“It’s a terrible language, Latin, with its conciseness,” I remarked,
to avoid contradicting my antiquary explicitly, and I fell back a few
paces in order to view the statue better.
“One moment, colleague!” said M. de Peyrehorade, taking me by the arm,
“you haven’t seen all. There’s still another inscription. Get up on the
base and look at the right arm.” So speaking, he helped me to get up.
I clung on without much ceremony by the neck of the Venus with whom I
was beginning to be quite at home. I even looked at her for a moment
“under the nose,” and found her more wicked and more beautiful than
ever at close quarters. Then I saw that there were engraved on the arm
some characters in ancient cursive character, as it seemed to me. With
the help of spectacles I spelled out what follows, and meanwhile M.
de Peyrehorade repeated each word as I pronounced it, signifying his
approval by voice and gesture. Accordingly I read:
VENERI TVRBVL ...
EVTYCHES MYRO
IMPERIO FECIT
After the word TVRBVL in the first line it seemed to me that there were
several letters effaced; but TVRBVL was perfectly legible.
“Which means?” my host asked me, beaming and smiling mischievously, for
he was pretty sure that I would not get easily over that TVRBVL.
“There is one word which I can’t explain yet,” I told him, “but all
the rest is easy: Eutyches Myron made this offering to Venus at her
command.”
“Just so! But TVRBVL, what do you make of that? What is TVRBVL?”
“TVRBVL bothers me considerably. I am hunting in vain for some known
epithet of Venus which might help me. Let us see, what do you say to
TVRBVLENTA? Venus who troubles, agitates?... You see that I am always
possessed by her wicked expression. TVRBVLENTA, that is not at all a
bad epithet for Venus,” I added in a modest tone, for I was not very
well satisfied myself with my explanation.
“Venus the Turbulent! Venus the Rowdy! Ah! Then you believe that my
Venus is a tavern Venus, do you? Not at all, sir; she is a well-bred
Venus. But I’ll explain this TVRBVL ... to you. Though you must promise
not to divulge my discovery before my paper is printed. Because, you
see, I am proud of this find.... You might as well leave us poor
devils of provincials some ears to glean. You are so rich, you learned
gentlemen of Paris!”
From the top of the pedestal, where I was still perched, I solemnly
promised him that I would never be so dishonourable as to rob him of
his discovery.
“TVRBVL ..., sir,” said he, coming nearer and lowering his voice, for
fear any one besides me might hear him, “read TVRBVLNERAE.”
“I am still no wiser.”
“Listen! A league from here, at the foot of the mountain, there is a
village called Boulternère. That is a corruption of the Latin word
TVRBVLNERA. Nothing more common than these inversions. Boulternère,
sir, was a Roman town. I always suspected so, but I never had evidence
for it. The evidence is here! This Venus was the local deity of the
city of Boulternère; and this word Boulternère, of which I have just
demonstrated the ancient origin, proves a thing more curious still,
namely, that Boulternère, before being a Roman town, was a town of the
Phœnicians!”
He paused for a moment to take breath and enjoy my surprise. I managed
to repress a strong desire to laugh.
“In fact,” he continued, “TVRBVLNERA is pure Phœnician; TVR, pronounce
TOOR.... TOOR and SOOR, the same word, are they not? SUR is the
Phœnician name of Tyre; I need not remind you of its meaning. BVL is
Baal; Bâl, Bel, Bul, slight difference of pronunciation. As for NERA,
that gives me a little trouble. I am inclined to think, failing a
Phœnician word, that it comes from the Greek νηρός, moist, marshy.
The word would then be a hybrid. To justify νηρός, I’ll show you at
Boulternère how the streams from the mountains form pestilential
marshes there. On the other hand, the termination NERA might have been
added much later in honour of Nera Pivesuvia, wife of Tetricus, who may
have rendered some benefit to the city of Turbul. But, looking to the
marshes, I prefer the derivation from νηρός.”
He took a pinch of snuff with a satisfied air.
“But let us leave the Phœnicians and return to the inscription. I
translate, then, ‛To Venus of Boulternère Myron dedicates at her
command this statue, his work.’”
I took good care not to criticize his etymology; but I wished in my
turn to give evidence of penetration, and said to him:
“Stop a moment, sir, Myron consecrated something; but I do not at all
see that it was this statue.”
“How so?” he exclaimed. “Was not Myron a famous Greek sculptor? His
talent must have been perpetuated in his family: it must have been one
of his descendants who made this statue. Nothing is more certain.”
