“Thank God!” said my tutor, “I have not suffered any other damage than the loss of a tooth, and that was neither whole nor white. Time had already effected its decay.” M. d’Anquetil, legs astride and arms akimbo, examined the carriage.
“The rascals,” he said, “have put it in a nice state. If the horses are got up they will break it all to pieces. Abbé, that carriage is no good for anything else but to play spillikins with.”
The horses had fallen topsy-turvy, one on the other, and were kicking furiously. In a heap of croups and legs and steaming bellies, one of the postboys was buried, his boots in the air. The other was spitting blood in the ditch, where he had been thrown. M. d’Anquetil shouted to them:
“Idiots! I really don’t know why I do not spit you on my sword.”
“Sir,” said Abbé Coignard, “would it not be better to get that poor fellow out of the midst of these horses wherein he is entangled?”
We all went to work with a will, and when the horses were freed and raised we were able to discover the extent of the damage done. One of the springs was broken, one of the wheels also, and one of the horses lame.
“Fetch a smith,” ordered M. d’Anquetil.
“There is no smith in the neighbourhood,” was the postboy’s reply.
“A mechanic of some kind.”
“There is none.”
“A saddler.”
“There is no saddler.”
We looked round. To the west the vineyards extended to the horizon their long peaceful lines. On the hill smoke came out of a chimney near a steeple. On the other side, the Saone, veiled by a light mist, lost itself slowly in the calm running of her flowing waters. The shadows of the poplars elongated themselves on the banks. The shrill cry of a bird pierced the deep silence.
“Where are we?” asked M. d’Anquetil.
“At two full leagues from Tournus,” replied the postillion, spitting blood, “and at least four leagues from Mâcon.”
And, extending his arm towards the smoking chimney:
“Up there, that village ought to be Vallars, but it’s not up to much.”
“Blast you!” roared M. d’Anquetil.
While the horses struggled we went near the carriage, which was lying sadly on its side.
The little postboy who had been taken out from the midst of the horses said:
“As to the spring, that could be mended by a strong piece of wood. It will only make the carriage shake you more. But there is the broken wheel! And, worst of all, my hat is under it, smashed to pieces.”
“Damn your hat!” said M. d’Anquetil.
“Your lordship may not be aware that it was quite new,” was the postboy’s meek reply.
“And the window glasses are broken!” sighed Jahel, seated on a portmanteau, at the side of the road.
“If it were but the glasses,” said M. Coignard, “a remedy could soon be found by lowering the blinds, but the bottles cannot be in the same state as the windows. I must look to it as soon as the coach can be raised. I am also in fear for my Boethius, which I had placed under the cushions with some other good books.”
“It does not matter,” said M. d’Anquetil. “I have the cards in my waistcoat pocket. But shall we not get any supper?”
“I had thought of it,” said the abbé. “It is not in vain that God has given to the use of men the animals who crowd the earth, the sky and the water. I am an excellent angler; the care necessary to allure the fish particularly suits my meditative mind, and the River Orne has seen me managing my line while meditating on the eternal verities. Do not trouble over your supper. If Mademoiselle Jahel will be good enough to give me one of the pins which keep her garments together I’ll soon make a hook of it, to enable me to fish in yonder river, and I flatter myself I shall return before nightfall laden with two or three carp, that we will grill over a brushwood fire.”
“I am quite aware,” said Jahel, “that we are reduced to somewhat of a savage state. But I could not give you a pin, abbé, without your giving me something in exchange for it; otherwise our friendship would be jeopardised. And that I do not want in any case.”
“Then I will make an advantageous exchange, mademoiselle: I’ll pay for your pin with a kiss.”
And, taking the pin out of Jahel’s hand, he kissed her on both cheeks with inconceivable courtesy, gracefulness and decency.
After having lost plenty of time, a reasonable step was at last taken. The big postillion, who no longer spat blood, was sent to Tournus on one of the horses to bring back with him a blacksmith; the other boy was ordered to light a fire, as the air became fresh, and a sharp wind was rising.
