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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Balthasar, by Anatole France
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Balthasar
+       And Other Works - 1909
+
+Author: Anatole France
+
+Editor: Frederic Chapman
+
+Translator: Mrs. John Lane
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2008 [EBook #22059]
+Last Updated: October 5, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALTHASAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+BALTHASAR
+
+And Other Works
+
+By Anatole France
+
+Translated by Mrs. John Lane
+
+Edited by Frederic Chapman
+
+London: John Lane: MCMIX
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS;
+
+     Balthasar
+
+     The Curé’s Mignonette
+
+     M. Pigeonneau
+
+     The Daughter Of Lilith
+
+     Laeta Acilia
+
+     The Red Egg
+
+
+     Balthasar
+
+
+             TO THE VICOMTE EUGÈNE MELCHIOR DE VOGUE
+
+             “Magos regos fere habuit Oriens."{*}
+             --Tertullian.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+In those days Balthasar, whom the Greeks called Saracin, reigned in
+Ethiopia. He was black, but comely of countenance. He had a simple
+soul and a generous heart The third year of his reign, which was the
+twenty-second of his age, he left his dominions on a visit to Balkis,
+Queen of Sheba. The mage Sembobitis and the eunuch Menkera accompanied
+him. He had in his train seventy-five camels bearing cinnamon, myrrh,
+gold dust, and elephants’ tusks.
+
+As they rode, Sembobitis instructed him in the influences of the
+planets,{*} as well as in the virtues of precious stones, and Menkera
+sang to him canticles from the sacred mysteries. He paid but little heed
+to them, but amused himself instead watching the jackals with their ears
+pricked up, sitting erect on the edge of the desert.
+
+     * The East commonly held kings versed in magic.
+
+At last, after a march of twelve days, Balthasar became conscious of the
+fragrance of roses, and very soon they saw the gardens that surround
+the city of Sheba. On their way they passed young girls dancing under
+pomegranate trees in full bloom.
+
+“The dance,” said Sembobitis the mage, “is a prayer.”
+
+“One could sell these women for a great price,” said Menkera the eunuch.
+
+As they entered the city they were amazed at the extent of the sheds and
+warehouses and workshops that lay before them, and also at the immense
+quantities of merchandise with which these were piled.
+
+For a long time they walked through streets thronged with chariots,
+street porters, donkeys and donkey-drivers, until all at once the marble
+walls, the purple awnings and the gold cupolas of the palace of Balkis,
+lay spread out before them.
+
+The Queen of Sheba received them in a courtyard cooled by jets of
+perfumed water which fell with a tinkling cadence like a shower of
+pearls.
+
+Smiling, she stood before them in a jewelled robe.
+
+At sight of her Balthasar was greatly troubled.
+
+She seemed to him lovelier than a dream and more beautiful than desire.
+
+“My lord,” and Sembobitis spoke under his breath, “remember to conclude
+a good commercial treaty with the queen.”
+
+“Have a care, my lord,” Menkera added. “It is said she employs magic
+with which to gain the love of men.”
+
+Then, having prostrated themselves, the mage and the eunuch retired.
+
+Balthasar, left alone with Balkis, tried to speak; he opened his mouth
+but he could not utter a word. He said to himself, “The queen will be
+angered at my silence.”
+
+But the queen still smiled and looked not at all angry. She was the
+first to speak with a voice sweeter than the sweetest music.
+
+“Be welcome, and sit down at my side.” And with a slender finger like
+a ray of white light she pointed to the purple cushions on the ground.
+Balthasar sat down, gave a great sigh, and grasping a cushion in each
+hand he cried hastily:
+
+“Madam, I would these two cushions were two giants, your enemies; I
+would wring their necks.”
+
+And as he spoke he clutched the cushions with such violence in his hands
+that the delicate stuff cracked and out flew a cloud of snow-white down.
+One of the tiny feathers swayed a moment in the air and then alighted on
+the bosom of the queen.
+
+“My lord Balthasar,” Balkis said, blushing; “why do you wish to kill
+giants?”
+
+“Because I love you,” said Balthasar.
+
+“Tell me,” Balkis asked, “is the water good in the wells of your
+capital?”
+
+“Yes,” Balthasar replied in some surprise.
+
+“I am also curious to know,” Balkis continued, “how a dry conserve of
+fruit is made in Ethiopia?”
+
+The king did not know what to answer.
+
+“Now please tell me, please,” she urged.
+
+Whereupon with a mighty effort of memory he tried to describe how
+Ethiopian cooks preserve quinces in honey. But she did not listen. And
+suddenly, she interrupted him.
+
+“My lord, it is said that you love your neighbour, Queen Candace. Is she
+more beautiful than I am? Do not deceive me.”
+
+“More beautiful than you, madam,” Balthasar cried as he fell at the feet
+of Balkis, “how could that possibly be!”
+
+“Well, then, her eyes? her mouth, her colour? her throat?” the queen
+continued.
+
+With his arms outstretched towards her, Balthasar cried:
+
+“Give me but the little feather that has fallen on your neck and in
+return you shall have half my kingdom as well as the wise Sembobitis and
+Menkera the eunuch.”
+
+But she rose and fled with a ripple of dear laughter.
+
+When the mage and the eunuch returned they found their master plunged
+deep in thought which was not his custom.
+
+“My lord!” asked Sembobitis, “have you concluded a good commercial
+treaty?”
+
+That day Balthasar supped with the Queen of Sheba and drank the wine of
+the palm-tree.
+
+“It is true, then,” said Balkis as they supped together, “that Queen
+Guidace is not so beautiful as I?”
+
+“Queen Candace is black,” replied Balthasar.
+
+Balkis looked expressively at Balthasar.
+
+“One may be black and yet not ill-looking,” she said.
+
+“Balkis!” cried the king.
+
+He said no more, but seized her in his arms, and the head of the queen
+sank back under the pressure of his lips. But he saw that she was
+weeping. Thereupon he spoke to her in the low, caressing tones that
+nurses use to their nurslings. He called her his little blossom and his
+little star.
+
+“Why do you weep?” he asked. “And what must one do to dry your tears? If
+you have a desire tell me and it shall be fulfilled.”
+
+She ceased weeping, but she was sunk deep in thought He implored her a
+long time to tell him her desire. And at last she spoke.
+
+“I wish to know fear.”
+
+And as Balthasar did not seem to understand, she explained to him that
+for a long time past she had greatly longed to face some unknown danger,
+but she could not, for the men and gods of Sheba watched over her.
+
+“And yet,” she added with a sigh, “during the night I long to feel the
+delicious chill of terror penetrate my flesh. To have my hair stand up
+on my head with horror. O! it would be such joy to be afraid!”
+
+She twined her arms about the neck of the dusky king, and said with the
+voice of a pleading child:
+
+“Night has come. Let us go through the town in disguise. Are you
+willing?”
+
+He agreed. She ran to the window at once and looked though the lattice
+into the square below.
+
+“A beggar is lying against the palace wall. Give him your garments and
+ask him in exchange for his camel-hair turban and the coarse cloth girt
+about his loins. Be quick and I will dress myself.”
+
+And she ran out of the banqueting-hall joyfully clapping her hands one
+against the other.
+
+Balthasar took off his linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded
+himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real
+slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of
+the women who work in the fields.
+
+“Come!” she said.
+
+And she dragged Balthasar along the narrow corridors towards a little
+door which opened on the fields.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The night was dark, and in the darkness of the night Balkis looked very
+small.
+
+She led Balthasar to one of the taverns where wastrels and street
+porters foregathered along with prostitutes. The two sat down at a table
+and saw through the foul air by the light of a fetid lamp, unclean human
+brutes attack each other with fists and knives for a woman or a cup
+of fermented liquor, while others with clenched fists snored under
+the tables. The tavern-keeper, lying on a pile of sacking, watched the
+drunken brawlers with a prudent eye. Balkis, having seen some salt fish
+hanging from the rafters of the ceiling, said to her companion:
+
+“I much wish to eat one of these fish with pounded onions.”
+
+Balthasar gave the order. When she had eaten he discovered that he had
+forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that
+he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the
+tavern-keeper barred their way, calling them a vile slave and a
+worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of
+his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung
+themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous
+pestle used to pound Egyptian onions, knocked down two of his assailants
+and forced the others back. And all the while he was conscious of the
+warmth of Balkis’ body as she cowered close against him; it was this
+which made him invincible.
+
+The tavern-keeper’s friends, not daring to approach again, flung at
+him from the end of the pot-house jars of oil, pewter vessels, burning
+lamps, and even the huge bronze cauldron in which a whole sheep was
+stewing. This cauldron fell with a horrible crash on Balthasar’s
+head and split his skull. For a moment he stood as if dazed, and then
+summoning all his strength he flung the cauldron back with such force
+that its weight was increased tenfold. The shock of the hurtling metal
+was mingled with indescribable roars and death rattles. Profiting by the
+terror of the survivors, and fearing that Balkis might be injured,
+he seized her in his arms and fled with her through the silence and
+darkness of the lonely byways. The stillness of night enveloped
+the earth, and the fugitives heard the clamour of the women and the
+carousers, who pursued them at haphazard, die away in the darkness. Soon
+they heard nothing more than the sound of dripping blood as it fell from
+the brow of Balthasar on the breast of Balkis.
+
+“I love you,” the queen murmured.
+
+And by the light of the moon as it emerged from behind a cloud the
+king saw the white and liquid radiance of her half-closed eyes. They
+descended the dry bed of a stream, and suddenly Balthasar’s foot slipped
+on the moss and they fell together locked in each other’s embrace.
+They seemed to sink forever into a delicious void, and the world of
+the living ceased to exist for them. They were still plunged in the
+enchanting forgetfulness of time, space and separate existence, when at
+daybreak the gazelles came to drink out of the hollows among the stones.
+
+At that moment a passing band of brigands discovered the two lovers
+lying on the moss.
+
+“They are poor,” they said, “but we shall sell them for a great price,
+for they are so young and beautiful.”
+
+Upon which they surrounded them, and having bound them they tied them to
+the tail of an ass and proceeded on their way.
+
+The black man so bound threatened the brigands with death. But Balkis,
+who shivered in the cool, fresh air of the morning, only smiled, as if
+at something unseen.
+
+They tramped through frightful solitudes until the heat of mid-day made
+itself felt. The sun was already high when the brigands unbound their
+prisoners, and, letting them sit in the shade of a rock, threw them some
+mouldy bread which Balthasar disdained to touch but which Balkis ate
+greedily.
+
+She laughed. And when the brigand chief asked why she laughed, she
+replied:
+
+“I laugh at the thought that I shall have you all hanged.”
+
+“Indeed!” cried the chief, “a curious assertion in the mouth of a
+scullery wench like you, my love! Doubtless you will hang us all by aid
+of that blackamoor gallant of yours?”
+
+At this insult Balthasar flew into a fearful rage, and he flung himself
+on the brigand and clutched his neck with such violence that he nearly
+strangled him.
+
+But the other drew his knife and plunged it into his body to the very
+hilt. The poor king rolled to earth, and as he turned on Balkis a dying
+glance his sight faded.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+At this moment was heard an uproar of men, horses and weapons, and
+Balkis recognised her trusty Abner who had come at the head of her
+guards to rescue his queen, of whose mysterious disappearance he had
+heard during the night.
+
+Three times he prostrated himself at the feet of Balkis, and ordered
+the litter to advance which had been prepared to receive her. In the
+meantime the guards bound the hands of the brigands. The queen turned
+towards the chief and said gently: “You cannot accuse me of having made
+you an idle promise, my friend, when I said you would be hanged.”
+
+The mage Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch, who stood beside Abner, gave
+utterance to terrible cries when they saw their king lying motionless on
+the ground with a knife in his stomach. They raised him with great care.
+Sembobitis, who was highly versed in the science of medicine, saw that
+he still breathed. He applied a temporary bandage while Menkera wiped
+the foam from the king’s lips. Then they bound him to a horse and led
+him gently to the palace of the queen.
+
+For fifteen days Balthasar lay in the agonies of delirium. He raved
+without ceasing of the steaming cauldron and the moss in the ravine, and
+he incessantly cried aloud for Balkis. At last, on the sixteenth day,
+he opened his eyes and saw at his bedside Sembobitis and Menkera, but he
+did not see the queen.
+
+“Where is she? What is she doing?”
+
+“My lord,” replied Menkera, “she is closeted with the King of Comagena.”
+
+“They are doubtless agreeing to an exchange of merchandise,” added the
+sage Sembobitis.
+
+“But be not so disturbed, my lord, or you will redouble your fever.”
+
+“I must see her,” cried Balthasar. And he flew towards the apartments
+of the queen, and neither the sage nor the eunuch could restrain him. On
+nearing the bedchamber he beheld the King of Comagena come forth covered
+with gold and glittering like the sun. Balkis, smiling and with eyes
+closed, lay on a purple couch. “My Balkis, my Balkis!” cried Balthasar.
