“I would like to love thee,Did thy mother let me woo!May the demon meddleIn all she tries to do!”
“I would like to love thee,Did thy mother let me woo!May the demon meddleIn all she tries to do!”
The sound outside being more attractive for Panfila than the caldron within, she did not hasten to her mother, but went to the window. Mother Holofernes, meanwhile, seeing that her daughter did not come, and that time was passing, attempted to lift the caldron by herself, in order to pour the water upon the linen; andas the good woman was small, and not very strong, it turned over, and burnt her foot. On hearing the horrible groans Mother Holofernes made, her daughter went to her.
“Wretch, wretch!” cried the enraged Mother Holofernes to her daughter, “may you love Barabbas! And as for marrying—may Heaven grant you may marry the Evil One himself!”
Sometime after this accident an aspirant presented himself: he was a little man, young, fair, red-haired, well-mannered, and had well-furnished pockets. He had not a single fault, and Mother Holofernes was not able to find any in all her arsenal of negatives. As for Panfila, it wanted little to send her out of her senses with delight. So the preparations for the wedding were made, with the usual grumbling accompaniment on the part of the bridegroom’s future mother-in-law. Everything went on smoothly straightforward, and without a break—like a railroad—when, without knowing why, the popular voice—a voice which is as the personification of conscience,—began to rise in a murmur against the stranger, despite the fact that he was affable, humane, and liberal; that he spoke well and sang better; and freely took the black and horny hands of the labourers between his own white and beringed fingers. They began to feel neither honoured nor overpowered by so much courtesy; his reasoning was always so coarse, although forcible and logical.
“By my faith!” said Uncle Blas; “why does this ill-faced gentleman call me Mr. Blas, as if that would make me any better? What does it look like to you?”
“Well, as for me,” said Uncle Gil, “did he not come to shake hands with me as if we had some plot between us? Did he not call me citizen? I, who have never been out of the village, and never want to go.”
As for Mother Holofernes, the more she saw of her future son-in-law, the less regard she had for him. It seemed to her that between that innocent red hair and the cranium were located certain protuberances of a very curious kind; and she remembered with emotion that malediction she had uttered against her daughter on that ever memorable day on which her foot was injured and her washing spoilt.
At last, the wedding day arrived. Mother Holofernes had made pastry and reflections—the former sweet, the latter bitter; a greatolla podridafor the food, and a dangerous project for supper; she had prepared a barrel of wine that was generous, and a line of conduct that was not. When the bridal pair were about to retire to the nuptial chamber, Mother Holofernes called her daughter aside, and said: “When you are in your room, be careful to close the door and windows; shut all the shutters, and do not leave a single crevice open but the keyhole of the door. Take with you this branch of consecrated olive, and beat your husband with it as I advise you; this ceremony is customary at all marriages, and signifies that the woman is going to be master, and is followed in order to sanction and establish the rule.”
Panfila, for the first time obedient to her mother, did everything that she had prescribed.
No sooner did the bridegroom espy the branch of consecrated olive in the hands of his wife, than he attemptedto make a precipitous retreat. But when he found the doors and windows closed, and every crevice stopped up, seeing no other means of escape than by passing through the keyhole, he crept into that; this spruce, red-and-white, and well-spoken bachelor being, as Mother Holofernes had suspected, neither more nor less than the Evil One himself, who, availing himself of the right given him by the anathema launched against Panfila by her mother, thought to amuse himself with the pleasures of a marriage, and encumber himself with a wife of his own, whilst so many husbands were supplicating him to take theirs off their hands.
But this gentleman, despite his reputation for wisdom, had met with a mother-in-law who knew more than he did; and Mother Holofernes was not the only specimen of that genus. Therefore, scarcely had his lordship entered into the keyhole, congratulating himself upon having, as usual, discovered a method of escape, than he found himself in a phial, which his foreseeing mother-in-law had ready on the other side of the door; and no sooner had he got into it than the provident old dame sealed the vessel hermetically. In a most tender voice, and with most humble supplications, and most pathetic gestures, her son-in-law addressed her, and desired that she would grant him his liberty. But Mother Holofernes was not to be deceived by the demon, nor disconcerted by orations, nor imposed upon by honeyed words; she took charge of the bottle and its contents, and went off to a mountain. The old lady vigorously climbed to the summit of this mountain, and there, on its most elevated crest, in a rocky and secluded spot, depositedthe phial, taking leave of her son-in-law with a shake of her closed fist as a farewell greeting.
And there his lordship remained for ten years. What years those ten were! The world was as quiet as a pool of oil. Everybody attended to his own affairs, without meddling in those of other people. Nobody coveted the position, nor the wife, nor the property of other persons; theft became a word without signification; arms rusted; powder was only consumed in fireworks; prisons stood empty; finally, in this decade of the golden age, only one single deplorable event occurred ... the lawyers died from hunger and quietude.
Alas! that so happy a time should have an end! But everything has an end in this world, even the discourses of the most eloquent fathers of the country. At last the much-to-be-envied decade came to a termination in the following way.
A soldier named Briónes had obtained permission for a few days’ leave to enable him to visit his native place, which was Villagañanes. He took the road which led to the lofty mountain upon whose summit the son-in-law of Mother Holofernes was cursing all mothers-in-law, past, present, and future, promising as soon as ever he regained his power to put an end to that class of vipers, and by a very simple method—the abolition of matrimony. Much of his time was spent in composing and reciting satires against the invention of washing linen, the primal cause of his present trouble.
Arrived at the foot of the mountain, Briónes did not care to go round the mountain like the road, but wished to go straight ahead, assuring the carriers who were withhim, that if the mountain would not go to the right-about for him he would pass over its summit, although it were so high that he should knock his head against the sky.
