CHAPTER XXXIV.
MALEVOLA.
Madame Beck called me on Thursday afternoon, and asked whether I hadany occupation to hinder me from going into town and executing somelittle commissions for her at the shops.
Being disengaged, and placing myself at her service, I was presentlyfurnished with a list of the wools, silks, embroidering thread,etcetera, wanted in the pupils' work, and having equipped myself in amanner suiting the threatening aspect of a cloudy and sultry day, I wasjust drawing the spring-bolt of the street-door, in act to issue forth,when Madame's voice again summoned me to the salle-a-manger.
"Pardon, Meess Lucie!" cried she, in the seeming haste of an impromptuthought, "I have just recollected one more errand for you, if yourgood-nature will not deem itself over-burdened?"
Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; andMadame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket,filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposingamongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, Iknow not what, exotic plant.
"There," she said, "it is not heavy, and will not shame your neattoilette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me thefavour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long, butyou have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you arenot back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved, orGoton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing upsome trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, mabonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure toinsist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket intoher own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is rathera punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"
And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute,that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tediousbusiness, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for theslippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides andtassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was offmy mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to beattended to.
I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grimBasse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over thecity, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.
I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength anduse of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, thethick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--thequiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In return, itsweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a quiet paththrough broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as if byeastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor. Let, then,the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first get rid ofthis basket of fruit.
An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was nowtoo distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given methe address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of asquare: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, thehouses were large and looked very old--behind them rose the appearanceof trees, indicating gardens at the back. Antiquity brooded above thisregion, business was banished thence. Rich men had once possessed thisquarter, and once grandeur had made her seat here. That church, whosedark, half-ruinous turrets overlooked the square, was the venerable andformerly opulent shrine of the Magi. But wealth and greatness had longsince stretched their gilded pinions and fled hence, leaving thesetheir ancient nests, perhaps to house Penury for a time, or perhaps tostand cold and empty, mouldering untenanted in the course of winters.
As I crossed this deserted "place," on whose pavement drops almost aslarge as a five-franc piece were now slowly darkening, I saw, in itswhole expanse, no symptom or evidence of life, except what was given inthe figure of an infirm old priest, who went past, bending and proppedon a staff--the type of eld and decay.
He had issued from the very house to which I was directed; and when Ipaused before the door just closed after him, and rang the bell, heturned to look at me. Nor did he soon avert his gaze; perhaps hethought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignityage confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene. I know, had a youngruddy-faced bonne opened the door to admit me, I should have thoughtsuch a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but, when I foundmyself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique peasantcostume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of nativelace, a petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like littleboats than shoes, it seemed all right, and soothingly in character.
The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of hercostume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she wouldscarcely reply to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe shewould have snatched the basket of fruit from my hand, had not the oldpriest, hobbling up, checked her, and himself lent an ear to themessage with which I was charged.
His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fullyunderstand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit intoher own hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that suchwere my orders, and that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment.Addressing the aged bonne, not in French, but in the aboriginal tongueof Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last, to let me cross theinhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs, I wasushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-likewindows of coloured-glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of acoming storm, looked strangely lowering. Within--opened a smaller room;there, however, the blind of the single casement was closed; throughthe deep gloom few details of furniture were apparent. These few Iamused myself by puzzling to make out; and, in particular, I wasattracted by the outline of a picture on the wall.
By-and-by the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook,it sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an openingarched, leading into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair;both passage and stair were of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted.Down this donjon stair descended a tap, tap, like a stick; soon therefell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I was aware of a substance.
Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? thisobstruction, partially darkening the arch?
It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was.Well might this old square be named quarter of the Magi--well might thethree towers, overlooking it, own for godfathers three mystic sages ofa dead and dark art. Hoar enchantment here prevailed; a spell hadopened for me elf-land--that cell-like room, that vanishing picture,that arch and passage, and stair of stone, were all parts of a fairytale. Distincter even than these scenic details stood the chieffigure--Cunegonde, the sorceress! Malevola, the evil fairy. How was she?