“But,” I replied, “I see a little hole in the arm. In my opinion,
it served to fasten something, a bracelet, for instance, which this
Myron gave to Venus as an expiatory offering. Myron was an unhappy
lover. Venus was angry with him; he appeased her by consecrating a
golden bracelet to her. Note that _fecit_ is very often used for
_consecravit_. They are synonymous terms. I could show you more than
one example, if I had Gruter, or even Orellius at hand. It is natural
that a lover should see Venus in a dream, that he should imagine
that she commands him to give a golden bracelet to her statue. Myron
consecrated a bracelet to her.... Then the barbarians, or even some
sacrilegious robber....”
“Ah, it is easy to see that you have written novels!” exclaimed my
host, as he lent me a hand to descend. “No, sir; it is a work of the
school of Myron. Only look at the workmanship, and you’ll agree.”
Having made it an invariable rule never to give a point-blank
contradiction to obstinate antiquaries, I bowed my head with an air of
conviction and said:
“It is an admirable piece.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade. “Another piece of
vandalism! Some one must have been throwing stones at my statue!”
He had just observed a white mark a little above the breast of the
Venus. I noticed a similar trace on the fingers of the right hand,
which, I supposed at the time, the stone had touched in its passage,
or perhaps even a fragment had been knocked off it by the shock, and
had rebounded on to the hand. I related to my host the insult, of which
I had been a witness, and the prompt punishment which had followed
it. He laughed heartily at the story, and, comparing the appprentice
to Diomede, wished that, like the Greek hero, he might see all his
companions turned into white birds.
The breakfast bell interrupted this classical conversation, and, as on
the previous evening, I was obliged to eat enough for four. Then M. de
Peyrehorade’s farmers came; and, while he gave audience to them, his
son took me to see a barouche which he had bought at Toulouse for his
bride, and which I, of course, admired. Next I went into the stable
with him, where he kept me for half an hour boasting about his horses,
telling me their pedigrees, and detailing the prizes that they had won
at the county races. At last he came to tell me about his future wife,
having been led up to her by a grey mare which he intended for her.
“We’ll see her to-day,” he said. “I don’t know whether you’ll think her
pretty. You are difficult to please at Paris; but every one here and
at Perpignan thinks her charming. The beauty of it is that she is very
rich. Her aunt at Prades has left her property to her. Oh, I’ll be very
happy.”
I was deeply disgusted to see a young man apparently more impressed by
the dowry than by the charms of his future wife.
“You know something about jewels,” continued M. Alphonse, “what do you
think of this? This is the ring which I’m to give her to-morrow.”
With these words he drew from the first joint of his little finger a
big ring enriched with diamonds, in the form of two clasped hands; an
allusion which struck me as infinitely poetical. The workmanship was
ancient, but I thought that it had been remodelled to set the diamonds.
Inside the ring, in Gothic letters, could be read the words, “_Sempr’
ab ti_,” that is to say, “Ever with thee.”
“It is a pretty ring,” I said; “but those diamonds that have been added
have made it lose something of its character.”
“Oh, it is very much prettier like that,” he said with a smile. “There
are twelve hundred francs worth of diamonds there. It was given to me
by my mother. It was a very ancient family ring ... from the times of
chivalry. My grandmother used it for her wedding-ring, and she got it
from her grandmother. Goodness knows when it was made.”
“The custom at Paris,” I told him, “is to give quite a simple ring,
usually composed of two different metals, such as gold and platinum.
Wait! that other ring, the one on that finger, would be very suitable.
This one, with its diamonds and its hands in relief, is so big that one
could never put on a glove over it.”
“Oh, Madame Alphonse will manage as she likes. I expect she’ll be
quite glad to have it in any case. Twelve thousand francs is a nice
thing to have on one’s finger. That little ring there,” he added,
with a complacent glance at the perfectly plain ring which he wore on
his hand, “that ring there was given me by a girl at Paris one Shrove
Tuesday. Ah, how I went the pace when I was at Paris two years ago!
That’s the place to enjoy oneself!...” And he heaved a sigh of regret.
We were to dine that day at Puygarrig, with the bride’s parents; we got
into a barouche and drove to the château, which was about a league and
a half distant from Ille. I was presented and received as the friend of
the family. I shall say nothing about the dinner or the conversation
which ensued, and in which I took little part. M. Alphonse, placed
beside his betrothed, said something in her ear every quarter of an
hour. For her part, she did not often raise her eyes, and, when her
intended spoke to her, she blushed modestly, but answered him without
embarrassment.
Mademoiselle de Puygarrig was eighteen years of age; her supple and
delicate figure was a contrast to the large-boned frame of her robust
bridegroom. She was not merely beautiful, but entrancing. I admired
the perfect naturalness of all her answers; and her air of kindness,
which yet was not without a slight tinge of mischief, reminded me
involuntarily of my host’s Venus. As I made this comparison mentally,
I asked myself whether the superiority in point of beauty, which was
undoubtedly to be awarded to the statue, was not due, in great part, to
its tigress-like expression; for energy, even that of evil passions,
always excites us to astonishment and a sort of involuntary admiration.
