I was surprised to see him, especially as he said he was going to Dinard. He has a chalet there and harriers. When I fetched my cousin from church, I asked her whether she knew that Du Fau was at Trouville. She nodded. Then, slightly embarrassed:
“Our poor friend is quite absurd. He is tied to that woman. And really. . . .”
She paused and then resumed:
“It is he who pursues her. I can’t understand it.”
Du Fau was indeed pursuing her. In a few days I had certain proof of it. I saw him constantly dogging the steps of Madame Cère and of Monsieur Cère, whom no one knows whether to regard as a stupid or an obliging husband. His dulness saves him and makes it possible to give him the benefit of the doubt. Once this woman was blindly set on attracting Du Fau, who is a useful friend in households ostentatious but not wealthy. But Du Fau made no attempt to conceal his dislike for her. He used to say in her presence: “An artificially beautiful woman is more detestable than an ugly woman. The latter may offer pleasant surprises. The other is naught but a fruit filled with ashes.” On that occasion the strength of Du Fau’s feeling imparted to its expression a biblical elevation of style. Now Madame Cère ignored him. Grown indifferent to men, she now cared only for her De Pravaz syringe and her friend, the Countess V —— . These two women were inseparable; and the innocence of their friendship was thought to be rendered possible by the circumstance that they were both moribund. Nevertheless Du Fau was always with them on their excursions. One day I saw him carrying Monsieur Cère’s heavy field-glasses slung over his shoulders. He persuaded Madame Cère to go out in a boat with him, and the whole beach fixed its eyes upon them with an unholy glee.
Naturally enough while he was in such an ignominious position I had little desire for his society. And as he was perpetually in a kind of somnambulistic state, I quitted Trouville without having exchanged a dozen words with my unhappy friend, whom I left a prey to the Cères and Countess V —— .
One evening in Paris I met him again. It was at the house of his friends and neighbours, the N — — ‘s, who are charming hosts. In the arrangement of their beautiful house in the Avenue Kléber, I recognized the excellent taste of Madame N —— united to that of Du Fau, and blending very harmoniously together. There were not many present, only a few friends. As in the past, Paul Du Fau displayed that turn of wit peculiar to him, that refined delicacy touched with a flavour of the most picturesque brutality. Madame N —— is intelligent and the conversation in her salon is quite good. Nevertheless when I first entered the talk was extremely commonplace. A magistrate, Monsieur le Conseiller Nicolas, was relating at length that hackneyed tale of the sentry box, wherein every sentinel in turn committed suicide, and which had to be pulled down in order to put a stop to this novel epidemic. After which Madame N —— asked me if I believed in talismans. Monsieur le Conseiller Nicolas relieved my embarrassment by saying that I, being an unbeliever, was bound to be superstitious.
“You are quite right,” replied Madame N —— . “He believes neither in God nor the devil. And he adores stories of the other world.”
I looked at this charming woman while she was speaking; and I admired the unobtrusive grace her cheeks, her neck and her shoulders. Her whole person gives one the idea of something rare and precious. I do not know what Du Fau thinks of Madame N — — ‘s foot. To me it is beautiful.
Paul Du Fau came and shook hands with me. I noticed that he was no longer wearing his ring.
“What have you done with your amethyst?”
“I have lost it.”
“What! An intaglio more beautiful than any in Rome and Naples! You have lost it?”
Without giving him time to reply, N —— , who is always at his side, exclaimed:
“Yes, it is a curious story. He has lost his amethyst.”
N —— is an excellent fellow, very self confident, a trifle diffuse, and of a simplicity which sometimes provokes a smile. Noisily he called to his wife:
“Marthe, my love, here is some one who has not yet heard that Du Fau has lost his amethyst.”
And turning to me:
“Why, it is quite a story. Would you believe it? Our friend had absolutely forsaken us. I used to say to my wife: ‘What have you done to Du Fan?’ She would reply: ‘What have I done? Why nothing, my love.’ It was incomprehensible. But our astonishment doubled when we heard that he was always with that poor Madame Cère.”
