said M. d’Asterac. “But Mistress Tournebroche would

be still more estimable if she should have had intercourse with a

Sylph, as Semiramis had and Olympias and the mother of that grand pope

Sylvester II.”

“Ah, sir,” said the Abbé Coignard, “you are always talking to us of

Sylphs and Salamanders. Now, in simple good faith, have you ever seen

any of them?”

“As clearly as I see you this very moment,” replied M. d’Asterac, “and

certainly closer, at least as far as Salamanders are concerned.”

“That is not sufficient, my dear sir, to make me believe in their

existence, which is against the teachings of the Church. For one may be

seduced by illusions. The eyes, and all our senses, are messengers of

error and couriers of lies. They delude us more than they teach us, and

bring us but uncertain and fugitive images. Truth escapes them, because

truth is eternal, and invisible like eternity.”

“Ah!” said M. d’Asterac, “I did not know you were so philosophical, nor

of so subtle a mind.”

“That’s true,” replied my good master. “There are days on which my soul

is heavier, and with preference attached to bed and table. But last

night I broke a bottle on the head of an extortioner, and my mind is

very much exalted over it. I feel myself capable of dissipating the

phantoms which are haunting you, and to blow off all that mist. For

after all, sir, these Sylphs are but vapours of your brain.”

M. d’Asterac stopped him with a kind gesture and said:

“I beg your pardon, abbé; do you believe in demons?”

“Without difficulty I can reply,” said my good master, “that I believe

of demons all that is reported of them in the Scriptures, and that I

reject as error and superstition all and every belief in spells, charms

and exorcism. Saint Augustine teaches that when the Scriptures exhort

us to resist the demons, it requires us to resist our passions and

intemperate appetites. Nothing is more detestable than the deviltries

wherewith the Capuchins frighten old women.”

“I see,” said M. d’Asterac, “you do your best to think as an honest man.

You hate as much as I do myself the coarse superstitions of the monks.

But, after all, you do believe in demons, and I have not had much

trouble to make you avow it. Know, then, that they are no other than

Sylphs and Salamanders, ignorance and fear have disfigured them in timid

imaginations. But, as a fact, they are beautiful and virtuous. I will

not lead you in the ways of the Salamanders, as I am not quite sure

of the purity of your morals; but I can see no impediment, abbé, to

a frequentation of the Sylphs, who inhabit the fields of air, and

voluntarily approach man in a spirit of friendliness and affection, so

that they have been rightly named helping genii. Far from driving us to

perdition, as the theologians believe, who change them into devils,

they protect and safeguard their terrestrial friends. I could make you

acquainted with numberless examples of the help they give. But to be

short I’ll repeat to you one single case which was told to me by Madame

la Maréchale de Grancey herself. She was middle-aged, and a widow for

several years, when, one night, in her bed, she received the visit of a

Sylph, who said to her: ‘Madame, have a search made in the wardrobe of

your deceased husband. In the pocket of a pair of his breeches a letter

will be found, which, if it became known, would ruin M. des Roches, my

good friend and yours. Find that letter and burn it.’

“The maréchale promised not to neglect this recommendation and inquired

after news of the defunct maréchal from the Sylph, who, however,

disappeared without giving any reply. On waking she summoned her women,

and bade them look if some of the late maréchal’s garments remained in

his wardrobe. The attendants reported that nothing was left, and that

the lackeys had sold them all to old clothes dealers. Madame de Grancey

insisted on her women trying to find at least one pair of breeches.

“Having searched in every corner they finally discovered a very

old-fashioned pair of black satin, embroidered with carnations, and

handed them to their mistress, who found a letter in one of the pockets,

which contained more than would have been needed to incarcerate M. des

Roches in one of the state prisons. She burned the letter at once,

and so that gentleman was saved by his good friends the Sylph and the

maréchale.

“Are such, I ask you, abbé, the manners of demons? But let me give you

another startling hit on the matter, which will impress you more, and

will I am sure go to the heart of a learned man such as yourself. It is

doubtless known to you that the Academy of Dijon is rich in wits. One of

them, whose name cannot be unknown to you, living in the last century,

prepared with great labour an edition of Pindar. One night, worrying

over five verses the sense of which he could not disentangle, so much

was the text corrupt, he dozed off, quite despairing, at cockcrow.

During his sleep, a Sylph, who wished him well, transported his spirit

to Stockholm into the palace of Queen Christina, conducted him to the

library, and took from one of the shelves a manuscript of Pindar’s

showing him the difficult passage. The five verses were there, as well

as two or three annotations which rendered them perfectly intelligible.

“In the violence of his contentment, our savant woke up, struck a light,

and pencilled down the verses as they appeared to him in his sleep.

After that he went to sleep again profoundly. On the following morning,

thinking over his night’s adventure, he at once resolved to try to get

a confirmation. M. Descartes happened at that very time to be in Sweden,

reading to the queen on philosophy. Our Pindarist knew him, but was on

still closer terms with M. Chanut, the Swedish ambassador in France. He

wrote requesting him to forward a letter to M. Descartes, in which he

asked him to be informed if there really was in the queen’s library at

Stockholm a manuscript of Pindar containing the version he mentioned.

M. Descartes, an extremely courteous man, replied to the academician of

Dijon that, as a fact, her Majesty possessed a manuscript of Pindar,

and that he had himself read there the verses, with the various readings

contained in the letter.”

M. d’Asterac, who had been peeling an apple during his narration, looked

at M. Coignard to enjoy the success of his discourse.

My dear tutor smiled and said:

“Ah, sir! I clearly see that I flattered myself with an idle hope, and

that one cannot make you give up your vain imaginations. I confess

with a good grace that you have shown us an ingenious Sylph, and that

I actually wish for such an obliging secretary. His assistance would

be particularly useful to me on two or three passages in Zosimus the

Panopolitan which are very obscure. Could you not be so good as to give

me the means to evoke, if necessary, some Sylph librarian as expert as

that of Dijon?”

M. d’Asterac replied gravely:

“That’s a secret, abbé, that I will willingly unveil to you. But be

warned that you would be a lost man should you communicate it to a

profane person.”

“Don’t be uneasy,” said the abbé. “I have a strong desire to know so

fine a secret, but I will not conceal from you that I do not expect

any effect from it, as I do not believe in Sylphs. Instruct me, if you

please.”

“You request me?” replied the cabalist. “Well, then, know that whenever

you want the assistance of a Sylph, you have but to pronounce the simple

word _Agla_, and the sons of the air will at once come to you. But

understand, M. Abbé, that the word must be spoken by the heart as well

as by the lips, and that faith alone gives it its virtue. Without faith

it is nothing but a useless murmur. Pronounce it as I do at this moment,

putting in it neither soul nor wish, it has, even in my own mouth, but

a very slight power, and at the utmost some of the children of light,

if they have heard it, glide into this room, the light shadows of light.

I’ve divined rather than seen them on yonder curtain, and they have

vanished when hardly visible. Neither you nor your pupil has suspected

their presence. But had I pronounced that magic word with real fervour

you would have seen them appear in all their splendour. They are of a

charming beauty. Now, sir, I have entrusted you with a grand and useful

secret. Let me say again, do not divulge it imprudently. And do not

sneer at the example of the Abbé de Villars, who, for having revealed

their secrets, was murdered by the Sylphs, on the road to Lyons.”

“On the Lyons road?” said my good tutor. “How strange!”

M. d’Asterac left us suddenly.

“I will now for the last time,” said the abbé, “visit that noble library

where I have enjoyed such austere pleasures and which I shall never see

again. Do not fail, Tournebroche, to be at nightfall at the Bergères

Circus.”

I promised to be there; it was my intention to lock myself in my room

for the purpose of writing to M. d’Asterac, and my dear parents, asking

them to kindly excuse me for not taking personal leave of them, as I had

to fly after an adventure wherein I was more unlucky than guilty.

When I reached the door of my room, I heard heavy snoring from within.

Peeping in I saw M. d’Anquetil in my bed, sleeping, his sword at the

bedside, playing cards strewn all over the quilt. For a moment I felt

tempted to run him through with his own sword, but the temptation did

not last, and I left him sleeping. Notwithstanding my grief I could not

help laughing when I thought that Jahel, being locked and bolted in by

Mosaide, could not rejoin him.

So I went to my tutor’s room, to write my letters, where I disturbed

five or six rats, who had begun to make a meal off his Boethius,

which had remained on the night table. I wrote to my mother and to M.

d’Asterac, and I composed the most touching epistle to Jahel. My tears

fell on this when I read it over for a second time. “Perhaps,” I said

to myself, “the faithless girl will cry too, and her tears will mix with

mine.”

Then, overwhelmed as I was by fatigue and sorrow, I threw myself on my

tutor’s bed, and soon went off into a kind of semi-sleep, troubled by

dreams, erotic and sinister. I was awakened by the taciturn Criton, who

had entered the room and presented to me, on a silver salver, a sort

of curling paper, whereon a few badly written words were scribbled in

pencil. Someone expected me at once outside the castle. The note was

signed “Friar Ange, unworthy Capuchin.” I went as quickly as I could,

and found the little friar seated on the bank of a ditch in a state of

pitiable dejection. Wanting strength to get up, he looked at me with

his big dog’s eyes, nearly human and full of tears; his sighs moved his

beard and chest. In a tone which really pained me he said:

“Alas! Monsieur Jacques, the hour of trial has come to Babylon, as it

is said in the prophets. At the request of M. de la Guéritude, the

Lieutenant of Police had Mam’selle Catherine taken by the constables to

the spittel, from whence she’ll be sent to America by the next convoy.

