The Revolt of the Angels - 06

"If I am doing my best," he replied to his celestial brother, "if I am
doing my best to stir up France and Europe, it is because the day is
dawning which will behold the triumph of the social revolution. It is a
pleasure to cast one's seed on ground so well prepared. The French
having passed from feudalism to monarchy, and from monarchy to a
financial oligarchy, will easily pass from a financial oligarchy to
anarchy."
"How erroneous it is," retorted Arcade, "to believe in great and sudden
changes in the social order in Europe! The old order is still young in
strength and power. The means of defence at her disposal are formidable.
On the other hand, the proletariat's plan of defensive organisation is
of the vaguest description and brings merely weakness and confusion to
the struggle. In our celestial country all goes quite otherwise. Beneath
an apparently unchangeable exterior all is rotten within. A mere push
would suffice to overturn an edifice which has not been touched for
millions of centuries. Out-worn administration, out-worn army, out-worn
finance, the whole thing is more worm-eaten than either the Russian or
Persian autocracy."
And the kindly Arcade adjured the Cherub to fly first to the aid of his
brethren who, though dwelling amid the soft clouds with the sound of
citterns and their cups of paradisal wine around them, were in more
wretched plight than mankind bowed over the grudging earth. For the
latter have a conception of justice, while the angels rejoice in
iniquity. He exhorted him to deliver the Prince of Light and his
stricken companions and to re-establish them in their ancient honours.
Prince Istar allowed himself to be convinced.
He promised to put the sweet persuasiveness of his words and the
excellent formulæ of his explosives at the service of the celestial
revolution. He gave his promise.
"To-morrow," he said.
And when the morrow came he continued his anti-militarist propaganda at
Issy-les-Moulineaux. Like the Titan Prometheus, Istar loved mankind.
Arcade, suffering from all the desires to which the sons of Adam are
subjected, found himself lacking in resources to satisfy them. Istar
gave him a start in a printing house in the Rue de Vaugirard where he
knew the foreman. Arcade, thanks to his celestial intelligence, soon
knew how to set up type and became, in a short time, a good compositor.
After standing all day in the whirring workroom, holding the
composing-stick in his left hand, and swiftly drawing the little leaden
signs from the case in the order required by the copy fixed in the
_visorium_, he would go and wash his hands at the pump and dine at the
corner bar, a newspaper propped up before him on the marble table. Being
now no longer invisible, he could not make his way into the d'Esparvieu
library, and was thus debarred from allaying his ardent thirst for
knowledge at that inexhaustible source. He went, of an evening, to read
at the library of Ste. Geneviève on the famous hill of learning, but
there were only ordinary books to be had there; greasy things, covered
with ridiculous annotations, and lacking many pages.
The sight of women troubled and unsettled him. He would remember Madame
des Aubels and her charm, and, although he was handsome, he was not
loved, because of his poverty and his workaday clothes. He saw much of
Zita, and took a certain pleasure in going for walks with her on Sundays
along the dusty roads which edge the grass-grown trenches of the
fortifications. They wandered, the pair of them, by wayside inns,
market-gardens, and green retreats, propounding and discussing the
vastest plans that ever stirred the world, and, occasionally, as they
passed along by some travelling circus, the steam organ of the
merry-go-round would furnish an accompaniment to their words as they
breathed fire and fury against Heaven.
Zita used often to say:
"Istar means well, but he's a simple fellow. He believes in the goodness
of men and things. He undertakes the destruction of the old world and
imagines that anarchy of itself will create order and harmony. You,
Arcade, you believe in Science; you deem that men and angels are capable
of understanding, whereas, in point of fact, they are only creatures of
sentiment. You may be quite sure that nothing is to be obtained from
them by appealing to their intelligence; one must rouse their interests
and their passions."
Arcade, Istar, Zita, and three or four other angelic conspirators
occasionally foregathered in Théophile Belais' little flat, where
Bouchotte gave them tea. Though she did not know that they were
rebellious angels, she hated them instinctively, and feared them, for
she had had a Christian education, albeit she had sadly failed to keep
it up.
