"There is a woman underneath!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's attention to the coats of paint which the old painter had laid on one after another, thinking that he was perfecting his work.
The two artists turned impulsively towards Frenhofer, beginning to understand, although but vaguely, the state of ecstasy in which he lived.
"He acts in perfect good faith," said Porbus.
"Yes, my friend," said the old man, rousing himself, "one must have faith, faith in art, and must live a long while with his work, to produce such a creation. Some of those shadows have cost me many hours of toil. See, on the cheek, just below the eye, there is a faint penumbra, which, if you notice it in nature, will seem to you almost beyond reproduction. Well, do you think that that effect did not cost me unheard-of trouble? But look closely at my work, my dear Porbus, and you will understand better what I said to you as to the method of treating modelling and outlines. Look at the light on the breast, and see how, by a succession of strongly emphasised touches and retouches, I have succeeded in reproducing the real light, and in combining it with the polished whiteness of the light tones; and how by the opposite means, by effacing the lumps and the roughness of the colours, I have been able, by softly retouching the outline of my figure, drowned in the half-tint, to take away even a suggestion of drawing and of artificial means, and to give it the aspect and the roundness of nature itself. Go nearer, and you will see the work better. At a distance it is imperceptible. Look, just here it is very remarkable, I think."
And with the end of his brush he pointed out to the two painters a layer of light paint.
Porbus laid his hand on the old man's shoulder and said, turning to Poussin:
"Do you know that we have before us a very great painter?"
"He is even more poet than painter," replied Poussin, gravely.
"Here," rejoined Porbus, pointing to the canvas, "here ends our art on earth."
"And from here it soars upwards and disappears in the skies," said Poussin.
"How much pleasure is concentrated on this piece of canvas!" cried Porbus.
The old man, completely distraught, did not listen to them; he was smiling at that ideal woman.
"But sooner or later he will discover that there is nothing on his canvas!" exclaimed Poussin.
"Nothing on my canvas!" cried Frenhofer, gazing at the two painters and at his alleged picture in turn.
"What have you done?" whispered Porbus to Poussin.
The old man grasped the young man's arm violently, and said to him:
"You see nothing, you clown! you boor! you idiot! you villain! Then why did you come up here?—My dear Porbus," he continued, turning towards the painter; "is it possible that you too would mock at me? I am your friend; tell me, have I spoiled my picture?"
Porbus hesitated, not daring to say anything; but the anxiety depicted on the old man's pale face was so heartrending that he pointed to the canvas, saying:
"Look!"
Frenhofer gazed at his picture for a moment, and staggered.
"Nothing! nothing! and after working ten years!"
He sat down and wept.
"So I am an idiot, a madman! I have neither talent nor capacity! I am nothing more than a rich man, who, when I walk, do nothing but walk! So I have produced nothing!"
He gazed at his canvas through his tears; suddenly he rose with a gesture of pride and cast a flashing glance at the two painters.
"By the blood, by the body, by the head of the Christ! you are jealous hounds who wish to make me believe that it is spoiled, in order to steal it from me! But I can see her!" he cried, "and she is wonderfully lovely!"
At that moment, Poussin heard Gillette crying in a corner where she was cowering, entirely forgotten.
"What is the matter, my angel?" asked the painter, suddenly become the lover once more.
"Kill me!" she said. "I should be a shameless creature to love you still, for I despise you. I admire you and I have a horror of you! I love you, and I believe that I hate you already."
While Poussin listened to Gillette. Frenhofer covered his Catherine with a green curtain, with the calm gravity of a jeweller closing his drawers when he thinks that he is in the company of clever thieves. He bestowed upon the two painters a profoundly cunning glance, full of contempt and suspicion, and silently ushered them out of his studio, with convulsive haste; then standing in his doorway, he said to them:
"Adieu, my little friends."
That "adieu" horrified the two painters. The next day Porbus, in his anxiety, went again to see Frenhofer, and learned that he had died in the night, after burning all his pictures.
1831.
A Seashore Drama
To
MADAME LA PRINCESSE CAROLINE GALITZIN DE
GENTHOD, NÉE COMTESSE WALEWSKA:
The author's homage and remembrances.
Young men almost always have a pair of compasses with which they delight to measure the future; when their will is in accord with the size of the angle which they make, the world is theirs. But this phenomenon of moral life takes place only at a certain age. That age, which in the case of all men comes between the years of twenty-two and twenty-eight, is the age of noble thoughts, the age of first conceptions, because it is the age of unbounded desires, the age at which one doubts nothing; he who talks of doubt speaks of impotence. After that age, which passes as quickly as the season for sowing, comes the age of execution. There are in a certain sense two youths: one during which one thinks, the other during which one acts; often they are blended, in men whom nature has favoured, and who, like Caesar, Newton, and Bonaparte, are the greatest among great men.
I was reckoning how much time a thought needs to develop itself; and, compasses in hand, standing on a cliff a hundred fathoms above the ocean, whose waves played among the reefs, I laid out my future, furnishing it with works, as an engineer draws fortresses and palaces upon vacant land. The sea was lovely; I had just dressed after bathing; I was waiting for Pauline, my guardian angel, who was bathing in a granite bowl full of white sand, the daintiest bath-tub that Nature ever designed for any of her sea-fairies. We were at the extreme point of Le Croisic, a tiny peninsula of Brittany; we were far from the harbour, in a spot which the authorities considered so inaccessible that the customs-officers almost never visited it. To swim in the air after swimming in the sea! Ah! who would not have swum into the future? Why did I think? Why does evil happen? Who knows? Ideas come to your heart, or your brain, without consulting you. No courtesan was ever more whimsical or more imperious than is conception in an artist; it must be caught, like fortune, by the hair, when it comes. Clinging to my thought, as Astolphe clung to his hippogriff, I galloped through the world, arranging everything therein to suit my pleasure.
When I looked about me in search of some omen favourable to the audacious schemes which my wild imagination advised me to undertake, a sweet cry, the cry of a woman calling in the silence of the desert, the cry of a woman coming from the bath, refreshed and joyous, drowned the murmur of the fringe of foam tossed constantly back and forth by the rising and falling of the waves in the indentations of the shore. When I heard that note, uttered by the soul, I fancied that I had seen on the cliff the foot of an angel, who, as she unfolded her wings, had called to me: "Thou shalt have success!" I descended, radiant with joy and light as air; I went bounding down, like a stone down a steep slope. When she saw me, she said to me: "What is the matter?" I did not answer, but my eyes became moist. The day before, Pauline had understood my pain, as she understood at that moment my joy, with the magical sensitiveness of a harp which follows the variations of the atmosphere. The life of man has some glorious moments! We walked silently along the shore. The sky was cloudless, the sea without a ripple; others would have seen only two blue plains, one above the other; but we who understood each other without need of speech, we who could discover between those two swaddling-cloths of infinity the illusions with which youth is nourished, we pressed each other's hand at the slightest change which took place either in the sheet of water or in the expanse of air; for we took those trivial phenomena for material interpretations of our twofold thought.
