Part 19 (1/2)
”Jacques Tournebroche, my son, I must not conceal from you that this very morning, in the attics of the castle, a rather peculiar chance meeting has taken place, while you were kept in the room of yonder mad fire-blower. I plainly heard him ask you to a.s.sist him for a moment in his cooking, which is a great deal less savoury and Christian than that of Master Leonard your father. Alas! when shall I be lucky enough to see again the cookshop of the _Queen Pedauque_ and the bookshop of M.
Blaizot, with the sign of _Saint Catherine_, where I enjoyed myself so heartily thumbing the books newly arrived from The Hague and Amsterdam!”
”Alas!” I exclaimed, the tears coming into my eyes, ”when shall I return to it again? When shall I return to the Rue St Jacques again, where I was born, and see my dear parents, who'll feel burning shame when they hear of our misfortunes? But do be so good, my dear tutor, as to explain that strange encounter you said you had this very morning, and also the events of the day.”
M. Jerome Coignard willingly consented to give me all the enlightenment I wished for. He did it in the following words:
”Know then, my dear boy, that I reached the upper storey of the castle without hindrance in company with M. d'Anquetil, whom I like well enough, although rude and uncultured. His mind is possessed neither of fine knowledge nor deep curiosity. But youth's vivacity sparkleth pleasantly with him, and the ardour of his blood results in amusing sallies. He knows the world as well as he knows women, because he is above them, and without any kind of philosophy. It's a great frankness on his part to call himself an atheist. His unG.o.dliness is without malice, and will disappear with the exuberance of his sensuality. In his soul G.o.d has no other enemies than horses, cards and women. In the mind of a real libertine, like M. Bayle for example, truth has to meet more formidable and malicious adversaries. But, my dear boy, I give you a character sketch instead of the plain narrative you wish to have of me.
”I'll satisfy you. Let's see. Having arrived at the top storey of the castle in company with M. d'Anquetil, I made the young gentleman enter your room, and wished him, in accordance with the promise we made him at the Triton fountain, to use the room as his own. He did so willingly, undressed, and, keeping nothing on but his boots, went into your bed, the curtains of which he closed so as not to be incommoded by the bright morning light, and was not long before he was sound asleep.
”As to myself, my dear boy, having reached my room, tired as I was, I did not want to go to rest before I had looked up in my Boethius one or two sentences appropriate to my state of mind. I could not find the very one fit for it. It must not be forgotten that this great thinker had not had occasion to meditate on the disgrace of having broken the head of a Farmer-general with a bottle out of his own cellar. But I was able to pick up here and there, in his admirable treatise, some maxims applicable to present conjunctures. Having done so, I drew the night-cap over my eyes, recommended my soul to G.o.d, and quietly went to sleep.
After what seemed to me, without being able to measure it, a very short s.p.a.ce of time--be mindful, my son, that our actions are the only measure for time, which, if I may say so, is suspended for us by sleep--I felt my arm pulled, and heard a voice shouting in my ear: 'Eh! Abbe! Eh!
Abbe, wake up!' Half dozing as I was, I believed it was a constable wanting to conduct me to the officer, and I deliberated with myself the easiest way in which I could break his head, and rapidly came to the conclusion that the candlestick would be the handiest weapon. It is unhappily, too true, my dear boy, that having once stepped aside from the road of kindness and equity, where the wise man walks with a firm and prudent step, one becomes compelled to sustain violence by violence and cruelty by cruelty, thereby proving that a first fault leads invariably to other faults--evil always follows evil done. One has to be reminded of this if one wants to fully understand the lives of the Roman emperors, of whom M. Crevier has given such an exact account. Those princes were not born more evilly disposed than other men. Caius, surnamed Caligula, was wanting neither in natural spirit nor in judgment, and was quite capable of friends.h.i.+p. Nero had an inborn liking for virtue, and his temperament disposed him towards all that is grand and sublime. Both of them were led by a first fault on the nefarious, villainous road whereon they walked to their miserable end. Their history is cleverly treated in M. Crevier's book. I knew that remarkable writer when he was a teacher of literature and history at the College of Beauvais, as I might be teaching to-day, had my life not been crossed by a thousand impediments, and if the natural easiness of my spirit had not drawn me into the manifold snares laid in my way. M. Crevier, my boy, led a pure life; his morals were severe, and I have myself heard him say that a woman who had broken her conjugal vows was capable of the crimes of murder and incendiarism. I repeat this saying of his, to impress you with the saintly austerity of that model priest.
”But, once more, I digress, and I must hasten to return to my narrative.
Well, as I have said, I thought a constable had come to arrest me, and I could see myself in one of the archbishop's dungeons, when I opened my eyes and recognised the features and voice of M. d'Anquetil. 'Abbe,'
said that young gentleman to me, 'I have just had a singular adventure in Tournebroche's room. During my sleep a woman entered my room, glided into my bed, and awoke me with a shower of caresses, tender epithets, sweet murmurings, and pa.s.sionate kisses. I pushed the curtains back to see the features of my good luck. She was dark and had ardent eyes, one of the finest women I have ever held in my arms. But all at once she screamed and jumped out, violently angry, but not quick enough to prevent me catching her in the pa.s.sage and pressing her closely in my arms. She began by striking me and scratching my face. After having lacerated it sufficiently to satisfy her outraged womanly honour, we began to explain ourselves. She was well pleased to learn that I am a gentleman, and none of the poorest, and sooner than I might have expected I ceased to be odious to her, and she began to be tender with me, when a scullion appeared in the pa.s.sage; his appearance put her to flight at once.
