“What! my good master,” I cried, “this Mosaïde, who has so pretty a niece, has cut the throats of new-born children and poignarded the sacred host?”
“I know nothing of that,” replied Monsieur Jérôme Coignard, “and can know nothing of it. But those crimes are his, being those of his race, and I may attribute them to him without doing him wrong. I followed this up with a long list of scoundrelly ancestors for the old wretch. For you are not ignorant of what is said of the Jews and their abominable rites. In the old cosmography of Munster there is a plate representing Jews mutilating a child, and they are recognisable by the wheel of cloth they bore on their garments as a sign of disgrace. Nevertheless, I do not think it was an every-day and household usage among them. I also doubt whether all these Jews should be so given to outraging the sacred elements. To accuse them of it is to believe them as deeply penetrated as ourselves with the divinity of Our Saviour Jesus Christ. For one cannot imagine sacrilege without faith, and the Jew who stabbed the sacred host, by doing so rendered a sincere homage to the truth of transubstantiation. Those are all fables we may leave to the ignorant, my son, and if I threw them in the face of that horrible Mosaïde, it was less from the considered beliefs of a sound scholarship than from the swift promptings of resentment and anger.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” I replied, “you might have satisfied yourself with reproaching him with the Portuguese he killed from jealousy, for that was a real murder.”
“What!” exclaimed my good master, “Mosaïde has killed a Christian. Tournebroche, we have in him a dangerous neighbour. But you will draw the conclusion that I myself draw from this adventure. It is certain that his niece is Monsieur d’Astarac’s light of love, whose room she was surely leaving when I met her on the stairs.
“I have too much religion not to regret that such a charming person should belong to the race which crucified Jesus Christ. Alas! there is no room for doubt, my son, this wicked Mordecai is uncle to an Esther who has no need to bathe for six months in myrrh before she be worthy of the couch of a king. This magic-working old crow is not at all suitable for such a beauty, and I feel an interest in her waking in me. Mosaïde must hide her with the utmost secrecy, for were she seen one day at court or at the play, she would have all the world at her feet on the morrow. Do you not wish to see her, Tournebroche?”
I replied that I should like to very much, and we buried ourselves once more in our Greek.
XVI
ONE evening my good master and I finding ourselves in the Rue du Bac, he said to me, for it was a warm night:— “Jacques Tournebroche, my son, how would it suit you to turn up here to the left, up the Rue de Grenelle, and look for a cabaret? We must also find a landlord who sells wine at two sous the pot, for I am devoid of money, and I think you are no better provided than I am, my son, by fault of Monsieur d’Astarac, who may make gold but who gives none to his servants and his secretaries, as far as can be seen in our case. The state he leaves us in is distressing. I am not worth a penny, and I see that my own industry or cunning must make good this formidable ill. It is very fine to bear poverty with an equal mind, as did Epictetus, and gained thereby an imperishable glory. But it is a practice I am tired of, and it has become tedious by its very sameness. I feel it is high time that I tried some other virtue, and that I practised myself in the art of possessing wealth without wealth possessing me, which is a very noble state of things, and the best that a philosopher can attain to. I would gladly come by something, were it only to show that my wits did not desert me even in prosperity. I seek the means, you see me pondering thereon, Tournebroche, my son.”
While my good master was speaking in this elegant fashion we approached the pretty house where Monsieur de la Guéritaude had established Catherine. “You will know it,” she had said to me, “by the roses on the balcony.” It was not light enough for me to see the roses, but I thought I could scent them. A few paces further and I recognised her at the window, a jug of water in her hand, watering her flowers. At the same moment she recognised me in the street below, and she laughed and blew me a kiss. Whereupon a hand appearing at the window gave her a smack on the cheek which so surprised her that she dropped the jug of water which all but fell on my good master’s head. Then the buffeted fair one disappeared, and the buffeter, taking her place at the window, leant over the railing and called out:
“God be praised that you are not the capuchin! I cannot endure my mistress blowing kisses to that evil-smelling beast who prowls for ever under the window. At least I need not blush for her taste this time. You seem to me to be an honest fellow, and I think that I have seen you before. Do me the honour to come up. There is supper prepared within. You will do me pleasure if you will share it, along with Monsieur l’Abbé there, who has just received a potful of water on his head and is shaking himself like a wet dog. After supper we will play cards, and as soon as it is light we will go and cut each other’s throats. But that will be out of pure politeness and only to do you honour, Monsieur, for truth to tell, this young woman is not worth a sword-thrust. She is a hussy whom I never wish to see again.”