Who has not enjoyed that unbounded bliss in pleasure, when the soul seems to be released from the bonds of the flesh, and to be restored as it were to the world whence it came? Pleasure is not our only guide in those regions. Are there not times when the sentiments embrace each other as of their own motion, and fly thither, like two children who take each other's hands and begin to run without knowing why or whither? We walked along thus.
At the moment that the roofs of the town appeared on the horizon, forming a grayish line, we met a poor fisherman who was returning to Le Croisic. His feet were bare, his canvas trousers were ragged on the edges, with many holes imperfectly mended; he wore a shirt of sail-cloth, wretched list suspenders, and his jacket was a mere rag. The sight of that misery distressed us—a discord, as it were, in the midst of our harmony. We looked at each other, to lament that we had not at that moment the power to draw upon the treasury of Aboul-Cacem. We saw a magnificent lobster and a crab hanging by a cord which the fisherman carried in his right hand, while in the other he had his nets and his fishing apparatus. We accosted him, with the purpose of buying his fish, an idea which occurred to both of us, and which expressed itself in a smile, to which I replied by slightly pressing the arm which I held and drawing it closer to my heart. It was one of those nothings which the memory afterward transforms into a poem, when, sitting by the fire, we recall the time when that nothing moved us, the place where it happened, and that mirage, the effects of which have never been defined, but which often exerts an influence upon the objects which surround us, when life is pleasant and our hearts are full.
The loveliest places are simply what we make them. Who is the man, however little of a poet he may be, who has not in his memory a bowlder that occupies more space than the most famous landscape visited at great expense? Beside that bowlder what tempestuous thoughts! there, a whole life mapped out; here, fears banished; there, rays of hope entered the heart. At that moment, the sun, sympathising with these thoughts of love and of the future, cast upon the yellowish sides of that cliff an ardent beam; some mountain wild-flowers attracted the attention; the tranquillity and silence magnified that uneven surface, in reality dark of hue, but made brilliant by the dreamer; then it was beautiful, with its meagre vegetation, its warm-hued camomile, its Venus's hair, with the velvety leaves. A prolonged festivity, superb decorations, placid exaltation of human strength! Once before, the Lake of Bienne, seen from Île St.-Pierre, had spoken to me thus; perhaps the cliff of Le Croisic would be the last of those delights. But, in that case, what would become of Pauline?
"You have had fine luck this morning, my good man," I said to the fisherman.
"Yes, monsieur," he replied, stopping to turn towards us the tanned face of those who remain for hours at a time exposed to the reflection of the sun on the water.
That face indicated endless resignation; the patience of the fisherman, and his gentle manners. That man had a voice without trace of harshness, kindly lips, no ambition; an indefinably frail and sickly appearance. Any other type of face would have displeased us.
"Where are you going to sell your fish?"
"At the town."
"How much will you get for the lobster?"
"Fifteen sous."
"And for the crab?"
"Twenty sous."
"Why so much difference between the lobster and the crab?"
"The crab is much more delicate, monsieur; and then it's as cunning as a monkey, and don't often allow itself to be caught."
"Will you let us have both for a hundred sous?" said Pauline.
The man was thunderstruck.
"You sha'n't have them!" I said laughingly; "I will give ten francs. We must pay for emotions all that they are worth."
"Very well," she replied, "I propose to have them; I will give ten francs two sous."
"Ten sous."
"Twelve francs."
"Fifteen francs."
"Fifteen francs fifty," she said.
"One hundred francs."
"One hundred and fifty."
I bowed. At that moment we were not rich enough to carry the bidding any farther. The poor fisherman did not know whether he ought to be angry as at a practical joke, or to exult; we relieved him from his dilemma by giving him the name of our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab to her house.
"Do you earn a living?" I asked him, in order to ascertain to what cause his destitution should be attributed.
"With much difficulty and many hardships," he replied. "Fishing on the seashore, when you have neither boat nor nets, and can fish only with a line, is a risky trade. You see you have to wait for the fish or the shell-fish to come, while the fishermen with boats can go out to sea after them. It is so hard to earn a living this way, that I am the only man who fishes on the shore. I pass whole days without catching anything. The only way I get anything is when a crab forgets himself and goes to sleep, as this one did, or a lobster is fool enough to stay on the rocks. Sometimes, after a high sea, the wolf-fish come in, and then I grab them."
"Well, take one day with another, what do you earn?"
"Eleven or twelve sous. I could get along with that if I were alone; but I have my father to support, and the poor man can't help me, for he's blind."
At that sentence, uttered with perfect simplicity, Pauline and I looked at each other without a word.
"You have a wife or a sweetheart?"
He cast at us one of the most pitiful glances that I ever saw, as he replied:
"If I had a wife, then I should have to let my father go; I couldn't support him, and a wife and children too."
"Well, my poor fellow, how is it that you don't try to earn more by carrying salt to the harbour, or by working in the salt marshes?"
"Oh? I couldn't do that for three months, monsieur. I am not strong enough; and if I should die, my father would have to beg. What I must have is a trade that requires very little skill and a great deal of patience."
"But how can two people live on twelve sous a day?"
"Oh, monsieur, we eat buckwheat cakes, and barnacles that I take off the rocks."
"How old are you?"
"Thirty-seven."
"Have you ever been away from here?"
"I went to Guérande once, to draw my lot in the draft, and I went to Savenay, to show myself to some gentlemen who measured me. If I had been an inch taller I should have been drafted. I should have died on the first long march, and my poor father would have been asking alms to-day."
I had thought out many dramas; Pauline was accustomed to intense emotions, living with a man in my condition of health; but neither of us had ever listened to more touching words than those of that fisherman. We walked some distance in silence, both of us measuring the silent depths of that unknown life, admiring the nobility of that self-sacrifice which was unconscious of itself; the strength of his weakness surprised us; that unconscious generosity made us small in our own eyes. I saw that poor creature, all instinct, chained to that rock as a galley-slave is chained to his ball, watching for twenty years for shell-fish to support himself, and sustained in his patience by a single sentiment. How many hours passed on the edge of that beach! how many hopes crushed by a squall, by a change of weather! He hung over the edge of a granite shelf, his arms stretched out like those of an Indian fakir, while his father, sitting on a stool, waited in silence and darkness for him to bring him the coarsest of shell-fish and of bread, if the sea were willing.
"Do you ever drink wine?" I asked him.
"Three or four times a year."
"Well, you shall drink some to-day, you and your father, and we will send you a white loaf."
"You are very kind, monsieur."
"We will give you your dinner, if you will guide us along the shore as far as Batz, where we are going, to see the tower which overlooks the basin and the coast between Batz and Le Croisic."
"With pleasure," he said. "Go straight ahead, follow the road you are now on; I will overtake you after I have got rid of my fish and my tackle."
We nodded simultaneously, and he hurried off towards the town, light at heart. That meeting held us in the same mental situation in which we were previously, but it had lowered our spirits.
"Poor man!" said Pauline, with that accent which takes away from a woman's compassion whatever there may be offensive in pity; "does it not make one feel ashamed to be happy when one sees such misery?"
"Nothing is more cruel than to have impotent desires," I replied. "Those two poor creatures, father and son, will no more know how keen our sympathy is than the world knows how noble their lives are; for they are laying up treasures in heaven."
