The Revolt of the Angels - 03

the man of books alternately babbled like an infant and uttered the
hoarse cries of a maniac. He recognised his Hebrew Bibles, his ancient
Talmuds, his very old manuscript of Flavius Josephus, his portfolios of
Gassendi's letters to Gabriel Naudé, and his richest jewel of all, to
wit, _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of the Grand Prior of France, and
with notes in Voltaire's own hand. He laughed, he cried, he kissed the
morocco, the calf, the parchment, and vellum, even the wooden boards
studded with nails.
As fast as Hippolyte, the manservant, returned with an armful to the
library, Monsieur Sariette, with a trembling hand, restored them piously
to their places.


CHAPTER VII
OF A SOMEWHAT LIVELY INTEREST, WHEREOF THE MORAL WILL, I
HOPE, APPEAL GREATLY TO MY READERS, SINCE IT CAN BE
EXPRESSED BY THIS SORROWFUL QUERY: "THOUGHT, WHITHER DOST
THOU LEAD ME?" FOR IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ADMITTED TRUTH THAT
IT IS UNHEALTHY TO THINK AND THAT TRUE WISDOM LIES IN NOT
THINKING AT ALL

All the books were now once more assembled in the pious keeping of
Monsieur Sariette. But this happy reunion was not destined to last. The
following night twenty volumes left their places, among them the
_Lucretius_ of Prior de Vendôme. Within a week the old Hebrew and Greek
texts had all returned to the summer-house, and every night during the
ensuing month they left their shelves and secretly went on the same
path. Others betook themselves no one knew whither.
On hearing of these mysterious occurrences, Monsieur René d'Esparvieu
merely remarked with frigidity to his librarian:
"My poor Sariette, all this is very queer, very queer indeed."
And when Monsieur Sariette tentatively advised him to lodge a formal
complaint or to inform the Commissaire de Police, Monsieur d'Esparvieu
cried out upon him:
"What are you suggesting, Monsieur Sariette? Divulge domestic secrets,
make a scandal! You cannot mean it. I have enemies, and I am proud of
it. I think I have deserved them. What I might complain about is that I
am wounded in the house of my friend, attacked with unheard-of violence,
by fervent loyalists, who, I grant you, are good Catholics, but
exceedingly bad Christians.... In a word, I am watched, spied upon,
shadowed, and you suggest, Monsieur Sariette, that I should make a
present of this comic-opera mystery, this burlesque adventure, this
story in which we both cut somewhat pitiable figures, to a set of
spiteful journalists? Do you wish to cover me with ridicule?"
The result of the colloquy was that the two gentlemen agreed to change
all the locks in the library. Estimates were asked for and workmen
called in. For six weeks the d'Esparvieu household rang from morning
till night with the sound of hammers, the hum of centre-bits, and the
grating of files. Fires were always going in the abode of the
philosophers and globes, and the people of the house were simply
sickened by the smell of heated oil. The old, smooth, easy-running locks
were replaced, on the cupboards and doors of the rooms, by stubborn and
tricky fastenings. There was nothing but combinations of locks,
letter-padlocks, safety-bolts, bars, chains, and electric alarm-bells.
All this display of ironmongery inspired fear. The lock-cases glistened,
and there was much grinding of bolts. To gain access to a room, a
cupboard, or a drawer, it was necessary to know a certain number, of
which Monsieur Sariette alone was cognisant. His head was filled with
bizarre words and tremendous numbers, and he got entangled among all
these cryptic signs, these square, cubic, and triangular figures. He
himself couldn't get the doors and the cupboards undone, yet every
morning he found them wide open, and the books thrown about, ransacked,
and hidden away. In the gutter of the Rue Servandoni a policeman picked
up a volume of Salomon Reinach on the identity of Barabbas and Jesus
Christ. As it bore the book-plate of the d'Esparvieu library he returned
it to the owner.
Monsieur René d'Esparvieu, not even deigning to inform Monsieur Sariette
of the fact, made up his mind to consult a magistrate, a friend in whom
he had complete confidence, to wit, a certain Monsieur des Aubels,
Counsel at the Law Courts, who had put through many an important affair.
