The Mordant by Merab Eberle - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78282/pg78282-images.html

 

One evening in November, the Eve of Saint Catherine, the iron gate of the Central Prison of Auberive turned on its hinges and allowed a woman of about thirty years to pass out. She was clad in a faded woollen gown, and her head was surmounted by a bonnet of linen that in an odd fashion framed her face—pallid and puffed by that grayish fat which is born of prison fare. She was a prisoner whom they had just liberated. Her fellow-convicts called her La Bretonne. Condemned for infanticide, it was just six years since the prison van had brought her to la Centrale. At length, after having donned again her street clothes, and drawing from the registry the stock of money which had been saved for her, she found herself once more free, with her road-pass viséed for Langres. The post-cart for Langres had left; so, cowed and awkward, she directed her way stumblingly toward the principal inn of the place, and in scarcely a confident voice asked a lodging for the night. The inn was full, and the landlady, who did not care to harbor “one of those jail-birds,” advised her to push on as far as the little public-house situated at the other end of the village. La Bretonne, more awkward and frightened than ever, went on her way, and knocked at the door of the public-house, which, to speak precisely, was only a drinking place for laborers. This proprietress also cast over her a distrustful eye, doubtless scenting a woman from la Centrale, and finally turned her away on the pretense that she did not keep lodgers. La Bretonne dared not insist, she merely moved away with her head down, while from the depths of her soul arose a sullen hate against this world which so repulsed her. She had no other recourse than to travel to Langres on foot. In late November night comes quickly. Soon she found herself enveloped in darkness, on the gray road which stretched between the edges of the woods, and where the north wind whistled rudely as it drove the heaps of dead leaves hither and yon. After six years of sedentary life as a recluse, she no longer knew how to walk; and the joints of her knees were rickety; her feet, accustomed to sabots, were tortured in her new shoes. After about a league they were blistered, and she herself was exhausted. She sat down on a milestone, shivering and asking herself if she must die of cold and hunger in this black night, under that icy wind which so chilled her. Suddenly, in the solitude of the road, over the squalls of wind she seemed to hear the trailing sounds of a voice in song. She strained her ears and distinguished the cadence of one of those caressing and monotonous chants with which one lulls children to sleep. Thereupon, rising again to her feet, she pressed on in the direction of the voice, and at the turn of a cross-road she saw a light which reddened through the branches. Five minutes later she reached a mud hovel, whose roof, covered with clods of earth, leaned against the rock, and whose single window had sent forth that luminous ray. With anxious heart she decided to knock. The song ceased and a peasant opened the door—a woman of the same age as la Bretonne, but already faded and aged by work. Her bodice, torn in places, showed a rough and swarthy skin; her red hair escaped dishevelled from under a little cloth cap; her gray eyes regarded with amazement this stranger whose figure revealed something of loneliness. “Well, good evening,” said she, raising higher the lamp which she held in her hand. “What do you want?” “I can go no further,” murmured la Bretonne in a voice broken by a sob. “The town is far, and if you will lodge me for this night, you’ll render me a service. I have some money, and will pay you for your trouble.” “Come in!” replied the other, after a moment of hesitation; then she continued in a tone more of curiosity than of suspicion, “Why didn’t you sleep at Auberive?” “They were not willing to lodge me”—and, lowering her blue eyes, la Bretonne, seized with a scruple, added—“because, you see, I come from the Central Prison, and that does not give folks confidence.” “Ah! Come in all the same. I, who never knew anything but poverty—I fear nothing! I have a conscience against turning a Christian from the door on a night like this. I’ll go make you a bed by strewing some heather.” She proceeded to take from under a shed several bundles of dry sweet-heather and spread them in a corner before the chimney. “You live here alone?” timidly asked la Bretonne. “Yes, with my youngster, who is nearly seven years old. I earn our living by working in the woods.” “Your man is dead?” “I never had one,” said la Fleuriotte bruskly. “The poor child hasn’t any father. As the saying is, ‘to each his sorrow.’ There, your bed is made, and here are two or three potatoes which are left over from supper—it’s all I have to offer you.” She was interrupted by a childish voice coming from a dark closet, separated from the main room by a board partition. “Good night!” she repeated. “I must go look up the little one—she’s crying. Have a good night’s sleep!” She took the lamp and went to the adjacent closet, leaving la Bretonne in darkness. Soon she was stretched upon her bed of heather. After having eaten, she tried to close her eyes, but sleep would not come. Through the partition she heard la Fleuriotte talking softly with her baby, whom the arrival of the stranger had awakened, and who did not wish to go to sleep again. La Fleuriotte petted her, she embraced her with caressing words—naïve expressions which strangely stirred la Bretonne. The outburst of tenderness awakened a confused instinct of motherhood buried deep in the soul of that girl who had once been condemned for having stifled her new-born babe. La Bretonne reflected that “if things had not gone badly” with her, her own child would have been just as old as this little girl. At that thought, and at the sound of the childish voice, she shuddered in her inmost soul; something tender and loving was born in that embittered heart, and she felt an overwhelming need for tears. “Come, my pet,” said la Fleuriotte, “hurry off to sleep. If you are good, I’ll take you to-morrow to the fête of Saint Catherine.” “Saint Catherine’s—that’s the fête for little girls, isn’t it, Mamma?” “Yes, my own.” “Is it true, then, that on this day Saint Catherine gives playthings to the children?” “Yes—sometimes.” “Why doesn’t she ever bring anything to our house?” “We live too far away; and, besides, we are too poor.” “Then, she brings them only to rich children! Why? I—I’d love to have some playthings.” “Ah, well! Some day—if you are quite good—if you go to sleep nicely—perhaps she will bring you some.” “All right—I’m going to sleep—so that she’ll bring me some to-morrow.” Silence. Then regular and gentle breathing. The child had fallen asleep, and the mother too. Only la Bretonne did not sleep. An emotion both poignant and tender wrung her heart, and she thought more fixedly than ever of that little one whom long ago she had stifled. This lasted until the first gleams of dawn. At early daylight la Fleuriotte and her child still slept. La Bretonne furtively glided out of the house, and, walking hastily in the direction of Auberive, did not pause until she reached the first houses. Once there, she again passed slowly up the single street, scanning the signs of the shops. At last one of these seemed to fix her attention. She rapped upon the window-shutter, and by and by it was opened. It was a dry-goods shop, but they also had some children’s playthings—poor shopworn toys—paper dolls, a Noah’s ark, a sheep-fold. To the great amazement of the shopkeeper, la Bretonne bought them all, paid, and went out. She was again on the road to la Fleuriotte’s hovel when a hand was laid heavily on her shoulder. Tremblingly she turned and found herself facing a corporal of gensdarmes. The unhappy woman had forgotten that convicts were not permitted after their release to remain in the neighborhood of the prison! “Instead of loafing here, you should be already at Langres,” said the corporal severely. “Go along—on your way!” She sought to explain—her pains were lost! In the twinkling of an eye a cart was requisitioned, she was put in under the escort of a gendarme, and the driver whipped up his horse. The cart rumbled joltingly over the frozen road. Poor la Bretonne heart-brokenly clutched the package of playthings in her chilled fingers. At a turn of the highway she recognized the cross-path through the woods. Her heart leaped, and she pleaded with the gendarme to stop—she had an errand for la Fleuriotte, a woman who lived there, only a couple of steps away. She pleaded with so much earnestness that the gendarme, a good fellow at heart, allowed himself to be persuaded. They tied the horse to the tree and went up the path. In front of her door la Fleuriotte was chopping up wood into faggots. Upon seeing her visitor back again, accompanied by a gendarme, she stood open-mouthed, her arms hanging. “Chut!” said la Bretonne, “is the little one still asleep?” “Yes, but——” “Lay these playthings gently on her bed, and tell her that Saint Catherine sent them. I went back to Auberive to hunt for them, but it seems that I hadn’t the right to do so, and they are sending me to Langres.” “Holy Mother of God!” cried la Fleuriotte. “Pshaw!” She drew near the bed. Followed always by her guard, la Bretonne spread over the coverlet the dolls, the ark, and the flock of sheep. Then she kissed the bare arm of the sleeping child, and, turning toward the gendarme, who stood staring: “Now,” said she, “we can go on.”