When he reached the summit, Briónes was struck with amazement on seeing the phial borne like a pimple on the nose of the mountain. He took it up, looked through it, and on perceiving the demon, who with years of confinement and fasting, the sun’s rays, and sadness, had dwindled and become as dried as a prune, exclaimed in surprise:—
“Whatever vermin is this? What a phenomenon!”
“I am an honourable and meritorious demon,” said the captive, humbly and courteously. “The perversity of a treacherous mother-in-law, into whose clutches I fell, has held me confined here during the last ten years; liberate me, valiant warrior, and I will grant any favour you choose to solicit.”
“I should like my demission from the army,” said Briónes.
“You shall have it; but uncork, uncork quickly, for it is a most monstrous anomaly to have thrust into a corner, in these revolutionary times, the first revolutionist in the world.”
Briónes drew the cork out slightly, and a noxious vapour issued from the bottle and ascended to his brain. He sneezed, and immediately replaced the stopper with such a violent blow from his hand that the cork was suddenly depressed, and the prisoner, squeezed down, gave a shout of rage and pain.
“What are you doing, vile earthworm, more malicious and perfidious than my mother-in-law?” he exclaimed.
“There is another condition,” responded Briónes, “that I must add to our treaty; it appears to me that the service I am going to do you is worth it.”
“And what is this condition, tardy liberator?” inquired the demon.
“I should like for thy ransom four dollars daily during the rest of my life. Think of it, for upon that depends whether you stay in or come out.”
“Miserable avaricious one!” exclaimed the demon, “I have no money.”
“Oh!” replied Briónes, “what an answer from a great lord like you! Why, friend, that is the Minister of War’s answer! If you can’t pay me I cannot help you.”
“Then you do not believe me,” said the demon, “only let me out, and I will aid you to obtain what you want as I have done for many others. Let me out, I say, let me out.”
“Gently,” responded the soldier, “there is nothing to hurry about. Understand me that I shall have to hold you by the tail until you have performed your promise to me; and if not, I have nothing more to say to you.”
“Insolent, do you not trust me then!” shouted the demon.
“No,” responded Briónes.
“What you desire is contrary to my dignity,” said the captive, with all the arrogance that a being of his size could express.
“Now I must go,” said Briónes.
“Good-bye,” said the demon, in order not to sayadieu.
But seeing that Briónes went off, the captive made desperate jumps in the phial, shouting loudly to the soldier.
“Return, return, dear friend,” he said; and muttered to himself, “I should like a four-year-old bull to overtake you, you soulless fool!” and then he shouted, “Come, come, beneficent fellow, liberate me, and hold me by the tail, or by the nose, valiant warrior;” and then muttered to himself, “Some one will avenge me, obstinate soldier; and if the son-in-law of Mother Holofernes is not able to do it, there are those who will burn you both, face to face, in the same bonfire, or I have little influence.”
On hearing the demon’s supplications Briónes returned and uncorked the bottle. Mother Holofernes’s son-in-law came forth like a chick from its shell, drawing out his head first and then his body, and lastly his tail, which Briónes seized; and the more the demon tried to contract it the firmer he held it.
After the ex-captive, who was somewhat cramped, had occasionally stopped to stretch his arms and legs, they took the road to court, the demon grumbling and following the soldier, who carried the tail well secured in his hands.
On their arrival they went to court, and the demon said to his liberator:—
“I am going to put myself into the body of the princess,who is extremely beloved by her father, and I shall give her pains that no doctor will be able to cure; then you present yourself and offer to cure her, demanding for your recompense four dollars daily, and your discharge. I will then leave her to you, and our accounts will be settled.”
Everything happened as arranged and foreseen by the demon, but Briónes did not wish to let go his hold of the tail, and he said:—
“Well devised, sir, but four dollars are a ransom unworthy of you, of me, and of the service that we have undertaken. Find some method of showing yourself more generous. To do this will give you honour in the world, where, pardon my frankness, you do not enjoy the best of characters.”
“Would that I could get rid of you!” said the demon to himself, “but I am so weak and so numbed that I am not able to go alone. I must have patience! that which men call a virtue. Oh, now I understand why so many fall into my power for not having practised it. Forward then for Naples, for it is necessary to submit in order to liberate my tail. I must go and submit to the arbitration of fate for the satisfaction of this new demand.”
Everything succeeded according to his wish. The princess of Naples fell a victim to convulsive pains and took to her bed. The king was greatly afflicted. Briónes presented himself with all the arrogance his knowledge that he would receive the demon’s aid could give him. The king was willing to make use of hisservices, but stipulated that if within three days he had not cured the princess, as he confidently promised to, he should be hanged. Briónes, certain of a favourable result, did not raise the slightest objection.
Unfortunately, the demon heard this arrangement made, and gave a leap of delight at seeing within his hands the means of avenging himself.
The demon’s leap caused the princess such pain that she begged them to take the doctor away.
The following day this scene was repeated. Briónes then knew that the demon was at the bottom of it, and intended to let him be hanged. But Briónes was not a man to lose his head.
On the third day, when the pretended doctor arrived, they were erecting the gallows in front of the very palace door. As he entered the princess’s apartment, the invalid’s pains were redoubled and she began to cry out that they should put an end to that impostor.
“I have not exhausted all my resources yet,” said Briónes gravely, “deign, your Royal Highness, to wait a little while.” He then went out of the room and gave orders in the princess’s name that all the bells of the city should be rung.
When he returned to the royal apartment, the demon, who has a mortal hatred of the sound of bells, and is, moreover, inquisitive, asked Briónes what the bells were ringing for.
