Dieudonat

by Edmond Haraucourt

  “He’s a madman. I can’t understand a word.”

  “Kepler and Newton, in the time of Charlemagne, Harold or Richard, would only have plied the woodcutter’s ax or the soldier’s pike; but the century in which they were born was precisely the one in which such men could be born, and if they had died in the cradle, their work would have been done nevertheless, and barely delayed; five or twenty years later, their idea would have appeared under another signature, because on the day of their birth, that idea had finally become accessible to human genius.”

  “He’s comical!”

  The peasants listened, open-mouthed, nonplussed, not knowing whether they ought to laugh or become annoyed; in order to know their intention, their eyes interrogated the public orator, who set the tone by bursting out laughing. Everyone burst out laughing

  The city-dweller drew closer to the Prince, put a hand on his shoulder, gently enough, and tapping him on the clavicle, said without eloquence: “Old chap, you’re making us yawn nicely, eh? You’re a clown! Damned joker! I don’t hold it against you. But it’s necessary not to make fun of us any longer. I don’t care about Kepler or Newton, or when they were born or will be, but I know that you’re making us waste our time, and that time’s pressing. Forward, friends! Let’s go find Dieudonat!”

  “Brandishing weapons, the crowd ordered: “Forward!”

  “I beg you to stop! I’m Dieudonat!”

  “Peace, madman. Enough! To the padded cell!”

  “I’m the Prince, I tell you, and I don’t want to be King or Duke! You won’t kill in my name!”

  He had grabbed one of the men by the edge of his coat and he hung on. A kick in the belly sent him rolling into the mud of the ditch.

  “That’s for you, Dieudonat!”

  Loud laughter saluted his fall, and the band, in a good humor again, drew away singing battle songs.

  Still on his back, the Prince raised his hands.

  “I forbid you to kill. Amen!”

  But the men went on toward their goal, not knowing that the goal had just been forbidden to them. They plunged into the wood, and their elect ceased to see them. The songs only reached him filtered by the curtain of branches, and then faded away entirely. He could to longer hear anything. Again, he was alone.

  “Assuredly, no, I won’t be the King of those men, and I understand less and less how I could lead them, since I have nothing in common with them. I’ll go so far away that they’ll never find me.”

  He set forth again, and entered all alone into the unknown.

  XI. In a corner of a wood he encounters

  the two sovereigns of this world

  He went across country, going straight ahead, not knowing where and not caring, only wanting to go further away, and even further, into lands where no one knew his name.

  “People will not kill in my name!”

  He was fleeing out of charity. He marched all day and all night, only stopping when he ran out of strength, and even then resuming the struggle against his fatigue in order to advance in spite of it.

  “Every step I take might save a life...”

  He did his best to avoid encountering people, apprehensive of harming them without wanting to. When a passer-by imposed his company on him he submitted to it politely, for as short a time as possible.

  One day, he saw a man by the roadside who stood up as he approached and came toward him with a detached air, saluting him with his hand. The stranger was young, with an agreeable face, and was wearing, with elegance, clothes that had once been sumptuous but had been depreciated by wear. He was also wearing spurs, although he had no horse, and his feet trod the ground with so much certainty, his face expressed such a benevolent affability and his gesture opened with such a hospitable courtesy that Dieudonat had no hesitation.

  This man, he thought, is the lord of the vicinity, or at least his son. His attire appears to be a trifle neglected, but in order to accost passers-by with that authority, he must be at home.

  Immediately, he decided, in the depths of his heart, to refuse the hospitality that was about to be offered to him.

  At the same moment, the young man cried: “Sire monk, I salute you! Bless me, my father. I am you humble servant. The afternoon is beautiful and it’s a pleasure to walk. Will you permit me to solicit the grace of your company?”

  He spoke briskly, with the rapidity of a man who asks questions without wanting a response, punctuating his phrases with smiling eyes and drawing breath with a smiling mouth.