I was informed of it by Jeannette the hurdy-gurdy player, who saw

Catherine brought in a cart to the spittel, as she left it herself after

having been cured of an evil ailment by the surgeon’s art--at least I

hope so, please God! And Catherine is to be transported, and no reprieve

to be expected.”

And Friar Ange at this point in his discourse groaned and shed tears

abundantly. After doing my best to console him I asked if he had nothing

else to tell me.

“Alas! M. Jacques,” he replied. “I have intimated the essential, and

the remainder floats in my head like the Spirit of God on the waters,

without comparison if you please. The matter is dark altogether.

Catherine’s misfortune has taken away my senses. It needed the necessity

of giving you important news to bring me to the threshold of this cursed

house, where you live in company with all sorts of devils, and it was

with dismay, and after having recited the prayer of Saint Francis, that

I ventured to knock at the door for the purpose of handing to a lackey

the note I wrote to you. I do not know if you have been able to read it,

as I have but little practice in forming letters, and the paper was not

of the best to write on, but you see it is the honour of our holy order

not to give way to the vanities of our century! Ah! Catherine at the

spittel! Catherine in America! Is it not enough to break the hardest

heart? Jeannette herself wept abundantly, and did so in spite of her

jealousy of Catherine, who prevails over her in youth and beauty just as

Saint Francis surpasses in holiness all the other blessed ones. Ah, M.

Jacques! Catherine in America! Such are the strange ways of Providence.

Alas! our holy religion is true, and King David was right in saying that

we are like the grass of the field--is not Catherine at the spittel? The

stones on which I am sitting are happier man I, notwithstanding that I

wear the signs of a Christian and a monk. Catherine at the spittel!”

He sobbed again. I waited till the torrent of his sorrow had passed

away, and then asked him if he had any news of my parents.

“M. Jacques,” he replied, “‘tis they who have sent me to you, bearer

of a pressing message. I must tell you that they are not very happy,

through the fault of Master Léonard, your father, who passes in drinking

and gambling all the days God has given him. And savoury fumes of

roasting geese and fowls do not now arise to the signboard of _Queen

Pédauque_ swinging sadly in the damp wind which rusts it. Where are the

times when the smell of your father’s cookshop perfumed the Rue Saint

Jacques, from the _Little Bacchus_ to the _Three Maids_? Since yonder

sorcerer visited it, everything wastes away, beasts and men, in

consequence of the spell he has thrown on it. And vengeance divine is

manifest there since that fat Abbé Coignard made his entry, and I was

cast out. It was the beginning of the evil, inaugurated by M. Coignard,

who prides himself on the depths of his knowledge, and the distinction

of his manners. Pride is the spring of all evil. Your pious mother was

very wrong, M. Jacques, not to have been satisfied with such teaching as

I charitably gave you, and which would have made you fit to superintend

the cooking, to manage the larding, and to carry the banner of the guild

after the demise, the funeral service and the obsequies of your worthy

father, which cannot be very far off, as all life is transitory and he

drinks to excess.”

It may be easily understood how sorely I was afflicted by this news. My

tears and those of Friar Ange mixed freely together. However, I inquired

after my mother.

Friar Ange replied:

“God, who afflicted Rachel in Rama, has sent to your mother, Monsieur

Jacques, sundry tribulations for her good, and to chastise Master

Léonard for the sin he committed by maliciously expelling, in my humble

person, our Lord Jesus Christ from his cookshop. He has transferred most

of the purchasers of poultry and pies to the daughter of Madame Quonion,

who turns the spit at the other end of the Rue Saint Jacques. Your

mother sees with sorrow that the other house is blessed at the cost

of her own, and that her shop is now deserted to such a degree that,

figuratively speaking, moss covers its threshold. She is sustained in

her trials, firstly, by her devotion to Saint Francis; secondly, by the

consideration of the progress of your worldly position, which enables

you to wear a sword like a man of condition.

“But this second consolation has been much shaken by the constables

calling this very morning at the cookshop to take you into custody, and

carry you to the Bicetre Prison, to break stones for a year or two. It

was Catherine who denounced you to M. de la Guéritude, but you must

not blame her for it; she did her duty as a Christian by confessing the

truth. She accused you and the Abbé Coignard of being M. d’Anquetil’s

accomplices, and gave a faithful account of all the murder and bloodshed

perpetrated in the course of that terrible night. Alas! her truthfulness

was of no use; she was carried to the spittel. It’s downright horrible

to think of it.”

At this point of his story, the little friar covered his face with his

hands and sobbed and cried anew.

Night had come, and I was afraid to fail in my appointment. Pulling the

little friar out of the ditch, I put him on his feet, and wished him to

keep me company on my walk along the Saint Germain road to the Circus of

the Bergères. He obeyed me willingly. Sadly walking by my side, he asked

my assistance in disentangling the mixed-up threads of his thoughts.

I put him back to where the constables came to search for me at the

cookshop.

“As they could not find you,” he continued, “they wanted to take your

father. Master Léonard pretended he did not know where you were hidden.

Your mother said the same, and took her sacred oath on it. May God

forgive her, Monsieur Jacques, as evidently she perjured herself. The

constables began to get cross. Your father reasoned well with them,

and took them to have a drink with him, after which they parted quite

friendly. Meanwhile your mother went after me to the _Three Maids_,

where I was soliciting alms according to the holy rules of my order. She

sent me to you to warn you that immediate flight is your only safety, as

the Lieutenant of Police would soon discover your retreat.”

Listening to this sad news, I walked with a quicker step, and we passed

the bridge of Neuilly.

On the rather steep hill leading to the circus, the elms of which soon

became visible, the little friar said with a dying voice:

“Your mother particularly asked me to warn you of the danger you are in,

and handed to me a little bag she had secreted under her dress. I cannot

find it,” he added, after having felt all over his body. “How do you

expect me to find anything after losing Catherine? She was devoted to

Saint Francis, and lavish of alms, and now they have treated her like

a harlot, and will shave her head; it’s heartbreaking to think that

she will look like a milliner’s doll, and be shipped in that state to

America, where she runs the risk of dying by fever and being eaten by

cannibal savages.”

When he ended this discourse with a sigh we had reached the circus. To

the left, the inn of the _Red Horse_ showed its roof over a double row

of elms, its dormer windows with their pulleys, while under the foliage

the gateway was to be seen wide open.

I slackened my walk, and the little friar sat down on the roots of a

tree.

“Friar Ange,” I said to him, “you mentioned a satchel my dear mother

handed you for me.”

“Quite right; she wished me so to do,” replied the little Capuchin, “and

I have put it somewhere so safely that I cannot remember where, and you

ought to know, Monsieur Jacques, that I could not have lost it for any

other reason but from too much carefulness.”

I rather sharply said that I did not believe he had lost the satchel,

and should he not find it at once I would search for it myself.

He understood and, sighing deeply, brought out from under his frock a

little bag made of coloured calico, and handed it to me. It contained a

crown piece and a medal with the effigy of the Black Virgin of Chartres,

which I kissed fervently, shedding tears of tenderness and repentance.

The little friar took out of his large pockets a parcel of coloured

prints and prayers, badly illuminated, made a rapid selection, and

gave me two or three of them, those he considered the most useful to

pilgrims, travellers, and all wandering people, saying:

“They are blessed and of good effect against danger of death and

sickness. You have only to recite the text printed on them, or to lay

them on the skin of your body, I give them to you, M. Jacques, for the

love of God. Do not forget to give me an alms. Keep in mind that I beg

in the name of Saint Francis. He’ll protect you, without fail, if you

assist the most unworthy of his sons, and that is precisely myself.”

Listening to his speech, I saw in the doubtful twilight a post-chaise

and four come out of the gateway of the _Red Horse_ inn, heard the whips

cracking and the horses pawing the ground when the driver stopped on

the highroad, close to the tree on the roots of which Friar Ange was

sitting. It was not an ordinary post-chaise, but a very large, clumsy

vehicle, having room to seat four, and a small coupe in front. I looked

at it for a minute or two, when up the hill came M. d’Anquetil, with

Jahel, carrying several parcels under her cloak and wearing a mob-cap.

M. Coignard followed them, loaded with five or six books wrapped up in

an old thesis. When they reached the carriage the post boys lowered

the carriage steps, and my beautiful mistress, raising her skirt like

a balloon, ascended into the carriage, pushed from behind by M.

d’Anquetil.

I ran towards them and shouted:

“Stop, Jahel! Stop, sir!”

But the seducer only pushed the perfidious girl the more, and her

charming rounded figure quickly disappeared. Preparing himself to climb

after her, one foot on the steps, he looked at me with surprise.

“Oh! Monsieur Tournebroche! You would then take from me all my

mistresses! Jahel after Catherine. Do you do it for a wager?”

But I did not hear what he said, and continued to call Jahel, the while

Friar Ange, having risen from his seat under the elm-tree, came up to

the carriage door, and offered to M. d’Anquetil pictures of Saint Roch,

a prayer to be recited during the shoeing of a horse, another against

fever, and asked him for charity with a mournful voice.

I should have stopped there the whole of the night, calling Jahel, if

my good tutor had not got hold of me and pushed me inside the large

compartment of the carriage, which he entered after me.

“Let them have the _coupé_ by themselves,” he said to me, “and let

us travel in the large compartment. I have been looking for you,

Tournebroche, and, not to withhold anything from you, had quite made up

my mind to depart without you when, happily, I discovered you in company

with the Capuchin under yonder elm-tree. We could not delay any longer,

as M. de la Guéritude has given sharp orders to look everywhere for us.

