In so doing he attached a piercing gaze to her, under which the boatwoman shivered. Then he said: “Woman, a demon is your lover!”
She only replied with a dull groan.
The shepherd removed the ring from Lorette’s finger; he examined it with a attentive curiosity, and, depositing it in the fold of the sleeve that served him as a pocket, he went into the a cabin mounted on two wheels, the ordinary habitation of people of his estate. He soon came back holding an exactly similar ring and a little bottle filled with a clear liquid.
“Here is a ring that it is necessary not to take off again. So long as you wear it, the demon can do nothing against you. As for this liquid, if you are able to make use of it, it will deliver you from the power of your enemy and render him miserable forever.
“There is in Italy a marble Christ that weeps on the holy day of Good Friday. This liquid is composed in part of the tears of the miraculous Christ. I have combined them with Holy Water; the almost imperceptible fragment that is floating in the bottle is a splinter of the wood of true cross. I have proffered the most powerful words over this liquid; I have saturated it with the light of the moon and it has been submitted to the influence of the stars. Sprinkle that philter over the demon and he will instantly lose his power; he will become a simple mortal submissive to misery and suffering. Far from being redoubtable, he will remain an object of pity. Go, and if you value the salvation of your soul, if Hell frightens you, don’t delay for one day, for tomorrow it might be too late.
With an imperious gesture he ordered Lorette to go away, and, resuming his profound meditation, he turned his gaze once again toward the sky.
XV. Jealousy
Almost always, after having pursued an extreme end for a long time, passionately desired but which one is in despair of attaining, if one suddenly finds oneself face to face with that objective, one recoils in a sort of surprise, mingled with uncertainty and dread. Partly abstracted from the deceptive spells of desire, and glimpsing the consequences of what one is about to do, one goes on, but it is with apprehension, by virtue of an almost mechanical rigidity of the will, and even more so by the force of circumstances.
Lorette, at the moment of seeing herself liberated from the demon for whom she had wanted to remove herself for such a long time, who finally possessed an infallible philter to break the bonds rendered insupportable by satiety and terror, now felt hesitant, and her breast and heart squeezed by apprehension and doubt, asked herself: “Will it be today?”
As she approached the boat, her panic and doubt increased.
“It’s necessary to wait until tomorrow,” she said to herself.
Then, soon, it was no longer for the next day but for the next week, and then the next month, for a term even longer.
What need have I for haste? Do I not have the philter in my possession? When I want to strike, will it not be praiseworthy to strike? Would it not be better to wait for some new misdeed on Asrael’s part?
And, by a bizarrerie of the human imagination, the memory of the happy times of her first amours came to surround her and smile upon her, fresh and caressant. It was not Asrael that they showed her, it was Mamert, Mamert alone; Mamert with his beautiful pale face, his soft words; Mamert who knew how to love better than any other; Mamert who wept with joy simply on hearing Lorette sing one of the virelays that he had composed for her.
And, insensibly, and without being aware of it, the most tender words of those virelays took possession of her memory and she began to sing them almost without perceiving that she was singing.
I
Love is the only happiness there is on earth; remove amour from the surface of the earth and it would be better for a man to remain in oblivion.
II
If there is a truly happy man, it is the one who never quits a young woman with dark eyes and a moist gaze; it is the one who spends his life in the arms of an adored woman.
III
And I am the happiest of men, for I am the lover of a young woman with dark eyes; I never leave her, and at her smile alone, I tremble with intoxication and happiness.
IV
When she passes by, old men feel rejuvenated and say: “We have never admired one so beautiful! Fortunate is the man who sees such a young woman leaning over his funereal bed at the moment of his death; that sweet vision will efface the horrors of the demise.
V
When they see her pass by, young men forget to press against their chest the arm of the mistress who is leaning on their arm. They watch her draw away, they follow her with their eyes, they still seek to see her when she has disappeared, and that evening and the following days they will remain thoughtful beside their fiancée.
VI
But she is mine! She loves no one but me! She will love me forever! For she is my happiness, she is my soul, she is my life! Without her, without her love, I would have nothing more to do but die; without her, without her love, no smile would ever come to part my lips, and life would be an unbearable torment for me.
VII
She is mine, she loves no one but me, and she will love me forever. Love is the sole happiness that there is on earth. Take away love from above the earth and it would be better for humans to have remained in the void.
As Lorette sang, her hatred and her projects of vengeance weakened and disappeared from her mind with the satiety and the disgust; the magic of memories almost prevented her from glimpsing the through the thousands of cheerful images that she evoked. As in happier times, the young woman’s heart beat, and her cheeks colored at the sight of the Escaut, where Mamert’s bilander appeared in the distance as a black dot amid the waves resplendent with the while light of the moon.
Far from foreseeing the change that had taken place in Lorette’s ideas, Asrael was delivering himself, in that bilander to the most dolorous thoughts. In putting on human appearance, his superior essence was shackled and almost reduced to the restricted limits of human intelligence, a mixture of light and darkness, subject to deceptions and reduced to conjectures and errors.