“They are ringing,” responded the soldier, “because of the arrival of your mother-in-law, whom I have ordered to be summoned.”
Scarcely had the demon heard that his mother-in-lawhad arrived, than he flew away with such rapidity that not even a sun’s ray could have caught him. Proud as a peacock, Briónes was left in victorious possession of the field.
FOOTNOTES:[16]FromSpanish Fairy Tales. By Fernán Caballero. Translated by J. H. Ingram. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1881. By permission of the Publishers.)
[16]FromSpanish Fairy Tales. By Fernán Caballero. Translated by J. H. Ingram. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1881. By permission of the Publishers.)
[16]FromSpanish Fairy Tales. By Fernán Caballero. Translated by J. H. Ingram. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1881. By permission of the Publishers.)
Yesterday, across the crowd of the boulevard, I found myself touched by a mysterious Being I had always desired to know, and who I recognized immediately, in spite of the fact that I had never seen him. He had, I imagined, in himself, relatively as to me, a similar desire, for he gave me, in passing, so significant a sign in his eyes that I hastened to obey him. I followed him attentively, and soon I descended behind him into a subterranean dwelling, astonishing to me as a vision, where shone a luxury of which none of the actual houses in Paris could give me an approximate example. It seemed to me singular that I had passed so often that prodigious retreat without having discovered the entrance. There reigned an exquisite, an almost stifling atmosphere, which made one forget almost instantaneously all the fastidious horrors of life; there I breathed a sombre sensuality, like that of opium-smokers when, set on the shore of an enchanted island, over which shone an eternal afternoon, they felt born in them, to the soothing sounds of melodious cascades, the desire of never again seeing their households, their women, their children,and of never again being tossed on the decks of ships by storms.
There were there strange faces of men and women, gifted with so fatal a beauty that I seemed to have seen them years ago and in countries which I failed to remember, and which inspired in me that curious sympathy and that equally curious sense of fear that I usually discover in unknown aspects. If I wanted to define in some fashion or other the singular expression of their eyes, I would say that never had I seen such magic radiance more energetically expressing the horror ofennuiand of desire—of the immortal desire of feeling themselves alive.
As for mine host and myself, we were already, as we sat down, as perfect friends as if we had always known each other. We drank immeasurably of all sorts of extraordinary wines, and—a thing not less bizarre—it seemed to me, after several hours, that I was no more intoxicated than he was.
However, gambling, this superhuman pleasure, had cut, at various intervals, our copious libations, and I ought to say that I had gained and lost my soul, as we were playing, with an heroical carelessness and light-heartedness. The soul is so invisible a thing, often useless and sometimes so troublesome, that I did not experience, as to this loss, more than that kind of emotion I might have, had I lost my visiting card in the street.
We spent hours in smoking cigars, whose incomparable savour and perfume give to the soul the nostalgia of unknown delights and sights, and, intoxicated by all these spiced sauces, I dared, in an access of familiaritywhich did not seem to displease him, to cry, as I lifted a glass filled to the brim with wine: “To your immortal health, Old He-Goat!”
We talked of the universe, of its creation and of its future destruction; of the leading ideas of the century—that is to say, of Progress and Perfectibility—and, in general, of all kinds of human infatuations. On this subject his Highness was inexhaustible in his irrefutable jests, and he expressed himself with a splendour of diction and with a magnificence in drollery such as I have never found in any of the most famous conversationalists of our age. He explained to me the absurdity of different philosophies that had so far taken possession of men’s brains, and deigned even to take me in confidence in regard to certain fundamental principles, which I am not inclined to share with any one.
He complained in no way of the evil reputation under which he lived, indeed, all over the world, and he assured me that he himself was of all living beings the most interested in the destruction ofSuperstition, and he avowed to me that he had been afraid, relatively as to his proper power, once only, and that was on the day when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than the rest of the human herd, cry in his pulpit: “My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!”
The memory of this famous orator brought us naturally on the subject of Academies, and my strange host declared to me that he didn’t disdain, in many cases, to inspire the pens, the words, and the consciences ofpedagogues, and that he almost always assisted in person, in spite of being invisible, at all the scientific meetings.
Encouraged by so much kindness I asked him if he had any news of God—who has not his hours of impiety?—especially as the old friend of the Devil. He said to me, with a shade of unconcern united with a deeper shade of sadness: “We salute each other when we meet.” But, for the rest, he spoke in Hebrew.
It is uncertain if his Highness has ever given so long an audience to a simple mortal, and I feared to abuse it.
Finally, as the dark approached shivering, this famous personage, sung by so many poets, and served by so many philosophers who work for his glory’s sake without being aware of it, said to me: “I want you to remember me always, and to prove to you that I—of whom one says so much evil—am often enoughbon diable, to make use of one of your vulgar locutions. So as to make up for the irremediable loss that you have made of your soul, I shall give you back the stake you ought to have gained, if your fate had been fortunate—that is to say, the possibility of solacing and of conquering, during your whole life, this bizarre affection ofennui, which is the source of all your maladies and of all your miseries. Never a desire shall be formed by you that I will not aid you to realize; you will reign over your vulgar equals; money and gold and diamonds, fairy palaces, shall come to seek you and shall ask you to accept them without your having made the least effort to obtain them; you can change your abode as often as you like; you shall have in your power all sensualitieswithout lassitude, in lands where the climate is always hot, and where the women are as scented as the flowers.” With this he rose up and said good-bye to me with a charming smile.