Prince Istar alone pleased her; she thought there was something
kind-hearted and an air of natural distinction about him. He stove in
the sofa, broke down the arm-chairs, and tore corners off sheets of
music to make notes, which he thrust into pockets invariably crammed
with pamphlets and bottles. The musician used to gaze sorrowfully at the
manuscript of his operetta, _Aline, Queen of Golconda_, with its corners
all torn off. The prince also had a habit of giving Théophile Belais all
sorts of things to take care of--mechanical contrivances, chemicals,
bits of old iron, powders, and liquids which gave off noisome smells.
Théophile Belais put them cautiously away in the cupboard where he kept
his wings, and the responsibility weighed heavily upon him.
Arcade was much pained at the disdain of those of his fellows who had
remained faithful. When they met him as they went on their sacred
errands they regarded him as they passed by with looks of cruel hatred
or of pity that was crueller still.
He used to visit the rebel angels whom Prince Istar pointed out to him,
and usually met with a good reception, but as soon as he began to speak
of conquering Heaven, they did not conceal the embarrassment and
displeasure he caused them. Arcade perceived that they had no desire to
be disturbed in their tastes, their affairs, and their habits. The
falsity of their judgment, the narrowness of their minds, shocked him;
and the rivalry, the jealousy they displayed towards one another
deprived him of all hope of uniting them in a common cause. Perceiving
how exile debases the character and warps the intellect, he felt his
courage fail him.
One evening, when he had confessed his weariness of spirit to Zita, the
beautiful archangel said:
"Let us go and see Nectaire; Nectaire has remedies of his own for
sadness and fatigue."
She led him into the woods of Montmorency and stopped at the threshold
of a small white house, adjoining a kitchen garden, laid waste by
winter, where far back in the shadows the light shone on forcing-frames
and cracked glass melon shades.
Nectaire opened the door to his visitors, and, after quieting the growls
of a big mastiff which protected the garden, led them into a low room
warmed by an earthenware stove.
Against the whitewashed wall, on a deal board, among the onions and
seeds, lay a flute ready to be put to the lips. A round walnut table
bore a stone tobacco-jar, a pipe, a bottle of wine and some glasses. The
gardener offered each of his guests a cane-seated chair, and himself sat
down on a stool by the table.
He was a sturdy old man; thick grey hair stood up on his head, he had a
furrowed brow, a snub-nose, a red face, and a forked beard.
The big mastiff stretched himself at his master's feet, rested his short
black muzzle on his paws, and closed his eyes. The gardener poured out
some wine for his guests, and when they had drunk and talked a little,
Zita said to Nectaire:
"Please play your flute to us, you will give pleasure to my friend whom
I have brought to see you."
The old man immediately consented. He put the boxwood pipe to his
lips,--so clumsy was it that it looked as if the gardener had fashioned
it himself,--and preluded with a few strange runs. Then he developed
rich melodies in which the thrills sparkled like diamonds and pearls on
a velvet ground. Touched by cunning fingers, animated with creative
breath, the rustic pipe sang like a silver flute. There were no
over-shrill notes and the tone was always even and pure. One seemed to
be listening to the nightingale and the Muses singing together, the soul
of Nature and the soul of Man. And the old man ordered and developed his
thoughts in a musical language full of grace and daring. He told of
love, of fear, of vain quarrels, of all-conquering laughter, of the
calm light of the intellect, of the arrows of the mind piercing with
their golden shafts the monsters of Ignorance and Hate. He told also of
Joy and Sorrow bending their twin heads over the earth and of Desire
which brings worlds into being.
The whole night listened to the flute of Nectaire. Already the evening
star was rising above the paling horizon.
There they sat; Zita with hands clasped about her knees, Arcade, his
head leaning on his hand, his lips apart. Motionless they listened. A
lark, which had awakened hard by in a sandy field, lured by these novel
sounds, rose swiftly in the air, hovered a few seconds, then dropped at
one swoop into the musician's orchard. The neighbouring sparrows,
forsaking the crannies of the mouldering walls, came and sat in a row on
the window-ledge whence notes came welling forth that gave them more
delight than oats or grains of barley. A jay, coming for the first time
out of his wood, folded his sapphire wings on a leafless cherry tree.
