The Angel Asrael

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “When he saw the blood flowing, Pierre repented of his harshness and tried to bandage her and give her money, but the old woman did not want to receive any or to allow herself to be bandaged and drew away, covering the ground with her blood.

  “When she reached the end of the path, she turned round, made a grand gesture as if to threaten Pierre, and shouted something. He only heard the word ‘pear-tree’ repeated twice, and he resumed grafting his tree without paying much heed to the beggar-woman’s words.

  “Seven or eight years later, Pierre’s tree had become a large and handsome pear-tress, the best in the neighborhood and the most renowned for its excellent Saint-Germain pears.

  “Now, the habit of drinking more than was reasonable had become stronger than ever for Pierre. Having gone to the abbey in an indecent state, a monk made him sage remonstrations. Pierre, who, as I have said, was brutal, did not take it in good part, as he should have done, and insulted the monk grossly. The latter had him thrown out, saying that he would sell nothing more at the abbey. Pierre, beside himself on hearing such words, made the most horrible threats against the monk and swore that he would extract from him, before long, a vengeance such as had never been seen.

  “But the night brings counsel, as they say, and the following day, Pierre wanted to go and apologize to the monks and try to get the custom of the abbey back. With that aim, he took a basket of his most beautiful pears and went to offer them to the monk, begging him to forget the previous day. The monk, to show Pierre that he did not bear a grudge, took a pear from the basket he was holding and bit into it; but scarcely did he have a morsel in his mouth than he went very red, writhed like a dying man, and fell unconscious.

  “The people who saw that remembered the threats that Pierre had made the day before and believed that he had poisoned the monk. Without going deeper into the matter they took him to prison, calling him scoundrel and poisoner, and promising that he would be broken n the wheel.

  “When Pierre found himself alone in his cell with irons on his feet and hands, he remembered the menaces of the old beggar-woman, who had predicted that the pear-tree he was grafting would bring him bad luck. He understood then that there was no hope of escaping it, and, in a movement of rage—for as I’ve told you, he had a very violent character—he smashed his head against the wall and died within the hour.

  “Meanwhile, a physician had been summoned to the Abbaye de Saint-Aubert. The latter, perceiving that the monk was choking and not poisoned, extracted a large pear-pip from his throat, which was suffocating him, and the monk found himself almost as well as before eating the pear.

  “They ran to Pierre’s prison in order to release him, but it was too late, and the monk, very sad, as you can imagine, made an oath to celebrate, throughout his life, a mass for the dead in Pierre’s intention.”

  After finishing his story, the shoemaker looked at the small audience that surrounded him, and formed a somewhat proud smile, on seeing the extent to which he had interested them. In his expression there was the joy of an author who is being begged to continue the second chapter of a work he is reading when the young woman asked him: “And the story of Philippe’s grandfather? Tell us that, Father.”

  “Oh, that one,” said the shoemaker, nodding his head, “is even more terrible to hear.”

  After that oratory precaution, the worthy man started to speak, and I know not what bizarre accompaniment to his nasal voice was formed by the repeated blows of his hammer and the rhythmic hum of his wife’s spinning-wheel.

  “Mathias, Philippe’s grandfather, had held over the baptismal font the sin of the gravedigger of the parish of Saint-Waast. One evening, when he went to enquire how his godson and his friend were, he found the latter trembling with fever and in a pitiful state.

  “‘I’m very ill,’ the gravedigger said to him, ‘and see what bad luck I have—it’s necessary now, cold as it is, to get up and go dig a grave.’

  “Mathias kindly offered to take his friend’s place, and the gravedigger accepted gratefully.

  “It must have been between half past eleven and midnight when, after having had an appropriate drink in a tavern—in order, as they saying has it, to armor the breast against the cold—Mathias went to the cemetery with his spade on his shoulder. He set to work ardently, and he had finished the grave when he saw a procession of people coming in, clad in white, whose faces could not be seen. They were each holding a lighted candle, but their hands were covered by a large sheet that enveloped them, and that sheet did not even allow the ends of their feet to be seen.

