Martyrs of Science

by S. Henry Berthoud

  Since that time, the lady of the cold kisses has reappeared again, and comes to embrace sinners, whom she fills with terror, in her icy arms. It is when the monks of the Abbaye de Vaucelles break the vows of chastity that they have sworn...

  At that moment, the impact of an invisible being struck the young monk’s lamp, inundating his face and breast with some kind of icy liquid, and left him in profound darkness. He thought that it was the lady of the cold kisses, and uttered screams of terror.

  Monks came running, and found him pale and distraught, covered from head to toe in the oil from his lamp. Then a bat came to flutter around the candles they were holding.

  The young monk smiled, asserting that he had had a bad dream, during which he had knocked over his lamp.

  After that, he went to sleep, soundly.

  THE BARN IN MONTECOUVEZ

  It happened, I am told, about four hundred and fifty years ago. The harvest had been bad and, to complete the despair of the unfortunate farmers, heavy rain began to fall in torrents in the month of September, gravely imperiling the hayricks that covered the fields; the trusses of wheat could not even be stored in the mill, as usual; the rain found means of getting in and rotting everything. There was a general desolation.

  A young peasant, married a few months before, felt that calamity more than anyone else, for, confident of the fine days that normally arrive at reaping time, he had put off, for the time being, building a barn to shelter his harvest. The old men of the neighboring villages had even given him that advice. “Go into the fields,” they had said, “and watch the harvesters; the master’s eye makes the ricks grow, diminishes the share of the gleaners, and gives a third arm to the hirelings.”

  He listened meekly to these precepts of white-haired men whose hands had been put to the plough for sixty years. Misfortune arrived nevertheless, as I have said, but those who had spoken thus and caused the ruination of the poor young farmer, did not come to his aid in consequence, and left him to despair alone.

  One evening, Pierre Margerin—that was his name—came back to his abode with death in his heart; he thought that his harvest would not bring in thirty écus; that it would be impossible for him to pay his rent; and that it would be necessary to hire himself out as a ploughman to some farmer in the neighborhood. Heaven was witness to the fact that it was not for himself that he felt the greatest affliction but for his wife and the child that she was due to ring into the world four months hence.

  He found in such thoughts what is necessary to drive a man to an evil deed. He threw himself down at the foot of a tree and, taking a large knife out of his pocket, he examined it in silence; then he put it to his breast.

  At that moment, a stranger appeared, who asked Margerin which path let to the Château de Câtelet. He had to repeat his question, because the farmer was thinking so profoundly that he did not hear the dry and mordant voice interrogating him.

  “I’ll take you there,” he said, the second time. “Come this way, Monseigneur.” He gave him that title because the stranger, richly dressed, was wearing a sword, and his manners were indicative of a man of high status.

  While Margerin was walking with him, the man he was guiding said: “You seem sad, my good man; has some misfortune struck you?”

  “It has indeed! My crop is rotting there in the fields; it’s rotting at its leisure, exposed to the rain, for I have no barn to shelter it. For a week now, workmen have been trying to build one, but they haven’t made much progress, and when it’s finished, what they’ve built will be no use to me, for I’ll have nothing to put in it but compost. I’m ruined forever, unless God sends a miracle to save me.”

  The stranger went pale and shivered. Margerin thought he saw the sudden emotion in his eyes that is a sign of great compassion, and resumed telling him his troubles.

  “You are indeed in a bad fix, and I can only see one way of getting you out of it.”

  “One means! What? Tell me what it is. If there is one, I’ll accept it, whatever it might be, even if it costs me my life—just as long as my wife and child are saved from poverty.”

  “Well,” the stranger went on, coolly, “I’ll give you a hundred louis d’or, I’ll have your barn built, and I’ll fill it with dry wheat of good quality, worth seven écus a mencaud.”

  “May Heaven bless you, my generous Seigneur!” cried Margerin, passing from the most bitter despair to the heights of joy. My gratitude...”