Beside the drain-head, a large black rat, glistening with the greasy
water of the sewers, sitting on his hind legs, raised his short arms and
slender fingers in amazement. A field-mouse, that dwelt in the orchard,
was seated near him. Down from the tiles came the old tom-cat, who
retained the grey fur, the ringed tail, the powerful loins, the courage,
and the pride of his ancestors. He pushed against the half-open door
with his nose and approaching the flute-player with silent tread, sat
gravely down, pricking his ears that had been torn in many a nocturnal
combat; the grocer's white cat followed him, sniffing the vibrant air
and then, arching her back and closing her blue eyes, listened in
ravishment. Mice, swarming in crowds from under the boards, surrounded
them, and fearing neither tooth nor claw, sat motionless, their pink
hands folded voluptuously on their bosoms. Spiders that had strayed far
from their webs, with waving legs, gathered in a charmed circle on the
ceiling. A small grey lizard, that had glided on to the doorstep, stayed
there, fascinated, and, in the loft, the bat might have been seen
hanging by her nails, head down, now half-awakened from her winter
sleep, swaying to the rhythm of the marvellous flute.


CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN WE SEE YOUNG MAURICE BEWAILING THE LOSS OF HIS
GUARDIAN ANGEL, EVEN IN HIS MISTRESS'S ARMS, AND WHEREIN WE
HEAR THE ABBÉ PATOUILLE REJECT AS VAIN AND ILLUSORY ALL
NOTIONS OF A NEW REBELLION OF THE ANGELS

A fortnight had elapsed since the angel's apparition in the flat. For
the first time Gilberte arrived before Maurice at the rendezvous.
Maurice was gloomy, Gilberte sulky. So far as they were concerned Nature
had resumed her drab monotony. They eyed each other languidly, and kept
glancing towards the angle between the wardrobe with the mirror and the
window, where recently the pale shade of Arcade had taken shape, and
where now the blue cretonne of the hangings was the only thing visible.
Without giving him a name (it was unnecessary) Madame des Aubels asked:
"You have not seen him since?"
Slowly, sadly, Maurice turned his head from right to left, and from left
to right.
"You look as if you missed him," continued Madame des Aubels. "But come,
confess that he gave you a terrible fright, and that you were shocked at
his unconventionally."
"Certainly he was unconventional," said Maurice without any resentment.
"Tell me, Maurice, is it nothing to you now to be with me alone?... You
need an angel to inspire you. That is sad, for a young man like you!"
Maurice appeared not to hear, and asked gravely:
"Gilberte, do you feel that your guardian angel is watching over you?"
"I, not at all. I have never thought of him, and yet I am not without
religion. In the first place, people who have none are like animals. And
then one cannot go straight without religion. It is impossible."
"Exactly, that's just it," said Maurice, his eyes on the violet stripes
of his flowerless pyjamas; "when one has one's guardian angel one does
not even think about him, and when one has lost him one feels very
lonely."
"So you miss this...."
"Well, the fact is...."
"Oh, yes, yes, you miss him. Well, my dear, the loss of such a guardian
angel as that is no great matter. No, no! he is not worth much, that
Arcade of yours. On that famous day, while you were out getting him some
clothes, he was ever so long fastening my dress, and I certainly felt
his hand.... Well, at any rate, don't trust him."
Maurice dreamily lit a cigarette. They spoke of the six days' bicycle
race at the winter velodrome, and of the aviation show at the motor
exhibition at Brussels, without experiencing the slightest amusement.
Then they tried love-making as a sort of convenient pastime, and
succeeded in becoming moderately absorbed in it; but at the very moment
when she might have been expected to play a part more in accordance with
a mutual sentiment, she exclaimed with a sudden start:
"Good Heavens! Maurice, how stupid of you to tell me that my guardian
angel can see me. You cannot imagine how uncomfortable the idea makes
me."
Maurice, somewhat taken aback, recalled, a little roughly, his
mistress's wandering thoughts.
She declared that her principles forbade her to think of playing a round
game with angels.