She might be three feet high, but she had no shape; her skinny handsrested upon each other, and pressed the gold knob of a wand-like ivorystaff. Her face was large, set, not upon her shoulders, but before herbreast; she seemed to have no neck; I should have said there were ahundred years in her features, and more perhaps in her eyes--hermalign, unfriendly eyes, with thick grey brows above, and livid lidsall round. How severely they viewed me, with a sort of dull displeasure!
This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as thegentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern;over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large forher, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chiefpoints were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing with alustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on herskeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones--purple, green, andblood-r
ed. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like abarbarian queen.
"Que me voulez-vous?" said she, hoarsely, with the voice rather of malethan of female old age; and, indeed, a silver beard bristled her chin.
I delivered my basket and my message.
"Is that all?" she demanded.
"It is all," said I.
"Truly, it was well worth while," she answered. "Return to Madame Beck,and tell her I can buy fruit when I want it, et quant a sesfelicitations, je m'en moque!" And this courteous dame turned her back.
Just as she turned, a peal of thunder broke, and a flash of lightningblazed broad over salon and boudoir. The tale of magic seemed toproceed with due accompaniment of the elements. The wanderer, decoyedinto the enchanted castle, heard rising, outside, the spell-wakenedtempest.
What, in all this, was I to think of Madame Beck? She owned strangeacquaintance; she offered messages and gifts at an unique shrine, andinauspicious seemed the bearing of the uncouth thing she worshipped.There went that sullen Sidonia, tottering and trembling like palsyincarnate, tapping her ivory staff on the mosaic parquet, and mutteringvenomously as she vanished.
Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy awhile ago, had now, through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, asif in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower,I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout. Then the gleams oflightning were very fierce, the thunder crashed very near; this stormhad gathered immediately above Villette; it seemed to have burst at thezenith; it rushed down prone; the forked, slant bolts pierced athwartvertical torrents; red zigzags interlaced a descent blanched as whitemetal: and all broke from a sky heavily black in its swollen abundance.
Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to hercold staircase; there was a seat on the landing--there I waited.Somebody came gliding along the gallery just above; it was the oldpriest.
"Indeed Mademoiselle shall not sit there," said he. "It woulddispleasure our benefactor if he knew a stranger was so treated in thishouse."
And he begged me so earnestly to return to the salon, that, withoutdiscourtesy, I could not but comply. The smaller room was betterfurnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me.Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like anoratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking as if itwere a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than designedfor present use and comfort.
The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead ofconversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, andemployed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figureremained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; heseemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercerbolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then, itwas not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too wasawe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, mythoughts and observations were free.
To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembledthat Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of theBeguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in duskand in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought alsoI recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one liftedlook, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that too hadits half mystic interest.
Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, andsloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich missaland ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyesbefore--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and let inphantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna; revealed byclearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a nun's dress. Theface, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded withthe dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful;it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability ofa weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked longat that picture, and could not choose but look.
The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, mustyet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed inhis book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as Iknew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point towards which myattention was drawn, and, in a slow distinct voice, dropped, concerningit, these four observations:--
"She was much beloved.
"She gave herself to God.
"She died young.
"She is still remembered, still wept."
"By that aged lady, Madame Walravens?" I inquired, fancying that I haddiscovered in the incurable grief of bereavement, a key to that sameaged lady's desperate ill-humour.
The father shook his head with half a smile.
"No, no," said he; "a grand-dame's affection for her children'schildren may be great, and her sorrow for their loss, lively; but it isonly the affianced lover, to whom Fate, Faith, and Death have treblydenied the bliss of union, who mourns what he has lost, as JustineMarie is still mourned."
I thought the father rather wished to be questioned, and therefore Iinquired who had lost and who still mourned "Justine Marie." I got, inreply, quite a little romantic narrative, told not unimpressively, withthe accompaniment of the now subsiding storm. I am bound to say itmight have been made much more truly impressive, if there had been lessFrench, Rousseau-like sentimentalizing and wire-drawing; and rathermore healthful carelessness of effect. But the worthy father wasobviously a Frenchman born and bred (I became more and more persuadedof his resemblance to my confessor)--he was a true son of Rome; when hedid lift his eyes, he looked at me out of their corners, with more andsharper subtlety than, one would have thought, could survive the wearand tear of seventy years. Yet, I believe, he was a good old man.