  He suddenly stopped, because a ray of moonlight slipping through a gap in the clouds at that moment lit up the stranger’s pale face and gave his physiognomy a frightful expression. One might have thought that he was a cadaver of his dark eyes, small and sunken, had not been glittering with a supernatural gleam and an odious joy.

  “I need guarantees, however; let’s see, are you prepared to sign a contract with me? These are my conditions: before the first cockcrow, you shall have everything I’ve promised you, but you must consent to be my vassal and swear to come with me in a year’s time to my own jurisdiction.”

  “Is your jurisdiction far away?”

  “It only takes an hour to get there.”

  “It goes without saying that you’ll give me lodgings there as good as my own, and that my wife and child will come with me?”

  The stranger had difficult suppressing a burst of laughter. “Let’s include your wife and child in the contract. I’ll give you a hundred louis for the wife and fifty for the child.”

  “Done!” replied Margerin. “Let’s go to the notary to sign the document.”

  “There’s no need for a notary in this arrangement, and I carry parchment and a pen about my person. Besides which, I’m in a hurry to reach the château, and I can’t waste any more time on such a minor transaction. Make a slight prick on your left hand, and we’ll use blood instead of ink.

  “As you wish.”

  When the contract had been drawn up and signed, and the gold counted and handed over, the stranger headed for the château and disappeared in the middle of the path, to Margerin’s great surprise. The latter went home; on the way, he felt tormented by a secret anxiety with regard to the bargain he had just concluded.

  Who was that nobleman, then? he wondered. His jurisdiction is no more than a league away; apparently, he’s the son of the Sire de Villers-Outréaux, Esnes or some other village in the neighborhood. My word! Two hundred and fifty louis and a barn full of good wheat is certainly worth the trouble of moving to another village.

  When he arrived at the farm, he found the unknown man’s workmen already fulfilling the conditions of the contract. They were working with a marvelous promptitude; while some were setting up the beams and woodwork, others were laying the bricks, and they only had to set their hands on the mortar for it to dry and harden incontinently. A ruddy gleam illuminated the whole scene, although it was impossible to see any torch producing it.

  What was even more incomprehensible, however, was the profound silence that reigned in the midst of such activity, involving a hundred and fifty masons, carpenters and others. There was not such a silence is an abandoned cemetery at midnight. The hammers struck without resonance, the saws scraped, causing clouds of oak sawdust to rise and fall, but the tearing of the wood and the respiration of the workman were equally inaudible.

  Gripped by an expressible terror, he went into the house. He found his wife surprised and consternated; the domestic animals, agitated by a secret terror, were huddling together and trying to get into the main farmhouse, as if to escape some great danger. The dogs were howling lamentably, adding even further to the horror of what was happening.

  There was a cockerel of rare beauty at the farm, of which the mistress of the house was particularly fond. The animal in question, which seemed even more alarmed than the others, suddenly flew into its mistress’ lap.

  Surprised by that abrupt and unexpected irruption, she screamed, made the sign of the cross and thrust the cockerel away, which began to crow.

  Suddenly, there was a noise
like a clap of thunder; the earth trembled and the workmen disappeared, leaving the barn unfinished.

  The following day, the people of the village were amazed to see the barn, which had not only been built in one night but filled with corn-ricks, without any carts or laborers being employed to transport them. Margerin was careful not to say anything about it.

  After having confessed to a holy priest and thanked Heaven for the peril from which God had saved him—for he knew now, belatedly, alas! that the stranger was none other than Satan in person—he set to work to finish a gable left incomplete. When he tried to place a brick there, however, he fell, suddenly knocked over by a supernatural force; he was never able to finish the gable, which remains to this day in the state in which the infernal workmen left it.

  And since that time, too, a cockerel starts to crow at the farm in question long before daybreak, at the time when Satan’s masons took flight.

  Margerin did at a ripe old age, with sentiments of fervent piety.