I recognised him who spoke thus as Monsieur d’Anquetil, whom I had lately seen encouraging his men so actively to prick brother Ange in the rear.
He spoke civilly, and treated me as a gentleman. I felt the favour he did me in consenting to cut my throat. My good master was no less affected by such urbanity. Having shaken himself sufficiently, he said:
“Jacques Tournebroche, my son, we cannot refuse such a gracious invitation.”
Two lackeys had already descended with torches. They led us to a room where a cold collation was spread on a table lighted by two silver candelabra. Monsieur d’Anquetil begged us to be seated, and my good master tied his napkin round his neck. He had already impaled a lark on the end of his fork when the sound of sobbing smote our ears.
“Take no notice of those cries,” said Monsieur d’Anquetil, “they come from Catherine, whom I have shut up in her room.”
“Ah, Monsieur! you must forgive her,” said my good master, gazing sadly at the little bird at the end of his fork. “The most succulent dishes taste bitter when seasoned with tears and cries. How have you the heart to let a woman cry? Be indulgent to this one, I implore you. Is she then so guilty for having blown a kiss to my young pupil, who was her neighbour and her companion in the simple time of their youth, when the charms of this pretty girl were only known in the arbour of the Petit Bacchus? There is nothing therein but what is innocent, if it so be that any human action, and more particularly the action of a woman can be entirely innocent and free from original sin. Allow me also to tell you, Monsieur, that jealousy is a Gothic sentiment, a melancholy remnant of barbarous customs, which should find no place in an elegant and well-bred mind.”
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” replied Monsieur d’Anquetil, “from what do you conclude that I am jealous? I am not. But I will not allow a woman to make light of me.”
“We are the playthings of the winds,” said my good master with a sigh. “Everything laughs at us, sky, stars, rain, breezes, light and shade, and woman herself. Allow Catherine to sup with us, Monsieur. She is pretty, she will enliven your table. All that she may have done, that kiss and what more, makes her no less pleasing to look upon. Woman’s infidelities do not mar her face. Nature, who delights in decking them, is indifferent to their faults. Imitate her, Monsieur, and forgive Catherine.”
I joined my prayers to those of my good master, and Monsieur d’Anquetil consented to liberate the prisoner. He went to the door whence the cries came, opened it, and called Catherine, who replied merely by renewed lamentations.
“Messieurs,” her lover told us, “she is there lying flat on her chest on her bed, her head buried in the pillow, and making ridiculous contortions at every sob. Look at her! There is the sort of thing for which we make ourselves so unhappy and commit so many follies!... Catherine, come to supper!”
But Catherine did not budge, and continued crying. He went and too
k her by the arm, by the waist. She resisted. He became urgent:— “Come then, come, my darling!”
She stayed obstinately where she was, holding on to the bed and the mattress.
Her lover lost patience at last, and cried in a rough voice, with many oaths, “Get up, you wench.”
She immediately got up and, smiling amid her tears, took his arm and came into the dining room, a not unhappy victim. She sat down between Monsieur d’Anquetil and me, her head on her lover’s shoulder, and seeking my foot with hers under the table.
“Messieurs,” said our host, “I trust you will forgive an impetuous action I cannot regret since it gives me the honour of entertaining you here. I really cannot put up with all the caprices of this charming young woman, and I have become very suspicious since I surprised her with her capuchin.”
“My friend,” said Catherine, pressing my foot with hers, “your jealousy is at fault. Know then, that I have no fancy for any one but for Monsieur Jacques.”
“She mocks me,” said Monsieur d’Anquetil.
“Have no doubt about that,” I replied. “One can see she loves but you.”
“Without vanity,” he answered, “I think I have inspired her with some interest. But she is a coquette.”
“A drink!” said Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard.
Monsieur d’Anquetil passed the demi-john to my good master, and exclaimed as he did so:
“Pardi l’Abbé, as you belong to the Church you can perhaps tell us why women love monks?”
