“Pour dresser un jeune courrierEt l’affermir sur l’étrierIl lui fallait une routièreLaire lan laire.”
“What’s that Zosimus?”
“Zosimus, sir, Zosimus of Panopolis, was a learned Greek, who flourished at Alexandria in the third century of the Christian era, and wrote treatises on the spagyric art.”
“Do you fancy it matters to me? Why do you translate it?
“Battons le fer quand il est chaudDit-elle, en faisant sonner hautLe nom de sultan premièreLaire lan laire.”
“Sir,” said my dear tutor, “I quite agree with you; there is no practical utility in it, and by it the course of the world will not be changed in the slightest. But making clearer by annotations and comments this treatise, which that Greek compiled for his sister Theosebia—”
Catherine interrupted him by singing in a high-pitched voice:
“Je veux en dépit des jalouxQu’on fasse duc mon epouxLasse de le voir secretairevLaire lan laire.”
And my tutor continued:
“—I contribute to the treasure of knowledge gathered by erudite men, and bring forward one stone of my own for a monument to true history, which is a better one than the chronicles of war and treaties; for, sir, the nobility of man—”
Catherine continued to sing:
“Je sais bien qu’on murmureraQue Paris nous chansonneraMais tant pis pour le sot vulgaireLaire lan laire.”
And my dear tutor went on:
“—is thought. And concerning that, it is not indifferent to know what idea the Egyptians had formed of the nature of metals and the qualities of the primitive substance.”
The Abbé Jerôme Coignard, having come to the end of his discourse, emptied a big glass of wine, while Catherine sang:
“Par l’épée ou par le fourreauDevenir due est toujours beauIl n’importe le maniéreLaire lan laire.”
“Abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil, “you do not drink, and in spite of such abstinence you lose your reason. In Italy, during the War of Succession, I was under the orders of a brigadier who translated Polybius. But he was an idiot. Why translate Zosimus?”
“If you want my true reason,” replied the abbé, “because I find some sensuality in it.”
“That’s something like!” protested M. d’Anquetil. “But in what can M. Tournebroche, who at this moment is caressing my mistress, assist you?”
“With the knowledge of Greek I have given him.”
M. d’Anquetil turned round to me and said:
“What, sir, you know Greek! You are not then a gentleman?”
“No, sir,” I replied, “I am not. My father is the banner-bearer of the Guild of Parisian Cooks.”
“Well, under such conditions it is impossible for me to kill you. Kindly accept my excuses. But, abbé, you don’t drink. You imposed upon me. I believed you to be a real good tippler, and wished you to become my chaplain as soon as I could set up my own establishment.”
However, M. Coignard did drink all that the bottle contained, and Catherine, inclining to me, whispered in my ear:
“Jacques, I feel that I shall never love anyone but you.”
These words, spoken by a really fine woman clad in no other wrapper than a chemise, troubled me to the extreme. Catherine ended by fuddling me entirely, by making me drink out of her own glass, an action passing unobserved in the confusion of a supper which had overheated the heads of us all.
M. d’Anquetil knocked off the neck of a bottle on the corner of the table and filled our bumpers; from this moment on, I cannot give a reliable account of what was said and done around me. One incident I remember: Catherine treacherously emptying her glass into her lover’s neck, between the nape and the collar of his coat; and M. d’Anquetil retorting by pouring the contents of two or three bottles over the girl. Wearing nothing beyond her chemise, it changed Catherine into a kind of mythological figure of a humid species like nymphs and naiads. She cried herself into a rage and twisted in convulsions.
At that very moment, in the silence of the night, we heard knocks at the house door. We became suddenly motionless and dumb, like people bewitched.
The knocks soon redoubled in strength and frequency. M. d’Anquetil was the first to break the silence by questioning himself aloud, swearing horribly the while, who the deuce the pesterers could be. My good tutor, to whom the most ordinary circumstances often inspired admirable maxims, rose and said with unction and gravity:
“What does it matter whose hand knocks so violently at closed doors for a vulgar, perhaps ridiculous, reason? Do not let us seek to know, and consider them as knocking on the door of our hardened and corrupted souls. At each knock let us say to ourselves: This one is to give us notice to amend and think on the salvation we neglect in the turmoil of our pleasures, that other one is to remind us of eternity. In that way we shall draw the utmost profit out of an incident which, after all, is as paltry as it is frivolous.”
“You’re humorous, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil; “to judge by the sturdiness of their knocks, they’ll burst the door open.”
And as a fact the knocker resounded like thunder.
“They are robbers,” exclaimed the soaked girl. “Jesus! We shall be massacred; it is our chastisement for having sent away the little friar. Many times I have told you. M. d’Anquetil, that misfortune comes to houses from which a Capuchin has been driven.’
“Hear the stupid!” replied M. d’Anquetil. “That damned monk makes her believe any imbecility he chooses to dish her up. Thieves would be more polite, or at least more discreet. I rather think it is the watch.”
“The watch! Worse and worse,” said Catherine.
“Bah!” M. d’Anquetil exclaimed, “we’ll lick them.”
My dear tutor took the precaution to put one bottle in one of his pockets, and as an equipoise another bottle in the other pocket. The house shook all over from the furious knocks. M. d’Anquetil, whose military qualities were aroused by the knocker’s onslaught, after reconnoitring, exclaimed:
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Do you know who knocks? It is M. de la Gueritude with his full-bottomed periwig and two big flunkeys carrying lighted torches.”
“That’s not possible,” said Catherine, “at this very moment he is in bed with his old woman.”
“Then it is his ghost,” said M. d’Anquetil. “And the ghost also wears his periwig, which is so ridiculous that any self-respecting spectre would refuse to copy it.”
“Do you speak the truth, and not jeer at me?” asked Catherine. “Is it really M. de la Guéritude?”
“It’s himself, Catherine, if I may believe my own eyes.”
“Then I am lost!” exclaimed the poor girl. “Women are indeed unhappy! They are never left in peace. What will become of me? Would you not hide, gentlemen, in some of the cupboards?”
“That could be done,” said M. Jerome Coignard, “as far as we are concerned, but how are we to hide all those empty bottles, mostly smashed, or at least broken necked; the remains of that demijohn M. d’Anquetil threw at me; that tablecloth; those plates, candelabra and mademoiselle’s chemise, which in its soaked state is nothing but a transparent veil encircling her beauty?”
“It is true,” said Catherine, “yonder idiot has drenched my chemise, and I am catching cold. But listen. Perhaps M. d’Anquetil could hide in the top room, and I would make the abbé my uncle and Jacques my brother.”