"What a wretched country!" she said, as she pointed out to me, along a field surrounded by a loose stone wall, lumps of cow-dung arranged symmetrically. "I asked some one what those were. A peasant woman, who was putting them in place, answered that she was making wood. Just fancy, my dear, that when these blocks of dung are dried, these poor people gather them, pile them up, and warm themselves with them. During the winter they are sold, like lumps of peat. And what do you suppose the best paid dressmaker earns? Five sous a day," she said, after a pause; "but she gets her board."
"See," I said to her, "the winds from the ocean wither or uproot everything; there are no trees; the wrecks of vessels that are beyond use are sold to the rich, for the cost of transportation prevents them from using the firewood in which Brittany abounds. This province is beautiful only to great souls; people without courage could not live here; it is no place for anybody except poets or barnacles. The storehouse for salt had to be built on the cliff, to induce anybody to live in it. On one side, the sea; on the other, the sands; above, space."
We had already passed the town and were within the species of desert which separates Le Croisic from the village of Batz. Imagine, my dear uncle, a plain two leagues in length, covered by the gleaming sand that we see on the seashore. Here and there a few rocks raised their heads, and you would have said that they were gigantic beasts lying among the dunes. Along the shore there is an occasional reef, about which the waves play, giving them the aspect of great white roses floating on the liquid expanse and coming to rest on the shore. When I saw that plain bounded by the ocean on the right, and on the left by the great lake that flows in between Le Croisic and the sandy heights of Guérande, at the foot of which there are salt marshes absolutely without vegetation, I glanced at Pauline and asked her if she had the courage to defy the heat of the sun, and the strength to walk through the sand.
"I have on high boots; let us go thither," she said, pointing to the tower of Batz, which circumscribed the view by its enormous mass, placed there like a pyramid, but a slender, indented pyramid, so poetically adorned that it allowed the imagination to see in it the first ruins of a great Asiatic city. We walked a few yards and sat down under a rock which was still in the shadow; but it was eleven o'clock in the morning, and that shadow, which ceased at our feet, rapidly disappeared.
"How beautiful the silence is," she said to me; "and how its intensity is increased by the regular plashing of the sea on the beach!"
"If you choose to abandon your understanding to the three immensities that surround us, the air, the water, and the sand, listening solely to the repeated sound of the flow and the outflow," I replied, "you will not be able to endure its language; you will fancy that you discover therein a thought which will overwhelm you. Yesterday, at sunset, I had that sensation; it prostrated me."
"Oh, yes, let us talk," she said, after a long pause. "No orator can be more terrible than this silence. I fancy that I have discovered the causes of the harmony which surrounds us," she continued. "This landscape, which has only three sharp colours, the brilliant yellow of the sand, the blue of the sky, and the smooth green of the sea, is grand without being wild, it is immense without being a desert, it is changeless without being monotonous; it has only three elements, but it is diversified."
"Women alone can express their impressions thus," I replied; "you would drive a poet to despair, dear heart, whom I divined so perfectly."
"The excessive noonday heat imparts a gorgeous colour to those three expressions of infinity," replied Pauline, laughing. "I can imagine here the poesy and the passion of the Orient."
"And I can imagine its despair."
"Yes," she said; "that dune is a sublime cloister."
We heard the hurried step of our guide; he had dressed himself in his best clothes. We said a few formal words to him; he evidently saw that our frame of mind had changed, and, with the reserve that misfortune imparts, he kept silent. Although we pressed each other's hands from time to time, to advise each other of the unity of our impressions, we walked for half an hour in silence, whether because we were overwhelmed by the heat, which rose in shimmering waves from the sand, or because the difficulty of walking absorbed our attention. We walked on, hand in hand, like two children; we should not have taken a dozen steps if we had been arm in arm. The road leading to Batz was not marked out; a gust of wind was enough to efface the footprints of horses or the wheel-ruts; but our guide's practised eye recognised the road by the droppings of cattle or of horses. Sometimes it went down towards the sea, sometimes rose towards the upland, at the caprice of the slopes, or to skirt a rock. At noon, we were only half-way.
"We will rest there," said I, pointing to a promontory formed of rocks high enough to lead one to suppose that we should find a grotto there.
When I spoke, the fisherman, who had followed the direction of my finger, shook his head and said:
"There's some one there! People who go from Batz to Le Croisic, or from Le Croisic to Batz, always make a detour in order not to pass that rock."
The man said this in a low voice, and we divined a mystery.
"Is he a thief, an assassin?"
Our guide replied only by a long-drawn breath which increased our curiosity.
"But will anything happen to us if we pass by there?"
"Oh no!"
"Will you go with us?"
"No, monsieur."
"We will go then, if you assure us that we shall be in no danger."
"I don't say that," replied the fisherman hastily; "I say simply that the man who is there won't say anything to you, or do any harm to you. Oh, bless my soul! he won't so much as move from his place!"
"Who is he, pray?"
"A man!"
Never were two syllables uttered in such a tragic tone. At that moment we were twenty yards from that reef, about which the sea was playing; our guide took the road which skirted the rocks; we went straight ahead, but Pauline took my arm. Our guide quickened his pace in order to reach the spot where the two roads met again at the same time that we did. He evidently supposed that, after seeing the man, we would quicken our pace. That circumstance kindled our curiosity, which then became so intense that our hearts throbbed as if they had felt a thrill of fear. Despite the heat of the day and the fatigue caused by walking through the sand, our hearts were still abandoned to the indescribable languor of a blissful harmony of sensations; they were filled with that pure pleasure which can only be described by comparing it to the pleasure which one feels in listening to some lovely music, like Mozart's Andiano mio ben. Do not two pure sentiments, which blend, resemble two beautiful voices singing? In order fully to appreciate the emotion which seized us, you must share the semivoluptuous condition in which the events of that morning had enveloped us. Gaze for a long while at a turtle-dove perched on a slender twig, near a spring, and you will utter a cry of pain when you see a hawk pounce upon it, bury its steel claws in its heart, and bear it away with the murderous rapidity that powder communicates to the bullet.
When we had walked a yard or two across the open space that lay in front of the grotto, a sort of platform a hundred feet above the ocean, and sheltered from its rage by a succession of steep rocks, we were conscious of an electric shock not unlike that caused by a sudden noise in the midst of the night. We had spied a man seated on a bowlder of granite, and he had looked at us. His glance, like the flash of a cannon, came from two bloodshot eyes, and his stoical immobility could be compared only to the unchanging posture of the masses of granite which surrounded him. His eyes moved slowly; his body, as if it were petrified, did not move at all. After flashing at us that glance which gave us such a rude shock, he turned his eyes to the vast expanse of the ocean, and gazed at it, despite the dazzling light which rose therefrom, as the eagles are said to gaze at the sun, without lowering the lids, which he did not raise again. Try to recall, my dear uncle, one of those old druidical oaks, whose gnarled trunk, newly stripped of its branches, rises fantastically above a deserted road, and you will have an accurate image of that man. He had one of those shattered herculean frames, and the face of Olympian Jove, but ravaged by age, by the hard toil of the seafaring man, by grief, by coarse food, and blackened as if struck by lightning. As I glanced at his calloused, hairy hands, I saw chords which resembled veins of iron. However, everything about him indicated a robust constitution. I noticed a large quantity of moss in a corner of the grotto, and upon a rough table, hewn out by chance in the midst of the granite, a broken loaf covering an earthen jug. Never had my imagination, when it carried me back to the deserts where the first hermits of Christianity lived, conceived a face more grandly religious, or more appallingly penitent than was the face of that man.