He was a little plump man, very red, very bald, with a cranium that
shone like a billiard ball. He entered the library one morning feigning
to come as a book-lover, but he soon showed that he knew nothing about
books. While all the busts of the ancient philosophers were reflected in
his shining pate, he put divers insidious questions to Monsieur
Sariette, who grew uncomfortable and turned red, for innocence is easily
flustered. From that moment Monsieur des Aubels had a mighty suspicion
that Monsieur Sariette was the perpetrator of the very thefts he
denounced with horror; and it immediately occurred to him to seek out
the accomplices of the crime. As regards motives, he did not trouble
about them; motives are always to be found. Monsieur des Aubels told
Monsieur René d'Esparvieu that, if he liked, he would have the house
secretly watched by a detective from the Prefecture.
"I will see that you get Mignon," he said. "He is an excellent servant,
assiduous and prudent."
By six o'clock next morning Mignon was already walking up and down
outside the d'Esparvieus' house, his head sunk between his shoulders,
wearing love-locks which showed from under the narrow brim of his bowler
hat, his eye cocked over his shoulder. He wore an enormous dull-black
moustache, his hands and feet were huge; in fact, his whole appearance
was distinctly memorable. He paced regularly up and down from the
nearest of the big rams' head pillars which adorn the Hôtel de la
Sordière to the end of the Rue Garancière, towards the apse of St.
Sulpice Church and the dome of the Chapel of the Virgin.
Henceforth it became impossible to enter or leave the d'Esparvieus'
house without feeling that one's every action, that one's very thoughts,
were being spied upon. Mignon was a prodigious person endowed with
powers that Nature denies to other mortals. He neither ate nor slept. At
all hours of the day and night, in wind and rain, he was to be found
outside the house, and no one escaped the X-rays of his eye. One felt
pierced through and through, penetrated to the very marrow, worse than
naked, bare as a skeleton. It was the affair of a moment; the detective
did not even stop, but continued his everlasting walk. It became
intolerable. Young Maurice threatened to leave the paternal roof if he
was to be so radiographed. His mother and his sister Berthe complained
of his piercing look; it offended the chaste modesty of their souls.
Mademoiselle Caporal, young Léon d'Esparvieu's governess, felt an
indescribable embarrassment. Monsieur René d'Esparvieu was sick of the
whole business. He never crossed his own threshold without crushing his
hat over his eyes to avoid the investigating ray and without wishing old
Sariette, the _fons et origo_ of all the evil, at the devil. The
intimates of the household, such as Abbé Patouille and Uncle Gaétan,
made themselves scarce; visitors gave up calling, tradespeople hesitated
about leaving their goods, the carts belonging to the big shops scarcely
dared stop. But it was among the domestics that the spying roused the
most disorder.
The footman, afraid, under the eye of the police, to go and join the
cobbler's wife over her solitary labours in the afternoon, found the
house unbearable and gave notice. Odile, Madame d'Esparvieu's
lady's-maid, not daring, as was her custom after her mistress had
retired, to introduce Octave, the handsomest of the neighbouring
bookseller's clerks, to her little room upstairs, grew melancholy,
irritable and nervous, pulled her mistress's hair while dressing it,
spoke insolently, and made advances to Monsieur Maurice. The cook,
Madame Malgoire, a serious matron of some fifty years, having no more
visits from Auguste, the wine-merchant's man in the Rue Servandoni, and
being incapable of suffering a privation so contrary to her temperament,
went mad, sent up a raw rabbit to table, and announced that the Pope had
asked her hand in marriage. At last, after a fortnight of superhuman
assiduity, contrary to all known laws of organic life, and to the
essential conditions of animal economy, Mignon, the detective, having
observed nothing abnormal, ceased his surveillance and withdrew without
a word, refusing to accept a gratuity. In the library the dance of the
books became livelier than ever.
"That is all right," said Monsieur des Aubels. "Since nothing comes in
nor goes out, the evil-doer must be in the house."