Maurice was longing to see Arcade again and had no other thought. He
reproached himself for suffering him to depart without discovering where
he was going, and he cudgelled his brains night and day thinking how to
find him again.
On the bare chance, he put a notice in the personal column of one of the
big papers, running thus:
"Arcade. Come back to your Maurice."
Day after day went by, and Arcade did not return.
One morning, at seven o'clock, Maurice went to St. Sulpice to hear Abbé
Patouille say Mass, then, as the priest was leaving the sacristy, he
went up to him and asked to be heard for a moment.
They descended the steps of the church together and in the bright
morning light walked round the fountain of the _Quatre Évêques_. In
spite of his troubled conscience and the difficulty of presenting so
extraordinary a case with any degree of credibility, Maurice related how
the angel Arcade had appeared to him and had announced his unhappy
resolve to separate from him and to stir up a new revolt of the spirits
of glory. And young d'Esparvieu asked the worthy ecclesiastic how to
find his celestial guardian again, since he could not bear his absence,
and how to lead his angel back to the Christian faith. Abbé Patouille
replied in a tone of affectionate sorrow that his dear child had been
dreaming, that he took a morbid hallucination for reality, and that it
was not permissible to believe that good angels may revolt.
"People have a notion," he added, "that they can lead a life of
dissipation and disorder with impunity. They are wrong. The abuse of
pleasure corrupts the intelligence and impairs the understanding. The
devil takes possession of the sinner's senses, penetrating even to his
soul. He has deceived you, Maurice, by a clumsy artifice."
Maurice objected that he was not in any way a victim of hallucinations,
that he had not been dreaming, that he had seen his guardian angel with
his eyes and heard him with his ears.
"Monsieur l'Abbé," he insisted, "a lady who happened to be with me at
the time,--I need not mention her name,--also saw and heard him. And,
moreover, she felt the angel's fingers straying ... well, anyhow, she
felt them.... Believe me, Monsieur l'Abbé, nothing could be more real,
more positively certain than this apparition. The angel was fair, young,
very handsome. His clear skin seemed, in the shadow, as if bathed in
milky light. He spoke in a pure, sweet voice."
"That, alone, my child," the Abbé interrupted quickly, "proves you were
dreaming. According to all the demonologies, bad angels have a hoarse
voice, which grates like a rusty lock, and even if they did contrive to
give a certain look of beauty to their faces, they cannot succeed in
imitating the pure voice of the good spirits. This fact, attested by
numerous witnesses, is established beyond all doubt."
"But, Monsieur l'Abbé, I saw him. I saw him sit down, stark naked, in an
arm-chair on a pair of black stockings. What else do you want me to tell
you?"
The Abbé Patouille appeared in no way disturbed by this announcement.
"I say once more, my son," he replied, "that these unhappy illusions,
these dreams of a deeply troubled soul, are to be ascribed to the
deplorable state of your conscience. I believe, moreover, that I can
detect the particular circumstance that has caused your unstable mind
thus to come to grief. During the winter in company with Monsieur
Sariette and your Uncle Gaétan, you came, in an evil frame of mind, to
see the Chapel of the Holy Angels in this church, then undergoing
repair. As I observed on that occasion, it is impossible to keep artists
too closely to the rules of Christian art; they cannot be too strongly
enjoined to respect Holy Writ and its authorized interpreters. Monsieur
Eugène Delacroix did not suffer his fiery genius to be controlled by
tradition. He brooked no guidance and, here, in this chapel he has
painted pictures which in common parlance we call lurid, compositions of
a violent, terrible nature which, far from inspiring the soul with
peace, quietude, and calm, plunge it into a state of agitation. In them
the angels are depicted with wrathful countenances, their features are
sombre and uncouth. One might take them to be Lucifer and his companions
meditating their revolt. Well, my son, it was these pictures, acting
upon a mind already weakened and undermined by every kind of
dissipation, that have filled it with the trouble to which it is at
present a prey."
But Maurice would have none of it.
"Oh, no! Monsieur l'Abbé," he cried, "it is not Eugène Delacroix's
pictures that have been troubling me. I didn't so much as look at them.
I am completely indifferent to that kind of art."
