“But, dear mother,” said I, “Monsieur d’Astarac’s dolls have no need of baptism for they had no share in original sin.”
“I never thought of that,” said my mother, “and Cadette St. Avit herself said nothing about it, although she is servant to a curé. Unfortunately she left Gascony very young to come into France, and she heard no more of Monsieur d’Astarac, his bottles and his puppets. I hope indeed, my dear Jacquot, that he has renounced these evil works which could not be accomplished without the help of the Evil One.”
But I asked:
“Tell me, my good mother, Cadette St. Avit, the curé’s servant, did she see with her own eyes these ladies in the bottles?”
“Not so, my child; Monsieur d’Astarac was far too secretive to show those dolls. But she heard them spoken of by an ecclesiastic of the name of Fulgence, who was always about the château and swore he had seen these little people come out of their glass prison and dance a minuet. And, therefore, she had all the more reason for believing it. For one may doubt what one sees but not the word of an honest man, particularly when he is an ecclesiastic. There is another drawback to these practices, that is that they are extremely costly, and one cannot imagine, Cadette St. Avit said, the expense Monsieur Hercule went to, to procure the bottles of various shapes, the furnaces, and the grammaries with which he had filled his château. But by the death of his brother he became the richest gentleman in the county, and while he wasted his substance in folly his fat lands worked for him. Cadette St. Avit judges that notwithstanding his outlay he must still be very rich, even now.”
As she spoke my father entered the shop. He embraced me fondly and confided to me that the house had lost half its attraction in consequence of my departure, and that of Monsieur Jérôme Coignard, who was a good fellow and a jovial. He complimented me on my clothes and gave me some hints on deportment, declaring that business had bred an affable manner in him from the continual obligation he was under to greet customers as if they were gentlemen, even when they were of the vulgarest sort. He gave me the advice to round my elbow and turn out my toes, and counselled me over and above to go and see Léandre, at the fair of Saint Germain, so as to model myself on him.
We dined together with good appetite, and parted in floods of tears. I loved them both very much, and what made me cry most was that I felt that, in six weeks of absence, they had become nearly strangers to me. And I think that their grief came from the same feeling.
IX
IT was black night when I left the cook-shop. At the corner of the rue des Ecrivains I heard a rich deep voice that sang:
“If it be thine honours lost,
Frail and fair, ’twas thy desire”
And I soon saw on the side whence came the voice brother Ange who, his wallet swinging on his shoulder and holding Catherine the lace-maker round the waist, walked in the shadow with staggering and triumphant gait, throwing up the waters of the gutter under his sandals in magnificent great splashes of mud which seemed to celebrate his sottish gloriousness, as the basins at Versailles play their jets in honour of kings. I stood against a stone door-post that they might not see. But it was an unnecessary precaution for they were too occupied with one another. Catherine laughed, with her head thrown back on the monk’s shoulder. A ray of moonlight played on her fresh lips, and in her eyes, as in spring waters. And I went on my way, vexed to the soul, with a weight on my heart, thinking on the rounded shape of this beautiful girl pressed in the arms of a dirty capuchin.
“How should it be,” I asked myself, “that so sweet a thing should come into such foul hands? And if it be that Catherine disdains me, need she yet make her scorn the more cruel by the liking she shows for this scoundrel, brother Ange?”
The preference seemed to me astonishing, and surprised as much as it disgusted me. But it was not in vain that I was the pupil of Monsieur Jérôme Coignard. The incomparable master had formed my mind to meditation. I pictured to myself the Satyrs one sees in gardens ravishing the Nymphs, and I made the reflection that if Catherine was made like a Nymph, the Satyrs such as they are exhibited to us, were as frightful as the monk. I came to the conclusion that I should not be too much astonished at that I had just seen. Still my reasons did not dissipate my grief; no doubt because they did not come from the same source. These meditations led me, across the shades of night and the puddles melted by the thaw, to the St. Germain road, where I met Monsieur l’Abbé Jérôme Coignard, who had been supping in the town and was returning late to the Cross of Les Sablons.
“My son,” he said, “I have just been discussing Zozimus and the gnostics at the table of a very learned ecclesiastic, a second Peiresc. The wine was rough and the cheer but middling. But nectar and ambrosia flowed in our speech.”
My good master then spoke of the Panopolitan with unimaginable eloquence. Alas! I was a bad listener, thinking of that bead of moonlight that fell through the dark on Catherine’s lips.
At last he paused, and I asked him on what ground the Greeks had founded the Nymph’s taste for Satyrs. My good master was ready with an answer to any questions, so extensive was his knowledge. Said he:
“My son, it is a taste founded on natural sympathy. Although less ardent, it is as pronounced as that of the Satyrs for the Nymphs to which it corresponds. Poets have well observed the distinction. In this connection I will tell you a singular adventure I read of in a manuscript which belonged to my lord bishop of Séez’ library (I see it still). It was a compilation in folio written in good writing of the last century. The singular story it told was this. A Norman gentleman and his wife took part in a public merry-making, the one disguised as a Satyr, the other as a Nymph. One knows from Ovid with what ardour the Satyrs pursued the Nymphs. This gentleman had read his Metamorphoses. He entered so well into the spirit of his disguise that nine months afterwards his wife presented him with a child that had the goat’s foot and the horned brow. What became of the father we do not know, except that he died — the lot common to all — leaving, along with his little goat-foot, another and a younger child, a Christian this one, and of human form. This younger son appealed to the law that his brother should be deprived of the paternal inheritance by reason that he did not belong to the race redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Parliament of Normandy, sitting in Rouen, gave him judgment and the decree was registered.”