We discovered on the road, a hundred paces from the place of our breakdown, a cliff of soft stone, the foot of which was quarried in several places. We resolved to wait in one of those caves, warming ourselves until the return of the boy sent to Tournus. The second boy tied the three remaining horses to the trunk of a tree, near our cavern. The abbé, who had made a fishing rod with the branch of a willow-tree, some string, a cork and a pin, went a-fishing as much for his philosophical and meditative inclination as for the sake of bringing us back fish. M. d Anquetil, remaining with Jahel and me in the grotto, proposed a game ofl’ombre,which is played by three, and which he said, being a Spanish game, was the very one for persons as adventurous as ourselves. And true it is that, in that quarry, in a deserted road, our little company would not have been unworthy to figure in some of the adventures of Don Quixote in which menials take such a strong interest. And so we playedl’ombre.I committed a great many errors, and my impetuous partner got cross, when the noble and laughing face of my good tutor became visible at the light of our fire. He untied his handkerchief, and took out of it some four or five small fish, which he opened with his knife, decorated with the image of the late king, dressed as a Roman emperor, standing on a triumphal column; and cleaned them with dexterity, as if he had never lived anywhere else than in the midst of the fishwomen at the market. He excelled as much in trifles as in matters of the greatest importance. Arranging the fish on the embers, he said:
“I will tell you, in all confidence, that following the river in search of a favourable place for fishing, I perceived the apocalyptic coach which frightens Mademoiselle Jahel. It stopped somewhat behind our carriage. You ought to have seen it pass by while I was fishing, and mademoiselle’s soul ought to have been comforted by it.”
“We have not seen it,” replied Jahel.
“Then it may have moved on only after the night had become dark. But at least you heard it rumbling?”
“We have not,” said Jahel.
“It is then that this night is blind as well as deaf. It is not to be supposed that yonder coach, which had not a wheel broken, not a horse lamed, would have remained standing still on the road. What for?”
“Yes, what for?” said Jahel.
“Our supper,” said my good tutor, “reminds me of the simplicity of the repasts described in the Bible, where the pious traveller divided with an angel, on the bank of the river, the fishes of the Tigris. But we are in want of bread, salt and wine. I’ll try to take out of our coach the provisions put there, and look if by a fortunate chance some bottles have remained intact. There are occasions when glass remains whole but steel is broken. Tournebroche, my son, give me your steel; and you, mademoiselle, do not fail to turn the grilling fish. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He left. His somewhat heavy tread sounded in a de crescendo, and soon we could hear him no more.
“This very night,” said M. d’Anquetil, “reminds me of the night before the battle of Parma. You may be aware that I have served under Villars and been in the War of Succession. I was with the scouts. We could not see anything. That’s one of the best ruses of war. Men are sent out to reconnoitre the enemy who return without having reconnoitred anything. But reports are drawn up, after the battle, and then it is that the tacticians are triumphant. Thus, at nine o’clock at night, I was sent out scouting with twelve men—”
And he gave us a narrative of the War of Succession and of his amours in Italy; his story had lasted for well-nigh a quarter of an hour when he exclaimed:
“That rascal of an abbé does not come back. I bet he drinks all the wine which remained in the coach.”
Thinking that my dear tutor might possibly be embarrassed, I rose and went to help him. It was a moonless night, and if the sky was resplendent in the light of thousands of stars, the earth was clad in a darkness which my eyes, dazzled by the light of the flames, could not pierce.
Having walked about fifty steps on the black road. I heard a terrible cry, which did not sound as if coming from a human breast, a cry altogether unlike all cries I had heard before, a horrible cry. I ran in the direction from whence came this clamour of fatal distress. But fear and darkness checked my steps. Arrived at last at the place where our coach lay on the road, shapeless and enlarged by the night, I found my dear tutor seated on the side of the ditch, bent double. Trembling I asked him:
“What’s the matter? Why did you shout?”
“Yes; why did I shout?” he said, in a new and altered voice. “I did not know I had cried out. Tournebroche, did you not see a man? He struck me in the dark, very fiercely; he gave me a blow with his fist.”
