I have said that my sleep had given me thoughts of love. I rose up. I sprang towards her.
“Excuse me,” she said, “I was looking for Monsieur d’Astarac.”
I replied:— “Madame, there is no question of Monsieur d’Astarac. There is but you and I. I was waiting for you. You are my Salamander. I have opened the crystal bottle. You have come. You are mine.”
I took her in my arms and covered with kisses all of her that my lips could meet above the opening of her bodice.
She disengaged herself and said.
“You are mad.”
“It is very natural,” said I, “who would not be, in my place?”
She looked down, blushed and smiled. I threw myself at her feet.
“Since Monsieur d’Astarac is not here,” she said, “I must withdraw.”
“Stay,” I cried, and bolted the door.
She asked me, “Do you know if he will return shortly?”
“No, Madame, he will not come back for long enough. He has left me alone with the Salamanders. I desire but one. It is you.”
I took her in my arms, I bore her to the sofa, I dropped down with her, I covered her with kisses, I was no longer conscious of myself. She cried out, I did not listen to her. Her open palms repulsed me, her nails scratched me, and her vain defence but sharpened my desires. I clasped her, I enfolded her, over-borne, and undone. Her yielding body ceded to me; she closed her eyes. I soon felt in my triumph her beautiful arms forgivingly enfold me.
Then, unlocked alas! from this delicious embrace, we looked on one another with surprise. Anxious to recover her propriety she smoothed her skirts and was silent.
“I love you,” said I. “What is your name?”
I did not think she was a Salamander, and truth to tell I had never really thought so.
“I am called Jael,” she said.
“What! you are Mosaïde’s niece?”
“Yes, but say nothing. If he knew...”
“What would he do?”
“Oh! nothing to me. But much harm to you. He does not love Christians.”
“And you!”
“Oh! I — I do not love Jews.”
“Jael, do you love me a little?”
“It seems to me, Monsieur, after what we have expressed to one another, that your question is an insult.”
“It is true, Mademoiselle, but I hope that you will pardon a haste and an ardour which was not careful to consult your feelings.”
“Oh, Monsieur, do not make yourself out more guilty than you are. All your violence and all your ardour would not have served you had you not pleased me. A moment ago, seeing you asleep in that arm-chair, I thought you deserving. I waited your awakening, and you know the rest.”
I answered her with a kiss. She returned it. What a kiss! I thought the wild wood-strawberry melted in my mouth! My desires re-awoke, and I pressed her ardently against my heart.
“This time,” said she, “do not let yourself be so carried away, and do not think only of yourself. One must not be an egoist in love. That is what young men do not well understand. But one teaches them.”
We dived again into the depths of delight. Afterwards the adorable Jael said to me:
“Have you a comb? I look like a witch.”
“Jael,” said I, “I have no comb; I was expecting a Salamander. I adore you.”
“Adore me, my friend, but with discretion. You do not know Mosaïde.”
“Why, Jael, is he so terrifying, at a hundred and thirty years of age, and seventy-five of them passed in a pyramid?”
“I see, my friend, that you have heard tales about my uncle, and that you have been simple enough to believe them. Nobody knows his age; I am ignorant of it myself. He has been old as long as I have known him. I only know that he is robust and of no common strength. He was a banker at Lisbon, where he happened to kill a Christian whom he had surprised with my aunt Myriam. He fled and took me with him. Since then he has borne a mother’s love towards me. He talks to me as one talks to little children, and he weeps as he watches me sleep.”
“Do you dwell with him?”
“Yes, in the keeper’s cottage at the other end of the park.”
“I know, one follows the mandragora path. How comes it I have not met you before? By what melancholy chance have I, although so near to you, lived without seeing you? But do I say lived? Is it life to live without knowing you? You are kept close then in this cottage?”