I asked my good master if it were possible that such a travesty could have its effect on nature, and if the shape of the child result from the cut of a coat. Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard advised me not to believe a word of it.
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son,” said he, “always bear in mind that a sound intelligence rejects everything that is contrary to reason, except in matters of faith, where it is necessary to believe blindly. God be thanked I have never erred in the matter of the dogmas of our holy religion, and I trust that I shall be found in this disposition in the article of death.”
While talking thus we arrived at the château. In the midst of the darkness the roof showed up with a red illumination. From one of the chimneys sparks poured out which mounted in volumes to fall again in golden rain under the thick smoke which hid the sky. We both thought that flames were devouring the building. My good master tore his hair and groaned.
“My Zozimus! my papyrus! my Greek manuscripts! Help! help! my Zozimus!”
Running up the avenue through pools of water which reflected the glow of the fire, we crossed the park which was buried in deep shadow still and deserted. In the château all seemed asleep. We heard the roar of the fire, which filled the dark stairway. We went up two steps at a time, stopping at moments to hear whence came this awful noise.
It seemed to come from a corridor on the first floor where we had never yet set foot. We felt our way along this direction, and seeing a red light through the cracks of a closed door we flung ourselves upon it. It yielded suddenly.
Monsieur d’Astarac, who had opened it, stood tranquilly before us. His long, black-clad figure stood erect in a very a
tmosphere of flame. He asked us quietly what urgent matter made us seek him at this hour.
There was no conflagration, but an enormous fire issuing from a reverberatory furnace, known to me since as an athanor. The whole of this room, and it was big enough, was full of long-necked glass bottles surmounted by winding, duck-billed glass tubes; retorts, like faces with inflated cheeks, whence sprang a nose like an elephant’s trunk; crucibles, matrasses, cupels, cucurbits and vessels of unknown shapes.
My good master, wiping his face, which shone like fire, said:
“Ah, Monsieur! we thought the château was blazing like a handful of straw. Thank God the library is not burnt. But I see, Monsieur, that you practice the spagyric art.”
“I will not conceal from you,” replied Monsieur d’Astarac, “that I have made considerable progress in it, without, however, having altogether found the Theleme, which would complete my work. At the very moment you burst in I was in the act of distilling the Spirit of the World and the Flower of Heaven, which is the True Fountain of Youth. Do you understand alchemy at all, Monsieur Coignard?”
The Abbé replied that he had acquired a certain smattering from books, but he held the practice pernicious, and contrary to religion.
Monsieur d’Astarac smiled and said:
“You are too able a man, Monsieur Coignard, not to know the Flying Eagle, the Bird of Hermes, the Fowl of Hermogenes, the Raven’s Head, the Green Lion and the Phoenix.”
“I have heard it said,” replied my good master, “that those are the names of the philosopher’s stone in its different states. But I doubt the possibility of transmuting metals.”
Monsieur d’Astarac answered very confidently: “Nothing is easier for me, Monsieur, than to put an end to your uncertainty.”
He went and opened an old lop-sided cupboard propped against the wall, took out a copper coin bearing the effigy of the late king, and drew our attention to a round spot which ran through it. “That,” said he, “is the effect of the stone which has transmuted the copper into silver. But that is but a trifle.”
He returned to the cupboard and took out a sapphire as large as an egg, an opal of marvellous size, and a handful of perfectly beautiful emeralds.
“Here,” said he, “is some of my work, which will sufficiently prove to you that the spagyric art is not the dream of an empty brain.”
At the bottom of the bowl where the stones lay were five or six small diamonds which Monsieur d’Astarac did not even mention. My good master asked if they were also of his making. And the alchemist having replied that they were:
“Monsieur,” said the Abbé, “I advise you first to show these latter to the curious, for prudence sake. If you first show the sapphire, opal and the ruby, they will say that only the devil could produce such stones, and they will proceed against you for sorcery. Moreover, only the devil could live comfortably with these furnaces, where one inhales the very flames. As for me, who have been here but a quarter of an hour, I am already nearly cooked.” Monsieur d’Astarac smiled benevolently, and showing us out explained himself as follows: “Although knowing well what to think as regards the reality of the devil and of That Other, I am always willing to speak of them with those who believe in them. The devil and That Other are, as we may say, characters; and we may talk of them as of Achilles and Thersites. Rest assured, Messieurs, that if the devil be what they say, he does not dwell in so subtle an element as the fire. It is a contradiction of the worst kind to put so evil a beast in the substance of the sun. But as I had the honour to explain, Monsieur Tournebroche, to your mother’s friend the capuchin, I consider that Christians calumniate Satan and his demons. That there may be, in some unknown land, beings yet more wicked than men is possible, though barely conceivable. Assuredly, if they do exist, they inhabit regions deprived of light, and if they burn it is in ice, which truthfully enough causes acute pain, and not in illustrious flame amidst the ardent daughters of the stars. They suffer because they are wicked, and wickedness is an ill, but it can be but from frost-bite. As to your Satan, Monsieur, who is held in such horror by our theologians, I do not think him so contemptible, to judge by all you say of him, and if, peradventure, he exists I should take him for no evil beast, but rather for some slight Sylph, or, to put him at the lowest, for a metal-working Gnome, very intelligent and slightly ironical.”