“No good at all,” said M. d’Anquetil. “I’ll go myself and kindly ask M. de la Gueritude to have supper with us.”
We urged him, all of us—my tutor, Catherine and I—to keep quiet; we entreated him, hung on his neck. It was useless. He got hold of a candelabra and descended the stairs. Trembling we followed him. He unlocked the door. M. de la Guéritude was there, exactly as M. d’Anquetil had described him, with his periwig, between two flunkeys bearing torches. M. d’Anquetil saluted with the utmost correctness and said:
“Accord us the favour to come in, sir. You’ll find some persons as amiable as singular. Tournebroche, to whom Mam’selle Catherine throws kisses from the window, and a priest who believes in God.”
Wherewith he bowed respectfully.
M. de la Gueritude was of the dry sort, very tall, and little inclined to the enjoyment of a joke. That of M. d’Anquetil provoked him strongly, and his anger rose when he saw my good tutor, one bottle in hand and two peeping out of his pockets, and by the look of Catherine with her wet chemise sticking to her body.
“Young man,” he said in an icy fit of passion to M. d’Anquetil, “I have the honour to know your father, of whom I will inquire, not later than to-morrow, the name of the town to which the king shall send you to meditate over the shame of your behaviour and impertinence. That worthy nobleman, to whom I have lent some money I do not reclaim, can refuse me nothing. And our well-beloved Prince, who is in precisely the same position as your father, has always a kindness for me. Consider it a matter done. I have settled, thank God, others more difficult. Now as to that lady yonder, of whom neither repentance nor improvement can be expected. I’ll say to-morrow before noon, two words to the Lieutenant of Police, whom I know to be well disposed, to send her to the spittel. I have nothing else to say to you. This house is my property, I have paid for it and I intend to enter when I like.” Then, turning to his flunkeys, and pointing out my tutor and myself with his walking stick, he said:
“Throw these two drunkards out.”
M. Jérome Coignard was commonly of an exemplary forbearance, and he used to say that he owed his gentleness to the vicissitudes of life; chance having treated him as the sea treats the pebbles—that is, polishing them by means of the rolling of flood and ebb. He could easily stand insults, as much by Christian spirit as by philosophy. But what helped him best thereto was his deep-rooted contempt of mankind, not excepting himself. However, for once he lost all measure and forgot all prudence.
“Hold your tongue, vile publican,” he shouted and brandished a bottle like a crowbar. “If yonder rascals dare to approach me I’ll smash their heads, to teach them respect for my cloth, which proves in an ample way my sacred calling.”
In the faint glimmer of the torches, shiny from sweat, his eyes starting out of their sockets, his coat unbuttoned, and his big belly half out of his breeches, he looked a fellow not easy to be got rid of. The lackeys hesitated.
“Out with him, out with him,” shouted M. de la Guéritude; “out with this bag of wine! Can’t you see that all you have to do is to push him in the gutter, where he’ll remain till the scavengers throw him into the dustcart? I would throw him out myself were I not afraid to pollute my clothes.”
My good tutor flew into a passion, and shouted in a voice worthy to sound in a church:
“You odious money-monger, infamous partisan, barbarous evildoer, you pretend this house to be yours? So that everyone may know it belongs to you, inscribe on the door the gospel wordAceldema, which in our language means Bloodmoney. And then we’ll let the master enter his dwelling. Thief, robber, murderer, write with the piece of charcoal I throw in your face, write with your own filthy hand, on the floor, your title deed. Bloodmoney of the widow and orphans, bloodmoney of the just.Aceldema. If not, out with you, man of quantities! We’ll remain.”
M. de la Gueritude had never in his life heard anything of this sort, and thought he had to deal with a madman, as one might easily suppose, and, more for defence than attack, he raised his big stick. My good tutor, out of his senses, threw a bottle at the head of the contractor, who fell headlong on the floor, howling, “He has killed me!” And as he was swimming in red wine he really looked as though murdered. Both the flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the murderer, and one of them, a burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when M. Coignard gave the fellow such a butt that he rolled in the stream beside the financier.
Unluckily he rose quickly, and, arming himself with a still burning torch, jumped into the passage, where bad luck awaited him. My good master was no longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M. d’Anquetil was still there with Catherine, and he it was who received the burning torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not stand. He drew his sword, and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky knave’s stomach, teaching him, at his own expense, how fatal it may be to attack a gentleman. Now M. Coignard had not got twenty yards away from the house when the other lackey, a tall fellow, with the limbs of a daddy-longlegs, ran after him, shouting for the guard.
“Stop him! Stop him!” The footman ran faster than the abbé, and we could see him, at the corner of the Rue Saint Guillaume, extending his arms to catch M. Coignard by the collar of his gown. But my dear tutor, who had more than one trick, veering abruptly, got behind the fellow, tripped him up, and sent him on to a stone post, where he got his head broken. It was done before M. d’Anquetil and I, running to the abbé’s assistance, could reach him. We could not leave M. Coignard in this pressing danger.
“Abbe,” said M. d’Anquetil, “give me your hand. You’re a gallant man.”
“I really cannot help thinking,” my good master replied, “that I have been somewhat murderously inclined; but I am not cruel enough to be proud of it. I am quite satisfied so long as I am not reproached too vehemently. Such violence does not lie in my habits, and as you can see, sir, I am better fitted to lecture from the chair of a college on belles-lettres than I am to fight with lackeys at the corner of a street.”
“Oh!” replied M. d’Anquetil, “that’s not the worst of the whole business. I fully believe you have knocked the Farmer-general on the head.”
“Is it true?” questioned the abbé.
“As true as that I have perforated with my sword yonder scoundrel’s tripes.”
“Under such circumstances we ought to ask pardon of God, to whom alone we are responsible for the blood shed by us, and secondly to hasten to the nearest fountain, there to wash ourselves, because I perceive that my nose is bleeding.”
“Right you are, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil; “for the blackguard now dying in the gutter has cut my forehead. What an impertinence!”
“Forgive him,” said the abbé, “as you wish to be forgiven yourself.”
At the place where the Rue de Bac loses itself in the fields, we fortunately found along the wall of a hospital a little bronze Triton, shooting a spirt of water into a stone tub. We stopped to wash and drink, for our throats were dry.
“What have we done,” said my master, “and how could I have lost my temper, usually so peaceable? True men must not be judged by their deeds, which depend on circumstances, but rather, on the example of God our Father, by their secret thoughts and their deepest intentions.”
“And Catherine,” I asked, “what has become of her through this horrible adventure?”