Even you, who have listened to confessions, my dear uncle, have perhaps never met with such sublime remorse; but that remorse was drowned in the waves of prayer, the incessant prayer of silent despair. That fisherman, that sailor, that rude Breton, was sublime by virtue of some unknown sentiment. But had those eyes wept? Had that statuelike hand struck its fellow man? Was that stern forehead, instinct with pitiless uprightness, on which, however, strength had left those marks of gentleness which are the accompaniment of all true strength—was that forehead, furrowed by wrinkles, in harmony with a noble heart? Why was that man among the granite? Why the granite in that man? Where was the man? Where was the granite? A whole world of thoughts rushed through our minds. As our guide had anticipated, we had passed in silence, rapidly; and when he met us, we were tremulous with terror, or overwhelmed with amazement. But he did not use the fulfillment of his prediction as a weapon against us.
"Did you see him?" he asked.
"Who is that man?" said I.
"They call him The Man of the Vow."
You can imagine how quickly our two faces turned towards our fisherman at those words! He was a simple-minded man; he understood our silent question; and this is what he said, in his own language, the popular tone of which I shall try to retain:
"Madame, the people of Le Croisic, like the people of Batz, believe that that man is guilty of something, and that he is doing a penance ordered by a famous priest to whom he went to confess, a long way beyond Nantes. Other people think that Cambremer—that's his name—has an evil spell that he communicates to everybody who passes through the air he breathes. So a good many people, before they pass that rock, look to see what way the wind is. If it's from galerne," he said, pointing towards the west, "they wouldn't go on, even if it was a matter of searching for a piece of the true Cross; they turn back, because they're frightened. Other people, the rich people of Le Croisic, say that he's made a vow, and that's why he's called The Man of the Vow. He is always there, night and day; never comes out.
"These reports about him have some appearance of sense. You see," he added, turning to point out a thing which we had not noticed, "he has stuck up there, on the left, a wooden cross, to show that he has put himself under the protection of God, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints. Even if he hadn't consecrated himself like that, the fear everybody has of him would make him as safe there as if he were guarded by soldiers. He hasn't said a word since he shut himself up there in the open air; he lives on bread and water that his brother's daughter brings him every morning—a little maid of twelve years, that he's left his property to; and she's a pretty thing, as gentle as a lamb, a nice little girl and very clever. She has blue eyes as long as that," he said, holding up his thumb, "and a cherub's head of hair. When any one says to her: 'I say, Pérotte' (that means Pierrette among us," he said, interrupting himself: "she is consecrated to St. Pierre; Cambremer's name is Pierre, and he was her godfather), 'I say, Pérotte, what does your uncle say to you?' 'He don't say anything,' she'll answer, 'not anything at all, nothing!' 'Well, then, what does he do to you?' 'He kisses me on the forehead Sundays!' 'Aren't you afraid of him?' 'Why no, he's my godfather.' He won't let any one else bring him anything to eat. Pérotte says that he smiles when she comes; but that's like a sunbeam in a fog, for they say he's as gloomy as a fog."
"But," I said, "you arouse our curiosity without gratifying it. Do you know what brought him here? Was it grief, was it repentance, was it insanity, was it a crime, was it——?"
"Oh! only my father and I know the truth of the thing, monsieur. My dead mother worked for a judge to whom Cambremer told the whole story, by the priest's order; for he wouldn't give him absolution on any other condition, according to what the people at the harbour said. My poor mother overheard what Cambremer said, without meaning to, because the judge's kitchen was right next to his study, and she listened. She's dead, and the judge who heard him is dead. My mother made father and me promise never to tell anything to the people about here; but I can tell you that the night my mother told it to us, the hair on my head turned gray."
"Well, tell us, my fine fellow; we will not mention it to anybody."
The fisherman looked at us, and continued thus:
"Pierre Cambremer, whom you saw yonder, is the oldest of the Cambremers, who have always been sailors, from father to son; that's what their name says—the sea has always bent under them. The man you saw was a boat fisherman. So he had boats and went sardine-fishing; he went deep-sea fishing, too, for the dealers. He'd have fitted out a vessel and gone after cod, if he hadn't been so fond of his wife; a fine woman she was, a Brouin from Guérande; a magnificent girl, and she had a big heart. She was so fond of Cambremer that she'd never let her man leave her any longer than he had to, to go after sardines. They used to live over there—look!" said the fisherman, ascending a hillock to point to an islet in the little inland sea between the dunes, across which we were walking, and the salt marshes of Guérande. "Do you see that house? That was his.
"Jacquette Brouin and Cambremer never had but one child, a boy; and they loved him like—like what shall I say?—indeed, like people love their only child; they were mad over him. If their little Jacques had put dirt in the saucepan, saving your presence, they'd have thought it was sugar. How many times we've seen 'em at the fair, buying the prettiest fallals for him! It was all nonsense—everybody told 'em so. Little Cambremer, seeing that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to, became as big a rogue as a red ass. When any one went to the elder Cambremer and told him: 'Your boy nearly killed little So-and-so,' he'd laugh and say: 'Bah! he'll make a fine sailor! he'll command the king's fleet.' And when somebody else said: 'Pierre Cambremer, do you know that your boy put out the little Pougaud girl's eye?' Pierre said: 'He'll be fond of the girls!' He thought everything was all right. So my little scamp, when he was ten years old, used to be at everybody and amuse himself cutting off hens' heads, cutting pigs open; in short, he rolled in blood like a polecat. 'He'll make a famous soldier!' Cambremer would say; 'he s got a taste for blood.' I remembered all that, you see," said the fisherman.
"And so did Cambremer too," he continued after a pause. "When he got to be fifteen or sixteen years old, Jacques Cambremer was—what shall I say?—a shark. He used to go to Guérande to enjoy himself, or to Savenay to make love to the girls. Then he began to steal from his mother, who didn't dare to say anything to her husband. Cambremer was so honest that he'd travel twenty leagues to pay back two sous, if he had been overpaid in settling an account. At last the day came when his mother was stripped clean. While his father was away fishing, the boy carried off the sideboard, the dishes, the sheets, the linen, and left just the four walls; he'd sold everything to get money to go to Nantes and raise the devil. The poor woman cried for whole days and nights. She couldn't help telling the father about that, when he came home; and she was afraid of the father—not for herself, oh no! When Pierre Cambremer came home and found his house furnished with things people had lent his wife, he said:
"'What does all this mean?'
"The poor woman was nearer dead than alive.
"'We've been robbed,' said she.
"'Where's Jacques?'
"'Jacques is on a spree.'
"No one knew where the villain had gone.
"'He goes on too many sprees!' said Pierre.