He has a long arm, having lent money to the king.”

The carriage was moving on, but Friar Ange clung to the door, with hand

outstretched, begging pitifully.

I sank into the cushions.

“Alas, sir,” I exclaimed, “did you not tell me that Jahel was locked in

threefold?”

“My son,” replied my good master, “not too much confidence may be placed

in women, who always play their tricks on the jealous and their locks.

If the door is closed, they jump out of the window. You have no idea, my

dear Tournebroche, of the cunning of women. The ancients have reported

admirable examples of it, and many a one you’ll find in Apuleius,

where they are sprinkled like salt in the ‘Metamorphoses.’ But the best

example is given in an Arabian tale recently brought to Europe by M.

Galand, and which I will tell you.

“Schariar, Sultan of Tartary, and his brother, Schahzenan, walked one

day on the seashore, when they saw rise suddenly above the waves a black

column, moving towards the shore. They recognised it as a genie of the

most ferocious kind, in the form of an immensely tall giant, carrying on

his head a glass case locked with four iron locks. Both were seized

with dismay, so much so that they hid themselves in the fork of a tree

standing near. The genie however came on shore, and brought the glass

case to the tree where the two princes were hiding. Then he lay down

and soon went to sleep. His outstretched legs reached the sea, and his

breathing shook earth and heaven. During his terrifying repose the cover

of the glass case rose by itself, and out of it came a woman with a

majestic body and of the most perfect beauty. She raised her head--”

Here I interrupted his narrative, which I had hardly-listened to, and

exclaimed:

“Ah! sir, what do you think Jahel and M. d’Anquetil are saying at this

moment, all by themselves in the _coupé_?’

“I don’t know,” replied my dear tutor: “it’s their business, not ours.

But let me finish the Arabian tale, which is full of sense. You’ve

interrupted me inconsiderately, Tournebroche, at the very moment when

the damsel, looking up, discovered the two princes in the tree. She made

them a sign to come down; but desirous as they were to respond to the

appeal of a person of so much beauty, they were afraid to approach so

terrible a giant. Seeing that they hesitated she said to them in an

undertone: ‘Come down at once, or I wake up the genie.’ Her resolute and

resolved countenance made them understand that it was not a vain threat,

and that the safest, as also the most pleasant, thing to do was to go

down without delay, which they did as quietly as possible, so as not to

wake the giant. The lady, taking their hands, led them somewhat farther

away under the trees, and gave them to understand very clearly that she

was ready at once to give herself to both. Gracefully they accepted

the beauty’s offer, and as they were men of courage, fear did not spoil

their enjoyment. Having obtained from both what she had wished for,

and seeing that each of the two princes wore a ring, she asked them for

their rings. Returning to the glass case where she lived, she took out

of it a chaplet of rings, and showed it to the princes.

“Do you know what is the meaning of this chaplet of rings? They are

those of all the men for whom I have had the same kindness as for you.

Their number, all told, is ninety-eight. I keep them as souvenirs, for

that same reason, and to complete the century I have asked for yours.

And now to-day I have had a full hundred lovers, in spite of the

vigilance and care of yonder giant, who never leaves me. He may lock me

in the glass case as much as he likes, and hide me in the depths of the

sea. I deceive him as often as I please.”

“That ingenious apologue,” added my good tutor, “shows you that the

women of the Orient, who are shut up and cloistered, are as cunning as

their sisters of the Occident, who are free of their movements. Whenever

a woman wants something there is no husband, lover, father, uncle, or

tutor able to prevent her carrying out her will. And therefore, my dear

boy, you ought not to be surprised that to deceive that old Mordecai was

but child’s play for Jahel, whose perverse spirit is made up of all the

cuteness of our she-geldings and the perfidy of the Orient. I guess her

to be as ardent in sensual pleasure, as greedy after gold and silver;

altogether a worthy descendant of the race of Aholah and Aholibah.

“She is of an acid and mordant beauty, and I do not deny that somehow

she excites me, although age, sublime meditations, and the miseries

of an agitated life have sufficiently mortified in me the lust of the

flesh. You’re suffering over the success of M. d’Anquetil’s adventure

with her, wherefore I reckon that you feel much more than I do the sharp

tooth of desire, and that jealousy is tearing you. And that’s the reason

you blame an action, irregular certainly, contrary to vulgar propriety,

but withal indifferent in character, or at least not adding much to the

universal evil. Inwardly you condemn me for having had a part in it, and

you fancy you defend the principle of chaste living when you do nothing

except from the prompting of your passions. Such is the way, my dear

boy, that we colour for the use of our own eyes our worst instincts.

Human morals have no other origin. Confess, however, that it would have

been a pity to leave such a fine girl for a single day longer with that

old lunatic. Acknowledge that M. d’Anquetil, young and handsome, is a

better mate for such a delicious creature, and resign yourself to accept

what cannot be altered. Such wisdom is difficult to practise; but it

would have been more difficult still, had your own mistress been taken

from you. In such a case you’d feel the iron teeth torture your flesh,

filling your soul with images odious and precise. This consideration,

my boy, ought to ease your present sufferings. Besides, life is full

of labour and pain. It is this which evokes in us the just hope of an

eternal beatitude.”

Thus spoke my good tutor, while the elms of the king’s highway passed

quickly before our eyes. I did not let him know that he irritated my

griefs in trying to soothe them, and that he, without being aware of it,

had laid his finger on my wound.

Our first stoppage was at Juvisy, where we arrived in the rain early in

the morning. Entering the post inn I found Jahel in the corner of the

fireplace, where five or six fowls were roasting on a spit. She was

warming her feet, and showed part of a silken stocking, which was a

great trouble to me, because it brought her leg to my mind. I seemed to

see all the beauty of her satin skin, the down, and all other striking

circumstances. M. d’Anquetil was leaning on the back of the chair

whereon she was sitting, holding her cheeks with his hands. He called

her his soul and his life, asked her if she was hungry, and on her

saying yes, he went out to give the necessary orders.

Remaining alone with the unfaithful one I looked in her eyes, which

reflected the flames of the fire.

“Ah! Jahel,” I exclaimed, “I am very unhappy; you have betrayed me, and

you no longer love me.”

“Who says that I do not love you any more?” she asked, and looked at me

with her velvety eyes of flame.

“Alas! mademoiselle, your conduct shows it sufficiently.”

“But, Jacques, could you envy the trousseau of Dutch linen and the

godroon plate that the gentleman is to present me with! I only ask for

your forbearance till he has fulfilled his promises, and after that

you’ll see that I am still to you as I was at the Croix-des-Sablons.”

“And in the meantime, Jahel? Alas! he will enjoy your favours.”

“I feel,” she replied, “that that will be a trifle, and that nothing

will efface the strength of the feeling you have inspired me with. Do

not torment yourself with such mere nothings; they are only of value by

your idea of them.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “my idea of them is horrible, and I am really afraid

that I shall not be able to survive your treachery.”

She looked at me with a somewhat mocking sympathy, and said with a

smile:

“Believe me, my friend, neither of us will die of it. Think, Jacques,

that I am in want of plate and linen. Be prudent, do not show the

feelings that agitate you, and I promise to reward you for your

discretion, later on.”

This hope softened somewhat my poignant grief. The innkeeper’s wife laid

on the table the lavender-scented cloth, the pewter plates, goblets and

pitchers. I was very hungry, and when M. d’Anquetil, in company with the

abbé, re-entered the dining-hall, inviting us to eat a morsel with him,

I willingly sat down between Jahel and my dear old tutor. We were afraid

of being followed, so after having put away three omelets and a couple

of spring chickens we resumed our journey. We resolved, seeing the

danger of pursuit, to pass every halting place without stopping as far

as Sens, where we decided to stay the night.

My imagination went horribly to that night at Sens, thinking that there

Jahel’s treachery would be completed. And so much was I troubled by

those but too legitimate apprehensions that I listened with but half an

ear to the discourse of my good master, to whom every trifling incident

of our journey suggested the most admirable reflections.

My jealous fears were not groundless. We alighted at the best inn at

Sens, that paltry hostelry of _The Armed Man_. Supper hardly over, M.

d’Anquetil took Jahel with him to his room, which was next to mine. You

may believe that I could not enjoy a wink of sleep. Jumping out of bed

at daybreak, I left my chamber of torture. I seated myself under the

waggoner’s porch, where the postboys drank white wine and played

the deuce with the servants. I remained there two or three hours

contemplating my misery. The horses were already harnessed when Jahel

appeared under the porch, shivering all over, under her black cloak. I

could not bear the sight of her, and turned my moistened eyes away. She

came to me, sat close to me on the stone, and told me sweetly not to be

disconsolate, as what I thought monstrous was but a trifle; that one has

to be reasonable; that I was too much a man of spirit to want a

woman for myself alone; that if one wished for that one had to take a

housekeeper without brains or beauty, and even then it was a big risk to

run.

“And now, Jacques,” she added somewhat hurriedly, “I must leave you, and

quickly; I can hear the steps of M. d’Anquetil descending the stairs.”

She pressed a hasty kiss on my burning lips, giving and prolonging it

with the violent voluptuousness of fear, as the spurred boots of her

sweetheart made the wooden steps of the stairs creak, and the intriguer

was in fear of losing her Dutch linen trousseau and her godroon silver

pot.

The postboy lowered the steps of the _coupé_, but M. d’Anquetil asked

Jahel if it would not be more pleasant to travel all four together in

the large compartment, and I recognised that that was the first effect

of his intimacy with Jahel, and that the full satisfaction of his

desires had left it less agreeable to be alone with her. My good old

tutor had taken care to provide himself with five or six bottles of

white wine from the cellar of _The Armed Man_, which he laid under the

cushions, and which we drank to overcome the monotony of the journey.