“Come,” I said to him, “get up, my dear master.”
Having risen he fell back heavily on the ground.
I tried to raise him, and my hands became moist when I touched his breast.
“You’re bleeding!”
“Bleeding? I’m a dead man. He has killed me. I thought that it was but a blow with the fist. But it’s a wound, and I feel that I shall never recover from it.”
“Who struck you, my dear tutor?”
“It was the Jew. I did not see him, but I know it was he. How can I know that it was the Jew, when I did not see him? Yes; how is it? What strange things! It’s not to be believed, is it, Tournebroche? I have the taste of death in my mouth, which cannot be defined. It was to be, my God! But why rather here than somewhere else? That’s the mystery!‘Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini—Domine exaudi orationem meam—‘”
For a short time he prayed in a low voice, then:
“Tournebroche, my son,” he said to me, “take the two bottles I found in the coach and have placed here beside me. I can do no more. Tournebroche, where do you think the wound is? It’s in the back I suffer most, and it seems to me that life runs out by the legs. My spirits are going.”
Murmuring these words he fainted softly in my arms. I tried to carry him, but I had only strength enough to lay him lengthwise on the ground. Opening his shirt, I discovered the wound; it was in the breast; very small, and bleeding little. I tore my wristbands to pieces and laid them on the wound; I called out, shouted for help. Soon I thought I heard help coming from the side of Tournus, and I recognised M. d’Asterac. Unexpected as the meeting was, I did not actually feel surprised; too deeply was I the prey of the immense sorrow I felt holding in my arms, dying, that best of all masters.
“What’s the matter, my son?” asked the alchemist.
“Help me, sir,” I replied, “the Abbé Coignard is dying. Mosaide has killed him.”
“It is true,” said M. d’Asterac, “that Mosaide has come here in an old chariot in pursuit of his niece, and that I have accompanied him to exhort you, my son, to return to your employment with me. Since yesterday we came near your coach, which we saw break down just now in a rut. At that very moment Mosaide alighted from the carriage, and it may be that he wanted to take a walk, or perhaps he made himself invisible, as he can do. I have not seen him again. It is possible that he has already found his niece to curse her; such is the intention. But he has not killed M. Coignard. It is the Elves, my son, who have killed your master, to punish him for the disclosure of their secrets. Nothing is surer than that.”
“Ah! sir,” I exclaimed, “what does it matter, if it was the Jew or the Elves who killed him; we must assist him.”
“On the contrary, my son,” replied M. d’Asterac, “it is of the greatest importance. For should he have been stricken by a human hand it would be easy for me to cure him by magic operation; but having provoked the Elves he could never escape their infallible vengeance.”
As he spoke, M. d’Anquetil and Jahel, having heard my shouts, approached, with the postboy, who carried a lantern.
“What,” said Jahel, “is M. Coignard unwell?”
And kneeling close to my good tutor, she raised his head and made him inhale the smell of her salts.
“Mademoiselle,” I said to her, “you’re the cause of his death, which is the vengeance for your abduction. Mosaide has killed him.”
From my dying master she lifted up her face pale with horror and shining with tears.
“And you too,” she said, “believe that it’s easy to be a pretty girl without causing mischief?”
“Alas!” I replied, “what you say is but too true. But we have lost the best of men.”
At this moment Abbé Coignard sighed deeply, opened his eyes, called for his book of Boethius, and fainted again into unconsciousness.
The postboy thought it would be best to carry the wounded man to the village of Vallars, which was only half-a-league distant.
“I’ll go,” he said, “to fetch the steadiest of the horses which remain. We’ll tie the poor fellow securely on it, and lead it slowly ahead. I think him very ill. He looks exactly like the courier who was murdered at Saint Michel on the same road, at four stages from here, near Senecy, where my sweetheart lives. That poor devil moved his eyelids and turned up the whites of his eyes like a bad woman, saving your presence, gentlemen. And your abbé did the same when mam’selle tickled his nose with her bottle. It’s a bad sign with a wounded man; girls don’t die of it when they turn their eyes up in that fashion. Your lordships know it well. And there is some distance, thank God! between the little death and the great. But it’s the same turning up of the eyes... Remain, gentlemen, I’ll go and fetch the horse.”