“I left her,” was M. d’Anquetil’s answer, “breathing into the mouth of her financier, to revive him. But she had better save her breath. I know La Gueritude. He is pitiless. He’ll send her to the spittel, perhaps to America. I am sorry for her. She was a fine girl. I did not love her, but she was mad after me. And, an extraordinary state of things, I am now without a mistress.”
“Don’t bother,” said my good tutor. “You’ll soon find another, not different, or hardly differing in essentials, from her. What you look for in a woman, as it appears to me, is common to all females.”
“It is clear,” said M. d’Anquetil, “that we are in danger: I of being sent to the Bastille, you, abbé, together with your pupil, Tournebroche, who certainly has not killed anybody, of being hanged.”
“That’s but too true,” said my good master. “We have to look out for safety. Perhaps it will be necessary to leave Paris, where, no doubt, we shall be wanted; and even to fly to Holland. Alas! I foresee that there I shall write lampoons for ballet girls with that same hand which has been employed to annotate right amply the alchemistic treatises of Zosimus the Panopolitan.”
“Listen to me, abbé,” said M. d’Anquetil, “I have a friend who will hide us at his country seat for any length of time. He lives within four miles of Lyons, in a country horrid and wild, where nothing is to be seen but poplars, grass and woods. There we must go. There we’ll wait till the storm is over. We’ll pass the time hunting and shooting. But we must at once find a post-chaise or, better still, a travelling coach.”
“I know where to get that,” said the abbé. “At theRed Horsehotel, at the Circus of the Bergères, you can have good horses, as well as all sorts of vehicles. I made the acquaintance of the landlord at the time I was secretary to Madame de Saint Ernest. He liked to oblige people of quality. I am not quite sure if he is still alive, but he ought to have a son like himself. Have you money?”
“I have with me a rather large sum,” replied M. d’Anquetil, “and I am glad of it, as I cannot dream of going home, where the constables will not fail to be on the lookout to arrest and conduct me to the Chatelet. I forgot my servants, whom I left in Catherine’s house, and I do not know what has become of them. I thrashed them, and never paid their wages, and withal I am not sure of their fidelity. In whom can you have confidence? Let’s be off at once for the Circus of the Bergères.”
“Sir,” said the abbé, “I’ll make you a proposal, hoping it may be agreeable to you. We are living, Tournebroche and I, in an alchemistic and ramshackle castle at the Cross of the Sablons, where we can easily stay for a dozen hours without being seen by anyone. There we will take you and wait quietly till our carriage is ready. The advantage is that the Sablons is very near the Circus of the Bergères.”
M. d’Anquetil had nothing against the abbé’s proposal, and so we resolved in front of the Triton, who blew the water out of his fat cheeks, to go first to the Cross of the Sablons, and to hire, later on, at theRed Horsehotel, a travelling coach for our journey to Lyons.
“I want to inform you, gentlemen,” said my dear tutor, “that of the three bottles I took care to carry with me, one was broken on the head of M. de la Guéritude, another one was smashed in my pocket during my flight. They are both regretted. The third, against all hope, has been preserved. Here it is!”
Pulling it out of his pocket, he placed it on the edge of the fountain.
“That’s well,” sail M, d’Anquetil. “You have some wine, I have dice and cards in my pocket. We can play.”
“It is true,” said my good master, “that is a pleasant pastime. A pack of cards is a book of adventure, of the kind called romances. It is so far superior to other books of a similar kind that it can be made and read at the same time, and that it is not necessary to have brains to make it, nor knowledge of reading to read it. It is a marvellous work, also, in that it offers a regular and new sense every time its pages are shuffled. It is a contrivance never to be too much admired, because out of mathematical principles it extracts thousands on thousands of curious combinations, and so many singular affinities that it is believed, contrary to all truth, that in it are discoverable the secrets of hearts, the mystery of destinies and the arcanum of the future. What I have said is particularly applicable to the tarot of the Bohemians, which is the finest of all games, piquet not excepted. The invention of cards must be ascribed to the ancients, and as far as I am concerned—I have, to speak candidly, no kind of documentary evidence for my assertion—I believe them to be of Chaldean origin. But in their present appearance the piquet cards cannot be traced further back than to King Charles VII., if what is said in a learned essay, that I remember to have read at Séez, is true, that the queen of hearts is an emblematical likeness of the beautiful Agnes Sorel, and that the queen of spades is, under the name of Pallas, no other than that Jeanne Dulys, better known as Joan of Arc, who by her bravery re-established the business of the French monarchy and was afterwards boiled to death by the English, in a cauldron, shown for two farthings at Rouen, where I have seen it in passing through that city. Certain historians pretend that she was burnt alive at the stake. It is to be read in the works of Nicole Gilles and in Pasquier that St Catherine and St Margaret appeared to her. Certainly it was not God who sent these saints to her, because there is no person of any learning and solid piety who does not know that Margaret and Catherine were invented by Byzantine monks, whose abundant and barbarous imaginations have altogether muddled up the martyrology. It is a ridiculous impiety to pretend that God made two saints who never existed appear to Jeanne Dulys. However, the ancient chroniclers were not afraid to publish it. Why have they not said that God sent to the Maid of Orleans the fair Yseult, Mélusine, Berthe the Bigfooted, and all the other heroines of the romances of chivalry the existence of whom is not more fabulous that that of the two virgins, Catherine and Margaret? M. de Valois, in the last century, rose with full reason against these clumsy fables, as much opposed to religion as error is to truth. It is desirable that an ecclesiastic learned in history undertook to show the distinction between real saints and saints such as Margaret, Luce or Lucie, Eustache, and perhaps Saint George, about whom I have my doubts.
“If on a future day I should be able to retire to some beautiful abbey, possessing a rich library, I will devote to this task the remainder of a life, half worn out in frightful tempests and frequent shipwrecks. I am longing for a harbour of refuge, and I have the desire and the taste for a chaste repose suitable to my age and profession.”
While M. Coignard was holding this memorable discourse, M. d’Anquetil, without listening to the abbé’s words, was seated on the edge of the fountain, shuffling the cards and swearing like a trooper, because it was too dark to play a game of piquet.
“You are right,” said my good master; “it is a bad light, and I am somewhat displeased over it, less because I cannot play cards than because I have a desire to read a few pages of the ‘Consolations’ of Boethius, of which I always carry a small edition, so as to have it handy when something unfortunate overcomes me, as has been the case this day. It is a cruel disgrace, sir, for a man of my calling to be a homicide, and liable at any moment to be locked up in one of the ecclesiastical prisons. I feel that a single page of that admirable book would strengthen my heart, crushed by the very idea of the officer.”