  THE WEDDING AT CAVRON-SAINT-MARTIN

  If I live for another hundred years I shall still remember Jean Saveux’s wedding as I remember it today.

  I left my village early in the morning, because I had to go through the forest of Hesdin in order to pick up, in accordance with my uncle’s request, our old friend Nicolas Meuron, the shepherd, who had been invited to the wedding.

  He refused obstinately to accompany me, saying that he would not be seen at such an espousal even if he were paid a hundred ducats, but he did not want to tell me why.

  I was already at least four aves away from his house when he ran after me and called me back in order to hand me a little bottle which he asked me at least twenty times not to be separated from it for an instant throughout that time I was in Jean Saveux’s house in Cavron-Saint-Martin. It would, he said, preserve me from the evil Spirit’s ambushes, which would not fail to be laid.

  Alas, the old shepherd’s prediction was only too true, you shall see in due course.

  I did not know my cousin Marguerite’s future husband, and when I saw him on my arrival, I felt myself becoming quite sad that that he was marrying such a pretty girl. He was, I must admit, a handsome fellow, but there was something in his pale face and his eyes, sunken beneath bushy brows, the sight of which caused a sensation of unease. He was not much liked in the village because he was very careful with his money, never went to enjoy himself at the tavern and sometimes went an entire week without saying a single word to anyone. That became the cause of various speculations; some thought that he was under a spell; others, on the contrary, took him for a spell-caster. Thus, in spite of the goodly sum of money and the large farm with three barns that he brought as a marriage-portion, my cousin Marguerite was still criticized for making the marriage, and more than one person said: “Marguerite is marrying Jean Saveux; that will be quite some marriage.”

  The wedding-feast began, and everything went well until the time came for dancing. Now, it happened that the fiddler of Hesdin, the joyful Mathias Wilmart, had not been invited. Everyone was lamenting such the inconvenience when the groom was told that an unknown man was asking to speak to him.

  Jean Saveux, who was chatting and joking with his wife, and who had never been seen, so far as anyone would remember, in such a good mood, got to his feet, cursing the importunate individual who was disturbing him thus. As the sight of the stranger, however—who, weary of waiting, had taken it upon himself to come in—he went as pale as a corpse and nearly fell over.

  “I hope that I’m welcome?” said the unknown man, coldly, to the groom.

  “You have the right to be here,” Jean Saveux replied, but his pale face and the trembling of all his limbs gave the lie to the welcome that he forced himself to give to the newcomer.

  The latter was not put off by it. He sat down cheerfully at the table, poured a full measure of beer into a tankard the size of a boot and drank it in a single draught—after which he served himself a ham, of which he left nothing but the bone, and then ate several enormous tarts, drinking in proportion. No one had ever seen a thirst so dry or an appetite so voracious.

  In the meantime, there was a more profound silence among the guests than at a funeral dinner. The stranger was completely at his ease, however, and paid no heed to the concern that his arrival had caused; he crossed his legs with difficulty and, unbuttoning his waistcoat, which was hindering his digestion, turned his head and saw Jean Saveux, still standing there, paler than ever.

  “Ha ha!” he said, in a familiar fashion. “You haven’t introduced your wife to me yet, comrade. Damnation! I’ve been a reckless fellow in my time, like anyone else; I’ve drawn more than one pretty girl to sin—but other times, other tastes. Now, as you know, Jean Saveux, it isn’t young women I catch in my net, is it?”

  Jean Saveux, albeit reluctantly, took Marguerite by the hand and led her to the strange man.

  “She’s a charming creature, Jean! You have good taste. My word, it’s unfortunate that this evening…for it is this evening...” He added the last few words in a whisper, almost in Jean’s ear. Jean shivered from head to toe.

  “But what’s the meaning of this?” the stranger went on, without paying any attention to the groom’s distress. “This is a singular wedding; there isn’t even a single violin.”