“This rustic is amusing,” said M. d’Anquetil, “with his turned-up eyes and his bad women. I’ve seen in Italy soldiers who died on the battlefield with a fixed look and eyes starting out of their head. There are no rules for dying of a wound, actually not even in the military service, where exactitude is pushed to the extreme. But will you, Tournebroche, in default of a better qualified person, present me to yonder gentleman in black, who wears diamond studs, and whom I reckon to be M. d’Asterac?”
“Ah! sir,” I replied, “consider the presentation to be made. I have no other feelings but to assist my dear tutor.”
“Be it so!” said M. d’Anquetil.
And approaching M. d’Asterac:
“Sir, I have taken your mistress away: I’m ready to answer for my deed.”
“Sir,” replied M. d’Asterac. “Grace be to heaven! I have no connection with any woman, and do not understand what you mean.”
At this very moment the postboy returned with a horse. My dear tutor had slightly recovered. We lifted him up, all four of us, and put him with the greatest difficulty on the horse, where we tied him as securely as possible. And we went off. I held him on one side, M. d’Anquetil on the other. The postboy led the horse and carried the lantern. M. d’Asterac had returned to his carriage. All went well as long as we kept on the highroad; but when it became necessary to climb the small lanes of the vineyards, my dear master, slipping at every movement of the horse, lost the rest of his little strength, and fainted away again. We thought it best to take him off the horse and carry him in our arms. The postboy held him under the arms and I by the legs. The ascent was very rough, and I expected to fall at least four times with my living cross, on the stones of the path. At last the hill became easier. We entered a small lane bordered by bushes, and soon discovered on our left the first roofs of Vallars. We laid our burden softly on the turf, and for a moment took breath. Lifting up the abbe again, we carried him into the village.
A pink light appeared eastwards on the horizon. The morning star, in the pale sky, shone as white and peaceful as the moon, the light crescent of which paled away in the west The birds began to chirp; my master sighed heavily.
Jahel ran before us, knocking at the doors, in quest of a bed and a surgeon. Carrying baskets and panniers the vine-growers went grape-gathering. One of them said to Jahel that Gaulard on the market place lodges man and beast.
“As to the surgeon, Coquebert, you’ll see him yonder under the shaving plate which serves as his trade sign. He leaves his house to go to his vineyard.”
He was a very polite little man. He told us that he had a bed free in his house, as a short time ago his daughter had got married.
By his order, his wife, a stout dame wearing a white cap covered by a felt hat, put sheets on the bed in the lower chamber. She helped us to undress the Abbe Coignard and to put him to bed. And then she went out to fetch the vicar.
In the meanwhile M. Coquebert examined the wound
“You see,” I said, “it’s small, and bleeds but little.”
“That’s not good at all,” he replied, “and I do not like it, my dear young gentleman. I like a large wound which bleeds freely.”
“I see,” said M. d’Anquetil, “that for a leech and a village squirt your test is not a bad one. Nothing is worse than those little but deep wounds which look a mere nothing. Tell me of a nice cut across the face. It’s pleasant to look on, and heals in no time. But know, my good sir, that this wounded man is my chaplain, and plays piquet with me. Are you the man to put him on his legs again, notwithstanding your looks, which are rather those of a vet?”
“At your service,” replied the barber-surgeon, bowing profoundly. “But I also set broken bones and treat wounds. I’ll examine this one.”
“Make haste, sir,” I said.
“Patience!” he replied. “First of all the wound must be washed, and I must wait till the water gets warm.”
My good tutor, a little restored, said slowly, but with a fairly strong voice:
“Lamp in hand, he’ll visit the corners of Jerusalem, and what is hidden in darkness will be brought to light.”
“What do you mean, dear master?”
“Don’t, my son,” he replied; “I’m entertaining the sentiments fit for my state.”
“The water is hot,” the barber said to me. “Hold the basin close to the bed. I’ll wash the wound.”
