“One easily believes what ne desires; soon, therefore, from a frail and implausible hope, Jeanne passed to the certainty of success; and, almost reassured as to the future, she went to the ramparts that her father was visiting, resolved as she was to open her heart to him, to make him change his plan and persuade him to recall Daniel to the château.
“Seeing Jeanne in the state of mind in which I wanted her, I drove away the clouds that were obscuring the sky with a heavy gray vapor. The mild rays of the sun came to caress nature; their voluptuous warmth reanimated Jeanne’s limbs and completed the blossoming of her ideas. The wellbeing of physical sensations spread over her mental sensations, and with a smile on her lips and a heart that was almost light she headed in the direction in which her father the castellan was walking alone.
“In the ten years since the sire de Beaumetz had quit the soft life of the château to take up the rude métier of warrior, by dint of suffering, he had become pitiless to the suffering of others. The man who had once ceded his firmest will to his daughter’s slightest smile now made everyone tremble under his imperious gaze. It was necessary for everyone to obey him as his men-at-arms had obeyed him in Palestine—which is to say, in the days when he had had men-at-arms, for, having departed with fifty lances, he had come back alone on a charger stolen from I know not where. All hail the God of the Christians, for recompensing so well the simpletons who devote themselves to serving him!
“Jeanne’s confidence vanished like her smile at the sight of the old sire’s forbidding physiognomy. The poor girl stood there alone for some time, mute and downcast. The castellan demanded of her, in a tone that was scarcely of a nature to reassure her: ‘How comes it, damoiselle de Beaumetz, that you are wandering on these ramparts at this hour without a matron to accompany you? That is unbecoming and must no longer happen in future. I forbid it—take heed!’
“Jeanne, frightened by the old man’s severe tone, did not reply, and felt ready to turn round without saying a word to her father. In the end, however, love prevailed over fear and, advancing toward the seigneur, she tried to take his hand and raise it to her lips. The latter who was meditating I know not what changes to effect in a defective tower, and who had found his château in a state of dilapidation that would have put a less sullen man in a bad mood, was not disposed to listen to jeremiads or to receive the young woman’s caresses. He therefore withdrew his hand brutally, and demanded, in a voice in harmony with the gesture: ‘What do you want with me? Speak quickly; I’m in haste to finish my visit to the castellany.’
“‘Father, father! Permit me to go into a cloister!’
“‘Jeanne, what does this mean? Tell me, do you believe that you are able to shake my will and cause me to break my word? You’re strangely mistaken, my girl. I will not sacrifice to the caprices of a few days and tears of which no trace will remain in an hour, the honor of my name in this world and my salvation in the next. Be ready to obey me; I wish it.’
“She remained there, as if struck by death, watching her father draw away and know knowing to what saint to pray.
“I set about fluttering above her head, fascinating her with my breath, warming her forehead with the beat of my fiery wings, and then, running after Daniel, whom I had seen prowling around the château, I found him climbing along a half-ruined wall, making a ladder of his belt and his dagger, about to reach the summit of the rampart not far from the place where Jeanne had met her father, and where distress and despair still caused her to remain
“If they had seen one another, adieu all me efforts and all my pains, for Daniel would easily have persuaded Jeanne to go with him and Hell would have lost its prey. The God of the Christians, in favor and in memory of the beautiful sinner Madeleine, forgives many of those who have loved a great deal, and he would not have punished very severely a young woman yielding to an amour that her mother had nurtured and encouraged. I therefore rushed at Daniel, seized him by the hair and dragged him to the foot of the wall. He thought he had been afflicted by vertigo, and soon wanted to recommence climbing the cracked wall, but I deceived him with a vision that showed him the ramparts garnished with men-at-arms; it was therefore necessary for him to retire. That disappointment, moreover, far from calming his despair, only rendered it more exasperated and more enterprising.