  “After having made a tour of the cemetery, they came to pass very close to Mathias, and dropped the candles they were holding at his feet. The last person in the procession threw down a kind of large ball of wax, in the middle of which two wicks were burning.

  “That was the day of All Saints, and Mathias was not astonished to see monks making a procession in the cemetery, but he was amazed that they were gratifying him with such a quantity of wax.

  “Why, he thought, as he picked up the candles and put them in a sack, didn’t my friend the gravedigger mention this rich windfall? In any case, I won’t mention it to him either, and in truth, since I’ve done the work, I want to have the profit. It’s mine alone! I’ll go and hide the sack under my bed, and in a month or two when my friend will no longer be thinking about the manner in which I obtained them, I’ll simply sell the candles, and I’ll have a small sum of money, about which I won’t say anything to my wife; it’ll allow me to spend a joyous evening at the tavern.

  “He did as he had said, and the sack was carefully hidden under Mathias’ bed.

  “The following day was the day of the dead.

  “At midnight, while Mathias was asleep, as is appropriate, beside his wife, three raps on the door were heard. Mathias, still half-asleep, went to open it.

  “Great was his surprise on seeing the previous evening’s procession; his wife’s alarm was even greater.

  “The procession made a tour of the room silently, and then came to stand around the bed, into which Mathias had fallen back at the sight of such a spectacle in his house.

  “Then, all of a sudden, all of the sheets that enveloped the people that Mathias had taken for monks from head to toe fell at the same time, and Mathias and his wife saw a frightful series of skeletons.

  “They were not entire; some lacked an arm, others a leg, some ribs and others a backbone.

  “The last had no head.

  “Then the packet of candles hidden under Mathias’ bed the previous night came into the middle of the room of its own accord. Instead of candles, it no longer held anything but dead men’s bones.

  “And each of the skeletons started to say:

  “‘Mathias, my arm.’

  “‘Mathias, my leg.’

  “‘Mathias, my backbone.’

  “‘Mathias, my thighbone.’

  “‘Mathias, my ribs.’

  “And it was necessary for Mathias to return to each of the skeletons the bone that it was demanding.

  “Finally, nothing remained in the sack but a skull, the one that had appeared to Mathias the previous evening to be a large ball of wax with two wicks.

  The last skeleton came forward, hopping, and Mathias replaced its head on its shoulders.

  “It’s necessary to tell you that Mathias played the violin, and that that instrument was hanging on the wall.

  “A skeleton detached the violin, put it in Mathias’ hands, and made him a sign to play, after which it stood behind Mathias with the long bones of its arms lifted in the air.

  All the skeletons joined hands and commenced the most frightful dance that has ever been seen. And when Mathias tried to stop, the arms of the skeleton that was standing behind him struck him relentlessly in order to make him continue.

  “Daylight finally appeared, and the skeletons covered themselves again with their large sheets and went away.

  “After that night, neither Mathias nor his wife ever
recovered their sanity. It was necessary to put them in a hospital where people were kept out of pity and where they did not say a word until the hour of their death. It was only before rendering his last sigh that they recounted what had happened to them.”

  The shoemaker fell silent, and his story was succeeded by an almost terrible silence. The old woman’s spinning-wheel had stopped and the young woman was listening with her mouth open.

  Finally, she said: “What you’ve told us, Father, is terrible, but Philippe’s death was even more terrible.

  “To leave home cheerful and well, in order to go and dance in the village at his sister’s wedding.

  “Then to fall, alive, into an abandoned quarry and to stay there for a week with nothing to drink or eat.

  “To scratch the earth with his fingernails, and to wear away his fingers in such movements of range and despair.

  “And finally to be taken out, after such a long time.

  “To suffer for three days as no one has ever suffered. To die after that, leaving nine children and a pregnant wife!”

  “My daughter,” said the shoemaker, reinforcing his voice, “When bad luck is in a family, things don’t go as one would wish, and it only remains to say: ‘Let God’s will be done.’