If it had not been for the shame of humiliating myself before so immense an assembly, I might have voluntarily fallen at the feet of this generous Gambler, to thank him for his unheard-of munificence. But, little by little, after I had left him, an incurable defiance entered into me; I dared no longer believe in so prodigious a happiness; and as I went to bed, making over again my nightly prayer by means of all that remained in me in the matter of faith, I repeated in my slumber: “My God, my Lord, my God! Do let the Devil keep his word with me!”
FOOTNOTES:[17]FromThe English Review, November 1918. By permission of the Editor and Mr. Arthur Symons.
[17]FromThe English Review, November 1918. By permission of the Editor and Mr. Arthur Symons.
[17]FromThe English Review, November 1918. By permission of the Editor and Mr. Arthur Symons.
“Two truffled turkeys, Garrigou?”
“Yes, your reverence, two magnificent turkeys, stuffed with truffles. I should know something about it, for I myself helped to fill them. One would have said their skin would crack as they were roasting, it is that stretched....”
“Jesu-Maria! I who like truffles so much!... Quick, give me my surplice, Garrigou.... And have you seen anything else in the kitchen besides the turkeys?”
“Yes, all kinds of good things.... Since noon, we have done nothing but pluck pheasants, hoopoes, barn-fowls, and woodcocks. Feathers were flying about all over.... Then they have brought eels, gold carp, and trout out of the pond, besides....”
“What size were the trout, Garrigou?”
“As big as that, your reverence.... Enormous!”
“Oh heavens! I think I see them.... Have you put the wine in the vessels?”
“Yes, your reverence, I have put the wine in the vessels.... But la! it is not to be compared to what you will drink presently, when the midnight mass is over. If you only saw that in the dining hall of the château! The decanters are all full of wines glowing with every colour!... And the silver plate, the chasedepergnes, the flowers, the lustres!... Never will such another midnight repast be seen. The noble marquis has invited all the lords of the neighbourhood. At least forty of you will sit down to table, without reckoning the farm bailiff and the notary.... Oh, how lucky is your reverence to be one of them!... After a mere sniff of those fine turkeys, the scent of truffles follows me everywhere.... Yum!”
“Come now, come now, my child. Let us keep from the sin of gluttony, on the night of the Nativity especially.... Be quick and light the wax-tapers and ring the first bell for the mass; for it’s nearly midnight and we must not be behind time.”
This conversation took place on a Christmas night in the year of grace one thousand six hundred and something, between the Reverend Dom Balaguère (formerly Prior of the Barnabites, now paid chaplain of the Lords of Trinquelague), and his little clerk Garrigou, or at least him whom he took for his little clerk Garrigou, for you must know that the devil had on that night assumed the round face and soft features of the young sacristan, in order the more effectually to lead the reverend father into temptation, and make him commit the dreadful sin of gluttony. Well then, while the supposed Garrigou (hum!) was with all his might makingthe bells of the baronial chapel chime out, his reverence was putting on his chasuble in the little sacristy of the château; and with his mind already agitated by all these gastronomic descriptions, he kept saying to himself as he was robing:
“Roasted turkeys, ... golden carp, ... trout as big as that!...”
Out of doors, the soughing night wind was carrying abroad the music of the bells, and with this, lights began to make their appearance on the dark sides of Mount Ventoux, on the summit of which rose the ancient towers of Trinquelague. The lights were borne by the families of the tenant farmers, who were coming to hear the midnight mass at the château. They were scaling the hill in groups of five or six together, and singing; the father in front carrying a lantern, and the women wrapped up in large brown cloaks, beneath which their little children snuggled and sheltered. In spite of the cold and the lateness of the hour these good folks were marching blithely along, cheered by the thought that after the mass was over there would be, as always in former years, tables set for them down in the kitchens. Occasionally the glass windows in some lord’s carriage, preceded by torch-bearers, would glisten in the moon-light on the rough ascent; or perhaps a mule would jog by with tinkling bells, and by the light of the misty lanterns the tenants would recognize their bailiff and would salute him as he passed with:
“Good evening, Master Arnoton.”
“Good evening. Good evening, my friend.”
The night was clear, and the stars were twinkling withfrost; the north wind was nipping, and at times a fine small hail, that slipped off one’s garments without wetting them, faithfully maintained the tradition of Christmas being white with snow. On the summit of the hill, as the goal towards which all were wending, gleamed the château, with its enormous mass of towers and gables, and its chapel steeple rising into the blue-black sky. A multitude of little lights were twinkling, coming, going, and moving about at all the windows; they looked like the sparks one sees running about in the ashes of burnt paper.
After you had passed the drawbridge and the postern gate, it was necessary, in order to reach the chapel, to cross the first court, which was full of carriages, footmen and sedan chairs, and was quite illuminated by the blaze of torches and the glare of the kitchen fires. Here were heard the click of turnspits, the rattle of sauce-pans, the clash of glasses and silver plate in the commotion attending the preparation of the feast; while over all rose a warm vapour smelling pleasantly of roast meat, piquant herbs, and complex sauces, and which seemed to say to the farmers, as well as to the chaplain and to the bailiff, and to everybody:
“What a good midnight repast we are going to have after the mass!”
Ting-a-ring!—a—ring!
The midnight mass is beginning in the chapel of the château, which is a cathedral in miniature, with groinedand vaulted roofs, oak wood-work as high as the walls, expanded draperies, and tapers all aglow. And what a lot of people! What grand dresses! First of all, seated in the carved stalls that line the choir, is the Lord of Trinquelague in a coat of salmon-coloured silk, and about him are ranged all the noble lords who have been invited.