Now, only too convinced of Lorette’s coldness and the loss of his love, he was deploring the inconstancy of the woman he loved with so much passion and forming a thousand confused projects for reawakening that amour. Happiness and satiation have killed it, he thought; it is privation and jealousy that will cause it to be reborn. However precious it is, one only attaches a mediocre price to something whose loss one does not fear; dispossession and regret give an inestimable value to the most frivolous thing. Were Lorette to lose or think she has lost my tenderness, she would then regret that tenderness and seek to reconquer it.
Following those ideas, therefore, he caused to arrive near to his bilander the bilander of a young boatwoman which, without her perceiving it, had covered several leagues in a moment by virtue of a magical and insensible force. She too had allowed herself to be gripped by sadness and the mystery of the handsome boatman; Asrael, fascinating her with his infernal breath, only developed within her an amorous seed that was already very powerful.
The young woman was in the angel’s arms, trembling, ceding to irresistible emotions, only able to respond to his tender words with tender words when Lorette was able to begin to distinguish on Mamert’s boat what was happening there. At first she doubted it; she believed that the mist and the moonlight were producing by their fantastic play an illusion that was deceiving her. Such was her confidence in the affection of her lover that, even at close range, she could hardly believe her eyes.
Asrael, who pretended not to see Lorette, applauded the success of his ruse and rejoiced in the wrath that was sparkling in the eyes of his mistress.
To describe the emotions that were bowling the latter over would not be easy. A fiery vertigo had engorged her face with a heavy blood. Her breast breathless, her legs giving way, her hands were closing and clenching with rage. She, who had once wanted at any price to remove herself from Asrael, who had just bought at a price of gold a means of killing him, accused him
of perfidy, and she was dying of despair, because he was unfaithful to her. In her confused, broken, burning ideas, one idea alone was dominant: Vengeance! Vengeance!
With one bound Lorette launched herself on to the boat and poured the shepherd’s philter, in its entirety, over the angel’s head.
Asrael uttered a dolorous scream and threw himself into the river to extinguish the execrable fire that was consuming him. He stammered mystical words, which remained powerless. He summoned the aid of his brothers, the demons, but bursts of laughter came from all directions, and mocking voices said to him: “Asrael, you are no more than a human now; you have lost your Spiritual essence; you are no longer anything but a human subject to malady and death. Adieu, human!”
XVI. Sister Clotilde
The following day, two nuns were passing along the bank of the Escaut and stopped in fright before a cadaver that was lying in the middle of the path. Profound lesions furrowed his forehead and breast; his clothing, although soaked with water, seemed half-consumed by fire; the decomposition of his features and the force with which his fists still remained clenched, attested to the horrible dolors he had suffered.
The two brides of Christ knelt down in order to try to reanimate the unfortunate man. For a long time their cares remained ineffective; finally the older of the two exclaimed: “God be praised, Sister Clotilde; I can feel his heart beating!”
Sister Clotilde raised her head and allowed the sight, beneath her veil, of pale features, which her companion’s exclamation animated with hope and joy. Then she redoubled her efforts, bandaged the sick man’s wounds, and had him respire a balm that completed his return to life. Asrael opened his eyes, but, as if the glare of daylight had wounded them, he closed them immediately and let his head fall back.
“Hope, my brother,” said Sister Clotilde. “You have suffered a great deal, but with God’s help, it is not impossible to cure you.”
“And if you cannot save your body,” added the other nun, “At least you will have time to save your soul. The body is perishable, but the soul is immortal.”
The sick man uttered a dull groan and made a gesture of despair.
“How can this unfortunate man be transported as far as our convent?” asked Sister Clotilde.
“I don’t see any way.”
“If some boatman were nearby, we could have recourse to his charity, and he could carry in his skiff, as far as our convent, the sick man that God and Saint Julien have caused us to encounter. But I’ve looked hard and I can only see on the Escaut, still far, far away, a single bilander, which seems to be no more than a dot, and which seems to be drawing away rapidly.
“What can we do?”
Sister Clotilde sought in vain, and started to weep at not being able to see any means.
“Well, let’s try to carry him. God will give us the strength...”
And so saying, Sister Clotilde tried to lift the sick man up, but she was scarcely able to move him, and her tears flowed again.
“My God! My God! Won’t you come to our aid?”
“What if one of us were to go as far as the leper-hospital to warn our sisters that a wounded man is lying here and that it’s necessary to send men immediately to transport him?”
“Listen! I can hear the noise of a carriage. Oh, God be praised! He’s saved!”
Sister Clotilde immediately ran in the direction from which the noise was coming; she perceived a cart laden with hay, drawn by six large Flemish horses led by a peasant, escorted by half a dozen men at arms. Her joy increased further when she recognized at the head of the men-at-arms an old soldier who had once been cared for in the leper-hospital after receiving a grave wound in the leg.
“Greetings to you, my sister! How hurriedly you’re running in this direction! There must be some poor sick fellow there, for only a good deed could put so much haste into your stride.”
“I have a favor to ask of you,” she said, with a smile that filled the old soldier with ease.