MILLENNIUM BY EVERETT B. COLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24779/pg24779-images.html

 

There are devices a high-level culture could produce that simply don't belong in the hands of incompetents of lower cultural evolution. The finest, and most civilized of tools can be made a menace ...

In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villages doing feats of strength and skill. On market days he would spread out on the public square an old carpet very much worn, and, after having attracted the children and the gazing bumpkins by some suitable pleasantries which he had adopted from an old juggler and which he never changed at all, he would assume grotesque attitudes and balance a plate on his nose. The crowd at first looked at him with indifference. But when, standing on his hands with his head downward, he tossed in the air six copper balls which glittered in the sun, and caught them again with his feet; or when, by bending backward until his neck touched his heels, he gave his body the form of a perfect wheel, and in that posture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of admiration rose from the onlookers, and pieces of money rained upon the carpet. However, like the majority of those who live by their talents, Barnabas of Compiègne had much difficulty in living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore more than his part of the miseries connected with the fall of Adam, our father. Moreover, he was unable to work as much as he would have wished. In order to show off his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmth of the sun and the light of day, just as do the trees in order to produce their blossoms and fruits. In winter he was nothing more than a tree despoiled of its foliage and to appearance dead. The frozen earth was hard for the juggler. And, like the grasshopper of which Marie of France tells, he suffered from cold and from hunger in the bad season. But, since he possessed a simple heart, he bore his ills in patience. He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor upon the inequality of human conditions. He believed firmly that, if this world is evil, the other cannot fail to be good, and this hope sustained him. He did not imitate the thieving mountebanks and miscreants who have sold their souls to the devil. He never blasphemed the name of God; he lived honestly, and, although he had no wife, he did not covet his neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy of strong men, as appears from the history of Samson, which is reported in the Scriptures. In truth, he had not a spirit which turned to carnal desires, and it would have cost him more to renounce the jugs than the women. For, although without failing in sobriety, he loved to drink when it was warm. He was a good man, fearing God and very devout toward the Holy Virgin. He never failed, when he entered a church, to kneel before the image of the Mother of God and address to her this prayer: “Madame, take care of my life until it may please God that I die, and when I am dead, cause me to have the joys of paradise.” II. Well, then, on a certain evening after a day of rain, while he was walking, sad and bent, carrying under his arm his balls and knives wrapped up in his old carpet, and seeking for some barn in which he might lie down supperless, he saw on the road a monk who was travelling the same way, and saluted him decorously. As they were walking at an equal pace, they began to exchange remarks. “Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes it that you are habited all in green? Is it not for the purpose of taking the character of a fool in some mystery-play?” “Not for that purpose, father,” responded Barnabas. “Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas, and I am by calling a juggler. It would be the most beautiful occupation in the world if one could eat every day.” “Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “take care what you say. There is no more beautiful calling than the monastic state. Therein one celebrates the praises of God, the Virgin, and the saints, and the life of a monk is a perpetual canticle to the Lord.” Barnabas answered: “Father, I confess that I have spoken like an ignoramus. Your calling may not be compared with mine, and, although there is some merit in dancing while holding on the tip of the nose a coin balanced on a stick, this merit does not approach yours. I should like very well to sing every day, as you do, Father, the office of the most Holy Virgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion. I would right willingly renounce my calling, in which I am known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred towns and villages, in order to embrace the monastic life.” The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler, and, as he did not lack discernment, he recognized in Barnabas one of those men of good purpose whereof our Lord said: “Let peace abide with them on earth!” This is why he replied to him: “Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I will enable you to enter the monastery of which I am the prior. He who conducted Mary the Egyptian through the desert has placed me on your path to lead you in the way of salvation.” This is how Barnabas became a monk. In the monastery where he was received, the brethren emulously solemnized the cult of the Holy Virgin, and each one employed in her service all the knowledge and all the ability which God had given him. The prior, for his part, composed books which, according to the rules of scholasticism, treated of the virtues of the Mother of God. Friar Maurice with a learned hand copied these dissertations on leaves of vellum. Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures, wherein one could see the Queen of Heaven seated upon the throne of Solomon, at the foot of which four lions kept vigil. Around her haloed head fluttered seven doves, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety, science, might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. She had for companions six golden-haired Virgins: Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience. At her feet two small figures, nude and quite white, were standing in a suppliant attitude. They were souls who implored her all-powerful intercession for their salvation—and certainly not in vain. On another page Friar Alexander represented Eve gazing upon Mary, so that thus one might see at the same time the sin and the redemption, the woman humiliated and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore, in this book one might admire the Well of Living Waters, the Fountain, the Lily, the Moon, the Sun, and the closed Garden which is spoken of in the Canticle, the Gate of Heaven and the Seat of God, and there were also several images of the Virgin. Friar Marbode was, similarly, one of the most affectionate children of Mary. He carved images in stone without ceasing, so that his beard, his eyebrows, and his hair were white with dust, and his eyes were perpetually swollen and tearful; but he was full of strength and joy in his advanced age, and, visibly, the Queen of Paradise protected the old age of her child. Marbode represented her seated on a bishop’s throne, her brow encircled by a nimbus whose orb was of pearls, and he took pains that the folds of her robe should cover the feet of one of whom the prophet said: “My beloved is like a closed garden.” At times, also, he gave her the features of a child full of grace, and she seemed to say: “Lord, thou art my Lord!”—“Dixi de ventre matris meæ: Deus meus es tu.” (Psalm 21, 11.) They had also in the monastery several poets, who composed, in Latin, both prose and hymns in honor of the most happy Virgin Mary, and there was even found one Picardian who set forth the miracles of Our-Lady in ordinary language and in rhymed verses. III. Seeing such a concourse of praises and such a beautiful in-gathering of works, Barnabas lamented to himself his ignorance and his simplicity. “Alas!” he sighed as he walked along in the little garden of the convent, “I am very unfortunate not to be able, like my brothers, to praise worthily the Holy Mother of God to whom I have pledged the tenderness of my heart. Alas! Alas! I am a rude and artless man, and I have for your service, Madam the Virgin, neither edifying sermons, nor tracts properly divided according to the rules, nor fine paintings, nor statues exactly sculptured, nor verses counted by feet and marching in measure. I have nothing, alas!” He moaned in this manner and abandoned himself to sadness. One night that the monks were recreating by conversing, he heard one of them relate the history of a religious who did not know how to recite anything but the Ave Maria. This monk was disdained for his ignorance; but, having died, there came forth from his lips five roses in honor of the five letters in the name of Maria, and his sanctity was thus manifested. While listening to this recital Barnabas admired once again the bounty of the Virgin; but he was not consoled by the example of that happy death, for his heart was full of zeal, and he desired to serve the glory of his Lady who was in Heaven. He sought the means without being able to find them, and every day he grieved the more. One morning, however, having awakened full of joy, he ran to the chapel and stayed there alone for more than an hour. He returned there after dinner. And beginning from that moment he went every day into the chapel at the hour when it was deserted, and there he passed a large part of the time which the other monks consecrated to the liberal and the mechanical arts. No more was he sad and no longer did he complain. A conduct so singular aroused the curiosity of the monks. They asked themselves in the community why Friar Barnabas made his retreats so frequent. The Prior, whose duty it is to ignore nothing in the conduct of his monks, resolved to observe Barnabas during his solitudes. One day that he was closeted in the chapel as his custom was, Dom Prior went, accompanied by two elders of the monastery, to observe through the windows of the door what was going on in the interior. They saw Barnabas, who—before the altar of the Holy Virgin, head downward, feet in air—was juggling with six brass balls and twelve knives. He was doing in honor of the Holy Mother of God the feats which had brought to him the most applause. Not comprehending that this simple man was thus placing his talent and his knowledge at the service of the Holy Virgin, the two elders cried out at the sacrilege. The Prior understood that Barnabas had an innocent heart; but he thought that he had fallen into dementia. All three were preparing to drag him vigorously from the chapel when they saw the Holy Virgin descend the steps of the altar in order to wipe with a fold of her blue mantle the sweat which burst from the brow of her juggler. Then the Prior, prostrating his face against the marble slabs, recited these words: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!” “Amen,” responded the elders as they kissed the earth.