At midday we arrived at Joigny, a neat and pretty town. Foreseeing that

my ready money would be all used before we could arrive at the end of

our journey, and finding the idea intolerable of letting M. d’Anquetil

pay my part in the travelling expenses unless I was compelled to do

so by the most unavoidable necessity, I resolved to sell a ring and a

medallion, gifts from my mother, and went about the town in quest of a

jeweller ready to buy them. I discovered one in the square opposite the

church, who sold crosses and chains in a shop under the sign of _The

Good Faith_. What was my astonishment to find in this very shop, before

the counter, my good master, showing to the jeweller five or six little

diamonds, and asking the shopman what price he would offer for those

stones. I recognised them immediately as those which M. d’Asterac had

shown us.

The jeweller examined the stones, and looking at the abbé from under his

spectacles said:

“Sir, these stones would be of great value if they were genuine. But

they are not, and no touchstone is needed to find that out. These are

nothing but glass beads, good only for children to play with, or to

be used in the crown of a village Holy Virgin, where they would have a

charming effect.”

Having listened to that reply, M. Coignard picked up his diamonds and

turned his back on the jeweller. In so doing he became aware of my

presence, and looked rather confused over it. I brought my business to

an end promptly, and meeting my dear old tutor at the shop door I mildly

reproached him with the wrong he had done to himself, as well as to his

companions, by taking these stones, which for his greater guilt might

have been real.

“My son,” he replied, “God, to keep me innocent of crime, willed these

stones to be false and a mere sham. I avow to you that I did wrong to

take them. You seem sorry about it; it’s a leaf of my life’s book I

should like to tear out, like some others not so neat and immaculate as

they ought to be. I understand deeply all that is reprehensible in my

conduct. But no man has a right to be entirely cast down when he is

faulty, and just now, and in this special case, I think I ought to say

of myself, in the words of an illustrious learned man: ‘Consider your

great frailty, of which you make but too often a show; and withal it is

for your salvation that such things should rise up in the road of your

life. Not everything is lost for you if oftentimes you find yourself

afflicted and rudely tempted; and if you succumb to temptation you’re

a man, not a god; you’re flesh and blood, not an angel. How could you

expect to remain always in a state of virtue when the angels in heaven

and the first man in Eden could not remain faithful to virtue?’ Such

are, my dear Tournebroche, the only conversations adapted to the present

state of my soul. But, after this unhappy occurrence, which I do not

wish to dwell on longer, is it not time to return to the inn, there to

drink, in company with the postboys, who are simpleminded and of easy

intercourse, one or more bottles of country wine?”

I quite agreed, and we soon reached the hostelry, where we found M.

d’Anquetil, who, returning like ourselves from the town, had brought

some playing cards. He played a game of piquet with my tutor, and when

we resumed our journey they continued to play in the carriage. That rage

for play which occupied my rival gave me occasion for an undisturbed

conversation with Jahel, who liked very much to chat with me, since she

was left to herself. Her talk had a kind of bitter sweetness for me.

Reproaching her for her perfidy and unfaithfulness, I gave vent to my

grief in feeble or violent complaints.

“Alas! Jahel!” I said, “the memory and the image of your tenderness,

which made but lately my dearest delight, have become a cruel torture

to me when I think that to-day you belong to another person, whereas

formerly you were mine.”

She replied:

“A woman does not behave equally to all men.”

And when I prolonged my lamentations and reproaches to excess she said:

“I am quite aware that I have caused you some pain. But that is no

reason for you to plague me a hundred times a day with your useless

moans.”

M. d’Anquetil when he lost was in a bad temper and molested Jahel, while

she, anything but patient, threatened to write to her Uncle Mosaïde to

come and fetch her back. These quarrels were at first rather pleasant to

me, and gave me no small hopes; but after a repeated renewal of them

I became rather anxious, as they were always followed by impetuous

reconciliations, which exploded suddenly into kisses and lascivious

whisperings. M. d’Anquetil could hardly bear my presence. He had on the

other hand a vivid tenderness for my good tutor, which he well deserved

for his always joyful humour and the incomparable elegance of his mind.

They played and drank together with a daily growing sympathy. Knee to

knee, so as to steady the table whereon they played cards they laughed,

bantered, chaffed each other, and if occasionally they became angry, and

threw the cards in one another’s face, and swore at each other with

such oaths as would have made the boxers of Port Saint Nicolas or the

bargemen of the Mail blush, M. d’Anquetil swore by God Almighty, the

Holy Virgin and all the saints, that in all his life he had never met

with a worse thief than the Abbé Coignard. Notwithstanding it remained

clearly evident that he liked my good tutor; and it was a real pleasure,

as soon as one of these quarrels had terminated, to listen to his

laughter as he said:

“Abbé, you’ll be my almoner and play piquet with me. You’ll also have to

hunt with us. In the remotest corner of the Perche we will look out

for a horse strong enough to carry your weight, and you’ll get hunting

clothes like the ones I saw worn by the Bishop of Uzès. It is, besides,

high time you had a new suit of clothes; your breeches, abbé, hardly

keep on your behind.”

Jahel also inclined towards the irresistible charm with which my

dear tutor influenced all mankind. She made up her mind to repair, if

possible, all the disorders of his dress. First she tore up one of

her gowns and used the pieces to patch up the coat and breeches of my

venerable friend; she also made him a present of a laced handkerchief

to use as a band. My good tutor accepted these little presents with a

dignity full of graciousness. More than once I had occasion to observe

that he was a gallant when talking to women. He took a lively interest

in them without ever showing the slightest indiscretion. He praised them

with the science of a connoisseur, giving them counsels out of his long

experience, diffusing over them the unlimited indulgence of a heart

always ready to forgive any kind of human weakness, and withal, never

omitted any occasion to make them understand the great and useful

truths.

We arrived on the fourth day of our journey at Montbard, and alighted on

a hill, from which we could overlook the whole town, which appeared in

a small space as if it had been painted on canvas by a clever limner

anxious to reproduce every detail.

“Look,” my dear old tutor said, “on these steeples, towers, roofs, which

rise up out of the green. It is a town, and without actually searching

for its history and name, it is well to contemplate it as the worthiest

subject of meditation we may encounter on the surface of the world. As

a fact any town furnishes material for speculations of the spirit. The

postboys tell us that yonder is Montbard, a place utterly unknown to

me. Nevertheless I am not afraid to affirm, by analogy, that the people

living therein resemble ourselves, are egotistic cowards, perfidious

gluttons, dissolute. Otherwise they could not be human beings and

descendants of Adam, at once miserable and venerable, and in whom all

our instincts, down to the most ignoble, have their august origin. The

only possible doubtful matter with yonder people, is to know if they

are more inclined to food or to procreation. But a doubt is hardly

permissible; a philosopher will soundly opine that hunger is for these

unhappy ones a more pressing necessity than love. In the greenness of my

youth I believed that the human animal is before all things inclined to

sexual intercourse. But that was a wanton error, as it is quite clear

that human beings are more interested in conserving their own life than

in giving life to others. Hunger is the axis of humanity; but after all,

as it seems to be useless to discuss the matter any further, I’ll say,

with your permission, that the life of mortals has two poles--hunger and

love. And here it is that one has to open ears and soul! These hideous

creatures who are born only to devour or to embrace furiously, one the

other, live together under the sway of laws which precisely interdict

their satisfying that double and fundamental concupiscence. These

ingenious animals, having become citizens, voluntarily impose on

themselves all sorts of privations; they respect the property of their

neighbours, which is prodigious, if you take their avaricious nature

into consideration; they observe the rules of modesty, which is an

enormous hypocrisy, but generally consists in but seldom speaking

of that of which they think without ceasing. Then, let’s be true

and honest, gentlemen, when we look on a woman, we do not attach our

thoughts to the beauties of her soul or the pleasantness of her spirit;

when we approach her we have in view principally her natural form. And

the amiable creatures know it so well that they have their dresses made

by the fashionable dressmakers and take good care not only not to veil

their charms, but to exaggerate them by all sorts of artifices. And

Mademoiselle Jahel, who certainly is not a savage, would be distressed

if, on her, art had gained the advantage over nature to such a degree

as to prevent the fulness of her bosom and the roundness of her thighs

being seen. And so it is that, since Adam’s fall, we see mankind

hungry and incontinent. Why do they, when assembled in towns, impose

on themselves privations of all kinds, and submit to a rule of life

contrary to their own corrupted nature? It is said that they find it

advantageous, and that they feel that their individual security depends

on such restriction. But that would be to suppose them to have too much

reasoning power, and, what’s more, a false reasoning, because it is

absurd to save one’s life at the expense of all that makes it reasonable

and valuable. It is further said that fear keeps them obedient, and

it is true that prison, gallows and wheels are excellent assurers of

submission to existing laws. But it is also certain that prejudice

conspires with the laws, and it is not easy to see how compulsion could

have been universally established. Laws are said to be the necessary

conformity of things; but we have become aware that that conformity

is contradictory to nature, and far from being necessary. Therefore,

gentlemen, I’ll look for the source and origin of the laws not in man,

but outside man, and I should think that, being strangers to mankind,

they derive from God, who not only formed with His own mysterious hands

earth and water, plants and animals, but the people also, and human

society. I’m inclined to believe that the laws come direct from Him,

from His first decalogue, and that they are inhuman because they are

divine. It must be well understood that I here consider the codes in

their principles and in their essence, without taking note of their

ridiculous diversities and their pitiable complications. The details of

customs and prescriptions, the written as well as the oral, are man’s

work, and to be despised. But do not let us be afraid to recognise that

the town is a divine institution. As a result, every government ought

to be theocratic. One priest, famous for the part he took in the

declaration of 1682, M. Bossuet, was not in error, when he wanted to

form the rules of polity after the maxims of the Scriptures; and if he

has pitiably failed in this endeavour, you have to accuse the weakness

of his genius alone, which was too narrowly attached to examples taken

from the books of Judges and Kings, without seeing that God, when He

works on this world, proportions Himself to time and space, and knows

the difference between Frenchmen and Israelites. The city established

under His true and sole legitimate authority will not be the town of

Joshua, Saul and David; it will rather be the town of the gospels,

the town of the poor, where working-man and prostitute will not be

humiliated by the Pharisee. Oh, sirs, how excellent it would be to

extract from the Scriptures a polity more beautiful and more saintly

than that which was extracted therefrom by that rocky and sterile M.