"Six months later, the poor man learned that his son was in danger of falling into the hands of justice at Nantes. He went there on foot; made the journey faster than he could have gone by sea, got hold of his son, and brought him back here. He didn't ask him: 'What have you been doing?' He just said to him:
"'If you don't behave yourself here with your mother and me for two years, going fishing and acting like an honest man, you'll have an account to settle with me!'
"The idiot, counting on his father's and mother's stupidity, made a face at him. At that Pierre fetched him a crack that laid Master Jacques up in bed for six months. The poor mother almost died of grief. One night, when she was sleeping peacefully by her husband's side, she heard a noise, got out of bed, and got a knife-cut on her arm. She shrieked and some one brought a light. Pierre Cambremer found his wife wounded; he thought that a robber did it—as if there was any such thing in our province, where you can carry ten thousand francs in gold from Le Croisic to St.-Nazaire, without fear, and without once being asked what you've got under your arm! Pierre looked for Jacques, but couldn't find him.
"In the morning, the little monster had the face to come home and say that he'd been to Batz. I must tell you that his mother didn't know where to hide her money. Cambremer always left his with Monsieur Dupotet at Le Croisic. Their son's wild ways had eaten up crowns by the hundred, francs by the hundred, and louis d'or; they were almost ruined, and that was pretty hard for folks who used to have about twelve thousand francs, including their island. No one knew what Cambremer paid out at Nantes to clear his son. Bad luck raised the deuce with the family. Cambremer's brother was in a bad way and needed help. To encourage him, Pierre told him that Jacques and Pérotte (the younger Cambremer's daughter) should marry. Then he employed him in the fishing, so that he could earn his living; for Joseph Cambremer was reduced to living by his work. His wife had died of a fever, and he had had to pay for a wet-nurse for Pérotte. Pierre Cambremer's wife owed a hundred francs to different people on the little girl's account, for linen and clothes, and for two or three months' wages for that big Frelu girl, who had a child by Simon Gaudry, and who nursed Pérotte. Mère Cambremer had sewed a Spanish coin into the cover of her mattress, and marked it: 'For Pérotte.' She had had a good education; she could write like a clerk, and she'd taught her son to read; that was the ruin of him. No one knew how it happened, but that scamp of a Jacques scented the gold, stole it, and went off to Le Croisic on a spree.
"As luck would have it, Goodman Cambremer came in with his boat. As he approached the beach, he saw a piece of paper floating; he picked it up and took it in to his wife, who fell flat when she recognised her own written words. Cambremer didn't say anything, but he went to Le Croisic, and found out that his son was playing billiards; then he sent for the good woman who keeps the cafe, and said:
"'I told Jacques not to spend a gold-piece that he'll pay you with; I'll wait outside; you bring it to me, and I'll give you silver for it.'
"The good woman brought him the money. Cambremer took it, said: 'All right!' and went home. The whole town heard about that. But here's something that I know, and that other people only suspect in a general way. He told his wife to clean up their room, which was on the ground floor; he made a fire on the hearth, lighted two candles, placed two chairs on one side of the fireplace and a stool on the other. Then he told his wife to put out his wedding clothes and to get into her own. When he was dressed, he went to his brother and told him to watch in front of the house and tell him if he heard any noise on either of the beaches, this one or the one in front of the Guérande salt marshes. When he thought that his wife was dressed, he went home again, loaded a gun, and put it out of sight in the corner of the fireplace. Jacques came at last; it was late; he had been drinking and playing billiards till ten o'clock; he had come home by the point of Carnouf. His uncle heard him hailing, crossed to the beach in front of the marsh to fetch him, and rowed him to the island without a word. When he went into the house, his father said to him:
"'Sit down there,' pointing to the stool. 'You are before your father and mother, whom you have outraged, and who have got to try you.'
"Jacques began to bellow, because Cambremer's face was working in a strange way. The mother sat as stiff as an oar.
"'If you call out, if you move, if you don't sit on your stool as straight as a mast, I'll shoot you like a dog,' said Pierre, pointing his gun at him.
"The son was dumb as a fish; the mother didn't say anything.
"'Here,' said Pierre to his son, 'is a paper that was wrapped round a Spanish gold-piece; the gold-piece was in your mother's bed; nobody else knew where she had put it; I found the paper on the water as I was coming ashore; you gave this Spanish gold-piece to Mother Fleurant to-night, and your mother can't find hers in her bed. Explain yourself!'
"Jacques said that he didn't take the money from his mother, and that he had had the coin ever since he went to Nantes.
"'So much the better,' said Pierre. 'How can you prove it?'
"'I had it before.'
"'You didn't take your mother's?'
"'No.'
"'Will you swear it by your everlasting life?'
"He was going to swear; his mother looked up at him and said:
"'Jacques, my child, be careful; don't swear, if it isn't true. You may mend your ways and repent; there's time enough still.'
"And she began to cry.
"'You're neither one thing nor the other,' he said, 'and you've always wanted to ruin me.'
"Cambremer turned pale, and said:
"'What you just said to your mother will lengthen your account. Come to the point! Will you swear?'
"'Yes.'
"'See,' said Pierre, 'did your piece have this cross which the sardine-dealer who paid it to me had made on ours?'
"Jacques sobered off, and began to cry.
"'Enough talk,' said Pierre. 'I don't say anything about what you've done before this. I don't propose that a Cambremer shall be put to death on the public square at Le Croisic. Say your prayers, and make haste! A priest is coming to confess you.'
"The mother went out, so that she needn't hear her son's sentence. When she had left the room, Cambremer the uncle arrived with the rector of Piriac; but Jacques wouldn't say anything to him. He was sly; he knew his father well enough to be sure that he wouldn't kill him without confession.
"'Thank you, monsieur; excuse us,' said Cambremer to the priest, when he saw that Jacques was obstinate. 'I meant to give my son a lesson, and I ask you not to say anything about it.—If you don't mend your ways,' he said to Jacques, 'the next time will be the last, and I'll put an end to it without confession.'
"He sent him off to bed. The boy believed what he had heard and imagined that he could arrange matters with his father. He went to sleep. The father sat up. When he saw that his son was sound asleep, he stuffed his mouth with hemp and tied a strip of canvas over it very tight; then he bound his hands and feet. Jacques stormed and wept blood, so Cambremer told the judge. What could you expect! The mother threw herself at the father's feet.
"'He has been tried,' he said; 'you must help me put him in the boat.'
"She refused. Cambremer took him to the boat all alone, laid him in the bottom, tied a stone round his neck, and rowed abreast of the rock where he is now. Then the poor mother, who had got her brother-in-law to bring her over here, cried: 'Mercy!' All in vain; it had the effect of a stone thrown at a wolf. The moon was shining; she saw the father throw their son into the water, the son to whom her heart still clung; and as there wasn't any wind, she heard a splash, then nothing more, not a sound or a bubble; the sea's a famous keeper, I tell you! When he came ashore here to quiet his wife, who was groaning, Cambremer found her about the same as dead. The two brothers couldn't carry her, so they had to put her in the boat that had just held the son, and they took her home, going round through Le Croisic passage. Ah! La Belle Brouin, as they called her, didn't last a week. She died asking her husband to burn the accursed boat. He did it, too. As for him, he was like a crazy man; he didn't know what he wanted, and he staggered when he walked, like a man who can't carry his wine. Then he went off for ten days, and when he came back he planted himself where you saw him, and since he's been there he hasn't said a word."