On the twenty-second of January, 1793, about eight o’clock in the evening, an old lady was walking down the steep hill that ends in front of the church of Saint Laurent, in the Faubourg Saint Martin in Paris. It had snowed so much throughout the day that foot-falls could scarcely be heard. The streets were deserted. The very natural dread inspired by the silence was augmented by all the terror which at that time caused France to groan; then, too, the old lady had not as yet met any one; her sight had long been feeble, so for this and for other reasons she could not discern by the lights of the lanterns the few distant passers-by, who were scattered like phantoms on the broad highway of the quarter. She went on courageously alone through that solitude, as though her age were a talisman which would preserve her from all evil. When she had passed the rue des Morts, she thought she could distinguish the heavy and resolute steps of a man walking behind her. She fancied that she had heard that sound before; she was frightened at having been followed, and tried to walk more rapidly in order to reach a brightly lighted shop, hoping to be able in the light to settle the suspicions that had seized her. As soon as she found herself within the direct rays of light which came from the shop, she quickly turned her head and glimpsed a human form in the haze; that indistinct vision sufficed. She faltered a moment under the weight of the terror which oppressed her, for she doubted no longer that she had been followed by the stranger from the first step that she had taken outside of her home, but the desire to escape from a spy lent her strength. Incapable of reasoning, she doubled her pace, as though she could escape from a man who was, necessarily, more agile than she. After running for several minutes she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, rushed in, and tumbled rather than sat down upon a chair in front of the counter. The moment she rattled the door-latch, a young woman who was occupied in embroidering raised her eyes, recognized through the glass partition the old-fashioned mantle of violet silk in which the old lady was enveloped, and hastened to open a drawer, as though to take out something which she intended to give her. Not only did the young woman’s movement and expression indicate a wish to be rid promptly of the unknown, as if she were one of those persons whom one is not glad to see, but she even allowed an expression of impatience to escape her upon finding that the drawer was empty; then, without looking at the lady, she rushed from the counter, turned toward the back shop, and called her husband, who appeared immediately. “Now, where did you put—,” she demanded of him, with a mysterious air, and designated the old lady by a turn of the eye, without finishing her sentence. Although the pastry-cook could see only the immense black silk bonnet, surrounded by knots of violet ribbons, which formed the head-dress of the unknown, he turned away, after having given his wife a look which seemed to say, “Did you suppose that I would leave that on your counter?” and quickly disappeared. Astounded by the old lady’s silence and immobility, the tradeswoman walked toward her, and as she examined her she was conscious of a feeling of compassion, and perhaps also of curiosity. Although the stranger’s complexion was naturally pallid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy to recognize that some recent emotion had given her an extraordinary pallor. Her head-dress was so disposed as to hide her hair—doubtless whitened by age, since the neatness of the collar of her dress proclaimed that she did not use hair-powder. That article of adornment lent to her figure a sort of religious severity. Her features were grave and dignified. Formerly the manners and the habitudes of people of quality were so different from those of people belonging to the other classes that one easily divined a person of the nobility. So the young woman was herself persuaded that the unknown was a member of the outlawed nobility, and that she had belonged to the court. “Madame—” she said to her, involuntarily, and with respect, forgetting that this title was proscribed. The old lady did not respond. She held her eyes fixed upon the window of the shop, as if some terrifying object had there been descried. “What is the matter, Citizeness?” asked the proprietor of the shop who reappeared at that moment. The citizen pastry-cook aroused the lady from her revery by handing to her a little pasteboard box, covered with blue paper. “Nothing, nothing, my friends,” she replied in a mild voice. She raised her eyes to the pastry-cook as though to cast upon him a glance of gratitude; but upon seeing him with a red bonnet upon his head, she allowed a cry to escape her: “Ah! you have betrayed me!” The young woman and her husband replied by a gesture of horror which caused the Unknown to blush—perhaps for having suspicion, perhaps from pleasure. “Excuse me,” she said, with a childlike gentleness. Then, taking a louis d’or from her pocket, she presented it to the pastry-cook. “Here is the price agreed upon,” she added. There is an indigence which the poor know how to divine. The pastry-cook and his wife looked at each other and watched the old lady, while they exchanged the same thought. That louis d’or seemed to be the last. The hands of the lady trembled in offering that piece, which she looked upon with sadness and without avarice, for she seemed to realize the full extent of the sacrifice. Fasting and misery were graven upon that face in lines quite as legible as those of fear and her habits of asceticism. There were in her garments some vestiges of magnificence: the silk was threadbare, the cloak neat though old-fashioned, the lace carefully mended—in short, the tatters of opulence! The tradespeople, placed between pity and self-interest, commenced to solace their consciences by words: “But Citizeness, you seem very feeble—” “Perhaps Madame would like to take some refreshment?” asked the woman, cutting the words of her husband short. “We are not so black as we are painted!” cried the pastry-cook. “It’s so cold! Madame was perhaps chilled by her walk? But you may rest here and warm yourself a little.” Won by the tone of benevolence which animated the words of the charitable shopkeepers, the lady avowed that she had been followed by a stranger, and that she was afraid to return home alone. “It is no more than that?” replied the man with the red hat. “Wait for me, Citizeness.” He gave the louis to his wife; then, moved by that species of restitution which glides into the conscience of a merchant when he has received an exorbitant price for merchandise of mediocre value, he went to put on his uniform of the National Guard, took his chapeau, thrust his sabre into his belt, and reappeared under arms; but his wife had had time to reflect. As in many other hearts, reflection closed the hand opened by beneficence. Disturbed, and fearing to see her husband in a bad affair, the pastry-cook’s wife essayed to stop him by tugging at the skirt of his coat. But, obedient to a sentiment of charity, the brave man offered to escort the old lady at once. “It seems that the man who frightened the Citizeness is still prowling about the shop,” said the young woman nervously. “I am afraid so,” artlessly replied the lady. “If he should be a spy! If it should be a conspiracy! Don’t go; and take back from her the box.” These words, breathed into the ear of the pastry-cook by his wife, froze the impromptu courage which had possessed him. “Eh’ I’ll just go out and say two words to him, and rid you of him quickly,” cried the pastry-cook, opening the door and rushing out. The old lady, passive as an infant, and almost dazed, reseated herself upon the chair. The honest merchant was not slow in reappearing; his face, naturally red, and still more flushed by the heat of his oven, had suddenly become livid; such a great fright agitated him that his legs trembled and his eyes looked like those of a drunken man. “Do you wish to have our heads cut off, miserable aristocrat?” he shrieked at her with fury. “Just show us your heels, never come back here again, and don’t count any more on me to furnish you the stuff for conspiracy.” As he ejaculated these words, the pastry-cook tried to take from the old lady the little box which she had put in one of her pockets. But scarcely had the bold hands of the pastry-cook touched her vestments than the Unknown, preferring to face the dangers of her way home without other defense than God, rather than to lose that which she had come to purchase, recovered the agility of her youth; she darted toward the door, opened it abruptly, and disappeared before the eyes of the stupefied and trembling woman and her husband. As soon as the Unknown found herself outside, she began walking rapidly; but her strength soon failed her, for she heard the spy by whom she was pitilessly followed make the snow craunch under the pressure of his heavy steps. She was obliged to stop—he stopped. She dared neither to speak to him nor to look at him, whether on account of the fear with which she was seized or from lack of intelligence. She continued her way, walking slowly; thereupon the man