  “Come on, wife, serve the supper.”

  THE SOUL IN PURGATORY

  A Flemish Legend

  1825

  And what do despair, opprobrium and death matter

  to me? what does the wrath of an outraged master

  matter? What do captivity and poverty matter? Yes, it’s

  for you, my sweet love, that I suffer all that?

  That madwoman importunes me with her amour.

  (Elle et lui.)26

  It was six years since Henri had seen his birthplace.

  But that evening he found himself once again in his mother’s bedroom, sprawling in the large armchair of which he had once been so fond. Two large logs were burning in the tall Gothic fireplace and casting into the room a light that was reflected, ruddy and flickering, from the old family portraits, the gilded leather wall-hangings, and the old-fashioned fluted oak furniture.

  It was just as in the times of his childhood. Nothing in the place had changed, nothing was missing, except the good and saintly woman who resided there, his mother—his mother, who had been no more for three years, alas.

  He rediscovers there his cousin, then the pretty Lisette, delightful and mischievous, with floating black hair, her malicious and naïve repartee; his cousin, now the pensive Elise, a young woman with a tender gaze and a soft voice, which makes him shiver.

  And both of them, separated for such a long time, take pleasure in the memory of their childhood, a happy time gone forever: excursions in the country, foolishness, naïve games, trivia, a bouquet of flowers, idle chatter, a rattle; they find a soft, sweet, inexpressible charm in all that; tears fill their eyes and emotion interrupts their voices.

  It was so good; he was so well able to become a child again to please her: him, a grave and passionate young man. The young woman’s amusements were his. He surrounded her with pleasures and games; for then, nothing was required but games to be happy!

  And there were those marvelous stories that he loved so much telling her in the evening, when night began to fall, just as it is now. Oh, she has not forgotten a single one of them. They are all present in her memory, as if she had heard them related yesterday.

  There is one, above all, that she has not forgotten, one that charmed her while making her feel sad: the story of a soul retained in purgatory. He will have to tell her that one again; it will be as in the time of their childhood.

  Except that she cannot, as in those days, climb up on Henri’s knees, huddle there and listen to him, motionless, scarcely breathing, raising herself up slightly at the saddest part, when tears flowed from her eyes and the voice of the storyteller faltered itself.

  Henri sighed, and, taking Elise’s hand in his own, he commenced the story that the young woman had demanded of him.

  “In those days, the angel Eloim made audible in Paradise a song so sweet and so pure that it obtained the recompense that the Lord sometimes accords to his angels: permission to go to console, by his divine appearance, the souls retained in Purgatory.

  “Eloim immediately delayed his white wings with blue tips, and, taking flight, descended from the abode of the blissful to the obscure and cold dwelling of suffering souls.

  “As soon as he appeared, as soon as the aureole that emanated from his beautiful hair had illuminated limbo, a canticle of actions of grace was sung by thousands of voices that blessed the messenger of the Lord.

  “‘Oh, tell us, divine spirit, tell us what the ineffable joys of Paradise are. Console us by the narration of the marvels that we are called upon to see when the day of the Lord’s mercy comes.’

  “That is what the souls in purgatory requested. And the handsome Eloim responded to them with marvelous words and consolations that made them forget the sad place in which they were.

  “There was only one soul—a woman—whose tears did not dry up, and who repeated in despair the name of a man: ‘Paul! Paul! Unfortunate Paul!’

  “At the sight of the dolor that the unfortunate was showing, Eloim felt gripped by a profound sadness, and he forgot all the other souls in order to go to console that one.

  “But she could not be consoled, even by the angel’s gentle words, and although he talked to her about the Lord’s mercy, and promised to intercede on her behalf with the mother of God, so powerful with regard to her divine son, the unfortunate woman kept repeating: ‘Paul! Paul! Unfortunate Paul!’

  “Eloim them enquired of the woman as to the cause of such profound despair, and enveloped her with his wings to prevent her confidences reaching the other souls. He listened to her so attentively that she interrupted her sobbing and made her plaintive voice heard.