The fisherman took only a moment or two in telling us this story, and he told it even more simply than I have written it. The common people make few comments when they tell a story; they select the point that has made an impression on them, and interpret it as they feel it. That narrative was as sharp and incisive as a blow with an axe.
"I shall not go to Batz," said Pauline, as we reached the upper end of the lake.
We returned to Le Croisic by way of the salt marshes, guided through their labyrinth by a fisherman who had become as silent as we. The current of our thoughts had changed. We were both absorbed by depressing reflections, saddened by that drama which explained the swift presentiment that we had felt at the sight of Cambremer. We both had sufficient knowledge of the world to divine all that our guide had not told us of that triple life. The misfortunes of those three people were reproduced before us as if we had seen them in the successive scenes of a drama, to which that father, by thus expiating his necessary crime, had added the dénouement. We dared not look back at that fatal man who terrified a whole province.
A few clouds darkened the sky; vapours were rising along the horizon. We were walking through the most distressingly desolate tract of land that I have ever seen; the very soil beneath our feet seemed sickly and suffering—salt marshes, which may justly be termed the scrofula of the earth. There the ground is divided into parcels of unequal size, all enclosed by enormous heaps of gray earth, and filled with brackish water, to the surface of which the salt rises. These ravines, made by the hand of man, are subdivided by causeways along which workmen walk, armed with long rakes, with which they skim off the brine, and carry the salt to round platforms built here and there, when it is in condition to pile. For two hours we skirted that dismal checker-board, where the salt is so abundant that it chokes the vegetation, and where we saw no other living beings than an occasional paludier—the name given to the men who gather the salt. These men, or rather this tribe of Bretons, wear a special costume: a white jacket not unlike that worn by brewers. They intermarry, and there has never been an instance of a girl of that tribe marrying anybody except a paludier. The ghastly aspect of those swamps, where the surface of the mire is neatly raked, and of that grayish soil, which the Breton flora holds in horror, harmonised with the mourning of our hearts. When we reached the place where we were to cross the arm of the sea which is formed by the eruption of the water into that basin, and which serves doubtless to supply the salt marshes with their staple, we rejoiced to see the meagre vegetation scattered along the sandy shore. As we crossed, we saw, in the centre of the lake, the islet where the Cambremers lived; we looked the other way.
When we reached our hotel, we noticed a billiard-table in a room on the ground floor; and, when we learned that it was the only public billiard-table in Le Croisic, we prepared for our departure that night. The next day we were at Guérande. Pauline was still depressed, and I could already feel the coming of the flame that is consuming my brain. I was so cruelly tormented by my visions of those three lives that she said to me:
"Write the story, Louis; in that way you will change the nature of this fever."
So I have written it down for you, my dear uncle; but it has already destroyed the tranquillity that I owed to the sea-baths and to our visit here.
1835.
An Episode under the Terror
To MONSIEUR GUYONNET-MERVILLE:
Would it not be well for me, my dear former master, to explain to those people who are curious to know everything, where I was able to learn enough of legal procedure to manage the business of my little circle, and at the same time to consecrate here the memory of the amiable and intellectual man who said to Scribe, another amateur lawyer, on meeting him at a ball: "Go to the office—I promise you that there is work enough there"? But do you need this public testimony in order to be assured of the author's affection? DE BALZAC.
On the twenty-second of January, 1793, about eight o'clock in the evening, an old lady was descending the steep hill which ends in front of the church of St.-Laurent, on Faubourg St.-Martin, Paris. It had snowed so hard all day that footfalls could scarcely be heard. The streets were deserted; the not unnatural dread inspired by the silence was intensified by the terror under which France was then groaning; so that the old lady had not as yet met anybody; her sight, which had long been poor, made it impossible for her to see, in the distance, by the dim light of the street-lanterns, the few people who were scattered about like ghosts in the broad highway of the faubourg. She went her way courageously, alone, through that solitude, as if her age were a talisman certain to preserve her from all evil.
When she had passed Rue des Morts, she fancied that she could distinguish the firm and heavy step of a man walking behind her. It seemed to her that it was not the first time that she had heard that sound; she was terrified at the thought that she had been followed, and she tried to walk even faster, in order to reach a brightly lighted shop, hoping to be able to set at rest in the light the suspicions which had seized her. As soon as she had stepped beyond the horizontal rays of light that shone from the shop, she suddenly turned her head and caught sight of a human figure in the fog; that indistinct glimpse was enough for her; she staggered for an instant under the weight of the fear which oppressed her, for she no longer doubted that she had been attended by the stranger from the first step that she had taken outside of her home; and the frantic longing to escape a spy gave her additional strength. Incapable of reasoning, she quickened her pace, as if she could possibly elude a man who was surely more active than she. After running for some minutes, she reached a pastry-cook's shop, rushed in, and fell rather than sat down upon a chair in front of the counter.
The instant that she rattled the latch of the door, a young woman, who was engaged in embroidering, raised her eyes, recognised through the glass door the old-fashioned mantle of violet silk in which the old lady was wrapped, and hastily opened a drawer, as if to take out something which she intended to give her. Not only did the young woman's movement and expression denote a wish to be rid of the stranger at once, as if she were one of those people whom one is not glad to see, but she also uttered an impatient exclamation when she found the drawer empty; then, without glancing at the lady, she rushed from behind the counter, towards the back-shop, and called her husband, who appeared instantly.
"Where have you put —— ——?" she asked him with a mysterious expression, indicating the old lady by a glance, and not finishing her sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see only the enormous black silk bonnet, surrounded by violet ribbons, which the stranger wore upon her head, he disappeared, after a glance at his wife, which seemed to say: "Do you suppose that I am going to leave that on your counter?"
Amazed by the old lady's silence and immobility, the trades-woman walked towards her, and as she examined her she was conscious of a feeling of compassion, and perhaps of curiosity as well. Although the stranger's complexion was naturally sallow, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy to see that some recent emotion had made her even paler than usual. Her bonnet was so arranged as to conceal her hair, which was presumably whitened by age, for the neatness of the collar of her dress indicated that she did not wear powder. That lack of adornment imparted to her face a sort of religious asceticism. Her features were serious and dignified. In the old days the manners and customs of people of quality were so different from those of people belonging to the lower classes, that one could easily distinguish a person of noble birth. So that the young woman was convinced that the stranger was a ci-devant, and that she had belonged to the court.
"Madame," she said involuntarily and with respect, forgetting that that title was proscribed.
The old lady did not reply. She kept her eyes fastened upon the shop-window, as if some terrifying object were there apparent.
"What's the matter with you, citizeness?" asked the proprietor, who reappeared at that moment.
The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her revery by handing her a little paste-board box covered with blue paper.
"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she replied in a mild voice.
She looked up at the pastry-cook as if to bestow a grateful glance upon him; but when she saw a red cap on his head she uttered an exclamation:
"Ah! you have betrayed me!"
The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture of horror which made the stranger blush, perhaps for having suspected them, perhaps with pleasure.
