I protested against so unworthy a suspicion.
“To believe that would be fetichism.”
Her great green eyes looked at me with surprise.
“Ah, then, you don’t believe in fetichism? I did not think one could be an archaeologist and yet not believe in fetichism. How can Pasht interest you if you do not believe that she is a goddess? But never mind! I came to see you on a matter of great importance, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”
“Great importance?”
“Yes, about a costume. Look at me.”
“With pleasure.”
“Don’t you find traces of the Cushite race in my profile?”
I was at loss what to say. An interview of this nature was so foreign to me.
“Oh, there’s nothing surprising about it,” she continued. “I remember when I was an Egyptian. And were you also an Egyptian, Monsieur Pigeonneau? Don’t you remember? How very curious. At least, you don’t doubt that we pass through a series of successive incarnations?”
“I do not know.”
“You surprise me, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”
“Will you tell me, Madam, to what I am indebted for this honour?”
“To be sure. I haven’t yet told you that I have come to beg you to help me to design an Egyptian costume for the fancy ball at Countess N —— — ‘s. I want a costume that shall be absolutely accurate and bewilderingly beautiful. I have been hard at work at it already, M. Pigeonneau. I have gone over my recollections, for I remember very well when I lived in Thebes six thousand years ago. I have had designs sent me from London, Boulak and New York.”
“Those would, of course, be more reliable.” “No, nothing is so reliable as one’s intuition. I have also studied in the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre. It is full of enchanting things. Figures so slender and pure, profiles so delicate and clear cut, women who look like flowers, but, at the same time, with something at once rigid and supple. And a god, Bes, who looks like Sarcey! My goodness, how beautiful it all is!”
“Pardon me, but I do not yet quite understand — —”
“I haven’t finished. I went to your lecture on the toilet of a woman of the Middle Empire, and I took notes. It was rather dry, your lecture, but I grubbed away at it. By aid of all these notes I have designed a costume. But it is not quite right yet. So I have come to beg you to correct it. Do come to me to-morrow! Will you? Do me that honour for the love of Egypt! You will, won’t you? Till to-morrow, I must hurry off. Mama is in the carriage waiting for me.”
She disappeared as she said these last words, and I followed. When I reached the vestibule she was already at the foot of the stairs and from here I heard her clear voice call up:
“Till to-morrow. Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne, at the corner of the Villa Saïd.”
“I shall not go to see this mad creature,” I said to myself.
The next afternoon at four o’clock I rang the door-bell. A footman led me into an immense, well-lighted hall crowded with pictures and statues in marble and bronze; sedan chairs in Vernis Martin set with porcelain plaques; Peruvian mummies; a dozen dummy figures of men and horses in full armour, over which, by reason of their great height, towered a Polish cavalier with white wings on his shoulders and a French knight equipped for the tournament, his helmet bearing a crest of a woman’s head with pointed coif and flowing veil.
An entire grove of palm-trees in tubs reared their foliage in this hall, and in their midst was seated a gigantic Buddha in gold. At the foot of the god sat a shabbily dressed old woman reading the Bible.
I was still dazzled by these many marvels when the purple hangings were raised and Miss Morgan appeared in a white peignoir trimmed with swans-down. She was followed by two great, long-muzzled boarhounds.
“I was sure you would come, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”
I stammered a compliment.
“How could one possibly refuse anything to so charming a lady?”
“O, it is not because I am pretty that I am never refused anything. I have secrets by which I make myself obeyed.”
Then, pointing to the old lady who was reading the Bible, she said to me:
“Pay no attention to her, that is mama. I shall not introduce you. Should you speak she could not reply; she belongs to a religious sect which forbids unnecessary conversation. It is the very latest thing in sects. Its adherents wear sackcloth and eat out of wooden basins. Mama greatly enjoys these little observances. But you can imagine that I did not ask you here to talk to you about mama. I will put on my Egyptian costume. I shan’t be long. In the meantime you might look at these little things.”