Bossuet! What a city, more harmonious than that erected by the sounds

of the lyre of Orpheus, could be built on the maxims of Jesus Christ, on

the day when His priests, no more sold to emperors and kings, manifest

themselves as the true princes of the people!”

While, standing round my good master, we listened to his discourse,

we were, without noticing it, surrounded by a troop of beggars, who,

limping, shivering, spitting, frightening the sparrows, shook their

swellings and deformities, spreading evil smells and suffocating us

with their blessings. They struggled passionately for some small silver

pieces M. d’Anquetil threw among them, fell to the ground, and rolled in

the dust.

“It’s painful to look on these people,” said Jahel with a sigh.

“‘That pity,” said M. Coignard, “suits you like a jewel, Mademoiselle

Jahel; your sighs ornament your bosom heaving under them like a breath

each of us would like to respire from your lips. But allow me to

say that such tenderness, which is not less touching from being

an interested one, troubles you inwardly by a comparison of yonder

miserable beings with yourself, and by the instinctive idea that your

young body touches, so to say, this hideous, ulcerated and mutilated

flesh, as in truth it is bound and attached to them in as far as

members of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In consequence you cannot look on

such corruption of a human body without seeing it at the same time as a

possibility of your own body. And these wretches have shown themselves

to you like prophets, announcing that sickness and death are the lot

of the family of Adam in this world. For this very reason you sighed,

mademoiselle.

“As a fact, there is not the slightest reason to believe yonder

ulcerated and verminous beggars less happy than kings and queens. It

must not be said that they are poorer, if, as it appears, that farthing

picked up by that crippled woman, and which she presses on her heart in

frantic joy, seems to her more precious than a pearl collar is to

the mistress of a prince-bishop of Cologne and Salzburg. To really

understand our spiritual and true interests we should rather envy the

life of that cripple who crawls towards us on his hands than that of the

King of France or the Emperor of Germany, Being equal before God, they

perhaps have peace in their hearts, which the other has not, and

the invaluable treasure of innocence. But hold up your petticoats,

mademoiselle, for fear that you introduce the vermin with which I see

they are covered.”

Such was my good tutor’s speech, and we all listened willingly.

At the distance of three leagues from Montbard, one of the harnesses

broke, and, the postboys having failed to bring rope with them, we were

detained on the road, as the place of the accident was far from any

human dwelling. My good master and M. d’Anquetil whiled away the time by

playing and sympathetic quarrels, of which they had made a habit. While

the young nobleman was surprised to see his opponent turn up the king

oftener than seemed possible by the laws of chance, Jahel, full of

emotion, asked me in a whisper if I could not see behind us a carriage

in one of the turnings of the road. Looking back to the place she

indicated, I could actually see a kind of Gothic vehicle of a ridiculous

and strange form.

“Yonder carriage,” said Jahel, “stopped at the same moment as ours. That

means that we are followed. I am curious to discover the features of the

people travelling in that vehicle. I feel very uneasy about it. Does not

one of the travellers wear a very narrow and high headgear? The carriage

very much resembles the one in which my uncle brought me, when a child,

to Paris after he had killed the Portuguese. It remained, I believe, in

one of the coach-houses at the Castle of Sablons. It really seems to be

the same, of horrible memory, because I remember my uncle in it, fuming

with rage. You cannot conceive, Jacques, how violent his hate is. I

myself had to bear his rage the day I came away. He locked me in my room

and vomited the most horrible curses on the Abbé Coignard. I shiver when

I think what his rage must have been when he found my room empty and the

sheets still attached to the window by which I left to fly with you.”

“You ought to say with M. d’Anquetil.”

“How punctilious you are! Did we not depart together? Yonder carriage

torments me, it is so much like my uncle’s.”

“Be sure, Jahel, that it’s the carriage of some honest Burgundian, who

goes about his business and does not think of us.”

“You don’t know,” said Jahel. “I’m afraid.”

“You cannot fear, however, that your uncle could run after you in his

state of decrepitude. He does not occupy himself with anything but

cabala and Hebraic dreams.”

“You don’t know him,” she replied, and sighed. “He is occupied with

naught but myself. He loves me as much as he hates the rest of the

universe. He loves me in a manner--

“In a manner?”

“--In all the manners--in short he loves me.”

“Jahel, I shudder to hear you. Good heavens: that Mosaide loves you

without that disinterestedness which is so admirable in an old man, and

so well suited for an uncle? Tell me all, Jahel-all!”

“Oh! you can tell it better than I, Jacques.”

“I remain stupid. At his age, is it possible?”

“My dear friend, your skin is white, and your soul also. Everything

astonishes you. That candour is your most striking charm. You’re

deceived by anyone who wants to deceive you. They make you believe that

Mosaide is a hundred and thirty years old; but he is hardly older than

sixty. They told you that for years he lived in the Great Pyramid, but

as a fact he has been a banker at Lisbon. And it depended only on me to

pass in your eyes as a Salamander.”

“What, Jahel, do you tell me the truth? Your uncle--”

“Yes, and that is the secret of his jealousy. He believes the Abbé

Coignard to be his rival. He disliked him instinctively, at first sight.

But it is a great deal worse since he overheard a few words of the

conversation I had with that good abbé in the thorn bush, and I’m sure

he hates him now as the cause of my flight and my elopement. For, after

all, I’ve been abducted, my friend; a fact that ought to enhance my

worth in your eyes. I was certainly very ungrateful to leave so good an

uncle. But I could not endure any longer the slavery he kept me in. And

I also had an ardent wish to become rich, and it is very natural, is it

not, to wish for all the good things when one is young and pretty? We

have but one life, and that is short enough. No one has taught me all

the fine lies about the immortality of the soul.”

“Alas! Jahel,” I exclaimed, in an ardour of love, provoked by her own

coolness. “Alas! I did not want anything else with you at the Chateau

des Sablons. What was wanting for your happiness?”

She made me a sign to show that M. d’Anquetil was observing us. The

harness had been repaired and our carriage rolled on again along the

road bordered on both sides by vineyards.

We stopped at Nuits to sup and to sleep. My dear tutor drank

half-a-dozen bottles of Burgundy, which warmed up his eloquence

marvellously. M. d’Anquetil kept him company, glass in hand, but to hold

his own in conversation also was a thing of which this nobleman was not

quite capable.

The meat was good, the beds were bad. M. Coignard slept in the lower

chamber, under the stairs, in the same feather bed with the host and his

wife, and all three thought they would be suffocated. M. d’Anquetil

with Jahel took the upstairs room, where the bacon and the onions were

suspended on hooks driven into the ceiling. I myself climbed by means

of a ladder to a loft and stretched out on a bundle of straw. Being

awakened by the moonlight, a ray of which fell into my eyes, I suddenly

saw Jahel in her night-cap coming through the trap door. At a cry that I

gave she put her finger to her lips.

“Hush!” she said to me, “Maurice is as drunk as a stevedore and a

marquis. He sleeps the sleep of Noah.”

“Who is Maurice?” I inquired, rubbing my eyes.

“It’s Anquetil. Who did you think it was?”

“Nobody, but I did not know that his name was Maurice.”

“It’s not long that I knew it myself, but never mind.”

“You are right, Jahel, it’s of no importance.”

She was in her chemise, and the moonlight fell like drops of milk on her

naked shoulders. She slipped down at my side, called me by the sweetest

of names and by the most horrid of coarse names, in whispers sounding

out of her lips like heavenly murmurs. And then she became dumb, and

kissed me with the kisses she alone was able to give, and in comparison

with which the caresses of any other woman were but an insipidity.

The constraint and the silence enhanced the furious tension of my

nerves. Surprise, the joy of revenge, and, perhaps, a somewhat perverse

jealousy inflamed my desires. The elastic firmness of her flesh and the

supple violence of the movements wherewith she enveloped me demanded,

promised, and deserved the most ardent caresses. We became aware, during

that wonderful night, of voluptuousness the abyss of which borders on

suffering.

When I came down to the innyard in the morning I met M. d’Anquetil, who,

now that I had deceived him, appeared to me less odious than formerly.

On his part he felt better inclined to me than he had yet done since we

started on our travels. He talked familiarly to me, with sympathy and

confidence; his only reproach was that I did not show to Jahel all the

regard and attention she deserved, and did not give her the care an

honest man ought to bestow on every woman.

“She complains,” he said, “of your want of civility. Take care, my dear

Tournebroche; I should be sorry for a difference to arise between her

and yourself. She’s a pretty girl, and loves me immensely.”

The carriage had rolled on for more than an hour when Jahel put her head

out of the coach window and said to me:

“The other carriage has reappeared. I should like to discover the

features of the two men who occupy it, but I cannot.”