  “My God, sire monk, I stopped here to pick strawberries; the strawberries in these woods are exquisite. Where are you going at this pace?”

  “Elsewhere.”

  “Just like me. We’ll travel together, and I’ll be delighted by that. The leagues are only half as long when there are two to make them. Your health, I think, is good?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Excellent? Like mine! I suspected as much just by looking at you. You’re going back to your convent?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “The city, like me? Perfect. No? Too bad! At least you’ve said the right word, Father. It’s necessary to go elsewhere, elsewhere... Elsewhere!”

  “I believe so.”

  “I’m sure of it. It’s a region full of future, elsewhere! Elsewhere is the promised land, and you see in me a man firmly decided only to stop elsewhere.”

  “You’re not the baron of this locale, then?”

  “This land of savages, clodhoppers and peasants! Baron of this locale? No, certainly not—I’m worth more than that: Vicomte d’Avatar, Gontran, at your service, gentleman in search of fortune, and who will find it, Father, and wants something better than there is among these villains! I’d die of boredom within six months in this mountain décor of precipices and fir trees. I don’t like precipices. It’s the boulevards of capitals and the splendor of royal courts that my activity requires, and my means—I dare not say my merits.”

  “Dare, sir.”

  “Yes, indeed! You’re right, sire monk, and whoever wants to succeed should have no fear of affirming his worth. What convinced friend would speak well of me if I weren’t the first to do so myself?”

  On that, without respite, he exposed his entitlements to admiration; they were of such great number and so various in nature that the worthy monk was initially seized by amazement, and soon by torpor.

  This must be what is known as a brilliant man, he thought. In sum, that faculty isn’t to be disdained, for it proceeds from God as well as the others, and given what men are, it might well be that it is able to conquer them a little better than another.

  Suddenly, a disquieting frisson stirred under the branches to the right and left of the road; crawling beings emerged from the thickets, hirsute, clad in rags and armed to the teeth, and came to arrange themselves in a circle around the two travelers, silently. Their silence, however, was very expressive, and it accompanied gestures incapable of leaving any doubt as to the intentions of that small army. In fact, Dieudonat and Gontran had first been seized by the throat, and hands searched them; already, the vicomte had gone paler that his underwear, and the miracle-working monk hastened to reflect before losing his breath completely

  Shall I save us? This young fop, if I’m not mistaken, is a useless creature, and as for me, I’m a harmful creature; unless I’m wrong I’m inclined to believe that we could be suppressed without any inconvenience. But do I have the right to allow a murder to be accomplished when I can prevent it? Hola! Oh, don’t kill! So be it!

  Immediately, the chief of the brigands surged forth from the other side of the ditch. He saw the scene, and with a curt voice, he stopped the imminent decease.

  “Peace to these vagabonds! You’d only be taking their breath. Haven’t I forbidden you to kill game that doesn’t yield fur or feather? Down claws!”

  The fists opened, and Dieudonat thought: There’s a very respectable bandit, who finds misdeeds with a meager return repugnant.

  But the captain o
f the thieves spotted the vicomte and cried, with a loud laugh: “Eh! Gontran the Rogue, is that you? A stupid capture my men have made here!”

  “Ruprecht the Pug-nosed!”

  “By the horns of the great Devil, I’ve arrived just in time to save your skin—and your skin, I imagine, is better than you!”

  Gontran adjusted his clothing, and did not protest.

  “Saints alive!” the captain went on. “You’re hooded, my lad, and here you are flanked by a confessor. Good, good, don’t defend yourself! I like monks when they’re fat; I’ll fatten you up, Father, since I have you for an hour, you can share my Spartan broth and the wine I wash it down with. Don’t refuse! Whoever breakfasts with Gontran can certainly sup with Ruprecht. And you’ll be free after drinking. Let’s go!”