“It is true that I live very secludedly, and that I cannot go for walks or shopping or to the plays as I should like. Mosaïde’s affection for me allows me no freedom. He keeps me jealously, and in all the world he loves but me, and six little gold cups that he brought from Lisbon. As he is far more attached to me than he was to my aunt Myriam, he would kill you, my friend, with a better will than he killed the Portuguese. I warn you of it to make you discreet, and because it is not a consideration which will give pause to a man of mettle. Are you a man of quality and born of a good family?”
“Alas, no,” I replied, “my father practises one of the mechanic arts, and is in a kind of business.”
“Is he in the Revenue? Has he any office of profit? No?... That’s a pity. So one must love you for yourself alone. But tell me the truth: Will not Monsieur d’Astarac soon be here?”
At this name, at this query, a horrible doubt crossed my mind. I suspected that this ravishing young woman, Jael, had been sent by the cabalist to play the rôle of a Salamander to me. I even secretly accused her of playing the Nymph to this old madman. To be immediately enlightened on the subject, I asked her roughly, if she were in the habit of playing the Salamander in the castle?
“I fail to understand you,” she answered, looking at me with eyes full of innocent surprise. “You speak like Monsieur d’Astarac himself, and I should think you infected with his complaint had I not proved that you do not share his aversion from women. He cannot abide them, and it is a real embarrassment to me to see him and to speak to him. Nevertheless, I was looking for him a short time ago when I found you.”
In my joy at being thus reassured I covered her with kisses. She managed to let me see that she wore black stockings, fastened above the knee with diamond-buckled garters, and the sight of them turned my mind to fancies which pleased her. On her side, she led me on with much skill and warmth of affection, and I felt the spirit of play beginning to wake in her at a moment when I began to weary of it. However, I did my best and was again happy in being able to spare this delightful person the affront that she least deserved. It seemed to me she was not ill-pleased with me. She rose up with a tranquil mien and said:
“Do you not really know whether Monsieur d’Astarac will soon be back? I will confess to you I came to ask him for a small sum of money owing on my uncle’s pension, of which for the moment I am in great need.”
I apologetically pulled three ecus from my purse which she did me the kindness to accept. It was all that was left to me from the too rare generosities of the cabalist, who, professing to disdain money, unluckily forgot to pay my wages.
I asked Mademoiselle Jael if I should not have the good fortune to see her again.
“You shall,” she said.
And we arranged that she should come to my room at night whenever she could make her escape from the cottage where she was kept.
“Only take care,” said I, “my door is the fourth on the right in the corridor, and the fifth is that of my good master, Abbé Coignard. The others,” added I, “merely lead to the attics, which accommodate two or three of the scullions, and many hundreds of rats.”
She assured me she would take care to make no mistake, and that she would tap at my door and no other.
“For the matter of that, your Abbé Coignard seems to me to be a very good sort of man. I think we have nothing to fear from him. I saw him through a peephole the day he came with you to see my uncle. He seemed to be amiable, though I could scarcely hear what he said. His nose, in particular, seemed clever and capable. H
e who bears it must be a man of resource, and I should like to make his acquaintance. There is always something to be had from the society of men of parts. I am only sorry that he displeased my uncle by his freedom of speech and his jesting humours. Mosaïde hates him, and he has a capacity for hatred quite unimaginable by a Christian.”
“Mademoiselle,” I replied, “Monsieur l’Abbé Jérôme Coignard is a very learned man, and he is moreover a philosopher and a benevolent one. He knows the world, and you are right in thinking his counsel worthy of following. I live entirely under his guidance. But tell me, did you not see me also that day from your peephole in the cottage?”
“I saw you,” said she, “and I will not deny that I saw you very plainly. But I must return to my uncle. Farewell.”
Monsieur d’Astarac did not fail to ask me that night after supper for news of the Salamander. His curiosity embarrassed me not a little. I answered that the meeting had surpassed my hopes, but that beyond that I thought it my duty to keep the reserve fitting in adventures of the kind.