And she made me sit down before a cabinet containing a mummy-case, several statuettes of the Middle Empire, a number of scarabs, and some beautiful fragments of a ritual for the burial of the dead.
Left alone, I examined the papyrus with the more interest, inasmuch as it was inscribed with a name I had already discovered on a seal. It was the name of a scribe of King Seti I. I immediately applied myself to noting the various interesting peculiarities the document exhibited.
I was plunged in this occupation for a longer time than I could accurately measure, when I was warned by a kind of instinct that some one was behind me. I turned and saw a marvellous being, her head surmounted by a gold hawk and the pure and adorable lines of her young body revealed by a clinging white sheath. Over this a transparent rose-coloured tunic, bound at the waist by a girdle of precious stones, fell and separated into symmetrical folds. Arms and feet were bare and loaded with rings.
She stood before me, her head turned towards her right shoulder in a hieratic attitude which gave to her delicious beauty something indescribably divine.
“What! Is that you, Miss Morgan?”
“Unless it is Neferu-Ra in person. You remember the Neferu-Ra of Leconte de Lisle, the Beauty of the Sun?”
“‘Pallid and pining on her virgin bed,
Swathed in fine lawns from dainty foot to head.’{*}
* “Voici qu’elle languit sur son lit virginal,
Très pâle, enveloppée avec des fines toiles.”
“But of course you don’t know. You know nothing of verse. And yet verses are so pretty. Come! Let’s go to work.”
Having mastered my emotion, I made some remarks to this charming young person about her enchanting costume. I ventured to criticise certain details as departing from archaeological accuracy. I proposed to replace certain gems in the setting of the rings by others more universally in use in the Middle Empire. Finally I decidedly opposed the wearing of a clasp of cloisonné enamel. In fact, this jewel was a most odious anachronism. We at last agreed to replace this by a boss of precious stones deep set in fine gold. She listened with great docility, and seemed so pleased with me that she even asked me to stay to dinner. I excused myself because of my regular habits and the simplicity of my diet and took my leave. I was already in the vestibule when she called after me:
“Well, now, is my costume sufficiently smart? How mad I shall make all the other women at the Countess’s ball!”
I was shocked at the remark. But having turned towards her I saw her again, and again I fell under her spell.
She called me back.
“Monsieur Pigeonneau,” she said, “you are such a dear man! Write me a little story and I will love you ever and ever and ever so much!”
“I don’t know how,” I replied.
She shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed:
“What is the use of science if it can’t help you to write a story! You must write me a story, Monsieur Pigeonnneau.”
Thinking it useless to repeat my absolute refusal I took my leave without replying.
At the door I passed the man with the Assyrian beard, Dr. Daoud, whose glance had so strangely affected me under the cupola of the Institute.
He struck me as being of the commonest class, and I found it very disagreeable to meet him again.
The Countess N —— — ‘s ball took place about fifteen days after my visit. I was not
surprised to read in the newspaper that the beautiful Miss Morgan had created a sensation in the costume of Neferu-Ra.
During the rest of the year 1886 I did not hear her mentioned again. But on the first day of the New Year, as I was writing in my study, a manservant brought me a letter and a basket.
“From Miss Morgan,” he explained, and went away. I heard a mewing in the basket which had been placed on my writing table, and when I opened it out sprang a little grey cat.
It was not an Angora. It was a cat of some Oriental breed, much more slender than ours, and with a striking resemblance, so far as I could judge, to those of his race found in great numbers in the subterranean tombs of Thebes, their mummies swathed in coarse mummy-wrappings. He shook himself, gazed about, arched his back, yawned, and then rubbed himself, purring, against the goddess Pasht, who stood on my table in all her purity of form and her delicate, pointed face. Though his colour was dark and his fur short, he was graceful, and he seemed intelligent and quite tame. I could not imagine the reason for such a curious present, nor did Miss Morgan’s letter greatly enlighten me. It was as follows:
“Dear Sir,
“I am sending you a little cat which Dr. Daoud brought back from Egypt, and of which I am very fond. Treat him well for my sake, Baudelaire, the greatest French poet after Stéphane Mallarmé, has said:
“The ardent lover and the unbending sage,
Alike companion in their ripe old age,
With the sleek arrogant cat, the household’s pride,
Slothful and chilly by the warm fireside.’{*}
* “Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.”