  Someone hazarded the remark that they had neglected to incite Mathias Wilmart, and that even if he had been invited, the rain that had been falling since midday would gave rendered the marl roads surrounding Cavron-Saint-Martin impracticable.

  “Why, if that’s all that’s preventing you from dancing,” said the stranger, “I have a violin, and without claiming to be an excellent musician, I hope that you won’t regret the absence of this Mathias Wilmart, whom you’re praising so loudly, too much.

  He went out, and came back in with a violin. That surprised me somewhat, for I had chanced to see him, when he had knocked on the door on his arrival, and I would have sworn on my share of paradise that he did not have a violin in his hand or under his arm. Nor could the instrument have been in his traveling-bag, for he was not carrying one.

  At any rate, the stranger put a chair in the middle of a table, climbed up to it, and started playing the violin as if he had never done anything else in his life. He could easily have been mistaken for a veritable fiddler, for he was a short fat man with a cheerful attitude and an exceedingly mocking manner; he tapped his foot, exclaimed, fidgeted and drank like Mathias Wishart.

  Everyone took their places, except for the husband, who stood in a corner, taciturn and pensive, and tried to prevent his wife from dancing.

  The violin-player perceived that. “What does this conduct signify, Jean Saveux?” he asked, sniggering. “Today is the most beautiful day in your life, and you’re standing there like an owl! Come on! Cheer up, comrade, and take your place!”

  This time, however, Jean Saveux refused to obey. With a single bound, the stranger leapt off the table and placed his hand on the recalcitrant’s shoulder. Immediately, a frenetic gaiety took possession of Jean, previously so gloomy. He started to talk, to jump, and to laugh—but all of it in such a sinister manner that one would more ready have taken him for a man possessed that a man who was due, in half an hour, to find himself in private with a charming bride.

  To tell the truth, the music that the unknown man was playing produced a sort of dolorous joy that I only ever experienced that once. During the dance, I sensed a thousand singular and guilty thoughts; it was as if I were drunk and having a bad dream. And yet, the air we were breathing in the room became heavy and hot, and a strong odor spread into every corner, acrid and suffocating, like that produced by a red-hot iron when one plunges it into water.

  Midnight chimed; then, the unknown man put his violin under his arm, got down from his chair and approached Jean Saveux.

  “Now” he said to him.

  “One more night! Just one more night!” Jean pleaded, all of whose limbs were trembling in a frightful manner.

&
nbsp; “No,” the unknown man replied.

  “At least grant me an hour, one more hour!”

  “No,” replied a dull and implacable voice.

  “Give me a quarter of an hour!” said Jean, then, in a piteous manner.

  “No,” said the stranger. He added, after enjoying Jean Saveux’s despair momentarily: “I’ll take pity on you. If your wife signs it, I’ll grant you another week.”

  Jean took the scroll of red parchment with golden letters that his guest handed to him—but he threw it back at him in horror.

  “Then I’ll bid the company farewell, and you can see me out.”

  The short man bowed to everyone, and, putting his arm around Jean Saveux’s neck in an amicable fashion, he said to the bride: “Adieu. Don’t hold it against me too much that I’m taking your lover away: you’ll soon be seeing him again, my beauty.”

  It was, however, not until the next day that she saw him again, and he was no more than a cadaver struck by lightning. He was found like that, after a long search, lying at the foot of an oak-tree in Hesdin forest.

  When he was taken to the church, the blessed candles all went out at the same time, and I’m told that the grave in which his coffin was deposited was found to be empty the following day.

  THE SIRE WITH THE BROKEN ARMOR

  At one time, the Château d’Esnes was the most beautiful in Cambrésis. Now, nothing remains of it but ruins, which are mingled with rustic and very modern constructions that give it an even sadder appearance.

  Instead of broad crenellations, two paltry gabled roofs raise up their slate triangles on the towers flanking the drawbridge. Windows have been hollowed out irregularly in the thickness of the ramparts, and a heavy layer of thatch makes them resemble a dilapidated farmhouse.