"Excuse me," she said with childlike gentleness.
Then, taking a louis d'or from her pocket, she handed it to the pastry-cook.
"This is the price agreed upon," she added.
There is a sort of poverty which the poor are quick to divine. The pastry-cook and his wife looked at each other and then at the old lady, exchanging the same thought. That louis d'or was evidently the last. The lady's hands trembled as she held out that coin, at which she gazed sorrowfully but without avarice; but she seemed to realise the full extent of the sacrifice. Fasting and poverty were written upon that face, in lines as legible as those of fear and ascetic habits. There were vestiges of past splendour in her clothes: they were worn silk; a neat though old-fashioned cloak, and lace carefully mended—in a word, the rags and tatters of opulence. The trades-people, wavering between pity and self-interest, began by relieving their consciences in words:
"But, citizeness, you seem very weak——"
"Would madame like something to refresh herself?" asked the woman, cutting her husband short.
"We have some very good soup," added the pastry-cook.
"It's so cold! perhaps madame was chilled by her walk? But you can rest here and warm yourself a little."
"The devil is not as black as he is painted," cried the pastry-cook.
Won by the kind tone of the charitable shopkeeper's words, the lady admitted that she had been followed by a stranger, and that she was afraid to return home alone.
"Is that all?" replied the man with the red cap. "Wait for me, citizeness."
He gave the louis to his wife; then, impelled by that species of gratitude which finds its way into the heart of a tradesman when he receives an extravagant price for goods of moderate value, he went to don his National guardsman's uniform, took his hat, thrust his sabre into his belt, and reappeared under arms. But his wife had had time to reflect; and, as in many other hearts, reflection closed the open hand of kindliness. Perturbed in mind, and fearing that her husband might become involved in some dangerous affair, the pastry-cook's wife tried to stop him by pulling the skirt of his coat; but, obeying a charitable impulse, the good man at once offered to escort the old lady.
"It seems that the man who frightened the citizeness is still prowling about the shop," said the young woman, nervously.
"I am afraid so," the lady artlessly replied.
"Suppose he should be a spy? Suppose it was a conspiracy? Don't go with her, and take back the box."
These words, whispered in the pastry-cook's ear by his wife, congealed the impromptu courage which had moved him.
"I'll just go out and say two words to him, and rid you of him in short order!" cried the man, opening the door and rushing out.
The old lady, passive as a child and almost dazed, resumed her seat. The worthy tradesman soon reappeared; his face, which was naturally red, and moreover was flushed by the heat of his ovens, had suddenly become livid; he was so terribly frightened that his legs trembled and his eyes resembled a drunken man's.
"Do you mean to have our heads cut off, you miserable aristocrat?" he cried angrily. "Just let us see your heels; don't ever show your face here again, and don't count on me to supply you with materials for a conspiracy!"
As he spoke, the pastry-cook tried to take from the old lady the small box, which she had put in one of her pockets. But no sooner did the man's insolent hands touch her clothing, than the stranger, preferring to brave the dangers of the street with no other defender than God, rather than to lose what she had purchased, recovered the agility of her youth; she rushed to the door, opened it abruptly, and vanished from the eyes of the dazed and trembling woman and her husband.
As soon as the stranger was out of doors, she walked rapidly away; but her strength failed her, for she heard the snow creak beneath the heavy step of the spy, by whom she was pitilessly followed. She was obliged to stop, and he stopped; she dared neither speak to him nor look at him, whether as a result of the fear which gripped her heart, or from lack of intelligence. She continued her way, walking slowly; thereupon the man slackened his pace, so as to remain at a distance, which enabled him to keep his eye upon her. He seemed to be the very shadow of the old woman. The clock was striking nine when the silent couple again passed the church of St.-Laurent. It is in the nature of all souls, even the weakest, that a feeling of tranquillity should succeed violent agitation; for, although our feelings are manifold, our bodily powers are limited. And so the stranger, meeting with no injury at the hands of her supposed persecutor, chose to discover in him a secret friend, zealous to protect her; she recalled all the circumstances which had attended the unknown's appearance, as if to find plausible arguments in favour of that comforting opinion; and she took pleasure in detecting good rather than evil intentions in his behaviour.
Forgetting the terror which that man had inspired in the pastry-cook, she walked with an assured step into the upper parts of Faubourg St.-Martin. After half an hour she reached a house near the junction of the main street of the faubourg and that which leads to the Barrière de Pantin. Even to-day, that spot is one of the most solitary in all Paris. The north wind, blowing over the Buttes Chaumont and from Belleville, whistled through the houses, or rather the hovels, scattered about in that almost uninhabited valley, where the dividing walls are built of earth and bones. That desolate spot seemed to be the natural refuge of poverty and despair. The man who had persisted in following the wretched creature who was bold enough to walk through those silent streets at night, seemed impressed by the spectacle presented to his eyes. He became thoughtful, and stood in evident hesitation, in the dim light of a lantern whose feeble rays barely pierced the mist.
Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fancied that she could detect something sinister in the stranger's features; her former terror reawoke, and, taking advantage of the uncertainty which had checked his advance, to glide in the darkness towards the door of the solitary house, she pressed a spring and disappeared with magical rapidity.
The stranger, motionless as a statue, gazed at that house, which was in some measure the type of the wretched dwellings of the faubourg. That unstable hovel, built of rough stones, was covered with a layer of yellow plaster, so cracked that it seemed in danger of falling before the slightest gust of wind. The roof, of dark brown tiles covered with moss, had sunk in several places so that it seemed likely to give way under the weight of the snow. On each floor there were three windows, the sashes of which, rotted by the dampness and shrunken by the heat of the sun, made it clear that the cold air must find an easy entrance into the rooms. That isolated house resembled an old tower which time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light shone through the irregular windows of the attic at the top of the tumble-down structure, while all the rest of the house was in absolute darkness. The old woman climbed, not without difficulty, the steep, rough staircase, which was supplied with a rope instead of a baluster; she knocked softly at the door of the apartment in the attic, and dropped hastily upon a chair which an old man offered her.
"Hide! hide yourself!" she said. "Although we go out very seldom, everything that we do is known; our footsteps are watched."
"What is there new, pray?" asked another old woman who was seated by the fire.
"The man who was prowling around the house last night followed me to-night."
At these words the three occupants of the attic looked at each other with indications of profound terror on their faces. The old man was the least moved of the three, perhaps because he was in the greatest danger. Under the weight of a great calamity, or under the yoke of persecution, a courageous man begins, so to speak, by preparing to sacrifice himself; he looks upon his days simply as so many victories over destiny. The eyes of the two women, fastened upon this old man, made it easy to divine that he was the sole object of their intense anxiety.
"Why despair of God, my sisters?" he said in a low but powerful voice. "We sang His praises amid the cries of the assassins and the shrieks of the dying at the Carmelite convent. If He decreed that I should be saved from that butchery, it was doubtless because He reserved me for another destiny, which I must accept without a murmur. God protects His people, He may dispose of them at His pleasure. It is of you, not of me, we must think."
"No," said one of the old women; "what are our lives compared with that of a priest?"
"When once I found myself outside of the Abbey of Chelles, I looked upon myself as dead," said that one of the two women who had not gone out.