And while he pressed on my tutor’s breast a sponge soaked in hot water, the vicar entered the room with Madame Coquebert. He had a basket and a pair of vine shears in his hand.
“Here is then the poor man,” said he. “I was going to my vineyard, but that of Jesus Christ has to be attended to first; my son,” he said as he approached the stricken abbé, “offer your wound to our Lord. Perhaps it’s not so serious as it’s thought to be. And for the rest, we must obey God’s will.”
Turning to the barber, he asked:
“Is it very urgent, M. Coquebert, or could I go to my vineyard? The white ones can wait; it’s not bad if they do get a little overripe, and a little rain would only produce more and better wine. But the red must be gathered at once.”
“You speak the truth, Monsieur le Cure,” M. Coquebert replied. “I’ve in my vineyard some grapes which cover themselves with a certain moisture, and which escape the sun only to perish by the rain.”
“Alas!” said the vicar, “humidity and drought are the two enemies of the vine-grower.”
“Nothing is truer,” said the barber, “but I’ll inspect the wound.”
Having said so he pushed one of his fingers into the wound.
“Ah! Torturer!” exclaimed the patient.
“Remember,” said the vicar, “that our Lord forgave His torturers.”
“They were not barbarous,” said the abbe.
“That’s a wicked word,” said the vicar.
“You must not torment a dying man for his jokes,” said my good master. “But I suffer horribly; that man assassinates me and I die twofold. The first time was by the hands of a Jew.”
“What does he mean?” asked the vicar.
“It is best, reverend sir,” said the barber, “not to trouble yourself about it. You must never want to hear the talk of a patient. They are only dreams.”
“Coquebert,” said the vicar, “you don’t speak well. Patients’ confessions must be listened to, and some Christians who never in all their lives said a good word may, at the end, pronounce words which open Paradise to them.”
“I spoke temporally only,” said the barber.
“Monsieur le Cure,” I said, “the Abbe Coignard, my good master, does not wander in his mind, and it is but too true that he has been murdered by a Jew of the name of Mosaide.”
“In that case,” replied the vicar, “he has to see a special favour of God, who willed that he perishes by the hand of a nephew of those who crucified His Son. The behaviour of Providence is always admirable. M. Coquebert, can I go to my vineyard?”
“You can, sir,” replied the barber. “The wound is not a good one, but yet not of the kind by which one dies at once. It’s one of those wounds which play with the wounded like a cat with a mouse, and with such play time may be gained.”
“That’s well,” said the vicar. “Let’s thank God, my son, that He lets you live, but life is precarious and transitory. One must always be ready to quit it.”
My good tutor replied earnestly:
“To be on the earth without being of it, to possess without being in possession, for the fashion of this world passes away.”
Picking up his shears and his basket, the vicar said:
“Better than by your cloak and shoes, which I see on yonder cupboard, I recognise by your speech that you belong to the Church and lead a holy life. Have you been ordained?”
“He is a priest,” I said, “a doctor of divinity and a professor of eloquence.”
“Of which diocese?” queried the vicar.
“Of Seez in Normandy, a suffragan of Rouen.”
“An important ecclesiastical province,” said the vicar, “but less important by antiquity and fame than the diocese of Reims, of which I am a priest.”
And he went away. M. Jerome Coignard passed the day easily. Jahel wanted to remain the night with him. At about eleven o’clock I left the house of M. Coquebert and went in search of a bed at the inn of M. Gaulard. I found M. d’Asterac in the market place. His shadow in the moonlight covered nearly all the surface. He laid his hands on my shoulder as he was wont to do, and said with his customary gravity:
“It’s time for me to assure you, my son, that I have accompanied Mosa’ide for nothing else than this. I see you cruelly tormented by the goblins. Those little spirits of the earth have attacked you, deceiving you with all sorts of phantasmagoria, seducing you by a thousand lies, and finally forcing you to fly from my house.”
“Alas! sir,” I replied, “it’s quite true that I left your house in apparent ingratitude, for which I beg your pardon. But I have been persecuted by the constables, and not by goblins. And my dear tutor has been murdered. That’s not a phantasmagoria.”