+She did not even turn her head but seemed to prolong a dream.
+
+Balthasar approached and took her hand which she rudely snatched away.
+
+“What do you want?” she said.
+
+“Do you ask?” the black king answered, and burst into tears.
+
+She turned on him her hard, calm eyes.
+
+Then he realised that she had forgotten everything, and he reminded her
+of the night of the stream.
+
+“In truth, my lord,” said she, “I do not know to what you refer. The
+wine of the palm does not agree with you. You must have dreamed.”
+
+“What,” cried the unhappy king, wringing his hands, “your kisses, and
+the knife which has left its mark on me, are these dreams?”
+
+She rose; the jewels on her robe made a sound as of hail and flashed
+forth lightnings.
+
+“My lord,” she said, “it is the hour my council assembles. I have not
+the leisure to interpret the dreams of your suffering brain. Take some
+repose. Farewell.”
+
+Balthasar felt himself sinking, but with a supreme effort not to betray
+his weakness to this wicked woman, he ran to his room where he fell in a
+swoon and his wound re-opened.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+For three weeks he remained unconscious and as one dead, but having
+on the twenty-second day recovered his senses, he seized the hand of
+Sembobitis, who, with Menkera, watched over him, and cried, weeping:
+
+“O, my friends, how happy you are, one to be old and the other the same
+as old. But no! there is no happiness on earth, everything is bad, for
+love is an evil and Balkis is wicked.”
+
+“Wisdom confers happiness,” replied Sembobitis. “I will try it,” said
+Balthasar. “But let us depart at once for Ethiopia.” And as he had lost
+all he loved he resolved to consecrate himself to wisdom and to become
+a mage. If this decision gave him no especial pleasure it at least
+restored to him something of tranquillity. Every evening, seated on the
+terrace of his palace in company with the sage Sembobitis and Menkera
+the eunuch, he gazed at the palm-trees standing motionless against the
+horizon, or watched the crocodiles by the light of the moon float down
+the Nile like trunks of trees.
+
+“One never wearies of admiring the beauties of Nature,” said Sembobitis.
+
+“Doubtless,” said Balthasar, “but there are other things in Nature more
+beautiful even than palm-trees and crocodiles.”
+
+This he said thinking of Balkis. But Sembobitis, who was old, said:
+
+“There is of course the phenomenon of the rising of the Nile which I
+have explained. Man is created to understand.”
+
+“He is created to love,” replied Balthasar sighing. “There are things
+which cannot be explained.”
+
+“And what may those be?” asked Sembobitis.
+
+“A woman’s treason,” the king replied.
+
+Balthasar, however, having decided to become a mage, had a tower built
+from the summit of which might be discerned many kingdoms and the
+infinite spaces of Heaven. The tower was constructed of brick and rose
+high above all other towers. It took no less than two years to build,
+and Balthasar expended in its construction the entire treasure of the
+king, his father. Every night he climbed to the top of this tower and
+there he studied the heavens under the guidance of the sage Sembobitis.
+
+“The constellations of the heavens disclose our destiny,” said
+Sembobitis.
+
+And he replied:
+
+“It must be admitted nevertheless that these signs are obscure. But
+while I study them I forget Balkis, and that is a great boon.”
+
+And among truths most useful to know, the mage taught that the stars
+are fixed like nails in the arch of the sky, and that there are five
+planets, namely: Bel, Merodach, and Nebo, which are male, while Sin and
+Mylitta are female.
+
+“Silver,” he further explained, “corresponds to Sin, which is the moon,
+iron to Merodach, and tin to Bel.”
+
+And the worthy Balthasar answered: “Such is the kind of knowledge I
+wish to acquire. While I study astronomy I think neither of Balkis nor
+anything else on earth. The sciences are benificent; they keep men from
+thinking. Teach me the knowledge, Sembobitis, which destroys all feeling
+in men and I will raise you to great honour among my people.”
+
+This was the reason that Sembobitis taught the king wisdom.
+
+He taught him the power of incantation, according to the principles of
+Astrampsychos, Gobryas and Pazatas. And the more Balthasar studied the
+twelve houses of the sun, the less he thought of Balkis, and Menkera,
+observing this, was filled with a great joy.
+
+“Acknowledge, my lord, that Queen Balkis under her golden robes has
+little cloven feet like a goat’s.”
+
+“Who ever told you such nonsense?” asked the King.
+
+“My lord, it is the common report both in Sheba and Ethiopia,” replied
+the eunuch. “It is universally said that Queen Balkis has a shaggy leg
+and a foot made of two black horns.”
+
+Balthasar shrugged his shoulders. He knew that the legs and feet of
+Balkis were like the legs and feet of all other women and perfect in
+their beauty. And yet the mere idea spoiled the remembrance of her whom
+he had so greatly loved. He felt a grievance against Balkis that her
+beauty was not without blemish in the imagination of those who knew
+nothing about it. At the thought that he had possessed a woman who,
+though in reality perfectly formed, passed as a monstrosity, he was
+seized with such a sense of repugnance that he had no further desire
+to see Balkis again. Balthasar had a simple soul, but love is a very
+complex emotion.
+
+From that day on the king made great progress both in magic and
+astrology. He studied the conjunction of the stars with extreme care,
+and he drew horoscopes with an accuracy equal to that of Sembobitis
+himself.
+
+“Sembobitis,” he asked, “are you willing to answer with your head for
+the truth of my horoscopes?”
+
+And the sage Sembobitis replied:
+
+“My lord, science is infallible, but the learned often err.”
+
+Balthasar was endowed with fine natural sense. He said:
+
+“Only that which is true is divine, and what is divine is hidden from
+us. In vain we search for truth. And yet I have discovered a new star
+in the sky. It is a beautiful star, and it seems alive; and when it
+sparkles it looks like a celestial eye that blinks gently. I seem to
+hear it call to me. Happy, happy, happy is he who is born under this
+star, See, Sembobitis, how this charming and splendid star looks at us.”
+
+But Sembobitis did not see the star because he would not see it. Wise
+and old, he did not like novelties.
+
+And alone in the silence of night Balthasar repeated: “Happy, happy,
+happy he who is born under this star.”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+The rumour spread over all Ethiopia and the neighbouring kingdoms that
+King Balthasar had ceased to love Balkis.
+
+When the tidings reached the country of Sheba, Balkis was as indignant
+as if she had been betrayed. She ran to the King of Comagena who was
+employing his time in forgetting his country in the city of Sheba.
+
+“My friend,” she cried, “do you know what I have just heard? Balthasar
+loves me no longer!”
+
+“What does it matter,” said the King of Comagena, “since we love one
+another?”
+
+“But do you not feel how this blackamoor has insulted me?”
+
+“No,” said the King of Comagena, “I do not.”
+
+Whereupon she drove him ignominiously out of her presence, and ordered
+her grand vizier to prepare for a journey into Ethiopia.
+
+“We shall set out this very night. And I shall cut off your head if all
+is not ready by sundown.”
+
+But when she was alone she began to sob.
+
+“I love him! He loves me no longer, and I love him,” she sighed in the
+sincerity of her heart.
+
+And one night, when on his tower watching the miraculous star,
+Balthasar, casting his eyes towards earth, saw along black line
+sinuously curving over the distant sands of the desert like an army
+of ants. Little by little what seemed to be ants grew larger and
+sufficiently distinct for the king to be able to recognise horses,
+camels and elephants.
+
+The caravan having approached the city, Balthasar distinguished the
+glittering scimitars and the black horses of the guards of the Queen
+of Sheba. He even recognised the queen herself, and he was profoundly
+disturbed, for he felt that he would again love her. The star shone in
+the zenith with a marvellous brilliancy. Below, extended on a litter of
+purple and gold, Balkis looked small and brilliant like the star.
+
+Balthasar was conscious of being drawn towards her by some terrible
+power. Still he turned his head away with a desperate effort, and
+lifting his eyes he again saw the star. Thereupon the star spoke and
+said: “Glory to God in the Heavens and peace on earth to men of good
+will!
+
+“Take a measure of myrrh, gentle King Balthasar, and follow me. I will
+guide thee to the feet of a little child who is about to be born in a
+stable between an ass and an ox.
+
+“And this little child is the King of Kings. He will comfort all those
+who need comforting.
+
+“He calls thee to Him, O Balthasar, thou whose soul is as dark as thy
+face, but whose heart is as guileless as the heart of a child.
+
+“He has chosen thee because thou hast suffered, and He will give thee
+riches, happiness and love.
+
+“He will say to thee: ‘Be poor joyfully, for that is true riches.’
+He will also say to thee: ‘True happiness is in the renunciation of
+happiness. Love Me and love none other but Me, because I alone am
+love.’”
+
+At these words a divine peace fell like a flood of light over the dark
+face of the king.
+
+Balthasar listened with rapture to the star. He felt himself becoming a
+new man.
+
+Prostrate beside him, Sembobitis and Menkera worshipped, their faces
+touching the stone.
+
+Queen Balkis watched Balthasar. She realised that never again would
+there be love for her in that heart filled with a love divine. She
+turned white with rage and gave orders for the caravan to return at once
+to the land of Sheba.
+
+As soon as the star had ceased to speak, Balthasar and his companions
+descended from the tower.
+
+Then, having prepared a measure of myrrh, they formed a caravan and
+departed in the direction towards which they were guided by the star.
+They journeyed a long time through unknown countries, the star always
+journeying in front of them.
+
+One day, finding themselves in a place where three roads met, they saw
+two kings advance accompanied by a numerous retinue; one was young and
+fair of face. He greeted Balthasar and said:
+
+“My name is Gaspar. I am a king, and I bear gold as a gift to the child
+that is about to be born in Bethlehem of Judea.”
+
+The second king advanced in turn. He was an old man, and his white beard
+covered his breast.
+
+“My name is Melchior,” he said, “and I am a king, and I bring
+frankincense to the holy child who is to teach Truth to mankind.”
+
+“I am bound whither you are,” said Balthasar. “I have conquered my lust,
+and for that reason the star has spoken to me.”
+
+“I,” said Melchior, “have conquered my pride, and that is why I have
+been called.”
+
+“I,” said Gaspar, “have conquered my cruelty, and for that reason I go
+with you.”
+
+And the three mages proceeded on their journey together. The star which
+they had seen in the East preceded them until, arriving above the place
+where the child lay, it stood still. And seeing the star standing still
+they rejoiced with a great joy.
+
+And, entering the house they found the child with Mary his mother, and
+prostrating themselves, they worshipped him. And opening their treasures
+they offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh, as it is written in the
+Gospel.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CURÉ’S MIGNONETTE
+
+                            TO JULES LEMAÎTRE
+
+In a village of the Bocage I once knew a curé, a holy man who denied
+himself every indulgence and who cheerfully practised the virtue of
+renunciation, and knew no joy but that of sacrifice. In his garden he
+cultivated fruit-trees, vegetables and medicinal plants, but fearing
+beauty even in flowers, he would have neither roses nor jasmine. He only
+allowed himself the innocent luxury of a few tufts of mignonette whose
+twisted stems, so modestly flower-crowned, would not distract his
+attention as he read his breviary among his cabbage-plots under the sky
+of our dear Father in Heaven.
+
+The holy man had so little distrust of his mignonette that he would
+often in passing pick a spray and inhale its fragrance for a long time.
+All the plant asked was to be permitted to grow. If one spray was cut,
+four grew in its place. So much so, indeed, that, the devil aiding, the
+priest’s mignonette soon covered a vast extent of his little garden. It
+overflowed into the paths and pulled at the good priest’s cassock as he
+passed, until, distracted by the foolish plant, he would pause as often
+as twenty times an hour while he read or said his prayers.
+
+From springtime until autumn the presbytery was redolent of mignonette.
+Behold what we may come to and how feeble we are! Not without reason do
+we say that all our natural inclinations lead us towards sin! The man
+of God had succeeded in guarding his eyes, but he had left his nostrils
+undefended, and so the devil, as it were, caught him by the nose. This
+saint now inhaled the fragrance of mignonette with avidity and lust,
+that is to say, with that sinful instinct which makes us long for the
+enjoyment of natural pleasures and which leads us into all sorts of
+temptations.
+
+Henceforth he seemed to take less delight in the odours of Paradise and
+the perfumes which are our Lady’s merits. His holiness dwindled, and
+he might, perhaps, have sunk into voluptuousness and become little by
+little like those lukewarm souls which Heaven rejects had not succour
+come to him in the nick of time.
+
+Once, long ago, in the Thebaid, an angel stole from a hermit a cup of
+gold which still bound the holy man to the vanities of earth. A similar
+mercy was vouchsafed to this priest of the Bocage. A white hen scratched
+the earth about the mignonette with such good-will that it all died.
+
+We are not informed whence this bird came. As for myself, I am inclined
+to believe that the angel who in the desert stole the hermit’s cup
+transformed himself into a white hen on purpose to destroy the only
+obstacle which barred the good priest’s path towards perfection.