"Here," replied the other, handing the priest the little box, "here are the wafers.—But," she cried, "I hear some one coming up the stairs."
Thereupon all three listened intently. The noise ceased.
"Do not be alarmed," said the priest, "if some one should try to enter. A person upon whose fidelity we can rely has undoubtedly taken all necessary measures to cross the frontier, and will come here to get the letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and to the Marquis de Beauséant, asking them to consider the means of rescuing you from this terrible country, from the death or destitution which awaits you here."
"Then you do not mean to go with us?" cried the two nuns gently, with manifestations of despair.
"My place is where there are victims," said the priest simply.
They held their peace and gazed at their companion with devout admiration.
"Sister Martha," he said, addressing the nun who had gone to buy the wafers, "the messenger I speak of will reply 'Fiat voluntas' to the word 'Hosanna.'"
"There is some one on the stairs!" cried the other nun, opening the door of a hiding-place under the lower part of the roof.
This time they could plainly hear, amid the profound silence, the footsteps of a man upon the stairs, which were covered with ridges of hardened mud. The priest crept with difficulty into a sort of cupboard, and the nuns threw over him a few pieces of apparel.
"You may close the door, Sister Agatha," he said in a muffled voice.
The priest was hardly hidden when three taps on the door caused a shock to the two holy women, who consulted each other with their eyes, afraid to utter a single word. Each of them seemed to be about sixty years old. Secluded from the world for forty years, they were like plants habituated to the air of a hot-house, which wilt if they are taken from it. Accustomed to the life of a convent, they were unable to imagine any other life. One morning, their gratings having been shattered, they shuddered to find themselves free. One can readily imagine the species of imbecility which the events of the Revolution had produced in their innocent minds. Incapable of reconciling their conventual ideas with the difficult problems of life, and not even understanding their situation, they resembled children who had been zealously cared for hitherto, and who, deserted by their motherly protector, prayed instead of weeping. And so, in face of the danger which they apprehended at that moment, they remained mute and passive, having no conception of any other defence than Christian resignation.
The man who desired to enter interpreted that silence to suit himself; he opened the door and appeared abruptly before them. The two nuns shuddered as they recognised the man who had been prowling about their house, making inquiries about them, for some time. They did not move, but gazed at him with anxious curiosity, after the manner of the children of savage tribes, who examine strangers in silence. He was tall and stout; but there was nothing in his manner, or appearance, to indicate an evil-minded man. He imitated the immobility of the nuns, and moved his eyes slowly about the room in which he stood.
Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served the two nuns as beds. There was a single table in the centre of the room, and upon it a copper candlestick, a few plates, three knives, and a round loaf. The fire on the hearth was very low, and a few sticks of wood piled in a corner testified to the poverty of the two occupants. The walls, covered with an ancient layer of paint, demonstrated the wretched condition of the roof, for stains like brown threads marked the intrusion of the rain-water. A relic, rescued doubtless during the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles, adorned the mantel. Three chairs, two chests, and a wretched commode completed the furniture of the room. A door beside the chimney indicated the existence of an inner chamber.
The inventory of the cell was speedily made by the person who had thrust himself into the bosom of that group under such alarming auspices. A sentiment of compassion was expressed upon his face, and he cast a kindly glance upon the two women, but seemed at least as embarrassed as they. The strange silence preserved by all three lasted but a short time, for the stranger at last divined the mental weakness and the inexperience of the two poor creatures, and he said to them in a voice which he tried to soften: "I do not come here as an enemy, citizenesses."
He paused, and then resumed: "My sisters, if any misfortune should happen to you, be sure that I have had no part in it. I have a favour to ask of you."
They still remained silent.
"If I annoy you, if I embarrass you, tell me so frankly, and I will go; but understand that I am entirely devoted to you; that if there is any service that I can do you, you may employ me without fear; that I alone perhaps am above the law, as there is no longer a king."
There was such a ring of truth in these words that Sister Agatha, the one of the two nuns who belonged to the family of Langeais, and whose manners seemed to indicate that she had formerly been familiar with magnificent festivities and had breathed the air of courts, instantly pointed to one of the chairs, as if to request their guest to be seated. The stranger manifested a sort of mixture of pleasure and melancholy when he saw that gesture; and he waited until the two venerable women were seated, before seating himself.
"You have given shelter," he continued, "to a venerable unsworn priest, who miraculously escaped the massacre at the Carmelite convent."
"Hosanna!" said Sister Agatha, interrupting the stranger, and gazing at him with anxious interest.
"I don't think that that is his name," he replied.
"But, monsieur," said Sister Martha hastily, "we haven't any priest here, and——"
"In that case you must be more careful and more prudent," retorted the stranger gently, reaching to the table and taking up a breviary. "I do not believe that you know Latin, and——"
He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the faces of the unhappy nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears.
"Do not be alarmed," he said to them cheerily; "I know the name of your guest and your names; and three days ago I was informed of your destitution and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of ——"
"Hush!" said Sister Agatha innocently, putting her finger to her lips.
"You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the detestable plan of betraying you, I might already have done it more than once."
When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and appeared in the middle of the room.
"I cannot believe, monsieur," he said to the stranger, "that you are one of our persecutors, and I trust you. What do you want with me?"
The priest's saintlike confidence, the nobility of soul that shone in all his features, would have disarmed an assassin. The mysterious personage who had enlivened that scene of destitution and resignation gazed for a moment at the group formed by those three; then he assumed a confidential tone, and addressed the priest in these words:
"Father, I have come to implore you to celebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of the soul of a—a consecrated person, whose body, however, will never lie in holy ground."
The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as yet to whom the stranger referred, stood with necks outstretched, and faces turned towards the two men, in an attitude of intense curiosity. The priest scrutinised the stranger; unfeigned anxiety was depicted upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent entreaty.
"Very well," replied the priest; "to-night, at midnight, return here, and I shall be ready to celebrate the only funeral service which we can offer in expiation of the crime to which you refer."
The stranger started; but a feeling of satisfaction, at once grateful and solemn, seemed to triumph over some secret grief. Having respectfully saluted the priest and the two holy women, he disappeared, manifesting a sort of mute gratitude which was understood by those three noble hearts. About two hours after this scene the stranger returned, knocked softly at the attic door, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de Beauséant, who escorted him into the second room of that humble lodging, where everything had been prepared for the ceremony.
Between two flues of the chimney, the nuns had placed the old commode, whose antiquated shape was covered by a magnificent altar-cloth of green silk. A large crucifix of ebony and ivory, fastened upon the discoloured wall, heightened the effect of its bareness and inevitably attracted the eye. Four slender little tapers, which the sisters had succeeded in standing upon that improvised altar by fixing them in sealing-wax, cast a pale light, which the wall reflected dimly. That faint gleam barely lighted the rest of the room; but, in that it confined its illumination to the consecrated objects, it resembled a ray of light from heaven upon that undecorated altar. The floor was damp. The attic roof, which sloped sharply on both sides, had various cracks through which a biting wind blew. Nothing less stately could be imagined, and yet perhaps there could be nothing more solemn than this lugubrious ceremony.