Madame N —— interrupted her husband: “What has that got to do with it?”
But N —— insisted:
“Excuse me, my love! But I must mention it in order to explain the history of the amethyst. Well, this summer our friend Du Fau refused to come with us to the country as he had been in the habit of doing. My wife and I had given him a very hearty invitation. But he remained at Trouville, with his cousin de Maureil, in very dull society.”
Madame N —— protested.
“It is true,” repeated N —— , “very dull society. He spent his time going out in a boat with Madame Cère.”
Du Fau calmly observed that there was not one word of truth in what N —— was saying. The latter putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder said:
“I defy you to contradict me.”
And he finished his story.
“Day and night Du Fau went out with Madame Cère, or with her ghost, for it is said that Madame Cère is nothing but the ghost of her former self. Cère stayed on the beach with his field-glasses. During one of these excursions Du Fau lost his amethyst. After this mischance he declined to stay a day longer at Trouville. He left the place without bidding anyone farewell, took train and came to us, at Les Eyzies, where we had given up expecting him. It was two o’clock in the morning. ‘Here I am,’ he said calmly. There’s eccentricity for you!”
“And the amethyst?” I asked.
“It is true,” replied Du Fau, “that it fell into the sea. It lies buried in the sand. At least no fisherman has in the traditional manner brought it to land in the belly of a fish.”
A few days later, I paid one of my customary visits to Hendel in the Rue de Chateaudun. And I inquired whether he had not some curiosity with which to tempt me. He knows that I am so old fashioned as to collect ancient bronzes and marbles. Silently he opened a glass case, reserved for amateurs, and took out a little Egyptian scribe in pietra dura, of primitive workmanship, a veritable treasure! When I heard its price, I myself put it back, not without a longing glance. Then in the case I perceived the imprint in wax of the intaglio I had so much admired at Du Fau’s. I recognized the nymph, the pillar, the laurel. It was beyond the possibility of a doubt.
“Did you ever have the gem?” I asked Hendel.
“Yes, I sold it last year.”
“A fine gem! Where did you get it?”
“It came from the collection of Mark Delion, the financier, who five years ago committed suicide on account of a society lady.... Madame... perhaps you know her... Madame Cère.
LA SIGNORA CHIARA
PROFESSOR GIACOMO TEDESCHI of Naples is a doctor well known in the town. His house, which is decidedly odoriferous, is near the Incoronata. It is frequented by all kinds of persons, and particularly by the beautiful maidens who at Santa Lucia traffic in the harvest of the sea. He sells drugs for all maladies; he is not above extracting a decayed tooth; he is an adept, the day after a festival, at sewing up the gaping skin of a bravo; and he knows how to use the long shore dialect interspersed with academical Latin so as to impart confidence to his patients laid out on the longest, the most rickety, the most creaking and the dirtiest operating-chair to be found in any seaport in the universe. He is a man of slender build, of full face, with little green eyes and a long nose overhanging a thin-lipped mouth; his round shoulders, his pot belly and his thin legs recall the pantaloon of bygone times.
Late in life Giacomo married the young Chiara Mammi, daughter of an old convict highly esteemed in Naples, who, having become a baker on the Borgo di Santo, died lamented by the whole to
wn. Ripened by the sun which gilds the grapes of Torre and the oranges of Sorrento, the beauty of Chiara blossomed in glowing splendour.
Professor Giacomo Tedeschi held the fitting belief that his wife was as virtuous as she was beautiful. Moreover he knew how strong is the sentiment of feminine honour in a bandit’s family. But he was a doctor and aware of the disturbances and weaknesses to which the nature of woman is liable. He felt some anxiety when Ascanio Ranieri of Milan, who had set up as ladies’ tailor on the Piazza dei Martiri, took to visiting his house. Ascanio was young, handsome and always smiling. The daughter of the heroic Mammi, the patriot baker, was certainly too good a Neapolitan to forget her duty with a townsman of Milan. Nevertheless Ascanio showed a preference for visiting the house near the Incoronata during the doctor’s absence, and the signora willingly received him unchaperoned.