“Do not doubt,” the great man answered, “that the unhappy abbe has been mortally wounded by the Sylphs, whose secrets he has revealed. He has stolen from a sideboard some stones, which were the work of the Sylphs, and which they left unfinished, and still very different from diamonds in brilliancy as well as in purity.
“It was that avidity, and the indiscreet pronouncing of the name of Agla, which has angered them. You must know, my son, that it is impossible for philosophers to arrest the vengeance of this irascible people.
“I have heard from a supernatural voice, and also from Criton’s reports, of the sacrilegious larceny M. Coignard committed by which he flattered himself to find out the art by which Salamanders, Sylphs, and Gnomes ripen the morning dew and insensibly change it into crystals and diamonds.”
“Alas! sir, I assure you he thought of no such thing, and that it was that horrible Mosa’ide who stabbed him with a stiletto on the road.”
My words very much displeased M. d’Asterac, who urged me in the most pressing manner never to repeat them again.
“Mosaide,” he further said, “is a good enough cabalist to reach his enemies without going to the trouble of running after them. Know, my son, that, had he wanted to kill M. Coignard, he could have done it easily from his own room by a magic operation. I see that you’re still ignorant of the first elements of the science. The truth is that this learned man, informed by the faithful Criton of the flight of his niece, hired post-horses to rejoin her and eventually carry her back to his house, which he certainly would have done, had he discovered in the mind of that unhappy girl the slightest idea of regret and repentance. But, finding her corrupted by debauchery, he preferred to excommunicate and curse her by the globes, the wheels and the beasts of Ezekiel. That is precisely what he has done under my eyes in the calashr where he lives alone, so as not to partake of the bed and table of Christians.”
I kept mute, astonished by such dreams, but this extraordinary man talked to me with an eloquence which troubled me deeply.
“Why,” he said, “do you not let yourself be enlightened by the counsels of philosophers? What kind of wisdom do you oppose to mine? Consider that yours is less in quantity without differing in essence. To you as well as to me nature appears as an infinity of figures, which have to be recognised and classified, and which form a sequence of hieroglyphics. You can easily distinguish some of those signs to which you attach a sense, but you are too much inclined to be content with the vulgar and the literal, and you do not search enough for the ideal and the symbolic. And withal the world is comprehensible only as a symbol, and all you see in the universe is naught but an illuminated writing, which vulgar men spell without understanding it. Be afraid, my son, to imitate the universal bray in the style of the learned ones who congregate in the academies. Rather receive of me the key of all knowledge.”
For a moment he stopped speaking, and then continued in a more familiar tone:
“You are persecuted, my son, by enemies less terrible than Sylphs. And your Salamander will not have any difficulty in freeing you from the goblins as soon as you request her to do so. I repeat that I came here with Mosa’ide for no other purpose than to give you this good advice, and to press you to return to me and continue your work. I quite understand that you want to assist your unhappy master till the end. You have full license to do it. But afterwards do not fail to return to my house. Adieu! I’ll return this very night to Paris with that great Mosaide whom you have accused so unjustly.”
I promised him all he wanted, and crawled into my miserable bed, where I fell asleep, weighed down as I was by fatigue and suffering.
The next morning, at daybreak, I returned to the surgeon’s house, and there found Jahel at the bedside of my dear tutor, sitting upright on a straw chair, with her head wrapped up in her black cape, attentive, grave and docile, like a sister of charity. M. Coignard, very red, dozed.
“The night was not a good one,” she said to me in a whisper. “He has talked, he sang, he called me Sister Germaine, and has made proposals to me. I am not offended, but it is a proof that his mind wanders.”
“Alas!” I exclaimed, “if you had not betrayed me, Jahel, to ramble about the country in company with a gallant, my dear master would not lie in bed stabbed in his breast.”
“It is the misery of our friend,” she replied, “that causes me bitter regrets. As for the rest, it is not worth while to think of it, and I cannot understand, Jacques, how you can occupy your mind with it just now.”
“I think of it always.”