The hero of his tale was some former pupil of his, whom he now calledhis benefactor, and who, it appears, had loved this pale Justine Marie,the daughter of rich parents, at a time when his own worldly prospectswere such as to justify his aspiring to a well-dowered hand. Thepupil's father--once a rich banker--had failed, died, and left behindhim only debts and destitution. The son was then forbidden to think ofMarie; especially that old witch of a grand-dame I had seen, MadameWalravens, opposed the match with all the violence of a temper whichdeformity made sometimes demoniac. The mild Marie had neither thetreachery to be false, nor the force to be quite staunch to her lover;she gave up her first suitor, but, refusing to accept a second with aheavier purse, withdrew to a convent, and there died in her noviciate.
Lasting anguish, it seems, had taken possession of the faithful heartwhich worshipped her, and the truth of that love and grief had beenshown in a manner which touched even me, as I listened.
Some years after Justine Marie's death, ruin had come on her house too:her father, by nominal calling a jeweller, but who also dealt a gooddeal on the Bourse, had been concerned in some financial transactionswhich entailed exposure and ruinous fines. He died of grief for theloss, and shame for the infamy. His old hunchbacked mother and hisbereaved wife were left penniless, and might have died too of want; buttheir lost daughter's once-despised, yet most true-hearted suitor,hearing of the condition of these ladies, came with singulardevotedness to the rescue. He took on their insolent pride the revengeof the purest charity--housing, caring for, befriending them, so as noson could have done it more tenderly and efficiently. The mother--onthe whole a good woman--died blessing him; the strange, godless,loveless, misanthrope grandmother lived still, entirely supported bythis self-sacrificing man. Her, who had been the bane of his life,blighting his hope, and awarding him, for love and domestic happiness,long mourning and cheerless solitude, he treated with the respect agood son might offer a kind mother. He had brought her to this house,"and," continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes,"here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superann
uatedservant of his father's family. To our sustenance, and to othercharities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income, keeping onlythe fourth to provide himself with bread and the most modestaccommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it impossible tohimself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and to hisangel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me."
The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words,and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. Icaught this glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleamshot a meaning which struck me.
These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them--whom youknow no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor ofChina--knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for sayingto you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprangimpromptu from the instant's impulse: his plan in bringing it aboutthat you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and suchcircumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crudeapprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. MadameBeck's suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy tothe Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the stepsand crossing the square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonnewho would have sent me away, his reappearance on the staircase, myintroduction to this room, the portrait, the narrative so affablyvolunteered--all these little incidents, taken as they fell out, seemedeach independent of its successor; a handful of loose beads: butthreaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a Jesuit-eye,they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on theprie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp ofthis monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find thespot, or detect the means of connection.
Perhaps the musing-fit into which I had by this time fallen, appearedsomewhat suspicious in its abstraction; he gently interrupted:"Mademoiselle," said he, "I trust you have not far to go through theseinundated streets?"
"More than half a league."
"You live----?"
"In the Rue Fossette."
"Not" (with animation), "not at the pensionnat of Madame Beck?"
"The same."
"Donc" (clapping his hands), "donc, vous devez connaitre mon nobleeleve, mon Paul?"
"Monsieur Paul Emanuel, Professor of Literature?"
"He and none other."
A brief silence fell. The spring of junction seemed suddenly to havebecome palpable; I felt it yield to pressure.
"Was it of M. Paul you have been speaking?" I presently inquired. "Washe your pupil and the benefactor of Madame Walravens?"
"Yes, and of Agnes, the old servant: and moreover, (with a certainemphasis), he was and _is_ the lover, true, constant and eternal, ofthat saint in heaven--Justine Marie."
"And who, father, are _you?_" I continued; and though I accentuated thequestion, its utterance was well nigh superfluous; I was ere this quiteprepared for the answer which actually came.
"I, daughter, am Pere Silas; that unworthy son of Holy Church whom youonce honoured with a noble and touching confidence, showing me the coreof a heart, and the inner shrine of a mind whereof, in solemn truth, Icoveted the direction, in behalf of the only true faith. Nor have I fora day lost sight of you, nor for an hour failed to take in you a rootedinterest. Passed under the discipline of Rome, moulded by her hightraining, inoculated with her salutary doctrines, inspired by the zealshe alone gives--I realize what then might be your spiritual rank, yourpractical value; and I envy Heresy her prey."