“That was what I wanted, and, far from appeasing the youth, I excited his rage twenty times more. Nevertheless, it was necessary that the marriage be accomplished, and, in order that the young fellow would not raise any obstacle to it, I hugged him in my arms and gave him a kiss on the lips. Immediately, a devouring fever gripped him; it troubled his reason and a few peasants found him, more dead than alive, in the middle of the high road, where I had left him. A physician was summoned, and I blurred the reason of that man so well—nothing much remained to do—that the old donkey in a black robe would have made the malady last more than six months but for the plant juices that I put without his knowledge into the beverages he prepared.
“Thus, after having had the pleasure of seeing Daniel suffering, cursing and despairing in his bed for six months, I allowed his fever to be cured. As soon as he was able to go out, he headed for the castellany of Beaumetz. To amuse myself, I let him wander in that was for several weeks without permitting him to see a pleat of Jeanne’s veil. Finally, one day when he fell down in a thicket, overcome by fatigue and despair, I caused the sire de Crèvecoeur to pass by with his mournful spouse, whom he was heaping with caresses, unable to comprehend her chagrin and her decline. He was cooing amorously, making me burst out laughing and making Daniel, a witness to that tenderness and words of love, weep
“Twenty times the young man felt ready to run at the sire de Crèvecoeur immediately and kill him, but I wanted more than that, and I did not take my hand from the shoulder of the desperate fellow, who told his confidant the Vicomte de Sars that evening that he could not comprehend what unknown force had prevented him from getting up and striking the old man. ‘The will was there but the power was lacking,’ he said.
“Well, handsome sire, now you know that force. You were a miserable plaything who were obeying me—nothing more.
“I had also made sure that Jeanne glimpsed Daniel. The sire de Crèvecoeur’s wife went for a week without going into the wood, for, now that she bore the title of another man’s wife, she wanted to fulfill her duties, and if not to forget Daniel, at least to try not to see him again. But all her efforts only ended up reviving the memory of Daniel and rendering him more present to the imagination.
“She wept; she invoked the aid of all the saints; but the saints and their God himself exercise no power over the human passions; too stupidly scrupulous to excite them, they are unable to tame them, even feebly. Quite the reverse: it is to us, the demons, that the domain of human passions belongs; we give birth to them, develop them, foment them and augment them. They are ignited by our breath, and our breath caused them to spring forth in terrible floods. They erupt, they devastate, and hurl millions of slaves into our empire.
“The saints and the angels were therefore limited to saying to Jeanne: it is necessary not to love Daniel any longer; it is necessary not to think about him, because that is a sin.
“For myself, I murmured in her ear: ‘Love him! Love him! Was he not the companion of your childhood? Has your mother not blessed your saintly love? On her death-bed did she not say: I want you to be husband and wife, united forever on earth and then in Heaven? And now you have been abruptly separated! What was once duty and virtue has become crime. Oh, no, that cannot be! The crime belongs to those who have disunited souls that the will of a dying mother had united,’
“‘What! It is necessary for you not to see Daniel again? No longer to hear his soft and tender voice? No longer to feel your hand pressed by his? It is necessary to efface his memory and replace it with tenderness for an old man who speaks coldly of a love of which he is incapable and which makes the least vassal smile when he is seen, trembling with old age, turning his extinct gaz
e toward his young wife...
“‘No, oh, no, that cannot be!’
“Or at least, since it must be, since honor and duty, cruel duty, demand it, let her at least see her fiancé, her lover, her Daniel, one or more time! Can it be a crime to see him again without speaking to him, without him knowing? To glimpse him through a thick bush or from the height of a turret? Yes, tomorrow morning, she will go into the forest, and doubtless Daniel will be there, as usual; for she is quite sure that Daniel comes there every day. The sire de Crèvecoeur has gone to his château, recaptured from the pillagers who had stolen it from him. Well, she will profit from his absence to see Daniel one last time, to weep at the sight of his sadness. And then, after that, with God’s help, she will not forget him or cease to love him, for that cannot be, but she will resign herself to her unhappiness with the hope that death will soon put an end to it.