slackened his steps so as to remain standing at a distance which permitted him to keep his eye upon her. He seemed to be the very shadow of that old woman. Nine o’clock was striking when the silent couple repassed in front of the church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of all souls, even the most infirm, that a feeling of calm should succeed one of violent agitation, for if our feelings are infinite, our organs are limited. And so the Unknown, not experiencing any harm from her supposed persecutor, chose to see in him a secret friend, eager to protect her. She reconstructed all the circumstances which had accompanied the Stranger’s appearances, as if to find plausible arguments for that consoling opinion, and she then took pleasure in recognizing in him good rather than evil intentions. Forgetting the fright which that man had inspired in the pastry-cook, she advanced with a firm step into the higher regions of the Faubourg Saint-Martin. After a half-hour of walking, she reached a house situated near the junction formed by 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 deserted of all Paris. The north wind, passing over the Buttes Chaumont and from Bellville, whistles athwart the houses, or rather the hovels, scattered about in that almost uninhabited valley where the dividing lines are walls made of earth and bones. That desolate place seemed to be the natural asylum of misery and despair. The man who had persisted in the pursuit of the poor creature who had the hardihood to traverse those silent streets at night seemed impressed by the spectacle presented to his eyes. He rested pensively, standing and in an attitude of hesitation, in the feeble light of a lantern whose uncertain rays with difficulty pierced the mist. Fear gave eyes to the old woman, who fancied that she could perceive something sinister in the features of the Stranger. She felt her terrors reawake, and profited by the sort of uncertainty which had retarded the man’s advance to glide in the darkness toward the door of the lonely house. She pressed a spring, and disappeared like a ghost. The Stranger, immobile, contemplated that house, which stood in some sort as the type of the miserable habitations of the quarter. That rickety hovel, built of rubble, was covered by a coat of yellow plaster, so deeply cracked that one thought to see it tumble before the least effort of the wind. The roof, of brown tiles and covered with moss, had so sunk in several places as to make it seem likely to give way under the weight of the snow. Each floor there had three windows, whose sashes, rotted by dampness and disjointed by the action of the sun, announced that the cold must penetrate into the room. That isolated house resembled an old tower which time had forgotten to destroy. A feeble light shone through the windows which irregularly cleft the mansard roof by which the poor edifice was crowned, while all the rest of the house was in complete obscurity. The old woman climbed, not without difficulty, the steep and rough staircase, whose length was supplied with a rope in the guise of a baluster. She knocked mysteriously at the door of the apartment which she found in the attic, and dropped hastily upon a chair which an old man offered her. “Hide! hide yourself!” she said to him. “Although we go out very rarely, our movements are known, our footsteps are spied upon.” “What is there new in that?” demanded another old lady, seated beside the fire. “The man who has been prowling around the house since yesterday followed me to-night.” At these words the three occupants of the attic regarded one another, allowing signs of profound terror to appear on their faces. The old man was the least agitated 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 say, by making the sacrifice of himself; he looks upon his days as just so many victories won back from destiny. The looks of the two women, fastened upon this old man, made it easy to divine that he was the sole object of their intense solicitude. “Why despair of God, my sisters?” said he in a voice low but impressive. “We sang His praises amid the cries which the assassins raised, and the groans of the dying at the Carmelite convent. If He decreed that I should be saved from that butchery, it was doubtless in order to reserve me for a destiny which I must accept without murmuring. God protects his own, He may dispose of them at His pleasure. It is of you, and not of me, that we must think.” “No,” said one of the old ladies; “what are our lives in comparison with that of a priest?” “When once I found myself outside of the Abbey of Chelles, I considered myself as dead,” said that one of the two nuns who had not gone out. “Here,” replied the one who had come in, handing the priest the little box, “here are the wafers.... But,” she cried, “I hear some one mounting the stairs!” All three thereupon listened intently. The sounds ceased. “Do not be affrighted,” said the priest, “if some one should essay to enter. A person upon whose fidelity we can count has undoubtedly taken all needful measures to pass the frontier, and will come to seek 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 the misery which awaits you here.” “You do not mean to go with us, then?” cried the two nuns gently, manifesting a sort of despair. “My place is where there are victims,” said the priest with simplicity. They remained silent, and gazed at their companion with devout admiration. “Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nun who had gone to get the wafers, “that 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 roof. This time they could easily hear, amid the most profound silence, the footsteps of a man resounding upon the stairs, whose treads were covered with ridges made by the hardened mud. The priest crept with difficulty into a species of cupboard, and the nun threw over him some garments. “You may close the door, Sister Agatha,” said he in a muffled voice. The priest was scarcely hidden before three taps on the door gave a shock to the two saintly women, who consulted each other with their eyes, without daring to pronounce a single word. They each seemed to be about sixty years old. Separated from the world for forty years, they were like plants habituated to the air of a hothouse, which wilt if they are taken from it. Accustomed to the life of a convent, they were no longer able to conceive of any other. One morning, their grating having been shattered, they shuddered to find themselves free. One can easily imagine the species of artificial imbecility which the events of the Revolution had produced in their innocent hearts. Incapable of reconciling their conventual ideas with the difficulties of life, and not even comprehending their situation, they resembled those children who have been zealously cared for hitherto, and who, abandoned by their motherly protector, pray 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 defense than Christian resignation. The man who desired to enter interpreted that silence in his own manner. He opened the door and appeared suddenly before them. The two nuns shuddered as they recognized the man who for some time had been prowling about their house and making inquiries about them. They remained stock-still, but gazed at him with anxious curiosity, after the manner of savage children, who examine strangers in silence. The man was tall and large; but nothing in his demeanor, in his air, nor in his physiognomy indicated an evil man. He imitated the immobility of the nuns, and moved his eyes slowly about the room in which he found himself. Two straw mats, laid upon boards, served the two nuns as beds. A single table was in the middle of the room and upon it they had placed a copper candlestick, a few plates, three knives, and a round loaf of bread. The fire on the hearth was meagre. A few sticks of wood piled in a corner attested the poverty of the two recluses. The walls, coated with an ancient layer of paint, proved the bad state of the roof, for stains like brown threads marked the infiltrations of the rainwater. A relic, rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles, adorned the chimney mantel. Three chairs, two coffers, and a wretched chest of drawers completed the furniture of the room. A door beside the chimney allowed one to conjecture the existence of a second chamber. The inventory of the cell was speedily made by the person who had thrust himself under such alarming auspices into the midst of that group. A sentiment of commiseration painted itself upon his face, and he cast a benevolent glance upon the two women, at least as embarrassed as they. The singular silence preserved by all three lasted but a short time, for the Stranger at last divined the moral simplicity 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 there should come to you any misfortune, believe that I have not contributed to it.... I have a favor to ask of you.” They still maintained their silence. “If I seem importunate, if ... I embarrass you, tell me so freely.... I will go; but understand that I am entirely devoted to you; that if there is any good office that I am able to render you, you may employ me without fear; and that I alone, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no