I replied that at such a distance, and in the morning mist, it would be

impossible to discern them.

“But,” she exclaimed, “those are not faces.”

“What else do you want them to be?” I questioned, and burst out

laughing.

Now, in her turn, she inquired of me what silly idea had sprung into my

brain to laugh so stupidly and said:

“They are not faces, they are masks. Yonder two men follow us and are

masked.”

I informed M. d’Anquetil that seemingly an ugly carriage followed us.

But he asked me to let him alone.

“If all the hundred thousand devils were on our track,” he exclaimed, “I

should not care a rap for it as I have enough to do to look after that

obese old abbé who plays his tricks with the cards in the most artful

way, and who robs me of my money. I almost suspect, Tournebroche, you

call my attention to yonder coach for the purpose of aiding and abetting

that old sharper. Cannot a carriage be on the same road as ours without

causing you anxiety?”

Jahel whispered to me:

“I predict, Jacques, that yonder carriage brings trouble for us. I have

a presentiment of it, and my presentiments have never failed to come

true.”

“Do you want to make me believe that you have the gift of prophecy?”

Gravely, she replied:

“Yes; I have.”

“What, you are a prophetess!” I cried, smiling. “Here is something

strange!”

“You sneer and you doubt because you have never seen a prophetess so

near at hand. How did you wish them to look?”

“I thought that they must be virgins.”

“That’s not necessary,” she replied, with assurance.

The threatening carriage had disappeared at a turning of the road.

But Jahel’s uneasiness had, without his acknowledging it, impressed M.

d’Anquetil, who ordered the postboys to hurry their horses, promising

them extra good tips. And by an excess of care he passed to each of them

a bottle of the wine that the abbé had placed in reserve in the bottom

of the carriage.

The postillions made their horses feel the stimulus that the wine gave

to them.

“You can calm yourself, Jahel,” said he; “at the speed we are going that

antique coach, drawn by the horses of the Apocalypse, will never catch

us.”

“We run like cats on hot bricks,” said the abbé.

“If only it would last!” said Jahel.

We saw the vineyards on our right disappear rapidly. On the left

the River Saône ran slowly. Like a hurricane we passed the bridge of

Tournus. The town itself rose on the other side of the river on a hill

crowned by the walls of an abbey, proud as a fortress.

“That,” said the abbé, “is one of the numberless Benedictine abbeys

which are strewn like so many gems on the robe of ecclesiastical Gaul.

If it had pleased God that my destiny should match my character I should

have lived an obscure life, gay and sweet, in one of these abodes.

There is no other religious order I hold in such high esteem, for their

doctrines as well as for their morals, as the Benedictines. They have

admirable libraries. Happy he who wears their habit and follows their

holy rules! It may be from the inconvenience I feel at this moment in

being shaken to pieces in this carriage, which no doubt will very soon

be upset by sinking into one of the many holes of this confounded road,

or it may perhaps be the effect of age, which is the time for retreat

and grave thinking; whatever be the cause I wish more ardently than ever

to seat myself at a table in one of those venerable galleries, where

books plenty and choice are assembled in quiet and silence. I prefer

their entertainment to that of men, and my dearest wish is to wait, in

the work of the spirit, for the hour in which it will please God to call

me from this earth. I shall write history, and by preference that of

the Romans at the decline of the Republic, because it is full of great

actions and examples. I’ll divide my zeal between Cicero, Saint John

Chrysostom and Boethius and my modest and fruitful life would resemble

the garden of the old man of Tarentum.

“I have experienced different manners of living, and I think the best is

to give oneself to study, to look on peacefully at the vicissitudes

of men, and to prolong, by the spectacle of centuries and empires, the

brevity of our days. But order and continuity are needed. And that’s the

very thing that has always been wanting in my existence. If, as I hope,

I am able to disentangle myself from the bad position I’m in just now,

I’ll do my best to find an honourable and safe asylum in some learned

abbey where _bonnes lettres_ are held in honour and respect. I can see

myself there already, enjoying the illustrious peace of science. Could

I obtain the good offices of the Sylph assistants of whom that old fool

d’Asterac speaks, and who appear, it is said, when they are invoked by

the cabalistic name of AGLA--”

At the very moment my dear tutor spoke these words a violent shock

brought down a rain of glass on our heads, in such confusion that I felt

myself blinded, as well as suffocated under Jahel’s petticoats, while

the abbe complained in a smothered voice that M. d’Anquetil’s sword had

broken the remainder of his teeth, and over my head Jahel screamed fit

to tear to pieces all the air of the Burgundian valleys. M. d’Anquetil,

in rough, barrack-room style, promised to get the postboys hanged. When

at last I was able to rise, he had already jumped out through a broken

window. We followed him, my dear tutor and I, by the same exit, and then

all three of us pulled Jahel out of the overturned vehicle. No harm had

been done to her, and her first thought was to adjust her head-dress.

“Thank God!” said my tutor, “I have not suffered any other damage than

the loss of a tooth, and that was neither whole nor white. Time had

already effected its decay.” M. d’Anquetil, legs astride and arms

akimbo, examined the carriage.

“The rascals,” he said, “have put it in a nice state. If the horses are

got up they will break it all to pieces. Abbé, that carriage is no good

for anything else but to play spillikins with.”

The horses had fallen topsy-turvy, one on the other, and were kicking

furiously. In a heap of croups and legs and steaming bellies, one of the

postboys was buried, his boots in the air. The other was spitting blood

in the ditch, where he had been thrown. M. d’Anquetil shouted to them:

“Idiots! I really don’t know why I do not spit you on my sword.”

“Sir,” said Abbé Coignard, “would it not be better to get that poor

fellow out of the midst of these horses wherein he is entangled?”

We all went to work with a will, and when the horses were freed and

raised we were able to discover the extent of the damage done. One of

the springs was broken, one of the wheels also, and one of the horses

lame.

“Fetch a smith,” ordered M. d’Anquetil.

“There is no smith in the neighbourhood,” was the postboy’s reply.

“A mechanic of some kind.”

“There is none.”

“A saddler.”

“There is no saddler.”

We looked round. To the west the vineyards extended to the horizon their

long peaceful lines. On the hill smoke came out of a chimney near a

steeple. On the other side, the Saone, veiled by a light mist, lost

itself slowly in the calm running of her flowing waters. The shadows of

the poplars elongated themselves on the banks. The shrill cry of a bird

pierced the deep silence.

“Where are we?” asked M. d’Anquetil.

“At two full leagues from Tournus,” replied the postillion, spitting

blood, “and at least four leagues from Mâcon.”

And, extending his arm towards the smoking chimney:

“Up there, that village ought to be Vallars, but it’s not up to much.”

“Blast you!” roared M. d’Anquetil.

While the horses struggled we went near the carriage, which was lying

sadly on its side.

The little postboy who had been taken out from the midst of the horses

said:

“As to the spring, that could be mended by a strong piece of wood. It

will only make the carriage shake you more. But there is the broken

wheel! And, worst of all, my hat is under it, smashed to pieces.”

“Damn your hat!” said M. d’Anquetil.

“Your lordship may not be aware that it was quite new,” was the

postboy’s meek reply.

“And the window glasses are broken!” sighed Jahel, seated on a

portmanteau, at the side of the road.

“If it were but the glasses,” said M. Coignard, “a remedy could soon

be found by lowering the blinds, but the bottles cannot be in the same

state as the windows. I must look to it as soon as the coach can be

raised. I am also in fear for my Boethius, which I had placed under the

cushions with some other good books.”

“It does not matter,” said M. d’Anquetil. “I have the cards in my

waistcoat pocket. But shall we not get any supper?”

“I had thought of it,” said the abbé. “It is not in vain that God has

given to the use of men the animals who crowd the earth, the sky and the

water. I am an excellent angler; the care necessary to allure the fish

particularly suits my meditative mind, and the River Orne has seen

me managing my line while meditating on the eternal verities. Do not

trouble over your supper. If Mademoiselle Jahel will be good enough to

give me one of the pins which keep her garments together I’ll soon make

a hook of it, to enable me to fish in yonder river, and I flatter myself

I shall return before nightfall laden with two or three carp, that we

will grill over a brushwood fire.”

“I am quite aware,” said Jahel, “that we are reduced to somewhat of a

savage state. But I could not give you a pin, abbé, without your giving

me something in exchange for it; otherwise our friendship would be

jeopardised. And that I do not want in any case.”

“Then I will make an advantageous exchange, mademoiselle: I’ll pay for

your pin with a kiss.”

And, taking the pin out of Jahel’s hand, he kissed her on both cheeks

with inconceivable courtesy, gracefulness and decency.

After having lost plenty of time, a reasonable step was at last taken.

The big postillion, who no longer spat blood, was sent to Tournus on

one of the horses to bring back with him a blacksmith; the other boy was

ordered to light a fire, as the air became fresh, and a sharp wind was

rising.

We discovered on the road, a hundred paces from the place of our

breakdown, a cliff of soft stone, the foot of which was quarried in

several places. We resolved to wait in one of those caves, warming

ourselves until the return of the boy sent to Tournus. The second boy

tied the three remaining horses to the trunk of a tree, near our cavern.

The abbé, who had made a fishing rod with the branch of a willow-tree,

some string, a cork and a pin, went a-fishing as much for his

philosophical and meditative inclination as for the sake of bringing

us back fish. M. d Anquetil, remaining with Jahel and me in the grotto,

proposed a game of _l’ombre,_ which is played by three, and which he

said, being a Spanish game, was the very one for persons as adventurous

as ourselves. And true it is that, in that quarry, in a deserted road,

our little company would not have been unworthy to figure in some of the

adventures of Don Quixote in which menials take such a strong interest.