On the opposite side, on velvet-covered praying-stools, the old dowager marchioness in flame-coloured brocade, and the youthful Lady of Trinquelague wearing a lofty head-dress of plaited lace in the newest fashion of the French court, have taken their places. Lower down, dressed in black, with punctilious wigs, and shaven faces, like two grave notes among the gay silks and the figured damasks, are seen the bailiff, Thomas Arnoton, and the notary Master Ambroy. Then come the stout major-domos, the pages, the horsemen, the stewards, Dame Barbara, with all her keys hanging at her side on a real silver ring. At the end, on the forms, are the lower class, the female servants, the cotter farmers and their families; and lastly, down there, near the door, which they open and shut very carefully, are messieurs the scullions, who enter in the interval between two sauces, to take a little whiff of mass; and these bring the smell of the repast with them into the church, which now is in high festival and warm from the number of lighted tapers.
Is it the sight of their little white caps that so distracts the celebrant? Is it not rather Garrigou’s bell? that mad little bell which is shaken at the altar foot with an infernal impetuosity that seems all the time to besaying: “Come, let us make haste, make haste.... The sooner we shall have finished, the sooner shall we be at table.” The fact is that every time this devil’s bell tinkles the chaplain forgets his mass, and thinks of nothing but the midnight repast. He fancies he sees the cooks bustling about, the stoves glowing with forge-like fires, the two magnificent turkeys, filled, crammed, marbled with truffles....
Then again he sees, passing along, files of little pages carrying dishes enveloped in tempting vapours, and with them he enters the great hall now prepared for the feast. Oh delight! there is the immense table all laden and luminous, peacocks adorned with their feathers, pheasants spreading out their reddish-brown wings, ruby-coloured decanters, pyramids of fruit glowing amid green boughs, and those wonderful fish Garrigou (ah well, yes, Garrigou!) had mentioned, laid on a couch of fennel, with their pearly scales gleaming as if they had just come out of the water, and bunches of sweet-smelling herbs in their monstrous snouts. So clear is the vision of these marvels that it seems to Dom Balaguère that all these wondrous dishes are served before him on the embroidered altar-cloth, and two or three times instead of theDominus vobiscum, he finds himself saying theBenedicite. Except these slight mistakes, the worthy man pronounces the service very conscientiously, without skipping a line, without omitting a genuflexion; and all goes tolerably well until the end of the first mass; for you know that on Christmas Day the same officiating priest must celebrate three consecutive masses.
“That’s one done!” says the chaplain to himself witha sigh of relief; then, without losing a moment, he motioned to his clerk, or to him whom he supposed to be his clerk, and...
“Ting-a-ring ... Ting-a-ring, a-ring!”
Now the second mass is beginning, and with it begins also Dom Balaguère’s sin. “Quick, quick, let us make haste,” Garrigou’s bell cries out to him in its shrill little voice, and this time the unhappy celebrant, completely given over to the demon of gluttony, fastens upon the missal and devours its pages with the eagerness of his over-excited appetite. Frantically he bows down, rises up, merely indicates the sign of the cross and the genuflexions, and curtails all his gestures in order to get sooner finished. Scarcely has he stretched out his arms at the gospel, before he is striking his breast at theConfiteor. It is a contest between himself and the clerk as to who shall mumble the faster. Versicles and responses are hurried over and run one into another. The words, half pronounced, without opening the mouth, which would take up too much time, terminate in unmeaning murmurs.
“Oremus ps ... ps ... ps....”
“Mea culpa ... pa ... pa....”
Like vintagers in a hurry pressing grapes in the vat, these two paddle in the mass Latin, sending splashes in every direction.
“Dom ... scum!...” says Balaguère.
“... Stutuo!...” replies Garrigou; and all the time the cursed little bell is tinkling there in their ears, like the jingles they put on post-horses to make them gallop fast. You may imagine at that speed a low mass is quickly disposed of.
“That makes two,” says the chaplain quite panting; then without taking time to breathe, red and perspiring, he descends the altar steps and...
“Ting-a-ring!... Ting-a-ring!...”
Now the third mass is beginning. There are but a few more steps to be taken to reach the dining-hall; but, alas! the nearer the midnight repast approaches the more does the unfortunate Balaguère feel himself possessed by mad impatience and gluttony. The vision becomes more distinct; the golden carps, the roasted turkeys are there, there!... He touches them, ... he ... oh heavens! The dishes are smoking, the wines perfume the air; and with furiously agitated clapper, the little bell is crying out to him:
“Quick, quick, quicker yet!”
But how could he go quicker? His lips scarcely move. He no longer pronounces the words; ... unless he were to impose upon Heaven outright and trick it out of its mass.... And that is precisely what he does, the unfortunate man!... From temptation to temptation; he begins by skipping a verse, then two. Then the epistle is too long—he does not finish it, skims over the gospel, passes before theCredowithout going into it, skips thePater, salutes thePrefacefrom a distance, and by leaps and bounds thus hurls himself into eternal damnation, constantly followed by the vile Garrigou (vade retro, Satanas!), who seconds him with wonderful skill, sustains his chasuble, turns over the leaves two at a time, elbows the reading-desks, upsets the vessels, and is continually sounding the little bell louder and louder, quicker and quicker.
You should have seen the scared faces of all who were present, as they were obliged to follow this mass by mere mimicry of the priest, without hearing a word; some rise when others kneel, and sit down when the others are standing up, and all the phases of this singular service are mixed up together in the multitude of different attitudes presented by the worshippers on the benches....
“Theabbégoes too fast.... One can’t follow him,” murmured the old dowager, shaking her head-dress in confusion. Master Arnoton with great steel spectacles on his nose is searching in his prayer-book to find where the dickens they are. But at heart all these good folks, who themselves are thinking about feasting, are not sorry that the mass is going on at this post haste; and when Dom Balaguère with radiant face turns towards those present and cries with all his might: “Ite, missa est,” they all respond to him a “Deo gratias” in but one voice, and that as joyous and enthusiastic, as if they thought themselves already seated at the midnight repast and drinking the first toast.