  Disobedience would not have been appropriate. The Prince ruptured from his throne resigned himself tranquilly and followed the march. The captain had taken his fancy comrade by the arm and was drawing him through the wood. In hearing them chatting, exchanging memories, Dieudonat was able to learn that they had once worked together at University, that neither one of them had had an appetite for study, and that they had both departed for adventure, each by his own way. They were laughing, experiencing joy in having found one another again by chance, but the vicomte’s delight remained imprinted with an entire correctness, and that of the highwayman was expressed with a brutal exuberance.

  “By the blue blood! The feast would be complete, and our old trio would be reformed for an evening, if we had Calame the Calamitous here, who composed such fine poems, instead of this lugubrious monk!”

  They arrived next to a steep gorge. A torrent rumbled at the very bottom; on the slope of the ravine, fifty feet below the edge, a hole opened between the rocks, behind a curtain of holly.

  “That’s my lair!”

  They went down. The brigands’ cavern was similar to all brigands’ caverns described in books: the successive shelter of troglodyte bear-hunters, tracked bagaudae and vanquished Gauls, it now sheltered he highway robbers, and hearths of the same human misery had smoked its walls for hundreds of centuries.

  Dieudonat, who was interested in everyone and everything, went in without displeasure; with the same step he was making his entry into society, and it could not help being a little symbolic. On emerging from a cloistered adolescence he was about to make his first contact with individuals free of any religious or social shackles, and he was seeing Man for the first time.

  He inspected the décor, while a bandit servant set the table in haste. That large brute was wearing a lady’s surcoat lined with squirrel-fur, which was too narrow for his shoulders, which had been split before being put on; apart from the strangeness of that accoutrement, the lewd individual did not differ much from honest cultivators that one perceived laboring. He was neither more nor less dirty, and his eyes, devoid of ferocity beneath bushy eyebrows, translated a canine soul: just like those of a dog, in fact, one might have thought that they wanted to speak but could not; they examined the monk slyly, but with a persistence that could not help disconcerting Dieudonat, little accustomed to gazes.

  The brigand went around him, paused, came back, and finally, taking advantage of a minute when his captain took Gontran to the pantry, he leaned over the table and, while pretending to be moving the goblets and spoons, he said: “You wouldn’t care to come into a corner with me before supper?”

  “A corner? Before supper?”

  “Yes, because afterwards, you’ll be drunk, as is appropriate, or even unconscious; our captain has bad wine.”

  “Oh.”

  “Very bad. But me, I ought to go to confession while you’re here. I have a lot to tell you, as you can imagine. You can give me a little absolution with a flick of the hand. Will you?”

  “I haven’t received orders. I was an aide in the kitchens.”

  “Too bad. It would have done me good. In the métier, one doesn’t know who’s going to live and who’s going to die, and when one makes the leap, the less of which one has to render account, the better it is, not so?”

  “Change métier.”

  “Well, it’s easy for you to talk. One has to live, eh?”

  That idea of washing a conscience as one washes underwear, with a view to immediately resuming its usage, appeared a little ludicrous to the philosopher, whose exile had maintained him until then in ignorance of practical plans. He thought he was encountering an exceptional case, and was amused deep down. But many other revelations were being prepared for his astonishment.

  Ruprecht the Pug-nosed and Gontran the Rogue came back charged with victuals; they had unhooked salted meat from the vault and taken dusty bottles from the good corner, which caused laughter. They were laughing in advance. The lieutenant of the robbers called out to his chief: “Before the goblets, Captain, what’s tonight’s password?”

  “Outside society!”

  “A good motto for you,” exclaimed Gontran, laughing, “and a bad one for me.”

  The two friends sat down; the monk was obliged to imitate them and took the third stool. Immediately, the solid and liquid items that encumbered the table began to disappear, and everyone strove to hide as much as possible; a noise of chewing and clinking cups rang out without discontinuity. Dieudonat admired the energy of those sonorous appetites. He watched, listened, ate with the tips of his teeth, drank with the edges of his lips, and finally got up in order to go in search of a pitcher.