“I need hardly remind you that you must write me a story. Bring it on Twelfth Night. We will dine together.
“Annie Morgan.
“P.S. — Your little cat’s name is Porou.”
Having read this letter, I looked at Porou who, standing on his hind legs, was licking the black face of Pasht, his divine sister. He looked at me, and I must confess that of the two of us he was the less astonished. I asked myself, “What does this mean?” But I soon gave up trying to understand.
“It is expecting too much of myself to try and discover reason in the follies of this madcap,” I thought. “I must get to work again. As for this little animal, Madam Magloire my housekeeper can provide for his needs.”
Whereupon I resumed my work on a chronology, all the more interesting as it gave me the opportunity to abuse somewhat my distinguished colleague, Monsieur Maspéro. Porou did not leave my table. Seated on his haunches, his ears pricked, he watched me write, and strange to say I accomplished no good work that day. My ideas were all in confusion; there came to my mind scraps of songs and odds and ends of fairy-tales, and I went to bed very dissatisfied with myself. The next morning I again found Porou, seated on my writing-table, licking his paws. That day again I worked very badly; Porou and I spent the greater part of the day watching each other. The next morning it was the same, and also the morning after; in short, the whole week. I ought to have been distressed, but I must confess that little by little I began to resign myself to my ill-luck, not only with patience, but even with some amusement. The rapidity with which a virtuous man becomes depraved is something terrible. The morning preceding Twelfth Night, which fell on a Sunday, I rose in high spirits and hurried to my writing-table, where, according to his custom, Porou, had already preceded me. I took a handsome copy-book of white paper and dipped my pen into the ink and wrote in big letters, under the watchful observation of my new friend:
“The Misadventures of a one-eyed Porter?.”
Thereupon, without ceasing to look at Porou, I wrote all day long in the most prodigious haste a story of such astonishing adventures, so charming and so varied that I was myself vastly entertained. My one-eyed porter mixed up all his parcels and committed the most absurd mistakes. Lovers in critical situations received from him, and quite without his knowledge, the most unexpected aid. He transported wardrobes in which men were concealed, and he placed them in other houses, frightening old ladies almost to death. But how describe so merry a story! While writing I burst out laughing at least twenty times. If Porou did not laugh, his solemn silence was quite as amusing as the most uproarious hilarity. It was already seven o’clock in the evening when I wrote the final line of this delightful story. During the last hour the room had only been lighted by Porou’s phosphorescent eyes. And yet I had written with as much ease in the darkness as by the light of a good lamp. My story finished, I proceeded to dress. I put on my evening clothes and my white tie, and, taking leave of Porou, I hurried downstairs into the street. I had hardly gone twenty steps when I felt some one pull at my sleeve.
“Where are you running to, uncle, just like a somnambulist?”
It was my nephew Marcel who hailed me in this fashion. He is an honest, intelligent young man, and a house-surgeon at the Salpêtrière. People say that he has a successful medical career before him. And indeed he would be clever enough if he would only be more on his guard against his whimsical imagination.
“Why, I am on my way to Miss Morgan, to take her a story I have just written.”
“What, uncle! You write stories, and you know Miss Morgan? She is very pretty. And do you also know Dr. Daoud who follows her about everywhere?”
“A quack, a charlatan!”