Having spoken, he let himself gently slide over the edge of the basin, so deep that the best part of his body went into the water. But not taking the slightest notice, and hardly feeling it, he took the Boethius out of his pocket—it was really there—and putting his spectacles on, wherein one glass only remained, and that one cracked in three places, he looked in the little book for the page most appropriate for his present situation. He doubtless would have found it, and extracted from it new strength, if the rotten state of his barnacles, the tears that came into his eyes, and the feeble light which came from the sky, had permitted him to search for it. Very soon he had to confess that he was unable to see a wink, and became angry with the moon, who showed her pointed sickle on the edge of a cloud. He reproached her and heaped bitter invectives on her. He shouted:
“Luminary obscene, mischievous and libidinous, you never tire of illuminating men’s wickedness, and you deny a ray of your light to him who searches for virtuous maxims!”
“The more so, abbé, as this bitch of a moon gives just light enough to find our way along the streets, and not sufficient to play a game of piquet. Let’s go at once to the castle you spoke of, where I have to slip in without being seen.”
That was good advice, and after we had drunk the wine to the last drop we took the road, all three of us, to the Cross of the Sablons. I walked with M. d’Anquetil. My good tutor, hindered by the water his breeches had soaked in, followed us, crying, moaning and disgusted.
Our Return—We smuggle M. d’Anquetil in—M. d’Asterac on Jealousy—M. Jérome Coignard in Trouble—What happened while I was in the Laboratory—Jahel persuaded to elope.
The morning light already pricked our jaded eyes when we reached the green door to the park. We had not to use the knocker, as some time ago the porter had given us the keys of his domain. It was agreed that my good tutor, with d’Anquetil, should cautiously advance in the shadow of the lane, and that I should remain behind on the lookout for the faithful Criton, and the kitchen boys who might perhaps see us coming along. This arrangement, which was nothing but reasonable, was to turn out rather badly for me. My two companions had gone up without being discovered, and reached my room, where we had decided to hide M. d’Anquetil until the moment of escape in the post-chaise, but as I was climbing the second flight of steps I met M. d’Asterac, in a red damask gown, carrying a silver candlestick. He put, as he habitually did, his hand on my shoulder.
“Hello! my son,” he said, “are you not very happy, having broken off all intercourse with women, and by that escaped all dangers of bad company? With the august maidens of the air you need not be in fear of quarrels, scuffles, injurious and violent rows which usually occur with creatures following a loose life. In your solitude, which delights the fairies, you enjoy a delicious peace.”
I thought at first that he mocked me. But I soon found out that nothing was further from his thoughts.
“I am pleased to have met you, my son,” he continued, “and will thank you to come with me to my studio for a moment.”
I followed him. He unlocked, with a key nearly an ell long, that confounded room where I had seen the glare of infernal fires. When we were inside the laboratory he asked me to kindly make up the smouldering fire. I threw some short logs into the furnace, where I don’t know what was steaming, exhaling a suffocating odour. While he was occupied with his black cookery, cupellating and matrassing, I remained seated on a settle, and, against my will, closed my eyes. He made me reopen them to admire a green earthenware vessel, with a glass top, which he had in his hand.
“You ought to know, my son,” he said, “that this subliming pot is called aludel. It contains a liquid to be looked at with the greatest attention, as it is nothing less than the mercury of the philosophers. Do not suppose that it is to keep its present dark colour for ever. Soon it will change to white and in that state will change all metals into silver. Hereafter, by my art and industry, it will turn red, and acquire the virtue of transmuting silver into gold. It certainly would be of advantage to you that, shut in this laboratory, you should not leave it before these sublime operations have fully taken place, a process which cannot require more than two or three months. But as to ask you to do so would perhaps be imposing too hard a restriction on your youth, be satisfied, for this time, to observe the preludes of the work, while putting, if you please, as much wood on the fire as possible.”
Having said that he returned to his phials and retorts, and I could not help thinking of the sad position wherein ill-luck and imprudence had placed me.
“Alas!” I said to myself, and threw logs into the fire, “at this very moment the constables are searching for my good tutor and myself; perhaps we shall have to go to prison, certainly we have to leave this castle. I have in default of money, at least board and an honourable position. I shall never again dare to stand before M. d’Asterac, who believes me to have passed the night in the silent voluptuousness of magic, which perhaps would have been better for me. Alas! I’ll never more see Mosaide’s niece, Mademoiselle Jahel, who at night-time woke me in my room in such a charming way. No doubt she will forget me. Perhaps she’ll love someone else, and bestow on him the same caresses as she gave to me.” The idea of such an infidelity became unbearable. But as the world goes, one has to be ready for anything.
“My son,” M. d’Asterac began to say again, “you do not sufficiently feed the athanor. I see that you are still not fully convinced of the excellency of fire, which is capable of ripening this mercury and transforming it into the wonderful fruit I expect to gather very soon. More wood! The fire, my son, is the superior element; I have told you enough, and now I’ll show you an example. On a very cold day last winter, visiting Mosaide in his lodge, I found him sitting, his feet on a warming pan. I observed that the subtle particles of fire escaping from the pan had power enough to inflate and lift up the folds of his gown, wherefrom I inferred, that had the fire been hotter, it would have raised Mosaide himself into the air, of which he is certainly worthy, and that, if it should be possible to close into some kind of a vessel a very large quantity of such fire particles, it would be possible to sail on the clouds as easily as we sail on the sea, and to visit the Salamanders in their aerial abodes, a problem I shall keep in mind. I do not despair of constructing such a fireship. But let us go back to our work of putting wood on the fire.”
He kept me for some time in the glow of the laboratory whence I wanted to escape as quickly as possible, to join Jahel, whom I was anxious to inform of my misfortune. At last he left me, and I thought myself free, a hope shortly to be disappointed by his return.
“It is rather mild this morning,” he said, “but the sky is somewhat cloudy. Would it please you to go for a walk in the park with me before returning to the translation of Zosimus the Panopolitan, which will be a great honour to you and your tutor if you finish it as you have begun?”
With much regret I followed him into the park, where he said to me:
“I am not sorry, my son, to be alone with you, to warn you, as it is high time to do, against a great danger by which you may be threatened one day; I reproach myself not to have thought of warning you before, as what I shall communicate to you is of the utmost consequence.”