My good master stopped his ears and fled that he might not hear any more.
“What impiety, Tournebroche my son,” he cried on the stairs, “what blasphemy! Did you fully understand the detestableness of this philosopher’s principles? He pushes his atheism to the point of a frenzied rejoicing which confounds me. But that of itself renders him nearly innocent in the matter, for, being separate from all belief, he cannot lacerate the Holy Church as do those who are still partially attached to her by some half-severed and still bleeding member. Such, my son, are the Lutherans and the Calvinists, whose rupture is the gangrene of the Church. Atheists, on the contrary, are their own damnation, and one may die with them without sin. So we need have no scruples in living with this Monsieur d’Astarac, who believes in neither God nor devil. But did you notice, Tournebroche my son, that at the bottom of the bowl lay a handful of small diamonds he himself scarcely troubled to take count of, and which seemed to me of very good water? I have my doubts about the opal and the sapphire. But as to those small diamonds, they seemed to me to be the real thing.”
Having reached our rooms upstairs we bade each other good-night.
X
WE led, my good master and I, a secluded and regular life until the spring came. We worked all morning, shut up in the library, and we returned there after dinner as to the play — according to Monsieur Jérôme Coignard’s expression; not indeed, as this excellent man said, to witness a scurrilous show, after the manner of men of fashion and lackeys, but to hear the sublime if contradictory dialogues of ancient writers.
In this way the reading and translation of the Panopolitan advanced wonderfully. To this I scarcely contributed. Such work was beyond my knowledge, and it was as much as I could do to learn the shape the Greek characters took on papyrus. At the same time I helped my master to consult the authors who could throw light on his researches, particularly Olympiodorus and Photius, who since then have ever remained familiar to me. The little help I gave him raised me much in my own estimation.
After a long and bitter winter I was in a fair way to become a savant, when the spring came all at once with her gay train of sunshine, of tender green, and the song of birds. The scent of the lilac which mounted into the library made me fall to vague dreamings from which my good master brusquely dragged me, saying to me:
“Jacquot Tournebroche, climb up the ladder if you please, and tell me if that rogue of a Manethe does not speak of a god Imhotep, who with his contradictions torments me like a fiend?”
And my good master charged his nose with snuff with an air of much content.
“My son,” he said further, “it is to be remarked that our clothes have great influence on our moral being. Since my clerical collar is all spotted with different sauces that I have let drop on it I do not feel so worthy a man. Tournebroche, now you are clad like a marquis, are you not tickled with the desire to assist at an opera dancer’s toilet, and to push a roll of false notes on to a faro-table? In one word, don’t you feel yourself a man of quality? Do not take what I say in bad part, and remember that it is sufficient to give a coward a bear-skin cap to make him go and get his head broken in the king’s service. Tournebroche, our feelings are made up of a thousand things which escape us by their very minuteness, and the destiny of our immortal soul depends sometimes on a breath too light to bend a blade of grass. We are the plaything of the winds. But hand me, I beg you, the rudiments of Vossius whose red edges I see gaping open under your left arm.”
That day, after the three o’clock dinner, Monsieur d’Astarac took my good master and myself for a walk in the park. He led us to the west side, which looked out on Rueil and Mt. Valeria
n. It was the most withdrawn and the loneliest. Ivy, and grass close-cropped by the rabbits, covered the alleys, which were blocked here and there by huge trunks of dead trees. The marble statues on either side smiled, knowing nothing of their ruin. A Nymph with her broken hand to her lips signed to a shepherd to be discreet. A young Faun, whose head lay on the ground, still sought his lips with his flute. And all these beings of divinity seemed to teach us to despise the hurts of time and fortune. We followed the banks of a canal where the rainwater refreshed the small green frogs. At one point, around the juncture of several alleys, were sloping fountains where the wood-pigeons drank. Having come to this spot we took a narrow path cut in the underwood.
“Walk carefully,” said Monsieur d’Astarac. “This path is dangerous, for it is bordered with mandragoras who sing at nightfall at the foot of the trees. They are hidden in the ground. Take care not to step on them, you would either take a love-sickness or a thirst for riches, and you would be lost, for the passions inspired by the mandragora are melancholy.”
I asked him how we could possibly avoid this unseen danger. Monsieur d’Astarac replied that one could escape it by divining it intuitively and not otherwise.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 60