longer a king.” There was such an accent 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 say that she had formerly known the magnificence of fêtes and had breathed the air of the court, instantly pointed to one of the chairs, as if to ask their guest to be seated. The Stranger manifested a sort of joy mingled with sadness as he recognized 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 has miraculously escaped the massacre at the Carmelites.” “Hosanna!” said Sister Agatha, interrupting the Stranger, and gazing at him with anxious inquiry. “I don’t think 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 understand Latin, and——” He did not continue, for the extraordinary emotion depicted on the faces of the two poor nuns made him feel that he had gone too far; they were trembling, and their eyes were filled with tears. “Reassure yourselves,” he said to them in a cheery voice; “I know the name of your guest, and yours; and three days ago I was informed of your destination and of your devotion to the venerable Abbé of——” “Chut!” said Sister Agatha naïvely, putting her finger to her lips. “You see, my sisters, that if I had formed the horrible design of betraying you, I might already have accomplished it more than once.” When he heard these words, the priest emerged from his prison and reappeared in the middle of the room. “I cannot believe, monsieur,” he said to the Stranger, “that you can be one of our persecutors, and I have faith in you. What do you want of me?” The saintlike confidence of the priest, the nobility that shone in all his features, would have disarmed assassins. The mysterious personage who had enlivened that scene of misery and resignation gazed for a moment at the group formed by these 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 repose in holy ground.” The priest involuntarily shuddered. The two nuns, not understanding as yet of whom the Stranger was speaking, stood with necks outstretched, and faces turned towards the two speakers in an attitude of curiosity. The ecclesiastic scrutinized the Stranger; unfeigned anxiety was depicted upon his face, and his eyes expressed the most ardent supplication. “Very well,” replied the priest; “to-night, at midnight, return, and I shall be ready to celebrate the only funeral service which we can offer in expiation of the crime of which you speak.” The Stranger started; but a satisfaction, at once gentle and solemn, seemed to triumph over some secret grief. After having respectfully saluted the priest and the two holy women, he disappeared, manifesting a sort of mute gratitude which was comprehended by those three noble hearts. About two hours after this scene the Stranger returned, knocked discreetly at the attic door, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de Beauséant, who conducted him into the second room of that modest retreat, where everything had been prepared for the ceremony. Between the flues of the chimney the two nuns had carried the old chest of drawers, whose decrepit outlines were concealed beneath a magnificent altar-cloth of green moiré silk. A large crucifix of ebony and ivory was fastened upon the yellow wall, which served to emphasize its nakedness, and irresistibly drew the eye. Four little fluttering wax-tapers, which the sisters had succeeded in fixing upon that improvised altar by means of sealing wax, threw a light pale and sickly, which was reflected by the wall. That feeble glow scarcely illuminated the rest of the room, but by shedding its glory only over those holy things upon that unadorned altar, it seemed a ray from the torch of heaven. The floor was damp. The roof, which on two sides declined abruptly, as in a loft, had several cracks, through which passed an icy wind. Nothing displayed less pomp, and yet perhaps nothing could have been more solemn than that sad ceremony. A profound silence that would have permitted them to hear the faintest sound on distant thoroughfares diffused a sort of sombre majesty over that nocturnal scene. In short, the grandeur of the occasion contrasted so strongly with the poverty of the surroundings that the result was a sentiment of religious awe. On either side of the altar, the two old nuns, kneeling on the damp floor, heedless of the deadly moisture, prayed in concert with the priest, who, clad in his pontifical vestments, prepared a golden chalice ornamented with precious stones, a consecrated vessel rescued doubtless from the pillage of the Abbey of Chelles. Beside that pyx, a monument of royal magnificence, were the water and wine destined for the sacrament, contained in two glasses scarcely worthy of the lowest tavern. In default of a missal, the priest had placed his breviary on a corner of the altar. A common plate was provided for the washing of those innocent hands, pure of bloodshed. All was majestic, and yet paltry; poor, but noble; profane and holy at the same time. The Stranger knelt piously between the two nuns. But suddenly, when he noticed a band of crape on the chalice and on the crucifix—for, having nothing to indicate the purpose of that mortuary mass, the priest had draped God Himself in mourning—he was assailed by such an overpowering memory that drops of sweat gathered upon his broad forehead. The four silent actors in that scene gazed at one another mysteriously; then their hearts, acting upon one another, communicated their sentiments to one another and flowed together into a single religious commiseration; it was as if their thoughts had evoked the martyr whose remains had been devoured by quicklime, and whose shade stood before them in all its royal majesty. They celebrated an obit without the body of the deceased. Beneath those disjointed tiles and laths, four Christians had come to intercede before God for a king of France, and perform his obsequies without a bier. It was the purest of all possible devotions, an astounding act of fidelity, accomplished without a selfish thought. Doubtless, in the eyes of God, it was like the cup of cold water which balances the greatest virtues. The whole of monarchy was there, in the prayers of a priest and of two poor women; but perhaps also the Revolution was represented, by that man whose face betrayed too much remorse not to cause a belief that he was fulfilling the vows of an immense repentance. In lieu of pronouncing the Latin words, “Introibo ad altare Dei,” etc., the priest, by a divine inspiration, looked at the three assistants who represented Christian France, and said to them, in order to efface the poverty of that wretched place: “We are about to enter into the sanctuary of God!” At these words, uttered with an impressive unction, a holy awe seized the assistant and the two nuns. Beneath the arches of St. Peter’s at Rome God could not have appeared with more majesty than He then appeared in that asylum of poverty, before the eyes of those Christians; so true is it that between man and Him every intermediary seems useless, and that He derives His grandeur from Himself alone. The fervor of the Stranger was genuine, and so the sentiment which united the prayers of those four servitors of God and the king was unanimous. The sacred words rang out like celestial music amid the silence. There was a moment when tears choked the Stranger; it was during the paternoster. The priest added to it this Latin prayer, which was evidently understood by the Stranger: “Et remitte scelus regicidis sicut Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse! (And pardon the guilt of the regicides even as Louis himself forgave them!)” The two nuns saw two great tears leave a humid trace adown the manly cheeks of the Stranger, and fall upon the floor. The Office for the Dead was recited. The Domine salvum fac regem, chanted in a deep voice, touched the hearts of those faithful royalists, who reflected that the infant king, for whom at that moment they were supplicating the Most High, was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The Stranger shuddered at the thought that there might yet be committed a new crime, in which he would doubtless be forced to participate. When the funeral service was terminated, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who retired. As soon as he found himself alone with the Stranger, he walked towards him with a mild and melancholy expression, and said to him in a paternal voice: “My son, if you have dipped your hands in the blood of the martyr king, confess yourself to me. There is no sin which, in the eyes of God, may not be effaced by repentance as touching and sincere as yours seems to be.” At the first words pronounced by the ecclesiastic, the Stranger allowed an involuntary movement of terror to escape him; but he resumed a calm countenance, and regarded the astonished priest with assurance. “Father,” he said to him in a perceptibly altered voice, “no one is more innocent than I of bloodshed.” “I am bound to believe you,” said the priest. There was a pause, during which he examined his penitent more closely; then, persisting in taking him for one of those timid members of the Convention who sacrificed an inviolable and consecrated head in order to preserve their own, he continued in a solemn voice: “Remember, my son, that it is not enough, in order to be absolved from that