  “A cup of wine, sire monk, to the health of our absent friend: I drink to the immortal Calame!”

  Obediently, the monk clinked cups. Ruprecht attacked the red wines; Gontran preferred the white wines, and their tongues were immediately loosened, evoking past days.

  “Do you remember, one evening…?”

  The past loves the odor of wine; it rises up as soon as it is invited; in the emanations of the reddened table, the memories of the two companions launched forth in gaiety and swirled riotously, dancing their saraband around the smoky candle. In that cavern, which one would have thought so distant from any city, the evocations of the street ran in sequence, and the subterrain was populated with anecdotes in which a horde of creatures swarmed, a temptation of Saint Anthony in which the devils were people. Against a background of darkness, those tableaux of an absent society, enlivened by rich colors, succeeded one another like the images in an exceedingly profane Book of Hours; the seven deadly sins appeared in turn, in abundance, and each of them came back as soon as another left room. A joyful immortality ran riot through the tales and the verve was so warm that Dieudonat, who was drinking water, got drunk on hearing the winy words.

  Is this it, then, the world?

  When the young friends had emptied seven bottles in honor of the past they started on the future.

  “Me,” cried Ruprecht, “I’m for the action, you know! A man of action, me! I’ve always been a man of action!”

  To prove what he was saying, he hammered the table with blows of the fist that made everything tremble. His face was congested; his eyes were challenging invisible contradictors.

  “It’s necessary that people know, and they will know, that I’m a man of action, a man! People will talk about me, I promise! Would you like to see another Mercadier? Look at me! I’ll have my fief, like Roger de Flor, my manor, like Mérigot!5 The Archpriest? He’s not worth as much as me. No, my old friend, he’s not worth as much as me!”

  Renouncing maltreating the table, he was now hammering his own torso, which resonated like another cavern, more formidable than the big one.

  “They’ll see it, my glory! I’m bursting with strength, me. My strength is a right. You hear me, monk? Repeat that in your convents. Announce Ruprecht to them, who is going to come. He’s coming, Ruprecht, and Ruprecht is only coming as a master! Men are cowards, men are dastards, and you’re the first, Gontran! They only ask to be flattened under a boot, provided that the boot is solid; they disgust me, men! I don’t want to live with them, but I deign to march over the
m!”

  Gontran feared that the vicomte, accused of dastardliness, might take that judgment ill and become annoyed, but the gentleman smiled with urbanity, and his condescension even seemed to be nuanced with disdain.

  “You old chap, yes, you’re a brave man, and I’m a clever one: everyone makes his life as he can, and according to his means; all means are excellent; the important thing is to attain one’s goal. I go there gently, me, and if you have the strength, I have the ingenuity, which is worth as much as all your strength. I’m very intelligent.”

  “You, the Rogue? You? A good-for-nothing! An ignoramus! At University you were the prince of duffers. The intelligent one, of the three of us, was Calame! Talk to me about Calame! Of the three of us, he was two men, me and him, me the strength and him the thought. He was a brain, our Calamitous, but you, you’re nothing.”

  “At University, oh, yes, I’ll grant you that; but we’re no longer at school. We’re in the world, and you’re talking about knowing while I’m talking about know-how. It’s quite different, my friend.”

  “I pay my own way, me. I spend my own money!”

  ”I spend others’ money, which permits me never to be mean and to make largesse. You’ll see, my friend, you’ll see, sire monk, which of the two of us is right. I take you as my witness, and even as a witness to my wedding, for I intend, please God, that you’ll be present at that feast, since it’ll be the first.”

  “Ah!” said the Prince. “You’re getting married, sir?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  Ruprecht only shrugged one shoulder; his eyes were scarcely fulgurant any longer.

  Gontran added: “Yes, sire monk, I’ve opted for the straight path, me, because the straight path is the shortest route. I’m getting married!”