Monsieur Coignard wiped his lips and said:
“The reason is that monks love with humility, and lend themselves to anything. Another reason is that their natural instincts have not been weakened by taking thought or by having any care for their manners. This is a generous wine, Monsieur.”
“You do me too much honour,” replied Monsieur d’Anquetil. “The wine is Monsieur de la Guéritaude’s. I took his mistress from him, I may well take his bottles.”
“Nothing could be fairer,” replied my good master. “I see, Monsieur, that you are not a man to stand on convention.”
“Do not praise me more than is fitting, l’Abbé,” answered Monsieur d’Anquetil. “My birth renders easy to me what would be difficult for the vulgar. A common man is forced to put restraint on all his actions. He is the slave of a strict uprightness, but a gentleman has the honour to fight for his king and for his own pleasure. That dispenses him from troubling himself about silly trifles. I have served under Monsieur de Villars, and I fought in the war of succession, and I risked being killed for no reason at the battle of Parma. Surely it is a small matter that in return I beat my men, defraud my creditors, and, should it please me, steal my neighbour’s wife or his mistress.”
“You speak like a nobleman,” said my good master, “and you are jealous to uphold the prerogatives of nobility.”
“I have none of those scruples,” continued Monsieur d’Anquetil, “which intimidate the mass of mankind and which I hold useful merely to give halt to the fearful and to restrain the discontented.”
“Well and good,” said my excellent master.
“I do not believe in virtue,” said the other. “You are right,” said my good master. “Seeing the way in which the human animal is made he could not be virtuous without some deformity. Look at this pretty girl for instance who is supping with us: her little head, her beautiful throat, her charmingly rounded form and all the rest. In what corner of her person could a grain of virtue find lodgment? There is no room, all is so firm, so full of sap, plump and well filled. Virtue like the raven lives among the ruins. It is to be found in the lines and wrinkles of the body. I myself, Monsieur, who since my childhood have pondered the austere maxims of religion and philosophy, I have been unable to insinuate any virtue in myself save by the breaches made by suffering and age in my constitution. And yet each time I have been filled less with virtue than with pride. So I am in the habit of praying to the Creator of the world in this wise: ‘My God, keep me from virtue if it remove me from holiness.’ Ah, holiness! that is what it is possible and needful to attain to! There is the goal that befits us! May we reach it one day! In the meanwhile, give me something to drink.”
“I will confide to you that I do not believe in God,” said Monsieur d’Anquetil.
“For once I think you are to blame, Monsieur,” said the Abbé. “One must believe in God and in all the truths of our holy religion.”
Monsieur d’Anquetil cried out:— “You are laugh ing at us, l’Abbé, and you take us to be far more foolish than we are. I tell you I neither believe in God nor devil, and I never go to Mass unless to the king’s Mass. Priestly discourses are but old wives’ tales, only endurable, if then, in the days when my grandmother saw the Abbé de Choisy, dressed as a woman, distributing the blessed bread in the church of St. Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. There may have been such a thing as religion in those days. There is none now, thank God!”
“In the name of all the saints and devils do not speak thus, my friend,” exclaimed Catherine. “God exists as certainly as this pie is on the table, and the proof is that one day last year, finding myself in great poverty and distress, on brother Ange’s advice, I burnt a candle in the church of the capuchins, and on the morrow I met Monsieur de la Guéritaude out walking, who gave me this house with all its furniture and the cellar full of wine that we are now drinking, and enough money to live honestly.”
“Fie! Fie!” said Monsieur d’Anquetil, “the foolish wench drags God into her wretched affairs! It is so shocking that it offends one even though one be an atheist.”