great crime, not to have actually taken part in it. Those who, when they might have defended the king, left their swords in the scabbard, will have a very heavy account to render before the King of the Heavens.... Ah, yes!” added the old priest, shaking his head with an expressive movement, “yes, very heavy; for, by remaining idle, they became the involuntary accomplices of that hideous crime.” “Do you think,” demanded the stupefied Stranger, “that an indirect participation will be punished?... The soldier who is ordered to join the shooting-squad, is he also culpable?” The priest hesitated. Pleased with the dilemma in which he had placed that puritan of royalty by planting him between the dogma of passive obedience, which, according to the partisans of monarchy, dominates the military codes, and the no less important dogma which consecrates the respect due to the persons of kings, the Stranger was ready to see in the hesitation of the priest a favorable solution of the doubts by which he seemed to be tormented. Then, in order not to allow the venerable Jansenist any more time to reflect, he said to him: “I should blush to offer you any sort of compensation for the funeral service which you have celebrated for the repose of the king’s soul and for the relief of my conscience. One cannot pay for an inestimable thing except by an offering which is also priceless. Deign, then, monsieur, to accept the gift of a blessed relic which I offer you. A day will come, perhaps, when you will understand its value.” As he said these words, the Stranger handed the ecclesiastic a small box of light weight; the priest took it involuntarily, so to speak, for the solemnity of the man’s words, the tone in which he said them, and the respect with which he handled the box, had plunged him into a profound surprise. They then returned to the room where the two nuns were awaiting them. “You are,” said the Stranger, “in a house whose owner, Mucius Scaevola, the plasterer who occupies the first floor, is celebrated throughout the section for his patriotism; but he is secretly attached to the Bourbons. He used to be a huntsman of Monseigneur the Prince of Conti, and to him he owes his fortune. If you do not go out of his house, you are in greater safety here than in any place else in France. Stay here. Devout hearts will attend to your necessities, and you may await without danger less evil times. A year hence, on the twenty-first of January”—(in uttering these words he could not conceal an involuntary movement)—“if you continue to adopt this dismal place of asylum, I will return to celebrate with you the expiatory mass.” He said no more. He bowed to the silent occupants of the attic, cast a last glance upon the evidences which testified of their indigence, and went away. To the two innocent nuns, such an adventure had all the interest of a romance; and so, as soon as the venerable abbé informed them of the mysterious gift so solemnly bestowed upon him by that man, the box was placed upon the table and the three faces, unquiet, dimly lighted by the candle, betrayed an indescribable curiosity. Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the box, and found therein a handkerchief of very fine linen, drenched with perspiration; and, on unfolding it, they recognized stains. “It is blood!” said the priest. “It is marked with the royal crown!” cried the other nun. The two sisters dropped the precious relic with horror. To those two naïve souls the mystery in which the Stranger was enveloped became altogether inexplicable; and as for the priest, from that day he did not even seek an explanation. The three prisoners were not slow in perceiving that in spite of the Terror a powerful arm was stretched over them. In the first place, they received some wood and some provisions; then the two nuns realized that a woman must be associated with their protector, when some one sent them linen and clothing which enabled them to go out without being remarked on account of the aristocratic fashion of the garments which they had been forced to retain; and lastly, Mucius Scaevola gave them two cards of citizenship. Often, advice necessary to the priest’s safety reached him by devious ways; and he found this advice so opportune that it could have been given only by one initiated in secrets of state. Despite the famine which prevailed in Paris, the outcasts found at the door of their lodging rations of white bread which were regularly brought there by invisible hands; nevertheless, they believed that they could recognize in Mucius Scaevola the mysterious agent of that benefaction, which was always as ingenious as it was discerning. The noble occupants of the attic could not doubt that their protector was the person who had come to ask the priest to celebrate the expiatory mass on the night of the twenty-second of January, 1793; so that he became the object of a peculiar cult of worship to those three beings, who had no hope except in him, and lived only through him. They had added special prayers for him to their devotions; night and morning those pious hearts lifted their voices for his happiness, for his prosperity, for his health, and supplicated God to deliver him from all snares, to deliver him from his enemies, and to accord him a long and peaceable life. Their gratitude, renewed every day, so to speak, was necessarily accompanied by a sentiment of curiosity which became more lively from day to day. The circumstances which had accompanied the appearance of the Stranger were the subject of their conversations; they formed a thousand conjectures regarding him, and the diversion afforded them by their thoughts of him was a benefaction of a new kind. They promised themselves not to allow the Stranger to evade their friendship on the evening when he should return, according to his promise, to commemorate the sad anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. That night, so impatiently awaited, came at last. At midnight the sound of the Stranger’s heavy steps was heard on the old wooden staircase; the room had been arrayed to receive him, the altar was dressed. This time the sisters opened the door beforehand and both pressed forward to light the stairway. Mademoiselle de Langeais even went down a few steps in order to see her benefactor the sooner. “Come,” she said to him in a tremulous and affectionate voice, “come, we are waiting for you.” The man raised his head, cast a sombre glance upon the nun, and made no reply. She felt as if a garment of ice had fallen upon her, and she said no more; at his aspect the gratitude and curiosity expired in all their hearts. He was perhaps less cold, less taciturn, less terrible, than he appeared to those hearts, the exaltation of whose feelings disposed to outpourings of friendliness. The three poor prisoners, understanding that the man desired to remain a Stranger to them, resigned themselves. The priest fancied that he detected upon the Stranger’s lips a smile that was promptly repressed the moment he saw the preparations that had been made to receive him. He heard the mass, and prayed; but he disappeared after having responded negatively to a few words of polite invitation upon the part of Mademoiselle de Langeais to partake of the little collation they had prepared. After the ninth of Thermidor, the nuns and the Abbé de Marolles were able to go about Paris without incurring the least danger. The first errand of the old priest was to a perfumer’s shop, at the sign of La Reine des Fleurs, kept by Citizen and Citizeness Ragon, formerly perfumers to the Court, who had remained faithful to the royal family, and of whose services the Vendeans availed themselves to correspond with the princes and the royalist committee in Paris. The abbé, dressed according to the style of that epoch, was standing on the doorstep of that shop, between Saint-Roch and Rue des Frondeurs, when a crowd which filled the Rue Saint-Honoré prevented him from going out. “What is it?” he asked Madame Ragon. “It is nothing,” she replied; “just the tumbril and the executioner, going to the Place Louis XV. Ah, we saw him very often last year; but to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of January, we can look at that horrible procession without distress.” “Why so?” said the abbé. “It is not Christian, that which you say.” “Eh, it’s the execution of the accomplices of Robespierre. They defended themselves as long as they could, but they’re going now themselves where they have sent so many innocents.” The crowd passed like a flood. Over the sea of heads, the Abbé de Marolles, yielding to an impulse of curiosity, saw standing on the tumbril the man who, three days before, had listened to his mass. “Who is that?” he said, “that man who——” “That is the headsman,” replied Monsieur Ragon, calling the executioner of the great by his monarchical name. “My friend, my friend,” cried Madame Ragon, “monsieur l’abbé is fainting!” And the old woman seized a phial of salts, in order to bring the old priest to himself. “Without doubt he gave me,” said he, “the handkerchief with which the King wiped his brow when he went to his martyrdom.... Poor man! ... That steel knife had a heart, when all France had none!” The perfumers thought that the unhappy priest was delirious.