“What a pity,” said I to myself, as we left Puygarrig, “that so amiable
a creature should be rich, and her portion should attract the suit of
a man so unworthy of her!” On the way back to Ille, being at a loss
for something to say to Madame de Peyrehorade, whom I thought it good
manners to address occasionally, I exclaimed:
“You are great freethinkers in Roussillon! Why, Madame, you are holding
a marriage on a Friday! At Paris we are more superstitious; nobody
there would dare to take a wife on such a day.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t talk about that to me!” she said. “If it had
depended on me alone, we should certainly have chosen another day. But
Peyrehorade would have it, and we had to give in to him. I am anxious
about it all the same. What if anything happens? There must be some
reason for it, for else why is everybody afraid of Friday?”
“Friday!” cried her husband, “that’s Venus’s day! A good day for
a marriage! You see, my dear colleague, I can never get away from
my Venus. On my honour, it’s because of her that I chose Friday!
To-morrow, if you like, before the wedding, we’ll make a little
sacrifice to her; we’ll sacrifice two doves, and if I knew where to get
some incense....”
“For shame, Peyrehorade!” broke in his wife, scandalized beyond
endurance. “Burn incense to an idol! That would be an abomination!
Whatever would they say about us in the district?”
“At least,” said M. de Peyrehorade, “you will allow me to place a
wreath of roses and lilies on her head:
_Manibus date lilia plenis._
You see, sir, the Charter is an empty word. We have not liberty of
worship!”
The arrangements for the morrow were settled as follows. Everybody was
to be dressed and ready at ten o’clock sharp. After chocolate, we were
to drive to Puygarrig. The civil marriage was to take place at the
mayor’s office in the village, and the religious ceremony in the chapel
at the château. Next was to come a breakfast. After the breakfast we
were to pass the time as best we could until seven o’clock. At seven
we were to return to Ille, to M. de Peyrehorade’s, where the united
families were to sup. The rest followed naturally. As they could not
dance, they meant to eat as much as possible.
By eight o’clock I was seated before the Venus, pencil in hand,
beginning the head of the statue over again for the twentieth time
without being able to catch its expression. M. de Peyrehorade kept
coming and going about me, giving me his advice and repeating his
Phœnician etymologies; then he disposed some Bengal roses on the
pedestal of the statue, and in a tragi-comic voice addressed to it his
prayers for the couple who were about to live under his roof. About
nine o’clock he went in to dress, and at the same moment M. Alphonse
made his appearance, very tight in a new coat, with white gloves,
patent-leather boots, chased studs, a rose in his button-hole.
“You will draw my wife’s portrait?” he asked, bending over my sketch.
“She is pretty too.”
At that moment, on the tennis-court which I have mentioned, a match
began, which at once attracted M. Alphonse’s attention. I too, tired
and in despair of rendering that diabolical face, soon quitted my
sketch to watch the players. Among them were some Spanish muleteers who
had arrived the night before. They were Aragonese and Navarrese, almost
all of marvellous skill. Accordingly the Ille men, though encouraged
by the presence and advice of M. Alphonse, were pretty promptly beaten
by these new champions. The local spectators were in consternation.
M. Alphonse looked at his watch. It was only half-past nine yet. His
mother had not got her hair dressed. He hesitated no longer; he took
off his coat, asked for a jacket, and challenged the Spaniards. When I
saw him do so, I smiled and was rather surprised.
“We must keep up the honour of the country,” he said. I found him
really handsome then. He was aroused. His dress, which had occupied
him so much a little ago, was nothing more to him now. A few minutes
before, he had been afraid to turn his head for fear of deranging his
neck-tie. Now he had no more thought of his curled hair or his neatly
pleated ruffle. And his bride?... Really, had it been necessary, I
believe he would have had the marriage postponed. I saw him hastily
slip on a pair of sandals, turn up his sleeves, and, with a confident
air, place himself at the head of the defeated side, like Cæsar
rallying his soldiers at Dyrrachium. I leaped over the hedge and
stationed myself comfortably under the shade of a _celiis australis_,
so that I had a good view of the two camps.
Contrary to general expectation, M. Alphonse missed the first ball;
true it came skimming low down and delivered with surprising force by
an Aragonese, who appeared to be the leader of the Spaniards.
He was a man about forty years of age, hard and wiry, about six feet
tall, and his olive skin was almost as dark in tone as the bronze of
the Venus.