“Monsieur,” said my good master, “it is infinitely better to drag God into one’s wretched affairs, as does this simple-minded girl, than after your fashion to turn Him out of the world He has created. If He did not especially send that fat money-dealer to Catherine, He at least allowed her to meet him. We are ignorant of His ways, and what this innocent being says contains more truth, notwithstanding some admixture and alloy of blasphemy, than all the vain speeches spouted by the impious from an empty heart. There is nothing more detestable than this libertinage of mind displayed by the youth of to-day. Your words make one shudder. Shall I answer them with proofs drawn from holy books and the writings of the Fathers? Shall I make you listen to the Almighty as He spoke to the patriarchs and the prophets? Sicut locutus est Abraham et semini ejus in sœcula? Shall I unroll the traditions of the Church before your eyes? Shall I invoke the authority of the two Testaments against you? Shall I overwhelm you with the miracles of Christ? And His words as miraculous as His acts? No. I will not take up these holy weapons. I fear too greatly to profane them in this combat, which is not serious. The Church warns us in her prudence that edification should not be made an occasion for scandal. Therefore I shall remain silent, Monsieur, on the subject of the truths on which I was fed at the foot of the altar. But without doing violence to the pure modesty of my soul, and without exposing the sacred mysteries to profanation, I will show to you the Almighty ruling over the reason of mankind, I will show you Him in pagan philosophy and even in the speeches of the impious. Yes, Monsieur, I will make you recognise that you profess Him in spite of yourself even while you pretend that He does not exist. For you will grant that if there is an ordering of things in this world it is a divine ordering, and flows from the source and fountain of all order.”
“I grant you that,” replied Monsieur d’Anquetil, lying back in his armchair and stroking his leg, which was well turned.
“Mind what you say then,” continued my good master. “Even while you say that God does not exist, what are you doing but stringing thoughts together, marshalling your reasons and manifesting in yourself the primary cause of all thought and all reason, which is God? And can one even attempt to establish the fact that He does not exist without making conspicuous by this worst of all arguments, which is nevertheless an argument, sortie remnant of the harmony that He has established in the universe?”
“L’Abbé,” replied M. d’Anquetil, �
�you are an amiable sophist. One knows nowadays that the world is but the work of blind chance, and we must no longer speak of Providence since the physicists have seen winged frogs in the moon by the aid of their glasses.”
“Well, Monsieur,” answered my good master, “I am in no wise troubled that there should be winged frogs in the moon; such marsh-fowl are suitable inhabitants for a world which has not been sanctified by the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I confess we know but a small part of the universe, and may be as Monsieur d’Astarac says, who by the by, is quite mad, this world is but a spot of mud in an infinity of worlds. May be Copernicus, the astronomer, was not altogether dreaming when he announced that the earth is not the mathematical centre of the universe. I have read that an Italian, called Galileo, who perished miserably, also thought as did Copernicus, and to-day we see little Monsieur de Fontenelle in accordance with this way of thinking. But these are but vain imaginings fitted merely to disturb weak minds. What matters it that the physical world should be larger or smaller, of one shape or of another? It suffices that it has but to be envisaged through the light of intelligence and reason for God to appear manifest in it.
“If the meditations of a sage can be of any use to you, Monsieur, I will teach you how this proof of God’s existence, better than the proof that St.
Anselm gives us, and quite independent of those proofs which come from Revelation, appeared to me suddenly in all its clearness. It was at Séez, twenty-five years ago, I was librarian to my lord bishop, and the library windows overlooked a yard where I saw a kitchen maid scouring Monseigneur’s pots and pans every morning. She was tall, young, and strong. A light down shaded her upper lip, and lent a provocation and a charm to her face. Her tangled hair, her thin bust, and long bare arms were as suitable to Adonis as to Diana, in fact she was a boyish beauty. I loved her for it. I loved her strong red hands. In a word this girl filled me with a desire as strong and savage as herself. You know how overmastering such feelings are. I made mine known to her from my window with few words and signs. She let me understand more briefly still that she responded to my sentiments and gave me a rendez-vous for the following night in the loft, where she slept on the hay by the kindness of Monseigneur whose dishes she washed. I awaited the coming of night with impatience. When at length she enfolded the earth I took a ladder and climbed up to the loft where the girl awaited me. My first thought was to embrace her, my second to admire the chain of events which had led me to her arms. For after all, Monsieur, a young divine, a kitchen maid, a ladder, a bundle of hay! What a sequence! what an ordering of things! What a just meeting of pre-established harmonies! What a linking of cause and effect! What a proof of the existence of God! That is what struck me so strangely, and I rejoice at being able to add this profane demonstration to the reasons supplied by theology which are moreover amply sufficient.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 65