And speaking in this way, he led me through the grand avenue which leads down to the marshes of the Seine, whence Rueil is to be seen and Mont Valerien with its calvary. It was his usual walk. The alley was practicable in spite of some dead trees which had fallen across it.
“It is important for you to know to what you expose yourself by betraying your Salamander. I do not want to interrogate you as to what intercourse you have had with that superhuman person I have been fortunate enough to make you acquainted with. I dare say you feel somewhat reluctant to discuss it. Possibly you deserve praise for that. If the Salamanders have not, in what concerns the discretion of their lovers, the same ideas that court ladies and tradeswomen have, it is not less true that it is the special quality of beautiful amours to be unutterable, and that it would profane a grand sentiment to spread it abroad.
“But your Salamander (of which I could easily find the name if I had any idle curiosity) has perhaps omitted to give you information about one of the most violent passions—jealousy; this character is common to them. Know well, my son, Salamanders are not to be betrayed without punishment awaiting you. Their vengeance on the perjurer is of the cruelest. The divine Paracelsus gives one example, which will suffice to inspire in you a salutary fear.
“There was in the German town of Staufen a spagyric philosopher who had, like yourself, connection with a Salamander. He was depraved enough to deceive her with a woman, certainly pretty, but not more beautiful than a woman can be. One evening, having supper with his new mistress in company with some friends, they saw a thigh of marvellous beauty shining over their heads. The Salamander exposed it to impress on them all, that she did not deserve the wrong inflicted by her lover; after that the outraged celestial struck down the unfaithful lover with apoplexy. The vulgar, who are made to be deceived, believed his to be a natural death; the initiated knew by whose hand he was slain. I owed you this advice, my son, and this example.”
They were less useful to me than M. d’Asterac thought. Listening to them I mused on other subjects of alarm. Without doubt my face must have betrayed the state of anxiety I was in; because the great cabalist, having looked at me, asked me if I was not afraid that an engagement, guarded by conditions so severe, would be troublesome to my youth.
“I am able to reassure you,” he added. “The jealousy of a Salamander is awakened only by rivalry with women, and to speak truly it is more resentment, indignation, disgust, than real jealousy. The souls of the Salamanders are too noble, their intelligence too subtle, to envy one another, and to give way to a sentiment pertaining to the barbarity wherein humanity is still half plunged. On the contrary they delight to share with their playmates the joys they taste beside a sage, and are pleased to bring to their lovers the most beautiful of their sisters. Very soon you’ll experience that, as a fact, they push politeness to the point I mentioned, and not a year, nay not six months, will pass before your room will be the trysting place of five or six daughters of the light, who will untie before you their sparkling girdles. Do not be afraid, my son, to answer their caresses. Your own fairy love will not take umbrage. How could she be offended, wise as she is? And on your side, do not get irritated if your Salamander leaves you for a moment to visit another philosopher. Consider that the proud jealousy men bring into the union of the sexes is but a savage sentiment, founded on the most ridiculous of illusions. It rests on the idea that a woman belongs to you because she has given herself to you, which is nothing but a play on words.”
While making this speech, M. d’Asterac had turned into the lane of the mandrakes, where we could see Mosaide’s cottage, half hidden by foliage, when suddenly an appalling voice burst upon us and made my heart beat faster—hoarse sounds, accompanied by a sharp gnashing, and on getting nearer the sounds seemed to be modulated, and each phrase ended in a sort of very feeble melody, which could not be listened to without shuddering.
Advancing a few paces we could, by listening closely, understand the sense of the strange words. The voice said:
“Hear the malediction with which Elisha cursed the insolent and mirthful children. Listen to the anathema Barak flung on Meros.
“I curse thee in the name of Archithuriel, who is also called the lord of battles, and holds the flaming sword. I doom thee to perdition in the name of Sardaliphonos, who presents to his master the flowers and garlands of merit offered by the children of Israel.
“Be cursed, hound! Anathema, swine!”
Looking from whence the voice came, we could see Mosaide on the threshold of his house, standing erect, his arms raised, his hands in the form of fangs, with nails crooked, appearing inflamed by the fiery light of the sun. His head was covered with his dirty tiara, and he was enveloped in his gorgeous gown, showing when flying open his meagre bow-legs in ragged breeches. He looked like some begging magician, immortal, and very old. His eyes glared, and he said:
“Be cursed in the name of all globes, be cursed in the name of all wheels, be cursed in the name of the mysterious beasts Ezekiel saw.”
Out he stretched his long arms, ending in claws, and continued:
“In the name of the globes, in the name of the wheels, in the name of the mysterious beasts, descend among those who are no more.”
We advanced a few paces between the half-grown trees to see the object over which Mosaide extended his arms and his anger, and discovered, to our great surprise, M. Jérome Coignard, hanging by a lapel of his gown on an evergreen thorn bush. The night’s disorder was visible all over his body; his collar and his shoes torn, his stockings smeared with mud, his shirt open, all reminded me of our common misadventures, and, worse than all, the swelling of his nose spoilt entirely the noble and smiling expression which never left his features.
I ran up to him and unhooked him so luckily off the thorns that only a small piece of his breeches stuck to them. Mosaide, having had his say, re-entered the cottage. As he wore only slippers I could observe that his legs fitted right into the middle of his feet, so that the heel stuck out behind pretty nearly as much as the forefoot in front, a singular deformation, rendering his walking uncouth, which otherwise would have been noble and full of dignity.
“Jacques Tournebroche! my dear boy,” said my tutor, with a sigh, “that Jew must be Isaac Laquedem in person, so to blaspheme in all languages. He vowed me to a death near and violent with an enormous abundance of metaphors, and he called me a pig in fourteen distinct languages, if I counted them correctly. I could believe him to be the Antichrist, and he does not want some of the signs by which that enemy of God is to be recognised. Under any circumstances he is a dirty Jew, and never has the wheel as a brand of infamy been exposed on the vestments of a worse or more rabid miscreant. As for himself, he not only deserves the wheel formerly attached to the garments of Jews, but also that other wheel on which scoundrels have their bones broken.”
And my good master, mightily angry in his turn, shook his fist in the direction where Mosaide had disappeared, and accused him of crucifying children and devouring the flesh of new-born babes.
M. d’Asterac went up to him and touched his breast with the ruby he used to wear on his finger.
“It is useful,” said the great cabalist, “to know the peculiar qualities of precious stones. Rubies soothe resentments, and you’ll soon see the Abbé Coignard regain his natural suavity.”
My dear tutor smiled already, less by virtue of the stone than by the influence of a philosophy which raised this admirable man above all human passions, for I feel it my duty to say, at the very moment my narrative becomes clouded and sad, that M. Jérome Coignard has given me examples of wisdom under circumstances in which it is but rarely met with.