And so we played _l’ombre._ I committed a great many errors, and my

impetuous partner got cross, when the noble and laughing face of my

good tutor became visible at the light of our fire. He untied his

handkerchief, and took out of it some four or five small fish, which

he opened with his knife, decorated with the image of the late king,

dressed as a Roman emperor, standing on a triumphal column; and cleaned

them with dexterity, as if he had never lived anywhere else than in the

midst of the fishwomen at the market. He excelled as much in trifles as

in matters of the greatest importance. Arranging the fish on the embers,

he said:

“I will tell you, in all confidence, that following the river in search

of a favourable place for fishing, I perceived the apocalyptic coach

which frightens Mademoiselle Jahel. It stopped somewhat behind our

carriage. You ought to have seen it pass by while I was fishing, and

mademoiselle’s soul ought to have been comforted by it.”

“We have not seen it,” replied Jahel.

“Then it may have moved on only after the night had become dark. But at

least you heard it rumbling?”

“We have not,” said Jahel.

“It is then that this night is blind as well as deaf. It is not to be

supposed that yonder coach, which had not a wheel broken, not a horse

lamed, would have remained standing still on the road. What for?”

“Yes, what for?” said Jahel.

“Our supper,” said my good tutor, “reminds me of the simplicity of the

repasts described in the Bible, where the pious traveller divided with

an angel, on the bank of the river, the fishes of the Tigris. But we are

in want of bread, salt and wine. I’ll try to take out of our coach the

provisions put there, and look if by a fortunate chance some bottles

have remained intact. There are occasions when glass remains whole but

steel is broken. Tournebroche, my son, give me your steel; and you,

mademoiselle, do not fail to turn the grilling fish. I’ll be back in a

moment.”

He left. His somewhat heavy tread sounded in a de crescendo, and soon we

could hear him no more.

“This very night,” said M. d’Anquetil, “reminds me of the night before

the battle of Parma. You may be aware that I have served under Villars

and been in the War of Succession. I was with the scouts. We could not

see anything. That’s one of the best ruses of war. Men are sent out to

reconnoitre the enemy who return without having reconnoitred anything.

But reports are drawn up, after the battle, and then it is that the

tacticians are triumphant. Thus, at nine o’clock at night, I was sent

out scouting with twelve men--”

And he gave us a narrative of the War of Succession and of his amours in

Italy; his story had lasted for well-nigh a quarter of an hour when he

exclaimed:

“That rascal of an abbé does not come back. I bet he drinks all the wine

which remained in the coach.”

Thinking that my dear tutor might possibly be embarrassed, I rose

and went to help him. It was a moonless night, and if the sky was

resplendent in the light of thousands of stars, the earth was clad in

a darkness which my eyes, dazzled by the light of the flames, could not

pierce.

Having walked about fifty steps on the black road. I heard a terrible

cry, which did not sound as if coming from a human breast, a cry

altogether unlike all cries I had heard before, a horrible cry. I ran in

the direction from whence came this clamour of fatal distress. But fear

and darkness checked my steps. Arrived at last at the place where our

coach lay on the road, shapeless and enlarged by the night, I found my

dear tutor seated on the side of the ditch, bent double. Trembling I

asked him:

“What’s the matter? Why did you shout?”

“Yes; why did I shout?” he said, in a new and altered voice. “I did not

know I had cried out. Tournebroche, did you not see a man? He struck me

in the dark, very fiercely; he gave me a blow with his fist.”

“Come,” I said to him, “get up, my dear master.”

Having risen he fell back heavily on the ground.

I tried to raise him, and my hands became moist when I touched his

breast.

“You’re bleeding!”

“Bleeding? I’m a dead man. He has killed me. I thought that it was but

a blow with the fist. But it’s a wound, and I feel that I shall never

recover from it.”

“Who struck you, my dear tutor?”

“It was the Jew. I did not see him, but I know it was he. How can I

know that it was the Jew, when I did not see him? Yes; how is it? What

strange things! It’s not to be believed, is it, Tournebroche? I have the

taste of death in my mouth, which cannot be defined. It was to be,

my God! But why rather here than somewhere else? That’s the mystery!

_‘Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini--Domine exaudi orationem meam--’”_

For a short time he prayed in a low voice, then:

“Tournebroche, my son,” he said to me, “take the two bottles I found

in the coach and have placed here beside me. I can do no more.

Tournebroche, where do you think the wound is? It’s in the back I suffer

most, and it seems to me that life runs out by the legs. My spirits are

going.”

Murmuring these words he fainted softly in my arms. I tried to carry

him, but I had only strength enough to lay him lengthwise on the ground.

Opening his shirt, I discovered the wound; it was in the breast; very

small, and bleeding little. I tore my wristbands to pieces and laid them

on the wound; I called out, shouted for help. Soon I thought I heard

help coming from the side of Tournus, and I recognised M. d’Asterac.

Unexpected as the meeting was, I did not actually feel surprised; too

deeply was I the prey of the immense sorrow I felt holding in my arms,

dying, that best of all masters.

“What’s the matter, my son?” asked the alchemist.

“Help me, sir,” I replied, “the Abbé Coignard is dying. Mosaide has

killed him.”

“It is true,” said M. d’Asterac, “that Mosaide has come here in an old

chariot in pursuit of his niece, and that I have accompanied him

to exhort you, my son, to return to your employment with me. Since

yesterday we came near your coach, which we saw break down just now in a

rut. At that very moment Mosaide alighted from the carriage, and it may

be that he wanted to take a walk, or perhaps he made himself invisible,

as he can do. I have not seen him again. It is possible that he has

already found his niece to curse her; such is the intention. But he has

not killed M. Coignard. It is the Elves, my son, who have killed your

master, to punish him for the disclosure of their secrets. Nothing is

surer than that.”

“Ah! sir,” I exclaimed, “what does it matter, if it was the Jew or the

Elves who killed him; we must assist him.”

“On the contrary, my son,” replied M. d’Asterac, “it is of the greatest

importance. For should he have been stricken by a human hand it would

be easy for me to cure him by magic operation; but having provoked the

Elves he could never escape their infallible vengeance.”

As he spoke, M. d’Anquetil and Jahel, having heard my shouts,

approached, with the postboy, who carried a lantern.

“What,” said Jahel, “is M. Coignard unwell?”

And kneeling close to my good tutor, she raised his head and made him

inhale the smell of her salts.

“Mademoiselle,” I said to her, “you’re the cause of his death, which is

the vengeance for your abduction. Mosaide has killed him.”

From my dying master she lifted up her face pale with horror and shining

with tears.

“And you too,” she said, “believe that it’s easy to be a pretty girl

without causing mischief?”

“Alas!” I replied, “what you say is but too true. But we have lost the

best of men.”

At this moment Abbé Coignard sighed deeply, opened his eyes, called for

his book of Boethius, and fainted again into unconsciousness.

The postboy thought it would be best to carry the wounded man to the

village of Vallars, which was only half-a-league distant.

“I’ll go,” he said, “to fetch the steadiest of the horses which remain.

We’ll tie the poor fellow securely on it, and lead it slowly ahead. I

think him very ill. He looks exactly like the courier who was murdered

at Saint Michel on the same road, at four stages from here, near Senecy,

where my sweetheart lives. That poor devil moved his eyelids and turned

up the whites of his eyes like a bad woman, saving your presence,

gentlemen. And your abbé did the same when mam’selle tickled his nose

with her bottle. It’s a bad sign with a wounded man; girls don’t die of

it when they turn their eyes up in that fashion. Your lordships know it

well. And there is some distance, thank God! between the little death

and the great. But it’s the same turning up of the eyes... Remain,

gentlemen, I’ll go and fetch the horse.”

“This rustic is amusing,” said M. d’Anquetil, “with his turned-up

eyes and his bad women. I’ve seen in Italy soldiers who died on the

battlefield with a fixed look and eyes starting out of their head. There

are no rules for dying of a wound, actually not even in the military

service, where exactitude is pushed to the extreme. But will you,

Tournebroche, in default of a better qualified person, present me to

yonder gentleman in black, who wears diamond studs, and whom I reckon to

be M. d’Asterac?”

“Ah! sir,” I replied, “consider the presentation to be made. I have no

other feelings but to assist my dear tutor.”

“Be it so!” said M. d’Anquetil.

And approaching M. d’Asterac:

“Sir, I have taken your mistress away: I’m ready to answer for my deed.”

“Sir,” replied M. d’Asterac. “Grace be to heaven! I have no connection

with any woman, and do not understand what you mean.”

At this very moment the postboy returned with a horse. My dear tutor had

slightly recovered. We lifted him up, all four of us, and put him with

the greatest difficulty on the horse, where we tied him as securely as

possible. And we went off. I held him on one side, M. d’Anquetil on the

other. The postboy led the horse and carried the lantern. M. d’Asterac

had returned to his carriage. All went well as long as we kept on the

highroad; but when it became necessary to climb the small lanes of the

vineyards, my dear master, slipping at every movement of the horse, lost

the rest of his little strength, and fainted away again. We thought it

best to take him off the horse and carry him in our arms. The postboy

held him under the arms and I by the legs. The ascent was very rough,

and I expected to fall at least four times with my living cross, on the

stones of the path. At last the hill became easier. We entered a small

lane bordered by bushes, and soon discovered on our left the first roofs

of Vallars. We laid our burden softly on the turf, and for a moment took

breath. Lifting up the abbe again, we carried him into the village.