The magistrate thought it possible to discover the criminal without
police-warrant or enquiry. On a date agreed upon at midnight, he had the
floor of the library, the treads of the stairs, the vestibule, the
garden path leading to Monsieur Maurice's summer-house, and the entrance
hall of the latter, all covered with a coating of talc.
The following morning Monsieur des Aubels, assisted by a photographer
from the Prefecture, and accompanied by Monsieur René d'Esparvieu and
Monsieur Sariette, came to take the imprints. They found nothing in the
garden, the wind had blown away the coating of talc; nothing in the
summer-house either. Young Maurice told them he thought it was some
practical joke and that he had brushed away the white dust with the
hearth-brush. The real truth was, he had effaced the traces left by the
boots of Odile, the lady's-maid. On the stairs and in the library the
very light print of a bare foot could be discerned, it seemed to have
sprung into the air and to have touched the ground at rare intervals and
without any pressure. They discovered five of these traces. The clearest
was to be found in the abode of the busts and spheres, on the edge of
the table where the books were piled. The photographer took several
negatives of this imprint.
"This is more terrifying than anything else," murmured Monsieur
Sariette.
Monsieur des Aubels did not hide his surprise.
Three days later the anthropometrical department of the Prefecture
returned the proofs exhibited to them, saying that they were not in the
records.
After dinner Monsieur René showed the photographs to his brother Gaétan,
who examined them with profound attention, and after a long silence
exclaimed:
"No wonder they have not got this at the Prefecture; it is the foot of a
god or of an athlete of antiquity. The sole that made this impression is
of a perfection unknown to our races and our climates. It exhibits toes
of exquisite grace, and a divine heel."
René d'Esparvieu cried out upon his brother for a madman.
"He is a poet," sighed Madame d'Esparvieu.
"Uncle," said Maurice, "you'll fall in love with this foot if you ever
come across it."
"Such was the fate of Vivant Denon, who accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt,"
replied Gaétan. "At Thebes, in a tomb violated by the Arabs, Denon
found the little foot of a mummy of marvellous beauty. He contemplated
it with extraordinary fervour, 'It is the foot of a young woman,' he
pondered, 'of a princess--of a charming creature. No covering has ever
marred its perfect shape.' Denon admired, adored, and loved it. You may
see a drawing of this little foot in Denon's atlas of his journey to
Egypt, whose leaves one could turn over upstairs, without going further
afield, if only Monsieur Sariette would ever let us see a single volume
of his library."
Sometimes, in bed, Maurice, waking in the middle of the night, thought
he heard the sound of pages being turned over in the next room, and the
thud of bound volumes falling on the floor.
One morning at five o'clock he was coming home from the club, after a
night of bad luck, and while he stood outside the door of the
summer-house, hunting in his pocket for his keys, his ears distinctly
heard a voice sighing:
"Knowledge, whither dost thou lead me? Thought, whither dost thou lure
me?"
But entering the two rooms he saw nothing, and told himself that his
ears must have deceived him.


CHAPTER VIII
WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE,
FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN
INSIPID DISH

Nothing ever astonished Maurice. He never sought to know the causes of
things and dwelt tranquilly in the world of appearances. Not denying the
eternal truth, he nevertheless followed vain things as his fancy led
him.
Less addicted to sport and violent exercise than most young people of
his generation, he followed unconsciously the old erotic traditions of
his race. The French were ever the most gallant of men, and it were a
pity they should lose this advantage. Maurice preserved it. He was in
love with no woman, but, as St. Augustine said, he loved to love. After
paying the tribute that was rightly due to the imperishable beauty and
secret arts of Madame de la Berthelière, he had enjoyed the impetuous
caresses of a young singer called Luciole. At present he was joylessly
experiencing the primitive perversity of Odile, his mother's
lady's-maid, and the tearful adoration of the beautiful Madame
Boittier. And he felt a great void in his heart.
It chanced that one Wednesday, on entering the drawing-room where his
mother entertained her friends--who were, generally speaking,
unattractive and austere ladies, with a sprinkling of old men and very
young people--he noticed, in this intimate circle, Madame des Aubels,
the wife of the magistrate at the Law Courts, whom Monsieur d'Esparvieu
had vainly consulted on the mysterious ransacking of his library. She
was young, he found her pretty, and not without cause. Gilberte had been
modelled by the Genius of the Race, and no other genius had had a part
in the work.