“Possibly, uncle, and yet, unquestionably a most extraordinary experimentalist. Neither Bernheim nor Liégeois, not even Charcot himself, has obtained the phenomena he produces at will. He induces the hypnotic condition and control by suggestion without contact, and without any direct agency, through the intervention of an animal. He commonly makes use of little short-haired cats for his experiments.
“This is how he goes to work: he suggests an action of some kind to a cat, then he sends the animal in a basket to the subject he wishes to influence. The animal transmits the suggestion he has received, and the patient under the influence of the beast does exactly what the operator desires.”
“Is this true?”
“Yes, quite true, uncle.”
“And what is Miss Morgan’s share in these interesting experiments?”
“Miss Morgan employs Dr. Daoud to work for her, and she makes use of hypnotism and suggestion to induce people to make fools of themselves, as it her beauty was not quite enough.”
I did not stop to listen any longer. An irresistible force hurried me on towards Miss Morgan.
THE DAUGHTER OF LILITH
TO JEAN PSICHARI
I had left Paris late in the evening, and I spent a long, silent and snowy night in the corner of the railway carriage. I waited six mortal hours at X —— — , and the next afternoon I found nothing better than a farm-waggon to take me to Artigues. The plain whose furrows rose and fell by turns on either side of the road, and which I had seen long ago lying radiant in the sunshine, was now covered with a heavy veil of snow over which straggled the twisted black stems of the vines. My driver gently urged on his old horse, and we proceeded through an infinite silence broken only at intervals by the plaintive cry of a bird, sad even unto death. I murmured this prayer in my heart: “My God, God of Mercy, save me from despair and after so many transgressions, let me not commit the one sin Thou dost not forgive.” Then I saw the sun, red and rayless, blood-hued, descending on the horizon, as it were, the sacred Host, and remembering the divine Sacrifice of Calvary, I felt hope enter into my soul. For some time longer the wheels crunched the snow. At last the driver pointed with the end of his whip to the spire of Artigues as it rose like a shadow against the dull red haze.
“I say,” said the man, “are you going to stop at the presbytery? You know the curé?”
“I have known him ever since I was a child. He was my master when I was a student.”
“Is he learned in books?�
�
“My friend, M. Safrac, is as learned as he is good.”
“So they say. But they also say other things.”
“What do they say, my friend?”
“They say what they please, and I let them talk.”
“What more do they say?”
“Well, there are those who say he is a sorcerer, and that he can tell fortunes.”
“What nonsense!”
“For my part I keep a still tongue! But if M. Safrac is not a sorcerer and fortune-teller, why does he spend his time reading books?”
The waggon stopped in front of the presbytery.
I left the idiot, and followed the cure’s servant, who conducted me to her master in a room where the table was already laid. I found M. Safrac greatly changed in the three years since I had last seen him. His tall figure was bent He was excessively emaciated. Two piercing eyes glowed in his thin face. His nose, which seemed to have grown longer, descended over his shrunken lips. I fell into his arms.
“My father, my father,” I cried, sobbing, “I have come to you because I have sinned. My father, my dear old master, whose profound and mysterious knowledge overawed my mind, and who yet reassured it with a revelation of maternal tenderness, save your child from the brink of a precipice. O my only friend, save me; enlighten me, you my only beacon!”
He embraced me, and smiled on me with that exquisite kindness of which he had given so many proofs during my childhood, and then he stepped back, as if to see me better.
“Well, adieu!” he said, greeting me according to the custom of his country, for M. Safrac was born on the banks of the Garonne, in the home of those famous wines which seemed the symbol of his own generous and fragrant soul.
After having taught philosophy with great distinction in Bordeaux, Poitiers and Paris, he asked as his only reward the gift of a poor cure in the country where he had been born and where he wished to die. He had now been priest at Artigues for six years, and in this obscure village he practised the most humble piety and the most enlightened sciences.
“Well, adieu! my child,” he repeated. “You wrote me a letter to announce your coming which has moved me deeply. It is true, then, that you have not forgotten your old master?”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 303