We inquired the cause of the quarrel, but easily understood by the vagueness of his embarrassed replies that he did not intend to satisfy our curiosity. I surmised at once that Jahel was mixed up with it in some way, when I heard with the gnashing of Mosaide’s voice the grating of locks and bolts, and later on the noise, in the lodge, of a violent dispute between uncle and niece. When we tried again to bring my tutor to some explanation, he said:
“Hate for Christians is deeply rooted in every Jew’s heart, and yonder Mosaide is an execrable example of it. I fancy I discovered in his horrible yelpings some parts of the imprecations the Amsterdam synagogue vomited in the last century on a little Dutch Jew called Baruch or Benedict, but better known under the name of Spinoza, for having framed a philosophy which has been perfectly refuted, as soon as it was brought to public knowledge, by excellent theologians. But this old Mordecai has added to it, so it seems to me, many and much more horrible imprecations, and I confess to having somewhat resented them. For a moment I thought of escaping by flight this torrent of abuse, when to my dismay I found myself entangled in yonder thorn, and sticking to it by different parts of my clothes and skin so fast that I really expected to have to leave the one or the other behind me. I should still be there, in smarting agony, if Tournebroche, my dear pupil, had not freed me.”
“The thorns count for nothing,” said M. d’Asterac, “but I’m afraid, Monsieur l’Abbé, that you have trodden on a mandrake.”
“Mandrakes,” replied the abbé, “are certainly the least of my cares.”
“You’re wrong,” said M. d’Asterac. “It suffices to tread on a mandrake to become involved in a love crime, and perish by it miserably.”
“Ah! sir,” my dear tutor replied, “here are all sorts of dangers, and I become aware that it was necessary to be closely shut in between the eloquent walls of the ‘Asteracian,’ which is the queen of libraries. For having left it for a moment only, I get the beasts of Ezekiel thrown at my head, not to speak of anything else.”
“Would you kindly give me news of Zosimus the Panopolitan?” inquired M. d’Asterac.
“He goes on,” replied my master; “goes on nicely, though slowly at the moment.”
“Do not forget, abbé,” said the cabalist, “that possession of the greatest secrets is attached to the knowledge of those ancient texts.”
“I think of it, sir, with solicitude,” said the abbé.
M. d’Asterac, after this assurance, left us standing at the statue of the faun, who continued to play the flute without taking any notice of his head, fallen into the grass. He disappeared rapidly between the trees, looking for Salamanders.
My tutor linked his arm in mine with the air of one who can at last speak freely.
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son, I must not conceal from you that this very morning, in the attics of the castle, a rather peculiar chance meeting has taken place, while you were kept in the room of yonder mad fire-blower. I plainly heard him ask you to assist him for a moment in his cooking, which is a great deal less savoury and Christian than that of Master Leonard your father. Alas! when shall I be lucky enough to see again the cookshop of theQueen Pédauqueand the bookshop of M. Blaizot, with the sign ofSaint Catherine, where I enjoyed myself so heartily thumbing the books newly arrived from The Hague and Amsterdam!”
“Alas!” I exclaimed, the tears coming into my eyes, “when shall I return to it again? When shall I return to the Rue St Jacques again, where I was born, and see my dear parents, who’ll feel burning shame when they hear of our misfortunes? But do be so good, my dear tutor, as to explain that strange encounter you said you had this very morning, and also the events of the day.”
M. Jérome Coignard willingly consented to give me all the enlightenment I wished for. He did it in the following words:
“Know then, my dear boy, that I reached the upper storey of the castle without hindrance in company with M. d’Anquetil, whom I like well enough, although rude and uncultured. His mind is possessed neither of fine knowledge nor deep curiosity. But youth’s vivacity sparkleth pleasantly with him, and the ardour of his blood results in amusing sallies. He knows the world as well as he knows women, because he is above them, and without any kind of philosophy. It’s a great frankness on his part to call himself an atheist. His ungodliness is without malice, and will disappear with the exuberance of his sensuality. In his soul God has no other enemies than horses, cards and women. In the mind of a real libertine, like M. Bayle for example, truth has to meet more formidable and malicious adversaries. But, my dear boy, I give you a character sketch instead of the plain narrative you wish to have of me.
“I’ll satisfy you. Let’s see. Having arrived at the top storey of the castle in company with M. d’Anquetil, I made the young gentleman enter your room, and wished him, in accordance with the promise we made him at the Triton fountain, to use the room as his own. He did so willingly, undressed, and, keeping nothing on but his boots, went into your bed, the curtains of which he closed so as not to be incommoded by the bright morning light, and was not long before he was sound asleep.
“As to myself, my dear boy, having reached my room, tired as I was, I did not want to go to rest before I had looked up in my Boethius one or two sentences appropriate to my state of mind. I could not find the very one fit for it. It must not be forgotten that this great thinker had not had occasion to meditate on the disgrace of having broken the head of a Farmer-general with a bottle out of his own cellar. But I was able to pick up here and there, in his admirable treatise, some maxims applicable to present conjunctures. Having done so, I drew the night-cap over my eyes, recommended my soul to God, and quietly went to sleep. After what seemed to me, without being able to measure it, a very short space of time—be mindful, my son, that our actions are the only measure for time, which, if I may say so, is suspended for us by sleep—I felt my arm pulled, and heard a voice shouting in my ear: ‘Eh! Abbé! Eh! Abbé, wake up!’ Half dozing as I was, I believed it was a constable wanting to conduct me to the officer, and I deliberated with myself the easiest way in which I could break his head, and rapidly came to the conclusion that the candlestick would be the handiest weapon. It is unhappily, too true, my dear boy, that having once stepped aside from the road of kindness and equity, where the wise man walks with a firm and prudent step, one becomes compelled to sustain violence by violence and cruelty by cruelty, thereby proving that a first fault leads invariably to other faults—evil always follows evil done. One has to be reminded of this if one wants to fully understand the lives of the Roman emperors, of whom M. Crevier has given such an exact account. Those princes were not born more evilly disposed than other men. Caius, surnamed Caligula, was wanting neither in natural spirit nor in judgment, and was quite capable of friendship. Nero had an inborn liking for virtue, and his temperament disposed him towards all that is grand and sublime. Both of them were led by a first fault on the nefarious, villainous road whereon they walked to their miserable end. Their history is cleverly treated in M. Crevier’s book. I knew that remarkable writer when he was a teacher of literature and history at the College of Beauvais, as I might be teaching to-day, had my life not been crossed by a thousand impediments, and if the natural easiness of my spirit had not drawn me into the manifold snares laid in my way. M. Crevier, my boy, led a pure life; his morals were severe, and I have myself heard him say that a woman who had broken her conjugal vows was capable of the crimes of murder and incendiarism. I repeat this saying of his, to impress you with the saintly austerity of that model priest.