“For my part, I hardly think of it. You are the cause of three-fourths of your own unhappiness.”
“What do you mean by that, Jahel?”
“I mean, my friend, that I have given the cloth, but that you do the embroidery, and that your imagination enriches far too much the plain reality. I give you my oath that the present hour I cannot remember the quarter of what causes you grief, and you meditate over it so obstinately that your rival is more present to your mind than I am myself. Do not think of it any more, and let me give the abbe a cooling drink, for he wakes up.”
At this very moment M. Coquebert approached the bedside, his instrument-case in hand, dressed the wound anew, and said aloud that the wound was on the best way to heal up. But taking me aside he said:
“I can assure you, sir, that the good abbe will not die from the wound he has received, but to tell the truth I am afraid it will be difficult for him to escape from a pleurisy caused by his wound. He is at present the prey of a heavy fever. But here comes the vicar.”
My good master recognised him without any difficulty, and inquired after his health.
“Better than the grapes,” replied the vicar. “They are all spoiled byfleurebersand vermin, against which the clergy of Dijon organised this year a fine procession with cross and banners. Next year a still finer one will have to be arranged, and more candles burnt. It also will be necessary for the official to excommunicate anew the flies which destroy the grapes.”
“Vicar,” said my good master, “it is said that you seduce the girls in your vineyards. Fie! it is not right at your age. In my youth, like you I had a weakness for the creatures. But time has altered me very much, and quite lately I let a nun pass without saying anything to her. You do otherwise with the damsels and the bottles, vicar. But you do worse by not celebrating the masses you have been paid for, and by trafficking the goods and chattels of the Church. You are a bigamist and a simoniac.”
Hearing this discourse the vicar was painfully surprised; his mouth remained open, and his cheeks dropped wistfully on both sides of his big face. And at last, with eyes on the ground, he sighed:
“What an unworthy attack on the character of my profession! What talk for a man so near the tribunal of God! Oh, Monsieur l’Abbé, is it for you to speak in that way, you who have lived a holy life and studied in so many books?”
My dear master raised himself on his elbows. The fever gave him, unhappily, that jovial mien of his that we had always liked so much.
“It is true,” he said, “that I have studied the ancient authors. But I have read much less than the second vicar of the Bishop of Séez, for, as he had the look and the mind of an ass, he was able to read two pages at the same time, one with each eye. What do you say to that, you villain of a vicar, you old seducer, who runs after the chicks by moonlight? Vicar, your lady friend is built like a witch. She has hairs on her chin, she’s the barber-surgeon’s wife. He is fully a cuckold, and well he deserves it, that homunculus, whose whole medical science consists in the art of blood-letting and giving a clyster.”
“God Almighty! What does he say?” exclaimed Madame Coquebert, “for sure he has the devil in him.”
“I have heard the talk of many delirious patients,” said M. Coquebert, “but not one has said such wicked things.”
“I am discovering,” said the vicar, “that we’ll have more trouble than we expected to conduct this unhappy man to a peaceful end. There is a biting humour in his nature and impurities I did not find out at first. His speech is malicious, and unfit for a priest and a patient.”
“It’s the effect of the fever,” said the barber-surgeon. “But,” continued the vicar, “that fever, if it’s not stopped, will bring him to hell. He has gravely offended against what is due to a priest. But still, I’ll come back to-morrow and exhort him, for I owe him, by the example of our Lord, unlimited compassion. But I have my doubts about it. Unhappily there is a break in my winepress, and all the labourers are in the vineyard. Coquebert, do not fail to give word to the carpenter, and to call me to your patient if he should suddenly get worse. These are many troubles, Coquebert!”
The following day was such a good one for M. Coignard that we hoped he would remain with us. He drank meat broth, and was able to rise in his bed. He talked to each of us with his accustomed grace and sweetness. M. d’Anquetil, who dwelt at Gaulard’s, came to see him, end rather indiscreetly asked him to play piquet Smiling, my good master promised to do so next week. But in the evening the fever returned. With pale eyes swiming in unspeakable terror, and shivering and chattering teeth, he shouted:
“There he is, the old fornicator. He is the son of Judas Iscariot begot on a female devil, taking the form of a goat. But hanged he will be on his father’s fig-tree, and his intestines will gush out to earth. Arrest him. ...He kills me! I feel cold!”