JUPITER'S JOKE By A. L. HALEY - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63640/pg63640-images.html

 

this moujik of Briansk had been brought from the village to Moscow when he was a little boy; he had run errands at a merchant’s warehouse in Iliyinka; he used to fly like an arrow to taverns to get hot water for tea: seizing the tea kettle, he would dash through the galleries of the Stariya Riyady—the Old Shops—drawing, with a dark jet of water, the figure eight upon the gray floor.... On a brisk winter day, perhaps with a light snow falling, the Iliyinka thoroughfare would be black with people; the horses of the cabbies would be shufflingly trotting along,—but he, in just his shirt and without a cap (his head resembling a rusty hedgehog), would jump out of the house, dart off the sidewalk, and start sliding on his soles upon the ice in the gutter.... Imagine, then, how strange it is to see this moujik in the tropics, at the equator! He is sitting in his office in an old-fashioned house of Dutch architecture. Beyond the window lies the white city in the blaze of the sun; there are naked black rickshaw-men, shops of Australian wares and of precious stones, hotels filled with tourists from all the ends of the world; in the warm green water of the harbour float American and Japanese steamers; beyond the harbour, along the lowlands of the shores, grow cocoanut groves.... Clad all in white, tall, knotty, with flaming red hair, with a blueish freckled skin, pale, energetically exhilarated (or, to put it more simply, just [Pg 35]daft) from the heat, from nervousness, from constant tipsiness and from business activity,—he is, to look at him, either a Swede or an Englishman. His desk is all cluttered with papers, with bills. The air is filled with the crisp rattling of typewriters. An old Hindu, bare-footed, in robe and turban, noiselessly and rapidly changes with his dark, exquisite, silver-ringed hands little bottles of cold soda water, and every minute, with a mysterious expression on his face, announces the visitors, adding “Sir” at every word. But the “Sir” is completely absorbed in conversation with his friend from Russia, before whom he is playing the rôle of the affable lord of this tropical island. Upon the table are several open boxes of the most expensive cigars; of Turkish, Egyptian, English and Havana cigarettes. He is a connoisseur of tobaccos,—as well as of everything else, by the way. He regales his guest now with this brand, now with the other, saying, as though in passing: “This, I think isn’t at all bad....” Throwing a casual glance at some paper submitted to him, he, in the midst of the conversation, firmly and abruptly dashes off his signature upon it. Upon seeing a visitor enter, he changes the expression on his face, disposes of the matter in hand in two or three phrases, and again renews the interrupted conversation. When receiving some dispatch, his manner of opening it is especially negligent; for a moment, as he runs through it, he frowns: “What idiots!” he will say vehemently, in vexation; and throwing the dispatch to one side, immediately forgets about it,—or pretends that he does so.... All are idiots to him. He has already succeeded in astonishing his guest with his self-assurance, his decisive and sceptical mind, his enormous worldly experience [Pg 36]and his wide acquaintance with people of the most diverse classes and stations. No matter who among the celebrities of Moscow is named,—merchants, administrators, physicians, journalists,—he knows them all, and knows well, besides, the price of each and all. And what information does he not possess concerning back-stage mysteries, exceptional careers, and shady histories! His guest had heard a great deal about him while still at Port Said from a certain friend of this man; which friend had said, with a cynical gaiety, that Zotov had gone through fire, water, and brazen pipes. “Ye-es,” this friend had said, shaking his head with a derisive and enigmatic smile, “he’s a fine lad!” On the spot the guest came to know still more, and chiefly through the fragmentary phrases of Zotov himself. Strangely and unexpectedly do talents manifest themselves in Russia, and they work miracles when lucky lots fall to their share! For he had drawn an unusually lucky lot when he had come as an urchin to Moscow. He had an uncle there; a well-fed, clever moujik, who had already attained to a competence and a consciousness of his own worth; who knew how, adroitly, without lowering himself, to do a good turn for any decent gentleman. This uncle worked in the Sandunovskiya baths, and many of those whom he enveloped in clouds of hot and fragrant soapy foam called him by name and liked to chat with him. And one of these was Nechaev, a liberal, educated Crœsus, a large-built, stout merchant in gold spectacles. Was it a hard thing, having thrown a fine, slippery sheet over the pink, steamed body, to put in a word about his urchin nephew? And this urchin did not get to twisting waxen thread, nor to blowing up the fire under sad-irons, [Pg 37]but got into a sombre, clean and quiet warehouse on the Iliyinka. All the rest was a matter of his personal liveliness and aptitude. Everyone knows how these lucky fellows and born geniuses begin: during the day the urchin runs errands; of evenings, by his own volition, without any guidance, he pours by the dim light of a candle-end, learning to read and write; in the morning, before the clerks get in, he, without understanding, but stubbornly, overcomes the newspaper, and, let the clerks but open their mouths, he is right there on the spot, all alert and obedient, catching every word, every glance.... When he was about twelve this urchin, who had aroused his employer’s special interest, was taken into the latter’s home; while in his eighteenth year he was already in Germany, studying the paper industry, working as hard as any German,—the foreigners, it would seem, did not want to believe that he was a Russian. “They often don’t believe it even now, the blockheads!” said Zotov, roughly and abruptly, as is his wont, throwing away one cigarette and immediately lighting another.... “But, after all, does he resemble a European so very greatly?” the guest wonders as he looks at his host. He is thirty-seven years of age, but seems older. Yes,—in appearance he is altogether an Englishman; even his hands are English, the red hair upon them so thick that they seem to be covered with tow. “But then,” the guest reflects, “would an Englishman talk so amazingly much and so animatedly?” Hands really English would not be trembling at his age, and, moreover, if possessing such strength as Zotov’s, an Englishman’s face would not be so pale, so uneasy without any visible cause. Zotov is wearing black spectacles for the second day now, because [Pg 38]one of his eye-brows is injured,—he slipped, so he says, on a banana peel in a bar; which means that he was rather far gone! And yet here, on this island, he is a personage because of his position. His hold on his guest’s curiosity and attention does not flag for a minute. This man, audacious to the verge of insolence, infects one with his audacity, his energy,—at times even enraptures. But, listening to him, wondering at him, one looks upon him and thinks: “But he is drunk,—he is drunk!” He is always tipsy,—from nervousness, from the heat, from whiskey; Englishmen drink a great deal, but, of course, not a single one of them in all this white city drinks as much as Zotov, nor swallows iced soda water as avidly, nor smokes such a quantity of cigars and cigarettes, nor speaks so much and so confusedly.... After his training abroad he worked at home and enjoyed the unbounded trust of the man who had brought him up. But he no longer wanted to know any mean in his independence, as well as in his expenditures. Sent into Central Asia, he suddenly, on some trifling pretext, quarrelled with Nechaev, severing all connections with him,—and, from a man steadily and surely climbing upward, was transformed into something very like an adventurer. He had traversed all of Siberia; had been in Amur, in China, consumed with impatience to found some enterprise all his own,—let it be something new, let it be something he was not familiar with, let it even be of a predatory nature,—but an enterprise such as would quickly lead to riches. Having returned to Russia he had insinuated himself into a great tea firm, besides having arranged two other posts for himself,—and it is now the sixth year that he has been living here in the [Pg 39]tropics, clad in no mean powers.... It is a rare European who would have so easily cancelled his fate, amazing in its successfulness,—or even his specialty, which had taken so many years of toil to acquire! No European would have yielded himself to the whims of chance, or have shouldered not only a governmental post, but also a steamship agency and a tea business; or have started, along with all these, certain affairs with pearl-bearing shells; or would have maintained a black mistress all his own,—a rare beauty, according to rumour,—to the wonder of the whole city.... He keeps his counsel very much to himself, but at times he is very tactless; reveals, with equal force, now great firmness of character, now unrestraint; now secretiveness, now loquacity. He flaunts his common origin and at the same time boasts of his acquaintance with people of rank; swears, for all he is worth, at the Russian Government,—and with evident pride keeps on his desk a photographic portrait of