Five minutes afterwards the crowd of nobles were sitting down in the great hall, with the chaplain in the midst of them. The château, illuminated from top to bottom, was resounding with songs, with shouts, with laughter, with uproar; and the venerable Dom Balaguère was thrusting his fork into the wing of a fowl, and drowning all remorse for his sin in streams of regalwine and the luscious juices of the viands. He ate and drank so much, the dear, holy man, that he died during the night of a terrible attack, without even having had time to repent; and then in the morning when he got to heaven, I leave you to imagine how he was received.
He was told to withdraw on account of his wickedness. His fault was so grievous that it effaced a whole lifetime of virtue.... He had robbed them of a midnight mass.... He should have to pay for it with three hundred, and he should not enter into Paradise until he had celebrated in his own chapel these three hundred Christmas masses in the presence of all those who had sinned with him and by his fault....
... And now this is the true legend of Dom Balaguère as it is related in the olive country. At the present time the château of Trinquelague no longer exists, but the chapel still stands on the top of Mount Ventoux, amid a cluster of green oaks. Its decayed door rattles in the wind, and its threshold is choked up with vegetation; there are birds’ nests at the corners of the altar, and in the recesses of the lofty windows, from which the stained glass has long ago disappeared. It seems, however, that every year at Christmas, a supernatural light wanders amid these ruins, and the peasants, in going to the masses and to the midnight repasts, see this phantom of a chapel illuminated by invisible tapers that burn in the open air, even in snow and wind. You may laugh at it if you like, but a vine-dresser of the place, named Garrigue, doubtless a descendant of Garrigou, declared to me that one Christmas night, when he was a little tipsy, he lost his way on the hill of Trinquelague; andthis is what he saw.... Till eleven o’clock, nothing. All was silent, motionless, inanimate. Suddenly, about midnight, a chime sounded from the top of the steeple, an old, old chime, which seemed as if it were ten leagues off. Very soon Garrigue saw lights flitting about, and uncertain shadows moving in the road that climbs the hill. They passed on beneath the chapel porch, and murmured:
“Good evening, Master Arnoton!”
“Good evening, good evening, my friends!” ...
When all had entered, my vine-dresser, who was very courageous, silently approached, and when he looked through the broken door, a singular spectacle met his gaze. All those he had seen pass were seated round the choir, and in the ruined nave, just as if the old seats still existed. Fine ladies in brocade, with lace head-dresses; lords adorned from head to foot; peasants in flowered jackets such as our grandfathers had; all with an old, faded, dusty, tired look. From time to time the night birds, the usual inhabitants of the chapel, who were aroused by all these lights, would come and flit round the tapers, the flames of which rose straight and ill-defined, as if they were burning behind a veil; and what amused Garrigue very much was a certain personage with large steel spectacles, who was ever shaking his tall black wig, in which one of these birds was quite entangled, and kept itself upright by noiselessly flapping its wings....
At the farther end, a little old man of childish figure was on his knees in the middle of the choir, desperately shaking a clapperless and soundless bell, whilst a priest,clad in ancient gold, was coming and going before the altar, reciting prayers of which not a word was heard.... Most certainly this was Dom Balaguère in the act of saying his third low mass.
FOOTNOTES:[18]FromThe Fig and the Idler, an Algerian Legend, and Other Stories, by Alphonse Daudet. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1892. (By permission of the Publisher.)
[18]FromThe Fig and the Idler, an Algerian Legend, and Other Stories, by Alphonse Daudet. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1892. (By permission of the Publisher.)
[18]FromThe Fig and the Idler, an Algerian Legend, and Other Stories, by Alphonse Daudet. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1892. (By permission of the Publisher.)
It will not do at all to disbelieve in the existence of a personal devil. It is not so many years ago that one of our profoundest divines remarked with indignation upon such disbelief. “No such person?” cried the doctor with energy. “Don’t tell me! I can hear his tail snap and crack about amongst the churches any day!”
And if the enemy is, in truth, still as vigorously active among the sons of God as he was in the days of Job (that is to say, in the time of Solomon, when, as the critics have found out, the Book of Job was written), then surely still more is he vigilant and sly in his tricks for foreclosing his mortgages upon the souls of the wicked.
And once more: still more than ever is his personal appearance probable in these latter days. The everlasting tooting of the wordy Cumming has proclaimed the end of all things for a quarter of a century; and he will surely see his prophecy fulfilled if he can only keep it up long enough. But, though we discredit the sapient Second-Adventist as to the precise occasion of the diabolic avatar, has there not been a strange coincidence between his noisy declarations, and other evidences of an approximation of the spiritual to the bodily sphereof life? Is not this same quarter of a century that of the Spiritists? Has it not witnessed the development of Od? And of clairvoyance? And have not the doctrines of ghosts, and re-appearances of the dead, and of messages from them, risen into a prominence entirely new, and into a coherence and semblance at least of fact and fixed law such as was never known before? Yea, verily. Of all times in the world’s history, to reject out of one’s beliefs either good spirits or bad, angelology or diabology, chief good being, or chief bad being, this is the most improper.
Dr. Hicok was trebly liable to the awful temptation, under which he had assuredly fallen, over and above the fact that he was a prig, which makes one feel the more glad that he was so handsomely come up with in the end; such a prig that everybody who knew him, invariably called him (when he wasn’t by) Hicok-alorum. This charming surname had been conferred on him by a crazy old fellow with whom he once got into a dispute. Lunatics have the most awfully tricky ways of dodging out of pinches in reasoning; but Hicok knew too much to knowthat; and so he acquired his fine title to teach him one thing more.