Thus all her attributes inspired desire, and nothing in her shape or her
being aroused any other sentiment.
The law of attraction which draws world to world moved young Maurice to
approach this delicious creature, and under its influence he offered to
escort her to the tea-table. And when Gilberte was served with tea, he
said:
"We should hit it off quite well together, you and I, don't you think?"
He spoke in this way, according to modern usage, so as to avoid inane
compliments and to spare a woman the boredom of listening to one of
those old declarations of love which, containing nothing but what is
vague and undefined, require neither a truthful nor an exact reply.
And profiting by the fact that he had an opportunity of conversing
secretly with Madame des Aubels for a few minutes, he spoke urgently and
to the point. Gilberte, so far as one could judge, was made rather to
awaken desire than to feel it. Nevertheless, she well knew that her fate
was to love, and she followed it willingly and with pleasure. Maurice
did not particularly displease her. She would have preferred him to be
an orphan, for experience had taught her how disappointing it sometimes
is to love the son of the house.
"Will you?" he said by way of conclusion.
She pretended not to understand, and with her little _foie-gras_
sandwich raised half-way to her mouth she looked at Maurice with
wondering eyes.
"Will I _what_?" she asked.
"You know quite well."
Madame des Aubels lowered her eyes, and sipped her tea, for her
prudishness was not quite vanquished. Meanwhile Maurice, taking her
empty cup from her hand, murmured:
"Saturday, five o'clock, 126 Rue de Rome, on the ground-floor, the door
on the right, under the arch. Knock three times."
Madame des Aubels glanced severely and imperturbably at the son of the
house, and with a self-possessed air rejoined the circle of highly
respectable women to whom the Senator Monsieur Le Fol was explaining
how artificial incubators were employed at the agricultural colony at
St. Julienne.
The following Saturday, Maurice, in his ground-floor flat, awaited
Madame des Aubels. He waited her in vain. No light hand came to knock
three times on the door under the arch. And Maurice gave way to
imprecation, inwardly calling the absent one a jade and a hussy. His
fruitless wait, his frustrated desires, rendered him unjust. For Madame
des Aubels in not coming where she had never promised to go hardly
deserved these names; but we judge human actions by the pleasure or pain
they cause us.
Maurice did not put in an appearance in his mother's drawing-room until
a fortnight after the conversation at the tea-table. He came late.
Madame des Aubels had been there for half an hour. He bowed coldly to
her, took a seat some way off, and affected to be listening to the talk.
"Worthily matched," a rich male voice was saying; "the two antagonists
were well calculated to render the struggle a terrible and uncertain
one. General Bol, with unprecedented tenacity, maintained his position
as though he were rooted in the very soil. General Milpertuis, with an
agility truly superhuman, kept carrying out movements of the most
dazzling rapidity around his immovable adversary. The battle continued
to be waged with terrible stubbornness. We were all in an agony of
suspense...."
It was General d'Esparvieu describing the autumn manoeuvres to a company
of breathlessly interested ladies. He was talking well and his audience
were delighted. Proceeding to draw a comparison between the French and
German methods, he defined their distinguishing characteristics and
brought out the conspicuous merits of both with a lofty impartiality. He
did not hesitate to affirm that each system had its advantages, and at
first made it appear to his circle of wondering, disappointed, and
anxious dames, whose countenances were growing increasingly gloomy, that
France and Germany were practically in a position of equality. But
little by little, as the strategist went on to give a clearer definition
of the two methods, that of the French began to appear flexible,
elegant, vigorous, full of grace, cleverness, and verve; that of the
Germans heavy, clumsy, and undecided. And slowly and surely the faces of
the ladies began to clear and to light up with joyous smiles. In order
to dissipate any lingering shadows of misgiving from the minds of these
wives, sisters, and sweethearts, the General gave them to understand
that we were in a position to make use of the German method when it
suited us, but that the Germans could not avail themselves of the French
method. No sooner had he delivered himself of these sentiments than he
was button-holed by Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec, who was engaged in
founding a patriotic society known as "Swordsmen All," of which the
object was to regenerate France and ensure her superiority over all her
adversaries. Even children in the cradle were to be enrolled, and
Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec offered the honorary presidency to General
d'Esparvieu.