  “The divine spirit knew that there is no greater consolation for those who are suffering without hope than to hear them relate their dolors and to sympathize and commiserate with them. And more than once during the soul’s story, tears flowed from the angel’s eyes.

  “She was a young woman named Beatrix, married when still a child to Sire Hugues de Noyelles in Cambrésis.

  “For two years she fulfilled her wifely duties as best she could in Christian dignity, having respect and submission for her seigneur and husband, a crafty old man, hard-living, with no loyalty in regard to poor Beatrix. Then the nephew of the Sire de Noyelles, Paul de Quièvy, came to Sire Hugues’ manse.

  “The said Messire Paul fell in love with Dame Beatrix and spoke to her tenderly. Beatrix resisted for a long time as best she could, but finally the poor girl yielded to Messire Paul’s soft words and they exchanged their faith, swearing to wait for better days, and making an oath to marry if Heaven granted Beatrix the good fortune to become free, and if not, to die faithful to one another.

  “But the Sire de Noyelles had overheard those culpable voices, and without revealing the extent of his outrage, he made it known that Madame Beatrix’s father, a seigneur of the estates of our holy father the Pope, was on his deathbed and desired to see his daughter again before departing this world. In order to do that, he took four men-at-arms who were to escort Madame Beatrix’s litter, and accompanied them part of the way.

  “He came back two months later, and since that time no one ever heard mention of Madame Beatrix again. Paul dared not enquire as to what had become of her, because the Sire de Noyelles only responded to such questions with a frightful anger, and curses.

  “Alas, he had struck Madame Beatrix in the heart with his dagger and sent the men-at-arms and their varlets to the Holy Land, buying their silence and their departure with a large sum of money.

  “The soul of Beatrix had flown to the terrible judge who was to decide its fate. Her guardian angel hid his consternated face with his wings, and the demons rejoiced, crying: “Adulteress!! Adulteress! Make way, the damned, make way! Here
comes a new companion.”

  “But the Lord had shown mercy on earth to Mary Magdalen, and he had forgiven her a great deal because she had loved greatly.

  “And the Lord showed himself merciful in Heaven toward Beatrix, and forgave her a great deal because she had loved a great deal.

  “The demons howled with rage on seeing descend into Purgatory one they had regarded as they prey, but those cries of distress soon turned into cries of jubilation, for another soul soon arrived, the Sire de Noyelles, who had been slain by leprosy.

  “The terrible judge of men opened the divine book and read: Thou shalt do no murder. The angels wept, turning their heads away, the demons hurled themselves upon the Sire de Noyelles, and the frightful laughter of all the damned saluted the arrival of the Sire de Noyelles among them.

  “‘O good angel,’ said Beatrix, when she had finished her story, “my Paul is ignorant of these terrible events; he only knows of the death of the Sire de Noyelles, and every day is dragging by for him in long and dolorous expectation, for he is saying to himself: I have the promise of Beatrix, and she must come back to fulfill the oath she made to me.

  “‘And every hour, every week, every day, every month, passes in that fashion without him seeing me come.

  “‘And he is tormenting himself, and accuses me, saying: she has broken her sacred promise.

  “‘Good angel, grant my return to earth for a single day, in order to be able to say to him: I have died for you, and the last word on my lips was the name of my Paul. Cease, therefore, to wait for me, my beloved, for I am no longer on earth and we shall only see ne another again in Heaven. Seek consolation in other, and, if possible, sweet and perennial amours. Only, in the name of the salvation of our soul by the sufferings that I have endure for you, recite in my intention the occasional de profundis. It would be so sweet for me to owe your prayers, my Paul, one day fewer in Purgatory, not because of the suffering avoided, but because it would come from you.’

  “The angel Eloim wept, for he had never seen such love. And he said to Beatrix: ‘Do you know, Christian soul, that to obtain such a favor as a return to earth, it will be necessary for you to suffer a thousand years more in Purgatory?’