“Thanks to my secret influence, such were Jeanne’s thoughts during the night, when the door of her bedroom opened cautiously, and Daniel, pale and trembling, appeared to her, saying: ‘Jeanne, you must come with me! I have reached you at the peril of my life; I scaled the rampart, I’ve killed three men-at-arms. Come, come; one moment more might doom us!’
“‘Go with you, Daniel! Me? Another man’s wife? Soil the nuptial bed! Oh, my God, my God, what is he daring to propose to me? Go, go away, or I’ll call for help!’
“‘Do it, then!’ cried Daniel, folding his arms and sitting down with a frightful calm. Do it, then, and let me be stabbed before your eyes. Infidel, belier of the love that you had sworn to me, do it. I shall wait. Is it necessary to call for you?’
“‘Daniel! Daniel!,
“‘Here is your silver whistle; go on, call!’
“‘Daniel, oh, my Daniel, stop! My God, will you abandon me in such peril? Daniel, Daniel, listen! Flee, out of pity for a poor woman; she asks it of you on her knees. Flee, flee!’
“‘I will not flee without you! It’s necessary for you to come with me, if not out of love, at least to save your life. They will know that those men-at-arms have been killed, the ramparts scaled by a man and the arrival of that man in your bedroom. You will not be excused; they will not listen to your justifications, for your father knows about our love and your tears. Come, then: flight with me, or opprobrium and death here.’
“Jeanne covered her face with her two hands; prey to a horrible agitation, she did not know what decision to make, when the sire de Crèvecoeur burst into the apartment, rushed upon Jeanne, pierced her with a dagger-thrust and began a battle with Daniel, the conclusion of which was death for both of them. Then I, who had thrown the suspicion of jealousy into the old man’s heart, who had inspired the idea of a false journey in order better to spy on his wife, seized the souls of my three victims and I took flight toward Hell.
“Angels stopped me, and cried: ‘Take the sire de Crèvecoeur and Daniel; they belong to you, they are murderers; but Jeanne is ours, Jeanne has not sinned.’
“Oh, despair! Already they were snatching her from my hands, already they were flying with her toward Heaven, when, by a sudden inspiration, I cried out, imitating Daniel’s voice: ‘Jeanne! Jeanne! We shall be separated, then, for all eternity!’
“At that plaintive tone, that adieu, Jeanne appealed to her lover with loud cries, quit the angels and came to throw herself into the young man’s arms. It was into mine that she fell, and, laughing uproariously at the disappointment of the angels, who veiled their faces with their wings, I arrived and I brought these three souls.”
As he concluded, the fallen spirit directed a proud and satisfied glance around him. The demons applauded in chorus; the groans of the damned responded to them, and the flames of Hell roared and launched toward the vault with more violence.
III. The Condemnation
Satan made a gesture and everything returned to silence. Nothing was heard any longer but the dull moan of the flames, rumbling like the last furies of a storm that is drawing away.
“This old man will be cast among the jealous, and this young man among the adulterous. As for Jeanne, let her be taken to the other extremity of Hell; let the name of Daniel never be pronounced before her; let her never learn what sufferings he is enduring, nor whether he retains any memory of her.
“Go! That is for eternity!”
At those terrible words, pronounced in a loud voice, magnified by all the echoes of Hell, the three souls were taken up by demons and carried to the places assigned for their torment. And in the meantime, thousands of groaning voices repeated:
“That is for eternity! That is for eternity!”
IV. Asrael
Among the reproved angels who had listened with most attention to Astaroth’s story there was once who still conserved I know not what vestige of his forfeited splendor. His soiled wings still shone with a residue of gold and azure; his forehead, branded by the reproving seal, tilted over his left shoulder with a meditative sadness, and he usually found himself the butt of the derision of the evil spirits, who had only drawn him into their revolt by means of a trap.