One day when the Professor came home earlier than he was expected, he surprised Ascanio on his knees to Chiara. While the signora departed with the measured step of a goddess, Ascanio rose to his feet.
Giacomo Tedeschi approached him with every sign of the most anxious solicitude.
“My friend, I see that you are ill. You did well to come to see me. I am a doctor and vowed to the relief of human suffering. You are in pain, do not deny it. Your face is aflame. It is headache, an acute headache, doubtless. How wise of you to come to see me. You were waiting for me impatiently, I am sure. Yes, a terrible headache. While uttering these words, the old man, strong as a Sabine bull, was pushing Ascanio into his consulting-room and forcing him to recline in that famous operating-chair, which for forty years had borne the weight of suffering Neapolitans.
Then holding him inexorably there:
“I see what it is, your tooth is aching. That’s it! Yes, your toothache is very bad.”
He took from a case an enormous dentist’s forceps, prised open his capacious mouth and with a turn of the forceps pulled out a tooth. Ascanio fled, spitting blood from his streaming jaw, and Professor Giacomo Tedeschi shrieked after him with savage joy:
“A fine tooth! a fine, a very fine tooth! …”
UPRIGHT JUDGES
UPRIGHT judges I have indeed seen,” said Jean Marteau. “It was in a picture. I had gone to Belgium to escape from an inquisitive magistrate, who insisted that I had conspired with anarchists. I did not know my accomplices and my accomplices did not know me. But that presented no difficulty to the magistrate. Nothing embarrassed him. Though he was perpetually weighing evidence his sense of values remained undeveloped. His persistence terrified me. I went to Belgium and stopped at Antwerp, where I became a grocer’s assistant. In the picture gallery one Sunday I saw two upright judges in a painting by Mabuse. They are of a type now extinct. I mean the type of peripatetic judges who used to travel at a jog-trot on their ambling nags. Foot soldiers, armed with lances and partisans form their escort. Bearded and hairy, these two judges, like the kings in old Flemish bibles, wear an eccentric yet magnificent headdress suggestive at once of a nightcap and a diadem. Their brocaded robes are richly adorned. The old master has succeeded in imparting to them a grave, calm and gentle air. Their horses are as mild and calm as they. Nevertheless these two judges differed both in character and in point of view. You can see that at once. One holds a paper in his hand and with his finger points to the text. The other, his left hand on the pommel of his saddle, is raising his right with more benevolence than authority. Between thumb and forefinger he appears to be holding an impalpable powder. And the hand thus carefully posed for this gesture suggests an intellect cautious and subtle. They are upright both of them, but obviously the first adheres to the letter, the second to the spirit. Leaning against the rail which separates them from the public, I listened to their talk. Said the first judge:
“I hold to the written word. The first law was written on stone as a sign that it would last as long as the world.”
The other judge made answer:
“Every law is out of date as soon as it is written. For the hand of the scribe is slow, the mind of man is nimble and his destiny is uncertain.”
Then these two excellent old men pursued their sententious discussion:
First judge. The law is stable.
Second judge. The law is never fixed.
First judge. Coming forth from God it is immutable.
Serond judge. Proceeding naturally from society it is dependent upon the changing conditions of this life.
First judge. It is the will of God, which changeth not.
Second judge. It is the will of man which changeth ever.
First judge. It was before man and is superior to him.
Second judge. It is of man, infirm as he, and like unto him capable of perfection.
First judge. Judge, open thy book and read what is written therein. For it is God who dictated to such as believed in Him: Sic locutus est patribus nostris, Abraham et semini ejus in sæcula.
Second judge. That which is written by the dead will be erased by the living. Were it not so, the will of those who have passed away would impose itself upon those who yet survive; and the dead would be the living and the living the dead.
First judge. To laws prescribed by the dead the living owe obedience. The quick and the dead are contemporary before God. Moses and Cyrus, Cæsar, Justinian and the Emperor of Almaine yet reign over us. For in the sight of the Eternal One we are their contemporaries.