”'I am quite aware,' said M. d'Anquetil, 'that that admirable girl had come for another than myself; she must have entered the wrong room, and the surprise frightened her. I did my best to rea.s.sure her, and should doubtless have won her amity had not that sot of a scullion come between us.'
”I confirmed him in that supposition. We put our heads together to get an idea of the man for whom that beautiful woman had ventured on such an early morning visit, and were easily agreed that it could be no other but that old fool d'Asterac--you know, Tournebroche, I suspected him before--who awaits her intimacy in an adjoining room, if not, and without your knowledge, in your own. Are you not of the same opinion?”
”Nothing is more credible,” I replied.
”No doubt it is so. That sorcerer amuses himself when he talks to us of his Salamanders. The truth is, he caresses that amazingly pretty girl.
He's an impostor.”
I asked my tutor to favour me with the continuance of his narrative. He willingly complied and said:
”Well, my dear boy, I'll briefly report the remainder of M. d'Anquetil's discourse. I know very well that it's rather commonplace, almost vulgar, to lay much stress on trifling circ.u.mstances. It is, on the contrary, some sort of duty to express them in the fewest possible words, to condense them carefully and reserve the tempting abundance of word-flow to moral instruction and exhortation, which may be hurled as the avalanches are hurled from the mountains. On this principle I shall have mentioned enough of M. d'Anquetil's sayings when I have told you that he impressed on me that yonder young girl's beauty, charms, and accomplishments are quite extraordinary. In the end he inquired of me if I knew her name and position. And I replied to him that, from his description of her, I was pretty sure that she was Rabbi Mosaide's niece Jahel, whom by a lucky accident I had embraced one night on that very same staircase, with this difference only, that my luck occurred between the first and second flights of steps. 'I hope and trust,' said M.
d'Anquetil, 'that there may be other differences too, for, as far as I am concerned, I embraced her very closely. I am also sorry that, as you say, she is a Jewess, as, without believing in G.o.d, I feel that I should have liked better for her to be a Christian. But can anyone be sure of his own family? Who knows if she has not been kidnapped as a child? Jews and gypsies steal children daily. And we do not, as a rule, remember sufficiently that the Holy Virgin was born a Jewess. But let her be Jewess or not, she pleases me; I want her and shall have her!' Such were that reckless youngster's words. But allow me, my boy, to sit down on yonder moss-covered stone; last night's work, my fights, my flight, too, have nearly broken my legs.”
He sat down, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and looked quite disconsolate when he found it void of tobacco.
I took a seat at his side, agitated, crestfallen. Coignard's discourse caused me acute pain. I cursed Fate for having given my place to a brute at the very moment when my beloved mistress had come to bring me her most pa.s.sionate tenderness, expecting to find me in my bed, the while I had to throw logs of wood on the fire in the alchemist's furnace. The but too probable inconstancy of Jahel tore my heart to pieces, and I could have wished that my dear tutor had been more discreet with my rival. So I took the liberty to reproach him mildly for his disclosure of Jahel's name.
”Sir,” I said, ”was it not somewhat imprudent to furnish such indications to a gentleman so luxurious and violent as M. d'Anquetil?”
M. Coignard seemed not to hear what I said, and continued his speech:
”My snuff-box has unfortunately opened itself in my pocket during the fight at Catherine's house, and the tobacco it contained, mixed with the wine of the broken bottle, has formed a quite disgusting paste. I do not dare ask Criton to grind down a few leaves for me; the hard and cold features of that servant and judge inspire me with awe. I suffer from the want of snuff, as my nose is irksome in consequence of the shock I had last night, and I am quite disconcerted by my failure to satisfy the never-tiring wants of that nose of mine. I shall have to bear the misfortune quietly, till M. d'Anquetil may, perhaps, let me have a few grains out of his box. Now to return to that young gentleman, he said expressly to me: 'I love that girl. Know, abbe, that I am resolved to take her with us in the post-chaise should I be compelled to stay here a week, a month, six months or longer; I will not go away without her.' I represented all the dangers to him, which might occur through any delay in our departure. He said he did not care a rap for those dangers, less so as they were smaller for him than for us. 'You, abbe, you and Tournebroche are both in danger of being hanged; my risk is the Bastille only, where I can get cards and girls, and whence my family could, and would, soon deliver me, as my father would interest some d.u.c.h.ess or some ballet dancer in my doom, and my mother, devotee as she has become, could and would still get the a.s.sistance of one or other of the royal princes. It is irrevocably fixed; I take Jahel with me or I remain here.
You and Tournebroche are at liberty to hire a post-chaise of your own.'
”The cruel boy knows but too well that we have not the means to do it.
I tried to make him change his mind. I became pressing, unctuous, parental. It was no use, and I wasted on him an eloquence which, employed in the pulpit of a parish church, would have brought me a full reward in honour and coin. Alas! my dear boy, it seems to be written that none of my actions will ever produce any kind of savoury fruit, and for me ought to have been written the following words from Ecclesiastes:--_'Quid habet am plius h.o.m.o de universe labore suo, quo laborat sub sole?_' Far from bringing him to reason, my discourses strengthened the young n.o.bleman's obstinacy, and I cannot deny that he actually counted on me for the success of his desires, and pressed me to go to Jahel and induce her to fly with him, promising her the gift of a trousseau of Dutch linen, of plate, jewels and a handsome annuity.”