Trebly liable, we said. The three reasons are,—
The way in which these causes operated was as follows (I wish it were allowable to use Artemas Ward’s curiously satisfactory vocable “thusly:” like Mrs. Wiggle’s soothing syrup, it “supplies a real want”):—
Being foreign-born, Dr. Hicok had not the unfailing moral stamina of a native American, and therefore was comparatively easily beset by sin. Being, secondly, a Scotchman, he was not only thoroughly conceited, with a conceit as immovable as the Bass Rock, just as other folks sometimes are, but, in particular, he was perfectly sure of his utter mastery of metaphysics, logic and dialectics, or, as he used to call it, with a snobbish Teutonicalization,dialektik. Now, in the latter two, the Scotch can do something, but in metaphysics they are simply imbecile; which quality, in the inscrutable providence of God, has been joined with an equally complete conviction of the exact opposite. Let not man, therefore, put those traits asunder—not so much by reason of any divine ordinance, as because no man in his senses would try to convince a Scotchman—or anybody else, for that matter.
Thirdly, he was a physician and surgeon; and gentlemen of this profession are prone to become either thoroughgoing materialists, or else implicit and extreme Calvinistic Presbyterians, “of the large blue kind.” And they are, moreover, positive, hard-headed, bold, and self-confident. So they have good need to be. Did not Majendie say to his students, “Gentlemen, disease is a subject which physicians know nothing about”?
So the doctor both believed in the existence of a personal devil, and believed in his own ability to get the upper hand of that individual in a tournament of the wits. Ah, he learned better by terrible experience! The doctor was a dry-looking little chap, with sandy hair, a freckled face, small grey eyes, and absurd white eyebrowsand eyelashes, which made him look as if he had finished off his toilet with just a light flourish from the dredging-box. He was erect of carriage, and of a prompt, ridiculous alertness of step and motion, very much like that of Major Wellington De Boots. And his face commonly wore a kind of complacent serenity such as the Hindoos ascribe to Buddha. I know a little snappish dentist’s-goods dealer up town, who might be mistaken for Hicok-alorum any day.
Well, well—what had the doctor done? Why—it will sound absurd, probably, to some unbelieving people—but really Dr. Hicok confessed the whole story to me himself: he had made a bargain with the Evil One! And indeed he was such an uncommonly disagreeable-looking fellow, that, unless on some such hypothesis, it is impossible to imagine how he could have prospered as he did. He gained patients, and cured them too; made money; invested successfully; bought a brown-stone front—a house, not a wiglet—then bought other real estate; began to put his name on charity subscription lists, and to be made vice-president of various things.
Chiefest of all,—it must have been by some superhuman aid that Dr. Hicok married his wife, the then and present Mrs. Hicok. Dear me! I have described the doctor easily enough. But how infinitely more difficult it is to delineate Beauty than the Beast: did you ever think of it? All I can say is, that she is a very lovely woman now; and she must have been, when the doctor married her, one of the loveliest creatures that ever lived—a lively, graceful, bright-eyed brunette, with thick fine long black hair, pencilled delicate eyebrows, little pinkears, thin high nose, great astonished brown eyes, perfect teeth, a little rosebud of a mouth, and a figure so extremely beautiful that nobody believed she did not pad—hardly even the artists who—those of them at least who work faithfully in the life-school—are the very best judges extant of truth in costume and personal beauty. But, furthermore, she was good, with the innocent unconscious goodness of a sweet little child; and of all feminine charms—even beyond her supreme grace of motion—she possessed the sweetest, the most resistless—a lovely voice; whose tones, whether in speech or song, were perfect in sweetness, and with a strange penetrating sympathetic quality and at the same time with the most wonderful half-delaying completeness of articulation and modulation, as if she enjoyed the sound of her own music. No doubt she did; but it was unconsciously, like a bird. The voice was so sweet, the great loveliness and kindness of soul it expressed were so deep, that, like every exquisite beauty, it rayed forth a certain sadness within the pleasure it gave. It awakened infinite, indistinct emotions of beauty and perfection—infinite longings.
It’s of no use to tell me that such a spirit—she really ought not to be noted so low down as amongst human beings—that such a spirit could have been made glad by becoming the yoke-fellow of Hicok-alorum, by influences exclusively human. No!—I don’t believe it—I won’t believe it—it can’t be believed. I can’t convince you, of course, for you don’t know her; but if you did, along with the rest of the evidence, and if your knowledge was like mine, that from the testimony of my owneyes and ears and judgment—you would know, just as I do, that the doctor’s possession of his wife was the key-stone of the arch of completed proof on which I found my absolute assertion that he had made that bargain.
He certainly had! A most characteristic transaction too; for while, after the usual fashion, it was agreed by the “party of the first part,”—viz., Old Scratch—that Dr. Hicok should succeed in whatever he undertook during twenty years, and by the party of the second part, that at the end of that time the D—— should fetch him in manner and form as is ordinarily provided, yet there was added a peculiar clause. This was, that, when the time came for the doctor to depart, he should be left entirely whole and unharmed, in mind, body, and estate, provided he could put to the Devil three consecutive questions, of which either one should be such that that cunning spirit could not solve it on the spot.
So for twenty years Dr. Hicok lived and prospered, and waxed very great. He did not gain one single pound avoirdupois however, which may perchance seem strange, but is the most natural thing in the world. Who ever saw a little, dry, wiry, sandy, freckled man, with white eyebrows, that did grow fat? And besides, the doctor spent all his leisure time in hunting up his saving trinity of questions; and hard study, above all for such a purpose, is as sure an anti-fattener as Banting.