This struck me as a special state of things--I half-realized myself inthat condition also; passed under discipline, moulded, trained,inoculated, and so on. "Not so," thought I, but I restraineddeprecation, and sat quietly enough.
"I suppose M. Paul does not live here?" I resumed, pursuing a themewhich I thought more to the purpose than any wild renegade dreams.
"No; he only comes occasionally to worship his beloved saint, to makehis confession to me, and to pay his respects to her he calls hismother. His own lodging consists but of two rooms: he has no servant,and yet he will not suffer Madame Walravens to dispose of thosesplendid jewels with which you see her adorned, and in which she takesa puerile pride as the ornaments of her youth, and the last relics ofher son the jeweller's wealth."
"How often," murmured I to myself, "has this man, this M. Emanuel,seemed to me to lack magnanimity in trifles, yet how great he is ingreat things!"
I own I did not reckon amongst the proofs of his greatness, either theact of confession, or the saint-worship.
"How long is it since that lady died?" I inquired, looking at JustineMarie.
"Twenty years. She was somewhat older than M. Emanuel; he was then veryyoung, for he is not much beyond forty."
"Does he yet weep her?"
"His heart will weep her always: the essence of Emanuel's natureis--constancy."
This was said with marked emphasis.
And now the sun broke out pallid and waterish; the rain yet fell, butthere was no more tempest: that hot firmament had cloven and poured outits lightnings. A longer delay would scarce leave daylight for myreturn, so I rose, thanked the father for his hospitality and his tale,was benignantly answered by a "pax vobiscum," which I made kindlywelcome, because it seemed uttered with a true benevolence; but I likedless the mystic phrase accompanying it.
"Daughter, you _shall_ be what you _shall_ be!" an oracle that made meshrug my shoulders as soon as I had got outside the door. Few of usknow what we are to come to certainly, but for all that had happenedyet, I had good hopes of living and dying a sober-minded Protestant:there was a hollowness within, and a flourish around "Holy Church"which tempted me but moderately. I went on my way pondering manythings. Whatever Romanism may be, there are good Romanists: this man,Emanuel, seemed of the best; touched with superstition, influenced bypriestcraft, yet wondrous for fond faith, for pious devotion, forsacrifice of self, for charity unbounded. It remained to see how Rome,by her agents, handled such qualities; whether she cherished them fortheir own sake and for God's, or put them out to usury and made bootyof the interest.
By the time I reached home, it was sundown. Goton had kindly saved me aportion of dinner, which indeed I needed. She called me into the littlecabinet to partake of it, and there Madame Beck soon made herappearance, bringing me a glass of wine.
"Well," began she, chuckling, "and what sort of a reception did MadameWalravens give you? Elle est drole, n'est-ce pas?"
I told her what had passed, delivering verbatim the courteous messagewith which I had been charged.
"Oh la singuliere petite bossue!" laughed she. "Et figurez-vous qu'elleme deteste, parcequ'elle me croit amoureuse de mon cousin Paul; cepetit devot qui n'ose pas bouger, a moins que son confesseur ne luidonne la permission! Au reste" (she went on), "if he wanted to marryever so much--soit moi, soit une autre--he could not do it; he has toolarge a family already on his hands: Mere Walravens, Pere Silas, DameAgnes, and a whole troop of nameless paupers. There never was a manlike him for laying on himself burdens greater than he can bear,voluntarily incurring needless responsibilities. Besides, he harbours aromantic idea about some pale-faced Marie Justine--personnage assezniaise a ce que je pense" (such was Madame's irreverent remark), "whohas been an angel in heaven, or elsewhere, this score of years, and towhom he means to go, free from all earthly ties, pure comme un lis, ace qu'il dit. Oh, you would laugh could you but know half M. Emanuel'scrotchets and eccentricities! But I hinder you from taking refreshment,ma bonne Meess, which you must need; eat your supper, drink your wine,oubliez les anges, les bossues, et surtout, les Professeurs--et bonsoir!"