“But, once more, I digress, and I must hasten to return to my narrative. Well, as I have said, I thought a constable had come to arrest me, and I could see myself in one of the archbishop’s dungeons, when I opened my eyes and recognised the features and voice of M. d’Anquetil. ‘Abbé,’ said that young gentleman to me, ‘I have just had a singular adventure in Tournebroche’s room. During my sleep a woman entered my room, glided into my bed, and awoke me with a shower of caresses, tender epithets, sweet murmurings, and passionate kisses. I pushed the curtains back to see the features of my good luck. She was dark and had ardent eyes, one of the finest women I have ever held in my arms. But all at once she screamed and jumped out, violently angry, but not quick enough to prevent me catching her in the passage and pressing her closely in my arms. She began by striking me and scratching my face. After having lacerated it sufficiently to satisfy her outraged womanly honour, we began to explain ourselves. She was well pleased to learn that I am a gentleman, and none of the poorest, and sooner than I might have expected I ceased to be odious to her, and she began to be tender with me, when a scullion appeared in the passage; his appearance put her to flight at once.
“‘I am quite aware,’ said M. d’Anquetil, ‘that that admirable girl had come for another than myself; she must have entered the wrong room, and the surprise frightened her. I did my best to reassure her, and should doubtless have won her amity had not that sot of a scullion come between us.’
“I confirmed him in that supposition. We put our heads together to get an idea of the man for whom that beautiful woman had ventured on such an early morning visit, and were easily agreed that it could be no other but that old fool d’Asterac—you know, Tournebroche, I suspected him before—who awaits her intimacy in an adjoining room, if not, and without your knowledge, in your own. Are you not of the same opinion?”
“Nothing is more credible,” I replied.
“No doubt it is so. That sorcerer amuses himself when he talks to us of his Salamanders. The truth is, he caresses that amazingly pretty girl. He’s an impostor.”
I asked my tutor to favour me with the continuance of his narrative. He willingly complied and said:
“Well, my dear boy, I’ll briefly report the remainder of M. d’Anquetil’s discourse. I know very well that it’s rather commonplace, almost vulgar, to lay much stress on trifling circumstances. It is, on the contrary, some sort of duty to express them in the fewest possible words, to condense them carefully and reserve the tempting abundance of word-flow to moral instruction and exhortation, which may be hurled as the avalanches are hurled from the mountains. On this principle I shall have mentioned enough of M. d’Anquetil’s sayings when I have told you that he impressed on me that yonder young girl’s beauty, charms, and accomplishments are quite extraordinary. In the end he inquired of me if I knew her name and position. And I replied to him that, from his description of her, I was pretty sure that she was Rabbi Mosaide’s niece Jahel, whom by a lucky accident I had embraced one night on that very same staircase, with this difference only, that my luck occurred between the first and second flights of steps. ‘I hope and trust,’ said M. d’Anquetil, ‘that there may be other differences too, for, as far as I am concerned, I embraced her very closely. I am also sorry that, as you say, she is a Jewess, as, without believing in God, I feel that I should have liked better for her to be a Christian. But can anyone be sure of his own family? Who knows if she has not been kidnapped as a child? Jews and gypsies steal children daily. And we do not, as a rule, remember sufficiently that the Holy Virgin was born a Jewess. But let her be Jewess or not, she pleases me; I want her and shall have her!’ Such were that reckless youngster’s words. But allow me, my boy, to sit down on yonder moss-covered stone; last night’s work, my fights, my flight, too, have nearly broken my legs.”
He sat down, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and looked quite disconsolate when he found it void of tobacco.
I took a seat at his side, agitated, crestfallen. Coignard’s discourse caused me acute pain. I cursed Fate for having given my place to a brute at the very moment when my beloved mistress had come to bring me her most passionate tenderness, expecting to find me in my bed, the while I had to throw logs of wood on the fire in the alchemist’s furnace. The but too probable inconstancy of Jahel tore my heart to pieces, and I could have wished that my dear tutor had been more discreet with my rival. So I took the liberty to reproach him mildly for his disclosure of Jahel’s name.
“Sir,” I said, “was it not somewhat imprudent to furnish such indications to a gentleman so luxurious and violent as M. d’Anquetil?”
M. Coignard seemed not to hear what I said, and continued his speech:
“My snuff-box has unfortunately opened itself in my pocket during the fight at Catherine’s house, and the tobacco it contained, mixed with the wine of the broken bottle, has formed a quite disgusting paste. I do not dare ask Criton to grind down a few leaves for me; the hard and cold features of that servant and judge inspire me with awe. I suffer from the want of snuff, as my nose is irksome in consequence of the shock I had last night, and I am quite disconcerted by my failure to satisfy the never-tiring wants of that nose of mine. I shall have to bear the misfortune quietly, till M. d’Anquetil may, perhaps, let me have a few grains out of his box. Now to return to that young gentleman, he said expressly to me: ‘I love that girl. Know, abbé, that I am resolved to take her with us in the post-chaise should I be compelled to stay here a week, a month, six months or longer; I will not go away without her.’ I represented all the dangers to him, which might occur through any delay in our departure. He said he did not care a rap for those dangers, less so as they were smaller for him than for us. ‘You, abbé, you and Tournebroche are both in danger of being hanged; my risk is the Bastille only, where I can get cards and girls, and whence my family could, and would, soon deliver me, as my father would interest some duchess or some ballet dancer in my doom, and my mother, devotee as she has become, could and would still get the assistance of one or other of the royal princes. It is irrevocably fixed; I take Jahel with me or I remain here. You and Tournebroche are at liberty to hire a post-chaise of your own.’
“The cruel boy knows but too well that we have not the means to do it. I tried to make him change his mind. I became pressing, unctuous, parental. It was no use, and I wasted on him an eloquence which, employed in the pulpit of a parish church, would have brought me a full reward in honour and coin. Alas! my dear boy, it seems to be written that none of my actions will ever produce any kind of savoury fruit, and for me ought to have been written the following words from Ecclesiastes:—‘Quid habet am plius homo de universe labore suo, quo laborat sub sole?’ Far from bringing him to reason, my discourses strengthened the young nobleman’s obstinacy, and I cannot deny that he actually counted on me for the success of his desires, and pressed me to go to Jahel and induce her to fly with him, promising her the gift of a trousseau of Dutch linen, of plate, jewels and a handsome annuity.”