Before the revolt of the angels against the Almighty, Asrael, as he was named, had been part of the legion of cherubim. Sitting facing the throne of the Eternal, he mingled his voice with the ineffable choirs that celebrated the glory of the Almighty. Next to him sat the most beautiful of all the divine creatures, the angel Nephta, with whim the mysterious knots of a celestial hymen united him. With arms and wings enlaced, they inebriated themselves together with the bliss of paradise; together they expressed the transports and the ecstasies of divine love.
If some message sent Asrael to direct the course of a planet or reestablish the divine harmony that rules the universe, Nephta, immediately knotting her tunic, accompanied him and aided him to support the ennui that angels experience far from the presence of God. When fatigue stiffened the cherub’s wings, Nephta surrounded him with soft embraces and, fortified by love, carried him through space. On the other hand, when sleep came to weigh down Nephta’s eyelids, she would have been unable to sleep if her Asrael’s shoulder had not received her head, if her breath had not mingled, during repose, with her Asrael’s breath.
The mystic bond that united them with one another recalled both the chaste devotion of a sister and the ardent tenderness of a husband. It was the most holy amity, the most sacred marriage, the most passionate amour. Never any jealousy, never satiety: a pure and suave calm; incessantly renewed transports, a happiness of which the imagination of mortals can dream, but which they have never tasted. For the need for amour and happiness, always so imperious and always so disappointed among humans, is nothing but a reflection of the celestial life in the life on earth, an instinct that causes the desire for Heaven, a vague perfume that reveals Paradise, as the perfume of a flower reveals the flower’s stem and corolla.
Such was the fate of the cherubim Asrael and Nephta when Satan raised the standard of revolt against God. Faithful to their master, they were taking refuge in the enclosure of the good angels when a horde of rebels suddenly precipitated upon them. The shock of the horrible battle separated Asrael and Nephta and, after the combat, Asrael, alone, his eyes full of tears, called to his companion with loud cries—but no voice responded to him. The unfortunate cherub was sinking into despair when a demon approached him.
“Don’t weep, Asrael,” he said. “Don’t weep, for I can take you to Nephta. Nephta is among us, she has joined the ranks of the angels who are combating our oppressors; she has asked me to come to console you and invite you to rejoin her.”
“Evil angel,” Asrael replied to him, “you’re deceiving me. Nephta has remained faithful to God; Nephta cannot be a rebel. Gone astray during the battle, she has drawn away from the celestial refuge. I want to bring her back and I shall. Nephta! Nephta! Hear the voice of your Asrael!”
But Nephta did not reply.
“Ingrate,” said the demon, “since you require proof, since you don’t want to believe me, who has come to this place, amid the
greatest perils, to bring a message from your Nephta; ingrate, recognize then this veil, which she gave me for you, and which covered her forehead and her shoulders. Adieu! I shall reply to her that Asrael, a coward devoid of amour, prefers the tedious wellbeing of Heaven to the inebriating transports of Nephta’s tenderness. Adieu! It’s up to me to console her for your abandonment; up to me to love her henceforth and to make her forget your tenderness by means of mine.”
“If you were speaking the truth, I wouldn’t hesitate—but no, you’re lying, you’re abusing me.”
“Well, will you at least believe my oath? By my immortal life, by Heaven and by the earth, by the universe and by the firmament, I swear that Nephta is among the angels who follow the standards of Satan!”
At that perjury, the first that had been proffered to him, Asrael, unable to suppose that anyone would dare to profane the sanctity of oaths to that extent, believed the evil angel and followed him. But when he found himself among the revels and he asked: “Nephta, tell me where Nephta is!” a group of perverted angels, their eyes sparkling with lubricity, surrounded the handsome cherub and said to him: “Nephta is not here, but we will love you in her stead.” And they enlaced him with their caresses, covered him with their kisses, and surrounded him with a thousand intoxicating and lascivious spells.
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