“This discretion, my son,” said he, “is not as necessary as you think. Salamanders do not require secrecy on the subject of amours of which they are not ashamed. One of these Nymphs, who loves me, has no dearer pastime in my absence than to cut my initials entwined with hers on the bark of the trees, as you may satisfy yourself by examining the trunks of five or six pines whose graceful tops you can see from here. But have you not noticed, my son, that this kind of love, so sublime, far from leaving one fatigued imparts fresh vigour to the heart? I am sure that after what has passed you will busy yourself to-night by translating at least sixty pages of Zozimus the Panipolitan.”
I confessed that, on the contrary, I felt a great desire to sleep, which he explained by the surprise of a first interview. And so the great man rested assured that I had had dealings with a Salamander. I felt scruples about deceiving him, but I was obliged to, and, indeed, he so deceived himself that one could scarcely add much to his illusions. So I sought my couch in peace of mind: and having got to bed, I blew out my candle and closed the sweetest day of my life.
XV
JAEL kept her word. No later than the day after the morrow she came tapping at my door. We were much more at home in my room than we had been in Monsieur d’Astarac’s study, and what took place at our first meeting was but child’s play compared with what love inspired us with at our second. She tore herself from my arms at the break of day with a thousand vows to join me soon again, calling me her life, her soul, and her pet.
I got up very late that day. When I went down to the library my good master was seated before the papyrus of Zozimus, his pen in one hand, his magnifying glass in the other, and worthy the admiration of any one who can appreciate learning and letters.
“Jacques Tournebroche,” he said to me, “the principal difficulty in reading this lies in the fact that various of the letters may easily be confounded with others, and it is needful to success in deciphering it, to draw up a table of the characters which lend themselves to mistakes of this kind; for unless we take this precaution we risk the adoption of wrong readings, to our eternal shame and just vilification. I have made some laughable blunders this very day since matins. I must have had my mind distracted by what I saw last night, which I will tell you about. Having woke up in the early dawn I felt a desire for a draught of that light white wine which, you will remember, I complimented Monsieur d’Astarac on yesterday. For there is a sympathy, my son, between white wine and cock-crow dating certainly from the time of Noah, and I feel certain that if St. Peter, during the curséd night he spent in the courtyard of the high-priest, had drunk a finger of clear Moselle wine or even of that of Orleans, he would not have denied Jesus before the cock crew twice. But we must in no wise regret this ill deed, my son, for it was necessary that the prophecies should be fulfilled; and if Peter, or Cephas, as he was called, had not that night committed the worst of infamies he would not be to-day the greatest saint in Paradise and the corner-stone of our holy Church, to the utter confusion of the good people of this world who see the keys of their eternal happiness held by a cowardly good-for-nothing. Oh! wholesome example! which draws man from the fallacious inspirations of human honour and leads him in the way of salvation! O wise system of religion! O divine wisdom which exalteth the humble and the meek and putteth down the mighty! Oh marvel! Oh mystery!
“To the eternal shame of the Pharisees and lawyers, a coarse fisherman from the lake of Tiberias, who, by his clumsy cowardice had become the laughing-stock of the wenches in the high-priest’s kitchen, where they warmed themselves side by side, a boor and a coward who denied his master and his faith before dirty wenches far less pretty than the chambermaid of the bailiff’s household at Séez, wears on his brow the triple crown, on his finger the pontifical ring, is set above the princes of the church, kings, and emperor, and is invested with the power to bind and to loose; the most respectable man, the most worthy woman, can enter heaven only if he give them access to it. But tell me, Tournebroche, my son, how far had I got in my narrative when I lost my thread running after the great Saint Peter, prince of Apostles. I am almost sure I was speaking of a glass of white wine that I drank at dawn. I went down in my night garments to the store-room and drew from a certain cupboard, of which I had thoughtfully obtained the key the night before, a bottle, which I emptied with enjoyment. Afterwards, on going upstairs, I met between the second and third floors a little lady in white, who was going down. She seemed very frightened and fled to the end of the corridor. I followed her, I caught her up, I seized her in my arms and kissed her, suddenly and irresistibly attracted by her. Do not blame me, my son, you would have done the same in my place, perhaps even more. She was a pretty girl, she was like the bailiff’s chambermaid, but with more sparkle in her eye. She did not dare cry out. She whispered in my ear: ‘Let me go! let me go! you are mad!’