“Oh, sir!” I exclaimed, “this M. d’Anquetil is very insolent. What do you think will be Jahel’s reply to his propositions when she knows of them?”
“My boy, she knows by now, and I think she will accept them.”
“If such is the case,” I said, “then Mosaide must be warned.”
“That he is already,” replied my tutor. “You have just assisted at the outbreak of his rage.”
“What, sir?” said I, with much warmth, “you have informed yonder Jew of the disgrace awaiting his family! That’s nice of you! Allow me to embrace you. But, if so, Mosaide’s wrath threatened M. d’Anquetil, and not yourself?”
The abbé replied with an air of nobility and honesty, with a natural indulgence for human weaknesses, an obliging sweetness, and the imprudent kindness of an easy heart—by all of which men are often induced to do inconsiderate things and expose themselves to the severity of the futile judgments of mankind:
“I will not keep it a secret from you, my dear Tournebroche, that, giving way to the pressing solicitations of that young gentleman, I obligingly promised to go on his errand to Jahel and to neglect nothing to induce her to elope with him.”
“Alas!” I exclaimed, “you did, sir. I cannot fully tell how deeply your action wounds and affects me.”
“Tournebroche,” replied he sternly, “you speak like a Pharisee. One of the fathers, as amiable as he was austere, has said: ‘Turn your eyes on yourself and take care not to judge the doings of others. Judging others is an idle labour; usually one is erring, often sinning, by so doing, but by examining and judging oneself your labour will always be fruit-bearing.’ It is written, ‘Thou shalt not be afraid of the judgment of men,’ and the Apostle Paul said that he did not trouble himself about being judged by men. If I refer to some of the finest texts in morals it is to enlighten you, Tournebroche, to make you return to the humble and sweet modesty which suits you, and not to defend my innocence, when the multitude of my iniquities weighs on me and bears me down. It is difficult not to glide into sin, and proper not to fall into despondency at every step one takes on this earth, whereon everything participates, at one and the same time, in the original curse, and the redemption effected by the blood of the Son of God. I do not want to colour my faults, and I freely confess that the embassy I undertook at the request of M. d’Anquetil is an outcome of Eve’s downfall, and it was, to say it bluntly, one of the numberless consequences, on the wrong side, of the humble and painful sentiment which I now feel, and is drawn out of the desire and hope of my eternal welfare. You have to represent to yourself mankind balancing between damnation and redemption to understand me truly when I say that at the present hour I am sitting on the good end of the seesaw after having been this very morning on the wrong end. I freely avow that in passing through the mandrake lane, from whence Mosaide’s cottage is to be seen, I hid behind an ivy-thorn bush, waiting for Jahel to appear at her window. Very soon she came. I showed myself, and beckoned her to come down. She came as soon as she was able to escape her uncle’s vigilance. I gave her a brief report of the events of the night, of which she had not known. I informed her of M. d’Anquetil’s impetuous plans, and represented to her how important it was for her own interest, and for my and your safety, to make our escape sure by coming with us. I made the young nobleman’s promises glitter before her eyes and said to her: ‘If you consent to go with him to-night you’ll have a solid annuity, inscribed at the Hotel de Ville, and an outfit richer than any ballet dancer or Abbess of Panthémont may get, and a cupboard full of the finest silver.’ ‘He thinks me to be one of those creatures,” she said; ‘he is an impudent fellow.’ ‘He loves you,’ I replied; ‘you could not expect to be venerated?’ ‘I must have an olio pot,’ she said, ‘an olio pot, and the heaviest one. Did he mention the olio pot? Go, Monsieur Abbé, and tell him.’ ‘What shall I tell him?’ ‘That I am an honest girl.’ ‘And what else?’ ‘That he is very audacious!’ ‘Is that all, Jahel? Think on our safety!’ ‘Tell him that I shall not depart before he has given me his legally worded written promise for everything.’ ‘He’ll do it, consider it as done. ‘Oh, monsieur, I will not consent to anything if he does not consent to have lessons given me by M. Couperin; I want to study music.
“We had just reached this item of our negotiations when, unhappily, Mosaide surprised us, and without having overheard our conversation got the scent of its meaning.
“He called me at once a suborner, and heaped outrageous insults on me. Jahel went and hid herself in her own room, and I remained alone exposed to the fury of that God-killer, in the state you found me, and out of which you helped me, you dear boy! As a fact, I may say that the business had been concluded, the elopement assented to, our flight assured. The wheels and Ezekiel’s beasts are of no value against a heavy silver olio pot. I am only afraid that yonder old Mordecai has imprisoned his niece too securely.”
“I must avow,” I replied, without disguising my satisfaction, “that I heard a loud noise of keys and bolts at the very moment I freed you from the midst of the thorns. But is it really true, that Jahel agreed so quickly to your propositions, which have not been quite decorous, and which, for certain, you did not make with an easy heart? I am abashed; and, say, my good master, did she not speak of me, not mention my name, with a sigh or otherwise?”
“No, my boy, she did not pronounce your name, at least not in an audible way. Neither did I hear her mention the name of M. d’Asterac her lover, which ought to have been nearer to her feelings than yours. But do not be surprised by her forgetting the alchemist. It is not sufficient to possess a woman to impress on her soul a profound and durable mark. Souls are almost impenetrable, a fact showing the cruel emptiness of love. The wise man ought to say to himself, I am nothing in the nothingness which that creature is. To hope that you could leave a remembrance in a woman’s heart is equivalent to trying to impress a seal on running water. And therefore let us never nurse the wish to establish ourselves in what is fleeting and let us attach ourselves to that which never dies.”
“After all,” I said, “Jahel is locked and bolted up, and one may rely on the vigilance of her guardian.”
“My son, this very evening she has to join us at theRed Horse. Twilight is favourable to evasions, abductions, stealthy movements and underhand actions. We have to trust to the cunning of that girl. As to you, be sure to attend at the Circus of the Bergères in the dusk. You know M. d’Anquetil is not patient, and it quite the man to start without you.”
When he gave me this counsel, the luncheon bell sounded.
“Have you by chance,” he said to me, “a needle and thread? My garments are torn at more than one place, and I should like to repair them as much as possible before going to luncheon. Especially my breeches do not leave me without some apprehension. They are so much torn that, should I not promptly mend them, I run the risk of losing them altogether.”