Second judge. The living owe obedience to the laws prescribed by the living. For our instruction in that which is permitted and that which is forbidden Zoroaster and Numa Pompilius rank below the cobbler of Saint Gudule.
First judge. The first laws were revealed to us by the Infinite Wisdom. The best laws are those which are nearest to that source.
Second judge. Do you not see that every day new laws are made and that Constitutions and codes differ according to time and place?
First judge. New laws proceed from those that are ancient. They are the young branches of the same tree nourished by the same sap.
Second judge. From the ancient tree of the law there is distilled a bitter juice. Ceaselessly is the axe laid unto that tree.
First judge. It is not for the judge to inquire whether the laws are just, since they must necessarily be so. He has only to administer them justly.
Second judge. It is for us to inquire whether the law that we administer be just or unjust, because if we discover it to be unjust, it is possible for us to introduce some modification into the application we are forced to make of it.
First judge. The criticism of laws is not compatible with the respect we owe to them.
Second judge. If we do not recognize the severity of the law how can we temper it?
First judge. We are judges, not legislators or philosophers.
Second judge. We are men.
First judge. A man is incapable of judging men. A judge, when he goes to the seat of justice, puts off his humanity. He assumes divinity and no longer tastes either joy or sorrow.
Second judge. When justice is not dispensed with sympathy it becomes the cruellest injustice.
First judge. Justice is perfect when it is literal.
Second judge. When justice is not spiritual it is absurd.
First judge. The principle of laws is divine and the consequences which flow from them are no less divine. But even if law were not wholly of God, if it were wholly of man, it would still be necessary to administer it according to the letter. For the letter is fixed, the spirit is fleeting.
Second judge. Law is wholly of man. It was born foolish and cruel in the early glimmerings of human reason. But were it of divine essence, it should be followed according to the spirit not according to the letter, for the letter is dead and the spirit is living.
Having thus conversed, the two upright judges dismounted and with their escort approached the Tribunal, whither they must go, in order to render unto each man his due. Their horses, tied to a stake, under a great elm, conversed together. The first judge’s horse spoke
first:
“When horses inherit the earth,” he said (and the earth will doubtless belong to them one day, for the horse is obviously the ultimate end and the final object of creation), “when the earth is the horse’s and we are free to act as we will, we will live under laws like men and we will take delight in imprisoning, hanging and breaking on the wheel our fellow creatures. We will be moral beings. It shall be proved by the prisons, the gibbets and the strappados which shall be erected in our towns. There shall be legislative horses. What do you think, Roussin?”
Roussin, who was the second judge’s steed, replied that in his opinion the horse was the king of creation and he confidently hoped that sooner or later his kingdom would come.
“And when we have built towns, Blanchet,” he added, “we must, as you say, establish a system of police in them. In those days I would have the laws of horses equine, that is favourable to horses and for the equine weal.”
“What do you mean by that, Roussin?” asked Blanchet.
“My meaning is the natural one. I demand that the law shall secure for each his share of corn and his place in the stable, and that each be permitted to love as he will during the season. For there is a time for everything. In short I would have the laws of horses in conformity with nature.”
“I hope,” replied Blanchet, “that the ideas of our legislators will be more elevated than yours, Blanchet. They will make laws according as they are inspired by that celestial horse who has created all horses. He is all good since he is all powerful. Power and goodness are his attributes. He fore-ordained his creatures to endure the bit, to drag at the halter, to feel the spur and to die beneath the whip. You talk of love, comrade; he ordained that many of us should be made geldings. It is his command. The laws must maintain this worshipful behest.
“But are you quite sure, my friend,” inquired Roussin, “that these evils proceed from the celestial horse that has created us, and not merely from man his inferior creation?”
“Men are the ministers and the angels of the celestial horse,” replied Blanchet. “His will is manifest in everything that happens. His will is good. Since he wishes us ill, it must be that ill is good. If therefore the law is to do us good it must make us suffer. And in the Empire of horses we shall be constrained and tortured in every way, by means of edicts, decrees, sentences, judgments and ordinances in order to please the heavenly horse.”
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 363