Look, Tournebroche, I still bear the marks of her nails on my wrists. Had I but kept the impression of her kiss as vividly on my lips!”
“What, Monsieur l’Abbé,” I exclaimed, “she gave you a kiss?”
“Rest assured, my son,” replied my good master, “that had you been in my place you would have received one as good, had you seized the opportunity as I did. I think I told you that I held the young lady in a close embrace. She tried to get away, she stifled her cries, she murmured lamentations.
“‘I beseech you to let me go. Here is the dawn, a moment longer and I am lost.’
“Her fears, her terror, her peril, what savage would not have been touched by them? I am not inhuman. I gave her her liberty at the price of a kiss which she gave me at once. I give you my word I have never received a more delicious one.”
At this point of his story my good master raised his nose to inhale a pinch of snuff and saw my trouble and my distress, which he took for surprise.
“Jacques Tournebroche,” he continued, “what I have still to tell you will surprise you even more. With regret I let the pretty lass go, but my curiosity impelled me to follow her. I went downstairs after her. I saw her cross the vestibule, go out by the little door which opens on to the fields on the side where the park stretches out widest, and run down the path. I ran after her. I thought she could not go far in night-garb and night-cap. She took the mandragora path. My curiosity redoubled and I followed her as far as Mosaïde’s cottage. At that moment that wicked Jew appeared at the window, in his robe and his great cap, like those figures you see appear when mid-day strikes on old clocks, more ridiculous and Gothic than are the churches which preserve them for the pleasure of the country bumpkins and the profit of the verger.
“He discovered me under the greenwood at the very moment when the pretty girl, swift as Galatea herself, slipped into the cottage. So that I had exactly the appearance of pursuing her in the manner and style of the Satyrs we spoke of one day when discussing some fine passages in Ovid. And my dress helped the likeness, for, I think I told you, my son, I was in my night-garments. At the sig
ht of me Mosaïde’s eyes glittered. He drew from his dirty yellow cloak a useful-looking stiletto and brandished it out of the window with an arm which seemed by no means weighed down with age. Meanwhile he swore at me bi-lingually. Yes, Tournebroche, my knowledge of grammar authorises me to state that his curses were bi-lingual, and Spanish, or rather Portuguese, was mingled with Hebrew. It angered me that I could not catch the exact meaning, for I do not understand these languages although I can recognise them by certain sounds which constantly recur. But it is very likely that he accused me of corrupting this girl who is I believe his niece Jael, whom Monsieur d’Astarac, you may remember, has mentioned to us several times. Wherein his invectives conveyed something of flattery; for such as I have become my son, what with the passing of time and the fatigues of a troubled life I do not pretend any longer to the love of young maidens. Alas! unless I become a bishop it is a dish whose flavour I shall never know again. I regret it. But one must not be too strongly attached to the perishable things of this world and we must renounce what renounces us. Mosaïde, then, handling his stiletto, poured hoarse sounds from his throat alternating with shrill screeches, so that I was insulted and vituperated in form of chant or canticle. And without vanity, my son, I may say I was treated as a corrupter and a loose fellow in a solemn and ceremonious tone. When Mosaïde came to the end of his imprecations, I endeavoured to make a riposte bi-lingual, like the attack. I accused him in Latin and in French of homicide and sacrilege, of having cut the throats of little children and poignarded the sacred host. The early morning breeze playing round my legs reminded me that I was in my nightshirt. I felt somewhat embarrassed, for it is very evident, my son, that a man who wears no breeches is in a poor position to explain the sacred truths, to confound error and follow up crime. All the same I drew him a terrible picture of his outrages and menaced him with both divine and human justice.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 64