“A favor! For you who cared for me with so much bounty for six months when I was suffering like a damned soul, without being able to budge from my bed. A favor! Jacques Levatois would have to be direly ingrate to refuse you that. He has his faults, it’s true, but at least he does not have the fault of ingratitude.
“You’re a worthy man, and you have a good heart too, Monsieur Levatois; it’s for that reason that I have recourse to you. We’ve found a man over there struck by lightning last night, and we request from you the charity of having him transported as far as our leper-hospital.
“Is that all you want, Sister Clotilde? By Saint Jacques, my patron, I would have liked you to demand more of me. It will be done as you desire; two of my men-at-arms will transport the sick man on this hay-cart, where he will be couched like a Baron. The carriage will only proceed at a walk, in order that its jolts won’t fatigue your protégé.
“Hola! Benoit and Philippe, go in quest of this man and handle him with as much delicacy as you can muster, clod-hoppers that you are. By Saint Martin, woe betide you if he utters a single cry!”
In the meantime, the vehicle arrived near the dying man, who was placed on the hay in the vehicle. The two sisters, fearing to see the unfortunate man die if they abandoned him during the rest of the journey, took their places at his sides.
Levatois, out of respect for the holy women, and in spite of their pleas, made the little troop that he was commanding remain within bowshot all the way to the convent. Having arrived at the threshold of the pious house, he saluted the two nuns militarily, and continued on his route.
XVII. The Hymn to the Virgin
For three days, the sick man that Sister Clotilde and Sister Marthe had transported to the leprosarium remained unconscious, hovering between life and death. On the fourth day, at the beginning of matins, he emerged from the annihilation that held him, and, opening his eyes, was astonished by the place where he found himself, and especially by the new and unfamiliar sensations of wellbeing that he felt. Fresh ideas were playing in his head, which was no longer gnawed by a dull pain; for the first time since his fall from Heaven the fatal thought “damnation for eternity,” did not make him tremble with terror.
Next to the bed where he was lying, a kneeling nun was praying, and mingling her fervent prayer with a hymn full of melody that was being sung in the distance, in chorus, by female voices. That hymn, in which the name of the Almighty was repeated incessantly, in which the mercy and the power of Jesus was celebrated, far from agitating Asrael dolorously, threw him into a reverie full of charm. He raised himself up on his bed, and, his eyes moist with tears, considered the chapel from which those voices were coming: the chapel that, resplendent with candles, appeared luminous in the depths of the vaults and somber arcades of the leprosarium, plunged in a profound obscurity.
The voices sang:
“Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, you who guide the fisherman and who render him hope as a star guides the sailor and renders him hope, listen to our supplicant prayers and come to our aid.
“Celestial creature, holy and pure virgin, mother of mercy, intercede for us, poor fishers, for without you, what would become of us in the presence of God’s wrath?
“You are the beneficent mother who tempers the flamboyant glare of the sun. You are the gentle dew that comes to refresh and fecundate the field that the heat of the day has dried out.
“You are the Queen of Heaven, you are the Queen of the Angels; the cherubim bow down before you with respect, and the endless choirs unite your name with the thrice holy and thrice redoubtable name of Jehovah!
“You are the Mother of the Savior of men; one alone of your gazes disarms his wrath, you take that crown, among all your crowns; it permits you to sustain the weak, to console the afflicted, and to spare the guilty punishment.
“That is why young mothers consecrate their children to you, and dress them in white tunics and blue belts, in order that the demons will spare them and dare not set traps for those young souls plac
ed under your protection.
“That is why sailors raise chapels on the shore to you, and kneel down there before exposing themselves to the perils of the sea; they come back there barefoot after a fortunate crossing, or when they have escaped a shipwreck.
“Mediating saint, you always maintain yourself between heaven and earth. At the first cry of repentance you raise your hands toward your divine Son and you cry: ‘Mercy!’ When an angel descends to the earth in order to enable an irresolute soul to persevere in the good path, it is you who order that message.
“You are there to aid chaste amours, you are there to aid virtuous hopes; no repentance ever finds you deaf to its lamentations. So you are blessed on the earth as in Heaven; so no Christian ever prays without combining your name with the name of the Eternal, the Savior and the Holy Spirit.
“Be our aid too, those of us who, like the dove that builds its nest far from the vulture, have taken refuge in these places in order to pray and to bless you forever. Be our aid! Oh, be our aid, Holy Mother of the Savior!”
Alas, thought Asrael, those hymns delight me, make me weep, and yet what are thy compared with the hymns my brothers the cherubim sang? The transports of pious love of these nuns cause me envy, and yet, what are they compared with the divine ecstasies of Heaven? Alas, I have lost them without return!
Such were his thoughts during the office of matins; when the hymns ceased, when the candles were extinguished, when everything became silent and somber again, he uttered a sigh, became sad and bemoaned the dolors that his wounds were causing him, dolors that preoccupation had suspended almost entirely.
At the cry that he uttered, Sister Clotilde interrupted the prayer that she was saying and drew closer to the invalid.
The Angel Asrael Page 27