A pink light appeared eastwards on the horizon. The morning star, in the

pale sky, shone as white and peaceful as the moon, the light crescent of

which paled away in the west The birds began to chirp; my master sighed

heavily.

Jahel ran before us, knocking at the doors, in quest of a bed and

a surgeon. Carrying baskets and panniers the vine-growers went

grape-gathering. One of them said to Jahel that Gaulard on the market

place lodges man and beast.

“As to the surgeon, Coquebert, you’ll see him yonder under the shaving

plate which serves as his trade sign. He leaves his house to go to his

vineyard.”

He was a very polite little man. He told us that he had a bed free in

his house, as a short time ago his daughter had got married.

By his order, his wife, a stout dame wearing a white cap covered by a

felt hat, put sheets on the bed in the lower chamber. She helped us to

undress the Abbe Coignard and to put him to bed. And then she went out

to fetch the vicar.

In the meanwhile M. Coquebert examined the wound

“You see,” I said, “it’s small, and bleeds but little.”

“That’s not good at all,” he replied, “and I do not like it, my dear

young gentleman. I like a large wound which bleeds freely.”

“I see,” said M. d’Anquetil, “that for a leech and a village squirt

your test is not a bad one. Nothing is worse than those little but deep

wounds which look a mere nothing. Tell me of a nice cut across the face.

It’s pleasant to look on, and heals in no time. But know, my good sir,

that this wounded man is my chaplain, and plays piquet with me. Are you

the man to put him on his legs again, notwithstanding your looks, which

are rather those of a vet?”

“At your service,” replied the barber-surgeon, bowing profoundly. “But I

also set broken bones and treat wounds. I’ll examine this one.”

“Make haste, sir,” I said.

“Patience!” he replied. “First of all the wound must be washed, and I

must wait till the water gets warm.”

My good tutor, a little restored, said slowly, but with a fairly strong

voice:

“Lamp in hand, he’ll visit the corners of Jerusalem, and what is hidden

in darkness will be brought to light.”

“What do you mean, dear master?”

“Don’t, my son,” he replied; “I’m entertaining the sentiments fit for my

state.”

“The water is hot,” the barber said to me. “Hold the basin close to the

bed. I’ll wash the wound.”

And while he pressed on my tutor’s breast a sponge soaked in hot water,

the vicar entered the room with Madame Coquebert. He had a basket and a

pair of vine shears in his hand.

“Here is then the poor man,” said he. “I was going to my vineyard, but

that of Jesus Christ has to be attended to first; my son,” he said as

he approached the stricken abbé, “offer your wound to our Lord. Perhaps

it’s not so serious as it’s thought to be. And for the rest, we must

obey God’s will.”

Turning to the barber, he asked:

“Is it very urgent, M. Coquebert, or could I go to my vineyard? The

white ones can wait; it’s not bad if they do get a little overripe, and

a little rain would only produce more and better wine. But the red must

be gathered at once.”

“You speak the truth, Monsieur le Cure,” M. Coquebert replied. “I’ve in

my vineyard some grapes which cover themselves with a certain moisture,

and which escape the sun only to perish by the rain.”

“Alas!” said the vicar, “humidity and drought are the two enemies of the

vine-grower.”

“Nothing is truer,” said the barber, “but I’ll inspect the wound.”

Having said so he pushed one of his fingers into the wound.

“Ah! Torturer!” exclaimed the patient.

“Remember,” said the vicar, “that our Lord forgave His torturers.”

“They were not barbarous,” said the abbe.

“That’s a wicked word,” said the vicar.

“You must not torment a dying man for his jokes,” said my good master.

“But I suffer horribly; that man assassinates me and I die twofold. The

first time was by the hands of a Jew.”

“What does he mean?” asked the vicar.

“It is best, reverend sir,” said the barber, “not to trouble yourself

about it. You must never want to hear the talk of a patient. They are

only dreams.”

“Coquebert,” said the vicar, “you don’t speak well. Patients’

confessions must be listened to, and some Christians who never in all

their lives said a good word may, at the end, pronounce words which open

Paradise to them.”

“I spoke temporally only,” said the barber.

“Monsieur le Cure,” I said, “the Abbe Coignard, my good master, does not

wander in his mind, and it is but too true that he has been murdered by

a Jew of the name of Mosaide.”

“In that case,” replied the vicar, “he has to see a special favour of

God, who willed that he perishes by the hand of a nephew of those who

crucified His Son. The behaviour of Providence is always admirable. M.

Coquebert, can I go to my vineyard?”

“You can, sir,” replied the barber. “The wound is not a good one, but

yet not of the kind by which one dies at once. It’s one of those wounds

which play with the wounded like a cat with a mouse, and with such play

time may be gained.”

“That’s well,” said the vicar. “Let’s thank God, my son, that He lets

you live, but life is precarious and transitory. One must always be

ready to quit it.”

My good tutor replied earnestly:

“To be on the earth without being of it, to possess without being in

possession, for the fashion of this world passes away.”

Picking up his shears and his basket, the vicar said:

“Better than by your cloak and shoes, which I see on yonder cupboard, I

recognise by your speech that you belong to the Church and lead a holy

life. Have you been ordained?”

“He is a priest,” I said, “a doctor of divinity and a professor of

eloquence.”

“Of which diocese?” queried the vicar.

“Of Seez in Normandy, a suffragan of Rouen.”

“An important ecclesiastical province,” said the vicar, “but less

important by antiquity and fame than the diocese of Reims, of which I am

a priest.”

And he went away. M. Jerome Coignard passed the day easily. Jahel wanted

to remain the night with him. At about eleven o’clock I left the house

of M. Coquebert and went in search of a bed at the inn of M. Gaulard.

I found M. d’Asterac in the market place. His shadow in the moonlight

covered nearly all the surface. He laid his hands on my shoulder as he

was wont to do, and said with his customary gravity:

“It’s time for me to assure you, my son, that I have accompanied

Mosa’ide for nothing else than this. I see you cruelly tormented by the

goblins. Those little spirits of the earth have attacked you, deceiving

you with all sorts of phantasmagoria, seducing you by a thousand lies,

and finally forcing you to fly from my house.”

“Alas! sir,” I replied, “it’s quite true that I left your house in

apparent ingratitude, for which I beg your pardon. But I have been

persecuted by the constables, and not by goblins. And my dear tutor has

been murdered. That’s not a phantasmagoria.”

“Do not doubt,” the great man answered, “that the unhappy abbe has been

mortally wounded by the Sylphs, whose secrets he has revealed. He has

stolen from a sideboard some stones, which were the work of the Sylphs,

and which they left unfinished, and still very different from diamonds

in brilliancy as well as in purity.

“It was that avidity, and the indiscreet pronouncing of the name

of Agla, which has angered them. You must know, my son, that it is

impossible for philosophers to arrest the vengeance of this irascible

people.

“I have heard from a supernatural voice, and also from Criton’s reports,

of the sacrilegious larceny M. Coignard committed by which he flattered

himself to find out the art by which Salamanders, Sylphs, and Gnomes

ripen the morning dew and insensibly change it into crystals and

diamonds.”

“Alas! sir, I assure you he thought of no such thing, and that it was

that horrible Mosa’ide who stabbed him with a stiletto on the road.”

My words very much displeased M. d’Asterac, who urged me in the most

pressing manner never to repeat them again.

“Mosaide,” he further said, “is a good enough cabalist to reach his

enemies without going to the trouble of running after them. Know, my

son, that, had he wanted to kill M. Coignard, he could have done it

easily from his own room by a magic operation. I see that you’re still

ignorant of the first elements of the science. The truth is that this

learned man, informed by the faithful Criton of the flight of his niece,

hired post-horses to rejoin her and eventually carry her back to his

house, which he certainly would have done, had he discovered in the mind

of that unhappy girl the slightest idea of regret and repentance. But,

finding her corrupted by debauchery, he preferred to excommunicate and

curse her by the globes, the wheels and the beasts of Ezekiel. That is

precisely what he has done under my eyes in the calashr where he lives

alone, so as not to partake of the bed and table of Christians.”

I kept mute, astonished by such dreams, but this extraordinary man

talked to me with an eloquence which troubled me deeply.

“Why,” he said, “do you not let yourself be enlightened by the counsels

of philosophers? What kind of wisdom do you oppose to mine? Consider

that yours is less in quantity without differing in essence. To you as

well as to me nature appears as an infinity of figures, which have to be

recognised and classified, and which form a sequence of hieroglyphics.

You can easily distinguish some of those signs to which you attach a

sense, but you are too much inclined to be content with the vulgar

and the literal, and you do not search enough for the ideal and the

symbolic. And withal the world is comprehensible only as a symbol, and

all you see in the universe is naught but an illuminated writing, which

vulgar men spell without understanding it. Be afraid, my son, to imitate

the universal bray in the style of the learned ones who congregate in

the academies. Rather receive of me the key of all knowledge.”

For a moment he stopped speaking, and then continued in a more familiar

tone:

“You are persecuted, my son, by enemies less terrible than Sylphs. And

your Salamander will not have any difficulty in freeing you from the

goblins as soon as you request her to do so. I repeat that I came here

with Mosa’ide for no other purpose than to give you this good advice,

and to press you to return to me and continue your work. I quite

understand that you want to assist your unhappy master till the end. You

have full license to do it. But afterwards do not fail to return to

my house. Adieu! I’ll return this very night to Paris with that great

Mosaide whom you have accused so unjustly.”

I promised him all he wanted, and crawled into my miserable bed, where I

fell asleep, weighed down as I was by fatigue and suffering.