+
+
+
+
+
+M. PIGEONNEAU
+
+                         TO GILBERT AUGUSTIN-THIERRY
+
+I have, as everybody knows, devoted my whole life to Egyptian
+archaeology. I should be very ungrateful to my country, to science, and
+to my-self, if I regretted the profession to which I was called. In my
+early youth and which I have followed with honour these forty years.
+My labours have not been in vain. I may say, without flattering myself,
+that my article on _The Handle of an Egyptian mirror in the Museum of
+the Louvre_ may still be consulted with profit, though it dates back to
+the beginning of my career.
+
+As for the exhaustive studies which I subsequently devoted to one of
+the bronze weights found in 1851 in the excavations at the Serapeium, it
+would be ungracious for me not to think well of them, as they opened for
+me the doors of the Institute.
+
+Encouraged by the flattering reception with which my researches of this
+nature were received by many of my new colleagues, I was tempted for a
+moment to treat in one comprehensive work of the weights and measures
+in use at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes (80-52). I soon
+recognised, however, that a subject so general could not be dealt with
+by the really profound student, and that positive science could not
+approach it without running a risk of incurring all sorts of mischances.
+I felt that in investigating several subjects at once I was forsaking
+the fundamental principles of archaeology. If to-day I confess my
+mistake, if I acknowledge the incredible enthusiasm with which I was
+inspired by a far too ambitious scheme, I do so for the sake of the
+young, who will thus learn by my example to conquer their imagination.
+It is our most cruel foe. The student who has not succeeded in stifling
+it is lost for ever to erudition. I still tremble to think in what
+depths I was nearly plunged by my adventurous spirit. I was within an
+ace of what one calls history. What a downfall! I should have sunk into
+art. For history is only art, or, at best, a false science. Who to-day
+does not know that the historians preceded the archaeologists, as
+astrologers preceded the astronomers, as the alchemists preceded the
+chemists, and as the monkeys preceded men? Thank Heaven! I escaped with
+a mere fright.
+
+My third work, I hasten to say, was wisely planned. It was a monograph
+entitled, _On the toilet of an Egyptian lady of the Middle Empire from
+an unpublished picture_. I treated the subject so as to avoid all side
+issues, and I did not permit any generalising to intrude itself. I
+guarded myself against those considerations, comparisons and views with
+which certain of my colleagues have marred the exposition of their most
+valuable discoveries. But why should a work planned so sanely have met
+with so fantastic a fate? By what freak of destiny should it have
+proved the cause of the monstrous aberration of my mind? But let me not
+anticipate events nor confuse dates. My dissertation was intended to be
+read at a public sitting of the five academies, a distinction all the
+more precious, as it rarely falls to the lot of works of this character.
+These academic gatherings have for some years past been largely attended
+by people of fashion.
+
+The day I delivered my lecture the hall was crowded by a distinguished
+audience. Women were there in great numbers. Lovely faces and brilliant
+toilettes graced the galleries. My discourse was listened to with
+respect. It was not interrupted by those thoughtless and noisy
+demonstrations which naturally follow mere literary productions. No, the
+public preserved an attitude more in harmony with the nature of the work
+presented to them. They were serious and grave.
+
+As I paused between the phrases the better to disentangle the different
+trains of thought, I had leisure to examine behind my spectacles the
+entire hall. I can truly say that not the faintest smile could be seen
+on any lips. On the contrary, even the freshest faces wore an expression
+of austerity. I seemed to have ripened all their intellects as if by
+magic. Here and there while I read some young people whispered to their
+neighbours. They were probably debating some special point treated of in
+my discourse.
+
+More than that, a beautiful young creature of twenty-two or twenty-four,
+seated in the left corner of the north balcony, was listening with great
+attention and taking notes. Her face had a delicacy of features and a
+mobility of expression truly remarkable. The attention with which she
+listened to my words gave an added charm to her singular face. She was
+not alone. A big, robust man, who, like the Assyrian kings, wore a long
+curled beard and long black hair, stood beside her and occasionally
+spoke to her in a low voice. My attention, which at first was divided
+amongst my entire audience, concentrated itself little by little on the
+young woman. She inspired me, I confess, with an interest which certain
+of my colleagues might consider unworthy of a scientific mind such as
+mine, though I feel sure that none of them under similar circumstances
+would have been more indifferent than I. As I proceeded she scribbled
+in a little note-book; and as she listened to my discourse one could
+see that she was visibly swayed by the most contradictory emotions; she
+seemed to pass from satisfaction and joy to surprise and even anxiety.
+I examined her with increasing curiosity. Would to God I had set eyes on
+her and her only that day under the cupola!
+
+I had nearly finished; there hardly remained more than twenty-five or
+thirty pages at most to read when suddenly my eyes encountered those of
+the man with the Assyrian beard. How can I explain to you what happened
+then, seeing that I cannot explain it to myself? All I can say is
+that the glance of this personage put me at once into a state of
+indescribable agitation. The eye-balls fixed on me were of a
+greenish colour. I could not turn my own away. I stood there dumb and
+open-mouthed. As I had stopped speaking the audience began to applaud.
+Silence being restored, I tried to continue my discourse. But in spite
+of the most violent efforts, I could not tear my eyes from those two
+living lights to which they were so mysteriously riveted. That was
+not all. By a more amazing phenomenon still, and contrary to all the
+principles of my whole life, I began to improvise. God alone knows if
+this was the result of my own freewill!
+
+Under the influence of a strange, unknown and irresistible force
+I delivered with grace and burning eloquence certain philosophical
+reflections on the toilet of women in the course of the ages; I
+generalised, I rhapsodised, I grew eloquent-God forgive me-about the
+eternal feminine, and the passion which glides like a breath about those
+perfumed veils with which women know how to adorn their beauty.
+
+The man with the Assyrian beard never ceased staring steadily at me.
+And I still continued to speak. At last he lowered his eyes, and then I
+stopped. It is humiliating to add that this portion of my address, which
+was quite as foreign to my own natural impulse as it was contrary to the
+scientific mind, was rewarded with tumultuous applause. The young woman
+in the north balcony clapped her hands and smiled.
+
+I was followed at the reading-desk by a member of the Academy who seemed
+visibly annoyed at having to be heard after me. Perhaps his fears were
+exaggerated. At any rate he was listened to without too much impatience.
+I am under the impression that it was verse that he read.
+
+The meeting being over, I left the hall in company with several of my
+colleagues, who renewed their congratulations with a sincerity in which
+I try to believe.
+
+Having paused a moment on the quay near the lions of Creuzot to exchange
+a few greetings, I observed the man with the Assyrian beard and his
+beautiful companion enter a _coupé_. I happened accidentally to be
+standing next to an eloquent philosopher, of whom it is said that he is
+equally at home in worldly elegance and in cosmic theories. The young
+lady, putting her delicate head and her little hand out of the carriage
+door, called him by name and said with a slight English accent:
+
+“My dear friend, you’ve forgotten me. That’s too bad!”
+
+After the carriage had gone I asked my illustrious colleague who this
+charming person and her companion were.
+
+“What!” he replied, “you do not know Miss Morgan and her physician
+Daoud, who cures all diseases by means of magnetism, hypnotism, and
+suggestion? Annie Morgan is the daughter of the richest merchant in
+Chicago. Two years ago she came to Paris with her mother, and she has
+had a wonderful house built on the Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne trice. She
+is highly educated and remarkably clever.”
+
+“You do not surprise me,” I replied, “for I have reason to think that
+this American lady is of a very serious turn of mind.”
+
+My brilliant colleague smiled as he shook my hand.
+
+I walked home to the Rue Saint Jacques, where I have lived these last
+thirty years in a modest lodging from which I can just see the tops
+of the trees in the garden of the Luxembourg, and I sat down at my
+writing-table.
+
+For three days I sat there assiduously at work, before me a little
+statuette representing the goddess Pasht with her cat’s head. This
+little monument bears an inscription imperfectly deciphered by Monsieur
+Grébault I was at work on an adequate interpretation with comments. The
+incident at the institute had left a less vivid impression on my mind
+than might have been feared. I was not unduly disturbed. To tell the
+truth, I had even forgotten it a little, and it required new occurrences
+to revive its remembrance.
+
+I had, therefore, leisure during these three days to bring my version
+of the inscription and my notes to a satisfactory conclusion. I only
+interrupted my archaeological work to read the newspapers, which were
+loud in my praise.
+
+Newspapers, absolutely ignorant of all learning, spoke in praise of
+that “charming passage” which had concluded my discourse. “It was a
+revelation,” they said, “and M. Pigeonneau had prepared a most agreeable
+surprise for us.” I do not know why I refer to such trifles, because,
+usually I am quite indifferent as to what they say about me in the
+newspapers.
+
+I had been already closeted in my study for three days when a ring at
+the door-bell startled me. There was something imperious, fantastic, and
+strange in the motion communicated to the bell-rope which disturbed me,
+and it was with real anxiety that I went myself to open the door. And
+whom did I find on the landing? The young American recently so absorbed
+at the reading of my treatise. It was Miss Morgan in person.
+
+“Monsieur Pigeonneau?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I recognised you at once, though you are not wearing your beautiful
+coat with the embroidery of green palm-leaves. But, please don’t put it
+on for my sake. I like you much better in your dressing-gown.”
+
+I led her into my study. She looked curiously at the papyri, the prints,
+and odds and ends of all kinds which covered the walls to the ceiling,
+and then she looked silently for some time at the goddess Pasht who
+stood on my writing-table. Finally she said:
+
+“She is charming.”
+
+“Do you refer to this little monument, Madam? As a matter of fact, it
+is distinguished by an exceptional inscription of a sufficiently curious
+nature. But may I ask what has procured for me the honour of your
+visit?”
+
+“O,” she cried, “I don’t care a fig for its remarkable inscriptions.
+There never was a more exquisitely delicate cat-face. Of course you
+believe that she is a real goddess, don’t you, Monsieur Pigeonneau?”
+
+I protested against so unworthy a suspicion.
+
+“To believe that would be fetichism.”
+
+Her great green eyes looked at me with surprise.
+
+“Ah, then, you don’t believe in fetichism? I did not think one could
+be an archaeologist and yet not believe in fetichism. How can Pasht
+interest you if you do not believe that she is a goddess? But never
+mind! I came to see you on a matter of great importance, Monsieur
+Pigeonneau.”
+
+“Great importance?”
+
+“Yes, about a costume. Look at me.”
+
+“With pleasure.”
+
+“Don’t you find traces of the Cushite race in my profile?”
+
+I was at loss what to say. An interview of this nature was so foreign to
+me.
+
+“Oh, there’s nothing surprising about it,” she continued. “I remember
+when I was an Egyptian. And were you also an Egyptian, Monsieur
+Pigeonneau? Don’t you remember? How very curious. At least, you don’t
+doubt that we pass through a series of successive incarnations?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“You surprise me, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”
+
+“Will you tell me, Madam, to what I am indebted for this honour?”
+
+“To be sure. I haven’t yet told you that I have come to beg you to
+help me to design an Egyptian costume for the fancy ball at Countess
+N------‘s. I want a costume that shall be absolutely accurate and
+bewilderingly beautiful. I have been hard at work at it already, M.
+Pigeonneau. I have gone over my recollections, for I remember very well
+when I lived in Thebes six thousand years ago. I have had designs sent
+me from London, Boulak and New York.”
+
+“Those would, of course, be more reliable.” “No, nothing is so reliable
+as one’s intuition. I have also studied in the Egyptian Museum of the
+Louvre. It is full of enchanting things. Figures so slender and pure,
+profiles so delicate and clear cut, women who look like flowers, but, at
+the same time, with something at once rigid and supple. And a god, Bes,
+who looks like Sarcey! My goodness, how beautiful it all is!”
+
+“Pardon me, but I do not yet quite understand----”
+
+“I haven’t finished. I went to your lecture on the toilet of a woman of
+the Middle Empire, and I took notes. It was rather dry, your lecture,
+but I grubbed away at it. By aid of all these notes I have designed a
+costume. But it is not quite right yet. So I have come to beg you to
+correct it. Do come to me to-morrow! Will you? Do me that honour for the
+love of Egypt! You will, won’t you? Till to-morrow, I must hurry off.
+Mama is in the carriage waiting for me.”
+
+She disappeared as she said these last words, and I followed. When I
+reached the vestibule she was already at the foot of the stairs and from
+here I heard her clear voice call up:
+
+“Till to-morrow. Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne, at the corner of the Villa
+Saïd.”
+
+“I shall not go to see this mad creature,” I said to myself.
+
+The next afternoon at four o’clock I rang the door-bell. A footman led
+me into an immense, well-lighted hall crowded with pictures and statues
+in marble and bronze; sedan chairs in _Vernis Martin_ set with porcelain
+plaques; Peruvian mummies; a dozen dummy figures of men and horses in
+full armour, over which, by reason of their great height, towered a
+Polish cavalier with white wings on his shoulders and a French knight
+equipped for the tournament, his helmet bearing a crest of a woman’s
+head with pointed coif and flowing veil.
+
+An entire grove of palm-trees in tubs reared their foliage in this hall,
+and in their midst was seated a gigantic Buddha in gold. At the foot of
+the god sat a shabbily dressed old woman reading the Bible.
+
+I was still dazzled by these many marvels when the purple hangings
+were raised and Miss Morgan appeared in a white _peignoir_ trimmed with
+swans-down. She was followed by two great, long-muzzled boarhounds.
+
+“I was sure you would come, Monsieur Pigeonneau.”
+
+I stammered a compliment.
+
+“How could one possibly refuse anything to so charming a lady?”
+
+“O, it is not because I am pretty that I am never refused anything. I
+have secrets by which I make myself obeyed.”
+
+Then, pointing to the old lady who was reading the Bible, she said to
+me:
+
+“Pay no attention to her, that is mama. I shall not introduce you.
+Should you speak she could not reply; she belongs to a religious sect
+which forbids unnecessary conversation. It is the very latest thing in
+sects. Its adherents wear sackcloth and eat out of wooden basins. Mama
+greatly enjoys these little observances. But you can imagine that I did
+not ask you here to talk to you about mama. I will put on my Egyptian
+costume. I shan’t be long. In the meantime you might look at these
+little things.”
+
+And she made me sit down before a cabinet containing a mummy-case,
+several statuettes of the Middle Empire, a number of scarabs, and some
+beautiful fragments of a ritual for the burial of the dead.
+
+Left alone, I examined the papyrus with the more interest, inasmuch as
+it was inscribed with a name I had already discovered on a seal. It was
+the name of a scribe of King Seti I. I immediately applied myself to
+noting the various interesting peculiarities the document exhibited.
+
+I was plunged in this occupation for a longer time than I could
+accurately measure, when I was warned by a kind of instinct that
+some one was behind me. I turned and saw a marvellous being, her head
+surmounted by a gold hawk and the pure and adorable lines of her young
+body revealed by a clinging white sheath. Over this a transparent
+rose-coloured tunic, bound at the waist by a girdle of precious stones,
+fell and separated into symmetrical folds. Arms and feet were bare and
+loaded with rings.
+
+She stood before me, her head turned towards her right shoulder in
+a hieratic attitude which gave to her delicious beauty something
+indescribably divine.
+
+“What! Is that you, Miss Morgan?”
+
+“Unless it is Neferu-Ra in person. You remember the Neferu-Ra of Leconte
+de Lisle, the Beauty of the Sun?”
+
+     “‘Pallid and pining on her virgin bed,
+     Swathed in fine lawns from dainty foot to head.’{*}
+
+     * “Voici qu’elle languit sur son lit virginal,
+     Très pâle, enveloppée avec des fines toiles.”
+
+“But of course you don’t know. You know nothing of verse. And yet verses
+are so pretty. Come! Let’s go to work.”
+
+Having mastered my emotion, I made some remarks to this charming young
+person about her enchanting costume. I ventured to criticise certain
+details as departing from archaeological accuracy. I proposed to replace
+certain gems in the setting of the rings by others more universally in
+use in the Middle Empire. Finally I decidedly opposed the wearing of
+a clasp of _cloisonné_ enamel. In fact, this jewel was a most odious
+anachronism. We at last agreed to replace this by a boss of precious
+stones deep set in fine gold. She listened with great docility, and
+seemed so pleased with me that she even asked me to stay to dinner. I
+excused myself because of my regular habits and the simplicity of my
+diet and took my leave. I was already in the vestibule when she called
+after me:
+
+“Well, now, is my costume sufficiently smart? How mad I shall make all
+the other women at the Countess’s ball!”
+
+I was shocked at the remark. But having turned towards her I saw her
+again, and again I fell under her spell.
+
+She called me back.
+
+“Monsieur Pigeonneau,” she said, “you are such a dear man! Write me a
+little story and I will love you ever and ever and ever so much!”
+
+“I don’t know how,” I replied.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed:
+
+“What is the use of science if it can’t help you to write a story! You
+must write me a story, Monsieur Pigeonnneau.”
+
+Thinking it useless to repeat my absolute refusal I took my leave
+without replying.
+
+At the door I passed the man with the Assyrian beard, Dr. Daoud, whose
+glance had so strangely affected me under the cupola of the Institute.
+
+He struck me as being of the commonest class, and I found it very
+disagreeable to meet him again.
+
+The Countess N------‘s ball took place about fifteen days after my
+visit. I was not surprised to read in the newspaper that the beautiful
+Miss Morgan had created a sensation in the costume of Neferu-Ra.
+
+During the rest of the year 1886 I did not hear her mentioned again.
+But on the first day of the New Year, as I was writing in my study, a
+manservant brought me a letter and a basket.
+
+“From Miss Morgan,” he explained, and went away. I heard a mewing in the
+basket which had been placed on my writing table, and when I opened it
+out sprang a little grey cat.
+
+It was not an Angora. It was a cat of some Oriental breed, much more
+slender than ours, and with a striking resemblance, so far as I could
+judge, to those of his race found in great numbers in the subterranean
+tombs of Thebes, their mummies swathed in coarse mummy-wrappings. He
+shook himself, gazed about, arched his back, yawned, and then rubbed
+himself, purring, against the goddess Pasht, who stood on my table in
+all her purity of form and her delicate, pointed face. Though his colour
+was dark and his fur short, he was graceful, and he seemed intelligent
+and quite tame. I could not imagine the reason for such a curious
+present, nor did Miss Morgan’s letter greatly enlighten me. It was as
+follows:
+
+“Dear Sir,
+
+“I am sending you a little cat which Dr. Daoud brought back from Egypt,
+and of which I am very fond. Treat him well for my sake, Baudelaire, the
+greatest French poet after Stéphane Mallarmé, has said:
+
+     “The ardent lover and the unbending sage,
+     Alike companion in their ripe old age,
+     With the sleek arrogant cat, the household’s pride,
+     Slothful and chilly by the warm fireside.’{*}
+
+     * “Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
+     Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
+     Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
+     Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.”
+
+“I need hardly remind you that you must write me a story. Bring it on
+Twelfth Night. We will dine together.
+
+“Annie Morgan.
+
+“P.S.--Your little cat’s name is Porou.”
+
+Having read this letter, I looked at Porou who, standing on his hind
+legs, was licking the black face of Pasht, his divine sister. He
+looked at me, and I must confess that of the two of us he was the less
+astonished. I asked myself, “What does this mean?” But I soon gave up
+trying to understand.
+
+“It is expecting too much of myself to try and discover reason in the
+follies of this madcap,” I thought. “I must get to work again. As for
+this little animal, Madam Magloire my housekeeper can provide for his
+needs.”
+
+Whereupon I resumed my work on a chronology, all the more interesting as
+it gave me the opportunity to abuse somewhat my distinguished colleague,
+Monsieur Maspéro. Porou did not leave my table. Seated on his haunches,
+his ears pricked, he watched me write, and strange to say I accomplished
+no good work that day. My ideas were all in confusion; there came to my
+mind scraps of songs and odds and ends of fairy-tales, and I went to
+bed very dissatisfied with myself. The next morning I again found Porou,
+seated on my writing-table, licking his paws. That day again I worked
+very badly; Porou and I spent the greater part of the day watching each
+other. The next morning it was the same, and also the morning after;
+in short, the whole week. I ought to have been distressed, but I must
+confess that little by little I began to resign myself to my ill-luck,
+not only with patience, but even with some amusement. The rapidity with
+which a virtuous man becomes depraved is something terrible. The morning
+preceding Twelfth Night, which fell on a Sunday, I rose in high spirits
+and hurried to my writing-table, where, according to his custom, Porou,
+had already preceded me. I took a handsome copy-book of white paper and
+dipped my pen into the ink and wrote in big letters, under the watchful
+observation of my new friend:
+
+“_The Misadventures of a one-eyed Porter?_.”
+
+Thereupon, without ceasing to look at Porou, I wrote all day long in
+the most prodigious haste a story of such astonishing adventures, so
+charming and so varied that I was myself vastly entertained. My one-eyed
+porter mixed up all his parcels and committed the most absurd mistakes.
+Lovers in critical situations received from him, and quite without his
+knowledge, the most unexpected aid. He transported wardrobes in which
+men were concealed, and he placed them in other houses, frightening old
+ladies almost to death. But how describe so merry a story! While writing
+I burst out laughing at least twenty times. If Porou did not laugh, his
+solemn silence was quite as amusing as the most uproarious hilarity. It
+was already seven o’clock in the evening when I wrote the final line
+of this delightful story. During the last hour the room had only been
+lighted by Porou’s phosphorescent eyes. And yet I had written with
+as much ease in the darkness as by the light of a good lamp. My story
+finished, I proceeded to dress. I put on my evening clothes and my white
+tie, and, taking leave of Porou, I hurried downstairs into the street. I
+had hardly gone twenty steps when I felt some one pull at my sleeve.
+
+“Where are you running to, uncle, just like a somnambulist?”
+
+It was my nephew Marcel who hailed me in this fashion. He is an honest,
+intelligent young man, and a house-surgeon at the Salpêtrière. People
+say that he has a successful medical career before him. And indeed he
+would be clever enough if he would only be more on his guard against his
+whimsical imagination.
+
+“Why, I am on my way to Miss Morgan, to take her a story I have just
+written.”
+
+“What, uncle! You write stories, and you know Miss Morgan? She is
+very pretty. And do you also know Dr. Daoud who follows her about
+everywhere?”
+
+“A quack, a charlatan!”
+
+“Possibly, uncle, and yet, unquestionably a most extraordinary
+experimentalist. Neither Bernheim nor Liégeois, not even Charcot
+himself, has obtained the phenomena he produces at will. He induces
+the hypnotic condition and control by suggestion without contact, and
+without any direct agency, through the intervention of an animal. He
+commonly makes use of little short-haired cats for his experiments.
+
+“This is how he goes to work: he suggests an action of some kind to a
+cat, then he sends the animal in a basket to the subject he wishes to
+influence. The animal transmits the suggestion he has received, and the
+patient under the influence of the beast does exactly what the operator
+desires.”
+
+“Is this true?”
+
+“Yes, quite true, uncle.”
+
+“And what is Miss Morgan’s share in these interesting experiments?”
+
+“Miss Morgan employs Dr. Daoud to work for her, and she makes use of
+hypnotism and suggestion to induce people to make fools of themselves,
+as it her beauty was not quite enough.”
+
+I did not stop to listen any longer. An irresistible force hurried me on
+towards Miss Morgan.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAUGHTER OF LILITH
+
+                         TO JEAN PSICHARI
+
+I had left Paris late in the evening, and I spent a long, silent and
+snowy night in the corner of the railway carriage. I waited six mortal
+hours at X------, and the next afternoon I found nothing better than
+a farm-waggon to take me to Artigues. The plain whose furrows rose and
+fell by turns on either side of the road, and which I had seen long ago
+lying radiant in the sunshine, was now covered with a heavy veil of snow
+over which straggled the twisted black stems of the vines. My driver
+gently urged on his old horse, and we proceeded through an infinite
+silence broken only at intervals by the plaintive cry of a bird, sad
+even unto death. I murmured this prayer in my heart: “My God, God of
+Mercy, save me from despair and after so many transgressions, let me not
+commit the one sin Thou dost not forgive.” Then I saw the sun, red and
+rayless, blood-hued, descending on the horizon, as it were, the sacred
+Host, and remembering the divine Sacrifice of Calvary, I felt hope enter
+into my soul. For some time longer the wheels crunched the snow. At last
+the driver pointed with the end of his whip to the spire of Artigues as
+it rose like a shadow against the dull red haze.
+
+“I say,” said the man, “are you going to stop at the presbytery? You
+know the curé?”
+
+“I have known him ever since I was a child. He was my master when I was
+a student.”
+
+“Is he learned in books?”
+
+“My friend, M. Safrac, is as learned as he is good.”
+
+“So they say. But they also say other things.”
+
+“What do they say, my friend?”
+
+“They say what they please, and I let them talk.”
+
+“What more do they say?”
+
+“Well, there are those who say he is a sorcerer, and that he can tell
+fortunes.”
+
+“What nonsense!”
+
+“For my part I keep a still tongue! But if M. Safrac is not a sorcerer
+and fortune-teller, why does he spend his time reading books?”
+
+The waggon stopped in front of the presbytery.
+
+I left the idiot, and followed the cure’s servant, who conducted me to
+her master in a room where the table was already laid. I found M. Safrac
+greatly changed in the three years since I had last seen him. His tall
+figure was bent He was excessively emaciated. Two piercing eyes glowed
+in his thin face. His nose, which seemed to have grown longer, descended
+over his shrunken lips. I fell into his arms.
+
+“My father, my father,” I cried, sobbing, “I have come to you because
+I have sinned. My father, my dear old master, whose profound and
+mysterious knowledge overawed my mind, and who yet reassured it with a
+revelation of maternal tenderness, save your child from the brink of a
+precipice. O my only friend, save me; enlighten me, you my only beacon!”
+
+He embraced me, and smiled on me with that exquisite kindness of which
+he had given so many proofs during my childhood, and then he stepped
+back, as if to see me better.
+
+“Well, adieu!” he said, greeting me according to the custom of his
+country, for M. Safrac was born on the banks of the Garonne, in the home
+of those famous wines which seemed the symbol of his own generous and
+fragrant soul.
+
+After having taught philosophy with great distinction in Bordeaux,
+Poitiers and Paris, he asked as his only reward the gift of a poor cure
+in the country where he had been born and where he wished to die. He had
+now been priest at Artigues for six years, and in this obscure village
+he practised the most humble piety and the most enlightened sciences.
+
+“Well, adieu! my child,” he repeated. “You wrote me a letter to announce
+your coming which has moved me deeply. It is true, then, that you have
+not forgotten your old master?”
+
+I tried to throw myself at his feet
+
+“Save me! save me!” I stammered.
+
+But he stopped me with a gesture at once imperious and gentle.
+
+“You shall tell me to-morrow, Ary, what you have to tell. First, warm
+yourself. Then we will have supper, for you must be very hungry and very
+thirsty.”
+
+The servant placed on the table the soup-tureen out of which rose a
+fragrant column of steam. She was an old woman, her hair hidden under
+a black kerchief, and in her wrinkled face were strongly mingled the
+beauty of race and the ugliness of decay. I was in profound distress,
+and yet the peace of this saintly dwelling, the gaiety of the wood fire,
+the white table-cloth, the wine and the steaming dishes entered, little
+by little, into my soul. Whilst I ate I nearly forgot that I had come to
+the fireside of this priest to exchange the soreness of remorse for the
+fertilising dew of repentance. Monsieur Safrac reminded me of the hours,
+already long since past, which we had spent together in the college when
+he had taught philosophy.
+
+“You, Ary,” he said to me, “were my best pupil. Your quick intelligence
+was always in advance of the thought of the teacher. For that reason I
+at once became attached to you. I like a Christian to be daring. Faith
+should not be timid when unbelief shows an indomitable audacity. The
+Church nowadays has lambs only; and it needs lions. Who will give us
+back those learned fathers and doctors whose erudition embraced all
+sciences? Truth is like the sun; it requires the eye of an eagle to
+contemplate it.”
+
+“Ah, M. Safrac, you brought to bear on all questions that daring vision
+which nothing dazzles. I remember that your opinions sometimes even
+startled those of your colleagues whom the holiness of your life filled
+with admiration. You did not fear new ideas. Thus, for instance, you
+were inclined to admit the plurality of inhabited worlds.”
+
+His eyes kindled.
+
+“What will the cowards say when they read my book? I have meditated,
+and I have worked under this beautiful sky, in this land which God has
+created with a special love. You know that I have some knowledge of
+Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and certain of the Indian dialects. You also
+know that I have brought here a library rich in ancient manuscripts. I
+have plunged profoundly into the knowledge of the tongues and traditions
+of the primitive East. This great work, by the help of God, will not
+have been in vain. I have nearly finished my book on ‘Origins,’ which
+re-establishes and upholds that Biblical exegesis of which an impious
+science already foresaw the imminent overthrow. God in His mercy has at
+last permitted science and faith to be reconciled. To effect this
+reconciliation I have started with the following premises:
+
+“The Bible, inspired by the Holy Ghost, tells only the truth, but it
+does not tell all the truth. And how could it, seeing that its only
+object is to inform us of what is needful for our eternal salvation?
+Apart from this great purpose it has no other. Its design is as simple
+as it is infinite. It includes the fall and the redemption; it is the
+sacred history of man; it is complete and restricted. Nothing has been
+admitted to satisfy profane curiosity. A godless science must not be
+permitted to triumph any longer over the silence of God. It is time to
+say, ‘No, the Bible has not lied, because it has not revealed all.’
+That is the truth which I proclaim. By the help of geology, prehistoric
+archaeology, the Oriental cosmogonies, Hittite and Sumerian monuments,
+Chaldean and Babylonian traditions preserved in the Talmud, I assert the
+existence of the pre-Adamites, of whom the inspired writer of Genesis
+does not speak, for the only reason that their existence did not bear
+upon the eternal salvation of the children of Adam. Furthermore, a
+minute study of the first chapters of Genesis has proved to me the
+existence of two successive creations separated by untold ages, of which
+the second is only, so to speak, the adaptation of a corner of the earth
+to the needs of Adam and his posterity.”
+
+He paused, then he continued in a low voice and with a solemnity truly
+religious:
+
+“I, Martial Safrac, unworthy priest, doctor of theology, submissive
+as an obedient child to the authority of our Holy Mother the Church, I
+assert with absolute certainty--yielding all due submission to our holy
+father the Pope and the Councils--that Adam, who was created in the
+image of God, had two wives, of whom Eve was the second.”
+
+These singular words drew me little by little out of myself and filled
+me with a curious interest. I therefore felt something of disappointment
+when M. Safrac, planting his elbows on the table, said to me:
+
+“Enough on that subject. Some day, perhaps, you will read my book, which
+will enlighten you on this point. I was obliged, in obedience to
+strict duty, to submit the work to Monseigneur, and to beg his Grace’s
+approval. The manuscript is at present in the archbishop’s hands, and
+any minute I may expect a reply which I have every reason to believe
+will be favourable. My dear child, try those mushrooms out of our own
+woods, and this native wine of ours, and acknowledge that this is the
+second promised land, of which the first was only the image and the
+forecast.”
+
+From this time on our conversation, grown more familiar, ranged over our
+common recollections.
+
+“Yes, my child,” said M. Safrac, “you were my favourite pupil, and God
+permits preferences if they are founded on impartial judgment. So
+I decided at once that there was in you the making of a man and a
+Christian. Not that great imperfections were not in evidence. You were
+irresolute, uncertain, and easily disconcerted. Passions, so far latent,
+smouldered in your soul. I loved you because of your great restlessness,
+as I did another of my pupils for quite opposite qualities. I loved Paul
+d’Ervy for his unswerving steadfastness of mind and heart.”
+
+At this name I blushed and turned pale and with difficulty suppressed
+a cry, and when I tried to answer I found it impossible to speak. M.
+Safrac appeared not to notice my distress.
+
+“If I remember aright, he was your best friend,” he added. “You have
+remained intimate ever since, have you not? I know he has started on a
+diplomatic career, and a great future is predicted for him. I hope that
+in happier times than the present he may be entrusted with office at the
+Holy See. In him you have a faithful and devoted friend.”
+
+“My father,” I replied, with a great effort, “to-morrow I will speak to
+you of Paul d’Ervy and of another person.”
+
+M. Safrac pressed my hand. We separated, and I went to the room which
+had been prepared for me. In my bed, fragrant with lavender, I dreamed
+that I was once again a child, and that as I knelt in the college chapel
+I was admiring the blonde and ecstatic women with which the gallery was
+filled, when suddenly out of a cloud over my head I seemed to hear a
+voice say:
+
+“Ary, you believe that you love them in God, but it is God you love in
+them.”
+
+The next morning when I woke I found M. Safrac standing at the side of
+my bed.
+
+“Come, Ary, and hear the Mass which I am about to celebrate for your
+intention. After the Holy Sacrifice I shall be ready to listen to what
+you have to say.”
+
+The Church of Artigues was a little sanctuary in the Norman style which
+still flourished in Aquitaine in the twelfth century. Restored some
+twenty years ago, it had received the addition of a bell-tower which
+had not been contemplated in the original plan. At any rate, poverty
+had safeguarded its pure bareness. I tried to join in the prayers of the
+celebrant as much as my thoughts would permit, and then I returned with
+him to the presbytery. Here we breakfasted on a little bread and milk,
+after which we went to M. Safrac’s room.
+
+He drew a chair to the fireplace, over which hung a crucifix, and
+invited me to be seated, and seating himself beside me he signed to me
+to speak. Outside the snow fell. I began as follows:
+
+“My father, it is ten years ago since I left your care and entered the
+world. I have preserved my faith, but, alas, not my purity. But it is
+unnecessary to remind you of my life; you know it, you my spiritual
+guide, the only keeper of my conscience. Moreover, I am in haste to
+arrive at the event which has convulsed my being. Last year my family
+had decided that I must marry, and I myself had willingly consented. The
+young girl destined for me united all the advantages of which parents
+are usually in search. More than that, she was pretty; she pleased me to
+such a degree that instead of a marriage of convenience I was about
+to make a marriage of affection. My offer was accepted, and we were
+betrothed. The happiness and peace of my life seemed assured when I
+received a letter from Paul d’Ervy who had returned from Constantinople
+and announced his arrival in Paris. He expressed a great desire to see
+me. I hurried to him and announced my marriage. He congratulated me
+heartily.
+
+“‘My dear old boy,’ he said, ‘I rejoice in your happiness.’
+
+“I told him that I counted on him to be my witness and he willingly
+consented. The date of my wedding was fixed for May 15, and he was not
+obliged to return to his post until the beginning of June.
+
+“‘How lucky that is,’ I said to him. ‘And you?’
+
+“‘Oh, I,’ he replied, with a smile which expressed in turn joy and
+sorrow, ‘I--what a change! I am mad--a woman--Ary. I am either very
+fortunate or very unfortunate! What name can one give to a happiness
+gained by an evil action? I have betrayed, I have broken the heart of a
+good friend... I carried off--yonder--in Constantinople----”
+
+M. Safrac interrupted me:
+
+“My son, leave out of your narrative the faults of others and name no
+one.”
+
+I promised to obey, and continued as follows:
+
+“Paul had hardly ceased speaking when a woman entered the room.
+Evidently it was she; dressed in a long blue _peignoir_, she seemed to
+be at home. I will describe to you in one word the terrible impression
+she produced on me: she did not seem _natural_. I realise how vague is
+this expression and how inadequately it explains my meaning. But perhaps
+it will become more intelligible in the course of my story. But, indeed,
+in the expression of her golden eyes, that seemed at times to throw out
+sparks of light, in the curve of her enigmatical mouth, in the substance
+of her skin, at once brown and yet luminous, in the play of the angular
+and yet harmonious lines of her body, in the ethereal lightness of
+her footsteps, even in her bare arms, to which invisible wings seemed
+attached, and, finally, in her ardent and magnetic personality, I
+felt an indescribable something foreign to the nature of humanity; an
+indescribable something inferior and yet superior to the woman God has
+created in his formidable goodness, so that she should be our companion
+in this earthly exile. From the moment I saw her one feeling alone
+overmastered my soul and pervaded it; I felt a profound aversion towards
+everything that was not this woman.
+
+“Seeing her enter, Paul frowned slightly, but changing his mind, he made
+an effort to smile.
+
+“‘Leila, I wish to present to you my best friend.’
+
+“Leila replied:
+
+“‘I know M. Ary.’
+
+“These words could not but seem strange as we had certainly never
+seen each other before; but the voice with which they were uttered was
+stranger still.
+
+“If crystal could utter thought, so it would speak.
+
+“‘My friend Ary,’ continued Paul, ‘is to be married in six weeks.’
+
+“At these words Leila looked at me and I saw distinctly that her golden
+eyes said ‘No!’
+
+“I went away greatly disturbed, nor did my friend show the slightest
+desire to detain me. All that day I wandered aimlessly through the
+streets, my heart empty and desolate; then, towards night, finding
+myself in front of a florist’s shop, I remembered my _fiancée_, and went
+in to get her a spray of white lilac. I had hardly taken hold of the
+flowers when a little hand tore them out of my grasp, and I saw Leila,
+who turned away laughing. She wore a short grey dress and a jacket of
+the same colour and a small round hat. I must confess that this costume
+of a Parisian dressed for walking was most unbecoming to her fairy-like
+beauty and seemed a kind of disguise. And yet, seeing her so, I felt
+that I loved her with an undying love. I tried to rejoin her, but I lost
+her among the crowd and the carriages.
+
+“From this time on I seemed to cease to live. I called several times at
+Paul’s without seeing Leila again. He always received me in a friendly
+manner, but he never spoke of her. We had nothing to say to each other,
+and I was sad when we parted. At last, one day, the footman said that
+his master was out. He added ‘Perhaps you would like to see Madame?’ I
+replied ‘Yes.’ O, my father, what tears of blood can ever atone for this
+little word! I entered. I found her in the drawing-room, half reclining
+on a couch, in a dress as yellow as gold, under which she had drawn her
+little feet. I saw her--but, no, I saw nothing. My throat was suddenly
+parched, I could not utter a word. A fragrance of myrrh and aromatic
+perfumes which emanated from her seemed to intoxicate me with languor
+and longing, as if at once all the odours of the mystic East had
+penetrated my quivering nostrils. No, this was certainly not a natural
+woman, for nothing human seemed to emanate from her. Her face expressed
+no emotion, either good or bad, beyond a voluptuousness at once sensual
+and divine. She doubtless noticed my suffering, for she asked with a
+voice as clear as the ripple of a mountain brook:
+
+“‘What ails you?’
+
+“I threw myself in tears at her feet and cried, ‘I love you madly!’”
+
+“She opened her arms; then enfolding me with a lingering glance of her
+candid and voluptuous eyes:
+
+“‘Why have you not told me this before?’
+
+“Indescribable moment! I held Leila in my arms. It seemed as if we two
+together had been transported to Heaven and filled all its spaces. I
+felt myself become the equal of God, and my breast seemed to enfold
+all the beauty of earth and the harmonies of nature--the stars and the
+flowers, the forests that sing, the rivers and the deep seas. I had
+enfolded the infinite in a kiss....”
+
+At these words Monsieur Safrac, who had listened to me for some moments
+with growing impatience, rose, and standing before the fireplace, lifted
+his cassock to his knees to warm his legs and said with a severity which
+came near being disdain:
+
+“You are a wretched blasphemer, and instead of despising your crimes,
+you only confess them because of your pride and delight in them. I will
+listen no more.”
+
+At these words I burst into tears and begged his forgiveness.
+Recognising that my humility was sincere, he desired me to continue my
+confession on condition that I realised my own self-abasement.
+
+I continued my story as follows, determined to make it as brief as
+possible:
+
+“My father, I was torn by remorse when I left Leila. But, from the
+following day on, she came to me, and then began a life which tortured
+me with joy and anguish. I was jealous of Paul, whom I had betrayed, and
+I suffered cruelly.
+
+“I do not believe that there is a more debasing evil than jealousy, nor
+one which fills the soul with more degrading thoughts. Even to console
+me Leila scorned to lie. Besides, her conduct was incomprehensible. I do
+not forget to whom I am speaking, and I shall be careful not to offend
+the ears of the _most_ revered of priests. I can only say that Leila
+seemed ignorant of the love she permitted. But she had enveloped my
+whole being in the poison of sensuality. I could not exist without her,
+and I trembled at the thought of losing her.
+
+“Leila seemed absolutely devoid of what we call moral sense. You
+must not, however, think that she was either wicked or cruel. On
+the contrary, she was gentle and compassionate. Nor was she without
+intelligence, but her intelligence was not of the same nature as ours.
+She said little, and she refused to reply to any questions that were
+asked her about her past. She was ignorant of all that we know. On the
+other hand, she knew many things of which we are ignorant.
+
+“Educated in the East, she was familiar with all sorts of Hindoo and
+Persian legends, which she would repeat with a certain monotonous
+cadence and with an infinite grace. Listening to her as she described
+the charming dawn of the world, one would have said she had lived in the
+youth of creation. This I once said to her.
+
+“‘It is true, I am old,’” she answered smiling.
+
+M. Safrac, still standing in front of the fireplace, had for some time
+bent towards me in an attitude of keen attention.
+
+“Continue,” he said.
+
+“Often, my father, I questioned Leila about her religion. She replied
+that she had none, and that she had no need of one; that her mother and
+sisters were the daughters of God, but that they were not bound to Him
+by any creed. She wore a medallion about her neck filled with a little
+red earth which she said she had piously gathered because of her love
+for her mother.”
+
+Hardly had I uttered these words when M. Safrac, pale and trembling,
+sprang forward, and, seizing my arm, _shouted_:
+
+“She told the truth! I know now. I know who this creature was, Ary! Your
+instinct did not deceive you. It was not a woman. Continue, continue, I
+implore.”
+
+“My father, I have nearly finished. Alas, for Leila’s love, I had broken
+my solemn plighted troth, I had betrayed my best friend. I had affronted
+God. Paul, having heard of Leila’s faithlessness, became mad with grief.
+He threatened her with death, but she replied gently:
+
+“‘Kill me, my friend; I long to die, but I cannot.’
+
+“For six months she gave herself to me; then one morning she said that
+she was about to return to Persia, and that she would never see me
+again. I wept, I moaned, I raved: ‘You have never loved me!’
+
+“‘No, my friend,’ she replied gently. ‘And yet how many women who have
+loved you no better have denied you what you received from me! You still
+owe me some gratitude. Farewell.’
+
+“For two days I was plunged in alternate fury and apathy! Then
+remembering the salvation of my soul, I hurried to you, my father. Here
+I am. Purify me, uplift me, strengthen my heart, for I love her still.”
+
+I ceased. M. Safrac, his hand raised to his forehead, remained lost in
+thought. He was the first to break the silence.
+
+“My son, this confirms my great discovery. What you tell me will
+confound the vainglory of our modern sceptics. Listen to me. We live
+today in the midst of miracles as did the first-born of men. Listen,
+listen! Adam, as I have already told you, had a first wife whom the
+Bible does not make mention of, but of whom the Talmud speaks. Her name
+was Lilith. Created, not out of one of his ribs, but from this same red
+earth out of which he himself had been kneaded, she was not flesh of
+his flesh. She voluntarily separated from him. He was still living in
+innocence when she left him to go to those regions where long years
+afterwards the Persians settled, but which at this time were inhabited
+by the pre-Adamites, more intelligent and more beautiful than the sons
+of men. She therefore had no part in the transgression of our first
+father, and was unsullied by that original sin. Because of this she also
+escaped from the curse pronounced against Eve and her descendants. She
+is exempt from sorrow and death; having no soul to be saved, she is
+incapable of virtue or vice. Whatever she does, she accomplishes neither
+good nor evil. The daughters that were born to her of some mysterious
+wedlock are immortal as she is, and free as she is both in their deeds
+and thoughts, seeing that they can neither gain nor lose in the sight
+of God. Now, my son, I recognise by indisputable signs that the creature
+who caused your downfall, this Leila, was a daughter of Lilith. Compose
+yourself to prayer. To-morrow I will hear you in confession.”
+
+He remained silent for a moment, then drawing a paper out of his pocket,
+he continued:
+
+“Late last night, after having wished you good night, the postman, who
+had been delayed by the snow, brought me a very distressing letter. The
+senior vicaire informs me that my book has been a source of grief to
+Monseigneur, and has already overshadowed the spiritual joy with which
+he looked forward to the festival of our Lady of Mount Carmel. The work,
+he adds, is full of foolhardy doctrines and opinions which have already
+been condemned by the authorities. His Grace could not approve of such
+unwholesome lucubrations. This, then, is what they write to me. But I
+will relate your story to Monseigneur. It will prove to him that Lilith
+exists and that I do not dream.”
+
+I implored Monsieur Safrac to listen to me a moment more.
+
+“When she went away, my father, Leila left me a leaf of cypress on which
+certain characters which I cannot decipher had been traced with the
+point of a style. It seems to be a kind of amulet.”
+
+Monsieur Safrac took the light film which I held out to him and examined
+it carefully.
+
+“This,” he said, “is written in Persian of the best period and can be
+easily translated thus:
+
+
+            “THE PRAYER OF LEILA, DAUGHTER OF LILITH
+
+“_My God, promise me death, so that I may taste of life. My God, give me
+remorse, so that I may at last find happiness. My God, make me the equal
+of the daughters of Eve._”
+
+
+
+
+LAETA ACILIA
+
+                    TO ARY RENAN
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Laeta Acilia lived in Marseilles during the reign of the Emperor
+Tiberius. She had been married for several years to a Roman noble named
+Helvius, but she had no children, though she longed passionately to
+become a mother. One day as she went to the temple to pray to the gods
+she found the entrance crowded by a band of men, half naked, emaciated
+and devoured by leprosy and ulcers. She paused in terror on the lowest
+step of the temple. Laeta Acilia was not without compassion. She pitied
+the poor creatures, but she was afraid of them. Nor had she ever seen
+beggars as wild looking as those who at this moment crowded before her,
+livid, lifeless, their empty wallets flung at their feet. She grew pale
+and held her hand to her heart; she could neither advance nor escape,
+and she felt her limbs giving way under her when a woman of striking
+beauty detached herself from these unfortunates and came towards her.
+
+“Fear nothing, young woman,” and the unknown spoke in a voice both grave
+and tender, “the men you see here are not cruel. They are the bearers
+not of falsehood and evil, but of truth and love. We have come from
+Judaea, where the Son of God has died and risen again. When He ascended
+to the right hand of His Father those who believed in Him suffered cruel
+wrongs. Stephen was stoned by the people. As for us, the priests placed
+us on board a ship without sails or rudder, and we were delivered over
+to the waters of the sea to the end that we should perish. But the God
+who loved us in His mortal life mercifully led us to the harbour of
+this town. Alas! the people of Marseilles are avaricious, idolatrous and
+cruel. They permit the disciples of Jesus to die of hunger and cold.
+And had we not taken refuge in this temple, which they deem sacred, they
+would already have dragged us to their gloomy prisons. And yet it would
+have been well had they welcomed us, since we bring good tidings.”
+
+Having thus spoken the stranger held out her hand towards her companions
+and pointed to each in turn.
+
+“That old man, lady,” she said, “who turns on you his serene gaze, that
+is Cedon, he whom, though blind from birth, the Master healed. Cedon now
+sees with equal clearness things both visible and invisible. That
+other old man, whose beard is as white as the snow on the mountains,
+is Maximin. This man, still so young, and who yet seems so weary, is my
+brother. He was possessed of great wealth in Jerusalem. Near him stand
+Martha my sister and Mantilla, the faithful servant who in happier days
+gathered olives on the hillsides of Bethany.”
+
+“And you,” asked Laeta Acilia, “you whose voice is so soft and whose
+face is so beautiful, what is your name?”
+
+The Jewess replied:
+
+“I am called Mary Magdalen. I divined by the gold embroidery on your
+raiment, and the unconscious pride of your bearing, that you are the
+wife of one of the principal citizens of this town. For this reason
+I have approached you, to the end that you may move the heart of your
+husband on behalf of the disciples of Jesus Christ. Say to this rich
+man: ‘Lord, they are naked, let us clothe them; they are anhungered and
+thirsty let us give them bread and wine, and God will restore to us in
+His Kingdom what was borrowed from us in His name.’”
+
+Laeta Acilia replied:
+
+“Mary, I will do as you ask. My husband is named Helvius; he is of noble
+rank and one of the richest citizens of the town; never for long does he
+refuse what I desire, for he loves me. Your companions have now ceased,
+O Mary, to fill me with fear. I shall even dare to pass close to them,
+though their limbs are polluted by ulcers, and I shall go to the temple
+to pray to the immortal gods to grant my wish. Alas! hitherto they have
+refused.”
+
+Mary, with arms outstretched, barred her way.
+
+“Beware, lady,” she cried, “of worshipping vain idols. Do not demand of
+images of stone words of hope and life. There is only one God, and with
+my hair I have wiped His feet.”
+
+At these words the flashing of her eyes, dark as the sky in a storm,
+mingled with tears, and Laeta Acilia said to herself:
+
+“I am pious, and I faithfully perform the ceremonies religion demands,
+but in this woman there is a strange feeling of a love divine.”
+
+Mary Magdalen continued in ecstasy: “He was the God of Heaven and earth,
+and He uttered His parables seated on the bench by the threshold, under
+the shade of the old fig-tree. He was young and beautiful. He would have
+been glad to be loved. When he came to supper in my sister’s house I
+sat at His feet, and the words flowed from His lips like the waters of
+a torrent. And when my sister complained of my sloth, saying: ‘Master,
+tell her it is but right that she should aid me to prepare the supper,’
+He smiled and made excuse for me, and permitted me to remain seated at
+His feet, and said that I had chosen the good part.
+
+“One would have thought to see Him that He was but a young shepherd from
+the mountains, and yet His eyes flashed flames like those that issued
+from the brow of Moses. His gentleness was like the peace of night and
+His anger was more terrible than a thunderbolt. He loved the humble and
+the little ones. Along the roadside the children ran towards Him and
+clung to His garments. He was the God of Abraham and Jacob, and with
+the same hands that had created the sun and the stars, He caressed the
+cheeks of the newly born whom their happy mothers held out to Him from
+the thresholds of their cottages. He was himself as simple as a child,
+and He raised the dead to life. Here among my companions you see my
+brother whom He raised from the dead. Behold, lady! Lazarus bears on his
+face the pallor of death, and in his eyes is the horror of one who has
+seen hell.”
+
+But for some moments past Laeta Acilia had ceased to listen.
+
+She raised towards the Jewess her candid eyes and her small, smooth
+forehead.
+
+“Mary,” she said, “I am a pious woman, attached to the faith of my
+fathers. Unbelief is evil for our sex. And it does not beseem the wife
+of a Roman noble to accept new fashions in religions. And yet I must
+confess that there are some charming gods in the East. Your God, Mary,
+seems one of these. You have told me that He loves little children, and
+that He kisses them as they lie in the arms of their young mothers. By
+that I see that He is a God who is favourable to women, and I regret
+that He is not held in esteem among the aristocracy and the official
+classes, or I would gladly bring him offerings of honey-cakes. But,
+listen, Mary the Jewess, appeal to Him, you whom He loves, and demand of
+Him for me that which I dare not demand myself, and which my goddesses
+have refused.”
+
+Laeta Acilia uttered these words with hesitation. She paused and
+blushed.
+
+“What is it,” Mary Magdalen asked eagerly, “and what desire, lady, has
+your unsatisfied soul?”
+
+Gaining courage little by little, Laeta Acilia replied:
+
+“Mary, you are a woman, and though I know you not, I yet may confide to
+you a woman’s secret. During the six years that I have been married I
+have not had a child, and that is a great sorrow to me; I need a child
+to love; the love in my heart for the little creature I am awaiting,
+and who yet may never come, is stifling me. If your God, Mary Magdalen,
+grants me through your intercession what my goddesses have denied me, I
+shall say that He is a good God, and I will love Him and I will make my
+friends love Him. And like us they are young and rich, and they belong
+to the first families of the town.”
+
+Mary Magdalen replied gravely:
+
+“Daughter of the Romans, when you shall have received that for which you
+ask, may you remember this promise that you have made to the servant of
+Jesus.”
+
+“I shall remember,” she replied. “In the meantime take this purse, Mary,
+and divide the money it contains among your companions. Farewell, I
+shall return to my house. As soon as I arrive I will send baskets full
+of bread and meat for you and your friends. Tell your brother and your
+sister and your friends that they may without fear leave the sanctuary
+where they have taken refuge and go to some inn on the outskirts of the
+town. Helvius, who has great influence in the town, will prevent any one
+molesting them. May the gods protect you, Mary Magdalen! When it shall
+please you to see me again ask of the passers-by for the house of Laeta
+Acilia; any of the citizens will be able to show you the way without
+trouble.”
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+IT was six months later that Laeta Acilia, lying on a purple couch in
+the courtyard of her house, crooned a little song that had no sense
+and which her mother had sung before her. The water sang gaily in the
+fountain out of whose shallow basin rose young Tritons in marble, and
+the balmy-air gently stirred the murmuring leaves of the old plane-tree.
+Tired, languid, happy, heavy as a bee leaving the orchard, the young
+woman crossed her arms over her rounded body, and, having ceased her
+song, glanced about her and sighed in the fulness of pride.
+
+At her feet her black, white and yellow slaves were busy with needle,
+shuttle and spindle, vying with each other as they worked at the
+garments for the expected infant. Laeta stretched out her hand and took
+a little cap which an old slave laughingly offered her. She placed it on
+her closed hand and laughed in turn. It was a little cap of purple and
+gold, silver and pearls, and splendid as the dreams of a poor African
+slave.
+
+At that moment a stranger entered this interior court. She was clothed
+in a seamless garment of one piece, in colour like the dust of the
+roads. Her long hair was covered with ashes, but her face, worn by
+tears, still shone with glory and beauty.
+
+The slaves, mistaking her for a beggar, were about to drive her away
+when Laeta Acilia, recognising her at the first glance, rose and ran
+towards her.
+
+“Mary, Mary,” she cried, “it is true that you were the favourite of a
+god. He whom you loved on earth has heard you in Heaven, and through
+your intercession He has granted my prayer. See,” she added, and she
+showed her the little cap which she still held in her hand, “how happy I
+am and how grateful to you.”
+
+“I knew it,” replied Mary Magdalen “and I have come, Laeta Acilia, to
+instruct you in the truth of Jesus Christ.”
+
+Thereupon the Marseillaise dismissed her slaves, and offered the Jewess
+an ivory armchair with cushions embroidered in gold. But Mary Magdalen,
+pushing it back with disgust, seated herself on the ground with feet
+crossed in the shade of the great plane-tree stirred by the murmuring
+breeze.
+
+“Daughter of the Gentiles,” she said, “you have not despised the
+disciples of the Lord. For this reason I will teach you to know Jesus
+as I know Him, to the end that you shall love Him as I love Him. I was
+a sinner when I saw for the first time the most beautiful of the sons of
+men.”
+
+Thereupon she told how she had thrown herself at the feet of Jesus in
+the house of Simon the Leper, and how she had poured over the Master’s
+adored feet all the ointment of spikenard contained in the alabaster
+vase. She repeated the words the gentle Master had uttered in reply to
+the murmurs of His rough disciples.
+
+“Why do you reprove this woman?” He had said. “That which she has done
+is well done. For the poor ye have always with you, but Me ye have not
+always. She has with forethought anointed My body for My burial. I tell
+you in truth that in the whole world, wherever the Gospel is preached,
+shall be told what she has done, and she shall be praised.”
+
+She then described how Jesus had cast out the seven devils that had
+raged within her.
+
+She added:
+
+“Since then, enraptured and consumed by all the joys of faith and love,
+I have lived in the shadow of the Master as in a new Eden.”
+
+She told her of the lilies of the fields upon which they had gazed
+together, and of that infinite happiness, the happiness born of faith
+alone. Then she described how He had been betrayed and put to death for
+the salvation of His people. She recalled the ineffable scenes of the
+passion, the burial and the resurrection.
+
+“It was I,” she cried, “it was I who of all was the first to see Him. I
+found two angels clad in white seated, one at the head, the other at the
+feet, where we had laid the body of Jesus. And they said to me: ‘Woman,
+why weepest thou?’ ‘I weep because they have taken away my Lord, and I
+know not where they have laid Him.’
+
+“O joy! Jesus came towards me, and at first I thought He was the
+gardener. But he called me ‘Mary’ and I recognised His voice. I cried
+‘Master’ and held out my arms, but He replied gently, ‘Touch me not, for
+I am not yet ascended to my Father.’”
+
+As she listened to this narrative Laeta Acilia lost little by little her
+sense of joy and contentment. Recalling the past and examining her own
+life, it seemed to her very monotonous in comparison to the life of
+the woman who had loved a god. Young and pious and a patrician, her own
+red-letter days were those on which she had eaten cakes with her girl
+friends. Visits to the circus, the love of Helvius and her needle-work
+also counted in her life. But what were these all in comparison to the
+scenes with which Mary Magdalen kindled her senses and her soul? She
+felt her heart stifling with bitter jealousy and vague regrets.
+
+She envied this Jewess, whose radiant beauty still glowed under the
+ashes of penitence, her divine adventures, and even her sorrows.
+
+“Begone, Jewess!” she cried, forcing back her tears with her hands.
+“Begone! But a moment since I was so contented, I believed myself so
+happy. I did not know that there were other joys than those which were
+mine. I knew of no other love than that of my good Helvius, and I knew
+of no other holy joy than to celebrate the mysteries of the goddesses
+in the manner of my mother and of my grandmother. O, now I understand!
+Wicked woman, you wished to make me discontented with the life I have
+led. But you have not succeeded! Why have you come to tell me of your
+love for a visible God? Why do you boast before me of having seen the
+resurrection of the Master since I shall not see Him? You even hoped to
+spoil the joy that is mine in bearing a child. It was wicked! I refuse
+to know your God. You have loved Him too much! To please Him one is
+obliged to fall prostrate and dishevelled at His feet. That is not an
+attitude which beseems the wife of a noble! Helvius would be annoyed did
+I worship in such a way. I will have nothing to do with a religion that
+disarranges one’s hair! No indeed, I will not allow the little child I
+bear in my bosom to know your Christ! Should this poor little creature
+be a daughter she shall learn to love the little goddesses of baked clay
+that are not larger than my finger, and with these she can play without
+fear. These are the proper divinities for mothers and children. You
+are very audacious to boast of your love affairs and to ask me to share
+them. How could your God be mine? I have not led the life of a sinner,
+I have not been possessed of seven devils, nor have I frequented the
+highways. I am a respectable woman. Begone!”
+
+And Mary Magdalen, perceiving that proselytising was not her vocation,
+retired to a wild cavern since called the Holy Grotto. The sacred
+historians believe unanimously that Laeta Acilia was not converted to
+the faith of Christ until many years after this interview which I have
+faithfully recorded.
+
+
+A NOTE ON A POINT OF EXEGESIS
+
+I have been reproached for having in this story confused Mary of
+Bethany, sister of Martha, and Mary Magdalen. I must confess at
+once that the Gospel seems to make of Mary who poured the perfume of
+spikenard over the feet of Jesus and of Mary to whom the Master said:
+“_Noli me tangere?_,” two women absolutely distinct. Upon this point I
+am willing to make amends to those who have done me the honour to blame
+me.
+
+Among the number is a princess who belongs to the Orthodox Greek
+Church. This does not in the least surprise me. The Greeks have always
+distinguished between the two Marys. It was not the same in the Western
+Church. On the contrary, the identity of the sister of Martha and
+Magdalen the sinner was early acknowledged.
+
+The texts lend themselves but ill to this interpretation, but texts
+never present difficulties to any one but the pundits; the poetry of the
+people is more subtle than science: it can never be held in check, and
+it overcomes the obstacles which prove a stumbling-block to criticism.
+By a happy turn of the imagination popular fancy has welded the two
+Marys together and thus created the marvellous type of Mary Magdalen. It
+has been made sacred by legend, and it is the legend which has inspired
+my little story. In this I consider myself above reproach. Nor is that
+all! I am able, even, to invoke the authority of the learned, and I
+may, without vanity, say that the Sorbonne is on my side. The Sorbonne
+declared on December 1, 1521, that there is but one Mary.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED EGG
+
+                            TO SAMUEL POZZI
+
+
+Dr. N------ placed his coffee-cup on the mantelpiece, threw his cigar
+into the fire, and said to me: “My dear friend, you recently told me of
+the strange suicide of a woman tortured by terror and remorse. Her
+nature was fine and she was exquisitely cultivated. Being suspected of
+complicity in a crime of which she had been the silent witness, in
+despair at her own irreparable cowardice, she was haunted by a perpetual
+nightmare in which her husband appeared to her dead and decomposing and
+pointing her out with his finger to the inquisitive magistrates. She was
+the victim of her own morbid imagination. In this condition an
+insignificant and casual circumstane decided her fate.
+
+“Her nephew, a child, lived with her. One morning he was, as usual,
+studying his lessons in the dining-room where she happened to be. The
+child began to translate word by word a verse of Sophocles, and as he
+wrote he pronounced aloud both the Greek and the translation:
+
+[Illustration: Greek phrases 100]
+
+The head divine; of Jocasta; is dead.... tearing her hair; she calls;
+Laïos dead... we see; the woman hung. He added a flourish which tore
+the paper, stuck out his ink-stained tongue, and repeated in sing-song,
+‘Hung, hung, hung!’
+
+“The wretched woman, whose will-power had been destroyed, passively
+obeyed the suggestion in the word, repeated three times. She rose, and
+without a word or look went straight to her room. Some hours later
+the police-inspector, called to verify a violent death, made this
+reflection: ‘I have seen many women who have committed suicide, but this
+is the first time I have seen one who has hanged herself.’
+
+“We speak of suggestion. Here is an instance which is at once natural
+and credible. I am a little doubtful, in spite of everything, of those
+which are arranged in the medical schools.
+
+“But that a being in whom the will-power is dead obeys every external
+impulse is a truth which reason admits and which experience proves. The
+example which you cited reminds me of another one somewhat similar.
+It is that of my unfortunate comrade, Alexandre Le Mansel. A verse of
+Sophocles killed your heroine. A phrase of Lampridius destroyed the
+friend of whom I will tell you.
+
+“Le Mansel, with whom I studied at the high school of Avranches, was
+unlike all his comrades. He seemed at once younger and older than he
+really was. Small and fragile, he was at fifteen years of age afraid
+of everything that alarms little children. Darkness caused him an
+overpowering terror, and he could never meet one of the servants of the
+school, who happened to have a big lump on the top of his head, without
+bursting into tears. And yet at times, when we saw him close at hand, he
+looked quite old. His parched skin, glued to his temples, nourished his
+thin hair very inadequately. His forehead was polished like that of a
+middle-aged man. As for his eyes, they had no expression, and strangers
+often thought he was blind. His mouth alone gave character to his
+face. His sensitive lips expressed in turn a child-like joy and strange
+sufferings. The sound of his voice was clear and charming. When he
+recited his lessons he gave the verses their full harmony and rhythm,
+which made us laugh very much. During recreation he willingly joined
+our games, and he was not awkward, but he played with such feverish
+enthusiasm, and yet he was so absent-minded, that some of us felt an
+insurmountable aversion towards him.
+
+“He was not popular, and we would have made him our butt had he not
+rather overawed us by something of savage pride and by his reputation as
+a clever scholar, for though he was unequal in his work he was often at
+the head of his class. It was said that he would often talk in his sleep
+and that he would leave his bed in the dormitory while sound asleep.
+This, however, we had not observed for ourselves as we were at the age
+of sound sleep.
+
+“For a long time he inspired me with more surprise than sympathy. Then
+of a sudden we became friends during a walk which the whole class took
+to the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. We tramped barefooted along the beach,
+carrying our shoes and our bread at the end of a stick and singing at
+the top of our voices. We passed the postern, and having thrown our
+bundles at the foot of the ‘Michelettes,’ we sat down side by side on
+one of those ancient iron cannons corroded by five centuries of rain and
+fog.
+
+“Looking dreamily from the ancient stones to the sky, and swinging his
+bare feet, he said to me: ‘Had I but lived in the time of those wars and
+been a knight, I would have captured these two old cannons; I would have
+captured twenty, I would have captured a hundred! I would have captured
+all the cannons of the English. I would have fought single-handed in
+front of this gate. And the Archangel Michel would have stood guard over
+my head like a white cloud.’
+
+“These words and the slow chant in which he uttered them thrilled me. I
+said to him, ‘I would have been your squire. I like you, Le Mansel;
+will you be my friend?’ And I held my hand out to him and he took it
+solemnly.
+
+“At the master’s command we put on our shoes, and our little band
+climbed the steep ascent that leads to the abbey. Midway, near a
+spreading fig-tree, we saw the cottage where Tiphaine Raguel, widow of
+Bertrand du Guesdin, lived in peril of the sea.
+
+“This dwelling is so small that it is a wonder that it was ever
+inhabited. To have lived there the worthy Tiphaine must have been a
+queer old body, or, rather, a saint living only the spiritual life. Le
+Mansel opened his arms as if to embrace this sacred hut; then, falling
+on his knees, he kissed the stones, heedless of the laughter of his
+comrades who, in their merriment, began to pelt him with pebbles. I will
+not describe our walk among the dungeons, the cloisters, the halls and
+the chapel. Le Mansel seemed oblivious to everything. Indeed, I should
+not have recalled this incident except to show how our friendship began.
+
+“In the dormitory the next morning I was awakened by a voice at my ear
+which said:
+
+“‘Tiphaine is not dead,’ I rubbed my eyes as I saw Le Mansel in his
+shirt at my side. I requested him rather rudely to let me sleep, and I
+thought no more of this singular communication.
+
+“From that day on I understood the character of our fellow pupil much
+better than before, and I discovered an inordinate pride which I had
+never before suspected. It will not surprise you if I acknowledge that
+at the age of fifteen I was but a poor psychologist. But Le Mansel’s
+pride was too subtle to strike one at once. It had no concrete shape,
+but seemed to embrace remote phantasms. And yet it influenced all his
+feelings and gave to his ideas, uncouth and incoherent though they were,
+something of unity.
+
+“During the holidays that followed our walk to the Mont St. Michel, Le
+Mansel invited me to spend a day at the home of his parents, who were
+farmers and landowners at Saint Julien.
+
+“My mother consented with some repugnance. Saint Julien is six
+kilometres from the town. Having put on a white waistcoat and a smart
+blue tie I started on my way there early one Sunday morning.
+
+“Alexandre stood at the door waiting for me and smiling like a little
+child. He took me by the hand and led me into the ‘parlour.’ The house,
+half country, half town-like, was neither poor nor ill furnished. And
+yet my heart was deeply oppressed when I entered, so great was the
+silence and sadness that reigned.
+
+“Near the window, whose curtains were slightly raised as if to satisfy
+some timid curiosity, I saw a woman who seemed old, though I cannot be
+sure that she was as old as she appeared to be. She was thin and yellow,
+and her eyes, under their red lids glowed in their black sockets. Though
+it was summer her body and her head were shrouded in some black woollen
+material. But that which made her look most ghastly was a band of metal
+which encircled her forehead like a diadem.
+
+“‘This is mama,’ Le Mansel said to me, ‘she has a headache.’
+
+“Madam Le Mansel greeted me in a plaintive voice, and doubtless
+observing my astonished glance at her forehead, said, smiling:
+
+“‘What I wear on my forehead, young sir, is not a crown; it is a
+magnetic band to cure my headache.’ I did my best to reply when Le
+Mansel dragged me away to the garden, where we found a bald little man
+who flitted along the paths like a ghost. He was so thin and so light
+that there seemed some danger of his being blown away by the wind. His
+timid manner and lus long and lean neck, when he bent forward, and his
+head, no larger than a man’s fist, his shy side-glances and his
+skipping gait, his short arms uplifted like a pair of flippers, gave him
+undeniably a great resemblance to a plucked chicken.
+
+“My friend, Le Mansel, explained that this was his father, but that they
+were obliged to let him stay in the yard as he really only lived in the
+company of his chickens, and he had in their society quite forgotten to
+talk to human beings. As he spoke his father suddenly disappeared, and
+very soon an ecstatic clucking filled the air. He was with his chickens.
+
+“Le Mansel and I strolled several times around the garden and he told me
+that at dinner, presently, I should see his grandmother, but that I was
+to take no notice of what she said, as she was sometimes a little out
+of her mind. Then he drew me aside into a pretty arbour and whispered,
+blushing:
+
+“‘I have written some verses about Tiphaine Raguel. I’ll repeat them to
+you some other time. You’ll see, you’ll see.’
+
+“The dinner-bell rang and we went into the dining-room. M. Le Mansel
+came in with at basket full of eggs.
+
+“‘Eighteen this morning,’ he said, and his voice sounded like a cluck.
+
+“A most delicious omelette was served. I was seated between Madame Le
+Mansel, who was moaning under her crown, and her mother, an old Normandy
+woman with round cheeks, who, having lost all her teeth, smiled with her
+eyes. She seemed very attractive to me. While we were eating roast-duck
+and chicken _à la crème_ the good lady told us some very amusing
+stories, and, in spite of what her grandson had said, I did not observe
+that her mind was in the slightest degree affected. On the contrary, she
+seemed to be the life of the house.
+
+“After dinner we adjourned to a little sitting-room whose walnut
+furniture was covered with yellow Utrecht velvet. An ornamental clock
+between two candelabra decorated the mantelpiece, and on the top of its
+black plinth, and protected and covered by a glass globe, was a red egg.
+I do not know why, once having observed it, I should have examined it so
+attentively. Children have such unaccountable curiosity. However, I must
+say that the egg was of a most wonderful and magnificent colour. It had
+no resemblance whatever to those Easter eggs dyed in the juice of
+the beetroot, so much admired by the urchins who stare in at the
+fruit-shops. It was of the colour of royal purple. And with the
+indiscretion of my age I could not resist saying as much.
+
+“M. Le Mansel’s reply was a kind of crow which expressed his admiration.
+
+“‘That egg, young sir,’ he added, ‘has not been dyed as you seem to
+think. It was laid by a Cingalese hen in my poultry-yard just as you see
+it there. It is a phenomenal egg.’
+
+“‘You must not forget to say,’ Madame Le Mansel added in a plaintive
+voice, ‘that this egg was laid the very day our Alexandre was born.’
+
+“‘That’s a fact,’ M. Le Mansel assented.
+
+“In the meantime the old grandmother looked at me with sarcastic eyes,
+and pressed her loose lips together and made a sign that I was not to
+believe what I heard.
+
+“‘Humph!’ she whispered, ‘chickens often sit on what they don’t lay, and
+if some malicious neighbour slips into their nest a----’
+
+“Her grandson interrupted her fiercely. He was pale, and his hands
+shook.
+
+“‘Don’t listen to her,’ he cried to me. ‘You know what I told you. Don’t
+listen!’
+
+“‘It’s a fact!’ M. Le Mansel repeated, his round eye fixed in a side
+glance at the red egg.
+
+“My further connection with Alexandre Le Mansel contains nothing worth
+relating. My friend often spoke of his verses to Tiphaine, but he never
+showed them to me. Indeed, I very soon lost sight of him. My mother sent
+me to Paris to finish my studies. I took my degree in two faculties,
+and then I studied medicine. During the time that I was preparing my
+doctor’s thesis I received a letter from my mother, who told me that
+poor Alexandre had been very ailing, and that after a serious attack he
+had become timid and excessively suspicious; that, however, he was quite
+harmless, and in spite of the disordered state of his health and reason
+he showed an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics. There was nothing
+in these tidings to surprise me. Often, as I studied the diseases of the
+nervous centres, my mind reverted to my poor friend at Saint Julien,
+and in spite of myself I foresaw for him the general paralysis which
+inevitably threatened the offspring of a mother racked by chronic
+nervous headaches and a rheumatic, addle-brained father.
+
+“The sequel, however, did not, apparently, prove me to be in the right.
+Alexandre Le Mansel, as I heard from Avranches, regained his normal
+health, and as he grew towards manhood gave active proof of the
+brilliancy of his intellect. He worked with ardour at his mathematical
+studies, and he even sent to the Academy of Sciences solutions of
+several problems hitherto unsolved, which were found to be as elegant as
+they were accurate. Absorbed in his work, he rarely found time to write
+to me. His letters were affectionate, clear, and to the point, and
+nothing could be found in them to arouse the mistrust of the most
+suspicious neurologist. However, very soon after this our correspondence
+ceased, and I heard nothing more of him for the next ten years.
+
+“Last year I was greatly surprised when my servant brought me the card
+of Alexandre Le Mansel, and said that the gentleman was waiting for me
+in the ante-room.
+
+“I was in my study consulting with a colleague on a matter of some
+importance. However, I begged him to excuse me for a moment while I
+hurried to greet my old friend. I found he had grown very old, bald,
+haggard, and terribly emaciated. I took him by the arm and led him into
+the _salon_.
+
+“‘I am glad to see you again,’ he said, ‘and I have much to tell you. I
+am exposed to the most unheard-of persecutions. But I have courage, and
+I shall struggle bravely, and I shall triumph over my enemies.’
+
+“These words disquieted me, as they would have disquieted in my place
+any other nerve specialist. I recognised a symptom of the disease which,
+by the fatal laws of heredity, menaced my friend, and which had appeared
+to be checked.
+
+“‘My dear friend,’ I said, ‘we will talk about that presently. Wait here
+a moment. I just want to finish something. In the meantime take a book
+and amuse yourself.’
+
+“You know I have a great number of books, and my drawing-room contains
+about six thousand volumes in three mahogany book-cases. Why, then,
+should my unfortunate friend choose the very one likely to do him harm,
+and open it at that fatal page? I conferred some twenty minutes longer
+with my colleague, and having taken leave of him I returned to the room
+where I had left Le Mansel. I found the unfortunate man in the most
+fearful condition. He struck a book that lay open before him and, which
+I at once recognised as a translation of the _Historia Augusta_. He
+recited at the top of his voice this sentence of Lampridius:
+
+“‘On the day of the birth of Alexander Severus, a chicken, belonging
+to the father of the newly-born, laid a red egg--augury of the imperial
+purple to which the child was destined.’
+
+“His excitement increased to fury. He foamed at the mouth. He cried:
+‘The egg, the egg of the day of my birth. I am an Emperor. I know that
+you want to kill me. Keep away, you wretch!’ He strode down the room,
+then, returning, came towards me with open arms. ‘My friend,’ he said,
+‘my old comrade, what do you wish me to bestow on you? An Emperor--an
+Emperor.... My father was right.... the red egg. I must be an Emperor!
+Scoundrel, why did you hide this book from me? This is a crime of high
+treason; it shall be punished! ‘I shall be Emperor! Emperor! Yes, it is
+my duty.... Forward.... forward!”
+
+“He was gone. In vain I tried to detain him. He escaped me. You know the
+rest. All the newspapers have described how, after leaving me, he bought
+a revolver and blew out the brains of the sentry who tried to prevent
+his forcing his way into the Elysée.
+
+“And thus it happens that a sentence written by a Latin historian of the
+fourth century was the cause, fifteen hundred years after, of the death
+in our country of a wretched private soldier. Who will ever disentangle
+the web of cause and effect?
+
+“Who can venture to say, as he accomplishes some simple act: ‘I know
+what I am doing.’ My dear friend, this is all I have to tell. The rest
+is of no interest except in medical statistics. Le Mansel, shut up in
+an insane asylum, remained for fifteen days a prey to the most violent
+mania. Whereupon he fell into a state of complete imbecility, during
+which he became so greedy that he even devoured the wax with which they
+polished the floor. Three months later he was suffocated while trying to
+swallow a sponge.”
+
+The doctor ceased and lighted a cigarette. After a moment of silence, I
+said to him, “You have told me a terrible story, doctor.”
+
+“It is terrible,” he replied, “but it is true. I should be glad of a
+little brandy.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balthasar, by Anatole France
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