Meanwhile Maurice was appearing to be interested in a conversation that
was taking place between a very gentle old lady and the Abbé Lapetite,
Chaplain to the Dames du Saint Sang. The old lady, severely tried of
late by illness and the loss of friends, wanted to know how it was that
people were unhappy in this world.
"How," she asked Abbé Lapetite, "do you explain the scourges that
afflict mankind? Why are there plagues, famines, floods, and
earthquakes?"
"It is surely necessary that God should sometimes remind us of his
existence," replied Abbé Lapetite, with a heavenly smile.
Maurice appeared keenly interested in this conversation. Then he seemed
fascinated by Madame Fillot-Grandin, quite a personable young woman,
whose simple innocence, however, detracted all piquancy from her beauty,
all savour from her bodily charms. A very sour, shrill-voiced old lady,
who, affecting the dowdy, woollen weeds of poverty, displayed the pride
of a great lady in the world of Christian finance, exclaimed in a
squeaky voice:
"Well, my dear Madame d'Esparvieu, so you have had trouble here. The
papers speak darkly of robbery, of thefts committed in Monsieur
d'Esparvieu's valuable library, of stolen letters...."
"Oh," said Madame d'Esparvieu, "if we are to believe all the newspapers
say...."
"Oh, so, dear Madame, you have got your treasures back. All's well that
ends well."
"The library is in perfect order," asserted Madame d'Esparvieu. "There
is nothing missing."
"The library is on the floor above this, is it not?" asked young Madame
des Aubels, showing an unexpected interest in the books.
Madame d'Esparvieu replied that the library occupied the whole of the
second floor, and that they had put the least valuable books in the
attics.
"Could I not go and look at it?"
The mistress of the house declared that nothing could be easier. She
called to her son:
"Maurice, go and do the honours of the library to Madame des Aubels."
Maurice rose, and without uttering a word, mounted to the second floor
in the wake of Madame des Aubels.
He appeared indifferent, but inwardly he rejoiced, for he had no doubt
that Gilberte had feigned her ardent desire to inspect the library
simply to see him in secret. And, while affecting indifference, he
promised himself to renew those offers which, this time, would not be
refused.
Under the romantic bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, they were met by the
silent shadow of a little wan, hollow-eyed old man, who wore a settled
expression of mute terror.
"Do not let us disturb you, Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice. "I am
showing Madame des Aubels round the library."
Maurice and Madame des Aubels passed on into the great room where
against the four walls rose presses filled with books and surmounted by
bronze busts of poets, philosophers, and orators of antiquity. All was
in perfect order, an order which seemed never to have been disturbed
from the beginning of things.
Only, a black void was to be seen in the place which, only the evening
before, had been filled by an unpublished manuscript of Richard Simon.
Meanwhile, by the side of the young couple walked Monsieur Sariette,
pale, faded, and silent.
"Really and truly, you have not been nice," said Maurice, with a look of
reproach at Madame des Aubels.
She signed to him that the librarian might over-hear. But he reassured
her.
"Take no notice. It is old Sariette. He has become a complete idiot."
And he repeated: "No, you have not been at all nice. I awaited you. You
did not come. You have made me unhappy."
After a moment's silence, while one heard the low melancholy whistling
of asthma in poor Sariette's bronchial tubes, young Maurice continued
insistently:
"You are wrong."
"Why wrong?"
"Wrong not to do as I ask you."
"Do you still think so?"
"Certainly."
"You meant it seriously?"
"As seriously as can be."
Touched by his assurance of sincere and constant feeling, and thinking
she had resisted sufficiently, Gilberte granted to Maurice what she had
refused him a fortnight ago.
They slipped into an embrasure of the window, behind an enormous
celestial globe whereon were graven the Signs of the Zodiac and the
figures of the stars, and there, their gaze fixed on the Lion, the
Virgin, and the Scales, in the presence of a multitude of Bibles, before
the works of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, beneath the casts of
Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, and
Epictetus, they exchanged vows of love and a long kiss on the mouth.