"Well, then, my son, believe me: there is no truth, no reality, in any
of the story you have just related to me. Your guardian angel has
certainly not appeared to you."
"But, Abbé," replied Maurice, who had the most absolute confidence in
the evidence of the senses, "I saw him tying up a woman's shoe-laces and
putting on the trousers of a suicide."
And stamping his feet on the asphalt, Maurice called as witnesses to the
truth of his words the sky, the earth, all nature, the towers of St.
Sulpice, the walls of the great seminary, the Fountain of the _Quatre
Évêques_, the public lavatory, the cabmen's shelter, the taxis and motor
'buses' shelter, the trees, the passers-by, the dogs, the sparrows, the
flower-seller and her flowers.
The Abbé made haste to end the interview.
"All this is error, falsehood, and illusion, my child," said he. "You
are a Christian: think as a Christian,--a Christian does not allow
himself to be seduced by empty shadows. Faith protects him against the
seduction of the marvellous, he leaves credulity to freethinkers. There
are credulous people for you--freethinkers! There is no humbug they will
not swallow. But the Christian carries a weapon which dissipates
diabolical illusions,--the sign of the Cross. Reassure yourself,
Maurice,--you have not lost your guardian angel. He still watches over
you. It lies with you not to make this task too difficult nor too
painful for him. Good-bye, Maurice. The weather is going to change, for
I feel a burning in my big toe."
And Abbé Patouille went off with his breviary under his arm, hobbling
along with a dignity that seemed to foretell a mitre.
That very day, Arcade and Zita were leaning over the parapet of La
Butte, gazing down on the mist and smoke that lay floating over the vast
city.
"Is it possible," said Arcade, "for the mind to conceive all the pain
and suffering that lie pent within a great city? It is my belief that if
a man succeeded in realising it, the weight of it would crush him to the
earth."
"And yet," answered Zita, "every living being in that place of torment
is enamoured of life. It is a great enigma!
"Unhappy, ill-fated, while they live, the idea of ceasing to be is,
nevertheless, a horror to them. They look not for solace in
annihilation, it does not even bring them the promise of rest. In their
madness they even look upon nothingness with terror: they have peopled
it with phantoms. Look you at these pediments, these towers and domes
and spires that pierce the mist and rear on high their glittering
crosses. Men bow in adoration before the demiurge who has given them a
life that is worse than death, and a death that is worse than life."
Zita was for a long time lost in thought. At length she broke silence,
saying:
"There is something, Arcade, that I must confess to you. It was no
desire for a purer justice or wiser laws that hurried Ithuriel
earthward. Ambition, a taste for intrigue, the love of wealth and
honour, all these things made Heaven, with its calm, unbearable to me,
and I longed to mingle with the restless race of men. I came, and by an
art unknown to nearly all the angels, I learned how to fashion myself a
body which, since I could change it as the fancy seized me, to
whatsoever age and sex I would, has permitted me to experience the most
diverse and amazing of human destinies. A hundred times I took a
position of renown among the leaders of the day, the lords of wealth and
princes of nations. I will not reveal to you, Arcade, the famous names I
bore; know only that I was pre-eminent in learning, in the fine arts, in
power, wealth, and beauty, among all the nations of the world. At last,
it was but a few years since, as I was journeying in France, under the
outward semblance of a distinguished foreigner, I chanced to be roaming
at evening through the forest of Montmorency, when I heard a flute
unfolding all the sorrows of Heaven. The purity and sadness of its
notes rent my very soul. Never before had I hearkened to aught so
lovely. My eyes were wet with tears, my bosom full of sobs, as I drew
near and beheld, on the skirts of a glade, an old man like to a faun,
blowing on a rustic pipe. It was Nectaire. I cast myself at his feet,
imprinted kisses on his hands and on his lips divine, and fled away....
"From that day forth, conscious of the littleness of human achievements,
weary of the tumult and the vanity of earthly things, ashamed of my vast
and profitless endeavours, and deciding to seek out a loftier aim for my
ambition, I looked upwards towards my skiey home and vowed I would
return to it as a Deliverer. I rid myself of titles, name, wealth,
friends, the horde of sycophants and flatterers and, as Zita the
obscure, set to work in indigence and solitude, to bring freedom into
Heaven."
"And I," said Arcade, "I too have heard the flute of Nectaire. But who
is this old gardener who can thus woo from a rude wooden pipe notes that
are so moving and so beautiful?"
"You will soon know," answered Zita.


CHAPTER XVI
WHEREIN MIRA THE SEERESS, ZÉPHYRINE, AND THE FATAL AMÉDÉE
ARE SUCCESSIVELY BROUGHT UPON THE SCENE, AND WHEREIN THE
NOTION OF EURIPIDES THAT THOSE WHOM ZEUS WISHES TO CRUSH HE
FIRST MAKES MAD, IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF
MONSIEUR SARIETTE

Disappointed at his failure to enlighten an ecclesiastic renowned for
his clarity of mind, and frustrated in the hope of finding his angel
again on the high road of orthodoxy, Maurice took it into his head to
resort to occultism and resolved to go and consult a seer. He would have
undoubtedly applied to Madame de Thèbes, but he had already questioned
her on the occasion of his early love troubles, and her replies showed
such wisdom that he no longer believed her to be a soothsayer. He
therefore had recourse to a fashionable medium, Madame Mira. He had
heard many examples quoted of the extraordinary insight of this seeress,
but it was necessary to present Madame Mira with some object which the
absent one had either touched or worn and to which her translucent gaze
had to be attracted. Maurice, trying to remember what the angel had
touched since his ill-fated incarnation, recollected that in his
celestial nudity he had sat down in an arm-chair on Madame des Aubels'
black stockings and that he had afterwards helped that lady to dress.
Maurice asked Gilberte for one of the talismans required by the
clairvoyante. But Gilberte could not give him a single one, unless, as
she said, she herself were to play the part of the talisman. For the
angel had, in her case, displayed the greatest indiscretion, and such
agility that it was impossible always to forestall his enterprise. On
hearing this confession, which nevertheless told him nothing new,
Maurice lost his temper with the angel, calling him by the names of the
lowest animals and swearing he would give him a good kick when he got
him within reach of his foot. But his fury soon turned against Madame
des Aubels; he accused her of having provoked the insolence she now
denounced, and in his wrath he referred to her by all the zoological
symbols of immodesty and perversity. His love for Arcade was rekindled
in his heart, and burned with a more ardent flame than ever, and the
deserted youth, with outstretched arms and bended knees, invoked his
angel with sobs and lamentations.
During his sleepless nights it occurred to him that perhaps the books
the angel had turned over before his incarnation might serve as a
talisman. One morning, therefore, Maurice went up to the library and
greeted Monsieur Sariette, who was cataloguing under the romantic gaze
of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Monsieur Sariette smiled, but his face was
deathly pale. Now that an invisible hand no longer upset the books
placed under his charge, now that tranquillity and order once more
reigned in the library, Monsieur Sariette was happy, but his strength
diminished day by day. There was little left of him but a frail and
contented shadow.
"One dies, in full content, of sorrow past."
"Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice, "you remember that time when your
books were disarranged every night, how armfuls disappeared, how they
were dragged about, turned over, ruined, and sent rolling helter-skelter
as far as the gutter in the Rue Palatine. Those were great days! Point
out to me, Monsieur Sariette, the books which suffered most."
This proposition threw Monsieur Sariette into a melancholy stupor, and
Maurice had to repeat his request three times before he could make the
aged librarian understand. At length he pointed to a very ancient Talmud
from Jerusalem as having been frequently touched by those unseen hands.
An apocryphal Gospel of the third century, consisting of twenty papyrus
sheets, had also quitted its place time after time. Gassendi's
Correspondence too seemed to have been well thumbed.
"But," added Monsieur Sariette, "the book to which the mysterious
visitant devoted the most particular attention was undoubtedly a little
copy of _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vendôme, Grand
Prieur de France, with autograph annotations by Voltaire, who, as is
well known, frequently visited the Temple in his younger days. The
fearsome reader who caused me such terrible anxiety never grew weary of
this _Lucretius_ and made it his bedside book, as it were. His taste was