But a moment later he threw the blanket off and complained of the heat.
“I’m very thirsty,” he said. “Give me some wine! And let it be cool! Madame Coquebert, hasten to cool it in the fountain: the day will be a burning one.”
It was night-time, he confounded the hours in his head.
“Be quick,” he also said to Madame Coquebert, “but do not be as simple as the bell-ringer of the Cathedral of Seez, who, going to lift out of the fountain some bottles he had put there to cool, saw his own shadow in ihe water and shouted: ‘Hello, gentleman; come and help me. There are on the other side some Antipodeans, who’ll drink our wine if we don’t take good care.’”
“He is jovial,” said Madame Coquebert. “But just now he talked of me in a manner quite indecent Should I have deceived Coquebert I certainly would not have done it with the vicar, out of regard for his profession and his age.”
This very moment the vicar entered the room and asked:
“Well, abbe, what are your dispositions now? What is there new?”
“Thank God,” answered M. Coignard, “there is nothing new in my soul, for, as said Saint Chrysostom, beware of new things. Don’t walk in untrodden ways, one wanders without end when one commences to wander. I have had that sad experience, and lost myself for having followed untrodden roads. I have listened to my own counsels, and they have conducted me to the abyss. Vicar, I am a poor sinner, the number of my iniquities oppresses me.”
“These are fine words,” said the vicar. “‘Tis God Himself who dictates them to you. I recognise His inimitable style. Do you want to advance somewhat the salvation of your soul?”
“Willingly,” said M. Coignard. “My impurities rise against me. I see big ones and small. I see red ones and black. I see infinitesimals which ride on dogs and pigs, and I see others which are fat and naked, with breasts like leather bottles, bellies in great folds, and thighs of enormous size.”
“Is it possible,” said the vicar, “that you can see as distinctly as that? But if your faults are such as you say, it would be better not to describe them and to be content to detest them in your own mind.”
“Would you, then, vicar,” replied the abbe, “that my sins were all made like an Adonis? Don’t let us speak of it any more. And you, barber, give me a drink. Do you know M. de la Musardiere?”
“Not that I know of,” said M. Coquebert.
“Then know,” replied my dear master, “that he was very taken with the ladies.”
“That’s the way,” interrupted the vicar, “by which the devil takes his advantage over men. But what subject do you follow, my son?”
“You’ll soon know,” said my good master. “M. de la Musardiere gave an appointment to a virgin in a stable. She went, and he let her go away just as she entered it. Do you know why?”
“I do not,” said the vicar, “but let us leave it.”
“Not at all,” continued M. Coignard. “You ought to know that he took good care to have no intercourse with her as he was afraid of begetting a horse, on which account he would have been subject to criminal prosecution.”
“Ah!” said the barber, “he ought rather to have been afraid to engender an ass.”
“Doubtless,” said the vicar. “But such talk does not advance us on the road to heaven. It would be useful to retake the good way. But a little while ago you spoke so edifyingly!”
Instead of giving reply, my good master began to sing, with rather a strong voice:
“Pour mettre en gout le roi LouisonOn a pris quinze mirlitonsLanderinetteQui tous le balai ont rollLanderiri.”
“If you want to sing, my son,” said the vicar, “you’d better sing a fine Burgundian Christmas carol. You’d rejoice your soul by it and sanctify it.”
“With pleasure,” replied my dear tutor. “There are some by Guy Barozai which, I think, in their apparent rusticity, to be finer than diamonds and more precious than gold. This one, for example:
‘Lor qu’au lai saison qu’ai jauleAu monde Jesu-chri vinL’ane et le beu l’echaufinDe le leu sofle dans l’etaule.Que d’ane et de beu je saiDans ce royaume de Gaule,Que d’ane et de beu je saiQui n’en a rien pas tan fai.’”
The surgeon, his wife and the vicar sang together: