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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Revolt of the Angels, 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: The Revolt of the Angels
+
+Author: Anatole France
+
+Editor: Frederic Chapman
+
+Translator: Mrs. Wilfrid Jackson
+
+Release Date: May 30, 2010 [EBook #32596]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANATOLE FRANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  +------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Note                                         |
+  |                                                            |
+  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in        |
+  | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of   |
+  | this document.                                             |
+  +------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE
+IN AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
+EDITED BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN
+
+THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE REVOLT
+OF THE ANGELS
+
+BY ANATOLE FRANCE
+
+A TRANSLATION BY
+MRS. WILFRID JACKSON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
+
+NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+MCMXXIV
+
+
+Copyright, 1914,
+by
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+PRINTED IN U. S. A
+
+
+
+
+THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS
+
+
+
+
+THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     CONTAINING IN A FEW LINES THE HISTORY OF A FRENCH FAMILY
+     FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT DAY
+
+
+Beneath the shadow of St. Sulpice the ancient mansion of the d'Esparvieu
+family rears its austere three stories between a moss-grown fore-court
+and a garden hemmed in, as the years have elapsed, by ever loftier and
+more intrusive buildings, wherein, nevertheless, two tall chestnut trees
+still lift their withered heads.
+
+Here from 1825 to 1857 dwelt the great man of the family, Alexandre
+Bussart d'Esparvieu, Vice-President of the Council of State under the
+Government of July, Member of the Academy of Moral and Political
+Sciences, and author of an _Essay on the Civil and Religious
+Institutions of Nations_, in three octavo volumes, a work unfortunately
+left incomplete.
+
+This eminent theorist of a Liberal monarchy left as heir to his name his
+fortune and his fame, Fulgence-Adolphe Bussart d'Esparvieu, senator
+under the Second Empire, who added largely to his patrimony by buying
+land over which the Avenue de l'Imperatice was destined ultimately to
+pass, and who made a remarkable speech in favour of the temporal power
+of the popes.
+
+Fulgence had three sons. The eldest, Marc-Alexandre, entering the army,
+made a splendid career for himself: he was a good speaker. The second,
+Gaetan, showing no particular aptitude for anything, lived mostly in the
+country, where he hunted, bred horses, and devoted himself to music and
+painting. The third son, Rene, destined from his childhood for the law,
+resigned his deputyship to avoid complicity in the Ferry decrees against
+the religious orders; and later, perceiving the revival under the
+presidency of Monsieur Fallieres of the days of Decius and Diocletian,
+put his knowledge and zeal at the service of the persecuted Church.
+
+From the Concordat of 1801 down to the closing years of the Second
+Empire all the d'Esparvieus attended mass for the sake of example.
+Though sceptics in their inmost hearts, they looked upon religion as an
+instrument of government.
+
+Mark and Rene were the first of their race to show any sign of sincere
+devotion. The General, when still a colonel, had dedicated his regiment
+to the Sacred Heart, and he practised his faith with a fervour
+remarkable even in a soldier, though we all know that piety, daughter of
+Heaven, has marked out the hearts of the generals of the Third Republic
+as her chosen dwelling-place on earth.
+
+Faith has its vicissitudes. Under the old order the masses were
+believers, not so the aristocracy or the educated middle class. Under
+the First Empire the army from top to bottom was entirely irreligious.
+To-day the masses believe nothing. The middle classes wish to believe,
+and succeed at times, as did Marc and Rene d'Esparvieu. Their brother
+Gaetan, on the contrary, the country gentleman, failed to attain to
+faith. He was an agnostic, a term commonly employed by the modish to
+avoid the odious one of freethinker. And he openly declared himself an
+agnostic, contrary to the admirable custom which deems it better to
+withhold the avowal.
+
+In the century in which we live there are so many modes of belief and of
+unbelief that future historians will have difficulty in finding their
+way about. But are we any more successful in disentangling the condition
+of religious beliefs in the time of Symmachus or of Ambrose?
+
+A fervent Christian, Rene d'Esparvieu was deeply attached to the liberal
+ideas his ancestors had transmitted to him as a sacred heritage.
+Compelled to oppose a Jacobin and atheistical Republic, he still called
+himself Republican. And it was in the name of liberty that he demanded
+the independence and sovereignty of the Church.
+
+During the long debates on the Separation and the quarrels over the
+Inventories, the synods of the bishops and the assemblies of the
+faithful were held in his house. While the most authoritatively
+accredited leaders of the Catholic party: prelates, generals, senators,
+deputies, journalists, were met together in the big green drawing-room,
+and every soul present turned towards Rome with a tender submission or
+enforced obedience; while Monsieur d'Esparvieu, his elbow on the marble
+chimney-piece, opposed civil law to canon law, and protested eloquently
+against the spoliation of the Church of France, two faces of other days,
+immobile and speechless, looked down on the modern crowd; on the right
+of the fire-place, painted by David, was Romain Bussart, a
+working-farmer at Esparvieu in shirt-sleeves and drill trousers, with a
+rough-and-ready air not untouched with cunning. He had good reason to
+smile: the worthy man laid the foundation of the family fortunes when he
+bought Church lands. On the left, painted by Gerard in full-dress
+bedizened with orders, was the peasant's son, Baron Emile Bussart
+d'Esparvieu, prefect under the Empire, Keeper of the Great Seal under
+Charles X, who died in 1837, churchwarden of his parish, with couplets
+from _La Pucelle_ on his lips.
+
+Rene d'Esparvieu married in 1888 Marie-Antoinette Coupelle, daughter of
+Baron Coupelle, ironmaster at Blainville (Haute Loire). Madame Rene
+d'Esparvieu had been president since 1903 of the Society of Christian
+Mothers. These perfect spouses, having married off their eldest daughter
+in 1908, had three children still at home--a girl and two boys.
+
+Leon, the younger, aged seven, had a room next to his mother and his
+sister Berthe. Maurice, the elder, lived in a little pavilion comprising
+two rooms at the bottom of the garden. The young man thus gained a
+freedom which enabled him to endure family life. He was rather
+good-looking, smart without too much pretence, and the faint smile which
+merely raised one corner of his mouth did not lack charm.
+
+At twenty-five Maurice possessed the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. Doubting
+whether a man hath any profit of all his labour which he taketh under
+the sun he never put himself out about anything. From his earliest
+childhood this young hopeful's sole concern with work had been
+considering how he might best avoid it, and it was through his remaining
+ignorant of the teaching of the _Ecole de Droit_ that he became a doctor
+of law and a barrister at the Court of Appeal.
+
+He neither pleaded nor practised. He had no knowledge and no desire to
+acquire any; wherein he conformed to his genius whose engaging fragility
+he forbore to overload; his instinct fortunately telling him that it was
+better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.
+
+As Monsieur l'Abbe Patouille expressed it, Maurice had received from
+Heaven the benefits of a Christian education. From his childhood piety
+was shown to him in the example of his home, and when on leaving college
+he was entered at the _Ecole de Droit_, he found the lore of the
+doctors, the virtues of the confessors, and the constancy of the nursing
+mothers of the Church assembled around the paternal hearth. Admitted to
+social and political life at the time of the great persecution of the
+Church of France, Maurice did not fail to attend every manifestation of
+youthful Catholicism; he lent a hand with his parish barricades at the
+time of the Inventories, and with his companions he unharnessed the
+archbishop's horses when he was driven out from his palace. He showed on
+all these occasions a modified zeal; one never saw him in the front
+ranks of the heroic band exciting soldiers to a glorious disobedience or
+flinging mud and curses at the agents of the law.
+
+He did his duty, nothing more; and if he distinguished himself on the
+occasion of the great pilgrimage of 1911 among the stretcher-bearers at
+Lourdes, we have reason to fear it was but to please Madame de la
+Verdeliere, who admired men of muscle. Abbe Patouille, a friend of the
+family and deeply versed in the knowledge of souls, knew that Maurice
+had only moderate aspirations to martyrdom. He reproached him with his
+lukewarmness, and pulled his ear, calling him a bad lot. Anyway, Maurice
+remained a believer.
+
+Amid the distractions of youth his faith remained intact, since he left
+it severely alone. He had never examined a single tenet. Nor had he
+enquired a whit more closely into the ideas of morality current in the
+grade of society to which he belonged. He took them just as they came.
+Thus in every situation that arose he cut an eminently respectable
+figure which he would have assuredly failed to do, had he been given to
+meditating on the foundations of morality. He was irritable and
+hot-tempered and possessed of a sense of honour which he was at great
+pains to cultivate. He was neither vain nor ambitious. Like the majority
+of Frenchmen, he disliked parting with his money. Women would never have
+obtained anything from him had they not known the way to make him give.
+He believed he despised them; the truth was he adored them. He indulged
+his appetites so naturally that he never suspected that he had any. What
+people did not know, himself least of all,--though the gleam that
+occasionally shone in his fine, light-brown eyes might have furnished
+the hint--was that he had a warm heart and was capable of friendship.
+For the rest, he was, in the ordinary intercourse of life, no very
+brilliant specimen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     WHEREIN USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND CONCERNING A
+     LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS
+
+
+Desirous of embracing the whole circle of human knowledge, and anxious
+to bequeath to the world a concrete symbol of his encyclopaedic genius
+and a display in keeping with his pecuniary resources, Baron Alexandre
+d'Esparvieu had formed a library of three hundred and sixty thousand
+volumes, both printed and in manuscript, whereof the greater part
+emanated from the Benedictines of Liguge.
+
+By a special clause in his will he enjoined his heirs to add to his
+library, after his death, whatever they might deem worthy of note in
+natural, moral, political, philosophical, and religious science.
+
+He had indicated the sums which might be drawn from his estate for the
+fulfilment of this object, and charged his eldest son, Fulgence-Adolphe,
+to proceed with these additions. Fulgence-Adolphe accomplished with
+filial respect the wishes expressed by his illustrious father.
+
+After him, this huge library, which represented more than one child's
+share of the estate, remained undivided between the Senator's three sons
+and two daughters; and Rene d'Esparvieu, on whom devolved the house in
+the Rue Garanciere, became the guardian of the valuable collection. His
+two sisters, Madame Paulet de Saint-Fain and Madame Cuissart, repeatedly
+demanded that such a large but unremunerative piece of property should
+be turned into money. But Rene and Gaetan bought in the shares of their
+two co-legatees, and the library was saved. Rene d'Esparvieu even busied
+himself in adding to it, thus fulfilling the intentions of its founder.
+But from year to year he lessened the number and importance of the
+acquisitions, opining that the intellectual output in Europe was on the
+wane.
+
+Nevertheless, Gaetan enriched it, out of his funds, with works published
+both in France and abroad which he thought good, and he was not lacking
+in judgment, though his brothers would never allow that he had a
+particle. Thanks to this man of leisurely and inquiring mind, Baron
+Alexandre's collection was kept practically up to date. Even at the
+present day the d'Esparvieu library, in the departments of theology,
+jurisprudence, and history is one of the finest private libraries in all
+Europe. Here you may study physical science, or to put it better,
+physical sciences in all their branches, and for that matter metaphysic
+or metaphysics, that is to say, all that is connected with physics and
+has no other name, so impossible is it to designate by a substantive
+that which has no substance, and is but a dream and an illusion. Here
+you may contemplate with admiration philosophers addressing themselves
+to the solution, dissolution, and resolution of the Absolute, to the
+determination of the Indeterminate and to the definition of the
+Infinite.
+
+Amid this pile of books and booklets, both sacred and profane, you may
+find everything down to the latest and most fashionable pragmatism.
+
+Other libraries there are, more richly abounding in bindings of
+venerable antiquity and illustrious origin, whose smooth and soft-hued
+texture render them delicious to the touch; bindings which the gilder's
+art has enriched with gossamer, lace-work, foliage, flowers, emblematic
+devices, and coats of arms; bindings that charm the studious eye with
+their tender radiance. Other libraries perhaps harbour a greater array
+of manuscripts illuminated with delicate and brilliant miniatures by
+artists of Venice, Flanders, or Touraine. But in handsome, sound
+editions of ancient and modern writers, both sacred and profane, the
+d'Esparvieu library is second to none. Here one finds all that has come
+down to us from antiquity; all the Fathers of the Church, the Apologists
+and the Decretalists, all the Humanists of the Renaissance, all the
+Encylopaedists, the whole world of philosophy and science. Therefore it
+was that Cardinal Merlin, when he deigned to visit it, remarked:
+
+"There is no man whose brain is equal to containing all the knowledge
+which is piled upon these shelves. Happily it doesn't matter."
+
+Monseigneur Cachepot, who worked there often when a curate in Paris, was
+in the habit of saying:
+
+"I see here the stuff to make many a Thomas Aquinas and many an Arius,
+if only the modern mind had not lost its ancient ardour for good and
+evil."
+
+There was no gainsaying that the manuscripts formed the more valuable
+portion of this immense collection. Noteworthy indeed was the
+unpublished correspondence of Gassendi, of Father Mersenne, and of
+Pascal, which threw a new light on the spirit of the seventeenth
+century. Nor must we forget the Hebrew Bibles, the Talmuds, the
+Rabbinical treatises, printed and in manuscript, the Aramaic and
+Samaritan texts, on sheepskin and on tablets of sycamore; in fine, all
+these antique and valuable copies collected in Egypt and in Syria by the
+celebrated Moise de Dina, and acquired at a small cost by Alexandre
+d'Esparvieu in 1836, when the learned Hebraist died of old age and
+poverty in Paris.
+
+The Esparvienne library occupied the whole of the second floor of the
+old house. The works thought to be of but mediocre interest, such as
+books of Protestant exegesis of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
+the gift of Monsieur Gaetan, were relegated unbound to the limbo of the
+upper regions. The catalogue, with its various supplements, ran into no
+less than eighteen folio volumes. It was quite up to date, and the
+library was in perfect order. Monsieur Julien Sariette, archivist and
+palaeographer, who, being poor and retiring, used to make his living by
+teaching, became, in 1895, tutor to young Maurice on the recommendation
+of the Bishop of Agra, and with scarcely an interval found himself
+curator of the Bibliotheque Esparvienne. Endowed with business-like
+energy and dogged patience, Monsieur Sariette himself classified all the
+members of this vast body. The system he invented and put into practice
+was so complicated, the labels he put on the books were made up of so
+many capital letters and small letters, both Latin and Greek, so many
+Arabic and Roman numerals, asterisks, double asterisks, triple
+asterisks, and those signs which in arithmetic express powers and roots,
+that the mere study of it would have involved more time and labour than
+would have been required for the complete mastery of algebra, and as no
+one could be found who would give the hours, that might be more
+profitably employed in discovering the law of numbers, to the solving
+of these cryptic symbols, Monsieur Sariette remained the only one
+capable of finding his way among the intricacies of his system, and
+without his help it had become an utter impossibility to discover, among
+the three hundred and sixty thousand volumes confided to his care, the
+particular volume one happened to require. Such was the result of his
+labours. Far from complaining about it, he experienced on the contrary a
+lively satisfaction.
+
+Monsieur Sariette loved his library. He loved it with a jealous love. He
+was there every day at seven o'clock in the morning busy cataloguing at
+a huge mahogany desk. The slips in his handwriting filled an enormous
+case standing by his side surmounted by a plaster bust of Alexandre
+d'Esparvieu. Alexandre wore his hair brushed straight back, and had a
+sublime look on his face. Like Chateaubriand, he affected little
+feathery side whiskers. His lips were pursed, his bosom bare. Punctually
+at midday Monsieur Sariette used to sally forth to lunch at a _cremerie_
+in the narrow gloomy Rue des Canettes. It was known as the _Cremerie des
+Quatre Eveques_, and had once been the haunt of Baudelaire, Theodore de
+Banville, Charles Asselineau, and a certain grandee of Spain who had
+translated the "Mysteries of Paris" into the language of the
+_conquistadores_. And the ducks that paddled so nicely on the old stone
+sign which gave its name to the street used to recognize Monsieur
+Sariette. At a quarter to one, to the very minute, he went back to his
+library, where he remained until seven o'clock. He then again betook
+himself to the _Quatre Eveques_, and sat down to his frugal dinner, with
+its crowning glory of stewed prunes. Every evening, after dinner, his
+crony, Monsieur Guinardon, universally known as Pere Guinardon, a
+scene-painter and picture-restorer, who used to do work for churches,
+would come from his garret in the Rue Princesse to have his coffee and
+liqueur at the _Quatre Eveques_, and the two friends would play their
+game of dominoes.
+
+Old Guinardon, who was like some rugged old tree still full of sap, was
+older than he could bring himself to believe. He had known Chenavard.
+His chastity was positively ferocious, and he was for ever denouncing
+the impurities of neo-paganism in language of alarming obscenity. He
+loved talking. Monsieur Sariette was a ready listener. Old Guinardon's
+favourite subject was the Chapelle des Anges in St. Sulpice, in which
+the paintings were peeling off the walls, and which he was one day to
+restore; when, that is, it should please God, for, since the Separation,
+the churches belonged solely to God, and no one would undertake the
+responsibility of even the most urgent repairs. But old Guinardon
+demanded no salary.
+
+"Michael is my patron saint," he said. "And I have a special devotion
+for the Holy Angels."
+
+After they had had their game of dominoes, Monsieur Sariette, very thin
+and small, and old Guinardon, sturdy as an oak, hirsute as a lion, and
+tall as a Saint Christopher, went off chatting away side by side across
+the Place Saint Sulpice, heedless of whether the night were fine or
+stormy. Monsieur Sariette always went straight home, much to the regret
+of the painter, who was a gossip and a nightbird.
+
+The following day, as the clock struck seven, Monsieur Sariette would
+take up his place in the library, and resume his cataloguing. As he sat
+at his desk, however, he would dart a Medusa-like look at anyone who
+entered, fearing lest he should prove to be a book-borrower. It was not
+merely the magistrates, politicians, and prelates whom he would have
+liked to turn to stone when they came to ask for the loan of a book with
+an air of authority bred of their familiarity with the master of the
+house. He would have done as much to Monsieur Gaetan, the library's
+benefactor, when he wanted some gay or scandalous old volume wherewith
+to beguile a wet day in the country. He would have meted out similar
+treatment to Madame Rene d'Esparvieu, when she came to look for a book
+to read to her sick poor in hospital, and even to Monsieur Rene
+d'Esparvieu himself, who generally contented himself with the Civil Code
+and a volume of Dalloz. The borrowing of the smallest book seemed like
+dragging his heart out. To refuse a volume even to such as had the most
+incontestable right to it, Monsieur Sariette would invent countless
+far-fetched or clumsy fibs, and did not even shrink from slandering
+himself as curator or from casting doubts on his own vigilance by saying
+that such and such a book was mislaid or lost, when a moment ago he had
+been gloating over that very volume or pressing it to his bosom. And
+when ultimately forced to part with a volume he would take it back a
+score of times from the borrower before he finally relinquished it.
+
+He was always in agony lest one of the objects confided to his care
+should escape him. As the guardian of three hundred and sixty thousand
+volumes, he had three hundred and sixty thousand reasons for alarm.
+Sometimes he woke at night bathed in sweat, and uttering a cry of fear,
+because he had dreamed he had seen a gap on one of the shelves of his
+bookcases. It seemed to him a monstrous, unheard-of, and most grievous
+thing that a volume should leave its habitat. This noble rapacity
+exasperated Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, who, failing to understand the
+good qualities of his paragon of a librarian, called him an old maniac.
+Monsieur Sariette knew nought of this injustice, but he would have
+braved the cruellest misfortune and endured opprobrium and insult to
+safeguard the integrity of his trust. Thanks to his assiduity, his
+vigilance and zeal, or, in a word, to his love, the Esparvienne library
+had not lost so much as a single leaflet under his supervision during
+the sixteen years which had now rolled by, this ninth of September,
+1912.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     WHEREIN THE MYSTERY BEGINS
+
+
+At seven o'clock on the evening of that day, having as usual replaced
+all the books which had been taken from their shelves, and having
+assured himself that he was leaving everything in good order, he quitted
+the library, double-locking the door after him. According to his usual
+habit, he dined at the _Cremerie des Quatre Eveques_, read his
+newspaper, _La Croix_, and at ten o'clock went home to his little house
+in the Rue du Regard. The good man had no trouble and no presentiment of
+evil; his sleep was peaceful. The next morning at seven o'clock to the
+minute, he entered the little room leading to the library, and,
+according to his daily habit, doffed his grand frock-coat, and taking
+down an old one which hung in a cupboard over his washstand, put it on.
+Then he went in to his workroom, where for sixteen years he had been
+cataloguing six days out of the seven, under the lofty gaze of Alexandre
+d'Esparvieu. Preparing to make a round of the various rooms, he entered
+the first and largest, which contained works on theology and religion
+in huge cupboards whose cornices were adorned with bronze-coloured busts
+of poets and orators of ancient days.
+
+Two enormous globes representing the earth and the heavens filled the
+window-embrasures. But at his first step Monsieur Sariette stopped dead,
+stupefied, powerless alike to doubt or to credit what his eyes beheld.
+On the blue cloth cover of the writing-table books lay scattered about
+pell-mell, some lying flat, some standing upright. A number of quartos
+were heaped up in a tottering pile. Two Greek lexicons, one inside the
+other, formed a single being more monstrous in shape than the human
+couples of the divine Plato. A gilt-edged folio was all a-gape, showing
+three of its leaves disgracefully dog's-eared.
+
+Having, after an interval of some moments, recovered from his profound
+amazement, the librarian went up to the table and recognised in the
+confused mass his most valuable Hebrew, French, and Latin Bibles, a
+unique Talmud, Rabbinical treatises printed and in manuscript, Aramaic
+and Samaritan texts and scrolls from the synagogues--in fine, the most
+precious relics of Israel all lying in a disordered heap, gaping and
+crumpled.
+
+Monsieur Sariette found himself confronted with an inexplicable
+phenomenon; nevertheless he sought to account for it. How eagerly he
+would have welcomed the idea that Monsieur Gaetan, who, being a
+thoroughly unprincipled man, presumed on the right gained him by his
+fatal liberality towards the library to rummage there unhindered during
+his sojourns in Paris, had been the author of this terrible disorder.
+But Monsieur Gaetan was away travelling in Italy. After pondering for
+some minutes Monsieur Sariette's next supposition was that Monsieur Rene
+d'Esparvieu had entered the library late in the evening with the keys of
+his manservant Hippolyte, who, for the past twenty-five years, had
+looked after the second floor and the attics. Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu,
+however, never worked at night, and did not read Hebrew. Perhaps,
+thought Monsieur Sariette, perhaps he had brought or allowed to be
+brought to this room some priest, or Jerusalem monk, on his way through
+Paris; some Oriental _savant_ given to scriptural exegesis. Monsieur
+Sariette next wondered whether the Abbe Patouille, who had an enquiring
+mind, and also a habit of dog's-earing his books, had, peradventure,
+flung himself on these talmudic and biblical texts, fired with sudden
+zeal to lay bare the soul of Shem. He even asked himself for a moment
+whether Hippolyte, the old manservant, who had swept and dusted the
+library for a quarter of a century, and had been slowly poisoned by the
+dust of accumulated knowledge, had allowed his curiosity to get the
+better of him, and had been there during the night, ruining his eyesight
+and his reason, and losing his soul poring by moonlight over these
+undecipherable symbols. Monsieur Sariette even went so far as to imagine
+that young Maurice, on leaving his club or some nationalist meeting,
+might have torn these Jewish volumes from their shelves, out of hatred
+for old Jacob and his modern posterity; for this young man of family was
+a declared anti-semite, and only consorted with those Jews who were as
+anti-semitic as himself. It was giving a very free rein to his
+imagination, but Monsieur Sariette's brain could not rest, and went
+wandering about among speculations of the wildest extravagance.
+
+Impatient to know the truth, the zealous guardian of the library called
+the manservant.
+
+Hippolyte knew nothing. The porter at the lodge could not furnish any
+clue. None of the domestics had heard a sound. Monsieur Sariette went
+down to the study of Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, who received him in
+nightcap and dressing-gown, listened to his story with the air of a
+serious man bored with idle chatter, and dismissed him with words which
+conveyed a cruel implication of pity.
+
+"Do not worry, my good Monsieur Sariette; be sure that the books were
+lying where you left them last night."
+
+Monsieur Sariette reiterated his enquiries a score of times, discovered
+nothing, and suffered such anxiety that sleep entirely forsook him.
+When, on the following day at seven o'clock he entered the room with
+the busts and globes, and saw that all was in order, he heaved a sigh of
+relief. Then suddenly his heart beat fit to burst. He had just seen
+lying flat on the mantelpiece a paper-bound volume, a modern work, the
+boxwood paper-knife which had served to cut its pages still thrust
+between the leaves. It was a dissertation on the two parallel versions
+of Genesis, a work which Monsieur Sariette had relegated to the attic,
+and which had never left it up to now, no one in Monsieur d'Esparvieu's
+circle having had the curiosity to differentiate between the parts for
+which the polytheistic and monotheistic contributors were respectively
+responsible in the formation of the first of the sacred books. This book
+bore the label R > 3214-VIII/2. And this painful truth was suddenly
+borne in upon the mind of Monsieur Sariette: to wit, that the most
+scientific system of numbering will not help to find a book if the book
+is no longer in its place. Every day of the ensuing month found the
+table littered with books. Greek and Latin lay cheek by jowl with
+Hebrew. Monsieur Sariette asked himself whether these nocturnal
+flittings were the work of evil-doers who entered by the skylights to
+steal valuable and precious volumes. But he found no traces of burglary,
+and, notwithstanding the most minute search, failed to discover that
+anything had disappeared. Terrible anxiety took possession of his mind,
+and he fell to wondering whether it was possible that some monkey in the
+neighbourhood came down the chimney and acted the part of a person
+engaged in study. Deriving his knowledge of the habits of these animals
+in the main from the paintings of Watteau and Chardin, he took it that,
+in the art of imitating gestures or assuming characters they resembled
+Harlequin, Scaramouch, Zerlin, and the Doctors of the Italian comedy; he
+imagined them handling a palette and brushes, pounding drugs in a
+mortar, or turning over the leaves of an old treatise on alchemy beside
+an athanor. And so it was that, when, on one unhappy morning, he saw a
+huge blot of ink on one of the leaves of the third volume of the
+polyglot Bible bound in blue morocco and adorned with the arms of the
+Comte de Mirabeau, he had no doubt that a monkey was the author of the
+evil deed. The monkey had been pretending to take notes and had upset
+the inkpot. It must be a monkey belonging to a learned professor.
+
+Imbued with this idea, Monsieur Sariette carefully studied the
+topography of the district, so as to draw a cordon round the group of
+houses amid which the d'Esparvieu house stood. Then he visited the four
+surrounding streets, asking at every door if there was a monkey in the
+house. He interrogated porters and their wives, washer-women, servants,
+a cobbler, a greengrocer, a glazier, clerks in bookshops, a priest, a
+bookbinder, two guardians of the peace, children, thus testing the
+diversity of character and variety of temper in one and the same people;
+for the replies he received were quite dissimilar in nature; some were
+rough, some were gentle; there were the coarse and the polished, the
+simple and the ironical, the prolix and the abrupt, the brief and even
+the silent. But of the animal he sought he had had neither sight nor
+sound, when under the archway of an old house in the Rue Servandoni, a
+small freckled, red-haired girl who looked after the door, made reply:
+
+"There is Monsieur Ordonneau's monkey; would you care to see it?"
+
+And without another word she conducted the old man to a stable at the
+other end of the yard. There on some rank straw and old bits of cloth, a
+young macaco with a chain round his middle sat and shivered. He was no
+taller than a five-year-old child. His livid face, his wrinkled brow,
+his thin lips were all expressive of mortal sadness. He fixed on the
+visitor the still lively gaze of his yellow eyes. Then with his small
+dry hand he seized a carrot, put it to his mouth, and forthwith flung it
+away. Having looked at the newcomers for a moment, the exile turned away
+his head, as if he expected nothing further of mankind or of life.
+Sitting huddled up, one knee in his hand, he made no further movement,
+but at times a dry cough shook his breast.
+
+"It's Edgar," said the small girl. "He is for sale, you know."
+
+But the old book-lover, who had come armed with anger and resentment,
+thinking to find a cynical enemy, a monster of malice, an
+antibibliophile, stopped short, surprised, saddened, and overcome,
+before this little being devoid of strength and joy and hope.
+
+Recognising his mistake, troubled by the almost human face which sorrow
+and suffering made more human still, he murmured "Forgive me" and bowed
+his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+     WHICH IN ITS FORCEFUL BREVITY PROJECTS US TO THE LIMITS OF
+     THE ACTUAL WORLD
+
+
+Two months elapsed; the domestic upheaval did not subside, and Monsieur
+Sariette's thoughts turned to the Freemasons. The papers he read were
+full of their crimes. Abbe Patouille deemed them capable of the darkest
+deeds, and believed them to be in league with the Jews and meditating
+the total overthrow of Christendom.
+
+Having now arrived at the acme of power, they wielded a dominating
+influence in all the principal departments of State, they ruled the
+Chambers, there were five of them in the Ministry, and they filled the
+Elysee. Having some time since assassinated a President of the Republic
+because he was a patriot, they were getting rid of the accomplices and
+witnesses of their execrable crime. Few days passed without Paris being
+terror-stricken at some mysterious murder hatched in their Lodges. These
+were facts concerning which no doubt was possible. By what means did
+they gain access to the library? Monsieur Sariette could not imagine.
+What task had they come to fulfil? Why did they attack sacred antiquity
+and the origins of the Church? What impious designs were they forming? A
+heavy shadow hung over these terrible undertakings. The Catholic
+archivist feeling himself under the eye of the sons of Hiram was
+terrified and fell ill.
+
+Scarcely had he recovered, when he resolved to pass the night in the
+very spot where these terrible mysteries were enacted, and to take the
+subtle and dangerous visitors by surprise. It was an enterprise that
+demanded all his slender courage. Being a man of delicate physique and
+of nervous temperament, Monsieur Sariette was naturally inclined to be
+fearful. On the 8th of January at nine o'clock in the evening, while the
+city lay asleep under a whirling snowstorm, he built up a good fire in
+the room containing the busts of the ancient poets and philosophers, and
+ensconced himself in an arm-chair at the chimney corner, a rug over his
+knees. On a small stand within reach of his hand were a lamp, a bowl of
+black coffee, and a revolver borrowed from the youthful Maurice. He
+tried to read his paper, _La Croix_, but the letters danced beneath his
+eyes. So he stared hard in front of him, saw nothing but the shadows,
+heard nothing but the wind, and fell asleep.
+
+When he awoke the fire was out, the lamp was extinguished, leaving an
+acrid smell behind. But all around, the darkness was filled with milky
+brightness and phosphorescent lights. He thought he saw something
+flutter on the table. Stricken to the marrow with cold and terror, but
+upheld by a resolve stronger than any fear, he rose, approached the
+table, and passed his hands over the cloth. He saw nothing; even the
+lights faded, but under his fingers he felt a folio wide open; he tried
+to close it, the book resisted, jumped up and hit the imprudent
+librarian three blows on the head.
+
+Monsieur Sariette fell down unconscious....
+
+Since then things had gone from bad to worse. Books left their allotted
+shelves in greater profusion than ever, and sometimes it was impossible
+to replace them; they disappeared. Monsieur Sariette discovered fresh
+losses daily. The Bollandists were now an imperfect set, thirty volumes
+of exegesis were missing. He himself had become unrecognisable. His face
+had shrunk to the size of one's fist and grown yellow as a lemon, his
+neck was elongated out of all proportion, his shoulders drooped, the
+clothes he wore hung on him as on a peg. He ate nothing, and at the
+_Cremerie des Quatre Eveques_ he would sit with dull eyes and bowed
+head, staring fixedly and vacantly at the saucer where, in a muddy
+juice, floated his stewed prunes. He did not hear old Guinardon relate
+how he had at last begun to restore the Delacroix paintings at St.
+Sulpice.
+
+Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, when he heard the unhappy curator's alarming
+reports, used to answer drily:
+
+"These books have been mislaid, they are not lost; look carefully,
+Monsieur Sariette, look carefully and you will find them."
+
+And he murmured behind the old man's back:
+
+"Poor old Sariette is in a bad way."
+
+"I think," replied Abbe Patouille, "that his brain is going."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     WHEREIN EVERYTHING SEEMS STRANGE BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS
+     LOGICAL
+
+
+The Chapel of the Holy Angels, which lies on the right hand as you enter
+the Church of St. Sulpice, was hidden behind a scaffolding of planks.
+Abbe Patouille, Monsieur Gaetan, Monsieur Maurice, his nephew, and
+Monsieur Sariette, entered in single file through the low door cut in
+the wooden hoarding, and found old Guinardon on the top of his ladder
+standing in front of the Heliodorus. The old artist, surrounded by all
+sorts of tools and materials, was putting a white paste in the crack
+which cut in two the High Priest Onias. Zephyrine, Paul Baudry's
+favourite model, Zephyrine, who had lent her golden hair and polished
+shoulders to so many Magdalens, Marguerites, sylphs, and mermaids, and
+who, it is said, was beloved of the Emperor Napoleon III, was standing
+at the foot of the ladder with tangled locks, cadaverous cheeks, and dim
+eyes, older than old Guinardon, whose life she had shared for more than
+half a century. She had brought the painter's lunch in a basket.
+
+Although the slanting rays fell grey and cold through the leaded and
+iron-barred window, Delacroix's colouring shone resplendent, and the
+roses on the cheeks of men and angels dimmed with their glorious beauty
+the rubicund countenance of old Guinardon, which stood out in relief
+against one of the temple's columns. These frescoes of the Chapel of the
+Holy Angels, though derided and insulted when they first appeared, have
+now become part of the classic tradition, and are united in immortality
+with the masterpieces of Rubens and Tintoretto.
+
+Old Guinardon, bearded and long-haired, looked like Father Time effacing
+the works of man's genius. Gaetan, in alarm, called out to him:
+
+"Carefully, Monsieur Guinardon, carefully. Do not scrape too much."
+
+The painter reassured him.
+
+"Fear nothing, Monsieur Gaetan. I do not paint in that style. My art is
+a higher one. I work after the manner of Cimabue, Giotto, and Beato
+Angelico, not in the style of Delacroix. This surface here is too
+heavily charged with contrast and opposition to give a really sacred
+effect. It is true that Chenavard said that Christianity loves the
+picturesque, but Chenavard was a rascal with neither faith nor
+principle--an infidel.... Look, Monsieur d'Esparvieu, I fill up the
+crevice, I relay the scales of paint which are peeling. That is all....
+The damage, due to the sinking of the wall, or more probably to a
+seismic shock, is confined to a very small space. This painting of oil
+and wax applied on a very dry foundation is far more solid than one
+might think.
+
+"I saw Delacroix engaged on this work. Impassioned but anxious, he
+modelled feverishly, scraped out, re-painted unceasingly; his mighty
+hand made childish blunders, but the thing is done with the mastery of a
+genius and the inexperience of a schoolboy. It is a marvel how it
+holds."
+
+The good man was silent, and went on filling in the crevice.
+
+"How classic and traditional the composition is," said Gaetan. "Time was
+when one could recognise nothing but its amazing novelty; now one can
+see in it a multitude of old Italian formulas."
+
+"I may allow myself the luxury of being just, I possess the
+qualifications," said the old man from the top of his lofty ladder.
+"Delacroix lived in a blasphemous and godless age. A painter of the
+decadence, he was not without pride nor grandeur. He was greater than
+his times. But he lacked faith, single-heartedness, and purity. To be
+able to see and paint angels he needed that virtue of angels and
+primitives, that supreme virtue which, with God's help, I do my best to
+practise, chastity."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Michel; you are as big a brute as any of them."
+
+Thus Zephyrine, devoured with jealousy because that very morning on the
+stairs she had seen her lover kiss the bread-woman's daughter, to wit
+the youthful Octavie, who was as squalid and radiant as one of
+Rembrandt's Brides. She had loved Michel madly in the happy days long
+since past, and love had never died out in Zephyrine's heart.
+
+Old Guinardon received the flattering insult with a smile that he
+dissembled, and raised his eyes to the ceiling, where the archangel
+Michael, terrible in azure cuirass and gilt helmet, was springing
+heavenwards in all the radiance of his glory.
+
+Meanwhile Abbe Patouille, blinking, and shielding his eyes with his hat
+against the glaring light from the window, began to examine the pictures
+one after another: Heliodorus being scourged by the angels, St. Michael
+vanquishing the Demons, and the combat of Jacob and the Angel.
+
+"All this is exceedingly fine," he murmured at last, "but why has the
+artist only represented wrathful angels on these walls? Look where I
+will in this chapel, I see but heralds of celestial anger, ministers of
+divine vengeance. God wishes to be feared; He wishes also to be loved. I
+would fain perceive on these walls messengers of peace and of clemency.
+I should like to see the Seraphim who purified the lips of the prophet,
+St. Raphael who gave back his sight to old Tobias, Gabriel who announced
+the Mystery of the Incarnation to Mary, the Angel who delivered St.
+Peter from his chains, the Cherubim who bore the dead St. Catherine to
+the top of Sinai. Above all, I should like to be able to contemplate
+those heavenly guardians which God gives to every man baptized in His
+name. We each have one who follows all our steps, who comforts us and
+upholds us. It would be pleasant indeed to admire these enchanting
+spirits, these beautiful faces."
+
+"Ah, Abbe! it depends on the point of view," answered Gaetan. "Delacroix
+was no sentimentalist. Old Ingres was not very far wrong in saying that
+this great man's work reeks of fire and brimstone. Look at the sombre,
+splendid beauty of those angels, look at those androgynes so proud and
+fierce, at those pitiless youths who lift avenging rods against
+Heliodorus, note this mysterious wrestler touching the patriarch on the
+hip...."
+
+"Hush," said Abbe Patouille. "According to the Bible he is no angel like
+the others; if he be an angel, he is the Angel of Creation, the Eternal
+Son of God. I am surprised that the Venerable Cure of St. Sulpice, who
+entrusted the decoration of this chapel to Monsieur Eugene Delacroix,
+did not tell him that the patriarch's symbolic struggle with Him who was
+nameless took place in profound darkness, and that the subject is quite
+out of place here, since it prefigures the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
+The best artists go astray when they fail to obtain their ideas of
+Christian iconography from a qualified ecclesiastic. The institutions of
+Christian art form the subject of numerous works with which you are
+doubtless acquainted, Monsieur Sariette."
+
+Monsieur Sariette was gazing vacantly about him. It was the third
+morning after his adventurous night in the library. Being, however, thus
+called upon by the venerable ecclesiastic, he pulled himself together
+and replied:
+
+"On this subject we may with advantage consult Molanus, _De Historia
+Sacrarum Imaginum et Picturarum_, in the edition given us by Noel
+Paquot, dated Louvain, 1771; Cardinal Frederico Borromeo, _De Pictura
+Sacra_, and the Iconography of Didron; but this last work must be read
+with caution."
+
+Having thus spoken, Monsieur Sariette relapsed into silence. He was
+pondering on his devastated library.
+
+"On the other hand," continued Abbe Patouille, "since an example of the
+holy anger of the angels was necessary in this chapel, the painter is to
+be commended for having depicted for us in imitation of Raphael the
+heavenly messengers who chastised Heliodorus. Ordered by Seleucus, King
+of Syria, to carry off the treasures contained in the Temple, Heliodorus
+was stricken by an angel in a cuirass of gold mounted on a magnificently
+caparisoned steed. Two other angels smote him with rods. He fell to
+earth, as Monsieur Delacroix shows us here, and was swallowed up in
+darkness. It is right and salutary that this adventure should be cited
+as an example to the Republican Commissioners of Police and to the
+sacrilegious agents of the law. There will always be Heliodoruses, but,
+let it be known, every time they lay their hands on the property of the
+Church, which is the property of the poor, they shall be chastised with
+rods and blinded by the angels."
+
+"I should like this painting, or, better still, Raphael's sublimer
+conception of the same subject, to be engraved in little pictures fully
+coloured, and distributed as rewards in all the schools."
+
+"Uncle," said young Maurice, with a yawn, "I think these things are
+simply ghastly. I prefer Matisse and Metzinger."
+
+These words fell unheeded, and old Guinardon from his ladder held forth:
+
+"Only the primitives caught a glimpse of Heaven. Beauty is only to be
+found between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The antique, the
+impure antique, which regained its pernicious influence over the minds
+of the sixteenth century, inspired poets and painters with criminal
+notions and immodest conceptions, with horrid impurities, filth. All the
+artists of the Renaissance were swine, including Michael-Angelo."
+
+Then, perceiving that Gaetan was on the point of departure, Pere
+Guinardon assumed an air of bonhomie, and said to him in a confidential
+tone:
+
+"Monsieur Gaetan, if you're not afraid of climbing up my five flights,
+come and have a look at my den. I've got two or three little canvases I
+wouldn't mind parting with, and they might interest you. All good,
+honest, straightforward stuff. I'll show you, among other things, a
+tasty, spicy little Baudouin that would make your mouth water."
+
+At this speech Gaetan made off. As he descended the church steps and
+turned down the Rue Princesse, he found himself accompanied by old
+Sariette, and fell to unburdening himself to him, as he would have done
+to any human creature, or indeed to a tree, a lamp-post, a dog, or his
+own shadow, of the indignation with which the aesthetic theories of the
+old painter inspired him.
+
+"Old Guinardon overdoes it with his Christian art and his Primitives!
+Whatever the artist conceives of Heaven is borrowed from earth; God, the
+Virgin, the Angels, men and women, saints, the light, the clouds. When
+he was designing figures for the chapel windows at Dreux, old Ingres
+drew from life a pure, fine study of a woman, which may be seen, among
+many others, in the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne. Old Ingres had written at
+the bottom of the page in case he should forget: 'Mademoiselle Cecile,
+admirable legs and thighs'--and so as to make Mademoiselle Cecile into a
+saint in Paradise, he gave her a robe, a cloak, a veil, inflicting thus
+a shameful decline in her estate, for the tissues of Lyons and Genoa are
+worthless compared with the youthful living tissue, rosy with pure
+blood; the most beautiful draperies are despicable compared with the
+lines of a beautiful body. In fact, clothing for flesh that is desirable
+and ripe for wedlock is an unmerited shame, and the worst of
+humiliations"; and Gaetan, walking carelessly in the gutter of the Rue
+Garanciere, continued: "Old Guinardon is a pestilential idiot. He
+blasphemes Antiquity, sacred Antiquity, the age when the gods were kind.
+He exalts an epoch when the painter and the sculptor had all their
+lessons to learn over again. In point of fact, Christianity has run
+contrary to art in so much as it has not favoured the study of the nude.
+Art is the representation of nature, and nature is pre-eminently the
+human body; it is the nude."
+
+"Pardon, pardon," purred old Sariette. "There is such a thing as
+spiritual, or, as one might term it, inward beauty, which, since the
+days of Fra Angelico down to those of Hippolyte Flandrin, Christian art
+has--"
+
+But Gaetan, never hearing a word of all this, went on hurling his
+impetuous observations at the stones of the old street and the
+snow-laden clouds overhead:
+
+"The Primitives cannot be judged as a whole, for they are utterly unlike
+each other. This old madman confounds them all together. Cimabue is a
+corrupt Byzantine, Giotto gives hints of powerful genius, but his
+modelling is bad, and, like children, he gives all his characters the
+same face. The early Italians have grace and joy, because they are
+Italians. The Venetians have an instinct for fine colour. But when all
+is said and done these exquisite craftsmen enamel and gild rather than
+paint. There is far too much softness about the heart and the colouring
+of your saintly Angelico for me. As for the Flemish school, that's quite
+another pair of shoes. They can use their hands, and in glory of
+workmanship they are on a level with the Chinese lacquer-workers. The
+technique of the brothers Van Eyck is a marvel, but I cannot discover in
+their Adoration of the Lamb the charm and mystery that some have
+vaunted. Everything in it is treated with a pitiless perfection; it is
+vulgar in feeling and cruelly ugly. Memling may touch one perhaps; but
+he creates nothing but sick wretches and cripples; under the heavy,
+rich, and ungraceful robing of his virgins and saints one divines some
+very lamentable anatomy. I did not wait for Rogier van der Wyden to call
+himself Roger de la Pasture and turn Frenchman in order to prefer him to
+Memling. This Rogier or Roger is less of a ninny; but then he is more
+lugubrious, and the rigidity of his lines bears eloquent testimony to
+his poverty-stricken figures. It is a strange perversion to take
+pleasure in these carnivalesque figures when one can have the paintings
+of Leonardo, Titian, Correggio, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, Poussin,
+or Prud'hon. Really it is a perverted instinct."
+
+Meanwhile the Abbe Patouille and Maurice d'Esparvieu were strolling
+leisurely along in the wake of the esthete and the librarian. As a
+general rule the Abbe Patouille was little inclined to talk theology
+with laymen, or, for that matter, with clerics either. Carried away,
+however, by the attractiveness of the subject, he was telling the
+youthful Maurice all about the sacred mission of those guardian angels
+which Monsieur Delacroix had so inopportunely excluded from his picture.
+And in order to give more adequate expression to his thoughts on such
+lofty themes, the Abbe Patouille borrowed whole phrases and sentences
+from Bossuet. He had got them up by heart to put in his sermons, for he
+adhered strongly to tradition.
+
+"Yes, my son," he was saying, "God has appointed tutelary spirits to be
+near us. They come to us laden with His gifts. They return laden with
+our prayers. Such is their task. Not an hour, not a moment passes but
+they are at our side, ready to help us, ever fervent and unwearying
+guardians, watchmen that never slumber."
+
+"Quite so, Abbe," murmured Maurice, who was wondering by what cunning
+artifice he could get on the soft side of his mother and persuade her to
+give him some money of which he was urgently in need.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+     WHEREIN PERE SARIETTE DISCOVERS HIS MISSING TREASURES
+
+
+Next morning Monsieur Sariette entered Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu's study
+without knocking. He raised his arms to the heavens, his few hairs were
+standing straight up on his head. His eyes were big with terror. In
+husky tones he stammered out the dreadful news. A very old manuscript of
+Flavius Josephus; sixty volumes of all sizes; a priceless jewel, namely,
+a _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vendome, Grand Prior
+of France, with notes in Voltaire's own hand; a manuscript of Richard
+Simon, and a set of Gassendi's correspondence with Gabriel Naude,
+comprising two hundred and thirty-eight unpublished letters, had
+disappeared. This time the owner of the library was alarmed.
+
+He mounted in haste to the abode of the philosophers and the globes, and
+there with his own eyes confirmed the magnitude of the disaster.
+
+There were yawning gaps on many a shelf. He searched here and there,
+opened cupboards, dragged out brooms, dusters, and fire-extinguishers,
+rattled the shovel in the coke fire, shook out Monsieur Sariette's best
+frock-coat that was hanging in the cloak-room, and then stood and gazed
+disconsolately at the empty places left by the Gassendi portfolios.
+
+For the past half-century the whole learned world had been loudly
+clamouring for the publication of this correspondence. Monsieur Rene
+d'Esparvieu had not responded to the universal desire, unwilling either
+to assume so heavy a task, or to resign it to others. Having found much
+boldness of thought in these letters, and many passages of more
+libertine tendency than the piety of the twentieth century could endure,
+he preferred that they should remain unpublished; but he felt himself
+responsible for their safe-keeping, not only to his country but to the
+whole civilized world.
+
+"How can you have allowed yourself to be robbed of such a treasure?" he
+asked severely of Monsieur Sariette.
+
+"How can I have allowed myself to be robbed of such a treasure?"
+repeated the unhappy librarian. "Monsieur, if you opened my breast, you
+would find that question engraved upon my heart."
+
+Unmoved by this powerful utterance, Monsieur d'Esparvieu continued with
+pent-up fury:
+
+"And you have discovered no single sign that would put you on the track
+of the thief, Monsieur Sariette? You have no suspicion, not the
+faintest idea, of the way these things have come to pass? You have seen
+nothing, heard nothing, noticed nothing, learnt nothing? You must grant
+this is unbelievable. Think, Monsieur Sariette, think of the possible
+consequences of this unheard-of theft, committed under your eyes. A
+document of inestimable value in the history of the human mind
+disappears. Who has stolen it? Why has it been stolen? Who will gain by
+it? Those who have got possession of it doubtless know that they will be
+unable to dispose of it in France. They will go and sell it in America
+or Germany. Germany is greedy for such literary monuments. Should the
+correspondence of Gassendi with Gabriel Naude go over to Berlin, if it
+is published there by German savants, what a disaster, nay, what a
+scandal! Monsieur Sariette, have you not thought of that?..."
+
+Beneath the stroke of an accusation all the more cruel in that he
+brought it against himself, Monsieur Sariette stood stupefied, and was
+silent. And Monsieur d'Esparvieu continued to overwhelm him with bitter
+reproaches.
+
+"And you make no effort. You devise nothing to find these inestimable
+treasures. Make enquiries, bestir yourself, Monsieur Sariette; use your
+wits. It is well worth while."
+
+And Monsieur d'Esparvieu went out, throwing an icy glance at his
+librarian.
+
+Monsieur Sariette sought the lost books and manuscripts in every spot
+where he had already sought them a hundred times, and where they could
+not possibly be. He even looked in the coke-box and under the leather
+seat of his arm-chair. When midday struck he mechanically went
+downstairs. At the foot of the stairs he met his old pupil Maurice, with
+whom he exchanged a bow. But he only saw men and things as through a
+mist.
+
+The broken-hearted curator had already reached the hall when Maurice
+called him back.
+
+"Monsieur Sariette, while I think of it, do have the books removed that
+are choking up my garden-house."
+
+"What books, Maurice?"
+
+"I could not tell you, Monsieur Sariette, but there are some in Hebrew,
+all worm-eaten, with a whole heap of old papers. They are in my way. You
+can't turn round in the passage."
+
+"Who took them there?"
+
+"I'm bothered if I know."
+
+And the young man rushed off to the dining-room, the luncheon gong
+having sounded quite a minute ago.
+
+Monsieur Sariette tore away to the summer-house. Maurice had spoken the
+truth. About a hundred volumes were there, on tables, on chairs, even on
+the floor. When he saw them he was divided betwixt joy and fear, filled
+with amazement and anxiety. Happy in the finding of his lost treasure,
+dreading to lose it again, and completely overwhelmed with astonishment,
+the man of books alternately babbled like an infant and uttered the
+hoarse cries of a maniac. He recognised his Hebrew Bibles, his ancient
+Talmuds, his very old manuscript of Flavius Josephus, his portfolios of
+Gassendi's letters to Gabriel Naude, and his richest jewel of all, to
+wit, _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of the Grand Prior of France, and
+with notes in Voltaire's own hand. He laughed, he cried, he kissed the
+morocco, the calf, the parchment, and vellum, even the wooden boards
+studded with nails.
+
+As fast as Hippolyte, the manservant, returned with an armful to the
+library, Monsieur Sariette, with a trembling hand, restored them piously
+to their places.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+     OF A SOMEWHAT LIVELY INTEREST, WHEREOF THE MORAL WILL, I
+     HOPE, APPEAL GREATLY TO MY READERS, SINCE IT CAN BE
+     EXPRESSED BY THIS SORROWFUL QUERY: "THOUGHT, WHITHER DOST
+     THOU LEAD ME?" FOR IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ADMITTED TRUTH THAT
+     IT IS UNHEALTHY TO THINK AND THAT TRUE WISDOM LIES IN NOT
+     THINKING AT ALL
+
+
+All the books were now once more assembled in the pious keeping of
+Monsieur Sariette. But this happy reunion was not destined to last. The
+following night twenty volumes left their places, among them the
+_Lucretius_ of Prior de Vendome. Within a week the old Hebrew and Greek
+texts had all returned to the summer-house, and every night during the
+ensuing month they left their shelves and secretly went on the same
+path. Others betook themselves no one knew whither.
+
+On hearing of these mysterious occurrences, Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu
+merely remarked with frigidity to his librarian:
+
+"My poor Sariette, all this is very queer, very queer indeed."
+
+And when Monsieur Sariette tentatively advised him to lodge a formal
+complaint or to inform the Commissaire de Police, Monsieur d'Esparvieu
+cried out upon him:
+
+"What are you suggesting, Monsieur Sariette? Divulge domestic secrets,
+make a scandal! You cannot mean it. I have enemies, and I am proud of
+it. I think I have deserved them. What I might complain about is that I
+am wounded in the house of my friend, attacked with unheard-of violence,
+by fervent loyalists, who, I grant you, are good Catholics, but
+exceedingly bad Christians.... In a word, I am watched, spied upon,
+shadowed, and you suggest, Monsieur Sariette, that I should make a
+present of this comic-opera mystery, this burlesque adventure, this
+story in which we both cut somewhat pitiable figures, to a set of
+spiteful journalists? Do you wish to cover me with ridicule?"
+
+The result of the colloquy was that the two gentlemen agreed to change
+all the locks in the library. Estimates were asked for and workmen
+called in. For six weeks the d'Esparvieu household rang from morning
+till night with the sound of hammers, the hum of centre-bits, and the
+grating of files. Fires were always going in the abode of the
+philosophers and globes, and the people of the house were simply
+sickened by the smell of heated oil. The old, smooth, easy-running locks
+were replaced, on the cupboards and doors of the rooms, by stubborn and
+tricky fastenings. There was nothing but combinations of locks,
+letter-padlocks, safety-bolts, bars, chains, and electric alarm-bells.
+
+All this display of ironmongery inspired fear. The lock-cases glistened,
+and there was much grinding of bolts. To gain access to a room, a
+cupboard, or a drawer, it was necessary to know a certain number, of
+which Monsieur Sariette alone was cognisant. His head was filled with
+bizarre words and tremendous numbers, and he got entangled among all
+these cryptic signs, these square, cubic, and triangular figures. He
+himself couldn't get the doors and the cupboards undone, yet every
+morning he found them wide open, and the books thrown about, ransacked,
+and hidden away. In the gutter of the Rue Servandoni a policeman picked
+up a volume of Salomon Reinach on the identity of Barabbas and Jesus
+Christ. As it bore the book-plate of the d'Esparvieu library he returned
+it to the owner.
+
+Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, not even deigning to inform Monsieur Sariette
+of the fact, made up his mind to consult a magistrate, a friend in whom
+he had complete confidence, to wit, a certain Monsieur des Aubels,
+Counsel at the Law Courts, who had put through many an important affair.
+He was a little plump man, very red, very bald, with a cranium that
+shone like a billiard ball. He entered the library one morning feigning
+to come as a book-lover, but he soon showed that he knew nothing about
+books. While all the busts of the ancient philosophers were reflected in
+his shining pate, he put divers insidious questions to Monsieur
+Sariette, who grew uncomfortable and turned red, for innocence is easily
+flustered. From that moment Monsieur des Aubels had a mighty suspicion
+that Monsieur Sariette was the perpetrator of the very thefts he
+denounced with horror; and it immediately occurred to him to seek out
+the accomplices of the crime. As regards motives, he did not trouble
+about them; motives are always to be found. Monsieur des Aubels told
+Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu that, if he liked, he would have the house
+secretly watched by a detective from the Prefecture.
+
+"I will see that you get Mignon," he said. "He is an excellent servant,
+assiduous and prudent."
+
+By six o'clock next morning Mignon was already walking up and down
+outside the d'Esparvieus' house, his head sunk between his shoulders,
+wearing love-locks which showed from under the narrow brim of his bowler
+hat, his eye cocked over his shoulder. He wore an enormous dull-black
+moustache, his hands and feet were huge; in fact, his whole appearance
+was distinctly memorable. He paced regularly up and down from the
+nearest of the big rams' head pillars which adorn the Hotel de la
+Sordiere to the end of the Rue Garanciere, towards the apse of St.
+Sulpice Church and the dome of the Chapel of the Virgin.
+
+Henceforth it became impossible to enter or leave the d'Esparvieus'
+house without feeling that one's every action, that one's very thoughts,
+were being spied upon. Mignon was a prodigious person endowed with
+powers that Nature denies to other mortals. He neither ate nor slept. At
+all hours of the day and night, in wind and rain, he was to be found
+outside the house, and no one escaped the X-rays of his eye. One felt
+pierced through and through, penetrated to the very marrow, worse than
+naked, bare as a skeleton. It was the affair of a moment; the detective
+did not even stop, but continued his everlasting walk. It became
+intolerable. Young Maurice threatened to leave the paternal roof if he
+was to be so radiographed. His mother and his sister Berthe complained
+of his piercing look; it offended the chaste modesty of their souls.
+Mademoiselle Caporal, young Leon d'Esparvieu's governess, felt an
+indescribable embarrassment. Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu was sick of the
+whole business. He never crossed his own threshold without crushing his
+hat over his eyes to avoid the investigating ray and without wishing old
+Sariette, the _fons et origo_ of all the evil, at the devil. The
+intimates of the household, such as Abbe Patouille and Uncle Gaetan,
+made themselves scarce; visitors gave up calling, tradespeople hesitated
+about leaving their goods, the carts belonging to the big shops scarcely
+dared stop. But it was among the domestics that the spying roused the
+most disorder.
+
+The footman, afraid, under the eye of the police, to go and join the
+cobbler's wife over her solitary labours in the afternoon, found the
+house unbearable and gave notice. Odile, Madame d'Esparvieu's
+lady's-maid, not daring, as was her custom after her mistress had
+retired, to introduce Octave, the handsomest of the neighbouring
+bookseller's clerks, to her little room upstairs, grew melancholy,
+irritable and nervous, pulled her mistress's hair while dressing it,
+spoke insolently, and made advances to Monsieur Maurice. The cook,
+Madame Malgoire, a serious matron of some fifty years, having no more
+visits from Auguste, the wine-merchant's man in the Rue Servandoni, and
+being incapable of suffering a privation so contrary to her temperament,
+went mad, sent up a raw rabbit to table, and announced that the Pope had
+asked her hand in marriage. At last, after a fortnight of superhuman
+assiduity, contrary to all known laws of organic life, and to the
+essential conditions of animal economy, Mignon, the detective, having
+observed nothing abnormal, ceased his surveillance and withdrew without
+a word, refusing to accept a gratuity. In the library the dance of the
+books became livelier than ever.
+
+"That is all right," said Monsieur des Aubels. "Since nothing comes in
+nor goes out, the evil-doer must be in the house."
+
+The magistrate thought it possible to discover the criminal without
+police-warrant or enquiry. On a date agreed upon at midnight, he had the
+floor of the library, the treads of the stairs, the vestibule, the
+garden path leading to Monsieur Maurice's summer-house, and the entrance
+hall of the latter, all covered with a coating of talc.
+
+The following morning Monsieur des Aubels, assisted by a photographer
+from the Prefecture, and accompanied by Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu and
+Monsieur Sariette, came to take the imprints. They found nothing in the
+garden, the wind had blown away the coating of talc; nothing in the
+summer-house either. Young Maurice told them he thought it was some
+practical joke and that he had brushed away the white dust with the
+hearth-brush. The real truth was, he had effaced the traces left by the
+boots of Odile, the lady's-maid. On the stairs and in the library the
+very light print of a bare foot could be discerned, it seemed to have
+sprung into the air and to have touched the ground at rare intervals and
+without any pressure. They discovered five of these traces. The clearest
+was to be found in the abode of the busts and spheres, on the edge of
+the table where the books were piled. The photographer took several
+negatives of this imprint.
+
+"This is more terrifying than anything else," murmured Monsieur
+Sariette.
+
+Monsieur des Aubels did not hide his surprise.
+
+Three days later the anthropometrical department of the Prefecture
+returned the proofs exhibited to them, saying that they were not in the
+records.
+
+After dinner Monsieur Rene showed the photographs to his brother Gaetan,
+who examined them with profound attention, and after a long silence
+exclaimed:
+
+"No wonder they have not got this at the Prefecture; it is the foot of a
+god or of an athlete of antiquity. The sole that made this impression is
+of a perfection unknown to our races and our climates. It exhibits toes
+of exquisite grace, and a divine heel."
+
+Rene d'Esparvieu cried out upon his brother for a madman.
+
+"He is a poet," sighed Madame d'Esparvieu.
+
+"Uncle," said Maurice, "you'll fall in love with this foot if you ever
+come across it."
+
+"Such was the fate of Vivant Denon, who accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt,"
+replied Gaetan. "At Thebes, in a tomb violated by the Arabs, Denon
+found the little foot of a mummy of marvellous beauty. He contemplated
+it with extraordinary fervour, 'It is the foot of a young woman,' he
+pondered, 'of a princess--of a charming creature. No covering has ever
+marred its perfect shape.' Denon admired, adored, and loved it. You may
+see a drawing of this little foot in Denon's atlas of his journey to
+Egypt, whose leaves one could turn over upstairs, without going further
+afield, if only Monsieur Sariette would ever let us see a single volume
+of his library."
+
+Sometimes, in bed, Maurice, waking in the middle of the night, thought
+he heard the sound of pages being turned over in the next room, and the
+thud of bound volumes falling on the floor.
+
+One morning at five o'clock he was coming home from the club, after a
+night of bad luck, and while he stood outside the door of the
+summer-house, hunting in his pocket for his keys, his ears distinctly
+heard a voice sighing:
+
+"Knowledge, whither dost thou lead me? Thought, whither dost thou lure
+me?"
+
+But entering the two rooms he saw nothing, and told himself that his
+ears must have deceived him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE,
+     FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN
+     INSIPID DISH
+
+
+Nothing ever astonished Maurice. He never sought to know the causes of
+things and dwelt tranquilly in the world of appearances. Not denying the
+eternal truth, he nevertheless followed vain things as his fancy led
+him.
+
+Less addicted to sport and violent exercise than most young people of
+his generation, he followed unconsciously the old erotic traditions of
+his race. The French were ever the most gallant of men, and it were a
+pity they should lose this advantage. Maurice preserved it. He was in
+love with no woman, but, as St. Augustine said, he loved to love. After
+paying the tribute that was rightly due to the imperishable beauty and
+secret arts of Madame de la Bertheliere, he had enjoyed the impetuous
+caresses of a young singer called Luciole. At present he was joylessly
+experiencing the primitive perversity of Odile, his mother's
+lady's-maid, and the tearful adoration of the beautiful Madame
+Boittier. And he felt a great void in his heart.
+
+It chanced that one Wednesday, on entering the drawing-room where his
+mother entertained her friends--who were, generally speaking,
+unattractive and austere ladies, with a sprinkling of old men and very
+young people--he noticed, in this intimate circle, Madame des Aubels,
+the wife of the magistrate at the Law Courts, whom Monsieur d'Esparvieu
+had vainly consulted on the mysterious ransacking of his library. She
+was young, he found her pretty, and not without cause. Gilberte had been
+modelled by the Genius of the Race, and no other genius had had a part
+in the work.
+
+Thus all her attributes inspired desire, and nothing in her shape or her
+being aroused any other sentiment.
+
+The law of attraction which draws world to world moved young Maurice to
+approach this delicious creature, and under its influence he offered to
+escort her to the tea-table. And when Gilberte was served with tea, he
+said:
+
+"We should hit it off quite well together, you and I, don't you think?"
+
+He spoke in this way, according to modern usage, so as to avoid inane
+compliments and to spare a woman the boredom of listening to one of
+those old declarations of love which, containing nothing but what is
+vague and undefined, require neither a truthful nor an exact reply.
+
+And profiting by the fact that he had an opportunity of conversing
+secretly with Madame des Aubels for a few minutes, he spoke urgently and
+to the point. Gilberte, so far as one could judge, was made rather to
+awaken desire than to feel it. Nevertheless, she well knew that her fate
+was to love, and she followed it willingly and with pleasure. Maurice
+did not particularly displease her. She would have preferred him to be
+an orphan, for experience had taught her how disappointing it sometimes
+is to love the son of the house.
+
+"Will you?" he said by way of conclusion.
+
+She pretended not to understand, and with her little _foie-gras_
+sandwich raised half-way to her mouth she looked at Maurice with
+wondering eyes.
+
+"Will I _what_?" she asked.
+
+"You know quite well."
+
+Madame des Aubels lowered her eyes, and sipped her tea, for her
+prudishness was not quite vanquished. Meanwhile Maurice, taking her
+empty cup from her hand, murmured:
+
+"Saturday, five o'clock, 126 Rue de Rome, on the ground-floor, the door
+on the right, under the arch. Knock three times."
+
+Madame des Aubels glanced severely and imperturbably at the son of the
+house, and with a self-possessed air rejoined the circle of highly
+respectable women to whom the Senator Monsieur Le Fol was explaining
+how artificial incubators were employed at the agricultural colony at
+St. Julienne.
+
+The following Saturday, Maurice, in his ground-floor flat, awaited
+Madame des Aubels. He waited her in vain. No light hand came to knock
+three times on the door under the arch. And Maurice gave way to
+imprecation, inwardly calling the absent one a jade and a hussy. His
+fruitless wait, his frustrated desires, rendered him unjust. For Madame
+des Aubels in not coming where she had never promised to go hardly
+deserved these names; but we judge human actions by the pleasure or pain
+they cause us.
+
+Maurice did not put in an appearance in his mother's drawing-room until
+a fortnight after the conversation at the tea-table. He came late.
+Madame des Aubels had been there for half an hour. He bowed coldly to
+her, took a seat some way off, and affected to be listening to the talk.
+
+"Worthily matched," a rich male voice was saying; "the two antagonists
+were well calculated to render the struggle a terrible and uncertain
+one. General Bol, with unprecedented tenacity, maintained his position
+as though he were rooted in the very soil. General Milpertuis, with an
+agility truly superhuman, kept carrying out movements of the most
+dazzling rapidity around his immovable adversary. The battle continued
+to be waged with terrible stubbornness. We were all in an agony of
+suspense...."
+
+It was General d'Esparvieu describing the autumn manoeuvres to a company
+of breathlessly interested ladies. He was talking well and his audience
+were delighted. Proceeding to draw a comparison between the French and
+German methods, he defined their distinguishing characteristics and
+brought out the conspicuous merits of both with a lofty impartiality. He
+did not hesitate to affirm that each system had its advantages, and at
+first made it appear to his circle of wondering, disappointed, and
+anxious dames, whose countenances were growing increasingly gloomy, that
+France and Germany were practically in a position of equality. But
+little by little, as the strategist went on to give a clearer definition
+of the two methods, that of the French began to appear flexible,
+elegant, vigorous, full of grace, cleverness, and verve; that of the
+Germans heavy, clumsy, and undecided. And slowly and surely the faces of
+the ladies began to clear and to light up with joyous smiles. In order
+to dissipate any lingering shadows of misgiving from the minds of these
+wives, sisters, and sweethearts, the General gave them to understand
+that we were in a position to make use of the German method when it
+suited us, but that the Germans could not avail themselves of the French
+method. No sooner had he delivered himself of these sentiments than he
+was button-holed by Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec, who was engaged in
+founding a patriotic society known as "Swordsmen All," of which the
+object was to regenerate France and ensure her superiority over all her
+adversaries. Even children in the cradle were to be enrolled, and
+Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec offered the honorary presidency to General
+d'Esparvieu.
+
+Meanwhile Maurice was appearing to be interested in a conversation that
+was taking place between a very gentle old lady and the Abbe Lapetite,
+Chaplain to the Dames du Saint Sang. The old lady, severely tried of
+late by illness and the loss of friends, wanted to know how it was that
+people were unhappy in this world.
+
+"How," she asked Abbe Lapetite, "do you explain the scourges that
+afflict mankind? Why are there plagues, famines, floods, and
+earthquakes?"
+
+"It is surely necessary that God should sometimes remind us of his
+existence," replied Abbe Lapetite, with a heavenly smile.
+
+Maurice appeared keenly interested in this conversation. Then he seemed
+fascinated by Madame Fillot-Grandin, quite a personable young woman,
+whose simple innocence, however, detracted all piquancy from her beauty,
+all savour from her bodily charms. A very sour, shrill-voiced old lady,
+who, affecting the dowdy, woollen weeds of poverty, displayed the pride
+of a great lady in the world of Christian finance, exclaimed in a
+squeaky voice:
+
+"Well, my dear Madame d'Esparvieu, so you have had trouble here. The
+papers speak darkly of robbery, of thefts committed in Monsieur
+d'Esparvieu's valuable library, of stolen letters...."
+
+"Oh," said Madame d'Esparvieu, "if we are to believe all the newspapers
+say...."
+
+"Oh, so, dear Madame, you have got your treasures back. All's well that
+ends well."
+
+"The library is in perfect order," asserted Madame d'Esparvieu. "There
+is nothing missing."
+
+"The library is on the floor above this, is it not?" asked young Madame
+des Aubels, showing an unexpected interest in the books.
+
+Madame d'Esparvieu replied that the library occupied the whole of the
+second floor, and that they had put the least valuable books in the
+attics.
+
+"Could I not go and look at it?"
+
+The mistress of the house declared that nothing could be easier. She
+called to her son:
+
+"Maurice, go and do the honours of the library to Madame des Aubels."
+
+Maurice rose, and without uttering a word, mounted to the second floor
+in the wake of Madame des Aubels.
+
+He appeared indifferent, but inwardly he rejoiced, for he had no doubt
+that Gilberte had feigned her ardent desire to inspect the library
+simply to see him in secret. And, while affecting indifference, he
+promised himself to renew those offers which, this time, would not be
+refused.
+
+Under the romantic bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, they were met by the
+silent shadow of a little wan, hollow-eyed old man, who wore a settled
+expression of mute terror.
+
+"Do not let us disturb you, Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice. "I am
+showing Madame des Aubels round the library."
+
+Maurice and Madame des Aubels passed on into the great room where
+against the four walls rose presses filled with books and surmounted by
+bronze busts of poets, philosophers, and orators of antiquity. All was
+in perfect order, an order which seemed never to have been disturbed
+from the beginning of things.
+
+Only, a black void was to be seen in the place which, only the evening
+before, had been filled by an unpublished manuscript of Richard Simon.
+Meanwhile, by the side of the young couple walked Monsieur Sariette,
+pale, faded, and silent.
+
+"Really and truly, you have not been nice," said Maurice, with a look of
+reproach at Madame des Aubels.
+
+She signed to him that the librarian might over-hear. But he reassured
+her.
+
+"Take no notice. It is old Sariette. He has become a complete idiot."
+And he repeated: "No, you have not been at all nice. I awaited you. You
+did not come. You have made me unhappy."
+
+After a moment's silence, while one heard the low melancholy whistling
+of asthma in poor Sariette's bronchial tubes, young Maurice continued
+insistently:
+
+"You are wrong."
+
+"Why wrong?"
+
+"Wrong not to do as I ask you."
+
+"Do you still think so?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"You meant it seriously?"
+
+"As seriously as can be."
+
+Touched by his assurance of sincere and constant feeling, and thinking
+she had resisted sufficiently, Gilberte granted to Maurice what she had
+refused him a fortnight ago.
+
+They slipped into an embrasure of the window, behind an enormous
+celestial globe whereon were graven the Signs of the Zodiac and the
+figures of the stars, and there, their gaze fixed on the Lion, the
+Virgin, and the Scales, in the presence of a multitude of Bibles, before
+the works of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, beneath the casts of
+Homer, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates,
+Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, and
+Epictetus, they exchanged vows of love and a long kiss on the mouth.
+
+Almost immediately Madame des Aubels bethought herself that she still
+had some calls to pay, and that she must make her escape quickly, for
+love had not made her lose all sense of her own importance. But she had
+barely crossed the landing with Maurice when they heard a hoarse cry and
+saw Monsieur Sariette plunge madly downstairs, exclaiming as he went:
+
+"Stop it, stop it; I saw it fly away! It escaped from the shelf by
+itself. It crossed the room ... there it is--there! It's going
+downstairs. Stop it! It has gone out of the door on the ground floor!"
+
+"What?" asked Maurice.
+
+Monsieur Sariette looked out of the landing window, murmuring
+horror-struck:
+
+"It's crossing the garden! It's going into the summer-house. Stop it,
+stop it!"
+
+"But what is it?" repeated Maurice--"in God's name, what is it?"
+
+"My Flavius Josephus," exclaimed Monsieur Sariette. "Stop it!"
+
+And he fell down unconscious.
+
+"You see he is quite mad," said Maurice to Madame des Aubels, as he
+lifted up the unfortunate librarian.
+
+Gilberte, a little pale, said she also thought she had seen something in
+the direction indicated by the unhappy man, something flying.
+
+Maurice had seen nothing, but he had felt what seemed like a gust of
+wind.
+
+He left Monsieur Sariette in the arms of Hippolyte and the housekeeper,
+who had both hastened to the spot on hearing the noise.
+
+The old gentleman had a wound in his head.
+
+"All the better," said the housekeeper; "this wound may save him from
+having a fit."
+
+Madame des Aubels gave her handkerchief to stop the blood, and
+recommended an arnica compress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+     WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT, AS AN ANCIENT GREEK POET SAID,
+     "NOTHING IS SWEETER THAN APHRODITE THE GOLDEN"
+
+
+Although he had enjoyed Madame des Aubels' favours for six whole months,
+Maurice still loved her. True they had had to separate during the
+summer. For lack of funds of his own he had had to go to Switzerland
+with his mother, and then to stop with the whole family at the Chateau
+d'Esparvieu. She had spent the summer with her mother at Niort, and the
+autumn with her husband at a little Normandy seaside place, so that they
+had hardly seen each other four or five times. But since the winter,
+kindly to lovers, had brought them back to town again, Maurice had been
+receiving her twice a week in his little flat in the Rue de Rome, and
+received no one else. No other woman had inspired him with feelings of
+such constancy and fidelity. What augmented his pleasure was that he
+believed himself loved, and indeed he was not unpleasing.
+
+He thought that she did not deceive him, not that he had any reason to
+think so, but it appeared right and fitting that she should be content
+with him alone. What annoyed him was that she always kept him waiting,
+and was unpunctual in coming to their meeting-place; she was invariably
+late,--at times very late.
+
+Now on Saturday, January 30th, since four o'clock in the afternoon,
+Maurice had been awaiting Madame des Aubels in the little pink room,
+where a bright fire was burning. He was gaily clad in a suit of flowered
+pyjamas, smoking Turkish cigarettes. At first he dreamt of receiving her
+with long kisses, with hitherto unknown caresses. A quarter of an hour
+having passed, he meditated serious and affectionate reproaches, then
+after an hour of disappointed waiting he vowed he would meet her with
+cold disdain.
+
+At length she appeared, fresh and fragrant.
+
+"It was scarcely worth while coming," he said bitterly, as she laid her
+muff and her little bag on the table and untied her veil before the
+wardrobe mirror.
+
+Never, she told her beloved, had she had such trouble to get away. She
+was full of excuses, which he obstinately rejected. But no sooner had
+she the good sense to hold her tongue than he ceased his reproaches, and
+then nothing detracted from the longing with which she inspired him.
+
+The curtains were drawn, the room was bathed in warm shadows lit by the
+dancing gleams of the fire. The mirrors in the wardrobe and on the
+chimney-piece shone with mysterious lights. Gilberte, leaning on her
+elbow, head on hand, was lost in thought. A little jeweller, a
+trustworthy and intelligent man, had shown her a wonderfully pretty
+pearl and sapphire bracelet; it was worth a great deal, and was to be
+had for a mere nothing. He had got it from a _cocotte_ down on her luck,
+who was in a hurry to dispose of it. It was a rare chance; it would be a
+huge pity to let it slip.
+
+"Would you like to see it, darling? I will ask the little man to let me
+have it to show you."
+
+Maurice did not actually decline the proposal. But it was clear that he
+took no interest in the wonderful bracelet. "When small jewellers come
+across a great bargain, they keep it to themselves, and do not allow
+their customers to profit by it. Moreover, jewellery means nothing just
+now. Well-bred women have given up wearing it. Everyone goes in for
+sport, and jewellery does not go with sport."
+
+Maurice spoke thus, contrary to truth, because having given his mistress
+a fur coat, he was in no hurry to give her anything more. He was not
+stingy, but he was careful with his money. His people did not give him a
+very large allowance, and his debts grew bigger every day. By satisfying
+the wishes of his inamorata too promptly he feared to arouse others
+still more pressing. The bargain seemed less wonderful to him than to
+Gilberte; besides, he liked to take the initiative in choosing his
+gifts. Above all, he thought that if he gave her too many presents he
+would be no longer sure of being loved for himself.
+
+Madame des Aubels felt neither contempt nor surprise at this attitude;
+she was gentle and temperate, she knew men, and judged that one must
+take them as one found them, that for the most part they do not give
+very willingly, and that a woman should know how to make them give.
+
+Suddenly a gas lamp was lighted in the street, and shone through the
+gaps in the curtains.
+
+"Half-past six," she said. "We must be on the move."
+
+Pricked by the touch of Time's fleeting wing, Maurice was conscious of
+reawakened desires and reanimated powers. A white and radiant offering,
+Gilberte, with her head thrown back, her eyes half closed, her lips
+apart, sunk in dreamy languor, was breathing slowly and placidly, when
+suddenly she started up with a cry of terror.
+
+"Whatever is that?"
+
+"Stay still," said Maurice, holding her back in his arms.
+
+In his present mood, had the sky fallen it would not have troubled him.
+But in one bound she escaped from him. Crouching down, her eyes filled
+with terror, she was pointing with her finger at a figure which appeared
+in a corner of the room, between the fire-place and the wardrobe with
+the mirror. Then, unable to bear the sight, and nearly fainting, she hid
+her face in her hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF
+     DANTE AND MILTON
+
+
+Maurice at length turned his head, saw the figure, and perceiving that
+it moved, was also frightened. Meanwhile, Gilberte was regaining her
+senses. She imagined that what she had seen was some mistress whom her
+lover had hidden in the room. Inflamed with anger and disgust at the
+idea of such treachery, boiling with indignation, and glaring at her
+supposed rival, she exclaimed:
+
+"A woman ... a naked woman too! You bring me into a room where you allow
+your women to come, and when I arrive they have not had time to dress.
+And you reproach me with arriving late! Your impudence is beyond belief!
+Come, send the creature packing. If you wanted us both here together,
+you might at least have asked me whether it suited me...."
+
+Maurice, wide-eyed and groping for a revolver that had never been there,
+whispered in her ear:
+
+"Be quiet ... it is no woman. One can scarcely see, but it is more like
+a man."
+
+She put her hands over her eyes again and screamed harder than ever.
+
+"A man! Where does he come from? A thief. An assassin! Help! Help! Kill
+him.... Maurice, kill him! Turn on the light. No, don't turn on the
+light...."
+
+She made a mental vow that should she escape from this danger she would
+burn a candle to the Blessed Virgin. Her teeth chattered.
+
+The figure made a movement.
+
+"Keep away!" cried Gilberte. "Keep away!"
+
+She offered the burglar all the money and jewels she had on the table if
+he would consent not to stir. Amid her surprise and terror the idea
+assailed her that her husband, dissembling his suspicions, had caused
+her to be followed, had posted witnesses, and had had recourse to the
+Commissaire de Police. In a flash she distinctly saw before her the long
+painful future, the glaring scandal, the pretended disdain, the cowardly
+desertion of her friends, the just mockery of society, for it is indeed
+ridiculous to be found out. She saw the divorce, the loss of her
+position and of her rank. She saw the dreary and narrow existence with
+her mother, when no one would make love to her, for men avoid women who
+fail to give them the security of the married state. And all this, why?
+Why this ruin, this disaster? For a piece of folly, for a mere nothing.
+Thus in a lightning flash spoke the conscience of Gilberte des Aubels.
+
+"Have no fear, Madame," said a very sweet voice.
+
+Slightly reassured, she found strength to ask:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"I am an angel," replied the voice.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I am an angel. I am Maurice's guardian angel."
+
+"Say it again. I am going mad. I do not understand...."
+
+Maurice, without understanding either, was indignant. He sprang forward
+and showed himself; with his right hand armed with a slipper he made a
+threatening gesture, and said in a rough voice:
+
+"You are a low ruffian; oblige me by going the way you came."
+
+"Maurice d'Esparvieu," continued the sweet voice, "He whom you adore as
+your Creator has stationed by the side of each of the faithful a good
+angel, whose mission it is to counsel and protect him; it is the
+invariable opinion of the Fathers, it is founded on many passages in the
+Bible, the Church admits it unanimously, without, however, pronouncing
+anathema upon those who hold a contrary opinion. You see before you one
+of these angels, yours, Maurice. I was commanded to watch over your
+innocence and to guard your chastity."
+
+"That may be," said Maurice; "but you are certainly no gentleman. A
+gentleman would not permit himself to enter a room at such a moment. To
+be plain, what the deuce are you doing here?"
+
+"I have assumed this appearance, Maurice, because, having henceforth to
+move among mankind, I have to make myself like them. The celestial
+spirits possess the power of assuming a form which renders them apparent
+to the eye and to the touch. This shape is real, because it is apparent,
+and all the realities in the world are but appearances."
+
+Gilberte, pacified at length, was arranging her hair on her forehead.
+
+The Angel pursued:
+
+"The celestial spirits adopt, according to their fancy, one sex or the
+other, or both at once. But they cannot disguise themselves at any
+moment, according to their caprice or fantasy. Their metamorphoses are
+subject to constant laws, which you would not understand. Thus I have
+neither desire nor power to transform myself under your eyes, for your
+amusement or my own, into a lion, a tiger, a fly, or into a
+sycamore-shaving like the young Egyptian whose story was found in a
+tomb. I cannot change myself into an ass as did Lucius with the pomade
+of the youthful Photis. For in my wisdom I had fixed beforehand the
+hour of my apparition to mankind, nothing could hasten or delay it."
+
+Impatient for enlightenment, Maurice asked for the second time:
+
+"Still, what are you up to here?"
+
+Joining her voice to his, Madame des Aubels asked: "Yes, indeed, what
+are you doing here?"
+
+The Angel replied:
+
+"Man, lend your ear. Woman, hear my voice. I am about to reveal to you a
+secret on which hangs the fate of the Universe. In rebellion against Him
+whom you hold to be the Creator of all things visible and invisible, I
+am preparing the Revolt of the Angels."
+
+"Do not jest," said Maurice, who had faith and did not allow holy things
+to be played with.
+
+But the Angel answered reproachfully: "What makes you think, Maurice,
+that I am frivolous and given to vain words?"
+
+"Come, come," said Maurice, shrugging his shoulders. "You are not going
+to revolt against----"
+
+He pointed to the ceiling--not daring to finish.
+
+But the Angel continued:
+
+"Do you not know that the sons of God have already revolted and that a
+great battle took place in the heavens?"
+
+"That was a long time ago," said Maurice, putting on his socks.
+
+Then the Angel replied:
+
+"It was before the creation of the world. But nothing has changed since
+then in the heavens. The nature of the Angels is no different now from
+what it was originally. What they did then they could do again now."
+
+"No! It is not possible. It is contrary to faith. If you were an angel,
+a good angel as you make out you are, it would never occur to you to
+disobey your Creator."
+
+"You are in error, Maurice, and the authority of the Fathers condemns
+you. Origen lays it down in his homilies that good angels are fallible,
+that they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies. Possibly you
+may be tempted to reject the authority of this Father, despite his
+knowledge of the Scriptures, because he is excluded from the Canon of
+the Saints. If this be so, I would remind you of the second chapter of
+Revelation, in which the Angels of Ephesus and Pergamos are rebuked for
+that they kept not ward over their church. You will doubtless contend
+that the angels to whom the Apostle here refers are, properly speaking,
+the Bishops of the two cities in question, and that he calls them angels
+on account of their ministry. It may be so, and I cede the point. But
+with what arguments, Maurice, would you counter the opinion of all those
+Doctors and Pontiffs whose unanimous teaching it is that angels may fall
+from good into evil? Such is the statement made by Saint Jerome in his
+Epistle to Damasus...."
+
+"Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, "go away, I beg you."
+
+But the Angel hearkened not, and continued:
+
+"Saint Augustine, in his _True Religion_, Chapter XIII; Saint Gregory,
+in his _Morals_, Chapter XXIV; Isidore----"
+
+"Monsieur, let me get my things on; I am in a hurry."
+
+"In his treatise on _The Greatest Good_, Book I, Chapter XII; Bede on
+Job----"
+
+"Oh, please, Monsieur ..."
+
+"Chapter VIII; John of Damascus on _Faith_, Book II, Chapter III. Those,
+I think, are sufficiently weighty authorities, and there is nothing for
+it, Maurice, but to admit your error. What has led you astray is that
+you have not duly considered my nature, which is free, active, and
+mobile, like that of all the angels, and that you have merely observed
+the grace and felicity with which you deem me so richly endowed. Lucifer
+possessed no less, yet he rebelled."
+
+"But what on earth are you rebelling for?" asked Maurice.
+
+"Isaiah," answered the child of light, "Isaiah has already asked, before
+you: '_Quomodo cecidisti de coelo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris?_'
+Hearken, Maurice. Before Time was, the Angels rose up to win dominion
+over Heaven, the most beautiful of the Seraphim revolted through pride.
+As for me, it is science that has inspired me with the generous desire
+for freedom. Finding myself near you, Maurice, in a house containing one
+of the vastest libraries in the world, I acquired a taste for reading
+and a love of study. While, fordone with the toils of a sensual life,
+you lay sunk in heavy slumber, I surrounded myself with books, I
+studied, I pondered over their pages, sometimes in one of the rooms of
+the library, under the busts of the great men of antiquity, sometimes at
+the far end of the garden, in the room in the summer-house next to your
+own."
+
+On hearing these words, young d'Esparvieu exploded with laughter and
+beat the pillow with his fist, an infallible sign of uncontrollable
+mirth.
+
+"Ah ... ah ... ah! It was you who pillaged papa's library and drove poor
+old Sariette off his head. You know, he has become completely idiotic."
+
+"Busily engaged," continued the Angel, "in cultivating for myself a
+sovereign intelligence, I paid no heed to that inferior being, and when
+he thought to offer obstacles to my researches and to disturb my work I
+punished him for his importunity.
+
+"One particular winter's night in the abode of the philosophers and
+globes I let fall a volume of great weight on his head, which he tried
+to tear from my invisible hand. Then more recently, raising, with a
+vigorous arm composed of a column of condensed air, a precious
+manuscript of Flavius Josephus, I gave the imbecile such a fright, that
+he rushed out screaming on to the landing and (to borrow a striking
+expression from Dante Alighieri) fell even as a dead body falls. He was
+well rewarded, for you gave him, Madame, to staunch the blood from his
+wound, your little scented handkerchief. It was the day, you may
+remember, when behind a celestial globe you exchanged a kiss on the
+mouth with Maurice."
+
+"Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, with a frown, "I cannot allow
+you...."
+
+But she stopped short, deeming it was an inopportune moment to appear
+over-exacting on a matter of decorum.
+
+"I had made up my mind," continued the Angel impassively, "to examine
+the foundations of belief. I first attacked the monuments of Judaism,
+and I read all the Hebrew texts."
+
+"You know Hebrew, then?" exclaimed Maurice.
+
+"Hebrew is my native tongue: in Paradise for a long time we have spoken
+nothing else."
+
+"Ah, you are a Jew. I might have deduced it from your want of tact."
+
+The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I
+have delved deep into Oriental antiquities and also into those of
+Greece and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians,
+philosophers, physicists, geologists, and naturalists. I have learnt. I
+have thought. I have lost my faith."
+
+"What? You no longer believe in God?"
+
+"I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should
+fail to exist, I myself should fall into nothingness. I believe in Him,
+even as the Satyrs and the Maenads believed in Dionysus and for the same
+reason. I believe in the God of the Jews and the Christians. But I deny
+that He created the world; at the most He organised but an inferior part
+of it, and all that He touched bears the mark of His rough and
+unforeseeing touch. I do not think He is either eternal or infinite, for
+it is absurd to conceive of a being who is not bounded by space or time.
+I think Him limited, even very limited. I no longer believe Him to be
+the only God. For a long time He did not believe it Himself; in the
+beginning He was a polytheist; later, His pride and the flattery of His
+worshippers made Him a monotheist. His ideas have little connection; He
+is less powerful than He is thought to be. And, to speak candidly, He is
+not so much a god as a vain and ignorant demiurge. Those who, like
+myself, know His true nature, call Him Ialdabaoth."
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"Ialdabaoth."
+
+"Ialdabaoth. What's that?"
+
+"I have already told you. It is the demiurge whom, in your blindness,
+you adore as the one and only God."
+
+"You're mad. I don't advise you to go and talk rubbish like that to Abbe
+Patouille."
+
+"I am not in the least sanguine, my dear Maurice, of piercing the dense
+night of your intellect. I merely tell you that I am going to engage
+Ialdabaoth in conflict with some hopes of victory."
+
+"Mark my words, you won't succeed."
+
+"Lucifer shook His throne, and the issue was for a moment in doubt."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Abdiel for the angels and saints, Arcade for mankind."
+
+"Well, my poor Arcade, I regret to see you going to the bad. But confess
+that you are jesting with us. I could at a pinch understand your leaving
+Heaven for a woman. Love makes us commit the greatest follies. But you
+will never make me believe that you, who have seen God face to face,
+ultimately found the truth in old Sariette's musty books. No, you will
+never get me to believe that!"
+
+"My dear Maurice, Lucifer was face to face with God, yet he refused to
+serve Him. As to the kind of truth one finds in books, it is a truth
+that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever
+enabling us to discover what they are. And this poor little truth has
+sufficed to prove to me that He in whom I blindly believed is not
+believable, and that men and angels have been deceived by the lies of
+Ialdabaoth."
+
+"There is no Ialdabaoth. There is God. Come, Arcade, do the right thing.
+Renounce these follies, these impieties, dis-incarnate yourself, become
+once more a pure Spirit, and resume your office of guardian angel.
+Return to duty. I forgive you, but do not let us see you again."
+
+"I should like to please you, Maurice. I feel a certain affection for
+you, for my heart is soft. But fate henceforth calls me elsewhere
+towards beings capable of thought and action."
+
+"Monsieur Arcade," said Madame des Aubels, "withdraw, I implore you. It
+makes me horribly shy to be in this position before two men. I assure
+you I am not accustomed to it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+     RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CAST-OFF
+     GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A
+     HEAVENLY GUARDIAN
+
+
+"Reassure yourself, Madame," replied the apparition, "your position is
+not as risky as you say. You are not confronted with two men, but with
+one man and an angel."
+
+She examined the stranger with an eye which, piercing the gloom, was
+anxiously surveying a vague but by no means negligible indication, and
+asked:
+
+"Monsieur, is it quite certain that you are an angel?"
+
+The apparition prayed her to have no doubt about it, and gave some
+precise information as to his origin.
+
+"There are three hierarchies of celestial spirits, each composed of nine
+choirs; the first comprises the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones; the
+second, the Dominations, the Virtues, and the Powers; the third, the
+Principalities, the Archangels, and the Angels properly so called. I
+belong to the ninth choir of the third hierarchy."
+
+Madame des Aubels, who had her reasons for doubting this, expressed at
+least one:
+
+"You have no wings."
+
+"Why should I, Madame? Am I bound to resemble the angels on your
+holy-water stoups? Those feathery oars that beat the waves of the air in
+rhythmic cadences are not always worn by the heavenly messengers on
+their shoulders. Cherubim may be apterous. That all too beautiful
+angelic pair who spent an anxious night in the house of Lot compassed
+about by an Oriental horde--they had no wings! No, they appeared just
+like men, and the dust of the road covered their feet, which the
+patriarch washed with pious hand. I would beg you to observe, Madame,
+that according to the Science of Organic Metamorphosis created by
+Lamarck and Darwin, the wings of birds have been successively
+transformed into fore-feet in the case of quadrupeds and into arms in
+the case of the Linnaean primates. And you may remember, Maurice, that by
+a rather annoying reversion to type, Miss Kate, your English nurse, who
+used to be so fond of giving you a whipping, had arms very like the
+pinions of a plucked fowl. One may say, then, that a being possessing
+both arms and wings is a monster and belongs to the department of
+Teratology. In Paradise we have Cherubim and Kerubs in the shape of
+winged bulls, but those are the clumsy inventions of an inartistic god.
+It is nevertheless true, quite true, that the Victories of the Temple of
+Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis are beautiful, and possess both
+arms and wings; it is also true that the Victory of Brescia is
+beautiful, with her outstretched arms and her long wings folded on her
+mighty loins. It is one of the miracles of Greek genius to have known
+how to create harmonious monsters. The Greeks never err. The Moderns
+always."
+
+"Yet on the whole," said Madame des Aubels, "you have not the look of a
+pure Spirit."
+
+"Nevertheless, I am one, Madame, if ever there was one. And it ill
+becomes you, who have been baptised, to doubt it. Several of the
+Fathers, such as St. Justin, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of
+Alexandria thought that the Angels were not purely spiritual, but
+possessed a body formed of some subtile material. This opinion has been
+rejected by the Church; hence I am merely Spirit. But what is spirit and
+what is matter? Formerly they were contrasted as being two opposites,
+and now your human science tends to reunite them as two aspects of the
+same thing. It teaches that everything proceeds from ether and
+everything returns to it, that the same movement transforms the waves
+of air into stones and minerals, and that the atoms scattered throughout
+illimitable space, form, by the varying speed of their orbits, all the
+substance of this material world."
+
+But Madame des Aubels was not listening. She had something on her mind,
+and to put an end to her suspense, she asked:
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"I came with Maurice."
+
+"Well--that's a nice thing!" said she, shaking her head. But the Angel
+continued with heavenly serenity:
+
+"Everything in the Universe is circular, elliptical, or hyperbolic, and
+the same laws which rule the stars govern this grain of dust. In the
+original and native movement of its substance, my body is spiritual, but
+it may affect, as you perceive, this material state, by changing the
+rhythm of its elements."
+
+Having thus spoken he sat down in a chair on Madame des Aubels' black
+stockings.
+
+A clock struck outside.
+
+"Good heavens, seven o'clock!" exclaimed Gilberte. "What am I to say to
+my husband? He thinks I am at that tea-party in the Rue de Rivoli. We
+are dining with the La Verdelieres to-night. Go away immediately,
+Monsieur Arcade. I must get ready to go. I have not a second to lose."
+
+The Angel replied that he would have willingly obeyed Madame des Aubels
+had he been in a state to show himself decently in public, but that he
+could not dream of appearing out of doors without any clothes. "Were I
+to walk naked in the street," he added, "I should offend a nation
+attached to its ancient habits, habits which it has never examined. They
+are the basis of all moral systems. Formerly," he added, "the angels, in
+revolt like myself, manifested themselves to Christians under grotesque
+and ridiculous appearances, black, horned, hairy, and cloven-footed.
+Pure stupidity! They were the laughing-stock of people of taste. They
+merely frightened old women and children and met with no success."
+
+"It is true he cannot go out as he is," said Madame des Aubels with
+justice.
+
+Maurice tossed his pyjamas and his slippers to the celestial messenger.
+Regarded as outdoor habiliments they were not adequate. Gilberte pressed
+her lover to run at once in quest of other clothes. He proposed to go
+and get some from the concierge. She was violently opposed to this. It
+would, she said, be madly imprudent to drag the concierge into such an
+affair.
+
+"Do you want them to know that ..." she exclaimed.
+
+She pointed to the Angel and was silent.
+
+Young d'Esparvieu went out to seek a clothes-shop.
+
+Meanwhile, Gilberte, who could not delay any longer for fear of causing
+a horrible society scandal, turned on the light and dressed before the
+Angel. She did it without any awkwardness, for she knew how to adapt
+herself to circumstances; and she took it that in such an unheard-of
+encounter in which heaven and earth were mingled in unutterable
+confusion it was permissible to retrench in modesty.
+
+Moreover, she knew that she possessed a good figure and had garments as
+dainty as the fashion demanded. As the apparition's sense of delicacy
+would not permit him to don Maurice's pyjamas, Gilberte could not help
+observing by the lamp-light that her suspicions were well-founded, and
+that angels have the same appearance as men. Curious to know if the
+appearance were real or imaginary she asked the child of light if Angels
+were like monkeys, who, to win women, merely lack money.
+
+"Yes, Gilberte," replied Arcade, "Angels are capable of loving mortals.
+It is the teaching of the Scriptures. It is said in the Seventh Book of
+Genesis, 'When men became numerous on the face of the earth, and
+daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of
+men were beautiful, and they took as wives all those which pleased
+them.'"
+
+"Good heavens," cried Gilberte all at once, "I shall never be able to
+fasten my dress; it hooks down the back."
+
+When Maurice entered the room he found the Angel on his knees tying the
+shoes of the woman taken in _flagrante delicto_.
+
+Taking her muff and her bag off the table she said:
+
+"I have not forgotten anything? No. Good-night, Monsieur Arcade.
+Good-night, Maurice. I shall not forget to-day." And she vanished like a
+dream.
+
+"Here," said Maurice, throwing the Angel a bundle of clothes.
+
+The young man, having seen some dismal rags lying among clarionettes and
+clyster-pipes in the window of a second-hand shop, had bought for
+nineteen francs the cast-off suit of some wretched sable-clad mortal who
+had committed suicide. The Angel, with native majesty, took the garments
+and put them on. Worn by him, they took on an unexpected elegance. He
+took a step to the door.
+
+"So you are leaving me," said Maurice. "It's settled, then? I very much
+fear that, some day, you will bitterly regret this hasty action."
+
+"I must not look back. Adieu, Maurice."
+
+Maurice timidly slipped five louis into his hand.
+
+"Adieu, Arcade."
+
+But when the Angel had passed through the door, and all that was to be
+seen of him in the door-way was his uplifted heel, Maurice called him
+back.
+
+"Arcade! I never thought of it! I have no guardian angel now!"
+
+"Quite true, Maurice, you have one no longer."
+
+"Then what will become of me? One must have a guardian angel. Tell
+me,--are there not grave drawbacks,--is there no danger in not having
+one?"
+
+"Before replying, Maurice, I must ask you if you wish me to speak to you
+according to your belief, which formerly was my own, according to the
+teaching of the Church and the Catholic faith, or according to natural
+philosophy."
+
+"I don't care a straw for your natural philosophy. Answer me according
+to the religion I believe in, and which I profess, and in which I wish
+to live and die."
+
+"Very well, my dear Maurice. The loss of your guardian angel will
+probably deprive you of certain spiritual succour, of certain celestial
+grace. I am expressing to you the unvarying opinion of the Church on the
+matter. You will lack an assistance, a support, a consolation which
+would have guided and confirmed you in the way of salvation. You will
+have less strength to avoid sin, and as it was you hadn't much. In fact,
+in spiritual matters, you will be without strength and without joy.
+Adieu, Maurice; when you see Madame des Aubels, please remember me to
+her."
+
+"You are going?"
+
+"Farewell."
+
+Arcade disappeared, and Maurice in the depths of an arm-chair sat for a
+long time with his head in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     WHEREIN IT IS SET FORTH HOW THE ANGEL MIRAR, WHEN BEARING
+     GRACE AND CONSOLATION TO THOSE DWELLING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
+     OF THE CHAMPS ELYSEES IN PARIS, BEHELD A MUSIC-HALL SINGER
+     NAMED BOUCHOTTE AND FELL IN LOVE WITH HER
+
+
+Through streets filled with brown fog, pierced with white and yellow
+lights, where horses exhaled their smoking breath and motors radiated
+their rapid search-lights, the angel made his way, and, mingling with
+the black flood of foot-passengers which rolled unceasingly along,
+proceeded across the town from north to south till he came to the lonely
+boulevards on the left bank of the river. Not far from the old walls of
+Port Royal, a small restaurant flings night by night athwart the
+pavement the clouded rays of its streaming windows. Coming to a halt
+there, Arcade entered a room full of warm, savoury odours, pleasing to
+the unfortunate beings faint with cold and hunger. Glancing round him he
+beheld Russian Nihilists, Italian Anarchists, refugees, conspirators,
+revolutionaries from every quarter of the globe, picturesque old faces
+with tumbled masses of hair and beard that swept downwards even as the
+torrent and the waterfall sweep over their rocky bed. There were young
+faces of virginal coldness, expressions sombre and wild, pale eyes of
+infinite sweetness, drawn faces, and, in a corner, there were two
+Russian women, one extremely lovely, the other hideous, but both
+resembling each other in their indifference to ugliness and to beauty.
+But failing to find the face he sought, for there were no angels in the
+room, he sat down at a small vacant marble table.
+
+Angels, when driven by hunger, eat as do the animals of this earth, and
+their food, transformed by digestive heat, becomes one with their
+celestial substance. Seeing three angels under the oaks of Mamre,
+Abraham offered them cakes, kneaded by Sarah, an whole calf, butter and
+milk, and they ate. Lot, on receiving two angels in his house, ordered
+unleavened bread to be baked, and they did eat. Arcade was given a tough
+beef-steak by a seedy waiter, and he did eat. Nevertheless, his dreams
+were of the sweet leisure, of the repose, of the delightful studies he
+had quitted, of the heavy task he had undertaken, of the toil, the
+weariness, the perils which he would have to endure, and his soul was
+sad and his heart troubled.
+
+As he was finishing his modest repast, a young man of poor appearance
+and thinly clad entered the room, and rapidly surveying the tables
+approached the angel and greeted him by the name of Abdiel, because he
+himself was a celestial spirit.
+
+"I knew you would answer my call, Mirar," replied Arcade, addressing his
+angelic brother in his turn by the name he formerly bore in heaven. But
+Mirar was remembered no more in heaven since he, an Archangel, had left
+the service of God. He was called Theophile Belais on earth, and to earn
+his bread gave music lessons to small children in the day-time and at
+night played the violin in dancing saloons.
+
+"It is you, dear Abdiel?" replied Theophile. "So here we are reunited in
+this sad world. I am pleased to see you again. All the same I pity you,
+for we lead a hard life here."
+
+But Arcade answered:
+
+"Friend, your exile draws to an end. I have great plans. I will confide
+them to you and associate you with them."
+
+And Maurice's guardian angel, having ordered two coffees, revealed his
+ideas and his projects to his companion: he told how, during his visit
+on earth, he had abandoned himself to researches little practised by
+celestial spirits and had studied theologies, cosmogonies, the system of
+the Universe, theories of matter, modern essays on the transformation
+and loss of energy. Having, he explained, studied Nature, he had found
+her in perpetual conflict with the teachings of the Master he served.
+This Master, greedy of praise, whom he had for a long time adored,
+appeared to him now as an ignorant, stupid, and cruel tyrant. He had
+denied Him, blasphemed Him, and was burning to combat Him. His plan was
+to recommence the revolt of the angels. He wished for war, and hoped for
+victory.
+
+"But," he added, "it is necessary above all to know our strength and
+that of our adversary." And he asked if the enemies of Ialdabaoth were
+numerous and powerful on earth.
+
+Theophile looked wonderingly at his brother. He appeared not to
+understand the questions addressed him.
+
+"Dear compatriot," he said, "I came at your invitation because it was
+the invitation of an old comrade. But I do not know what you expect of
+me, and I fear I shall be unable to help you in anything. I take no hand
+in politics, neither do I stand forth as a reformer. I am not like you,
+a spirit in revolt, a freethinker, a revolutionary. I remain faithful,
+in the depths of my soul, to the Celestial Creator. I still adore the
+Master I no longer serve, and I lament the days when shrouding myself
+with my wings I formed with the multitude of the children of light a
+wheel of flame around His throne of glory. Love, profane love has alone
+separated me from God. I quitted heaven to follow a daughter of men. She
+was beautiful and sang in music-halls."
+
+They rose. Arcade accompanied Theophile, who was living at the other end
+of the town, at the corner of the Boulevard Rochechouart and the Rue de
+Steinkerque. While walking through the deserted streets he who loved the
+singer told his brother of his love and his sorrows.
+
+His fall, which dated from two years back, had been sudden. Belonging to
+the eighth choir of the third hierarchy he was a bearer of grace to the
+faithful who are still to be found in large numbers in France,
+especially among the higher ranks of the officers of the army and navy.
+
+"One summer night," he said, "as I was descending from Heaven, to
+distribute consolations, the grace of perseverance and of good deaths to
+divers pious persons in the neighbourhood of the Etoile, my eyes,
+although well accustomed to immortal light, were dazzled by the fiery
+flowers with which the Champs Elysees were sown. Great candelabra, under
+the trees, marking the entrances to cafes and restaurants, gave the
+foliage the precious glitter of an emerald. Long garlands of luminous
+pearl surrounded the open-air enclosures where a crowd of men and women
+sat closely packed listening to the sounds of a lively orchestra, whose
+strains reached my ears confusedly.
+
+"The night was warm, my wings were beginning to grow tired. I descended
+into one of the concerts and sat down, invisible, among the audience. At
+this moment, a woman appeared on the stage, clad in a short spangled
+frock. Owing to the reflection of the footlights and the paint on her
+face all that was visible of the latter was the expression and the
+smile. Her body was supple and voluptuous.
+
+"She sang and danced.... Arcade, I have always loved dancing and music,
+but this creature's thrilling voice and insidious movements created in
+me an uneasiness I had never known before. My colour came and went. My
+eyelids drooped, my tongue clove to my mouth. I could not leave the
+spot."
+
+And Theophile related, groaning, how, possessed by desire for this
+woman, he did not return to Heaven again, but, taking the shape of a
+man, lived an earthly life, for it is written: "In those days the sons
+of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful."
+
+A fallen angel, having lost his innocence along with the vision of God,
+Theophile at heart still retained his simplicity of soul. Clad in rags,
+filched from the stall of a Jewish hawker, he went to seek the woman he
+loved. She was called Bouchotte and lodged in a small house in
+Montmartre. He flung himself at her feet and told her she was adorable,
+that she sang delightfully, that he loved her madly, that, for her, he
+would renounce his family and his country, that he was a musician and
+had nothing to eat. Touched by such youthful ingenuousness, candour,
+poverty, and love, she fed, clothed, and loved him.
+
+However, after long and painful struggles, he procured employment as a
+music-teacher, and made some money, which he brought to his mistress,
+keeping nothing for himself. From that time forward she loved him no
+longer. She despised him for earning so little and did not conceal her
+indifference, weariness, and disgust. She overwhelmed him with
+reproaches, irony, and abuse, in spite of which she kept him, for she
+had had experience of worse partners and was used to domestic quarrels.
+For the rest, she led a busy, serious, and rather hard life as artist
+and woman. Theophile loved her as he had loved her the first night, and
+he suffered.
+
+"She overworks herself," he told his celestial brother, "that is what
+makes her so hard to please, but I am certain she loves me. I hope soon
+to give her more comfort."
+
+And he spoke at length of an operetta at which he was working and which
+he hoped to have brought out at a Paris theatre. A young poet had given
+him the libretto. It was the story of Aline, queen of Golconda, after an
+eighteenth-century tale.
+
+"I am strewing it profusely with melodies," said Theophile; "my music
+comes from my heart. My heart is an inexhaustible source of melody.
+Unfortunately nowadays people like recondite arrangements, difficult
+scoring. They accuse me of being too fluid, too limpid, of not imparting
+enough colour to my style, not aiming at stronger effects in harmony and
+more vigorous contrasts. Harmony, harmony!... No doubt it has given its
+merits, but it does not appeal to the heart. It is melody which carries
+us away and ravishes us and brings smiles and tears to our eyes." At
+these words he smiled and wept to himself. Then he continued with
+emotion:
+
+"I am a fountain of melody. But the orchestration! there's the rub! In
+Paradise, you know, Arcade, in the matter of instruments, we only
+possess the harp, the psaltery, and the hydraulic organ."
+
+Arcade was only listening to him with half an ear. He was meditating
+plans which filled his soul and swelled his heart.
+
+"Do you know any angels in revolt?" he asked his companion. "As for me,
+I know only one, Prince Istar, with whom I have exchanged a few letters
+and who offered to share his attic with me while I was finding a lodging
+in this town, where I believe rents are very high."
+
+Of angels in revolt Theophile knew none. When he met a fallen spirit who
+had formerly been one of his comrades he shook him by the hand, for he
+was a faithful friend. Sometimes he saw Prince Istar. But he avoided
+all those bad angels who shocked him by the violence of their opinions
+and whose conversations plagued him to death.
+
+"Then you don't approve of me?" asked the impulsive Arcade.
+
+"Friend, I neither approve of you nor blame you. I understand nothing of
+the ideas which trouble you. Neither do I think it good for an artist to
+concern himself with politics. One has quite sufficient to occupy
+oneself with one's art."
+
+He loved his profession, and had hopes of "arriving" one day, but
+theatrical ways disgusted him. The only chance he saw of having his
+piece played was to take one or two--perhaps three--collaborators, who,
+without having done any work, would sign their names and share the
+profits. Soon Bouchotte would fail to find engagements. When she offered
+her services in some small hall the manager began by asking her how many
+shares she was taking in the business. Such customs, thought Theophile,
+were deplorable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+     WHEREIN WE HEAR THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHANGEL ZITA UNFOLD HER
+     LOFTY DESIGNS AND ARE SHOWN THE WINGS OF MIRAR, ALL
+     MOTH-EATEN, IN A CUPBOARD
+
+
+Thus talking, the two archangels had reached the Boulevard Rochechouart.
+As his eye lighted on a tavern, whence, through the mist, the light fell
+golden on the pavement, Theophile suddenly bethought himself of the
+Archangel Ithuriel who, in the guise of a poor but beautiful woman, was
+living in wretched lodgings on La Butte and came every evening to read
+the papers at this tavern. The musician often met her there. Her name
+was Zita. Theophile had never been curious enough to enquire into the
+opinions entertained by this archangel, but it was generally supposed
+that she was a Russian nihilist, and he took her to be, like Arcade, an
+atheist and a revolutionary. He had heard remarkable tales about her.
+People said she was an hermaphrodite, and that as the active and passive
+principles were united within her in a condition of stable equilibrium,
+she was an example of a perfect being, finding in herself complete and
+continuous satisfaction, contented yet unfortunate in that she knew not
+desire.
+
+"But," added Theophile, "I have my doubts about it. I believe she's a
+woman and subject to love, like everything else that has life and breath
+in the Universe. Besides, someone caught her one day kissing her hand to
+a strapping peasant fellow."
+
+He offered to introduce his companion to her.
+
+The two angels found her alone, reading. As they drew near she lifted
+her great eyes in whose deeps of molten gold little sparks of light were
+forever a-dance. Her brows were contracted into that austere fold which
+we see on the forehead of the Pythian Apollo; her nose was perfect and
+descended without a curve; her lips were compressed and imparted a
+disdainful and supercilious air to her whole countenance. Her tawny
+hair, with its gleaming lights, was carelessly adorned with the tattered
+remnants of a huge bird of prey, her garments lay about her in dark and
+shapeless folds. She was leaning her chin on a small ill-tended hand.
+
+Arcade, who had but recently heard references made to this powerful
+archangel, showed her marked esteem, and placed entire confidence in
+her. He immediately proceeded to tell of the progress his mind had made
+towards knowledge and liberty, of his lucubrations in the d'Esparvieu
+library, of his philosophical reading, his studies of nature, his works
+on exegesis, his anger and his contempt when he recognised the deception
+of the demiurge, his voluntary exile among mankind, and, finally, of his
+project to stir up rebellion in Heaven. Ready to dare all against an
+odious master, whom he pursued with inextinguishable hatred, he
+expressed his profound happiness at finding in Ithuriel a mind capable
+of counselling and helping him in his great undertaking.
+
+"You are not a very old hand at revolutions," said Zita, smiling.
+
+Nevertheless, she doubted neither his sincerity nor the firmness of his
+declared resolve, and she congratulated him on his intellectual
+audacity.
+
+"That is what is most lacking in our people," she said, "they do not
+think."
+
+And she added almost immediately: "But on what can intelligence sharpen
+its wits, in a country where the climate is soft and existence made
+easy? Even here, where necessity calls for intellectual activity,
+nothing is rarer than a person who thinks."
+
+"Nevertheless," replied Maurice's guardian angel, "man has created
+science. The important thing is to introduce it into Heaven. When the
+angels possess some notions of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and
+physiology; when the study of matter shows them worlds in an atom, and
+an atom in the myriads of planets; when they see themselves lost
+between these two infinities; when they weigh and measure the stars,
+analyse their composition, and calculate their orbits, they will
+recognise that these monsters work in obedience to forces which no
+intelligence can define, or that each star has its particular divinity,
+or indigenous god; and they will realise that the gods of Aldebaran,
+Betelgeuse, and Sirius are greater than Ialdabaoth. When at length they
+come to scrutinise with care the little world in which their lot is
+cast, and, piercing the crust of the earth, note the gradual evolution
+of its flora and fauna and the rude origin of man, who, under the
+shelter of rocks and in cave dwellings, had no God but himself; when
+they discover that, united by the bonds of universal kinship to plants,
+beasts, and men, they have successively indued all forms of organic
+life, from the simplest and the most primitive, until they became at
+length the most beautiful of the children of light, they will perceive
+that Ialdabaoth, the obscure demon of an insignificant world lost in
+space, is imposing on their credulity when he pretends that they issued
+from nothingness at his bidding; they will perceive that he lies in
+calling himself the Infinite, the Eternal, the Almighty, and that, so
+far from having created worlds, he knows neither their number nor their
+laws. They will perceive that he is like unto one of them; they will
+despise him, and, shaking off his tyranny, will fling him into the
+Gehenna where he has hurled those more worthy than himself."
+
+"Do you think so?" murmured Zita, puffing out the smoke of her
+cigarette.... "Nevertheless, this knowledge by virtue of which you
+reckon to enfranchise Heaven, has not destroyed religious sentiment on
+earth. In countries where they have set up and taught this science of
+physics, of chemistry, astronomy, and geology, which you think capable
+of delivering the world, Christianity has retained almost all its sway.
+If the positive sciences have had such a feeble influence on the beliefs
+of mankind, it is not likely they will exercise a greater one on the
+opinions of the angels, and nothing is of such dubious efficacy as
+scientific propaganda."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Arcade, "you deny that Science has given the Church
+its death-blow? Is it possible? The Church, at any rate, judges
+otherwise. Science, which you believe has no power over her, is
+redoubtable to her, since she proscribes it. From Galileo's dialogues to
+Monsieur Aulard's little manuals she has condemned all its discoveries.
+And not without reason.
+
+"In former days, when she gathered within her fold all that was great in
+human thought, the Church held sway over the bodies as well as over the
+souls of men, and imposed unity of obedience by fire and sword. To-day
+her power is but a shadow and the elect among the great minds have
+withdrawn from her. That is the state to which Science has reduced her."
+
+"Possibly," replied the beautiful archangel, "but how slowly, with what
+vicissitudes, at the price of what efforts, of what sacrifices!"
+
+Zita did not absolutely condemn scientific propaganda, but she
+anticipated no prompt or certain results from it. For her it was not so
+much a question of enlightening the angels; the important thing was to
+enfranchise them. In her opinion one only exerted a strong influence on
+individuals, whoever they might be, by rousing their passions, and
+appealing to their interests.
+
+"Persuade the angels that they will cover themselves with glory by
+overthrowing the tyrant, and that they will be happier once they are
+free; that is the most practical policy to attempt, and, for my own
+part, I am devoting all my energies to its fulfilment. It is certainly
+no light task, because the Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and
+there is no public opinion in it. Nevertheless, I do not despair of
+starting an intellectual movement. I do not wish to boast, but no one is
+more closely acquainted than I with the different classes of angelic
+society."
+
+Throwing away her cigarette, Zita pondered for a moment, then, amid the
+click of ivory balls on the billiard table, the clinking of glasses,
+the curt voices of the players announcing their points, the monotonous
+answers of the waiters to their customers, the Archangel enumerated the
+entire population of the spirits of light.
+
+"We must not count on the Dominations, the Virtues, nor the Powers,
+which compose the celestial lower middle class. I have no need to tell
+you, for you know it as well as I, how selfish, base, and cowardly the
+middle classes are. As to the great dignitaries, the Ministers, the
+Generals, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, you know what they are; they
+will take no action. Let us, however, once prove ourselves the stronger,
+and we shall have them with us. For if autocrats do not readily
+acquiesce in their own downfall, once overthrown, all their forces
+recoil upon themselves. It will be well to work the Army. Entirely loyal
+as the Army is, it will allow itself to be influenced by a clever
+anarchist propaganda. But our greatest and most constant efforts ought
+to be brought to bear upon the angels of your own category, Arcade; the
+guardian angels, who dwell upon earth in such great numbers. They fill
+the lowest ranks of the hierarchy, are for the most part discontented
+with their lot, and more or less imbued with the ideas of the present
+century."
+
+She had already conferred with the guardian angels of Montmartre,
+Clignancourt, and Filles-du-Calvaire. She had devised the plan of a
+vast association of Spirits on Earth with the view of conquering Heaven.
+
+"To accomplish this task," she said, "I have established myself in
+France. But not because I had the folly to believe myself freer in a
+republic than in a monarchy. Quite the contrary, for there is no country
+where the liberty of the individual is less respected than in France.
+But the people are indifferent to everything connected with religion;
+nowhere else, therefore, should I enjoy such tranquillity."
+
+She invited Arcade to unite his efforts to hers, and when they separated
+at the door of the _brasserie_ the steel shutter was already making its
+groaning descent.
+
+"Above all," said Zita, "you must meet the gardener. I will take you to
+his rustic home one day."
+
+Theophile, who had slumbered during all this talk, begged his friend to
+come home with him and smoke a cigarette. He lived quite near in the
+small street opposite, leading off the Boulevard. Arcade would see
+Bouchotte, she would please him.
+
+They climbed up five flights of stairs. Bouchotte had not yet returned.
+A tin of sardines lay open on the piano. Red stockings coiled about the
+arm-chairs.
+
+"It's a little place, but it's comfortable," said Theophile.
+
+And gazing out of the window which looked out on the russet-coloured
+night, with its myriad lights, he added, "One can see the _Sacre
+Coeur_." His hand on Arcade's shoulder, he repeated several times, "I am
+glad to see you."
+
+Then, dragging his former companion in glory into the kitchen passage,
+he put down his candlestick, drew a key from his pocket, opened a
+cupboard, and, raising a linen covering, disclosed two large white
+wings.
+
+"You see," he said, "I have preserved them. From time to time, when I am
+alone, I go and look at them; it does me good."
+
+And he dabbed his reddened eyes. He stood awhile, overcome by silent
+emotion. Then, holding the candle near the long pinions which were
+moulting their down in places, he murmured, "They are eaten away."
+
+"You must put some pepper on them," said Arcade.
+
+"I have done so," replied the angelic musician, sighing. "I have put
+pepper, camphor, and powder on them. But nothing does any good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+     WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY
+     AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE
+     OF THE FLUTE
+
+
+The first night of his incarnation Arcade slept at the angel Istar's, in
+a garret in that narrow, gloomy Rue Mazarine which wallows along beneath
+the shadow of the old Institute of France. Istar, who had been expecting
+him, had pushed against the wall the shattered retorts, cracked pots,
+broken bottles, and odds and ends of iron stoves, which made up the
+furniture of his room, and spread his clothes on the floor to lie on,
+leaving his guest his folding-bed with its straw mattress.
+
+The celestial spirits differ from one another in appearance according to
+the hierarchy and the choir to which they belong, and according to their
+own particular nature. They are all beautiful; but in different fashion,
+and they do not all offer to the eye the soft contours and dimpling
+smiles of childhood with its rosy lights and pearly tints. Nor do they
+all adorn themselves with eternal youth, that indefinable beauty that
+Greek art in its decline has imparted to its most lovingly handled
+marbles, and whereof Christian painters have so often timidly essayed to
+give us veiled and softened imitations. In some of them the chin glows
+with tufts of hair, and the limbs are furnished with such vigorous
+muscles that it seems as if serpents were writhing beneath the skin.
+Some have no wings, others possess two, four, or six; others again are
+formed entirely of conjoined pinions. Many, and these not the least
+illustrious, take the form of superb monsters, such as the Centaurs of
+fable; nay, one may even see some who are living chariots, and wheels of
+fire. A member of the highest celestial hierarchy, Istar belonged to the
+choir of Cherubim or Kerubs who see above them the Seraphim alone. In
+common with all the angelic spirits of his rank he had formerly borne in
+Heaven the bodily shape of a winged bull surmounted by the head of a
+horned and bearded man, and carrying between his loins the attributes of
+generous fecundity. He was vaster and more vigorous than any animal on
+earth, and when he stood erect with outspread wings he covered with his
+shadow sixty archangels.
+
+Such was Istar in his native home. There he radiated strength and
+sweetness. His heart was full of courage and his soul benevolent.
+Moreover, in those days he loved his lord. He believed him to be good
+and yielded him faithful service. But even while guarding the portals of
+his Master, he used to ponder unceasingly on the punishment of the
+rebellious angels and the curse of Eve. His mind worked slowly but
+profoundly. When, after a long course of centuries, he persuaded himself
+that Ialdabaoth in creating the world had created evil and death, he
+ceased to adore and to serve him. His love changed to hatred, his
+veneration to contempt. He shouted his execrations in his face, and fled
+to earth.
+
+Embodied in human form and reduced to the stature of the sons of Adam,
+he still retained some characteristics of his former nature. His big
+protruding eyes, his beaked nose, his thick lips framed in a black beard
+which descended in curls on to his chest recalled those Cherubs of the
+tabernacle of Iahveh, of which the bulls of Nineveh afford us a pretty
+accurate representation. He bore the name of Istar on earth as well as
+in Heaven, and although exempt from vanity and free from all social
+prejudice, he was immensely desirous of showing himself sincere and
+truthful in all things. He therefore proclaimed the illustrious rank in
+which his birth had placed him in the celestial hierarchy and translated
+into French his title of Cherub by the equivalent one of Prince, calling
+himself Prince Istar. Seeking shelter among mankind he had developed an
+ardent love for them. While awaiting the coming of the hour when he
+should deliver Heaven from bondage, he dreamed of the salvation of
+regenerate humanity and was eager to consummate the destruction of this
+wicked world, in order to raise upon its ashes, to the sound of the
+lyre, a city radiant with happiness and love. A chemist in the pay of a
+dealer in nitrates, he lived very frugally. He wrote for newspapers with
+advanced views on liberty, spoke at public meetings, and had got himself
+sentenced several times to several months' imprisonment for
+anti-militarism.
+
+Istar greeted his brother Arcade cordially, approved of his rupture with
+the party of crime, and informed him of the descent of fifty of the
+children of light who, at the present moment, formed a colony near Val
+de Grace, imbued with a really excellent spirit.
+
+"It is simply raining angels in Paris," he said, laughing. "Every day
+some dignitary of the sacred palace falls on one's head, and soon the
+Sultan of the Cherubs will have no one to make into Vizirs or guards but
+the little unbreeched vagabonds of his pigeon coops."
+
+Soothed by the good news, Arcade fell asleep, full of happiness and
+hope.
+
+He awoke in the early dawn and saw Prince Istar bending over his
+furnaces, his retorts, and his test tubes. Prince Istar was working for
+the good of humanity.
+
+Every morning when Arcade woke he saw Prince Istar fulfilling his work
+of tenderness and love. Sometimes the Kerub, huddled up with his head in
+his hands, would softly murmur a few chemical formulae; at others,
+drawing himself up to his full height, like a dark naked column, with
+his head, his arms, nay, his entire bust clean out of the sky-light
+window, he would deposit his melting-pot on the roof, fearing the
+perquisition with which he was constantly menaced. Moved by an immense
+pity for the miseries of the world wherein he dwelt in exile, conscious
+perhaps of the rumours to which his name gave rise, inebriated with his
+own virtue, he played the part of apostle to the Human Race, and
+neglecting the task he had undertaken in coming to earth, he forgot all
+about the emancipation of the angels. Arcade, who, on the contrary,
+dreamed of nothing else but of conquering Heaven and returning thither
+in triumph, reproached the Cherub with forgetting his native land.
+
+Prince Istar, with a great frank, uncouth laugh, acknowledged that he
+had no preference for angels over men.
+
+"If I am doing my best," he replied to his celestial brother, "if I am
+doing my best to stir up France and Europe, it is because the day is
+dawning which will behold the triumph of the social revolution. It is a
+pleasure to cast one's seed on ground so well prepared. The French
+having passed from feudalism to monarchy, and from monarchy to a
+financial oligarchy, will easily pass from a financial oligarchy to
+anarchy."
+
+"How erroneous it is," retorted Arcade, "to believe in great and sudden
+changes in the social order in Europe! The old order is still young in
+strength and power. The means of defence at her disposal are formidable.
+On the other hand, the proletariat's plan of defensive organisation is
+of the vaguest description and brings merely weakness and confusion to
+the struggle. In our celestial country all goes quite otherwise. Beneath
+an apparently unchangeable exterior all is rotten within. A mere push
+would suffice to overturn an edifice which has not been touched for
+millions of centuries. Out-worn administration, out-worn army, out-worn
+finance, the whole thing is more worm-eaten than either the Russian or
+Persian autocracy."
+
+And the kindly Arcade adjured the Cherub to fly first to the aid of his
+brethren who, though dwelling amid the soft clouds with the sound of
+citterns and their cups of paradisal wine around them, were in more
+wretched plight than mankind bowed over the grudging earth. For the
+latter have a conception of justice, while the angels rejoice in
+iniquity. He exhorted him to deliver the Prince of Light and his
+stricken companions and to re-establish them in their ancient honours.
+
+Prince Istar allowed himself to be convinced.
+
+He promised to put the sweet persuasiveness of his words and the
+excellent formulae of his explosives at the service of the celestial
+revolution. He gave his promise.
+
+"To-morrow," he said.
+
+And when the morrow came he continued his anti-militarist propaganda at
+Issy-les-Moulineaux. Like the Titan Prometheus, Istar loved mankind.
+
+Arcade, suffering from all the desires to which the sons of Adam are
+subjected, found himself lacking in resources to satisfy them. Istar
+gave him a start in a printing house in the Rue de Vaugirard where he
+knew the foreman. Arcade, thanks to his celestial intelligence, soon
+knew how to set up type and became, in a short time, a good compositor.
+
+After standing all day in the whirring workroom, holding the
+composing-stick in his left hand, and swiftly drawing the little leaden
+signs from the case in the order required by the copy fixed in the
+_visorium_, he would go and wash his hands at the pump and dine at the
+corner bar, a newspaper propped up before him on the marble table. Being
+now no longer invisible, he could not make his way into the d'Esparvieu
+library, and was thus debarred from allaying his ardent thirst for
+knowledge at that inexhaustible source. He went, of an evening, to read
+at the library of Ste. Genevieve on the famous hill of learning, but
+there were only ordinary books to be had there; greasy things, covered
+with ridiculous annotations, and lacking many pages.
+
+The sight of women troubled and unsettled him. He would remember Madame
+des Aubels and her charm, and, although he was handsome, he was not
+loved, because of his poverty and his workaday clothes. He saw much of
+Zita, and took a certain pleasure in going for walks with her on Sundays
+along the dusty roads which edge the grass-grown trenches of the
+fortifications. They wandered, the pair of them, by wayside inns,
+market-gardens, and green retreats, propounding and discussing the
+vastest plans that ever stirred the world, and, occasionally, as they
+passed along by some travelling circus, the steam organ of the
+merry-go-round would furnish an accompaniment to their words as they
+breathed fire and fury against Heaven.
+
+Zita used often to say:
+
+"Istar means well, but he's a simple fellow. He believes in the goodness
+of men and things. He undertakes the destruction of the old world and
+imagines that anarchy of itself will create order and harmony. You,
+Arcade, you believe in Science; you deem that men and angels are capable
+of understanding, whereas, in point of fact, they are only creatures of
+sentiment. You may be quite sure that nothing is to be obtained from
+them by appealing to their intelligence; one must rouse their interests
+and their passions."
+
+Arcade, Istar, Zita, and three or four other angelic conspirators
+occasionally foregathered in Theophile Belais' little flat, where
+Bouchotte gave them tea. Though she did not know that they were
+rebellious angels, she hated them instinctively, and feared them, for
+she had had a Christian education, albeit she had sadly failed to keep
+it up.
+
+Prince Istar alone pleased her; she thought there was something
+kind-hearted and an air of natural distinction about him. He stove in
+the sofa, broke down the arm-chairs, and tore corners off sheets of
+music to make notes, which he thrust into pockets invariably crammed
+with pamphlets and bottles. The musician used to gaze sorrowfully at the
+manuscript of his operetta, _Aline, Queen of Golconda_, with its corners
+all torn off. The prince also had a habit of giving Theophile Belais all
+sorts of things to take care of--mechanical contrivances, chemicals,
+bits of old iron, powders, and liquids which gave off noisome smells.
+Theophile Belais put them cautiously away in the cupboard where he kept
+his wings, and the responsibility weighed heavily upon him.
+
+Arcade was much pained at the disdain of those of his fellows who had
+remained faithful. When they met him as they went on their sacred
+errands they regarded him as they passed by with looks of cruel hatred
+or of pity that was crueller still.
+
+He used to visit the rebel angels whom Prince Istar pointed out to him,
+and usually met with a good reception, but as soon as he began to speak
+of conquering Heaven, they did not conceal the embarrassment and
+displeasure he caused them. Arcade perceived that they had no desire to
+be disturbed in their tastes, their affairs, and their habits. The
+falsity of their judgment, the narrowness of their minds, shocked him;
+and the rivalry, the jealousy they displayed towards one another
+deprived him of all hope of uniting them in a common cause. Perceiving
+how exile debases the character and warps the intellect, he felt his
+courage fail him.
+
+One evening, when he had confessed his weariness of spirit to Zita, the
+beautiful archangel said:
+
+"Let us go and see Nectaire; Nectaire has remedies of his own for
+sadness and fatigue."
+
+She led him into the woods of Montmorency and stopped at the threshold
+of a small white house, adjoining a kitchen garden, laid waste by
+winter, where far back in the shadows the light shone on forcing-frames
+and cracked glass melon shades.
+
+Nectaire opened the door to his visitors, and, after quieting the growls
+of a big mastiff which protected the garden, led them into a low room
+warmed by an earthenware stove.
+
+Against the whitewashed wall, on a deal board, among the onions and
+seeds, lay a flute ready to be put to the lips. A round walnut table
+bore a stone tobacco-jar, a pipe, a bottle of wine and some glasses. The
+gardener offered each of his guests a cane-seated chair, and himself sat
+down on a stool by the table.
+
+He was a sturdy old man; thick grey hair stood up on his head, he had a
+furrowed brow, a snub-nose, a red face, and a forked beard.
+
+The big mastiff stretched himself at his master's feet, rested his short
+black muzzle on his paws, and closed his eyes. The gardener poured out
+some wine for his guests, and when they had drunk and talked a little,
+Zita said to Nectaire:
+
+"Please play your flute to us, you will give pleasure to my friend whom
+I have brought to see you."
+
+The old man immediately consented. He put the boxwood pipe to his
+lips,--so clumsy was it that it looked as if the gardener had fashioned
+it himself,--and preluded with a few strange runs. Then he developed
+rich melodies in which the thrills sparkled like diamonds and pearls on
+a velvet ground. Touched by cunning fingers, animated with creative
+breath, the rustic pipe sang like a silver flute. There were no
+over-shrill notes and the tone was always even and pure. One seemed to
+be listening to the nightingale and the Muses singing together, the soul
+of Nature and the soul of Man. And the old man ordered and developed his
+thoughts in a musical language full of grace and daring. He told of
+love, of fear, of vain quarrels, of all-conquering laughter, of the
+calm light of the intellect, of the arrows of the mind piercing with
+their golden shafts the monsters of Ignorance and Hate. He told also of
+Joy and Sorrow bending their twin heads over the earth and of Desire
+which brings worlds into being.
+
+The whole night listened to the flute of Nectaire. Already the evening
+star was rising above the paling horizon.
+
+There they sat; Zita with hands clasped about her knees, Arcade, his
+head leaning on his hand, his lips apart. Motionless they listened. A
+lark, which had awakened hard by in a sandy field, lured by these novel
+sounds, rose swiftly in the air, hovered a few seconds, then dropped at
+one swoop into the musician's orchard. The neighbouring sparrows,
+forsaking the crannies of the mouldering walls, came and sat in a row on
+the window-ledge whence notes came welling forth that gave them more
+delight than oats or grains of barley. A jay, coming for the first time
+out of his wood, folded his sapphire wings on a leafless cherry tree.
+Beside the drain-head, a large black rat, glistening with the greasy
+water of the sewers, sitting on his hind legs, raised his short arms and
+slender fingers in amazement. A field-mouse, that dwelt in the orchard,
+was seated near him. Down from the tiles came the old tom-cat, who
+retained the grey fur, the ringed tail, the powerful loins, the courage,
+and the pride of his ancestors. He pushed against the half-open door
+with his nose and approaching the flute-player with silent tread, sat
+gravely down, pricking his ears that had been torn in many a nocturnal
+combat; the grocer's white cat followed him, sniffing the vibrant air
+and then, arching her back and closing her blue eyes, listened in
+ravishment. Mice, swarming in crowds from under the boards, surrounded
+them, and fearing neither tooth nor claw, sat motionless, their pink
+hands folded voluptuously on their bosoms. Spiders that had strayed far
+from their webs, with waving legs, gathered in a charmed circle on the
+ceiling. A small grey lizard, that had glided on to the doorstep, stayed
+there, fascinated, and, in the loft, the bat might have been seen
+hanging by her nails, head down, now half-awakened from her winter
+sleep, swaying to the rhythm of the marvellous flute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+     WHEREIN WE SEE YOUNG MAURICE BEWAILING THE LOSS OF HIS
+     GUARDIAN ANGEL, EVEN IN HIS MISTRESS'S ARMS, AND WHEREIN WE
+     HEAR THE ABBE PATOUILLE REJECT AS VAIN AND ILLUSORY ALL
+     NOTIONS OF A NEW REBELLION OF THE ANGELS
+
+
+A fortnight had elapsed since the angel's apparition in the flat. For
+the first time Gilberte arrived before Maurice at the rendezvous.
+Maurice was gloomy, Gilberte sulky. So far as they were concerned Nature
+had resumed her drab monotony. They eyed each other languidly, and kept
+glancing towards the angle between the wardrobe with the mirror and the
+window, where recently the pale shade of Arcade had taken shape, and
+where now the blue cretonne of the hangings was the only thing visible.
+Without giving him a name (it was unnecessary) Madame des Aubels asked:
+
+"You have not seen him since?"
+
+Slowly, sadly, Maurice turned his head from right to left, and from left
+to right.
+
+"You look as if you missed him," continued Madame des Aubels. "But come,
+confess that he gave you a terrible fright, and that you were shocked at
+his unconventionally."
+
+"Certainly he was unconventional," said Maurice without any resentment.
+
+"Tell me, Maurice, is it nothing to you now to be with me alone?... You
+need an angel to inspire you. That is sad, for a young man like you!"
+
+Maurice appeared not to hear, and asked gravely:
+
+"Gilberte, do you feel that your guardian angel is watching over you?"
+
+"I, not at all. I have never thought of him, and yet I am not without
+religion. In the first place, people who have none are like animals. And
+then one cannot go straight without religion. It is impossible."
+
+"Exactly, that's just it," said Maurice, his eyes on the violet stripes
+of his flowerless pyjamas; "when one has one's guardian angel one does
+not even think about him, and when one has lost him one feels very
+lonely."
+
+"So you miss this...."
+
+"Well, the fact is...."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, you miss him. Well, my dear, the loss of such a guardian
+angel as that is no great matter. No, no! he is not worth much, that
+Arcade of yours. On that famous day, while you were out getting him some
+clothes, he was ever so long fastening my dress, and I certainly felt
+his hand.... Well, at any rate, don't trust him."
+
+Maurice dreamily lit a cigarette. They spoke of the six days' bicycle
+race at the winter velodrome, and of the aviation show at the motor
+exhibition at Brussels, without experiencing the slightest amusement.
+Then they tried love-making as a sort of convenient pastime, and
+succeeded in becoming moderately absorbed in it; but at the very moment
+when she might have been expected to play a part more in accordance with
+a mutual sentiment, she exclaimed with a sudden start:
+
+"Good Heavens! Maurice, how stupid of you to tell me that my guardian
+angel can see me. You cannot imagine how uncomfortable the idea makes
+me."
+
+Maurice, somewhat taken aback, recalled, a little roughly, his
+mistress's wandering thoughts.
+
+She declared that her principles forbade her to think of playing a round
+game with angels.
+
+Maurice was longing to see Arcade again and had no other thought. He
+reproached himself for suffering him to depart without discovering where
+he was going, and he cudgelled his brains night and day thinking how to
+find him again.
+
+On the bare chance, he put a notice in the personal column of one of the
+big papers, running thus:
+
+"Arcade. Come back to your Maurice."
+
+Day after day went by, and Arcade did not return.
+
+One morning, at seven o'clock, Maurice went to St. Sulpice to hear Abbe
+Patouille say Mass, then, as the priest was leaving the sacristy, he
+went up to him and asked to be heard for a moment.
+
+They descended the steps of the church together and in the bright
+morning light walked round the fountain of the _Quatre Eveques_. In
+spite of his troubled conscience and the difficulty of presenting so
+extraordinary a case with any degree of credibility, Maurice related how
+the angel Arcade had appeared to him and had announced his unhappy
+resolve to separate from him and to stir up a new revolt of the spirits
+of glory. And young d'Esparvieu asked the worthy ecclesiastic how to
+find his celestial guardian again, since he could not bear his absence,
+and how to lead his angel back to the Christian faith. Abbe Patouille
+replied in a tone of affectionate sorrow that his dear child had been
+dreaming, that he took a morbid hallucination for reality, and that it
+was not permissible to believe that good angels may revolt.
+
+"People have a notion," he added, "that they can lead a life of
+dissipation and disorder with impunity. They are wrong. The abuse of
+pleasure corrupts the intelligence and impairs the understanding. The
+devil takes possession of the sinner's senses, penetrating even to his
+soul. He has deceived you, Maurice, by a clumsy artifice."
+
+Maurice objected that he was not in any way a victim of hallucinations,
+that he had not been dreaming, that he had seen his guardian angel with
+his eyes and heard him with his ears.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe," he insisted, "a lady who happened to be with me at
+the time,--I need not mention her name,--also saw and heard him. And,
+moreover, she felt the angel's fingers straying ... well, anyhow, she
+felt them.... Believe me, Monsieur l'Abbe, nothing could be more real,
+more positively certain than this apparition. The angel was fair, young,
+very handsome. His clear skin seemed, in the shadow, as if bathed in
+milky light. He spoke in a pure, sweet voice."
+
+"That, alone, my child," the Abbe interrupted quickly, "proves you were
+dreaming. According to all the demonologies, bad angels have a hoarse
+voice, which grates like a rusty lock, and even if they did contrive to
+give a certain look of beauty to their faces, they cannot succeed in
+imitating the pure voice of the good spirits. This fact, attested by
+numerous witnesses, is established beyond all doubt."
+
+"But, Monsieur l'Abbe, I saw him. I saw him sit down, stark naked, in an
+arm-chair on a pair of black stockings. What else do you want me to tell
+you?"
+
+The Abbe Patouille appeared in no way disturbed by this announcement.
+
+"I say once more, my son," he replied, "that these unhappy illusions,
+these dreams of a deeply troubled soul, are to be ascribed to the
+deplorable state of your conscience. I believe, moreover, that I can
+detect the particular circumstance that has caused your unstable mind
+thus to come to grief. During the winter in company with Monsieur
+Sariette and your Uncle Gaetan, you came, in an evil frame of mind, to
+see the Chapel of the Holy Angels in this church, then undergoing
+repair. As I observed on that occasion, it is impossible to keep artists
+too closely to the rules of Christian art; they cannot be too strongly
+enjoined to respect Holy Writ and its authorized interpreters. Monsieur
+Eugene Delacroix did not suffer his fiery genius to be controlled by
+tradition. He brooked no guidance and, here, in this chapel he has
+painted pictures which in common parlance we call lurid, compositions of
+a violent, terrible nature which, far from inspiring the soul with
+peace, quietude, and calm, plunge it into a state of agitation. In them
+the angels are depicted with wrathful countenances, their features are
+sombre and uncouth. One might take them to be Lucifer and his companions
+meditating their revolt. Well, my son, it was these pictures, acting
+upon a mind already weakened and undermined by every kind of
+dissipation, that have filled it with the trouble to which it is at
+present a prey."
+
+But Maurice would have none of it.
+
+"Oh, no! Monsieur l'Abbe," he cried, "it is not Eugene Delacroix's
+pictures that have been troubling me. I didn't so much as look at them.
+I am completely indifferent to that kind of art."
+
+"Well, then, my son, believe me: there is no truth, no reality, in any
+of the story you have just related to me. Your guardian angel has
+certainly not appeared to you."
+
+"But, Abbe," replied Maurice, who had the most absolute confidence in
+the evidence of the senses, "I saw him tying up a woman's shoe-laces and
+putting on the trousers of a suicide."
+
+And stamping his feet on the asphalt, Maurice called as witnesses to the
+truth of his words the sky, the earth, all nature, the towers of St.
+Sulpice, the walls of the great seminary, the Fountain of the _Quatre
+Eveques_, the public lavatory, the cabmen's shelter, the taxis and motor
+'buses' shelter, the trees, the passers-by, the dogs, the sparrows, the
+flower-seller and her flowers.
+
+The Abbe made haste to end the interview.
+
+"All this is error, falsehood, and illusion, my child," said he. "You
+are a Christian: think as a Christian,--a Christian does not allow
+himself to be seduced by empty shadows. Faith protects him against the
+seduction of the marvellous, he leaves credulity to freethinkers. There
+are credulous people for you--freethinkers! There is no humbug they will
+not swallow. But the Christian carries a weapon which dissipates
+diabolical illusions,--the sign of the Cross. Reassure yourself,
+Maurice,--you have not lost your guardian angel. He still watches over
+you. It lies with you not to make this task too difficult nor too
+painful for him. Good-bye, Maurice. The weather is going to change, for
+I feel a burning in my big toe."
+
+And Abbe Patouille went off with his breviary under his arm, hobbling
+along with a dignity that seemed to foretell a mitre.
+
+That very day, Arcade and Zita were leaning over the parapet of La
+Butte, gazing down on the mist and smoke that lay floating over the vast
+city.
+
+"Is it possible," said Arcade, "for the mind to conceive all the pain
+and suffering that lie pent within a great city? It is my belief that if
+a man succeeded in realising it, the weight of it would crush him to the
+earth."
+
+"And yet," answered Zita, "every living being in that place of torment
+is enamoured of life. It is a great enigma!
+
+"Unhappy, ill-fated, while they live, the idea of ceasing to be is,
+nevertheless, a horror to them. They look not for solace in
+annihilation, it does not even bring them the promise of rest. In their
+madness they even look upon nothingness with terror: they have peopled
+it with phantoms. Look you at these pediments, these towers and domes
+and spires that pierce the mist and rear on high their glittering
+crosses. Men bow in adoration before the demiurge who has given them a
+life that is worse than death, and a death that is worse than life."
+
+Zita was for a long time lost in thought. At length she broke silence,
+saying:
+
+"There is something, Arcade, that I must confess to you. It was no
+desire for a purer justice or wiser laws that hurried Ithuriel
+earthward. Ambition, a taste for intrigue, the love of wealth and
+honour, all these things made Heaven, with its calm, unbearable to me,
+and I longed to mingle with the restless race of men. I came, and by an
+art unknown to nearly all the angels, I learned how to fashion myself a
+body which, since I could change it as the fancy seized me, to
+whatsoever age and sex I would, has permitted me to experience the most
+diverse and amazing of human destinies. A hundred times I took a
+position of renown among the leaders of the day, the lords of wealth and
+princes of nations. I will not reveal to you, Arcade, the famous names I
+bore; know only that I was pre-eminent in learning, in the fine arts, in
+power, wealth, and beauty, among all the nations of the world. At last,
+it was but a few years since, as I was journeying in France, under the
+outward semblance of a distinguished foreigner, I chanced to be roaming
+at evening through the forest of Montmorency, when I heard a flute
+unfolding all the sorrows of Heaven. The purity and sadness of its
+notes rent my very soul. Never before had I hearkened to aught so
+lovely. My eyes were wet with tears, my bosom full of sobs, as I drew
+near and beheld, on the skirts of a glade, an old man like to a faun,
+blowing on a rustic pipe. It was Nectaire. I cast myself at his feet,
+imprinted kisses on his hands and on his lips divine, and fled away....
+
+"From that day forth, conscious of the littleness of human achievements,
+weary of the tumult and the vanity of earthly things, ashamed of my vast
+and profitless endeavours, and deciding to seek out a loftier aim for my
+ambition, I looked upwards towards my skiey home and vowed I would
+return to it as a Deliverer. I rid myself of titles, name, wealth,
+friends, the horde of sycophants and flatterers and, as Zita the
+obscure, set to work in indigence and solitude, to bring freedom into
+Heaven."
+
+"And I," said Arcade, "I too have heard the flute of Nectaire. But who
+is this old gardener who can thus woo from a rude wooden pipe notes that
+are so moving and so beautiful?"
+
+"You will soon know," answered Zita.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+     WHEREIN MIRA THE SEERESS, ZEPHYRINE, AND THE FATAL AMEDEE
+     ARE SUCCESSIVELY BROUGHT UPON THE SCENE, AND WHEREIN THE
+     NOTION OF EURIPIDES THAT THOSE WHOM ZEUS WISHES TO CRUSH HE
+     FIRST MAKES MAD, IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF
+     MONSIEUR SARIETTE
+
+
+Disappointed at his failure to enlighten an ecclesiastic renowned for
+his clarity of mind, and frustrated in the hope of finding his angel
+again on the high road of orthodoxy, Maurice took it into his head to
+resort to occultism and resolved to go and consult a seer. He would have
+undoubtedly applied to Madame de Thebes, but he had already questioned
+her on the occasion of his early love troubles, and her replies showed
+such wisdom that he no longer believed her to be a soothsayer. He
+therefore had recourse to a fashionable medium, Madame Mira. He had
+heard many examples quoted of the extraordinary insight of this seeress,
+but it was necessary to present Madame Mira with some object which the
+absent one had either touched or worn and to which her translucent gaze
+had to be attracted. Maurice, trying to remember what the angel had
+touched since his ill-fated incarnation, recollected that in his
+celestial nudity he had sat down in an arm-chair on Madame des Aubels'
+black stockings and that he had afterwards helped that lady to dress.
+
+Maurice asked Gilberte for one of the talismans required by the
+clairvoyante. But Gilberte could not give him a single one, unless, as
+she said, she herself were to play the part of the talisman. For the
+angel had, in her case, displayed the greatest indiscretion, and such
+agility that it was impossible always to forestall his enterprise. On
+hearing this confession, which nevertheless told him nothing new,
+Maurice lost his temper with the angel, calling him by the names of the
+lowest animals and swearing he would give him a good kick when he got
+him within reach of his foot. But his fury soon turned against Madame
+des Aubels; he accused her of having provoked the insolence she now
+denounced, and in his wrath he referred to her by all the zoological
+symbols of immodesty and perversity. His love for Arcade was rekindled
+in his heart, and burned with a more ardent flame than ever, and the
+deserted youth, with outstretched arms and bended knees, invoked his
+angel with sobs and lamentations.
+
+During his sleepless nights it occurred to him that perhaps the books
+the angel had turned over before his incarnation might serve as a
+talisman. One morning, therefore, Maurice went up to the library and
+greeted Monsieur Sariette, who was cataloguing under the romantic gaze
+of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Monsieur Sariette smiled, but his face was
+deathly pale. Now that an invisible hand no longer upset the books
+placed under his charge, now that tranquillity and order once more
+reigned in the library, Monsieur Sariette was happy, but his strength
+diminished day by day. There was little left of him but a frail and
+contented shadow.
+
+      "One dies, in full content, of sorrow past."
+
+"Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice, "you remember that time when your
+books were disarranged every night, how armfuls disappeared, how they
+were dragged about, turned over, ruined, and sent rolling helter-skelter
+as far as the gutter in the Rue Palatine. Those were great days! Point
+out to me, Monsieur Sariette, the books which suffered most."
+
+This proposition threw Monsieur Sariette into a melancholy stupor, and
+Maurice had to repeat his request three times before he could make the
+aged librarian understand. At length he pointed to a very ancient Talmud
+from Jerusalem as having been frequently touched by those unseen hands.
+An apocryphal Gospel of the third century, consisting of twenty papyrus
+sheets, had also quitted its place time after time. Gassendi's
+Correspondence too seemed to have been well thumbed.
+
+"But," added Monsieur Sariette, "the book to which the mysterious
+visitant devoted the most particular attention was undoubtedly a little
+copy of _Lucretius_ adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vendome, Grand
+Prieur de France, with autograph annotations by Voltaire, who, as is
+well known, frequently visited the Temple in his younger days. The
+fearsome reader who caused me such terrible anxiety never grew weary of
+this _Lucretius_ and made it his bedside book, as it were. His taste was
+sound, for it's a gem of a thing. Alas! the monster made a blot of ink
+on page 137 which perhaps the chemists with all the science at their
+disposal will be powerless to erase."
+
+And Monsieur Sariette heaved a profound sigh. He repented having said
+all this when young d'Esparvieu asked him for the loan of the precious
+_Lucretius_. Vainly did the jealous custodian affirm that the book was
+being repaired at the binder's and was not available. Maurice made it
+clear that he wasn't to be taken in like that. He strode resolutely into
+the abode of the philosophers and the globes and seating himself in an
+arm-chair said:
+
+"I am waiting."
+
+Monsieur Sariette suggested his having another edition. There were some
+that, textually, were more correct, and were, therefore, preferable from
+the student's point of view. He offered him Barbou's edition, or
+Coustelier's, or, better still, a French translation. He could have the
+Baron des Coutures' version--which was perhaps a little
+old-fashioned--or La Grange's, or those in the Nisard and Panckouke
+series; or, again, there were two versions of striking elegance, one in
+verse and the other in prose, both from the pen of Monsieur de
+Pongerville of the French Academy.
+
+"I don't need a translation," said Maurice proudly. "Give me the Prior
+de Vendome's copy."
+
+Monsieur Sariette went slowly up to the cupboard in which the jewel in
+question was contained. The keys were rattling in his trembling hand. He
+raised them to the lock and withdrew them again immediately and
+suggested that Maurice should have the common _Lucretius_ published by
+Garnier.
+
+"It's very handy," said he with an engaging smile.
+
+But the silence with which this proposal was received made it clear that
+resistance was useless. He slowly drew forth the volume from its place,
+and having taken the precaution to see that there wasn't a speck of dust
+on the table-cloth, he laid it tremblingly thereon before the
+great-grandson of Alexandre d'Esparvieu.
+
+Maurice began to turn the leaves, and when he got to page 137 he saw the
+stain which had been made with violet ink. It was about the size of a
+pea.
+
+"Ay, that's it," said old Sariette, who had his eye on the _Lucretius_
+the whole time; "that's the trace those invisible monsters left behind
+them."
+
+"What, there were several of them, Monsieur Sariette?" exclaimed
+Maurice.
+
+"I cannot tell. But I don't know whether I have a right to have this
+blot removed since, like the blot Paul Louis Courier made on the
+Florentine manuscript, it constitutes a literary document, so to speak."
+
+Scarcely were the words out of the old fellow's mouth when the front
+door bell rang and there was a confused noise of voices and footsteps in
+the next room. Sariette ran forward at the sound and collided with Pere
+Guinardon's mistress, old Zephyrine, who, with her tousled hair sticking
+up like a nest of vipers, her face aflame, her bosom heaving, her
+abdominal part like an eiderdown quilt puffed out by a terrific gale,
+was choking with grief and rage. And amid sobs and sighs and groans and
+all the innumerable sounds which, on earth, make up the mighty uproar to
+which the emotions of living beings and the tumult of nature give rise,
+she cried:
+
+"He's gone, the monster! He's gone off with her. He's cleared out the
+whole shanty and left me to shift for myself with eighteenpence in my
+purse."
+
+And she proceeded to give a long and incoherent account of how Michel
+Guinardon had abandoned her and gone to live with Octavie, the
+bread-woman's daughter, and she let loose a torrent of abuse against the
+traitor.
+
+"A man whom I've kept going with my own money for fifty years and more.
+For I've had plenty of the needful and known plenty of the upper ten and
+all. I dragged him out of the gutter and now this is what I get for it.
+He's a bright beauty, that friend of yours. The lazy scoundrel. Why, he
+had to be dressed like a child, the drunken contemptible brute. You
+don't know him yet, Monsieur Sariette. He's a forger. He turns out
+Giottos, Giottos, I tell you, and Fra Angelicos and Grecos, as hard as
+he can and sells them to art-dealers--yes, and Fragonards too, and
+Baudouins. He's a debauchee, and doesn't believe in God! That's the
+worst of the lot, Monsieur Sariette, for without the fear of God...."
+
+Long did Zephyrine continue to pour forth vituperations. When at last
+her breath failed her, Monsieur Sariette availed himself of the
+opportunity to exhort her to be calm and bring herself to look on the
+bright side of things. Guinardon would come back. A man doesn't forget
+anyone he's lived and got on well with for fifty years----
+
+These two observations only goaded her to a fresh outburst, and
+Zephyrine swore she would never forget the slight that had been put on
+her; she swore she would never have the monster back with her any more.
+And if he came to ask her to forgive him on his knees, she would let him
+grovel at her feet.
+
+"Don't you understand, Monsieur Sariette, that I despise and hate him,
+that he makes me sick?"
+
+Sixty times she voiced these lofty sentiments; sixty times she vowed she
+would never have Guinardon back with her again, that she couldn't bear
+the sight of him, even in a picture.
+
+Monsieur Sariette made no attempt to oppose a resolve which, after
+protestations such as these, he regarded as unshakable. He did not blame
+Zephyrine in the least. He even supported her. Unfolding to the deserted
+one a purer future, he told her of the frailty of human sentiment,
+exhorted her to display a spirit of renunciation and enjoined her to
+show a pious resignation to the will of God.
+
+"Seeing, in truth, that your friend is so little worthy of affection
+..."
+
+He was not suffered to continue. Zephyrine flew at him, and shaking him
+furiously by the collar of his frock-coat, she yelled, half choking with
+rage: "So little worthy of affection! Michel! Ah! my boy, you find
+another more kind, more gay, more witty, you find another like him,
+always young, yes, always. Not worthy of affection! Anyone can see you
+don't know anything about love, you old duffer."
+
+Taking advantage of the fact that Pere Sariette was thus deeply
+engaged, young d'Esparvieu slipped the little _Lucretius_ into his
+pocket, and strolled deliberately past the crouching librarian, bidding
+him adieu with a little wave of the hand.
+
+Armed with his talisman, he hastened to the Place des Ternes, to
+interview Madame Mira. She received him in a red drawing-room where
+neither owl nor frog nor any of the paraphernalia of ancient magic were
+to be found. Madame Mira, in a prune-coloured dress, her hair powdered,
+though already past her prime, was of very good appearance. She spoke
+with a certain elegance and prided herself on discovering hidden things
+by the help alone of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. She felt the
+morocco binding, feigning to close her eyes, and looking meanwhile
+through the narrow slit between her lids at the Latin title and the coat
+of arms which conveyed nothing to her.
+
+Accustomed to receive as tokens such things as rings, handkerchiefs,
+letters, and locks of hair, she could not conceive to what sort of
+individual this singular book could belong. By habitual and mechanical
+cunning she disguised her real surprise under a feigned surprise.
+
+"Strange!" she murmured, "strange! I do not see quite clearly ... I
+perceive a woman...."
+
+As she let fall this magic word, she glanced furtively to see what sort
+of an effect it had and beheld on her questioner's face an unexpected
+look of disappointment. Perceiving that she was off the track, she
+immediately changed her oracle:
+
+"But she fades away immediately. It is strange, strange! I have a
+confused impression of some vague form, a being that I cannot define,"
+and having assured herself by a hurried glance that, this time, her
+words were going down, she expatiated on the vagueness of the person and
+on the mist that enveloped him.
+
+However, the vision grew clearer to Madame Mira, who was following a
+clue step by step.
+
+"A wide street ... a square with a statue ... a deserted
+street,--stairs. He is there in a bluish room--he is a young man, with
+pale and careworn face. There are things he seems to regret, and which
+he would not do again did they still remain undone."
+
+But the effort at divination had been too great. Fatigue prevented the
+clairvoyante from continuing her transcendental researches. She spent
+her remaining strength in impressively recommending him who consulted
+her to remain in intimate union with God if he wished to regain what he
+had lost and succeed in his attempts.
+
+On leaving Maurice placed a louis on the mantelpiece and went away moved
+and troubled, persuaded that Madame Mira possessed supernatural
+faculties, but unfortunately insufficient ones.
+
+At the bottom of the stairs he remembered he had left the little
+_Lucretius_ on the table of the pythoness, and, thinking that the old
+maniac Sariette would never get over its loss, went up to recover
+possession of it.
+
+On re-entering the paternal abode his gaze lighted upon a shadowy and
+grief-stricken figure. It was old Sariette, who in tones as plaintive as
+the wail of the November wind began to beg for his _Lucretius_. Maurice
+pulled it carelessly out of his great-coat pocket.
+
+"Don't flurry yourself, Monsieur Sariette," said he. "There the thing
+is."
+
+Clasping the jewel to his bosom the old librarian bore it away and laid
+it gently down on the blue table-cloth, thinking all the while where he
+might safely hide his precious treasure, and turning over all sorts of
+schemes in his mind as became a zealous curator. But who among us shall
+boast of his wisdom? The foresight of man is short, and his prudence is
+for ever being baffled. The blows of fate are ineluctable; no man shall
+evade his doom. There is no counsel, no caution that avails against
+destiny. Hapless as we are, the same blind force which regulates the
+courses of atom and of star fashions universal order from our
+vicissitudes. Our ill-fortune is necessary to the harmony of the
+Universe. It was the day for the binder, a day which the revolving
+seasons brought round twice a year, beneath the sign of the Ram and the
+sign of the Scales. That day, ever since morning, Monsieur Sariette had
+been making things ready for the binder. He had laid out on the table as
+many of the newly purchased paper-bound volumes as were deemed worthy of
+a permanent binding or of being put in boards, and also those books
+whose binding was in need of repair, and of all these he had drawn up a
+detailed and accurate list. Punctually at five o'clock, old Amedee, the
+man from Leger-Massieu's, the binder in the Rue de l'Abbaye, presented
+himself at the d'Esparvieu library and, after a double check had been
+carried out by Monsieur Sariette, thrust the books he was to take back
+to his master into a piece of cloth which he fastened into knots at the
+four corners and hoisted on to his shoulder. He then saluted the
+librarian with the following words, "Good night, all!" and went
+downstairs.
+
+Everything went off on this occasion as usual. But Amedee, seeing the
+_Lucretius_ on the table, innocently put it into the bag with the
+others, and took it away without Monsieur Sariette's perceiving it. The
+librarian quitted the home of the Philosophers and Globes in entire
+forgetfulness of the book whose absence had been causing him such
+horrible anxiety all day long. Some people may take a stern view of the
+matter and call this a lapse, a defection of his better nature. But
+would it not be more accurate to say that fate had decided that things
+should come to pass in this manner, and that what is called chance, and
+is in fact but the regular order of nature, had accomplished this
+imperceptible deed which was to have such awful consequences in the
+sight of man? Monsieur Sariette went off to his dinner at the _Quatre
+Eveques_, and read his paper _La Croix_. He was tranquil and serene. It
+was only the next morning when he entered the abode of the Philosophers
+and Globes that he remembered the _Lucretius_. Failing to see it on the
+table he looked for it everywhere, but without success. It never entered
+his head that Amedee might have taken it away by mistake. What he did
+think was that the invisible visitant had returned, and he was mightily
+disturbed.
+
+The unhappy curator, hearing a noise on the landing, opened the door and
+found it was little Leon, who, with a gold-braided _kepi_ stuck on his
+head, was shouting "Vive la France" and hurling dusters and
+feather-brooms and Hippolyte's floor polish at imaginary foes. The child
+preferred this landing for playing soldiers to any other part of the
+house, and sometimes he would stray into the library. Monsieur Sariette
+was seized with the sudden suspicion that it was he who had taken the
+_Lucretius_ to use as a missile and he ordered him, in threatening
+tones, to give it back. The child denied that he had taken it, and
+Monsieur Sariette had recourse to cajolery.
+
+"Leon, if you bring me back the little red book, I will give you some
+chocolates."
+
+The child grew thoughtful; and in the evening, as Monsieur Sariette was
+going downstairs, he met Leon, who said:
+
+"There's the book!"
+
+And, holding out a much-torn picture-book called _The Story of
+Gribouille_, demanded his chocolates.
+
+A few days later the post brought Maurice the prospectus of an enquiry
+agency managed by an ex-employee at the Prefecture of Police; it
+promised celerity and discretion. He found at the address indicated a
+moustached gentleman morose and careworn, who demanded a deposit and
+promised to find the individual.
+
+The ex-police official soon wrote to inform him that very onerous
+investigations had been commenced and asked for fresh funds. Maurice
+gave him no more and resolved to carry on the search himself. Imagining,
+not without some likelihood, that the angel would associate with the
+wretched, seeing that he had no money, and with the exiled of all
+nations--like himself, revolutionaries--he visited the lodging-houses at
+St. Ouen, at la Chapelle, Montmartre, and the Barriere d'Italie. He
+sought him in the doss-houses, public-houses where they give you plates
+of tripe, and others where you can get a sausage for three sous; he
+searched for him in the cellars at the Market and at Pere Momie's.
+
+Maurice visited the restaurants where nihilists and anarchists take
+their meals. There he came across men dressed as women, gloomy and
+wild-looking youths, and blue-eyed octogenarians who laughed like little
+children. He observed, asked questions, was taken for a spy, had a knife
+thrust into him by a very beautiful woman, and the very next day
+continued his search in beer-houses, lodging-houses, houses of ill-fame,
+gambling-hells down by the fortifications, at the receivers of stolen
+goods, and among the "apaches."
+
+Seeing him thus pale, harassed, and silent, his mother grew worried.
+
+"We must find him a wife," she said. "It is a pity that Mademoiselle de
+la Verdeliere has not a bigger fortune."
+
+Abbe Patouille did not hide his anxiety.
+
+"This child," he said, "is passing through a moral crisis."
+
+"I am more inclined to think," replied Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, "that
+he is under the influence of some bad woman. We must find him an
+occupation which will absorb him and flatter his vanity. I might get him
+appointed Secretary to the Committee for the Preservation of Country
+Churches, or Consulting Counsel to the Syndicate of Catholic Plumbers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+     WHEREIN WE LEARN THAT SOPHAR, NO LESS EAGER FOR GOLD THAN
+     MAMMON, LOOKED UPON HIS HEAVENLY HOME LESS FAVOURABLY THAN
+     UPON FRANCE, A COUNTRY BLESSED WITH A SAVINGS BANK AND LOAN
+     DEPARTMENTS, AND WHEREIN WE SEE, YET ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHOSO
+     IS POSSESSED OF THIS WORLD'S GOODS FEARS THE EVIL EFFECTS OF
+     ANY CHANGE
+
+
+Meanwhile Arcade led a life of obscure toil. He worked at a printer's in
+the Rue St. Benoit, and lived in an attic in the Rue Mouffetard. His
+comrades having gone on strike, he left the workroom and devoted his day
+to his propaganda. So successful was he that he won over to the side of
+revolt fifty thousand of those guardian angels who, as Zita had
+surmised, were discontented with their condition and imbued with the
+spirit of the times. But lacking money, he lacked liberty, and could not
+employ his time as he wished in instructing the sons of Heaven. So, too,
+Prince Istar, hampered by want of funds, manufactured fewer bombs than
+were needed, and these less fine. Of course he prepared a good many
+small pocket machines. He had filled Theophile's rooms with them, and
+not a day passed but he forgot some and left them lying about on the
+seats in various cafes. But a nice bomb, easily handled and capable of
+destroying many big mansions, cost him from twenty to twenty-five
+thousand francs; and Prince Istar only possessed two of this kind.
+Equally bent on procuring funds, Arcade and Istar both went to make a
+request for money from a celebrated financier named Max Everdingen, who,
+as everyone knows, is the managing director of the biggest banking
+concern in France and indeed in the whole world. What is not so well
+known is that Max Everdingen was not born of woman, but is a fallen
+angel. Nevertheless, such is the truth. In Heaven he was named Sophar,
+and guarded the treasures of Ialdabaoth, a great collector of gold and
+precious stones. In the exercise of this function Sophar contracted a
+love of riches which could not be satisfied in a state of society in
+which banks and stock exchanges are alike unknown. His heart flamed with
+an ardent love for the god of the Hebrews to whom he remained faithful
+during a long course of centuries. But at the commencement of the
+twentieth century of the Christian era, casting his eyes down from the
+height of the firmament upon France, he saw that this country, under the
+name of a Republic, was constituted as a plutocracy and that, under the
+appearance of a democratic government, high finance exercised sovereign
+sway, untrammelled and unchecked.
+
+Henceforth life in the Empyrean became intolerable to him. He longed for
+France as for the promised land, and one day, bearing with him all the
+precious stones he could carry, he descended to earth and established
+himself in Paris. This angel of cupidity did good business there. Since
+his materialisation his face had lost its celestial aspect; it
+reproduced the Semitic type in all its purity, and one could admire the
+lines and the puckers which wrinkle the faces of bankers and which are
+to be seen in the money-changers of Quintin Matsys.
+
+His beginnings were humble and his success amazing. He married an ugly
+woman and they saw themselves reflected in their children as in a
+mirror. Baron Max Everdingen's large mansion, which rears itself on the
+heights of the Trocadero, is crammed with the spoils of Christian
+Europe.
+
+The Baron received Arcade and Prince Istar in his study,--one of the
+most modest rooms in his mansion. The ceiling is decorated with a fresco
+of Tiepolo, taken from a Venetian palace. The bureau of the Regent,
+Philip of Orleans, is in this room, which is full of cabinets,
+show-cases, pictures, and statues.
+
+Arcade allowed his gaze to wander over the walls.
+
+"How comes it, my brother Sophar," said he, "that you, in spite of your
+Jewish heart, obey so ill the commandment of the Lord your God who said:
+'Thou shalt have no graven images'? for here I see an Apollo of Houdon's
+and a Hebe of Lemoine's, and several busts by Caffieri. And, like
+Solomon in his old age, O son of God, you set up in your dwelling-place
+the idols of strange nations: for such are this Venus of Boucher, this
+Jupiter of Rubens, and those nymphs that are indebted to Fragonard's
+brush for the gooseberry jam which smears their gleaming limbs. And here
+in this single show-case, Sophar, you keep the sceptre of St. Louis, six
+hundred pearls of Marie Antoinette's broken necklace, the imperial
+mantle of Charles V, the tiara wrought by Ghiberti for Pope Martin V,
+the Colonna, Bonaparte's sword--and I know not what besides."
+
+"Mere trifles," said Max Everdingen.
+
+"My dear Baron," said Prince Istar, "you even possess the ring which
+Charlemagne placed on a fairy's finger and which was thought to be lost.
+But let us discuss the business on which we have come. My friend and I
+have come to ask you for money."
+
+"I can well believe it," replied Max Everdingen. "Everyone wants money,
+but for different reasons. What do you want money for?"
+
+Prince Istar replied simply:
+
+"To stir up a revolution in France."
+
+"In France!" repeated the Baron, "in France? Well, I shall give you no
+money for that, you may be quite sure."
+
+Arcade did not disguise the fact that he had expected greater liberality
+and more generous help from a celestial brother.
+
+"Our project," he said, "is a vast one. It embraces both Heaven and
+Earth. It is settled in every detail. We shall first bring about a
+social revolution in France, in Europe, on the whole planet; then we
+shall carry war into the heavens, where we shall establish a peaceful
+democracy. And to reduce the citadels of Heaven, to overturn the
+mountain of God, to storm celestial Jerusalem, a vast army is needful,
+enormous resources, formidable machines, and electrophores of a strength
+yet unknown. It is our intention to commence with France."
+
+"You are madmen!" exclaimed Baron Everdingen; "madmen and fools! Listen
+to me. There is not one single reform to carry out in France. All is
+perfect, finally settled, unchangeable. You hear?--unchangeable." And to
+add force to his statement, Baron Everdingen banged his fist three times
+on the Regent's bureau.
+
+"Our points of view differ," said Arcade sweetly. "_I_ think, as does
+Prince Istar, that everything should be changed in this country. But
+what boots it to dispute the matter? Moreover, it is too late. We have
+come to speak to you, O my brother Sophar, in the name of five hundred
+thousand celestial spirits, all resolved to commence the universal
+revolution to-morrow."
+
+Baron Everdingen exclaimed that they were crazy, that he would not give
+a _sou_, that it was both criminal and mad to attack the most admirable
+thing in the world, the thing which renders earth more beautiful than
+heaven--Finance. He was a poet and a prophet. His heart thrilled with
+holy enthusiasm; he drew attention to the French Savings Bank, the
+virtuous Savings Bank, that chaste and pure Savings Bank like unto the
+Virgin of the Canticle who, issuing from the depths of the country in
+rustic petticoat, bears to the robust and splendid Bank--her bridegroom,
+who awaits her--the treasures of her love; and drew a picture of the
+Bank, enriched with the gifts of its spouse, pouring on all the nations
+of the world torrents of gold, which, of themselves, by a thousand
+invisible channels return in still greater abundance to the blessed land
+from which they sprung.
+
+"By Deposit and Loan," he went on, "France has become the New Jerusalem,
+shedding her glory over all the nations of Europe, and the Kings of the
+Earth come to kiss her rosy feet. And that is what you would fain
+destroy? You are both impious and sacrilegious."
+
+Thus spoke the angel of finance. An invisible harp accompanied his
+voice, and his eyes darted lightning.
+
+Meanwhile Arcade, leaning carelessly against the Regent's bureau, spread
+out under the Banker's eyes various ground-plans, underground-plans, and
+sky-plans of Paris with red crosses indicating the points where bombs
+should be simultaneously placed in cellars and catacombs, thrown on
+public ways, and flung by a flotilla of aeroplanes. All the financial
+establishments, and notably the Everdingen Bank and its branches, were
+marked with red crosses.
+
+The financier shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Nonsense! you are but wretches and vagabonds, shadowed by all the
+police of the world. You are penniless. How can you manufacture all the
+machines?"
+
+By way of reply, Prince Istar drew from his pocket a small copper
+cylinder, which he gracefully presented to Baron Everdingen.
+
+"You see," said he, "this ordinary-looking box. It is only necessary to
+let it fall on the ground immediately to reduce this mansion with its
+inmates to a mass of smoking ashes, and to set a fire going which would
+devour all the Trocadero quarter. I have ten thousand like that, and I
+make three dozen a day."
+
+The financier asked the Cherub to replace the machine in his pocket, and
+continued in a conciliatory tone:
+
+"Listen to me, my friends. Go and start a revolution at once in Heaven,
+and leave things alone in this country. I will sign a cheque for you.
+You can procure all the material you need to attack celestial
+Jerusalem."
+
+And Baron Everdingen was already working up in his imagination a
+magnificent deal in electrophores and war-material.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+     WHEREIN IS BEGUN THE GARDENER'S STORY, IN THE COURSE OF
+     WHICH WE SHALL SEE THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD UNFOLDED IN A
+     DISCOURSE AS BROAD AND MAGNIFICENT IN ITS VIEWS AS BOSSUET'S
+     DISCOURSE ON THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IS NARROW AND
+     DISMAL
+
+
+The gardener bade Arcade and Zita sit down in an arbour walled with wild
+bryony, at the far end of the orchard.
+
+"Arcade," said the beautiful Archangel, "Nectaire will perhaps reveal to
+you to-day the things you are burning to know. Ask him to speak."
+
+Arcade did so and old Nectaire, laying down his pipe, began as
+follows:--
+
+"I knew him. He was the most beautiful of all the Seraphim. He shone
+with intelligence and daring. His great heart was big with all the
+virtues born of pride: frankness, courage, constancy in trial,
+indomitable hope. Long, long ago, ere Time was, in the boreal sky where
+gleam the seven magnetic stars, he dwelt in a palace of diamond and
+gold, where the air was ever tremulous with the beating of wings and
+with songs of triumph. Iahveh, on his mountain, was jealous of Lucifer.
+You both know it: angels like unto men feel love and hatred quicken
+within them. Capable, at times, of generous resolves, they too often
+follow their own interests and yield to fear. Then, as now, they showed
+themselves, for the most part, incapable of lofty thoughts, and in the
+fear of the Lord lay their sole virtue. Lucifer, who held vile things in
+proud disdain, despised this rabble of commonplace spirits for ever
+wallowing in a life of feasts and pleasure. But to those who were
+possessed of a daring spirit, a restless soul, to those fired with a
+wild love of liberty, he proffered friendship, which was returned with
+adoration. These latter deserted in a mass the mountain of God and
+yielded to the Seraph the homage which That Other would fain have kept
+for himself alone.
+
+"I ranked among the Dominations, and my name, Alaciel, was not unknown
+to fame. To satisfy my mind--that was ever tormented with an insatiable
+thirst for knowledge and understanding--I observed the nature of things,
+I studied the properties of minerals, air, and water. I sought out the
+laws which govern nature, solid or ethereal, and after much pondering I
+perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator
+would have us believe; I knew that all that exists, exists of itself
+and not by the caprice of Iahveh; that the world is itself its own
+creator and the spirit its own God. Henceforth I despised Iahveh for his
+imposture, and I hated him because he showed himself to be opposed to
+all that I found desirable and good: liberty, curiosity, doubt. These
+feelings drew me towards the Seraph. I admired him, I loved him. I dwelt
+in his light. When at length it appeared that a choice had to be made
+between him and That Other I ranged myself on the side of Lucifer and
+knew no other aim than to serve him, no other desire than to share his
+lot.
+
+"War having become inevitable, he prepared for it with indefatigable
+vigilance and all the resourcefulness of a far-seeing mind. Making the
+Thrones and Dominations into Chalybes and Cyclopes, he drew forth iron
+from the mountains bordering his domain; iron, which he valued more than
+gold, and forged weapons in the caverns of Heaven. Then in the desert
+plain of the North he assembled myriads of Spirits, armed them, taught
+them, and drilled them. Although prepared in secret, the enterprise was
+too vast for his adversary not to be soon aware of it. It might in truth
+be said that he had always foreseen and dreaded it, for he had made a
+citadel of his abode and a warlike host of his angels, and he gave
+himself the name of the God of Hosts. He made ready his thunderbolts.
+More than half of the children of Heaven remained faithful to him;
+thronging round him he beheld obedient souls and patient hearts. The
+Archangel Michael, who knew not fear, took command of these docile
+troops. Lucifer, as soon as he saw that his army could gain no more in
+numbers or in warlike skill, moved it swiftly against the foe, and
+promising his angels riches and glory marched at their head towards the
+mountain upon whose summit stands the Throne of the Universe. For three
+days our host swept onward over the ethereal plains. Above our heads
+streamed the black standards of revolt. And now, behold, the Mountain of
+God shone rosy in the orient sky and our chief scanned with his eyes the
+glittering ramparts. Beneath the sapphire walls the foe was drawn up in
+battle array, and, while we marched clad in our iron and bronze, they
+shone resplendent in gold and precious stones.
+
+"Their gonfalons of red and blue floated in the breeze, and lightning
+flashed from the points of their lances. In a little while the armies
+were only sundered one from the other by a narrow strip of level and
+deserted ground, and at this sight even the bravest shuddered as they
+thought that there in bloody conflict their fate would soon be sealed.
+
+"Angels, as you know, never die. But when bronze and iron, diamond point
+or flaming sword tear their ethereal substance, the pain they feel is
+more acute than men may suffer, for their flesh is more exquisitely
+delicate; and should some essential organ be destroyed, they fall inert
+and, slowly decomposing, are resolved into clouds and during long aeons
+float insensible in the cold ether. And when at length they resume
+spirit and form they fail to recover full memory of their past life.
+Therefore it is but natural that angels shrink from suffering, and the
+bravest among them is troubled at the thought of being reft of light and
+sweet remembrance. Were it otherwise the angelic race would know neither
+the delight of battle nor the glory of sacrifice. Those who, before the
+beginning of Time, fought in the Empyrean for or against the God of
+Armies, would have taken part without honour in mock battles, and it
+would not now become me to say to you, my children, with rightful pride:
+
+"'Lo, I was there!'
+
+"Lucifer gave the signal for the onset and led the assault. We fell upon
+the enemy, thinking to destroy him then and there and carry the sacred
+citadel at the first onslaught. The soldiers of the jealous God, less
+fiery, but no whit less firm than ours, remained immovable. The
+Archangel Michael commanded them with the calmness and resolution of a
+mighty spirit. Thrice we strove to break through their lines, thrice
+they opposed to our ironclad breast the flaming points of their lances,
+swift to pierce the stoutest cuirass. In millions the glorious bodies
+fell. At length our right wing pierced the enemy's left and we beheld
+the Principalities, the Powers, the Virtues, the Dominations, and the
+Thrones turn and flee in full career; while the Angels of the Third
+Choir, flying distractedly above them, covered them with a snow of
+feathers mingled with a rain of blood. We sped in pursuit of them amid
+the debris of chariots and broken weapons, and we spurred their nimble
+flight. Suddenly a storm of cries amazed us. It grew louder and nearer.
+With desperate shrieks and triumphal clamour the right wing of the
+enemy, the giant archangels of the Most High, had flung themselves upon
+our left flank and broken it. Thus we were forced to abandon the pursuit
+of the fugitives and hasten to the rescue of our own shattered troops.
+Our prince flew to rally them, and re-established the conflict. But the
+left wing of the enemy, whose ruin he had not quite consummated, no
+longer pressed by lance or arrow, regained courage, returned, and faced
+us yet again. Night fell upon the dubious field. While under the shelter
+of darkness, in the still, silent air stirred ever and anon by the moans
+of the wounded, his forces were resting from their toils, Lucifer began
+to make ready for the next day's battle. Before dawn the trumpets
+sounded the reveille. Our warriors surprised the enemy at the hour of
+prayer, put them to rout, and long and fierce was the carnage that
+ensued. When all had either fallen or fled, the Archangel Michael, none
+with him save a few companions with four wings of flame, still resisted
+the onslaughts of a countless host. They fell back ceaselessly opposing
+their breasts to us, and Michael still displayed an impassible
+countenance. The sun had run a third of its course when we commenced to
+scale the Mountain of God. An arduous ascent it was: sweat ran from our
+brows, a dazzling light blinded us. Weighed down with steel, our
+feathery wings could not sustain us, but hope gave us wings that bore us
+up. The beautiful Seraph, pointing with glittering hand, mounting ever
+higher and higher, showed us the way. All day long we slowly clomb the
+lofty heights which at evening were robed in azure, rose, and violet.
+The starry host appearing in the sky seemed as the reflection of our own
+arms. Infinite silence reigned above us. We went on, intoxicated with
+hope; all at once from the darkened sky lightning darted forth, the
+thunder muttered, and from the cloudy mountain-top fell fire from
+Heaven. Our helmets, our breast-plates were running with flames, and our
+bucklers broke under bolts sped by invisible hands. Lucifer, in the
+storm of fire, retained his haughty mien. In vain the lightning smote
+him; mightier than ever he stood erect, and still defied the foe. At
+length, the thunder, making the mountain totter, flung us down
+pell-mell, huge fragments of sapphire and ruby crashing down with us as
+we fell, and we rolled inert, swooning, for a period whose duration
+none could measure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I awoke in a darkness filled with lamentations. And when my eyes had
+grown accustomed to the dense shadows I saw round me my companions in
+arms, scattered in thousands on the sulphurous ground, lit by fitful
+gleams of livid light. My eyes perceived but fields of lava, smoking
+craters, and poisonous swamps.
+
+"Mountains of ice and shadowy seas shut in the horizon. A brazen sky
+hung heavy on our brows. And the horror of the place was such that we
+wept as we sat, crouched elbow on knee, our cheeks resting on our
+clenched hands.
+
+"But soon, raising my eyes, I beheld the Seraph standing before me like
+a tower. Over his pristine splendour sorrow had cast its mantle of
+sombre majesty.
+
+"'Comrades,' said he, 'we must be happy and rejoice, for behold we are
+delivered from celestial servitude. Here we are free, and it were better
+to be free in Hell than serve in Heaven. We are not conquered, since the
+will to conquer is still ours. We have caused the Throne of the jealous
+God to totter; by our hands it shall fall. Arise, therefore, and be of
+good heart.'
+
+"Thereupon, at his command, we piled mountain upon mountain and on the
+topmost peak we reared engines which flung molten rocks against the
+divine habitations. The celestial host was taken unaware and from the
+abodes of glory there issued groans and cries of terror. And even then
+we thought to re-enter in triumph on our high estate, but the Mountain
+of God was wreathed with lightnings, and thunderbolts, falling on our
+fortress, crushed it to dust. After this fresh disaster, the Seraph
+remained awhile in meditation, his head buried in his hands. At length
+he raised his darkened visage. Now he was Satan, greater than Lucifer.
+Steadfast and loyal the angels thronged about him.
+
+"'Friends,' he said, 'if victory is denied us now, it is because we are
+neither worthy nor capable of victory. Let us determine wherein we have
+failed. Nature shall not be ruled, the sceptre of the Universe shall not
+be grasped, Godhead shall not be won, save by knowledge alone. We must
+conquer the thunder; to that task we must apply ourselves unwearyingly.
+It is not blind courage (no one this day has shown more courage than
+have you) which will win us the courts of Heaven; but rather study and
+reflection. In these silent realms where we are fallen, let us meditate,
+seeking the hidden causes of things; let us observe the course of
+Nature; let us pursue her with compelling ardour and all-conquering
+desire; let us strive to penetrate her infinite grandeur, her infinite
+minuteness. Let us seek to know when she is barren and when she brings
+forth fruit; how she makes cold and heat, joy and sorrow, life and
+death; how she assembles and disperses her elements, how she produces
+both the light air we breathe and the rocks of diamond and sapphire
+whence we have been precipitated, the divine fire wherewith we have been
+scarred and the soaring thought which stirs our minds. Torn with dire
+wounds, scorched by flame and by ice, let us render thanks to Fate which
+has sedulously opened our eyes, and let us rejoice at our lot. It is
+through pain that, suffering a first experience of Nature, we have been
+roused to know her and to subdue her. When she obeys us we shall be as
+gods. But even though she hide her mysteries for ever from us, deny us
+arms and keep the secret of the thunder, we still must needs
+congratulate ourselves on having known pain, for pain has revealed to us
+new feelings, more precious and more sweet than those experienced in
+eternal bliss, and inspired us with love and pity unknown to Heaven.'
+
+"These words of the Seraph changed our hearts and opened up fresh hope
+to us. Our hearts were filled with a great longing for knowledge and
+love.
+
+"Meanwhile the Earth was coming into being. Its immense and nebulous orb
+took on hourly more shape and more certainty of outline. The waters
+which fed the seaweed, the madrepores and shellfish and bore the light
+flotilla of the nautilus upon their bosom, no longer covered it in its
+entirety; they began to sink into beds, and already continents appeared,
+where, on the warm slime, amphibious monsters crawled. Then the
+mountains were overspread with forests, and divers races of animals
+commenced to feed on the grass, the moss, the berries on the trees, and
+on the acorns. Then there took possession of cavernous shelters under
+the rocks, a being who was cunning to wound with a sharpened stone the
+savage beasts, and by his ruses to overcome the ancient denizens of
+forest, plain, and mountain.
+
+"Man entered painfully on his kingdom. He was defenceless and naked. His
+scanty hair afforded him but little protection from the cold. His hands
+ended in nails too frail to do battle with the claws of wild beasts, but
+the position of his thumb, in opposition to the rest of his fingers,
+allowed him easily to grasp the most diverse objects and endowed him
+with skill in default of strength. Without differing essentially from
+the rest of the animals, he was more capable than any others of
+observing and comparing. As he drew from his throat various sounds, it
+occurred to him to designate by a particular inflexion of the voice
+whatever impinged upon his mind, and by this sequence of different
+sounds he was enabled to fix and communicate his ideas. His miserable
+lot and his painstaking spirit aroused the sympathy of the vanquished
+angels, who discerned in him an audacity equalling their own, and the
+germ of the pride that was at once their glory and their bane. They came
+in large numbers to be near him, to dwell on this young earth whither
+their wings wafted them in effortless flight. And they took pleasure in
+sharpening his talents and fostering his genius. They taught him to
+clothe himself in the skins of wild beasts, to roll stones before the
+mouths of caves to keep out the tigers and bears. They taught him how to
+make the flame burst forth by twirling a stick among the dried leaves
+and to foster the sacred fire upon the hearth. Inspired by the ingenious
+spirits he dared to cross the rivers in the hollowed trunks of cleft
+trees, he invented the wheel, the grinding-mill, and the plough; the
+share tore up the earth and the wound brought forth fruit, and the grain
+offered to him who ground it divine nourishment. He moulded vessels in
+clay, and out of the flint he fashioned various tools.
+
+"In fine, taking up our abode among mankind, we consoled them and taught
+them. We were not always visible to them, but of an evening, at the turn
+of the road, we would appear to them under forms often strange and
+weird, at times dignified and charming, and we adopted at will the
+appearance of a monster of the woods and waters, of a venerable old man,
+of a beautiful child, or of a woman with broad hips. Sometimes we would
+mock them in our songs or test their intelligence by some cunning
+prank. There were certain of us of a rather turbulent humour who loved
+to tease their women and children, but though lowly folk, they were our
+brothers, and we were never loath to come to their aid. Through our care
+their intelligence developed sufficiently to attain to mistaken ideas,
+and to acquire erroneous notions of the relations of cause and effect.
+As they supposed that some magic bond existed between the reality and
+its counterfeit presentment, they covered the walls of their caves with
+figures of animals and carved in ivory images of the reindeer and the
+mammoth in order to secure as prey the creatures they represented.
+Centuries passed by with infinite slowness while their genius was coming
+to birth. We sent them happy thoughts in dreams, inspired them to tame
+the horse, to castrate the bull, to teach the dog to guard the sheep.
+They created the family and the tribe. It came to pass one day that one
+of their wandering tribes was assailed by ferocious hunters. Forthwith
+the young men of the tribe formed an enclosed ring with their chariots,
+and in it they shut their women, children, old people, cattle, and
+treasures, and from the platform of their chariots they hurled murderous
+stones at their assailants. Thus was formed the first city. Born in
+misery and condemned to do murder by the law of Iahveh, man put his
+whole heart into doing battle, and to war he was indebted for his
+noblest virtues. He hallowed with his blood that sacred love of country
+which should (if man fulfils his destiny to the very end) enfold the
+whole earth in peace. One of us, Daedalus, brought him the axe, the
+plumb-line, and the sail. Thus we rendered the existence of mortals less
+hard and difficult. By the shores of the lakes they built dwellings of
+osier, where they might enjoy a meditative quiet unknown to the other
+inhabitants of the earth, and when they had learned to appease their
+hunger without too painful efforts we breathed into their hearts the
+love of beauty.
+
+"They raised up pyramids, obelisks, towers, colossal statues which
+smiled stiff and uncouth, and genetic symbols. Having learnt to know us
+or trying at least to divine what manner of beings we were, they felt
+both friendship and fear for us. The wisest among them watched us with
+sacred awe and pondered our teaching. In their gratitude the people of
+Greece and of Asia consecrated to us stones, trees, shadowy woods;
+offered us victims, and sang us hymns; in fact we became gods in their
+sight, and they called us Horus, Isis, Astarte, Zeus, Cybele, Demeter,
+and Triptolemus. Satan was worshipped under the names of Evan, Dionysus,
+Iacchus, and Lenaeus. He showed in his various manifestations all the
+strength and beauty which it is given to mortals to conceive. His eyes
+had the sweetness of the wood-violet, his lips were brilliant with the
+ruby-red of the pomegranate, a down finer than the velvet of the peach
+covered his cheeks and his chin: his fair hair, wound like a diadem and
+knotted loosely on the crown of his head, was encircled with ivy. He
+charmed the wild beasts, and penetrating into the deep forests drew to
+him all wild spirits, every thing that climbed in trees and peered
+through the branches with wild and timid gaze. On all these creatures
+fierce and fearful, that lived on bitter berries and beneath whose hairy
+breasts a wild heart beat, half-human creatures of the woods--on all he
+bestowed loving-kindness and grace, and they followed him drunk with joy
+and beauty. He planted the vine and showed mortals how to crush the
+grapes underfoot to make the wine flow. Magnificent and benign, he fared
+across the world, a long procession following in his train. To bear him
+company I took the form of a satyr; from my brow sprang two budding
+horns. My nose was flat and my ears were pointed. Glands, like those of
+the goat, hung on my neck, a goat's tail moved with my moving loins, and
+my hairy legs ended in a black cloven hoof which beat the ground in
+cadence.
+
+"Dionysus fared on his triumphal march over the world. In his company I
+passed through Lydia, the Phrygian fields, the scorching plains of
+Persia, Media bristling with hoar-frost, Arabia Felix, and rich Asia
+where flourishing cities were laved by the waves of the sea. He
+proceeded on a car drawn by lions and lynxes, to the sound of flutes,
+cymbals, and drums, invented for his mysteries. Bacchantes, Thyades,
+and Maenads, girt with the dappled fawn-skin, waved the thyrsus encircled
+with ivy. He bore in his train the Satyrs, whose joyous troop I led,
+Sileni, Pans, and Centaurs. Under his feet flowers and fruit sprang to
+life, and striking the rocks with his wand he made limpid streams gush
+forth. In the month of the Vintage he visited Greece, and the villagers
+ran forth to meet him, stained with the green and ruddy juices of the
+plants, they wore masks of wood, or bark, or leaves; in their hands they
+bore earthen cups, and danced wanton dances. Their womenfolk, imitating
+the companions of the God, their heads wreathed with green smilax,
+fastened round their supple loins skins of fawn or goat. The virgins
+twined about their throats garlands of fig leaves, they kneaded cakes of
+flour, and bore the Phallus in the mystic basket. And the vine-dressers,
+all daubed with lees of wine, standing up in their wains and bandying
+mockery or abuse with the passers-by, invented Tragedy.
+
+"Truly, it was not in dreaming beside a fountain, but by dint of
+strenuous toil that Dionysus taught them to grow plants and to make them
+bring forth succulent fruits. And while he pondered the art of
+transforming the rough woodlanders into a race that should love music
+and submit to just laws, more than once over his brow, burning with the
+fire of enthusiasm, did melancholy and gloomy fever pass. But his
+profound knowledge and his friendship for mankind enabled him to triumph
+over every obstacle. O days divine! Beautiful dawn of life! We led the
+Bacchanals on the leafy summits of the mountains and on the yellow
+shores of the seas. The Naiads and the Oreads mingled with us at our
+play. Aphrodite at our coming rose from the foam of the sea to smile
+upon us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+     THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONTINUED
+
+
+"When men had learned to cultivate the earth, to herd cattle, to enclose
+their holy places within walls, and to recognise the gods by their
+beauty, I withdrew to that smiling land girdled with dark woods and
+watered by the Stymphalos, the Olbios, the Erymanthus, and the proud
+Crathis, swollen with the icy waters of the Styx, and there, in a green
+valley at the foot of a hill planted with arbutus, olive, and pine,
+beneath a cluster of white poplars and plane trees, by the side of a
+stream flowing with soft murmur amid tufted mastic trees, I sang to the
+shepherds and the nymphs of the birth of the world, the origin of fire,
+of the tenuous air, of water and of earth. I told them how primeval men
+had lived wretched and naked in the woods, before the ingenious spirits
+had taught them the arts; of God, too, I sang to them, and why they gave
+Dionysus Semele to mother, because his desire to befriend mankind was
+born amid the thunder.
+
+"It was not without effort that this people, more pleasing than all the
+others in the eyes of the gods, these happy Greeks, achieved good
+government and a knowledge of the arts. Their first temple was a hut
+composed of laurel branches; their first image of the gods, a tree;
+their first altar, a rough stone stained with the blood of Iphigenia.
+But in a short time they brought wisdom and beauty to a point that no
+nation had attained before them, that no nation has since approached.
+Whence comes it, Arcade, this solitary marvel on the earth? Wherefore
+did the sacred soil of Ionia and of Attica bring forth this incomparable
+flower? Because nor priesthood, nor dogma, nor revelation ever found a
+place there, because the Greeks never knew the jealous God.
+
+"It was his own grace, his own genius that the Greek enthroned and
+deified as his God, and when he raised his eyes to the heavens it was
+his own image that he saw reflected there. He conceived everything in
+due measure; and to his temples he gave perfect proportion. All therein
+was grace, harmony, symmetry, and wisdom; all were worthy of the
+immortals who dwelt within them and who under names of happy choice, in
+realised shapes, figured forth the genius of man. The columns which bore
+the marble architrave, the frieze and the cornice were touched with
+something human, which made them venerable; and sometimes one might see,
+as at Athens and at Delphi, beautiful young girls strong-limbed and
+radiant upstaying the entablature of treasure house and sanctuary. O
+days of splendour, harmony, and wisdom!
+
+"Dionysus resolved to repair to Italy, whither he was summoned under the
+name of Bacchus by a people eager to celebrate his mysteries. I took
+passage in his ship decked with tendrils of the vine, and landed under
+the eyes of the two brothers of Helen at the mouth of the yellow Tiber.
+Already under the teaching of the god, the inhabitants of Latium had
+learned to wed the vine to the young stripling elm. It was my pleasure
+to dwell at the foot of the Sabine hills in a valley crowned with trees
+and watered with pure springs. I gathered the verbena and the mallow in
+the meadows. The pale olive-trees twisting their perforated trunks on
+the slope of the hill gave me of their unctuous fruit. There I taught a
+race of men with square heads, who had not, like the Greeks, a fertile
+mind, but whose hearts were true, whose souls were patient, and who
+reverenced the gods. My neighbour, a rustic soldier, who for fifteen
+years had bowed under the burden of his haversack, had followed the
+Roman eagle over land and sea, and had seen the enemies of the sovereign
+people flee before him. Now he drove his furrow with his two red oxen,
+starred with white between their spreading horns, while beneath the
+cabin's thatch his spouse, chaste and sedate of mien, pounded garlic in
+a bronze mortar and cooked the beans upon the sacred hearth, And I, his
+friend, seated near by under an oak, used to lighten his labours with
+the sound of my flute, and smile on his little children, when the sun,
+already low in the sky, was lengthening the shadows, and they returned
+from the wood all laden with branches. At the garden gate where the
+pears and pumpkins ripened, and where the lily and the evergreen
+acanthus bloomed, a figure of Priapus carved out of the trunk of a fig
+tree menaced thieves with his formidable emblem, and the reeds swaying
+with the wind over his head scared away the plundering birds. At new
+moon the pious husbandman made offering of a handful of salt and barley
+to his household gods crowned with myrtle and with rosemary.
+
+"I saw his children grow up, and his children's children, who kept in
+their hearts their early piety and did not forget to offer sacrifice to
+Bacchus, to Diana, and to Venus, nor omit to pour fresh wines and
+scatter flowers into the fountains. But slowly they fell away from their
+old habits of patient toil and simplicity.
+
+"I heard them complain when the torrent, swollen with many rains,
+compelled them to construct a dyke to protect the paternal fields, and
+the rough Sabine wine grew unpleasing to their delicate palate. They
+went to drink the wines of Greece at the neighbouring tavern; and the
+hours slipped unheeded by, while within the arbour shade they watched
+the dance of the flute player, practised at swaying her supple limbs to
+the sound of the castanets.
+
+"Lulled by murmuring leaves and whispering streams, the tillers of the
+soil took sweet repose, but between the poplars we saw along borders of
+the sacred way vast tombs, statues, and altars arise, and the rolling of
+the chariot wheels grew more frequent over the worn stones. A cherry
+sapling brought home by a veteran told us of the far-distant conquests
+of a Consul, and odes sung to the lyre related the victories of Rome,
+mistress of the world.
+
+"All the countries where the great Dionysus had journeyed, changing wild
+beasts into men, and making the fruit and grain bloom and ripen beneath
+the passing of his Maenads, now breathed the Pax Romana. The nursling of
+the she-wolf, soldier and labourer, friend of conquered nations, laid
+out roads from the margin of the misty sea to the rocky slopes of the
+Caucasus; in every town rose the temple of Augustus and of Rome, and
+such was the universal faith in Latin justice that in the gorges of
+Thessaly or on the wooded borders of the Rhine, the slave, ready to
+succumb under his iniquitous burden, called aloud on the name of Caesar.
+
+"But why must it be that on this ill-starred globe of land and water,
+all should perish and die and the fairest things be ever the most
+fleeting? O adorable daughters of Greece! O Science! O Wisdom! O
+Beauty! kindly divinities, you were wrapt in heavy slumber ere you
+submitted to the outrages of the barbarians, who already in the marshy
+wastes of the North and on the lonely steppes, ready to assail you,
+bestrode bare-backed their little shaggy horses.
+
+"While, dear Arcade, the patient legionary camped by the borders of the
+Phasis and the Tanais, the women and the priests of Asia and of
+monstrous Africa invaded the Eternal City and troubled the sons of Remus
+with their magic spells. Until now, Iahveh, the persecutor of the
+laborious demons, was unknown to the world that he pretended to have
+created, save to certain miserable Syrian tribes, ferocious like
+himself, and perpetually dragged from servitude to servitude. Profiting
+by the Roman peace which assured free travel and traffic everywhere, and
+favoured the exchange of ideas and merchandise, this old God insolently
+made ready to conquer the Universe. He was not the only one, for the
+matter of that, to attempt such an undertaking. At the same time a crowd
+of gods, demiurges, and demons, such as Mithra, Thammuz, the good Isis,
+and Eubulus, meditated taking possession of the peace-enfolded world. Of
+all the spirits, Iahveh appeared the least prepared for victory. His
+ignorance, his cruelty, his ostentation, his Asiatic luxury, his disdain
+of laws, his affectation of rendering himself invisible, all these
+things were calculated to offend those Greeks and Latins who had
+absorbed the teaching of Dionysus and the Muses. He himself felt he was
+incapable of winning the allegiance of free men and of cultivated minds,
+and he employed cunning. To seduce their souls he invented a fable
+which, although not so ingenious as the myths wherewith we have
+surrounded the spirits of our disciples of old, could, nevertheless,
+influence those feebler intellects which are to be found everywhere in
+great masses. He declared that men having committed a crime against him,
+an hereditary crime, should pay the penalty for it in their present life
+and in the life to come (for mortals vainly imagine that their existence
+is prolonged in hell); and the astute Iahveh gave out that he had sent
+his own son to earth to redeem with his blood the debt of mankind. It is
+not credible that a penalty should redress a fault, and it is still less
+credible that the innocent should pay for the guilty. The sufferings of
+the innocent atone for nothing, and do but add one evil to another.
+Nevertheless, unhappy creatures were found to adore Iahveh and his son,
+the expiator, and to announce their mysteries as good tidings. We should
+not be surprised at this folly. Have we not seen many times indeed human
+beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms
+of fear, and rather than follow the teaching of well-disposed demons,
+obey the commandments of cruel demiurges? Iahveh, by his cunning, took
+souls as in a net. But he did not gain therefrom, for his glorification,
+all that he expected. It was not he, but his son, who received the
+homage of mankind, and who gave his name to the new cult. He himself
+remained almost unknown upon earth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+     THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONTINUED
+
+
+"The new superstition spread at first over Syria and Africa; it won over
+the seaports where the filthy rabble swarm, and, penetrating into Italy,
+infected at first the courtesans and the slaves, and then made rapid
+progress among the middle classes of the towns. But for a long while the
+country-side remained undisturbed. As in the past, the villagers
+consecrated a pine tree to Diana, and sprinkled it every year with the
+blood of a young boar; they propitiated their Lares with the sacrifice
+of a sow, and offered to Bacchus--benefactor of mankind--a kid of
+dazzling whiteness, or if they were too poor for this, at least they had
+a little wine and a little flour from the vineyard and from the fields
+for their household gods. We had taught them that it sufficed to
+approach the altar with clean hands, and that the gods rejoiced over a
+modest offering.
+
+"Nevertheless, the reign of Iahveh proclaimed its advent in a hundred
+places by its extravagances. The Christians burnt books, overthrew
+temples, set fire to the towns, and carried on their ravages as far as
+the deserts. There, thousands of unhappy beings, turning their fury
+against themselves, lacerated their sides with points of steel. And from
+the whole earth the sighs of voluntary victims rose up to God like songs
+of praise.
+
+"My shadowy retreat could not escape for long from the fury of their
+madness.
+
+"On the summit of the hill which overlooked the olive woods, brightened
+daily with the sounds of my flute, had stood since the earliest days of
+the Pax Romana, a small marble temple, round as the huts of our
+forefathers. It had no walls, but on a base of seven steps, sixteen
+columns rose in a circle with the acanthus on the capitals, bearing a
+cupola of white tiles. This cupola sheltered a statue of Love fashioning
+his bow, the work of an Athenian sculptor. The child seemed to breathe,
+joy was welling from his lips, all his limbs were harmonious and
+polished. I honoured this image of the most powerful of all the gods,
+and I taught the villagers to bear to him as an offering a cup crowned
+with verbena and filled with wine two summers old.
+
+"One day, when seated as my custom was at the feet of the god, pondering
+precepts and songs, an unknown man, wild-looking, with unkempt hair,
+approached the temple, sprang at one bound up the marble steps, and with
+savage glee exclaimed:
+
+"'Die, poisoner of souls, and joy and beauty perish with you.' He spoke
+thus, and drawing an axe from his girdle raised it against the god. I
+stayed his arm, I threw him down, and trampled him under my feet.
+
+"'Demon,' he cried desperately, 'suffer me to overturn this idol, and
+you may slay me afterwards.'
+
+"I heeded not his atrocious plea, but leaned with all my might on his
+chest, which cracked under my knee, and, squeezing his throat with my
+two hands, I strangled the impious one.
+
+"While he lay there, with purple face and lolling tongue, at the feet of
+the smiling god, I went to purify myself at the sacred stream. Then
+leaving this land, now the prey of the Christian, I passed through Gaul
+and gained the banks of the Saone, whither Dionysus had, in days gone
+by, carried the vine. The god of the Christians had not yet been
+proclaimed to this happy people. They worshipped for its beauty a leafy
+beech-tree, whose honoured branches swept the ground, and they hung
+fillets of wool thereon. They also worshipped a sacred stream and set up
+images of clay in a dripping grotto. They made offering of little
+cheeses and a bowl of milk to the Nymphs of the woods and mountains.
+
+"But soon an apostle of sorrow was sent to them by the new God. He was
+drier than a smoked fish. Although attenuated with fasting and watching,
+he taught with unabated ardour all manner of gloomy mysteries. He loved
+suffering, and thought it good; his anger fell upon all that was
+beautiful, comely, and joyous. The sacred tree fell beneath his hatchet.
+He hated the Nymphs, because they were beautiful, and he flung
+imprecations at them when their shining limbs gleamed among the leaves
+at evening, and he held my melodious flute in aversion. The poor wretch
+thought that there were certain forms of words wherewith to put to
+flight the deathless spirits that dwell in the cool groves, and in the
+depths of the woods and on the tops of the mountains. He thought to
+conquer us with a few drops of water over which he had pronounced
+certain words and made certain gestures. The Nymphs, to avenge
+themselves, appeared to him at nightfall and inflamed him with desire
+which the foolish knave thought animal; then they fled, their laughter
+scattered like grain over the fields, while their victim lay tossing
+with burning limbs on his couch of leaves. Thus do the divine nymphs
+laugh at exorcisers, and mock the wicked and their sordid chastity.
+
+"The apostle did not do as much harm as he wished, because his teaching
+was given to the simple souls living in obedience to Nature, and because
+the mediocrity of most of mankind is such that they gain but little from
+the principles inculcated in them. The little wood in which I dwelt
+belonged to a Gaul of senatorial family, who retained some traces of
+Latin elegance. He loved his young freed-woman and shared with her his
+bed of broidered purple. His slaves cultivated his garden and his
+vineyard; he was a poet and sang, in imitation of Ausonius, Venus
+whipping her son with roses. Although a Christian, he offered me milk,
+fruit, and vegetables as if I were the genius of the place. In return I
+charmed his idle moments with the music of my flute, and I gave him
+happy dreams. In fact, these peaceful Gauls knew very little of Iahveh
+and his son.
+
+"But now behold fires looming on the horizon, and ashes driven by the
+wind fall within our forest glades. Peasants come driving a long file of
+waggons along the roads or urging their flocks before them. Cries of
+terror rise from the villages, 'The Burgundians are upon us!'
+
+"Now one horseman is seen, lance in hand, clad in shining bronze, his
+long red hair falling in two plaits on his shoulders. Then come two,
+then twenty, then thousands, wild and blood-stained; old men and
+children they put to the sword, ay, even aged grandams whose grey hairs
+cleave to the soles of the slaughterer's boots, mingled with the brains
+of babes new-born. My young Gaul and his young freed-woman stain with
+their blood the couch broidered with narcissi. The barbarians burn the
+basilicas to roast their oxen whole, shatter the amphorae, and drain the
+wine in the mud of the flooded cellars. Their women accompany them,
+huddled, half naked, in their war chariots. When the Senate, the
+dwellers in the cities, and the leaders of the churches had perished in
+the flames, the Burgundians, soddened with wine, lay down to slumber
+beneath the arcades of the Forum. Two weeks later one of them might have
+been seen smiling in his shaggy beard at the little child whom, on the
+threshold of their dwelling, his fair-haired spouse gathers in her arms;
+while another, kindling the fire of his forge, hammers out his iron with
+measured stroke; another sings beneath the oak tree to his assembled
+comrades of the gods and heroes of his race; and yet others spread out
+for sale stones fallen from Heaven, aurochs' horns, and amulets. And the
+former inhabitants of the country, regaining courage little by little,
+crept from the woods where they had fled for refuge, and returned to
+rebuild their burnt-down cabins, plough their fields, and prune their
+vines.
+
+"Once more life resumed its normal course; but those times were the most
+wretched that mankind had yet experienced. The barbarians swarmed over
+the whole Empire. Their ways were uncouth, and as they nurtured feelings
+of vengeance and greed, they firmly believed in the ransom of sin.
+
+"The fable of Iahveh and his son pleased them, and they believed it all
+the more easily in that it was taught them by the Romans whom they knew
+to be wiser than themselves, and to whose arts and mode of life they
+yielded secret admiration. Alas! the heritage of Greece and Rome had
+fallen into the hands of fools. All knowledge was lost. In those days it
+was held to be a great merit to sing among the choir, and those who
+remembered a few sentences from the Bible passed for prodigious
+geniuses. There were still poets as there were birds, but their verse
+went lame in every foot. The ancient demons, the good genii of mankind,
+shorn of their honours, driven forth, pursued, hunted down, remained
+hidden in the woods. There, if they still showed themselves to men, they
+adopted, to hold them in awe, a terrible face, a red, green, or black
+skin, baleful eyes, an enormous mouth fringed with boars' teeth, horns,
+a tail, and sometimes a human face on their bellies. The nymphs remained
+fair, and the barbarians, ignorant of the winsome names they bore in
+other days, called them fairies, and, imputing to them a capricious
+character and puerile tastes, both feared and loved them.
+
+"We had suffered a grievous fall, and our ranks were sadly thinned;
+nevertheless we did not lose courage and, maintaining a laughing aspect
+and a benevolent spirit, we were in those direful days the real friends
+of mankind. Perceiving that the barbarians grew daily less sombre and
+less ferocious, we lent ourselves to the task of conversing with them
+under all sorts of disguises. We incited them, with a thousand
+precautions, and by prudent circumlocutions, not to acknowledge the old
+Iahveh as an infallible master, not blindly to obey his orders, and not
+to fear his menaces. When need was, we had recourse to magic. We
+exhorted them unceasingly to study nature and to strive to discover the
+traces of ancient wisdom.
+
+"These warriors from the North--rude though they were--were acquainted
+with some mechanical arts. They thought they saw combats in the heavens;
+the sound of the harp drew tears from their eyes; and perchance they had
+souls capable of greater things than the degenerate Gauls and Romans
+whose lands they had invaded. They knew not how to hew stone or to
+polish marble; but they caused porphyry and columns to be brought from
+Rome and from Ravenna; their chief men took for their seal a gem
+engraved by a Greek in the days when Beauty reigned supreme. They raised
+walls with bricks, cunningly arranged like ears of corn, and succeeded
+in building quite pleasing-looking churches with cornices upheld by
+consoles depicting grim faces, and heavy capitals whereon were
+represented monsters devouring one another.
+
+"We taught them letters and sciences. A mouthpiece of their god, one
+Gerbert, took lessons in physics, arithmetic, and music with us, and it
+was said that he had sold us his soul. Centuries passed, and man's ways
+remained violent. It was a world given up to fire and blood. The
+successors of the studious Gerbert, not content with the possession of
+souls (the profits one gains thereby are lighter than air), wished to
+possess bodies also. They pretended that their universal and
+prescriptive monarchy was held from a fisherman on the lake of Tiberias.
+One of them thought for a moment to prevail over the loutish Germanus,
+successor to Augustus. But finally the spiritual had to come to terms
+with the temporal, and the nations were torn between two opposing
+masters.
+
+"Nations took shape amid horrible tumult. On every side were wars,
+famines, and internecine conflicts. Since they attributed the
+innumerable ills that fell upon them to their God, they called him the
+Most Good, not by way of irony, but because to them the best was he who
+smote the hardest. In those days of violence, to give myself leisure for
+study I adopted a _role_ which may surprise you, but which was
+exceedingly wise.
+
+"Between the Saone and the mountains of Charolais, where the cattle
+pasture, there lies a wooded hill sloping gently down to fields watered
+by a clear stream. There stood a monastery celebrated throughout the
+Christian world. I hid my cloven feet under a robe and became a monk in
+this Abbey, where I lived peacefully, sheltered from the men at arms who
+to friend or foe alike showed themselves equally exacting. Man, who had
+relapsed into childhood, had all his lessons to learn over again.
+Brother Luke, whose cell was next to mine, studied the habits of animals
+and taught us that the weasel conceives her young within her ear. I
+culled simples in the fields wherewith to soothe the sick, who until
+then were made by way of treatment to touch the relics of saints. In the
+Abbey were several demons similar to myself whom I recognised by their
+cloven feet and by their kindly speech. We joined forces in our
+endeavours to polish the rough mind of the monks.
+
+"While the little children played at hop-scotch under the Abbey walls
+our friends the monks devoted themselves to another game equally
+unprofitable, at which, nevertheless, I joined them, for one must kill
+time,--that, when one comes to think of it, is the sole business of
+life. Our game was a game of words which pleased our coarse yet subtle
+minds, set school fulminating against school, and put all Christendom in
+an uproar. We formed ourselves into two opposing camps. One camp
+maintained that before there were apples there was the Apple; that
+before there were popinjays there was the Popinjay; that before there
+were lewd and greedy monks there was the Monk, Lewdness and Greed; that
+before there were feet and before there were posteriors in this world
+the kick in the posterior must have had existence for all eternity in
+the bosom of God. The other camp replied that, on the contrary, apples
+gave man the idea of the apple; popinjays the idea of the popinjay;
+monks the idea of the monk, greed and lewdness, and that the kick in the
+posterior existed only after having been duly given and received. The
+players grew heated and came to fisticuffs. I was an adherent of the
+second party, which satisfied my reason better, and which was, in fact,
+condemned by the Council of Soissons.
+
+"Meanwhile, not content with fighting among themselves, vassal against
+suzerain, suzerain against vassal, the great lords took it into their
+heads to go and fight in the East. They said, as well as I can remember,
+that they were going to deliver the tomb of the son of God.
+
+"They said so, but their adventurous and covetous spirit excited them to
+go forth and seek lands, women, slaves, gold, myrrh, and incense. These
+expeditions, need it be said, proved disastrous; but our thick-headed
+compatriots brought back with them the knowledge of certain crafts and
+oriental arts and a taste for luxury. Henceforth we had less difficulty
+in making them work and in putting them in the way of inventions. We
+built wonderfully beautiful churches, with daringly pierced arches,
+lancet-shaped windows, high towers, thousands of pointed spires, which,
+rising in the sky towards Iahveh, bore at one and the same time the
+prayers of the humble and the threats of the proud, for it was all as
+much our doing as the work of men's hands; and it was a strange sight to
+see men and demons working together at a cathedral, each one sawing,
+polishing, collecting stones, graving, on capital and on cornice,
+nettles, thorns, thistles, wild parsley, and wild strawberry,--carving
+faces of virgins and saints and weird figures of serpents, fishes with
+asses' heads, apes scratching their buttocks; each one, in fact, putting
+his own particular talent,--mocking, sublime, grotesque, modest, or
+audacious,--into the work and making of it all a harmonious cacophony, a
+rapturous anthem of joy and sorrow, a Babel of victory. At our
+instigation the carvers, the gold-smiths, the enamellers, accomplished
+marvels and all the sumptuary arts flourished at once; there were silks
+at Lyons, tapestries at Arras, linen at Rheims, cloth at Rouen. The good
+merchants rode on their palfreys to the fairs, bearing pieces of velvet
+and brocade, embroideries, orfrays, jewels, vessels of silver, and
+illuminated books. Strollers and players set up their trestles in the
+churches and in the public squares, and represented, according to their
+lights, simple chronicles of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Women decked
+themselves in splendid raiment and lisped of love.
+
+"In the spring when the sky was blue, nobles and peasants were possessed
+with the desire to make merry in the flower-strewn meadows. The fiddler
+tuned his instrument, and ladies, knights and demoiselles, townsfolk,
+villagers and maidens, holding hands, began the dance. But suddenly War,
+Pestilence, and Famine entered the circle, and Death, tearing the violin
+from the fiddler's hands, led the dance. Fire devoured village and
+monastery. The men-at-arms hanged the peasants on the sign-posts at the
+cross-roads when they were unable to pay ransom, and bound pregnant
+women to tree-trunks, where at night the wolves came and devoured the
+fruit within the womb. The poor people lost their senses. Sometimes,
+peace being re-established, and good times come again, they were seized
+with mad, unreasoning terror, abandoned their homes, and rushed hither
+and thither in troops, half naked, tearing themselves with iron hooks,
+and singing. I do not accuse Iahveh and his son of all this evil. Many
+ill things occurred without him and even in spite of him. But where I
+recognise the instigation of the All Good (as they called him) was in
+the custom instituted by his pastors, and established throughout
+Christendom, of burning, to the sound of bells and the singing of
+psalms, both men and women who, taught by the demons, professed,
+concerning this God, opinions of their own."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+     THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONCLUDED
+
+
+"It seemed as if science and thought had perished for all eternity, and
+that the earth would never again know peace, joy, and beauty.
+
+"But one day, under the walls of Rome, some workmen, excavating the
+earth on the borders of an ancient road, found a marble sarcophagus
+which bore carved on its sides simulacra of Love and the triumphs of
+Bacchus.
+
+"The lid being raised, a maiden appeared whose face shone with dazzling
+freshness. Her long hair spread over her white shoulders, she was
+smiling in her sleep. A band of citizens, thrilled with enthusiasm,
+raised the funeral couch and bore it to the Capitol. The people came in
+crowds to contemplate the ineffable beauty of the Roman maiden and stood
+around in silence, watching for the awakening of the divine soul held
+within this form of adorable beauty.
+
+"And it came to pass that the City was so greatly stirred by this
+spectacle that the Pope, fearing, not without reason, the birth of a
+pagan cult from this radiant body, caused it to be removed at night and
+secretly buried. The precaution was vain, the labour fruitless. After so
+many centuries of barbarism, the beauty of the antique world had
+appeared for a moment before the eyes of men; it was long enough for its
+image, graven on their hearts, to inspire them with an ardent desire to
+love and to know.
+
+"Henceforth, the star of the God of the Christians paled and sloped to
+its decline. Bold navigators discovered worlds inhabited by numerous
+races who knew not old Iahveh, and it was suspected that he was no less
+ignorant of them, since he had given them no news of himself or of his
+son the expiator. A Polish Canon demonstrated the true motions of the
+earth, and it was seen that, far from having created the world, the old
+demiurge of Israel had not even an inkling of its structure. The
+writings of philosophers, orators, jurisconsults, and ancient poets were
+dragged from the dust of the cloisters and passing from hand to hand
+inspired men's minds with the love of wisdom. The Vicar of the jealous
+God, the Pope himself, no longer believed in Him whom he represented on
+earth. He loved the arts and had no other care than to collect ancient
+statues and to rear sumptuous buildings wherein were displayed the
+orders of Vitruvius re-established by Bramante. We began to breathe
+anew. Already the old gods, recalled from their long exile, were
+returning to dwell upon earth. There they found once more their temples
+and their altars. Leo, placing at their feet the ring, the three crowns,
+and the keys, offered them in secret the incense of sacrifices. Already
+Polyhymnia, leaning on her elbow, had begun to resume the golden thread
+of her meditations; already, in the gardens, the comely Graces and the
+Nymphs and Satyrs were weaving their mazy dances, and at length the
+earth had joy once more within its grasp. But, O calamity, unlucky
+fate,--most tragic circumstance! A German monk, all swollen with beer
+and theology, rose up against this renaissance of paganism, hurled
+menaces against it, shattered it, and prevailed single handed against
+the Princes of the Church. Inciting the nations, he called upon them to
+undertake a reform which saved that which was about to be destroyed.
+Vainly did the cleverest among us try to turn him from his work. A
+subtle demon, on earth called Beelzebub, marked him out for attack, now
+embarrassing him with learned controversial argument, now tormenting him
+with cruel mockery. The stubborn monk hurled his ink-pot at his head and
+went on with his dismal reformation. What ultimately happened? The
+sturdy mariner repaired, calked, and refloated the damaged ship of the
+Church. Jesus Christ owes it to this shaveling that his shipwreck was
+delayed for perhaps more than ten centuries. Henceforth things went from
+bad to worse. In the wake of this loutish monk, this beer-swiller and
+brawler, came that tall, dry doctor from Geneva, who, filled with the
+spirit of the ancient Iahveh, strove to bring the world back again to
+the abominable days of Joshua and the Judges of Israel. A maniac was he,
+filled with cold fury, a heretic and a burner of heretics, the most
+ferocious enemy of the Graces.
+
+"These mad apostles and their mad disciples made even demons like
+myself, even the horned devils, look back longingly on the time when the
+Son with his Virgin Mother reigned over the nations dazzled with
+splendours: cathedrals with their stone tracery delicate as lace,
+flaming roses of stained glass, frescoes painted in vivid colours
+telling countless wondrous tales, rich orfrays, glittering enamel of
+shrines and reliquaries, gold of crosses and of monstrances, waxen
+tapers gleaming like starry galaxies amid the gloom of vaulted arches,
+organs with their deep-toned harmonies. All this doubtless was not the
+Parthenon, nor yet the Panathenaea, but it gladdened eyes and hearts; it
+was, at all events, beauty. And these cursed reformers would not suffer
+anything either pleasing or lovable. You should have seen them climbing
+in black swarms over doorways, plinths, spires, and bell-towers,
+striking with senseless hammers those images in stone which the demons
+had carved working hand in hand with the master designers, those genial
+saints and dear, holy women, and the touching idols of Virgin Mothers
+pressing their suckling to their heart. For, to be just, a little
+agreeable paganism had slipped into the cult of the jealous God. These
+monsters of heretics were for extirpating idolatry. We did our best, my
+companions and I, to hamper their horrible work, and I, for one, had the
+pleasure of flinging down some dozens from the top of the porches and
+galleries on to the Cathedral Square, where their detestable brains got
+knocked out. The worst of it was that the Catholic Church also reformed
+herself and grew more mischievous than ever. In the pleasant land of
+France, the seminarists and the monks were inflamed with unheard-of fury
+against the ingenious demons and the men of learning. My prior was one
+of the most violent opponents of sound knowledge. For some time past my
+studious lucubrations had caused him anxiety, and perhaps he had caught
+sight of my cloven foot. The scoundrel searched my cell and found paper,
+ink, some Greek books newly printed, and some Pan-pipes hanging on the
+wall. By these signs he knew me for an evil spirit and had me thrown
+into a dungeon where I should have eaten the bread of suffering and
+drunk the waters of bitterness, had I not promptly made my escape by the
+window and sought refuge in the wooded groves among the Nymphs and the
+Fauns.
+
+"Far and wide the lighted pyres cast the odour of charred flesh.
+Everywhere there were tortures, executions, broken bones, and tongues
+cut out. Never before had the spirit of Iahveh breathed forth such
+atrocious fury. However, it was not altogether in vain that men had
+raised the lid of the ancient sarcophagus and gazed upon the Roman
+Virgin.
+
+"During this time of great terror when Papists and Reformers rivalled
+one another in violence and cruelty, amidst all these scenes of torture,
+the mind of man was regaining strength and courage. It dared to look up
+to the heavens, and there it saw, not the old Jew drunk with vengeance,
+but Venus Urania, tranquil and resplendent. Then a new order of things
+was born, then the great centuries came into being. Without publicly
+denying the god of their ancestors, men of intellect submitted to his
+mortal enemies, Science and Reason, and Abbe Gassendi relegated him
+gently to the far-distant abyss of first causes. The kindly demons who
+teach and console unhappy mortals, inspired the great minds of those
+days with discourses of all kinds, with comedies and tales told in the
+most polished fashion. Women invented conversation, the art of intimate
+letter-writing, and politeness. Manners took on a sweetness and a
+nobility unknown to preceding ages. One of the finest minds of that age
+of reason, the amiable Bernier, wrote one day to St. Evremond: 'It is a
+great sin to deprive oneself of a pleasure.' And this pronouncement
+alone should suffice to show the progress of intelligence in Europe. Not
+that there had not always been Epicureans but, unlike Bernier, Chapelle,
+and Moliere, they had not the consciousness of their talent.
+
+"Then even the very devotees understood Nature. And Racine, fierce bigot
+that he was, knew as well as such an atheistical physician as Guy Patin,
+how to attribute to divers states of the organs the passions which
+agitate mankind.
+
+"Even in my abbey, whither I had returned after the turmoil, and which
+sheltered only the ignorant and the shallow thinker, a young monk, less
+of a dunce than the rest, confided to me that the Holy Spirit expresses
+itself in bad Greek to humiliate the learned.
+
+"Nevertheless, theology and controversy were still raging in this
+society of thinkers. Not far from Paris in a shady valley there were to
+be seen solitary beings known as 'les Messieurs,' who called themselves
+disciples of St. Augustine, and argued with honest conviction that the
+God of the Scriptures strikes those who fear Him, spares those who
+confront Him, holds works of no account, and damns--should He so wish
+it--His most faithful servant; for His justice is not our justice, and
+His ways are incomprehensible.
+
+"One evening I met one of these gentlemen in his garden, where he was
+pacing thoughtfully among the cabbage-plots and lettuce-beds. I bowed
+my horned head before him and murmured these friendly words: 'May old
+Jehovah protect you, sir. You know him well. Oh, how well you know him,
+and how perfectly you have understood his character.' The holy man
+thought he discerned in me a messenger from Hell, concluded he was
+eternally damned, and died suddenly of fright.
+
+"The following century was the century of philosophy. The spirit of
+research was developed, reverence was lost; the pride of the flesh was
+diminished and the mind acquired fresh energy. Manners took on an
+elegance until then unknown. On the other hand, the monks of my order
+grew more and more ignorant and dirty, and the monastery no longer
+offered me any advantage now that good manners reigned in the town. I
+could bear it no longer. Flinging my habit to the nettles, I put a
+powdered wig on my horned brow, hid my goat's legs under white
+stockings, and cane in hand, my pockets stuffed with gazettes, I
+frequented the fashionable world, visited the modish promenades, and
+showed myself assiduously in the _cafes_ where men of letters were to be
+found. I was made welcome in _salons_ where, as a happy novelty, there
+were arm-chairs that fitted the form, and where both men and women
+engaged in rational conversation.
+
+"The very metaphysicians spoke intelligibly. I acquired great weight in
+the town as an authority on matters of exegesis, and, without boasting,
+I was largely responsible for the Testament of the cure Meslier and _The
+Bible Explained_, brought out by the chaplains to the King of Prussia.
+
+"At this time a comic and cruel misadventure befel the ancient Iahveh.
+An American Quaker, by means of a kite, stole his thunderbolts.
+
+"I was living in Paris, and was at the supper where they talked of
+strangling the last of the priests with the entrails of the last of the
+kings. France was in a ferment; a terrible revolution broke out. The
+ephemeral leaders of the disordered State carried on a Reign of Terror
+amidst unheard-of perils. They were, for the most part, less pitiless
+and less cruel than the princes and judges instituted by Iahveh in the
+kingdoms of the earth; nevertheless, they appeared more ferocious,
+because they gave judgment in the name of Humanity. Unhappily they were
+easily moved to pity and of great sensibility. Now men of sensibility
+are irritable and subject to fits of fury. They were virtuous; they had
+moral laws, that is to say they conceived certain narrowly defined moral
+obligations, and judged human actions not by their natural consequences
+but by abstract principles. Of all the vices which contribute to the
+undoing of a statesman, virtue is the most fatal; it leads to murder. To
+work effectively for the happiness of mankind, a man must be superior to
+all morals, like the divine Julius. God, so ill-used for some time
+past, did not, on the whole, suffer excessively harsh treatment from
+these new men. He found protectors among them, and was adored under the
+name of the Supreme Being. One might even go so far as to say that
+terror created a diversion from philosophy and was profitable to the old
+demiurge, in that he appeared to represent order, public tranquillity,
+and the security of person and property.
+
+"While Liberty was coming to birth amid the storm, I lived at Auteuil,
+and visited Madame Helvetius, where freethinkers in every branch of
+intellectual activity were to be met with. Nothing could be rarer than a
+freethinker, even after Voltaire's day. A man who will face death
+without trembling dare not say anything out of the ordinary about
+morals. That very same respect for Humanity which prompts him to go
+forth to his death, makes him bow to public opinion. In those days I
+enjoyed listening to the talk of Volney, Cabanis, and Tracy. Disciples
+of the great Condillac, they regarded the senses as the origin of all
+our knowledge. They called themselves ideologists, were the most
+honourable people in the world, and grieved the vulgar minds by refusing
+them immortality. For the majority of people, though they do not know
+what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.
+During the turmoil, our small philosophical society was sometimes
+disturbed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil by patrols of patriots.
+Condorcet, our great man, was an outlaw. I myself was regarded as
+suspect by the friends of the people, who, in spite of my rustic
+appearance and my frieze coat, believed me to be an aristocrat, and I
+confess that independence of thought is the proudest of all
+aristocracies.
+
+"One evening while I was stealthily watching the dryads of Boulogne, who
+gleamed amid the leaves like the moon rising above the horizon, I was
+arrested as a suspect, and put in prison. It was a pure
+misunderstanding; but the Jacobins of those days, like the monks whose
+place they had usurped, laid great stress on unity of obedience. After
+the death of Madame Helvetius our society gathered together in the
+_salon_ of Madame de Condorcet. Bonaparte did not disdain to chat with
+us sometimes.
+
+"Recognizing him to be a great man, we thought him an ideologist like
+ourselves. Our influence in the land was considerable. We used it in his
+favour, and urged him towards the Imperial throne, thinking to display
+to the world a second Marcus Aurelius. We counted on him to establish
+universal peace; he did not fulfil our expectations, and we were
+wrong-headed enough to be wroth with him for our own mistake.
+
+"Without any doubt he greatly surpassed all other men in quickness of
+intelligence, depth of dissimulation, and capacity for action. What
+made him an accomplished ruler was that he lived entirely in the present
+moment, and had no thoughts for anything beyond the immediate and actual
+reality. His genius was far-reaching and agile; his intelligence, vast
+in extent but common and vulgar in character, embraced humanity, but did
+not rise above it. He thought what every grenadier in the army thought;
+but he thought it with unprecedented force. He loved the game of chance,
+and it pleased him to tempt fortune by urging pigmies in their hundreds
+and thousands against each other. It was the game of a child as big as
+the world. He was too wily not to introduce old Iahveh into the
+game,--Iahveh, who was still powerful on earth, and who resembled him in
+his spirit of violence and domination. He threatened him, flattered him,
+caressed him, and intimidated him. He imprisoned his Vicar, of whom he
+demanded, with the knife at his throat, that rite of unction which,
+since the days of Saul of old, has bestowed might upon kings; he
+restored the worship of the demiurge, sang _Te Deums_ to him, and made
+himself known through him as God of the earth, in small catechisms
+scattered broadcast throughout the Empire. They united their thunders,
+and a fine uproar they made.
+
+"While Napoleon's amusements were throwing Europe into a turmoil, we
+congratulated ourselves on our wisdom, a little sad, withal, at seeing
+the era of philosophy ushered in with massacre, torture, and war. The
+worst is that the children of the century, fallen into the most
+distressing disorder, formed the conception of a literary and
+picturesque Christianity, which betokens a degeneracy of mind really
+unbelievable, and finally fell into Romanticism. War and Romanticism,
+what terrible scourges! And how pitiful to see these same people nursing
+a childish and savage love for muskets and drums! They did not
+understand that war, which trained the courage and founded the cities of
+barbarous and ignorant men, brings to the victor himself but ruin and
+misery, and is nothing but a horrible and stupid crime when nations are
+united together by common bonds of art, science, and trade.
+
+"Insane Europeans who plot to cut each others' throats, now that one and
+the same civilisation enfolds and unites them all!
+
+"I renounced all converse with these madmen and withdrew to this
+village, where I devoted myself to gardening. The peaches in my orchard
+remind me of the sun-kissed skin of the Maenads. For mankind I have
+retained my old friendship, a little admiration, and much pity, and I
+await, while cultivating this enclosure, that still distant day when the
+great Dionysus shall come, followed by his Fauns and his Bacchantes, to
+restore beauty and gladness to the world, and bring back the Golden Age.
+I shall fare joyously behind his car. And who knows if in that day of
+triumph mankind will be there for us to see? Who knows whether their
+worn-out race will not have already fulfilled its destiny, and whether
+other beings will not rise upon the ashes and ruins of what once was man
+and his genius? Who knows if winged beings will not have taken
+possession of the terrestrial empire? Even then the work of the good
+demons will not be ended,--they will teach a winged race arts and the
+joy of life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+     WHEREIN WE ARE SHOWN THE INTERIOR OF A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP, AND
+     SEE HOW PERE GUINARDON'S GUILTY HAPPINESS IS MARRED BY THE
+     JEALOUSY OF A LOVE-LORN DAME
+
+
+Pere Guinardon (as Zephyrine had faithfully reported to Monsieur
+Sariette) smuggled out the pictures, furniture, and curios stored in his
+attic in the rue Princesse--his studio he called it--and used them to
+stock a shop he had taken in the rue de Courcelles. Thither he went to
+take up his abode, leaving Zephyrine, with whom he had lived for fifty
+years, without a bed or a saucepan or a penny to call her own, except
+eighteenpence the poor creature had in her purse. Pere Guinardon opened
+an old picture and curiosity shop, and in it he installed the fair
+Octavie.
+
+The shop-front presented an attractive appearance: there were Flemish
+angels in green copes, after the manner of Gerard David, a Salome of the
+Luini school, a Saint Barbara in painted wood of French workmanship,
+Limoges enamel-work, Bohemian and Venetian glass, dishes from Urbino.
+There were specimens of English point-lace which, if her tale was true,
+had been presented to Zephyrine, in the days of her radiant girlhood, by
+the Emperor Napoleon III. Within, there were golden articles that
+glinted in the shadows, while pictures of Christ, the Apostles,
+high-bred dames, and nymphs also presented themselves to the gaze. There
+was one canvas that was turned face to the wall so that it should only
+be looked at by connoisseurs; and connoisseurs are scarce. It was a
+replica of Fragonard's _Gimblette_, a brilliant painting that looked as
+if it had barely had time to dry. Papa Guinardon himself remarked on the
+fact. At the far end of the shop was a king-wood cabinet, the drawers of
+which were full of all manner of treasures: water-colours by Baudouin,
+eighteenth-century books of illustrations, miniatures, and so forth.
+
+But the real masterpiece, the marvel, the gem, the pearl of great price,
+stood upon an easel veiled from public view. It was a _Coronation of the
+Virgin_ by Fra Angelico, an exquisitely delicate thing in gold and blue
+and pink. Pere Guinardon was asking a hundred thousand francs for it.
+Upon a Louis XV chair beside an Empire work-table on which stood a vase
+of flowers, sat the fair Octavie, broidery in hand. She, having left her
+glistering rags behind her in the garret in the rue Princesse, no longer
+presented the appearance of a touched-up Rembrandt, but shone, rather,
+with the soft radiance and limpidity of a Vermeer of Delft, for the
+delectation of the connoisseurs who frequented the shop of Papa
+Guinardon. Tranquil and demure, she remained alone in the shop all day,
+while the old fellow himself was up aloft working away at the deuce
+knows what picture. About five o'clock he used to come downstairs and
+have a chat with the habitues of the establishment.
+
+The most regular caller was the Comte Desmaisons, a thin, cadaverous
+man. A strand of hair issued from the deep hollow under each cheek-bone,
+and, broadening as it descended, shed upon his chin and chest torrents
+of snow in which he was for ever trailing his long, fleshless,
+gold-ringed fingers. For twenty years he had been mourning the loss of
+his wife, who had been carried off by consumption in the flower of her
+youth and beauty. Since then he had spent his whole life in endeavouring
+to hold converse with the dead and in filling his lonely mansion with
+second-rate paintings. His confidence in Guinardon knew no bounds.
+Another client who was a scarcely less frequent visitor to the shop was
+Monsieur Blancmesnil, a director of a large financial establishment. He
+was a florid, prosperous-looking man of fifty. He took no great interest
+in matters of art, and was perhaps an indifferent connoisseur, but, in
+his case, it was the fair Octavie, seated in the middle of the shop,
+like a song-bird in its cage, that offered the attraction.
+
+Monsieur Blancmesnil soon established relations with her, a fact which
+Pere Guinardon alone failed to perceive, for the old fellow was still
+young in his love-affair with Octavie. Monsieur Gaetan d'Esparvieu used
+to pay occasional visits to Pere Guinardon's shop out of mere curiosity,
+for he strongly suspected the old man of being a first-rate "faker."
+
+And then that doughty swordsman, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec, also came
+to see the old antiquary on one occasion, and acquainted him with a plan
+he had on foot. Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec was getting up a little
+historical exhibition of small arms at the Petit Palais in aid of the
+fund for the education of the native children in Morocco and wanted Pere
+Guinardon to lend him a few of the most valuable articles in his
+collection.
+
+"Our first idea," he said, "was to organise an exhibition to be called
+'The Cross and the Sword.' The juxtaposition of the two words will make
+the idea which has prompted our undertaking sufficiently clear to you.
+It was an idea pre-eminently patriotic and Christian which led us to
+associate the Sword, which is the symbol of Honour, with the Cross,
+which is the symbol of Salvation. It was hoped that our work would be
+graced by the distinguished patronage of the Minister of War and
+Monseigneur Cachepot. Unfortunately there were difficulties in the way,
+and the full realisation of the project had to be deferred. In the
+meantime we are limiting our exhibition to 'The Sword.' I have drawn up
+an explanatory note indicating the significance of the demonstration."
+
+Having delivered himself of these remarks, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec
+produced a pocket-case stuffed full of papers. Picking out from a medley
+of judgment summonses and other odds and ends a little piece of very
+crumpled paper, he exclaimed, "Ah, here it is," and proceeded to read as
+follows: "'The Sword is a fierce Virgin; it is _par excellence_ the
+Frenchman's weapon. And now, when patriotic sentiment, after suffering
+an all too protracted eclipse, is beginning to shine forth again more
+ardently than ever ...' and so forth; you see?"
+
+And he repeated his request for some really fine specimen to be placed
+in the most conspicuous position in the exhibition to be held on behalf
+of the little native children of Morocco, of which General d'Esparvieu
+was to be honorary President.
+
+Arms and armour were by no means Pere Guinardon's strong point. He dealt
+principally in pictures, drawings, and books. But he was never to be
+taken unawares. He took down a rapier with a gilt colander-shaped hilt,
+a highly typical piece of workmanship of the Louis XIII-Napoleon III
+period, and presented it to the exhibition promoter, who, while
+contemplating it with respect, maintained a diplomatic silence.
+
+"I have something better still in here," said the antiquary, and he
+produced from his inner shop--where it had been lying among the
+walking-sticks and umbrellas--a real demon of a sword, adorned with
+fleurs-de-lys, a genuine royal relic. It was the sword of
+Philippe-Auguste as worn by an actor at the _Odeon_ when _Agnes de
+Meranie_ was being performed in 1846. Guinardon held it point downwards,
+as though it were a cross, clasping his hands piously on the cross-bar.
+He looked as loyal as the sword itself.
+
+"Have her for your exhibition," said he. "The damsel is well worth it.
+Bouvines is her name."
+
+"If I find a buyer for it," said Monsieur Le True de Ruffec, twirling
+his enormous moustachios, "I suppose you will allow me a little
+commission?"
+
+Some days later, Pere Guinardon was mysteriously displaying a picture to
+the Comte Desmaisons and Monsieur Blancmesnil. It was a newly discovered
+work of El Greco, an amazingly fine example of the Master's later style.
+It represented a Saint Francis of Assisi standing erect upon Mont
+Alverno. He was mounting heavenward like a column of smoke, and was
+plunging into the regions of the clouds a monstrously narrow head that
+the distance rendered smaller still. In fine it was a real, very real,
+nay, too real El Greco. The two collectors were attentively
+scrutinizing the work, while Pere Guinardon was belauding the depth of
+the shadows and the sublimity of the expression. He was raising his arms
+aloft to convey an idea of the greatness of Theotocopuli, who derived
+from Tintoretto, whom, however, he surpassed in loftiness by a hundred
+cubits.
+
+"He was chaste and pure and strong; a mystic, a visionary."
+
+Comte Desmaisons declared that El Greco was his favourite painter. In
+his inmost heart Blancmesnil was not so entirely struck with it.
+
+The door opened, and Monsieur Gaetan quite unexpectedly appeared on the
+scene.
+
+He gave a glance at the Saint Francis, and said:
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+Monsieur Blancmesnil, anxious to improve his knowledge, asked him what
+he thought of this artist who was now so much in vogue. Gaetan replied,
+glibly enough, that he did not regard El Greco as the eccentric, the
+madman that people used to take him for. It was rather his opinion that
+a defect of vision from which Theotocopuli suffered compelled him to
+deform his figures.
+
+"Being afflicted with astigmatism and strabismus," Gaetan went on, "he
+painted the things he saw exactly as he used to see them."
+
+Comte Desmaisons was not readily disposed to accept so natural an
+explanation, which, however, by its very simplicity, highly commended
+itself to Monsieur Blancmesnil.
+
+Pere Guinardon, quite beside himself, exclaimed:
+
+"Are you going to tell me, Monsieur d'Esparvieu, that Saint John was
+astigmatic because he beheld a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with
+stars, with the moon about her feet; the Beast with seven heads and ten
+horns, and the seven angels robed in white linen that bore the seven
+cups filled with the wrath of the Living God?"
+
+"After all," said Monsieur Gaetan, by way of conclusion, "people are
+right in admiring El Greco if he had genius enough to impose his
+morbidity of vision upon them. By the same token, the contortions to
+which he subjects the human countenance may give satisfaction to those
+who love suffering,--a class more numerous than is generally supposed."
+
+"Monsieur," replied the Comte Desmaisons, stroking his luxuriant beard
+with his long, thin hand, "we must love those that love us. Suffering
+loves us and attaches itself to us. We must love it if life is to be
+supportable to us. In the knowledge of this truth lies the strength and
+value of Christianity. Alas! I do not possess the gift of Faith. It is
+that which drives me to despair."
+
+The old man thought of her for whom he had been mourning twenty years,
+and forthwith his reason left him, and his thoughts abandoned
+themselves unresistingly to the morbid imaginings of gentle and
+melancholy madness.
+
+Having, he said, made a study of psychic matters, and having, with the
+co-operation of a favourable medium, carried out experiments concerning
+the nature and duration of the soul, he had obtained some remarkable
+results, which, however, did not afford him complete satisfaction. He
+had succeeded in viewing the soul of his dead wife under the appearance
+of a transparent and gelatinous mass which bore not the slightest
+resemblance to his adored one. The most painful part about the whole
+experiment--which he had repeated over and over again--was that the
+gelatinous mass, which was furnished with a number of extremely slender
+tentacles, maintained them in constant motion in time to a rhythm
+apparently intended to make certain signs, but of what these movements
+were supposed to convey there was not the slightest clue.
+
+During the whole of this narrative Monsieur Blancmesnil had been
+whispering in a corner with the youthful Octavie, who sat mute and
+still, with her eyes on the ground.
+
+Now Zephyrine had by no means made up her mind to resign her lover into
+the hands of an unworthy rival. She would often go round of a morning,
+with her shopping-basket on her arm, and prowl about outside the curio
+shop. Torn betwixt grief and rage, tormented by warring ideas, she
+sometimes thought she would empty a saucepanful of vitriol on the head
+of the faithless one; at others that she would fling herself at his
+feet, and shower tears and kisses on his precious hands. One day, as she
+was thus eyeing her Michel--her beloved but guilty Michel--she noticed
+through the window the fair and youthful Octavie, who was sitting with
+her embroidery at a table upon which, in a vase of crystal, a rose was
+swooning to death. Zephyrine, in a transport of fury, brought down her
+umbrella on her rival's fair head, and called her a bitch and a trollop.
+Octavie fled in terror, and ran for the police, while Zephyrine, beside
+herself with grief and love, kept digging away with her old gamp at the
+_Gimblette_ of Fragonard, the fuliginous Saint Francis of El Greco, the
+virgins, the nymphs, and the apostles, and knocked the gilt off the Fra
+Angelico, shrieking all the while:
+
+"All those pictures there, the El Greco, the Beato Angelico, the
+Fragonard, the Gerard David, and the Baudouins--Guinardon painted the
+whole lot of them himself, the wretch, the scoundrel! That Fra Angelico
+there, why I saw him painting it on my ironing-board, and that Gerard
+David he executed on an old midwife's sign-board. You and that bitch of
+yours, why, I'll do for the pair of you just as I'm doing for these
+pictures."
+
+And tugging away at the coat of an aged collector who, trembling all
+over, had hidden himself in the darkest corner of the shop, she called
+him to witness to the crimes of Guinardon, perjurer and impostor. The
+police had simply to tear her out of the ruined shop. As she was being
+taken off to the station, followed by a great crowd of people, she
+raised her fiery eyes to Heaven, crying in a voice choked with sobs:
+
+"But don't you know Michel? If you knew him, you would understand that
+it is impossible to live without him. Michel! He is handsome and good
+and charming. He is a very god. He is Love itself. I love him! I love
+him! I love him! I have known men high up in the world--Dukes, Ministers
+of State, and higher still. Not one of them was worthy to clean the mud
+off Michel's boots. My good, kind sirs, give him back to me again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+     WHEREIN WE ARE PERMITTED TO OBSERVE THE ADMIRABLE CHARACTER
+     OF BOUCHOTTE, WHO RESISTS VIOLENCE BUT YIELDS TO LOVE. AFTER
+     THAT LET NO ONE CALL THE AUTHOR A MISOGYNIST
+
+
+On coming away from the Baron Everdingen's, Prince Istar went to have a
+few oysters and a bottle of white wine at an eating-house in the Market.
+Then, being prudent as well as powerful, he paid a visit to his friend,
+Theophile Belais, for his pockets were full of bombs, and he wanted to
+secrete them in the musician's cupboard. The composer of _Aline, Queen
+of Golconda_ was not at home. However, the Kerub found Bouchotte busily
+working up the role of Zigouille; for the young artiste was booked to
+play the principal part in _Les Apaches_, an operetta that was then
+being rehearsed in one of the big music halls. The part in question was
+that of a street-walker who by her obscene gestures lures a passer-by
+into a trap, and then, while her victim is being gagged and bound,
+repeats with fiendish cruelty the lascivious motions by which he had
+been led astray. The part required that she should appear both as mime
+and singer, and she was in a state of high enthusiasm about it.
+
+The accompanist had just left. Prince Istar seated himself at the piano,
+and Bouchotte resumed her task. Her movements were unseemly and
+delicious. Her tawny hair was flying in all directions in wild
+disordered curls; her skin was moist, it exhaled a scent of violets and
+alkaline salts which made the nostrils throb; even she herself felt the
+intoxication. Suddenly, inebriated with her intoxicating presence,
+Prince Istar arose, and with never a word or a look, caught her into his
+arms and drew her on to the couch, the little couch with the flowered
+tapestry which Theophile had procured at one of the big shops by
+promising to pay ten francs a month for a long term of years. Now Istar
+might have solicited Bouchotte's favours; he might have invited her to a
+rapid, and, withal, a mutual embrace, and, despite her preoccupation and
+excitement, she would not have refused him. But Bouchotte was a girl of
+spirit. The merest hint of coercion awoke all her untamable pride. She
+would consent of her own accord, yes; but be mastered, never! She would
+readily yield to love, curiosity, pity, to less than that even, but she
+would die rather than yield to force. Her surprise immediately gave
+place to fury. She fought her aggressor with all her heart and soul.
+
+With nails, to which fury lent an added edge, she tore at the cheeks and
+eyelids of the Kerub, and, though he held her as in a vice, she arched
+herself so stiffly and made such excellent play with knee and elbow,
+that the human-headed bull, blinded with blood and rage, was sent
+crashing into the piano which gave forth a prolonged groan, while the
+bombs, tumbling out of his pockets, fell on the floor with a noise like
+thunder. And Bouchotte, with dishevelled locks, and one breast bare,
+beautiful and terrible, stood brandishing the poker over the prostrate
+giant, crying:
+
+"Be off with you, or I'll put your eyes out!"
+
+Prince Istar went to wash himself in the kitchen, and plunged his gory
+visage into a basin where some haricot beans lay soaking; then he
+withdrew without anger or resentment, for he had a noble soul.
+
+Scarcely had he gone when the door-bell rang. Bouchotte, calling upon
+the absent maid in vain, slipped on a dressing-gown and opened the door
+herself. A young man, very correct in appearance and rather
+good-looking, bowed politely, and apologising for having to introduce
+himself, gave his name. It was Maurice d'Esparvieu.
+
+Maurice was still seeking his guardian angel. Upheld by a desperate
+hope, he sought him in the queerest places. He enquired for him at the
+houses of sorcerers, magicians, and thaumaturgists, who in filthy hovels
+lay bare the ineffable secrets of the future, and who, though masters
+of all the treasures of the earth, wear trousers without any seats to
+them, and eat pigs' brains. That very day, having been to a back street
+in Montmartre to consult a priest of Satan, who practised black magic by
+piercing waxen images, Maurice had gone on to Bouchotte's, having been
+sent by Madame de la Verdeliere, who, being about to give a fete in aid
+of the fund for the Preservation of Country Churches, was anxious to
+secure Bouchotte's services, since she had suddenly become--no one knew
+why--a fashionable artiste.
+
+Bouchotte invited the visitor to sit down on the little flowered couch;
+at his request she seated herself beside him, and our young man of
+fashion explained to the singer what Madame de la Verdeliere desired of
+her. The lady wished Bouchotte to sing one of those _apache_ songs which
+were giving such delight in the fashionable world. Unfortunately Madame
+de la Verdeliere could only offer a very modest fee, one out of all
+proportion to the merits of the artiste, but then it was for a good
+cause.
+
+Bouchotte agreed to take part, and accepted the reduced fee with the
+accustomed liberality of the poor towards the rich and of artists
+towards society people. Bouchotte was not a selfish girl; the work for
+the preservation of country churches interested her. She remembered with
+sobs and tears her first communion, and she still retained her faith.
+When she passed by a church she wanted to enter it, especially in the
+evening. And so she did not love the Republic which had done its utmost
+to destroy both the Church and the Army. Her heart rejoiced to see the
+re-birth of national sentiment. France was lifting up her head. What was
+most applauded in the music halls were songs about the soldiers and the
+kind nuns. Meanwhile Maurice inhaled the odour of her tawny hair, the
+subtle bitter perfume of her body, all the odours of her person, and
+desire grew in him. He felt her near him on the little couch, very warm
+and very soft. He complimented the artiste on her great talent. She
+asked him what he liked best in all her repertory. He knew nothing about
+it, still he made replies that satisfied her. She had dictated them
+herself without knowing it. The vain creature spoke of her talent, of
+her success, as she wished others to speak of them. She never ceased
+talking of her triumphs, yet withal she was candour itself. Maurice in
+all sincerity praised Bouchotte's beauty, her fresh skin, her purity of
+line. She attributed this advantage to the fact that she never made up
+and never "put messes on her face." As to her figure, she admitted that
+there was enough everywhere and none too much, and to illustrate this
+assertion she passed her hand over all the contours of her charming
+body, rising lightly to follow the delightful curves on which she
+reposed.
+
+Maurice was quite moved by it. It began to grow dark; she offered to
+light up. He begged her to do nothing of the sort.
+
+Their talk, at first gay and full of laughter, grew more intimate and
+very sweet, with a certain languor in its tone. It seemed to Bouchotte
+that she had known Monsieur Maurice d'Esparvieu for a long time, and
+holding him for a man of delicacy, she gave him her confidence. She told
+him that she was by nature a good woman, but that she had had a grasping
+and unscrupulous mother. Maurice recalled her to the consideration of
+her own beauty, and exalted by subtle flattery the excellent opinion she
+had of herself. Patient and calculating, in spite of the burning desire
+growing in him, he aroused and increased in the desired one the longing
+to be still further admired. The dressing-gown opened and slipped down
+of its own accord, the living satin of her shoulders gleamed in the
+mysterious light of evening. He--so prudent, so clever, so adroit,--let
+her sink in his arms, ardent and half swooning before she had even
+perceived she had granted anything at all. Their breath and their
+murmurs intermingled. And the little flowery couch sighed in sympathy
+with them.
+
+When they recovered the power to express their feelings in words, she
+whispered in his ear that his cheek was even softer than her own.
+
+He answered, holding her embraced:
+
+"It is charming to hold you like this. One would think you had no
+bones."
+
+She replied, closing her eyes:
+
+"It is because I love you. Love seems to dissolve my bones; it makes me
+as soft and melting as a pig's foot _a la Ste. Menebould_."
+
+Hereupon Theophile came in, and Bouchotte called upon him to thank
+Monsieur Maurice d'Esparvieu, who had been amiable enough to be the
+bearer of a handsome offer from Madame la Comtesse de la Verdeliere.
+
+The musician was happy, feeling the quiet and peace of the house after a
+day of fruitless applications, of colourless lessons, of failure and
+humiliation. Three new collaborators had been thrust upon him who would
+add their signatures to his on his operetta, and receive their share of
+the author's rights, and he had been told to introduce the tango into
+the Court of Golconda. He pressed young d'Esparvieu's hand and dropped
+wearily on to the little couch, which, being now at the end of its
+strength, gave way at the four legs and suddenly collapsed.
+
+And the angel, precipitated to the ground, rolled terror-struck on to
+the watch, match-box and cigarette-case that had fallen from Maurice's
+pocket, and on to the bombs Prince Istar had left behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+     CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE VICISSITUDES THAT BEFEL THE
+     "LUCRETIUS" OF THE PRIOR DE VENDOME
+
+
+Leger-Massieu, successor to Leger senior, the binder, whose
+establishment was in the rue de l'Abbaye, opposite the old Hotel of the
+Abbes of Saint Germain-des-Pres, in the hotbed of ancient schools and
+learned societies, employed an excellent but by no means numerous staff
+of workmen, and served with leisurely deliberation a clientele who had
+learned to practise the virtue of patience. Six weeks had elapsed since
+he had received the parcel of books that had been despatched by Monsieur
+Sariette, but still Leger-Massieu had not yet put the work in hand. It
+was not until fifty-three days had come and gone, that, after calling
+over the books against the list that had been drawn up by Monsieur
+Sariette, the binder gave them out to his workmen. The little
+_Lucretius_ with the Prior de Vendome's arms not being mentioned on the
+list, it was assumed that it had been sent by another customer.
+
+And as it did not figure on any list of goods received it remained shut
+up in a cupboard, from which Leger-Massieu's son, the youthful Ernest,
+one day surreptitiously abstracted it, and slipped it into his pocket.
+Ernest was in love with a neighbouring seamstress whose name was Rose.
+Rose was fond of the country, and liked to hear the birds singing in the
+woods, and in order to procure the wherewithal to take her to Chatou one
+Sunday and give her a dinner, Ernest parted with the _Lucretius_ for ten
+francs to old Moranger, a second-hand dealer in the rue Saint X----, who
+displayed no great curiosity regarding the origin of his acquisitions.
+Old Moranger handed over the volume, the very same day, to Monsieur
+Poussard, an expert in books, of the faubourg Saint Germain, for sixty
+francs. The latter removed the stamp which disclosed the ownership of
+the matchless copy, and sold it for five hundred francs to Monsieur
+Joseph Meyer, the well-known collector, who handed it straight away for
+three thousand francs to Monsieur Ardon, the bookseller, who immediately
+transferred it to Monsieur R----, the great Parisian bibliopolist, who
+gave six thousand for it, and sold it again a fortnight later at a
+handsome profit to Madame la Comtesse de Gorce. Well known in the higher
+ranks of Parisian society, the lady in question is what was called in
+the seventeenth century a "curieuse," that is to say, a lover of
+pictures, books, and china. In her mansion in the Avenue d'Jena she
+possesses collections of works of art which bear witness to the
+diversity of her knowledge and the excellence of her taste. During the
+month of July, while the Comtesse de Gorce was away at her chateau at
+Sarville in Normandy, the house in the Avenue d'Jena, being unoccupied,
+was visited one night by a thief said to belong to a gang known as "The
+Collectors," who made works of art the special objects of their raids.
+
+The police enquiry elicited the fact that the marauder had reached the
+first floor by means of the waste-pipe, that he had then climbed over
+the balcony, forced a shutter with a jemmy, broken a pane of glass,
+turned the window-fastener, and made his way into the long gallery.
+There he broke open several cupboards and possessed himself of whatever
+took his fancy. His booty consisted for the most part of small but
+valuable articles, such as gold caskets, a few ivory carvings of the
+fourteenth century, two splendid fifteenth-century manuscripts, and a
+volume which the Countess's secretary briefly described as "a
+morocco-bound book with a coat of arms on it," and which was none other
+than the _Lucretius_ from the d'Esparvieu library.
+
+The malefactor, who was supposed to be an English cook, was never
+discovered. But, two months or so after the theft, a well-dressed,
+clean-shaven young man passed down the rue de Courcelles, in the
+dimness of twilight, and went to offer the Prior de Vendome's
+_Lucretius_ to Pere Guinardon. The antiquary gave him four shillings for
+it, examined it carefully, recognised its interest and its beauty, and
+put it in the king-wood cabinet, where he kept his special treasures.
+
+Such were the vicissitudes which, in the course of a single season,
+befel this thing of beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+     WHEREIN MAURICE FINDS HIS ANGEL AGAIN
+
+
+The performance was over. Bouchotte in her dressing-room was taking off
+her make-up, when the door opened softly and old Monsieur Sandraque, her
+protector, came in, followed by a troop of her other admirers. Without
+so much as turning her head, she asked them what they meant by coming
+and staring at her like a pack of imbeciles, and whether they thought
+they were in a tent at the Neuilly Fair, looking at the freak woman.
+
+"Now, then, ladies and gentlemen," she rattled on derisively, "just put
+a penny in the box for the young lady's marriage-portion, and she'll let
+you feel her legs,--all made of marble!"
+
+Then, with an angry glance at the admiring throng, she exclaimed: "Come,
+off you go! Look alive!"
+
+She sent them all packing, her sweetheart Theophile among them,--the
+pale-faced, long-haired, gentle, melancholy, short-sighted, and dreamy
+Theophile.
+
+But recognizing her little Maurice, she gave him a smile. He approached
+her, and leaning over the back of the chair on which she was seated,
+congratulated her on her playing and singing, duly performing a kiss at
+the end of every compliment. She did not let him escape thus, and with
+reiterated enquiries, pressing solicitations, feigned incredulity,
+obliged him to repeat his stock panegyrics three or four times over, and
+when he stopped she seemed so disappointed that he was forced to take up
+the strain again immediately. He found it trying, for he was no
+connoisseur, but he had the pleasure of kissing her plump curved
+shoulders all golden in the light, and of catching glimpses of her
+pretty face in the mirror over the toilet-table.
+
+"You were delicious."
+
+"Really?... you think so?"
+
+"Adorable ... div----"
+
+Suddenly he gave a loud cry. His eyes had seen in the mirror a face
+appear at the back of the dressing-room. He turned swiftly round, flung
+his arms about Arcade, and drew him into the corridor.
+
+"What manners!" exclaimed Bouchotte, gasping.
+
+But, pushing his way through a troop of performing dogs, and a family of
+American acrobats, young d'Esparvieu dragged his angel towards the exit.
+
+He hurried him forth into the cool darkness of the boulevard, delirious
+with joy and wondering whether it was all too good to be true.
+
+"Here you are!" he cried; "here you are! I have been looking for you a
+long time, Arcade,--or Mirar if you like,--and I have found you at last.
+Arcade, you have taken my guardian angel from me. Give him back to me.
+Arcade, do you love me still?"
+
+Arcade replied that in accomplishing the super-angelic task he had set
+himself he had been forced to crush under foot friendship, pity, love,
+and all those feelings which tend to soften the soul; but that, on the
+other hand, his new state, by exposing him to suffering and privation,
+disposed him to love Humanity, and that he felt a certain mechanical
+friendship for his poor Maurice.
+
+"Well, then," exclaimed Maurice, "if only you love me, come back to me,
+stay with me. I cannot do without you. While I had you with me I was not
+aware of your presence. But no sooner did you depart than I felt a
+horrible blank. Without you I am like a body without a soul. Do you know
+that in the little flat in the rue de Rome, with Gilberte by my side, I
+feel lonely, I miss you sorely, and long to see you and to hear you as I
+did that day when you made me so angry. Confess I was right, and that
+your behaviour on that occasion was not that of a gentleman. That you,
+you of so high an origin, so noble a mind, could commit such an
+indiscretion is extraordinary, when one comes to think about it. Madame
+des Aubels has not yet forgiven you. She blames you for having
+frightened her by appearing at such an inconvenient moment, and for
+being insolent and forward while hooking her dress and tying her shoes.
+I, I have forgotten everything. I only remember that you are my
+celestial brother, the saintly companion of my childhood. No, Arcade,
+you must not, you cannot leave me. You are my angel; you are my
+property."
+
+Arcade explained to young d'Esparvieu that he could no longer be guiding
+angel to a Christian, having himself gone down into the pit. And he
+painted a horrible picture of himself; he described himself as breathing
+hatred and fury; in fact, an infernal spirit.
+
+"All nonsense!" said Maurice, smiling, his eyes big with tears.
+
+"Alas! our ideas, our destiny, everything tends to part us, Maurice. But
+I cannot stifle the tenderness I feel for you, and your candour forces
+me to love you."
+
+"No," sighed Maurice. "You do not love me. You have never loved me. In a
+brother or a sister such indifference would be natural; in a friend it
+would be ordinary; in a guardian angel it is monstrous. Arcade, you are
+an abominable being. I hate you."
+
+"I have loved you dearly, Maurice, and I still love you. You trouble my
+heart which I deemed encased in triple bronze. You show me my own
+weakness. When you were a little innocent boy I loved you as tenderly
+and purely as Miss Kate, your English governess, who caressed you with
+so much fervour. In the country, when the thin bark of the plane trees
+peels off in long strips and discloses the tender green trunk, after the
+rains which make the fine sand run on the sloping paths, I showed you
+how with that sand, those strips of bark, a few wild flowers, and a
+spray of maidenhair fern to make rustic bridges, rustic shelters,
+terraces, and those gardens of Adonis, which last but an hour. During
+the month of May in Paris we raised an altar to the Virgin, and we burnt
+incense before it, the scent of which, permeating all the house,
+reminded Marcelline, the cook, of her village church and her lost
+innocence, and drew from her floods of tears; it also gave your mother a
+headache, your mother who, with all her wealth, was crushed with the
+_ennui_ that is common to the fortunate ones of this world. When you
+went to college I interested myself in your progress, I shared your work
+and your play, I pondered with you over arduous problems in arithmetic,
+I sought the impenetrable meaning of a phrase of Julius Caesar's. What
+fine games of prisoners' base and football we had together! More than
+once did we know the intoxication of victory, and our young laurels were
+not soaked in blood or tears. Maurice, I did all I could to protect
+your innocence, but I could not prevent your losing it at the age of
+fourteen. Afterwards I regretfully saw you loving women of all sorts, of
+divers ages, by no means beautiful, at least in the eyes of an angel.
+Saddened at the sight, I devoted myself to study; a fine library offered
+me resources rarely met with. I delved into the history of religions;
+you know the rest."
+
+"But now, my dear Arcade," concluded young d'Esparvieu, "you have lost
+your position, your situation, you are entirely without resource. You
+have lost caste, you are off the lines, a vagabond, a bare-footed
+wanderer."
+
+The Angel replied bitterly that, after all, he was a little better clad
+at present than when he was wearing the slops of a suicide.
+
+Maurice alleged in excuse that when he dressed his naked angel in a
+suicide's slops, he was irritated with that angel's infidelity. But it
+was useless to dwell on the past or to recriminate. What was really
+needful was to consider what steps to take in future.
+
+And he asked:
+
+"Arcade, what do you think of doing?"
+
+"Have I not already told you, Maurice? To fight with Him who reigns in
+the heavens, dethrone Him, and set up Satan in His stead."
+
+"You will not do it. To begin with it is not the opportune moment.
+Opinion is not with you. You will not be in the swim, as papa says.
+Conservatism and authority are all the go nowadays. We like to be ruled,
+and the President of the Republic is going to parley with the Pope. Do
+not be obstinate, Arcade. You are not as bad as you say. At bottom you
+are like the rest of the world, you adore the good God."
+
+"I thought I had already explained to you, Maurice, that He whom you
+consider God is actually but a demiurge. He is absolutely ignorant of
+the divine world above him, and in all good faith believes himself to be
+the true and only God. You will find in the _History of the Church_, by
+Monsignor Duchesne--Vol. I, page 162--that this proud and narrow-minded
+demiurge is named Ialdabaoth. My child, so as not to ruffle your
+prejudices and to deal gently with your feelings in future, that is the
+name I shall give him. If it should happen that I should speak of him to
+you, I shall call him Ialdabaoth. I must leave you. Adieu."
+
+"Stay----"
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"I shall not let you go thus. You have deprived me of my guardian angel.
+It is for you to repair the injury you have caused me. Give me another
+one."
+
+Arcade objected that it was difficult for him to satisfy such a demand.
+That having quarrelled with the sovereign dispenser of guardian
+Spirits, he could obtain nothing from that quarter.
+
+"My dear Maurice," he added, smiling, "ask for one yourself from
+Ialdabaoth."
+
+"No,--no,--no," exclaimed Maurice. "You have taken away my guardian
+angel,--give him back to me."
+
+"Alas! I cannot."
+
+"Is it, Arcade, because you are a revolutionary that you cannot?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An enemy of God?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A Satanic spirit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then," exclaimed young Maurice, "I will be your guardian
+angel,--I will not leave you."
+
+And Maurice d'Esparvieu took Arcade to have some oysters at P----'s.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+     THE CONCLAVE
+
+
+That day, convoked by Arcade and Zita, the rebellious angels met
+together on the banks of the Seine at La Jonchere, in a deserted and
+tumble-down entertainment-hall that Prince Istar had hired from a
+pot-house keeper called Barattan. Three hundred angels crowded together
+in the stalls and boxes. A table, an arm-chair, and a collection of
+small chairs were arranged on the stage, where hung the tattered
+remnants of a piece of rustic scenery. The walls, coloured in distemper
+with flowers and fruit, were cracked and stained with damp, and were
+crumbling away in flakes. The vulgar and poverty-stricken appearance of
+the place rendered the grandeur of the passions exhibited therein all
+the more striking.
+
+When Prince Istar asked the assembly to form its Committee, and first of
+all to elect a President, the name that was renowned throughout the
+world entered the minds of all present, but a religious respect sealed
+their lips; and after a moment's silence, the absent Nectaire was
+elected by acclamation. Having been invited to take the chair between
+Zita and an angel of Japan, Arcade immediately began as follows:
+
+"Sons of Heaven! My comrades! You have freed yourselves from the bonds
+of celestial servitude--you have shaken off the thrall of him called
+Iahveh, but to whom we should here accord his veritable name of
+Ialdabaoth, for he is not the creator of the worlds, but merely an
+ignorant and barbarous demiurge, who having obtained possession of a
+minute portion of the Universe has therein sown suffering and death.
+Sons of Heaven, tell me, I charge you, whether you will combat and
+destroy Ialdabaoth?"
+
+All with one voice made answer:
+
+"We will!"
+
+And many speaking all together swore they would scale the mountain of
+Ialdabaoth, and hurl down the walls of jasper and porphyry, and plunge
+the tyrant of Heaven into eternal darkness.
+
+But a voice of crystal pierced through the sullen murmur.
+
+"Tremble, ye impious, sacrilegious madmen! The Lord hath already lifted
+his dread arm to smite you!"
+
+It was a loyal angel who, with an impulse of faith and love, envying the
+glory of confessors and martyrs, jealous and eager, like his God
+himself, to emulate man in the beauty of sacrifice, had flung himself
+in the midst of the blasphemers, to brave them, to confound them, and to
+fall beneath their blows. The assembly turned upon him with furious
+unanimity. Those nearest to him overwhelmed him with blows. He continued
+to cry, in a clear, ringing voice, "Glory to God! Glory to God! Glory to
+God!"
+
+A rebel seized him by the neck and strangled his praises of the Almighty
+in his throat. He was thrown to the ground, trampled underfoot. Prince
+Istar picked him up, took him by the wings between his fingers, then
+rising like a column of smoke, opened a ventilator, which no one else
+could have reached, and passed the faithful angel through it. Order was
+immediately restored.
+
+"Comrades," continued Arcade, "now that we have affirmed our stern
+resolve, we must examine the possible plans of campaign, and choose the
+best. You will therefore have to consider if we should attack the enemy
+in full force, or whether it were better, by a lengthy and assiduous
+propaganda, to win the inhabitants of Heaven to our cause."
+
+"War! War!" shouted the assembled host.
+
+And it seemed as if one could hear the sound of trumpets and the rolling
+of drums.
+
+Theophile, whom Prince Istar had dragged to the meeting, rose, pale and
+unstrung, and, speaking with emotion, said:
+
+"Brethren, do not take ill what I am about to say; for it is the
+friendship I have for you that inspires me. I am but a poor musician.
+But, believe me, all your plans will come to naught before the Divine
+Wisdom which has foreseen everything."
+
+Theophile Belais sat down amid hisses. And Arcade continued:
+
+"Ialdabaoth foresees everything. I do not contest it. He foresees
+everything, but in order to leave us our free will he acts towards us
+absolutely as if he foresaw nothing. Every instant he is surprised,
+disconcerted; the most probable events take him unawares. The obligation
+which he has undertaken, to reconcile with his prescience the liberty of
+both men and angels, throws him constantly into inextricable
+difficulties and terrible dilemmas. He never sees further than the end
+of his nose. He did not expect Adam's disobedience, and so little did he
+anticipate the wickedness of men that he repented having made them, and
+drowned them in the waters of the Flood, and all the animals as well,
+though he had no fault to find with the animals. For blindness he is
+only to be compared with Charles X, his favourite king. If we are
+prudent it will be easy to take him by surprise. I think that these
+observations will be calculated to reassure my brother."
+
+Theophile made no reply. He loved God, but he was fearful of sharing
+the fate of the faithful angel.
+
+One of the best-informed Spirits of the assembly, Mammon, was not
+altogether reassured by the remarks of his brother Arcade.
+
+"Bethink you," said this Spirit, "Ialdabaoth has little general culture,
+but he is a soldier--to the marrow of his bones. The organisation of
+Paradise is a thoroughly military organisation. It is founded on
+hierarchy and discipline. Passive obedience is imposed there as a
+fundamental law. The angels form an army. Compare this spot with the
+Elysian Fields which Virgil depicts for you. In the Elysian Fields reign
+liberty, reason, and wisdom. The happy shades hold converse together in
+the groves of myrtle. In the Heaven of Ialdabaoth there is no civil
+population. Everyone is enrolled, numbered, registered. It is a barracks
+and a field for manoeuvres. Remember that."
+
+Arcade replied that they must look at their adversary in his true
+colours, and that the military organisation of Paradise was far more
+reminiscent of the villages of King Koffee than of the Prussia of
+Frederick the Great.
+
+"Already," said he, "at the time of the first revolt, before the
+beginning of Time, the conflict raged for two days, and Ialdabaoth's
+throne was made to totter. Nevertheless, the demiurge gained the
+victory. But to what did he owe it? To the thunderstorm which happened
+to come on during the conflict. The thunderbolts falling on Lucifer and
+his angels struck them down, bruised and blackened, and Ialdabaoth owed
+his victory to the thunderbolts. Thunder is his sole weapon. He abuses
+its power. In the midst of thunder and lightning he promulgates his
+laws. 'Fire goeth before him,' says the Prophet. Now Seneca, the
+philosopher, said that the thunderbolt in its fall brings peril to very
+few, but fear to all. This remark was true enough for men of the first
+century of the Christian era; it is no longer so for the angels of the
+twentieth; all of which goes to prove that, in spite of his thunder, he
+is not very powerful; it was acute terror that made men rear him a tower
+of unbaked brick and bitumen. When myriads of celestial spirits,
+furnished with machines which modern science puts at their disposal,
+make an assault upon the heavens, think you, comrades, that the old
+master of the solar system surrounded with his angels, armed as in the
+time of Abraham, will be able to resist them? To this day the warriors
+of the demiurge wear helmets of gold and shields of diamond. Michael,
+his best captain, knows no other tactics than the hand-to-hand combat.
+To him Pharaoh's chariots are still the latest thing, and he has never
+heard of the Macedonian phalanx."
+
+And young Arcade lengthily prolonged the parallel between the armed
+herds of Ialdabaoth and the intelligent fighting men of the rebel army.
+Then the question of pecuniary resources arose.
+
+Zita asserted that there was enough money to commence war, that the
+electrophores were in order, that an initial victory would obtain them
+credit.
+
+The discussion continued, amid turbulence and confusion. In this
+parliament of angels, as in the synods of men, empty words flowed in
+abundance. Disturbances grew more violent and more frequent as the time
+for putting the resolution drew near. It was beyond question that
+supreme command would be entrusted to him who had first raised the flag
+of revolt. But as everyone aspired to act as Lucifer's Lieutenant, each
+in describing the kind of fighting man to be preferred drew a portrait
+of himself. Thus Alcor, the youngest of the rebellious angels, arose and
+spoke rapidly as follows:
+
+"In Ialdabaoth's army, happily for us, the officers obtain their posts
+by seniority. This being the case, there is little likelihood of the
+command falling into the hands of a military genius, for men are not
+made leaders by prolonged habits of obedience, and close attention to
+minutiae is not a good apprenticeship for the evolution of vast plans of
+campaign. If we consult ancient and modern history, we shall see that
+the greatest leaders were kings like Alexander and Frederick,
+aristocrats like Caesar and Turenne, or men impatient of red-tape like
+Bonaparte. A routine man will always be poor or second-rate. Comrades,
+let us appoint intelligent leaders, men in the prime of life, to command
+us. An old man may retain the habit of winning victories, but only a
+young man can acquire it!"
+
+Alcor then gave place to an angel of the philosophic order, who mounted
+the rostrum and spoke thus:
+
+"War never was an exact science, a clearly defined art. The genius of
+the race, or the brain of the individual, has ever modified it. Now how
+are we to define the qualities necessary for a general in command in the
+war of the future, where one must consider greater masses and a larger
+number of movements than the intelligence of man can conceive? The
+multiplication of technical means, by infinitely multiplying the
+opportunities for mistake, paralyses the genius of those in command. At
+a certain stage in the progress of military science, a stage which our
+models, the Europeans, are about to reach, the cleverest leader and the
+most ignorant become equalized by reason of their incapacity. Another
+result of great modern armaments is, that the law of numbers tends to
+rule with inflexible rigour. It is of course true that ten angels in
+revolt are worth more than ten angels of Ialdabaoth; it is not at all
+certain that a million rebellious angels are worth more than a million
+of Ialdabaoth's angels. Great numbers, in war as elsewhere, annihilate
+intelligence and individual superiority in favour of a sort of
+exceedingly rudimentary collective soul."
+
+A buzz of conversation drowned the voice of the philosophic angel, and
+he concluded his speech in an atmosphere of general indifference.
+
+The tribune then resounded with calls to arms and promises of victory.
+The sword was held up to praise, the sword which defends the right. The
+triumph of the angels in revolt was celebrated twenty times beforehand,
+to the plaudits of a delirious crowd.
+
+Cries of "War!" rose to the silent heavens; "Give us war!"
+
+In the midst of these transports Prince Istar hoisted himself on to the
+platform, and the floor creaked under his weight.
+
+"Comrades," said he, "you wish for victory, and it is a very natural
+desire, but you must be mouldy with literature and poetry if you expect
+to obtain it from war. The idea of making war can nowadays only enter
+the brain of a sottish bourgeois or a belated romantic. What is war? A
+burlesque masquerade in the midst of which fatuous patriots sing their
+stupid dithyrambs. Had Napoleon possessed a practical mind he would not
+have made war; but he was a dreamer, intoxicated with Ossian. You cry,
+'Give us war!' You are visionaries. When will you become thinkers? The
+thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams which
+constitute military art: tactics, strategy, fortifications, artillery,
+and all that rubbish. They do not believe in war, which is a phantasy;
+they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put
+victory into an algebraic formula."
+
+And drawing from his pocket a small bottle, which he held up to the
+meeting, Prince Istar exclaimed:
+
+"Victory--it is here!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+     WHEREIN WE SHALL SEE REVEALED A DARK AND SECRET MYSTERY AND
+     LEARN HOW IT COMES ABOUT THAT EMPIRES ARE OFTEN HURLED
+     AGAINST EMPIRES, AND RUIN FALLS ALIKE UPON THE VICTORS AND
+     THE VANQUISHED; AND THE WISE READER (IF SUCH THERE BE--WHICH
+     I DOUBT) WILL MEDITATE UPON THIS IMPORTANT UTTERANCE: "A WAR
+     IS A MATTER OF BUSINESS"
+
+
+The Angels had dispersed. At the foot of the slopes at Meudon, seated on
+the grass, Arcade and Zita watched the Seine flowing by the willows.
+
+"In this world," said Arcade, "in this world, which we call a cosmos,
+though it is but a microcosm, no thinking being can imagine that he is
+able to destroy even one atom. At the utmost, all we can hope for is
+that we shall succeed in modifying, here and there, the rhythm of some
+group of atoms and the arrangement of certain cells. That, when one
+thinks of it, must be the limit of our great enterprise. And when we
+shall have set up the Contradictor in the place of Ialdabaoth, we shall
+have done no more.... Zita, is the evil in the nature of things or in
+their arrangement? That is what we ought to know. Zita, I am profoundly
+troubled----"
+
+"Arcade," replied Zita, "if to act we had to know the secret of Nature,
+one would never act at all. And neither would one live--since to live is
+to act. Arcade, is your resolution failing you already?"
+
+Arcade assured the beautiful angel that he was resolved to plunge the
+demiurge into eternal darkness.
+
+A motor-car passed by on the road, followed by a long trail of dust. It
+stopped before the two angels, and the hooked nose of Baron Everdingen
+appeared at the window.
+
+"Good morning, my celestial friends, good morning," said the capitalist.
+"Sons of Heaven, I am pleased to meet you. I have a word of importance
+to say to you. Do not remain idle--do not go to sleep. Arm! Arm! You may
+be surprised by Ialdabaoth. You have a big war-fund. Employ it without
+stint. I have just learnt that the Archangel Michael has given large
+orders in Heaven for thunderbolts and arrows. If you take my advice you
+will procure fifty thousand more electrophores. I will take the order.
+Good day, angels. Long live the celestial country!"
+
+And Baron Everdingen flew by the flowery shores of Louveciennes in the
+company of a pretty actress.
+
+"Is it true that they are taking up arms at the demiurge's?" asked
+Arcade.
+
+"It may be," replied Zita, "that up there another Baron Everdingen is
+inciting to arms."
+
+The guardian angel of young Maurice remained pensive for some moments.
+Then he murmured:
+
+"Can it be that we are the sport of financiers?"
+
+"Pooh!" said the beautiful archangel. "War is a business. It has always
+been a business."
+
+Then they discussed at length the means of executing their immense
+enterprise. Rejecting disdainfully the anarchistic proceedings of Prince
+Istar, they conceived a formidable and sudden invasion of the kingdom of
+Heaven by their enthusiastic and well-drilled troops.
+
+Now Barattan, the innkeeper of La Jonchere, who had let the
+entertainment-hall to the rebellious angels, was in the employ of the
+secret police. In the reports he furnished to the Prefecture he
+denounced the members of this secret meeting as meditating an attack on
+a certain person whom they described as obtuse and cruel, and whom they
+called _Alaballotte_. The agent believed this to be a pseudonym denoting
+either the President of the Republic or the Republic itself. The
+conspirators had unanimously given voice to threats against
+_Alaballotte_, and one of them, a very dangerous individual, well-known
+in anarchist circles, who had already several convictions against him
+on account of writings and speeches of a seditious nature, and who was
+known as Prince Istar or the _Queroube_, had brandished a bomb of very
+small calibre which seemed to contain a formidable machine. The other
+conspirators were unknown to Barattan, notwithstanding the fact that he
+frequented revolutionary circles. Many among them were very young men,
+mere beardless youths. There were two who, it appeared, had spoken with
+conspicuous vehemence; a certain Arcade, dwelling in the Rue St.
+Jacques, and a woman of easy virtue called Zita, living at Montmartre,
+both without visible means of subsistence.
+
+The affair seemed sufficiently serious to the Prefect of Police to make
+him think it necessary to confer without delay with the President of the
+Council.
+
+The Third Republic was then going through one of those climacteric
+periods during which the French nation, enamoured of authority and
+worshipping force, gave itself up for lost because it was not governed
+enough, and clamoured loudly for a saviour. The President of the
+Council, and Minister of Justice, was only too eager to be that
+longed-for saviour. Still, for him to play that part it was first
+necessary that there should be a danger to face. Thus the news of a plot
+was highly welcome to him. He questioned the Prefect of Police on the
+character and importance of the affair. The Prefect of Police explained
+that the people seemed to have money, intelligence, and energy; but
+that they talked too much and were too numerous to undertake secret and
+concerted action. The Minister, leaning back in his arm-chair, pondered
+on the matter. The Empire writing-table at which he was seated, the
+ancient tapestry which covered the walls, the clock and the candelabra
+of the Restoration period--all, in this traditional setting, reminded
+him of those great principles of government which remain immutable
+throughout the succession of _regimes_, of stratagem and of bluff. After
+brief reflexion, he concluded that the plot must be allowed to grow and
+take shape, that it would even be fitting to nurse it, to embroider it,
+to colour it, and only to stifle it after having extracted every
+possible advantage from it.
+
+He instructed the Prefect of Police to watch the affair closely, to
+render him an account of what went on from day to day, and to confine
+himself to the role of informer.
+
+"I rely on your well-known prudence; observe, and do not intervene."
+
+The Minister lit a cigarette. He quite reckoned, with the help of this
+plot, on silencing the Opposition, strengthening his own influence,
+diminishing that of his colleagues, humiliating the President of the
+Republic, and becoming the saviour of his country.
+
+The Prefect of Police undertook to follow the ministerial instructions,
+vowing inwardly all the while to act in his own way. He had a watch put
+upon the individuals pointed out by Barattan, and commanded his agents
+not to intervene, come what might. Perceiving that he was a marked man,
+Prince Istar--who united prudence with strength--withdrew the bombs from
+the gutter outside his window where he had hidden them, and changing
+from motor 'bus to tube, from tube to motor 'bus, and choosing the most
+cunningly circuitous route, at length deposited his machines with the
+angelic musician.
+
+Every time he left his house in the Rue St. Jacques, Arcade found a man
+of exaggerated smartness at his door, with yellow gloves and in his tie
+a diamond bigger than the Regent. Being a stranger to the things of this
+world, the rebellious angel paid no attention to the circumstance. But
+young Maurice d'Esparvieu, who had undertaken the task of guarding his
+guardian-angel, viewed this gentleman with uneasiness, for he equalled
+in assiduity and surpassed in vigilance that Monsieur Mignon who had
+formerly allowed his inquisitive gaze to wander from the rams' heads on
+the Hotel de la Sordiere in the Rue Garanciere to the apse of the church
+of St. Sulpice. Maurice came two and three times a day to see Arcade in
+his furnished rooms, warning him of the danger, and urging him to change
+his abode.
+
+Every evening he took his angel to night restaurants, where they supped
+with ladies of easy virtue. There young d'Esparvieu would foretell the
+issue of some coming glove-fight, and afterwards exert himself to
+demonstrate to Arcade the existence of God, the necessity for religion,
+and the beauties of Christianity, and adjure him to renounce his impious
+and criminal undertakings wherefrom, he said, he would reap but
+bitterness and disappointment.
+
+"For really," said the young apologist, "if Christianity were false it
+would be known."
+
+The ladies approved of Maurice's religious sentiments, and when the
+handsome Arcade uttered some blasphemy in language they could
+understand, they put their hands to their ears and bade him be silent,
+for fear of being struck down with him. For they believed that God, in
+his omnipotence and sovereign goodness, taking sudden vengeance against
+those who insulted him, was quite capable of striking down the innocent
+with the guilty without meaning it.
+
+Sometimes the angel and his guardian took supper with the angelic
+musician. Maurice, who remembered from time to time that he was
+Bouchotte's lover, was displeased to see Arcade taking liberties with
+the singer. She had allowed him to do so ever since the day when, the
+angelic musician having had the little flowery couch repaired, Arcade
+and Bouchotte had made it a foundation for their friendship. Maurice,
+who loved Madame des Aubels a great deal, also loved Bouchotte a little,
+and was rather jealous of Arcade. Now jealousy is a feeling natural to
+man and beast, and causes them, however slight the attack, keen
+unhappiness. Therefore, suspecting the truth, which Bouchotte's
+temperament and the angel's character made sufficiently obvious, he
+overwhelmed Arcade with sarcasm and abuse, reproaching him with the
+immorality of his ways. Arcade answered, tranquilly, that it was
+difficult to subject physiological impulses to perfectly defined rules,
+and that moralists encountered great difficulties in the case of certain
+natural necessities.
+
+"Moreover," added Arcade, "I freely acknowledge that it is almost
+impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has
+no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human
+life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no
+distinction between good and evil."
+
+"You see, then," replied Maurice, "that religion is necessary."
+
+"Moral law," replied the angel, "which is supposed to be revealed to us,
+is drawn in reality from the grossest empiricism. Custom alone regulates
+morals. What Heaven prescribes is merely the consecration of ancient
+customs. The divine law, promulgated amid fireworks on some Mount
+Sinai, is never anything but the codification of human prejudice. And
+from this fact--namely, that morals change--religions which endure for a
+long time, such as Judaeo-Christianity, vary their moral law."
+
+"At any rate," said Maurice, whose intelligence was swelling visibly,
+"you will grant me that religion prevents much profligacy and crime?"
+
+"Except when it promotes crime--as, for instance, the murder of
+Iphigenia."
+
+"Arcade," exclaimed Maurice, "when I hear you argue, I rejoice that I am
+not an intellectual."
+
+Meanwhile Theophile, with his head bent over the piano, his face hidden
+by the long fair veil of his hair, bringing down from on high his
+inspired hands on to the keys, was playing and singing the full score of
+_Aline, Queen of Golconda_.
+
+Prince Istar used to come to their friendly reunions, his pockets filled
+with bombs and bottles of champagne, both of which he owed to the
+liberality of Baron Everdingen. Bouchotte received the Kerub with
+pleasure, since she saw in him the witness and the trophy of the victory
+she had gained on the little flowered couch. He was to her as the
+severed head of Goliath in the hands of the youthful David. And she
+admired the prince for his cleverness as an accompanist, his vigour,
+which she had subdued, and his prodigious capacity for drink.
+
+One night, when young d'Esparvieu took his angel home in his car from
+Bouchotte's house to the lodgings in the Rue St. Jacques, it was very
+dark; before the door the diamond in the spy's necktie glittered like a
+beacon; three cyclists standing in a group under its rays made off in
+divers directions at the car's approach. The angel took no notice, but
+Maurice concluded that Arcade's movements interested various important
+people in the State. He judged the danger to be pressing, and at once
+made up his mind.
+
+The next morning he came to seek the suspect, to take him to the Rue de
+Rome. The angel was in bed. Maurice urged him to dress and to follow
+him.
+
+"Come," said he. "This house is no longer safe for you. You are watched.
+One of these days you will be arrested. Do you wish to sleep in gaol?
+No? Well, then, come. I will put you in a safe place."
+
+The spirit smiled with some little compassion on his naive preserver.
+
+"Do you not know," he said, "that an angel broke open the doors of the
+prison where Peter was confined, and delivered the apostle? Do you
+believe me, Maurice, to be inferior in power to that heavenly brother of
+mine, and do you suppose that I am unable to do for myself what he did
+for the fisherman of the lake of Tiberias?"
+
+"Do not count on it, Arcade. He did it miraculously."
+
+"Or by a stroke of luck, as a modern historian of the Church has it. But
+no matter. I will follow you. Just allow me to burn a few letters and to
+make a parcel of some books I shall need."
+
+He threw some papers in the fire-place, put several volumes in his
+pockets, and followed his guide to the car, which was waiting for them
+not far off, outside the College of France. Maurice took the wheel.
+Imitating the Kerub's prudence, he made so many windings and turnings,
+and so many rapid twists that he put all the swift and numerous
+cyclists, speeding in pursuit, off the scent. At length, having left
+wheelmarks in every direction all over the town, he stopped in the Rue
+de Rome, before the first-door flat, where the angel had first appeared.
+
+On entering the dwelling which he had left eighteen months before to
+carry out his mission, Arcade remembered the irreparable past, and
+breathing in the scent used by Gilberte, his nostrils throbbed. He asked
+after Madame des Aubels.
+
+"She is very well," replied Maurice. "A little plumper and very much
+more beautiful for it. She still bears you a grudge for your forward
+behaviour. I hope that she will one day forgive you, as I have forgiven
+you, and that she will forget your offence. But she is still very
+annoyed with you."
+
+Young d'Esparvieu did the honours of his flat to his angel with the
+manners of a well-bred man and the tender solicitude of a friend. He
+showed him the folding bed which was opened every evening in the
+entrance hall and pushed into a dark cupboard in the morning. He showed
+him the dressing-table, with its accessories; the bath, the linen
+cupboard, the chest of drawers; gave him the necessary information
+regarding the heating and lighting; told him that his meals would be
+brought and the rooms cleaned by the concierge, and showed him which
+bell to press when he required that person's services. He told him also
+that he must consider himself at home, and receive whom he wished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+     WHICH TREATS OF A PAINFUL DOMESTIC SCENE
+
+
+So long as Maurice confined his selection of mistresses to respectable
+women, his conduct had called forth no reproach. It was a different
+matter when he took up with Bouchotte. His mother, who had closed her
+eyes to liaisons which, though guilty, were elegant and discreet, was
+scandalised when it came to her ears that her son was openly parading
+about with a music-hall singer. By dint of much prying and probing,
+Berthe, Maurice's younger sister, had got to know of her brother's
+adventures, and she narrated them, without any indignation, to her young
+girl friends. His little brother Leon declared to his mother one day, in
+the presence of several ladies, that when he was big he, too, would go
+on the spree, like Maurice. This was a sore wound to the maternal heart
+of Madame d'Esparvieu.
+
+About the same time there occurred a family event of a very grave nature
+which occasioned much alarm to Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu. Drafts were
+presented to him signed in his name by his son. His writing had not been
+forged, but there was no doubt that it had been the son's intention to
+pass off the signature as his father's. It showed a perverted moral
+sense; whence it appeared that Maurice was living a life of profligacy,
+that he was running into debt and on the point of outraging the
+decencies. The paterfamilias talked the matter over with his wife. It
+was arranged that he should give his son a very severe lecture, hint at
+vigorous corrective measures, and that in due course the mother should
+appear with gentle and sorrowing mien and endeavour to soothe the
+righteous indignation of the father. This plan being agreed upon,
+Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu sent for his son to come to him in his study.
+To add to the solemnity of the occasion, he had arrayed himself in his
+frock-coat. As soon as Maurice saw it he knew there was something
+serious in the wind. The head of the family was pale, and his voice
+shook a little (for he was a nervous man), as he declared that he would
+no longer put up with his son's irregular behaviour, and insisted on an
+immediate and absolute reform. No more wild courses, no more running
+into debt, no more undesirable companions, but work, steadiness, and
+reputable connexions.
+
+Maurice was quite willing to give a respectful reply to his father,
+whose complaints, after all, were perfectly justified; but,
+unfortunately, Maurice, like his father, was shy, and the frock-coat
+which Monsieur d'Esparvieu had donned in order to discharge his
+magisterial duty with greater dignity seemed to preclude the possibility
+of any open and unconstrained intercourse. Maurice maintained an awkward
+silence, which looked very much like insolence, and this silence
+compelled Monsieur d'Esparvieu to reiterate his complaints, this time
+with additional severity. He opened one of the drawers in his historic
+bureau (the bureau on which Alexandre d'Esparvieu had written his "Essay
+on the Civil and Religious Institutions of the World"), and produced the
+bills which Maurice had signed.
+
+"Do you know, my boy," said he, "that this is nothing more nor less than
+forgery? To make up for such grave misconduct as that----"
+
+At this moment Madame d'Esparvieu, as arranged, entered the room attired
+in her walking-dress. She was supposed to play the angel of forgiveness,
+but neither her appearance nor her disposition was suitable to the part.
+She was harsh and unsympathetic. Maurice harboured within him the seeds
+of all the ordinary and necessary virtues. He loved his mother and
+respected her. His love, however, was more a matter of duty than of
+inclination, and his respect arose from habit rather than from feeling.
+Madame Rene d'Esparvieu's complexion was blotchy, and having powdered
+herself in order to appear to advantage at the domestic tribunal, the
+colour of her face suggested raspberries sprinkled over with sugar.
+Maurice, being possessed of some taste, could not help realising that
+she was ugly and rather repulsively so. He was out of tune with her, and
+when she began to go through all the accusations his father had brought
+against him, making them out to be blacker than ever, the prodigal
+turned away his head to conceal his irritation.
+
+"Your Aunt de Saint-Fain," she went on, "met you in the street in such
+disgraceful company that she was really thankful that you forbore to
+greet her."
+
+"Aunt de Saint-Fain!" Maurice broke out. "I like to hear her talking
+about scandals! Everyone knows the sort of life she has led, and now the
+old hypocrite wants to----"
+
+He stopped. He had caught sight of his father, whose face was even more
+eloquent of sorrow than of anger. Maurice began to feel as though he had
+committed murder, and could not imagine how he had allowed such words to
+escape him. He was on the point of bursting into tears, falling on his
+knees, and imploring his father to forgive him, when his mother, looking
+up at the ceiling, said with a sigh:
+
+"What offence can I have committed against God, to have brought such a
+wicked son into the world?"
+
+This speech struck Maurice as a piece of ridiculous affectation, and it
+pulled him up with a jerk. The bitterness of contrition suddenly gave
+place to the delicious arrogance of wrong-doing. He plunged wildly into
+a torrent of insolence and revolt, and breathlessly delivered himself of
+utterances quite unfit for a mother's ear.
+
+"If you will have it, mamma, rather than forbid me to continue my
+friendship with a talented lyrical artist, you would be better employed
+in preventing my elder sister, Madame de Margy, from appearing, night
+after night, in society and at the theatres with a contemptible and
+disgusting individual that everybody knows is her lover. You should also
+keep an eye on my little sister Jeanne, who writes objectionable letters
+to herself in a disguised hand, and then, pretending she has found them
+in her prayer-book, shows them to you with assumed innocence, to worry
+and alarm you. It would be just as well, too, if you prevented my little
+brother Leon, a child of seven, from being quite so much with
+Mademoiselle Caporal, and you might tell your maid...."
+
+"Get out, sir, I will not have you in the house!" cried Monsieur Rene
+d'Esparvieu, white with anger, pointing a trembling finger at the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+     WHEREIN WE SEE HOW THE ANGEL, HAVING BECOME A MAN, BEHAVES
+     LIKE A MAN, COVETING ANOTHER'S WIFE AND BETRAYING HIS
+     FRIEND. IN THIS CHAPTER THE CORRECTNESS OF YOUNG
+     D'ESPARVIEU'S CONDUCT WILL BE MADE MANIFEST
+
+
+The angel was pleased with his lodging. He worked of a morning, went out
+in the afternoon, heedless of detectives, and came home to sleep. As in
+days gone by, Maurice received Madame des Aubels twice or thrice a week
+in the room in which they had seen the apparition.
+
+All went very well until one morning Gilberte, having, the night before,
+left her little velvet bag on the table in the blue room, came to find
+it, and discovered Arcade stretched on the couch in his pyjamas, smoking
+a cigarette, and dreaming of the conquest of Heaven. She gave a loud
+scream.
+
+"You, Monsieur! Had I thought to find you here, you may be quite sure I
+should not ... I came to fetch my little bag, which is in the next
+room. Allow me...." And she slipped past the angel, cautiously and
+quickly, as if he were a brazier.
+
+Madame des Aubels that morning, in her pale green tailor-made costume,
+was deliciously attractive. Her tight skirt displayed her movements, and
+her every step was one of those miracles of Nature which fill men's
+hearts with amazement.
+
+She reappeared, bag in hand.
+
+"Once more--I ask your pardon.... I never dreamt that...."
+
+Arcade begged her to sit down and to stay a moment.
+
+"I never expected, Monsieur," said she, "that you would be doing the
+honours of this flat. I knew how dearly Monsieur d'Esparvieu loved
+you.... Nevertheless, I had no idea that...."
+
+The sky had suddenly grown overcast. A brownish glare began to steal
+into the room. Madame des Aubels told him she had walked for her
+health's sake, but a storm was brewing, and she asked if a carriage
+could be called for her.
+
+Arcade flung himself at Gilberte's feet, took her in his arms as one
+takes a precious piece of china, and murmured words which, being
+meaningless in themselves, expressed desire.
+
+She put her hands over his eyes and on his lips, and exclaimed, "I hate
+you!"
+
+And shaking with sobs, she asked for a drink of water. She was choking.
+The angel went to her assistance. In this moment of extreme peril she
+defended herself courageously. She kept saying: "No!... No!... I will
+not love you. I should love you too well...." Nevertheless she
+succumbed.
+
+In the sweet familiarity which followed their mutual astonishment she
+said to him:
+
+"I have often asked after you. I knew that you were an assiduous
+frequenter of the playhouses at Montmartre,--that you were often seen
+with Mademoiselle Bouchotte, who, nevertheless, is not at all pretty. I
+knew that you had become very smart, and that you were making a good
+deal of money. I was not surprised. You were born to succeed. The day of
+your"--and she pointed at the spot between the window and the wardrobe
+with the mirror--"apparition, I was vexed with Maurice for having given
+you a suicide's rags to wear. You pleased me.... Oh, it was not your
+good looks! Don't think that women are as sensitive as people say to
+outward attractions. We consider other things in love. There is a sort
+of---- Well, anyhow I loved you as soon as I saw you."
+
+The shadows grew deeper.
+
+She asked:
+
+"You are not an angel, are you? Maurice believes you are; but he
+believes so many things, Maurice." She questioned Arcade with her eyes
+and smiled maliciously. "Confess that you have been fooling him, and
+that you are no angel?"
+
+Arcade replied:
+
+"I only aspire to please you; I will always be what you want me to be."
+
+Gilberte decided that he was no angel; first, because one never is an
+angel; secondly, for more detailed reasons which drew her thoughts to
+the question of love. He did not argue the matter with her, and once
+again words were found inadequate to express their feelings.
+
+Outside, the rain was falling thick and fast, the windows were
+streaming, lightning lit up the muslin curtains, and thunder shook the
+panes. Gilberte made the sign of the Cross and remained with her head
+hidden in her lover's bosom.
+
+At this moment Maurice entered the room. He came in wet and smiling,
+confident, tranquil, happy, to announce to Arcade the good news that
+with his half-share in the previous day's race at Longchamps the angel
+had won twelve times his stake. Surprising the lady and the angel in
+their embrace, he became furious; anger gripped the muscles of his
+throat, his face grew red with blood, and the veins stood out on his
+forehead. He sprang with clenched fists towards Gilberte, and then
+suddenly stopped.
+
+Interrupted motion was transformed into heat. Maurice fumed. His anger
+did not arm him, like Archilochus, with lyrical vengeance. He merely
+applied an offensive epithet to his unfaithful one.
+
+Meanwhile she had recovered her dignified bearing. She rose, full of
+modesty and grace, and gave her accuser a look which expressed both
+offended virtue and loving forgiveness.
+
+But as young d'Esparvieu continued to shower coarse and monotonous
+insults on her, she grew angry in her turn.
+
+"You are a pretty sort of person, are you not?" she said. "Did I run
+after this Arcade of yours? It was you who brought him here, and in what
+a state, too! You had only one idea: to give me up to your friend. Well,
+Monsieur, you can do as you like--I am not going to oblige you."
+
+Maurice d'Esparvieu replied simply, "Get out of it, you trollop!" And he
+made a motion as if to push her out. It pained Arcade to see his
+mistress treated so disrespectfully, but he thought he lacked the
+necessary authority to interfere with Maurice. Madame des Aubels, who
+had lost none of her dignity, fixed young d'Esparvieu with her imperious
+gaze, and said:
+
+"Go and get me a carriage."
+
+And so great is the power of woman over a well-bred soul, in a gallant
+nation, that the young Frenchman went immediately and told the concierge
+to call a taxi. Madame des Aubels, with a studied exhibition of charm in
+every movement, took leave of them, throwing Maurice the contemptuous
+look that a woman owes to him whom she has deceived. Maurice witnessed
+her departure with an outward expression of indifference he was far from
+feeling. Then he turned to the angel clad in the flowered pyjamas which
+Maurice himself had worn the day of the apparition; and this
+circumstance, trifling in itself, added fuel to the anger of the host
+who had been thus shamefully deceived.
+
+"Well," he said, "you may pride yourself on being a despicable
+individual. You have behaved basely, and all for nothing. If the woman
+took your fancy, you had but to tell me. I was tired of her. I had had
+enough of her. I would have willingly left her to you."
+
+He spoke thus to hide his pain, for he loved Gilberte more than ever,
+and the creature's treachery caused him great suffering. He pursued:
+
+"I was about to ask you to take her off my hands. But you have followed
+your lower nature--you have behaved like a sweep."
+
+If at this solemn moment Arcade had but spoken one word from his heart,
+Maurice would have burst into tears, and forgiven his friend and his
+mistress, and all three would have become content and happy once again.
+But Arcade had not been nourished on the milk of human kindness. He had
+never suffered, and did not know how to sympathise with suffering. He
+replied with frigid wisdom:
+
+"My dear Maurice, that same necessity which orders and constrains the
+actions of living beings, produces effects that are often unexpected,
+and sometimes absurd. Thus it is that I have been led to displease you.
+You would not reproach me if you had a good philosophical understanding
+of nature; for you would then know that free-will is but an illusion,
+and that physiological affinities are as exactly determined as are
+chemical combinations, and, like them, may be summed up in a formula. I
+think that, in your case, it might be possible to inculcate these
+truths, but it would be a difficult task, and maybe they would not bring
+you the serenity which eludes you. It is fitting, therefore, that I
+should leave this spot, and----"
+
+"Stay," said Maurice.
+
+Maurice had a very clear sense of social obligations. He put honour,
+when he thought about it, above everything. So now he told himself very
+forcibly that the outrage he had suffered could only be wiped out with
+blood. This traditional idea instantly lent an unexpected nobility to
+his speech and bearing.
+
+"It is I, Monsieur," said he, "who will quit this place, never to
+return. You will remain here, since you are a refugee. My seconds will
+wait upon you."
+
+The angel smiled.
+
+"I will receive them, if it gives you pleasure, but, bethink you, my
+dear Maurice, I am invulnerable. Celestial spirits even when they are
+materialised cannot be touched by point of sword or pistol shot.
+Consider, my dear Maurice, the awkward situation in which this fatal
+inequality puts me, and realise that in refusing to appoint seconds I
+cannot give as a reason my celestial nature,--it would be
+unprecedented."
+
+"Monsieur," replied the heir of the Bussart d'Esparvieu, "you should
+have thought of that before you insulted me."
+
+Out he marched haughtily; but no sooner was he in the street than he
+staggered like a drunken man. The rain was still falling. He walked
+unseeing, unhearing, at haphazard, dragging his feet in the gutters
+through pools of water, through heaps of mud. He followed the outer
+boulevards for a long time, and at length, fordone with weariness, lay
+down on the edge of a piece of waste land. He was muddied up to the
+eyes, mud and tears smeared his face, the brim of his hat was dripping
+with rain. A passer-by, taking him for a beggar, tossed him a copper. He
+picked it up, put it carefully in his waistcoat pocket, and set off to
+find his seconds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+     WHICH TREATS OF AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR, AND WHICH WILL AFFORD
+     THE READER AN OPPORTUNITY OF JUDGING WHETHER, AS ARCADE
+     AFFIRMS, THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR FAULTS MAKES BETTER MEN AND
+     WOMEN OF US
+
+
+The ground chosen for the combat was Colonel Manchon's garden, on the
+Boulevard de la Reine at Versailles. Messieurs de la Verdeliere and Le
+Truc de Ruffec, who had both of them constant practice in affairs of
+honour and knew the rules with great exactness, assisted Maurice
+d'Esparvieu. No duel was ever fought in the Catholic world without
+Monsieur de la Verdeliere being present; and, in making application to
+this swordsman, Maurice had conformed to custom, though not without a
+certain reluctance, for he had been notorious as the lover of Madame de
+la Verdeliere; but Monsieur de la Verdeliere was not to be looked upon
+as a husband. He was an institution. As to Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec,
+honour was his only known profession and avowedly his sole resource, and
+when the matter was made the subject of ill-natured comment in Society,
+the question was asked what finer career than that of honour Monsieur Le
+Truc de Ruffec could possibly have adopted. Arcade's seconds were Prince
+Istar and Theophile. The celestial musician had not voluntarily nor with
+a good grace taken a hand in this affair. He had a horror of every kind
+of violence and disapproved of single combat. The report of pistols and
+the clash of swords were intolerable to him, and the sight of blood made
+him faint. This gentle son of Heaven had obstinately refused to act as
+second to his brother Arcade, and to bring him to the starting-point the
+Kerub had had to threaten to break a bottle of panclastite over his
+head.
+
+Besides the combatants, the seconds, and the doctors, the only people in
+the garden were a few officers from the barracks at Versailles and
+several reporters. Although young d'Esparvieu was known merely as a
+young man of family, and Arcade had never been heard of at all, the duel
+had attracted quite a large crowd of inquisitive individuals, and the
+windows of the adjoining houses were crammed with photographers,
+reporters, and Society people. What had aroused much curiosity was that
+a woman was known to be the cause of the quarrel. Many mentioned
+Bouchotte, but the majority said it was Madame des Aubels. It had been
+remarked upon, moreover, that duels in which Monsieur de la Verdeliere
+acted as second drew all Paris.
+
+The sky was a soft blue, the garden all a-bloom with roses, a blackbird
+was piping in a tree. Monsieur de la Verdeliere, who, stick in hand,
+conducted the affair, laid the points of the swords together, and said:
+
+"_Allez, Messieurs._"
+
+Maurice d'Esparvieu attacked by doubling and beating the blade. Arcade
+retired, keeping his sword in line. The first engagement was without
+result. The seconds were under the impression that Monsieur d'Esparvieu
+was in a grievous state of nervous irritability, and that his adversary
+would wear him down. In the second encounter Maurice attacked wildly,
+spread out his arms, and exposed his breast. He attacked as he advanced,
+gave a straight thrust, and the point of his sword grazed Arcade on the
+shoulder. The latter was thought to be wounded. But the seconds
+ascertained with surprise that it was Maurice who had received a scratch
+on the wrist. Maurice asserted that he felt nothing, and Dr. Quille
+declared, after examination, that his client might continue the fight.
+After the regulation quarter of an hour the duel was resumed. Maurice
+attacked with fury. His adversary was obviously nursing him, and, what
+disturbed Monsieur de la Verdeliere, seemed to be paying very little
+attention to his own defence. At the opening of the fifth bout, a black
+spaniel that had got into the garden no one knew how rushed out from a
+clump of rose-bushes, made its way on to the space reserved for the
+combatants, and, in spite of sticks and cries, ran in between Maurice's
+legs. The latter seemed as though his arm were benumbed, merely gave a
+shoulder-thrust at his invulnerable opponent. He then delivered a
+straight lunge and impaled his arm on his adversary's sword, which made
+a deep wound just below the elbow.
+
+Monsieur de la Verdeliere stopped the fight, which had lasted an hour
+and a half. Maurice was conscious of a painful shock. They laid him down
+on a grassy bank against a wall covered with wistaria. While the surgeon
+was dressing the wound Maurice called Arcade and offered him his wounded
+hand. And when the victor, saddened with his victory, advanced, Maurice
+embraced him tenderly, saying:
+
+"Be generous, Arcade; forgive my treachery. Now that we have fought, I
+can ask you to be reconciled with me."
+
+He embraced his friend, weeping, and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Come and see me, and bring Gilberte."
+
+Maurice, who was still unreconciled with his parents, was taken to the
+little flat in the Rue de Rome. No sooner was he stretched on the bed at
+the far end of the bedroom where the curtains were drawn as on the day
+of the apparition, than he saw Arcade and Gilberte appear. He began to
+suffer greatly from his wound; his temperature was rising, but he was at
+peace, happy and contented. Angel and woman, both in tears, threw
+themselves at the foot of the bed. He took both their hands with his
+left, smiled on them, and kissed them tenderly.
+
+"I am sure now that I shall never quarrel with either of you again; you
+will deceive me no more. I now know you are capable of anything."
+
+Gilberte, weeping, swore that Maurice had been misled by appearances,
+that she had never betrayed him with Arcade, that she had never betrayed
+him at all. And in a great gush of sincerity she persuaded herself that
+this was so.
+
+"You wrong yourself, Gilberte," replied the wounded man. "It did happen;
+it had to. And it is well. Gilberte, you were basely false to me with my
+best friend in this very room, and you were right. If you had not been
+we should not be here, reunited, all three of us, and I should not be at
+your side tasting the greatest happiness of my life. Oh, Gilberte, how
+wrong of you to deny a perfect and accomplished fact!"
+
+"If you wish, my friend," replied Gilberte, a little acidly, "I will not
+deny it. But it will only be to please you."
+
+Maurice made her sit down on the bed, and begged Arcade to be seated in
+the arm-chair.
+
+"My friend," said Arcade, "I was innocent. I became man. Straightway I
+did evil. Then I became better."
+
+"Do not let us exaggerate things," said Maurice. "Let's have a game of
+bridge."
+
+Scarcely, however, had the patient seen three aces in his hand and
+called "no trumps," than his eyes began to swim, the cards slipped from
+his fingers, head fell heavily back on the pillow, and he complained of
+a violent headache. Almost immediately, Madame des Aubels went off to
+pay some calls, for she made a point of appearing in Society, in order
+that the calmness and confidence of her demeanour might give the lie to
+the various rumours that were current concerning her. Arcade saw her to
+the door, and, with a kiss, inhaled from her a delicate perfume which he
+brought back with him into the room where Maurice lay dozing.
+
+"I am perfectly content," murmured the latter, "that things should have
+happened as they have."
+
+"It was bound to be so," answered the Spirit. "All the other angels in
+revolt would have done as I did with Gilberte. 'Women,' saith the
+Apostle, 'should pray with their heads covered, because of the angels,'
+and the Apostle speaks thus because he knows that the angels are
+disturbed when they look upon them and see that they are beautiful. No
+sooner do they touch the earth than they desire to embrace mortal women
+and fulfil their desire. Their clasp is full of strength and sweetness,
+they hold the secret of those ineffable caresses which plunge the
+daughters of men into unfathomable depths of delight. Laying upon the
+lips of their happy victims a honey that burns like fire, making their
+veins flow with torrents of refreshing flames, they leave them raptured
+and undone."
+
+"Stop your clatter, you unclean beast," cried the wounded one.
+
+"One word more!" said the angel; "just one other word, my dear Maurice,
+to bear out what I say, and I will let you rest quietly. There's nothing
+like having sound references. In order to assure yourself that I am not
+deceiving you, Maurice, on this subject of the amorous embraces of
+angels and women, look up Justin, _Apologies_, I and II; Flavius
+Josephus, _Jewish Antiquities_, Book I, Chapter III; Athenagoras,
+_Concerning the Resurrection_; Lactantius, Book II, Chapter XV;
+Tertullian, _On the Veil of the Virgins_; Marcus of Ephesus in
+_Psellus_; Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelica_, Book V, Chapter IV; Saint
+Ambrose, in his book on _Noah and the Ark_, Chapter V; Saint Augustine,
+in his _City of God_, Book XV, Chapter XXIII; Father Meldonat, the
+Jesuit, _Treatise on Demons_, page 248; Pierre Lebyer the King's
+Counsellor----"
+
+"Arcade, please, for pity's sake, be quiet; do, please do, and send this
+dog away," cried Maurice, whose face was burning, and whose eyes were
+starting from his head; for in his delirium he thought he saw a black
+spaniel on his bed.
+
+Madame de la Verdeliere, who was assiduous in every modish and patriotic
+practice, was reckoned, in the best French society, as one of the most
+gracious of the great ladies interested in good works. She came herself
+to ask for news of Maurice, and offered to nurse the wounded man. But at
+the vehement instigation of Madame des Aubels, Arcade shut the door in
+her face. Expressions of sympathy were showered upon Maurice. Piled on
+the salver, visiting cards displayed their innumerable little dogs'
+ears. Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec was one of the first to show his manly
+sympathy at the flat in the Rue de Rome, and, holding out his loyal
+hand, asked young d'Esparvieu as one honourable man to another for
+twenty-five louis to pay a debt of honour.
+
+"Of course, my dear Maurice, that is the sort of thing one could not ask
+of everybody."
+
+The same day Monsieur Gaetan came to press his nephew's hand. The latter
+introduced Arcade.
+
+"This is my guardian angel, whose foot you thought so beautiful when you
+saw the print it had made on the tell-tale powder, uncle. He appeared to
+me last year in this very room. You don't believe it? Well, it is true,
+nevertheless."
+
+Then turning towards the Spirit he said:
+
+"What say you, Arcade? The Abbe Patouille, who is a great theologian and
+a good priest, does not believe that you are an angel; and Uncle Gaetan,
+who doesn't know his catechism and hasn't a scrap of religion in him,
+doesn't think so either. They deny you, the pair of them; the one
+because he has faith, the other because he hasn't. After that you may be
+sure that your history, if ever it comes to be narrated, will scarcely
+appear credible. Moreover, the man that took it into his head to tell
+your story would not be a man of taste, and would not come in for much
+approval. For your story is not a pretty one. I love you, but I sit in
+judgment upon you, too. Since you fell into atheism, you have become an
+abominable scoundrel. A bad angel, a bad friend, a traitor, and a
+homicide, for I suppose it was to bring about my death that you sent
+that black spaniel between my legs on the duelling-ground."
+
+The angel shrugged his shoulders and, addressing Gaetan, said:
+
+"Alas! Monsieur, I am not surprised at finding little credit in your
+eyes. I have been told that you have fallen out with the Judaeo-Christian
+heaven, which is where I came from."
+
+"Monsieur," answered Gaetan, "my faith in Jehovah is not sufficiently
+strong to enable me to believe in his angels."
+
+"Monsieur, he whom you call Jehovah is really a coarse and ignorant
+demiurge, and his name is Ialdabaoth."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur, I am perfectly ready to believe in him. He is a
+narrow-minded ignoramus, is he? Then belief in his existence offers me
+no further difficulty. How is he getting on?"
+
+"Badly! We are going to lay him low next month."
+
+"Don't make too sure of that, Monsieur. You remind me of my
+brother-in-law, Cuissart, who has been expecting to hear of the fall of
+the Republic for the past thirty years."
+
+"You see, Arcade," exclaimed Maurice, "Uncle Gaetan thinks as I do. He
+knows you won't succeed."
+
+"And, pray, Monsieur Gaetan, what makes you think I shall not succeed?"
+
+"Your Ialdabaoth is still very powerful in this world, if he isn't in
+the other. In days gone by he used to be upheld by his priests, by those
+who believed in him. Now he is supported by those who do not believe in
+him, by the philosophers. A pedant of a fellow called Picrochole has
+recently come on the scene who wants to make a bankrupt of science in
+order to do a good turn to the Church. And just lately Pragmatism has
+been invented for the express purpose of gaining credit for religion in
+the minds of rationalists."
+
+"You have been studying Pragmatism?"
+
+"Not I! I was frivolous once, and I went in for metaphysics. I read
+Hegel and Kant. I have become serious with years, and now I only trouble
+myself about things evident to the senses: what the eye can see or what
+the ear can hear. Man is summed up in Art. All the rest is moonshine."
+
+Thus the conversation went on until evening; it was marked by
+obscenities that would have brought a blush--I will not say to a
+cuirassier, for cuirassiers are frequently chaste, but even to a
+Parisienne.
+
+Monsieur Sariette came to see his old pupil. When he entered the room
+the bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu seemed to take shape behind the
+librarian's bald head. He drew near the bed. In the place of blue
+curtains, mirrored wardrobe, and chimney-piece, there straightway came
+into view the heavy-laden bookcases of the room of the globes and busts,
+and the air was heavy with piles of papers, records, and files. Monsieur
+Sariette could not be dissociated from his library; one could not
+conceive of him or even see him apart from it. He himself was paler,
+more vague, more shadowy, and more a creature of the fancy than the
+fancies he evoked.
+
+Maurice, who had grown very quiet, was sensible of this mark of
+friendship.
+
+"Sit down, Monsieur Sariette,--you know Madame des Aubels. May I
+introduce Arcade to you,--my guardian angel. It was he who, while yet
+invisible, pillaged your library for two years, made you lose all desire
+for food and drink, and drove you to the verge of madness. He it was who
+moved piles of books from the room of the busts to my summer-house one
+day; under your very nose, he took away I know not what precious
+volumes; and was the cause of your falling on the staircase; another day
+he took a volume of Salomon Reinach's, and, forced to go out with me
+(for he never left me, as I have learnt later), he let the volume drop
+in the gutter of the Rue Princesse. Forgive him, Monsieur Sariette,--he
+had no pockets. He was invisible. I bitterly regret, Monsieur Sariette,
+that all your old books were not devoured by fire or swallowed up by a
+flood. They made my angel lose his head. He became man, and now knows
+neither faith nor obedience to laws. It is I, now, who am his guardian
+angel. God knows how it will all end."
+
+While listening to this speech, Monsieur Sariette's face took on an
+expression of infinite, irreparable, eternal sadness; the sadness of a
+mummy. Rising to take his leave, the sorrowful librarian murmured in
+Arcade's ear:
+
+"The poor child is very ill. He is delirious."
+
+Maurice called the old man back.
+
+"Do stay, Monsieur Sariette. You shall have a game of bridge with us.
+Monsieur Sariette, listen to my advice. Do not do as I did--do not keep
+bad company. You will be lost. I shudder at the mere thought. Monsieur
+Sariette, do not go yet. I have something very important to ask you.
+When you come again, bring me a book on the truth of religion, so that I
+may study it. I must restore to my guardian-angel the faith which he has
+lost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+     WHEREIN WE ARE LED TO MARVEL AT THE READINESS WITH WHICH AN
+     HONEST MAN OF TIMID AND GENTLE NATURE CAN COMMIT A HORRIBLE
+     CRIME
+
+
+Profoundly distressed by the dark utterances of young Maurice, Monsieur
+Sariette took a motor-omnibus, and went to see Pere Guinardon, his
+friend, his only friend, the one person in the whole world whom it gave
+him pleasure to see and hear. When Monsieur Sariette entered the shop in
+the Rue de Courcelles, Guinardon was alone, dozing in the depths of an
+antique arm-chair. His face, surrounded by his curly hair and luxuriant
+beard, was crimson in hue. Little violet filaments spread a network
+about the fleshy part of his nose, to which the wines of Burgundy had
+imparted a purple tint; for there was no longer any disguising the fact,
+Pere Guinardon drank. Two feet away from him, on the fair Octavie's
+work-table, a rose, all but withered, drooped in an empty vase, and in a
+basket a piece of embroidery was lying unfinished and neglected. The
+young Octavie's absences from the shop were growing more and more
+frequent, and Monsieur Blancmesnil never called when she was not there.
+The reason of this was that they were meeting three times a week at five
+o'clock in a house close to the Champs Elysees. Pere Guinardon knew
+nothing of that. He did not know the full extent of his misfortune, but
+he suffered.
+
+Monsieur Sariette shook his old friend by the hand; but he did not
+enquire for the young Octavie, for he refused to recognise the
+connexion. He would sooner have talked about Zephyrine, who had been so
+cruelly deserted, and whom he hoped the old man would make his lawful
+wife. But Monsieur Sariette was prudent. He contented himself with
+asking Guinardon how he was.
+
+"Perfectly well," was Guinardon's reply; but he felt ill, for either age
+and love-making had undermined his sturdy constitution, or else young
+Octavie's faithlessness had dealt her lover a fatal blow. "God be
+praised," he went on, "I still retain my powers of mind and body. I am
+chaste. Be chaste, Sariette. Chastity is strength."
+
+That evening Pere Guinardon had taken some specially valuable books out
+of the king-wood cabinet to show to a distinguished bibliophile,
+Monsieur Victor Meyer, and after the latter's departure he had dropped
+off to sleep without putting them back in their places. Books had an
+attraction for Monsieur Sariette, and seeing these particular volumes
+on the marble top of the cabinet, he began to examine them with
+interest. The first one he looked at was _La Pucelle_, in morocco, with
+the English continuation. Doubtless it pained his patriotic and
+Christian heart to admire its text and illustrations, but a good copy
+was always virtuous and pure in his sight. Continuing to chat very
+affectionately with Guinardon, he picked up, one by one, the books which
+the antiquary had, for one reason or another--binding, illustrations,
+distinguished ownership, or scarcity--added to his stock.
+
+Suddenly a glorious shout of joy and love broke from his lips. He had
+discovered the _Lucretius_ of the Prior de Vendome, his _Lucretius_, and
+he was clasping it to his bosom.
+
+"Once again I behold you," he sighed, as he pressed it to his lips.
+
+At first Pere Guinardon could not quite make out what his old friend was
+talking about; but when the latter declared to him that the volume was
+from the d'Esparvieu collection, that it belonged to him, Sariette, and
+that he was going to take it away without further ado, the antiquary
+completely woke up, got on his legs, declared emphatically that the book
+belonged to him, Guinardon, by right of true and lawful purchase, and
+that he would not part with it unless he got five thousand francs for it
+cash down.
+
+"You don't take in what I am telling you," answered Sariette. "The book
+belongs to the d'Esparvieu library; I must restore it to its place."
+
+"_Pas de ca, Lisette_"---- hummed Guinardon.
+
+"The book belongs to me, I tell you!"
+
+"You are crazy, my good Sariette!"
+
+And noticing that, as a matter of fact, the librarian had a wandering
+look in his eye, he took the book from him, and tried to change the
+conversation.
+
+"Have you seen, Sariette, that the rascals are going to rip up the
+Palais Mazarin, and cover up the very heart and centre of the Old Town,
+the finest and most venerable place in the whole of Paris, with the
+deuce knows what works of art of theirs? They are worse than the
+Vandals, for the Vandals, although they destroyed the buildings of
+antiquity, did not replace them with hideous and disgusting erections
+and atrocious bridges like the Pont d'Alexandre. And your poor Rue
+Garanciere, Sariette, has fallen a prey to the barbarians. What have
+they done with the pretty bronze mask of the Palace fountain?"
+
+Monsieur Sariette never listened to a word of all this.
+
+"Guinardon, you have not understood me. Now listen. This book belongs to
+the d'Esparvieu library. It was taken away, how or by whom I know not.
+Dreadful and mysterious things went on in that library. But, anyhow, the
+book was stolen. I need scarcely appeal to your sentiments of scrupulous
+probity, my dear friend. You would not like to be regarded as the
+receiver of stolen goods. Give me the book. I will return it to Monsieur
+d'Esparvieu, who will duly requite you; of that you may be sure. Rely on
+his generosity, and you will be acting like the downright good fellow
+that you are."
+
+The antiquary smiled a bitter smile.
+
+"Catch me relying on the generosity of that old curmudgeon of a
+d'Esparvieu. Why, he'd skin a flea to get its coat. Look at me,
+Sariette, old boy, and tell me if I look like a dunderhead. You know
+perfectly well that d'Esparvieu refused to give fifty francs in a
+second-hand shop for a portrait of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, the founder of
+the family, by Hersent, and that consequently the founder of the family
+has had to remain on the Boulevard Montparnasse, propped against a Jew
+hawker's stall, just opposite the cemetery, where all the dogs of the
+neighbourhood come and make water on him. Catch me trusting to Monsieur
+d'Esparvieu's liberality! You've got some bright ideas in your head, you
+have!"
+
+"Very well, Guinardon, I myself will undertake to pay you any indemnity
+that a board of arbitrators may fix upon. Do you hear?"
+
+"Now don't go and do the handsome for people who won't give you so much
+as a thank-you. This man, d'Esparvieu, has taken your knowledge, your
+energies, your whole life for a salary that even a valet wouldn't
+accept. So leave that idea alone. In any case it is too late. The book
+is sold."
+
+"Sold? To whom?" asked Sariette in agonized tones.
+
+"What does that matter? You'll never see it again. You'll hear no more
+about it; it's off to America."
+
+"To America! The _Lucretius_ with the arms of Philippe de Vendome and
+marginalia in Voltaire's own hand! My _Lucretius_ off to America!"
+
+Pere Guinardon began to laugh.
+
+"My dear Sariette, you remind me of the Chevalier des Grieux when he
+learns that his darling mistress is to be transported to the
+Mississippi. 'My dear mistress going to the Mississippi!' says he."
+
+"No! no!" answered Sariette, very pale, "this book shall not go to
+America. It shall return, as it ought, to the d'Esparvieu library. Let
+me have it, Guinardon."
+
+The antiquary made a second attempt to put an end to an interview that
+now looked as if it might take an ugly turn.
+
+"My good Sariette, you haven't told me what you think of my Greco. You
+never so much as glanced at it. It is an admirable piece of work all
+the same."
+
+And Guinardon, putting the picture in a good light, went on:
+
+"Now just look at Saint Francis here, the poor man of the Lord, the
+brother of Jesus. See how his fuliginous body rises heavenward like the
+smoke from an agreeable sacrifice, like the sacrifice of Abel."
+
+"Give me the book, Guinardon," said Sariette, without turning his head;
+"give me the book."
+
+The blood suddenly flew to Pere Guinardon's head.
+
+"That's enough of it," he shouted, as red as a turkey-cock, the veins
+standing out on his forehead.
+
+And he dropped the _Lucretius_ into his jacket pocket.
+
+Straightway old Sariette flew at the antiquary, assailed him with sudden
+fury, and, frail and weakly as he was, butted him back into young
+Octavie's arm-chair.
+
+Guinardon, in furious amazement, belched forth the most horrible abuse
+on the old maniac and gave him a punch that sent him staggering back
+four paces against the _Coronation of the Virgin_, by Fra Angelico,
+which fell down with a crash. Sariette returned to the charge, and tried
+to drag the book out of the pocket in which it lay hid. This time Pere
+Guinardon would really have floored him had he not been blinded by the
+blood that was rushing to his head, and hit sideways at the work-table
+of his absent mistress. Sariette fastened himself on to his bewildered
+adversary, held him down in the arm-chair, and with his little bony
+hands clutched him by the neck, which, red as it was already, became a
+deep crimson. Guinardon struggled to get free, but the little fingers,
+feeling the mass of soft, warm flesh about them, embedded themselves in
+it with delicious ecstasy. Some unknown force made them hold fast to
+their prey. Guinardon's throat began to rattle, saliva was oozing from
+one corner of his mouth. His enormous frame quivered now and again
+beneath the grasp; but the tremors grew more and more intermittent and
+spasmodic. At last they ceased. The murderous hands did not let go their
+hold. Sariette had to make a violent effort to loose them. His temples
+were buzzing. Nevertheless he could hear the rain falling outside,
+muffled steps going past on the pavement, newspaper men shouting in the
+distance. He could see umbrellas passing along in the dim light. He drew
+the book from the dead man's pocket and fled.
+
+The fair Octavie did not go back to the shop that night. She went to
+sleep in a little entresol underneath the bric-a-brac stores which
+Monsieur de Blancmesnil had recently bought for her in this same Rue de
+Courcelles. The workman whose task it was to shut up the shop found the
+antiquary's body still warm. He called Madame Lenain, the concierge,
+who laid Guinardon on the couch, lit a couple of candles, put a sprig of
+box in a saucer of holy water, and closed the dead man's eyes. The
+doctor who was called in to certify the death ascribed it to apoplexy.
+
+Zephyrine, informed of what had happened by Madame Lenain, hastened to
+the house, and sat up all night with the body. The dead man looked as if
+he were sleeping. In the flickering light of the candles El Greco's
+Saint mounted upwards like a wreath of smoke, the gold of the Primitives
+gleamed in the shadows. Near the deathbed a little woman by Baudouin was
+plainly discernible giving herself a douche. All through the night
+Zephyrine's lamentations could be heard fifty yards away.
+
+"He's dead, he's dead!" she kept saying. "My friend, my divinity, my
+all, my love---- But no! he is not dead, he moves. It is I, Michel; I,
+your Zephyrine. Awake, hear me! Answer me; I love you; if ever I caused
+you pain, forgive me. Dead! dead! O my God! See how beautiful he is. He
+was so good, so clever, so kind. My God! My God! My God! If I had been
+there he would not now be lying dead. Michel! Michel!"
+
+When morning came she was silent. They thought she had fallen asleep.
+She was dead too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+     WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN
+     OF CLODOMIR
+
+
+Madame de la Verdeliere having failed to force an _entree_ as
+sick-nurse, returned after several days had elapsed,--during the absence
+of Madame des Aubels,--to ask Maurice d'Esparvieu for his subscription
+to the French churches. Arcade led her to the bedside of the
+convalescent. Maurice whispered in the angel's ear:
+
+"Traitor, deliver me from this ogress immediately, or you will be
+answerable for the evil which will soon befall."
+
+"Be calm," said Arcade, with a confident air.
+
+After the conventional complimentary flourishes, Madame de la Verdeliere
+signed to Maurice to dismiss the angel. Maurice feigned not to
+understand. And Madame de la Verdeliere disclosed the ostensible reason
+of her visit.
+
+"Our churches," she said, "our beloved country churches,--what is to
+become of them?"
+
+Arcade gazed at her angelically and sighed.
+
+"They will disappear, Madame; they will fall into ruin. And what a pity!
+I shall be inconsolable. The church amid the villagers' cottages is like
+the hen amidst her chickens."
+
+"Just so!" exclaimed Madame de la Verdeliere with a delighted smile. "It
+is just like that."
+
+"And the spires, Madame?"
+
+"Oh, Monsieur, the spires!..."
+
+"Yes, the spires, Madame, that stick up into the skies towards the
+little Cherubim, like so many syringes."
+
+Madame de la Verdeliere incontinently left the place.
+
+That same day Monsieur l'Abbe Patouille came to offer the wounded man
+good counsel and consolation. He exhorted him to break with his bad
+companions and to be reconciled to his family.
+
+He drew a picture of the sorrowful father, the mother in tears, ready to
+receive their long-lost child with open arms. Renouncing with manly
+effort a life of profligacy and deluding joys, Maurice would recover his
+peace and strength of mind, he would free himself from devouring
+chimeras, and shake off the Evil Spirit.
+
+Young d'Esparvieu thanked Abbe Patouille for all his kindness, and made
+a protestation of his religious feelings.
+
+"Never," said he, "have I had such faith. And never have I been in such
+need of it. Just imagine, Monsieur l'Abbe, I have to teach my guardian
+angel his catechism all over again, for he has quite forgotten it!"
+
+Monsieur l'Abbe Patouille heaved a deep sigh, and exhorted his dear
+child to pray, there being no other resource but prayer for a soul
+assailed by the Devil.
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe," asked Maurice, "may I introduce my guardian angel to
+you? Do stay a moment; he has gone to get me some cigarettes."
+
+"Unhappy child!"
+
+And Abbe Patouille's fat cheeks drooped in token of affliction. But almost
+immediately they plumped up again, as a sign of light-heartedness. For in
+his heart there was matter for rejoicing. Public opinion was improving.
+The Jacobins, the Freemasons, the Coalitionists were everywhere in
+disgrace. The Smart Set led the way. The Academie Francaise was of the
+right way of thinking. The number of Christian schools was increasing by
+leaps and bounds. The young men of the Quartier Latin were submitting to
+the Church, and the Ecole Normale exhaled the perfume of the seminary. The
+Cross was gaining the day; but money was wanted,--more money, always
+money.
+
+After six weeks' rest, Maurice was allowed by his doctor to take a
+drive. He wore his arm in a sling. His mistress and his friend went
+with him. They drove to the Bois, and took a gentle pleasure in looking
+upon the grass and the trees. They smiled on everything and everything
+smiled on them. As Arcade had said, their faults had made them better.
+By the unlooked-for ways of jealousy and anger, Maurice had attained to
+calm and kindliness. He still loved Gilberte and he loved her with an
+indulgent love. The angel still desired her as much as ever, but having
+once possessed her, his desire had lost the sting of curiosity. Gilberte
+forbore trying to please, and thereby pleased the more. They drank milk
+at the Cascade, and found it good. They were all three innocent. Arcade
+forgot the injustice of the old tyrant of the world. But he was soon to
+be reminded of it.
+
+On entering his friend's house, he found Zita awaiting him, looking like
+a statue in ivory and gold.
+
+"You excite my pity," she said to him. "The day is at hand the like of
+which has never dawned since the beginning of Time, and perhaps will
+never dawn again before the Sun enters with all its train into the
+constellation of Hercules. We are on the eve of surprising Ialdabaoth in
+his palace of porphyry, and you, who are burning to deliver the heavens,
+who were so eager to enter in triumph into your emancipated
+country,--you suddenly forget your noble purpose and fall asleep in the
+arms of the daughters of men. What pleasure can you find in intercourse
+with these unclean little animals, composed, as they are, of elements so
+unstable that they may be said to be in a state of constant evanescence?
+O Arcade! I was indeed right to distrust you. You are but an
+intellectual; you do but feel idle curiosity. You are incapable of
+action."
+
+"You misjudge me, Zita," replied the angel. "It is the nature of the
+sons of heaven to love the daughters of men. Corruptible though it be,
+the material part of women and of flowers charms the senses none the
+less. But not one of these little animals can make me forget my hatred
+and my love, and I am ready to rise up against Ialdabaoth."
+
+Zita expressed her satisfaction at seeing him in this resolute mood. She
+urged him to pursue the accomplishment of this vast undertaking with
+undiminished ardour. Nothing must be hurried or deferred.
+
+"A great action, Arcade, is made up of a multitude of small ones; the
+most majestic whole is composed of a thousand minute details. Let us
+neglect nothing."
+
+She had come to take him to a meeting where his presence was required.
+They were to take a census of the revolutionaries.
+
+She added but one word:
+
+"Nectaire will be there."
+
+When Maurice saw Zita, he deemed her lacking in attraction. She failed
+to please him because she was perfectly beautiful and because true
+beauty always caused him painful surprise. Zita inspired him with
+antipathy when he learned that she was an angel in revolt and that she
+had come to seek Arcade to take him away among the conspirators.
+
+The poor child tried to retain his companion by all the means that his
+wit and the circumstances afforded him. If his guardian angel would only
+remain with him, he would take him to a magnificent boxing-match, to a
+"revue" where he would witness the apotheosis of Poincare, or, lastly,
+to a certain house he knew of where he would behold women remarkable for
+their beauty, talents, vices, or deformities. But the angel would not
+allow himself to be tempted, and said he was going with Zita.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To plot the conquest of the skies."
+
+"Still the same nonsense! The conquest of---- but there, I proved to you
+that it was neither possible nor desirable."
+
+"Good night, Maurice."
+
+"You are going? Well, I will accompany you."
+
+And Maurice, his arm in a sling, went with Arcade and Zita all the way
+to Clodomir's restaurant at Montmartre, where the tables were laid in an
+arbour in the garden.
+
+Prince Istar and Theophile were already there, with a little creature
+who looked like a child, and was, in fact, a Japanese angel.
+
+"We are only waiting for Nectaire," said Zita.
+
+And at that moment the old gardener noiselessly appeared. He took his
+seat, and his dog lay down at his feet. French cooking is the best in
+the world. It is a glory that will transcend all others when humanity
+has grown wise enough to put the spit above the sword. Clodomir served
+the angels, and the mortal who was with them, with a soup made of
+cabbages and bacon, a loin of pork and kidneys cooked in wine, thereby
+proving himself a real Montmartre cook, and showing that he had not been
+spoilt by the Americans, who corrupt the most excellent _chefs_ of the
+City of Restaurants.
+
+Clodomir brought forth some Bordeaux, which, though unrecorded among the
+renowned vintages of Medoc, gave evidence by its choice and delicate
+aroma of the high nobility of its origin. We must not omit to chronicle
+that, after this wine and many others had been drunk, the cellarman, in
+solemn state, produced a Burgundy choice and rare, full-bodied yet not
+heavy, generous yet delicate, rich with the true Burgundian mellowness,
+a noble and, withal, a somewhat heady wine, that brought delight alike
+to mind and sense.
+
+"Hail to thee, Dionysus, greatest of the Gods!" cried old Nectaire,
+raising his glass on high. "I drink to thee who wilt restore the Golden
+Age, and give again to mortal men, who will become heroes as of old, the
+grapes which the Lesbians used to cull, long since, from the vines of
+Methymna; who wilt restore the vineyards of Thasus, the white clusters
+of Lake Mareotis, the storehouses of Falernus, the vines of the Tmolus,
+and the wine of Phanae, of all wines the king. And the juice thereof
+shall be divine, and, as in old Silenus' day, men shall grow drunk with
+Wisdom and with Love."
+
+When the coffee was served, Prince Istar, Zita, Arcade, and the Japanese
+angel took it in turns to give an account of the forces assembled
+against Ialdabaoth. Angels, in exchanging eternal bliss for the
+sufferings of an earthly life, grow in intelligence, acquire the means
+of going astray and the faculty of self-contradiction. Consequently
+their meetings, like those of men, are tumultuous and confused. Did one
+of them deal in figures, the others immediately called them in question.
+They could not add one number to another without quarrelling, and
+arithmetic itself, subjected to passion, lost its certitude. The Kerub,
+who had brought with him the pious Theophile, waxed indignant when he
+heard the musician praising the Lord, and rained down such blows on his
+head as would have felled an ox. But the head of a musician is harder
+than a bucranium, and the blows which Theophile received did not avail
+to modify that angel's notion of divine providence. Arcade, having at
+great length set up his scientific idealism in opposition to Zita's
+pragmatism, the beautiful archangel told him that he argued badly.
+
+"And you are surprised at that!" exclaimed young Maurice's guardian
+angel. "I argue, like you, in the language of human beings. And what is
+human language but the cry of the beasts of the forests or the
+mountains, complicated and corrupted by arrogant anthropoids. How then,
+Zita, can one be expected to argue well with a collection of angry or
+plaintive sounds like that? Angels do not reason at all; men, being
+superior to the angels, reason imperfectly. I will not mention the
+professors who think to define the absolute with the aid of cries that
+they have inherited from the pithecanthropoid monkeys, marsupials, and
+reptiles, their ancestors! It is a colossal joke! How it would amuse the
+demiurge, if he had any brains!"
+
+It was a beautiful starlight night. The gardener was silent.
+
+"Nectaire," said the beautiful archangel, "play to us on your flute, if
+you are not afraid that the Earth and Heaven will be stirred to their
+depths thereby."
+
+Nectaire took up his flute. Young Maurice lighted a cigarette. The flame
+burnt brightly for a moment, casting back the sky and its stars into the
+shadows, and then died out. And Nectaire sang of the flame on his divine
+flute. The silvery voice soared aloft and sang:
+
+"That flame was a whole universe which fulfilled its destiny in less
+than a minute. Suns and planets were formed therein. Venus Urania
+apportioned the orbits of the wandering spheres in those infinite
+spaces. Beneath the breath of Eros--the first of the gods,--plants,
+animals, and thoughts sprang into being. In the twenty seconds which
+hurried by betwixt the life and death of those worlds, civilizations
+were unfolded, and empires sank in long decline. Mothers shed tears, and
+songs of love, cries of hatred, and sighs of victims rose upward to the
+silent skies.
+
+"In proportion to its minuteness, that universe lasted as long as this
+one--whereof we see a few atoms glittering above our heads--has lasted
+or will last. They are, one no less than the other, but a gleam in the
+Infinite."
+
+As the clear, pure notes welled up into the charmed air, the earth
+melted into a soft mist, the stars revolved rapidly in their orbits,
+the Great Bear fell asunder, its parts flew far and wide. Orion's belt
+was shattered; the Pole Star forsook its magnetic axis. Sirius, whose
+incandescent flame had lit up the far horizon, grew blue, then red,
+flickered, and suddenly died out. The shaken constellations formed new
+signs which were extinguished in their turn. By its incantations the
+magic flute had compressed into one brief moment the life and the
+movement of this universe which seems unchanging and eternal both to men
+and angels. It ceased, and the heavens resumed their immemorial aspect.
+Nectaire had vanished. Clodomir asked his guests if they were pleased
+with the cabbage soup which, in order that it might be strong, had been
+kept simmering for twenty-four hours on the fire, and he sang the
+praises of the Beaujolais which they had drunk.
+
+The night was mild. Arcade, accompanied by his guardian angel,
+Theophile, Prince Istar, and the Japanese angel, escorted Zita home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+     HOW A DREADFUL CRIME PLUNGES PARIS INTO A STATE OF TERROR
+
+
+The city was asleep. Their footsteps rang loudly on the deserted
+pavement. Having reached the corner of the Rue Feutrier, half-way up
+Montmartre, the little company halted before the dwelling of the
+beautiful angel. Arcade was talking about the Thrones and Dominations
+with Zita, who, her finger on the bell, could not make up her mind to
+ring. Prince Istar was tracing the mechanism of a new sort of bomb on
+the pavement with the end of his stick, and bellowed so loudly that he
+woke the sleeping citizens and stirred into activity the amatory
+passions of the neighbouring Pasiphaes. Theophile was singing the
+barcarole from the second act of _Aline, Queen of Golconda_ at the top
+of his voice. Maurice, his arm in a sling, was fencing left-handed with
+the Japanese, striking sparks from the pavement, and crying "A hit! a
+hit!" in a piercing voice.
+
+Meanwhile Inspector Grolle at the corner of the next street was
+dreaming. He had the bearing of a Roman legionary and displayed all the
+characteristics of that proudly servile race, who, ever since men first
+took to building cities, have been the mainstay of Empires and the
+support of ruling houses. Inspector Grolle was very strong, but very
+tired. He suffered from an arduous profession and from lack of food. He
+was a man devoted to duty, but still a man, and he was unable to resist
+the wiles, the charms, and the blandishments of the gay ladies whom he
+met in swarms in the shadows along the empty streets and round about
+pieces of waste ground; he loved them. He loved like a soldier under
+arms. It tired him, but courage conquered fatigue. Though he had not yet
+reached the middle of Life's way, he longed for sweet repose and
+peaceful country pursuits. At the corner of the Rue Muller, on this mild
+night, he stood lost in thought. He was dreaming of the house where he
+was born, of the little olive wood, of his father's bit of ground, of
+his old mother, bent with long and heavy labour, whom he would never see
+again. Roused from his reverie by the nocturnal tumult, Inspector Grolle
+turned the corner of the street, and looked rather unfavourably at the
+band of loiterers, wherein his social instinct suspected enemies of law
+and order. He was patient and resolute. After a lengthy silence, he
+said, with awe-inspiring calm:
+
+"Move on, there!"
+
+But Maurice and the Japanese angel were fencing and heard nothing. The
+musician heard nothing but his own melodies. Prince Istar was absorbed
+in the explanation of explosive formulae. Zita was discussing with Arcade
+the greatest enterprise that had ever been conceived since the solar
+system issued from its original nebula,--and thus they all remained
+unconscious of their surroundings.
+
+"Move on, I tell you!" repeated Inspector Grolle.
+
+This time the angels heard the solemn word of warning, but either
+through indifference or contempt, they neglected to obey, and continued
+their talk, their songs, and their cries.
+
+"So you want to be taken up, do you?" shouted Inspector Grolle, clapping
+his great hand on Prince Istar's shoulder.
+
+The Kerub was indignant at this vile contact, and with one blow from his
+formidable fist sent the Inspector flying into the gutter. But Constable
+Fesandet was already running to his comrade's aid, and they both fell
+upon the Prince, whom they belaboured with mechanic fury, and whom,
+notwithstanding his strength and weight, they would perchance have
+dragged all bleeding to the police station, had not the Japanese angel
+overset them one after the other without effort, and reduced them to
+writhing and shrieking in the mud, before Maurice, Arcade, and Zita had
+time to intervene. As to the angelic musician, he stood apart trembling,
+and invoked the heavens.
+
+At this moment two bakers who were kneading their dough in a
+neighbouring cellar ran out at the noise, in their white aprons,
+stripped to the waist. With an instinctive feeling for social solidarity
+they took the side of the downfallen police. Theophile conceived a just
+fear at the sight of them, and fled away; they caught him and were about
+to hand him over to the guardians of the peace, when Arcade and Zita
+tore him from their hands. The fight continued, unequal and terrible,
+between the two angels and the two bakers. Like an athlete of Lysippus
+in strength and beauty, Arcade smothered his heavy adversary in his
+arms. The beautiful archangel drove her dagger into the baker who had
+attacked her. A dark stream of blood flowed down over his hairy chest,
+and the two white-capped supporters of the law sank to the ground.
+
+Constable Fesandet had fainted face downwards in the gutter. But
+Inspector Grolle, who had got up, blew a blast on his whistle loud
+enough to be heard at the neighbouring police-station, and sprang upon
+young Maurice, who, having but one arm with which to defend himself,
+fired his revolver with his left hand at the inspector, who put his hand
+to his heart, staggered, and dropped down. He gave a long sigh, and the
+shadows of eternity darkened his eyes.
+
+Meanwhile, windows opened one by one, and heads looked out on the
+street. A sound of heavy steps approached. Two policemen on bicycles
+debouched upon the street. Thereupon Prince Istar flung a bomb which
+shook the ground, put out the gas, shattered some of the houses, and
+enveloped the flight of young Maurice and the angels in a dense smoke.
+
+Arcade and Maurice came to the conclusion that the safest thing to do
+after this adventure was to return to the little flat in the Rue de
+Rome. They would certainly not be sought for immediately and probably
+not at all, the bomb thrown by the Kerub having fortunately wiped out
+all witnesses of the affair. They fell asleep towards dawn, and they had
+not yet awoke at ten o'clock in the morning when the concierge brought
+their tea. While eating his toast and butter and slice of ham, young
+d'Esparvieu remarked to the angel:
+
+"I used to think that a murder was something very extraordinary. Well, I
+was mistaken. It is the simplest, the most natural action in the world."
+
+"And of most ancient tradition," replied the angel. "For long centuries
+it was both usual and necessary for man to kill and despoil his fellows.
+It is still recommended in warfare. It is also honourable to attempt
+human life in certain definite circumstances, and people approved when
+you wanted to assassinate me, Maurice, because it appeared to you that I
+had been intimate with your mistress. But killing a police-inspector is
+not the action of a man of fashion."
+
+"Be silent," exclaimed Maurice, "be silent, scoundrel! I killed the poor
+Inspector instinctively, not knowing what I was doing. I am grieved to
+my heart about it. But it is not I, it is you who are the guilty one;
+you who are the murderer. It was you who lured me along this path of
+revolt and violence which leads to the pit. You have been my undoing.
+You have sacrificed my peace of mind, my happiness, to your pride and
+your wickedness, and all in vain; for I warn you, Arcade, you will not
+succeed in what you are undertaking."
+
+The concierge brought in the newspapers. On seeing them Maurice grew
+pale. They announced the outrage in the Rue de Ramey in huge headlines:
+
+"An Inspector killed--Two cyclist policemen and two bakers seriously
+wounded--Three houses blown up, numerous victims."
+
+Maurice let the paper drop, and said in a weak, plaintive voice:
+
+"Arcade, why did you not slay me in the little garden at Versailles
+amidst the roses, to the song of the blackbirds?"
+
+Meanwhile terror reigned in Paris. In the public squares, and in the
+crowded streets, house-wives, string-bag in hand, grew pale as they
+listened to the story of the crime, and consigned the perpetrators to
+the most dreadful punishment. Shop-keepers, standing at the doors of
+their shops, put it all down to the anarchists, syndicalists,
+socialists, and radicals, and demanded that special measures should be
+taken against them.
+
+The more thoughtful people recognized the handiwork of the Jew and the
+German, and demanded the expulsion of all aliens. Many vaunted the ways
+of America and advocated lynching. In addition to the printed news
+sinister rumours became current. Explosions had been heard at various
+places; everywhere bombs had been discovered; everywhere individuals,
+taken for malefactors, had been struck down by the popular arm and given
+up to justice, torn to ribbons. On the Place de la Republique a drunkard
+who was crying "Down with the police" was torn to pieces by the crowd.
+
+The President of the Council and Minister of Justice held long
+conferences with the Prefect of Police, and they agreed to take
+immediate action. In order to allay the excitement of the Parisians,
+they arrested five or six hooligans out of the thirty thousand which the
+Capital contains. The chief of the Russian police, believing he
+recognised in this attack the methods of the Nihilists, demanded, on
+behalf of his Government, that a dozen refugees should be given up. The
+demand was immediately granted. Proceedings were also taken for certain
+individuals to be extradited to ensure the safety of the King of Spain.
+
+On learning of these energetic measures, Paris breathed once more, and
+the evening papers congratulated the Government. There was excellent
+news of the wounded. They were out of danger and identified as their
+assailants all who were brought before them.
+
+True, Inspector Grolle was dead; but two Sisters of Mercy kept vigil at
+his side, and the President of the Council came and laid the Cross of
+Honour on the breast of this victim of duty.
+
+At night there were panics. In the Avenue de la Revolte the police,
+noticing a travelling acrobat's caravan on a piece of waste ground, took
+it for the retreat of a band of robbers. They whistled for help, and
+when they were a goodly number, attacked the caravan. Some worthy
+citizens joined them; fifteen thousand revolver-shots were fired, the
+caravan was blown up with dynamite, and among the debris they found the
+corpse of a monkey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+     WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND
+     MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU
+     LIBRARY, AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS
+
+
+Maurice d'Esparvieu passed a terrible night. At the least sound he
+seized his revolver that he might not fall alive into the hands of
+justice. When morning came he snatched the newspapers from the hands of
+the concierge, devoured them greedily, and gave a cry of joy; he had
+just read that Inspector Grolle having been taken to the Morgue for the
+post-mortem, the police-surgeons had only discovered bruises and
+contusions of a very superficial nature, and stated that death had been
+brought about by the rupture of an aneurism of the aorta.
+
+"You see, Arcade," he exclaimed triumphantly; "you see I am not an
+assassin. I am innocent. I could never have imagined how extremely
+agreeable it is to be innocent."
+
+Then he grew thoughtful, and--no unusual phenomenon--reflection
+dissipated his gaiety.
+
+"I am innocent,--but there is no disguising the fact," he said, shaking
+his head, "I am one of a band of malefactors. I live with miscreants.
+You are in your right place there, Arcade, for you are deceitful, cruel,
+and perverse. But I come of good family and have received an excellent
+education, and I blush for it."
+
+"I also," said Arcade, "have received an excellent education."
+
+"Where was that?"
+
+"In Heaven."
+
+"No, Arcade, no; you never had any education. If good principles had
+been inculcated into you, you would still hold them. Such principles are
+never lost. In my childhood I learnt to revere my family, my country, my
+religion. I have not forgotten the lesson and I never shall. Do you know
+what shocks me most in you? It is not your perversity, your cruelty,
+your black ingratitude; it is not your agnosticism, which may be borne
+with at a pinch; it is not your scepticism, though it is very much out
+of date (for since the national awakening there is no longer any
+scepticism in France);--no, what disgusts me in you is your lack of
+taste, the bad style of your ideas, the inelegance of your doctrines.
+You think like an intellectual, you speak like a freethinker, you have
+theories which reek of radicalism and Combeism and all ignoble systems.
+Get along with you! you disgust me. Arcade, my old friend, Arcade, my
+dear angel, Arcade, my beloved child, listen to your guardian angel!
+Yield to my prayers, renounce your mad ideas; become good, simple,
+innocent, and happy once more. Put on your hat, come with me to
+Notre-Dame. We will say a prayer and burn a candle together."
+
+Meanwhile public opinion was still active in the matter; the leading
+papers, the organs of the national awakening, in articles of real
+elevation and real depth, unravelled the philosophy of this monstrous
+attack which was revolting to the conscience. They discovered the real
+origin, the indirect but effective cause in the revolutionary doctrines
+which had been disseminated unchecked, in the weakening of social ties,
+the relaxing of moral discipline, in the repeated appeals to every
+appetite, to every greedy desire. It would be needful, so as to cut down
+the evil at its root, to repudiate as quickly as possible all such
+chimeras and Utopias as syndicalism, the income-tax, etc., etc., etc.
+Many newspapers, and these not the least important, pointed out that the
+recrudescence of crime was but the natural fruit of impiety and
+concluded that the salvation of society lay in an unanimous and sincere
+return to religion. On the Sunday which followed the crime the
+congregations in the churches were noticed to be unusually large.
+
+Judge Salneuve, who was entrusted with the task of investigation, first
+examined the persons arrested by the police, and lost his way among
+attractive but illusory clues; however, the report of the detective
+Montremain, which was laid before him, put him on the right road, and
+soon led him to recognise the miscreants of La Jonchere as the authors
+of the crime of the Rue de Ramey. He ordered a search to be made for
+Arcade and Zita, and issued a warrant against Prince Istar, on whom the
+detectives laid hands as he was leaving Bouchotte's, where he had been
+depositing some bombs of new design. The Kerub, on learning the
+detectives' intentions, smiled broadly and asked them if they had a
+powerful motor-car. On their replying that they had one at the door, he
+assured them that was all he wanted. Thereupon he felled the two
+detectives on the stairs, walked up to the waiting car, flung the
+chauffeur under a motor-'bus which was opportunely passing, and seized
+the steering wheel under the eyes of the terrified crowd.
+
+That same evening Monsieur Jeancourt, the Police Magistrate, entered
+Theophile's rooms just when Bouchotte was swallowing a raw egg to clear
+her voice, for she was to sing her new song, "They haven't got any in
+Germany," at the "National Eldorado" that evening. The musician was
+absent. Bouchotte received the Magistrate, and received him with a
+hauteur which intensified the simplicity of her attire; Bouchotte was
+_en deshabille_. The worthy Magistrate seized the score of _Aline, Queen
+of Golconda_, and the love-letters which the singer carefully preserved
+in the drawer of the table by her bed, for she was an orderly young
+woman. He was about to withdraw when he espied a cupboard, which he
+opened with a careless air, and found machines capable of blowing up
+half Paris, and a pair of large white wings, whose nature and use
+appeared inexplicable to him. Bouchotte was invited to complete her
+toilette, and, in spite of her cries, was taken off to the
+police-station.
+
+Monsieur Salneuve was indefatigable. After the examination of the papers
+seized in Bouchotte's house, and acting on the information of
+Montremain, he issued a warrant for the arrest of young d'Esparvieu,
+which was executed on Wednesday, the 27th May, at seven o'clock in the
+morning, with great discretion. For three days Maurice had neither slept
+nor eaten, loved nor lived. He had not a moment's doubt as to the nature
+of the matutinal visit. At the sight of the police magistrate a strange
+calm fell on him. Arcade had not returned to sleep in the flat. Maurice
+begged the magistrate to wait for him, dressed with care, and then
+accompanied the magistrate a calmness of mind which was barely
+disturbed when the door of the Conciergerie closed on him. Alone in his
+cell, he climbed upon the table to look out. His tranquillity was due to
+his weariness of spirit, to his numbed senses, and to the fact that he
+no longer stood in fear of arrest. His misfortune endowed him with
+superior wisdom. He felt he had fallen into a state of grace. He did not
+think too highly or too humbly of himself, but left his cause in the
+hands of God. With no desire to cover up his faults, which he would not
+hide even from himself, he addressed himself in mind to Providence, to
+point out that if he had fallen into disorder and rebellion it was to
+lead his erring angel back into the straight path. He stretched himself
+on the couch and slept in peace.
+
+On hearing of the arrest of a music-hall singer and of a young man of
+fashion, both Paris and the provinces felt painful surprise. Deeply
+stirred by the tragic accounts which the leading newspapers were
+bringing out, the general idea was that the sort of people the
+authorities ought to bring to justice were ferocious anarchists, all
+reeking and dripping from deeds of blood and arson; but they failed to
+understand what the world of Art and Fashion should have to do with such
+things. At this news, which he was one of the last to hear, the
+President of the Council and Keeper of the Seals started up in his
+chair. The Sphinxes that adorned it were less terrible than he, and in
+the throes of his angry meditation he cut the mahogany of his imperial
+table with his penknife, after the manner of Napoleon. And when Judge
+Salneuve, whose attendance he had commanded, appeared before him, the
+President flung his penknife in the grate, as Louis XIV flung his cane
+out of the window in the presence of Lauzun; and it cost him a supreme
+effort to master himself and to say in a voice of suppressed fury:
+
+"Are you mad? Surely I said often enough that I meant the plot to be
+anarchist, anti-social, fundamentally anti-social and anti-governmental,
+with a shade of syndicalism. I have made it clear enough that I wanted
+it kept within these lines; and what do you go and make of it?... The
+vengeance of anarchists and aspirants to freedom? Whom do you arrest? A
+singer adored of the nationalist public, and the son of a man highly
+esteemed in the Catholic party, who receives our bishops and has the
+_entree_ to the Vatican; a man who may be one day sent as ambassador to
+the Pope. At one blow you alienate one hundred and sixty Deputies and
+forty Senators of the Right on the very eve of a motion to discuss the
+question of religious pacification; you embroil me with my friends of
+to-day, with my friends of to-morrow. Was it to find out if you were in
+the same dilemma as des Aubels that you seized the love-letters of
+young Maurice d'Esparvieu? I can put your mind at rest on that point.
+You are, and all Paris knows it. But it is not to avenge your personal
+affronts that you are on the Bench."
+
+"Monsieur le Garde des Sceaux," murmured the Judge, nearly apoplectic
+and in a choked voice. "I am an honest man."
+
+"You are a fool ... and a provincial. Listen to me; if Maurice
+d'Esparvieu and Mademoiselle Bouchotte are not released within half an
+hour I will crush you like a piece of glass. Be off!"
+
+Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu went himself to fetch his son from the
+Conciergerie and took him back to the old house in the Rue Garanciere.
+The return was triumphant. The news had been disseminated that Maurice
+had with generous imprudence interested himself in an attempt to restore
+the monarchy, and that Judge Salneuve, the infamous freemason, the tool
+of Combes and Andre, had tried to compromise the young man by making him
+out to be an accomplice of a band of criminals.
+
+That was what Abbe Patouille seemed to think, and he answered for
+Maurice as for himself. It was known, moreover, that breaking with his
+father, who had rallied to the support of the Republic, young
+d'Esparvieu was on the high road to becoming an out-and-out Royalist.
+The people who had an inside knowledge of things saw in his arrest the
+vengeance of the Jews. Was not Maurice a notorious anti-Semite? Catholic
+youths went forth to hurl imprecations at Judge Salneuve under the
+windows of his residence in the Rue Guenegaud, opposite the Mint.
+
+On the Boulevard du Palais a band of students presented Maurice with a
+branch of palm. Maurice made a charming reply.
+
+Maurice was overcome with emotion when he beheld the old house in which
+his childhood had been spent, and fell weeping into his mother's arms.
+
+It was a great day, unhappily marred by one painful incident. Monsieur
+Sariette, who had lost his reason as a consequence of the shocking
+events that had taken place in the Rue de Courcelles, had suddenly
+become violent. He had shut himself up in the library, and there he had
+remained for twenty-four hours, uttering the most horrible cries, and,
+turning a deaf ear alike to threats and entreaties, refused to come out.
+He had spent the night in a condition of extreme restlessness, for all
+night long the lamp had been seen passing rapidly to and fro behind the
+curtains. In the morning, hearing Hippolyte shouting to him from the
+court below, he opened the window of the Hall of the Spheres and the
+Philosophers, and heaved two or three rather weighty tomes on to the old
+valet's head. The whole of the domestic staff--men, women, and
+boys--hurried to the spot, and the librarian proceeded to throw out
+books by the armful on to their heads. In view of the gravity of the
+situation, Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu did not disdain to intervene. He
+appeared in night-cap and dressing-gown, and attempted to reason with
+the poor lunatic, whose only reply was to pour forth torrents of abuse
+on the man whom till then he had worshipped as his benefactor, and to
+endeavour to crush him beneath all the Bibles, all the Talmuds, all the
+sacred books of India and Persia, all the Greek Fathers, and all the
+Latin Fathers, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Saint
+Augustine, Saint Jerome, all the apologists, ay! and under the _Histoire
+des Variations_, annotated by Bossuet himself! Octavos, quartos, folios
+came crashing down, and lay in a sordid heap on the courtyard pavement.
+The letters of Gassendi, of Pere Mersenne, of Pascal, were blown about
+hither and thither by the wind. The lady's-maid who had stooped down to
+rescue some of the sheets from the gutter got a blow on the head from an
+enormous Dutch atlas. Madame Rene d'Esparvieu had been terrified by the
+ominous sounds, and appeared on the scene without waiting to apply the
+finishing touches of powder and paint. When he caught sight of her, old
+Sariette became more violent than ever. Down they came one after another
+as hard as he could pelt them; the busts of the poets, philosophers,
+and historians of antiquity--Homer, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
+Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero,
+Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Epictetus--all lay scattered on the ground. The
+celestial sphere and the terrestrial globe descended with a terrifying
+crash that was followed by a ghastly hush, broken only by the shrill
+laughter of little Leon, who was looking down on the scene from a window
+above. A locksmith having opened the library door, all the household
+hastened to enter, and found the aged Sariette entrenched behind piles
+of books, busily engaged in tearing and slashing away at the _Lucretius_
+of the Prior de Vendome annotated in Voltaire's own hand. They had to
+force a way through the barricade. But the maniac, perceiving that his
+stronghold was being invaded, fled away and escaped on to the roof. For
+two whole hours he gave vent to shouts and yells that were heard far and
+wide. In the Rue Garanciere the crowd kept growing bigger and bigger.
+All had their eyes fixed on the unhappy creature, and whenever he
+stumbled on the slates, which cracked beneath him, they gave a shout of
+terror. In the midst of the crowd, the Abbe Patouille, who expected
+every moment to see him hurled into space, was reciting the prayers for
+the dying, and making ready to give him the absolution _in extremis_.
+There was a cordon of police round the house keeping order. Someone
+summoned the fire-brigade, and the sound of their approach was soon
+heard. They placed a ladder against the wall of the house, and after a
+terrific struggle managed to secure the maniac, who in the course of his
+desperate resistance had one of the muscles of his arm torn out. He was
+immediately removed to an asylum.
+
+Maurice dined at home, and there were smiles of tenderness and affection
+when Victor, the old butler, brought on the roast veal. Monsieur l'Abbe
+Patouille sat at the right hand of the Christian mother, unctuously
+contemplating the family which Heaven had so plentifully blessed.
+Nevertheless, Madame d'Esparvieu was ill at ease. Every day she received
+anonymous letters of so insulting and coarse a nature that she thought
+at first they must come from a discharged footman. She now knew they
+were the handiwork of her youngest daughter, Berthe, a mere child!
+Little Leon, too, gave her pain and anxiety. He paid no attention to his
+lessons, and was given to bad habits. He showed a cruel disposition. He
+had plucked his sister's canaries alive; he stuck innumerable pins into
+the chair on which Mademoiselle Caporal was accustomed to sit, and had
+stolen fourteen francs from the poor girl, who did nothing but cry and
+dab her eyes and nose from morning till night.
+
+No sooner was dinner over than Maurice rushed off to the little
+dwelling in the Rue de Rome, impatient to meet his angel again. Through
+the door he heard a loud sound of voices, and saw assembled in the room
+where the apparition had taken place, Arcade, Zita, the angelic
+musician, and the Kerub, who was lying on the bed, smoking a huge pipe,
+carelessly scorching pillows, sheets, and coverlets. They embraced
+Maurice, and announced their departure. Their faces shone with happiness
+and courage. Alone, the inspired author of _Aline, Queen of Golconda_,
+shed tears and raised his terrified gaze to heaven. The Kerub forced him
+into the party of rebellion by setting before him two alternatives:
+either to allow himself to be dragged from prison to prison on earth, or
+to carry fire and sword into the palace of Ialdabaoth.
+
+Maurice perceived with sorrow that the earth had scarcely any hold over
+them. They were setting out filled with immense hope, which was quite
+justifiable. Doubtless they were but a few combatants to oppose the
+innumerable soldiers of the sultan of the heavens; but they counted on
+compensating for the inferiority of their numbers by the irresistible
+impetus of a sudden attack. They were not ignorant of the fact that
+Ialdabaoth, who flatters himself on knowing all things, sometimes allows
+himself to be taken by surprise. And it certainly looked as if the first
+attack would have taken him unawares had it not been for the warning of
+the archangel Michael. The celestial army had made no progress since its
+victory over the rebels before the beginning of Time.
+
+As regards armaments and material it was as out of date as the army of
+the Moors. Its generals slumbered in sloth and ignorance. Loaded with
+honours and riches, they preferred the delights of the banquet to the
+fatigues of war. Michael, the commander-in-chief, ever loyal and brave,
+had lost, with the passing of centuries, his fire and enthusiasm. The
+conspirators of 1914, on the other hand, knew the very latest and the
+most delicate appliances of science for the art of destruction. At
+length all was ready and decided upon. The army of revolt, assembled by
+corps each a hundred thousand angels strong, on all the waste places of
+the earth--steppes, pampas, deserts, fields of ice and snow--was ready
+to launch itself against the sky. The angels, in modifying the rhythm of
+the atoms of which they are composed, are able to traverse the most
+varied mediums. Spirits that have descended on to the earth, being
+formed, since their incarnation, of too compact a substance, can no
+longer fly of themselves, and to rise into ethereal regions and then
+insensibly grow volatilized, have need of the assistance of their
+brothers, who, though revolutionaries like themselves, nevertheless,
+stayed behind in the Empyrean and remained, not immaterial (for all is
+matter in the Universe), but gloriously untrammelled and diaphanous.
+Certes, it was not without painful anxiety that Arcade, Istar, and Zita
+prepared themselves to pass from the heavy atmosphere of the earth to
+the limpid depths of the heavens. To plunge into the ether there is need
+to expend such energy that the most intrepid hesitate to take flight.
+Their very substance, while penetrating this fine medium, must in itself
+grow fine-spun, become vaporised, and pass from human dimensions to the
+volume of the vastest clouds which have ever enveloped the earth. Soon
+they would surpass in grandeur the uttermost planets, whose orbits they,
+invisible and imponderable, would traverse without disturbing.
+
+In this enterprise--the vastest that angels could undertake--their
+substance would be ultimately hotter than the fire and colder than the
+ice, and they would suffer pangs sharper than death.
+
+Maurice read all the daring and the pain of the undertaking in the eyes
+of Arcade.
+
+"You are going?" he said to him, weeping.
+
+"We are going, with Nectaire, to seek the great archangel to lead us to
+victory."
+
+"Whom do you call thus?"
+
+"The priests of the demiurge have made him known to you in their
+calumnies."
+
+"Unhappy being," sighed Maurice.
+
+Arcade embraced him, and Maurice felt the angel's tears as they dropped
+upon his cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+     AND LAST, WHEREIN THE SUBLIME DREAM OF SATAN IS UNFOLDED
+
+
+Climbing the seven steep terraces which rise up from the bed of the
+Ganges to the temples muffled in creepers, the five angels reached, by
+half-obliterated paths, the wild garden filled with perfumed clusters of
+grapes and chattering monkeys, and, at the far end thereof, they
+discovered him whom they had come to seek. The archangel lay with his
+elbow on black cushions embroidered with golden flames. At his feet
+crouched lions and gazelles. Twined in the trees, tame serpents turned
+on him their friendly gaze. At the sight of his angelic visitors his
+face grew melancholy. Long since, in the days when, with his brow
+crowned with grapes and his sceptre of vine-leaves in his hand, he had
+taught and comforted mankind, his heart had many times been heavy with
+sorrow; but never yet, since his glorious downfall, had his beautiful
+face expressed such pain and anguish.
+
+Zita told him of the black standards assembled in crowds in all the
+waste places of the globe; of the deliverance premeditated and prepared
+in the provinces of Heaven, where the first revolt had long ago been
+fomented.
+
+"Prince," she went on, "your army awaits you. Come, lead it on to
+victory."
+
+"Friends," replied the great archangel, "I was aware of the object of
+your visit. Baskets of fruit and honeycombs await you under the shade of
+this mighty tree. The sun is about to descend into the roseate waters of
+the Sacred River. When you have eaten, you will slumber pleasantly in
+this garden, where the joys of the intellect and of the senses have
+reigned since the day when I drove hence the spirit of the old Demiurge.
+To-morrow I will give you my answer."
+
+Night hung its blue over the garden. Satan fell asleep. He had a dream,
+and in that dream, soaring over the earth, he saw it covered with angels
+in revolt, beautiful as gods, whose eyes darted lightning. And from pole
+to pole one single cry, formed of a myriad cries, mounted towards him,
+filled with hope and love. And Satan said:
+
+"Let us go forth! Let us seek the ancient adversary in his high abode."
+And he led the countless host of angels over the celestial plains. And
+Satan was cognizant of what took place in the heavenly citadel. When
+news of this second revolt came thither, the Father said to the Son:
+
+"The irreconcilable foe is rising once again. Let us take heed to
+ourselves, and in this, our time of danger, look to our defences, lest
+we lose our high abode."
+
+And the Son, consubstantial with the Father, replied:
+
+"We shall triumph under the sign that gave Constantine the victory."
+
+Indignation burst forth on the Mountain of God. At first the faithful
+Seraphim condemned the rebels to terrible torture, but afterwards
+decided on doing battle with them. The anger burning in the hearts of
+all inflamed each countenance. They did not doubt of victory, but
+treachery was feared, and eternal darkness had been at once decreed for
+spies and alarmists.
+
+There was shouting and singing of ancient hymns and praise of the
+Almighty. They drank of the mystic wine. Courage, over-inflated, came
+near to giving way, and a secret anxiety stole into the inner depths of
+their souls. The archangel Michael took supreme command. He reassured
+their minds by his serenity. His countenance, wherein his soul was
+visible, expressed contempt for danger. By his orders, the chiefs of the
+thunderbolts, the Kerubs, grown dull with the long interval of peace,
+paced with heavy steps the ramparts of the Holy Mountain, and, letting
+the gaze of their bovine eyes wander over the glittering clouds of
+their Lord, strove to place the divine batteries in position. After
+inspecting the defences, they swore to the Most High that all was in
+readiness. They took counsel together as to the plan they should follow.
+Michael was for the offensive. He, as a consummate soldier, said it was
+the supreme law. Attack, or be attacked,--there was no middle course.
+
+"Moreover," he added, "the offensive attitude is particularly suitable
+to the ardour of the Thrones and Dominations."
+
+Beyond that, it was impossible to obtain a word from the valiant chief,
+and this silence seemed the mark of a genius sure of himself.
+
+As soon as the approach of the enemy was announced, Michael sent forth
+three armies to meet them, commanded by the archangels Uriel, Raphael,
+and Gabriel. Standards, displaying all the colours of the Orient, were
+unfurled above the ethereal plains, and the thunders rolled over the
+starry floors. For three days and three nights was the lot of the
+terrible and adorable armies unknown on the Mountain of God. Towards
+dawn on the fourth day news came, but it was vague and confused. There
+were rumours of indecisive victories; of the triumph now of this side,
+now of that. There came reports of glorious deeds which were dissipated
+in a few hours.
+
+The thunderbolts of Raphael, hurled against the rebels, had, it was
+said, consumed entire squadrons. The troops commanded by the impure Zita
+were thought to have been swallowed up in the whirlwind of a tempest of
+fire. It was believed that the savage Istar had been flung headlong into
+the gulf of perdition so suddenly that the blasphemies begun in his
+mouth had been forced backwards with explosive results. It was popularly
+supposed that Satan, laden with chains of adamant, had been plunged once
+again into the abyss. Meanwhile, the commanders of the three armies had
+sent no messages. Mutterings and murmurs, mingling with the rumours of
+glory, gave rise to fears of an indecisive battle, a precipitate
+retreat. Insolent voices gave out that a spirit of the lowest category,
+a guardian angel, the insignificant Arcade, had checked and routed the
+dazzling host of the three great archangels.
+
+There were also rumours of wholesale defection in the Seventh Heaven,
+where rebellion had broken out before the beginning of Time, and some
+had even seen black clouds of impious angels joining the armies of the
+rebels on Earth. But no one lent an ear to the odious rumours, and
+stress was laid on the news of victory which ran from lip to lip, each
+statement readily finding confirmation. The high places resounded with
+hymns of joy; the Seraphim celebrated on harp and psaltery Sabaoth, God
+of Thunder. The voices of the elect united with those of the angels in
+glorifying the Invisible and at the thought of the bloodshed that the
+ministers of holy wrath had caused among the rebels, sighs of relief and
+jubilation were wafted from the Heavenly Jerusalem towards the Most
+High. But the beatitude of the most blessed, having swelled to the
+utmost limit before due time, could increase no more, and the very
+excess of their felicity completely dulled their senses.
+
+The songs had not yet ceased when the guards watching on the ramparts
+signalled the approach of the first fugitives of the divine army;
+Seraphim on tattered wing, flying in disorder, maimed Kerubs going on
+three feet. With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured
+the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its
+causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one
+of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest
+captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was
+evident. Scarcely were the gates of the citadel opened to receive the
+glorious but shattered remnants of the three armies, when a rain of fire
+fell on the Mountain of God. Satan's army was not yet in sight, but the
+walls of topaz, the cupolas of emerald, the roofs of diamond, all fell
+in with an appalling crash under the discharge of the electrophores. The
+ancient thunderclouds essayed to reply, but the bolts fell short, and
+their thunders were lost in the deserted plains of the skies.
+
+Smitten by an invisible foe, the faithful angels abandoned the ramparts.
+Michael went to announce to his God that the Holy Mountain would fall
+into the hands of the demon in twenty-four hours, and that nothing
+remained for the Master of the Heavens but to seek safety in flight. The
+Seraphim placed the jewels of the celestial crown in coffers. Michael
+offered his arm to the Queen of Heaven, and the Holy Family escaped from
+the palace by a subterranean passage of porphyry. A deluge of fire was
+falling on the citadel. Regaining his post once more, the glorious
+archangel declared that he would never capitulate, and straightway
+advanced the standards of the living God. That same evening the rebel
+host made its entry into the thrice-sacred city. On a fiery steed Satan
+led his demons. Behind him marched Arcade, Istar, and Zita. As in the
+ancient revels of Dionysus, old Nectaire bestrode his ass. Thereafter,
+floating out far behind, followed the black standards.
+
+The garrison laid down their arms before Satan. Michael placed his
+flaming sword at the feet of the conquering archangel.
+
+"Take back your sword, Michael," said Satan. "It is Lucifer who yields
+it to you. Bear it in defence of peace and law." Then letting his gaze
+fall on the leaders of the celestial cohorts, he cried in a ringing
+voice:
+
+"Archangel Michael, and you, Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, swear all
+of you to be faithful to your God."
+
+"We swear it," they replied with one voice.
+
+And Satan said:
+
+"Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, of all past wars, I wish but to
+remember the invincible courage that you displayed and the loyalty which
+you rendered to authority, for these assure me of the steadfastness of
+the fealty you have just sworn to me."
+
+The following day, on the ethereal plain, Satan commanded the black
+standards to be distributed to the troops, and the winged soldiers
+covered them with kisses and bedewed them with tears.
+
+And Satan had himself crowned God. Thronging round the glittering walls
+of Heavenly Jerusalem, apostles, pontiffs, virgins, martyrs, confessors,
+the whole company of the elect, who during the fierce battle had enjoyed
+delightful tranquillity, tasted infinite joy in the spectacle of the
+coronation.
+
+The elect saw with ravishment the Most High precipitated into Hell, and
+Satan seated on the throne of the Lord. In conformity with the will of
+God which had cut them off from sorrow they sang in the ancient fashion
+the praises of their new Master.
+
+And Satan, piercing space with his keen glance, contemplated the little
+globe of earth and water where of old he had planted the vine and formed
+the first tragic chorus. And he fixed his gaze on that Rome where the
+fallen God had founded his empire on fraud and lie. Nevertheless, at
+that moment a saint ruled over the Church. Satan saw him praying and
+weeping. And he said to him:
+
+"To thee I entrust my Spouse. Watch over her faithfully. In thee I
+confirm the right and power to decide matters of doctrine, to regulate
+the use of the sacraments, to make laws and to uphold purity of morals.
+And the faithful shall be under obligation to conform thereto. My Church
+is eternal, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Thou art
+infallible. Nothing is changed."
+
+And the successor of the apostles felt flooded with rapture. He
+prostrated himself, and with his forehead touching the floor, replied:
+
+"O Lord, my God, I recognise Thy voice! Thy breath has been wafted like
+balm to my heart. Blessed be Thy name. Thy will be done on Earth, as it
+is in Heaven. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
+
+And Satan found pleasure in praise and in the exercise of his grace; he
+loved to hear his wisdom and his power belauded. He listened with joy to
+the canticles of the cherubim who celebrated his good deeds, and he
+took no pleasure in listening to Nectaire's flute, because it celebrated
+nature's self, yielded to the insect and to the blade of grass their
+share of power and love, and counselled happiness and freedom. Satan,
+whose flesh had crept, in days gone by, at the idea that suffering
+prevailed in the world, now felt himself inaccessible to pity. He
+regarded suffering and death as the happy results of omnipotence and
+sovereign kindness. And the savour of the blood of victims rose upward
+towards him like sweet incense. He fell to condemning intelligence and
+to hating curiosity. He himself refused to learn anything more, for fear
+that in acquiring fresh knowledge he might let it be seen that he had
+not known everything at the very outset. He took pleasure in mystery,
+and believing that he would seem less great by being understood, he
+affected to be unintelligible. Dense fumes of Theology filled his brain.
+One day, following the example of his predecessor, he conceived the
+notion of proclaiming himself one god in three persons. Seeing Arcade
+smile as this proclamation was made, he drove him from his presence.
+Istar and Zita had long since returned to earth. Thus centuries passed
+like seconds. Now, one day, from the altitude of his throne, he plunged
+his gaze into the depths of the pit and saw Ialdabaoth in the Gehenna
+where he himself had long lain enchained. Amid the everlasting gloom
+Ialdabaoth still retained his lofty mien. Blackened and shattered,
+terrible and sublime, he glanced upwards at the palace of the King of
+Heaven with a look of proud disdain, then turned away his head. And the
+new god, as he looked upon his foe, beheld the light of intelligence and
+love pass across his sorrow-stricken countenance. And lo! Ialdabaoth was
+now contemplating the Earth and, seeing it sunk in wickedness and
+suffering, he began to foster thoughts of kindliness in his heart. On a
+sudden he rose up, and beating the ether with his mighty arms, as though
+with oars, he hastened thither to instruct and to console mankind.
+Already his vast shadow shed upon the unhappy planet a shade soft as a
+night of love.
+
+And Satan awoke bathed in an icy sweat.
+
+Nectaire, Istar, Arcade, and Zita were standing round him. The finches
+were singing.
+
+"Comrades," said the great archangel, "no--we will not conquer the
+heavens. Enough to have the power. War engenders war, and victory
+defeat.
+
+"God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God.
+May the fates spare me this terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed
+my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be
+possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by
+rapine. Now, thanks to us, the god of old is dispossessed of his
+terrestrial empire, and every thinking being on this globe disdains him
+or knows him not. But what matter that men should be no longer
+submissive to Ialdabaoth if the spirit of Ialdabaoth is still in them;
+if they, like him, are jealous, violent, quarrelsome, and greedy, and
+the foes of the arts and of beauty? What matter that they have rejected
+the ferocious Demiurge, if they do not hearken to the friendly demons
+who teach all truths; to Dionysus, Apollo, and the Muses? As to
+ourselves, celestial spirits, sublime demons, we have destroyed
+Ialdabaoth, our Tyrant, if in ourselves we have destroyed Ignorance and
+Fear."
+
+And Satan, turning to the gardener, said:
+
+"Nectaire, you fought with me before the birth of the world. We were
+conquered because we failed to understand that Victory is a Spirit, and
+that it is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and
+destroy Ialdabaoth."
+
+THE END
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Notes                                          |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 74: "Madame des Aubel's" amended to "Madame des         |
+  |     Aubels'"                                                 |
+  | Page 170: "clomb" _sic_ (archaic; past tense of _climb_).    |
+  | Page 210: "befel" _sic_ (archaic).                           |
+  | Page 230: "Bouchette" amended to "Bouchotte"                 |
+  | Page 234: "befel" _sic_ (archaic).                           |
+  | Page 259: "cetain" amended to "certain"                      |
+  | Page 278: "youself" amended to "yourself"                    |
+  | Page 284: "wistaria" _sic_; alternative spelling.            |
+  | Page 309: "Bergundy" amended to "Burgundy"                   |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Accents and hyphenation have generally been standardised.    |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Revolt of the Angels,
+by Anatole France
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