a Russian Grand Duke, handsome and rather young, who had personally bestowed this portrait upon him, with a short signature in autograph. When he is narrating something that, in his opinion, is humorous, he frequently does not comprehend that the point of this amusing matter may be interpreted not at all to his advantage,—for example, it was from no other source than his own stories that the guest found out that Zotov had appeared as far too omniscient, almost as a passer-by, to those men of affairs in Siberia and Manchuria with whom he so rapidly attained to terms of intimacy, whom he so quickly charmed at first with his obligingness and sociability, his mannerisms of a man used to living on a grand scale, a man conversant with what is what, in absolutely all things, beginning [Pg 40]with cigars, wine, women, and culminating with some excavations on the Philippine Islands, rather lethal, it would seem, on account of an earthly microbe.... In the evening the guest rides with him beyond the city. Beyond the city, on the shore of the ocean, stands a small but a very fashionable restaurant, where the tourists and the residents rest from the sultriness of the city, drinking tea, brandy, and champagne, and admiring the sunset from the front piazza of the restaurant. They come there in tiny rickshaws, following one another, over an endless road amid age-old vegetation, past bungalows and past the huts of the savages. And for a whole hour the guest from Russia sees before him only the naked body of a brown man, carrying him at a run farther and farther under the green vault of the branches of spreading trees; and beyond him, beyond this body and black-haired head, the big white figure of Zotov, sitting high and erect in his little carriage. Halfway to their destination he suddenly turns around and, raising his stick, calls out to his guest: “Would you care to drive in?” For answer the guest assents,—Zotov had pointed out a small Buddhistic monastery,—and the savages, breathing heavily, bathed in perspiration, roll up along the passage way, lying between the cabins, that stand underneath the palms and all other species of trees. “Well, isn’t this like a bit of our own; isn’t this Russian?” Zotov is saying, stepping out of his carriage. “Only in our country is there so unconscionably much of this verdure, of this forest, so many of these hovels, so many dirty urchins like these! Just look!” he is saying, pointing with his stick at the trees, at the huts [Pg 41]and their roofs of leaves and of rushes, at the naked children, and at the natives, young and old, who have surrounded the little carriages in their curiosity. “And the evening, too, is like one of our own,—oppressive, and so wearisome, so wearisome!” he is saying in irritation, going in the direction of the old idol temple standing on a knoll underneath slender cocoanut palms, where a priest is already waiting, clad in a yellow mantle, with his right shoulder bared,—his shaven head is small and pressed in at the temples, and his eyes are black, almost insane, and have an intense gaze. Having entered the dark little sanctuary, the compatriots take off their helmets, wet with perspiration and cool on the inner side. The priest points a finger at their heads and shakes his head: as much as to say that this is not required. “A lot you know, you fool,” says Zotov in Russian; and for a long while, with a certain strange gravity, gazes at the fourteen-foot wooden statue, gilded and painted in red and yellow, lying on its side beyond a sacrificial altar of black stone, upon which are heaped small coins and nickel rings, and with the slenderest of brown joss-sticks sending forth thin jets of aromatic smoke standing upon it. “And how he is painted and lacquered all over, though!” says Zotov jerkily. “Every bit just like the wooden bowls and cups sold at our fairs!” And he carelessly tosses a heavy gold coin upon the silver plate extended by the priest.... When they arrive at the restaurant, his face is almost chalky, and it is a frightful thing to see the black spectacles upon it. “For two whole hours I have not been [Pg 42]poisoning myself with anything, have drunk nothing, nor have I smoked; and because of all that I have become dead tired,” he is saying. And just as soon as he is seated at a small table on the little terrace before the restaurant, over the steep shore, cumbered below with blue bowlders that eternally bathe in the warm water of the ocean, he immediately orders champagne. The wine is very chill, and they both drink it avidly, rapidly growing tipsy, and contemplate the darkening lilac ocean, the infinitely distant sunset, turbidly and tenderly roseate. A faint, warm breeze is stirring; the cicadas are drowsily strumming in the brushwood.... And suddenly Zotov flings his cigarette far from him, quickly lights another, and again, with the pertinacity of a maniac, begins talking of the similarity of this island and Russia. The guest smiles. Zotov, hurriedly and not at all clearly, argues with him. The matter does not lie, he urges, merely in an outward resemblance.... And it was not even the resemblance that he had in view, but rather his reactions.... Perhaps these reactions are not firm, are unwholesome,—but then, that is another matter.... The devil himself would go out of his mind in a climate like this,—it is not a climate to be trifled with.... But now, in a discussion of all the various dangers of the Far East, people somehow forget entirely about that fact; messieurs the Aryans, and especially we Russians, ought to carry out our conquering expeditions into the tropics with extreme cautiousness, recalling with a greater frequence our forefathers and their conquest of Hindustan, so significantly terminating in Buddhism,—when all is said and done, it is we, the Aryans, after Thibet intruding ourselves [Pg 43]into the tropics, who have given birth to this teaching, with its appallingly inapplicable wisdom! And then he warmly begins to asseverate that “all the force of the thing” lies in that he had already seen, had already felt the tropics even before his arrival here, at some time very remote, perhaps a thousand years ago,—with the eyes and the soul of his most distant ancestor.... He tells,—with a subtlety, passionateness and an eloquence never to be expected from him,—that he had experienced extraordinary sensations on the way over here, on those sultry, starry nights when he had first beheld the Southern Cross, Canopus, and those first-created starry mists that are called the Clouds of Magellan; when he had beheld the Coal Sacks, those funereal fissures into the infinitude of universal voids; and the awesome magnificence of the Alpha of the Centaur, glimmering upon the utterly empty horizon, where some immeasurable Nothingness, unattainable to our reason, seemed to be in its inception. “Yes, yes!” exclaims he insistently, fixing the guest with his spectacles: “The horizon was utterly empty about the Alpha! A spectacle of a new world, of new heavens, was opened before me, but it seemed to me,—and this sensation was vivid to the verge of terror within me, I assure you!—it seemed to me that I had seen them before, once upon a time. All the days and all the nights a smooth, dead swell rocked us wide on the ocean. We were sailing toward an Eastern monsoon; it blew sharp and strong, and its ceaseless current of air made the sailyards hum and blurred the vision, and made our speed seem rapid.... Awaking at night in the hot darkness of my cabin, I, in order to rest after the exhausting sleep, would go on the upper decks, out into the [Pg 44]wind, under the stars,—altogether different from those I had seen all my life, from my very birth, and with which I had already grown intimate; stars that were altogether, altogether different,—yet at the same not altogether new, seemingly, but as though they were dimly recalled. Under their dim light hovered the ceaseless noise of the sea, the steamer rolled slowly from one side to the other, and, like strangled suicides in gray shrouds, with arms outspread, the long canvas ventilators swayed and quivered near the funnel, avidly catching with their orifices the freshness of the monsoon, upon which was already borne toward us the hot breath of the dread Land of our First Parents. And at such times I would be seized by such melancholy,—a melancholy of some infinitely remote recollection,—that one can not express in human speech even a hundredth part of it!” A faint, delightful breeze is stirring; there is a drowsy strumming in the brushwood. The twilight begins to swell as with sap with that faery orange-aureate colour which always arises in the tropics when some time had elapsed after the sunset. The surf boils up in orange-aureate foam; the faces and the white costumes are bathed in an orange-aureate light.... “How connect that with which he amazed me to-day with what he is amazing me now?” the guest from Russia is reflecting, almost in fear, about his astonishing compatriot. But the latter, is looking at him through his black spectacles and is stubbornly reiterating: “Yes, yes,—I have already been here.... And, in general, I am a doomed man.... If you but knew how dreadfully muddled my affairs are! Even more, it would seem, than my soul and my thoughts.... Oh, well, there [Pg 45]is a way out of everything! Just jerk back the trigger of your revolver, having thrust its muzzle as far as possible into your mouth,—and all these affairs, thoughts, and emotions will fly into pieces to the devil and his dam!”