He knew the Scotch metaphysicians by heart already,ex-officioas it were; but he very early gave up the idea of trying to fool the Devil with such mud-pie as that. Yet be it understood, that he found cause to except Sir William Hamilton from the muddle-headed crew. Hechewed a good while, and pretty hopefully, upon the Quantification of the Predicate; but he had to give that up too, when he found out how small and how dry a meat rattled within the big, noisy nut-shell. He read Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Dens, and a cartload more of old casuists, Romanist and Protestant.
He exhausted the learning of the Development Theory. He studied and experimented up to the existing limits of knowledge on the question of the Origin of Life, and then poked out alone, as much farther as he could, into the ineffable black darkness that is close at the end of our noses on that, as well as most other questions. He hammered his way through the whole controversy on the Freedom of the Will. He mastered the whole works of Mrs. Henry C. Carey on one side, and of two hundred and fifty English capitalists and American college professors on the other, on the question of Protection or Free Trade. He made, with vast pains, an extensive collection of the questions proposed at debating societies and college-students’ societies with long Greek names. The last effort was a failure. Dr. Hicok had got the idea, that, from the spontaneous activity of so many free young geniuses, many wondrous and suggestive thoughts would be born. Having, however, tabulated his collection, he found, that, among all these innumerable gymnasia of intellect, there were only seventeen questions debated! The doctor read me a curious little memorandum of his conclusions on this unexpected fact, which will perhaps be printed some day.
He investigated many other things too; for a sharp-wittedlittle Presbyterian Scotch doctor, working to cheat the Devil out of his soul, can accomplish an amazing deal in twenty years. He even went so far as to take into consideration mere humbugs; for, if he could cheat the enemy with a humbug, why not? The only pain in that case, would be the mortification of having stooped to an inadequate adversary—a foeman unworthy of his steel. So he weighed such queries as the old scholasticbrocard, An chimoera bombinans in vacuo devorat secundas intentiones?and that beautiful moot point wherewith Sir Thomas More silenced the challenging schoolmen of Bruges,An averia carrucae capta in vetito nomio sint irreplegibilia?
He glanced a little at the subject of conundrums; and among the chips from his workshop is a really clever theory of conundrums. He has a classification and discussion of them, all his own, and quite ingenious and satisfactory, which divides them into answerable and unanswerable, and, under each of these, into resemblant and differential.
For instance: let the four classes be distinguished with the initials of those four terms, A. R., A. D., U. R., and U. D.; you will find that the Infinite Possible Conundrum (so to speak) can always be reduced under one of those four heads. Using symbols, as they do in discussing syllogism—indeed, by the way, a conundrum is only a jocular variation in the syllogism, an intentional fallacy for fun (read Whately’sLogic, Book III., and see if it isn’t so)—using symbols, I say, you have these four “figures:”—
I. (A. R.) Why is A like B? (answerable): as, Whyis a gentleman who gives a young lady a young dog, like a person who rides rapidly up hill? A. Because he gives a gallop up (gal-a-pup).
Sub-variety; depending upon a violation of something like the “principle of excluded middle,” a very fallacy of a fallacy; such as the ancient “nigger-minstrel!” case, Why is an elephant like a brick? A. Because neither of them can climb a tree.
II. (A. D.) Why is AunlikeB? (answerable) usually put thus: What is the difference between A and B? (Figure I., if worded in the same style, would become: What is the similarity between A and B?): as, What is the difference between the old United-States Bank and the Fulton Ferry-boat signals in thick weather? A. One is a fog whistle, and the other is a Whig fossil.
III. (U. R.) Why is A like B? (unanswerable): as Charles Lamb’s well-known question, Is that your own hare, or a wig?
IV. (U. D.) Why is AunlikeB? (unanswerable): i. e., What is the difference, &c., as, What is the difference between a fac simile and a sick family; or between hydraulics and raw-hide licks?
But let me not diverge too far into frivolity. All the hopefully difficult questions Dr. Hicok set down and classified. He compiled a set of rules on the subject, and indeed developed a whole philosophy of it, by which he struck off, as soluble, questions or classes of them. Some he thought out himself; others were now and then answered in some learned book, that led the way through the very heart of one or another of his biggest mill-stones.
So it was really none too much time that he had; and, in truth, he did not actually decide upon his three questions, until just a week before the fearful day when he was to put them.
It came at last, as every day of reckoning surely comes; and Dr. Hicok, memorandum in hand, sat in his comfortable library about three o’clock on one beautiful warm summer afternoon, as pale as a sheet, his heart thumping away like Mr. Krupp’s biggest steam-hammer at Essen, his mouth and tongue parched and feverish, a pitcher of cold water at hand from which he sipped and sipped, though it seemed as if his throat repelled it into “the globular state,” or dispersed it into steam, as red-hot iron does. Around him were the records of the vast army of doubters and quibblers in whose works he had been hunting, as a traveller labours through a jungle, for the deepest doubts, the most remote inquiries.
Sometimes, with that sort of hardihood, rather than reason, which makes a desperate man try to believe by his will what he longs to know to be true, Dr. Hicok would say to himself, “I know I’ve got him!” And then his heart would seem to fall out of him, it sank so suddenly, and with so deadly a faintness, as the other side of his awful case loomed before him, and he thought, “But if—?” He would not finishthatquestion; he could not. The furthest point to which he could bring himself was that of a sort of icy outer stiffening of acquiescence in the inevitable.
There was a ring at the street-door. The servant brought in a card, on a silver salver.