Almost immediately Madame des Aubels bethought herself that she still
had some calls to pay, and that she must make her escape quickly, for
love had not made her lose all sense of her own importance. But she had
barely crossed the landing with Maurice when they heard a hoarse cry and
saw Monsieur Sariette plunge madly downstairs, exclaiming as he went:
"Stop it, stop it; I saw it fly away! It escaped from the shelf by
itself. It crossed the room ... there it is--there! It's going
downstairs. Stop it! It has gone out of the door on the ground floor!"
"What?" asked Maurice.
Monsieur Sariette looked out of the landing window, murmuring
horror-struck:
"It's crossing the garden! It's going into the summer-house. Stop it,
stop it!"
"But what is it?" repeated Maurice--"in God's name, what is it?"
"My Flavius Josephus," exclaimed Monsieur Sariette. "Stop it!"
And he fell down unconscious.
"You see he is quite mad," said Maurice to Madame des Aubels, as he
lifted up the unfortunate librarian.
Gilberte, a little pale, said she also thought she had seen something in
the direction indicated by the unhappy man, something flying.
Maurice had seen nothing, but he had felt what seemed like a gust of
wind.
He left Monsieur Sariette in the arms of Hippolyte and the housekeeper,
who had both hastened to the spot on hearing the noise.
The old gentleman had a wound in his head.
"All the better," said the housekeeper; "this wound may save him from
having a fit."
Madame des Aubels gave her handkerchief to stop the blood, and
recommended an arnica compress.


CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT, AS AN ANCIENT GREEK POET SAID,
"NOTHING IS SWEETER THAN APHRODITE THE GOLDEN"

Although he had enjoyed Madame des Aubels' favours for six whole months,
Maurice still loved her. True they had had to separate during the
summer. For lack of funds of his own he had had to go to Switzerland
with his mother, and then to stop with the whole family at the Château
d'Esparvieu. She had spent the summer with her mother at Niort, and the
autumn with her husband at a little Normandy seaside place, so that they
had hardly seen each other four or five times. But since the winter,
kindly to lovers, had brought them back to town again, Maurice had been
receiving her twice a week in his little flat in the Rue de Rome, and
received no one else. No other woman had inspired him with feelings of
such constancy and fidelity. What augmented his pleasure was that he
believed himself loved, and indeed he was not unpleasing.
He thought that she did not deceive him, not that he had any reason to
think so, but it appeared right and fitting that she should be content
with him alone. What annoyed him was that she always kept him waiting,
and was unpunctual in coming to their meeting-place; she was invariably
late,--at times very late.
Now on Saturday, January 30th, since four o'clock in the afternoon,
Maurice had been awaiting Madame des Aubels in the little pink room,
where a bright fire was burning. He was gaily clad in a suit of flowered
pyjamas, smoking Turkish cigarettes. At first he dreamt of receiving her
with long kisses, with hitherto unknown caresses. A quarter of an hour
having passed, he meditated serious and affectionate reproaches, then
after an hour of disappointed waiting he vowed he would meet her with
cold disdain.
At length she appeared, fresh and fragrant.
"It was scarcely worth while coming," he said bitterly, as she laid her
muff and her little bag on the table and untied her veil before the
wardrobe mirror.
Never, she told her beloved, had she had such trouble to get away. She
was full of excuses, which he obstinately rejected. But no sooner had
she the good sense to hold her tongue than he ceased his reproaches, and
then nothing detracted from the longing with which she inspired him.
The curtains were drawn, the room was bathed in warm shadows lit by the
dancing gleams of the fire. The mirrors in the wardrobe and on the
chimney-piece shone with mysterious lights. Gilberte, leaning on her
elbow, head on hand, was lost in thought. A little jeweller, a
trustworthy and intelligent man, had shown her a wonderfully pretty
pearl and sapphire bracelet; it was worth a great deal, and was to be
had for a mere nothing. He had got it from a _cocotte_ down on her luck,